Current mood:	accomplished
Current music:	Detroit/Dallas hockey - TV
Entry tags:	bsg, complete, fic, fic: the sound of one hand clapping, index posts, kara thrace, kara/lee

The Sound of One Hand Clapping: Author's Introduction
“What is the Sound of the Single Hand? When you clap together both hands a sharp sound is heard; when you raise the one hand there is neither sound nor smell. Is this the High Heaven of which Confucius speaks? Or is it the essentials of what Yamamba describes in these words: ‘The echo of the completely empty valley bears tidings heard from the soundless sound?’ This is something that can by no means be heard with the ear. If conceptions and discriminations are not mixed within it and it is quite apart from seeing, hearing, perceiving, and knowing, and if, while walking, standing, sitting, and reclining, you proceed straightforwardly without interruption in the study of this koan, you will suddenly pluck out the karmic root of birth and death and break down the cave of ignorance. Thus you will attain to a peace in which the phoenix has left the golden net and the crane has been set free of the basket. At this time the basis of mind, consciousness, and emotion is suddenly shattered; the realm of illusion with its endless sinking in the cycle of birth and death is overturned. The treasure accumulation of the Three Bodies and the Four Wisdoms is taken away, and the miraculous realms of the Six Supernatural Powers and Three Insights is transcended.”

– From p. 164, Yabukoji, in The Zen Master Hakuin: Selected Writings, Translated by Philip B. Yampolsky, Columbia University Press, New York and London, 1971. Found here.

The koan above is taken from Zen Buddhism, and is meant to explain the somewhat confusing saying "the sound of one hand clapping." After all, one hand clapping can't make any sound to begin with, can it? It's an action that seems at once impossible and laughable. But when you get into deeper analysis, when you start to read between the lines of the above koan, you realize that what it's really talking about is release of the self. Release, in other words, of all the preconceived notions that shackle us to certain ways of thinking. When we can truly believe in the concept of the sound of one hand clapping, our preconceived notions have vanished and we are said to be able to attain a sort of nirvana.

This concept, when applied to the character of Kara Thrace, has fascinated me ever since I saw the end of Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica - most particularly, the episodes "Rapture" and "Maelstrom." In "Maelstrom," Kara attains a sort of nirvana herself: guided by a vision of the Cylon Leoben, she is able to see that what she needs to do is to sacrifice herself for the greater good of the Fleet, for the chance at finding Earth. Her last words to her wingman, Lee Adama, are: "Let me go ... just let me go." She has let go of herself, of her preconceived notions, and she's imploring him to do the same.

It's a different kind of Kara who flies into that mandala-shaped cloud. Previously we've known Kara to be her own worst enemy. Self-destructive in the extreme and fiercely independent, she has been particularly affected by Leoben's mentally and physically abusive tactics on New Caprica. She is essentially free-falling in the dark, lashing out at everyone around her who cares. But come "Maelstrom," something about her has changed. When she sits underneath her Viper with Lee they seem to have reached a new understanding, an acceptance of each other that wasn't previously there.

I was curious about what might have caused this level of acceptance, especially given what we know of Kara and the personality traits outlined above. So I decided to explore her character in a little more depth. And one of my favourite ways to explore someone's character is to put them in a situation with which they're unfamiliar, a situation that might even make them a little uncomfortable. I soon realized a perfect example of such a situation was already provided in canon: the scenes in "The Eye of Jupiter" and "Rapture" when the Raptor Kara is piloting crashes on an algae planet and her hands are severely burned.

Imagine for a moment how many times a day you use your hands. You dress yourself, you lift a fork to put food in your mouth, you use the washroom, you type at a computer keyboard, you grip a steering wheel, you hold books or newspapers or television remotes. Without their hands, a human being would be entirely helpless, unable to do the simplest of tasks or to be at all independent. Add to this mix Kara, who thrives on her independence, and Lee, the one person in front of whom she is perhaps most afraid to appear weak, and you've got the perfect situation for advancing character and for exploring previously-unknown facets of personality. The result is this character study, which I've been working on since April 24 and which is now finally finished.

I do take certain liberties with canon here. For one thing, I am not nor have I ever been a fan of the "Quadrangle of Doom," that is, the Lee-Dee-Kara-Sam relationship dynamic. So that was one of the first things to be scrapped. In this fic, Lee broke up with Dee shortly after he slept with Kara on New Caprica, for reasons that will be explained in the first chapter. Meanwhile, Sam succumbed to pneumonia during that terrible year on the planet, leaving Kara with the death of another significant relationship and yet more scars she will need to overcome. Further, to underscore the idea that she'll be dependent on the one person in front of whom she always attempts to hide weakness, Lee is the one to travel to the downed Raptor and effect Kara's rescue. I've also had to stretch the timeline a little, working with the assumption that Lee and Kara were in a relationship three weeks previous to the crash and inserting a couple of months between the time of that crash and "Maelstrom." For those to whom these changes are jarring, I can only offer my apologies and my assertion that they were nonetheless necessary in the context of this fic.

Full disclosure: I am a Lee/Kara shipper through and through, but I hope you'll understand and see that the crux of this story is about more than manipulating canon to throw my favourite couple togethr. It's about exploring Kara's personality, and what motivated her to release herself in "Maelstrom," and also about what caused the deeper sense of trust between Lee and Kara in that episode. There is the odd scene of smut, yes, but most of it is deeper introspection and self-examination.

This fic is complete; I will be posting one chapter per day and all chapters will be linked from this post.

Title: The Sound of One Hand Clapping
Author: Liz/amidala_thrace
Characters/Pairings: Battlestar Galactica; Lee/Kara with mentions of Lee/Dee, Sam/Kara and Zak/Kara
Beta: xkatie_kittenx
Rating: PG - NC-17 (though the NC-17 chapters will be few and far between)
Spoilers: This fic contains spoilers through S3's "Maelstrom."
Status: Complete. One chapter will be posted per day.
Summary: Kara sustains severe burns on her hands after a Raptor crash, placing her in complete dependence on the one person in front of whom she's always tried to be strong.