Lyta
Moderator
B5\'s arc (JMS post)
Jan.19.2003
<font color="orange">Given Sheridan's knowledge of the future from this episode, how is it that he is unable to put two-and-two together in Season 5 when it is learned that the Centauri are behind the attacks on Alliance ships AND that left-over Shadow technology is involved? How come he was unable to realize that the future he saw 3 years ago was now beginning to take place? Why wasn't a force sent right then and there, to drive away the "dark servants of the shadows" that Londo spoke of in the WWE time-flash?
First and foremost, he had actually very little information to go on; the viewers have more, and that's where it can get confusing as to why he doesn't act upon return. Our knowing isn't the same as his knowing.
That flash took place 20 years down the road. How does that tell him the Shadows are there now, 20 years in the past? They could have come within the last 10 years, for all Sheridan knows. The Cenauri have always been an aggressive race, they were aggressive even before the Shadows, there's no direct tie there. Nor is there any tie in what Londo says to Sheridan and the attacks on Alliance ships in the present, 20 years earlier. He can't connect all the dots because all the dots aren't there.
The notion of the audience having information that the characters don't is key to a lot of Greek tragedy, and that's kind of the mode I was going for here.</font color>
Jan.19.2003
<font color="orange">Given Sheridan's knowledge of the future from this episode, how is it that he is unable to put two-and-two together in Season 5 when it is learned that the Centauri are behind the attacks on Alliance ships AND that left-over Shadow technology is involved? How come he was unable to realize that the future he saw 3 years ago was now beginning to take place? Why wasn't a force sent right then and there, to drive away the "dark servants of the shadows" that Londo spoke of in the WWE time-flash?
First and foremost, he had actually very little information to go on; the viewers have more, and that's where it can get confusing as to why he doesn't act upon return. Our knowing isn't the same as his knowing.
That flash took place 20 years down the road. How does that tell him the Shadows are there now, 20 years in the past? They could have come within the last 10 years, for all Sheridan knows. The Cenauri have always been an aggressive race, they were aggressive even before the Shadows, there's no direct tie there. Nor is there any tie in what Londo says to Sheridan and the attacks on Alliance ships in the present, 20 years earlier. He can't connect all the dots because all the dots aren't there.
The notion of the audience having information that the characters don't is key to a lot of Greek tragedy, and that's kind of the mode I was going for here.</font color>
