John Sheppard, Stargate Atlantis Character Mini-Essay

[sporangia]

 

 

 

The following is a mini-essay is a response to Ann Tara’s comments about John Sheppard’s background. I managed to lose it on my computer for about a month.    This is the beginning of a continuing series of observations I will be posting. I will label all my essays and post them under cuts, so if you are not interested in reading ponderous character analysis you (happy reader) can skip them.

 

 

 

 

 

John Sheppard, Stargate Atlantis an On Going Character Analysis

 

 
I'm never not going to regret the producers refusing to really delve into John's background. We know his father wanted him to go to Harvard, so he purposely chose to go to Stanford instead, which is certainly one of the top schools in the country. Not exactly a slacker institution. But John is a CA boy and wanted to stay on the west coast, and didn't desire the pretentiousness of the Eastern Ivy League. Definitely not his style. But I got the impression he also didn't want to go the Harvard route specifically because it's what his father wanted. Yet, if he had, he would have gotten further away from his family much sooner, so obviously being rebellious in that regard was more important to him. :)  Ann Tara

 

 

 

John Sheppard, Stargate Atlantis an On Going Character Analysis

 

Since I watched all the Stargate Atlantis episodes within a three month period, I didn’t have years between the seasons to think and rethink Sheppard’s background. I’ve started exploring this universe when it was mostly a closed fandom. I was initially puzzled why so many writers wrote him from a military background. I realize now that a military history made a lot of sense (early on), especially in the absence of canonical information. I also think fan author’s liked the angst of exploring Sheppard’s potential bi-sexuality or gay issues against that background.

 

I however like the rich-kid-slumming model of Sheppard’s background. I’m tending away from John’s family rupture being caused by a ‘big gay freak out’ as the fans call it. What I liked about the Harvard book is it’s insight into prep school education, and how that spills over into college success, and life success through social contacts.

 

The out-of-sight wealthy, the super rich what ever you want to call them, don’t necessarily send their kids to the Ivy’s. They don’t need too, especially if their kid’s are going to inherit. They are just as likely to send their kids to smaller (still very prestigious) liberal arts colleges. The Harvard track tends to be the destination of the upper-middle class kids, who want in to make the contacts will launch them into successful careers. 

 

I was over helping Elemgi with some box moving, and between bouts of hauling book boxes I asked her opinion about Sheppard’s background. Specifically was Sheppard from old money or new money?   (Nouveau riche)  That makes a big difference, especially in his college path. Elemgi’s answer to my question was—“mother old money, father new money.” I realized she was correct.

 

This explains the dichotomy in Sheppard’s character. He’s inherited his father’s aggressive management skills and also his father’s egalitarian attitude toward the value of a self-made-man.   From his mother he’s inherited his artistic side (love of books, music, math and science) as well as his goofy sense of humor, and oddly from her an unconscious projection of patrician manners and attitudes (his coolness of temperament and a touch of moralistic snobbery—his…. ‘I’m smarter than everyone else’ attitude that causes him to ignore other people’s opinions and instigate actions, recklessly and totally on his own sense of certainly) 

 

It makes sense for the self-made Patrick Sheppard to want his son to go to Harvard. Sheppard’s mother on the other hand would have encouraged him in a different direction. Telling her son to follow his own heart--Sadly she probably died before she could help him with that.

 

I don’t think Sheppard’s difficulty with his father was because of John’s sexuality.  There are lots of complicated reasons for why I believe that, but I won’t go into them here. Except that if Sheppard was even minimally smart about his personal life, his father would have never known his son was gay.

 

I think John from a very young age knew what he ‘didn’t’ want to do with his life, and knew he and his father were on a collision course. John internalized correctly that his father’s plans were not to be argued with, and that youthful rebellion wasn’t going to get him what he wanted. Instead of emotional rebellion John utilized his intelligence to manipulate situations and people to circumvent his father’s plans. 

