Originally posted by Coley
We've struggled with the ship topic a bit before on this thread, but I agree, most folks have been fairly polite and courteous of one another. I think it became harder to avoid the ship topic as we went through the analysis of the episodes of Seasons 7 and 8... where much of the focus of Sam's screen time became personal issues... the series focussed on Sam's ship, so our thread discussions of Seasons 7 and 8 naturally focussed more on Sam's relationship issues. And yet, I think we did a very good job of not letting the ship (J/S, P/S or whoever) take over the thread.
I know that there are some wonderful folks who post regularly to this thread who are ardent J/S shippers and they have been very good at restraining the slant of their posts and maintaining ship-tolerant views. We have folks who are non-shippers, some are anti-shippers, some are slash shippers, some are J/S shippers, some like other pairings - and to be honest, I've been mightily impressed by the generally courteous and respectful attitudes expressed by almost everyone who posts here.
I like seeing a strong, competent female lead character who is smart, athletic and in command while still being personable and likeable. Ship? In my book it just has to be done well and not detract from the wonderful attributes of the strong female character.
I thoroughly enjoyed the relationship between Sam and Jacob throughout the Stargate series. This was one of the best ships that I've seen on any scifi series. The father-daughter scenes and lines were so wonderfully done by the writers and the actors - both AT and CA were fantastic. There was humor, angst, sorrow, love... and it was generally integrated into the scifi storylines very nicely. Jacob was a secondary character that added depth and humanity to Sam's character.
Another good ship was the Sam-Cassie relationship. And I would have liked to have seen (or heard) a bit more. Singularity was so great in terms of the Sam-Cassie scenes. As with the Sam-Jacob scenes, the Sam-Cassie scenes developed Sam's character beyond the scientist-soldier.
The Sam/Teal'c relationship - I'm with Skydiver and many of the other folks who've said that they'd like to see more of that friendship... comradeship and mutual respect.
In terms of romantic relationships... wow... that's ChopinGal's 500lb gorilla...
I just hope that whatever the series writers and directors do from here on out for Sam - I just hope that they don't detract from her character. If they ship her with someone or not (and I'm not going to stand in Sam's way if they decide to give her a relationship - it just feels mean and selfish for me to say 'no'), hopefully they will write Sam well in Season 9. Allow her to keep her integrity intact.
Who would I be upset to see Sam romantically involved with? Someone who talked down to her. Someone who didn't treat her as an equal, someone who didn't seem to love her. Anyone who talked down to her or didn't treat her as an equal would not seem like someone that Sam would tolerate - that would be out-of-character and it would piss me off.
Sam Carter has been a fantastic female lead character in a famous scifi show. We've said it before, but she's smart, competent, she can handle the soldiering... and as Jckfan so aptly put it - children can 'play Stargate' and the girls can be Sam and have a good role without having to play one of the guys.
So, in terms of ship - it adds dimension and depth to the characters. Gives the actors more range and more of a feeling of reality to their roles. Whether it's friendship or romantic relationships, I just hope that it's done well... written well, directed well and integrated into the scifi premise of the series.
OK... and here's a personal wish of mine... I'd like to see Sam happy! Kickin' arse, enthusiastically dealing with new technologies... and happy! (Yeah, yeah, I know - me and Mary Poppins are going to lunch)
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