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Londo's Three Chances

Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

Besides, it seems like Londo didn't really believe in his gods. I always got the feeling that he appreciated them for their cultural significance, but never truly thought they were real. Whether that was typical of Centauri or not, we don't know.

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"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:
Besides, it seems like Londo didn't really believe in his gods. I always got the feeling that he appreciated them for their cultural significance, but never truly thought they were real. Whether that was typical of Centauri or not, we don't know.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

GKarsEye,
If we believe hearsay evidence, Londo DIDN'T believe in the gods, although he may have believed the Great Maker and in the afterlife. According to Vir in "Sleeping In Light," Londo said that he never believed in any of the Centauri "gods." However, the Centauri seem to define a difference in "the Great Maker" and their "gods." This was alluded to by Garibaldi, when he said that aside from the Centauri, all other "maker" religions were monotheistic. (Can't recall the episode - it's season 4.)

Joe


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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

Yes, joe, you're right. I was referring to the pantheon of mythological figures, such as Li and whatnot. Londo did seem to believe in the Great Maker.

The impression I got about Centauri religion is that the poly-theistic, possibly naturalistic, worship of "specialty" gods (god of war, god of gambling, god of sex, etc) is a remnant from their distant past when the Centauri truly did believe in them. I can imagine a tribe of Centauri coming back from a victory against the Xon and sacrificing an animal to a god or something.

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"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>joev5638 said
I can't wait until Dark Archon gets into this thread. He is completely convinced that Londo ISN'T a bad guy. And when you get right down to it - is he, or isn't he? The line tends to fade when you look at it long enough. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Londo is NOT a bad guy, he is just a character entrenched in the belief that his races prominence and legacy is firmly tied to his involvement and actions. He cannot stand not being a part of that legacy or not being one of the reasons that it is propagated to even more greatness. I can't remember the episode but he says that as long as he has lived he has always remembered being responsible, having duty. Since his family is a very important House in Centauri history (his ancestor was once emperor), he believes that the well-being and greatness of the entire Republic fall squarely on his shoulders. In the movie ItB, he says he truly loved Centauri Prime and EVERYTHING he did, he did for her. He must do anything and everything to ensure that greatness. So his motivations are not villainous and self-absorbed, its just he lets his wishes for the greatness of his empire cloud his better judgement.

He is also not stupid, he realizes that subjugation, tyranny, and murder are not the ways of reaching his goal and the goals of his people. He would never have allowed Centauri Prime to do to the Narn what they did if Refa hadn't started the ball rolling. I believe that Londo went along with this and feigned support to retain the high influence he had gained to make sure that the Centauri did not go over the edge. He made sure Refa cut contact with the Shadows sensing that Centauri Prime would end up taking the fall, he then killed Cartagia when Cartagia told the Shadows they could stay on Celini. So although he wanted prestige and power for his peole, he knew there were avenues of wrong and right that had to be considered. I believe is character defines the word Patriot, he is a Patriot almost to a fault. Because family, joy, everything else takes second to the state. His biggest mistake was his response to Morden in ep 13 of season 1. That alone caused him all the pain he suffered to the end of his life.

As for the subject of Lady Morella's prediction, I fear that have no new insight. I believe G'kar was the first prophecy, and that he failed. Sheridan was the second, and letting G'kar kill him was the third. The reason why G'kar killing him was third was not because G'kar was his greatest enemy but because letting go of control was his greatest enemy. Also I have to disagree that had he saved G'kar's eye and not done the others, that he would be still not have been redeemed. Because the slightest change in history starts a cascade of new events that make the future afterward not possible to know.

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YOU ARE NOT READY FOR IMMORTALITY!
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

Lady Morella did say that he had three chances left to save him from the fire that awaits him at the end of his journey. She also said that he had already wasted two. She never said that he had to fulfill more than one of them for him to avoid the fore. In fact she said at the very end that 'to surrender himself to his greatest fear knowing that it would kill him' is his last chance for redemption. So obviously he would not have to do the others necessarily. It would appear though that he did take advantage of the last two chances that Lady Morella prophesied.

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

Londo killed millions of Narn for personal and political gain. Regardless of motivation what he did can't be forgiven and even he knows it.

