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selenakscintilla10 wanted to know about my favourite loyalty relationships. If you are a long term reader of my ramblings, no prices for guessing what my favourite fictional loyalty focused relationship of all time is. If you are a more recent friend: It's Londo Mollari & Vir Cotto from Babylon 5.
Now, since I have a new B5 watcher in my circle and it's impossible to talk about what makes the Londo & Vir relationship so great for me, and why it hits all the right loyalty buttons, without gigantic spoilers, I shall employ a discreet cut. B5 is good with all the ambassador & aide relationsphips in general - none of the envoys knew their aide before, all those relationships are forming in front of the audience, and while loyalty plays an important part in each of them, they're each slightly different, and not just because Lennier ends up in love with Delenn. (Vir and Na'Toth don't love their respective ambassadors romantically, but Vir definitely loves Lond - and vice versa -, and while Na'Toth and G'Kar got way less screen time due to rl problems, I'd say they also get to the "ready to die for another" stage.) Now, what makes a loyalty relationship to me emotionally captivating is when it's not given blindly, and when it's mutual. Vir might have started to become attached to Londo because Londo was the first person to notice he exists, and because they share some important things - they both are on B5 as a joke played on them, a sign of disdain on the part of the people sending them there, they both are very aware of that, and they both are still firm patriots - along with having very different personalities. But that wouldn't have been enough to make the relationship last, especially as Londo goes darker and darker through seasons 2 and 3, and it's often only Vir's belief in and affection for him which tells the audience Londo isn't irredeemable. Vir is anything but uncritical of Londo while all of this is going on, and he's not silent about it, either, he keeps arguing with Londo. Nor does he turn his back on him. (The episode And the rock cried out, no hiding place is where Vir almost reaches his cracking point, and that we don't see them reconcile on screen but beng on good terms again in the s3 finale is one of the few times where I think JMS' writing for Vir is missing something. But they, that gave me an excuse to write missing scene fanfic.)
But if the loyalty were all on Vir's side, the relationship would not work for me the way it does. We also see Londo's attachment and loyalty to Vir growing, from the mixture between annoyed bluster and casual friendliness in early s1 to starting to confide in him (their garden scene in s1's "War Prayer" marks the first time Vir disagrees with Londo and stands his ground, resulting in Londo opening up to him emotionally about something). Once Londo's status changes courtesy of the Shadows, and there's the option of replacing Vir with an aide who'd agree with him politically, he doesn't take it but explicitly rejects it. While he doesn't take Vir's advice in s2 and s3, he increasingly treats him as his conscience (which includes sending him away to Minbar mid s3). S4 sees them start a lethally dangerous conspiracy together, with Londo not just doubting that Vir won't betray him but that Vir will have the courage, discipline and drive to see it through, and it's not just because he's aware of Vir's loyalty to himself, but that he knows and values Vir's loyalty to Centauri Prime. To me, the three key loyalty scenes for Londo and Vir are: Vir getting drunk after Cartagia's death, and Londo's response to that; when they both realize the Vorlons are about to destroy Centauri Prime because of Londo's previous Shadow association, Londo asking Vir to kill him in order to prove to the Vorlons the last Shadow associate has been removed; and the way Londo's subconscious frames Vir in the s5 episode The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari, aka the episode which brings Londo face to face with the enormity of his own guilt. After Londo has finally given up all excuses, apologized to G'Kar and fully acknowledged his responsibility, he asks his inner Vir why he should not just die now. After all, he knows, courtesy of his dream, that something dreadful is waiting for him in the future, and if he died right now, he'd do so as much at peace as he can be - as far as Londo knows in 5.02., Centauri Prime is safe, the new Alliance is doing fine, and he's made up with G'Kar. And "Vir's" reply is: "I would miss you". (Londo: "And I suppose I would miss you." And he decides to live. Londo returns to lilfe for Vir, which is a wonderful statement about how strong their relationship has become.
It had its downsides for Vir, and I don't just mean during "And the Rock cried out, no hiding place" when Londo uses him against Refa. By being Londo's primary confidant and not, say, tell the Emperor all about Londo's plan in "The Coming of Shadows", or just leaving him once it's clear Londo is really set on this imperialistic war course, he becomes in a way an accessory, and this takes its toll on him. (But also motivates him to secretly start the Narn rescue operation.) However, it is the relationship with Londo that enables Vir to grow as he does through the show, to go above and beyond again and again. They see each other as they are, their growing loyalty to each other makes them better, but - and this is also important for why I love this relationship so much - it isn't their only loyalty. They're both committed to their homeworld beyond it. (Otherwise no moment of Londo asking Vir to kill him to pacify the Vorlons and save Centauri Prime and being confidant Vir would do it to save the planet if there was no other way.) In Vir's case, also committed to the larger universe. Very different people loyal to each other, loyal to a greater ideal (though partly greatly disagreeing how to go about this) = fannish catnip for me.
