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McSpanky posted:JMS himself said of seeing Bester's 'good side', "Even Hitler painted roses." A line that he borrowed from Harlan, unsurprisingly.
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Jun 26, 2023 19:59
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I think that interpretation of the prophecy is basically consensus except for the 'eye that does not see' which I think most people take to be more literal and mean G'Kar. I suppose the 'one who is dead' could also mean Sheridan?
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Jun 26, 2023 23:03
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Gaz-L posted:I think that interpretation of the prophecy is basically consensus except for the 'eye that does not see' which I think most people take to be more literal and mean G'Kar. I suppose the 'one who is dead' could also mean Sheridan? the thing is it does intentionally have some wiggle room for every element, it's just there's the really obvious ones you think of first like that
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Jun 26, 2023 23:12
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I think that Peter David had an interpretation from The Fall of Centauri Prime books is that "the eye that does not see" was actually 'I', as in Londo himself. But G'Kar losing his eye is probably a better fit - Londo was too distracted with his machinations and let Cartagia deal with G'Kar as he felt fit. You must not kill the one who is already dead almost certainly refers to Sheridan.
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Jun 26, 2023 23:18
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I think that Peter David had an interpretation from The Fall of Centauri Prime books is that "the eye that does not see" was actually 'I', as in Londo himself. I can see if being Morden, if the idea is that the only one he fulfils is the last.
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Jun 26, 2023 23:33
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"Save the eye that does not see" -- the first thing I thought of was The Eye, the jeweled artifact of the first Centauri emperor, which ended up in Londo's possession back in Signs and Portents. It could be symbolic of the entire Centauri Republic, which would make the warning that he's not to let the Centauri destroy themselves in their short-sightedness.
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Jun 27, 2023 00:06
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Gaz-L posted:I can see if being Morden, if the idea is that the only one he fulfils is the last. That's what Morella says, yes. He only needs to take the last one, surrendering himself to his greatest fear, if he's failed the others. Lady Morella posted:"You still have three opportunities to avoid the fire at the end of your journey. You have already wasted two others. You must save the (eye) that does not see; you must not kill the one who is already dead; and at the last, you must surrender to yourself to your greatest fear, knowing that it will destroy you. Now if you have failed all the others, that is your final chance at redemption." So he must not save the eye (G'Kar's eye), he must kill the one who is already dead (Morden), then he must surrender himself to his greatest fear. This is almost certainly being killed by G'Kar, but it could refer to also being implanted with the Keeper -- which would basically put him on the path to that death.
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Jun 27, 2023 00:26
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For all of the people saying that they think the prophecy refers to saving G'kar's eye, can you explain what Londo should have done to save G'kar's eye, and how that would cause events to play out differently? I don't see anything that he could do to save G'kar from having his eye put out that would lead to the Drakh and Shadows off of Centauri Prime without a grudge. The 'consensus view' may be G'kar's eye, but I've never seen someone who takes that view explain what saving G'kar's eye would look like and how saving it would save Londo. I'm not saying 'write me an episode long script or I won't believe you', just a line or to like I did explaining how I think sparing Refa and Morden would lead to a significantly different outcome. And the only way 'do not kill the one who is already dead' can be Sheridan is if you don't think that G'kar strangling Londo was his greatest fear. If Londo did take one of the chances at redemption before the final one in the prophecy, then he would already be redeemed wouldn't need to surrender himself to his greatest fear. Having a last chance in the prophecy that never occurs is certainly possible, but I think it that Londo did miss two chances and had to resort to "if you have failed all the others, that is your final chance at redemption."
