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B5 further thoughts
We haven't watched any more of season four yet, but I continue to ponder, as one does.
One of the things I really can't get over, as I think about Londo and G'Kar's overall relationship arc, is that they both get to go all the way on their fondest, worst fantasies about what they might like to do to their enemy, each in the metaphor of their own culture. G'Kar gets to have Londo helpless at his feet, beaten and brutalized and crying and begging for mercy. Londo is given G'Kar as a chained war prize, helpless at the mercy of the Centauri court, humiliated and brutalized and tortured. In neither case is it a dramatic cop-out, a fantasy or an alternate reality. They really do get to have that, their enemy (/friend/frenemy) bloody and brutalized and subsequently having to deal with the fallout, the pain, the recovery from all that brutality. The revenge is real.
And in both cases, fantasy become reality becomes a kick in the teeth. They both realize that they don't want that. In G'Kar's case, it's the catalyst for a moral epiphany that changes his whole life. Londo doesn't experience anything so profound, but in his case, being brought face to face with a chained, beaten G'Kar (who at this point has already had his chance to beat the shit out of Londo, who would have very valid reasons to want revenge or at least reciprocality) results in no triumph, nothing but shock and horror. It's true that there's a different kind of horror to Londo's repeated visits to an increasingly brutalized G'Kar, with Londo in his court clothes and G'Kar degraded and covered in blood. Londo doesn't come out of it unchanged, but he also doesn't come out of it hurt and damaged in the same way that G'Kar does. (We, the viewers, can see the fine line between sycophantism and death that Londo is walking, as Cartagia randomly murders courtiers who displease him; G'Kar can't, and validly so, as he's chained, bleeding and tortured, in a dungeon with no water or comforts while Londo - who could actually be doing a lot more for him than he is, but neither dares risk it nor even thinks of it - enjoys a much more physically comfortable prison.) However, it's clear that they are both having to deal with the fact that a fantasy of vengeance is very different from the reality, and neither of them (to their credit) are people who are willing or able to do anything other than forcibly reject the reality when its broken, bloody results are thrust in front of them.
And also!! As if that wasn't enough! There's also the fact that Londo's plan for G'Kar's part in Cartagia's murder involves leaning fully into the stereotype of Narns as brutal, bestial killing machines ... which G'Kar embraces because it's the path to his people's freedom, while nearly all of the actual brutality in this entire run of episodes is performed by the genteel, perfumed Centauri. (Who we also have to sympathize with! Because Londo and Vir are trying to save their world, too.) And then G'Kar, who was just forced by Londo's machinations - however necessary, from Londo's point of view - to become the face of Narn brutality in the eyes of the Centauri, is also the one person on his world who is trying to push back against the Narns' reciprocal vengeance on the Centauri. And Londo frees the Narns, at personal cost to himself, who can never do anything other than hate him because of the circumstances under which it happened.
How do you come up with this. How do you write this.
One of the things I really can't get over, as I think about Londo and G'Kar's overall relationship arc, is that they both get to go all the way on their fondest, worst fantasies about what they might like to do to their enemy, each in the metaphor of their own culture. G'Kar gets to have Londo helpless at his feet, beaten and brutalized and crying and begging for mercy. Londo is given G'Kar as a chained war prize, helpless at the mercy of the Centauri court, humiliated and brutalized and tortured. In neither case is it a dramatic cop-out, a fantasy or an alternate reality. They really do get to have that, their enemy (/friend/frenemy) bloody and brutalized and subsequently having to deal with the fallout, the pain, the recovery from all that brutality. The revenge is real.
