"Movements of Fire and Shadow" discussion

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for the episode 5x17, "Movements of Fire and Shadow". Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Summary:
The hostilities between the Centauri and the Alliance continue. Lyta and Franklin conduct their own investigations on the Drazi homeworld.

Extra reading:
The article for "Movements of Fire and Shadow" at The Lurker's Guide.

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

re: Garibaldi - I actually like his storyline this season, or rather, I think Garibaldi is one of the best portraits of an alcoholic in genre tv, and also this storyline makes up for the s1 episode "Survivors" where he falls off the wagon and gets back on it in record time, just one episode, and that's how alcoholism all too often is dealt with. Whereas with Garibaldi you can see it's a struggle (and the fact that Garibaldi first befriends drinks-like-a-fish Londo and then also-not-an-abstinent G'Kar is fascinating in that regard as well) to stay sober, it ties with his paranoia and general control issues which are character traits, and that he finally falls off the wagon again not directly after the s4 events (he didn't take to drink then) but after finding out that there is seemingly no way he can get revenge, that in some way he's still under Bester's control - that really made sense and worked for me. Precisely because it also came in combination of Garibaldi NOT gtting his old job back (which Zack has now), something he's familiar and comfortable with, but a new one with far wider responsibilities and apparantly no balancing or checking mechanism. Recipe for disaster, there we have it.

Otoh that Sheridan gave him that job - well, presumably Sheridan thought that if he could go from commanding a space station and being a military leader in a war situation to being a peace time president of a multi-planet alliance, why shouldn't Garibaldi make it to galactic spymaster as well? Which, well. (On a Doylist level this is JMS' problem of writing an essentially conservative narrative - the hero becomes king, the people rejoice, only villains are against him - as a story with political systems that are supposedly at least parliamentarian and where leaders are politicians who should face being questioned and doubted, and being a good battle commander by no means qualifies you to be a good democratic leader or gives you administrative talents.) More seriously, though, given that Sheridan goes from being tortured to being fine and dandy again with seemingly no interruptions, it's no wonder it doesn't occur to him that Garibaldi, someone with a history of substance abuse who just was through a horrifying experience of having his mind under control, should get therapy, not unchecked responsibility.

[widsidh.livejournal.com]

Thank you, well put.
This analysis deserves (appreciative) comment, but nothing interlligent comes to mind :-)

The hero to king ting is of course archetypal, thus going even beyond conservative storytelling. This is part of what makes B5 at interesting: the way its various arcs manage to mix mythology and political narrative, largely successfully. Which in turn underlines your point about (archetypal) Sheridan not anticipating the road that (human) Garibaldi is about to take.
As for real life war-leaders who are not peace-time politicians compare Churchill...