• 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.

Londo's Three Chances

Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by GKarsEye:
She said he had three chances to save himself from redemption<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have to say that your typos are simply better than those of anyone else. Save himself from redemption?
laugh.gif


------------------
"There are things out there beyond imagination, and I have a rather healthy imagination." - G'Kar, B5: Rangers
Kribu's Lounge | kribu@ranger.b5lr.com | Kribu.net
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

Wow, that was quite the brain-fart on my part, wasn't it? That's the sort of thing that happens when you're answering e-mails and writing code at the same time.

frobisher, you might be confusing personal redemtion with "public" redemption. The prophecies dealt with the former. Londo doesn't necessarily have to save his planet to give his soul peace, though that is one possible way.

Let's also keep in mind that the prohecies may have gotten muddles as the story arc changed as the show went along.

------------------
"You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

Also, you have to figure she listed these chances in chronological order. The first one took place at the end of the Shadow war, with Cartagia removing GKarsEye. The second we saw in War Without End, but in the B5 timeline, it was 17 years later. The third probably had to take place AFTER the second, so it would follow that the third was Londo sacrificing himself to GKar allowing Sheridan and Delenn to escape.

Morden doesnt work, because he wasnt dead. He died once, at the end of the Shadow war when his head was cut off. And he didnt come back now did he.
smile.gif
Sheridan DIED at Z'Ha'Dum, returned from the dead thanks to Lorien. So by Londo NOT killing Sheridan 17 years later, he wasnt killing the one who was alredy dead. I thought that one was pretty cut and dry actually.

------------------
'I don't believe in the no-win scenario' - JTK
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Recoil:
Ok,

Did you not even read my post up there? It fits the description of the first event. And what's more JMS himself dropped that HUGE hint in the moderated newsgroup, which is posted in the Lurkers Guide as well. For those of you following along at home, I will paste it again:

Why didn't Londo try to save G'Kar's eye?
JMS: Yeah...would've been nice if Londo had at least tried to do something about the eye that did not see Cartagia's splendor....

Yea that pretty much spells it out for those who were wondering.

And he did have three chances. He missed the first one, as listed directly above, but DID accomplish the other 2, and according to the Centauri trilogy, he DID avoid the fire at the end of his journey...


<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Recoil,
*YES*, Recoil, I did see your first message. *YES*, I did see the quote from JMS. And, *YES*, despite that quote, I hold to the explanation Londo offers in the Centauri trilogy. It ties in firmly and directly with the prophecy of Lady Morella, ties in directly with the theme that JMS has used throughout the series that one person CAN change the universe, and reflects the idea of HOPE.

And somehow, folks expect me to believe that saving G'Kar's eye - getting him to see the splendor of a madman - is the key to salvation? I don't believe it. Not even though JMS himself said it. Somehow, I can't find myself to believe that Londo would have been "saved" if G'Kar didn't lose his eye, but Londo went ahead and killed Sheridan, and later murdered G'Kar rather than surrendering to him.

JMS left red herrings lying all around the storyline. I don't doubt that he's left one or two in his comments. If anything, B5 shows us that we should embrace the questions rather than the defined views of "the first ones." As the universe works out the puzzles it finds, I don't doubt that JMS also works out the puzzles he finds. In some ways, the story writes itself - becomes more than what it was. Had we asked him the same question at two different points in time, we might get two very different answers - one as he tries to predict the future, and one as it gets here.

That's not a slam of JMS, but merely asking the same question at a different point in the fabric of time. This quote was prior to the Centauri trilogy, yes?

I adore the fact that JMS is willing to answer our questions, but let's give the man some breathing room in doing it. I envision JMS at this point as being like G'Kar responding to the Narn asking him about some of the things he wrote about the Centauri in the Book Of G'Kar - "Put your face in the book. If the book is holy, and I am holy, then I must help you become closer to the thoughts of the universe. Put your face in the book. The first thing we are all taught is while outsiders cannot be trusted, we can always trust a fellow Narn, yes? This is your point, is it not? Good. Then put your face in the book."

Some answers are best found through reflection rather than literal interpretation. I think this is such an instance.



------------------
Joe Vancil
joev@joev.com

"All right, fine; you look for them. Me? I'm going down there, and maybe I'll bust some heads, and maybe they'll bust mine, but nobody sells out my people like this. Nobody."
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

I would also like to point out that just because Morella said these things would "save" him, doesn't make it so.