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Jun 27, 2023 00:46
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:For all of the people saying that they think the prophecy refers to saving G'kar's eye, can you explain what Londo should have done to save G'kar's eye, and how that would cause events to play out differently? I don't see anything that he could do to save G'kar from having his eye put out that would lead to the Drakh and Shadows off of Centauri Prime without a grudge. The 'consensus view' may be G'kar's eye, but I've never seen someone who takes that view explain what saving G'kar's eye would look like and how saving it would save Londo. I'm not saying 'write me an episode long script or I won't believe you', just a line or to like I did explaining how I think sparing Refa and Morden would lead to a significantly different outcome. It's impossible to say. To me, had Londo spoken up then it would've been, essentially, an act of faith. It'd also come back to that idea that Babylon 5 espouses pretty consistently that standing up for the right thing, in the dark, alone, where no one will ever know, when it comes down to you saying something regardless of the personal cost, is the most important thing a person can do. It's exactly what G'Kar/his conscience castigates Londo for when he's dying. Maybe Cartagia would've seen the light and undone things. Maybe Londo would've been killed, and that changed everything and allowed him to escape that fate. We can't know, and I think that's at the core of Babylon 5's thoughts regarding what heroism. Londo says it wouldn't change anything, and his mental G'Kar says: "It doesn't matter if they'd stop! It doesn't matter if they'd listen! You had an obligation to speak out!" It's also not the 'consensus view', really. I think it's the only aspect of the prophecy that JMS has explicitly addressed.
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Jun 27, 2023 01:10
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:For all of the people saying that they think the prophecy refers to saving G'kar's eye, can you explain what Londo should have done to save G'kar's eye, and how that would cause events to play out differently? I don't see anything that he could do to save G'kar from having his eye put out that would lead to the Drakh and Shadows off of Centauri Prime without a grudge. Londo could have acted to save G'Kar, but if he had then Cartagia would have had him killed. Similarly, if Londo hadn't killed Morden then the Vorlons would have destroyed Centauri Prime and Londo with it. Neither of these are good outcomes for him, but he would have avoided the fire. Imagine I come into the room where you are with a gun and tell you to leave, or I will shoot you. You would leave, right? But outside the room is a pack of rabid dogs that will rip you to shreds. That's the position Londo is in. He isn't a true prophet; he has seen the end of the path that he has set himself on, but he is blind to the outcomes of other paths. He doesn't want to be shot, so he's looking for ways to leave the room without knowing that despite everything remaining is still his best option. Which is why his final chance at redemption is to accept the fate that he has seen.
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Jun 27, 2023 01:24
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Cartagia would have had him killed, or at the very least imprisoned and tortured him, and either way, would have kept him from having the power to kill the Shadows on Centauri Prime. Then the Drakh would have no reason to take vengeance on the Centauri after the war ends.
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Jun 27, 2023 01:35
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I think if Londo didn't go through the effort of blowing up the Shadows and everything they left, Sheridan chasing them out of the galaxy might've saved Centauri Prime without earning the ire of the Shadows' allies. Not that Londo could've possibly known that would happen. Lately I've been feeling like the part of the prophecy that seems the weakest is the last one. Sure it's poetic, but I don't think dying is Londo's greatest fear. He's literally willing to die to kill G'kar in the first episode, he gladly risked death back when he flew Draal and Delenn to the planet below B5 (there's a moment that's easy to forget after the rest of the series). He's not particularly cowardly for his own life. And prophecies aside, I think that the crucial element of Londo's demise is all the rest of the cast at Babylon 5 deciding to leave him out of the loop and hide information from him after he went out of his way to spend political capital getting the alliance off the ground. Not because they didn't trust Londo, they all thought he was innocent, but because they thought that if he knew then he'd get himself killed like he doesn't know how to maneuver through dangerous situations.
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Jun 27, 2023 01:52
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Thanks for the answers. My interpretation of the eye is the one I'm sticking with, but both 'Londo would have been killed which results in Centauri Prime being saved' and 'it would have been an act of faith' are solid explanations and I understand why someone would go with one of those now.Jedit posted:Londo could have acted to save G'Kar, but if he had then Cartagia would have had him killed. Similarly, if Londo hadn't killed Morden then the Vorlons would have destroyed Centauri Prime and Londo with it. Neither of these are good outcomes for him, but he would have avoided the fire. Nah, if Londo didn't kill Morden, then the Vorlon planetkiller would have approached Centauri Prime, then pulled out when called to the larger battle just like it did in the episode. It was still approaching after the Shadows and Morden were destroyed, and only turned around when called to the battle, seeing the shadows destroyed and hearing the broadcast that they were no longer on the planet didn't sway the ship. He didn't know that at the time, and I don't think any of the non-Vorlon characters would ever know that's what happened, but that was what I took away from the scene from the 3rd person omniscient view we get watching the show. SlothfulCobra posted:Lately I've been feeling like the part of the prophecy that seems the weakest is the last one. Sure it's poetic, but I don't think dying is Londo's greatest fear. He's literally willing to die to kill G'kar in the first episode, he gladly risked death back when he flew Draal and Delenn to the planet below B5 (there's a moment that's easy to forget after the rest of the series). He's not particularly cowardly for his own life. My read of the situation is that Londo is afraid of dying at G'kar's hand, but also thinks it's inevitable, so is willing to take big risks since he 'knows' he'll survive until the strangling. In the early episode, he's willing to risk death in an attempt to kill G'kar, but he says after Garibaldi stops him that he knows he wasn't going to succeed anyway. I don't think he's fundamentally cowardly, but I also think his bravery gets a big boost from 'knowing' that he can't die for another 20 years.
