OK, so I'm getting the digest now and the 'write' section of my e-mail doesn't like it. I'll get the hang of it sooner or later.
Leylan's character: I think he represents the full tragedy of what the Federation can do to the good - or potentially good - people under its control. He _knows_ what's right and he's willing to make some gestures towards it, but with a great sense of futility.
He gives Jenna some protection when he tells Raiker to be discreet. I gather Raiker wasn't big on _asking_ or, at any rate, listening when he was told no. But stop him entirely? This is the way the system works. This is what men like Raiker expect. What use is it to fight it?
He gives Raiker authority when they're under attack. Perhaps he was caving into fear or just desperate for a plan. I _don't_ think he'd thought it through to the logical end. I did think he accepted responsibility for the consequences. But that was part of the same attitude. It's not the full scale, heated outrage we might expect from someone who had no reason to expect a sane officer would do this (or who knows that no sane officer serving under him would think he could do this and get away with it). It's more the resignation of a man who knows he should have seen it because it was what Raiker would do - and who knows the only option to hold Raiker responsible is to admit his own complicity and be punished right along with him.
Then, when the chance comes to send the merry trio over, I think he OKs it partly because it's the only way he can avoid executing them (and this is the _captain_).
At the end, I think he was planning to take as much of the blame as he could to help spare the younger officer. Arguing that he did his best and lost (all true) doesn't cross his mind, not as a potentially winning argument.
So, I see him as a potentially good man who may not like the evils he sees but considers himself powerless to oppose them in more than very small ways. He may not like the status quo or the corruption but he sees himself as powerless to do anything about it - an attitude so strong it persists even when he has a postition of power where he _could_ do something.
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Ellynne wrote about Leylan:
So, I see him as a potentially good man who may not like the evils he sees but considers himself powerless to oppose them in more than very small ways. He may not like the status quo or the corruption but he sees himself as powerless to do anything about it - an attitude so strong it persists even when he has a position of power where he _could_ do something.
Oh wow! Pakistan are all out without saving the follow-on!
Sorry, er... Leylan...
I see him as the embodiment of the line about "for evil to triumph, it is necessary only for good men to do nothing" (sorry, haven't got precise wording to hand), which is essential to the Federation.
My key scene: LEYLAN: And the prisoners? DAINER: We've killed six. LEYLAN: Six? DAINER: Seven. In the course of quelling a riot and protecting the ship, sir. LEYLAN: Very well. Carry on. DAINER: Thank you, sir. RAIKER: I can get them out of there, sir.
On the tape I have, Leylan looks slightly pained about the deaths (and Dainer appears to think he has to justify them), though he goes along with it, accepting the justification. That makes sense; at least, it will sound OK in the report. But Raiker is watching him carefully, smiles when he sees Leylan's initial reaction, and then makes his offer. My conclusion is that it's Leylan's brief wince that gives him the idea; if *Leylan* is squeamish about killing prisoners, how much more so Blake...
As Ellynne implies, Leylan probably knows the difference between right and wrong, but he's long since lost the will, if he ever had one, to do anything about it. Blake, since his recapture, is bursting with the will to do something about it.
This also ties in with Steve R's remarks about most people not going out of their way to put themselves in danger. Leylan wouldn't exactly be in danger, or not immediately, if he asserted himself. But it would be standing up to be counted, and it's pretty much engrained in Federation society that no one stands up to be counted. (The Kommissar on Horizon: "So you're a Resister. Some malfunction of the genes, I suppose. It throws up a Resister about every hundred thousand.") The Federation depends on apathy far more than it does on evil.
Oh, Caddick's got Salim Elahi for a pair!
Think I'd better concentrate on cricket for a bit.
In message +2ZyeXOWM8B7EwYs@jarriere.demon.co.uk, Harriet Monkhouse hflysator@jarriere.demon.co.uk writes
Oh, Caddick's got Salim Elahi for a pair!
Think I'd better concentrate on cricket for a bit.
One advantage of sharing a con hotel room with this woman is never having to try and work out how to operate the teletext in order to find the latest cricket score....
I rather like this heading, though I'm not sure quite what it implies...
Julia wrote:
One advantage of sharing a con hotel room with this woman is never having to try and work out how to operate the teletext in order to find the latest cricket score....
And one disadvantage is that you're kept awake by the glow from the teletext when I insist on having it on all night so that I can see the latest score from Sri Lanka if I wake up at 5 a.m.
(It was my next victim, er, room-mate that had to put up with this, wasn't it?)
--- Ellynne G wrote
Leylan's character: I think he represents the full tragedy of what the Federation can do to the good - or potentially good
- people under its
control. He _knows_ what's right and he's willing to make some gestures towards it, but with a great sense of futility.
I think that the Federation is in a state of political/ moral decline. We see figures like Rai in SLD and Samor in Trial who are essentially decent as well as the likes of Servalan and Travis. Leylan represents the old Federation which was essentially decent pulled down by Raiker who represents the new.
He gives Raiker authority when they're under attack. Perhaps he was caving into fear or just desperate for a plan. I _don't_ think he'd thought it through to the logical end. I did think he accepted responsibility for the consequences. But that was part of the same attitude. It's not the full scale, heated outrage we might expect from someone who had no reason to expect a sane officer would do this (or who knows that no sane officer serving under him would think he could do this and get away with it). It's more the resignation of a man who knows he should have seen it because it was what Raiker would do - and who knows the only option to hold Raiker responsible is to admit his own complicity and be punished right along with him.
I think Leylan knows what is right and that it is an option which is fast becoming unavailable to him. Raiker has no scruples and therefore knows exactly how to get the result he wants - by killing the prisoners until Blake surrenders. In a sense Leylan's abdication of responsibility foreshadows Servalan's coup. The old order which has been corrupted is destroyed by the new which is completely corrupt.
At the end, I think he was planning to take as much of the blame as he could to help spare the younger officer. Arguing that he did his best and lost (all true) doesn't cross his mind, not as a potentially winning argument.
I don't see that at all ! If anything I suspect that - had Raiker lived - Leylan would have submitted a report that would have destroyed himself and taken Raiker down with him. Of course, with Raiker dead...
So, I see him as a potentially good man who may not like the evils he sees but considers himself powerless to oppose them in more than very small ways. He may not like the status quo or the corruption but he sees himself as powerless to do anything about it - an attitude so strong it persists even when he has a postition of power where he _could_ do something.
I think that until Star One - and possibly afterwards - there are lots of Leylans in the Federation.
Stephen.
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Ellynne G. -
Harriet Monkhouse -
Julia Jones -
Stephen Date