Need the flist advice!

I really want to answer but maybe it's better to ignore. I'm going to sleep on it first and ask you if I ignore or if I answer. Remember the Leap of Scene scene when McGee save Tony from going splat? Someone on the CBS forum thinks McGee waited until Gibbs' order before running to Tony, that he could see Tony falling and yet didn't react. Exact words: I'm less keen on that one because I thought McGee was a twatq for waiting until Gibbs ordered him to to go save Tony. Tony seemed grateful enough though so maybe I'm being too hard on McGee. I can't find a vid with the scene, but here's the description, just in case (I wrote it the last time we had the same talk):


Tony and McGee are at the level 9, Tony point McGee toward a way, that we know is up from the rest of the scene.

40:17 : Tony watch a car Gibbs and Ziva let go, putting them around 2 levels below him.

40:21: He jump over the edge to avoid the car's killer.

40:27 : Gibbs and Ziva spot him and run closer to the edge, he's actually 3 level above, right in front of them.

40: 30: Tony call Gibbs.

40: 33 : Gibbs sent Ziva to the fire alarm and tell McGee 'level 7'. That means Tony went down after the level 9, and McGee is two or more level over him.

40:36: McGee is running down a level, they're in circles, therefore putting him on the other side of whatever level he is at this point.

40: 37: McGee is still running, Ziva pull the alarm and lock the killer inside.

40:51: Tony calls McGee, who is still running and going to the edge to possibly evaluate the situation. Meaning he still doesn't know what's the problem is. By then, Tony is still one or two level below him. So back to 9, or 8.

41:02: Gibbs had the time to run back to a car, start it and drive back toward the killer to block her. McGee is still running.

41:25: The killer is stopped and McGee saves Tony.



The conversation start here. In page three, we have:

Her: As for McGee, he could see and hear exactly what hte others did and was the closest to make the save so I just don;t see why he didn't have had the wearwithall to do it without instruction.

Me: No, he wasn't. He was two or three levels over Tony, same distance as Ziva and Gibbs, and in the look-out for the car, so to see Tony, he had to watch down instead of doing his job. We don't see him between the time Tony sent him a level up (while Tony goes a level down) and him running down, we don't know what he did exactly after Tony screamed, but to know what happened, he had to get close to the border, taking him the three seconds between Tony calling for Gibbs and Gibbs signaling McGee where Tony was.

Her: its was open area and he could clearly see enough to know what he had to do from the very minimal instructions Gibbs gave him. I simply think that, in his placem neither Gibbs nor Tony would have require the instuction to know that they were the one in the best position to act.

Me: Gibbs said 'level 7'. Three seconds after Tony called Gibbs. You really think McGee had to have a visual to think, 'Tony called Gibbs, Gibbs said it has to do with level 7, something happened to Tony on level 7' ? We see him running down one level or two before being able to see Tony and find the details of the situation, he didn't know before if Tony fells, if more people attacked them, if a giant squid of space is invading...

You know, from your posts about some characters, I don't know if you simply have a low opinion of them or some very hight expectations they can never met.

(Based on her previous posts on many discussions about Ziva or McGee.)

Her: (quoting my last sentence) I merely think that McGee should have reacted to assess the situation and take action with the same speed that the others did and without requiring a specific instruction. You may disagree. That is your right. I'm not demanding you agree with me after all. Though you appear to be demanding that of me. For the record,though, comments like this are moving very close to the bash the poster if they don't agree with you style of posts and those I am getting really, really fed up of.


Ignore the weird spacing. The board suck, stick words together and putting a period between paragraph is one of the only way to keep them separated.

I hesitate between thinking "Whatever, keep believing that" and ignore her or answer with :

Insulting you would be bashing. Drawing conclusions about your feelings concerning the characters based on your interpretations of different scenes and your take about the characters in your posts is not. You're not exactly subtle about your opinion of Ziva and McGee. When you don't paint a negative image of them with occasional good points, you expect them to act with pure logic, a lack of feeling at a Vulcan level, ignore any data received from previous experience, or doing something beyond human capacity.


I'm not demanding you to agree with me, I'm baffled that you're taking as fact something you can only assume, a theory based on a negative opinion of McGee (can't do anything without direction) and strange expectation (can see beyond his field of vision and move at superhuman speed).

But I guess it'll count as 'bashing'. Or more seriously, going a step near fandom_wank. Still far from the level, but still.

I guess she's right, in a way, I'm demanding she notice the lack of McGee between Tony calling Gibbs and Gibbs calling McGee, making any conclusion about his reaction pure theory and acknowledge how impossible it is for McGee to see what's going downstair while doing his job. Hell, we just had the proof of this with Tony needing to go close to the edge and bending over to see Gibbs and Ziva.
And now I'm thinking about it, she's also giving a superpower to Gibbs, able to see through 5 levels of concrete to see McGee freezing in shock and indecision.