Elizabeth Weir/John Sheppard Appreciation/Ship/Discussion Thread

[Erin87]

So glad you're enjoying it! Thank you for the kind feedback.

I'm missing the show very much, too, enough so that I've begun a second re-watch. Might have just enough time to get through all the episodes again before schoolwork pulls me back into its clutches in four weeks.

When was the last time you guys did a post-a-thon? Feels like it's been a while.

Also, SR and Erin87, I just noticed that the links to the SGA-R website in both of your sigs don't work. I think there's a missing hyphen, so you both might want to correct the link.

Thanks for letting me know. It's fixed now.

Oh, and I was browsing around the website and I noticed that the Box of Dreams wallpaper I did never made it up there. Not a problem and no rush to fix, just thought I'd mention it.

[Scary Kitty]

Good morning, Sparkies! Happy Fluffy Thursday!

[ShipperWriter]

Good morning, Sparkies! Happy Fluffy Thursday!

More like rainy Thursday. We're in a tropical storm warning down here in Florida. Yay!

[Scary Kitty]

Good morning, Sparkies! Happy Pretty Friday!

More like rainy Thursday. We're in a tropical storm warning down here in Florida. Yay!

Rainy here too (finally! back to normal weather!) but no tropical storms. Stay safe out there!

[Sequoia Hope]

I can't believe I've never seen this video before. I'm a freaking emotional mess right now.

[Falcon Horus]

Darn it, going to an amusement park on Sunday (still can't raise my arm, and Doc said it was okay to go anyway) and it's going to rain.

Also, watched this film called Testament of Youth and my muse has suddenly come out of hiding -- I wonder how she'll be around for.

[Southern Red]

I can't believe I've never seen this video before. I'm a freaking emotional mess right now.

I had forgotten about that one myself. Sorry to make you cry, but Sparky will do that.

[Scary Kitty]

Good morning, Sparkies! Happy Sparky!Family and the return of COLLEGE FOOTBALL SATURDAY! Good luck to everyone's teams!

I had forgotten about that one myself. Sorry to make you cry, but Sparky will do that.

Indeed they will.

[PearlofAtlantis1976]

Hello everyone! How’s everyone doing? Although I have been away from the Sparky thread, I have been checking it from time to time, but now I felt it was time for me to check in and say hello to everyone.

I truly miss Sparky. I always have them both in my heart and mind but I miss discussing them with other fans. I guess once the post a thon ended, I just drifted away from the thread.

And now Atlantis Rising. I so badly want to see another episode of Atlantis Rising being published, but it seems we won't have that happening any time soon, unfortunately... But I am still hopeful. I am still hoping we will get some sort of closure with this project as well as the chance of living a few more adventures with our favourite characters, just before that happens. I so miss this show!

I hope everyone is doing well!

[Sequoia Hope]

Hello everyone! How’s everyone doing? Although I have been away from the Sparky thread, I have been checking it from time to time, but now I felt it was time for me to check in and say hello to everyone.

I truly miss Sparky. I always have them both in my heart and mind but I miss discussing them with other fans. I guess once the post a thon ended, I just drifted away from the thread.

And now Atlantis Rising. I so badly want to see another episode of Atlantis Rising being published, but it seems we won't have that happening any time soon, unfortunately... But I am still hopeful. I am still hoping we will get some sort of closure with this project as well as the chance of living a few more adventures with our favourite characters, just before that happens. I so miss this show!

I hope everyone is doing well!

Hello, Pearl! Great to see you back on the thread, though it looks like you created a new account! But it's good to see another familiar name here.

[Sequoia Hope]

I know it's been a long time since we've had discussions on the episodes and characters, but Erin87 and I have been talking via PM about Elizabeth's character and our hopes for her in Atlantis Rising, and we both wanted to share some thoughts and character insights we've recently had.

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Me: I think it’s very interesting how Elizabeth is introduced in the series premiere as a strong woman leader but also someone who was leaving a loved one behind on Earth. She has essentially always put her work and her responsibility toward her city and her people before herself, but at the same time, she also has a vulnerable, emotional side, and she has a great capacity to love, as seen with Simon and later with Mike Branton in Season 3. Her relationships had seemed to just be bad timing, and had she been in Atlantis in Seasons 4 and 5, I think it would have been wonderful to explore this internal conflict of hers, wanting a relationship but feeling that she must place her people’s needs before her own. If you ask me, even though we would have loved to see Elizabeth demonstrate her diplomatic, negotiating and linguistic skills more, I think that it would have been just as compelling to focus on her human, vulnerable side. It’s unfortunate that Elizabeth and her story never truly took flight in the show, and what I hope to see in Atlantis Rising (if new episodes are ever completed) is the growth of a woman who once sacrificed everything for her people to someone who realizes that she deserves, at times, to put herself first. I think that that would be a beautiful story to tell.

