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STARGATE SG-1 SOLUTIONS TEAM AND CHARACTER ESSAYS


Peaceful Explorer: Dr.  Daniel Jackson
Character Evolution 

I believe the key to Daniel's character is the honesty, humanity and passion he brings to all his beliefs and actions.  The key to Daniel's characterisation is subtlety.  

"I think the joy of discovery was probably the most - the most positive aspect of the character, that I enjoyed to play the most. It was always - always whenever archaeology was involved, whenever he was within his element that it was fun to play that level of excitement...Torment of Tantalus that was the most fun for the character to play is that joy of discovery, of something that's bigger than all of us to discover. And that's what I really felt that the show - when the show was peaking at its strongest was when we did episodes where that - that - that discovery was happening, that initial 'What's out there?' and - you know - how does it pertain to the questions we ask about ourselves in our society and archaeology like...'What kind of questions of our own existence can we answer from looking out there?'  And I think that's where the character fits strongly into the show and when it didn't go there the character seemed to fall out of place." 

Michael Shanks, SydneyCon, Sep 2001.

"You see, that's not true, I'm just - I'm  choosing the best way to fulfill my true function.  You see, sometimes hierarchical command structures don't allow you to consider all the possible options."

Daniel Jackson, 'Scorched Earth'.

In seasons one to three, writers Robert C. Cooper, Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright all consistently delivered the best characterisation of Daniel, and of the pivotal Jack and Daniel friendship, so crucial to the team dynamic and frankly, the success of the show.  Season Three introduced Peter DeLuise, who along with Robert C. Cooper has written the best characterisation of Daniel in Season Four and the best Jack and Daniel friendship.  Actually, the only Jack and Daniel friendship, with the exception of 'The Light', written by James Phillips, which was a tad on the ambiguous side.  In Season Five, the honours go again to Peter DeLuise in the two significant Daniel episodes of the season, 'Beast Of Burden' and 'Menace'. 

Character Evolution

Question:
How do you think your character has developed through the series?

Michael Shanks:
That's a long question to answer. I think Daniel has become more of a team player, and less of an outsider than he began as, by the nature of the growing character relationships. I stress that his attitude toward violence hasn't changed, though his involvement in the action seems to have increased. But I don't think his beliefs or genuine sensitivity towards the subject will ever change.

Michael Shanks online chat, February 1998

Daniel is the only character to consistently and demonstrably evolve as a person changed by his experiences.  The excellent work done on Sam's character in seasons one - three was undone in Season Four when her interaction with the team was exclusively focused on Jack and in Season Five when she was re-engineered as Super Sam Saviour Of The Universe in lieu of growing as a flawed and real individual.  Sam has done better than Jack, who has if anything become more entrenched and in Seasons Four and Five is so much less the man he was (The Other Side, Divide and Conquer, Beneath The Surface) and in some cases a man we don't know at all (Summit, Last Stand).  Teal'c has had a number of episodes that dealt with his past: his family in Season One's 'Bloodlines' and Season Two's 'Family', the intensity of his flaws such as the need for revenge in Season Three's 'Fair Game' and Season Four's exploration of his cold-blooded pragmatism, 'Crossroads', 'Serpents Venom' and back to the Jaffa revenge thing in 'Exodus'.  The sudden revelation of Teal'c's past as a Jaffa and as First Prime, how he lost his faith in his god and gained his cause in Season Five's 'Threshold' was in stark contrast to four seasons of limited character insight and many scenes where he loomed magnificently in the background intoning 'Indeed' as some sort of Jaffa punctuation thing.

In the pilot, I was thrilled to see that both leads Richard Dean Anderson and Michael Shanks not only understood the vital chemistry of Jack and Daniel in the Stargate movie, but surpassed it.  I admit my hopes weren't high after the dreadful trailer for the Stargate SG-1 first series on video in the UK.  We got Jack looking heroic.  Doctor Samantha Carter: visionary genius.  Daniel Jackson: the man who gets them home.  I was not impressed.  In fact my parents and I as firm fans of the film were fairly pissed off by the trailer and the attempt to bump Daniel down in importance.  I've never, ever got that.  Never.  Who cared about Sam before they'd even seen the pilot?  We did care about Daniel though, because Stargate was his journey.  We also cared a lot that the producers didn't seem to.

