I'm Alive Too.

[rionaleonhart]

It seems that Atlantis is bringing back not only the things I loved about Merlin (charming die-for-each-other friendships), but the things that really annoyed me about Merlin (the main character being presented as good-hearted but seemingly having no qualms about attacking his fellow man). Merlin has more of an excuse than you, Jason; he's from a different time, with different values. You're from the modern day, when it is generally not considered acceptable to slam people's heads into walls, even if they're your enemies. Although, to be fair, you haven't yet watched with a massive grin whilst you made someone explode.

(Another thing I recognised from Merlin: filtering night scenes around a fire in such a way that it doesn't look like the fire is casting any light. This really irrationally troubles me.)

It also bothers me that Jason's speech patterns are no different from the speech patterns of the other characters. He's from the modern day, but he says things like, 'You should fear me as they do. I will slay you as I did the Earth Bull. I will tear down your temple and I will scatter your followers to the four winds,' which is not something I've ever heard a modern-day young man say (and not just because I've never met anyone who's slain a Minotaur). Why make him a time-traveller at all if he's going to speak and behave in a way indistinguishable from everyone who grew up in Ancient Greece?

(And why is he suddenly a capable fighter? In the first episode, I loved the detail that he quite literally couldn't wield a sword to save his life, because it made absolute sense; chances are that he's never had cause to use a sword before.)

All right; that's enough complaining. I didn't enjoy the second episode of Atlantis as much as I did the first, but, despite all these minor gripes, bits of it still made me smile and I'm still looking forward to seeing the next.

It's Pythagoras who's hooked me, I suspect. Whilst I have yet to develop any particular opinion on most of the cast, Pythagoras is delightful, and moreover he's one of those characters who improves other characters just by having some sort of connection to them. I like Jason and Hercules far more whenever Pythagoras is in their vicinity. He's very much the heart and draw of Atlantis for me.

I tried to resist 'shipping Pythagoras/Jason, because the BBC obviously really wanted me to 'ship them and I like to be contrary, but they caught me almost immediately. I already know what I want from Pythagoras/Jason, in fact. I don't want them to have a romantic relationship in canon, because romantic relationships generally bore me to tears; only in very rare cases will a pairing manage to hold my interest if any unresolved sexual tension actually gets resolved. But I do want a kiss. Just one. I want a scenario in which one of the pair faces almost certain death, and I want Pythagoras to kiss Jason on the forehead, and I want it to be lit and filmed exactly like a kiss between lovers.

I've just realised that what I'm envisioning here is basically the forehead kiss Frodo gives Sam at the end of Return of the King.

Anyway! Yes. That's what I want. And when almost certain death is averted, I don't want them to talk about it. It's not that they're awkwardly avoiding the subject; it's just that Jason has accepted the kiss completely. He doesn't need to ask what that was about, because he already knows.

Wow, that was an awful lot of soppy rambling about a pairing with exactly two episodes' worth of material behind it. Watching Atlantis was almost certainly a mistake. For the most part, though, it's a mistake I've enjoyed making.

Comments

[wolfy-writing.livejournal.com]

Aw, that sounds really cute! I'd like to see the kiss you're describing, because I'm very sappy for Frodo and Sam. (I like that, in the end of the book, Sam got to have his normal, happy life with Rosie Cotton and a houseful of children and being elected Mayor many times over, and then he got to go live forever with Mr. Frodo and the elves.)

[wolfy-writing.livejournal.com]

Also, I did fencing in college, and yeah, sword-fighting skills don't instantly happen! There should be some indication he's having training! Ideally, have brief, regular mentions, and the occasional scene of training throughout the season, with him also gradually improving in skill, but even a throwaway montage or "Hi, so-and-so totally gave me intensive sword training!" would be something.

(Not to mention, most modern-day guys have a hard time swinging a fencing foil for five minutes on end without letting it droop, and those only weight a pound - I won many fights by outlasting the guy and scoring a string of points near the end. Real swords are heavy enough that even someone with fairly good upper body strength would have trouble swinging it for a whole fight until they got used to it.)

[rionaleonhart]

I've found the bit in which Jason fails miserably at swordfighting in GIF form, if you're curious! It was a pretty great moment.

[wolfy-writing.livejournal.com]

Nice!

