![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakFor me, that is. These things are extremely subjective.
Villains usually come with an inbuilt expiration date when we're talking about tv shows. Especially if their objective is to destroy the hero; they can try only so often before losing all credibility as a genuine threat. Also, if you compensate by letting them destroy everyone else but the hero, the hero starts to look bad and incompetent for not being able to contain them. So, given you don't want to kill your villain off after one story, what do you do? Here are some solutions tv shows of ages past came up with that worked for me. They all could be summed up with: "Change the agenda from "destroy the hero" or don't give the villain that agenda to begin with, but do give him an agenda which puts him/her at odds with the hero".
That's what Farscape did. The original villain early on in the show was Bialar Crais, who started out as your standard arch nemesis; he hated our hero, John Crichton, because Crichton accidentally got Crais' brother killed in the pilot, was immune to all attempts at pointing out this had been an accident, and did all manner of crazy and villainous things in pursuit of Crichton and the rest of Our Heroes. This, you'd think, does not leave much room for development other to kill off Crais after some final confrontation, but no. Near the end of s1, the show not only introduced a new villain - more about him in a moment - but took Crais in a new direction. They didn't do this by suddenly negating the villainous things Crais had done so far, or letting him reform immediately. He basically lost everything he had defined himself through - partly through the new villain, but mostly because of his own previous behaviour - and then, during a brief alliance of necessity with our heroes, had a shot at escaping (leaving our lot in the lurch), and took it. This also gave him responsibility for what was basically a child and a weapon at the same time, and this bond, in turn, changed him. It didn't happen overnight, but it happened, and Crais went from villain to ambiguous character with uncertain loyalties to tragic hero. Even the manner of his death, though, wasn't completely "white" but shades of grey; on the one hand, it was a sacrifice, but on the other, it was also a final act of revenge. Against Scorpius, who of course was the character taking over the top villain job from Crais at the end of s1.
Scorpius from the start was a different type of villain. He wasn't interested in killing Crichton (or the rest of Our Heroes), on the contrary. He was interested in the knowledge that Crichton, due to other plot developments, possessed, and this in turn was because Scorpius' main goal in life at that point was two-fold: a) destroy the Scarrans, and b) save the Sebaceans. With it being an open question which of these two was more important to him. But he thought he could accomplish both through the wormhole knowledge in Crichton's head. This allowed for a different type of story to unfold than the early s1 "Crais chases, Crichton & Co. escape" ones. It also meant that as opposed to Crais, Scorpius didn't have something resembling a redemption arc. Being a villain of the "everyone is the hero of his own story" type, i.e. someone whose methods and agenda are at odds with those of Our Hero, which results in conflict, but whose goal isn't by itself selfish or lunatic, he didn't need to. He didn't have to be killed off, either. While there were some missteps with Scorpius in s4 (to wit, the writers for a while didn't seem to know what to do with him anymore once he was out of power), his story was ultimately resolved, as much as anything in Farscape ever was, in a surprising and yet appropriate way: through the Scarran/Sebacean peace with Scorpius, the child of both races, brought into the world through rape and raised through violence and torture, appointed to make sure both races kept to their bargain. This was possible because Scorpius' obsession with Crichton had been powerful but secondary to his main goal, and so a compromise could be reached, and Farscape's main villain actually got a happy ending.
Another example of a recurring villain who was kept around for encores in a credible fashion was Alfred Bester in Babylon 5, and the reasons this worked was similar to the ones I just named for Scorpius in Farscape. It's also worth comparing the way Bester was written to some of the other B5 villains. The main antagonists from the end of s1 to the middle of s4 were the Shadows, but they weren't individuals. Their human representative, Morden, was, but there was nothing whatsoever ambiguous about Morden, and as his agenda was identical to the Shadows, he left the stage, so to speak, the moment the Shadow arc ended. He had no further purpose on the show. (Save for one encore to mess with someone's mind, but that was a strictly limited thing; the character himself remained dead and gone.) We also had the dangerous lunatic (which neither Morden nor the Shadows were) type of villain in Emperor Cartagia, but again, Cartagia had a limited life. Though he's referred to from mid s2 onwards, he only shows up on screen in s4 and gets killed off; he's not someone who could have credibly remained around. And lastly, we had the greedy (but sane) powermonger type of villain, which would describe both the largely off screen President Clark and Londo's temporary ally and later enemy Lord Refa. (Londo himself is a case of his own, as he spends one season seeming to be the comic relief, two seasons doing largely villainous things and two seasons as a tragic hero.) Again, all of these bite the dust sooner or later. So how come Bester does not, without this impairing the story?
