How to make us love characters

[Dani347]

I love Daniel centric episodes. Never met one I didn't like. However, I know that you can't have just Daniel centric episodes. And, if you are going to have them, than you need to have Sam centric, Teal'c centric, and Mitchell-centric. Which means you can't have too many of any one character, because what there should be is a majority of team episodes.

But, lets see. Little things I like about the characters.

Jack: I liked the "back at ya" he gave Teal'c in Tangent. That's when I started defining their relationship as "brother's in arms" I liked the cold way he told Janet to tell him when Apophis had died. Liked in a "wow, that was intense and a little scary" way. I liked his interaction with Reetu Charlie. I like his bickering with Daniel. I loved his speech to Thor in The Fifth Race. I like how he pointed out that he had done some "****** distasteful things himself" (I'm not sure if the full quote could be spelled out on the board." My feelings of Jack and Sam are kind of tainted (hope that doesn't start anything) but I liked them together a whole lot in Secrets. I love that he feels SG1 are his "kids."

Daniel: hope you don't mind if I ramble a bit, since he is my favorite. I love his passion. I love that surprised look he gets when he's spent time passionately defending a course of action, only to find out that people agreed with him the whole time. Even more when he continues to argue even after he's won the victory. I still will forever love him asking why Sam should feel detached over a little girl dying. I love that devilish grin he has sometimes. I love when he gets giddy over a new discovery, or being able to read fast. I love it when sometimes he gets too tongue tied to even speak. I like the times when he gets a little juvenile. I love his glasses, and Daniel is way better looking than MS.

Sam: I've just recently noticed that she has a nice rapport with Teal'c, that they don't do nearly enough focus of. I like Sam's smile. I guess that's not a character trait, but she has a nice one, and I did just say I liked Daniel's devilish grin. I like when she gets gung ho about something. I love the science twins thing with her and Daniel. Which they don't do enough of now.

Teal'c: I like Teal'c mostly in relation to others. I love his friendship with Daniel. I'm always going to have a top spot for Jack and Daniel's friendship, but there's something really deep (because Teal'c is a deep guy, we all know ) about his friendship with Daniel. Maybe because there are so many reasons why it never should have worked out. I loved how Daniel trusted him to accompany him in Secrets, and that Teal'c set him straight in that episode. I love the times you see Teal'c waiting by an unconscious Daniel. I've already said I like him and Sam. I think in terms of uncomplicated, just plain fun friendship, I like him and Sam best. And, again, not enough examples. Although I liked the little scene in Space Race where he wrangled his way out of going with Jack and Daniel. And, the "Indeed" Sam gave him (plus the grin she had). I like his friendship with Jack, and think that in some ways, he might be closer to Jack than anyone because Jack can understand some things better based on his experience. I love his friendship with Brata'c.

Mitchell: He hasn't been on long, but I like that he respects SG1. I like that he came in seeing them as these big, larger than life heroes, and even after seeing the gloss stripped and the humans (with flaws) there, he still likes and respects them. I like those quiet moments, where he says something without force, but with a ton of conviction.

(hmm. Seemed I rambled about Teal'c more than Daniel)

[Skydiver]

for me, i need to connect with the characters. I need to care for and about them.

i, quite obviously, connected with jack first...face it, rda is easy on the eyes and jack o'neill is a likeable guy.

then i fell for sam. i loved this 'one of the guys' woman. i loved the fact that, yes, she was a woman, but her gender wasn't the sum of her reason for existing and, quite often, was not a focus of the story.

teal'c took a little longer. in fact, i really didn't start to look at the character until season 4 or so. now, i love him. i love the subtext he brings to things. and i'm a total sam/teal'c slut

i love the big brother/little sister thing they have going on.

daniel...i've never totally connected with him. maybe it's because he was always at odds with the others so often. maybe it's because i just couldnt get into his head.

i really still can't. sometimes i will, but when i look at all i've written a lot of it focuses on sam, a lot jack, a lot the pair of them, quite a bit on teal'c and daniel....daniel just doesn't connect with me

how can they get me to like a character? how about showing me something about him? let me get under his skin. let me connect with them on some level.

for many folks a 'insert character's name here' episode isn't necessarily one where one character gets more screen time than another...it's an episode where we learn something about them.