 

John as a child and as an adult is fiercely intelligent, perhaps too much for his own good in that he took control of his life in his early teens, and made choices that were reactive rather then proactive about his future. He perfected his escape skills at the expense of discovering who he really was. And the path he set himself on, specifically the military was a choice made without consideration of his personal needs. Meaning he probably didn’t consider the amount of group and interpersonal interaction a career military officer would be required to make. As a teenager he was seduced by the Top Gun lone-pilot fantasy. After the glow of pilot training passed he would come to understand that the military in many was just as entrapping as his family life had been.

 

Fairly early on Sheppard would have had an ironic laugh at himself when he realized the professional skill set a military commander required was pretty much identical to the skill set he would have needed as an executive in his father’s company--That his big escape from his father’s world hadn’t been much of an escape at all. He’d traded one set of crushing responsibilities for another, and that he probably wasn’t all that different from his father in that both of them internalized responsibilities in the same megalomaniac way, putting other people’s welfare above their own.

 

John had grown up with a father who had had little time for him because Sheppard senior was building and nurturing his utility company. John resented not having access to a father he adored, a father he perceived cared more for strangers and his business then his own son.

 

John like his father is a very inner driven man. He’s an intensely private person, with a very rich interior life that he shares only with much reticence. He retreats within when stressed or cornered or angry. His mind is his refuge and he is happy when he is alone. It puzzles John that people don’t get this, especially when they try to draw him out.   He is a loner, and has embraced that self definition.

 

 

I think John’s deep interiority is probably what tore his marriage apart.   That coupled with the stress of long separations and John’s inability to talk about it drove two people who where deeply in love out of love.  John finds the sharing of intimacy terrifying and is always caught off guard when friends and people who love him express it.    (To be continued)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[ann-tara.livejournal.com]

I don't think Sheppard's difficulty with his father was because of John's sexuality. There are lots of complicated reasons for why I believe that, but I won't go into them here. Except that if Sheppard was even minimally smart about his personal life, his father would have never known his son was gay.

I agree, it's just not only wrong, but lazy and dumb. This has become the knee-jerk caricature that some fans automatically turn the lead into, like it's "Step One" out of some rote by-the-book bad fan-writing manual - especially those fans of the "other guy", not the lead, the science/academic guy. There are a myriad of reasons why they do that, none of them having anything to do with any genuine insight into the character, IMO. I find it to be a form of fannish homophobia in the slash community, because they always make queer the guy they don't like best - it's never the "other guy", the scientist or academic, even if and when that character at times displays more tendencies in that direction. That only makes those fans hit the lead character even harder with the queer stick as if to make their fav character look more butch or manly or het by comparison. And if they're only queering the character who is not their favorite, then it becomes obviously a derogatory character-trait, and thus, homophobic, plain and simple.

I think John from a very young age knew what he 'didn't' want to do with his life, and knew he and his father were on a collision course. John internalized correctly that his father's plans were not to be argued with, and that youthful rebellion wasn't going to get him what he wanted. Instead of emotional rebellion John utilized his intelligence to manipulate situations and people to circumvent his father's plans.

I think this sums up John to a tee - it's a sensible, logical call on the character. I also agree that it would be more believable that John's father was more self-made and his money newer, not an old inheritance - thus why he would be more impressed by sending his son(s) to the Ivy League.

I also think, like you, that John's mother was probably more his friend, more easy-going and creative and the like, and her loss (probably at a young age) was a blow to him and to his relationship with his father without her there as a buffer of sorts. When she died, John started to internalize more and more. This kind of natural internalization would make it hard on a marriage later in life, for sure.

[esteefee]

I find it to be a form of fannish homophobia in the slash community, because they always make queer the guy they don't like best

I've seen this over and over in fandom after fandom, regardless of canon. Fans will explain away the lead's marriages and on-screen affairs with women as er, hysterical (no pun intended) overcompensation or what have you for deep-set self-loathing of their obvious gayness, instead of simply writing the character as bisexual or bi-curious.

Meanwhile, their own favored character is usually "straight" and simply overwhelmed in this case by one-time attraction, or they'll write him as bi. Hardly *ever* as gay.

It strikes me as homophobic, yeah.

I like writing stories where either character is discovering a new facet of his sexuality simply because I enjoy the newness of it (I write countless first time stories as well), but I also love writing them as gay or bisexual depending on plot necessities.

