About Jacob Carter .... (Threads Spoilers)

[Karterius]

I posted spoilers in the topic so please turn away now if you have not seen Threads...


I want to first say that although I do not agree with Jacobs death, I believe for once it was in a tasteful manner. Thank you to the powers that be for not doing another Dr. Frasier death, for giving Carter and the other members some closure. However i hope this does not strain or be the demise of any relationship that still remains between the SGC and Tok'ra...

[mayorbill11]

He went out trying to spare his daughter, which is nice I suppose.

On a more cynical note, there goes another great character from Stargate SG-1, bad move but at least it shows consequences.

I didn't think they explained it very well, but I guess the '2000 year old symbiote' line was good enough.

It WAS kind of obvious, though. From the minute pete started talking to Jacob, I knew selmac was toast, for some reason. I also caught on pretty quick that Anubis was fat man. I guess I just expected alot of changes in this episode. It certainly delivered.

[SaberBlade]

i don't see how Jacob had to die.

first of all his death had no meaning to it and he was definitely one of the better recurring characters. saying he had a 2000 year old symbiote was no excuse, Seth jumped from host to host for 10,000 years and he still had no trouble.

i was actually hoping to see him ascend just to keep him around. his death was as pointless as that of Doc Fraser. this is one of the times when the PTB really messed up badly. hopefully it was done on purpose because they have some plans to bring him back because of effects in the finale

[Karterius]

I have to agree that it was kind of obvious... I had a bad feeling when I saw him dubble over in the second part of reckoning... I thought hmmm... maybe they didn't get enough variance... and the decomposition affected something in the naquada in Goa'uld's blood... but then that would have affected the jaffa as well... then Threads as the title suggested tied that thread up... Jacob will be sorely missed in my eyes... W/out Jack and Pete now, we are looking at a very lonely Carter...

[mayorbill11]

i don't see how Jacob had to die.

first of all his death had no meaning to it and he was definitely one of the better recurring characters. saying he had a 2000 year old symbiote was no excuse, Seth jumped from host to host for 10,000 years and he still had no trouble.

Seth had a sarcophagus, the Tok'Ra don't use them.

[Giantevilhead]

What is up with the whole host dying with the symbiote thing.

[mayorbill11]

That isn't new, I believe it was established very early on actually.

I forget which episode but it was definetly in season 1 or 2.

[ShadowDancer]

i think that because the symbiote acts as a major part of a hosts physiology, so when the symbiote dies its as if a critical organ has been removed, and with nothing to replace it there is nothing to keep the host alive

[SaberBlade]

Seth had a sarcophagus, the Tok'Ra don't use them.

i don't remember anything about him having a sarc, just that he could survive by jumping hosts every 400 or so years.

What is up with the whole host dying with the symbiote thing.

when a symbiote dies it released a poison that kills the host. a symbiote can stop this before it dies but it takes a lot of effort which Jolinar was able to do in S2 but Selmac couldn't (because he was already in a coma)

[Albion]

hopefully it was done on purpose because they have some plans to bring him back because of effects in the finale

I haven't seen these spoilers. Any more details on this one, Saberblade? Or where I can find the spoiilers in question? Thanks.

As for Jacob's death - I was really, really ticked off about it when I read it in spoilers before Threads aired. I've found the seeming eagerness to kill off characters right, left and centre, whenever TPTB think it's their final season, rather irksome and tiresome over the years. And Jacob/Selmac have always been two of my favourite recurring characters over the years.

The reasons for him dying were, of course, pretty spurious, and don't really hold up to much logic. But then such plotlines usually are, aren't they? Able to turn on a dime, according to whether TPTB want the character to die or not. If the latter, it would have been easy to find some Tok'ra miracle in the final five minutes to save Jacob and Selmac. Just as Daniel could have been saved at the end of Meridan by some alien cure or Jacob and his healing device, if the plot had demanded it. So that doesn't bother me that much.

