Blakes7 June 2001

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61 participants
258 discussions

Re: [B7L] Re: Duel
by Natasa Tucev 17 Jun '01

17 Jun '01

Betty wrote: >Sally Manton wrote: > >> <grin> I spent some time trying to work out in my own mind what he would do >> if someone tried to use innocents (say, a spaceship full of children, and a >> self-destruct button) against him. Came to the conclusion he'd give himself >> up fast enough (from the evidence of Horizon) > >Or rather, he'd try to, and Avon would try to stop him, and then things >would get *really* interesting. IMO. :) In a story by Cami, the Federation troops defending a besieged base have imprisoned a number of civilians whom they threaten to kill. Blake wants to give himself up, but then Avon uses his computer (of course) to design a battle strategy which will enable the rebels to save the hostages. In a story by Shiela Paulson, Blake, Avon and three kids are cornered into a cave by Travis and his troops. Again, Blake is willing to surrender if Travis lets the kids go. Just then (of course) Jenna brings the Liberator back into the planet's orbit. This motif seems to have been used many times over. The problem with such stories, however, is that they very often neglect Blake's intelligence and present him as foolish and sentimental. Whenever Blake's afraid someone might die because of him, he hurries to surrender, without even considering other options, until someone wiser (usually Avon) points them out. Sometimes, however, there are no other options and then the story requires some deus ex machina to be resolved. N.

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Re: [B7L] Trivia query re Duel
by Sally Manton 17 Jun '01

17 Jun '01

Tavia wrote: <Does anyone happen to know what kind(s) of bat we see in Duel?> Besides rubber, you mean? <g> I don't think we get a close enough look to have an earthly. Any blood-sucking bat (or bat-like alien creature), probably ... _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: offing the enemy
by jstaylor 17 Jun '01

17 Jun '01

Helen Krummenacker wrote: > > On behalf of Avon: > Tried to kill Travis at least twice before > doing so. > Once he got his Very Own Implacable Emeny (TM), Servalan, he did NOT > kill her when he could for a very good reason: he could stop her with a > smootch. For an Implacable Enemy (TM) , she had a distinct weakness for > him. If the same could be said of Blake and Travis, they certainly > didn't show us Blake utilizing that advantage. OTOH, I'm sure the Slash > writers have considered the possiblity. . . .And not done nearly enough with Blake/Implacable Enemy (TM)! Melodrama, angst, betrayal, a death or two . . . Er, should this be on the Other List? Jackie

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Re: [B7L] Re: Duel
by Sally Manton 17 Jun '01

17 Jun '01

Jacqui wrote: <My comment elsewhere that Blake might have learnt some urvival/hunting skills on Exbar is probably part of the explanation.> Yes, that's mine too. BTW, would the fact that Blake's family could afford to send him on the trip indicate anything about their probable wealth, or is there anything in the show to indicate that long-range space travel for pleasure is cheap? _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: offing the enemy
by Helen Krummenacker 17 Jun '01

17 Jun '01

Sally wrote: > I think there's an unknown Law of Nature at work here. Not only doesn't > Blake kill his implacable enemy, but (leaving the question of *everyone's* > sanity for the moment) Avon doesn't, > On behalf of Avon: Tried to kill Travis at least twice before doing so. Once he got his Very Own Implacable Emeny (TM), Servalan, he did NOT kill her when he could for a very good reason: he could stop her with a smootch. For an Implacable Enemy (TM) , she had a distinct weakness for him. If the same could be said of Blake and Travis, they certainly didn't show us Blake utilizing that advantage. OTOH, I'm sure the Slash writers have considered the possiblity.

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Staked Blake
by Kathryn Andersen 17 Jun '01

17 Jun '01

The Second Edition of Staked Blake is now up on my Kats' Eye Fiction page. <http://www.katspace.com/fiction> It is basically the same as the first edition, except that the layout is slightly different, it has two more pictures, and is two pages longer. And takes up half the space (yippee!) Why a second edition? Well, I needed to change the title page so that Judith Proctor could produce an edition (it was originally going to be printed by Linda Knights, but then...) and, well, just as Judith reminded me, I was deep into my campaign to never use another Microsoft product again (including Microsoft Publisher, which is what I had been using before). So... I decided to kill two birds with one stone. This new edition is unsullied by the hand of Microsoft (apart from those pictures which had already been produced with programs which run on MS Windows). It was produced on Linux with LyX and LaTeX and Gimp. It has been a learning experience... Kathryn Andersen -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Sulu: I'll save you, fair maiden. (Star Trek: The Naked Time) -- _--_|\ | Kathryn Andersen <kat(a)foobox.net> / \ | <http://www.katspace.com> \_.--.*/ | v | #include "standard/disclaimer.h" ------------| Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia -> Southern Hemisphere Maranatha! | -> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy -> Universe

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SFX poll
by Steve Rogerson 17 Jun '01

