Wraith Defenders Club

[Starry Waters]

Many thanks for the info! As I'm still a newbie, I guess my green doesn't count, but you have it anyway!

Thanks!

[Todd's Pet]

Hey, as a newbie I'm not sure about forum etiquette, but since IMHO all Wraith are extremely polite and civilised I reckon I should say thanks to eceryone who's come on over to my profile and signed up to be my friend!
Should I invite you all over to the hive for a karaoke party?

Todd will be there...

[MCH]

Okay - for some reason, I read that and got this mental image of Todd (MY APOLOGIES to Todd, Chris, the Wraith, and Wraith Defenders everywhere!):

Spoiler:

das

Chris I'm sure would see the funny side. Thanks for that I had a rotten day and at least I can go to my bed still giggling.... Thank you Das

[dasNdanger]

Chris I'm sure would see the funny side. Thanks for that I had a rotten day and at least I can go to my bed still giggling.... Thank you Das

Glad it brightened up your day! The more I look at it, the more I laugh...especially with Kenny standing behind him with that dumbfounded look on his face...like, 'Whoa. Duuuuude...you've got fruit on your head."

I can just hear Woolsey now..."Today is an historic day. Carmen Miranda once said...'I, Yi, Yi, Yi, Yi, I Like You Very Much!'"

(Thanks, ciannwn, for the lyrics!)


das

[MCH]

Glad it brightened up your day! The more I look at it, the more I laugh...especially with Kenny standing behind him with that dumbfounded look on his face...like, 'Whoa. Duuuuude...you've got fruit on your head."

I can just hear Woolsey now..."Today is an historic day. Carmen Miranda once said...'I, Yi, Yi, Yi, Yi, I Like You Very Much!'"

(Thanks, ciannwn, for the lyrics!)
das

Hey don't forget the maracas - musical instruments held in your hand - looks like a ball with a handle. Inside the ball are dried pea and as you shake your body the maracas makes a sound.

"I,I.I like You Very Much" So shakeing his body and maracas in time to the music, and doing a dance like the Conga Todd dances round the hives corridor .....
Poor Kenny he'd probably never recover if Todd did that and I'd best go clear up the tea I split because I was laughing too much...
MCH dance off into the kitchen...... shaking her maracas!!!!! Yeah...

MCH

MCH.

[ciannwn]

"I,I.I like You Very Much" So shakeing his body and maracas in time to the music, and doing a dance like the Conga Todd dances round the hives corridor .....
Poor Kenny he'd probably never recover if Todd did that

I'm not sure that I'm going to recover from the mental picture I've just had.

[MCH]

I'm not sure that I'm going to recover from the mental picture I've just had.

I'm way ahead of you there, I only just stopped laughing......

Watchs as Todd shakes his body shakes his maracas, the fruit on his head particularly the grapes swing in time to the music....... I'i'i' like you very much.....da,da,da daaa da da......

MCH

[StarOcean]

Good catch. I had forgotten Keller's attitude in "The Kindred".

Spoiler:

I'm not sure I agree with you when you say Keller was supposed to seem compassionate, so McKay was supposed too. I always saw McKay as very morally insecure, as if he has no ethics on his own and must always check them with what other people think. Also he has the most... consistently inconsistent attitude towards the wraith: I believe he totally can't kill a non-threatening wraith in cold blood, but at the same time, he wouldn't hesitate before wiping them out if it happens far away from his eyes. It's the difference between killing a person with your hands and pushing a button that leads to the death of millions people: Pushing the button is much easier because you don't witness the deaths. So, I wasn't surprised by McKay.

Spoiler:

It's the way the scenes followed one another that made me think that. But either way, I've always thought that calling McKay compassionate to other people that are not his Team or being ethical is inaccurate. I never feel that he truly holds those feelings. He actually only THINKS he's being compassionate and ethical. He's much too self-absorbed. So I agree with you here.

Eh, I shouldn't discuss McKay. I actually hate him now after First Contact. I could *almost* accept the betrayal. But I'm absolutely disgusted that he turned on the device knowing that it had side effects, which were included in the logs. But he turn it on without searching for that info first. That it didn't occur to him that the side effects must be catastrophic for such a advantageous weapon was horrifyingly stupid. WHAT THE HELL?!

