"The Quality of Mercy" discussion

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for the episodes 1X21, "The Quality of Mercy". Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Summary:

Talia is helping with the trial of a murderer, while Franklin investigates a healer working in DownBelow.

Extra reading:

The article for "The Quality of Mercy" at Lurker's Guide.

Note! Based on the results of the poll earlier this week, I'm no longer making a 'no spoilers' posts for the episodes as no-one was using them.

Comments

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

This episode kind of feels to me like something that’s been rewritten a few too many times – there’s a couple of interesting ideas in the main plot, but they seem to get lost in a lot of other stuff.

The whole mind-wipe thing is interesting, but the episode doesn’t do anything with the idea other than establishing its existence – it wouldn’t have changed anything if the murderer had instead been sentenced to conventional execution. Season 3’s “Passing Through Gethsemane” would deal with the idea in a bit more detail, but the idea still feels to me rather undeveloped in the series.

Mindwipes strike me as a little too high-tech for the Earth Alliance; it’s apparently not a telepathic procedure, Talia’s just there to perform before and after scans to check it worked right. Shouldn’t that sort of mental manipulation technology have had effects and applications elsewhere?

Not to mention the very, very, creepy idea that the new personality would be assigned to some sort of role in service to the community… Effectively, the EA uses them as slaves. And if you can replace people’s minds with servile personalities for service roles – well, why not use them in the military too? Why should honest men and women give their lives when there’s a ready supply of human trash who can be forced into service? What’s that? You’ve created a military programmed to be unquestioningly loyal to the government, its numbers bolstered every day by those sentenced to have their bodies used against their will by the state they opposed? Huh, how about that…

The whole idea opens up possibilities far worse than President Clark’s rather generic dictatorship…

(Of course, we can compare with the Shadow’s use of sapient beings as the core of their ships. Except the Shadows are portrayed as unquestionably evil in that habits, whereas I don’t believe either this episode or “Gethsemane” were supposed to be interpreted as foreshadowing that the Earth Alliance is rotten to the core…)

Oh, and then there’s the social implications. Just how common is mind-wiping? How likely are you to run into someone sentenced to it? I’m imagining a society where janitors and the like are treated even worse than in our culture, because everyone ‘knows’ they’re all just mind-wiped murderers and rapists. Hell, why not beat them up every now and then; not like they’re real people after they’ve been processed, after all…

Um. Anyway, the Londo plot’s fun! Setup’s a little contrived, though – is Londo really going to proudly report home that he’s improved the Centauri Republic’s diplomatic standing by taking other ambassador’s aide’s out drinking?

Minor notes:

- Hey, it’s the Centauri Regent! Same character, I wonder? He’s not as nervous as the regent is, but then, he’s never had to deal with Cartagia…

- I do like the implications that B5’s social structure is something of a rush job that doesn’t work very well in practice – they’ve apparently got a fully staffed judiciary, but don’t actually have the facilities or the funding for proper sentencing…

- It occurs to me that the odds of *any* combination of cards, be they a good hand or not, are astronomical.

- Is it just me, or in profile does Londo look uncannily like Nicolas Sarkozy?

- I hadn’t realised until a long shot just how long Londo’s… appendages are meant to be… the deck of cards is right across the table from him!

- So who exactly designs a tool for capital punishment that comes complete with a control that reverses who gets killed by it?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Good thoughts on all the possible implication of the EA using mindwipes on a regular basis, and by good I mean creepy, as they should be.

Is it just me, or in profile does Londo look uncannily like Nicolas Sarkozy?

Arggh, why did you have to say that? Now I cannot unsee!

I hadn’t realised until a long shot just how long Londo’s… appendages are meant to be… the deck of cards is right across the table from him!

Well, she said in a very serious tone, presumably they expand and shrink like the human variety, and he finds cheating at cards very stimulating.

[amatara.livejournal.com]

Aaaaaargh! I just lended my S1 boxset to a friend (whom I'm trying very hard to convert to B5-dom) so there's no way for me to rewatch these now... Which is torture, since I do want to see Londo cheating at cards and saying "touch this" and him and Lennier sitting sheepishly in Sinclair's office and all that other stuff and get fannish about that! :'-(

Anyway, as far as memories go: I just realized I hardly remember anything about the A-plot, so guess it wasn't a good one. Also, I wasn't really a fan of Franklin's character at that time, due to the general preachiness, so that might've had something to do with it. Plus, that whole thing with "doctor-looks-at-pretty-girl-and-they-fall-head-over-heels-in-love-and-have-sex-and-then-never-see-each-other-again", which they repeated several times of the course of the show... was kind of "meh" even the first time they did it (which was here, I think).

I hadn’t realised until a long shot just how long Londo’s… appendages are meant to be… the deck of cards is right across the table from him!

Aren't they supposed to be somewhere in a pouch, um, down there? Seems horribly impractical, having to drag 6 metres of appendages with you without somewhere to put them (even when you're wearing these really high trousers like Londo does)... I wonder: is that why there are hardly any skinny Centauri around? That it's not that they're all fat, just that they're all really... virile? I can see why Cartagia would be the skinny type, then! :-)

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

I wasn't really a fan of Franklin's character at that time...

Franklin's really the only character I never entirely warmed to. I don't know if it was intentional - there is the whole bit with him going walkabout and meeting himself, and himself basically saying "You're a dick and I don't like you" - but even knowing he's meant to be kind of unsympathetic, I still don't find myself particularly interested in him...

And B5's generally very good about not having characters having one-off romances that are never mentioned again, so it just seems to stick out even more when Franklin has so many.

That it's not that they're all fat, just that they're all really... virile?

Yeah, that makes sense to me - I mean, six several meter long appendages have to go *somewhere* when not in use!