Up to Sic Transit Vir.

[conuly]

Is it just me, or did we somehow jump straight from "Vir's fiancee has a Narn tied up in her room" to "Now the marriage has been postponed indefinitely and they're saying goodbye" without addressing what happened to her would-be victim?

I mean, I guess Vir called security? And maybe stashed her away in the interim so she wouldn't pick up even more enemies, since she probably has plenty enough? Not that she doesn't deserve every last one of them....

I have found that I am not the only one to refer to Vir as a marshmallow with a core of steel. Londo should respect him more.

On the Earth-front, things are as bad as they are at this point in the series. I've been thinking about the short story, A Sound of Thunder, pretty much continuously since 2016. What Ray Bradbury doesn't seem to have realized when he wrote it is that if the race is between the fascist and somebody else, even if the fascist loses, things have already gone very badly wrong. You can't blame the butterflies for that!

And so it is on B5 as it is in real life. The Shadows didn't make the Centauri invade people on twelve fronts, and they didn't make most of the Earth military and the population support Clark, albeit with varying degrees of genuine enthusiasm, no more than they've made any of the real-world coups and conquests happen. No, they just made it easier for those seeds to grow.

But it's easier to blame the Shadows.

*********************

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Comments

So that's what became of BASF

[moxie_man]

Remember the commercials for BASF back in the 90's. Things like: We didn't make the cooler, we made it cooler...at BASF we don't make a lot of the products you buy. We make them better.

Your post. It's obvious! The Shadows are the BASF of B5.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Getting to the point that there is a battle with fascists, instead of keeping them checked and hemmed, means you've got housekeeping should you score some measure of not lose.

[chelseagirl]

I wish my partner was on DW -- things you are saying about B5 keep echoing what they are saying. They're at the end of season 4 in their latest rewatch.

[selenak]

I'm going with "Vir called Garibaldi and asked him not to arrest Lyndisti, promising she would never ever set foot on the station again" myself.

My big problem with the ending of Sic Transit Vir is that it's such a good character episode for Vir right until the last scene, when his development is thrown away for the sake of a funny punchline. "Every relationship has their problems" because Lyndisti can kiss well, after he's seen she enjoys torturing and killing people? This from the same Vir who'll go from "maybe we should find another way" to "let's kill him!" re Cartagia after Cartagia proved his callousness with a few lines of dialogue?

I mean, yes, Vir loves Londo despite knowing all Londo is responsible for, but he doesn't see Londo enjoying other people's suffering - which is what Cartagia does in the scene that changes Vir's mind, and what he sees Lyndisti doing in this episode. And that's why I intensely dislike the episode's ending.

even if the fascist loses, things have already gone very badly wrong.

Well, yes, she says, being German and living in Munich, where Dachau is one of the suburbs. I think this idea that you need a secret organisation or aliens or both for people to become fascists - not that I think B5 is saying that, but some fans might read it this way - is very Anglosaxon in its self image.

[conuly]

"Every relationship has their problems" because Lyndisti can kiss well, after he's seen she enjoys torturing and killing people?

I didn't read it that way, I heard it as Vir, being the sweetheart he is, is hoping she can change - the same way he hopes still that Londo can change, can somehow even now find his way to making better choices.

Assuming we can take his words at face value anyway. Frankly, I've never thought the opening shot of a room full of Narns fits with his underground railroad to begin with, and have always wondered if he had another secret plan that he didn't fess up to. Honestly, Vir's cover story was good enough that it doesn't make sense for him to have spilled his guts like that.

Either I chalk this up to slightly inconsistent writing, which I am loath to do, or I assume that Vir is smarter than anybody realizes. And if that's the case, he definitely doesn't want to piss off Lyndisty when he's almost gotten rid of her.

[greghousesgf]

I'm met Stephen Furst, I used to work at Mrs. Fields and I sold him cookies, he was super nice.

[conuly]

I'm sure he was, and I'm glad to hear it. As a general rule, though, I try to avoid conflating the actor with the character. Many people sorta do that, and I've always felt it's a little disrespectful to the real person who plays the role.