And in both cases, fantasy become reality becomes a kick in the teeth. They both realize that they don't want that. In G'Kar's case, it's the catalyst for a moral epiphany that changes his whole life. Londo doesn't experience anything so profound, but in his case, being brought face to face with a chained, beaten G'Kar (who at this point has already had his chance to beat the shit out of Londo, who would have very valid reasons to want revenge or at least reciprocality) results in no triumph, nothing but shock and horror. It's true that there's a different kind of horror to Londo's repeated visits to an increasingly brutalized G'Kar, with Londo in his court clothes and G'Kar degraded and covered in blood. Londo doesn't come out of it unchanged, but he also doesn't come out of it hurt and damaged in the same way that G'Kar does. (We, the viewers, can see the fine line between sycophantism and death that Londo is walking, as Cartagia randomly murders courtiers who displease him; G'Kar can't, and validly so, as he's chained, bleeding and tortured, in a dungeon with no water or comforts while Londo - who could actually be doing a lot more for him than he is, but neither dares risk it nor even thinks of it - enjoys a much more physically comfortable prison.) However, it's clear that they are both having to deal with the fact that a fantasy of vengeance is very different from the reality, and neither of them (to their credit) are people who are willing or able to do anything other than forcibly reject the reality when its broken, bloody results are thrust in front of them.
And also!! As if that wasn't enough! There's also the fact that Londo's plan for G'Kar's part in Cartagia's murder involves leaning fully into the stereotype of Narns as brutal, bestial killing machines ... which G'Kar embraces because it's the path to his people's freedom, while nearly all of the actual brutality in this entire run of episodes is performed by the genteel, perfumed Centauri. (Who we also have to sympathize with! Because Londo and Vir are trying to save their world, too.) And then G'Kar, who was just forced by Londo's machinations - however necessary, from Londo's point of view - to become the face of Narn brutality in the eyes of the Centauri, is also the one person on his world who is trying to push back against the Narns' reciprocal vengeance on the Centauri. And Londo frees the Narns, at personal cost to himself, who can never do anything other than hate him because of the circumstances under which it happened.
How do you come up with this. How do you write this.
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I love how you are tracing all of this, because their relationship is never as reductive as a mirror, but they are always in synch with one another—a binary star system—and at this point it's gone far beyond personalizing the cycle of violence between the Centauri and the Narn, which by dint of metonymy it kind of looked at the start. I get incoherent about the sheer density of emotional intimacy, wanted or not. The way that the convention of "seen at their worst" encompasses being both victim and perpetrator, each with its own shames and repercussions. The constant reminders of inequality rather than some interchangeable Star Trek parable, while at the same time not pretending that individuals cannot get very fucking hurt. Everything is double-edged: what they know about one another, how they are seen by others, what they feel about so much of everything they didn't intend to share. They are bound so closely already, if you didn't know about the death-dream, it wouldn't come as a surprise.
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Emotional intimacy, yes, exactly! That's what they keep being locked into, even when they'd rather have anything else with anyone else, and they can't seem to avoid it. They're just going to keep being drawn back into each other's orbits, they're going to keep seeing each other's deepest hurt places and most shameful moments, they're still going to keep treating the other person as emotionally important, somehow, even when the emotion is mostly hate. Even G'Kar telling Londo to leave him alone after Cartagia's death is wildly dramatic and freighted with the outsized importance that they both have in each other's worlds - not just "go away" but "you are dead to me." And yet, as you say, it's not a direct mirroring, and every cycle of orbit they go through leaves them in a different place.
The constant reminders of inequality rather than some interchangeable Star Trek parable, while at the same time not pretending that individuals cannot get very fucking hurt.
Yes, I love that, as well as what you said about being both victim and perpetrator (sometimes at the same time). We see very clearly how the Centauri treat the Narn, but the Centauri are anything but cartoonishly evil, just as the Narn aren't, and we can sympathize with individual members of both in the same episode even when they're actively perpetrating war crimes on each other. I love that the show is never subtle about where its moral center lies, but is also perfectly aware that while right and wrong might be relatively simple in most situations, people aren't, and neither is the right thing to do.
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Yes! G'Kar doesn't even need to tell him anything! Londo's first instinct on glimpsing him across a crowded zócalo was to make like he hadn't! G'Kar is not exactly in danger of Londo randomly dropping by to hang out! And still Londo can't make himself not face G'Kar and G'Kar can't make himself not tell off Londo in the most existential terms possible. It's incredible.
And yet, as you say, it's not a direct mirroring, and every cycle of orbit they go through leaves them in a different place.
