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Walter Koenig question

dencor

Regular
Just finished watching another episode of B5 with Walter Koenig making a guest appearance as Bester and he is just that type of bad guy that you really can't hate to much. I was curious if anyone knows how Mr. Koenig came to play the role of Bester ? And did JMS leave it up to Mr. Koenig on how to play the role or was it pretty much flushed out before hand on what they wanted from him. One thing, I do know for sure is that to me Walter Koenig will always be Bester to me instead of that other guy from that other famous series.
 
I gather that JMS and Walter have been friends for a long time. Originally he was slated to play Knight One in "And the Sky, Full of Stars" but health issues prevented it. A lot about a character comes from the script but I know that the crippled hand was Walter's idea.

Jan
 
I gather that JMS and Walter have been friends for a long time. Originally he was slated to play Knight One in "And the Sky, Full of Stars" but health issues prevented it. A lot about a character comes from the script but I know that the crippled hand was Walter's idea.

Jan

I did not know that JMS and Walter have been friends. That is pretty cool. I did see an interview online sometime back and I wish I could find that interview again, where Mr Koenig had some high praise for everyone invovled in Babylon 5 and expressed how much he loved the role of Bester. As far as the crippled hand idea, I did read awhile back about Walter adding that to the character. It was a nice touch. I thought something as simple as that gave the character a little bit of vulnerablity in some way to me. I do not remember if it was ever revealed in an episode exactly how his hand was injured. I have the Psi Corps trilogy but have yet to read it. Maybe the answer to how it happened is in one of the books. Thanks Jan.

dennis
 
Just finished watching another episode of B5 with Walter Koenig making a guest appearance as Bester and he is just that type of bad guy that you really can't hate to much.

Koenig's characterization was excellent, and the character of Bester was fascinating, but I didn't have any trouble hating him. In fact, I think he was the most evil human in the show.
 
I can't say he didn't have some damned good reasons for trying to do something to keep "normals" from getting too interested in psychics. Isn't it hard to say what you might do if you really felt it might be the end of your entire race of people if you do otherwise?

I like how evil isn't comic-book in B5. I like that a lot Too much sci-fi has kind of window-dressing "imperfections" in their characters. B5's were solid, real, they effected people's decisions and not always for the better. It wasn't cutsie, it was real imperfection. Coming from both our favorites and our most hated.

Bester the most evil? Of the recurring human guest starring character roles, yea, I guess so. :)

It was good to see him doing the part. He played it excellently. It was not just easy to hate him, it was down right gratifying. :D
 
Bester the most evil? Of the recurring human guest starring character roles, yea, I guess so. :)

Going by just the show, Morden seemed the most evil of all recurring human characters (with some equally or moreso evil humans in single episodes, like many of those involved in (very knowingly) setting up Earth's dictatorship, or the sicko ex-Nightwatch guy wanting to cut Delenn up into little pieces). But thanks to some of the books (particularly the Shadow Within), even Morden had a reason why which many of us could sympathize with... (sigh). (My objection to that was covered in the Technomage Trilogy thread--there is such a thing as a complete sociopath lacking any conscience, and Morden as portrayed by the actor on the show really reflected that more than anything. Yes, sometimes there is total lack of moral ambiguity--rarer than many probably think, but still it happens--just like those guys who made a satisfying "thump" when G'Kar and "King Arthur" got through with them :) ).
 
I can't say he didn't have some damned good reasons for trying to do something to keep "normals" from getting too interested in psychics. Isn't it hard to say what you might do if you really felt it might be the end of your entire race of people if you do otherwise?

It wasn't his treatment of normals, and attempts to protect teeps from mundanes that made him evil, to me. It was his brutal oppression, and outright murder, of the teeps that refused to join him.

Morden, Anna, and Justin had all been altered by the Shadows. So, evil they are, but I don't lump them with humans (or teeps) who have free will. There were various sickos on B5 that one could call evil, but I think many were insane, so I hesitate to call them evil. But, I will admit that there is no clear borderline between evil, and insane. One might even argue that someone must be insane, on some level, to be evil.
 
I have a hard time getting past the genocide queen as being evil, and not particularly caring if she was "insane" as well.

(And I do know that is out of context with this conversation, as she was most definitely not human and we're talking about humans, here. But it seems time for an out-of-context conversation drifter, about now, doesn't it?)
 
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