Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester - Prologue and Part 1, Homecoming

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for the prologue and first part of Gregory J. Keys' Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester. Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Yes, the literary critic bit was quite a coup. (And I bet Keys enjoyed writing those fictional put downs Bester comes up with for fictional works as well. :) (And speaking of writers unable to resist making something like this into a cheap joke, note that Keys' journalists are quite different from JMS' journalists; in fact, that very entertaining conversation Bester has with his editor about why B. never writes any good reviews when it turns out there are books he loved reading, but doesn't review as opposed to the bad books he can slam with justification, ending in Bester saying that there'd be no point because nobody ever improved their writing via applause, is the exact opposite in spirit to the scene where Delenn slams down the historians for critisizing Sheridan and says all they ever do is complain and put down and that Sheridan was a good man.

I kind of like it being left vague as to how much Bester was actually involved in the war, and how much of the focus on him is just Garibaldi’s personal vendetta and the desire by the Corps’ successors to find a scapegoat. I’ve mentioned before that there’s no real evidence on the show that Bester’s anywhere near the mover and shaker Sheridan and co. think he is; he seems to have spent most of his resources in the fights against the Shadows and Edgar’s plot.

True, but while Begay (and Matheson in the unfilmed script written for Crusade where the Excalibur runs into Bester and has to team up with him to defeat the obligatory third party problem) considering Bester one of the worst doesn't necessarily tells us this was so, Bester's inner Byron accuses him "you turned the camps into killing fields" during the war, and we're in Bester's pov for this, and Bester's reply towards his inner Byron is not "oh no I didn't!" but that he did it after realising the Byron and then Lyta led rogues were beyond reintegration into the corps and so he had to kill them to end the war. Which does tell me that Bester's personal guilt is there and considerable, though yes, I doubt he was the "leader" in the sense Sheridan & Co. thought he was.