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Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
Byron's a pretty weird character. JMS based his weird cult off personal experience with a similar group and it's clearly not a positive depiction. But Byron is also depicted as an earnest idealist, although he's prone to bouts of obvious hypocrisy (which no one seem to comment on.) That last bit probably comes from his status as Bester's protege. He's also a weird idiot who thinks loudly telling everyone he's going to extort them all will work out for him. No matter what he gets -- such as the ear of President Sheridan and a colony on Babylon 5 -- he keeps acting like a drama queen. I never got the feeling that Byron had learned anything from Bester, beyond a hatred of mundanes, and in my head a version of Byron who is a 'good' Bester -- just as prone to machinations, just as much of a snake, just as clever but working to free telepaths instead of continuing the unjust system -- could've been a really interesting character.

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Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"
He's also just plain tiresome any time he appears onscreen. Like, dude, come off your soapbox and switch off for five goddamn minutes to give everyone a break.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
I'm going off my memories here, but Byron's just a strange character with strange conflicts and it all feels like it suffered from Season 5 being a somewhat unplanned.

Byron arrives on Babylon 5. He is granted sanctuary by John Sheridan personally and Byron establishes a telepath colony in Downbelow. Byron preaches non-violence, and even practices it when confronted, in the name of being 'better' than the mundanes. Okay, sure, I can buy that as something that might grow out of Bester's mindset. The Interstellar Alliance asks Byron's telepaths for help with intelligence gathering, and Byron refuses. Okay, sure, makes sense enough. More and more telepaths arrive and confrontations break out and they start stealing things from Medlab. Bester arrives and Lochley does the sixty-day thing. One of Byron's people is attacked. Byron finds out that the Vorlons created telepaths and... wants to extort a homeworld from the ISA because of it?

Honestly, that's the part that always loses me with Byron. And, if I may be petty, Byron didn't exactly get a bad shake of the stick. He wasn't physically altered himself, someone along his family tree was. He also ended up as a P12, the same as Bester, which gives him some fairly superhuman abilities. Anyway, Byron doesn't just ask, but basically outright says he'll make the ISA comply. I understand that it falls into the usually shaky sf/f genre metaphor of 'having superhuman powers is actually horrible/generational injustices' but it's still strange. What would you even do with a telepath homeworld? Break ground and then get laser'd from orbit when the Drazi decide that you're too dangerous because of your wide-ranging secrets extortion campaign? Or if the Psi Corp just muster a force and come for them? How would it all work and sustain itself? Were any of Byron's people actually involved in the Shadow War? There weren't any alien telepaths among his cult.

Which he tries to do by having his telepaths follow all the ISA Ambassadors, and covertly scan them, and then barge into the next meeting of the ISA and announce it to them all. Violence breaks out again, and Byron seems surprised that this could happen. Byron and most of his followers lock themselves in Downbelow and engage in a hunger strike? Well, okay. Lochley tries to negotiate and Byron refuses. Bester shows up and begins Bestering all over the place. Byron asks Sheridan to get Bester to kick the Psi Cops out, but Sheridan can't. The Medlab hostage situation happens, Byron kills the ringleader and seems genuinely shocked about it. Bester attempts to apprehend Byron and his telepaths, and Byron blows most of his followers up because he's sad about the violence. Bester leaves, Lyta starts the whole 'Remember Byron' thing.

Thing is, I just can't see Byron's thought process beyond 'he's dumb as hell' and 'overly idealistic for someone who was trained by Alfred Bester. I feel like Bester's protege would be smart enough to let the mundanes think they have the upper hand and are in control while figuring out what really matters. I can even understand that Bester's protege might pivot away from his teachings and worldview, but Byron often doesn't. A lot of the time, he's summing it up as telepaths versus mundanes, even throwing people like Lochley and Franklin into the 'all mundanes are scum' column, but then also being genuinely mystified that people on either side would get violence. Wouldn't it have been smarter to make his threat a bluff? Say, Byron approached Sheridan privately and did his ultimatum, forcing Sheridan to either investigate and crackdown (which might hurt his public perception, make him look bad, create sympathy for Byron, etc) or capitulate. The telepaths could scan Byron and know it's a bluff, and therefore feel persecuted, but the mundanes never could. And what's with locking in and forcing a hunger strike? And isn't literally naming him Byron like beating you over the head with a sledgehammer?

Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Aug 31, 2019

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









For me it was: the hair

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




Ah Byron, the saccharine cult leader.

Remember the spokesperson telepath from A Race Through Dark Places ? Lisp, physically challenged, really impressed with what Ironheart gave Talia ? Now imagine the whole Byron saga but that actor.

I said come in!
Jun 22, 2004

Watched a Star Trek Voyager episode tonight that guest starred William Sheppard (B5 episode Soul Hunter). It was cool seeing him in another sci-fi role with a pretty similar character. His voice lends itself well to science fiction. I actually just found out though that he passed away this year. :( He was 86 years old.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

sebmojo posted:

For me it was: the hair

Kinda hard to picture him as Travis Touchdown in No More Heroes once you've seen Byron though.

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!

I said come in! posted:

Watched a Star Trek Voyager episode tonight that guest starred William Sheppard (B5 episode Soul Hunter). It was cool seeing him in another sci-fi role with a pretty similar character. His voice lends itself well to science fiction. I actually just found out though that he passed away this year. :( He was 86 years old.

There's a load of good voices in B5, although I think only John Vickery is still alive of the main contenders (Katsulas, Sheppard, Sachs...)

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Neddy Seagoon posted:

He's also just plain tiresome any time he appears onscreen. Like, dude, come off your soapbox and switch off for five goddamn minutes to give everyone a break.

We've also got a genuine first time viewer in the thread, so can we put all the details of Byron behind spoiler space please?

That said, Robin Atkin Downes was perhaps not the right person for the role. Byron was his first role bigger than one episode, and he was only about 21 or 22 at the time. He's since become one of the best and hardest working VO actors out there, but at the time he wasn't ready.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Jedit posted:

We've also got a genuine first time viewer in the thread, so can we put all the details of Byron behind spoiler space please?

That said, Robin Atkin Downes was perhaps not the right person for the role. Byron was his first role bigger than one episode, and he was only about 21 or 22 at the time. He's since become one of the best and hardest working VO actors out there, but at the time he wasn't ready.

Nothing I've said isn't already apparent within five minutes of seeing him as he's very one note. But yeah, I do get the general sentiment :hai:.

Hannibal Rex
Feb 13, 2010

I said come in! posted:

Watched a Star Trek Voyager episode tonight that guest starred William Sheppard (B5 episode Soul Hunter). It was cool seeing him in another sci-fi role with a pretty similar character. His voice lends itself well to science fiction. I actually just found out though that he passed away this year. :( He was 86 years old.

Everyone should watch Max Headroom. Blank Reg is a goddamn treasure.

https://youtu.be/HuConR5l0no

Hannibal Rex fucked around with this message at 12:09 on Aug 31, 2019

Doctor Zero
Sep 21, 2002

Would you like a jelly baby?
It's been in my pocket through 4 regenerations,
but it's still good.

Hannibal Rex posted:

Everyone should watch Max Headroom. Blank Reg is a goddamn treasure.

https://youtu.be/HuConR5l0no

At the time I wondered if in 40 years he would be an accurate representation of an old punk. 40 years later ... yes. Yes he is.


Anyway I was mostly kidding about Byron but I really do loathe the character. It’s been discussed already and I don’t have much more to add other than I have realized since first viewing that he’s not really supposed to by sympathetic or at least as a “mundane” viewer we’re supposed to feel a sort of antipathy toward him and his cohorts. At least that’s how I reconcile all the other wonderful characters and then that whole thing. :shrug:

jng2058
Jul 17, 2010

We have the tools, we have the talent!





TraderStav posted:

So someone in the Star Trek thread casually mentioned the Mission log podcast and holy hell was that something that I didn't know I needed in my life but it's so great. I LOVE thoughtful recaps of media I've just consumed and it's serving great for my rewatch of all things Star Trek.

Point is, since I'm working my way through B5 for the first time, is there a similar podcast that starts at the beginning and goes through each episode that I can listen to while I commute after watching the ep?

You might want to try Braving Babylon 5. It's a guy going through B5 for the first time, same as you, with some listener commentary thrown in at the end. He's in the middle of season 5, so by the time you catch up he'll probably have finished the whole show.

Blindeye
Sep 22, 2006

I can't believe I kissed you!

mllaneza posted:

Ah Byron, the saccharine cult leader.

