combining a couple things you've said and jumping off on a bit of a tangent:
I think it's telling that "what if it was your mother, would you still?" is the question that finally breaks Carroll down in the ethics seminar and that the breakdown happens after Carroll's already answered that yes, he would still. I think that parallels what Rodney did to Atlantis, and I wonder if Carroll's intense physical reaction isn't supposed to give us some insight into how Rodney feels about what he did. He may feel it was the right decision, or the better decision, but that doesn't mean there's no psychological and emotional backlash involved.
[...]
But I suspect he still feels the guilt and that it drives some of his other decisions - running the ethics seminar in the first place, for example.
I agree with you totally about this. I think Rodney can recognize and even know on a gut level that killing -- or perhaps setting free -- Atlantis was the only thing he could do, but I think he still feels guilt about it and on some level always will.
And part of that, I think, is because of why that was the only decision he could make. There's the death of John and the death of Atlantis, but there's another death here that we're not talking about and it's the death that led to both of the others, and that is the death of the Wraith.
No matter how valid or necessary their reasoning, the Atlantis expedition successfully exterminated an entire alien race. And it haunts them all. The email from Elizabeth is the real clincher there for me, as is the way it's prefaced in the story: On the morning of the sixth anniversary of the final xenocide of the Wraith...
I think it's the reality of that xenocide that leads to the necessity of "killing" Atlantis and also to Rodney's ethics classes too, in a way. Because all of the survivors, but especially Rodney and Elizabeth, the surviving leaders had to make the decision to go down that path and they have to live with it for the rest of their lives. Rodney's ethics seminar seems to me to be not only about finding where your own lines are but recognizing that moral and ethical lines are permeable, and sometimes you have to cross them altogether, but it's better to do that with your eyes wide open, fully aware.
After making the ultimate ethical sacrifice in order to defeat the Wraith, to then turn around and just sit back while the SGC turned Atlantis into a weapons lab would ultimately have destroyed him, I think. It wasn't an option. In order to be able to live with the choices they'd made in the fight against the Wraith, Rodney had to kill Atlantis, and he'll always have some guilt over both of those things, I think, but I don't think he regrets them in the least.
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branchandroot
Re: Rodney's motivation
Date: 2006-03-14 04:30 am (UTC)I think it's telling that "what if it was your mother, would you still?" is the question that finally breaks Carroll down in the ethics seminar and that the breakdown happens after Carroll's already answered that yes, he would still. I think that parallels what Rodney did to Atlantis, and I wonder if Carroll's intense physical reaction isn't supposed to give us some insight into how Rodney feels about what he did. He may feel it was the right decision, or the better decision, but that doesn't mean there's no psychological and emotional backlash involved.
[...]
But I suspect he still feels the guilt and that it drives some of his other decisions - running the ethics seminar in the first place, for example.
I agree with you totally about this. I think Rodney can recognize and even know on a gut level that killing -- or perhaps setting free -- Atlantis was the only thing he could do, but I think he still feels guilt about it and on some level always will.
And part of that, I think, is because of why that was the only decision he could make. There's the death of John and the death of Atlantis, but there's another death here that we're not talking about and it's the death that led to both of the others, and that is the death of the Wraith.
No matter how valid or necessary their reasoning, the Atlantis expedition successfully exterminated an entire alien race. And it haunts them all. The email from Elizabeth is the real clincher there for me, as is the way it's prefaced in the story: On the morning of the sixth anniversary of the final xenocide of the Wraith...
I think it's the reality of that xenocide that leads to the necessity of "killing" Atlantis and also to Rodney's ethics classes too, in a way. Because all of the survivors, but especially Rodney and Elizabeth, the surviving leaders had to make the decision to go down that path and they have to live with it for the rest of their lives. Rodney's ethics seminar seems to me to be not only about finding where your own lines are but recognizing that moral and ethical lines are permeable, and sometimes you have to cross them altogether, but it's better to do that with your eyes wide open, fully aware.
After making the ultimate ethical sacrifice in order to defeat the Wraith, to then turn around and just sit back while the SGC turned Atlantis into a weapons lab would ultimately have destroyed him, I think. It wasn't an option. In order to be able to live with the choices they'd made in the fight against the Wraith, Rodney had to kill Atlantis, and he'll always have some guilt over both of those things, I think, but I don't think he regrets them in the least.