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Jun 27, 2023 02:29
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SlothfulCobra posted:Lately I've been feeling like the part of the prophecy that seems the weakest is the last one. Sure it's poetic, but I don't think dying is Londo's greatest fear. He's literally willing to die to kill G'kar in the first episode, he gladly risked death back when he flew Draal and Delenn to the planet below B5 (there's a moment that's easy to forget after the rest of the series). He's not particularly cowardly for his own life. I agree, and I think the fear he surrenders to is actually the inevitable decline/destruction of his people, which he tacitly accepts when he allows the Keeper to take him over, and which he knows he can only be rid of with his death. It's been a while since I've seen the series and I don't remember if that part is something he's aware of from his visions, but it would be befitting the hindsight nature of prophecies that he wouldn't realize that the Keeper is the answer to the prophecy until he already had the thing and it was steering him in that direction.
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Jun 27, 2023 03:00
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Hold on: "You must not kill the one who is already dead." - that's what he does by NOT killing Sheridan. So he doesn't have to go through the final one, facing what he fears most.
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Jun 27, 2023 04:44
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:Nah, if Londo didn't kill Morden, then the Vorlon planetkiller would have approached Centauri Prime, then pulled out when called to the larger battle just like it did in the episode. It was still approaching after the Shadows and Morden were destroyed, and only turned around when called to the battle, seeing the shadows destroyed and hearing the broadcast that they were no longer on the planet didn't sway the ship. He didn't know that at the time, and I don't think any of the non-Vorlon characters would ever know that's what happened, but that was what I took away from the scene from the 3rd person omniscient view we get watching the show. I'm gonna be a big idiot about star ships again, but the show doesn't really establish how the huge star ships work in their universe. The Vorlon planet killer at least was a huge gently caress-off gun instead of the Shadow cloud thingy, but it felt like the scene established the Vorlons could've just fired their big space nut all over Centauri Prime in that moment without losing that much time and getting back to the big show-off fight. And ultimately Londo couldn't have known that either way, in that moment he genuinely did seem to want to save "his people", begging Vir to loving murder him of all things. Londo's not a great guy, but he has some kind of internal compass, it's just that either he's not allowed to listen to it or he ignores it when he's around the crazies like Cartagia because no one wants to get vivisected. So he winds up being complicit in genocide and torture and sometimes he even seems to like it.
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Jun 27, 2023 06:08
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Hold on: "You must not kill the one who is already dead." - that's what he does by NOT killing Sheridan. So he doesn't have to go through the final one, facing what he fears most. If the prophecy was unambiguous, we wouldn't be discussing it almost 30 years later.
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Jun 27, 2023 07:58
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Oh, I always thought the "one who was already dead" was Refa, because of the binary poison thing.
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Jun 27, 2023 09:39
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I always thought it was Morden.
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Jun 27, 2023 14:25
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Jedit posted:Londo could have acted to save G'Kar, but if he had then Cartagia would have had him killed. Similarly, if Londo hadn't killed Morden then the Vorlons would have destroyed Centauri Prime and Londo with it. Neither of these are good outcomes for him, but he would have avoided the fire. Cartagia would have had him killed? He invites Londo to propose a response to how G’Kar is looking at him, and Londo has shown great dexterity in manipulating Cartagia under situations which are higher stakes. Besides the already proposed “put a bag over his head,” pretty much any solution would do here, with little risk to Londo. “Have him beaten unconscious” could endanger the next stage of the plan, perhaps, but Londo simply doesn’t care about the situation and leaves it to Cartagia’s own judgment. Quite frankly, not intervening was a great risk, too. “I don”t like how he’s looking at me” probably wouldn’t lead to “kill him” given the plan to execute him on Narn, but that risk is at least as great as the risk of Cartagia taking Londo’s head for making a suggestion that’s more about humiliation than mutilation.