I don't write stories where they are ashamed of their sexuality because, frankly, there's enough goddamned shame exerted externally in the world around us.

My Comments on Your Story Choices (part 1)

[sporangia.livejournal.com]

My comments on you story--Choices

I am posting here because this is more analysis than comment.

Choices is a fascinating story, thank you for writing it. Because of its ambiguous structural set-up the actions of all the characters are open to a wide range of interpretations which makes this story subtly different (I think) for each reader. In fact each time I read it my feelings toward it changed.

As this story starts we are not party to the full communication between Beckett and Sheppard where Beckett explains what has happened, we only see the emotional fallout from it. So the reader must fill in that conversation, based upon his or her own conception (no pun intended) of the character of Beckett and Sheppard.

For me this quickly became an alien parasite story, because I don’t think Beckett could give Sheppard any conclusive information about what had been deposited in the Colonel's abdominal cavity. Even and especially if the information was based upon Ancient tech medical scanners, I’m not sure Beckett would have trusted the information. Beckett’s overriding concern, I think, would have been the same as Sheppard's to get the blastocyst out of the Colonel as soon as possible. Even if Beckett, quickly, had access to ancient texts explaining how the implanting process worked I don’t think the Doctor would be convinced that it would work the same in a human. The possibility of a genetic monster being created or serious medical problem could not be ignored.

Sheppard is not an Ancient. The only reason Carson might have delayed Sheppard’s surgery/abortion was so he could analyze the ancient implantation data to make sure that removal wouldn’t cause other problems. Both of them would acknowledge that the implantation was in theory a male pregnancy, but I think other medical fears would vastly over-shadow issues of pregnancy termination. So for me at this point the story ceased to be or never became a story about abortion.

I assumed when Beckett said that Rodney should be consulted about John’s situation--that had more to do with the Doctor’s understanding that Rodney would do his own research on what the machine had done to John, and that Sheppard needed to be prepared for dealing with an informed Rodney. So the whole confidentiality argument between Beckett and Sheppard about, telling Rodney didn’t make much sense to me, because Rodney (with his ability to scour the ancient database) might have known what was going on before Beckett or John did.

I know this is an alternative reading of your story, but it is closer to how I see all three characters’s acting this out. This doesn’t nullify the emotional complications and nuances that you wove into your story of Rodney, John and Carson’s ultimate dealing with their decisions.

I was deeply moved by the scene where Rodney imagines what his and john's child could have been like. It was a door opening into a possibility that Rodney had never considered, and it is a reflection of his deep love for John that he closed that door and focused on what John needed.

And John’s understanding that the imagined fatherhood was a deep grief for Rodney, that Rodney wanted children with him, and John’s offer to go back to the machine and have it work the impregnation on a willing Rodney was an incredible offer considering where John had just been. This is my only logic complaint with your story, that offer seemed inconsistent with one of your later lines where John’s perspective is shown that he’s never wanted to be a father. This anti-fatherhood take on John Sheppard’s character is certainly valid, in fact canon probably supports it, but it hurt me to hear it said none-the-less. Not because having children is inherently superior to not having children, but because John’s retreat from personal bondings (of which fatherhood is only one example) is emblematic of his character. I think John’s lifestyle choices, suspends John and Rodney in a kind of ‘fast-planes’, danger-junkie, limbo; two wild men out on the galactic frontier, in full escape mode from earth’s comforting but also controlling culture.

see part 2

Re: My Comments on Your Story Choices (part 1)

[esteefee]

I think John would be willing to be a parent, or at least wouldn't be against the idea. His thought at that point (about the planes) was more of a self-protective one, since the opportunity was pretty much lost to him just then. When I was writing the story, I tried very hard to make him as unreliable a narrator as I could just after the procedure. He's pretty much all over the place.

Anyway, in general, I don't think he's clear on whether he wants to be a parent or not. (I think a lot of people aren't clear on it up until the moment they actually become parents. ;)

I did have him make the offer about the surrogate to Rodney, and in a previous draft had him float a question to Teyla about possible surrogates among the Athosians (whether they did that or not) but then I didn't want to get into exposition about who knew about their relationship, so I ditched it.