Just this morning, I was thinking about something someone posted on on this over in the Threads episode review thread. They pointed out that perhaps Carmen simply had more acting commitments on his time now and wasn't able to play the character as easily any more and so wanted to be written out.

Initially, I didn't buy this. He's not a regular. He's a recurring character. What would it matter if he couldn't play Jacob any more. All they'd have to do to accomodate him would be not show us Jacob any more. And this was supposed to be their final season. Why would they need to bring back Jacob after this? Even if they knew while filming Threads that there was to be a S9, the same applies. It's not as though they needed the character of Jacob on a weekly basis.

But then, I got to thinking that maybe - assuming this Carmen scenario is fact - they decided they'd rather give the character closure rather than leave him in limbo somewhere and then find there had come a point where he was necessary in some way and they couldn't sign up Carmen to play him, which might make things awkward. (No, don't have a plot scenario that would fit that off the top of my head, but guess there could be one. <G>).

Still...closure doesn't necessarily mean death. They could have found a way to take him out of the picture if they wanted to. They did it in S7, after all, at the end of Death Knell.

Anyway...I digress. <g> The reasons why they did it don't really matter, I guess. It's the fact that they did that still annoys me a little. And I will miss them both dreadfully.

I did find though, when watching the episode, that I wasn't as depressed with it as I figured I would be. It was handled beautifully for me. The only thing missing that I would have liked to have seen was Jack saying goodbye to Jacob, or some conversation between them that would have acknowledged their own friendship. Jacob wasn't only Sam's father, he was Jack's friend, and I did miss a nod to that.

I have the urge now to go revisit the story of Jacob Carter and Selmac through the episodes they were in. But it will be a nostalgic journey, not a sad one. In the end, I felt almost like Sam did. We had a lot of fun years with these two and watching them will always make me smile.

My thanks go to Carmen and the writers for making Jacob and Selmac such enthralling, warm and witty characters through the years.


Albion

[AlphaBlu]

The death of Symbiotes seems to be somewhat inconsistent. Why couldn't they remove him? I don't understand that. He'll release his toxins... ok... but the process they have kills the Symbiote before it can do that. So, the only reason they're not doing that is because they want to let Selmak die a natural death, and don't want to 'put him down' to save the host.

Funny, and I thought the Tok'ra were all about the host...

The problem I have with Jacob's death (one of the many problems in Threads) is that I didn't feel anything. I was shocked when Jacob told Sam, but then it was... what? Nothing. I was in tears when Janet died, but felt nothing when Jacob died. It seemed like a senseless death and there was no Saul Rubenik to turn it into some excellent drama.

Another thing is that since Evolution Part 1, the writers have really been using Jacob and Selmak, and not just Jacob all the time. It's like the character of Selmak actually had a place, something to do, something that Jacob couldn't do in his place. Plus, in Reckoning 2, they really played up a fantastic angle - How hard it was for a Tok'ra to work with a Goa'uld. I loved that little 'Selmak can't work like this, and neither can I.' It was a show of how Selmak's values (hatred for the Goa'uld) had rubbed off on Jacob.

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but the writers like to come up with these great beats of tension only to kill it in the next episode, like that great snarky tension between Jack & Daniel in Menace, which vanished in the next episode because the next episode was Meridian, and they couldn't be angry at each other in that one.

BYE

[blutn]

Jacob said "I'm gonna die with him"

maybe he wanted to die with his good friend selmac?

just a thought...

[Steam]

Jacob said he didnt want to let selmac go he new that he was needed to help earth out and they could remove him because he would release the toxins as stated above it was to far past the point of safe return

[@Li3n]

U would think that in 10.000 years the Tok'ra would come up with something 2 counteract the toxin the simbiotes release on their death. And anyway i always thought that releasing the toxin was a choice of the goa'uld because they were evil. Biologicaly it doesn't make sense. were in nature do parasites kill the host when they die, it's a pointless function.

[Qasim]

it was time for him to go