Character Musings, Dr. Elizabeth Weir
Sep. 12th, 2005 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mari4212A little late, but better late than never, right?
I will probably write another essay on Dr. Weir, focusing on the growth between the current season and last, but this essay contains no spoilers for the second season of Atlantis.
Who is Dr. Weir? We learn from Stargate that she is a diplomat, that she works to promote peace because she hates war. She is a negotiator, someone who is trained to see both sides and to get then to agree.
She is thrown head first into the Stargate program, and has one man telling her not to trust SG-1, not to believe them when they say that the bad guys are on the way. At the same time, she has the SGC, and SG-1, and everyone talking about how Anubis can kill us with one arm tied behind his back, and a cockamamie plan to save the day. She is completely out of her depth, but she is willing to trust SG-1, and as a result the day gets saved. She also tells off Kinsey, and proves herself capable of making her own decisions.
Then she gets assigned to the Atlantis mission, and it captivates her in a way that the SGC never seemed to. By the time Rising aired, she had won the respect of the scientists and military she was leading down there. She was relaxed, and enthusiastic, and could tease Rodney McKay without him getting upset. Atlantis was her baby. I'd note that while the SGC was primarily military, with some scientists attached, Atlantis and the Antarctic mission were the exact opposite. Elizabeth does best as a civilian leader of civilians.
And then they discover the way to Atlantis, and she gets to lead the expedition. Watching her good bye video to Simon, it's clear that she's discovered where she wants to be, and what she wants to do. Atlantis can teach them so much, there is so much to learn, so much that could potentially help mankind. Her goal is always to help people, it's one of the driving forces of her personality.
When they get to Atlantis, everything changes. The scientific mission of discovery becomes secondary to defending themselves and their new allies from the Wraith, and making sure that whatever else happens, the Wraith do not learn how to get back to Earth and our own galaxy. There are two main episodes in the first season that show the depth and richness of Elizabeth's character, and they are, quite obviously, "Before I Sleep", and "Letters From Pegasus". LFP shows how much she cares for her people. She sits there and makes a personal message to the families of everyone who died, and she cared enough to start crying midway through. She feels that much for the people under her command.
"Before I Sleep" was perhaps the best episode of the first season. But regardless of your opinions of the show itself, it did present a wonderful image of Elizabeth. This is a woman who would sacrifice herself to save the lives of the people under her command. The love she has for her people fuels her decisions.
The one weak point Elizabeth has in the first season is that she sometimes allows Sheppard too much latitude, and he abuses it. The best example of this is in "Hot Zone", the episode in which they discover the nanovirus. Sheppard deliberately disobeyed her, and it was a million to one chance that everything would have worked out as well as it did. He put people's lives at risk because he wouldn't listen to her. But he'd done things before, and she'd allowed it, so he thought he could do it here as well.
I will probably write another essay on Dr. Weir, focusing on the growth between the current season and last, but this essay contains no spoilers for the second season of Atlantis.
Who is Dr. Weir? We learn from Stargate that she is a diplomat, that she works to promote peace because she hates war. She is a negotiator, someone who is trained to see both sides and to get then to agree.
She is thrown head first into the Stargate program, and has one man telling her not to trust SG-1, not to believe them when they say that the bad guys are on the way. At the same time, she has the SGC, and SG-1, and everyone talking about how Anubis can kill us with one arm tied behind his back, and a cockamamie plan to save the day. She is completely out of her depth, but she is willing to trust SG-1, and as a result the day gets saved. She also tells off Kinsey, and proves herself capable of making her own decisions.
Then she gets assigned to the Atlantis mission, and it captivates her in a way that the SGC never seemed to. By the time Rising aired, she had won the respect of the scientists and military she was leading down there. She was relaxed, and enthusiastic, and could tease Rodney McKay without him getting upset. Atlantis was her baby. I'd note that while the SGC was primarily military, with some scientists attached, Atlantis and the Antarctic mission were the exact opposite. Elizabeth does best as a civilian leader of civilians.
And then they discover the way to Atlantis, and she gets to lead the expedition. Watching her good bye video to Simon, it's clear that she's discovered where she wants to be, and what she wants to do. Atlantis can teach them so much, there is so much to learn, so much that could potentially help mankind. Her goal is always to help people, it's one of the driving forces of her personality.
When they get to Atlantis, everything changes. The scientific mission of discovery becomes secondary to defending themselves and their new allies from the Wraith, and making sure that whatever else happens, the Wraith do not learn how to get back to Earth and our own galaxy. There are two main episodes in the first season that show the depth and richness of Elizabeth's character, and they are, quite obviously, "Before I Sleep", and "Letters From Pegasus". LFP shows how much she cares for her people. She sits there and makes a personal message to the families of everyone who died, and she cared enough to start crying midway through. She feels that much for the people under her command.
"Before I Sleep" was perhaps the best episode of the first season. But regardless of your opinions of the show itself, it did present a wonderful image of Elizabeth. This is a woman who would sacrifice herself to save the lives of the people under her command. The love she has for her people fuels her decisions.
The one weak point Elizabeth has in the first season is that she sometimes allows Sheppard too much latitude, and he abuses it. The best example of this is in "Hot Zone", the episode in which they discover the nanovirus. Sheppard deliberately disobeyed her, and it was a million to one chance that everything would have worked out as well as it did. He put people's lives at risk because he wouldn't listen to her. But he'd done things before, and she'd allowed it, so he thought he could do it here as well.
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Date: 2005-09-13 09:29 pm (UTC)