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Jun 27, 2023 15:18
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Rappaport posted:Londo's not a great guy, but he has some kind of internal compass, it's just that either he's not allowed to listen to it or he ignores it when he's around the crazies like Cartagia because no one wants to get vivisected. So he winds up being complicit in genocide and torture and sometimes he even seems to like it. When Londo is scheming with Reefa to tie up various loose ends (  ) around the time the Emperor dies, Vir is sitting in the back of the room looking pretty unhappy. Londo asks him if this stuff makes him uncomfortable, which he affirms and Londo is like "yeah me too actually". He does have SOME moral compass, but he's a patriot first and foremost even though he sometimes has a really twisted view of what patriotism is.
cmdrk fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Jun 27, 2023 |
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Jun 27, 2023 20:15
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cmdrk posted:When Londo is scheming to tying up various loose ends with Reefa ( Londo actually has a powerful moral compass - so much so that it almost kills him! Like probably everyone here I've spent a lot of time thinking about Londo's motivations. Clearly he wants power - but I think only insomuch as it gets him respect. And respect for what? Thinking about it, respect for trying to serve the Republic. When Morden asks, "What do you want?", Londo doesn't say he wants to be Emperor, or to be personally powerful - the closest he gets to that is "I want to stop running through my life like a man late for an appointment, afraid to- to look back, or to look forward" - he doesn't want to feel like a buffoon anymore. He wants the Centauri to stop crumbling. He wants to be a good, patriotic Centauri in a system where that is not really encouraged. So he compromises to try and change that system - notably stopping well short of what Reefa is willing to do for the pure exercise of power. I don't think ruthless is a way of life for Londo - ruthlessness is a temporary, necessary evil to make the world a better place, which he thinks he can put aside at the end. And it's hard, right? Sheridan was pretty ruthless. Hell, Sheridan deployed WMDs and didn't even feel as bad as Londo did about it (should all Shadows be considered combatants/collaborators?) But what trips up Londo is that he has felt powerless for so long that he sees as everyone trying to warn him away from disaster as being part of the reason he's powerless. Therefore making those hard decisions even more necessary, in his view. And from his perspective this is fairly reasonable. Most of the folks who give him a heads up don't follow up with an alternative or a helping hand most of the time - it's just like, "Hey, you keep trying to fix things this way and you'll gently caress it up, bye." Londo tries to step up and do the right thing for the Centauri, and bear the burdens of what he sees as necessary evils until the moral weight of it almost kills him. Then it all goes to poo poo anyways. It makes me think a little bit about how a medievalist instructor of mine described Boromir in Lord of the Rings - "The wrong hero in the wrong place at the wrong time." And I think that's what makes Londo compelling and tragic.
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Jun 27, 2023 21:15
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I think I've expounded enough on Londo, but Sheridan nuking Mark Twain and a Shadow base seems warranted since these Shadows clearly were in cahoots with their government. If they have one. The show is sort of unclear on this, but the "GET THE HELL OUT OF MY GALAXY" stuff at least implies the Shadows and Vorlons are a more cohesive society than the younger races. Sheridan is still a flawed hero too, and Garibaldi's (Bester's) criticisms of him are not unfair. He's an unnatural being, for lack of a better word, and there definitely are depictions of a weird, cultish behaviour around him.
