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The Unfinished Talia Winters Arc!

Truth_Seeker

Regular
I've been wondering what was JMS's original idea about the story of Talia Winters before Andrea Thompson decided to leave the show.Was it the same as Lyta's story in the following seasons or it was different.In "Mind War", "Deathwalker" and "Soul Mates" we see her becoming more powerful, attracting Kosh's attention and beginning to have doubts about The Psi Corps.Was the plan for her to be altered by the Vorlons just like Lyta or those are two different stories?
 
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Talia had been modified by Ironheart so there was no need for the Vorlons to alter here. They may have recruited her.
 
That's why Kosh recorded her personality in "Deathwalker," to use against her if necessary -- or to bring her back if PsiCorps flipped its switch. Kosh presumably could have detected both Ironheart's gift and the second personality.
 
That's why Kosh recorded her personality in "Deathwalker," to use against her if necessary -- or to bring her back if PsiCorps flipped its switch. Kosh presumably could have detected both Ironheart's gift and the second personality.

I see.I thoght that the second personality was created by JMS later right before Andrea's leaving and Kosh was recording her personality looking because of Ironheart's gift.So the second personality was actually the original idea.Thanks.
 
Maybe, maybe not. Nothing has been said definitively either way, and personally even if JMS came out and said he always intended for Talia to have a secondary personality I would proclaim him to be full of shit. I think it's fairly obvious that Talia was supposed to fulfill the Lyta role and turn away from the Corps and become the huge weapon that Lyta becomes, but when she asked off the show JMS came up with what he thought was the best way to get her out of there.
 
Knowing what a fickle bunch actors can be, JMS had "trap doors" for every character from the get go. Which is good foresight on his part.
 
Maybe, maybe not. Nothing has been said definitively either way, and personally even if JMS came out and said he always intended for Talia to have a secondary personality I would proclaim him to be full of shit. I think it's fairly obvious that Talia was supposed to fulfill the Lyta role and turn away from the Corps and become the huge weapon that Lyta becomes, but when she asked off the show JMS came up with what he thought was the best way to get her out of there.

Actually, something has been definitively said.

Easy. Takashima would have been the one to be Control. A Psi
Corps plant. (Her background on Mars would've been the perfect time
for it to have happened.) When Laurel went away, I took that one
thread and passed it along to Talia, setting it up as early as the very
first episode, when Talia and Ivanova first meet, and later reluctantly
have a drink.

At one point, Ivanova says to Talia, referencing Ivanova's
mother, "You're as much of a victim as she was." To which Talia
replies, "I don't feel like a victim." And, of course, that's exactly
what she was, though she didn't know it yet. Ivanova's analysis was
100% correct.

It is obvious that Talia was going to fulfill the Lyta role, but it was going to come from a slightly different direction. Kosh was going to become interested in Lyta because of her having pscanned him, but he was going to become interested in Talia because of Ironheart and the Control personality, which is why he had Abbut make that recording of her in "Deathwalker": so he could fix Talia after the Psi Corps pulled the trigger on her. He would then turn Talia into what Lyta was originally going to be and actually ended up being for him. Can you imagine how much Talia, her real personality restored by Kosh, would want to take out the Psi Corps after having suffered them screwing with her via the Control personality, especially after having gone through seeing them having had screwed with her former lover Ironheart! She'd eagerly go thermal on their asses.

But with Andrea wanting out of her contract and off the show, jms didn't get to play that plot out, which is why that crystal Kosh got from Abbut in "Deathwalker" becomes fruitless for the story as the show stands told.
 
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For the future.

Kosh is helping. It was explicitly said by someone that Garibaldi got the crystal from Kosh. I do believe it was in the book somewhere that he never found her, but ya that strongly implies that Kosh knew the score (and why wouldn't he... considering that Vorlons have a Psi rating of GOODBYE).

I thought I picked up that JMS would have still brought in Lyta's character in some role even had Talia stayed... considering that he wanted to use her in the first place for the role, that's not too hard to swallow.
 
I'm just glad that we were never allowed to see the whole "Byron and Ivanova" love story.

So say we all....
 
I think that had Andrea Thompson not left the show, then we might have gotten into the Bureau 13 thread. I suspect that Talia would have come up against that group and maybe they would have tried to recruit her perhaps? :cool:
 
The name "Bureau 13" would never have been heard again regardless of Andrea staying or not because after they produced "A Spider In The Web", they learned that there was an RPG game called Bureau 13. jms and crew didn't want to run up against copyright laws in trying to continue using the name in the show, so they gave up including that organization in the show.
 
I always liked to think that Bureau 13 was something that needed to exist behind Santiago's back - and that once Clark came to power, this illicit branch of the Psi Core became more and more legitmate, ultimately disbanding because the Core no longer needed to do things like that behind the scenes... they could just do it out in the open and Clark would encourage it.
 
That is an interesting thought. A secret agency that didn't have to be secret anymore, it was absorbed into public office.

But if you wanted to play dirty, it would be handy to keep it around, anyway. To do the "dirty work" you might not want associated with you or your office. I've always thought of it as being something that never came back to directly effect "our people" or the action around them, so they could still be around, just not in our headlights, so to speak.
 
