In some ways it's simplistic to ascribe Daniel's actions purely to moral imperatives.  He is as much moved by empathy and compassion for the individuals he meets as by his need to do what he believes to be right.  The depth of Daniel's empathy is not just a pre-requisite for his ability to communicate, it argues his sensitivity, perceptiveness, imaginativeness and wide experience of life.

Daniel is in some ways a contradiction.  Allied to his professional confidence and strength in communicating we have clear indicators of insecurity and shyness.  One of the most effective reminders of this was in Season Four's 'The Curse'.  Though much of Jack's characterisation in that episode is exceedingly poor, not to say petty, Michael Shanks added volumes to each of Daniel's actions through body language alone.  Our confident, experienced linguist hung his head shyly, darting quick hesitant glances at his old colleagues and friends Sarah Gardner and Steven Rayner.  I was shocked to see his classic defensive posture and looked again at previous examples of his body language.

I finally realised just how much Daniel had grown in his personal security during his time with his adopted family of SG-1.  No one could doubt Jack's ebullient affection for him, including the beloved 'Spacemonkey' scene.  Sam's tenderness and compassion for Daniel is deeply felt and poignant, their intimacy and rapport never in doubt.  I always feel that these two have each found someone who truly understands them for the first time in their lives.  Teal'c too is protective and solicitous of Daniel.  Hammond adores him.  All of this positive reinforcement had an effect so gradual I noticed only the absence of Daniel's classic self-hugging in the latter series.  To see Daniel in a personal situation that was threatening to him showed that some of his confidence was situational, based on trust of his friends rather than belief in himself.  It was another defining moment.

Daniel's self-hugging has two facets: insecurity and frustration.  Having seen Daniel's parents in Season Two's 'The Gamekeeper' it is clear that Daniel was very much part of their professional and personal lives.  His upbringing was not traditional and accompanying his parents on digs would have exposed him to cultures that would have made much of him as a young, beautiful and talented child.  To go from that to being in the care of the state at the age of eight seems to be a shock Daniel has never recovered from.  He seems to have folded in on himself.  Daniel went from being listened to and taken seriously to being unable to make decisions for himself.  He was rejected by his grandfather and his placement in foster care suggests comparatively short-term placements as opposed to settlement with a single family.

Little of Daniel's childhood has been explored in Stargate SG-1.  We only have two references, to his parents in 'The Gamekeeper' and to his grandfather in Season Three's 'Crystal Skull'.  We can only infer his experiences from Daniel's attitudes and behaviour.  He values people highly, not just from a humanitarian perspective, but as thinking, feeling beings.

A classic example of this is Season Two's 'Serpent's Song'.  Daniel is prone to an activity known to fans as 'snake baiting', usually making announcements like 'Your mate Ammonet is dead'.  His hatred of the Goa'uld is as deep and encompassing as Jack's, and much more personal.  He hates Apophis, this is never in doubt, but even the dying Apophis knows Daniel can't and won't make good on his threat to kill him.  Daniel's compassion for the host is stronger than his hate for the symbiote and his comforting of the bewildered clerk crying out for his family as he dies is a powerful and emotive scene.

I feel as if Daniel knows exactly what it's like not to be valued or loved, what it's like to be different, to be bullied...his empathy is so strong because he has experienced what it's like to be victimised just for being himself, for being different.  He chooses not to treat people that way because he knows all too well what it feels like.

His self-hugging is a classic symbol of insecurity but perhaps it is also an expression of frustration - of needing to speak and fearing not being heard.  Daniel's body language can be as emphatic in some ways as it is hesitant in others.  He stands with his feet planted apart, pelvis tilted forward...an 'alpha' stance.  At the same time, he will wrap his arms tight around his chest.  Each of these behaviours contradicts the others.  PhoenixE commented that if his parents hadn't died when Daniel was so young, his body language would have been the mirror of Jack's ebullient confidence.  The core of self-belief is there, but life experience has seemingly opposed this so much Daniel isn't certain of how others see him.  His calls for the trust and respect of his teammates is always moving, even if he is using it against them as in Season Three's 'Past and Present'.

One thing I've never understood is why Daniel's unarguable idealism is so often used against him as a plot device.  

'We're talking about Daniel here, sometimes he can be a little...odd. Every once in a while he gets carried away.'  Jack to Carter in Season Four's 'Absolute Power'.

A little odd?  How odd was it for Daniel to visit an alternate reality and to experience events while in our reality his teammates searched for him in vain in that locked room?  Daniel was incontrovertibly missing.  He was equally incontrovertibly back and wounded.  That's physical evidence.  He never left the base.  There was no one there.  He went into an alternate reality.  How else could he have been blasted by a staff weapon?  