For starters, JMS changed the "Bester visits station, causes trouble, gets defeated by Our Heroes" formula with Bester's third appearance, which is also the first one where our Psi Cop a) gains some layers, b) has a temporary alliance with Our Heroes and c) actually gets what he wants out of the situation of the day. Bester throughout five seasons never stops being a fascist, as Sheridan once calls him; he also is presented a sincere believer in the idea of all telepaths as a family (with some misguided members who must be brought back to the fold), and given a number of qualities that make him interesting; in addition to being a ruthless bastard, he's courageous, not afraid to risk his own life repeatedly for what he believes in, relentlessly witty, capable of attachment and flexible enough to compromise if he has to. Also, his main agenda (telepaths ruling the world) isn't compatible with the Shadows' agenda, which creates believable situations of a temporary alliance without letting Bester see the error of his ways first, and it also allows for him to remain a threat to Our Heroes after, because if his agenda isn't compatible with the main antagonists, it's not compatible with theirs, either. At one point in the later seasons, Bester tells one of the good guys sardonically "believe it or not, not everything in my life is about Babylon 5", and he's telling the truth, but one of the show's most effective twists is that the very fact Bester isn't obsessed with the B5 gang doesn't mean he's less dangerous to them. One of Bester's ploys in season 4 gets Sheridan, the closest thing the show has to a leading man and main hero, captured by the bad guys, and yet he couldn't care less if Sheridan lives or dies; this was just one of the means to an end which has nothing to do with Sheridan at all and everything with finding out about a weapon which could wipe out or control telepaths.
To return to the beginning: the best ingredient for keeping villains around without turning this viewer off seems to be through giving said villains goals which extend beyond "must crush hero", or, if said villain originally has this goal, to give them something else along the way. Most importantly, though: their villainous deeds must never, ever be prettified, retconned or excused.
Villains usually come with an inbuilt expiration date when we're talking about tv shows. Especially if their objective is to destroy the hero; they can try only so often before losing all credibility as a genuine threat. Also, if you compensate by letting them destroy everyone else but the hero, the hero starts to look bad and incompetent for not being able to contain them. So, given you don't want to kill your villain off after one story, what do you do? Here are some solutions tv shows of ages past came up with that worked for me. They all could be summed up with: "Change the agenda from "destroy the hero" or don't give the villain that agenda to begin with, but do give him an agenda which puts him/her at odds with the hero".
That's what Farscape did. The original villain early on in the show was Bialar Crais, who started out as your standard arch nemesis; he hated our hero, John Crichton, because Crichton accidentally got Crais' brother killed in the pilot, was immune to all attempts at pointing out this had been an accident, and did all manner of crazy and villainous things in pursuit of Crichton and the rest of Our Heroes. This, you'd think, does not leave much room for development other to kill off Crais after some final confrontation, but no. Near the end of s1, the show not only introduced a new villain - more about him in a moment - but took Crais in a new direction. They didn't do this by suddenly negating the villainous things Crais had done so far, or letting him reform immediately. He basically lost everything he had defined himself through - partly through the new villain, but mostly because of his own previous behaviour - and then, during a brief alliance of necessity with our heroes, had a shot at escaping (leaving our lot in the lurch), and took it. This also gave him responsibility for what was basically a child and a weapon at the same time, and this bond, in turn, changed him. It didn't happen overnight, but it happened, and Crais went from villain to ambiguous character with uncertain loyalties to tragic hero. Even the manner of his death, though, wasn't completely "white" but shades of grey; on the one hand, it was a sacrifice, but on the other, it was also a final act of revenge. Against Scorpius, who of course was the character taking over the top villain job from Crais at the end of s1.