Erin87: There’s a lot of good analysis here – spot on observations! I think that’s totally true that there was so much to Elizabeth that never got explored, so much tension between those different facets of her personality and what was required of her versus what she might have wanted in her heart. I mean, we got Kavanaugh the ever irritating who constantly accused her of letting her feelings get in the way, but as far as I can recall there weren’t many glaring instances where that was actually the case. So yeah, getting to see an instance where she does allow her emotions to compromise her decisions and seeing the fallout from that and how it changed her would’ve been really interesting. Just like John having to carry around his decision regarding Sumner.

I love the way you put your hopes for AR: “the growth of a woman who once sacrificed everything for her people to someone who realizes that she deserves, at times, to put herself first.” That would be wonderful to see happen. <3

Me: That’s a very good point about an inconsistency between Kavanagh’s accusations and the number of errors in judgment Elizabeth made on-screen due to her emotions. The only on-screen instance that I feel Elizabeth might have allowed her emotions to interfere with her decision-making was in “Critical Mass,” in which Elizabeth authorized physical torture on Kavanagh in order to extract vital information and prevent the city from self-destructing. Otherwise, she’s pretty much always demonstrated extremely strong mental and emotional endurance on-screen, not even yielding to Kolya when a Wraith fed upon John before her eyes. We’ve seen her deal with the IOA as a result of poor decision-making, but her mistake in allying with the Wraith at the end of Season 2 was based on poor strategy and tactics, not a result of personal emotions influencing her decisions. I definitely would have enjoyed seeing her deal with the consequences of a decision for which she allowed her personal feelings to interfere. That’s also a good connection you made between Elizabeth’s mistakes and John’s regrets - everyone has emotional baggage that they’re carrying, and if John’s was living with the consequences of killing his commanding officer, then Elizabeth’s might be facing the fallout after she makes a serious error in judgment because she allowed herself to slip due to overwhelming emotions in a desperate situation.

From a storytelling perspective, I think that it would make a lot of sense to see Elizabeth personally grow and change in Atlantis Rising and be more open to taking personal, emotional risks. There’s something to be said about how the pilot episode portrays her as a strong leader, yet takes care to include something very personal in her life. Throughout the first three seasons, we consistently see instances that portray her as an emotional and vulnerable woman, and she’s far from a one-dimensional, stone-faced disciplinarian that those who dislike her character view her to be. We see in “Home” and in “Letters from Pegasus” in Season 1 how Simon clearly means a great deal to Elizabeth, and as much as Elizabeth has a fierce desire to adventure and explore, she feels exceptionally guilty about leaving him behind. Not too much later, Elizabeth returns to Earth in “Intruder” in Season 2, and she’s clearly very upset after Simon tells her that he met someone. While Elizabeth is heartbroken because she’s lost someone very important to her, I also believe that she’s upset because she realizes that their eventual breakup is her fault entirely, and it’s a sacrifice she’s made after putting her work first before her personal needs and wants. Then in Season 3, when Elizabeth is infected with nanites, she’s made to believe that she had conjured up the past two years of her life in Atlantis in her mind in order to escape her grief and devastation after Simon had been killed in a car crash. Even though Simon never appeared in that episode, the nanites created a reality that was supposed to be as realistic and believable to Elizabeth as possible, and I believe that the notion that Elizabeth could have been so emotionally affected by the death of a loved one speaks volumes about her relationship with Simon and her incredible capacity to love and be loved. Had she been in Atlantis in Seasons 4 and 5, I feel like her fleeting relationship with Mike Branton could have been significant in foreshadowing a new storyline about her internal struggle between her desire for a relationship and her professional obligations and priority to look out for others first before herself.