Remember the spokesperson telepath from A Race Through Dark Places ? Lisp, physically challenged, really impressed with what Ironheart gave Talia ? Now imagine the whole Byron saga but that actor.

Wasn't that who JMS wanted but the studio wouldn't buy?

TraderStav
May 19, 2006

It feels like I was standing my entire life and I just sat down

jng2058 posted:

You might want to try Braving Babylon 5. It's a guy going through B5 for the first time, same as you, with some listener commentary thrown in at the end. He's in the middle of season 5, so by the time you catch up he'll probably have finished the whole show.

Perfect. Shame the feed url isn't being found with downcast. Will check it later.

TraderStav
May 19, 2006

It feels like I was standing my entire life and I just sat down
JFC, the War Prayer.

Dude is Trump, even has his tag line "Earth First"

This one is eerily hitting too close to home.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
those things existed before the Funny Orange Meme Man, gentle goon

TraderStav
May 19, 2006

It feels like I was standing my entire life and I just sat down

Milkfred E. Moore posted:

those things existed before the Funny Orange Meme Man, gentle goon

Yes. Just stuck out profoundly when he dropped that line.

Show is really picking up, especially after hitting bottom from Infection. Watching "and the sky full of stars" now.

Vavrek
Mar 2, 2013

I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

TraderStav posted:

Yes. Just stuck out profoundly when he dropped that line.

We're not anti-alien, we're just pro-Earth.


Now, kill this ambassador.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Milkfred E. Moore posted:

those things existed before the Funny Orange Meme Man, gentle goon

Fascism never changes. It can't, for one thing.

Eighties ZomCom
Sep 10, 2008




It's pretty funny that the guy who plays Byron shows up in Sliders as pretty much the same character except with shorter hair.

M_Sinistrari
Sep 5, 2008

Do you like scary movies?



Milkfred E. Moore posted:

I'm going off my memories here, but Byron's just a strange character with strange conflicts and it all feels like it suffered from Season 5 being a somewhat unplanned.

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who's thrown a lot of thought on this tangent.

What's always had me raising an eyebrow with Byron and his followers was how often they'd take the action that would bite them in the rear end down the road. I understand they were constantly told telepaths were better than mundanes and that's always going to color their perspectives same with hearing every horror story of mundanes fearing telepaths, but they take no steps to move out of that narrow perspective. They don't mingle with anyone outside of themselves, not even alien telepaths. I'd like to think that if one's trying to establish a telepath only colony/planet, one would be busting their rear end building good rapport with as many as they can to achieve that goal? Equally, with how much they're all in each other's heads and are aware that some of them are deeply traumatized by what they've gone through, how the hell was it such a surprise to Byron that some of his followers were perfectly fine with acting violent? Was there any attempts at therapy or did they just sit around singing that 'better place' song? Same goes for since Byron was Bester's protege, he should've expected Bester was going to Bester and know that the Downbelow colony was on borrowed time.

Only way things make some sort of sense is that for as much as the telepaths were against Psi Corps, they were still following the Psi Corps mold. How they dressed is evocative of the Psi Cops uniform, Byron thinking he could force the ISA's hand by having the Ambassadors minds read, excusing a telepath's actions that would be decried if done by a mundane and so on. Byron's still thinking to some degree like a Psi Cop despite all his insistence of wanting peace. He doesn't fully grasp that it's different rules outside of Psi Corps. As far as the Vorlon manipulation thing went, I thought it was they didn't create telepaths but just increased the likelihood of them being born. I can understand Lyta's being pissed as all hell, but the only way it fits for the others is that it smacks too much of Psi Corps genetic tinkering with probably a good sprinkling of deep seated self loathing. They have no way of knowing if they'd all have been telepaths without Vorlon interference, but it's a comfort to cling to in believing if it wasn't for the Vorlons, they could've had a different life.

It feels to me that it was inevitable for things to turn out as they did considering the choices made.

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



EvilTaytoMan posted:

It's pretty funny that the guy who plays Byron shows up in Sliders as pretty much the same character except with shorter hair.

Sliders was the B5 retirement home for a while; several people showed up there after their characters were done in B5.

Narsham
Jun 5, 2008

M_Sinistrari posted:

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who's thrown a lot of thought on this tangent.

