"The Coming of Shadows" discussion

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for the episode 2X09, "The Coming of Shadows". Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Summary:
The Centauri emperor visits Babylon 5.

Extra reading:
The article for "The Coming of Shadows" at Lurker's Guide.

Comments

II - G'Kar's Choices

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Londo's two crucial choices in Coming of Shadows - to ask for a Shadow attack on a Narn outpost/colony, in the full knowledge that this will trigger another war with the Narn, and to keep the Emperor's last words secret while lying about them to the public - are paralleled and contrasted with G'Kar's, though not just in the obvious good/bad way you'd think. Because G'Kar starts out making the wrong choice. As Sheridan points out, he has the change to negotiate directly with the head of the Centauri Republic, and he's determined to squander it. Actually, he plans to do worse. G'Kar's plan to assassinate the Emperor - something he doesn't do spontanously, but after careful consultation with his goverment, as we see on screen, no matter what messages he prepares to the contrary - would, if carried out, have inevitably led to war between the Centauri and the Narn as well. Only in this war, the Narn would not have had anyone's sympathy; they'd have started out as the agressors. Though presumably G'Kar, who could not know about Londo's connection to Morden and hence had to assume the Centauri military was easily defeatable, as it had been all through s1 (and of course before when the Narn won their freedom), thought they didn't need any allies.

However, the Emperor "has the indecency to start dying of his own", to quote G'Kar in one of the few black humour scenes of this episode. This not only prevents G'Kar from becoming an assassin but also allows Dr. Franklin to bring the Emperor's crucial message to G'Kar, which in turn presents G'Kar with another choice. He could have dismissed the Emperor's words. He doesn't. Instead, for the first time (but not the last) he has a revelation and shows one of his great, great strengths: the ability to allow that he might have been wrong about a basic assumption he held all his life and the decision to act on it. There are few things more difficult. G'Kar, responding to the words he hears by, after pondering them, seeking out Londo and buying him a drink is doing something easily as radical as Sheridan will in s3's Severed Dreams, or as Delenn had done when entering her cocoon. But as opposed to them, G'Kar is currently starring in a tragedy, and his co-star has just made the worst of all possible choices.