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5511 discussions

Re: [B7L] To apologise or not to apologise
by Ellynne G. 01 Mar '01

01 Mar '01

On Tue, 27 Feb 2001 23:33:37 "Sally Manton" <smanton(a)hotmail.com> writes: > > *PS - Ellynne - I'm not trying to speak for you here, if I'm wrong > about > this, feel free to tell me. I'm just going by what I feel from your > posts, > and I could be wrong ... > No problem. I'm pretty sure I agree with you. 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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Death...
by Nathan Hook 01 Mar '01

01 Mar '01

> >Thanks Betty, you've summed up quite succinctly for me. This is why my initial reaction was for Dr Plaxton, but then you realise you're in the morally grey area once you follow the argument through to it's natural conclusion. >I wonder too, as an audience we're accustomed or conditioned to "accept" certain types of death...or expect some types of characters to die. >galaxy quest with tim allen does that with an extra who reappears. (Throughout the movie the guy was paranoid he was going to die at any instant becuase of his type cast.)It was a parody on star trek extras who're killed off. Often as security team members in red shirts who beam down to the planet with away teams, especially in the Captain Kirk episodes...and then get zapped into oblivion. The audience is not concerned becuase if anyone was going to be zapped, it's that guy at the back i've never seen before who clearly has no influence on my enjoyment of watching the unfolding episode. In fact his or her continual survival might irritate my enjoyment of the unfolding episode. > >B7 does this with the "security grades" if you like. The guards on shadow were masked(a few look a little podgy - not that this the reason for their demise.) we have no connection with them. Like the guards on Gold. They were canon fodder for someone like Soolin. we have no relationship with them and their dying doesn't disrupt our moral enjoyment. >Yet in B7 it's not always so clear cut. Which is what makes it so interesting. One of the first things Avon does when he gets freedom and discovers the guns on board Liberator is point one at Blake. The Gold episode again when avon explains to Keeler that they were together for mutual convenience. '...if I tried to cross them, I would imagine they'd try to kill me.' there is this constant struggle to rationalise and justify action or point of view in a morally diverse universe where extremes are both tolerated and rejected at the same time. > >In a way I feel Avon killing Blake is kind of fitting. Avon achieved what the entire resources of the federation failed to do. His own chasing of Blake ended up getting himself and Blake killed, like Travis. It has a perverse kind of irony don't you think. >nathan. > > >'Dudu' said nothing, as/Her talants were of the more silent class.'Byron. 'Dudu' said nothing, as/Her talants were of the more silent class.'Byron. ------------------------------------------------------------ Free, BeOS-friendly email accounts: http://BeMail.org/ love and pixels .:. http://dieselsweeties.com/

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Re: RoD
by Helen Krummenacker 01 Mar '01

01 Mar '01

> I've been observing this discussion with increasing puzzlement, until > the explanation suddenly dawned on me that I have apparently been > interpreting the famous cellar scene completely differently from > everybody else. (Which would explain why the fan-fiction stories I've > encountered on this subject have all rung so utterly false to me, of > course.) > > Yes, both parties to this exchange are stilted and awkward. I thought > that was the point. Yes... meeting an old lover is awkward. Combine that with the fact she was lying to him through the course of their relationship and the jig's up, and yet there was genuine feeling and a still-burning flame, I thought the stilted-awkward approach was authentic. (snippage Re: Anna's gushing embrace) > I think she panics, fatally. Yes, the overdone display of emotion is out-of-character from his experience of her, thus making him more suspicious rather than less. Besides, never let someone you don't trust embrace you... that leaves their hands out of your sight. <g> > But as Avon himself recognises, in trying to kill him she is > more 'honest' -- more the clear-headed, resolute woman he must have > known -- than in all her over-urgent protestations earlier. > My husband has said that he thought she drew on him to give him reason to shoot her. I keep toying with the idea. I'm not at all convinced, but her motives at all times are so obscured by her ability to coolly deceive that I've never been sure of what she thought she was doing.

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Re:the Con
by Helen Krummenacker 01 Mar '01

01 Mar '01

> Talking of Una, I'm sure she'll be delighted to know that a certain > photograph of her wearing a certain outfit near a certain fountain after a > certain exercise in cultural nostalgia of the popular music variety came out > very well indeed. > > Neil Intriguing vague for those of us not there... any hope of it getting scanned and posted somewhere?

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Re: [B7L] Re: Avon the Blake-killer Re: [B7L] Re: Avon the Blake-killer Re: [B7L] Re: Avon the Blake-killer
by Helen Krummenacker 01 Mar '01

