And that's so physicalized for a mental assault. [...] it does sound like a deliberate choice to contrast with the show's own established shorthand for even invasive telepathy. I do not remember, for example, anyone getting a Cronenbergian nosebleed after a particularly hard scan.
Yeah, and it makes the entire sequence really vividly memorable, much more so than if it had been a relatively bloodless mental invasion. (I also realize that, eight episodes further along, they _still_ haven't been in the same room together since this happened; they're both off on other plot tracks right now.)
I do not think it is a spoiler to say that while great and often difficult moral complexity governs both of their storylines, quite a lot of their mutual universe is also dictated by black comedy and triple-distilled id.
WHEEEEEEE.
Londo in the first season managed to pass out flat on a table in front of at least two people with whom he would form—until he detonated them—genuine friendships!
Yes! They know what he's like, or what he was like at that point, and it didn't alienate them, at least nothing whatsoever like the war crimes and genocide did.
He has that past as a pilot and a duellist which means he can never have been a total lightweight
I am so intrigued by that aspect of Londo's past, honestly! It sounds like he must have cut quite a dashing figure as a young man, and I think it's such a good choice that we meet him not as that version of himself, but as a dissolute, middle-aged man whose flamboyant, "live fast die young" youth has fallen into a more pathetic form of drinking and whoring as he tries to hold on to the frayed edges of his brighter past.
And yeah, I agree about Londo's innocent/idealistic side, and corresponding disillusionment when the world didn't live up to his ideals. In an interesting way he's kind of a "mirror darkly" reflection of the more idealistic set of protagonists, who managed to weather the entire organization they had devoted their lives to going full fascist and throwing them to the wolves, came out the other side still holding to their ideals, and built something new. In his own way, Londo is trying to do that too, but it's dark and distorted and awful.
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Yeah, and it makes the entire sequence really vividly memorable, much more so than if it had been a relatively bloodless mental invasion. (I also realize that, eight episodes further along, they _still_ haven't been in the same room together since this happened; they're both off on other plot tracks right now.)
I do not think it is a spoiler to say that while great and often difficult moral complexity governs both of their storylines, quite a lot of their mutual universe is also dictated by black comedy and triple-distilled id.
WHEEEEEEE.
Londo in the first season managed to pass out flat on a table in front of at least two people with whom he would form—until he detonated them—genuine friendships!
Yes! They know what he's like, or what he was like at that point, and it didn't alienate them, at least nothing whatsoever like the war crimes and genocide did.
He has that past as a pilot and a duellist which means he can never have been a total lightweight
I am so intrigued by that aspect of Londo's past, honestly! It sounds like he must have cut quite a dashing figure as a young man, and I think it's such a good choice that we meet him not as that version of himself, but as a dissolute, middle-aged man whose flamboyant, "live fast die young" youth has fallen into a more pathetic form of drinking and whoring as he tries to hold on to the frayed edges of his brighter past.
And yeah, I agree about Londo's innocent/idealistic side, and corresponding disillusionment when the world didn't live up to his ideals. In an interesting way he's kind of a "mirror darkly" reflection of the more idealistic set of protagonists, who managed to weather the entire organization they had devoted their lives to going full fascist and throwing them to the wolves, came out the other side still holding to their ideals, and built something new. In his own way, Londo is trying to do that too, but it's dark and distorted and awful.