Sam: "Daniel, it's not that we don't believe you."

Danny: "So you do."

Jack: "No, it's just that...we don't believe you."

This dialogue - in fact the whole thing about the team not believing Daniel is not just insulting to Daniel's painful, innate honesty which his family know is a core part of his character, it makes no sense.  Sam should be the one shouting up about physical evidence - instead we get a clumsy set-up for a joke about the regulations from Jack after Daniel reveals that Sam and Jack were engaged.  This was not the best creative choice.  Daniel would have focused on his wound and asked them to explain it, then when they couldn't, led them on from there.  He wasn't given the chance.

This fundamental disbelief in Daniel has angered and upset me greatly on a number of occasions because I can't understand why, when Daniel is so often proved RIGHT.  His track record is far more impressive than Sam's, yet she is believed without question.  For example, look at the stark contrast in the treatment of Sam and Daniel in 'The Tok'ra' and 'Legacy' respectively.  Sam has visions so SG-1 hares across the galaxy to find the Tok'ra right where Sam said they'd be.  Daniel experiences visions and gets clapped up in Mental Health by Doctor's Fraiser and MacKenzie.  

Put Sam into Daniel's shoes for a minute and try to imagine it going down this way.  If Sam was making Daniel's claims, she wouldn't necessarily be believed, but everyone would look a hell of a lot harder and further for an explanation than they did for Daniel.  It makes no sense dramatically again that Sam didn't raise a protest - they didn't even mention the Linvris chamber though Daniel had stated clearly at the time he felt something brush by him and he mentioned them again to Jack when he regained consciousness in the Infirmary.

Daniel is isolated from his team, hallucinating, pumped full of drugs and desperately afraid.  His choices are taken from him, he does everything he can in that state to warn his teammates of the danger to Teal'c and they don't believe him.  Even when Teal'c falls ill, no one equates that with Daniel's warning.  It is definitely worthy of Jack that he drops everything and goes to Daniel when Daniel asks for him.  Daniel thought his way to clarity and a theory against the odds and once again he is right when Teal'c becomes his proof.

Episodes where Daniel has implicitly or explicitly asked for the trust, belief and respect of his team:

· Politics
· Within The Serpent's Grasp
· Need
· Holiday
· Legacy
· Past and Present
· Maternal Instinct
· Crystal Skull
· The Other Side
· Absolute Power
· Beast of Burden
· Menace

Episodes where he was granted that trust without question?  'Beast of Burden'.  Certainly one of Jack's finest hours in the whole five series and a welcome return to a Jack we thought we'd lost.

Contrast that with Daniel's own actions when his team needs him.  He's there for them, no question.  He fights concussion, exhaustion and fear for Sam and Jack to figure out where they are and rescue them, working round the clock in Season One's 'Solitudes'.  He's there for Jack when he can't communicate with anyone else.  He, Sam and Teal'c fight for Jack in 'Message in a Bottle'.

'And, bottom line, Sir, what about Jack?  Right now I'm possibly his only hope for communicating on any serious level.  I can't leave him like this...and I won't.'

Daniel Jackson, Season Two, 'The Fifth Race'

Daniel consistently demonstrate his faith in Jack in 'The Fifth Race', urging Hammond to let him do what he's doing even though no one understands what all Jack's bizarre behaviour means -  'he hasn't done anything bad' - and he's the first to put it together that the bizarre actions have a purpose - 'maybe everything up until now has been leading to - this' - Jack needing to go through the gate to the Asgard.

Daniel is at Sam's side when she's struggling and suffering from the burden of 'Jolinar's Memories' in Season Three.  He's fights for Teal'c in Cor-Ai and is there for him when he reveals that Cronus murdered his father.  Daniel is at Jack's side as he tries to make a decision about the zaytark device in 'Divide and Conquer'.  

Perhaps the difference here is as simple as Daniel doesn't judge his friends.  Daniel isn't just idealistic.  He is receptive and flexible, accepting of others.  Open, as Fox Mulder was wont to say, to extreme possibility.  This is to be expected of a lateral thinker; the detection of an unsuspected pattern, to make connections amidst seemingly random threads.  Daniel has saved SG-1's asses so damned often its easy to lose count.  Although, PhoenixE took a deep breath and did count and in about half their missions, it was Daniel who saved himself, his friends, the SGC and the world. 

It's somewhat harsh for this receptivity to be judged as flaky.  

In some ways Daniel is not just the touchstone of SG-1, he is the facilitator, making it possible for the others to do their jobs.  He rarely seems to be centre stage to take the credit.  Classic examples of this are 'Message in a Bottle', 'One False Step', 'Legacy', 'The Other Side', '2001' and worst of all, so unbelievably bad I cringe abjectly every time I watch this scene, in 'Failsafe' where Daniel comes up with the plan to save them all and Sam then tells us about it.  

