The Coming of Shadows revisited
May. 1st, 2006 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakMy sinister campaigning to get my friends watching the shows I love has found a further victim, as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
karabair is busy with Babylon 5. Which reminds me that The Coming of Shadows is, despite really tough competition, probably the episode I'd say captures what is best about the show and showcases all its strengths. So, as with Restless, I decided to indulge in a little single-episode-rambling, focusing on Londo's dream sequence.
Babylon 5 was and still is the arc show to end all arc shows; The Coming of Shadows is, obviously, one big turning point for the overall saga. And yet you cannot seperate it from what came before anymore than you could separate it from the many, many things it kicks in motion. Londo's dream, coming in the middle of the third act, is a perfect example of this. It starts with the image of destruction in close orbit above a planet. Given that Londo has just requested the Shadows to destroy the Narn outpost in Quadrant 14 (backed up with some Centauri ships courtesy of Refa), you'd think that this is what is being depicted. Actually, no, it's not. What we see is the Narn attacking the Centauri colony Rhagesh III in the very first episode of the show, Midnight at the Firing Line. You know, that attack which came out of nowhere, when the civilian population would nearly have ended up dead or as slaves if not for the interference of the human station commander of Babylon 5 who bluffed the ambassador representing the attackers. Sounds familiar?
Similarly, next we hear Londo's voice saying "keep this up, G'Kar, and soon you won't have a planet left to protect". The first assumption would be that this is a tidbit of the future, Londo in full imperialistic destroyer mode threatening G'Kar. Actually, again, it's a bit of the past. It's from the episode Chrysalis, the first season finale, and at the time was Londo's utterly empty and frustrated outburst when G'Kar was at his saber-rattling worst and the Narn had just annexed another Centauri colony which Londo was told by the Royal Court to concede. It's directly after receiving said message that Londo has his chat with Morden in the garden, asking for unspecified help. (Whereas in Coming of Shadows he's very specific; I'll get to that.)
Both fragments of the past illustrate, among many other things, why it's extremely important to watch this show from start to finish and why people who advise newbies to start with season 2 drive me as mad as people who say one should finish with season 4. So very much of the show, and Londo's and G'Kar's arcs most of all, really lose when you haven't seen where they come from. Season 2 is a horrible time for G'Kar (from his point of view, though of course as a viewer it's a great time because of how he develops) as he receives one blow after the other, but if you're unaware of G'Kar glorying in Narn power in season 2, if you don't know how the attack Londo orders here mirrors the one G'Kar at the very least was deeply involved in season 1, the terribe irony of fate escapes you. Similarly, if you haven't watched Londo's outbursts of rage and frustration punctuating his general s1 hail-fellow-well-met charming buffoon persona, his deep sense of humiliation and betrayal as the Centauri keep losing more and more, you're missing much of his motivation for his s2 behaviour.
Back to the dream. The next image is the dark hand reaching out, against a red sun. This of course ties with Elric's prediction in Geometry of Shadows about Londo, and how his "reaching out to the stars" (to use a Londo phrase from his "what do I want?" outburst towards Morden) will result in millions cursing his name, his victims. The red sun in question is most likely the sun of Narn; the blood of dead from the Narn/Centauri war definitely is on Londo's hands. (Fellow guilty parties such as Refa are immaterial; you don't get to do percentages in war guilt.) However, those aren't the only dead Londo will have to blame himself for, and will blame himself for. Next we get one of the most famous images of the show. Londo looks up to the sky, shielding his eyes, and sees Shadows flying above. This takes place not on Narn but on Centauri Prime. If you're a new watcher, you don't have to be a genius to guess that this won't be a good thing. If you rewatch the episode after knowing the entire series and know when Londo will experience this moment outside a dream, in reality, and what consequences he'll draw, you're most likely flailing.
(Sidnote: aside from this scene playing in full length in Hour of the Wolf, the other episode echoing it would be Movement of Fire and Shadow, only this time, there are two people looking up to the sky, and they're the least likely combination watches of s2 would have expected.)