Daniel's experiences have often been painful and he has always learned from them.  It is easy to see why Daniel is so loved by the fans and why we identify with him so strongly.  He is gentle and kind, literally what Jack accuses him of in 'Shades of Grey': 'sweet and nice'.  He is moral; a man of great integrity and honesty.  Daniel speaks to the humanity in us all, his empathy and compassion for others at the root of his driving need to communicate.  He lives and breathes his work, totally focused and driven by the need to know.  He is loyal to his adopted family, a friend and confidante to each of his teammates, though hesitant on his own behalf at times.  His awe and wonder at the universe and the living past unfolding before him engage us, and when he speaks for the team and for the best in us, he is challenging intellectually and emotionally.  Daniel isn't perfect.  His innocence and naïveté are as dangerous as they are charming.  His hatred of the Goa'uld is destructive; he can be distracted by his consuming passion for discovery, ruthless, fearless and selfish.  He talks too much and sometimes says too little.

Daniel has flaws.  They make him...human.  

His immediate impact on the viewer is once of innocence and enthusiasm, constantly demonstrating the awe and wonder of an amateur rather than the lateral-thinking genius he truly is.  In fact, I have always found the Season One trailer description of Sam Carter more apposite for Daniel: visionary genius.  Daniel's intensity of focus must often be tempered by Jack's protectiveness.  I don't consider this to be a character flaw; as Jack said in 'A Hundred Days', Daniel is always right.  

His role requires focus.  

"You see, that's not true, I'm just - I'm  choosing the best way to fulfill my true function.  You see, sometimes hierarchical command structures don't allow you to consider all the possible options."

Daniel Jackson, Season Four, 'Scorched Earth'

Effectively, Daniel's job is to communicate with the living cultures the team encounters, to translate the evidence of the past and to interpret not just languages, but events and individuals for and on behalf of the team.  Daniel's role in ensuring Jack's ability to threat assess cannot be underestimated.  He is the only one among them with anthropological, archaeological and linguistic expertise to adequately comprehend alien cultures.   Jack has excellent instincts about people and situations (something Brad Wright overlooked or ignored in 'The Other Side' in Season Four, a story which remains inexplicable for its depiction of Jack no matter how often I see it).  

Teal'c has more practical experience of some of these cultures, certainly, but even as First Prime the assumption of deity by the Goa'uld kept him ignorant.  All was attributed to the power of the gods, although that was contradicted all the way through the series as he showed his familiarity with all manner of Goa'uld goodies, which rather attacked his credibility as a humble slave.  Though he is intelligent, Teal'c is not educated as Daniel is and his function as a warrior precluded social contact with the species and peoples Apophis conquered, enslaved or slaughtered.  His role is pragmatic and tactically focused.  Sam complements Daniel's expertise with her own grasp of physics, mathematics and technology, reeling off technical and scientific facts with the best of them.

It takes Daniel time to adjust his presentation of pertinent data to meet the expectations of a military audience rather than an academic.  He is often concerned with explanations, the why of things, when all Jack needs from him is the what - enough data to make a judgement about the situation the team is in.  Enthusiasm plays a big part in this tendency, along with endless inquisitiveness and questioning of assumptions and values.  I'm trying really hard to avoid trigger words like adorable, sweet and cute, mostly because it is.

Two of my favourite explorations of this facet of Daniel's character are Season One's 'Thor's Hammer' and Season Three's 'Seth'.  In the first, I enjoy the subtlety of the briefing in which Daniel is presenting his case to take the team to Cimmeria.  The exchange of glances between the two men, Daniel seeming to check with Jack that he's doing okay, and Jack's close observation suggest that Daniel has received some coaching.  Jack's rapid interjection of the pertinent tactical data when Hammond grows restive are simple enough proof he and Daniel have discussed the mission.  Jack is nothing short of doting when Daniel excitedly snatches the Sagan box from General Hammond and scampers up the ramp.

In later episodes we see Daniel's passion for exploration undiminished but more informed by what will 'sell' a mission to the military mindset.  Daniel is nothing if not adaptable.  In Season Three's Seth, we see that Daniel's enthusiasm for research is undimmed, and he is still prone to lecture an unsuspecting audience.  Jack is not without defences.  He and Daniel have developed a signal.  Jack simply has to say 'Yadda' to stop Daniel in his tracks.