Daniel's courage is not in doubt; he's never frozen in a fight and works harder to make up for his inability to fight instinctually as Jack, Sam and Teal'c do.  This is nowhere more evident than in Season Five premiere ' Enemies'.  

One scene in 'Upgrades' jarred on me horribly in what was otherwise (and if we ignore what it was twisted into being the set-up for in a later episode) a good team story.  Near the end of the episode, Daniel's dialogue is so awkwardly written it seems as if he is suggesting leaving Sam and Jack.  His comment to them when the team meets up certainly reinforces that position: 'Teal'c wouldn't leave.'  That isn't funny.  

I'll contrast that with  'The Serpent's Lair', the premiere of Season Two, when despite being mortally wounded, Daniel has the resourcefulness and presence of mind to remember and reach the sarcophagus, and to dial himself home and escape.  In Season Three's 'The Devil You Know', Daniel is the last to be tortured.  Sam, Martouf and Jack have all been before him.  Yet Daniel is the only one to execute a ruse which nets him the vital communication device so they can ring up to Sokhar's planet above.  He is unflinching before System Lords, holds his own in combat, yet in 'Enemies' once the team was relatively safe he reacted as anyone would who had fought for his life and was scared to death.

One of Daniel's more annoying traits is stoicism.  Though he'll do anything for his friends and they each have a long history of confiding in him - Jack's scene in 'Enemies' where he insists he doesn't want to talk then instantly spills his guts is a perfect example.  He's a man out for all he can give; his problem very definitely is with taking.  He invariably responds to any question about his well-being or offer of help with 'I'm fine'.  After the terrible way his indecisiveness cost him Sha'uri in 'Secrets', Daniel opens up to Jack as much as he ever does.

JACK: [To Daniel] "You alright?"

DANIEL: "No. No, I'm not. But I will be."
'Secrets'

Unlike Jack, Daniel isn't physically demonstrative of his affection for his friend.  One scene I'm very fond of is in Season One's 'The Nox' when Daniel strokes the unconscious Jack's hair when they revive from death.  Jack returns the favour by ruffling Daniel's newly cropped hair in 'Into The Fire', Season Three's premiere.

Daniel also seems to be very private.  We've heard nothing of Daniel's past but what little we've seen about his parents and his grandfather Nick.  We have no idea what life was like for Daniel as a foster child, but thanks to Michael Shanks' sensitive portrayal, we can see the impact.  Daniel has great difficulty leaning on anyone.  Even in 'Children of the Gods', when Jack takes him home that first night, we see that while Jack wants to hear about his friend, Daniel immediately turns the conversation to Sha'uri.  In 'Upgrades' Jack ask Daniel if he's noticed any effects from the Atenik armband he's wearing and Daniel immediately responds 'You're eating a lot'.  Jack asks about Daniel and hears about himself.  We sense that Daniel doesn't waste a lot of time, energy or sympathy thinking about himself.  

There are a couple of episodes where Daniel is robbed of his defences, in both cases by abusive women.  In Season One's 'Hathor', Daniel is first drugged and then raped by the Goa'uld.  He was traumatised by the event, that much was clear when Sam found him sitting motionless and staring bleakly at nothing in the tumbled quarters Hathor was assigned.  In Season Three opener 'Into The Fire', Hathor's sudden eruption back into his life has him sidling up the ramp towards Sam, one of the few times in canon we see him afraid for himself.  

In Season Two, Daniel crossed paths with Princess Shyla and his action in saving her life was rewarded with a prison sentence for SG-1.  Jack made a serious tactical error by executing an escape attempt without ensuring all his team were free of their chains in the mine they were being held in.  Daniel was still chained, and when he followed, he was crushed in a rock fall.  Shyla seduced him into his addiction to the sarcophagus with half promises...and Daniel allowed himself to follow where she led.  This is an episode I have great difficulty with.  I rather enjoy the 'boy who would be king', the fraught scenes between Daniel and the team, his sudden revelation of how much he's affected by what he perceives as Jack's lack of respect for him.  I can understand why he used the sarcophagus the first time, but it was never adequately explained why he kept on using it.

Daniel is a very smart guy.  There must have been a period of awareness where he knew or suspected what was happening to him, yet we have no idea why Daniel went on using it.  That part doesn't fit with him or his need to be there for his friends.  I would have sacrificed the scenes of Shyla trotting around in her stilettos for some insight into why Daniel slid down this particular path.