The dream continues with the image of Londo being crowned, and clad in the imperial white we've seen the Centauri Emperor wear throughout Coming of Shadows. The symbolism of Londo starting out the series dressed in purple (s1), moving on to mainly black (after the first third of s2 until the last third of Fall of Centauri Prime in s5) and ending it in white is rather obvious; we see it here in the dream sequence in fast forward. The crown image (Londo doesn't look that much older than he's now, which indicates this isn't something far into the future) is juxtaposed with another image of Londo as Emperor, only this time he is older, much older, coughing, looking drained, turning his head as if feeling watched. If you watch this the first time, you get the impression Londo's reign won't be a happy one, to put it mildly. W'hen I rewatched it for the first time after having seen a certain s3 episode, I was deeply impressed because it also both manages to give a hint at something and not to spell it out, because that should be kept from the viewer for a while yet. What I thought with only s2 knowledge: Londo is MacBeth. MacBeth has murdered sleep, you know, and now MacBeth shall sleep no more. Coming of Shadows is the frst but not the last occasion in s2 and 3 where you can find Londo/MacBeth parallels if you want. Like MacBeth, Londo starts his bloody road with the clear awareness it damms him, as opposed to his co-conspirator, Refa (who stands for Lady M, one assumes), who can only see the short term benefit of ambition. Like with the Scottish duo, the power balance shifts; aft first, it's Refa who pushes and is self assured, whereas later, it's Londo who seizes the initiative. (Though this is where the parallel ends; there is no affection between Londo and Refa at the best of times, as there was between the MacBeths, let alone later on, and of course Refa never goes insane.)
The last and concluding image of Londo's dream is the only one the viewer was already told about, again all the way back in the first episode of the show in season 1. Londo and G'Kar strangling the life out of each other. This is the image described by Londo when talking to Sinclair in Midnight at the Firing Line:
"My people we have a way, you see. We know how, and sometimes even when, we are going to die. Comes in a dream, eh? In my dream, I am an old man, it's twenty years from now, and I am dying my hands wrapped around someone's throat, and his around mine. We have squeezed the life out of each other. The first time I saw G'Kar, I recognized him as the one from the dream. It will happen- twenty years from now, we will die, our hands around each other's throats."
However, Coming of Shadows is the first time the audience actually sees this image as well. Iit will be repeated in Londo's mind various times for us to see from this point onwards - once very quickly near the end of this episode, when Vir asks Londo whether he doesn't want to become Emperor, and on other occasions, notably in Dust to Dust. The question of whether the future is something fixed in the B5 universe is interesting. It's a part of Londo's character that he believes it is (he believes his death dream; he believes Turhan when the later tells him he's dammed) ... and yet at times hopes it isn't. In Coming of Shadows he tells Vir he has no choice. This, of course, is not true, no more than G'Kar's assertion to Sheridan early on and towards his fellow Narn about having no choice is. Years later, in another dream, Londo's image of Vir - who in Coming of Shadows already points out that Londo's assertion isn't true, that he does have a choice - will reply, as an answer to Londo's statement that his life is fixed, that he knows how he will die: "A prophecy is a guess that comes true. Otherwise it's just a metaphor. You could kill yourself tomorrow and the dream would just be a dream."
Londo's two crucial choices in Coming of Shadows - to ask for a Shadow attack on a Narn outpost/colony, in the full knowledge that this will trigger another war with the Narn, and to keep the Emperor's last words secret while lying about them to the public - are paralleled and contrasted with G'Kar's, though not just in the obvious good/bad way you'd think. Because G'Kar starts out making the wrong choice. As Sheridan points out, he has the change to negotiate directly with the head of the Centauri Republic, and he's determined to squander it. Actually, he plans to do worse. G'Kar's plan to assassinate the Emperor - something he doesn't do spontanously, but after careful consultation with his goverment, as we see on screen, no matter what messages he prepares to the contrary - would, if carried out, have inevitably led to war between the Centauri and the Narn as well. Only in this war, the Narn would not have had anyone's sympathy; they'd have started out as the agressors. Though presumably G'Kar, who could not know about Londo's connection to Morden and hence had to assume the Centauri military was easily defeatable, as it had been all through s1 (and of course before when the Narn won their freedom), thought they didn't need any allies.
