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Babylon 5 through 5x16 "And All My Dreams Torn Asunder"
I have not had a canon kick my feet out from under me like that in a long, long time. And I think most of the times I can think of were when I was still learning narrative structure, when I was encountering various plot twists for the first time. I genuinely thought I was too jaded and too wise to the ins and outs of narrative to be sucker-punched like this, and especially on a show where I not only knew some of the ending beforehand, but it signposts where it's going continually as it goes along.
And here I am with my emotions on the floor and my feeings punched right out of me.
I think in particular, I'm not sure if I've seen a canon do this to this extent solely through character relationships - not deaths, not destruction (although that's clearly coming), but simply because it's a 5-season long spearpoint building up how much these characters have gone through and how much they love each other and then taking a blowtorch to it in the most terribly in-character possible ways.
I'll talk about the episodes leading up to it, uh, eventually, because there was a lot of excellent and delightful stuff in them - Vir with the sword! The heart-wrench of Delenn tearfully hugging Londo and telling him she would never be able to do it again, which is one small step on the road to EPIC SOUL DESTRUCTION that's coming in the next episode! But I think one of the main reasons why 5x16 hit so hard and so crushingly is because the previous episodes were like that, light and warm in spite of all the hints that they're building up to something Bad. We've spent five seasons learning the ins and outs of the characters, all their best and worst qualities, all their fatal flaws. Watching them go through hell, both together and against each other, and learn to love and trust each other anyway. And then the best and worst of them explodes in this episode in a way that I think I'm going to need a while to get over.
It's soul-destroying in particular because Londo's true fatal flaw is his idealism. He believed in his government, he believed in his friends, and they both betrayed him in this episode. He didn't investigate what was going on with the ships (and G'Kar was *right*, he should have asked more questions) because he believed that whatever they were doing was justified and none of his business.
So we end up with Londo being publicly torn down by people he loved and trusted - and then doubling down on his government's cover story, driving him even farther away from them in the one last chance that Delenn et al are giving him, because he's still clinging to the duty and honor of serving Centauri Prime as his most core value, and he does actually, in the face of everything, choose to believe that his government are not lying to him. Only to have that completely blow up in his face when Delenn, who has given him every chance she can, has to pull out her final, most damning piece of evidence.
(And yet! She didn't actually give him every chance, they could have brought him in on this earlier, any of them could have. I love/hate/SCREAM that this epic clusterfuck that broke all of their hearts and tore them right down the middle was preventable, but you can also see - because they are who they are, and they only know what they know, and they're all duty-before-heart type of people - that they're doing what they feel they have to do even when you can see how much it's tearing them up, it's tearing all of them to pieces.)
But it's not just that, because if the entire episode was betrayal, tragedy, and tearing down, it wouldn't be as utterly devastating as it is - because we see so much evidence that the love is still there. In the middle of all of this, there are these heart-rending moments of quiet connection, sacrifice, and support. The look on Londo's face when G'Kar is the one friend who doesn't come by his quarters merely to shove another piece of damning evidence in his face and then testify against him. Franklin rescuing Vir from the mob. Delenn and G'Kar conspiring behind Londo's back to protect him one last time (because after all of this, after everything he's done, after everything they've done, he is still their friend and they love him and G'Kar is literally going into a situation in which he knows there's a very real chance he'll die not just to protect him but so that Londo doesn't have to do it alone).
The one thing I genuinely feel cheated out of being able to see was G'Kar showing up at the docks to go back to Centauri Prime with him, at a time when Londo believes he's completely alone, he's leaving B5 in disgrace and is basically banned from coming back, with nearly everyone he loves (other than Vir) turned against him, as far as he knows. And then G'Kar, showing up in the middle of all of that to go into mortal danger with him, to snark at him and pester him and remind him when he's going astray - in short, in all of this, nothing has changed between them, and I wish I could've seen his face when he realized it. (To some extent we do actually see that in his quarters much earlier in the episode, which may be why we don't see it at the shuttleport, but STILL.)
Which leads into Londo's last decision of the episode. He has spent the entire rest of the episode choosing duty over love, actively tearing down everything he's built on B5 out of a combination of duty and hurt, because he's angry and defensive and because his government told him to do something and, if his friends have lied to him and turned against him, and duty and honor are all he has left, then by the Great Maker he's going to follow through on it.
And then he gets the order he will not, can not follow, which is to turn over G'Kar.
"These orders come directly from the Regent. To disobey carries the penalty of death."
And that's the point where G'Kar capitulates. They both know that no matter what the Centauri claim, if G'Kar goes into those cells, he's not coming out. But he'll do it if the alternative is Londo's people going through Londo to get to him. He will walk away in chains without raising a finger to stop it if they're going to execute Londo otherwise.
"It's all right, Mollari. I've seen the inside of your cells. There's nothing there I haven't seen before."
