Blakes7 February 2001

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80 participants
929 discussions

Re: [B7L] Re:hurt/comfort-- why Avon?
by Sally Manton 06 Feb '01

06 Feb '01

Helen wrote: <Avon underwent 4 days of torture before tehy sent in Shrinker. I seem to remember some stains that would suggest blood had been drawn at times; there were screams in the background as Shrinker talked to him. He underwent this voluntarily. At any point he could have turned off his transmitter and been pulled out by his friends.> All perfectly true, but (as a devotee of Beautiful Suffering, especially for one of the people I think he cares about) rather beside the point. The fact that he could withstand the pain doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt. And a great deal of the appeal of Avon-torure *is* watching him be stoic in a Good Cause. As I said, it's a balance between strength and vulnerability, and the balance I see in Avon is just right for me. Avon does give the *impression* of vulnerability under those shields, and Gan doesn't. Whether it's canonically true doesn't really matter in this instance, methinks, since fanfic writers are as much influenced (if not moreso) by what they read into the characters as what is strictly on screen. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: [B7L] Re:hurt/comfort-- why Avon?
by Ellynne G. 06 Feb '01

06 Feb '01

Been giving thought to why NOT Avon. Skipping Avon's ability to endure torture for four days and his desire to go off and enjoy possible death from radiation WITHOUT a group bonding experience, I think he'd make an awful patient. I can just see Avon stuck in bed (they probably had to tie him down to do it [no other list comments, please. You know what I mean]). It would be "Vila, get me a glass of water. Now." and "Vila, give me the remote. Or else." not to mention, "Cally, I'll humor your delusion I actually need to rest, but I refuse to do it in these barbaric surroundings. I want a fluffier pillow. Two of them. And get me the electric blanket. And I said chicken _broth_, not boullion. And _hot_. Vila can show you how to use the microwave. He's in the kitchen fixing soup. Oh, and remind him that it's just an eighth teaspoon of sweet paprika or he'll have to toss this batch, too. "And tell Orac I want my science magazines back. Now." Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

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Re: [B7L] Re: the patriarchy
by Ellynne G. 06 Feb '01

06 Feb '01

On Mon, 05 Feb 2001 20:27:06 -0700 Helen Krummenacker <avona(a)jps.net> writes: > > Of course, Cally and Jenna should have had better roles with more > leadership. Better roles, yes. Leadership, Jenna only. Whether because she had a certain reserve or because she was self-conscious of her outsider status, Cally never struck me as the leader type. She could be independent but, once she had identified with a cause, I think she prefered working along side someone to taking the lead herself (at least when working with humans). Dayna should have had a dramatic, solo death as her > desire > to kill Servalan pushed her beyond the bounds of sense. Soolin might > have not rejoined the other rebels on Guada Prime and had a spin-off > series of her own. The one problem with Blake is that Avon, Blake, and Vila all have such _fitting_ deaths. Tarrant, Dayna, and Soolin are just cleared away (Tarrant should do something last mannish where, given the chance to surrender, he instead charges the enemy [but then what to do with Avon?]. Dayna's death _should_ have involved her grudge with Servalan and given it some sense of completion [actually, I think Dayna should get rid of Servalan only to replace her (but, again, what to do with Avon?)]. As for Soolin, her death should have something to do with her past coming back to haunt her [Arlen's her sister? Please, no]). That's what I'd do to get rid of the bias that > was > inherent in the series-- the main one being that the nice girls let > the > boys be leader instead of pushing their own agendas. I would have liked to see them pushing their own agendas while quietly tolerating the boys' delusion they were in charge (you want to destroy the Federation, Blake? That's nice. Jenna, reset the course, will you - don't worry, Blake, you'll get your turn. Later). I think I still have Avon's aunts on the mind. Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

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Re: Matriarchs (was Re: [B7L] Further to the last post)
by Ellynne G. 06 Feb '01

06 Feb '01

On Tue, 6 Feb 2001 08:00:57 +1100 Kathryn Andersen <kat(a)welkin.apana.org.au> writes: > Why do I suddenly recall that thread about Avon's Aunts? I admit, I was thinking of them, all six of them, what one text defines as "a suffocation of aunts," the kind of people who make meeting Travis in a dark alley seem like a good thing . . . . Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

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Re: [B7L] Further to the last post
by Ellynne G. 06 Feb '01

