Originally posted by graculus
And let's look at Daniel's actions. He didn't use Aikido to gracefully sidestep Vala's punches: he punched back.
Secondly, if a man of Daniel's size and weight were to hit a woman full force, she would go flying across the room. She didn't even get her nose broken. He had to have been pulling his punches quite dramatically. (Not that I object to him hitting her.)
The minute he hesitated, he paid for it: Vala might have already learned this lesson. Daniel didn't hesitate to go Caveman and throw Vala over his shoulder when he needed her on the bridge.
And, come on, did he really *need* to undress her? Vala had already taken off the Supersoldier armor herself. Daniel just wanted Vala to wake up knowing he'd undressed her. That seems like a pretty sleazy tactic to me.
I did notice that he fed her, though.
And then there's the gratuitous zat. It's funny unless you start to wonder whether it always takes *two* to kill. Maybe some people have a lower tolerance for electrocution.
One of the things I especially liked about PU is that Daniel's personality became seem to become more irritable and snarky once he no longer had to keep up his professional facade for his colleagues.
That tells me he's repressing quite a bit to maintain his reputation and get along peacably with what amounts to his family. The man needs an outlet. He needs to work through some anger. Vala makes him angry, which gives him an opportunity to work through it.
Once Daniel was exhausted, I think he was open to anything.
I think the fight will still be out of his system when he sees Vala again. If she comes to ask for his help, I doubt bondage and slappage will be involved.
I suppose my own bias is that I don't really believe in sickos. I believe people are represented as sickos. People are driven to sicko behavior. Sometimes the stars align in a particular way, and someone does something randomly sicko. I don't believe anyone on this earth is an inherent sicko, though. If someone manifests as a sicko, then there are a lot of other people in the picture who have all done something wrong. JMHO.
I believe that the terms "sociopath" and "psychopath" are overused. There are very few true sociopaths. But they do exist. The combination of aggression, lying, manipulation, torture, and sexually predatory behavior suggests to me that it is at least possible that Vala is pathological. Her behavior isn't randomly sicko, it is repeatedly and consistently aggressive, predatory and without evidence of conscience or remorse. The only exception I can find is that a lot of people are alive instead of dead, when it would have been easier for her to kill them. So that's something in her favor.
Maybe she's just the equivalent of a black ops agent. But then, I suspect some of those people don't have much conscience, either. Professional requirement.
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