Cultural differences between the Milky Way and Pegasus: Pets.

[icarus]

Cultural differences between the Milky Way and Pegasus: Exhibit A.

I think that pets would be something that would confuse Teyla and Ronon. Rodney cooing over his cat (I'm sure he has visitation rights) would strike Ronon as weird.

Ronon, wrinkling his nose: "Why does he treat it like it's a baby?"

John: "Wellll... he's pretty attached to that cat."

Ronon and Teyla exchange confused looks.

John: "The cat's his pet. He has a picture of it in his room."

Teyla: "Ah. Like the way Dr. Waters has a picture of his children." She squints, clearly trying very hard to understand. "So... then Rodney as a single, childless man expends his parental nurturing instincts on an animal."

John: "Oh, I don't know about that. I mean, when I was a kid I had a dog."

Ronon: "And you treated it like a baby?" His expression says that he'd lose all respect for John if it were true.

In the background Rodney says, "You're a little munchkin, yes... yes, now that's a purr...."

John: "I didn't use baby talk." Usually. At least not when anyone was listening. Ronon shifts his stance, giving John a doubtful eye. "Muffin was a great dog."

Ronon: "You name them?"

Teyla: "Muffin...?"

Comments

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I would expect Teyla's community to find the concept of pets to be weird (I don't even recall them being depicted as having working animals... in fact, come to think of it, does the show just completely dodge the question of animals in the Pegasus Galaxy, because while they don't mind human-like Ancients gadding about, they are loathe to introduce the "mundanity" of regular old cats or dogs or horses to what ought to be an "alien" galaxy? hmm). ... I was going to say, they're not shown as having animals around their camps, are they? And then I was going to say that I wasn't sure if that entirely made sense (from an anthropological perspective, that is; aside from the constraints of the show). And that's when I realized what I said tangentially above -- is there any instance at all in SGA of any animal life being glimpsed in the background (aside from the yucky bug that fells John in S1)?

Just wondering. It's not like animals (Earth-derived, that is), either wild or domesticated, are thick on the ground in SG-1, either. We know they exist, but we don't often see them, because of budget constraints. We were shown them just often enough that we can infer their presence in other cases. But we can't necessarily infer them in Pegasus.

Anyway... back to my point... despite Ronon's "primitive survivalist" veneer and ruthlessly pragmatic outlook, we *do* know what the world/society he came from looked like -- and basically, it didn't look that different from our world, in terms of social structure and trappings. A smidge "less advanced" in some ways, definitely more advanced (weapons) than others.

Why assume that his world (with its urban centers and hospitals and so on) didn't have any concept of "pets"?

I mean, if you want to say that you want them not to have that concept because you want them to seem more alien, that's fine. Maybe they only have working animals, no non-working domesticated ones. Or, maybe the people who live in urban areas aren't much exposed to animals at all (the way heavily urbanized people in our world aren't that familiar with farm animals).

Or maybe you think that Ronon -- like some people in our own society -- just personally would find the concept strange, as a quirk of his personality (rather it being something he doesn't understand because his world/society didn't have the concept at all).

I just find it odd to conclude in any automatic way that Ronon's culture both didn't have pets, and also didn't have working animals that people developed relationships with. Seems like an outre conclusion, and it seems a little forced to me. (It's just as easy for me to imagine Ronon growing up with a dog that he liked and played with; maybe not a "pet" pe se, maybe a working animal, but still.)

Is there any direct evidence once way or the other in the show? Has he ever commented on it?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Because it's fun, orca_girl. You're taking this way too seriously.

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

*rolls eyes* Occasionally, people like to do that. It's called "fandom", I think. :P

I'm sorry -- yes, your vignette was very cute and funny!

I apologize if it started me actually *thinking for real* about the question it raised.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I threw this out there in the middle of midterms as I was running out the door. Actually, I missed the bus as a result.

If you want *that* kind of fun... I can see Teyla not understanding pets. In addition to being agricultural, where you learn you can't get too close to your dinner, having to pack up and move (note their tents) means that any animals have to be useful animals.

As for Ronon, you could make a case either way. But owning pets isn't necessarily connected to a rise in wealth, security, and technology.

Oh, by the way, I never got back to you on the Iran thing. It turned out that we'd learned in October 2007 that Iran hadn't had a nuclear weapons program since 2003. So the whole time the Iraqi president was here being abused, our gov't knew that there was no Iran nuclear weapons program. Cheney made another push for war with Iran, and the CIA let their findings about Iran's so-called nuclear weapons program be known in the press. (Cheney The Bush administration then released info on the CIA using water-boarding that same week, in fairly obvious retaliation.)

I didn't post about it because I decided "nyah, nyah, I was right" wasn't a dignified response. While Iran is a threat to our control of Iraq when we leave -- and I don't feel we should have been in Iraq in the first place -- militarily, Iran is no threat to us.

[orca-girl.livejournal.com]

I don't think I ever said that I *thought* that Iran was a threat to us, military or otherwise. My objections to the Iranian president, as a human being and a leader, are not based on whether or not his country has a nuclear program of any sort, military or not. So, yes -- you're right. I'm NOT SURPRISED that you're right, because I think our government consists of a bunch of lying hypocrits anyway, and I was *never arguing that they weren't*. But your being right doesn't impact the argument that I *was* making, at the time.

However -- I don't mean to use a cheap rhetorical argument, but the fact is, I do not wish to resurrect this debate. I chose to walk away from the last thread because it was making me angry. I don't want to get into it again, and I won't.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I remember comments and conversations in my journal and who I had them with -- especially unfinished ones. I'd promised to get back to you and I got busy and didn't. I felt at the time that President Ahmadinejad was being treated unfairly, and he most certainly was. Even moreso than I knew at the time.