Half a Moon: 14 Days of Celebrating Women

Kara Thrace and The Hero’s Journey—
or Why Starbuck is More Epic Than Epic

An essay for the new Battlestar Galactica, written by and for fans of Kara Thrace. Spoilers for all episodes, understanding of BSG canon assumed, some familiarity with Joseph Cambell's theory on heroic myth probably useful.


“Maelstrom” was and is a tough episode for fans of Kara “Starbuck” Thrace to watch, as her Viper explodes in an electric storm. Not only is it a kind of death that makes us uncomfortable, but there’s an ambiguous nature that was one of BSG’s biggest flaws. On a similar note, most Kara fans agreed that the final scenes of her in “Daybreak” either were mediocre or sucked miserably. RDM’s desire for an open ending (and his male-centric view that also peeks into “Maelstrom” and Season 4) led him to mangle with what could have been something that all found incredible, instead of just us.

Kara’s story could easily have been a fantastic example of the Campbellian “Hero’s Journey”, the epic standard by which most of the most famous icons of literature can be held. And fighting through accident, osmosis, or maybe even planning that just fell through, Kara still manages to transcend that. She is a Campbellian Hero. Her life is a central arc by which the entire show can be judged as companion to her tale. And not only that, but it is her life as an individual—she is no cliche female character existing solely for a journey of romance.

The more I look at Campbell and Kara Thrace together, the more I shiver in awe and delight, because her tale is one of the most epic archetypes of this sort in recent years. And oddly enough, those elements that most frustrated Kara fans are almost flawed attempts at steps of the Hero’s Journey—this analysis can’t fix where canon failed, obviously, but it’s interesting to note how close canon was to not failing.

Let’s start with Kara’s beginning, which is where the analysis takes the longest to take roots. Kara should have been the main character of the series. She follows the Hero’s Journey in the most important ways, but it doesn’t function flawlessly on an ensemble show. So since the nominal audience-identifier of the show is the Rag-Tag Fleet (rather than solely Kara as would be in a typical myth), it’s hard to pin down the opening moves.

It’s clear that Kara’s character was originally without purpose in the minds of the writers, at least for a good deal of Season 1 and even Season 2. She is there to...be a stupendous pilot, break the rules, think outside the box, snark, have relationship issues. These are not a journey, these are aspects. And while on an ensemble show these aspects may be tied into a broad plot where they fit and are entertaining, on a writing level they show lack of purpose for an individual.

For instance, Kara can be said to refuse the Call to Adventure by acting out on Galactica pre-attacks, to accept the Call when she takes flight in her Viper to save the day (and Lee) in the miniseries, and various other steps are filled in order during the episode “Act of Contrition”. However, in the broad scheme, these do not serve the importance of Kara to the series in a way that some other choice nuggets from even Season 1 do. These are setting up the true Hero’s Journey:

First step - The Call to Adventure
Second step - The Refusal of the Call

This is given to us in three parts, two of them late: from Leoben in “Flesh & Bone”, from all the Cylons in “The Farm”, and from Socrata Thrace in the flashbacks from “Maelstrom”. In each of these, Kara is being told that she can live a more than ordinary life, grow beyond the normality that all Heroes must start in. And in all three situations, she refuses violently, for reasons we’re never quite given. Because her journey took so long to coalesce, this step isn’t made perfectly clear, and so the next step must be searched long and hard for.

Third step - The Acceptance of the Call

While the most obvious example of this would be the acknowledgment of the photos from “Rapture”, and Kara finally questioning what her so-called destiny might be, sadly this episode was a failure in the Hero’s Journey sense. Had we followed up with a few Kara-centric episodes before her death, it would have been a fantastic step—however, it was merely tantalizing and serves no purpose in this step.

Instead, we must look at Kara’s broader journey that involves more than herself. Because in the end, Kara’s purpose was not only personal. It is directly tied to the Cylons, and even to life and death itself. So therefore, Kara accepts her Call to heroism when she chooses to believe in Roslin’s visions and go to Caprica for the Arrow of Apollo. By doing this, Kara starts the chain of events that leads the entire plot of BSG forward.

