Thoughts about Ronon

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For the December meme, a question by tielan: What's your headcanon/backstory about Ronon Dex?

Ronon <3 One of my favorite SGA characters. I was introduced to SGA by a Ronon fan so the first episode I saw was "Runner."

I don't have a lot of fixed headcanon for characters, things that I decided are true about a character/something in my head. I often shift it around from fic to fic, or there are several things I could imagine but that I'm pretty flexible about.

For Ronon it's only two certain things: one, he didn't plan to become a soldier before the Wraith came. He originally wanted to become something else - a poet, or a scholar, or an engine driver, idk.
And he's much smarter than he's sometimes portrayed on the show. He knows what a mission report is and why they're useful, things like that. He likes to mess with people, that's canon, and let them underestimate him.

I wrote some short fics about backgrounds I could imagine for Ronon: Five people Ronon has loved and Five things Ronon never told anyone about Sateda. I still like the ideas: that Ronon had a twin sister with beads in her hair, that Sateda had a large engine system, huge dragonflies, and colorful cotton candy. Brothers and Comrades in Arms is a story I wrote about what Ronon could have become and what I think he'd be able to accomplish.

Comments

[marginaliana]

I find something really appealing about the idea that Ronon was planning to be something else before the Wraith came. Whenever that comes up in a fic, I always enjoy seeing that backstory.

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Same! I've seen poet and scholar most often; I'd love to read fic where he was a teacher, or a baker, or a race car driver...

[genarti]

Ronon! I never watched much SGA, but Ronon and Teyla were always high on my list of favorites in everything I did watch, and in the fic that was the reason I did watch some scattered episodes. (My primary selection method, other than being shown things by friends, was "What episodes have Ronon doing interesting things in them?") Stoic badasses who have fun messing with people to be underestimated are among my favorite character types.

I really like all these fics of yours.

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Ronon and Teyla are great characters. It's not that I dislike John and Rodney, but I was always disappointed that fandom focused so much on them.

Thank you! :D

[tielan]

Ronon was awesome. A military guy, but not in the same way as Sheppard and Lorne and the earth military people. With such a droll sense of humour in spite of the years he spent running and the grief of loss at the end...

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Ronon's humor is perhaps one of my favorite things about him. He seems to deal with tragedy, grief, and loss in much healthier ways than e.g. John. And he's a good friend. :)

[tielan]

My theory on Pegasus was always that their manners of dealing with grief and loss were rather more healthy/cathartic than the way our modern Western society deals with grief.

Which, if I think about it, is probably why I preferred Teyla and Ronon to most of the other Earth characters. I like people who I'm convinced are dealing with their demons rather than trying to keep the djinni (Genii?) in the bottle.

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It has to be, in a society where death, even genocide by Wraith is an always-present danger. I'm sure that aspect of the Earthers puzzled Teyla and Ronon. Now I'm wondering what they thought of Heightmeyer.

[tielan]

My headcanon (I don't think it was entirely headcanon) is that Teyla and Kate were pretty good friends.

Have you read the Stargate Atlantis Legacy book series? That's really good for bringing out more about Pegasus, how the various cultures view life and death, and so forth. Really interesting, considering stuff.

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Iirc it's canon that they were friends, but I wonder what Teyla thought about her profession and what that meant for Earther culture.

I haven't. I heard they have interesting Wraith worldbuilding, but atm I'm no longer interested enough in SGA to check them out.

[tielan]

Ah well. If you ever develop a sudden desire to revisit SGA - and, moreover, to see SGA as it could have been (as in, well-thought-out and not just focusing on John and Rodney and Elizabeth) then give them a go - but read at least the first two books before deciding it's not your thing. :)

[dhampyresa]

Teyla was friends with Heightmeyer, iirc.

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Yes, but that doesn't say much about what she thought about her profession.

[tamsin]

I like you headcanon. I've always felt that Ronon as a character has so much more potential than what the show and fandom did with him a lot of the time.

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"It had so much potential" is in general something that can be said a lot about the Stargate series. Fandom was a bit better, but not in all aspects.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

I love your Ronan headcanon. I always thought it was weird that the show kept kind of pigeonholing him in the strongman/barbarian kind of role, because the culture he was shown as coming looked like it might have been more advanced than Earth's.

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Right? Even if he didn't pay attention in science class in school, to survive seven years as a Runner you have to be very smart.