The confrontation/reconciliation scene was dramatically necessary and exceptionally well done.  Daniel screwed up rescuing Shyla.  Jack screwed up royally in the escape, which separated Daniel from the team.  Daniel screwed up again every time he went through the sarcophagus spin cycle.  It's entirely possible Daniel felt betrayed by Jack for being so quick to leave him during the escape.  It's probable Jack was shocked to see Daniel give in to the dark side.  It's certain we needed to see that Jack knew what this was, understood it, and was just plain there, because Daniel was completely lost. 

If anyone's past is more of a mystery than Daniel's, it has to be Jack's.  TPTB have never troubled us with a story that didn’t relate to Charlie or less frequently Sara, or that truly bizarre Special Ops mission that got trotted out in 'The Gamekeeper'.  In 'A Matter of Time' we learn that Jack's issues about leaving people behind are very personal, because it was Cromwell who left Jack behind.  The tiny hint about Jack's nightmare in Iraq during 'Solitudes' was clearly cause but in 'Need' we saw effect.  It was Jack's understanding that guided Daniel back to himself and allowed Jack to give Daniel the second chance he had himself after he beat his own addiction.  And perhaps in a way it was recompense for the second chance Daniel had given Jack on Abydos.  

We know he leans towards attack-helicopter themed décor at home, is very aware of international politics, watches C-Span, has a closet full of National Geographics and drives a big manly truck.

And that's all they wrote for Jack's character development.   Except for the revelation in 'There But For The Grace Of God' that no Jack alive can withstand Daniel Jackson.  Like we didn't already know that.  We got weekly proof for three years, then zip.  Jack loves Sam yadda yadda.  Exit audience, stage left, presumably to watch 'Farscape' or something less obvious and clichéd than Stargate SG-1 suddenly became.

The most obvious evolution of Daniel's character lies in his hatred of the Goa'uld.  The seeds were sewn when Sha'uri was taken by Apophis in 'Children of the Gods' and I think set in stone after Daniel lost Sha'uri for the second time to Ammonet and Apophis in 'Secrets'.  I've always thought a large part of Daniel's hatred for Apophis was in fact self-hatred, arising from the lash of his guilt over unburying the gate on Abydos for his own selfish purposes and for his emotional weakness and indecisiveness when he found Sha'uri pregnant by Apophis when he returned to Abydos a year later.  Daniel does blame Sha'uri for being pregnant even though she had no choice, he hates Apophis, he appears to come close to hating her, and he certainly hates himself.  

Losing Sha'uri that second time and knowing the fault is his, not Teal'c's, turns the force of that rage and hatred outwards.  For the first time, Daniel hates without reason and total passion.  It's his way; Daniel literally gives all or nothing.  I think part of the root cause of this depth of feeling is that Daniel had more than one way in which he failed Sha'uri.  He more than anyone should have been sensitive to the shame and pain of a rape victim.  Essentially what Daniel did was blame the victim.

As I said; Daniel isn't perfect.  It's part of what makes him so compelling as a character and so very real and dear to us.  He isn't superhuman.

In 'Serpent's Song' we see how even at its most raw, his hatred isn't enough to stop Daniel from being Daniel.  His empathy and compassion for Apophis' host are stronger than his hate for the symbiote.  Apophis certainly knew Daniel - he calls to him by name in the Infirmary, creating an intimacy between them that goes some way to explaining why Ammonet chose not to reveal Daniel's presence to Apophis on Abydos in 'Secrets'.  I sense that Daniel has been very much part of the relationship between Ammonet and Apophis because something of the host does indeed survive.

Daniel threatens to kill Apophis if he doesn't reveal Sha'uri's whereabouts but it is an empty threat as both we and Apophis know.  Possibly Daniel knows, but has to offer the defiance.  Yet it isn't weakness that makes it impossible for Daniel to kill in cold blood, but rather it is his compassion and humanity.  At his core, Daniel believes in people.  It's an expensive core belief and we see the emotional toll here.  

Daniel saw the affection Apophis showed Ammonet in 'Secrets' and he has to accept that the Goa'uld are capable of love.  It's the one thing that stops Apophis being a pantomime villain.  Daniel is able to set aside his own feelings to comfort the bewildered, dying host, to grant him the absolution of seeing his family again after death.  His tenderness is unmistakeable and the scene where Daniel performs the death rite for the host remains one of the most moving in the entire series.