Spoiler:

As for Keller, well... I like her much more now in season 5. In "First Contact", she seemed genuinely compassionate when Todd explained why he was afraid to change. She seemed to understand his doubts, and at that time, he was still a full wraith. Maybe her attitude simply evolved with time? Or when she met him in "The Queen", he was the first wraith she met face to face, and it changed her views on them?

Spoiler:

I actually like her less in Season 5. And I don't think it was compassion that she felt towards Todd in First Contact. I think it was more pity for him, but not truly the feeling of wishing to alleviate his inner doubts. Or maybe it suddenly dawned on her that things may not be so simple with the Wraiths, that she was thinking in human terms and she realized how wrong she was to assume that the therapy would automatically makes things better for them. Though that possible character development gets overturned in Infection. So, no dice.

As for the part I highlighted in your quote... I can believe that of pre-Season 5 Keller. I can agree that a compassionate Keller would evolve to extend that compassion to Todd and his Wraith. But for this season's Keller, I can't. She doesn't come off as a compassionate person to me. She may think she's compassionate though. So I guess she and McKay are perfect together. But being geniuses, I'm afraid of the damage they can do together.

Because the writing for this season has been terrible. The ideas are good, but the execution undercuts them, with the side effect of making the characters look bad. Even worse, incompetent and behaving in illogical ways. Everyone suffered from this. The only exception is Woosley.

More thoughts about Infection...

Spoiler:

Todd must have been thinking that the chances of his survival was dwindling while being held on Atlantis and that he didn't think he was going to be released. (Hence his gratitude.) They were treating him and failing. I wonder what was the length of time that passed between the crash and Todd's release? I wonder what would have happened if the doctors succeeded?

Future episode speculation....

Spoiler:

Maybe Todd is still dying? The Iratus queen only delayed things.

Well, I'm pretty sure it was on the "McBarge" the Nightstalkers were stationed on. I think he was a guy that brought them some kind of tech.
mfw

Yeah - it's towards the end of the movie, after the others have been killed. He brings them some tech for the final assault - and he's all fuzzy, like Halling. Adorable, too!

I don't remember that at all. Gonna have to go see if there's a clip somewhere available. Thanks!

[Wraith Cake]

I agree with the fact that resistance for change jeopardizes they own species. That's why I would call that stupid. But I would not call that evil.

I couldn't disagree with you more. There is a wonderfully insightful paper on this very issue called Famine, Affluence, and Morality by Peter Singer. He is a Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and a laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, at the University of Melbourne Australia. In this paper he argues that it is our moral responsibility (those who live in developed nations and those of affluent means in developing nations) as global citizens to prevent something bad from happening when it is within our power to do so.

I'll give you a snippet: "If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought , morally, to do it....An application of this principle would be as follows: if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing.

The uncontroversial appearance of the principle just stated is deceptive. If it were acted upon, even in its qualified form, our lives, our society, and our world would be fundamentally changed. For the principle takes, firstly, no account of proximity or distance. It makes no moral difference whether the person I can help is a neighbor's child ten yards from me or a Bengali whose name I shall never know, ten thousand miles away. Secondly, the principle makes no distinction between cases in which I am the only person who could possibly do anything and cases in which I am just one among million in the same position...unfortunately most of the major evils - poverty, overpopulation, pollution - are problems in which everyone is almost equally involved."

Our failure to act and prevent a very bad thing from happening when it is within our power to do so is contributing to the worlds major evils.

The problem here is not that the wraith do not have an obligation to change, (because they do--their stubborn refusal to change because they think human beings are not of equal worth to a wraith is a problem--a big problem), the problem here is that many (like us) do not want to acknowledge that we have a duty and responsibility to stop polluting, to prevent local and global poverty, to prevent cruelty to animals. We are responsible because we are the ones causing it. Having discussions about who is more or less responsible, who should or should not give more or less etcetera, etcetera, etcetera is a tap dance around taking responsibility.

Do we know how big change that is?

Ya. Oh ya. Its a HUGE change. Anyone who has attempted to change their diet for reasons of social justice knows how big, and difficult and potentially dangerous a change that is--it does not mean that we must not take steps and make it our goal to change. The point is that you are doing your absolute best (which will be different for everyone's, for everyone's circumstances are different) to change.

Do we now why are they so suicidally resistant to change? They are suppose to be intelligent. Then how come that they do not "see" that one food source is such a bad thing? Even after that's demonstrated to them by poison.
Unfortunately, the only thing I could offer as the answer for this is that the Wraiths suppose to be an evil *******s in this show, so why bother with them anyway. It's necessary to kill them all off and save nice and good and innocent humans.

