SG1: Seth

[PlasmaHam]

It seems a little implausible to say that every religion and mythology needs to be in some way tied into aliens. At some point it starts to strains believability, even by sci-fi standards. In my opinion it would be better to leave some ambiguity, just so it doesn't fill over crowded or complicated. Especially for Stargate, which already has a weird and complicated mythology. Anyways, there was no way that Stargate was going to start messing around with major world religions. Just imagine the outrage if they decided to make Allah a Go'ald. Even when the show presented Alien Satan, it implied that he was just an imitation, not the real thing. Besides possibly attracting some hardcore athiests, messing with religions would have just been bad news for SG1.

On the other hand, I actually would have liked a riskier version of the Seth story, making him a prominent minister or televangelist (and of course you could mitigate the effect the way they usually do in TV- by having a more moderate religious character be anti-Seth), or at least a prominent politician or businessman. We got some of that later with Ba'al and Kinsey, but it does feel like a missed early opportunity.

Yea, I was expecting Seth to be some major figure, perhaps a celebrity with thousands of devoted fans, a televangelist (which are typically fair-game for most) with huge amounts of followers far and wide. Or perhaps a businessman or politician, manipulating society on a grand scale to pursue his own ends. But nope, instead we get a cult-leader who's influence is basically limited to a ranch somewhere in rural America. I know Chuck was kidding when he implied Trump was Seth, but man, having Trump as Seth would have made for a far better episode, and could have been a great running arc.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Also like...well, the mind-control gas really only seems to exist for the convenience of this episode, and it's a cheap out. Given his isolation from go'ald resources, he could be leaning a lot more heavily on machination and mundane cult tactics, exploiting the isolated and the vulnerable, using a sense of belonging, isolation, and abuse tactics...but nope it's just obedient-minion gas.

[Morgaine]

The thing about delving into every mythology is that SG-1 pretty much did that by the time of the Ori arc. Nothing was safe from Mayan gods to Celtic myth to Japanese folklore.
Hell I know quite a few people who were rather upset Amaterasu was depicted as a Goa'uld, and a minor throwaway one at that.

Perhaps it's because I come from a background of playing many a JRPG where the ultimate enemy is Yahweh or some variant of, which never caused an uproar. Granted an American TV series is more prominent to the Christian crowd, but how many hardcore Christians watch sci-fi about alien gods anyway?
Plus it means they missed out on the obvious episode where SG-1 arrives at the planet Kolob.

As for imitation, well, aren't all the aliens in SG-1 doing that more or less? It's never said for sure that all the myths of the Egyptian/Greek/etc pantheons are based on the actions of the Goa'uld, they may just as well be tales inspired by other sources.
Similarly the soft spoken Asgard even when disguised are hardly the brutish, boasting mead swilling warriors who reward their followers for dying in glorious battle the Norse thought of them as. Thor is more likely to tell you that you've violated a treaty and to go away than boast he will carve his name into your skull.

As for Seth/Trump, I think that's more viewing this from 2017. Were demagogues like him much of a problem back when this episode was made? Sure Trump was around, but he was more one whacky billionaire among many.
Still Seth's little compound was rather pathetic. I realise they were going for some sort of Waco allegory, but Seth's lack of ambition was totally un-Goa'uld like, and the happy gas made the commentary on how cults break up families fall flat. No family was being broken up, they were forced to obey and ran back to their loved ones the moment the effect was gone.

[Admiral X]

The gas and harem aspect really reminded me of the more recent Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, though that was only one character who represented part of a much larger conspiracy.

[Beastro]

Chuck's review hits the nail on the head, and IMO,show's the cracks forming in the otherwise excellent world building SG1 did that improved vastly on the movies basic premise.

I'm no expert on ancient Egyptian and Greek mythology, but some of the choices they made with their villains were a little odd. If you start with Ra, then I guess it makes some sense to follow it up with Apophis/Apep. But then there's other well-known mythological figures who show up kind of randomly, and they end up being portrayed as less than impressive (Heru'ur sucked; Isis didn't even make it out of the jar). Set/Setesh/Seth is maybe the most egregious example of that. He's a character with strong mythological connections to Ra, Apophis, Osiris, Isis, and Horus/Heru'ur. Heck, he's Anubis' dad.

This is pretty much the thing that made me the most frustrated with the show, that they couldn't even keep basic mythology intacted and reflected in the political mechaniations of the System Lords.

WTF DO WE SEE CRONUS AS A SYSTEM LORD?!!?!? Especially when we never see Zeus, IIRC.

