Zen and the Art of avoiding any more housework...

[alyse]

It's that time of year again. The time of year when Al, after frantically cleaning every surface of the house until it sparkles and building more bookcases than any reasonable person could need, finds her thoughts turning to that burning question.

Bestiality in fanfiction.

Run now.

Actually, I've been musing for a while about it, prompted by one of my favourite episodes - The First Ones. I love that episode. The only thing that could have made it better would be some actual Jack/Daniel interaction (and them not killing Rothman. I liked Rothman. He was fun, even if he wasn't a 'people person'.) I mean, face it. You get Daniel hurt, feisty (in the true sense of the word), passionate about the things he believes in and doing what he does best - finding common ground and making a connection to a truly alien culture. What's not to like? The fact that he's bandanaed and being dragged around by a rope doesn't hurt either, of course.

But that brings me to Daniel/Chaka. There's an empathy there that I find fascinating, and not just on Daniel's side. Chaka is as fascinated, in the end, by Daniel as Daniel is by him. They recognise, in each other, a sentient being - one capable of self-awareness and, again, empathy with others. Both of them, I think, start off with seeing each other as something not quite 'human', and I have to use that word simply because our language, understandably, is so anthrocentric. I suspect that Daniel first of all views Chaka in a similar vein to Jack - big, stinky monster - and Chaka certainly views Daniel as potential food or at the very minimum a kill to impress the elders. But that changes as the story unfolds and you get those wonderful scenes of Daniel figuring out that Chaka not only has an awareness but a language and a culture to go with, and Chaka starts to view Daniel as something other than lunch.

So why is it that the only Daniel/Chaka story I've come across falls firmly into the 'bestiality' camp?

I've ranted about this before in, I think, a response to a post by moonlight_spike. Let it not be said I never repeat myself :)

I should go on record, I suppose, as saying I'm not overly fond of Brenda Antrim's Stargate stories anyway. I think she writes good, solid Professionals stories but her Stargate stories seem a little 'off' to me. The characterisations and situations never quite ring true - at least to me. YMMV. In fact, she was one of the writers I immediately thought of when destina mused about whether or not fanfiction writers could write in a multitude of fandoms and successfully capture all of them, or whether they could successfully capture two or three and then ran the risk of ATG (Any Two Guys) fics.

However, I could see 'Daniel/Chaka' in the episode, could see that tentative connection and could see how that curiosity about each other could lead to more. So when I saw she'd written the pairing I was intrigued but very, very disappointed by the story. I mused a lot about why I was so disappointed and came to a conclusion.

It was bestiality.

That was what I took away from the story, whether the writer intended that or not. If she intended to convey the fascination between them that I took away from the show, well she failed to convey it to me. In fact, at the risk of sounding like a bitter old fic bitch, I thought she was far more caught up in her idea that Chaka had two penises (although I know it's dangerous to attribute intentions to authors).

Actually, Daniel was far more interested in that too. And that's why the story completely failed to work for me. There was no recognition on Daniel's part of the fact that Chaka was a sentient being in his own right, even though Chaka narrated at least part of the text so presumably the author recognised something akin to intelligence in him. But on Daniel's part there was a combination of condescention towards Chaka as being an animal, albeit a smart one, and rueful indifference to the fact that he was about to be screwed by this animal in front of the rest of the pack. Sort of 'oh well, I'll close my eyes and it won't matter.... ooooh, he has two penises'.

It irritated me because I hadn't seen that attitude in Daniel in the show. The other members of SG1, yes, but not Daniel. I wanted to read a story that explored the fascination they felt for one another, even, perhaps, on Daniel's part a wondering about what they were doing on an 'interspecies sex' basis, but not a dismissal of Chaka as a baser being.

