• The new B5TV.COM is here. We've replaced our 16 year old software with flashy new XenForo install. Registration is open again. Password resets will work again. More info here.

Chrysalis and Kosh Statement

I recommend the delightful Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss to anyone who wants to explore the joys and wonders of English punctuation.
Click to expand...

Going way off topic here, but I'd certainly support Joe's recommendation. It's hard to imagine a book on spelling, punctuation and grammar reducing one to tears of laughter, but "Pansy's ready" did it for me :LOL:

And 2amageing, I really appreciate the new style. I have to admit, I had taken to skipping over all of your posts, as they were too much effort to read. I'm sure that was my loss, but your new style makes much more comfortable reading
 
Well, assuming the obvious stuff is out there....and JMS is talking about something under the surface
Click to expand...

And you know this ... how?

Just because JMS (like Kosh) is sometimes ambiguous, the doesn't mean that he's always ambiguous. If that were the case we'd have to dig for hidden meaning every time somebody says "activate defense grid" or "good morning." :)

The most obvious clue as to what Kosh "really" meant is Sinclair's action. As soon as Kosh reminds him that he's forgotten something Sinclair heads straight for Delenn's quarters. (I haven't seen the episode in awhile, but I think he even says "Delenn" before running off. That's a pretty powerful indication that Kosh's intended meaning was immediately understood by Sinclair, as is the fact that Kosh doesn't say, "Hey, where're you going? I didn't mean your meeting with Delenn." :D)

As Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. ;)

Joe
Click to expand...

I'm assuming he was basing this on the basic reason behind this entire thread, that being the original poster's statement of:

"You have, forgotten something" which JMS say's has another meaning
Click to expand...

Now, the whole Delenn thing is the OBVIOUS meaning behind the "You have, forgotten something" line, so generally if someone says something has 'another meaning,' they mean something other than the obvious meaning.

If I said that me saying "get in the car" had another meaning, I would mean that it had another meaning in addition to the obvious meaning that I want you to well, get in the car.
 
I just read throught the "JMS Speaks" section of the Lurker's Guide for Chrysalis, and lo and behold, JMS does say that it's "not as straightforward as it looks."

But racking my brain, I can't quite see how.

Perhaps this got tossed when Sinclair was written out?
 
Hah. Sounds like an old B movie called Megaforce I used to like. One of the characters ALWAYS read the puctuation out loud along with the speech.

I'll just take the "out there" misinterpretation and grammer reaction as more or less useful feedback.

But as KoshFan and FreeBaGel have said, the idea here is that there is a story here behind the story. We really only had Sinclair for one of the 5 seasons, so it is kinda interesting to find there may be a part of a chapter not yet among the common definition of the man.

But the possibilities do seem narrow. Something he could know, and have since forgotten? What are the possibilities.

Hmmmmmmm.
 
I'll just take the "out there" misinterpretation and grammer reaction as more or less useful feedback.
Click to expand...

As they were intended. :)

Here is the JMS comment that led to all this speculation:

Since I mentioned it over on Internet (but not where it belongs), I give y'all a little gift... Kosh's very last line of the season, in "Chrysalis."

"You have... forgotten something."

It's not nearly as straightforward as it looks, and that one line will carry with it *major* repercussions. (And no, it doesn't refer to the 24 hours.)
Click to expand...

JMS said this on May 5, 1994, about an episode that wouldn't air in the U.S. until October 26 of the same year. As he often did during the show's production, he was trying to say something without giving too much away, and in such circumstances he has been known to exaggerate, obfuscate and frankly mislead to avoid spoilers while still giving hints.

So - does "It is not nearly as straight-forward as it looks" refer to "how it looks in the context of the episode"? (It won't be obvious when you watch it?) Or "The innocuous line is not as straight-forward as it might look to you today, reading it in this message - and you will understand its real significance when you see the episode"?