What's always had me raising an eyebrow with Byron and his followers was how often they'd take the action that would bite them in the rear end down the road. I understand they were constantly told telepaths were better than mundanes and that's always going to color their perspectives same with hearing every horror story of mundanes fearing telepaths, but they take no steps to move out of that narrow perspective. They don't mingle with anyone outside of themselves, not even alien telepaths. I'd like to think that if one's trying to establish a telepath only colony/planet, one would be busting their rear end building good rapport with as many as they can to achieve that goal? Equally, with how much they're all in each other's heads and are aware that some of them are deeply traumatized by what they've gone through, how the hell was it such a surprise to Byron that some of his followers were perfectly fine with acting violent? Was there any attempts at therapy or did they just sit around singing that 'better place' song? Same goes for since Byron was Bester's protege, he should've expected Bester was going to Bester and know that the Downbelow colony was on borrowed time.

Only way things make some sort of sense is that for as much as the telepaths were against Psi Corps, they were still following the Psi Corps mold. How they dressed is evocative of the Psi Cops uniform, Byron thinking he could force the ISA's hand by having the Ambassadors minds read, excusing a telepath's actions that would be decried if done by a mundane and so on. Byron's still thinking to some degree like a Psi Cop despite all his insistence of wanting peace. He doesn't fully grasp that it's different rules outside of Psi Corps. As far as the Vorlon manipulation thing went, I thought it was they didn't create telepaths but just increased the likelihood of them being born. I can understand Lyta's being pissed as all hell, but the only way it fits for the others is that it smacks too much of Psi Corps genetic tinkering with probably a good sprinkling of deep seated self loathing. They have no way of knowing if they'd all have been telepaths without Vorlon interference, but it's a comfort to cling to in believing if it wasn't for the Vorlons, they could've had a different life.

It feels to me that it was inevitable for things to turn out as they did considering the choices made.

More Byron-chat (S5 spoilers): I think your latter speculation is spot on. They're a cult led by a somewhat creepy guy who wants to be a martyr because of his horror about his past misdeeds. But when they first arrive, I think their default attitude is still that they are Homo Superior and the problem is that Psi Corps is evil and are a bunch of puppy killers (with normals as the puppies). Most human normals are a threat, both because they help support the Psi Corps and because they can't possibly understand what it is like to be a telepath. There's some naive hope that Sheridan's sheltering of them can be built upon, but you can see how committed they are to their blinkered and misleading self-image by the fact that they never attempt to make common cause with the telepaths of other races (who are generally better adjusted) or to seek a new homeworld from the Narn.

The Vorlon manipulation makes it clear that the Vorlons created telepaths. As in "were completely responsible." That wrecks the Homo Superior model completely: all the telepaths would have been normal if the Vorlons hadn't created them as living weapons for use against the Shadows. It's three devastating blows at once: you aren't superior to normal humans in the same way that a car isn't superior because it goes faster; you're a tool, an instrument someone else created, an object; you have someone else to blame for all the suffering you experienced (or inflicted) because you weren't "born normal." Couple that to the foundational assumption that telepaths can't coexist and that the Psi Corps is the devil, and what are the remaining options? The Vorlons are gone, so it's too late to demand a "cure." The Psi Corps wants you to conform, and even the ISA just sees you as tools to be used and discarded, not as actual people. (Lyta has been through that repeatedly, and worse in S5.) Sequestration is the only viable solution, from their perspective.


We're clearly meant to be disturbed by the whole thing, and I think that works. But some viewers seem to have thought this hero figure was supposed to be seen as a hero, when S5 is all about deconstructing the Great Man and showing how hard it is to try to do the right thing.

SlothfulCobra
Mar 27, 2011

There are a number of times when Babylon 5 seems like it's being written as something very shallow and by the numbers, and then at the end it turns out that it was actually supposed to be a subversion of that cliche, and it's hard to know what is happening beforehand since the show doesn't really send any clear signals. Which isn't bad on its own, but it's a bit more subtlety than a 90s show can really manage.

How telepaths are supposed to live in society is a question that never really gets answered by the show, and it's hard to ever feel comfortable with the base principle of other people being able to just walk into your brain and see all the worst thoughts. Yeah, THOSE thoughts, you fuckin' freak. Maybe it's a little for the best that the potential of psychic powers is a thing that's fallen out of favor in recent sci fi.