Fourth step - Supernatural Aid

The word “supernatural” in this step is a misnomer among realistic fiction, and though BSG has supernatural elements, in Kara’s case we must look mostly for the metaphor. This step involves both companions and objects of importance which are gifted to the hero for the purpose of completing their quest, both of which can be found for Kara in Season 2. Lee and Helo are companions, reflections of aspects of our Hero on her path. And her talisman? Oddly enough, the scene from “The Farm” in which Sam gives the Arrow of Apollo to her, and tells her to go find Earth? One of the most blatant textbook connections to Campbellian theory. It could have been anyone and anything there, but the fact that this scene exists, and is so directly referencing Kara’s ultimate goal—that is the earliest strong evidence of Kara’s epicly heroic status as a character.

Fifth step - Crossing the First Threshold

Here we have a slight falter in storytelling. Though a linear telling would grasp onto the Earth-hologram scene from “Home Part 2”, in reality that served mostly as a threshold for the entire series (if a series can be plotted using the “Hero’s Journey”). While this is a no-going-back moment, it’s not so much for Kara. Kara has moments that must be flashed back to.

The first is praying for Leoben’s soul in “Flesh & Bone”, both for its metaphoric focus on life and death, and for the literal focus on the humanity of Cylons. This is a point where Kara has crossed over from intolerant human (non-Hero) to someone approaching transcendental heroism. (And for the record, transcendental heroism is just two big words for frakking awesome!)

The more literal version of the step would be returning to Caprica for the Arrow itself—yes, this changes the order of the previous steps, which is why Kara’s early journey comes across as so frustratingly haphazard. Regardless, Kara cannot go back to being a simple pilot (no matter how excellent).

Sixth step - The Belly of the Whale

Unlike in more traditional narratives, Kara’s journey does not often provide physical manifestations of these steps. This is supposed to be the step where the hero completes their separation from their old world, frightening as this metamorphosis may be, and doesn’t look back. In Kara’s situation, this becomes mostly a psychological journey.  She sets herself apart by fighting battles with her mind—the return to Caprica in “Lay Down Your Burdens”, the settlement on New Caprica, the reversal of that when she cuts her hair and begins having an affair. These are perhaps half-hearted attempts at fulfilling this step...but again, Kara’s journey is clearly organic and not well-planned.

Seventh step - The Road of Trials

Again, Kara’s trials are more psychological than physical. There are often two aspects of this step, the Brother Battle and the Dragon Battle. The former is where the hero must fight with some dark aspect of themselves—in Kara’s case, both her Leoben-induced trauma and the flawed understanding that she is a screw-up. Her Dragon Battle would be facing some dark aspect of the world—in Kara’s case, the Cylon destiny that she doesn’t feel in control of. That scene with the mandala photos at the end of “Rapture” serves well for this step, as you can see the psychological war going on in Kara’s head.

Eight step - The Meeting with the Goddess

This step is where the Hero comes in contact with some pure aspect of love, one that brings both support and bonding, giving energy to the Hero to complete their task. We have three main ways in which this works in Kara’s life. Leoben is the first to support her in her destiny, and becomes more important in “The Road Less Traveled” in Season 4.0. However, Lee and Sam are more consistent places where Kara finds unconditional love and support and bonding, as both can represent her animus or “true self” in a spiritual sense. However, where the show faltered was in losing sight of Kara’s destiny during this step, which spiraled down into petty romantic drama that had nothing to do with Kara’s full actualization as a Hero.

Ninth step - Woman as Temptress

While this title would suggest something eye-rolly and fail-y, in principle this step is merely about the attractions of the physical world tempting the Hero from the spiritual journey. In other words, the desire for some sense of normal life while leaving behind the heroic quest. We can see a clear portrayal of this in “Maelstrom”, one of the ultimate Kara-as-Hero episodes, where she must face Sam and Lee as both supports and distractions. Her relationships aren’t important in this episode because of the specific people (as in the previous step), but because of what they represent for Kara and her journey. Sam is a temptation to leave behind all this destiny and take a very real R&R vacation—Lee is a temptation to think of herself as merely a pilot, and Kara states this very clearly as she tells him under the Viper wing “We’re right back to where we started.” But as she follows with, and as is forewarning her journey, “I guess that’s all we’ll ever be.” Not accurate, of course, but the sentiment is important for the success of this step.

