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weaselettSo am procrastinating over doing my two remaining assignments (one which shouldn't take long, one that may take....a while) - and ambling around fandom again.
There seems to have been a lot of comments about fandom and pre-stargate Daniel recently (one of the best I've read is here
), and there's a tonne more that's been around longer - this time through, I'm taking a bit more notice, especially in the light of HiPS, which has kinda required me to get Daniel's past (and Carson's) straight in my head, through of course on both counts it's my opinion. Now I'm not going to say anything about Carson's past right now, I'll leave that until after I post HiPS, plus of the two, Carson is the one with the least clues floating around about his past.
I don't think Daniel was abused - or at least not by his foster parents. In canon Daniel has never shown any of the signs of someone who was abused as a child. But there is plenty of people in fandom who think he was, which is fair enough, as long as they give good reasoning, rather than just having it there as something else we should pity poor little Danny boy about.
From my knowledge of foster care here and way too many comments made by people about how bad the system used to be both here and in America - I doubt Daniel would have been in just one foster home, through I can see, through canon comments why this is the preferred opinion. Why?
Well - canon tells us about Nick, who didn't take Daniel - and canon tells us Daniel wasn't adopted (which suggests that Nick either refused, or because there was a living relative it was never considered)
The lack of adoption makes me think that he was in a minimum of three foster homes, as there is a limit on how long a child can stay in a foster home - especially if there's never likely to be an adoption. (This is true even now - at least over here - over four years in a foster home is rare, unless it's one of the homes ala Tracy Beaker, unless the foster parents decide to adopt - but I'm not an expert - so feel free to correct me)The other problem with a single foster home, is the age he was when his parents died - the older the child the more likely they are to move around.
So I say three to five foster homes, until he was emancipated at 16 (at least according to the StarGate Novel).
He was ahead in school - or he was in one of the more specialised schools - but as he was foster care, it's more likely that he was at an ordinary school. He may have been bullied - to be honest, I always think he was - to be in a class with older kids and be bright, there are always going to be those bad apples who get bothered and take it out on the kid - so bullied, but not in any means an outcast.
I'm not completely sold on him being on the chess team, or the debating, I can see him preferring reading and having well meaning foster parents encouraging him to do more sports. Plus, there's the fact while he hates Hockey, he plays basketball quite happily in season 9. So not a complete geek, but pretty far from being a Jock at the same time.
There's never anything said about whether he has any other family, besides Nick, but there's a lot of hints that he hasn't, or if he has, he doesn't know them/get along with them. I tend towards no family other than Nick, but, should a plot bunny call for it, I might write some family.
He was in New York until he turned 16 - as that's were his parents died and there's no mention of his parents having had any kind of permanent base elsewhere. This isn't something that varies too much, but there are some cases.
He was born in Egypt. See the above article (I think I prefer Greece to Washington..) His parents were field archaeologists (or at least one of them was) and I seriously doubt it pays much more than it does now - which isn't enough to be able to have a permanent residence away from were you're digging, especially if you're in the field a lot. Most likely you have your stuff in storage in a preferred location, IF you have that much stuff.
I don't follow the theory that he was brought up in Egypt with just a few trips to America - his accent is too defined for that (yeah - I know it's MS's accent, but still) - if he had spent that much time in Egypt he would have a taint in his accent, at least when he's angry (I speak from experience as a child who only spent the first 18 months of my life in Norfolk, yet when I get very annoyed, those 18 months still manage to show, along with all the others *g*)
I've talked about some of this before (mainly when in an essay about which would have been his first language *blushes*) but it still holds true. Daniel was most likely moved around from site to site, with a few stints at universities and with collections mingled in. I doubt he would have had a tutor (that would require more money than his parents probably had), so he most likely either went to school where ever they were at the time, OR, his parents taught him.
Lastly - Daniel saw his parents die - in a horrific way - in front of him - there is no way that there wasn't some effect on the eight year old child that he was (going off SG-1 canon) - those people that feel the need to have him been abused by foster parents?? Just how cruel do you want to be?? This also means, that as it would have taken a while for him to recover and because those few months wouldn't be a good time for him to want to remember, that during this period, he could have been in one foster home/shelter where there were people (including, you would hope, a Psychologist) who could help him through it, before going to a more or less permanent foster home for the rest of his 7/8 years in care. In other words the people who have a mute Daniel/bed wetting Daniel during this period have fair reason to write Daniel that way. He would have been traumatized. And more importantly, he was a child who had just had his whole world ripped from him. That's going to have a lasting effect on anyone.
And that's the gist of it. I realize that this is one of the things that's very heavily considered in fandom, but to be honest - there isn't really a wrong Daniel history, at least not until canon tells us otherwise - which looks to be very unlikely - it's just that a lot of things people put in aren't true to the character, or the way he's portrayed. Also - I am aware of the varying opinions on use of the Novel of StarGate as canon and I don't use it excessively myself, but in some instances it seems better to take from that than to just make something up.
