Babylon 5, Through the Eyes of Sorcerer
charlesperez:
Hmm. "Tolkien elves meet Vulcans" is the best short description of the Minbari I've heard.
See the whole fifth season, if you can. A number of story threads meet their epilogues there, including most of the sorcerous ones, and especially the one where Londo meets - and accepts - his fate. In fact, the only sorcerous story thread wrapped up earlier than Season 5 was Sheridan's, with the mass Banish of Elder races in the fourth season.
The Minbari being a hidebound race, especially sorcerously, is quite an interesting notion. The only races more hidebound than them would seem to be the Elder races. Furthermore, up until now, it hadn't occurred to me that the Minbari were next in line to become an Elder race themselves. So, that would seem to be why the Minbari aren't sorcerous; they're on their way to being demonic instead, except that Vaylen triggered the ongoing diminishment of the Minbari lineage 1000 years ago.
Charles
Ron Edwards:
Hi Charles,
Yeah, that makes sense. And with it in mind, Delenn's physical conversion to a more-human form seems much in line with the demon-to-human concepts in The Sorcerer's Soul.
The Vaylen make most sense to me to be demonic in ultimate crunch terms, especially the Humanity rules, but with ultra-human, over-human ideological content. So "angels" in the same sense as I describe for the simplest application of the Sorcerer rules, meaning demons in mechanics terms despite in-game in-fiction descriptions and motivations.
Well, all that leads to a closer look at what I like to call the Synanon Game episode, when Delenn gets interrogated and therapeutically capital-P Processed by the Vaylens' interesting choice of psychoanalyst, Jack the Ripper. (Or to geek out for a minute, we get, yet again, to participate in Harlan Ellison's personal obsession with that historical figure). At face value, the Vaylen effectively force Delenn to start taking responsibility for her Humanity (in rules terms), rather than just letting events hit her (or in rules terms, letting the GM do all the Bangs and impose all the Humanity-relevant conflicts). Which is pretty cool. But in the larger sense, since the Vaylen ultimately are dangerous to Humanity, that sort of reverses things. I guess it might be most coherent to think that when the Vaylen ask, "Who are you?", they are only ultimately going to be satisfied with their own preconceived notions about the answer.
Best, Ron
greyorm:
Term check, Ron:
Vaylen: old Mimbari hero/prophet.
Vorlon: elder race.
Eero Tuovinen:
Vorlon, Ron, Vorlon. Vaylen are worms from Iron Empires...
I nitpick just to prove I'm reading this. I did watch the first 3-4 seasons of the series when it was on TV here, but I never was too impressed. I was deep into real science fiction at the time (literary, that is), and I could never quite accept that Babylon 5 was limited to sniping at the big picture from the fringes, never delving in the social and cultural issues of the world it depicts in detail. I remember how we used to snidely condemn any episode that didn't progress the overall plot as "filler", and specifically refused to consider any literary merit in stories that didn't directly involve the main characters and their key issues. For example, anything to do with the human telepath subplot was "filler" to me at the time. I guess I should look at the series anew just to see if I've grown to interpret this sort of television differently since then.
Ron Edwards:
Too many SF/fantasy terms in my head.
Eero, I'd suggest considering the historical economics of TV show production. Today's relative creative freedom and limited scope of show concepts totally didn't exist back then. "Cable" barely existed in its current form in the first place. The model of the successful TV show was M*A*S*H, and the idea of finishing a story or even a character's story was anathema. Nielsen ratings are still an issue, but then, they were simply and only God as far as production policy was concerned. So unless something was a Hit Hit Hit from day one, and unless the content implied that this show would be on the air forever just as it is now, keeping it on the air at all would be a bitter fight, and even then it would be subjected to constant pressure concerning its content.
If I'm remembering correctly, the strengths of B5's third and fourth seasons could be traced to the successful lobbying by the fan base which both reassured the production execs' fears that no one would be watching and also scared them a bit regarding loyalty to their channel if the show were canceled. So the shows' creative directors, or Strazcinski I suppose (I never did get into the JMS fan thing so I dunno about the details), may have had a rare opportunity actually to get dialogue and forward-moving content into a TV show.
I guess I'm saying that instead of decrying a show because some or even many episodes were absolutely filler from a long-term story point of view, it's worth considering that a show from that time with any story-forward content at all was a cause for wonder and appreciation. I'm not claiming that B5 ended up being wholly good in story terms; it suffers from a lot of blocked, poorly-realized, or stumbly content. But I do think it managed more than many shows, probably because it was predicated on long-term story logic and had to cope with production and executive assumptions for which that was simply gibberish, crazy talk.
All of which leads to an X-Files rant about the reverse, when the show isn't a long-term story but they pretend it is and maybe try to turn it into one. The X-Files worked just fine as the Gilligan's Island of the 1990s. But if you do have a show which is built within the limitations of "if they get off the island, the show's over," don't freaking constantly tease that they might, or hint that there are ways, or pretend that there's something to see once they're off. 100% episodic, i.e. short-form stories, is cool. Long-term story is cool. Trying to make one into the other blows, or to sum it into a pithy phrase, who the fuck cares about Fox's sister? But ... there are probably Lost fans reading this, right? So forget I said anything.
Best, Ron
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