Vavrek
Mar 2, 2013

I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

SlothfulCobra posted:

How telepaths are supposed to live in society is a question that never really gets answered by the show,

This is on my list of reasons I wish Crusade had been able to keep going. One of the main characters (ship XO, maybe?) is the first telepath in regular EarthForce, and the struggle and pressure to live up to that challenge, and be a role model, is only hinted at in the show. It's the sort of thing that would've been developed, I'm sure.

TraderStav
May 19, 2006

It feels like I was standing my entire life and I just sat down
Just started Deathwalker, goddamned did N'toth gently caress her up in the first two minutes!! No he's doing backing on that one.

McSpanky
Jan 16, 2005






SlothfulCobra posted:

How telepaths are supposed to live in society is a question that never really gets answered by the show, and it's hard to ever feel comfortable with the base principle of other people being able to just walk into your brain and see all the worst thoughts. Yeah, THOSE thoughts, you fuckin' freak. Maybe it's a little for the best that the potential of psychic powers is a thing that's fallen out of favor in recent sci fi.

It gets answered a little bit in Crusade: every six months I believe, another telepath from Earthgov comes and rakes through the XO's mind with a flea comb looking for inappropriate uses of his telepathy, and it's implied that the penalty for finding any is unpleasant. Apparently the compromise for folding telepath administration into the regular government and letting TPs into wider society is regularly violating their privacy in ways that would make George Orwell spin in his grave.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

McSpanky posted:

It gets answered a little bit in Crusade: every six months I believe, another telepath from Earthgov comes and rakes through the XO's mind with a flea comb looking for inappropriate uses of his telepathy, and it's implied that the penalty for finding any is unpleasant. Apparently the compromise for folding telepath administration into the regular government and letting TPs into wider society is regularly violating their privacy in ways that would make George Orwell spin in his grave.

To be fair, it makes sense for senior military or government positions (but not for everyday jobs, obviously). A Telepath with the inclination to do so could harvest a shitload of personal and classified secrets in a simple meeting with senior officials without even trying. And if it happens once and makes the news, ALL Telepaths instantly lose credibility when they're trying to get out from under the long dark shadow of PsiCorps. It's a lovely tradeoff but a necessary one, as they need to be able to show that there are hard checks and balances at work for regular folk who all despised PsiCorps for decades.

Neddy Seagoon fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Sep 4, 2019

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

Neddy Seagoon posted:

To be fair, it makes sense for senior military or government positions (but not for everyday jobs, obviously). A Telepath with the inclination to do so could harvest a shitload of personal and classified secrets in a simple meeting with senior officials without even trying. And if it happens once and makes the news, ALL Telepaths instantly lose credibility when they're trying to get out from under the long dark shadow of PsiCorps. It's a lovely tradeoff but a necessary one, as they need to be able to show that there are hard checks and balances at work for regular folk who all despised PsiCorps for decades.

Why would you trust some other telepath from Earthgov over your own XO?

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Why would you trust some other telepath from Earthgov over your own XO?

It's not about among your own crew and the like, it's about optics at-large. EarthGov and the Telepaths need to be able to say, politically, that there are checks and balances for Telepaths to get average-joe idiots to shut up and let them get on with their lives. Remember that PsiCorps thrived on keeping people scared of Telepaths.

"If a Telepath in a big high-profile job does those scary things you're worried about, they will be punished severely, so don't be scared of them" :goonsay:.

Old Boot
May 9, 2012



Buglord

M_Sinistrari posted:

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who's thrown a lot of thought on this tangent.

What's always had me raising an eyebrow with Byron and his followers was how often they'd take the action that would bite them in the rear end down the road. (...)

It feels to me that it was inevitable for things to turn out as they did considering the choices made.

Byron reads as having fashioned things this way intentionally. Intentionally incited conflict; intentionally did things that bit them in the rear end; intentionally did things that would inevitably lead to his martyrdom. This is potentially giving him way too much credit, but the culty vibe, the way he uses the hell out of Lyta, the everything is so on point for 'suicidal cult leader' that it's hard to imagine that it was anything but. He comes off as a guy that wasn't trying to make things better; he comes off as a guy that was trying to be remembered for being a Great Man, making his mark. Whether his subjects were harmed, traumatized, or straight-up died was immaterial; they would be remembered, and so would he, and that's the point.