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Jun 27, 2023 21:31
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Rappaport posted:I think I've expounded enough on Londo, but Sheridan nuking Mark Twain and a Shadow base seems warranted since these Shadows clearly were in cahoots with their government. If they have one. The show is sort of unclear on this, but the "GET THE HELL OUT OF MY GALAXY" stuff at least implies the Shadows and Vorlons are a more cohesive society than the younger races. I'd rather judge a character based on actions and behavior than biology shennanigans. Does the fact that Delenn gets a period after the first season really change anything? I think it's pretty clear that the cultish behavior that crops up around Sheridan is because he is the charismatic leader of a vastly outmatched coalition fighting scary spider beings with godlike technology who apparently single handedly went to their homeworld, kicked them in the dick, died, and then came back to life. And this isn't like, what you read on the Timecube website, this is your ambassador saying "Uhh yeah looks like that happened holy poo poo." Then he goes on to kick out not one, but two (technically more, with the other First Ones) incomprehensively powerful civilizations right out of the galaxy. Also, after the scene with the crazy lady Garibaldi gets upset about, Sheridan then goes on to overthrow the bad President back home and get elected Best President. He's basically Jesus if he was also George Washington, FDR and Aragorn. Why the hell wouldn't he get cults? JFK Jr. gets a cult and he just flew his family into the ocean by being a dumbfuck. Also, remember how G'kar also became a messianic figure? Gyrotica fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Jun 27, 2023 |
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Jun 27, 2023 21:48
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Londo's core characteristic is he's a patriot who puts the Centauri above everything. It leads him to do horrible things, but it also makes him willing to sacrifice himself for his people. It's totally consistent and great writing.
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Jun 27, 2023 21:56
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Sheridan meets Lorien, who is a deus ex machina that makes both the Vorlon and Shadows want to leave. Making friends is a skill, sure, but Lorien also made Sheridan into an undead thing, so it's unclear who had the agency in that relationship. G'kar underwent horrible torture and mutilation, and when his people ask him to take the throne, he laughs in their faces. His development about religion is a good character arc, for sure, but he rejected leadership and wanted to make a buddy-cop show with Londo. Which wasn't a bad decision at all, quite the opposite.
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Jun 27, 2023 21:59
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Rappaport posted:Sheridan meets Lorien, who is a deus ex machina that makes both the Vorlon and Shadows want to leave. Making friends is a skill, sure, but Lorien also made Sheridan into an undead thing, so it's unclear who had the agency in that relationship. Sheridan. Lorien is a mentor, not a master. He tells Sheridan what he needs to do, and warns him of certain risks, but never actually tells him how to do it. His moment with the Shadows and Vorlons is the best illustration of this. He tells Sheridan that he needs to bring both of them plus all the First Ones together in one place, but he doesn't tell him how to go about it. When Sheridan does achieve that goal, Lorien doesn't act until Sheridan has told them to leave because the younger races don't need them any more. And even then all he really does is lend weight to the argument by saying "he's right, they don't need any of us". But Lorien couldn't have done that if Sheridan hadn't made the argument for himself, because if Sheridan was under his thumb it wouldn't have been true.
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Jun 27, 2023 22:14
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That makes sense. So Sheridan is a messianic figure because he found a god-being to mentor him? I guess that guy getting cults isn't surprising. I still say they're unfounded, but I guess I'm #teamgaribaldi on this one 
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Jun 27, 2023 22:24
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Two Owls posted:Oh, I always thought the "one who was already dead" was Refa, because of the binary poison thing. I always assumed the poison was a total bluff.
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Jun 27, 2023 22:32
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McSpanky posted:Yeah, the telepaths may have gotten a raw deal from Earth society and Earthgov, but they sure didn't waste any time going full fash with their little gestapo club. Secret hyperspace bases, murder initiation rites, all manner of sleeper agents, routinely illegally scanning civilians, trapping people in endless psychic nightmares, eugenics programs... JMS himself said of seeing Bester's 'good side', "Even Hitler painted roses." My read on Bester is that in his preferred world order, there would continue to be mundanes, but only so that telepaths would have a slave caste to do the dangerous and undesirable jobs. I also strongly suspect a fully Psi Corps-controlled humanity would likely eventually be a threat to its neighbors.
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Jun 28, 2023 00:24
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The bulk of Bester's job is enforcing segregation between telepaths and mundanes, which is disadvantageous to both, although Bester sees it as a way to protect telepaths and build the power to oppose the mundanes.Gyrotica posted:Like probably everyone here I've spent a lot of time thinking about Londo's motivations. Clearly he wants power - but I think only insomuch as it gets him respect. And respect for what? Thinking about it, respect for trying to serve the Republic. I've said it before, but I think Londo definitely had plenty of reasons to worry and fear for the state of the Centauri Republic. The most obvious are the Narn, who were very explicitly gearing up to attack them, so people's lives were threatened, but also the fact that the decay of the Republic was a threat to the Centauri and the galaxy around them. Centauri citizens wind up in slavery, dangerous aliens like the energy vampire breach quarantine because the Centauri are cutting costs. The main thing he was really wrong about was that he didn't really know how much decay was in the center. He had made his peace with his career being at a dead end, but apparently everyone he knew who still had personal ambition was planning terrible things.
