![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakOkay, requested ‘ships, first round (Boomer/Tyrol shall have to wait, because I intend to write a lengthier entry on both Boomers, gender and romance perceptions on the part of the audience, and I need time for that):
When Leeta dumped handsome, good-looking Dr. Bashir for the shy Ferengi tech Rom, she warmed the hearts of geeks everywhere. In a show where everyone’s love life was quite angsty, Leeta and Rom were the sweet, adorable couple exempt from that rule. At the same time, we got to see their relationship wasn’t all fluff and comic relief; for example, when Rom’s son Nog went through the worst crisis of his life, Leeta and Rom faced it together.
Of all the pairings on the show, they got the most convincing happy ending. I’m not too sure about the new Ferenginar, but I’m sure Leeta and Rom will make it.
Sometimes she’s his little sister, sometimes she’s the girl who might have been, and all of the times she’s a loved friend. In season 4 when it seemed John and Aeryn were primarily good at making each other miserable, John/Chiana looked like a sane alternative to a lot of people, but I was pretty sure the show wouldn’t go there – for one thing, D’Argo couldn’t have coped, and John knew how D’Argo still felt about Chiana, for another, Chi just felt too damn much for John if you ask me. She needed him as a brother more than she needed him as a lover, and as a lover she’d always have been second choice after Aeryn. She deserved better.
Zhaan was the first person John really bonded with on Moya, before even Aeryn, and not so coincidentally via mindsharing and the acceptance of dark sides. Her being an elegant and erotic mother figure suffering from a disease echoes or prefigures the appearance of Crichton’s real mother. As opposed to his real mother, he’s able to save her – temporarily. But later he’ll see her waste away, ultimately due to him.To Zhaan, he’s “innocent John”, and her death signifies the loss of the last of this innocence in him.
Of course, she is the princess. Nobody else could have been.
It’s not possible to overestimate Vir’s importance in Londo’s life, or arc. Confidant, conscience, surrogate son, tool, fellow conspirator, lifeline of hope, finally embodiment of the Centauri Prime he longs to save – Vir is all that to Londo, sometimes at the same time. Just as he’s the quiet voice which never stops pointing out where Londo went wrong, he’s the sole person who never gives up on him; standing in for the viewer, Vir is in turn charmed, intimidated, frustrated, angry with and proud of Londo. Londo makes him cry and smile like no one else. But he never stops loving him, and neither do we.
I’m a sucker for family tragedies, and the Connor and Angel storyline of season 4 was one of the best. Connor is simultaneously Angel’s hope for the future and the punishment for the past. While Angel is to Connor the reason why his life became hell almost as soon as it began, a monster and a hero at the same time.
Intense hate mixed with the unbearable desire for closeness is what Connor feels for his father, and it’s tied to his strong self-loathing. Only after the experience of another life is he able to accept that Angel loves him. Which, my fondness for tragedies not withstanding, was a beautiful thing.
The saddest moment in Hell’s Bells, to me: when Anya practices her marriage vows and says she’s marrying her best friend. Because that’s what Xander was to her, but she never was to him.
I like them both enormously; I think Anya was Xander’s lifeline in season 4, and Xander made Anya look beyond “me, myself, and I”. And yet he never faced his uneasiness about her demon past until it was too late, and was ashamed of her, and she knew it. Being ready to die for her, which he was, is all very well, but I don’t think Xander could live with her and treasure her in the way she treasured him.
They were doomed.
When Leeta dumped handsome, good-looking Dr. Bashir for the shy Ferengi tech Rom, she warmed the hearts of geeks everywhere. In a show where everyone’s love life was quite angsty, Leeta and Rom were the sweet, adorable couple exempt from that rule. At the same time, we got to see their relationship wasn’t all fluff and comic relief; for example, when Rom’s son Nog went through the worst crisis of his life, Leeta and Rom faced it together.
Of all the pairings on the show, they got the most convincing happy ending. I’m not too sure about the new Ferenginar, but I’m sure Leeta and Rom will make it.
Sometimes she’s his little sister, sometimes she’s the girl who might have been, and all of the times she’s a loved friend. In season 4 when it seemed John and Aeryn were primarily good at making each other miserable, John/Chiana looked like a sane alternative to a lot of people, but I was pretty sure the show wouldn’t go there – for one thing, D’Argo couldn’t have coped, and John knew how D’Argo still felt about Chiana, for another, Chi just felt too damn much for John if you ask me. She needed him as a brother more than she needed him as a lover, and as a lover she’d always have been second choice after Aeryn. She deserved better.
Zhaan was the first person John really bonded with on Moya, before even Aeryn, and not so coincidentally via mindsharing and the acceptance of dark sides. Her being an elegant and erotic mother figure suffering from a disease echoes or prefigures the appearance of Crichton’s real mother. As opposed to his real mother, he’s able to save her – temporarily. But later he’ll see her waste away, ultimately due to him.To Zhaan, he’s “innocent John”, and her death signifies the loss of the last of this innocence in him.
Of course, she is the princess. Nobody else could have been.
