Memes, and more reviewing thoughts
Apr. 29th, 2004 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakFirstly, meme gakked from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hobsonphile, honorh and lots of other people on my friends list:
Invent a fanfiction I wrote and post about it in the comments. It can be anything you want, so long as it is something that I never wrote. Give me feedback! Mention your favorite quote! Flame me! Illustrate it! You know you want to.
Secondly, an old meme making the rounds again, but since I didn't play the last time: ask a character from any (fanfic) story I wrote a question, and I'll let her or him answer.
Thirdly, more B5 season 4 thoughts.
Atonement, Rumours, Bargains and Lies, and Moments of Transition: And here's why I don't have any problems with later season Delenn... when she's with other Minbari. The Minbari civil war storyline might have been inspired by actress Mira Furlan's country Yugoslavia breaking up in several nation-states at the time, but it works beautifully with past seasons. Neroon taking Delenn's place in the Grey Council in season 2, upsetting the warrior caste/religious caste balance, is echoes by Neroon taking Delenn's place in a the starfire circle and dying both for her and for the restoration of Minbar, with his last "but the calling of my heart is...religous" declaration completing the circle. Delenn breaking up the Council in season 3 - which as it turned out was an even stronger trigger to the civil war than Neroon taking her place - is echoed by Delenn creating a new Council, this time with a new balance. Giving the worker caste four voices by taking one away from both religious and warrior caste is an acknowledgement that both sides were at fault as well as an attempt to elevate the previously ignored workers and thus prevent future strife between warrior and religious caste.
(Shallow side thought: also, Neroon and Delenn have fabulous chemistry. Ever since I saw their "was that a compliment?" "After a fashion" scene, I wanted someone to write a Neroon/Delenn story, and the Minbari aren't my favourite or second favourite race in the B5verse.)
If Rumours and Moments feature Delenn's and the Minbari's present, and let her work for the future, Atonement concentrates on her past. Incidentally, given Delenn's empathic denial that her relationship with John Sheridan is motivated by her guilt over her "no mercy" order at the start of the Earth/Minbari war, the title is interesting, for what else could it refer to? In any case, the Sheridan/Delenn relationship is pushed to the background here anyway; this episode deals with Delenn and her past, Delenn and Dukhat, and Delenn and Lennier. That the two mentor/aide relationships are paralleled is obvious, and JMS puts an extra hint in for any viewers who might have missed it by giving Dukhat and Delenn the same "look up... I cannot have an aide who will be eternally walking into things" dialogue that Delenn and Lennier have in Born to the Purple. Whether the parallels mean that young Delenn had at the very least a crush on her mentor is probably in the eyes of the viewer; personally, I think she had. (I also think Dukhat never would have done anything about it.) Delenn's love for Dukhat, whether it was solely the one of a student for a mentor or also romantic in nature both helped her and drove her to contribute to a terrible war - and I always thought that Delenn's attempt to bring Londo to the ceremony in season 3, as well as her admittance of fondness in season 5, her fixing him up with G'Kar as a bodyguard and that last, silent hug which for Delenn who never to my knowledge hugged anyone of the B5 command staff - except Sheridan, of course - all of whom were far closer to her than Londo - is an extraordinary emotional gesture - that all of this was motivated by her knowledge of what it was like to have the blood of millions on one's hands and live with it, something which no other character could have.
Lennier becoming Delenn's "guide" in this episode is pre-shadowed visually by the way he takes her hand early on. Now it would be interesting to debate at which point Delenn became aware that Lennier loves her as more than a mentor. (At the start of season 5, she knows, but when did she realize?) In any case, she does accept and depend on his unquestioning loyalty and affection in a way that sets up the bond between them as something as strong as the one between her and Sheridan. (It also carries more trust - Delenn never tells Sheridan about her part in the war.) Which isn't exactly good for Lennier, as things will turn out. And yet, I have to confess I enjoy the scenes between them too much to wish for Delenn to do the sensible thing and send Lennier away for his own good.