------------------
"You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by GKarsEye:
I would also like to point out that just because Morella said these things would "save" him, doesn't make it so.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

GKarsEye,

But Lady Morella was a highly-reknowned seer! What she said couldn't POSSIBLY be not true!
lol.gif
laugh.gif
lol.gif
laugh.gif
lol.gif


Let's get it straight - Lady Morella is a character, so we HAVE to believe her, while JMS is real, so therefore we shouldn't listen to him!
lol.gif
laugh.gif
lol.gif
laugh.gif
lol.gif


And people wonder why folks like me are so fanatic about the show - perhaps because even the discussions about it can go from contemplation and meditation to laughter and joy at a moment's notice? I love it.

In all seriousness, though, I don't think the finding of the answers should give us as much joy as the curiousity of asking the question. B5 is for the curious.

That leading me into a tangent - when looking at the age breakdown of B5 viewers, I'm curious as to what the age breakdown is - especially the teen-and-younger market. I would think that they, more than any other group, would enjoy Babylon 5. Does anyone have any sort of numbers on such things?



------------------
Joe Vancil
joev@joev.com

"All right, fine; you look for them. Me? I'm going down there, and maybe I'll bust some heads, and maybe they'll bust mine, but nobody sells out my people like this. Nobody."
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>And somehow, folks expect me to believe that saving G'Kar's eye - getting him to see the splendor of a madman - is the key to salvation?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

We don't know what the consequences of Londo's intervening at that moment to save G'Kar's eye would have been. We do know that he carelessly said, "I'm sure whatever your Majesty chooses will be appropriate" and walked away because he is pre-occupied with his own plotting. But if he had stayed to see what Cartagia was doing, and defied him at that moment, it might have forced the confrontation that much sooner, and led to Londo's killing Cartagia on the spot to save G'Kar. Whether or not Londo survived the experience this would have led to a change of government under very different circumstances, and might have prevented the Drakh's ever becoming established.

History often turns on small things done or not done. If there hadn't been some confusion over the street directions the Archduke Franz Ferdinand would not have been assassinated, and WWI might not have happened. (Ferndinand had already escaped one assassintation attempt earlier in the day, when a bomb wounded members of his entourage, but failed to kill him, on the way to City Hall. When they departed the city part of his motorcade followed the route originally planned, but Ferdinand's driver took an alternate "safer" route - and drove right past one of the "failed" assassins who still had a pistol in his pocket, thus making the successful shooting possible.)

Since we don't really know what might have happened had Londo done something different, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss "G'Kar's eye" as being "the eye that does not see." Had Londo saved it, the later events might not have followed at all.

More from JMS (on Usenet September 18, 1996):

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>There's another way to look at this, which occured to me as I was writing it, so I structured it accordingly.

Morella: "You must save the eye that does not see."

Londo: "I... do not understand."

I.

Eye.

We never actually saw how she spelled or meant this.

Given Londo's background, one could almost make the case that the discussion was about him. Not saying that's it, but it's a possibility and a subtext.[/i]

jms<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

(Emphasis added)

Peter David picked up on this, and made it part of the drunken Londo's musings, but that doesn't make it the literal answer. Both men forgot the obvious fact that Lady Morella would have been speaking a Centauri language, not English. (Although, based on David's book, I suppose we must now assume that "I" and "eye" sound alike in that language as well.) Londo, as this point, has decided that everything was about him - the Earth-Minbar War, the Babylon Project, the Shadow War - everything. So assuming that Lady Morella meant "I" instead of "eye" just fits with Londo's rather gradiose image of himself. (Something that G'Kar himself points out.)

While JMS did sometimes deliberately mislead in his posts about certain topics before they played out in the story, I'm not aware of any ocassion when he did so in answer to a direct question long after the answer would cease to be a spoiler. So I think he was telling the literal truth in saying that the primary meaning of the phrase was G'Kar's eye, while the subtext was the small pun on "I" "eye" and merely intended as another level of meaning. David's book doesn't alter this a bit, because he presents the alternative as Londo's speculation, and that while Londo is in his cups and on the verge of his long-expected death.

(BTW, in the same scene in the book Londo says that Sheridan's being "the one who is already dead" was "obvious".)

About the last two "chances" - Londo does indeed do both because there is no way to do one without the other. Valen aside (and he cheated) none of the "prophets" presented in B5 are ever 100% accurate. The destruction of the station was predicted, but not the context. B5 was blown to pieces, but it never "fell" as Lady Ladiera said it would. So it isn't surprising that Lady Morella was "off" a bit.

