HOW WEAK IS TOO WEAK? PT. 3

At the end of the second part of HOW WEAK IS TOO WEAK, I said:

In a future essay I'll develop further the notion that leadership sometimes engenders the privilege of combative status-- but also, sometimes not.

Given that I started this series talking in part about the sixties animated series JONNY QUEST, it's natural that one of my examples of a leader who does have combative status-- despite not being all that dynamic-- is Benton Quest of the same series. (I'll pass on making any judgments of later iterations of the franchise.)

First, like Benton's son Jonny, the scientist takes a back seat to the hyper-dynamicity of bodyguard Race Bannon. The good doctor is never seen fighting hand-to-hand, and is only occasionally seen using a pistol or rifle.

Clearly he can use a more exotic form of weaponry when pressed--

And he even creates weapons that can take out giant eye-robots.

So, even though Benton's not seen kicking a lot of ass, he contributes considerable dynamicity to the ensemble.

In contrast, there's the portentously named Commander Adama of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

Despite his being theoretically in command of the "battlestar" and of the entire stellar wagon train it escorted, Adama always seems generally removed from the action whenever the Cylons attack. I'm not going to say that he never gives a crucial command in a given narrative. However, the entire attitude of the GALACTICA production frames Adama as a figurehead-- which is perfectly true, in terms of actor Lorne Greene's star-power compared to the appeal of his less-known co-stars. Further, Greene had become internationally famous for playing Ben Cartwright for fourteen years. and though Daddy Ben did his share of fighting and shooting alongside his sons, the Ben Cartwright character became invested with a paternal gravitas-- which is almost certainly what the GALACTICA producers wanted from Greene. In contrast, all the action is given to Adama's "sons"-- the real one, Apollo, and the figurative one, Starbuck-- who are the ones who get out there and battle Cylons.

Indeed, even though Adama and a handful of other non-combative characters are indubitably *centric" with respect to the characters important to the serial narrative, none of them are important with respect to the combative scenes. Thus, from the combative standpoint, Adama does not share the combative status of the younger space-soldiers, who in general tend to go out and fight the enemy without any input from their "old man."