b5_revisited | "Deathwalker" discussion [spoilers]

This is one of the first episodes I remember clearly; this and Believers, coming up next, that made me realize that this was a thinking person's show.

The dilemma Sinclair faces, the choices he and the others make, poor Lennier being put in the middle, Deathwalker's 'momument' and her quite accurate assessment of the reaction to her anti-agapic, the Vorlon reaction; all complex and true to life.

The concept of the vickers is a fascinating one, and I would love to know what use Kosh planned for his recording of Talia's fear.

The Wind Swords appear again, and obviously they have passed along what they know of Sinclair (which is how much?) to Jha'dur.

The revelations about the other races' actions or lack of same during the Dilgar war.

Sinclair's comment on politics and morality seldom being on the same side is echoed by Vir in Season Four. I love the symmetry in so much of the writing. Reflections of reflections.

And I love Kosh here so much. The Hour of Scampering and the Hour of Longing; all the aphorisms and convoluted sayings, the nonsense of Abutt's words, Kosh's treatment of Talia, and his showing up at the end to watch Jha'dur's demise. 'You are not ready for immortality' implies that others are? have been? he is?

All in all, one of my favorite first season episodes.

I like the Kosh episodes... though Talia is certainly not one of my favorite characters. I always found her petulant and whiny. I do find myself trying to visualize a Vorlon scampering...

Sinclair certainly passed the test in this one... faced with a dilemma between his duty and what he believed to be right and wrong, he came up with a compromise that was fair as much as it could be. The Vorlons made it all a moot point. Kosh said 'You're not ready for immortality.' I wonder what makes one ready...

There are more questions than answers in this episode... like in life. Ends were not neatly tied up. What was Kosh up to with the Vicar and Talia? What were his plans for what he got from inside Talia's mind? Who was not ready for immortality? Men? Narns? Everyone on B5? Why was Delenn away at this time? What did the Minbari get from the Deathwalker?

Answers?

Who was not ready for immortality? Men? Narns? Everyone on B5?

All of the "younger races" I think.

Unless my memory deceives me (it has been a while...), the implications later on in the series is that the Vorlons/Old Ones have something close to immortality (although they can still be killed by force). And the end of Deconstruction suggests that eventually, others will join them, too.

I agree, it does leave open the question as to what *makes* one ready...

I do always think of Deconstruction and one million years in the future when men look quite like the beings of light that Vorlons are. Perhaps wisdom only comes in the fullness of time.

You could argue that wisdom isn't exactly what the Vorlons and Shadows display in season 4 ;-)
- which reminds me...(see below)

For me, this episode was the first indication of the quasi-parental role played by the Vorlons. They seem so distance but here we are shown that they are paying attention.

I thought this episode was absolutely excellent, from Jha'dur's alien makeup (a sort of scary big cat), Na'toth's attack on her (one of the more convincing fight scenes in the show), through the moral/ethical dilemmas posed by her discovery to the Vorlons' dismissive execution of her at the end.

I'd thought this episode was a one-off MotW type thing, but during this rewatch have realised that there really is no such animal in B5. We don't just learn more about the characters here, including gaining further evidence of Sinclair's considerable moral rectitude, but also learn more about the alien races (the Minbari involvement with the Dilgar through the Windswords is a very big revelation, as up to now, we've only seen the Minbaris' more enlightened side through the medium of Delenn). We also get another flash of perspective, as we did in the Sigma 957 scene in Parliament of Dreams, about how a more advanced race like the Vorlons views those they consider lesser than themselves. Kosh reveals this both in his treatment of Talia and again at the end, when he declares that the other races are not ready for immortality. This is the first real evidence of the Vorlons' paternalistic attitude, whereas previously they had just been distant and mysterious.

The actress who plays Jha'dur (yet another Brit thesp), is excellent. In fact, it's a great episode, as is Believers, in both of which no attempt is made to dodge or mitigate some very unpleasant realities.

Edited 2009-03-23 09:29 (UTC)

I admire JMS for happily jumping into the muddy waters of morality time and time again. He seems to revel in the grey!

That's for sure. Doesn't shrink from the consequences or try to find an easy way out, as happens so often in TV.

Na'toth's attack on her (one of the more convincing fight scenes in the show)

To this day, that scene gives me the shiver up my spine. How she just *shrieks* "Deathwalker!" and picks up that wrench and starts beating her. Such. Atavistic. Rage.

