Stargate (SG-1) -- Daniel in four and five

[butterfly]

I think I have a handle on the Daniel arcs of seasons four and five. Four is about Daniel being distanced from the team -- he's feeling left-out, whether or not that is anyone else's intention (and I don't think that it is anyone's intention). So, he concentrates more fully on finding a peaceful 'Daniel' solution to any given problem. He's okay, because he's right. He has the moral high-ground. He's the good guy.

This arc peaks in Absolute Power, where Daniel sees one way that that path can lead. In the season five episodes that I've seen, there's an edge of desperation to his actions that I just don't sense in season four. He's losing confidence in his ability to make anything better. As the season wears on, his sense that he knows anything about the way to do things fades more and more and he compensates by throwing himself headfirst into finding a way to prove that he is right, is valid.

This peaks in Menace. Whether or not he was right, he couldn't fix things. He couldn't make things right. And he doesn't see how to change that. Everything that he's touching is breaking, possibly because he's holding onto things so very tightly. He's forgotten that you have to hold sand loosely and that clenching your fist only causes it to slip through your fingers.

In Meridian, he sees a way out, a way to truly make a difference on a level that he thinks he isn't capable of on this plane. Of being able to be in the right.

Then, of course, he finds that he still has rules and restrictions. He tries to abide, to not interfere. To follow Oma's teachings. Ultimately, he does choose to go against those rules.

But I haven't seen that part of his story yet.

In other news, my mom recently gave me the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves, which is further proof that she knows me well, as it's a punctuation book and I have an abiding interest in the English language.