In 'Forever in a Day' Daniel finds Sha'uri - Ammonet had kidnapped the Abydonians led by Kasuf, who was guarding the Harsesis child, the child of Apophis, Sha'uri and Ammonet.  They're too late to find the child, but while Jack and Sam battle Ammonet's Jaffa, Daniel pursues Ammonet and Teal'c pursues Daniel.  We have a confrontation between Ammonet and Daniel, and once again Daniel hesitates.  He holds his weapon on Ammonet but can't fire at Sha'uri.  This allows Ammonet time to use the ribbon device on him, and for Sha'uri to try to lead Daniel onto the right path through a dream - his life with Sha'uri.

Daniel is led through a bewildering number of scenarios beginning with Sha'uri's death and his own anger with Teal'c for killing her.  The tragic thing is that all of Daniel's friends would have done the same.  None of them value Sha'uri's life above his let alone Ammonet's.  I do wish the writers hadn't gone for the obvious here.  Even the choice of Jack would have been obvious.  Sam though...that would have hammered this simple fact home to Daniel.  His team would always choose for him.  Always.  How Daniel learned to live with that would have added a lot of drama and tension to the team dynamic without disenfranchising any of the characters.  He could have turned to Teal'c and to Jack to understand, but they would have agreed with Sam, and she could have had amazingly dramatic scenes with both Daniel and Teal'c that would have allowed something fresh to come to the evolution of all of them.  

Because this was a dream, only Daniel learned anything and because we had no further references to Sha'uri until Season Four's 'Absolute Power', we have no idea if Daniel chose to share any of what he learned with his friends, except the existence of the Harsesis child.

Daniel takes different paths throughout his dream, each ending with a decision.  Sha'uri leads him onto the right path, to forgiveness of Teal'c not necessarily because it's the right thing to do, but because Daniel will need Teal'c's help to find the boy.  

When we return abruptly to the here and now Teal'c fires on Ammonet just as Daniel knew in his dream he would and both Daniel and Sha'uri fall to the ground.  Sha'uri is herself again and she is finally free.  She tells Daniel she loves him, but Daniel can't say the words until after she's dead.  Perhaps it didn't occur to the writer how this looked to the viewer, but it did contradict the statement Daniel made in his dream to Jack, that every time he went through the gate it was to find his wife.  I disagree.  Daniel went through the gate to find himself.  In 'Forever in a Day' he hadn't fallen out of love with Sha'uri - and we can assume he mourned her even if it wasn't shown - but he had put her in perspective.  He'd lost her in 'Children of the Gods' and her death poignantly reinforced that loss.  Daniel's emotional ties are to the members of SG-1, his friends, and in effect, his family.

This story arc continues in 'The Devil You Know' when Apophis tortures Daniel for knowledge of the Harsesis child.  Daniel takes great pleasure in taunting Apophis over the death of his mate Ammonet, in a familiar and much loved Daniel pastime known to fans as 'snake baiting'.

This is another fascinating episode for what it reveals about the depth of Daniel's friendship for Jack.  In each case, the Blood of Sokhar summons up a realistic hallucination of the person most loved by the members of SG-1.  Sam is haunted by the memory of the death of her mother, and her father tries to extract information from her.  Martouf is tortured with Jolinar.  Jack faces the reality of his relationship with Charlie, more strained than he would care to admit.  Daniel is tormented by an encounter with Jack, in which we hear something Jack has never said to him in reality.  'I may not always believe you, but I believe in you.'  Daniel doesn't reveal the location of the Harsesis child or anything else, and he alone is resourceful enough to retrieve the communication device SG-1 needs to get off the planet.

The friendship between Jack and Daniel is unique and compelling.  Both men and women are drawn to buddy relationships, and Michael Shanks is quite correct in his belief that Stargate was a buddy show.  I cannot adequately express my dismay and disappointment about the unexpected and painfully unconvincing attempt to convince us that all the feeling and energy in the team was between Jack and Sam.  

Please.  Until 'Nemesis' Jack hadn't made the slightest effort to get to know Sam as an individual.  I have no idea what the agenda was behind the marginalizing of Daniel and may never know, but it was an unmitigated disaster.  The overwhelming majority of fans loathed the new direction the show lurched in, ignoring both Daniel and the Jack and Daniel friendship.

It was an appalling error of judgement and after losing quarter of his audience in seven episodes, I can't be the only one to wonder why the guy who made that decision kept his job.

Jack cares most about Daniel.  I've thought since Season One's 'Fire and Water' that Jack loves Daniel, that he needs Daniel to be Jack.  With that painful distance and manufactured conflict, along with Jack's inexplicable hostility towards Daniel, we saw exactly what Jack is alone and we did not like what we saw.  No one coming to Stargate in Season Four would fall for Jack.  He's a jerk, and please, someone tell the damn writers he had to have a masters degree before he made major, let alone colonel.  He isn't stupid.  If he was stupid, the team would be dead.  