Ninth step - Atonement with the Father

Not Adama, despite the first leap of the mind. This primal conflict that must be reconciled comes to us in “Maelstrom”, as head!Leoben takes Kara on a metaphorical journey to settle her conflict with Socrata Thrace. This is not necessarily a moment where forgiveness or acceptance are the goals—thankfully, for Kara’s sake. Instead, the Hero may have to beat down the specter of the parent figure to find the sort of reconciliation they need to move on. And this is more accurate for Kara. She does not forgive her mother for unforgivable crimes, not truly. What she does is accept that her past happened, with all its flaws and conflicts, and she can dismiss her mother (by watching her move through death) from her present life once and for all. As head!Leoben says, she is now free to pass along.

(This is one of the moments that makes “Maelstrom”, in hindsight, an episode that inspires me to leap for joy and squee at the awesome heroism of Kara Thrace.)

Tenth step - Apotheosis

This, this is the point where Kara shines. The Hero must transcend, transform, ascend, become elevated to the status of a god if we take the word literally. There is a cycle of death and rebirth inherent in this step, with a death needed for the hero to be reborn into their true body for the final task. This is why it did not come out of nowhere for Kara to be psuedo-revealed as a supernatural being, because this step almost begs for it. Granted, it could have been a metaphor, but in Kara’s sake they literally killed her, which meant literal resurrection, which (as she was not a Cylon) translated into literal apotheosis. Kara is the god that she always told her nuggets she was, she just didn’t know it yet.

Here however is one of the bigger flaws in the execution of Kara’s “Hero’s Journey”, because what we should have gotten (in a show where her journey was accurately front and center) was the concluding steps of the journey in which Kara is reborn and carries her quest to completion. That is the way that death is treated in heroic myth, as just another step to godhood, whether metaphorical or not.

Instead, for Kara, we suddenly switch to the point of view of the men she leaves behind on her rebirth journey. Death is not a part of Kara’s journey to them, it is the end. It is this point of view that plagues Kara’s journey for most of the rest of the show, and makes it difficult to see the true heroism in Kara and what she does. (It is also frustratingly male-centric, but that’s another discussion...)

So instead of a straight journey to the end, what we get is a passage of time without Kara at all, and then a jump back to an earlier stage of the journey for a repeat performance. Yes, Kara performs the “Hero’s Journey” twice in BSG. This time around, however, it is not only more explicit but she also starts on the third step:

Third step - Acceptance of the Call

Whatever happened to Kara on the Other Side, she faced and heard her Call and returned to the Fleet in “He That Believeth In Me” with full acceptance. She knows where Earth is. She can take them there.

Fourth step - Supernatural Aid

Like most Heroes, she can’t fulfill her journey entirely solo, and when conflicts start appearing around her she again gathers companions. Lee and Sam in particular, though also Helo later, are there to give their support (and talismans, in the case of Lee in a deleted scene from “Six of One”) to aid her along her journey: to lead them to Earth.

Fifth step - Crossing the First Threshold

Kara’s point of no return this time around is clear, when she pulls the gun on Roslin in the president’s chambers. She has not only accepted the Call nominally, she is ready to follow it to whatever end.

Sixth step - The Belly of the Whale

This step, a Hero’s darkest point in which the transition from old world to new world is completed, is signified in the episode “Six of One”. Kara faces despair and rejection and madness, and must come through as the Hero with a purpose, the captain of the Demetrius.

Seventh step - The Road of Trials

The Brother Battle, the war against a darker side of herself—for Kara, this is the question “Am I a Cylon; and if not, what am I?” The Dragon Battle, with an outside foe, is what the Rebel Cylons stand for, as well as the Hybrid’s prophecy singling Kara out as the harbinger of death.

Eight step - Meeting with the Goddess

Again, Leoben and Lee and Sam all help Kara confront different forms of love that are needed for her to complete her journey.

Ninth step - Woman as the Temptress

This time around, Kara is not distracted by relationships at all. Those are not her temptations. Her journey falters once Kara returns with the Rebel Cylons to the Fleet, wavering even when her Viper provides the signal that leads them to Earth. Nominally her goal, it is here where we see that Kara’s meant for even more.

And what tempts her, the material to distract from the spiritual, is her corpse. An ironically literal interpretation of the core of this step, when looked at in this way. Kara becomes so distracted by the facts of her own demise that she does not move forward for many episodes. After her corpse, there is both revenge and Lee in the episode “The Oath”, and also the conflict of Sam and his very-grounding injury after that, all of which pull her into the physical again.

