Isn’t character development fantastic?
Here we have our peeps needing each others company while Rodney is in surgery. Sheppard goes to find Ronon and, being the cute awkward guys they are, decide that Teyla needs company during this time.
Teyla is still in the infirmary after being de-Wraithified so they gather around.
Discussing the surgery gives them something to talk about and it’s here that Ronon says (after Teyla says it’s been three hours already which isn’t good news) it’s was probably a good thing that Keller let Rodney feed on her. With his current state and immense risk of infection, had he not fed so recently his chances wouldn’t be as good.
This is a huge step for Ronon. Letting Rodney and Jennifer go through with the feeding was so bad that he couldn’t even watch. His talk with Sheppard helped get his head in a better place then it was and I think that this moment, and the realization, helped even more.
That he was willing to say something like that out loud tells you how much he trusts his family. They’ve proven themselves to him over the years and he feels safe enough verbalizing something like that. Something that is deeply traumatic for him personally.
Not so intense for Ronon, is a moment on Sateda that comes up soon after Rodney is out of the woods with his surgery.
Ronon takes a team to meet with Genii who want a Lantean to activate a crystal for their Alteran ship. When Radek realizes the crystal is for a weapons array and not a simple navigational crystal as the Genii say, he tells Ronon.
It’s up to Ronon to decide whether or not to let Mel Hocken activate the crystal for the Genii.
On the one hand, it’s for weapons and the Genii haven’t been what you’d call the most reliable or trustworthy allies to this point.
On the other hand, chances are the Genii are more likely to use it against Death then Atlantis in the near future. With the crystal damaged it’s entirely possible that they won’t even survive an attempt to use it.
I think he made the right choice having Hocken activate it. It made the Genii owe them one and gave them a possible hand with Queen Death.
Mr. Woolsey agrees, by the way, and leaves Ronon almost speechless when he tells him so.
Until this point Ronon has really been portrayed as the muscle of the team. Which isn’t a bad thing at all, but it does leave people with the expectation that he’s not the brightest. We know that’s not true because we’ve gotten to see some of his conversations where he talks about his younger years and his quite impressive education.
Ronon isn’t stupid, but his years as a Satedan soldier and a runner left him with a pretty narrow view of things. Shooting and blowing things up is certainly a way to get things done, but not the only way. Here, he has to make the decision without input from a higher up.
He IS the higher up and this is a turning point, small, but a turning point.
I’ll leave it there for now and see everyone next week!
The Dark Library 