06 Feb '01

On Mon, 5 Feb 2001 08:47:45 -0000 "Fiona Moore" <nydersdyner(a)yahoo.co.uk> writes: > Something else occurs to me in all this. > , I'd like to point out > that in > most societies, or at least Indo-European ones, women are seen as > being the > ones who are the guardians of culture, An interesting point, especially from an American point of view (the first wave of settlement in the U.S. was always predominantly male, a fact which had interesting effects on attitudes and history [Wyoming gave women the right to vote partly in an effort to attract more women to the territory, the gender ratio at that time being about 5 to 1. The only time I know of where Congress took away the right of women to vote in a U.S. territory was in one of the few where women had actually come to outnumber men (they were also showing a tendency to vote in ways that Congress didn't like, which was used as evidence that women were not capable of voting in an intelligent, independent manner)]). Anyhow, it was frequently said that civilization came to a territory when women came (some frontiersmen seem to have said this with considerable regret for the change). > > Now, interestingly enough, in these same cultures, although the > women are > the guardians of culture, it's the men, specifically the elite men, > who > guide what the values of that culture are. Interesting side note. In the 19th century, writing books on proper behavior, manners, etc. was quite popular (to make a long story short, when society's in flux, it becomes more important to define these things in authoratative detail). In Britain, nearly all these books were written by men, making them the guides. In the U.S. nearly all these books were written by women. I could comment, but not in less than three pages, so I will refrain. Ob. B7. I have this mental picture now of Avon trapped in the 19th century with a bunch of very proper matriarch types all set on reforming him. Avon: I have always considered self-interest the basis of human nature. Matriarch: Nature, Mr. Avon, is something we were put here to rise above. Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

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Re: [B7L] Subtext vs Character, or would Mr Humphries have pushed the right buttons?
by Natasa Tucev 06 Feb '01

06 Feb '01

Fiona wrote: >> whole book by L. Trilling, 'Beyond Culture' > >To which I would counter R. Jenkins, "Social Identity." What is it about? >> One can also reach beyond culture by resorting to one's innermost core, >> instincts and feelings, or to the simple biological facts of life: your >body >> is not a product of your society, and it is also you. > >Yes, but for how long? What you're saying is that it's only possible to >resist culture by withdrawing totally from it. Which is a fair point, but I >think it also makes it clear that as human beings we are irrevocably linked >with our cultures. A quote from Trilling: 'We reflect that somewhere in the child, somewhere in the adult, there is a hard, irreducible, stubborn core of biological urgency, and biological necessity, and biological *reason*, that culture cannot reach and that reserves the right, which sooner or later it will excercise, to judge the culture and resist and revise it.' This doesn't sound like a withdrawal tactic to me. >> (A good example of this is Orwell's W.Smith, who cannot compare his >wretched >> living conditions with anything different in his experience, but feels in >> his bones and his stomach that everything around him is wrong.) > >But again, this decision and feeling is not outside his society. Smith has >not personally experienced anything different, but other parts of the book >suggest that he would have had at least casual contact with ideas about >other ways of being, through his parents or through old people like the >prole man in the pub. Indeed, to have contact with 'ideas about other ways of being' is another option cited by Trilling, which I've also mentioned. It enables an individual to view his/her culture from another standpoint - by comparing it with other traditions or other cultures. Winston's mother conveys a very important notion in the book. The governing ideology of Winston's world claims that one's greatest loyalties should lie with the state, Party and Big Brother. Winston's mother was able to resist this system, not because she was well educated in history or politics, but because she gave supremacy to her private loyalties - her family and children. This is a very primitive, un-intellectual notion, but it actually implies a way to remain human. In one of the first scenes in the novel, Winston watches a movie in which a mother tries to protect her son from a bomb by embracing him. Love cannot protect one from physical harm, but it makes all the difference. Winston is, however, incapable of resisting his culture by resorting to this same instinctive, emotional core of his being, because the inhuman society in which he lives has conditioned him too thoroughly: when, after a bombing, he sees a human hand in the street, he simply kicks it aside. Hey, Orwell is a part of the curriculum, so I'm *very* prepared - this List still doesn't match my students in asking tricky questions! (Er, I cannot find a B7 point here, unless someone wants to apply the hand symbolism to Travis...) N.

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Re: the patriarchy
by Helen Krummenacker 06 Feb '01

06 Feb '01

> Is Blake's cause thus a disguised attempt to legitimize and restore > patriarchal authority? Discuss. > > > Una > Cally-as-warrior, in her first depiction, was going to try to singlehandedly destroy a complex staffed basically by the male Federation troopers. Vila, in City, unites with a woman to fight Babin, a perfectly macho man. Macho men are hardly portrayed sympathetically in the 'hairy barbarian' storylines. Avon, as a thin, quiet, intellectual, is in the 'effeminate' role according to past cultural biases. He is often referred to on this list as a Geek, which has only been considered a good thing for one decade. Tarrant is perhaps the most 'masculine' figure, yet he is also frequently abrasive and the crew does not choose him to lead them. Blake has no love interest ever mentioned, alone of all the men. He does not seek to take power when he overthrows the Federation, but rather wishes worlds to have independent rule. He works with Avalon and Le Grande. I think Blake's 7 consicously tries to *not* be a sexist, patriarchal show, although it is difficult. Should a show be written with no vilianesses? Do that, and you show no strong women in antagonistic roles, and the Federation becomes in itself a sexist organization. Shold a show never put the female protagonists in danger? Do that and there's a problem with predictablilty as well as believability. Of course, Cally and Jenna should have had better roles with more leadership. Dayna should have had a dramatic, solo death as her desire to kill Servalan pushed her beyond the bounds of sense. Soolin might have not rejoined the other rebels on Guada Prime and had a spin-off series of her own. That's what I'd do to get rid of the bias that was inherent in the series-- the main one being that the nice girls let the boys be leader instead of pushing their own agendas.