However, the Emperor "has the indecency to start dying of his own", to quote G'Kar in one of the few black humour scenes of this episode. This not only prevents G'Kar from becoming an assassin but also allows Dr. Franklin to bring the Emperor's crucial message to G'Kar, which in turn presents G'Kar with another choice. He could have dismissed the Emperor's words. He doesn't. Instead, for the first time (but not the last) he has a revelation and shows one of his great, great strengths: the ability to allow that he might have been wrong about a basic assumption he held all his life and the decision to act on it. There are few things more difficult. G'Kar, responding to the words he hears by, after pondering them, seeking out Londo and buying him a drink is doing something easily as radical as Sheridan will in s3's Severed Dreams, or as Delenn had done when entering her cocoon. But as opposed to them, G'Kar is currently starring in a tragedy, and his co-star has just made the worst of all possible choices.
As opposed to Chrysalis, Morden doesn't show up on screen; it's not necessary, because Londo doesn't need to be tempted externally anymore, and certainly not unaware of just what is at stake. Since Points of Departure, he has known what kind of weapon he suddenly has at his disposal; and now, he decides to use it. When G'Kar catches up with him and buys him that drink, you can see the dawning horror on Londo's face. Like G'Kar, he hears words he never had thought he'd hear, and he knows they're sincere. But unlike G'Kar, Londo does not decide to act on this by reversing his previous behaviour. (Mind you, I don't think it would have stopped the war if he had - the attack was already proceeding - but if Londo had subsequently opposed the war, it might have ended very differently. See also the results he gets when he does decide to, err, make Refa change his mind in s3.) Londo, as opposed to G'Kar - who is a revolutionary at heart - is a traditionalist; acknowledging having been wrong about something basic and following up on this isn't impossible for him, but it will take far, far more for him to get there, and both the galaxy and himself will be the worse for it. For now, and for the rest of the season, he draws MacBeth's conclusion; he has steeped in blood so far that he has to go on.
"How will it all end?" the dying Emperor asks, and Kosh replies: "In fire."
(Sidenote: for the record, I take this as an indication Kosh is aware of the Vorlon idea of how to deal with Shadow-affiliated planets and people this time around, though he may already disapprove.)
Londo isn't the only fatalist around. However, there is one last irony waiting for them all, and that, too, is hidden in his dream. MacBeth might die full of sound and fury, signifying nothing; his death, brought about by the man whose children he killed, doesn't have any meaning for him (though of course it means a lot for the other people in his drama). Emperor Turhan, who realized that he let other people make the choices in his life, was robbed of the results of his own last choice; his death is a part of the last thing he would have wanted, another war with the Narn. G'Kar's choice to try peace seems to be flung back in his face, and his second important choice - to stop his rampage and listen to Sheridan - will take a while to bear fruit. Meanwhile, Londo's choice has immediate results, the ones he wanted (as empty as they already feel), and long-term wise, his choices seem to be the one winning out over the others, leading to that final image he sees in his dream, a death carried out in mutual hatred.
And yet: Turhan's words - "The hatred between our people can never end until someone is willing to say, 'I'm sorry' and try to find a way to make it right again, to atone for our actions" - will be prophetic in a two-fold way. (Vir's "I'm sorry" this very season and his subsequent actions, for one; Londo's entire s4 and 5 relationship with G'Kar, and again, that crucial phrase, spoken out loud in public to a Narn, by the head of the Centauri Republic, nearly three years after Turhan wanted to say them.) G'Kar's willingness to make an incredible leap of faith regarding one particular Centauri will result in freedom for his people. And by the time the last part of Londo's dream catches up with him, the meaning will have changed, changed utterly.
