I has thoughts. BSG thoughts.

[lyssie]

They are, surprisingly, Kara/Anders free (mostly, since I can't get far from m'kids). Spoilers through 'Guess What's Coming to Dinner'.

I said somewhere--I think it was in a comment on prolix_allie's post about the FF being programed and guided, that Billy Keikeya was a man in a refrigerator. That he existed to provide motivation for a female character. And in some ways, I think it's true.

1. Roslin. Billy is paired with Laura to humanize her. This is usually a role taken up by women with men (see: Rose Tyler), in order to make the character more palatable and 'relatable'. Billy was her link to the humans of the fleet, he was the one who said, time and again "trust humanity, tell them the truth". In order for Roslin to become as amoral and driven as she is today, Billy had to die. Because if he'd still been there, he would have tempered her. Billy couldn't always get through to her, but you can bet damned well that, say, 'Dirty Hands' would never have gotten as far as it did.

Because Billy's job WAS those details, and there's no way he would have let that go on as long as it did.

After Billy died, Laura hired...

2. Tory Foster. Which meant Tory now had license to become a Cylon (this has all happened before, after all, and we all know the FF are sekritly pushed towards supporting people in power). Tory was ruthless and underhanded where Billy was merely good-hearted.

Underhanded is good. As Lee Adama once said, they're a gang now. And you need underhanded in that sort of endeavor.

And who did Tory suborn? Tigh and ....

3. Anastasia Dualla. This actually occurred to me the other day: Dee clings to Lee so much because Billy died. In the deleted scene, she mentions something about taking what she can get, because the future is uncertain. Had Billy lived, Dee wouldn't have had his loss to drive her. She probably wouldn't have married Lee so fast. She might even have been far more circumspect--life being finite hadn't really touched her. Sure, everyone had lost the Colonies, everyone had lost people as the fight had gone on. But for Dee, she hadn't lost anyone since the original massacre until Billy.

Aside from that, Billy was a civilian, he wasn't supposed to be in the line of fire. And here he'd died, trying to save her life. The sense of guilt that caused piled onto everything else.

...and about there, my thoughts stop.

But, yes. Billy's death opened the door for all of the above--

Oh, that reminds me.

The other thing?

Lee Adama is saying the things Billy used to say. I watched GWCTD, and Lee's scenes especially had me sitting there, going, "Billy...?" and wondering if, from the afterlife, Billy were throwing more bottles at him than normal.

Comments

[cujoy.livejournal.com]

Good observations. And fuel for the Dee is the Fifth pool in the great Final Fiver Sweepstakes Ocean.

I am of the opinion, though, that Dee won't be the Last, although I would love it, I don't think she's being set up for anything approaching a storyline that huge. (She's mostly been sidelined, it seems.) I'm also of the opinion that a male character as popular as Billy would never have been killed off without Paul Campbell's contract dispute. Because male characters are not usually treated that way.

[aj.livejournal.com]

*clings to her boy*

You have a lot of good points. And I really agree with the Billy being the one that Laura NEEDED. The cut scenes from the mini-series are a perfect example of this. That whole scene where he was all "No, I'm trying to say that honor and duty are not just THINGS for these people. They are ideals that need to be respected." was so incredibly telling of who he was, and I want to KICK Ron Moore for not giving him a few more months to decide about his contract. (I also want to kick Paul, but that's neither here nor there.)

And I'm so interested that Lee's doing some of the Billy advocating. Also, it makes me laugh because I WROTE THAT ONE WHERE BILLY KICKED HIM VERBALLY. And yes. The bottles are getting more pointed.

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

I said somewhere--I think it was in a comment on [info]prolix_allie's post about the FF being programed and guided, that Billy Keikeya was a man in a refrigerator. That he existed to provide motivation for a female character. And in some ways, I think it's true.

Yup, that's where it was. (And now I know what a women in a refrigerator is!)

1. Dirty Hands annoys me because Ron flat-out admitted that he was stretching Roslin's characterization to make a point. ("You can't find two more caring people than Adama and Roslin, and if even they have blind spots.") But I agree it would have been much harder to do with Billy there.

2-3 *nods*

Well, Lee has always been portrayed as idealistic and interested in the political aspects of the Fleet. To the point where Billy would have felt redundant if it weren't for his innocent quality, which Lee lacks. But I agree, I know they didn't want to kill Billy but it's hard to imagine the story unfolding as it did if he'd lived.

Personally, I like Roslin operating in a slightly more gender-balanced world. Having her caught between Lee, Adama, Zarak and Billy this season would kinda suck.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought of it in that light, really. Sigh. I hate this FF crap, so much.

Billy wouldn't have been killed like that, no.