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Re: why characters
by Helen Krummenacker 06 Feb '01

06 Feb '01

> All of which adds up to not feeling free to poke around in the > psyches of real people. Fictional characters, on the other hand, are > fair game. You can stare at them, dissect them, poke and prod them, > gossip about them... All utterly guilt-free! I, personally, find that > completely impossible to resist, and, for *me*, that's the answer to > "why characters?" I have absolutely no idea how common or unusual I am > in that respect. Well, Betty, I don't think I could put it any better myself. I would also say that I find the Blake's 7 characters a bit better to rummage in the minds of than many series; they seem more realistic than, say, the Star Trek: TNG characters. Aside from Blake's 7, B5, and Buffy, I mostly stick to written fiction for insight on mental workings.

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Re: Re [B7L] Deliverance - keg marxist take
by Ellynne G. 06 Feb '01

06 Feb '01

On Mon, 5 Feb 2001 15:54:09 -0000 "Fiona Moore" <nydersdyner(a)yahoo.co.uk> writes: > Yes, but as an anthropologist I'd like to point out that people tend > to be > informed by the values of the society in which they were raised. I'd > like to > recommend "The Handmaids Tale," which makes a good case for the > rather > sinister similarities between the hardcore left and the hardcore > right. Uh, oh. Can I safely admit to hating "The Handmaid's Tale"? I thought it resorted to straw man arguments and largely failed to deal with the question of how that society _should_ have dealt with danger of extermination due to radically dropping fertility rates (the scenario given was counterproductive [and it's likelyhood struck me as extremely questionable (Hey, we're in danger of dying out! Let's fix it by putting the few women able to have children under so much stress no one should expect them to be able to have any!)]). > > > fertility of the primitives is declining so a female > > would be a valued commodity. > > Actually, that depends too. Witness female abandonment in parts of > China; in > a generation or two, their fertility will be seriously impaired by > the > excess of males, but this doesn't stop families abandoning surplus > daughters > in favour of sons. Two points. Incidents of North American Indians kidnaping settlers seem to have risen in direct response to higher death rates (more from disease, at that point, than warfare). Who was taken, why, and how they were incorporated into the group varied from tribe to tribe. But, of adults, more women seem to have chosen _not_ to return than men (although, this may represent women who wound up in Quebec due to French-Indian alliances). Second point. China has only begun to feel the crunch of its one child policy. The results aren't pretty (side issue of irritation with Bujold [one of my favorite authors] for ignoring the dark side of high percentage male populations). Women being sold (against their will) as either wives or prostitutes is on the rise. Also, it should be noted that this is an artificially induced imbalance which gives families the choice of preserving the family (through the male line) or (as they see it) sacrificing the family's existance for the good of society (not a defense, merely context [which should also be weighed against women, who kept a first born daughter, being forced to have abortions if they try again ('abortion' sometimes meaning killing a newborn, illegal infant) and the frightening fact that female children placed in orphanges are known to be greatly loved by their parents - the fact the child wound up there alive usually represents incredible risks on the part of one or both parents]). > > Again, primitive societies do have primitive belief > > systems. > > Which actually tend to be extremely complex, I so agree. and not at all like the > rather > facile and fatuous one presented in Deliverance. Well, we only see one rather limited aspect of it, but you have a point. > >In Canada, for instance, the French > and > English didn't come charging in, gun down the natives and take their > land-- > they sent in a few people to get involved in the fur trade, then a > few more, > then a few more. That doesn't make Deliverance any less colonialist. Uh, but there is a reason so many Indians in the U.S. opted to move to Canada having to do with better treatment and greater likelyhood of having certian basic rights respected. Whatever Avon's shortcomings as a god figure (don't get me started), he did what Meegat wanted and, genetically at least, saved her people (I only hope a good training program was included in that ship). Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

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Re: [B7L] Gareth in the news
by J MacQueen 06 Feb '01

06 Feb '01

>From: Mac4781(a)aol.com >There's a review of the Brunton production of HAMLET that fans of Gareth >should especially appreciate. Go to the Edinburgh Evening News >site--http://www.edinburghnews.com/ --and do a search for "Hamlet." Thanks for that, Carol. I'm glad the reviewer thought well of Gareth. Could've done without the caption for the accompanying picture, though... Regards Joanne _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Blakes7 February 2001