In S4 Teal'c often had a role that wasn't pivotal to the storyline; had almost no interaction with Sam, or Daniel; was used as comic relief, or just got to stand around in the background looking handsome, in episode after episode. However, ironically, it might turn out that S4 was the one in which we not only got the most Teal'c character development we've yet seen but were made to look at the whole Teal'c with new eyes.

In Exodus, for instance, Teal'c endangers everyone else to carry out a personal quest for revenge, in particular endangering Jack without so much as a by-your-leave. He also gloats over the prospect of Tanith's suffering. Given Teal'c's nobility and selflessness in the past, is this out of character for our magnificent Jaffa or not? 

Personally, I didn't think it was (although as always I am ready, willing, and able to have my mind changed by lots of counter arguments). I felt that what we were being reminded of in this episode was that Teal'c is someone from a completely different culture. He looks and sounds just like we do (well except for the pouch, symbiote and tattoo, of course) but he is not of Earth; he is someone from a completely alien cultural background to ours, and consequently has a parallel set of moral values, which share a number of similarities to the western cultural outlook, but which are still fundamentally different.

The need to avenge his father's death, for instance, which in our culture might appear to be an ignoble one, in that of many ancient cultures would be considered extremely noble. If we take Aeschylus' version of the Orestes myth as a representative of this particular cultural imperative, this is a son who would be considered dishonored if he did not avenge his father (Agamemnon)'s death. So strongly is Orestes driven by his need to avenge his father that he is forced to murder his mother (Klytemnestra) to escape from the dishonor of leaving his father's death unavenged, even though matricide in his society is as terrible a crime as it would be now in our own. I think this is probably supposed to be more similar to Teal'c's mindset than some of us had previously realized. 

In the same way, given that although Teal'c certainly does not lack compassion, he shows none for the dying Apophis in Serpent's Song, we could presume that in his culture, to show compassion for an 'unworthy' enemy, could be considered a weakness, and to show mercy to someone who has proven themselves evil in the past, might, in Teal'c's culture, appear to be condoning that evil. In a society which believes in an eye for an eye, it might not occur to a product of it that there was a 'better' (from our moral viewpoint) way to respond to a captured enemy for whom one has no respect than to treat him as Teal'c treats Apophis in Serpent's Song and Tanith in Exodus. And perhaps, by his lights, to treat them with compassion and respect, when he considers them 'undeserving' of it, would be to insult those prisoners for whom he did feel both respect and admiration in the past and to whom he responded accordingly?

In Crossroads he was prepared to give up the SGC to return to Chulak with Shau'nac to help her re-educate other Jaffa into communicating with their symbiotes. Given his great loyalty to the SGC, is this aberrant behavior, or not? Well, loyalty goes both ways. The SGC has its own goals and they don't necessarily accord with those of some of its members. 

Teal'c seems to believe the best way to defeat the Goa'uld is to win the hearts and minds of the Jaffa who serve them, and convince them that these people are not gods. The SGC believes the best method is to make allies with other races, and collect technology that will help them defeat the Goa'uld. So, the SGC is pretty much intending to find weaponry to wipe out the people Teal'c wants to save. (As Goa'uld tend to have a lot of Jaffa standing between them and their enemy.) And they expect Teal'c to help them in this endeavor even though he might have a method which he thinks is better than theirs. Sometimes that has got to be downright annoying.

To make a brief comparison between the way I see the three male members of SG-1; for me, Jack, is a sort of halfway house between the different moral viewpoints represented by Daniel and Teal'c. All are moral people, with enormous integrity, who have shown a willingness to sacrifice themselves in the past for the greater good. All have a strong desire to do the right thing, and most of their actions seem to me to be governed by that desire. So these are good men who have differing views on what is the right thing to do, but who have an equal desire to do what is right. Teal'c, I think, is the most pragmatic about the need to make sacrifices for the greater good, as he has had to live with it for the longest. (Which is probably why he is better able to sympathize with the Tok'ra than Jack.) But also the most inclined to make the ultimate sacrifice if he felt the gesture might do some good. Jack is the least likely to be carried away by a principal or a moral ideal if he can see no practical value in doing so; this is definitely a man less interested in dying well than staying alive to fight another day. Daniel is the most idealistic in many ways but his idealism would have a magnetic north of trying to get the least amount of people killed. Teal'c would probably send ten thousand Jaffa into battle against the Goa'uld to prove to another million Jaffa that the Goa'uld were not gods. Daniel wouldn't think it right to do so even if the result was the downfall of the System Lords, he would still consider the price too high. I don't think Teal'c would consider any price too high because he has a much longer term way of looking at things than Jack and Daniel do. Probably because he has lived for more than twice as long as either of them.

Teal'c is someone who remained first prime of Apophis even though that meant he was occasionally forced to commit acts that were repugnant to him. I don't think he did so just because he wanted to avenge his father (although I do think that was a powerful motivating factor). I certainly don't think he did so because it was a cushy number and he got a nice house and a beautiful wife out of the bargain. I think he did it because he felt it was a method by which he might be able to do the most good. In a warrior-based theocracy, the best warrior who is the right hand man to the god in charge has the most power. I have no doubt Teal'c saved a lot of lives as first prime of Apophis, even though in some cases (such as that of Hanno's father in Cor-Ai) it might have involved taking other lives. It's not a path Daniel could have followed because it would have sickened him and he would not have been able to stomach making some of the decisions Teal'c probably had to make. It involves a particular kind of moral strength to do what Teal'c did and involves a different outlook and a different kind of morality (not better, not worse, just different) from Daniel's.