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"I was free to wallow in my own crapulence." -Mr. Burns in "Who Shot Mr. Burns Part Two"
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

Personally, I think that Londo is neither good nor evil. If we look at the Centauri lifestyle which is reminiscent of many of our own empires. Vir would epitomise the good that they are capable of and Cartasia would be the ultimate evil.
Londo is an unfortunate mixture of both. He is a political animal through and through. Any animals first instinct would be to survive above all else. On several occasions he was referred to as a "relic " of a bygone era. Which, essentially , he was. He was born and bred to politics. The problem was that he had a conscience which we see surface from time to time. Ultimately he had to face his greatest fear. What was it? everybody has pointed out different interpretations. My personal point of view is as follows:
1- He feared a for his people (narns were only an ends to a means)
2- he feared taking a keeper as it took away his free will.
3- he feared someone else taking his place as emporeror. Simply because another person may not be able to help his people as he knows he would.
4- He feared dying, as all people do. Possibly he feared the way he would die.
5- Ultimately I think his greatest fear was within himself. Admiting he was wrong and seeking forgiveness for all his wrongs. He feared the fact that he would not be able to recieve an absolution. Which in the end I believe he did otherwise he would not have released Sheridan and given himself over to G'kar!

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"I am Grey. I stand between the candle and the star. We are Grey. We stand between the darkness and the light. I come to take the place that has been prepared for me"
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the present becomes the past, the past becomes history, history becomes legend, legend becomes myth, myth becomes obscurity! please pass the flarn!
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

just saw an ep where morden brings the shadow ships to centauri prime. Londo says he won't have anything to do with it, but morden says he will because he's afraid of what another person in his place would do. I think that sums up Londo and everything he's done.

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Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>In fact she said at the very end that 'to surrender himself to his greatest fear knowing that it would kill him' is his last chance for redemption.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And she says that he would only have to face that way of redeeming himself, "at the last ... if you have failed all the others." Which strongly suggests that if he had succeeded in any of his other chances, he would have avoided both the fire awaiting him and the need to surrender himself to his greatest fear.

Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

Which leads to the question, how would saving G'Kar's eye prevent the Drahk putting a Keeper on Londo?

Possibly by an indirect method. G'Kar may have saved the Centauri telepaths and the telepaths would have prevented the Drahk from putting Keepers on their rulers.
shocked.gif


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Andrew Swallow
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino:
And she says that he would only have to face that way of redeeming himself, "at the last ... if you have failed all the others." Which strongly suggests that if he had succeeded in any of his other chances, he would have avoided both the fire awaiting him and the need to surrender himself to his greatest fear.

Regards,

Joe

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Then how does that explain "not killing the one who is already dead?" If that indeed refers to Sheridan, than he fulfilled his second chance and didn't need to face his greatest fear.



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"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>If that indeed refers to Sheridan, than he fulfilled his second chance and didn't need to face his greatest fear.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As I noted in one of my earlier replies in this thread, Londo doesn't "not kill the one who is already dead" - he tries, but he fails.

Londo drinks his Keeper into a stupor, arranges a ship to take Sheridan off-planet, then has his final meeting with Sheridan and Delenn and orders their release.

But, before they can get to the ship, much less safely away from CP, the Keeper starts to awaken. The moment it does it will force Londo to rescind his orders and have the Sheridans killed. The whole scene with Sheridan was for nothing - he's going to be killed, and CP will never be freed. Londo has failed.

The only way he can now save his people and redeem himself is by having G'Kar kill him before the Keeper can act. Short of this, Sheridan never leaves CP alive. So Londo is brought to the third chance because he has failed all the others. If he had acted more quickly, or the Keeper had stayed unconcious a few minutes longer, Sheridan would have left the Centauri system and Londo would not have had to face his final chance at redemption.

Regards,

Joe

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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>Originally posted by A_M_Swallow:
Which leads to the question, how would saving G'Kar's eye prevent the Drahk putting a Keeper on Londo?

Possibly by an indirect method. G'Kar may have saved the Centauri telepaths and the telepaths would have prevented the Drahk from putting Keepers on their rulers.
shocked.gif


<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's a good question. Perhaps the only way to save G'kars eye would be to overthrow the emperor sooner. Just a thought. It's a good question, though.

Ideas, anyone?
crazy.gif


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"The Bible is a book: it is a good book, but is is not the only book" - Inherit the Wind

"I do not believe that the same God who
has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."—Galileo

hypatia@b5fan.b5lr.com
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

Ok Joe, I see where you at. For some reason, I was under the impression that trying to take advantage of the chances was good enough. I didn't remember the exact phrasing of the prophecy.

