Babylon 5, Through the Eyes of Sorcerer
charlesperez:
Much of the story told within the 5 seasons of Babylon 5 is basically sorcerous, and several of the characters within B5 could have been solid sorcerous protagonists. The following is some of what I see in that regard, having recently rewatch the series.
The main demons appearing in the story are the elder races, particularly the Shadows, but including other elder races that remain, even the Vorlons. A case could be made that the Vorlons might be angels, according to the rules in The Sorcerer's Soul, but what happens to them in the series, individually and collectively, seems to say "demon" rather than "angel". Such demons are immanents, according to the Sorcerer and Sword definition; they are part of the setting, but binding them or pacting with them stirs up wrongness and badness.
The common Need of all of the elder races, and their demonic servants, is validation. The Vorlons and the Shadows have conflicting world views, and want those views validated by the younger races, and have pressed for that at times in the series. Whenever an agent of the Shadows asks, "What do you want?" and gets an answer, then acts on that answer, and gets an appropriate favor in return, this transaction validates the Shadows' world view, feeding the Shadows in the process. Even those other elder remnants who seemingly only want their respective patches of space left alone thrive on the reputation their space gets, as a place to avoid; those who heed the danger are validating the notion of "here be giants", and thereby feeding the giants' Need.
The Shadows and the Vorlons themselves strike me as Inconspicuous demons; the Shadows are routinely invisible, and the Vorlons hide in their encounter suits. Their servants, mainly the Drach as well as Morden and company, are Passers; their ships may also qualify as Passers, seeing as how they are alive.
More on sorcerous protagonists later.
Charles
Ron Edwards:
Totally. Londo is one of my favorite sorcerous characters from the 1990s.
Best, Ron
charlesperez:
The two most sorcerous characters in Babylon 5 are as follows.
Londo Mollari (of course) was the most obviously sorcerous of the characters. Interestingly, he did nothing more than Pact with Morden from time to time, until the end of the series when, for his people's sake, he bound the Drach-spawn that was possessing him. It is strongly implied in the series that he was basically the Drachs' bitch, but he was able to Command the Drach to save Delenn's life when she was stranded in hyperspace. His basic outcome, out of the four in Sorcerer's Soul, was Remorse; he regretted his deals with the Shadows, and did his best to redeem his people, and came to a bad end.
Captain, and then President, John Sheridan was the most strongly sorcerous of the characters. His main sorcerous acts were, in chronological order: Commanding the Vorlons to give the younger races a demonstration of victory over Shadow forces; binding a part of Kosh, at his death, said part acting as a parasite demon; binding Lorien as part of the act of "giving in to Tock", as Lorien would put it, while between life and death on Z'ha'dum; and the mass banish of all the elder races - but not their servants - out of the galaxy at the final battle with the Vorlons and the Shadows. His basic outcome was Redemption; he turned his back on dealing sorcerously with the elder races - on behalf of the whole galaxy - and the Shadow war ended with no further destruction - at least from the war itself.
The three others I intend to present, in decreasing order of sorcerousness, are Lyta Alexander, G'Kar and Michael Garibaldi.
Charles
charlesperez:
The other B5 sorcerers are as follows.
Lyta Alexander's main sorcerous acts include: entering Vorlon space and staying there until her life support was almost out, thereby Contacting them; Binding Ambassador Kosh; and Binding Ambassador Kosh 2.0 after the first one was killed. What was unique about Lyta was that she was the only character in the series who was introduced as a human and then became effectively a demon by the series' end. Her demonhood was evident to all when confronted in public, when she gave the short speech, "You cannot harm me. You cannot stop one who has been touched by Vorlons." By then she obviously had run out of compassion for the younger races, compassion being the Humanity definition for the setting. What was left was her Need, for validation of her world view, which was freedom, safety and a homeworld for human rogue telepaths.
G'Kar performed one sorcerous act in the series, that is, binding Lyta Alexander as both were departing Babylon 5 for parts unknown at the end of the series. However, he did have a Lore score much earlier, with a descriptor I would call Narn Heritage. Remember that religious scriptures available to him warned him of the Shadows' coming. The Minbari had a clearer picture of the last Shadow war, and knew a good deal about what to expect from the next one; this leads me to declare Minbari History to be another Lore descriptor. However, no Minbari that I can recall ever did anything overtly sorcerous, besides cooperating with the immanent Vorlons and thereby validating their world view.
Michael Garibaldi also performed one sorcerous act, that of Pacting with Lyta Alexander, by then a demon, to launder money and use it to create a telepathic fighting force for her in exchange for lifting a telepathic block from his mind in two years time. One may be tempted to look at alcoholism as a demon of his, but that would be inaccurate; alcoholism is actually Garibaldi's Price. When he was wrestling with it, his true adversary was Bester; that conflict between them was joined when Garibaldi found out about the block against harming Bester, or even allowing him to come to harm. Even the dream about his life being destroyed by himself was instigated by Lyta Alexander, who presumably was angling - successfully - for an ally. The promise of removal of the block was the resolution of that conflict, and the end of his troubles over drink.
Charles
Ron Edwards:
Hi Charles,
I agree in full. The series was running during the main phase of developing Sorcerer as a game, and for a while, some friends of mine and I were avid viewers. I came into it sometime at the very end of season 2, I think, or maybe in season 3, and watched a number of earlier episodes to catch up. I never did see most of the fifth season, though. I even quoted from it in The Sorcerer's Soul.
One of my favorite elements of the story was that the Minbari were initially presented as these sort of excellent elves, or hip Vulcans, against whom all the other groups were small potatoes in every way, but just as you describe, it turns out they're the most hidebound of the bunch.
Best, Ron
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