Having Cronus as background with his son overthrowning him to usurp his demesne as System Lord and then archaically told orally in human history as a mythological story I'd think would be Stargate world building 101, especially when it opened the door for a plot arch involving the Titans breaking out of whatever Tartarus really is and throwing the System Lord balance of power into chaos.

Instead the whole deity concept is reduced to casually throwing out names at random with Anubis reeking of "Ooooooh, this ones name is one EVERYONE will recognize! It's a good one for our next universe threatening Big Bad even if it doesn't fit our concept of him when someone like Osiris or some other Life/Death/Rebirth deity would!"

Yeah, for a franchise who has villains impersonating famous gods, Stargate was awful at mythology. This episode isn't better when Daniel traces Seth's steps through history and mentions how he must've been Typhon coz it's also a made up creature. Well by that Standard, Seth must've been a lot of faiths at the same time coz made up critters aren't that rare. Typhon was a monster with 100 snake heads (Among other snake-related things).

I thank the underlying anti-theistic undertone of the TV series in that it seems to undermine the writer and producers ability to take the symbolism of Order and Chaos figures at face value that kept the Goa'uld as ever worsening comic book villains.

Yeah, but SG-1 never really pretended to be serious, hard sci-fi. It was silly supercheese, it knew it, it embraced it. And really, that was half the fun of it.

That's what made it fun, but the world building made it stand out on it's own, and above in many ways, things like Trek and all the other late90s/2000s Sci-Fi kicking around.

The only thing that really annoyed me in that department is that we never got a Goa'uld named Yahweh. But then the Ori kind of made up for that, so.

That wasn't going to happen and the Ori wound up just playing it in the tired tired "Evil Paper Thin Not-Crusaders, oooo Christianity Bad!" that was hardly groundbreaking when they were trying to play it safe commentating about Islamism and the War on Terror while using a Christian punching bag while doing so.

I pretty much agree with this. Don't forget, that SGC was made during a time where there was a resurgence in christian power in the US. But if you look at the subtext, it's all over the series. Just have a look at the old testament's Jaweh. Wrathful, vengeful god, that doesn't allow other gods besides him, demands to be worshipped and lets fires and diseases punish all those who do not do his bidding? If that's not a Goa'Uld, then what is?
Same for Jesus. Hm, which species is known to ressurect the dead? Yeah, exactly. His human host might have been at the brink of death, close enough to pass for dead by normal human being's standard, lay him down for three days and he miraculously was alive again, left the cave, never to be seen again. Yeah, he switched his host because either it wasn't viable anymore or he just needed a change of face. Hey, who knows, he might have come back a few centuries later with a grudge, enveloping the middle east in a holy war, leading to the downfall of his supposed former followers (Byzantine Empire), while at the same time accepting those of his former followers who pay tribute. Same for a young Jesus, that was said to be of an adult mind. Too bad that there's no precedence of Goa'Uld taking human children or teenagers as hosts... oh wait...

The essence of this is what I'd like to see if are boot ever comes, in that Earth, and the audience go out expecting to take on all the Goa'uld given their prejudices and the interaction with the on Goa'uld that revives Earth's Stargate.... only to realize the situation is nothing like it with some System Lords acting the stereotypical way while many others have learned and moved on as you'd expect Set would have in this episode and actually welcome Earth's help in trying to clean them up after they've spent thousands of years trying to alter the balance of power away from the same old cutthroat Goa'uld politics.

Also there's this quote of him:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." (Matthew 10:34-35)

Which does not espouse psychical violence by is forewarning what would happen to Christians and those close to them as a result of their conversion that would literal split families in much the same way that happens in a civil war where different members take different sides and most of the bitterness of the war comes from such upheavals.

If you want to look for a Goa'uld figure from AD history, look no further than Muhammad and the infighting with Islam ever since his death.

(what a coincidence, I wonder where the idea of a singular god may have come from in the later jewish believes...)

An idea first conceived by Freud, one that ultimately doesn't hold up beyond the initial coincidence.

Some of you need to brush up on your exegetical skills if you seriously think that the point of the fig tree story is that Jesus was pissed off at a tree.

The story potential of borrowing figures from prominent Earth religions and turning them into villains, anti-heroes, or whatever else would in no way live up to the backlash. As Ghilz said, it's a fun, light series. I would have preferred that they stuck to the Egyptian pantheon and really build their own mythology based on that, but they never followed through with anything they borrowed in a meaningful way. I don't see the benefit in creating storylines that would virtually guarantee division and nastiness within a small, supportive fan community. If they wanted to say something about it, it's easy enough to do a thinly veiled allegory like they eventually did with the Ori. And seeing how insipid the Ori plots were, I'm doubly glad that they didn't bother with something more direct.

