She's always sort of vaguely bothered me, but as I was watching some behind-the-scenes stuff (really, I always watch that, even on movies I hated, don't ask me why), Martin Gero was talking about "Brain Storm," his last episode for the series, and saying he was glad to be able to leave Rodney, a character he strongly identifies with (according to him), in a happier place, and I realized aha! That's the problem.
Rodney is in a happier place because he was handed the perfect girlfriend, who loves him for all of his annoying petty behavior. He's not in a happier place because he grew as a person.
The thing is, early Rodney stories, on SG1 and in season one, he really does grow and change. He's always a whiner, but you can see that he has stopped being as self-centered as he comes off as. But on the show, they arrested his development, because they found it too much fun to keep going back to the same selfish, petty, cowardly Rodney jokes. In this, fandom has been a lot more charitable to the character, and most stories show him as having reached some sort of comfort level with being a hero and putting others before himself. But instead of allowing him to go on that natural arc--what should have been the arc for his character, given the heroic stuff he's been doing--they gave him a girlfriend and called it a day. And that just...burns me.
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Rodney is in a happier place because he was handed the perfect girlfriend, who loves him for all of his annoying petty behavior. He's not in a happier place because he grew as a person.
The thing is, early Rodney stories, on SG1 and in season one, he really does grow and change. He's always a whiner, but you can see that he has stopped being as self-centered as he comes off as. But on the show, they arrested his development, because they found it too much fun to keep going back to the same selfish, petty, cowardly Rodney jokes. In this, fandom has been a lot more charitable to the character, and most stories show him as having reached some sort of comfort level with being a hero and putting others before himself. But instead of allowing him to go on that natural arc--what should have been the arc for his character, given the heroic stuff he's been doing--they gave him a girlfriend and called it a day. And that just...burns me.