A terrible beauty was born.
karabair is busy with Babylon 5. Which reminds me that The Coming of Shadows is, despite really tough competition, probably the episode I'd say captures what is best about the show and showcases all its strengths. So, as with Restless, I decided to indulge in a little single-episode-rambling, focusing on Londo's dream sequence. Babylon 5 was and still is the arc show to end all arc shows; The Coming of Shadows is, obviously, one big turning point for the overall saga. And yet you cannot seperate it from what came before anymore than you could separate it from the many, many things it kicks in motion. Londo's dream, coming in the middle of the third act, is a perfect example of this. It starts with the image of destruction in close orbit above a planet. Given that Londo has just requested the Shadows to destroy the Narn outpost in Quadrant 14 (backed up with some Centauri ships courtesy of Refa), you'd think that this is what is being depicted. Actually, no, it's not. What we see is the Narn attacking the Centauri colony Rhagesh III in the very first episode of the show, Midnight at the Firing Line. You know, that attack which came out of nowhere, when the civilian population would nearly have ended up dead or as slaves if not for the interference of the human station commander of Babylon 5 who bluffed the ambassador representing the attackers. Sounds familiar?
Similarly, next we hear Londo's voice saying "keep this up, G'Kar, and soon you won't have a planet left to protect". The first assumption would be that this is a tidbit of the future, Londo in full imperialistic destroyer mode threatening G'Kar. Actually, again, it's a bit of the past. It's from the episode Chrysalis, the first season finale, and at the time was Londo's utterly empty and frustrated outburst when G'Kar was at his saber-rattling worst and the Narn had just annexed another Centauri colony which Londo was told by the Royal Court to concede. It's directly after receiving said message that Londo has his chat with Morden in the garden, asking for unspecified help. (Whereas in Coming of Shadows he's very specific; I'll get to that.)
Both fragments of the past illustrate, among many other things, why it's extremely important to watch this show from start to finish and why people who advise newbies to start with season 2 drive me as mad as people who say one should finish with season 4. So very much of the show, and Londo's and G'Kar's arcs most of all, really lose when you haven't seen where they come from. Season 2 is a horrible time for G'Kar (from his point of view, though of course as a viewer it's a great time because of how he develops) as he receives one blow after the other, but if you're unaware of G'Kar glorying in Narn power in season 2, if you don't know how the attack Londo orders here mirrors the one G'Kar at the very least was deeply involved in season 1, the terribe irony of fate escapes you. Similarly, if you haven't watched Londo's outbursts of rage and frustration punctuating his general s1 hail-fellow-well-met charming buffoon persona, his deep sense of humiliation and betrayal as the Centauri keep losing more and more, you're missing much of his motivation for his s2 behaviour.
Back to the dream. The next image is the dark hand reaching out, against a red sun. This of course ties with Elric's prediction in Geometry of Shadows about Londo, and how his "reaching out to the stars" (to use a Londo phrase from his "what do I want?" outburst towards Morden) will result in millions cursing his name, his victims. The red sun in question is most likely the sun of Narn; the blood of dead from the Narn/Centauri war definitely is on Londo's hands. (Fellow guilty parties such as Refa are immaterial; you don't get to do percentages in war guilt.) However, those aren't the only dead Londo will have to blame himself for, and will blame himself for. Next we get one of the most famous images of the show. Londo looks up to the sky, shielding his eyes, and sees Shadows flying above. This takes place not on Narn but on Centauri Prime. If you're a new watcher, you don't have to be a genius to guess that this won't be a good thing. If you rewatch the episode after knowing the entire series and know when Londo will experience this moment outside a dream, in reality, and what consequences he'll draw, you're most likely flailing.
(Sidnote: aside from this scene playing in full length in Hour of the Wolf, the other episode echoing it would be Movement of Fire and Shadow, only this time, there are two people looking up to the sky, and they're the least likely combination watches of s2 would have expected.)