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Jun 28, 2023 02:33
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Jedit posted:Similarly, if Londo hadn't killed Morden then the Vorlons would have destroyed Centauri Prime and Londo with it. Neither of these are good outcomes for him, but he would have avoided the fire. If Londo doesn't take out the Shadow ships, the Shadows and Morden then Centauri Prime wouldn't pay the price for what happened there that day, although it was obviously a High Risk play given that they had no idea that the planet killer would have been called off
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Jun 28, 2023 09:10
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I just got up to A Voice in the Wilderness 1 and 2, and noticed a (literally) glaring tech anachronism. When Ivanova and Sinclair go down to the planet, they bring flashlights with them. The flashlights are big, bulky, boxy things with what's presumably a large battery pack and an incandescent bulb that's not especially bright. Today you'd have some kind of LED that is much brighter and smaller, uses a tiny battery for longer life, and is less inconvenient to carry (probably mounted on a head strap or their PPG, if not something more wand-sized). The screens being CRTs rather than flat screens like you'd expect now I expected, but the flashlight really jumped out at me as being 'not from the future, not even from the present' when it certainly didn't during the original run. I enjoy spotting things like this, it's not quite as interesting as the daily printed newspaper but is still fun.McSpanky posted:Yeah, the telepaths may have gotten a raw deal from Earth society and Earthgov, but they sure didn't waste any time going full fash with their little gestapo club. Secret hyperspace bases, murder initiation rites, all manner of sleeper agents, routinely illegally scanning civilians, trapping people in endless psychic nightmares, eugenics programs... JMS himself said of seeing Bester's 'good side', "Even Hitler painted roses." What I don't get is comparing Bester to Hitler for this sort of thing and not any of the other major characters who do actual Hitler-like stuff like genocide, wars of aggression, slavery and forced labor, and massive-scale atrocities like that. Delenn is not usually even considered a monster, but she cast the vote that decided on war with humans over an incident caused by Mimbari arrogance, and personally ordered it to be a genocidal war to exterminate all humans rather than just a minor war. Even though she eventually shied away from killing all X billions of humans, she was cool with it and only actually turned aside when the triluminary triggered on Sinclair, and she was still responsible for over 250,000 dead humans. Londo conspired against the legitimate Centauri government to put in place an aggressive regime that immediately invaded Narn using weapons of mass destruction to set up labor and death camps, then spread the aggressive war to other nations, all along with a major motive being to put the lesser races in their place. G'Kar did less himself, but was an eager member of the ruling body of the Narn regime when it was engaged in aggressive wars of conquest against it's neighbors. It seems like for everything in the list, the major players have done something as bad or much worse. All of the major players are fine with secret bases, not even sure why that's in the list. Sure a murder initiation rite is bad, but is it really worse than a genocidal war that killed a quarter million people before stopping or Sheridan using a few dozen incapacitated telepaths as human bombs? And how much worse is Bester's one murder than Ivonova's attempted murder of a telepath for no real reason? All of the major players are fine with scans on non-consenting people - B5 command staff have Talia, Lyta and IIRC some others do it at various points. G'kar is big on breeding Narn Tel. Sheridan is fine with Death of Personality as punishment for a guy who killed the person who killed his own family, which I find worse than trapping a serial killer in an endless nightmare like Bester did. Londo is fond of Eugenics programs to create more docile Narns, while G'kar is working on a Eugenics program to create Narn telepaths. I don't think that Bester is some sort of white-hatted hero with clean hands, but I don't understand the justification for saying he's qualitatively or quantitatively significantly worse than the other major players. Gyrotica posted:Like probably everyone here I've spent a lot of time thinking about Londo's motivations. Clearly he wants power - but I think only insomuch as it gets him respect. And respect for what? Thinking about it, respect for trying to serve the Republic. This all sounds good when you stay cagey about what 'Centauri not crumbling' actually means, and I think the part of Londo's answer to Morden that you didn't quote is pretty telling: "I want my people to reclaim their rightful place in the galaxy. I want to see the Centauri stretch forth their hand again, and command the stars! I-I want a rebirth of glory, a renaissance of power. [your quote] I want us to be what we used to BE! I want…I want it all back, the way that it was! Does that answer your question?" Londo pretty clearly wants the Centauri to go back to conquering the lesser races and making sure they know their place, to exploit their worlds for the benefit of the Centauri, and to continue to enslave people. He's like lost-causers in today's world - if you say 'heritage, not hate' then the position sounds reasonable, but what he actually wants is for a slave-holding empire to put the lesser races in their place. His 'necessary evils' aren't even an incidental step on the way, they're the core of what he tries to put in place.