In 'The Devil You Know', at the end, Daniel sits alone and brooding, his isolation in stark contrast to the rest of his teammates who are all cosy together, even Jack bonding with Martouf.  Daniel seems almost afraid.  It's easy to imagine how reluctant he would be to admit emotional vulnerability after all the losses he has endured throughout his life.  It's a scene that many people remember vividly, never sure how to react to it, or that Daniel chooses to isolate himself.  He seems to just slip away from everyone's notice.

Except ours of course.  We always watch Daniel.  I think that's why as much as anything, Season Four looked strained and unbalanced.  It's impossible to have Sam at the heart of the scenes with Jack when most of us are watching Daniel hide behind somebody.  You just can't engage if you're always pissed off Daniel is having to hide behind somebody because the whole writing team apparently spontaneously decided to write his part for Carter.  The key part of the scene isn't where the dialogue is; it's wherever Daniel is.  I spent so much time watching Daniel's reactions to the action I missed most of the action, and the brave new dynamic was so forced and unconvincing I wasn't missing much.  

The next story in this particular arc was 'Maternal Instinct'.  Bra'tac's presence at the SGC helped Daniel put together the jigsaw that led SG-1 to Kheb, Zen koans, an enigmatic monk, the powerful alien Oma Desala and the Harsesis child.

'Maternal Instinct' was a fascinating episode.  Daniel was absorbed by the Zen koans the monk was attempting to teach him and the links between Buddhism and the matriarchal cult of 'the mother'...meaning that Oma Desala was possibly the source of the Mother Earth mythology.

All seemed well with Daniel until he and the monk were left alone to talk and it became clear he misunderstood what Sha'uri needed from him.  Sha'uri asked him to protect the boy but Daniel interpreted this as taking the boy.  Oma chose to teach Daniel, to show him that she had the power to protect the child.

MONK: "Why do you seek this child of flesh and bones?"

Daniel hesitates.  DANIEL:  "He is the son of my wife."

MONK: "But not your son?"

DANIEL:  "No.  But my wife is dead now and I promised her I would make sure the boy is safe."

It's not surprising Daniel is so conflicted about this.  The boy is the child of Sha'uri's body but he is also the child of Apophis.  Daniel is determined to honour his promise to Sha'uri perhaps because he failed her on Abydos, and himself.  Daniel holds himself to impossibly high moral and ethical standards; he was angry, blaming the victim where he should have been compassionate.  He failed Sha'uri in life, even to the point he didn't tell her he loved her while she was alive to hear him, and he will not fail her in death.

He talks about the boy's safety, as if he is objective and rational in this, and of course he's anything but.  Daniel has a great capacity for love, passionate love, giving with all he is, and I think if the child hadn't been what he was, Harsesis, Daniel would have taken him and loved him.

The boy is Harsesis.  When the monk asks Daniel his reasons for seeking the boy, he admits that he can help them defend against an evil enemy.  This is the point where Daniel's rationalisation becomes obvious.  He's thought about what the boy being Harsesis means for Earth, but not for the boy. To be honest, I'm not sure Daniel is thinking here.  He sounds plausible, but is strained, as if he's convincing himself more than he's trying to convince the monk.

This evasion leads to a direct confrontation, important enough the monk speaks straight-forwardly to Daniel.

MONK: "You hate the Goa'uld."

DANIEL:  "The Goa'uld are responsible for the death of my wife among millions and millions of other people.  How can I not hate them?"

MONK: "Your hate will lead to the child's death."

It's painful to hear Daniel admit this.  His feelings are absolute, all or nothing.  As much as he feels anything, he feels hate.  There is so much innate goodness and compassion in Daniel, you can feel his pain at being burdened by this unaccustomed bitter emotion.  It's as if all the loss Daniel has endured in his life has found a focus in the living face of an enemy.  Daniel hates the Goa'uld for their actions and personally, for what they have done to him.  It's clouding his judgement.

MONK: "You must trust.  You must believe."

Daniel takes this hard.  He channels Jack and gets inappropriately sarcastic and pissy.  He is of course completely distracted when the monk uses his power to light a candle with his mind.

A simple test proves that within Daniel still resides the capacity to trust.  He must trust Oma Desala and her power.  Daniel has enough trust to let go of the boy, to take Oma's power and intentions on good faith, to relinquish the emotional hold this child had on him and to fulfil his promise to Sha'uri, but not to let go of his hate. 

It felt to me as if this was the point where Daniel let go of Sha'uri, where he struggled and finally accepted her loss.

DANIEL:  "I made a promise."  Daniel looks gravely at the baby then looks up at Oma and smiles.  "I promised he'd be safe."