[brokenallbroken]

JMS has said for several different actors he managed to find people who were basically their characters. Stephen Furst had the most Vir audition ever (didn't know about the hair, got something in his eyes in the bathroom so he was bloodshot and couldn't see, spent the entire time apologizing), and a lot of Garibaldi's lines were things Jerry Doyle said at lunch. OTOH, CC seems a lot less repressed and pessimistic than Ivanova.

[shadowkat]

Huh, insightful commentary on both Sound of Thunder, and Bab5, and our current situation.

The Shadows didn't make the Centauri invade people on twelve fronts, and they didn't make most of the Earth military and the population support Clark, albeit with varying degrees of genuine enthusiasm, no more than they've made any of the real-world coups and conquests happen. No, they just made it easier for those seeds to grow.

But it's easier to blame the Shadows.

All the spidery shadows asked was "What do you Want?" While the Vor (I think that's their name) asked "Who are You?" I saw both as a type of angelic force, who did nothing more than plant seeds in the consciousness of the sentient beings...and then sit back to see what happened.

Anyhow, I like your statement - "it's easier to blame the Shadows" because otherwise the Centauri, the humans, etc - would have to look at themselves and what they've done. And take responsibility for it.

We're here for the choices we've made along the way, not some higher being or external force.

Bab5 was at its most fascinating when it played with those questions of accountability and choice.
I kind of want to re-watch it now..

[conuly]

The Vorlons.

As for rewatching you, I warn you - HBO Max has THE worst interface.

It's easier to blame the Shadows

[smokingboot]

Yes. Yes it is.

[shadowkat]

Hmm. I've liked HBO Max for other programs. So that's interesting, maybe the transfer for Bab5 didn't work well? I thought Bab5 was on Prime for some reason?

[conuly]

No, when I say "the interface" I mean "this is the only place I've ever seen where all the letters are arranged in a straight row rather than in some sort of grid or, better yet, a keyboard layout".

[shadowkat]

Do you mean the search engine? So, it's hard to find?

I've noticed that items are really hard to find on HBO Max, harder than Netflix and Prime, which is saying something.

[conuly]

Typing things into it is a huge pain and a half. (It's also slow, but that's just the icing on the cake.)

[shadowkat]

Right now, I think Hulu and Disney are easiest of the interfaces. Bad news on HBO Max - since it has a ton of content. Sounds like it borrowed from Amazon, which is horrible too.

The problem with these streaming services isn't enough content - it's finding it. I can never find anything on Netflix. And my mother can't find Friday Night Lights on Hulu (I can't help her over the phone - nor can I get down there to help her.)

Re: So that's what became of BASF

[conuly]

So... they're like oil dealers?

[conuly]

Yeah, except the good guys can't do the same sort of housekeeping as the fascists.

[mindstalk]

Both sides did a lot more than ask questions. The Vorlons meddled with species-- including abducting people to work on -- to give us telepathy and link themselves with angels, and the Shadows directly kill a lot of people.

[shadowkat]

I admittedly don't remember it that well - the last time I was saw it was sometime in 1990s Or thereabouts. Over twenty years ago. I have troubles remembering what happened in shows I saw last week.

Re: So that's what became of BASF

[moxie_man]

Evil "oil" dealers on steroids. *nod*

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

They strip the guilty of their plumage, and make them bear the mark of their actions.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I can't recall if I've seen this episode; I've never done a proper straight through and certainly not a rewatch.

Given the Centauri as I sussed them, Vir may have many things to balance. Dynastic issues/daisy-chained mutual benefit pacts. Maybe some of the Narns needed a dominatrix or a deep muscle massage? They may have an understanding, so he can stay on the station without the tenticular obligations, while giving her cover to pursue her activities which may not be as they seem.

[cellio]

A line was accidentally cut about the Narn recovering in Medlab (source).

Neither the Shadows nor the Vorlons made people do things. They just..nudged. Nudged people who wanted to be nudged. They brought out people's inner tendencies and then amplified the heck out of them.

Fascism is insidious, and the Shadows were very good at it. As are, sadly, many in our world too.