It’s not possible to overestimate Vir’s importance in Londo’s life, or arc. Confidant, conscience, surrogate son, tool, fellow conspirator, lifeline of hope, finally embodiment of the Centauri Prime he longs to save – Vir is all that to Londo, sometimes at the same time. Just as he’s the quiet voice which never stops pointing out where Londo went wrong, he’s the sole person who never gives up on him; standing in for the viewer, Vir is in turn charmed, intimidated, frustrated, angry with and proud of Londo. Londo makes him cry and smile like no one else. But he never stops loving him, and neither do we.
I’m a sucker for family tragedies, and the Connor and Angel storyline of season 4 was one of the best. Connor is simultaneously Angel’s hope for the future and the punishment for the past. While Angel is to Connor the reason why his life became hell almost as soon as it began, a monster and a hero at the same time.
Intense hate mixed with the unbearable desire for closeness is what Connor feels for his father, and it’s tied to his strong self-loathing. Only after the experience of another life is he able to accept that Angel loves him. Which, my fondness for tragedies not withstanding, was a beautiful thing.
The saddest moment in Hell’s Bells, to me: when Anya practices her marriage vows and says she’s marrying her best friend. Because that’s what Xander was to her, but she never was to him.
I like them both enormously; I think Anya was Xander’s lifeline in season 4, and Xander made Anya look beyond “me, myself, and I”. And yet he never faced his uneasiness about her demon past until it was too late, and was ashamed of her, and she knew it. Being ready to die for her, which he was, is all very well, but I don’t think Xander could live with her and treasure her in the way she treasured him.
They were doomed.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 06:10 pm (UTC)that's it. yes.
love your look at the connor-angel dynamic, too.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-25 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 01:20 am (UTC)That, not her speech in The Body, was the moment were I felt the most for Anya. Because on the list of Xander's best friends, Anya isn't there. There's Willow and then there's Buffy. Anya's on a completely different list.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 03:11 pm (UTC)I think that's one of the reasons I find it so easy to get into Vir's head- because what he feels about Londo is what many of us, including myself, feel.
Vir, I've discovered through periodic arguments with my brother, is also a big reason why I love Londo. Because, as I always quite insistently emphasize, if JMS meant for us to see Londo as an iredeemable character with no virtue, no inner goodness, and no basic compassion or humanity, how can it be that a gentle, compassionate, moral, guileless character like Vir remains loyal to him? It doesn't compute. Vir's vision of Londo is idealized, but on the whole, I trust his assessment because I trust him. He effectively demonstrates his skill at judging character elsewhere in the series (see also: Morden, Lord Refa). I have no reason not to trust him.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 04:42 pm (UTC)Oh, absolutely. Incidentally, the other day I browsed through the Lurker's Guide to B5 which as you might know collected JMS' postings about the episodes made at the time when they were originally broadcast. After the original broadcast of Chrysalis, i.e. when season 4 and 5 were just a twinkle in JMS' eyes, he had this to say when chatting with the fans:
- Here is Londo's arc through the five year storyline:
Funny and light; then funny and dark; then dark and tragic; then tragic and light.
- Yeah, there's hope for Londo...but not in the way I think anybody will expect, and not in the way Londo would like.
- Londo is a fascinating character to write; there's layers upon layers, and every time I sit down to write him, he surprises me with something else. And it's certainly more interesting to watch someone you like falling into something terrible than to set up a bad guy from day one; no complexity or sympathy there. It's kind of like watching an accident in slow motion. But in the final analysis, all is not dark for Londo.
Written at the end of season 1. Now he might have gone overboard with the Sheridan Stu'ing on occasion and made other creative mistakes, but as far as Londo, Vir and G'Kar is concerned, is the man a genius or is he a genius?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 04:44 pm (UTC)http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/022.html
no subject
Date: 2005-03-27 07:00 am (UTC)The saddest moment in Hell’s Bells, to me: when Anya practices her marriage vows and says she’s marrying her best friend. Because that’s what Xander was to her, but she never was to him.
No, sadly. *sigh* Willow was that first, and then Buffy. Anya could never make past their places in his heart, not all the way. She came out even with Willow in "Triangle", but that's not the same thing as the day-to-day interaction where she never managed to take precedence over those two.
Being ready to die for her, which he was, is all very well, but I don’t think Xander could live with her and treasure her in the way she treasured him.
They were doomed.
Yup. I wish you were wrong, but... you're not. He loved her, but he was so damn young, and insecure, and everything about her hit him wrong on different levels, and he couldn't rise above it. And I wish she'd been able to see that and walk away first. Grr. Argh.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-27 08:37 am (UTC)Yes. As I said, the problem was never that Xander wouldn't risk his life for Anya just as easily as he'd risk it for Willow and Buffy. I'm sure he'd have died for her in a heartbeat, in her place, if he had been given a choice. But he would have done that for Dawn, too. It makes him a good and brave person, but it's not the basis for a marriage.
And I wish she'd been able to see that and walk away first. Grr. Argh.
*hugs Anya*
no subject
Date: 2005-04-01 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-01 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-01 05:07 pm (UTC)