I was proud of Daniel for doing what was right for the boy and not for himself, and it was obvious what relinquishing this tie with Sha'uri cost him, but once again it was Daniel's choice to give, and to accept the consequences.  I think the way Daniel takes responsibility for himself is one of the traits that draws Jack and Teal'c to him.  Teal'c rarely argues with Daniel - he trusts his judgement as being a man who will weigh risks and take them if he believes it right and necessary.

Thought this was intensely personal for Daniel, he was able in the end to see and act for the good of the boy.  The emotional toll on him was clear and it isn't until Season Four's 'Absolute Power' that we see what this surrender actually cost him.

It seemed as if the emptiness inside Daniel was filled with the strongest emotion he had left.  We have to accept canon as presented, and in Season Four Daniel lost his dearest, closest friends and confidantes in Jack and Sam.  He was distanced from both of them, facing hostility from Jack, indifference from Sam, and conflict with the whole team.  He was isolated physically and emotionally from his family again and again.

In this difficult time, when he needed them most to help him finally grieve the loss of his wife, Daniel was farther from his friends than he'd ever been.  All that rage inside, the bitterness and grief hardened Daniel to the point he could argue the case for Shifu intellectually, but for the first time, he made the choice for pragmatism, not principle.  Where Daniel would have been the first to defend anyone in need, let alone a child, he agreed to extracting what intelligence they could from Shifu in the vague hope they could fix it later.

This was a defining moment for Daniel, far more shocking to me than his capacity for cool, deliberate destruction as the delicious 'Dr. Jackson' in the dream Shifu used to teach him to seek another path.  

SHIFU: "You must release your burden before you can find your own way again."

DANIEL: "Yeah. Someone else once said that to me. Thing is, this is my way. I chose this path to honour Sha're's strength and ultimately it isn't about me. Or you for that matter."

It's interesting that Daniel distances himself from Shifu.  He gazes fixedly at the floor as long as he's able, obviously conflicted.  The strain and tension in his body show that he's disassociating himself from what he's saying, from what it means.  He refers to his path as if he's serving the greater good but Daniel has never believed the end justifies the means; I've often thought whereas Daniel will happily do the wrong thing for the right reason, Jack chooses to do the right thing for the wrong reason.  Not that Jack's notorious weakness for an appealing and persuasive young archaeologist isn't one of his most engaging qualities...

It's almost as if in this instance Daniel has taken Jack's role, a reversal or mirroring that becomes clear when Jack in turn takes Daniel's role and puts his own unique spin on it.  Okay, okay, he shoots first then talks.  He isn't perfect.  If he was perfect, he wouldn't be Jack.

Though it was obvious the scenario was exaggerated with the introduction of all the knowledge of the Goa'uld, the frightening thing about Dr. Jackson is that he was so recognisable as Daniel.  Strip away the compassion and empathy that mute the sheer will and drive of Daniel Jackson and you're left with a very dangerous man indeed.

Blowing up Moscow was almost a side issue.  In Daniel's dream we see that his forgiveness of Teal'c was hard won, that Sam's occasional arrogance, competitiveness, and taking the credit for Daniel's inspiration time and again have left their mark, and that at the core of him, Daniel needs Jack's trust and friendship and is no longer certain of either.

Daniel learned nothing about the Goa'uld, but he learned a great deal about himself, about the poisoning of his feelings with bitterness and unspoken regrets.  He saw the cost of hate in himself, eroding his compassion for himself as much as for others, disengaging him emotionally from his friends. The dream is a blunt force version of an object lesson.

He isn't good at putting himself first; it's ironic that what makes Daniel push his own agenda is a miasma of guilt and pain.  Shifu's lesson was timely.  Daniel too learned to deny the battle, to accept those dark places in his soul as part of him.  He grew in this episode, struggling but ready to face not just his own faults but those of his beloved friends.  Daniel loves not wisely, but too well.  His friends have faults; they've hurt him time and again and he's just accepted it because he cares more about them than about himself.  

Looking ahead to 'The Light' we see how close to despair Daniel has been when he stands on his balcony, his withdrawal from addiction knocking down those self-protecting walls in his mind.  He tells Jack that 'it all goes away'.  Daniel has lost everything in his life, including himself at times, and this is the moment we see the impact, when his defences are breached.  Jack's concern for him when Shifu left them and Daniel stood watching, heartsick, mind racing and very alone, was fully justified.

I loved seeing these two episodes together, loved seeing the depth of Daniel's struggle to come to terms with his emotions, to deny them power by internalising, accepting them for part of who he is.  The man who never thinks about himself is forced to here and he's overwhelmed.  I've never been more aware of the distance between Daniel and Jack as I was here because it was so obvious Daniel was dealing with this on his own.  