Elizabeth is an incredible character, and however strong and unwavering she is in the most trying circumstances, I believe that one of her greatest strengths, her sense of responsibility toward her city and her people, also gives way to one of her greatest character flaws of being too self-sacrificing to the extent that she isn’t willing to take personal emotional risks. It’s possible that she doesn’t want to risk hurting others or herself should something happen to her or a significant other, and she refrains from becoming too close to anyone as a result. She also confessed to Mike that a relationship would split her focus, and it’s possible that she was already overwhelmed by her responsibilities as leader of Atlantis, and she truly does not have any emotional energy to spare for a relationship. A third reason is also one that she stated herself: she makes it a point to not become romantically involved with anyone who work for her. In my opinion, even though this third reason is definitely valid, I feel like she might have been pulling one of her diplomatic tricks in that conversation with Mike Branton, providing an impersonal reason for not wanting to become involved with anyone in order to conceal more personal motives for her reluctance to do so. However, since she’s back in Atlantis Rising and no longer leader of Atlantis, she can’t play this card anymore. She’s no longer the boss and is equivalent in professional standing with people like Rodney and Jennifer, and nothing professionally or morally questionable prevented them from getting together. No longer being Atlantis’ leader would also imply that a huge burden has been lifted from her shoulders in terms of the extent of her duty toward her city, and she should no longer have to worry as much about the consequences of a relationship on her professional responsibilities. As a result, the only thing standing in the way of her becoming involved with anyone is really Elizabeth herself and her personal beliefs toward the prospect of a romantic relationship in a galaxy in which life is precious and moments are fleeting. I think it would be very interesting to see how her personal values change now now that she no longer carries the burdens of a leader of a whole city, as well as after a traumatizing experience being captured by the Replicators and learning that she’s been gone from Atlantis for over two years.

Erin87: I love getting in-depth with an analysis. This is some good stuff! Bravo!

Yes, I always thought the potential for Elizabeth's storyline was immense if she had come back in 4 and 5 after being rescued but had to deal with not being in charge anymore. I think it would've been incredibly hard for her and she would've struggled a lot with feeling excluded, for I think there's a certain sense of possessiveness that she feels towards Atlantis (or maybe that's more of a fancanon thing) and seeing someone else in charge of "her" city would've been hard for her (it was bad enough when the Ancients kicked her out; I can just imagine her initial reaction to Woolsey (and her fury at Sam for what she would see as the militarization of Atlantis)). Though of course, it would've made for fantastic storylines for us, seeing her come to terms with it and, as you said, actually finding freedom in it, eventually. And, from what I remember of the AR planning discussions, I think that was definitely on the menu.

And re: the Kavanaugh thing. I suppose the Critical Mass decision could be interpreted as an emotional one (ie. letting her dislike of him influence her/color her perception). Much as I hate to say it, he was right about her being biased there. Though the torture decision I always saw as less emotional and more dire circumstances calling for urgent and extreme action. Morally gray, certainly, but more of a 'person' thing than a 'woman' thing.

--

I know that we've covered a lot already, but we just wanted to put all this out there and see what others might think of our thoughts and analyses.

Also, thank you to Erin87 for her advice on my current sig and for giving me the Atlantis Rising logo to use.

[Scary Kitty]

Good morning, Sparkies! Happy Lazy Sunday!

Hi Pearl! Good to see you!

I so want to dig into that discussion of Elizabeth but that's a massive post and it's way too early and my brain hasn't turned on yet

So I'll start with something easy that would appeal to John: Today's College Football Roundup! It was a great day for nearly everyone: Virginia Tech beat Liberty 36-13, Georgia beat North Carolina 33-24, Navy beat Fordham 52-6, and Air Force beat Abilene Christian 37-21. The lone loss was USC falling to #1-ranked Alabama 52-6. (so not entirely unexpected, but still ugly to watch)

[PearlofAtlantis1976]

Hello everyone, how is everyone doing?

Hello Sequoia! And thanks for your words. I am happy to be here once again. I had to create a new account, because I couldn’t remember my previous password. Oops, lol

And hi, SK, how are you doing?

Sparky is still very much alive in my heart and mind and I miss SGA and Atlantis Rising very, very, very much! I think if somehow it would be possible to revive the discussions, maybe the interest for SGA and mainly Sparky would increase too, we would just need to make something that would call for people's attention.

I am still quite interested and always feel quite enthusiastic at both SGA and of course Sparky, and I think I would do anything just to be able to revive the good feelings we once had, when we would discuss the show and mainly Sparky, quite vividly. I so miss that! I think that if a new episode of Atlantis Rising would be posted, the enthusiasm could probably be brought back to SGA. The rush of emotions I felt while reading the episodes that were posted so far would definitely return and maybe SGA would be revived. Atlantis Rising is my main hope of ever having a proper ending to the show.