Whether or not this was intentional on the part of the writing is another debate entirely. I'll give JMS a lot of props for things put into the show, but I'm not entirely willing to buy that it was what he set out to do, and Lyta's thread kind of bears that out. I already said before, but she really had the rug ripped out from under her. Consider the abuse she suffered at the hands(/spooky tendrils?) of Kosh 2.0, and her storyline just goes from sad to loving smarmy the moment Byron enters the picture. Then G'Kar ends up being the one to save her from herself. She has zero agency by the end of the run, which just feels-- bad. I feel bad for that character, in a way that doesn't sync up well with the rest of the cast, the story, or even the themes that are so central to the series.

I mean, I'm fine with bummer endings (if they're done right), but it was a tonal mismatch with everything else. That, and it just straight-up made me really uncomfortable.

Anyway, I could die on this hill a thousand times over, so back to the main point: the telepath arc just seemed like it couldn't make up its mind. The scripts and overall presentation didn't seem to want to figure out if 'Byron good' or 'Byron maybe not so good?' and the explanation that it was based on a culty experience JMS had feels a bit retcon-y. I don't doubt that it was partly inspired by, but the way it was shot and handled really tries to lean on 'Byron good' in a way that other morally dubious characters just-- weren't. I mean, I adore Babylon 5, but the writing was rarely that subtle, and I'd totally buy that JMS accidentally wrote himself into that corner, only to come back later, like a cat that's barrel-rolled off a countertop and goes into a conniption fit of grooming, to say 'yes, I 100% meant to do that.'

The whole thing was a mess, and I'm glad Ivanova wasn't there to be completely wrecked by it. It's a shame that Lyta was, but I don't know that I could've taken Ivanova being that blatantly undercut as a character.

Narsham
Jun 5, 2008

Old Boot posted:

Byron reads as having fashioned things this way intentionally. Intentionally incited conflict; intentionally did things that bit them in the rear end; intentionally did things that would inevitably lead to his martyrdom. This is potentially giving him way too much credit, but the culty vibe, the way he uses the hell out of Lyta, the everything is so on point for 'suicidal cult leader' that it's hard to imagine that it was anything but. He comes off as a guy that wasn't trying to make things better; he comes off as a guy that was trying to be remembered for being a Great Man, making his mark. Whether his subjects were harmed, traumatized, or straight-up died was immaterial; they would be remembered, and so would he, and that's the point.

Whether or not this was intentional on the part of the writing is another debate entirely. I'll give JMS a lot of props for things put into the show, but I'm not entirely willing to buy that it was what he set out to do, and Lyta's thread kind of bears that out. I already said before, but she really had the rug ripped out from under her. Consider the abuse she suffered at the hands(/spooky tendrils?) of Kosh 2.0, and her storyline just goes from sad to loving smarmy the moment Byron enters the picture. Then G'Kar ends up being the one to save her from herself. She has zero agency by the end of the run, which just feels-- bad. I feel bad for that character, in a way that doesn't sync up well with the rest of the cast, the story, or even the themes that are so central to the series.

I mean, I'm fine with bummer endings (if they're done right), but it was a tonal mismatch with everything else. That, and it just straight-up made me really uncomfortable.

Anyway, I could die on this hill a thousand times over, so back to the main point: the telepath arc just seemed like it couldn't make up its mind. The scripts and overall presentation didn't seem to want to figure out if 'Byron good' or 'Byron maybe not so good?' and the explanation that it was based on a culty experience JMS had feels a bit retcon-y. I don't doubt that it was partly inspired by, but the way it was shot and handled really tries to lean on 'Byron good' in a way that other morally dubious characters just-- weren't. I mean, I adore Babylon 5, but the writing was rarely that subtle, and I'd totally buy that JMS accidentally wrote himself into that corner, only to come back later, like a cat that's barrel-rolled off a countertop and goes into a conniption fit of grooming, to say 'yes, I 100% meant to do that.'

The whole thing was a mess, and I'm glad Ivanova wasn't there to be completely wrecked by it. It's a shame that Lyta was, but I don't know that I could've taken Ivanova being that blatantly undercut as a character.