And they are both perfectly aware that the last time G'Kar was imprisoned in those cells, he was tortured nearly to death, and they both saw Na'Toth after she was buried alive in the Centauri palace dungeons. They both know this isn't imprisonment, it's a death sentence.
And Londo won't do it. It's probably the first time he's openly refused a direct order in his life, and it's an order he's just been told he'll be executed for disobeying.
"Where I go, he goes. And where he goes, I go."
To be perfectly fair, on some level he doesn't think they'll actually follow through and imprison both of them; this is his last strand of idealism fraying and breaking. Because of course they do.
(Also, in the middle of all of this Garibaldi - and Sheridan - started an interstellar war. Go team B5.)
no subject
It does what it says on the tin!
*hugs*
and they're all duty-before-heart type of people
Except that—while it improves nothing, of course, and perhaps makes the whole thing worse—I can't see it as duty that rolled the dice on G'Kar's deciding vote to shut Londo out of the Alliance investigation in "The Ragged Edge," because he was the one who reframed the terms from the risk of loose information to the risk to Londo's life. It would have been one thing to agree to tell him nothing and let him run as an unwitting mole to see where he led them, tactically too valuable to lose. G'Kar just states that Londo is alive only because his enemies ran into the crossfire of a hitherto unknown faction in the Royal Court and if they are the ones directing the attacks on Alliance shipping, Londo doesn't stand a chance if he starts asking honest questions. We're talking about a man who ran a successful imperial assassination! Not exactly a novice to the negotiation of intrigues! And G'Kar is saying flatly that whatever intervened on Centauri Prime, it's something he can't protect Londo against: his only defense is being kept in the dark. And still, he'll return to Centauri Prime with him. That sounds a lot more like the heart to me.
The one thing I genuinely feel cheated out of being able to see was G'Kar showing up at the docks to go back to Centauri Prime with him, at a time when Londo believes he's completely alone, he's leaving B5 in disgrace and is basically banned from coming back, with nearly everyone he loves (other than Vir) turned against him, as far as he knows. And then G'Kar, showing in the middle of all of that to go into mortal danger with him, to snark at him and pester him and remind him when he's going astray - in short, in all of this, nothing has changed between them, and I wish I could've seen his face when he realized it.
You could write it or I could just stare into space for a while.
To be perfectly fair, on some level he doesn't think they'll actually follow through and imprison both of them; this is his last strand of idealism fraying and breaking. Because of course they do.
And G'Kar could have told him they would. ("Shut up.") But it wasn't a bluff. Like the Vorlon planetkiller. He knew what the right thing was and he put himself in the middle of it. Which is a cell under the Royal Palace, nothing making sense anymore, FUCK.
(Also, in the middle of all of this Garibaldi - and Sheridan - started an interstellar war. Go team B5.)
*seriously, just have some more hugs*
no subject
That ... is a really good point. Actually, it's also emblematic of G'Kar's choices in "And All My Dreams Torn Asunder" - he easily could have testified damningly against Londo, the same way Franklin and Garibaldi did. He's certainly seen enough of him. He just won't. Because you're right: Delenn and Sheridan, Garibaldi and (to an extent) Franklin are all united in duty/honor above friendship. G'Kar isn't. In a very real sense, the worst thing he does is keep Londo out of it, setting up Londo's fall and disgrace, rather than giving Londo an opportunity to die on his feet facing his people's enemies. And yet, he'd rather do that than be responsible for a decision that leads to Londo's death.
(Now that I'm thinking about it, in some sense killing Londo at the end of their timeline is the antithesis of this and a sort of redemption for it: here, he protects Londo over what would have been Londo's own wishes; there, he does as Londo asks, above all else, even though it means Londo's death and his own. I wonder if looking back on it, he might have seen this decision, completely understandable and born out of love, as a mistake that set up everything terrible that came after it.)
THIS SHOW IS EMOTIONALLY DESTROYING ME. SEND HELP.
no subject
It is the kind of dumbass move that only gets made out of love, no matter the ex post facto effort in this episode to rationalize it as strategically shrewd. Strategically shrewd would have been following Garibaldi's suggestion, giving Londo the full dossier, and trusting his proven ability to lie his face off! Keep his mouth shut! Pass false information! All the things you can do with an inside man, especially one who wouldn't want to see his planet in an all-out war with the rest of a polity it burnt most of its goodwill with years ago! But as far as I can tell, G'Kar's just thinking of that wall coming down between them and it's not a chance he's willing to take again.
here, he protects Londo over what would have been Londo's own wishes; there, he does as Londo asks, above all else, even though it means Londo's death and his own.
Three decades in love with this show, I had not drawn that parallel and will be here screaming for a bit, don't mind me.
THIS SHOW IS EMOTIONALLY DESTROYING ME. SEND HELP.
I'M SORRY I'M NOT SURE I'M HELPING.
no subject
Yes this is an excellent point