I think he's tentatively willing, but would leave it up to chance, like he flipped the coin on the hillside.

Re: Beckett, it was my assumption the Ancient scanner successfully identified the blastocyte as being embryonic. The fact John's body wasn't attacking it as foreign matter would also be indicative. In my mind, Rodney had come over with John's gurney and reported what had occurred to Carson and was waiting outside the infirmary, so hadn't yet analyzed the machine.

Choices part 2

[sporangia.livejournal.com]

I enjoy the Mpreg trope because it is a subversive take on the masculine escape narrative--which is at the core of many slash pairings. In slash, uniquely, the sidekick, the buddy becomes the lover. What Mpreg does is force one or both paired characters to circle back into the necessary structures of civilization, order, family and responsibility. It does this by sensitizing one of the pair (usually the pregnant one) into a situation where they experience the perspective of vulnerability that pregnancy puts them in or ostensibly the female perspective. This story structure offers a unique way to play with complex social, sexual and gender issues. Not everyone likes this trope because it undermines the prime fantasy of the slash ideal--that relationships of equality--of mind, body, soul and power are the only relationships truly worth having. Your story contradicts the Mpreg trope and upholds the traditional slash relationship-equality as the most important value. I’m not disagreeing with that, I just think it is a brave perspective buried within one of the slash ‘ideal’ anti-tropes. I think this is why you don’t find many Mpreg abortion stories,

In your story John rejects the role of (alien baby) child bearer with good reason. But it also reinforces powerful things about his character and the escape from whatever is driving him toward his metaphorical and real frontier... I do not mean I think john should be forced to bear and raise an unwanted child. I am speaking in generalized terms about all of his life choices. Whatever ‘hole’ in center of his life that he’s running from is the thing I’m curious about Mpreg stories usually make ‘confrontations with inner demons’ the inevitable hub of their plots and relentless biology puts issues of power and equality into a whole different frame of analysis.

That is why the ending of your story was full of sadness for me on lots of levels. It hurts to watch Sheppard wage and win a battle for body integrity and self determination, and yet know that the costs of his battle will ultimately take him further into isolation and sadness. And even sadder in this case John will be dragging Rodney along with him until one or both die as a consequence of their very dangerous addiction to ‘fast planes’, alien worlds and each other. The fact that they are equal soul-mates and deeply committed lovers on their wild ride doesn’t compensate for the eventuality that they are going to end badly. This is what the Mpreg trope, among others, tries to mitigate and that is why so many fans including me want to read it.

Again thanks for writing your thoughtful and amazing story.

Re: Choices part 2

[esteefee]

Responding to your second part first, because I'm totally fascinated (I really wasn't aware of the meta-implications of this trope): your pairing of their "isolation" with "sadness" betrays an assumption that is actually disproved by the study I linked to at the bottom of my story. In actuality, couples who don't have children are shown to be happier and more content in their lives than those who do. The "loneliness of the barren couple" is a myth. And certainly John and Rodney are not isolated if they have their team, their very full lives in Atlantis and the associations they have there.

And is there not room in "civilization, order, family and responsibility" for those that protect them?

(I reject, personally, the assumption that in order to be a part of civilization and order, every individual must contribute procreatively.)

But it's not the threat to the slash ideal of buddies-eternal-solo I was reacting against in my story so much as the threat to John's basic gender identification as a male. That's the reality I don't see addressed in most Mpreg, or is at the most glossed over before the writer can get to the good stuff, and I find it very dismaying because unless the writer is very, very good, I can't suspend my disbelief so easily. I believe it really would be as repugnant to him as being possessed by an alien entity to be impregnated.

Thank you so much for this comment, because now I am seeing Mpreg with totally fresh eyes. I am just *amazed* I didn't understand it before.

citations

[jillianak]

I've been googling "John Sheppard" "character analysis" to see what people other of him, and I like your analysis of John. I realize you wrote this in 2009, but if you are still around, could you give examples from the episodes of when John is "caught off guard when friends and people who love him express" intimacy? And also cites for anything else taken from the episodes? It helps me see how prevalent a character trait is. I've only seen the first 3 episodes, but I've enjoyed a lot of fanfic.

Regardless of your response, great job!