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*sighs*
I can see we're going to lose a lot of John/Teyla shippers this season.
And, you know, that depresses me far more than the Teyla/Kanaan relationship in the show right now.
I really rather like Teyla/Kanaan as it's been shown at this point. Heavy-handed, perhaps, but that's symptomatic of Stargate writing. I'm slightly terrified that they're going to Mess It All Up, of course, because, hey, Dwama Llama options.
But what I like about the Teyla/Kanaan vs. Teyla/John dynamics is that they show us a lot more about Teyla herself and who she sees herself to be. Her life has been a balance between the ordinary and the conflictual: living peacefully vs. the chaos of culling, her people's agrarian ways vs. Atlantis' technology, and most importantly, her desire to be with her people and her desire to be doing something bigger.
So it is with Kanaan (the supportive man in her life, able to step back and watch her go out) and John (the man who challenges her, who forces her out of some of her comfort zones). Teyla doesn't belong to her people, she doesn't belong to Atlantis. She's a divided character in terms of what she's doing: her past is her people, her present is Atlantis, her future...well, that depends on whether they beat the Wraith and the Asurans or not.
One reason I've always liked Teyla is because she's a "woman" character - a character who embodies a lot of the conflicts and biases and issues that women face - both in the show, and from the fandom. (I don't know if there's an accepted term for it in fannish meta-circles.)
From her clothing, to how she goes about questioning authority, to how she changes people's courses of action, to the divide between 'two sides' of her life... I won't say it's 'stereotypically female' but it does embody a lot of the angles and difficulties of women in the modern world.
The divide between the two sides of her life is what the Teyla/Kanaan and Teyla/John relationships represent to me. And both of them give insight into the kind of woman Teyla is: one who wants to make a difference to the universe herself, but knows that she has a life reliant on her; one who enjoys being 'at rest', but who also yearns for a challenge; one who feels the weight of balancing a child against a dangerous career and being unwilling to sacrifice either herself for her child's needs or her child for her own needs.
Kanaan might have been a hybrid in body (and we've still got a lot to learn about him before he becomes a 'real boy' and not just 'Teyla's house husband') but Teyla's a hybrid in soul. There's no "cure" for that.
Thinking it over, with this episode, I've shown myself to be primarily a Teyla-fan, not a John/Teyla-fan. John/Teyla is an acceptable sacrifice in the name of getting more insight into Teyla. Which I think we've been getting the last few episodes, quite pleasingly.
It's not as much as I'd like (I could go all Teyla, all the time), but it's more than I've been getting the last few seasons.
Right, so that morphed a little unexpectedly. You know when you start off at point A and then somehow ramble your way across to point B and are slightly surprised to have arrived?
I can see we're going to lose a lot of John/Teyla shippers this season.
And, you know, that depresses me far more than the Teyla/Kanaan relationship in the show right now.
I really rather like Teyla/Kanaan as it's been shown at this point. Heavy-handed, perhaps, but that's symptomatic of Stargate writing. I'm slightly terrified that they're going to Mess It All Up, of course, because, hey, Dwama Llama options.
But what I like about the Teyla/Kanaan vs. Teyla/John dynamics is that they show us a lot more about Teyla herself and who she sees herself to be. Her life has been a balance between the ordinary and the conflictual: living peacefully vs. the chaos of culling, her people's agrarian ways vs. Atlantis' technology, and most importantly, her desire to be with her people and her desire to be doing something bigger.
So it is with Kanaan (the supportive man in her life, able to step back and watch her go out) and John (the man who challenges her, who forces her out of some of her comfort zones). Teyla doesn't belong to her people, she doesn't belong to Atlantis. She's a divided character in terms of what she's doing: her past is her people, her present is Atlantis, her future...well, that depends on whether they beat the Wraith and the Asurans or not.
One reason I've always liked Teyla is because she's a "woman" character - a character who embodies a lot of the conflicts and biases and issues that women face - both in the show, and from the fandom. (I don't know if there's an accepted term for it in fannish meta-circles.)
From her clothing, to how she goes about questioning authority, to how she changes people's courses of action, to the divide between 'two sides' of her life... I won't say it's 'stereotypically female' but it does embody a lot of the angles and difficulties of women in the modern world.
The divide between the two sides of her life is what the Teyla/Kanaan and Teyla/John relationships represent to me. And both of them give insight into the kind of woman Teyla is: one who wants to make a difference to the universe herself, but knows that she has a life reliant on her; one who enjoys being 'at rest', but who also yearns for a challenge; one who feels the weight of balancing a child against a dangerous career and being unwilling to sacrifice either herself for her child's needs or her child for her own needs.
Kanaan might have been a hybrid in body (and we've still got a lot to learn about him before he becomes a 'real boy' and not just 'Teyla's house husband') but Teyla's a hybrid in soul. There's no "cure" for that.
Thinking it over, with this episode, I've shown myself to be primarily a Teyla-fan, not a John/Teyla-fan. John/Teyla is an acceptable sacrifice in the name of getting more insight into Teyla. Which I think we've been getting the last few episodes, quite pleasingly.
It's not as much as I'd like (I could go all Teyla, all the time), but it's more than I've been getting the last few seasons.
Right, so that morphed a little unexpectedly. You know when you start off at point A and then somehow ramble your way across to point B and are slightly surprised to have arrived?
no subject
I, like many of you, have wanted to learn more about Teyla as an individual and am happy with what I have seen so far.
That Teyla and Kanaan share a relationship doesn’t bother me, but I do believe that after what happened in season four the relationship has drastically changed. Teyla’s search for her people included Kanaan, but he was special to her because he was a close friend, a lover and, most importantly, the father of her child. Something tells me that too much has happened and too much time has passed for their relationship to suddenly pick up where it left off.
I say this because in Ties That Bind I simply saw two close friends, who shared a common bond, their child, with one showing support for the other. I didn’t get the feeling that they were in love or that they even shared the same bedroom; Kanaan seemed to be in Teyla’s quarters only to care for Torren.
The Teyla/John vs. Teyla Kanaan dynamic will be interesting to watch, but for now, I’ll just try to keep an opened mind and enjoy the show.
FYI – Kindred I: Michael mentions the orchestration of a ‘family reunion’ which is a reference to Teyla being reunited with her people.
no subject
I can definitely agree with this. Things might have been different if the Athosians hadn't gone missing when they did, or if Kanaan had immediately been on Teyla's side in Michael's ship.
I'm not entirely convinced that TPTB didn't intend to show that Teyla and Kanaan and their son are a family unit, with the implications of them being lovers again, but I'm willing to be open-minded about it.