In fact, Londo arguably had "failed" the second chance, because the Keeper awoke before Sheridan was safely off-planet. Therefore he had to face "(his) greatest fear, knowing it will destroy (him)" because that was the only way to prevent the Keeper from rescinding his orders and having Sheridan killed anyway. Since Sheridan's escape was the only way to secure the Alliance's help in freeing the Centauri from the Drakh, which was the necessary condition for Londo's redemption, he had to undo his recent failure in not keeping the Keeper unconcious longer. (Londo's whole life was spent in the service of his people, so it is clear that the only way he could redeem himself was to make possible their liberation from the oppression that his actions had brought on them.)

Regards,

Joe

------------------
Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division

joseph-demartino@att.net
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

I'm going to have to poke a hole in the theory that Sheridan is the "man who is alredy dead".

Lorien stated Very Clearly that Sheridan was NOT Dead.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> "It's easy to find something worth dying for. Do you have anything worth living for?"
"I can't see you anymore."
"As it should be."
"What if I fall? How will I know you'll catch me?"
"I caught you before."
"What if I die?"
"I can not create life, but I can breathe on the remaining embers.. It may not work."
"But I can hope?"
"Hope is all we have."

Lorien & Sheridan in Babylon 5:"Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?"

"Do you have anything worth living for?"
"Sleep now. I will watch and catch you if you should fall."
"Delenn!"

Lorien & Sheridan in Babylon 5:"Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?"

"He was gravely wounded at Z'ha'dum. He was dying. He was dead. I did all I could to help him, but I can not create life, only the universe can do that. I can extend, enhance, there is no magic, nothing spiritual about it, only the application of energies, healing and rebuilding cells."

Lorien to Delenn in Babylon 5:"Falling Toward Apotheosis" <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


JMS has always been Very Coy whenever anyone asked about the prophesy.
The comment about G'Kar's Eye wasn't an affirmation, it Dodged the question.
JMS didn't say "Yes, that's right."
He said "It would have been nice..."

Words are how JMS makes his living.
He is Very Precise in his use of language.
When he gives an ambiguous answer, it's Deliberate.


------------------
Do not ascribe your own motivations to others:
At best, it will break your heart.
At worst, it will get you dead."

[This message has been edited by bakana (edited February 18, 2002).]
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> You must surrender yourself to your greatest fear, knowing that it will kill you <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Everyone seems unanimous in thinking this relates to G'Kar killing Londo, but I've sometimes wondered if it related to his 'surrender' to having the Keeper attached to him?

By doing so, he saved his planet from destruction by the Drakh. Londo never struck me as being afraid of death, but putting himself under the control of another entity would have been abhorrent to him.

Just a thought...

------------------
Demon
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

Bakana, aren't you condradicting yourself in that post?

Lorien:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>He was gravely wounded at Z'ha'dum. He was dying. He was dead.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Can you get any more clear as this? It always sounded to me as if he said that he can't create life - that because Sheridan was already dead, he couldn't bring Sheridan back wholly, he could just give him the 20 years.

------------------
"There are things out there beyond imagination, and I have a rather healthy imagination." - G'Kar, B5: Rangers
Kribu's Lounge | kribu@ranger.b5lr.com | Kribu.net
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

Regardless of the exact, literal course of events on Z'ha'dum, everyone said that Sheridan had died and returned. And Lorien does explicitly say, "He was dead."

(Besides, if this "pokes a hole" in the theory about Sheridan, what does the same reasoning do to Morden, who was once presumed dead, and once badly wounded, but was never "dead, dead"?)

And while JMS can be coy and puckish in his usenet posts, I don't think he was being evasive in that answer. It is more in his "Oh, you noticed that, did you?" mode than his "I'm not really going to answer" mode.

I don't think saying "I'm sorry" could have been Londo's greatest fear, because he neither particularly feared it (he just didn't think he had to) and because he does it almost twenty years before "the end." Nor do I think accepting the Keeper could be his greatest fear. He barely knew what a Keeper was at the time, and while it would certainly have disgusted him, I don't think he actually feared having the creature connected to him. In fact, I thought he acted with extraodinary courage and gallantry in that scene.

His death at the hands of a Narn (later identified as G'Kar) on the other hand, has haunted his dreams nearly all of his life. Since he doesn't understand the context until very near the end, it is something he views with dread for decades before the moment arrives. Even then being strangled to death by G'Kar, and possibly facing judgment in the Centauri version of the afterlife, cannot be something that Londo faces without fear. (It isn't at all clear that the Centauri believe in any kind of afterlife, much less that good deeds will be rewarded and evil ones punished, but it does seem possible. Londo's line to Senna about knowing his sins and the price he will eventually pay for them could imply some such notion, although it could equally refer simply to his pending death, only hours away at the time.)