01 Mar '01

> Although, I myself would like any PGP to start with > > Avon's mental state thereafter, and deal with the question of what it > > would take to get him to be, well, human again. > > Who says he isn't still human? At Redemption 99 there was a panel on > weaponry in science fiction which I hosted with Steve Kilbane, and Steve can > correct me if my memory's severely astray, and at one point it suddenly sunk > into me that I was listening to some guy in the audience who was effectively > admitting that he had machine-gunned defenceless prisoners in the heat of > battle. He didn't seem any less human for it. I think it's easy to > overestimate just how easily people can come to terms with some of the > things they've done, often things far worse than Avon ever did. Actually, what I was doing was underestimating Avon's ability to come to terms... I was suggesting that in my min, he would be in such a state of shock over the deaths of the others he might go into a complete emotional shutdown (most likely) or some other basic snapping of his mind that would make him act in non-normal ways. I'm afraid I didn't make myself clear. Frankly, I think shooting Blake was "Human, all-too human". It's not that the act is inhuman, but rather, I thought Avon might dehumanize himself in one way or another as a response. However, as you say, he tends to cope very well. Personally, I thought his weird mode of speech in Orbit was the indicator he was near a breaking point (not just bad acting). In "Blake" his positioning himself over the body with his grin suggests he's getting ready to be killed. So there are indicators in favor of him snapping, although I tend to exaggerate them. As you say, people are resiliant. We're pretty much in agreement that his shooting Blake was a battleground judgement that was an error, but was one made with the intention of protecting himself and those he still trusted. If he's willing to look at it that way, he should be normal enough. Helen

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Re: [B7L] The Killing of Sister Roj
by Helen Krummenacker 01 Mar '01

01 Mar '01

> This isn't a question of moral defensibility in any one instance, it reaches > deeper, to the (dare I say) ideological foundations of B7 itself. Within > the B7 universe, violence is a fact of life (as it is, all too often, in the > real world), and is accepted as such by, presumably, most viewers. So I > find it disturbing that so much attention, if not outrage, should be > directed at just one of a vast catalogue of violent actions. What is more > important - the act, or the actors? > > Neil The deaths on Guada Prime (all of them, including Blake) are only significant in the big picture in that they may indicate the death of hope, at least for the time being. As unlikely as it was that rebellion would succeed, well, in the 1st thru 3rd seasons, we saw plenty of other rebel groups. By the end of the 4th season, it was pretty much a struggle to keep the Federation from gaining ground in previously independent areas. This handful of rebels were trying to put together a workable opposition to the opressor. Blake himself was a symbol of the rebellion. His death, like the death of Martin Luther King Jr or Abraham Lincoln, meant that the struggle would be that much harder without him, and the hope of many who had heard of the fight would seem lost. Also, from the standpoint of the viewer, Blake and Avon are 'friends' to the audience-- we've seen their most vulnerable moments, cheered their successes. You care more when a drunk driver kills a friend than someone unknown; it's not a worse thing, but it hits home more. You've lost someone impotant to you. No, Blake's death is not more immoral than other deaths in the series, but Yes, is meaningful because of who he is. Helen

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Re: Avon's stress
by Helen Krummenacker 01 Mar '01

01 Mar '01

> > I do believe Avon was 'stressed' in Season 4 and also at the end of season > 3. Don't know if anyone else read this into it, but in Sarcophagus when > Avon says you can take my life, I think he's VERY serious. I think after > Anna's death he is vaguely suicidal/ depressed - this is my opinion only, if > you dont agree - good, if we all agreed life would be dull. I agree he was stressed, but I don't think he was being suicidal when he told the alien she could take his life-- it was part of a statement of defiance... better to die standing like a man, than to be a pet living by her whim. I also think he would have taken that position at any time, not just because of the stress. It was a matter of Pride and Independence. Freedom in an individualized sense is every bit as important to Avon as freedom in a universal and political sense is to Blake, possibly more so. Perhaps *that* is the real meaning of Avon's acceptance of 'the torch' in the 4th season... he saw his friends lose family and loved ones, lost all his property, etc, due to the machinations of Servalan primarily, and the Federation in the sense that it provided Servalan the resources. There was no freedom for the individual without freedom for all. But that put him in the posotion of having to fight a battle that was possiblly completely unwinnable. My brother pointed out that the Federation was, in a sense a "water empire"-- one where the ruling system dictated the allotment of the most basic necessity of life, water (in the case of the Federation, this control included drugging it). Such empires, historically, do not get overthrown by rebels. Avon knew the fight was impractical from season 1, so he surely knew he was enlisting in a Lost Cause-- enough to make anyone stressed.

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Hurt/Comfort and all that
by Caveatemptor1＠aol.com 01 Mar '01

01 Mar '01

<< And by the way (Annie), I'm rather bored by the way you keep harping about how long you've known Diane Gies. So what, you know a big-name fan. What do you want, a medal? Judging by the posts in my in-box, people just aren't impressed. >> FWIW, *I* have always been impressed with Annie -- and her contributions to B7 fandom. Courtney

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IMHO
by Caveatemptor1＠aol.com 01 Mar '01

01 Mar '01

This is just my opinion, of course, but isn't it time to take all the confrontational, name-calling discussions to the spin list??? Courtney

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Re: [B7L] Convention report (long)
by Tavia Chalcraft 01 Mar '01

01 Mar '01

Una wrote: >Sadly, I miss the fan fiction writing workshop .... >I'd love to hear some reports from this. Actually it was extremely disappointing. It was being run by someone B5 who I didn't know, as well as Nickey Barnard, and no-one apart from the B5-er (least of all Nickey) got a word in edgeways. Which wouldn't have been so bad if the B5-er had had any interesting experience to share or any useful things to say. We ended up with an inconclusive discussion over the importance of correct grammar to fanfic writing. Tavia (Laphroig in hand, cheers Una!)

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