Le cylon est-il un humain en souffrance ?

• Main Author: Ophir Lévy
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Groupe de Recherche Identités et Cultures 2017-07-01
• Series: TV Series
• Subjects: Battlestar Galactica; cylon; humane; humanity; machine; pain
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/tvseries/2057

This article focuses on cylons’ ability to experience pain as humans, that is, to suffer – pain as it is consciously recognized. It gives a close reading of the episode titled “Flesh and Bone” in Ron D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica (Season 1, Episode 8). In this episode, a cylon called Leoben, who has infiltrated the fleet, is captured and interrogated – tortured – by Kara Thrace, a.k.a. Starbuck. A discussion ensues between Starbuck and Leoben as to suffering as quintessential and primordial human experience, inviting us to ask ourselves, as the characters do: to what extent does suffering reveal what is humane in human beings? Is a cylon who experiences suffering a human(e)being in the making?