Another loyalty heavy relationship which pushes all the right emotional buttons for me is that between Craig!Bond and Dench!M in their three movies together, which got to me so much that it inspired me to write Bond meta, God help me: The Queen and her Knight in the Underworld. (It's not that I don't like other Bonds, and other Ms, but it had to be this particular combination for me to really feel strongly about freaking Bond movies in the way I never did before or after. There are some shared traits to Londo & Vir above - strong loyalty to each other and to something greater than them, which if push comes to shove even supercedes - but is also different, and yes, in a way that's not interchangable, gender wise, and made me realise I have a thing for "lady and loyal knight" combinations but only under very specific circumstances. Hence, for example, Lennier & Delenn not pushing those same buttons for me. Both Craig!Bond and Lennier would die for these women, but I can't see Lennier ever calling Delenn a bitch. (I can see Delenn giving the order M does at the start of Skyfall if she thought it absolutely necessary, but her instinct would be to afterwards dress it in emotional denial and/or "prophecy demanded..." type of reasoning, not saying "I did" unless massively pushed.) Or take Lennier's "Delenn sees a better world" speech to the other Minbari mid s4. Bond would never have said that. He is loyal to M - specifically this M - beyond her capacity as his superior, but he doesn't have her on that kind of pedestal, and lord knows she is very aware of all his flaws. It's their battered cynicism in combination of the loyalty that makes it so appealing to me.
Now, there are a lot of other relationships in various other fandoms where loyalty in an important factor in what I like about them - last year's concluded Farscape rewatch reminded me of Scorpius/Braca again, and certainly the "my loyalty is to Scorpius!" - "So is mine" scene from "Incubator" was what really sold Braca as a character and made him interesting to me (i.e. not that he says it, that his loyalty to Scorpius means being willing to risk Scorpius dead or crippled if that means achieving the goal Scorpius wants to achieve, which is indeed exactly the type of loyalty Scorpius wants. And having watched with some interest the first season of Wheel of Time, there's plenty of promising loyalty fodder there, especially Moraine & Lan. But so far these two above are definitely my favourites.
The other days
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Date: 2022-01-08 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-09 06:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-08 02:10 pm (UTC)(And this is all in interesting contrast to Delenn and Lennier--while I'll never like where they took that relationship, it did make some sense that Lennier's hero worship loyalty turned into unrequited, mismanaged love. But it's such a different take on loyalty, and the ways in which those relationships are shaped by how Delenn and Londo use power and information so differently. Delenn shares most of the political, but little of the personal. Londo goes the other way, using Vir as a political tool in ways Delenn does not use Lennier...and it gives Londo and Vir much more complex, interesting relationship. I mean, among so many other things. But a thing I noticed recently. Anyway.)
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Date: 2022-01-09 07:02 am (UTC)I knew I had forgotten to mention something. *g* It’s true, with Londo and Vir, you never know whether a scene is going to make you smile or break your heart in the best way.
But it's such a different take on loyalty, and the ways in which those relationships are shaped by how Delenn and Londo use power and information so differently.
I hadn’t seen it put like that before, but you’re right. Like everyone else, I do wish Vir and Lennier had had more than the one scene at the bar together which shows them hanging out and empathizing. And my headcanon remains that Delenn when she asked Londo to participate in the “everyone confides one secret they’ve never shared before” ritual mid s3 (which he declined) didn’t just do so for her given reason that it would be good for him to do this but because she wanted to share her own secret (re: the Earth/Minbari war) with someone, and Londo, as she knew/guessed by then, was at least as guilty. That Londo already confides these kind of secrets to Vir while Delenn will tell Lennier only in an emergency situation in s4 speaks of that difference.
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Date: 2022-01-09 09:03 am (UTC)Oooooh, good point!
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Date: 2022-01-08 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-09 07:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-18 11:52 pm (UTC)Also came in to say, I did not miss that you'd watched Wheel of Time, though I only myself just got around to that last episode. It's... well, we'll see how it goes :) but unsurprisingly Moiraine and Lan are my favorites :)