I really like the gravitational image of that conceptualization of it.
and we can sympathize with individual members of both in the same episode even when they're actively perpetrating war crimes on each other.
An ethical tension I feel I have seen other narratives fail hard, so really appreciate it holding up in this show.
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I love this because YES. They could just ignore each other without making a big deal about it! It's a big station! BUT NO. (Also, having now seen their next encounter, I love how it would be 1000% less conspicuous if they just sucked it up, gritted their teeth, and interacted with each other like normal people who can't stand each other but are regrettably both professionals in the same profession when they're forced into the same room in a business context. But no! They've got to be super weird and pointed about avoiding each other instead!)
As another example of the way their orbits keep bringing them back to almost the same point but not quite, I don't think season one Londo would have made himself go face G'Kar, at least not as he does here. He might have avoided the awkwardness as long as possible, made a joke out of it, and/or waited to confront him until a social context where he had the upper hand. But he wouldn't have done it like he does here, going to it like an unpleasant but necessary duty that he has to perform, letting G'Kar lambast him without pushing back.
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"But no! They've got to be super weird about it" is also one of the defining engines of their relationship! Like, sometimes it's great weird. And sometimes it's . . . that.
He might have avoided the awkwardness as long as possible, made a joke out of it, and/or waited to confront him until a social context where he had the upper hand. But he wouldn't have done it like he does here, going to it like an unpleasant but necessary duty that he has to perform, letting G'Kar lambast him without pushing back.
Yes! Or he would have gotten defensively up in G'Kar's face about it—Season 1 Londo is spectacular at making scenes. And he doesn't, here. He just waits for whatever he has coming.
A thing I keep returning to, probably because the show doesn't, is just how much courage/chutzpah/desperation it must have taken Londo to approach G'Kar about the Refa plot. I have no idea what he knew then or even knows now about G'Kar's Dust-fueled moral epiphany. If they really hadn't dealt with one another since, mostly he would have known that he got beat to snot and mind-fucked and even if he could offer the bait of a common enemy and two thousand freed Narns as a pledge of good faith, it must have felt like more than even odds that he was going to get his complicity thrown back in his face and told to fix his own war crimes. G'Kar had to put an incredible amount of trust in Londo for the plot to come off, but Londo would have had zero high ground in those negotiations. And since they hadn't yet gone through the crucible of Centauri Prime, once again, what the hell did that even look like?
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That's such a good point - season 1 Londo might have avoided it, or he might have thrown a fit about it, but what he wouldn't have done was wait quietly for whatever G'Kar thinks he deserves.
It's also a really excellent point about Londo going to G'Kar to work together against Refa, given the givens. I would love to know how that happened. (Fanfic, anyone?)
It also highlights something I find really interesting about Londo. He might find G'Kar annoying, he might underestimate him, he might ascribe various Narn stereotypes to him - but he doesn't hate him (even when he goes to kill him in 1x01, it's mostly anger-fueled, and it seems that angry honor killings are simply a thing for both their races; he'd probably have done the same with a Centauri, though he might've gone through different channels to do it) and, the really interesting one, he's not afraid of him. I don't think he's *ever* afraid of him, except in the moment when G'Kar is actively beating him to death, which is entirely understandable! But aside from some occasional nervousness about which way G'Kar is going to jump in a given moment, he's not afraid to be near him, or alone with him, even though it seems pretty clear that Centauri in general do find Narns scary and threatening, and even during various parts of canon when G'Kar has more reason than anyone to want to hurt him. Some of it may be bravado and pride and the need to save face, but what it seems to come right down to, on an instinctive level, is that he doesn't seem to think G'Kar actually would hurt him - even after G'Kar does! He's just not afraid of him at all.
Not that it wouldn't still have been a highly charged courage/chutzpah/desperation cocktail that led to him going to see G'Kar about the Refa plot, and I would've truly loved to see what their first interaction post-Dust actually looked like. But there's also that odd thread of respect and trust running through their interactions all along, even when they're at rock bottom.
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It's got to exist. It's the obvious missing scene. And if it doesn't, I'm filing an official request.
(I don't actually read that much B5 fanfic because I have such strong feelings about the show. Obviously I make exceptions.)