The assumption underlying the initial post (which does not quote JMS, but merely indicates that he said something somewhere about the meaming of the line) is that the line has some meaning that is not immediately obvious from watching the episode. Based on JMS's actual post, I'm inclined to disagree with this assumption, because I read his words as referring to what the fans would make of Kosh's words at the time he was posting his internet message and not after viewing the episode many months later. On this view the entire thread is moot, because we've been arguing about another level of meaning that JMS never indicated was there and a statement he never made. :)

Regards,

Joe
 
Joe, try browsing www.webmath.com on a regular basis, and then maybe you can learn to bitch about math as well. :D

Of course, Hypatia might want to bitch about the existence of the site. Tangentially, this makes me think I should find out if The Unicorn Hunters have a web site, as the local paper doesn't print them any more, and they always have lots of funny bitches about word usage, and grammar. ;)
 
Obviously somebody is having their period
Click to expand...
Ok, that was rather rude and pointless...

Anyways - one conderation might be that Kosh, who knew Valen, may not be able to understand how Sinclair can be so similar and not remember being Valen. I don't think it was ever clear if Kosh was told where Valen came from, so he may not know that Sinclair becomes Valen, not the other way around. Kosh might think he forgot about being Valen...

Then again, the Vorlon on WWE1 hints that he might know, but then again, that's two years later, and the Vorlon might just have read Sinclair's mind after he read the note from himself.
 
I'm pretty sure Kosh has got it figured out. He may have been surprised the first time he saw Sinclair, but he probably didn't take too long to work out the ramifications.

But then Kosh and Valen had a pretty close relationship. Kosh may have read Valen's mind and gotten the whole story.
 
I thought Kosh I, was one of the Vorlons who greeted Valen when he showed up with B4? In which case that is Kosh's past, so therefore when he met Sinclair in his future and watched B4's history unfold, he would most certainly know Sinclair became Valen. Also, looking at the Re-edited version of the Gathering Kosh I greets Sinclair with "Entilzah Valen" (Sorry, always get the apostrophes in the wrong place)
 
And yes, Kosh met Valen in the 1260s when B4 arrived, but it seems unlikely that Sinclair would have told the Vorlons any more than they needed to know, to avoid risks to the timeline. Hence what I take to be Kosh's surprise upon recognizing "Sinclair" as Valen. (They probably wouldn't have bothered securing a picture of Sinclair prior to Kosh's arrival. One biped probably looks pretty much like another to a Vorlon, and they may not see mostly in the visible light spectrum in any case.)

Since he's put out of action pretty much immediately after that, he has no time to communicate his discovery to the Vorlon High Command, hence their eagerness to rush Sinclair back for tial and execution (in that order, one hopes) when they suspect him of poisoning Kosh.

Sheridan later makes a point of the fact that Kosh almost never attended B5 Council meetings when Sinclair was in command, but started attending regularly as soon as Sheridan took over. I think JMS somewhere explained that as partly the Vorlon's more immediate interest in Sheridan (since Sinclair's future was pre-ordained), but also as Kosh's attempt to preserve the time-line from the unexpected. By limiting their interactions, Kosh reduced the chance that either he or Sinclair would do or say something to change the flow of events.

I think in the intervening year Kosh worked out a lot of Valen's story without being told in so many words by Sinclair.

There's also the suggestion that the Vorlons either built the Great Machine or influenced its construction (or found a way to exploit it after it was built.) It seems the GM's main purpose was to control the natural time-rift in Sector 14 to allow B4's time trip. Presumably the nature of the GM, and especially its location, derived from the hints that Valen dropped 1,000 years ago. That would strongly suggest that Kosh knew that time travel, from the future, had been involved in B4's sudden appearance, even if he didn't know the individual, or even the race, that would be involved.

(OTOH In the Beginning strongly suggests that Kosh knew both, with the Vorlons urging Dukhat to seek out the Humans and Kosh himself practically moving Delenn's hand when she selected Sinclair as the pilot to interrogate.

Regards,

Joe
 
Also bear in mind that JMS frequently said, in reference to Kosh's age, that he'd been "old enough to meet Valen." Considering later revelations, in particular that Lorien met Kosh a long time ago, I think JMS was trying to drop a hint.

Also, when Kosh tells Sheridan that "I listened to the song. You thoughts became the song" Sheridan asks, "Has this happened before?" Kosh's answer is "once." I suspect this other occasion was with Valen.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

Total: 450 (members: 1, guests: 449)

Share this page

Back
Top