Daniel's presentation to Hammond and the rest of SG-1 in Season Five's 'Beast of Burden' is in marked contrast with his performance in 'Thor's Hammer'.  Here Daniel leads Hammond from the tactical to the personal, effectively selling the mission and then its importance to him.  Jack is the one who doesn't get it this time round.  The whole team unites to show him he doesn't get it (cue a killer look from Sam, very much back in protective mode with Daniel, a change I welcomed particularly as the Sam and Daniel friendship is one of the main reasons I watch the show.)

We saw in Season One that Jack and Daniel's relationship is conducted on a personal footing.  I have to presume this is for the first time in Jack's career.  Jack's experience and skills are evident: he is casual about invoking his rank unless circumstances dictate, he is flexible, resourceful and responsive, letting his team think and act for themselves, but there is never any doubt he is the guy in charge.  He is very comfortable with his authority.  Only security in his abilities could allow Jack to be so relaxed and caring of his team.  He respects Daniel as an equal and Daniel's occasional use of 'Colonel' in the early episodes of Season One - such as in 'Emancipation' - are promptly corrected to 'Jack'.  Daniel as a highly educated civilian consultant is notionally Jack's equivalent in rank but it is clear Jack is comfortable with their equality.

I heard an excellent quote in the movie 'Titans': 'attitude reflects leadership'.

Daniel pushes Jack, argues with him, occasionally gives him orders...he appears to have no respect for military protocol, but this is far from the truth.  He responds to Jack as Jack responds to him, as an individual and an equal.   Their relationship would not be possible without respect, trust and understanding of one another.  I also happily give credit for Jack knowing exactly how much latitude Daniel needs to work at his best.  He's a lateral thinker, complementing Sam's more rigidly logical approach.  His openness to consider new and unusual - okay, okay, flaky - ideas would not be possible in a prescribed, traditional militaristic setting. 

Hammond understands this too and he gives Daniel latitude to just be Daniel.  One of Hammond's best characteristics is his taste in archaeologists.  He can kick Jack's ass without breaking a sweat but when it comes to Daniel he's full of 'How's our boy?' and 'Bring our boy home'.  I fully support this.

Daniel is not hostile to the military.  It simply takes him time to adjust.  One subtle indicator of his growing familiarity with the hierarchical command structure he is part of is shown in mission briefings.  In the earliest episodes Daniel remains seated while the Jack and Sam stand to attention for Hammond.  In later episodes we see Daniel join them, and he customarily refers to Hammond as 'Sir'.  His manner reflects that of his teammates.  Some of Daniel's faux pas are very amusing.  The scenes where he and Jack exchange their own versions of tactical hand signals always make me laugh at loud, especially Daniel's walking fingers.  I always appreciate how Daniel brings out Jack's inner child too, the loud, pissy 'look at ME!' delinquent teen we know and adore.  Walking fingers aside, Daniel hasn't the least difficulty covering Jack's back.

I must admit I've always enjoyed attributing the slow change in Daniel's application of common protocol to Sam's coaching.  The two of them grew so close from the earliest days of the show; it was obvious from the pilot they were hitting it off and one of my favourite moments from Season One comes in 'The Enemy Within' as Sam and Daniel are walking down a hallway, mid-conversation.  It's obvious Sam has coaxed Daniel into confiding in her.  

I would argue that Daniel has all the latitude Jack allows him and no more.  Jack's manner with Daniel is in marked contrast with his manner towards Sam and Teal'c, whom he clearly does consider his subordinates, though he is always respectful of Teal'c, who has his own reasons for being with the team and tends to do everything he agrees with as hard as he damned well can.  It is not until 'Shades of Grey' and the episodes of Season Four where we see serious emotionally damaging conflict between them.  Again I would argue that the conflict and antagonism are entirely on Jack's part, and a deliberate, utterly inexplicable attempt on the part of the writers to alienate and distance the two core characters.  Daniel adores and respects Jack, and one of the nastier tastes left by Jack's appalling characterisation for much of Season Four is how it impacts on Daniel who can't do right for doing wrong throughout Season Four.  