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Jun 28, 2023 21:17
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An excellent post. Delenn really gets a very easy ride, though you do get the sense that her transition is in some sense an act of repentance. I kind of miss freaky pilot delenn in the actual series, she's much more spooky
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Jun 28, 2023 21:54
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sebmojo posted:An excellent post. Delenn really gets a very easy ride, though you do get the sense that her transition is in some sense an act of repentance. This could be seen as problematic for other reasons, particularly given the original ideas around it But yeah, out of the main cast, who is someone who isn't complicit in horrific war crimes and genocide? Garibaldi and the Doctor? (Yes Garibaldi has his thing with Bester but the series makes it out to not be his fault) Even poor Vir has to murder Cartagia, and oversight genocide poo poo even if he was shunted off to Minbar. Ivanova? She does help out with the civil war, until she doesn't. Marcus? "You are not like us", etc.? Then there's Lennier, but since Delenn is a war criminal and Lennier loves and adores her, he's not exactly out of hot water here either.
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Jun 28, 2023 22:40
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So, I just finished a rewatch and the show was great; the movies not so much. I'm hesitating about getting the books. Are they any good? Like...closer to the TV show quality or closer to the movies quality? I don't want to waste my time if they're just trash.
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Jun 28, 2023 22:53
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Psamtik I posted:So, I just finished a rewatch and the show was great; the movies not so much. I'm hesitating about getting the books. Are they any good? Like...closer to the TV show quality or closer to the movies quality? I don't want to waste my time if they're just trash. To Dream in the City of Sorrows is pretty good and written by Straczynski's ex-wife. The Centauri trilogy is considered pretty good. The Telepath trilogy is okay. The Technomage trilogy I remember being pretty goddamn boring. They've been out of print for a while and are pretty difficult to find, though.
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Jun 28, 2023 23:13
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sebmojo posted:An excellent post. Delenn really gets a very easy ride, though you do get the sense that her transition is in some sense an act of repentance. It retrospectively makes a lot of sense that she's so committed to the cause of uniting the humans and the Minbari given her past involvement in near-genocide. OTOH, she still doesn't have much hesitation when it comes to killing her enemies, as with the fight with the Drahk. "END THIS!" If there's one thread that seems consistent in the series, it's that you don't arrive at a place of wisdom without having first made a lot of mistakes. The question is whether you conceal those mistakes and ignore them (like the Vorlons) or whether you try to become a better person as a result of them. "[Babylon 5] gave us hope...that there can always be new beginnings, even for people like us."
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Jun 29, 2023 00:24
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Who are you, what do you want, why are you here, where are you going.
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Jun 29, 2023 00:35
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:I just got up to A Voice in the Wilderness 1 and 2, and noticed a (literally) glaring tech anachronism. When Ivanova and Sinclair go down to the planet, they bring flashlights with them. The flashlights are big, bulky, boxy things with what's presumably a large battery pack and an incandescent bulb that's not especially bright. Today you'd have some kind of LED that is much brighter and smaller, uses a tiny battery for longer life, and is less inconvenient to carry (probably mounted on a head strap or their PPG, if not something more wand-sized). The screens being CRTs rather than flat screens like you'd expect now I expected, but the flashlight really jumped out at me as being 'not from the future, not even from the present' when it certainly didn't during the original run. I enjoy spotting things like this, it's not quite as interesting as the daily printed newspaper but is still fun.
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Jun 29, 2023 00:36
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