Regards,

Joe

------------------
Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division

joseph-demartino@att.net
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Bakana, aren't you condradicting yourself in that post?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No. It was Lorien who contradicted itself.
laugh.gif


------------------
"We are the universe, trying to figure itself out.
Unfortunately we as software lack any coherent documentation."
-- Delenn
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

Just one more "eye" for consideration... In the first season in "Signs and Portents" Londo loses the Eye (the eye was an ancient Centauri artifact which held great power in the republic). He let it be stolen, and it was Morden who "saved the eye" thus leading to Londo's first involvement with the Shadows...

------------------
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Just one more "eye" for consideration... In the first season in "Signs and Portents" Londo loses the Eye <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Of course, that happened before Lady Morella's prophecy, and can thus hardly be something she saw in the future. And we never hear another word about the Eye after Londo returns it to Centauri Prime.
smile.gif


Regards,

Joe

------------------
Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division

joseph-demartino@att.net
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

Regulated, JoeD style.
smile.gif


------------------
'I don't believe in the no-win scenario' - JTK
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> It isn't at all clear that the Centauri believe in any kind of afterlife, <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What do you call a Pantheon of over 50 Gods?
Or the belief that a really Great Emperor can be elevated to Godhood?

There was at least one mention of an Emperor being elevated to Godhood Prior to Cartagia's madness.
It was what gave Cartagia the idea in the first place.
It had "happened" in the Centauri past.


Then, tehre was Vir and Londo's conversation after Londo's heart attack.
They talked of an old Centauri legend about a Great Soul being reborn into an evil body and causing that body to Die in order to stop the evil.

I'd say there is Lots of evidence that the Centauri believe in an afterlife.
As well as Reincarnation.

------------------
Do not ascribe your own motivations to others:
At best, it will break your heart.
At worst, it will get you dead."

[This message has been edited by bakana (edited February 18, 2002).]
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>What do you call a Pantheon of over 50 Gods?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'd call it a religion, which does not imply anything about their belief (or lack thereof) in a life after this one. I never said they didn't have a religion. There are plenty of religions on Earth that either have no belief in an after-life, or one that differs from the mostly Christian notions of Heaven and Hell.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Or the belief that a really Great Emperor can be elevated to Godhood?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The Romans believed that as well, but they didn't believe in the kind of personal after-life that I'm talking about. For the Greeks and Romans most mortals existed after death as mere shadows, almost mindless, which could be coaxed into speaking if propitiated with a bowl of blood by anyone brave enough to enter the Underworld (which was envisioned as a literal underground place, that you could walk into if you could find the entrance.) What they had to say was cryptic, and their memory of Earthly events poor.

Regards,

Joe

------------------
Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division

joseph-demartino@att.net
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

First thing is I wanted to respond to the inquiry about the age ranges that are attracted to B5. I do not know the actual numbers but I was a sophomore in high school when the series ended. As a teenager I have loved Babylon 5. My favorite thing about it is the fact that there so much there to ananlyze and question. I have almost every episode on tape and I watch them over and over again and every time I find something new. That is what made me start this thread and will probably be the cause of more in the future.

Lady Morella's advice to Londo was ambiguous and obviously any of it can be taken in more than one way. That is why I brought up Morden as a possibility as the one who was already dead. Just a quick note on that, I also remebered that he was on Z'ha'dum when Sheridan crashed the ship into the city. Morden should have died. That may not have any relevance but it was just something that I remebered.

I also agree with the fact that 'saving the eye' refers to G'Kar. But sometimes we have to look beyond the exact literal meaning. What does it imply will happen if he saves the eye or G'Kar in general. The eye just defines that it is G'Kar.

------------------
No one here is exactly what he appears.
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by lovegaribaldi:
Just a quick note on that, I also remebered that he was on Z'ha'dum when Sheridan crashed the ship into the city. Morden should have died. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Should have, but someone saved him (Technomage trilogy).


------------------
"Wild Dog! Why's it taking you so long to get ridda them?"
--
yan@ranger.b5lr.com
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

Thanks for that info. I have all the books for the three trilogies but I have only gotten the chance to read the Telepath trilogy at this point.

------------------
No one here is exactly what he appears.
 

Latest posts

Members online

No members online now.
Back
Top