Deadly relations: Bester Ascendant - Part 3: Synthesis

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for the third part Gregory J. Keys' Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant. Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Nitpicks first: a friend of mine who as oppposed to myself doesn't like the trilogy says this part was where her suspension of disbelief cracked, because she couldn't buy Natasha Alexander (or someone else) would not order Bester to get scanned after the Stephen Walter experience. I have to say I just about buy it because of the reason Keyes gives - Natasha's relationship with Kevin Vacit, plus it happens on Mars, not on Earth, so she actually is the highest authority and can make such an exception.

Otoh I have a nitpick of my own, which technically belongs into the next part because the gender of the child Alisha carries at the end of this part isn't mentioned yet. We later find out it's a boy, which is one hell of a baffling continuity mistake, since Bester clearly states in the s2 episode where he mentions this that he has "a wife and a daughter", and to this day I can't understand why neither the writer nor the editor caught it.

Okay, onto the actual content: I find the idea that Bester's crippled hand is pyschosomatic in nature, rather than due to biological origins or an accident, rather inspired. Both as a symbol of his denial and what he's doing to himself psychologically and emotionally, and because it makes sense to me something like this would/could happen to a telepath. The show does a lot of hand symbolism when it comes to telepaths anyway - the gloves they have to wear, putting the gloves off as a sign of intimacy/rebellion when Talia does it in s2, and that only time when we see Bester doing it is in s5 when he tries to reach Byron is signficant of his desperation there - so making Bester's hand the manifestation of his incapacity of admitting the truth about his background and fixation on the Corps as the one/only thing which defines his identity, as I said, really works for me. (So does the eventual pay off at the end of the third volume.)

His Stephen Walters encounter and self-crippling leading to his obsession with necroscans and need to go beyond the "liminality", to find out what waits there is something else that picks up a bit from the show (Lyta's explanation about death scans and her story about Bester) and develops it into something more. (It also includs a bit of long term arc that comes into play in later part when he scans the telepath who has come into contact with the buried Shadow vessel, something he'll investigate later.) This time around, his "I am empty" self realisation reminded me a bit of the G'Kar/Londo exchange in s4 ("Your heart is empty, Mollari, did you know t hat?"/"Yes, I know"); in neither case, I don't think it's actually true, but it's a way of phrasing to himself the result all the choices made so far have wrought.

[alexcat.livejournal.com]

Ah, the excuses for our dear Bester becoming the weasely little creep we met on B5. So is his obsession with the hereafter or with denying who his parents were? Or both?

This section extends the idea of Bester becoming more about himself and less about the Corps. In many ways, I find him to be as rogue as those he chases but he has a knack for only pushing his limits as far as he's allowed. I think he does care in some way for the Blips, at least more than he cares for Mundanes.

I do agree that he has no heart... I have never seen any part in B5 books or in the series that would convince me otherwise. HIs seeming love for Carolyn(?) was only a reflection of himself. Even when he talked to her when she was in stasis, he was about himself.

[thebitterguy]

I wrote a particularly unhappy review of the first book. So I always assumed that the Justin from Toronto that Bester cacks was named for me.

Probably not, but it makes a good piece of legend.