<< Hi Fiona << I also found it kind of insulting when, after constructing a carefully thought-out argument with examples from the episode (and I'd watched it specially for that purpose), some people came on to say "Oh, that's just your *opinion,*" which made me wonder why I'd bothered to find all those supporting examples. >>
Yes, some responses were just "that's just your opinion." But I also read responses which explained WHY they didn't see the examples the way you do. It sounds like what's bothering you is that you didn't change anyone's opinion. I'm not sure what you're expecting.
FWIW, I *did* understand your arguement from your point of view. It's just not *my* point of view...so I don't agree. That doesn't mean either of us is wrong.
I see "Deliverance" as a defining episode for Avon. An episode that brought one more dimension to his character. This is over-simplifying, but I see a "kinder, gentler" Avon here. Which is way out of character for what we've seen up to this point. Just as "Aftermath" showed us that Avon does have some social manners and that he can be a gracious guest, "Deliverance" implies he does actually have some good instincts. He just doesn't pay attention to them very often. :)
But in this case, I felt he was genuinely touched by Meegat's pathetic, selfless devotion to the prophecy and by her genuine innosence. From what we've seen of Avon up to this point his response to her should have been, "I am not your Lord and I see no reason why we should involve ourselves in your problems." But, as we saw, that wasn't his reaction. He felt a kind of "sympathy" for Meegat and helped her.
I won't break down and analyze every line of dialogue from Avon to Meegat because (for me) it all blends to the same conclusion.
I'm not saying Avon suddenly became a nice guy after this ep. Lord knows that didn't happen. But it did happen in this ep (towards Meegat, anyway) and I saw nothing sexist about it. But I try not to look at B7 from a 20th century (or 21st century) western civilization point of view. From my interpretation of the 52 eps, I have created my view of the B7 universe and I watch the show from that perspective.
<< Fiona wrote: << We got disagreed with and debated, true, but sometimes the disagreeing got more than a little heated. >>
In response to this, I'm going to repost a comment I made earlier.
It should be pointed out that the Deliverance thread was a lively, interesting, and congenial debate (in fact, one of the best we've had in some time). It wasn't til posts became insulting (beginning with the "Wolf at your door" message) that there began to be a certain amount of resentment at the insistence that if we couldn't see sexism in "Deliverance" we must be stupid or uninformed.
Also, seeing a list member write that another list member's posts make them sick is extremely disheartening.
Courtney Hoping I didn't offend anyone It is not my intention