I have come to terms, in what concerns Carson and Elizabeth's fate on SGA mainly because of Atlantis Rising last episodes,

Spoiler:

because they brought back Elizabeth, and an end for the show wouldn't be a proper end if Elizabeth would still be out there,

but nevertheless I want more! I need much more adventures, I need to see

Spoiler:

how Elizabeth will be received and how will she act once more around Atlantis, see how her problem would be solved, not to mention to see how Sparky would eventually turn out.

So yeah, I need more Atlantis Rising! That's the only way that I will be able to proper obtain all the resolutions that I am looking for.

Did I say already how much I miss the show? It's amazing how I got so attached to the characters and now I can't seem to be able to find a way to let them go, no matter what.

I agree with everything both Sequoia and Erin87 said, although the way you referred to Mike Branton and the possible relationship he could have had with Elizabeth, if she had been around for seasons 4 and 5, made me cringe, lol, and I probably can’t agree with that in a way that I think that Mike and the brief connection Elizabeth had with him, only served to make her aware that she probably should need to think carefully from then on about whether she would actually like to have some sort of relationship with someone in Atlantis or not.

Of course in my Sparky heart she could only consider such relationship with John! But of course there's a long way to go between going from a situation in which she told herself she couldn't have a relationship with anyone that worked for her, to actually having a relationship with her military commander. There's really a very long distance between those two situations, so I wonder how would she have handled that? Of course, we will never know how would she handle that, because shortly after she was captured by the Replicators. But now

Spoiler:

that she’s back, will she consider that hypothesis, or does she still thinks of herself as a huge threat, to even consider such big step?

And now a little bit of what I would like to see next in Atlantis Rising.

There's something that I want absolutely to know the most, now that we have

Spoiler:

Elizabeth back. What has happened to her, with every single detail, once she was left in Asuras in the hands of the Replicators? Now, that she is back, she will have to address that. Questions will definitely be asked, whether it will be the IOA asking them or whoever, but answers will definitely be demanded from her. The IOA will want to know what happened. And also on a more psychological level, Heightmeyer will definitely be called to intervene and I am sure that they will make it somewhat mandatory for Elizabeth to talk to her. Everyone will definitely want to know how compromised she actually was, and how is she feeling now on a more personal, psychological level.

She appears to be the same strong woman as she has always been, stubborn and determined to protect everyone on Atlantis no matter what, hence why she did what she did, to make sure she would go on the mission to Asuras 2, and hence why she wanted to have been left there and be destroyed along with Asuras 2, but in what state of mind was she in then, in order to make such decision?

Now back in Atlantis, after the mission to Asuras 2, she told John she will not give up without a fight, meaning she is determined to regain her place in Atlantis, but how about her deeper feelings, her deeper fears? I mean, a situation like the one she was in, changes people, right?

Will she remember what happened in Asuras before she was placed on that moon, or will there have to be some sort of treatment, “prescribed” by Heightmeyer, that would help her remember those moments?

I see also John and Elizabeth being called out to explain what exactly happened during that first mission to Asuras (Lifeline episode), that started up as a mission to retrieve a ZPM in order to be able to save the city, and ended up the way it did. Will the IOA demand some sort of responsibility from Elizabeth as on the events that happened on that mission?

[Falcon Horus]

I had to create a new account, because I couldn’t remember my previous password. Oops, lol

For the record, you can ask the moderators to combine your old account with this one.

[Sequoia Hope]

Hello everyone, how is everyone doing?

Hello Sequoia! And thanks for your words. I am happy to be here once again. I had to create a new account, because I couldn’t remember my previous password. Oops, lol

If you still have access to the e-mail that you used to register for your first account, what you can do is enter an incorrect password, and there will be a link on the next page that will take you to a lost password recovery form, and it will allow you to reset your password by entering your e-mail.

I agree with everything both Sequoia and Erin87 said, although the way you referred to Mike Branton and the possible relationship he could have had with Elizabeth, if she had been around for seasons 4 and 5, made me cringe, lol, and I probably can’t agree with that in a way that I think that Mike and the brief connection Elizabeth had with him, only served to make her aware that she probably should need to think carefully from then on about whether she would actually like to have some sort of relationship with someone in Atlantis or not.

Of course in my Sparky heart she could only consider such relationship with John! But of course there's a long way to go between going from a situation in which she told herself she couldn't have a relationship with anyone that worked for her, to actually having a relationship with her military commander. There's really a very long distance between those two situations, so I wonder how would she have handled that? Of course, we will never know how would she handle that, because shortly after she was captured by the Replicators. But now

Spoiler:

that she’s back, will she consider that hypothesis, or does she still thinks of herself as a huge threat, to even consider such big step?