Next - most likely I end up driving into the Daniel and his relationships issues - but I think that'll be a while coming yet :S
There seems to have been a lot of comments about fandom and pre-stargate Daniel recently (one of the best I've read is here
), and there's a tonne more that's been around longer - this time through, I'm taking a bit more notice, especially in the light of HiPS, which has kinda required me to get Daniel's past (and Carson's) straight in my head, through of course on both counts it's my opinion. Now I'm not going to say anything about Carson's past right now, I'll leave that until after I post HiPS, plus of the two, Carson is the one with the least clues floating around about his past.
I don't think Daniel was abused - or at least not by his foster parents. In canon Daniel has never shown any of the signs of someone who was abused as a child. But there is plenty of people in fandom who think he was, which is fair enough, as long as they give good reasoning, rather than just having it there as something else we should pity poor little Danny boy about.
From my knowledge of foster care here and way too many comments made by people about how bad the system used to be both here and in America - I doubt Daniel would have been in just one foster home, through I can see, through canon comments why this is the preferred opinion. Why?
Well - canon tells us about Nick, who didn't take Daniel - and canon tells us Daniel wasn't adopted (which suggests that Nick either refused, or because there was a living relative it was never considered)
The lack of adoption makes me think that he was in a minimum of three foster homes, as there is a limit on how long a child can stay in a foster home - especially if there's never likely to be an adoption. (This is true even now - at least over here - over four years in a foster home is rare, unless it's one of the homes ala Tracy Beaker, unless the foster parents decide to adopt - but I'm not an expert - so feel free to correct me)The other problem with a single foster home, is the age he was when his parents died - the older the child the more likely they are to move around.
So I say three to five foster homes, until he was emancipated at 16 (at least according to the StarGate Novel).
He was ahead in school - or he was in one of the more specialised schools - but as he was foster care, it's more likely that he was at an ordinary school. He may have been bullied - to be honest, I always think he was - to be in a class with older kids and be bright, there are always going to be those bad apples who get bothered and take it out on the kid - so bullied, but not in any means an outcast.
I'm not completely sold on him being on the chess team, or the debating, I can see him preferring reading and having well meaning foster parents encouraging him to do more sports. Plus, there's the fact while he hates Hockey, he plays basketball quite happily in season 9. So not a complete geek, but pretty far from being a Jock at the same time.
There's never anything said about whether he has any other family, besides Nick, but there's a lot of hints that he hasn't, or if he has, he doesn't know them/get along with them. I tend towards no family other than Nick, but, should a plot bunny call for it, I might write some family.
He was in New York until he turned 16 - as that's were his parents died and there's no mention of his parents having had any kind of permanent base elsewhere. This isn't something that varies too much, but there are some cases.
He was born in Egypt. See the above article (I think I prefer Greece to Washington..) His parents were field archaeologists (or at least one of them was) and I seriously doubt it pays much more than it does now - which isn't enough to be able to have a permanent residence away from were you're digging, especially if you're in the field a lot. Most likely you have your stuff in storage in a preferred location, IF you have that much stuff.
I don't follow the theory that he was brought up in Egypt with just a few trips to America - his accent is too defined for that (yeah - I know it's MS's accent, but still) - if he had spent that much time in Egypt he would have a taint in his accent, at least when he's angry (I speak from experience as a child who only spent the first 18 months of my life in Norfolk, yet when I get very annoyed, those 18 months still manage to show, along with all the others *g*)
I've talked about some of this before (mainly when in an essay about which would have been his first language *blushes*) but it still holds true. Daniel was most likely moved around from site to site, with a few stints at universities and with collections mingled in. I doubt he would have had a tutor (that would require more money than his parents probably had), so he most likely either went to school where ever they were at the time, OR, his parents taught him.
Lastly - Daniel saw his parents die - in a horrific way - in front of him - there is no way that there wasn't some effect on the eight year old child that he was (going off SG-1 canon) - those people that feel the need to have him been abused by foster parents?? Just how cruel do you want to be?? This also means, that as it would have taken a while for him to recover and because those few months wouldn't be a good time for him to want to remember, that during this period, he could have been in one foster home/shelter where there were people (including, you would hope, a Psychologist) who could help him through it, before going to a more or less permanent foster home for the rest of his 7/8 years in care. In other words the people who have a mute Daniel/bed wetting Daniel during this period have fair reason to write Daniel that way. He would have been traumatized. And more importantly, he was a child who had just had his whole world ripped from him. That's going to have a lasting effect on anyone.
And that's the gist of it. I realize that this is one of the things that's very heavily considered in fandom, but to be honest - there isn't really a wrong Daniel history, at least not until canon tells us otherwise - which looks to be very unlikely - it's just that a lot of things people put in aren't true to the character, or the way he's portrayed. Also - I am aware of the varying opinions on use of the Novel of StarGate as canon and I don't use it excessively myself, but in some instances it seems better to take from that than to just make something up.
Next - most likely I end up driving into the Daniel and his relationships issues - but I think that'll be a while coming yet :S