Tenth step - Atonement with the Father

Yet, after a long bout of distraction and temptation, we finally come to the meat of her story. She faced her first “Father”, Socrata. Now she must resolve the other father conflict, with Dreileide Thrace. The piano player and his song in "Someone to Watch Over Me" are not only servicing this step, bringing Kara to yet another resolution, but also pushing her on to the climax of her journey. It is at this point when Kara starts to ascend beyond companions and distractions alike, to face her final step alone—as a true Hero should be.

Eleventh step - Apotheosis

This time around, Kara has already died, but has not fully acknowledged it to herself. In a beautifully perfect Campbellian scene in “Islanded in a Stream of Stars”, Baltar reveals her godlike status of rebirth without technology, and Kara must face the transformation that she has made. Lee comes to her attempting to be animus, to provide support and even the unconditional love of the “Goddess” figure. This reaffirms Kara’s resolution (as did her previous scene saying goodbye to Sam) and confidence, but what is most important in this scene is that final shot.

As Lee departs and Kara shines in a sense of herself and her worth, she turns to the Wall of Death. And she replaces her picture, and looks at it one last time. This is Kara as Hero. This is her acknowledging her death and rebirth, and how that goes beyond everything else. And she is at peace, because she has achieved apotheosis. What would have only solidified this moment further would have been the previously-used halo-glow as she goes to work on deciphering Hera’s song. Even so, the rest of her journey works.

Sadly, it is not the most important aspect of the finale, and so the last step is not given the focus it deserves—things start going downhill from here, but before they do we have a few steps to fulfill.

Twelfth step - The Ultimate Boon

Kara punches in the coordinates for Earth 2.0, and the Fleet reaches its home. It is here where Kara’s journey as a Hero is most closely tied to that of the show in general, and though the show strayed from her at times, she leads the Fleet to its end in glorious victory. Whatever you think of the finale in general, it was a triumph for Kara.

It’s just too bad that RDM couldn’t carry through with it. It would have helped if he had acknowledged Kara as an honest-to-goodness focal point, instead of frequently portraying her story through others’ eyes, having her appear dead or crazy or vanished. It is only through the strength of Kara’s character that we see past such flaws and can still perceive her as a true Hero.

There are some implications, and creators of the show have hesitantly offered support to vague ideas of them, that supply possible answers to the final steps of the “Hero’s Journey”.

Thirteenth step - Refusal of the Return

This is represented by Kara’s conflict as goodbyes are said, and she feels her journey is coming to an end. Even if it is good, even if she has achieved her goal, there is conflict here as there is for every victorious hero.

We’re robbed of the next two steps, her return itself, by the infamous Poof, though it itself may serve as the sixteenth step (Crossing the Return Threshold). Instead of following Kara to where she goes, the Other Side if hybrids are still to be believed, and seeing her in triumph—yet again we are given only the perspective of those left behind, in this case Lee. Even if some ambiguity would be best for this return journey of Kara, the final stamp of approval on her journey could have been easily solved with, for example, a glimpse of her on the streets of New York at the end (and however one chose to interpret the meaning of that).

Seventeenth step - Master of Two Worlds

If Leoben and his anviliciously timed flashback in “Daybreak” is to be taken as implied, then Kara is an “angel blazing with the light of god”, and she fulfills this step. Granted, it falls flat because we don’t actually see it, but in theory it provides a clear step on the conclusion of her journey. At this point, Kara has lived both as human and as ‘angel’, and successfully (more or less) navigated through both lives. She returns to one, but will always be part of the other.

Eighteenth (and final) step - Freedom to Live

And here is where that much-needed-but-mythical shot of Kara in modern day New York would have fit in, and must instead be supplied by some disgruntled Kara fans. Here is where the Hero gets to pass smoothly between two worlds, in control and satisfied and no longer needing a journey of self-actualization. If some fans care to speculate on Kara’s further career as an angel (*raises hand*), as tricksy as Six and Baltar in their roles, then they are providing that last step for themselves. But any future!fic involving Kara in the afterlife serves this purpose, which should have been RDM’s service to perform.


Yet for all the faltering and missteps along the way, Kara did fulfill the Hero’s Journey, even if not all of it made it on screen. She performed as one of the greats, one of the characters who like Frodo Baggins or Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker define their entire world and are revered for it.

Kara is a true Hero. Kara is awesome. Kara is epic. The evidence is there in more than just an arc with steps, it is in every little moment of the show, and it will last in the hearts of all Kara fans.