Contrast Daniel's wide-eyed excited rush to the gateroom in 'Small Victories', his overwhelming joy and relief to see his dear friends alive and well, and safely home with him again.  The reaction of his dear friends?  Zip.  Nada.  Zilch.  Compare Daniel's heartfelt relief and joy when he and Sam save Jack and Teal'c in 'Tangent', and the reaction of Daniel's teammates when he is miraculously and somewhat improbably returned from death in 'The Light'.  It's possible they were quite pleased they didn't have to break in a new fourth on SG-1.  Hard to tell, really.  They were standing so far away.  They didn't hug him, or say anything, or...anything.  We can assume they were okay with the fact Daniel was still alive.  

[We can be absolutely certain nobody in the writing team actually came out and said to the cast, hey, don't emote over four eyes unless you're yelling, he cut his hair, we're pissed, and we're writin' him out even if he is the most popular character.  The audience will get over it.

Am I imagining this?  Look at MGM's merchandising, what little there is.  They will not sell a single item that features Daniel with short hair, except unavoidable stuff like the season portraits.  Daniel had no presence in the SG-1 trading cards, much to the astonishment and anger of fans.  He was excluded from the 2002 calendar, and fans were so pissed off they tried to cancel their orders.  He's been pretty much excluded from the marketing of the videos and DVDs since Season Three - the season of adorably rumpled tendrils across the brow.  

It constantly baffles, bewilders and infuriates me and a lot of other people.  Why the hell have MGM done this?  We can't count the ways we've told them and shown them that we LOVE Daniel Jackson.  We LOVE Michael Shanks.  God knows we embarrass the poor man all over the internet with talk of his big blue eyes and the Toes, and his adorably ruffled hair and beautiful face and skin like a baby's butt (actually that was the slightly surprised husband of a keen fan who'd been press ganged into printing out a nice colour photo, not the fan herself)...we just objectify the shit out of him.  Not that we don't completely respect his acting talent or anything.  Ahem.  Mr. Shanks cannot be held responsible that his talent comes in...well...that package.  And if people like Peter DeLuise would stop pandering to us with lingering ass shots of Daniel in tight white pants, we'd get over it all a lot quicker, capisce?

So this whole hair thing.  We're projecting, right?  Just like we were projecting the team dynamic and that lovely friendship between Jack and Daniel for three years.  But there ya go.  One quarter of the audience recalled seasons one to three quite well actually and quit in Season Four.  

The President of MGM had a slightly different view to the fans.  This anecdote still makes people snigger in outright disbelief at the marketing genius of MGM several years after the event:

Michael Shanks interviewed on Vicky Gabereau

"The first thing...I sat down to a meeting with the president of MGM and he said, 'So you're gonna grow the hair back, right?...They want me to be the freaky hippiesh kind of doctor scientist geek kind of nerdy guy."

Ask the audience!  We just want him to be Daniel.  Not wallpaper.  The hair in Season Three was adorable.   Season Four was too short but definitely sexy and in Season Five it was cute, just fell-out-bed rumpled.  We love the hair as is.  It comes along with the rest of the package and when we're not enthralled by the pure pleasure of Daniel being Daniel we're all looking at his ass anyway.

It just came out this way, like the team wasn't supposed to care about Daniel because he was being written out for what we saw on screen for most of Season Four.  And Five.  Although, to be fair, even though Daniel was being the most beguiling wallpaper imaginable in Season Five, in those odd moments they weren't being towers of noble strength, Jack and Sam did appear to give a shit about him and they did talk to him while he hung about in the background or snoozed gently over a book.

Quite.

The conflict was manufactured.  As has been discussed by other analysts, such as PhoenixE, the only comparable incident of conflict in canon was during the sonic-induced illness of 'One False Step'.  The emotional impact of that was such it shocked both men into realisation something was seriously wrong.  Jack is often impatient, arrogant, overbearing, sarcastic and pissy, but he trusts Daniel wholeheartedly and demonstrably (witness his acceptance of Daniel back into the team after his recovery from addiction in 'Need').  He can also be remarkably patient and generous, almost indulgent.  This characterised his behaviour in episodes such as 'Maternal Instinct'.