God, yes! And it contrasts so much with most of the B5 fight scenes, which are generally a bit stylised and unbelievable.

This is the first real evidence of the Vorlons' paternalistic attitude, whereas previously they had just been distant and mysterious.

Depends how far you stretch the meaning of "paternalistic"
(the Vorlons themselves would probably use the term...)

This is also the first time we see just how ruthless the Vorlons are. The obviously premeditated execution of Jha'Dur, after the refusal to take part in any negotiations shows how far the Vorlons are prepared to go to force their views.

It is also interesting how their role in the Shadow war makes us forget this kind of incident and casts them as the good guys. I remember the shock of Kosh2 at the beginning of season 4, when in fact the clues had been there all along.

This is quite a clever and interesting manipulation of the viewers' perception, especially in the way that it mirrors manipulations hapening in the real world.
remeber, at the time this went out, the first Gulf War was still recent, and there was civil war in (then still partly) Yugoslavia, from which one of the cast was a refugee.

I think sometimes the Vorlons actually thought of themselves as 'gods' even more than paternalistic. They certainly did not mind making decisions when they weren't asked and they refused to be accountable to anyone. And the Minbari seemed to perpetuate this myth ot the other races, especially the humans.

Edited 2009-03-23 23:05 (UTC)

Depends how far you stretch the meaning of "paternalistic"
(the Vorlons themselves would probably use the term...)

I'm sure they would, though of course their brand of paternalism, as you rightly say, isn't always benevolent. In fact, sometimes quite the opposite.

I thought the episode was good in that it asked you to consider what was more important, justice or immortality. How big a price would you be willing to pay for immortality?

Then we had Kosh at the end saying, *windchime* You are not ready for immortality. *tinkling bells* Boom.

I wonder if one of the reasons he is on the station is to make sure the younger races don't 'forget their place', since naturally they aren't as good as the Vorlons. [insert sarcasm here]

- You would think that more people would be able to recognise a Dilgar on sight.

- I like Jha’dur – she’s portrayed with the causual arrogance and sense of superior arrogance that really convinces you that this woman would wipe out entire species without any qualms.

- “Those few left after the invasion died when their sun went nova”? It seems unlikely that a species capable of invading and occupying other star systems would be unable to evacuate their homeworld in the event of a nova… unless the Dilgar War was their attempt to evacuate. Would explain why there were apparently few left on the homeworld after the war.

- I wonder who G’Kar’s blood oaths are against.

- Not sure if it’s intentional continuity, but it makes sense to assume the Grey Council member in Delenn’s quarters at the end of the last episode was there to inform her of whatever called her away in this episode.

- It occurs to me that Jha’dur may be misrepresenting the scale of her achievement. An immortality serum is a little hard to believe in – the Minbari and Centauri don’t have one, after all. But we don’t know she has one – all we know is that she’s apparently stoped her aging for a decade or two. And her goal isn’t to improve people’s lives – it’s to see her enemies turn on each other. Wouldn’t it be an even more delicious revenge if, after every race has slaughtered each other in pursuit of immortality, it turned out her discovery only prevents aging for a few dozen years?

- Of course, it’s also possible that Jha’dur had outside assistance in helping her develop… what she wanted.

- “Drazi Freehold” is an unusual name for a state. A ‘freehold’ is land that is permanently held by the owner, as opposed to leaseholds. For the Drazi to use this as the name of their territory implies they wish to emphasise that aspect of it; did they at one point only lease their planets from another power?

- Have we ever seen an ‘Ikshar’ in person? I don’t think we ever see that ship design again.

- Hey, how come Jha’dur gets to keep her Minbari ship? Shouldn’t she be being taken away on an Earth transport? And how does a Vorlon warship miss the first shot at point blank range?

- You know what – speaking as someone who only upgraded to a digital recorder last week… I’m not convinced the term ‘VCR’ is going to stick around for centuries.

You would think that more people would be able to recognise a Dilgar on sight.

Not necessarily, since they are supposed to have died out. People have a remarkable ability to reationalize away things that stare them in the face (and yes, I think that includes us all).

“Drazi Freehold” is an unusual name for a state.

It is, isn't it? Another idea: maybe they are conparing themselves (favourably) with other races which are subject to external powers, using a word from their soceity/legal system tio express this.

I’m not convinced the term ‘VCR’ is going to stick around for centuries.