ITLOD is a sam episode...but the eps doesn't focus on her totally. it also focuses on how jack and daniel nad teal'c deal with what's happened to sam. it focuses on how they try to save thier friend. how they feel about it.

i know that many folks see lifeboat as a daniel eps but...i see it more as a MS eps. Daniel was hardly in it. I never got this 'omg, we MUST save him' feeling from the other guys. what i got was a 'yeah, we gotta fix that don't we' feeling from the guys.

crystal skull was more of a daniel eps to me than lifeboat largely because most of the eps was how they feel about and how they were trying to fix things.

i feel that babylon is much the same way as lifeboat. yes, it focused on cam but...

Spoiler:

anyone get the idea that ANYBODY at the sgc gave a fig if cam came back????? if they dont' care, how am i supposed to care????

that, to me, is the biggest weakness of the whole thing. we have all these shiny new characters but, as of now, is there anything about any of them that just makes you think 'this role couldn't EVER be played by anyone else????'

[Dani347]

I actually see Lifeboat as a Janet episode.

[Lexa Jayde]

i LOVE what you guys are saying on this thread.... some very interesting points.... Love yas all!!!!!

[Skydiver]

I actually see Lifeboat as a Janet episode.

it did do a lot for her character. just like rite of passage did. we learned something about her, got to see her tick.

in death knell, we got to learn something about sam. we got to see her struggle and got to see how the guys handled it. we got to witness some of that 'dogged determination' that i always read about in fic.

i have yet to get something about any of the new guys that just whacks me between the eyes and makes me see how the others feel about them.

there's too much telling and not enough showing.

[Seshat]

I really like the idea of this thread!

I like it when each of the characters gets fleshed out a little bit more each episode, when we learn something about them that we did not know before, something that makes them more human. I like characters with individual little flaws, and hopes and quirks, backgrounds and pasts, the things that make them individuals and not just "heroes". I don't like them to be perfect. I like them to be human. When they become less human is when I stop caring about them.

I am not a big fan of character-centric eps. I prefer to see the team interacting as a group, or at least in twos in concurrent plotlines that overlap to some extent. Affinity to me was an example of taking the characters just too far out of their element as team players and being too disjointed. The show was all about Teal'c (whom I think is just the yummiest alien on the planet!) but I didn't feel the connection between the characters the way I did in The Changeling, for example, another Teal'c-centric show which I thought worked much better because all the characters were more interwoven into the story.

[qksilver99]

Don't know if I can mention the Fourth Horsemen Part II here, but I had a real problem with a scene between Hank and Dr. Lam. And it's a good way of showing how the viewers can not be forced in loving the characters.

Spoiler:

Hank Landry is dying from the dreaded Ori Flu, and he and Carolyn talk about their relationship. And you know, even though I will tell everyone and anything that Beau gave one hell of a performance .... I didn't care one iota about their relationship... because I didn't KNOW them at all.

When Jacob and Sam had a similar discussion in the Tok'Ra Part II, I became a big Jake Carter fan, because we had watched Sam for long enough to know who she was, brilliant yet flawed (in other words INTERESTING), in part due to her troubled relationship with her father. When you met Jake Carter in Secrets, you were like... THAT EXPLAINS it.

Character love can't be rushed into, it's built over time unless you get a well known someone like Mitch Peliggi into a role and you know from watching him in other shows that his character will be one to watch.

For example, I always liked the General Hammond character, but it wasn't until Season 8 with General JackJack that I realized how BIG a role George Hammond was in making me enjoy SG1.

That's my 2 cents.


Helena

[andi_b]

it did do a lot for her character. just like rite of passage did. we learned something about her, got to see her tick.

in death knell, we got to learn something about sam. we got to see her struggle and got to see how the guys handled it. we got to witness some of that 'dogged determination' that i always read about in fic.

i have yet to get something about any of the new guys that just whacks me between the eyes and makes me see how the others feel about them.

there's too much telling and not enough showing.

Yes, YES!! I've said this elsewhere - I think Browder is a wonderful actor. In Farscape he gave the most complex, emotional, heart-wrenching performances I've seen in SciFi television. And he does nothing for me here. And what you've said is the reason. I've been looking like crazy for some Cam Mitchell fan fiction, to get a grip on this character, and found nothing of significance. There is nothing to write about!

[1DanielForMe]

Well, as I've stated, great personality is what really draws me to a character (and why Daniel is my favourite), and Cameron struck me with his humility and excitement at the prospect of being part of the SG-1. What I'm saying, of course, is that I really like Cameron, and feel we've already seen a good portion of just who he is. Even for those who don't agree, though, we have only known him for less than a season.