Scorpius from the start was a different type of villain. He wasn't interested in killing Crichton (or the rest of Our Heroes), on the contrary. He was interested in the knowledge that Crichton, due to other plot developments, possessed, and this in turn was because Scorpius' main goal in life at that point was two-fold: a) destroy the Scarrans, and b) save the Sebaceans. With it being an open question which of these two was more important to him. But he thought he could accomplish both through the wormhole knowledge in Crichton's head. This allowed for a different type of story to unfold than the early s1 "Crais chases, Crichton & Co. escape" ones. It also meant that as opposed to Crais, Scorpius didn't have something resembling a redemption arc. Being a villain of the "everyone is the hero of his own story" type, i.e. someone whose methods and agenda are at odds with those of Our Hero, which results in conflict, but whose goal isn't by itself selfish or lunatic, he didn't need to. He didn't have to be killed off, either. While there were some missteps with Scorpius in s4 (to wit, the writers for a while didn't seem to know what to do with him anymore once he was out of power), his story was ultimately resolved, as much as anything in Farscape ever was, in a surprising and yet appropriate way: through the Scarran/Sebacean peace with Scorpius, the child of both races, brought into the world through rape and raised through violence and torture, appointed to make sure both races kept to their bargain. This was possible because Scorpius' obsession with Crichton had been powerful but secondary to his main goal, and so a compromise could be reached, and Farscape's main villain actually got a happy ending.
Another example of a recurring villain who was kept around for encores in a credible fashion was Alfred Bester in Babylon 5, and the reasons this worked was similar to the ones I just named for Scorpius in Farscape. It's also worth comparing the way Bester was written to some of the other B5 villains. The main antagonists from the end of s1 to the middle of s4 were the Shadows, but they weren't individuals. Their human representative, Morden, was, but there was nothing whatsoever ambiguous about Morden, and as his agenda was identical to the Shadows, he left the stage, so to speak, the moment the Shadow arc ended. He had no further purpose on the show. (Save for one encore to mess with someone's mind, but that was a strictly limited thing; the character himself remained dead and gone.) We also had the dangerous lunatic (which neither Morden nor the Shadows were) type of villain in Emperor Cartagia, but again, Cartagia had a limited life. Though he's referred to from mid s2 onwards, he only shows up on screen in s4 and gets killed off; he's not someone who could have credibly remained around. And lastly, we had the greedy (but sane) powermonger type of villain, which would describe both the largely off screen President Clark and Londo's temporary ally and later enemy Lord Refa. (Londo himself is a case of his own, as he spends one season seeming to be the comic relief, two seasons doing largely villainous things and two seasons as a tragic hero.) Again, all of these bite the dust sooner or later. So how come Bester does not, without this impairing the story?
For starters, JMS changed the "Bester visits station, causes trouble, gets defeated by Our Heroes" formula with Bester's third appearance, which is also the first one where our Psi Cop a) gains some layers, b) has a temporary alliance with Our Heroes and c) actually gets what he wants out of the situation of the day. Bester throughout five seasons never stops being a fascist, as Sheridan once calls him; he also is presented a sincere believer in the idea of all telepaths as a family (with some misguided members who must be brought back to the fold), and given a number of qualities that make him interesting; in addition to being a ruthless bastard, he's courageous, not afraid to risk his own life repeatedly for what he believes in, relentlessly witty, capable of attachment and flexible enough to compromise if he has to. Also, his main agenda (telepaths ruling the world) isn't compatible with the Shadows' agenda, which creates believable situations of a temporary alliance without letting Bester see the error of his ways first, and it also allows for him to remain a threat to Our Heroes after, because if his agenda isn't compatible with the main antagonists, it's not compatible with theirs, either. At one point in the later seasons, Bester tells one of the good guys sardonically "believe it or not, not everything in my life is about Babylon 5", and he's telling the truth, but one of the show's most effective twists is that the very fact Bester isn't obsessed with the B5 gang doesn't mean he's less dangerous to them. One of Bester's ploys in season 4 gets Sheridan, the closest thing the show has to a leading man and main hero, captured by the bad guys, and yet he couldn't care less if Sheridan lives or dies; this was just one of the means to an end which has nothing to do with Sheridan at all and everything with finding out about a weapon which could wipe out or control telepaths.