The dream continues with the image of Londo being crowned, and clad in the imperial white we've seen the Centauri Emperor wear throughout Coming of Shadows. The symbolism of Londo starting out the series dressed in purple (s1), moving on to mainly black (after the first third of s2 until the last third of Fall of Centauri Prime in s5) and ending it in white is rather obvious; we see it here in the dream sequence in fast forward. The crown image (Londo doesn't look that much older than he's now, which indicates this isn't something far into the future) is juxtaposed with another image of Londo as Emperor, only this time he is older, much older, coughing, looking drained, turning his head as if feeling watched. If you watch this the first time, you get the impression Londo's reign won't be a happy one, to put it mildly. W'hen I rewatched it for the first time after having seen a certain s3 episode, I was deeply impressed because it also both manages to give a hint at something and not to spell it out, because that should be kept from the viewer for a while yet. What I thought with only s2 knowledge: Londo is MacBeth. MacBeth has murdered sleep, you know, and now MacBeth shall sleep no more. Coming of Shadows is the frst but not the last occasion in s2 and 3 where you can find Londo/MacBeth parallels if you want. Like MacBeth, Londo starts his bloody road with the clear awareness it damms him, as opposed to his co-conspirator, Refa (who stands for Lady M, one assumes), who can only see the short term benefit of ambition. Like with the Scottish duo, the power balance shifts; aft first, it's Refa who pushes and is self assured, whereas later, it's Londo who seizes the initiative. (Though this is where the parallel ends; there is no affection between Londo and Refa at the best of times, as there was between the MacBeths, let alone later on, and of course Refa never goes insane.)
The last and concluding image of Londo's dream is the only one the viewer was already told about, again all the way back in the first episode of the show in season 1. Londo and G'Kar strangling the life out of each other. This is the image described by Londo when talking to Sinclair in Midnight at the Firing Line:
"My people we have a way, you see. We know how, and sometimes even when, we are going to die. Comes in a dream, eh? In my dream, I am an old man, it's twenty years from now, and I am dying my hands wrapped around someone's throat, and his around mine. We have squeezed the life out of each other. The first time I saw G'Kar, I recognized him as the one from the dream. It will happen- twenty years from now, we will die, our hands around each other's throats."
However, Coming of Shadows is the first time the audience actually sees this image as well. Iit will be repeated in Londo's mind various times for us to see from this point onwards - once very quickly near the end of this episode, when Vir asks Londo whether he doesn't want to become Emperor, and on other occasions, notably in Dust to Dust. The question of whether the future is something fixed in the B5 universe is interesting. It's a part of Londo's character that he believes it is (he believes his death dream; he believes Turhan when the later tells him he's dammed) ... and yet at times hopes it isn't. In Coming of Shadows he tells Vir he has no choice. This, of course, is not true, no more than G'Kar's assertion to Sheridan early on and towards his fellow Narn about having no choice is. Years later, in another dream, Londo's image of Vir - who in Coming of Shadows already points out that Londo's assertion isn't true, that he does have a choice - will reply, as an answer to Londo's statement that his life is fixed, that he knows how he will die: "A prophecy is a guess that comes true. Otherwise it's just a metaphor. You could kill yourself tomorrow and the dream would just be a dream."
Londo's two crucial choices in Coming of Shadows - to ask for a Shadow attack on a Narn outpost/colony, in the full knowledge that this will trigger another war with the Narn, and to keep the Emperor's last words secret while lying about them to the public - are paralleled and contrasted with G'Kar's, though not just in the obvious good/bad way you'd think. Because G'Kar starts out making the wrong choice. As Sheridan points out, he has the change to negotiate directly with the head of the Centauri Republic, and he's determined to squander it. Actually, he plans to do worse. G'Kar's plan to assassinate the Emperor - something he doesn't do spontanously, but after careful consultation with his goverment, as we see on screen, no matter what messages he prepares to the contrary - would, if carried out, have inevitably led to war between the Centauri and the Narn as well. Only in this war, the Narn would not have had anyone's sympathy; they'd have started out as the agressors. Though presumably G'Kar, who could not know about Londo's connection to Morden and hence had to assume the Centauri military was easily defeatable, as it had been all through s1 (and of course before when the Narn won their freedom), thought they didn't need any allies.
