Break Thoughts

[partly]

Today's Topic: Pete in SG1

In Chimera, when we first meet Pete, he and Carter have been dating for a while already. In the episode, Pete, feeling that Sam is being less than truthful and honest with him, checks up on her and even follows her.

I've read a lot of comments that say this is stalking and therefore shows that Pete is unstable and overly possessive of Carter. I just don't see it that way.

When we first meet Pete, he and Sam are in an established and serious relationship (not that I really see Carter -- or Pete, for that matter -- having any other kind of relationship). With the "Deep Space Radar Telemetry" cover that she has, it doesn't allow for a lot of "top secret" believability. In fact, it makes the physical aspects of gate travel impossible to explain away as job related. Well, job related to Deep Space Radar Telemetry, at least.

Pete's a cop. He knows Sam is lying to him about a large portion of her life. We know that the lies cover a totally legal and honorable profession, but there's no way for Pete to know that. There are a whole lot of extra-legal things that Sam could have been doing. All of which would have been much more believable than reality. Pete's job being what it is, he had to have some concern that he would be compromised at some point by whatever it was Sam was lying about.

I just don't see Pete's actions as stalkerish. And neither did Sam, since she continued to date him and even had him approved to know about the Stargate program.

Sure the plotting opens up a whole lot of other show/canon questions, but just from a character standpoint, I don't see Pete's actions as being that out of line.

For all you SG1 fans out there, what do you think? Am I being to soft on the guy? Was Sam? Would have it been more honorable for Pete to just dump Sam because she was lying to him?

Comments

[amilyn.livejournal.com]

I'd like to preface with the full disclosure fact that I've not seen "Chimera," though I've read large chunks of fic and summaries.

That said, here are my issues IN series:

-Sam is a Major in the USAF. Pete knows this.
-Sam works in Cheyenne Mountain in "Deep Space Radar Telemetry". Her military job is "top secret" and involves "security clearance".
-Pete lives in Colorado and knows that Colorado Springs is USAF central, and that Cheyenne Mountain is Not What It Seems.
-Pete is law enforcement. He should understand "security clearance" and "top secret".
-Pete would definitely know that Sam was lying...but he should understand that, as a USAF Major working in Cheyenne Mountain, she has no choice but NOT to tell him the whole truth.
-Pete is law enforcement. He should know what it means to interfere with a stake-out and know that it is BAD.
-I think that storming out on someone you've been dating for a while and just been sexually intimate with because they won't break their service oaths and federal law is childish.
-I think Sam feels guilty about not being able to share fully with Pete and I think she is genuinely fond of him and what he stood for to her, especially at that point. I think she stays with him because she *does* want to tell him the truth and feels bad that she couldn't...and also that, since Pete, at the end of the ep, DOES know more, it lets her relax in that she won't have to *lie* anymore, but can remind him of the "clearance" issues.
-I can understand Pete making a bone-headed choice (which I think this was) because I think he's genuinely in love and I think that reason is weakened by that. I can *forgive* him for making a boneheaded choice. I still think Sam should have read thim the riot act for endangering people and generally screwing up (and in my head she did so between scenes, because that's how I reconcile things).

The out-of-show concerns:

-The MALE writers, honest-to-god, were totally surprised that women were writing in saying, "Um...dude, if a guy I was dating followed me around and had his FBI buddy do a background check on me, I'd be freaked."
-I don't think they INTENDED to write Pete as a stalker.
-I think they had Pete planned to stay and didn't understand that it's Bad Form to use your official position to do an illegal background check on someone because they're "lying" because they can't reveal "top secret" information...I think the WRITERS were dumb.
-I think if the writers had understood (been female or asked a woman, perhaps), they would have written things a bit differently--like having her read Pete the riot act ON SCREEN, or having him not go quite so far in trying to find out classified information that is not his to know.

I am fond of Pete. I think he really tried. I think the character was pretty well-written after this initial episode (well, except for the lame of the flower thingie and the cell phone calls in "Threads") where I think he was written with a HUGE lapse in judgement...I *also* can understand the lapse in judgement and him, as a cop, being nagged at by a mystery and things not adding up, and knowing that, well, he *could* find out, even if he oughtn't.

There are some stories out there that I REALLY like in terms of how they deal with Pete.