To return to the beginning: the best ingredient for keeping villains around without turning this viewer off seems to be through giving said villains goals which extend beyond "must crush hero", or, if said villain originally has this goal, to give them something else along the way. Most importantly, though: their villainous deeds must never, ever be prettified, retconned or excused.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 03:44 pm (UTC)I'm still very impressed by the way Joss Whedon never gave into the temptation to bring back either Angelus or The Mayor (two of the best TV villains ever, IMO) while he was the showrunner on BtVS. Given their popularity, and the fact that DB was still available in various ways until S5, I'm surprised (and grateful) that Angelus's screentime, in particular, was limited. And I'm grateful *because* I enjoyed him so much. I think that bringing him back would eventually have led to storylines that diminished the impact of landmark scenes like Miss Jenny's death.
It strikes me that Ben Linus is well on the way to becoming a multi-season villain who is "the hero of his own story," and can therefore stick around until the end of the show.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 04:03 pm (UTC)I'd argue that he has been exactly that since The Man Behind The Curtain at least, and in Season 4 he is only ever the ambivalent "good" guy. (Not least because Widmore is the unambiguous bad guy, whose one redeeming quality it seems to be that he has a nice daughter.)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 04:12 pm (UTC)Good view of what makes a villain more than a one-note character. I always thought Bester was one of the best villains ever created. He never really got old. There was always a new facet begin opened up somewhere.
One show that took the one-dimensional villain and gave him some depth was the Sci-Fi channels' Flash Gordan. Ming was so much the "Must Destroy Flash" but the show actually made him a much better character. He was also not displayed as incompetent and petty or going against the "100 things I wouldn't do if I were an evil overlord"
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 04:13 pm (UTC)It's fascinating to me, since I hardly ever like villains, and those I like are usually either of the "bad, but more" (Ben Linus, Baltar) or the "gets redemptive death, and is probably dark grey, anyway" sort (Crais, Damar, and I would actually add Jack Bristow here). I also have a soft spot for evil minions, like Mr. Morden, but I don't think that sort usually gets redeemed, anyway.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 06:35 pm (UTC)Or am I just a delusional fangirl?
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 07:04 pm (UTC)Oh, agreed entirely. I mean, I loved the Mayor showing up in Faith's dream in s4, and the First Evil choosing the Mayor to look as when talking to Faith in s7, because that made sense given their relationship, but I'd never have wanted an actual return of the Mayor. As for Angelus, flashbacks aside, I think it was wise not to bring him back on BTVS at all and on AtS only in season 4, not earlier, and even then just in a few episodes, not as the Big Bad but a secondary threat and a distraction. This avoided a replay of one of the best storylines they did.
Scorpius is definitely fascinating. Farscape is a wild ride; it has a very shaky first season, very much hit and miss, and if you do get around to watching it, I'll give you a list of which episodes to watch. I didn't fall for the show until late in the season (which is true for Alias as well). But once I did, I remained captivated. It has some great characters, outrageous humour, and produced some of the best an inventive hours on tv. (Also some crap ones, but there you go.)
Ben: yes indeed. He wouldn't work as a character if his main goal in life were to kill or torture Jack & Co., but as someone with other goals and the willingness to kill, etc., if it serves said goals, or conversely to ally with them if that works better, he's good for the entire show.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 07:06 pm (UTC)The two versions of Flash Gordon I'm familiar with are the old black and white serials and the Dino de Laurentiis movie. Is there a third one?
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 07:10 pm (UTC)(There is a Woobie!Morden showing up in one of the novels. We shall not speak of it. Bah.)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 07:26 pm (UTC)*headdesk*
At least in this case I'd think the role was much too small for any network exec to say "hey, let's keep him!" Although it would have been fun to see what JMS would have done to him, given what happened to that poor heroic fighter pilot in Season 2.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 07:51 pm (UTC)This moved from being an annoyance to being a challenge when I participated in a B5 ficathon and got the prompt “Anna/Morden, something that’s both fucked up and includes Morden’s family in some way, be it as a comment or a reason for his actions”. Now, for one thing, I was absolutely unwilling to write Woobie!Morden from the novel, and for another, Anna/Morden while she was being used by the Shadows would have skeeved me out because NO FREEDOM OF CONSENT (which presumably wasn't what the prompter had meant by "fucked up"). However, I'm happy to report I came up with a scenario that managed to satisfy the prompt without making me write Woobie!Morden. *is still smug about that particular rabbit out of the hat* It's here (http://selenak.livejournal.com/254488.html).