I don't think Jack could have done it either, not for any length of time, but I think he can probably appreciate the good Teal'c managed to do while in that position, as there are intimations that there have been times when he was serving the USAF when he was not completely comfortable with the things he was required to do, yet he did them, because he felt that in the greater scheme of things they needed to be done. So, Jack can probably find it easier to understand than Daniel can why Teal'c was first prime of Apophis for so long; just as Daniel, as an anthropologist, can probably understand the cultural differences between Teal'c and themselves, and make allowances for him having a different outlook, better than Jack can.

I think the problems occasionally occur between the three of them when they over-estimate how similar they are. Although Daniel recognizes that he and Teal'c are coming from very different places, he probably thinks he and Jack are usually on the same page, so it's a shock to him when Jack proves himself capable of doing things Daniel couldn't. (Such as exploiting refugees to gain new technology for the SGC in The Other Side. A decision which Jack would see as born of necessity, but which to Daniel appeared immoral.) Jack can see both Teal'c and Daniel's point of view but is actually on a slightly different path from either of them, so when Teal'c acts like someone who is unmistakably 'alien' or Daniel acts like someone who is unmistakably an archaeologist/linguist/ anthropologist it causes Jack that little flicker of annoyance/sense of isolation because it is a reminder of how different they are from him when most of the time he can kid himself they all see things the same way.

Which brings me to the question of whether or not Teal'c had the right to take Jack with him on his desire for personal vengeance. Well, in fairness to Teal'c, Jack came up with the original plan (Way to go, Jack!), and they went out there to try to save their ship and themselves by attacking-as-the-best-form-of-defence. It was only after the attack ship had moved away from their ship and Teal'c realized it was heading to pick up Tanith, and that Tanith might therefore escape after all, that it changed from being Jack on a mission to save the ship and the others and Teal'c helping him by piloting the death glider, to being Teal'c wanting to avenge Sha'nauc and Jack getting dragged along in his wake. 

So, Teal'c saw a situation where the guy whom he had twice allowed to live despite the fact Tanith had murdered his lover, was possibly going to escape, and saw red and/or felt that his moral obligation to avenge Sha'nauc's death overruled his moral obligation not to expose Jack to unnecessary danger. But also in the back of his mind, I do wonder if he thought that he was 'entitled' to take Jack with him, because Jack is a warrior. I don't know that he was entitled to do any such thing by our standards, but I think he might have thought he was. In Tangent, he describes Jack as a 'brother'. Perhaps that might be relevant to his actions in Exodus? They are equals, they are warriors, were their situations reversed, Teal'c would go with Jack to help him avenge a loved one without a thought. He believes Jack would do the same for him. Did he therefore feel he had a 'right' to endanger Jack in that way? Or did he just have such a red mist in front of his eyes at the thought of Tanith escaping capture that he didn't care? For whatever reason it's not very lovable, but it didn't actually feel out of character to me. It felt like a valid exploration of a previously hinted at character flaw rather than something it was impossible to imagine Teal'c doing.

In a chat on Sunday, the question was asked: Would Teal'c have behaved the same way if his passenger in that death glider had been Sam or Daniel? I think Teal'c does see his relationship with Daniel as protective because of Daniel being a scholar rather than a warrior. So I do think that had he dragged Daniel along on that particular ride it would have felt out of character to me. 

The question re. Sam is harder to answer because we have had so little information about how these two perceive each other. Someone else said that she thought Teal'c looked at Sam in the same way he might look at a young Jaffa, as a warrior apprentice; one to be treated like a soldier in the field, but one to keep an eye on at the same time to make sure they were okay. So a combination of warrior-brother but also protector perhaps? I know I would have expected Teal'c's protective instincts to have been seriously battling with his desire for vengeance had Sam been his co-pilot, and it to have caused a lot more of an internal struggle even if he did eventually go after Tanith, but I don't think he feels protective about Jack as such. 

In Exodus we certainly saw a Teal'c who was obsessive (but I think years of being first prime to Apophis to avenge his father/free his people strongly hints at obsessiveness); and contemptuous of an enemy who had done him personal wrong, and for whose methods and morality he had no respect (but we had seen this before in Serpent's Song). But, for me, just as his behavior in 'Crossroads' mirrored the behavior we learn he displayed in Bloodlines – seeing his moral obligation to do what is necessary to free his people from slavery as more important even than existing links to people he loves – I felt that his behavior in Exodus mirrored his previous actions, except in the matter of taking Jack into danger, and even in that case I can understand why he did it. Circumstances conspired against him and Jack was the one member of SG-1 whom Teal'c might feel entitled to expose to danger. The thought of Tanith escaping the consequences of his crime was clearly unbearable to Teal'c, and sometimes even noble Jaffa are entitled to act on impulse. 

I don't think Teal'c was right to take Jack into danger. I don't think he was right to let his desire for vengeance outweigh the task in hand, and the safety of his teammates. I don't think he was right to gloat at the thought of Tanith's suffering. But I can understand why he did so and I don’t feel that in acting in that fashion, he ceased to be Teal'c, only that he became a Teal'c who has gradually been changing into someone darker and more complex than we perhaps realized until that moment. (Or the others realized either?)

In conclusion, I think perhaps other seasons lured us into a false sense of security where Teal'c was concerned. Because he was so familiar to us, we forgot that he wasn't the same as us. I think what Exodus did was remind us about the roots of this character. This Teal'c was a man I had no difficulty in remembering used to be first prime of Apophis, that this was a man who had done terrible things. So, for me all Exodus did was remind us of who Teal'c used to be. 

But for a number of other people I know it didn't strike them that way, and I am definitely open to persuasion on this one (hey, this isn’t the perfection of Daniel's bare feet being impugned here) so, over to you guys...?

Lori

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