[rionaleonhart]

If you mean to say that you haven't seen the Lord of the Rings films, the scene in which Frodo says goodbye to his friends and kisses Sam is here on YouTube! I think it's a really lovely moment. The films were a bit longer than I generally like films to be, but I feel that they portrayed the love between Frodo and Sam perfectly.

To be fair, Jason's sudden expertise is in hand-to-hand combat rather than swordfighting, but I don't think the average modern-day middle-class English person has much experience of hand-to-hand combat either.

[wolfy-writing.livejournal.com]

I have seen the films, just not for a while. I'll have to watch them again! I love the love between Frodo and Sam. (I don't remember if the movies specified the whole "Sam lived out a long and happy life, and then went to be with Frodo forever" thing or not.)

That's slightly more plausible, but without any set-up, not by much. Did he do martial arts as a hobby? Box? Take a self-defense class once? Or does being the hero make you magically good at fighting?

[rionaleonhart]

Rewatching that scene made me wonder whether I should watch the films again, actually. Or reread the books? It's probably been about a decade since the first and last time I read them; I think I'd have a greater appreciation of them now.

Or does being the hero make you magically good at fighting?

Unless we get any backstory on him (literally the only thing we know about his modern-day life is that he can operate a submarine), I think we're going to have to assume this. He's just not magically good at swordfighting. Maybe Hercules trained him in hand-to-hand combat, but Atlantis's Hercules seems a bit too lazy for that to be plausible.

[wolfy-writing.livejournal.com]

I'm going to choose to believe the show never explains how or why he learned to operate a submarine, and it's just "Hi, I'm Jason, this is my submarine!"

(I should stop before I end up shipping Jason/submarine.)

[rionaleonhart]

I think he probably learnt from his dad, because the beginning of the first episode is just Jason going 'I'M GOING DOWN TO LOOK FOR THE WRECKAGE OF MY DAD'S SUBMARINE' and then he goes down and then something goes horribly wrong and he ends up in Ancient Greece somehow, but I have no idea why he comes from a family of submariners.

(The Jason/submarine pairing ends in tragedy within the first four minutes of the first episode, I'm afraid.)

[wolfy-writing.livejournal.com]

The whole family has inexplicable submarine skills? That's so awesome it almost makes up for sinking the Jason/submarine ship!

[tamsin-m.livejournal.com]

And why is he suddenly a capable fighter? In the first episode, I loved the detail that he quite literally couldn't wield a sword to save his life, because it made absolute sense; chances are that he's never had cause to use a sword before.)

He did somehow somersault away from the hunting lions in the first episode without being sure how he managed it, which gave me the impression that part of his Destiny is having amazing skills specifically when needed by the plot.

[rionaleonhart]

Oh, yes, he did, didn't he? I think I'm going to watch Atlantis from now on under the assumption that Jason is, in fact, the personification of authorial convenience. It does make quite a lot of things fall into place.

[suzie-shooter.livejournal.com]

there was also the way he leaped gracefully into the hole after Medusa, without inconveniently breaking an ankle? (although to be fair she didn't either, and she was chucked in. maybe it was a shallower satyr-hole than at first appeared.) I assumed he has some sort of floaty-mystic body skillz.

[rionaleonhart]

I thought it was pretty obvious that the slow-motion mitigated the impact.

[suzie-shooter.livejournal.com]

maybe the thrusters from the submarine got impacted up his wazzoo when he crashed it?

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

I would've quite liked to have known just why Demetreia was all 'my father is dead to me' in the episode! It seems that would've been slightly more interesting than what actually happened. I was waiting for Jason to discover that the dying man wasn't her actual father or something, but some conniving uncle or whatever pretending to be dying.

[rionaleonhart]

I'd assumed that, as a maenad, she'd just rejected men in general - her father is male, therefore she wants nothing to do with him - but admittedly it's been a while since I last read The Bacchae and my memory of it isn't very clear. It's entirely possible that maenads didn't necessarily reject all men and I'm just misremembering.

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

Hm, point, she was the one who had done all the rituals, unlike Medusa.

[suzie-shooter.livejournal.com]

Have you read halotolerant's Pythagoras/Hercules fic? Because if not, you totally should *g*
http://archiveofourown.org/works/985159

[rionaleonhart]

Oh, that was rather lovely. And a much better experience than my only other venture into Atlantis fanfiction, in which I clicked on a fic link and clicked back out almost immediately. (Five lines in, Jason says he grew up in New York City. Nobody has ever been less from New York City.)

