Why do you think Jack has such a distaste for Russians?

[hart37]

Question pretty much says it all. I've never really got it, did something happen in Jack's past involving Russians? Is it just the stereotype of Russians being "bad" that Hollywood have, even though the Cold War has been over for years? I'd like to hear some of your theorys, be them logical of completely crazy.

[Jack_Bauer]

Doesn't every American hate Russians?

[wolverine_nl]

Cold War, maybe some secret mission against them makes them the bad guys for him

[hart37]

Doesn't every American hate Russians?

Well with the tensions there in the past I can understand that

[Starsaber]

Well, he spent most of his career training to fight them. Probably encountered a few Russian "trainers" or "observers" during some of his missions too.

[hart37]

I would have thought that. Wasn't one of his old missions in Russia with Kowalski and the other guy that dies, or was that somewhere else?

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

Assuming Jack joined up in the 1970's, which seems likely since he was a Captain in 1982, then he would have spent a good 15 to 20 years training to fight the Russians. Plus since he was involved in Black Operations into places like East Germany, he would have likely exchanged fire with them on occasion.

[jelgate]

Since he was in Black Opps for awhile and what we know he has been in Soviet Russia. The amount of time he has had missions there and probably had friends killed by Russians bottles up subconsciously

[hart37]

Since he was in Black Opps for awhile and what we know he has been in Soviet Russia. The amount of time he has had missions there and probably had friends killed by Russians bottles up subconsciously

That probably would be it.

[zbuffin]

Well look at the time period he would have been a young boy and thus impressionable. A lot of people love what their parents loved and hate what their parent's hated. It is the way of the world that kids take their social ques from adults around them. (i.e. parents, grandparents, etc.) So with Jack being a kid in the middle of the cold war and joining the military when Russia was technically still an enemy, old habits die hard. Plus if you really look at it, more often than not at least, his distrust is often rewarded. Yes some Russians prove him wrong and he acknowledges that fact but by and large the Russians are not "good guys" during the span of the show. They run a gate program into the ground by refusing to play by the rules, they extort the U.S. government in an almost completely one-sided deal for a gate they cannot even use, they get in bed with a goa'uld, etc.

[SF_and_Coffee]

We know from "The Gamekeeper" that Jack was on a mission in East Germany in what was probably the early 1980s. (I'm thinking 1982, and can't recall if that exact year is canon from the episode or fanon from fanfic stories. Either way, it certainly makes sense.) So it isn't too big of a leap to assume that he probably had any number of reasons from even his own personal experiences to distrust the Russians and anyone who was connected with them. In fact, it's entirely possible that he would have been up against them in other contexts during his career prior to Stargate. What if he was in Afghanistan or something while the Soviets were involved there, say in the late 1970s? (Does the term 'mujaheddin' ring a bell with anyone here?)

And sure, some of it could be cultural as well. Jack was born in the 1950s (canon goofs and gives us both 1952 and 1957, but only 1952 really works with the number of things he is supposed to have accomplished prior to the first Abydos mission from the film, and also the fact that he's a full-bird colonel by the mid-1990s) and thus he grew up entirely during the Cold War. It wouldn't even have had to be his parents who taught him to dislike the Russians, because he'd have had it drilled into his head in school and by the media that the Soviets were an enemy who threatened everything he held dear. He'd have grown up with the constant threat of nuclear war; school kids were drilled on what to do in the event of a nuclear attack, the same way that schools hold fire drills. Not that ducking under their desks would've helped, but that's what they were told to do. (They'd stopped teaching that particular nonsense by the time I started school in 1969, but I remember what it was like growing up during the Cold War too. I'm not quite twelve years younger than Jack would be if he were a real person. We, and our parents, all worried about what would happen if nuclear war occurred between the two superpowers. Imagine having that in your consciousness from childhood all the way to the time you reach adulthood. Yes, it sucked.)

And then the Russians did do a number of questionable or downright bad things during the course of the series, so there really isn't a whole lot to counteract Jack's initial take on them. All in all, I think his point of view is completely understandable.

[ZRFTS]

I never thought much of it, I thought it was something that made his character; much like a persons distastes for another race without just reason. It's something I don't question much if at all.

[AlexanderD]

Jack came up through the ranks during the Cold War. That's something hard to move past.

[Flyboy]

Jack came up through the ranks during the Cold War. That's something hard to move past.

Exactly, I wouldn't expect anything else from a man of his rank in those years.

Imagine if a British/American soldier of today was told to work with a Taliban fighter in twenty years time...

[SF_and_Coffee]

Exactly, I wouldn't expect anything else from a man of his rank in those years.

Imagine if a British/American soldier of today was told to work with a Taliban fighter in twenty years time...

Precisely.