17 Jun '01

In the July issue of SFX (number 80), there is a readers poll to vote for favourite episodes from 19 shows, and B7 is one of the shows selected. -- cheers Steve Rogerson http://homepages.poptel.org.uk/steve.rogerson "In my world, there are people in chains and you can ride them like ponies" The alternative Willow, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

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Morgan
by Judith Proctor 16 Jun '01

16 Jun '01

I've decided to make it two pounds to charity rather than one for copies sold of 'Morgan'. One pound wasn't enough. Judith PS. If you want an incentive to get a copy, it's far and away the best fan story I ever wrote. -- http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7 - Fanzines for Blake's 7, B7 Filk songs, pictures, news, Conventions past and present, Blake's 7 fan clubs, Gareth Thomas, etc. (also non-Blake's 7 zines at http://www.knightwriter.org ) Redemption '03 21-23 Feb 2003 http://www.smof.com/redemption/

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Re: [B7L] Re: Duel
by Ellynne G. 16 Jun '01

16 Jun '01

On Fri, 15 Jun 2001 21:47:36 -0400 "Dana Shilling" <dshilling(a)worldnet.att.net> writes: > Is too! Is too! The next guy probably won't have as much personal > interest, and may be from the first team or the Junior Varsity. > Besides, > Travis is a willing participant in Federation tyranny, not just some > poor > bastard of a draftee (a faceless group that Blake seems to have *no* > problem about killing). Oh, now here's room for thought - what reasons might Blake have that he either doesn't realize he has or doesn't want to admit to for not killing _Travis_? 1) Class prejudice? an Alpha not wanting to kill an Alpha? 2) Leftover conditioning? It seems like it would easier to make him gun shy towards something real he could actually remember (nearly killing a specific Federation officer) than abstract, faceless troopers he hadn't fought against at that time. 3) The hard fact that Blake knows this is something he _can't_ do, not and remain true to himself? He wants to kill Travis almost as badly as Travis wants to kill him. Maybe it's necessary and maybe it's smart - and maybe it shouldn't cost more than any of the other deaths, but it does. Like when Travis let go his concern for Maryatt, a man who was already dead when he got the news and who would have been beyond his power to save. Nothing he could do would make a difference, yet it made him different to choose to do nothing. 4) Some kind of guilt? What if, somewhere in his lost memories, Blake had been friends with Travis? A sort of Avon and Blake friendship, perhaps, the two of them always arguing and never agreeing, but it all seemed to have an underlying respect. Until. Blake may have been conditioned to forget it but, somewhere inside him, he still knows. For this to work, I'd guess both of them have either been a bit confused about what actually happened or are not mentioning parts (quite possible in both cases). After all, Travis seemed uninterested in hunting down Citizen Blake when he was a good and law abiding zombie. Hmm. OK, it's a stretch, but just because of the new wrench it throws into Blake's relationship with Avon, I'm going to think about it. 5) I know this is another stretch, but what if Travis isn't Travis but somebody they conditioned to _believe_ he's Travis? Hence, the injuries that don't quite fit the story. Blake, with his swiss cheese memory, may not consciously know - but this does put him and Travis in a very exclusive club. Maybe he unconsciously recognizes the symptoms. Oh, speaking of swiss cheese memories, for anyone who hasn't read Anne Perry's Monk books, the main character is an amnesiac who had the great disadvantage of knowing exactly who he is - sort of. As the author put it, we judge ourselves more harshly than we would other people. That's how Monk judges himself but without remembering the reasons and justifications for the actions (in the first story, he's investigating a murder and starts building a case against himself). I wonder if Blake ever does that? Condemns himself for the things he did and didn't do without knowing why he made those decisions? 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: Duel
by Natasa Tucev 16 Jun '01

16 Jun '01

Dana wrote: > Maybe, like Cathleen ni Houlihan selling her soul to the >devil to buy bread for her tenants, he should have been willing to >undergo the corruption to prevent mass deaths. Dana, you must have some Auronar blood, because I was thinking about Countess Cathleen the other day (in relation to Blake, of course). After all, Yeats dedicated his play to a woman who (in his opinion) sacrificed the purity of her soul by engaging in a political struggle for a Cause. Another literary parallel I had in mind was from Osborne's Look Back in Anger: "They all want to escape from the pain of being alive... It's no good trying to fool yourself. You can't fall into it like a soft job, without dirtying up your hands. It takes muscle and guts. And if you can't bear the thought of messing up your nice, clean soul, you'd better give up the whole idea of life, and become a saint. Because you'll never make it as a human being. It's either this world or the next." In a way, this sums up Blake for me. He did not want to escape from the pain of being alive. He could have chosen to remain a saint, never hurt a living thing, etc., (and I think he had such a potential), but he wilfully gave this up. He wanted to act and change something in the world he lived in. Which inevitably implies messing up your soul. N.

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Blakes7 June 2001