Meanwhile, my favourite telepath comes a' calling again, and shamelessly manipulates my second favourite telepath and good old Garibaldi. Which is awful for Lyta and Garibaldi, but is fun to watch. Also, Bester is just so eminently quotable: "Being a freedom fighter, a force for good, is a wonderful thing. You get to make your own hours, looks good on the resume... but the pay sucks." Plus the fact that he's in a position to cajole Lyta back into the Corps is, for once, not his fault. It's the B5 command staff's. (And might I add - poor Zack ALWAYS gets the thankless job of giving other people the bad news from Sheridan. He had to tell Garibaldi to give up his ID card, badge and weapon as well some episodes earlier.) That Bester notices Lyta's increasingly desperate situation, whereas her "friends" do not, also says something about her status on the station.
As for No Surrender, No Retreat: sorry to echoandrastewhite and hobsonphile as well as my earlier remark, but really. I mean, I try to see it as thematically important that several Earth Force captains get persuaded that if the orders you have are against your own conscience, then to hell with the government that gave them, and to hell with what we call "cadaver obedience" in German. That's important. Yeah. But... I still skip almost the entire episode in favour of three scenes: Vir talking to Garibaldi (poor Vir, obviously still haunted by Cartagia; and hey, look, Garibaldi came by to ask Londo for a favour, which is a nice echo of their lost friendship), Londo and G'Kar in G'Kar's quarters, and Londo and G'Kar at the bar later. If I had to demonstrate the amazingness of how personal arcs get developed on this show, picking a collection of Londo & G'Kar scenes would be perfect: take your avarage mutual hositility one from season 1, then go to The Coming of Shadows (both the bar scene and G'Kar's later "he knew!" as well as "Mollariiiii!", then go to Dust to Dust, then go to one of the prison scenes from early season 4, then go to this: who, at first time watching the start of this show, would have thought that Londo would tell G'Kar, completely without irony - "that was unkind of you" and "at first it was sympathy... then respect..."? (And there's more goodness to come in season 5, of course.)
Excuse me while I hop over to Andraste's journal to revel in some more unabashed Londo & G'Kar gushing now...
hobsonphile, honorh and lots of other people on my friends list:Invent a fanfiction I wrote and post about it in the comments. It can be anything you want, so long as it is something that I never wrote. Give me feedback! Mention your favorite quote! Flame me! Illustrate it! You know you want to.
Secondly, an old meme making the rounds again, but since I didn't play the last time: ask a character from any (fanfic) story I wrote a question, and I'll let her or him answer.
Thirdly, more B5 season 4 thoughts.
Atonement, Rumours, Bargains and Lies, and Moments of Transition: And here's why I don't have any problems with later season Delenn... when she's with other Minbari. The Minbari civil war storyline might have been inspired by actress Mira Furlan's country Yugoslavia breaking up in several nation-states at the time, but it works beautifully with past seasons. Neroon taking Delenn's place in the Grey Council in season 2, upsetting the warrior caste/religious caste balance, is echoes by Neroon taking Delenn's place in a the starfire circle and dying both for her and for the restoration of Minbar, with his last "but the calling of my heart is...religous" declaration completing the circle. Delenn breaking up the Council in season 3 - which as it turned out was an even stronger trigger to the civil war than Neroon taking her place - is echoed by Delenn creating a new Council, this time with a new balance. Giving the worker caste four voices by taking one away from both religious and warrior caste is an acknowledgement that both sides were at fault as well as an attempt to elevate the previously ignored workers and thus prevent future strife between warrior and religious caste.
(Shallow side thought: also, Neroon and Delenn have fabulous chemistry. Ever since I saw their "was that a compliment?" "After a fashion" scene, I wanted someone to write a Neroon/Delenn story, and the Minbari aren't my favourite or second favourite race in the B5verse.)