Conflict has to be manufactured because Daniel does not take things personally.  With few exceptions he is professional, and if he steps outside mission protocol it is because of his humanity.  Jack wryly accepts these occasional errors of judgement as part of who Daniel is and makes certain Daniel understands situations where he MUST do as Jack orders.  We see him exert his authority in 'The Nox' when he tells Daniel outright that he is giving him an order.  Though he has argued his case to pursue Apophis passionately, and his reasons are personal, Daniel uses a convincing tactical argument.  Jack agrees with his assessment but reins Daniel in.  Though Daniel pulls a face, he subsides.  If Jack didn't trust Daniel to obey him, he wouldn't have him on the team.  Inconceivable Jack would risk Daniel's life or that of Sam or Teal'c to indulge his friend's thirst for exploration.

Daniel's academic background and training have all been geared towards debate and the exchange of ideas...I feel it is this rather than any intent to be insubordinate or even realisation that his actions could be interpreted as such that leads Daniel to question and challenge Jack.

It is one of the key ways in which their relationship is different that Jack doesn't exert his authority over Daniel to shut him up.  It was challenging Jack's beliefs and assumptions that saved his men on Abydos, and Jack himself.  Daniel may argue his point of view forcefully, but in the end, Jack is in command.  He chooses to grant Daniel the right to question him and if Daniel proves his point, it's Jack who gives way.  It's interesting that Daniel will argue, and if Jack does put his foot down and Daniel thinks he's wrong, he'll sulk blatantly at Jack, but he also does what Jack says.  Even in 'The Other Side' as hurt as he is by what Jack is saying to him, when Jack tells Daniel to shut up, he shuts up.  He also goes to the gate and starts dialling.  

Equality is also a keynote of another interesting strand to their complex relationship.  Jack de facto allows Daniel to step outside the command structure unless the team is in danger.  We have at least one major canon incident where Jack leaves his team in a perilous situation to go scout the terrain.  Season One's 'The First Commandment' was a poor episode all round for Sam, but one of her worst acts was outright insubordination.  Left in command in Jack's absence, Sam abandoned the team in the arrogant belief she could handle the situation and her ex-fiancée, and when she was proved wrong, Jack was left to cope with a significantly worse tactical situation.  

The interesting thing for me is that Jack left Daniel with his 2IC and the ex-First Prime of Apophis.  The shine wasn't off Teal'c's armour at this point.  When Jack returns to find Sam gone, he holds Daniel responsible.  It's an extraordinary moment, one I've never forgotten in five series.  It demonstrates the real pecking order of the team more clearly than anything else.  Jack too steps outside the chain of command.  

Daniel isn't the obvious choice for command - he can be distracted by the sight of a well-turned mosaic pavement or shapely Doric column - but he is a natural leader.  He certainly has no hesitation in taking Jack head on at his worst, something we are led to believe is fairly unique in Jack's experience.  Jack needs to be pushed at times, and I think comes to depend on Daniel to do exactly that.  It is manifest in 'Cor-Ai' where Jack's explosive outbursts when Teal'c doesn't bend to his will leave Daniel unshaken and unimpressed.  It is to Daniel that Jack addresses his feelings.

Daniel can be passionate in his advocacy of what he believes to be right (he fought for the rights of Teal'c in Season One's 'Cor-Ai' and for both Kera/Linea  and Skaara in Season Three), stubborn to the point of infuriation and annoyingly independent minded, but he is never angry at individuals he cares about.  He reserves his rage for the lies that blind and the sins of omission and commission, and his hatred of Apophis and the Goa'uld led directly to one of the core lessons of Daniel's arc, when the dream imparted to him by Shifu finally made him realise he needed another path in Season Four's 'Absolute Power'.

I've never cared much for the episode 'Politics' except for the small and interesting scene where we see Daniel stubbornly fighting for what he believes is right.  He is telling the truth about his experiences in 'There But For The Grace Of God' and that's enough to drive him on though no one believes him.  The truth is one of Daniel's core values.  He refuses to take the easy path if it leads to a lie.  For someone who has had to fight for attention for much of his life - fostering, rather than adoption, implies some turnover in family placements - and whose body language is often tense and defensive, I find Daniel's embracing of embarrassment to make sure he's heard by Kinsey both difficult and admirable.  

