Babylon 5 5x17-18

[sholio]

Watch Babylon 5, she said. It will be fun, she said.


How is it that the show can tell you exactly where Londo's storyline is going and then it finally gets there and it's just a knife right in the heart?

That last goodbye with him and G'Kar, especially - he can't tell him anything, he can't tell him why, all he can do is try to minimize the damage he's afraid he's going to do to burn that relationship down in the future (as far as he knows, G'Kar is going to hate him sufficiently to kill him 15 years from now; he STILL DOESN'T KNOW THE DETAILS). And then openly pushing his friends away, because he needs them as alienated as possible so they're not in danger (except they have no idea why he's doing it, just that he's gone completely cold and he's burning down the Centauri's chance of connecting again with the Alliance). And Londo walking alone across the empty courtyard, and that last shot of him alone on the throne (except terribly not alone) - _good god_.

The show straight up tells you it's going to be a tragedy from mid season three and it's still a shot straight to the heart!

I can't really imagine what the last four episodes are going to be - I feel like the show for me wraps up here. I mean, considering that we do know the broad strokes of the details from the flash-forward in season three, I guess I can look up fanfic now without fear of spoilers, at least for the Narn-Centauri set of characters.

(It also rips my heart out that we don't even get the potential of Londo bonding with the other characters in the remaining 15 years we know he lives - he's got to hold them at arm's length for their own safety, and while they'll probably run into each other for political reasons over the years, he's got to play cold whenever he's around them to stop them from finding out what's going on or getting too close. GAAAAAAAAAAAHH. I like to think he'll get some small moments of joy and connection now and then anyway - he's told that his time will mostly be his own when the Drakh don't need him to do something for them - but AUGH.)

Apart from the emotional devastation of it all - I enjoyed Franklin and Lyta's trip to the Drazi homeworld (although what they found wasn't at all what I expected them to find; I still thought they were going to find out about the Drakh and I couldn't believe they didn't! (Although the Shadow tech still being around is interesting.) I'm obviously relieved and delighted the Centauri actually did rescue Delenn. Londo rescuing G'Kar during the bombardment of Centauri Prime was DELIGHTFUL.

And I'm glad I know the full arc of Londo's storyline now. It's devastating and tragic and breaks my heart, and I didn't want it to go there but it went exactly where it needed to go. And now I will be merrily contemplating fixits, because I think I need them to cope ...

Comments

[sovay]

They might still bicker, jab verbal barbs at each other, and sometimes very genuinely fight and hurt each other. But they also would very visibly and demonstrably die for each other, sacrifice for each other, and choose each other over everything else that has been important to them throughout the series.

Yes. The signal underneath the noise, even if the noise is itself an important component of their relationship. (It's clear even before either of them would identify it as such that stupid arguments are one of their love languages.) By the end it's unbreakable. And that sort of bond does not just drift with distance or time.

And one thing I discovered was that a particular category of fixit AU exists which is basically G'Kar staying on as Londo's bodyguard in a Drakh-free world in which Londo is a much less dysfunctional flavor of emperor, presiding over a less dystopic Centauri Prime.

I can absolutely see why a reader would want that. The tragedy is brilliant, but God damn, Londo with G'Kar as a court fixture would have been one of the great Emperors of Centauri Prime, the right one even for the moment of rebuilding. He had to put himself back together. Both of them did.

He would have stayed, happily, surrounded by the ancestral enemies that he's spent his whole life hating, protecting one of those enemies. He ended up physically on the other side of another war with the Narn - not precisely participating on the other side, but protecting the Emperor-elect of their enemies. He did it because he wanted to and because Londo needed him, and he would have kept doing it straight through peacetime if he had been able to.

Yes! Basically just yes. And continuing to work on his book all the while.

Their relationship never could fail to have a slightly uneasy side because of the history between their people, and them personally; as in the Na'Toth episode, they would always be in danger of stumbling into hidden traps and pitfalls, and having to work through the emotional fallout from it.

(Which I would trust them to do, as often as it happened.)

But I figured canon was going to give me hints and I would have to read full-blown love into it. I didn't expect this. The only thing they don't do is use the actual word. But it's all very visibly there on the screen.

It's there in those last exchanges of looks, if everything else flew over the viewer's head. But I really did have the anything-dar of a rock in high school and I had seen it.

[sholio]

It's clear even before either of them would identify it as such that stupid arguments are one of their love languages.

Yes! And that's also on display in their goodbye scene with "I'm a better person" / "You ingrate!" Sometimes the way you thank someone for saving your life is not with words but by poking at them to make them snap back and laugh when they look like they're about to fracture down the middle.

By the end it's unbreakable. And that sort of bond does not just drift with distance or time.

YES. In all of it, for all the tragedy of the way it ended up, we (and they) always have that. Fifteen years apart - and presumably, fifteen years of Londo becoming increasingly erratic and tyrannical and driving his world into a flaming trash pit - couldn't shatter their bond or shake G'Kar's willingness to give up everything for Londo, one final time.

Londo with G'Kar as a court fixture would have been one of the great Emperors of Centauri Prime, the right one even for the moment of rebuilding. He had to put himself back together. Both of them did.

He would! Canon is what canon is, and their tragedy is beautifully written and thematically solid. (Even if I have a few quibbles along the way with the rest of the cast allowing it to unfold.) But part of the tragedy is how truly *good* at ruling his world Londo could have been, after all he's been through and all he's learned. Especially with G'Kar around to be his conscience and his rock, he could have built new bridges between Narn and Centauri, and forged his world into a rightful part of the Alliance once again, and a more peaceful and freer place than it has ever been. As it is, Vir will have to do it. But Londo was fully capable of it. Season one Londo could never; season five Londo absolutely could have, and would have loved doing it. He just didn't get the chance.

Also, G'Kar would absolutely have enjoyed helping him do that. I think another thing I didn't anticipate at this point in canon is that G'Kar really has nowhere to be and nothing he wants to do, so he might as well find new purpose in helping the Centauri rebuild, to annoy them and watch Londo's back. Who knows how a couple of decades on-and-off Centauri Prime would have changed him, and them.

(Which I would trust them to do, as often as it happened.)

Yes!

It's there in those last exchanges of looks, if everything else flew over the viewer's head.

The way they both hold each other's gaze as long as they can, until Londo has to visibly tear himself away to go toward, effectively, his execution. My heart.

[sovay]

(word choice and adding thoughts, as always)

Look, I'm just co-signing this entire comment and then going off to cry in my fictitious beer.

[sholio]

Just for a further stab in the heart, when Londo comes in and G'Kar is sitting on the edge of the couch as opposed to lying down as we last saw him, I'm reasonably confident he's in the act of gearing himself up to get up no matter how badly hurt he is, and go off to find Londo.