If Rumours and Moments feature Delenn's and the Minbari's present, and let her work for the future, Atonement concentrates on her past. Incidentally, given Delenn's empathic denial that her relationship with John Sheridan is motivated by her guilt over her "no mercy" order at the start of the Earth/Minbari war, the title is interesting, for what else could it refer to? In any case, the Sheridan/Delenn relationship is pushed to the background here anyway; this episode deals with Delenn and her past, Delenn and Dukhat, and Delenn and Lennier. That the two mentor/aide relationships are paralleled is obvious, and JMS puts an extra hint in for any viewers who might have missed it by giving Dukhat and Delenn the same "look up... I cannot have an aide who will be eternally walking into things" dialogue that Delenn and Lennier have in Born to the Purple. Whether the parallels mean that young Delenn had at the very least a crush on her mentor is probably in the eyes of the viewer; personally, I think she had. (I also think Dukhat never would have done anything about it.) Delenn's love for Dukhat, whether it was solely the one of a student for a mentor or also romantic in nature both helped her and drove her to contribute to a terrible war - and I always thought that Delenn's attempt to bring Londo to the ceremony in season 3, as well as her admittance of fondness in season 5, her fixing him up with G'Kar as a bodyguard and that last, silent hug which for Delenn who never to my knowledge hugged anyone of the B5 command staff - except Sheridan, of course - all of whom were far closer to her than Londo - is an extraordinary emotional gesture - that all of this was motivated by her knowledge of what it was like to have the blood of millions on one's hands and live with it, something which no other character could have.
Lennier becoming Delenn's "guide" in this episode is pre-shadowed visually by the way he takes her hand early on. Now it would be interesting to debate at which point Delenn became aware that Lennier loves her as more than a mentor. (At the start of season 5, she knows, but when did she realize?) In any case, she does accept and depend on his unquestioning loyalty and affection in a way that sets up the bond between them as something as strong as the one between her and Sheridan. (It also carries more trust - Delenn never tells Sheridan about her part in the war.) Which isn't exactly good for Lennier, as things will turn out. And yet, I have to confess I enjoy the scenes between them too much to wish for Delenn to do the sensible thing and send Lennier away for his own good.
Meanwhile, my favourite telepath comes a' calling again, and shamelessly manipulates my second favourite telepath and good old Garibaldi. Which is awful for Lyta and Garibaldi, but is fun to watch. Also, Bester is just so eminently quotable: "Being a freedom fighter, a force for good, is a wonderful thing. You get to make your own hours, looks good on the resume... but the pay sucks." Plus the fact that he's in a position to cajole Lyta back into the Corps is, for once, not his fault. It's the B5 command staff's. (And might I add - poor Zack ALWAYS gets the thankless job of giving other people the bad news from Sheridan. He had to tell Garibaldi to give up his ID card, badge and weapon as well some episodes earlier.) That Bester notices Lyta's increasingly desperate situation, whereas her "friends" do not, also says something about her status on the station.
As for No Surrender, No Retreat: sorry to echo
andrastewhite and hobsonphile as well as my earlier remark, but really. I mean, I try to see it as thematically important that several Earth Force captains get persuaded that if the orders you have are against your own conscience, then to hell with the government that gave them, and to hell with what we call "cadaver obedience" in German. That's important. Yeah. But... I still skip almost the entire episode in favour of three scenes: Vir talking to Garibaldi (poor Vir, obviously still haunted by Cartagia; and hey, look, Garibaldi came by to ask Londo for a favour, which is a nice echo of their lost friendship), Londo and G'Kar in G'Kar's quarters, and Londo and G'Kar at the bar later. If I had to demonstrate the amazingness of how personal arcs get developed on this show, picking a collection of Londo & G'Kar scenes would be perfect: take your avarage mutual hositility one from season 1, then go to The Coming of Shadows (both the bar scene and G'Kar's later "he knew!" as well as "Mollariiiii!", then go to Dust to Dust, then go to one of the prison scenes from early season 4, then go to this: who, at first time watching the start of this show, would have thought that Londo would tell G'Kar, completely without irony - "that was unkind of you" and "at first it was sympathy... then respect..."? (And there's more goodness to come in season 5, of course.) Excuse me while I hop over to Andraste's journal to revel in some more unabashed Londo & G'Kar gushing now...
no subject
Date: 2004-04-29 07:21 am (UTC)For a long time I thought the story was going to come to an unhappy ending and tears were pouring down my cheeks as Darla and Snyder said farewell on the convent steps. Her last minute change of heart and headlong rush into his arms made me a very happy Snarla. Thanks so much for an amazing read.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-30 03:38 am (UTC)