Shhhhhh, you'll tip the hand of the entire subtext of all religion and give it more than one demension!

The whole handling of pantheons outside of the Egyptian one was terrible, full on throw away name mode by the time they crept up.

The fun took a nose dive with Ascension not simply because it widened the scope of the show too greatly but forced them to deal with more serious, existential matters on a more episode to episode basis that didn't mix with the fundamental groundwork of the series and it's cocky grin.

By the time the Ori came along the producers were clearly wanting to do something more consistently serious over serious current events, but didn't have the will to take the themes (and still alienated and drove off viewers that were on the fence ever since Ascension and abrupt collapse of the Goa'uld System Lord galactic hegemony.

Nobody held a gun to their head and forced them to introduce literal Satan. But they did, and when they did that they opened the obvious question about Yahweh and Jesus.

They wanted to further tap into the post-Antiquity religions that came after the gate was buried, of which the Asgard was the only real one they tried and expanded upon, tested out a Medieval episode and then stopped in much the same way that the The Fifth Race ended on a note that felt very much like typical TV Sci-Fi where an episode ends on a supposidely profound note, but there is no follow up.

Besides possibly attracting some hardcore athiests, messing with religions would have just been bad news for SG1.

Which was internally consistant in that Goa'uld knowledge and influence was supposed to have ended well into Antiquity, so much so to the point is brings into question the Greek pantheon and why it's there much less anything after 1AD.

Hell I know quite a few people who were rather upset Amaterasu was depicted as a Goa'uld, and a minor throwaway one at that.

It's odd they did that, especially given that, IIRC, other more obscure religions like Zoroastrianism were passed over.

Granted an American TV series is more prominent to the Christian crowd, but how many hardcore Christians watch sci-fi about alien gods anyway?

*Raises hand for an entire family and friends who did*

That is neither here nor there in the point you're making beyond what the producers had to consider and your preconceived ideas of what many Christians are interested in that also includes many that would probably be fundies by you (And this kind of thing is why I ultimately loath Ken Ham or WBC types people would like to think we all are like without going in the opposite end and becoming dishwater United Church types, but I'm showing my own prejudices here).

[PerrySimm]

You'd think with 5000 years and some tech staff he'd be able to come up with better compound defences.

[Madner Kami]

You'd think with 5000 years and some tech staff he'd be able to come up with better compound defences.

It's collosal, it's impractical, it's ineffective especially compared to the costs and time-to-built investment and it's easy to destroy it without much effort, by a combined arms attack. It's perfectly Goa'Uld.

[Fixer]

From God, To Kane, To Seth.

It all makes sense now.

[Morgaine]

Well there was that one episode where Daniel had a vision of himself with a mind filled with Goa'uld knowledge using that to build new super tech, leading to an array of orbital killsats, leading to Daniel taking over the U.S. government and nuking Moscow because the Russians dared to be a tiny bit difficult with him.

Yeah Seth was just really lazy.

That is neither here nor there in the point you're making beyond what the producers had to consider and your preconceived ideas of what many Christians are interested in that also includes many that would probably be fundies by you (And this kind of thing is why I ultimately loath Ken Ham or WBC types people would like to think we all are like without going in the opposite end and becoming dishwater United Church types, but I'm showing my own prejudices here).

By hardcore Christians I refer to Christians who'd actually care about interpretations of their particular mythology on a silly sci fi show about MacGuyver fighting space aliens enough to get angry over it.

[Durandal_1707]

Okay, I come from a properly hard-core Christian background. I had to hide my DS9 watching from my mom, because the Bajoran religion would have set her off. It doesn't matter that they were obvious allegories for Judeo-Christians that were portrayed positively; they worshiped gods that were not called Jesus, and therefore they were a promotion of idolatry. The character of Dax also made her uncomfortable, because the union with a "serpent" caused her to draw some religious connection which I don't specifically remember what it was anymore, but she wasn't happy about it. The Goa'uld would have given her an aneurysm.

Heck, I was forbidden from playing the Legend of Zelda series of video games (which, at this point, only existed through Link to the Past), because they had too many uncomfortable religious undertones. She was also bothered by extremely tame references in a couple of the "Garfield" TV movies, and once called our local PBS affiliate to bitch at whatever poor schmuck they had answering the phones after Rockapella sang "Zombie Jamboree" on an episode of the old Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego game show.

You cannot appease this crowd. It is foolish to try. And people outside of that crowd will generally have thick enough skin to be a grown-up about it.