I have no doubt that Chaka is sentient. none at all. In fact, I don't even think that Chaka is less 'intelligent' than humans, although I despise that definition. I think his 'intelligence' may be of a different sort but I think the fairest thing that you could say is that his culture is less advanced. Why do I think that? Let's review the evidence.

i) Chaka's self-awareness. Self-awareness - the knowledge that you are a unique individual and recognition of the world around you and your place in it - is one of the defining attributes of sentience. There is no doubt that Chaka is self-aware. He has an awareness of his own mortality, which is why he's so wary, but more than that - he has an awareness of the Goa'uld and what they do. So he doesn't just know that he's alive and unique but that he knows that that uniqueness can be overwhelmed by a parasite which will take his will away. That necklace ain't just for decoration, folks. He knows what the Goa'uld do and he's afraid of it. If that doesn't convey the fact that he's self-aware I don't know what will.

If you wanted further evidence of this awareness, what about the events in Beast of Burden? Chaka and his kind recognise that they are enslaved and are willing to fight for their freedom so they must have a concept of what 'freedom' is. Theirs isn't the mindless flight of a wild horse for greener pastures. They know that what is being done to them is wrong, and mourn the passing of a fellow slave. Chaka even understands the concept of revenge, if what he does to Burrell is any indication.

ii) the use of tools - this isn't necessarily an indication of sentience, because some animals do use tools, both primates and birds, but when you consider the type of tools that Chaka uses, which includes ropes that either he or his tribe have made, then that shows that Unases are capable of planning and manipulating complicated materials to produce an end result.

iii) appreciation of the world around you. Two words. Cave paintings. Is it worth pointing out that cave paintings in our world are attributed to Homo sapiens, our very species? In fact, it strikes me that the level of social and cultural development for the Unas in The First Ones is very similar to that of early man, and when you consider the harsh conditions in which they live, constantly wary of being preyed upon by the Goa'uld, it's hardly surprising it hasn't advanced further. Culture and technology will remain static if your first priority is safe drinking water and the ability to get to it un-Goa'ulded.

iv) an empathy with others. Empathy requires you to be able to identify with someone else, to put yourself in their shoes. Cats and dogs may well pick up on your moods but to understand why you are afraid? Hurting? Chaka develops that kind of empathy with Daniel to the point of interceding with the alpha male, at risk of his own life.

So, I don't view Chaka as an animal but as a sentient being in his own right, even if his people haven't reached any significant level of technology and their culture is static as survival takes precedence. At least, I'm assuming it's a static culture because the Unas have been around as long as the Goa'uld - we know that's how the Goa'uld first left the planet they evolved on, by parasitising the Unas, thousands of years ago. Of course, their culture could have developed after that - survival of the fittest somehow dictating that only those Unas with a rudimentary intelligence avoiding being parasitised, but didn't the Unas in 'Demons' have the capability of speech, and even if the Goa'uld was talking that means that the mechanism must have been there? And I somehow get the impression that the Goa'uld who are out there in the Galaxy don't exactly reply to invitations to come to their High School reunion, i.e don't seem to have returned to the world depicted in The First Ones. None of the Goa'uld there had naquada.

So... Chaka does not equal animal, therefore, to my mind, Daniel/Chaka does not enter into the realms of bestiality. I want my Chaka to be like I see on screen, intelligent and self-aware, acknowledging that Daniel is sentient too and I want my Daniel to view Chaka in that light, not as a lower animal.

So why isn't anyone writing it? Is it the squick factor, the big, stinky monster thing? Is it the fact that OTP is so prevalent in the fandom... hell, there's very little Daniel/Paul and Paul interacts with Daniel in several episodes, and obviously has a serious crush. And is human, of course. But there's more Jack/Thor out there than Daniel/Chaka, and if Daniel/Chaka is bestiality, given the relative differences in culture and social development, why isn't Jack/Thor, with Jack as the beast of course. Yet none of the very little Jack/Thor I've seen even has an indication that Thor may think of the pairing in those terms.

Are people just being put off because it is, effectively, interspecies sex, no different in that respect that John Crichton/Ka D'Argo? Is there a sneaking suspicion that if you write it it will end up as reviled fic? Normally if I whinge about 'why isn't there more type of this fic?' I go away and write it but, as intriguing as it sounds, I have no bunnies and don't want to end up writing Daniel/Chaka PWPs. Besides, the last time I asked myself something like that it was 'Why isn't there more New Pros slash?' and look what happened there ::g::

When is bestiality not bestiality? When someone can write it that way.