However, the Emperor "has the indecency to start dying of his own", to quote G'Kar in one of the few black humour scenes of this episode. This not only prevents G'Kar from becoming an assassin but also allows Dr. Franklin to bring the Emperor's crucial message to G'Kar, which in turn presents G'Kar with another choice. He could have dismissed the Emperor's words. He doesn't. Instead, for the first time (but not the last) he has a revelation and shows one of his great, great strengths: the ability to allow that he might have been wrong about a basic assumption he held all his life and the decision to act on it. There are few things more difficult. G'Kar, responding to the words he hears by, after pondering them, seeking out Londo and buying him a drink is doing something easily as radical as Sheridan will in s3's Severed Dreams, or as Delenn had done when entering her cocoon. But as opposed to them, G'Kar is currently starring in a tragedy, and his co-star has just made the worst of all possible choices.
As opposed to Chrysalis, Morden doesn't show up on screen; it's not necessary, because Londo doesn't need to be tempted externally anymore, and certainly not unaware of just what is at stake. Since Points of Departure, he has known what kind of weapon he suddenly has at his disposal; and now, he decides to use it. When G'Kar catches up with him and buys him that drink, you can see the dawning horror on Londo's face. Like G'Kar, he hears words he never had thought he'd hear, and he knows they're sincere. But unlike G'Kar, Londo does not decide to act on this by reversing his previous behaviour. (Mind you, I don't think it would have stopped the war if he had - the attack was already proceeding - but if Londo had subsequently opposed the war, it might have ended very differently. See also the results he gets when he does decide to, err, make Refa change his mind in s3.) Londo, as opposed to G'Kar - who is a revolutionary at heart - is a traditionalist; acknowledging having been wrong about something basic and following up on this isn't impossible for him, but it will take far, far more for him to get there, and both the galaxy and himself will be the worse for it. For now, and for the rest of the season, he draws MacBeth's conclusion; he has steeped in blood so far that he has to go on.
"How will it all end?" the dying Emperor asks, and Kosh replies: "In fire."
(Sidenote: for the record, I take this as an indication Kosh is aware of the Vorlon idea of how to deal with Shadow-affiliated planets and people this time around, though he may already disapprove.)
Londo isn't the only fatalist around. However, there is one last irony waiting for them all, and that, too, is hidden in his dream. MacBeth might die full of sound and fury, signifying nothing; his death, brought about by the man whose children he killed, doesn't have any meaning for him (though of course it means a lot for the other people in his drama). Emperor Turhan, who realized that he let other people make the choices in his life, was robbed of the results of his own last choice; his death is a part of the last thing he would have wanted, another war with the Narn. G'Kar's choice to try peace seems to be flung back in his face, and his second important choice - to stop his rampage and listen to Sheridan - will take a while to bear fruit. Meanwhile, Londo's choice has immediate results, the ones he wanted (as empty as they already feel), and long-term wise, his choices seem to be the one winning out over the others, leading to that final image he sees in his dream, a death carried out in mutual hatred.
And yet: Turhan's words - "The hatred between our people can never end until someone is willing to say, 'I'm sorry' and try to find a way to make it right again, to atone for our actions" - will be prophetic in a two-fold way. (Vir's "I'm sorry" this very season and his subsequent actions, for one; Londo's entire s4 and 5 relationship with G'Kar, and again, that crucial phrase, spoken out loud in public to a Narn, by the head of the Centauri Republic, nearly three years after Turhan wanted to say them.) G'Kar's willingness to make an incredible leap of faith regarding one particular Centauri will result in freedom for his people. And by the time the last part of Londo's dream catches up with him, the meaning will have changed, changed utterly.
A terrible beauty was born.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 12:08 pm (UTC)Does this talk about the episode in context of everything else? I guess my question is: I am mid-way through S3 - is this spoilery for me?
no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 12:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 12:28 pm (UTC)Excellent essay. I don't yet have the perspective to see Londo's tragedy in full, and really give you good feedback, but I cannot agree more that you have to see S1 to appreciate what happens in S2 with Londo and G'Kar. It's never as simple as "Londo is the villain" in this show.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-02 06:03 am (UTC)Maybe I'll do a B5 marathon after I finish the Farscape one I'm on now.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-02 06:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-04 08:52 am (UTC)