Erm, no. Speak for yourself.

Well I'll speak for myself- it would have been freakin' awesome. This not happening is the biggest reason the first half of season 5 is weaker.

Let's get over our Byron hatred long enough to imagine the story of Ivanova falling for Byron as a proxy for Markas, then having to go through the torturous emotional and ethical quandary of having to choose between him and Sheridan, deciding to do her duty and take out the telepaths, thus finally shutting her heart out to love and happiness while truly completing her despair over Markas.

Ivanova was set up from day 1 to be a tragic character, like Londo, but on a smaller scale, though equally heart-breaking. And that vision was never realized.
 
Let's get over our Byron hatred long enough to imagine the story of Ivanova falling for Byron as a proxy for Markas, then having to go through the torturous emotional and ethical quandary of having to choose between him and Sheridan, deciding to do her duty and take out the telepaths, thus finally shutting her heart out to love and happiness while truly completing her despair over Markas.

Additionally, imagine the lovely angst-filled drama of Ivanova having to call Bester and ask him to bring in the Bloodhound units to remove the telepaths from the station!! I mean, she hates that man.
 
Additionally, imagine the lovely angst-filled drama of Ivanova having to call Bester and ask him to bring in the Bloodhound units to remove the telepaths from the station!! I mean, she hates that man.

The smugness emanating from his face alone would be epic.
You know he'd be all, "So, now it looks like you need me, and maybe I'm not the bad guy you make me out to be..." and blah blah. You'd have to take a shower after watching it.
 
To drag this back up again have we had any comment from JMS since on what the original plan was?

That Kosh has the recording of Talia does seem like a clear hint to me that the real "trapdoor" with Talia wasn't activating the control personality but rather not bringing her back afterwards, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a similar kind of trap door for a lot of characters.

What form would the "brining her back" take though? Just having Kosh use the recording to bring her back at once seems a little too easy to me. Maybe as was mentioned (much)earlier if Talia was intended to largely follow Lyta's story the recording could have replaced Lyta's being enhanced by the Vorlons? perhaps the sleeper Talia is handed over to Kosh or the Vorlons get hold of her(similar to say how they kill Deathwalker but taking her transport instead) before she can return to the Corps?

Perhaps the way Lyta was used after this point might suggest when JMS might have put the control plot into use? she returns early in season 3 but doesn't become an important character until close to the end of that season. I would guess that with an established character like Talia JMS would not look for a break to be that long, maybe a few episodes but not an entire season.

The control personality does seem like it would be a good fit for the events building up to B5 declaring independence, After that point you could say it would lose some of its significance since the heroes anti Clark plans would be more out in the open, even if she'd then found out that Ivanova was a Telepath Bester and co that in itself wouldn't be as dangerous to her immediate future. A few episodes break of that would bring Talia back into the plot around the point Lyta starts to become important, maybe never linked to Kosh but arriving with Ulkesh?

Erm, no. Speak for yourself.

Well I'll speak for myself- it would have been freakin' awesome. This not happening is the biggest reason the first half of season 5 is weaker.

Let's get over our Byron hatred long enough to imagine the story of Ivanova falling for Byron as a proxy for Markas, then having to go through the torturous emotional and ethical quandary of having to choose between him and Sheridan, deciding to do her duty and take out the telepaths, thus finally shutting her heart out to love and happiness while truly completing her despair over Markas.

Ivanova was set up from day 1 to be a tragic character, like Londo, but on a smaller scale, though equally heart-breaking. And that vision was never realized.

A few years delayed response but I can't say I'v ever really seen Byron as a natural progression for the Ivanova characters plot, I can definitely see how she could have been used in such a fashion (although I'd guess a different Byron casting/performance might have been needed) but to me it seems like a regression. Surely the point of her earlier tragic nature was to get her to close off to Markus and then have the equally tragic lesson similar to Sheridan that you need to engage emotionally with people not just be willing to die for them(Lorien makes the point to both of them). Having her open up to Byron but then have the situation go south again seems like a direct counter to that lesson.

Interesting to consider what JMS might have done with Talia/Ivanova if the former had stayed in this regard. Perhaps the relationship might have lasted longer or perhaps stayed as a friendship and only gotten romantic just before the control personality was used Talia's if JMS wasn't able to get a same sex relationship that much screen time. More potential to show Ivanova committed to it maybe revealing she's a Telepath to Talia but perhaps not as much of a kick at the end of it? rather than having Talia effectively killed for good perhaps having the relationship ending as a product of a lack of the control personality or maybe Talia losing memories of it considering the recording was made in season 1.

Perhaps its too far in advance to really know for sure but I wonder if the Byron/Telepath plot would even have existed if Talia had remained, to me a lot of its purpose seemed to be to give Lyta a reason to have a more direct vendetta against the Psi Corps which Talia would already have with her history. I spose you could argue that Talia would naturally work in the role Lyta plays there with Byron being rather similar to Ironheart and her previous links with the underground railroad but I don't think it would provide previously missing motivation. JMS would have had less time after the earth civil war in the original plan as well given that it would have only been concluded in season 5, maybe it gets dragged out of much of the first half of the season and then links into the Centruari conflict building towards the end of the season?
 
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