So, of the three chances to redeem himself:
1. Saving the eye
Londo doesn't even try
2. Not killing the one who is already dead
He tries but fails, so it doesn't count
3. His greatest fear
He tries and succeeds.

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

Did Londo actually save the one who was already dead? Technically the Sheridan that was brought before Londo that night was the Sheridan from the past. He had not yet gone to Zhadadum and had not yet 'died'. Despite making the correct choice, Londo failed because the Sheridan who left was not "the one who was already dead" at that moment.

I think Londo had already resigned himself to dying that night. In this resigning, he was giving into his greatest fear, his own death. The keeper does not fully awaken until Gkar starts strangling Londo. Once the keeper wakes up, Londo starts to strangle Gkar to fight back so in the end the keeper is in control not Londo. But because Londo has already resigned himself to his death and allowed Gkar the upper hand, the keeper can not win and Londo is able to save himself with his last chance.

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Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

Since everyone is saying that it was the third chance that Londo fulfilled then the second one was not fulfilled. Once again, it could mean Sheridan but I am still stuck on the possibility that it could be Morden. That would fit in because he DID kill Morden.

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

There was plenty of time when 'future' Sheridan was on Centauri Prime and Londo could have killed him including as Sheridan is being rushed into the ship. Also while we don't know what killing the future Sheridan would have done for the displaced Sheridan, perhaps it would simply force him to jump to another point in his life, it would have certainly been detrimental to 'future' Sheridan's health.

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"I was free to wallow in my own crapulence." -Mr. Burns in "Who Shot Mr. Burns Part Two"
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

Everyone seems to be thinking of huge political ramifications with Londo and the G'Kar's Eye Gouging incident. If the point of the prophecy was Londo's 'personal' redemption, then the act of saving G'Kar's Eye, by taking a stand against Cartagia at that moment -that would have saved Londo's soul. G'Kar's apparition points out to him when he is dying of heart failure: What Londo had to do was to take a stand for the oppressed, say no to the violence and the madness, and oppose Cartagia's will.

Surely it would not have mattered if he had been killed moments later by Cartagia for doing it or whatever, it mattered purely for his own 'salvation' and personal growth. Unfortunately he missed the significance of the moment, and his first (of the three remaining) chance at redeeming himself.

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Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Everyone seems to be thinking of huge political ramifications with Londo and the G'Kar's Eye Gouging incident.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It is likely that there would have had to be some political ramifications to Londo's actions in order for him to be even personally redeemed, because his greatest sins were political. He all-but destroyed the Narn homeworld, and he set the Centauri on a course that would lead their own near destruction. It is hard to see how he could have been redeemed without redressing or preventing some of what followed.

Certainly Londo's immediate execution for defying Cartagia would have materially changed the political situation - probably for the worse, since he was the only influential political figure with the guts to actually plot against the Emperor. A toady would probably have replaced him.

(Although there is a chance that Londo's murder might have been enough to galvanize resistance to Cartagia, and led to his overthrow by others. In that case Londo might be remembered in Centauri history as a martyr, and the new government, under Vir's influence, might have taken action to oust the Shadows, avoiding the later problems with the Drakh.)

I the suggestion I made in an earlier post, and which Channe also made, is the most likely: That intervening to save G'Kar would have forced Londo to act against Cartagia right then and there, and that this would have given him just enough extra time (if he survived) to clear out the Shadow influence before the Vorlons arrived. Under these circumstances he might have done so without killing Morden and his "companions" and thus avoided the Drakh's revenge.

Londo was concerned above all (like other Centauri) with his reputation, and his place in history. It is hard to see how any "redemption" that was purely personal, and did not include leaving him with a finally positive image in the minds of posterity, would have "counted". That's one of the reasons for the objection to "sav[ing] the eye that cannot see" being a reference to G'Kar - that this one small act of mercy didn't seem enough to redeem Londo in the way that mattered most to Londo himself. As noted above, I think it could have, and therefore believe "the eye" to have been G'Kar's.

Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net
 
Re: Londo\'s Three Chances

In "The Long Night" Londo did save G'Kar's life. This allowed Londo to kill Cartagia and save Centauri Prime from both the Shadows and the Vorlons.

First act of redemption.

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Andrew Swallow
 
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