I'd love to think after seeing Jack so afraid standing there with Daniel on the balcony, after seeing the depth of his feelings for his friend in the infirmary, strong enough to make him rage at Janet, the love he has for Daniel, that they were finally able to talk.  Jack understands about the burden guilt more than anyone.  The two men have been confidantes throughout the series, though both have difficulty talking about themselves.  That long 'you can run but you can't hide' look from Jack to Daniel at the end of 'The Light' showed a man determined to help his friend, to close the distance between them.  It was good to see Jack getting psychotically over-protective again.  I missed that.

The battle to understand and come to terms with himself was slow and obviously painful for Daniel, but we saw the effects in 'Exodus'.  Teal'c challenges Daniel directly about his hatred of Apophis, a part of Daniel Teal'c understands and is comfortable with.  In 'Absolute Power', Daniel tried to make himself believe that he was pragmatically seeking the greater good of mankind, that he wasn't seeking revenge.  Teal'c understands the drive and passion in Daniel for good or for ill, and applying his own standards, he not only accepts Daniel's right to vengeance on him but on Apophis.  He appeals directly to that part of Daniel.

TEAL'C: "And knowing what Apophis did to Sha're would you not trade it all for the opportunity to crush the life from his throat with your bare hands?"

DANIEL: "Well, I'd be lying to you if I said I'd never thought about it, but that doesn't mean I'd do it, given a more rational option."

TEAL'C: "In the future I will not be capable of such restraint."

Daniel doesn't deny his hatred, but he has gained perspective, that small necessary distance.  He accepts and his hatred no longer drives him.  It's part of who he is, it will never leave him, but he has learned to live with it.  In some ways I agree that Daniel played no direct part in killing Apophis or taking out so many Goa'uld on Sokhar's planet in 'Enemies'.  His balance is fragile and precarious, and hard won.  Far better to focus on helping his friend than to be burdened with questioning his own motives for killing Apophis - revenge, justice, the safety of his friends...too much for him to cope with.  The anti-climactic death of Apophis leaves room only for Teal'c and Daniel is forced to move on emotionally.

Stargate is Daniel's journey; as he opened the gate he opened himself, and he has evolved and grown as a thinking, feeling, moral man, losing some of his innocence and naïveté, and perhaps finally learning to place true value on the depth of his compassion and empathy for others in what it cost him to deal with his hatred.  He loves and accepts his friends for who and what they are, and I feel confident Daniel is beginning to accept himself.  What else can I say but that Daniel is real and flawed, wholly endearing and beloved by us for that.

It's easy to identify with Daniel because he is so far from perfect, to see him making errors of judgement, letting his heart rule his head.  He's a good and gentle man, an honest man, and for those words of Jack's in 'Shades of Grey'  cut him, he is sweet.  And nice.  He's struggled with pain, rage, guilt, fear for and of others, and for and of himself, learned the hard way that people love him for who and what he is, and that denying the battle isn't weakness but strength.

He is the heart and soul of the team, the touchstone.  Without him, Jack, Sam and Teal'c are so much less than their potential.  With Daniel, SG-1 becomes more than a team, it is a family.  A father/friend, a sister, a loyal, protective brother in arms.  With Daniel, we never doubt these warriors are capable of love and humanity for they never lose Daniel's love.  

I have to leave the show after 'Meridian' because after seeing Daniel evolve from wide-eyed wonder to hard-edged, informed compassion, I know Daniel would never, could never leave his friends, especially Jack.  They love one another, need one another, complete one another.  Daniel would never leave them and they wouldn't go on without him.  Everything they've shown us of these people supports that.  I can't watch these characters I love and care about twisted to fit circumstance.  

If I had written Daniel out I would have done it differently.  He should have been taken by Osiris, taken from his team, and if Season Six needed a focus, the search for Daniel would have been that focus.  Sam, Jack and Teal'c would have bonded together even more closely, would have fought and searched for him, and we could have accepted a fourth whose role was to help them in that.  

All Michael Shanks asked, all we asked, was that Daniel's importance was recognised.  Sending him out for groceries on the astral plane doesn't get it done.  Like the team, we've been robbed of a chance to mourn Daniel and to still feel his presence he's so much a part of them all.  Like Daniel, we're leaving.

We've grown with Daniel Jackson, and we care too much.

With respect and grateful thanks to Michael Shanks for your sensitive and eloquent portrayal of Daniel Jackson, the character whose passion, intelligence, integrity, strength and vulnerability strikes a chord with fans so powerful we're lucky to see it once in our generation.  Daniel is the heart and soul of Stargate SG-1 and you are not replaceable.

Alison

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