Daniel was never a stereotypical pacifist.  This was established in the movie and Michael Shanks made sure to incorporate this element into his portrayal of Daniel.  I noticed immediately in the pilot 'Children of the Gods' that the Abydonians were very comfortable and practiced with their weapons and their defence of the gateroom.  A pacifist could not be allowed to accompany a small team off-world, where everyone has to be able to rely absolutely on the others to watch their six.  We saw him display his proficiency with a pistol (which he carries on each mission), a staff weapon in Season One's 'The Nox', an MP-5 and a pistol together in Season Two's 'The Serpent's Lair', and a P-90 in Season Five's premiere 'Enemies'.  In the same way he didn't hesitate to take the staff blast for Jack on Abydos, he didn't hesitate to fire the staff weapon at Ra to help free Jack and his men.  Daniel takes as full a part in the fighting as his training and experience allow.  All of his teammates trust him to back them up or he simply wouldn't be with the team.  

We hear in Season Three's 'Forever in a Day' that Daniel has spent half his life studying the written word.  His expertise is in ancient languages and cultures.  I tend to think first and foremost of him as a linguist, his specialised branch of archaeology.  Daniel's primary role on the team is communication.   I'd go further and say the need to communicate is another of Daniel's core values.  In Season Two's 'One False Step' he comments to Jack, "Well, I've tried everything I know about rudimentary communication, and, to be honest, I've had more successful conversations with dogs."  

Daniel throughout the series has approached violence as an outcome of the failure to communicate.  He has certainly never hesitated to kill or die for his teammates.  He is however discriminating about who and why he chooses to fight.  In the movie our first hint of Daniel's stance on violence comes during the revelation that without the necessary symbols, he can't get Jack's men home.  Kawalsky knocks Daniel on his ass and Daniel offers no resistance.  At this point the viewer isn't sure if it is because he can't or he won't.  The question is answered emphatically throughout the movie.  Daniel won't. 

In Season One's 'Bloodlines' we see him go to the opposite extreme, opening fire with Sam's MP-5 on a container full of larval Goa'uld outside the temple on Chulak.  This act can be interpreted a number of ways.  I always regretted Sam's comment to Daniel about him being no better than the Goa'uld.  That made his motivation a cold-blooded act of retribution.  I've always thought the more logical explanation was simply that everyone of those larval Goa'uld represented a human host enslaved.  Murder?  Yes, I'd have to agree.  Daniel took the lives of sentient beings.  Justified?  To Daniel it was.  He acts from moral imperatives and a conscience is always expensive.  His intent cannot be doubted, but he does believe his choice is right.  

Daniel's strength is not in doubt.  He can be both formidable and ruthless as was seen so clearly here.  He will frequently decide on a course of action and pursue it with single-minded determination.  His killing of the larval Goa'uld is one example.  There are others:

· Advocating that SG-1 attacks Apophis in 'The Nox'
· Fighting for Teal'c's freedom in Cor-Ai
· Insisting on raising his experiences in the alternate reality in 'Politics' even though no one believes him, despite the irrefutable physical evidence of the staff weapon blast to his shoulder
· Dragging himself to the sarcophagus on Klorel's ship even though he was mortally wounded in Season Two's 'The Serpent's Lair'
· Battling free of the influence of the drugs that kept him from thinking straight during his incarceration in Mental Health in Season Three's 'Legacy'
· Arguing that Kera couldn't be held responsible for the crimes of Linea as she was no longer that person and using Teal'c's history as First Prime and Jack's trust in Teal'c in evidence against them
· Retrieving the communication device after being tortured by Apophis in 'The Devil You Know'
· Pursuing the hidden agenda of Alar in 'The Other Side' with Hammond's blessing despite Jack's aggression and his isolation from his team
· Communicating with the Unas Chaka instead of killing him in 'The First Ones'
· Seeking other options in 'Scorched Earth' - recognising that Lotan and the ship had no ill-intent towards the Enkarrans and negotiating long past the point Jack had resolved to annihilate the Gad-Meer
· Determinedly exploring the dreams and distant memories that led to him and the others recalling their true selves in 'Beneath The Surface'
· Fighting for the freedom of Chaka and the slave Unas in 'Beast of Burden'

Alison

Continued in part two | go |

(c) 2002 Alison.  All rights recognised.  No copyright infringement intended.

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