World of Orenda

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"Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipatur"

oachambers

on June 28, 2007

Season three of Battlestar Galactica lived up to the hype. No spoilers here, but the show became an allegory for the occupation of Iraq. The human insurgents stage guerrilla attacks against a technologically superior army, and the Cylons can’t figure out why they aren’t being welcomed with flowers.

Obviously an allegory like this can devolve quickly into a quagmire of moral relativism. “Wow! In this world, the insurgents are good and the occupying force is evil! It makes me question my assumptions about Iraq.”

BSG, to its credit, managed to avoid simplistic dichotomies. It’s not clear, to me or to some of the human characters, that the insurgents are taking the right course of action in their attacks. Their tactics are becoming more extreme, and the line between good and evil is blurrier than ever. A recurring theme in BSG has been “what is it to be human?” In the season three pilot, the question seems to have been “Is it worth winning our freedom if we lose our humanity in the process?”

Good frakking stuff. If you’re not watching BSG, you should be.

-Allan