Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Fiction is Life

I know, I am behind on my Back to Fundamentals, America! pep blogging. Admittedly, I am still a little glum over the end of Battlestar Galactica on the SciFi channel. Not in the same way that Soprano fans were bummed by that series finale. Quite the opposite; I liked the BSG finale. And maybe that is why I feel a longing for more. Quite timely, fiction author Alexander McCall Smith publishes a piece on the "intense personal relationships readers form with characters". He intelligently observes:
Although we eventually learn to distinguish between the world of make-believe and the real world, I suspect that many of us continue to experience fictional characters and events as being, in some way, real. This is because the imaginative act of following a story involves a suspension of disbelief, as we enter into the world it creates. When Anthony Minghella showed me a moving scene that he had just filmed for the pilot of "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," I found myself weeping copiously, right there on the set. I felt rather embarrassed -- it was only a story, after all -- but he put a hand on my shoulder and said that was exactly what he had done over that particular scene.
A great story, whether fiction or not, touches us in personal ways that we might not fully understand or appreciate immediately.

Now, there was one element of the BSG finale that really tugged at me for some time after watching the episode ... the "life transition" of Kara "Starbuck" Thrace. As I watched Kara announce her time in this plane of existence had come to an end and then vanish I thought it a cinematographically beautiful shot and a fantastic decision by the director. But then my analytical brain kicked in. Wait, she's gone? Does that mean she really did die in the previous season? Is she an angel? I felt there was something unresolved about the character's plot line; moreover, I felt personally unfulfilled. As I spent perhaps a little too much time for a well-balanced person considering this, It slowly dawned on me that this was an appropriate end. It reflects the way people enter and exit our own lives, leaving us wanting more of them after they are gone, but happy for the time we had together. It provokes the question that we ask ourselves (and whatever god you believe in) what role that person plays/played in our own lives.

So, yes, I want more of Kara Thrace. Her exit deprives me of the opportunity to continue the storyline on my own, as Mr. Smith states we consumers of fiction are apt to do. (Of course, in science fiction, anything is possibly, and Starbuck could return - again - but if you are familiar with the BSG universe you know that would not fit with its style.) Yet, at the same time, Starbuck's absence redirects me to focus on the importance of real life family, friends, and acquaintences and what they mean to me. That's good fiction informing real life. As Starbuck's dear friend Lee says upon her sudden and unexpected vanishing, "You will not be forgotten." So it should be with all of us.


Entirely divergent, it seems to me that Ron Moore and the BSG writers are Ozzy Osbourne fans, based on the final scenes of Kara and her husband together in the CIC. Don't know what I'm talking about? Watch the series, starting at the beginning. It's well worth your time. In the meantime, listen to Ozzy.

Kara and Sam say goodbye

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