(even when he goes to kill him in 1x01, it's mostly anger-fueled, and it seems that angry honor killings are simply a thing for both their races; he'd probably have done the same with a Centauri, though he might've gone through different channels to do it)
Agreed. Between the aristocratic dueling culture and the tradition of political poisoning, he would have had socially acceptable options. Possibly more so, actually, than capping another species' ambassador.
I really love how going to the stars in Babylon 5 is completely decoupled from the popular sf idea that it's a sign of an advanced, i.e. implicitly wise and peaceful civilization. It's just technology! You get out to the stars, you still bring everything else with you, and that's what much of the story is about.
he's not afraid to be near him, or alone with him, even though it seems pretty clear that Centauri in general do find Narns scary and threatening, and even during various parts of canon when G'Kar has more reason than anyone to want to hurt him. Some of it may be bravado and pride and the need to save face, but what it seems to come right down to, on an instinctive level, is that he doesn't seem to think G'Kar actually would hurt him - even after G'Kar does! He's just not afraid of him at all.
Yes! That's really true. And now that you identify it, it's another part of what makes the assault in "Dust to Dust" so shocking—after that one early flare of the two of them at one another's literal throats, all their violence with one another has been verbal. Even Londo in that excruciating scene after the surrender of Narn, incarnating the worst face of his government as he demands G'Kar be surrendered to the Centauri for trial and never-stated obvious execution, is doing it all with civil, legal words. Personal physical threat hasn't been their vibe. Even trapped in the elevator, Londo feels in danger of his life because the elevator is on fire. Being trapped in the elevator with G'Kar just means that he's going to die from the fire while incredibly annoyed.
But there's also that odd thread of respect and trust running through their interactions all along, even when they're at rock bottom.
G'Kar thinking to note Londo's loneliness at the start of Season 4! Why should he even care? But he's dead right and somehow it matters to him.
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I like that too. In fact, one of the themes that is emerging throughout the show - Orion and I were just talking about this, in fact - is that humans are actually better at interspecies diplomacy and relations than most spacefaring species tend to be, which is an absolutely fascinating thing for a scifi show to call out as a human superpower, and I especially love that B5 does this against a backdrop of humans being everything that humans realistically are: it's not a Star Trek utopian future, it's a future in which Earth is currently embroiled in a bloody civil war and we've also had everything from xenophobic cultists to soldiers dying right and left in pointless ground offensives to Psi Corps and everything that goes along with that. So it's not "humans are just that good," it's "humans are everything that humans are *and also* are good at this."
But also, none of the main aliens in the show are one-note at all. They're *all* capable of a wide range of emotions, of being good or bad people, of loving and making better choices, or doing terrible things. (I like that all the humanoids in the show seem to laugh, and all of them cry, and they seem to have a high level of biological compatibility in what kind of foods and environment is comfortable for them. They're more alike than they are different, and that's part of the theme too, even while the differences are not insignificant or immaterial.)
As you say, it's just technology! Humans got jump gates from the Centauri. The Narn were apparently a peaceful agricultural people until the Centauri showed up; now they have a reputation as arms dealers and warmongers. Recent events have shown that the Minbari basically slapped a veneer of peace over simmering ethnic tensions that exploded almost immediately as soon as they were no longer held in check, and they also came very close to genociding humanity. They're all just trying to do their best in an imperfect universe.
Even trapped in the elevator, Londo feels in danger of his life because the elevator is on fire. Being trapped in the elevator with G'Kar just means that he's going to die from the fire while incredibly annoyed.
This is just so completely them. I love it. But also, yes. He doesn't want to get into the elevator with G'Kar not because he's physically afraid of being alone in an elevator with him, but because it would be unbearably awkward.
G'Kar thinking to note Londo's loneliness at the start of Season 4! Why should he even care? But he's dead right and somehow it matters to him.
Yes! That little flash of sympathetic empathy is wonderful. As always, he just can't *not* hook into Londo somehow, even when they're on completely separate trajectories.
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I really love this crystallization of it. And once again, it's not grimdark! It's just imperfect. It's what we've got.