Character Musings, McKay
Sep. 9th, 2006 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mari4212So McKay has kinda-sorta taken over my brain again, after this most recent episode. And he doesn't want me to write a story, he wants meta. Who am I to argue with him?
For me, the key to understanding McKay is understanding that he is simultaneously incredibly arrogant and fantastically insecure.
Rodney knows one thing for a fact. He is brilliant. Even in Atlantis, where the IQ bell curve is shifted twenty points over as a matter of course, he's several steps ahead of the others. This man is smart.
But that's the only thing he trusts about himself. When hallucinating, he sums up his personality as "petty, arrogant, bad with people". In several other episodes, including the most recent, he blusters about how he's good about something and then whittles himself down. It's only when he's drugged or incapacitated in some way that he refrains from the tear-down portion of this behavior, and only when he's so exhausted and drained to the limit that he does not even initiate this build-up/tear-down cycle.
What this tells me is that he's learned the hard way not to look to others for affirmation or support. He doesn't count on anyone to provide the praise or support that most of us recieve from family/friends. It also tells me that he doesn't really believe he's that great underneath, aside from his intelligence.
The other thing that really struck me from this most recent episode is Rodney's reaction to his team laughing at him/stories about him. The same scenario is repeated three times in the episode, once with Jeanie telling relatively humiliating stories about him, once with Rod as the center of attention, and once where Rodney is invited back into the fold. Look at the response Rodney has each time he approaches and sees what's happening. He folds into himself and backs down. He accepts the laughter at him in the first instance, he accepts that someone else takes his place in the second time, and he's about ready to leave before they invite him to join them in the third occasion.
He backs down. He accepts this. If I'd walked in on a group of my friends sharing humiliating stories about me and laughing at me, I'd be upset but I'd also be angry as all get out. That scene, especially where Ronan pulls out the story of being forced to wear his underwear on his head and everyone laughs, comes across as being very malicious. If people pulled that on me, I'd be furious at the violation of trust. But Rodney, while he's hurt, doesn't seem to expect anything else out of his friends and his sister. He also seemed to expect his friends and his sister to abandon him and like the other version of him better.
What does it say about who Rodney is that he expects people to betray his trust? What does it say about his experiences that he doesn't seem to count on anyone being there for him?
Note: In the other characters' defense, I should point out that I don't think any of them really saw what they were doing as malicious or a violation of trust. I think most of it was humor that went too far and a genuine interest in Jeanie and an alternate Rodney McKay. But I do think they crossed a few lines in the episode, even when they did partially redeem themselves with the final few scenes.
For me, the key to understanding McKay is understanding that he is simultaneously incredibly arrogant and fantastically insecure.
Rodney knows one thing for a fact. He is brilliant. Even in Atlantis, where the IQ bell curve is shifted twenty points over as a matter of course, he's several steps ahead of the others. This man is smart.
But that's the only thing he trusts about himself. When hallucinating, he sums up his personality as "petty, arrogant, bad with people". In several other episodes, including the most recent, he blusters about how he's good about something and then whittles himself down. It's only when he's drugged or incapacitated in some way that he refrains from the tear-down portion of this behavior, and only when he's so exhausted and drained to the limit that he does not even initiate this build-up/tear-down cycle.
What this tells me is that he's learned the hard way not to look to others for affirmation or support. He doesn't count on anyone to provide the praise or support that most of us recieve from family/friends. It also tells me that he doesn't really believe he's that great underneath, aside from his intelligence.
The other thing that really struck me from this most recent episode is Rodney's reaction to his team laughing at him/stories about him. The same scenario is repeated three times in the episode, once with Jeanie telling relatively humiliating stories about him, once with Rod as the center of attention, and once where Rodney is invited back into the fold. Look at the response Rodney has each time he approaches and sees what's happening. He folds into himself and backs down. He accepts the laughter at him in the first instance, he accepts that someone else takes his place in the second time, and he's about ready to leave before they invite him to join them in the third occasion.
He backs down. He accepts this. If I'd walked in on a group of my friends sharing humiliating stories about me and laughing at me, I'd be upset but I'd also be angry as all get out. That scene, especially where Ronan pulls out the story of being forced to wear his underwear on his head and everyone laughs, comes across as being very malicious. If people pulled that on me, I'd be furious at the violation of trust. But Rodney, while he's hurt, doesn't seem to expect anything else out of his friends and his sister. He also seemed to expect his friends and his sister to abandon him and like the other version of him better.
What does it say about who Rodney is that he expects people to betray his trust? What does it say about his experiences that he doesn't seem to count on anyone being there for him?
Note: In the other characters' defense, I should point out that I don't think any of them really saw what they were doing as malicious or a violation of trust. I think most of it was humor that went too far and a genuine interest in Jeanie and an alternate Rodney McKay. But I do think they crossed a few lines in the episode, even when they did partially redeem themselves with the final few scenes.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 01:34 pm (UTC)That scene, especially where Ronan pulls out the story of being forced to wear his underwear on his head and everyone laughs, comes across as being very malicious
YES! Thank you, that was my thought too. I know they didn't mean to, but still. You'd think they'd be a little more sensitive (especially Teyla). But what really gets me about that part? When Ronon tells the story and Rodney thinks he's had the same experience, his face LIGHTS UP. And then, of course, his defenses are right back up again. Very sad.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 02:25 pm (UTC)That's exactly it. He knows he's smart, brilliant even, but he wears his arrogance like a cloak - it's a preemptive strike so that no one hurts him (again.) And he's been hurt. Not by silly pranks like lemons or even the underwear humiliation, but by other things. And he never developed social skills, and he *knows it*. He never really cracked that code, you know? So, to hide that, he acts like he knows everything when he knows he doesn't. And now he has everything depending on him, and on the one hand, VALIDATION! and on the other hand PANIC!
John is good with him because John knows that he needs validation, but he needs it couched in snark or he won't believe it. Because he doesn't really believe praise. I'm not sure why, but he doesn't.
(Okay, fine. I'm not in Rodney's league, and I've cracked the code a little, but I'm a geekgirl who still has a hard time in social situations and I never thought I had anything *but* my brain. Also, though, I have filters and Rodney, unlike Rod, does not. And I crave praise and I never believe it. Drives my husband nuts.)
Rodney's the eternal outsider and he can't quite believe he's one of the in-group. Jeanie is cute and can relate to nongeeks (although McKay Squared was awesome and I want to see her again. And I want her to publish again.), Rod is exactly the way Rodney wanted to be, so of course the cool kids liked him. And then it turns out, no. They liked Rod just fine, but they love Rodney - he's *their* pet geek and they don't want him to go anywhere.
I so loved this episode. Can't you tell?
no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 03:17 pm (UTC)Yeah, McKay has been hurt a lot. You don't get those kind of defences if you haven't seen, over and over again, that you need them.
I've been lucky on the geeky-girl bit. I've always been people-focused, so it's easier for me to do the social thing. That and being little and cute works well. McKay strikes me as being one of those people who exists so totally in his head that it takes work to pull back and pay attention to people. Couple that with being bullied as a kid and his references in Stargate to his parents not getting along and blaming him, he's just going to retreat further from other people.
Atlantis has done wonders for him in some ways, but it's also made him a lot more vulnerable. For the first time in a long while, he's accepted and loved for who he is, not just tolerated for his brains. And yet he's still so unsure of his acceptance, so when he sees the stupid jokes I think he tends to overreact. He's still adapting to the concept of friendship and friendly teasing. Sheppard's good for him as a friend because, as you said, he knows how to phrase things in a way Rodney can understand.