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 09:54 pm (UTC)Also: how *NOT* to deal with this problem: ALIAS. *snarls*
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 10:05 pm (UTC)But, yeah, enemy relationships where you can envision either the hero or the villain stopping in the middle of a battle to freak out over actual injury to his enemy and attempt to save his life are their own special category anyway. (And I think often read as slashy, no matter what the canon creator's intent, because screwed-up romantic love often seems to be a more understandable explanation for this behavior than any kind of normal state of either friendship or animosity.)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 11:07 pm (UTC)*Which of course ties into his obsession with the Doctor, but then everything does.
And to change the subject! Speaking of Angelus, I loved that glimpse we got in Eternity. Because it put paid that "sex is what does it" theory, challenged his growing bond with Wes and Cordy, and reminded us explicitly of who he could be. And damn if David didn't knock the whole transformation out of the park, too.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 11:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 03:40 am (UTC)BZUH? WTF. Talk about Missing the Point much?
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 05:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 05:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 06:06 am (UTC)And yes: Magneto, if not written by certain people - *glares at Mark Millar and Grant Morrison* - is a great antagonist for these reasons (and they make it also believable he and the X-Men don't annihilate each other). In his case, there is an impending backstory problem the longer you keep him alive, though, because as I once said to Artaxastra, the Holocaust is so important to who he is that as opposed to, say, Tony Stark, whose "got captured in Vietnam" simply got updated to "got captured in Aghanistan" by Warren Ellis long before the movie did it, you can't just switch it to something else.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 06:11 am (UTC)(And this is why I don't like Orpheus. Faith not withstanding. But I'm going with
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 06:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 07:00 am (UTC)(I think Angel himself has tried to split his psyche into two halves he can deal with* - and part of his struggle was reconciling himself. By Orpheus he should have been, er, further along - so yes, having it all filtered through Faith's perception works for me.
*Hence why he seems to different with or without the soul, while Spike doesn't - Spike never tried to tear himself in two, while Angel had a century to. I also think said century turned the Angelus side a bit loopy. More than...usual.
Well, that, and staking Darla.)no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 07:37 am (UTC)Oh, agreed on the reason for the difference, absolutely. The Angelus we see in the flashbacks is a sadistic bastard, but in a sane manner. Well, for a vampire. (Hence the fight with Young Turk!Spike in the mineshaft.)
And of course staking Darla was a big factor in the insanity.Darla human versus Darla as a vampire is also an interesting comparison. Human Darla might not have an inner demon but still sees herself as the same person for the most part, identity crisis in front of Lindsey not withstanding - or rather, having been a vampire for 400 years, that's what she sees herself as, not a human being she can hardly remember. But vampire Darla v.2 is still affected by the human interlude and can't return to pre-staking status quo, either. To a degree, she does repress in both forms (different things), but she never goes for the full "not me, totally not me" thing Angel tries for a century.
(Also, I always thought that after s2 of AtS the writers really couldn't try to sell us on anything but Angel = Angelus anymore, because if they were two different entities, Angel's relationship with Darla makes no sense. If Angelus was another being, he never had a relationship with her to begin with. But you know, for Faith, he's her sponsor and her hero to some degree, so of course she'd see it differently.)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 07:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 07:50 am (UTC)Oh, definitely - when she first wakes up she's furious at Dru for turning when she'd finally accepted herself as human. Though it doesn't take long for her to be fine as a vampire again - that is what she's most used to - she can't just forget the past few months. I do think that's one reason she spared Lindsey; she was still fond of him. Not that she wouldn't eat the boy on a bad day, but, you know. (I have the hardest time reconciling Angel!Darla in general with Buffy!Darla, really.)