Well this is obviously not what I'm saying. And it is important to carefully reason out what I mean. The wraith have an obligation to work toward changing their diet. There is no question about this. For a plethora of reasons both for their own good and the good of the people of the galaxy, they must change. Obviously it is evil if they choose not to do this. What is evil, one may ask--absolute unnecessary abject destruction.

The humans of Earth and the Ancients are just as guilty, not the humans of the Pegasus Galaxy they have been victimized quite enough.

This line of rezoning did not work with other "enemies" in SG. Although they had same illogical base as the Wraith has, and same potential to be turned to neighbors.

I'm not familiar with SG. Unfortunately I didn't find it that interesting. When I have time, over my holidays perhaps I'll try to get into it then.

Basically true, however, we are faced with need to overcome the the direction which creative team of the SG is set. The direction which puts the Wraith as bad guys without any slack. I'm sure that Todd's reaction which demonstrated that he's just a Wraith after all (in the last episode) will be used as an "excuse" to killing him off too.

Well, of course. It is such a human centric view, rather than a person centric one. I couldn't agree with you more.

Not really. The whole society needs to be ready to accept the change, otherwise it will not happen.

I don't remember what this was a reply to. Sorry

Anyhow, take care. And I'm with you. I love, love, love the wraith, and would prefer a wraith neighbour to a Lantian any day. I just don't want to be eaten when I go a visiting with my vegan chocolate chip cookies.

WK

[Wraith Cake]

Ooooh, look at this! Medium-resolution Penny!Todd fest!! You have 2 days before the entry becomes friends-only, so you'd better hurry.

love these pictures!!! Saving them now

WK

[Wraith Cake]

I agree with you WK - I believe there is always good in every person & sometimes culture and events & needs colour their perceptions and they then choose to be good or evil. But to inherently evil one must be like this to the core -

I hear you and your clarity of thought helps. Often this idea of inherently evil versus everyone is good is a discussion we often have around the lunch table at work. I think for myself, and my own sense of sanity I cannot believe anyone or anything is inherently evil. I really believe people and "persons" are inherently good. However, eventually people become the choices they make over a long period of time. In other words, the persistence of short sighted evil decisions eventually does make a person primarily evil. But I cannot believe they started out this way. I think you mean this too.
No doubt, I love the wraith queens and I feel infinitely compassionate toward them. This is just how I view them, and I don't want to get into all the whos and whats of why I feel this way, but I think of Elia. She was just a lovely, innocent young woman who would never have hurt a fly were it within her power to do so. I can't think what the wraith queens must go through (the abuse that is) for them to become these vindictive vipers. I imagine they would all start off as Elia.

Anyway I believe there are good wraith and bad wraith, just as there are good humans and bad humans, its a matter of choice as well as accepting each other as equals. This is where the Lanteans consider the wraith less, & visa versa - but I think Todd is different, he seems to have grown - reminds of the show with the Nox - the young have much to learn - and the Nox were not as old as the Wraith - but the wraith had only their advanced culture to contend with for 9000 + years before the Earthers arrived. So they did not have to view the humans as equals. But then we really don't know as we have only had glimpses into wraith culture and individuals and it really isn't a big cross section to get any idea. I think I might be rambling here, but I hope I have got my point over some how.

Todd is definitely unique in his outlook!

Seven

I couldn't agree with you more.

WK

[Wraith Cake]

My apologies, Wraith Cake, didn't see your warm, Wraithy welcome amongst all that deep philosophising!
Thanks for the welcome. I've only been on the forum a couple of days and already I feel all warm and Wraithy!

No problem.

WK

[Wraith Cake]

Okay - for some reason, I read that and got this mental image of Todd (MY APOLOGIES to Todd, Chris, the Wraith, and Wraith Defenders everywhere!):

Spoiler:

das

Copa Copacabana!!!


WK

[BlueJay]

Okay - for some reason, I read that and got this mental image of Todd (MY APOLOGIES to Todd, Chris, the Wraith, and Wraith Defenders everywhere!):

Spoiler:

das

HA! I LOVE IT!



and with the frowny face too

[Todd's Pet]

Chris I'm sure would see the funny side. Thanks for that I had a rotten day and at least I can go to my bed still giggling.... Thank you Das

So, would they be the *Grapes Of Wraith*....
Sorry!