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

♥

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

You echo many of my feelings about Ep 2, except I didn't pick that up about Jason's speech because I was so busy looking past him at Pythagoras.. *g* I do like Jason, but I don't love him - he's magically gifted and it seems to cause him NO PROBLEMS, which is incorrect *g* (Merlin of course had the appropriate 'oh shit, I'm gifted, this sucks!' situation)

I was laughing at the fact that Pythagoras and Hercules got a 'moment', having gone out on a limb to ship them last week... *G* Medusa is awesome, I hope she's a fixture.

[rionaleonhart]

Jason is pretty much the least interesting part of Atlantis so far. I might care more about him if he felt more like a real person, but his ridiculous speech patterns mean that I'm always intensely aware of the fact that he's a character and someone has written his lines. The only thing that makes him feel real to me, come to think of it, is his connection with Pythagoras, which is possibly why I'm 'shipping Pythagoras/Jason quite a lot despite my general lack of interest in Jason.

(I did love his 'I'm alive too', though.)

The moment between Pythagoras and Hercules was by far my favourite part of the episode. It was so lovely! (And I'd actually written that weird ramble about pre-death forehead kissing before I saw the second episode, and therefore before we got outright confirmation that Pythagoras is prone to pre-death displays of emotion. If he's going to die, he wants to die in the arms of someone he loves. Or possibly he was just terrified and clinging to Hercules for comfort. Either possibility is adorable. I love Pythagoras.)

I'd be delighted to see more of Medusa! I have a strange feeling that something bad might happen to her in the future, though. Can't imagine why.

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

Pythagoras and Hercules are So Very Married, I've realised. They snark about who may or may not have spilt this or drunk that or forgotten the other (again!) but underneath is a long history and clearly a lot of affection *happysigh* I really hope we'll get more canon about their history...

Medusa is clearly the Morgana of Atlantis. If it ain't broke, etc... *g*

[zeitheist.livejournal.com]

Aw man, I'm so glad somebody I know is enjoying Atlantis. I've already had Stern-But-Passive-Aggressive-Words with my Twitter and Tumblr followers about constantly picking on this show and its fans.

I do want a kiss. Just one. I want a scenario in which one of the pair faces almost certain death, and I want Pythagoras to kiss Jason on the forehead, and I want it to be lit and filmed exactly like a kiss between lovers.

This would be incredible and lovely and also very awkward for me, since I watch this show with my parents and this scenario would be almost guaranteed to make me incoherent with joy.

I actually liked Jason's little speech - coupled with his Mysterious Powers it felt appropriately threatening - but you're right about it sounding a little bit weird coming from him. I like to think that he was internally freaking out, and trying to mask it by emulating a character from The Lord of the Rings.

Pythagoras is seriously lovely. Did you also fall in love with him during the first episode, where he specifically refused to leave the city because it would mean a complete stranger dying in his place. Also, like you, I would prefer to see Pythagoras and Jason in a non-romantic (or, at least, a non-physically-romantic) relationship. I don't know if this is a side-effect of having a main character who is so very displaced and alone, but I really just want to see Pythagoras and Jason being buddies. It's awful. Every time I try to envision them kissing, I'm all, "wouldn't it be better if Jason got drunk and Pythagoras looked after him?"

[rionaleonhart]

People are constantly awful about Atlantis! I particularly like all the 'it's terrible, unlike Merlin, which as we all know was made of solid gold' complaints. I adore Merlin, but come on.

I like to think that he was internally freaking out, and trying to mask it by emulating a character from The Lord of the Rings.

Hee, I suppose that works! I think I'm going to have to assume that he's generally trying to mimic the speech patterns of the people around him, which makes sense; if I ever get suddenly thrown into the world of Pride and Prejudice, which is a scenario I worry about more than I probably should, I'll probably at least attempt to speak like an Austen character.

Did you also fall in love with him during the first episode, where he specifically refused to leave the city because it would mean a complete stranger dying in his place.

That was lovely! I think what really cemented my love for him was the way he clung to Hercules in the second episode when he thought they were doomed, though. ('Non-physically-romantic relationship' is pretty much the perfect description of what I want from Pythagoras and Jason.)

I'm so glad you're enjoying this ridiculous show as well!