(That's the biggest sticking point for me, too - the other being, so, if Angel and Angelus are two different people that takes soem of his remorse away, doesn't it? Since HE didn't do anything. So then the curse doesn't make much sense.
It makes sense, though does make me wonder how Faith is handling her own darker tendencies - bottling them away in a dark corner, like Angel used to do, instead of understanding and using them.)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 10:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 07:31 pm (UTC)Also, my fanwank for Darla in the BTVS pilot (in the episode Angel you can already see a lot of how she'll be later on AtS) is that when she finally returned to the Master for good after having left Spike & Dru, he punished her for having run off with Angelus back in the day by locking her up and withholding blood for a year. (The Master is a fan of long-term planning.) She needed some time to recover from that one and her mental facilities were still addled by the time Buffy showed up in Sunnydale.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-25 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-25 10:56 pm (UTC)... *wince* I'll just go stand in the corner, I guess.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 07:02 am (UTC)*pauses*
Ahem. If you have written a Morden/Ivanova and/or Morden redemption fanfic, I did not know. (I don't think I've read much fanfic with Morden at all, come to think of it.) It was a random example.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-26 06:00 pm (UTC)I dunno, I think that Cavelos went more over the top with the woobification than I would have, given the chance, but I am fond of giving Morden more backstory than "he was a scoundrel who would sell out his home planet given half a chance." I rather like the idea that by the time the Icarus gets to Z'Ha'dum he has nothing left in his world but his word of honor, and then the Shadows take even that from him. In the context of the TV series, yeah, it's better that that's not gone into. It would ultimately just weaken the drama. (It would be like giving the terrible bully in any teen movie a monologue about how he's really just trying to get in touch with his father, who's never satisfied, and how he feels trapped by this whole facade of manliness that comes out as bullying and violence--probably true to character, but it sucks the fun out of pushing him into the pool at the big party.)
... er, ahem.
So yeah, I figured even if you had read said story you weren't thinking of it. I was just kinda shocked. ;)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-27 08:26 am (UTC)Ah, but you see, I don't think that's it at all. I don't think Morden was just with the Shadows because of the employment perks, and I think if, say, Sheridan had attempted to bribe him to change sides, he would have flat out refused. When I complained about Cavelos woobie-fying him, this was also triggered by the inability to compute what she writes with the on screen Morden who clearly enjoys what he's doing, and does it very well. No way he was blackmailed into it. This doesn't mean you have to write Morden as a paperthin bad guy if you want to explore him. Why not see him as the equivalent to Lyta, i.e. a genuine believer/ideologue? Lyta, too, left her old allegiances - to the Psi Corps, to Earth to a degree - behind in favour of the Vorlons. She gave herself to the Vorlons completely because she believed that much. And we had hints that the Vorlons weren't exactly fluffy teddybears long before s4 - anyone who employs Jack the Ripper on a regular basis has at the very least to be classified as extremely ruthless. But presumably Lyta, before Kosh II became abusive towards her, saw this as a price to be paid for the Vorlon cause. Morden could have thought the same - that the Shadows were absolutely right, their cause was the right one, and if that meant the occasional horrible sacrifice, well, it was to everyone's ultimate benefit.
If I had to write a Morden redemption arc, I would in no way excuse what he did by making him blackmailed. I would write an AU in which he doesn't end up as a skull on Centauri Prime but does have to live in an universe where the Shadows left him behind without hesitation (much as the Vorlons left Lyta and, come to think of it, every single telepath after having created them to begin with). And would have to rethink his convictions, how far he went to follow them, and what he does with his life now that the beings which gave him purpose are gone. This would be interesting for me to write or read.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-27 09:24 am (UTC)*bites inside of her lip*
With the understanding that I'm far more sympathetic to the guy in the sharp suit than you are, but I do buy the zealot explanation, and the story is mostly about my beefs with how big (or not) the B5 universe is, and I wrote it several years ago... it's linked on my writing LJ. (http://aris-writing.livejournal.com/1195.html?mode=reply) I won't feel bad if you don't feel up to reading it, especially as I'm forewarned that the POV character isn't your favorite and, um. Well, it's there.