Whole show spoilers: Byron's not exactly being intentional. He's trying to atone for his misdeeds without acknowledging them, and that leads to trouble. He still fundamentally sees a distinction between mundanes and telepaths and can't release the assumptions that go along with that. He also seems to be behaving like he thinks he should be without any real understanding of how to actually achieve his goals.

Best example to me is the episode with the angry bigot who Byron tells to hit him several times. Byron clearly wants to make a point (while also martyring himself in miniature), but the show demonstrates that instead of alleviating the other guy's hatred, he actually stokes it and makes him MORE violent later.

Byron repeatedly says and does things that seem like the "right" thing, whether in Christian terms or pacifist terms. But does he ever actually do the right thing? Even his relationship with Lyta isn't precisely healthy. The guy can't keep his community of telepaths from responding to violence violently and disproportionately. And he's a telepath. And the community explicitly doesn't keep walls up between members; that's a whole thing with getting Lyta to let down her defenses. Telepaths, needless to say, can sometimes have real boundary issues.

And I think Byron immolating himself fits perfectly into the S5 tone; it is the equivalent moment to the fleet firing on Centauri Prime. And Byron himself is a foil to Londo: Byron wants to be a better person and wants to sacrifice himself to atone for his past sins, but he doesn't want to actually surrender any of what makes him who he is, what made him the person who did all those terrible things. Londo has to sacrifice himself more profoundly and over decades. Sheridan has a similar theme going through the final season, relating to the final episode, only he mostly tries to do the right thing and succeeds more often than not.

Having read JMS' autobiography, I can say that the account he tells of his own life shows up repeatedly, in just about everything he did. The real miracle would be if his writing weren't influenced by his own past experience. The "this guy is a creepy cult leader" came across immediately to me upon first watching; the twin problems are that they cast someone who is just a bit too conventional-looking for the role and who couldn't (at the time) convey the layers required by the role, and I'm unsure the show's directors all understood that Byron isn't what he appears to be.

In the Script Books, JMS says that his original plan, "aside from advancing the story of the coming telepath war," was a love interest that looked and sounded like Marcus because Ivanova would have had a complex response to such a situation. He was supposed to help ivanova "better understand her latent telepathy, a threat that would have been even further developed by season's end. The premise being that she didn't take affection from the right person, and screwed herself in the process, then on the rebound did accept affection from the wrong person, and got burned as a result.

He claims the relationship would have played out over fewer episodes, no doubt in part because the fallout would have needed more space. (What, for example, would happen if Ivanova's telepathy got activated and was exposed?) With the original purpose for Byron out the window, little time before the season needed to be produced, and with his S5 notes thrown out at a convention, JMS says he ended up taking the easy path and sticking with the original character and story when they no longer fit what was needed. I think fan hatred of the character (Robin Atkin Downes is pretty beloved now, I believe, though not for this role) drives a lot of people's impressions of the story-line, which on closer review isn't as bad as reputed (though it's not great either).

Take a look at the first episode Byron appears in. He makes some misleading statements about his connection to Psi Corps (implying that he himself is a Blip and not a renegade Psi Cop), and introduces the character Simon, who has suffered some anguish attached to the death of a woman which he feels guilt about and wants to "make up for" in Byron's words.

Burning_Monk
Jan 11, 2005
Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to know
https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1170110570671951872
https://twitter.com/straczynski/status/1170113017544986625

Some pics of Babylon 5 stuff near the bottom.

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByMeOcipi6K/

CainFortea
Oct 15, 2004



You gonna link that one but not this one?

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByMoQ2MJB6Y/

Dirty
Apr 8, 2003

Ceci n'est pas un fabricant de pates
Michael O'Hare with the world's tightest t-shirt. https://www.instagram.com/p/ByMnABKpEVO/

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



Dirty posted:

Michael O'Hare with the world's tightest t-shirt. https://www.instagram.com/p/ByMnABKpEVO/

Just about everything in that picture really.

poolside toaster
Jul 12, 2008
Dear god those white pants...

TraderStav
May 19, 2006

It feels like I was standing my entire life and I just sat down
I just watched Survivors the other night, and woo-boy was Gariabialdis ‘civilian wear’ shirt something else.

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remusclaw
Dec 8, 2009

I just finished the series and goddam I was warned but was not prepared for the waterworks to get going with Sleeping in Light. What a fantastic show and what a heartfelt ending.

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