I think that Elizabeth's relationship with Mike Branton was important not in the sense that Mike could have been an eligible bachelor with whom Elizabeth might have considered becoming involved had she been in Atlantis in Seasons 4 and 5. Regardless of whether or not Elizabeth might have pursued something with him, their relationship, however fleeting, was significant in demonstrating Elizabeth's internal conflict between her sense of duty toward her city and her desire to fulfill her personal needs and wants. I realize that the way that the relationship was portrayed on-screen made it seem like a red herring, and it wasn't done very much justice, but it's important that we fill in some of the blanks ourselves about what might have happened off-screen in order to understand why this relationship was important to Elizabeth's character. Elizabeth is an intelligent woman and would be quite selective, I believe, in considering with whom she would want a relationship, and she clearly knew Mike well enough in order to be as comfortable as she was around him. Even if it hadn't been shown as much as we would have liked on-screen, she and Teyla were clearly close enough friends that the two women had previously talked about Mike together, and Teyla understood the precise implications of Mike's lunch invitation to Elizabeth. As a result, I feel that I can conclude that a relationship with Mike was something that Elizabeth felt conflicted over, because she could sense that her relationship with Mike seemed to be heading in that direction. It didn't feel like she was completely rejecting the possibility of a relationship, at least before the lunch date, but she also wasn't willing to take the risk in the end. But even after she rejected him, I find it hard to believe that she wouldn't have felt any sense of regret. She might have felt that she was doing the right thing for her city, but just like after her breakup with Simon, she might have felt a sense of loss after once again giving up something she wanted in order to do what she felt was best for her city.

Something that I just thought of was the possibility of Mike Branton making a reappearance in Atlantis Rising. I think that it would be interesting to have him return, one reason being that it would do further justice to the relationship between him and Elizabeth, since he really was brought in in "Sunday" as just a red herring. However, his return wouldn't be for the purpose of allowing him to showcase any unresolved feelings for Elizabeth, because it will have been over two years since Mike last saw her, and I am highly skeptical that he would have clung on to his feelings for her all this time. However, for Elizabeth, much less time has passed, a few months at the most, I believe, since the events of "Sunday" and her capture on Asuras, and then she was put into stasis for over two years. To Elizabeth, the events that happened years ago for the rest of those in Atlantis are still very fresh in her memory, and should she bump into Mike one day in Atlantis, I am curious as to what her internal reaction might be. Even if she's no longer considering a relationship with him, I feel that she might still be feeling a twinge of regret about what could have been but she turned down, and since she's no longer leader of Atlantis at this point, she might be starting to wonder if she needs to reconsider her personal values and beliefs toward the prospect of a relationship.

I'm going to go ahead and state the obvious here: of course we want to see Elizabeth get together with John in the end. In my opinion, if Atlantis Rising is ever completed, I don't think it's so far-fetched to believe that they would get together by the end of the season, but I'm not saying this because I'm viewing their relationship through the rose-colored glasses of a hard-core shipper. Rather, from a storytelling perspective, a relationship between John and Elizabeth would make a great deal of sense, as both John and Elizabeth will have demonstrated incredible character growth, both learning to take personal risks, John trusting in his heart again after his debacle with Mayel, and Elizabeth finally putting herself first for once. I honestly feel that this is probably one of the most beautiful stories that could possibly be told in this series, primarily because it would showcase previously hidden sides to characters that we felt we already knew very well after five seasons. But Elizabeth's story never really took flight in the show, and I also feel that John's personal side is also something that warranted greater exploration. We've already seen him risk his heart with Mayel and the consequences of a very hurtful betrayal, and now I'm interested in how he will reconcile his lack of trust with a sense of hope now that Elizabeth has returned. To John, it has been over two years since he last saw the real Elizabeth, and the two times in the past few years during which he saw versions of Elizabeth, a clone in "This Mortal Coil" and a Replicator in "Ghost in the Machine," clearly stirred up a great deal of pain and anguish within him. One could argue that he felt so deeply about her loss because he had failed to adhere to his core belief of not leaving people behind, or perhaps because he truly had unresolved feelings for Elizabeth. That's all up to interpretation, and depending on what we believe his reasons were for his pain, we might answer differently to the question of whether he can put all that grief and devastation behind him, or does the pain continue to haunt him, even though Elizabeth has returned home?