Let's remember that this went out 15 years ago - DVDs were still in development, rewritable CDs even further away, not to speak of digital recorders.

Even if changes in technology are to be expected, words are often conservative, especially abbreviations where no-one remembers what exactly they stand for. So the suggestion that a recording device is still called VCR in the 23rd century was not such an unlikelyhood then - we now know that things are going differently, but only with the benefit of hindsight.

And I suppose calling such a being a "vicar" was just too good an opportunity to miss
;-)

Have we ever seen an ‘Ikshar’ in person? I don’t think we ever see that ship design again.

I don't think so. From the role-playing books, they are physically something like giant starfish. Certainly nowhere near the humanoid stereotype that B5 had to run with due to budget constraint. I think you only even hear them refered to once more, anyway, in series 5 (Veiw from the Gallery; I think they've been attacked by the fleet that then attacks the station). Oh, and the RPG calls them Ipshar.

An interesting episode! I like the diplomatic side of things, mostly; Ivanova's canny handling of the angry League ships, Sinclair's negotiations to find a way between the factions (though I felt he was being overly naive with his assumption that the Minbari would vote his way when he knew Deathwalker said she'd been with the Wind Swords), Lennier's reluctance to follow his own instructions.

I was a little annoyed with Ambassador Kalika; she gets all up in Sinclair's face about how terrible the debate was, when in actual fact what happened was: there was a vote, and it didn't go her way. If they're going to start threatening to blow up the station every time someone loses an argument, B5 is in even more trouble than we already thought...

I'd forgotten how important Kosh is in this episode (despite a relatively low level of screentime). We get much more of a sense of him and of the Vorlons here - the ruthlessness he uses against Talia, the (politically helpful but rather sketchy - talk about your Deus Ex Machina, too!) Vorlon ship that blows up Deathwalker's vessel, the hilarious and/or gnomic Vorlon sayings ("at the hour of scampering" is still my favourite).

I liked Sinclair and Garibaldi and their relationship here. I have such a strong sense of their friendship, Garibaldi apologising for getting angry with Sinclair and the two of them in the bar at the end, working together throughout the episode... G'Kar and Na'Toth are also good together; we get more of their characters, and of Narn society - I liked the conversation about the blood oath, and G'Kar saying "You would not be Narn if you did", and the respect they clearly have for each other. Plus: Na'Toth flipping out is *scary*, man! Don't want to be on the wrong side of her.

Minor nitpick: they kept calling the jumpgate "the vortex". I don't remember that ever happening anywhere else - someone didn't have the series bible? :)

This is a decent episode; not great, but solid, and it's pretty good as a "Not Your Father's Star Trek" thing; it's more shades-of-grey than Trek usually goes for (though there are exceptions!). Good stuff.

To be fair to the Ambassador, it wasn't so much 'losing the argument' as 'the entire League being rendered irrelevant in an issue of great concern to them'. Presumably even if the Minbari had abstained, the vote still would have failed 2-2, failing to get a majority in favor. Easy to feel your people aren't really being represented when the only way your vote is relevant is if half the great powers already support something...

it wasn't so much 'losing the argument' as 'the entire League being rendered irrelevant in an issue of great concern to them'.

Yeah... I can see why she'd be upset, definitely. And the Centauri and the Narn were clearly operating in bad faith. But at the same time, the Council did actually work as designed; the powers voted, including the League, and that's the answer they got. The way it's set up, with one vote for each of the major races and one for the League means that it's *always* true that they have to have half the major races on their side to get anywhere.

the (politically helpful but rather sketchy - talk about your Deus Ex Machina, too!) Vorlon ship that blows up Deathwalker's vessel

I wouldn't call it Deus ex Machina - it is consistent with Kosh's absences from the council, which are commented upon in the course of the episode.

it's more shades-of-grey than Trek usually goes for

The nature of the scenario reminded me of Star Trek, too.
The whole thing feels a bit like a Trek dilemma done differently.

I wouldn't call it Deus ex Machina - it is consistent with Kosh's absences from the council, which are commented upon in the course of the episode.

I was thinking more of the way that they're stuck with an apparently unsolvable dilemma, and then bam, the Vorlons jump in and fix it. It amused me to think of it that way :)

The whole thing feels a bit like a Trek dilemma done differently.

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking; there's more pragmatism and politics than, say, Picard would have had to deal with, I think. I like Star Trek, but it's a much simpler world, generally.

"Deathwalker" discussion [spoilers]

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