It’s confusing, but what happened is that Cavil reintroduced ALL the FF (with “new” memories) back into Colonial society years before the second war. What Cavil did at the start of the second war was make sure that Ellen got onto a departing ship, so that she would survive the holocaust after observing it.
What I find “interesting” is the question of how young were the FF when reintroduced by Cavil. All appeared to be about the same age on Erf as they are now. We do not know when Anders, Tori (sic?) and Tyrol were reintroduced, but it had to be some time ago for them to reach their respective “positions” at the start of the show - especially Tyrol. We KNOW that Tigh and Ellen as reintroduced were much younger, than they were on Erf, when that occurred, because Adama has known them for years and we have seen a “younger” Tigh. So, apparently the FF resurrection tech allows the maker to choose the age at rebirth and the FF types, presumably, grow old and die - all very much unlike the S7/S8. (Cavil has previously said that, as machines, the S7/S8’s will be around virtually forever, hence no rush to find Erf, indicating that they do not age.)
As others have said, Ellen was definitely in the Colonies for a long time. Anders said she was the second one Cavil sent out, after Col. Tigh.
I think the idea is that he was frakking with her, sort of, just like he was messing with Sam’s resistance fighters on New Caprica, and messing with Tyrol as a priest. But I don’t think the point was to “seriously frak” with them in a personal manner, so much as it was to make them suffer through human lives and see what the humans were really like. Thus, like Tyrol and Anders, maybe he only directly interfered with Ellen twice: once when he spared her life and put her on the transport after the attack, and once on New Caprica.
Yeah, so don’t the Galactians know that when a PC guy says he can quickly fix your problem you’re going to end up with a crashed hard-drive? PC crashed Anders! I hope Ellen can reboot him.
grey, again while your argument is very well thought out, i don’t think it applies simply because cavil is a big fat hypocrite…how can he say he seeks justice for his forebears for being enslaved by the humans when he sees the metal cylons as his slaves and keeps them lobotimized (sp?) and everything he does is sooooo very clearly selfish, petty and vindictive and serves no one but himself…i don’t think ellen is trying to make him into something he’s not, i think she just wants him to understand that what he is DOING is wrong…no species has the right to wipe out another species, no race has the right to decide another race does not deserve the right to exist…‘dehumanize your enemy so it’s easier to kill them’…i’d have a little bit of a contemptuous tone too if my son erased my memory and had sex with me and wiped out billions of life forms to get back at me…i’d be soooooo disappointed in my progeny…kind of like finding out your hitler’s mother…cavil is “evil”…and worse he feels that he is righteous…he killed his own brother from jealousy…he may want to become much more but instead of striving for that creatively he’s blaming everyone else for his so called ‘plight’…instead of devoting his life to researching how to make the ‘body’ he wants, he is angry with the five for not just giving it to him and chooses to devote his life to torturing them and making them pay…he needs to take responsibility for what he wants but instead he says he is pulled back by justice…i’ve watched this episode about 20 or so times now and i’m still on ellen’s side and i don’t think her love is false…you say she attaches rules to it and i don’t see them as rules…i see her trying to help her son see that he has no right to hurt people because they don’t do what HE wants them to do…she loves him because she made him, regardless of what he’s done but she can’t condone what he’s done…while i wholeheartedly agree that there is a time that parents need to accept that their children are individuals and will make their own choices (khalil gibron ~ they come through you but not from you, and though they are with you they belong not to you ~ and need to define happiness for themselves, cavil’s actions are nothing but reprehensible while ellen, like god, made her children the best she thought she could and some of us hate god for that, it’s true…but i don’t choose to hurt people or seek retaliation or vengeance because i’m better than that…agree to disagree i guess
Wow finally decided to check out the forums after listening to the podcasts for so long. Great info here - just wanted to say thanks for all the insights and time-suck… if only I were traveling at 99%-the-speed-of-light…
If you can truly be anything – as Ellen told Cavil, remember – then there is no such thing as being evil. There is no such thing as being reprehensible, no such thing as being broken or wrong, no such thing as being “better” than somebody who has a different worldview. If you can really, truly be anything, then that means you can be anything, and “god’s” petty rules and regulations have nothing to say about it, unless you personally decide that they should.
And that means Ellen lied when she said Cavil’s dream was wrong.
On the other hand, if you’re right, and Cavil is broken and wrong; if he is reprehensible, if he is a hypocrite (as if there’s anyone on this show who acts entirely without hypocrisy, including Ellen!), if he is evil, then that also means Ellen lied. She told him he could be anything. She told him she loved him. And she lied. If the only thing Cavil wants to be is wrong and evil, then he can’t be “anything” and still have her love, now can he? As is intuitively obvious, because she behaves as though she’s utterly disgusted by the “anything” he actually is!
The universe is either morally neutral, or it’s not. And the interesting thing about this episode – and the thing which makes me hate it deeply, even though I love all the performances – is that it appears to be the tipping point between BSG’s deep and complex moral ambiguity and a vaguely Judeo-Christian morality play. This show used to be so good at showing shades of gray… but there ain’t no shades of gray in Cain and motherfrakkin’ Abel, nor in a story in which the entire Cylon conflict turns out to be nothing more than a single mean-and-evil unbeliever turning against his nice-and-good religious creators.
At any rate, “agree to disagree” is probably the only solution, here, but I appreciate your responses just the same. Cheers!
It seriously never occurred to me to feel sorry for Cavil. He’s done all of these horrible things and i’m supposed to feel BAD for him? Because he can’t see gamma rays and smell dark matter…really? Well I want to fly. And I want to be able to time travel. And seriously - wouldn’t it be cool to plug directly into computers? So I should spend my entire existence being so angry at my maker (God or whoever that might be) that they made me incapable of doing those things that I actually destroy an entire civilzation? Does that seem right to you? And then expect God (or whoever) to feel bad for me and bend over backwards to give me the things I want???
As was pointed out in the podcast, there’s a huge difference between you and I, who do not personally know our creator (if any), and also do not suffer from ceaseless and crippling existential angst, and Cavil, who does. In his position, I can’t be sure I would behave any differently than he has – and he is clearly hurting very deeply, Stockwell’s performance was amazing! – so of course I feel sorry for him.
Plus, Cavil has always been a favorite of mine. He’s the snarky one, and this show could use more snark!
I certainly enjoy Cavil as a character. He is nothing if not interesting and the new revelations about his origins certainly make him more intresting, not less. I do have a hard time feeling sorry for him though.
While I’m not sure I can emotionally get behind the sympathy vote for Cavil, I do take intellectual pleasure in BSG and RDM refusing to spoon-feed the typical moral dichotomies of most TV narratives today. There’s plenty of potential gray to be left in the story here–the past (and future!) choices of the Tylons (see the debate outside of Sam’s surgery) was a good balance to the moral bifurcation that seems to be going on with Cavil/Ellen.
What I find interesting is the deep and perhaps irresolvable tension in the larger story here between those elements that want to eliminate either (purely) human or Cylon creations (through tit-for-tat holocausts) and those that want either to move between the two natures (Tylons) or integrate them (Helo/Athena). Oh, wait, is this nothing more than absolutism (kill “them” all) v. relativism (give me that Hera shot for my cancer)?
i do suffer from crippling existential angst and again i am not seeking revenge and at some point in your life, just as parents need to accept that their children are a separate entity, children need to stop blaming mommy and daddy and take responsibility for their lives and actions…
Regarding Sean and Audra’s discussion of Number 1 having a very Cavil-centric view of the universe and not concerning himself with the other Cylons, could we say that he was very Caviler with respect to the other Cylons emotions?
