Leia Fee wrote:
Been following the discussion on Gan, limiters, killing and the phrase
'my
woman' and felt the need to chip in.
I'm not quite sure where the idea that Gan got the limiter because he was
a
danger to woman came from.
That would have been Terry Nation and Chris Boucher.
I recall that in his words he was given it
because he killed a Federation guard after said guard killed 'his woman'.
That's what Gan says, but then he says something else when lying outside the capsule, and if Stephen Date writes back to me, reprinting the relevant dialogue, I'll go through it. (I could do this myself, but I'm too lazy)
The evidence for him having a desire to murder women seems to come from
the
evidence that...
a) he killed the guard so is capable of killing - hence the limiter.
He also appears to kill someone with a spear in Cygnus Alpha.
b) he goes for Cally while his limiter is on the fritz
And Jenna earlier on. He only attacks Blake when he tries to stop him.
c) he uses the phrase 'my woman' when talking about the woman the guard killed.
And in all 18 episodes never gives her name, or refers to it again.
I'm not convinced these add up to him being a killer of women for the following reasons.
a) He took revenge on the guy who killed the woman, which seems to imply he cared about her enough to want revenge
1/ We only have Gan's word for this. And it seems a little extreme that he kills one guard and for that he's sent to Cygnus Alpha with a limiter implant. Lets look at it another way. Let's pretend Vila is captured by the Federation in the middle of series three. Does it sound likely that he would be fitted with a limiter, because he has killed by that point. I don't think it does. If Gan has been fitted with a limiter there is a reason for it.
2/ In Cygnus Alpha Kara kisses Gan. She then later shouts a warning to him as a guard throws a spear. The spear kills Kara. A little later Gan is seen bearing down on a spear, the point of which is out of shot of the camera. This is known in the trade as foreshadowing. It is giving you clues for what is to come. What happens can be described as follows: A guard killed Gan's woman. A monk killed Kara who showed affection to Gan. That's where Gan got the story from.
- no one seems bothered that Avon
wanted to do the same to the guy who killed *his* girlfriend/partner/woman/significant other.
No, but we are talking about Gan's cover story here. In TWB Blake states "I'm innocent, of what I was charged with anyway". Vila replies, "We have something in common then.We are all victims of a miscarriage of justice." "It's true!" Protests Blake, "Of course it is!" says Jenna. They don't believe him, because they know that many guilty people, even after conviction, will protest their innocence. They also know that many will lie about what they are convicted of. TWB was written and script-edited by the same two people who wrote and script-edited all of the first season.
b) Cally was the one who happened to be looking after him when he came to and released him, it doesn't follow that he was after her particularly because she was female. He has a bash at several of the others too if I recall.
1/ He fights with the others on the flight deck, but that is after he has attacked Jenna and after they have intervened. When he is strangling Cally it is a deliberate act. He is smiling and he's enjoying it. What kind of limiter malfunction would do that? If the limiter is meant to prevent a particular behaviour then presumably that's the behaviour we'll see when it malfunctions. 2/ When he finds Avon he beats the shit out of him. He then, ignoring Avon's protests, attacks the computers. Gan has rationalised that computers mean something to Avon. He then comes at Avon, using the computer links as a club. This is not the illogical actions of a man who has been driven to violence by pain caused by a malfunctioning limiter. These are deliberate actions. They have a pattern. 3/ Cally is attacked when she is on her own in the medical unit. Jenna is attacked when she is on her own aboard the flight deck. The alternative explanation is that "yes but they just happened to be the ones present there when Gan went mad. It could have been Vila. It could have been anyone." Yes it could have, but it wasn't. The writer has set it up so that it is Cally and Jenna who are attacked.
c) The interpretation of 'my woman' is as has been opbvious on the Lyst controversial at best and doesn't automatically imply possesiveness l
The word "my" is the possessive.
I could of course be wrong but there does seem to be rather a lot of
adding
up two and two to make five going on.
No, the entire theory is bullet proof. And I should know. I fought against it for three weeks offlist.
Jenny
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Jenny Kaye