Bogus Gold

Jonah disagrees with an LA Times columnist who found Tom Zarek's execution of the Quorum. First, the LA Times guy:

As it became increasingly clear that Tom Zarek was the revolutionary voice behind the coup, we had to wonder if the past Gaeta, the smart guy doing all he could to help keep the ship's computer systems afloat, would revert back to the good guy who just wanted to help. That was severely tested when crazy Zarek decided to disband the quorum by killing them all. "Shoot them." What?! Where?! Huh?!

This was a misstep, meaning by the writers. Gasp! Yeah, I said it. Though Zarek has been shown to be a ruthless and power-hungry guy, he has not been shown to be an unconscionable murderer. There was always the sense that he really believed what he was doing was right, though under it all you knew he just wanted to be in charge. Or at least, that's how it seemed he was set up. When he killed his fellow representatives, he crossed the line from the people's man to the political butcher and doomed Gaeta in the process. Obviously, the "Battlestar" story crafters wanted a dramatic shift to occur during the coup, but it felt like a little more than just "doing what had to be done."

To which Jonah responds:

I couldn't disagree more. The brilliance of Zarek's night of the long knives was that he understood better than anyone what they were doing. He was the consummate revolutionary and former terrorist, who understood at every step that victory mattered more than anything else (note: as a moral matter, I think this is all nuts) because he day dreamed about power while pretending to be a democrat. What I like about the characters on BSG is that they are flawed, deeply flawed, sometimes idiotically flawed. The notion that Zarek wouldn't cross that line stems from a misguided belief that people with good intentions don't end up doing terrible evil.

To which I further respond...

Goldberg is right but doesn't explain it well enough. The LA Times guy is being naive in a particularly telling manner.

The Tom Zarek back story is one of the less appreciated subtle touches the writers put into BSG long ago. They gave us a pretty clear idea that Zarek was a demagogic revolutionary who was considered unquestionably dangerous by everyone who remembered him from the old days, before the Cylon attack. He was only released from prison because he effectively manipulated Lee Adama into advocating a compromise on his behalf during a crisis. Demagogues are very good at making others believe them like that. It's one of the things that makes them so dangerous.

One needs to ask oneself, in a show as dark as BSG should we really believe someone considered incredibly dangerous by the most consistent voices of authority on the show - Admiral Adama and President Roslin - would be incapable of cold-blooded murder in a moment of crisis? Particularly in the moment of a revolutionary coup?

I actually paused the show when Zarek ordered the murder of the Quorum to rave to my wife (and fellow BSG addict) about how realistic that was. It's a classic revolutionary tactic adopted by Marxist revolutions throughout the 20th Century. If you can't coopt the existing power structures, you eliminate them. The idea is you cannot allow the people any other option to turn to for leadership. Once it has begun, the alternative to a successful revolution is execution of the revolutionaries. Therefore anything opposing the revolution is "counter-revolutionary" and punished by death. This is done routinely by revolutionary "heroes."

For Tom Zarek substitute "Che Guevara" and you'll quickly see how it is not only possible but common for revolutionaries to become "political butchers" while maintaining their aura as high-minded idealists. Zarek has always been portrayed in a way consistent with Marxist revolutionaries, and the execution of the Quorum is just one more gritty reminder about what lies behind that kind of politics.

I suspect the LA Times guy found this plot turn implausible for the same reason he wouldn't find anything particularly offensive in someone wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt. When the dirty reality of revolution conflicts with the high-minded ideal, some consistently choose to believe in the latter and ignore the former.

UPDATE:

In response to some of the other supposed "implausibilties" within the plotline I found when reading the comments of that LA Times article...

Yes, it totally DID make sense that Adama and Tigh stayed with the ship rather than escape with President Roslin. That's modeled after real world naval command examples.

The commander of a naval ship who fled in the face of a mutiny would be disgraced. Personal honor is a very big deal in military culture, and the honor of a ship commander is very much tied to what happens to his ship. It would have been entirely out of character for a commander who has shown a sense of honor and bravery far above the norm to suddenly turn tail and flee without concern for his duty.

As for Tigh, he was also being very consistent with who he has been. If Adama left, he may well have gone with him. But once Adama decided to stay, not a chance. In the end Tigh has always been true to that friendship even when he's been at his worst. He's also been a salty s-b who would definitely take satisfaction in thinking he might be able to take a few mutineers out before he went down himself.

As for why Zarek deferred to Gaeta over key matters like allowing Adama to have a semblance of a trial, that's very simple. The military was following Gaeta, not Zarek. Zarek needed Gaeta far more than the other way around. It was only after Gaeta gained the compliance of his fellow mutineers that he went to Zarek. Without the support of Gaeta, Zarek wouldn't have had his revolution at all.