To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive

Comes the Inquisitor
This episode made more sense this time around, but I still have some ideological bones to pick with it.

The central argument appears to be that the Vorlons, or at any rate Kosh (it's unclear exactly how much of their auspices he's operating under), believe that if a person engages in a holy war thinking he or she is somehow chosen and thus above the law, bad things will happen and this person will turn into a modern-day Jack the Ripper. Only when we determine that a person does not believe they are the One True Hero and that someone else could take their place will that person manage to avoid the pitfalls of power.

I...am going to have to disagree for this particular situation. Something like this, you need egomaniacs who believe they can/will win and who are FUCKING CRAZY, like Delenn and to a lesser extent Sheridan, because sane people are going to take one look at the odds and go, "Well, shit, we're screwed." Then you give those people advisers, like Garibaldi, Ivanova, Lennier, etc., so they don't go too far off the deep end. You need people who are going to sacrifice their foot soldiers, as Sheridan does in "The Long Night" when he sends a White Star out to give false intelligence to the Shadows and inevitably get shot down. They have to sacrifice their peons rather than themselves because they are the ones with all the pieces, and by the time someone else gathers all the pieces together again, it may well be too late.

For a while, I wondered if the test was purely to confirm that Delenn has the right level of egomaniacal insanity--if she continues insisting she's The One even when Sebastian zaps her, then she's not going to back down when she faces the Shadows. Then she says she's considered she's wrong, and Sebastian says there's hope for her, apparently destroying that possibility. But then at the end, Sebastian kinda-sorta confirms the prophecy--they are the right people at the right place, etc., because they are willing to sacrifice themselves for each other and lose out on any kind of fame. While I think it is useful for Delenn in particular to get a reality check on how things such as turning half-human are going to be received, I believe the previous paragraph explains my issues with that conclusion. Anyway, if the Vorlons, to whom the Minbari look up to as sort of demi-gods, confirm via Sebastian that she's the right person, then isn't that just adding weight to her conclusion that she's been chosen, whether it's for believing she hasn't been chosen or not? Did the test actually serve to do anything besides give her outside confirmation to her feeling that she's The One?

In addition, three things point to some part of the stated objective--that Delenn shouldn't believe in her destiny--being not entirely true. First, Sebastian tells her to cry out so that the universe will come to her rescue. On some level it...kind of does, since Lennier and then Sheridan show up to help her. Points for her actually having that destiny she thinks she has?

Also, the Vorlons are...not exactly innocent angels of light in this scenario, as we learn in S4. This test may not have had any meaning at all--it might have just been a way to screw with Delenn. The Vorlons like order; Delenn is, on some level, defying it. In their eyes, she might need to be knocked down a few notches.

The final, most interesting thing that leads me to believe the whole test was flawed is the counterpoint that G'Kar's plot plays to it. This test checks out logically: if he can't get a message back to Narn, why should the other Narns believe he can get weapons there? They'll accept his leadership, accept his plot to send weapons to the resistance, and give him their money if he can provide proof of his abilities with the message. He uses his connections with the station's military, which they do not have, to do this, thus proving he's the right person for that position. No faffing about with "Who are you," no ridiculous manacles o' pain, just pure and simple setting of a goal and delivery of results. I am going to believe that this counterpoint indicates the Vorlon test was so much bullshit.

Anyway. Two other things about the episode:

1. Oh, Garibaldi. I love you. Not only do you help out G'Kar, but you do it with the most breathtaking pessimism. "I never start a conversation unless I know where it's going, but I always leave a little room for someone to disappoint me." (He and Ivanova are so obviously cynical, idealistic, pessimistic soul mates, I swear.)

2. The scene in the transport tube with Vir and G'Kar just breaks my heart. :(

The Fall of Night
I think at the moment I look fondly on this episode because it's singlehandedly provided me with about a tenth of the footage I want to use in my vid. But it's a good episode on its own as well. We learn a lot about the Vorlons, the war plot gets moved along, and EarthGov is phenomenally stupid.

(Okay, one thing I didn't like about the episode: you cannot tell me that even 300 years on, a diplomat is going to use "We will know peace in our time" unironically. You cannot. Also, way to hurl that anvil, JMS. I figured out you were making a reference to the Munich Pact on my own, thanks.)

I don't have a lot to say about the movement of all the chess pieces, beyond the fact that I'm excited for how they set up S3 (and the Centauri attack on the station was still pretty adrenaline-rushy). So here are little notes:

- I will forever love Vir and Lennier's bitch sessions at the bar. FOREVER. Hee. I have seen sadly little fic for them (either slash or friendship); I kind of want to write some now.

- It still boggles the hell out of me that John Vickery plays both Wells and Neroon.

- Lantze (amusingly, played by Roy Dotrice, aka Coach Pamchenko in The Cutting Edge) just doesn't know when to quit with Susan, does he? "Kids? Family?" Awww.

- Oh, Zack. I love it when you show glimmers of goodness.

- Not sad to see Keffer go, gotta say.

- Wellll, Delenn, I think pretty much everyone's going to wind up subscribing to the Vorlons-as-manipulators perspective in a couple years.

- Is there some kind of fanon consensus on why Londo (says he) didn't see anything when Kosh left his suit? I'm leaning toward it having to do with a lack of religious faith--notice how Garibaldi wasn't there either--but maybe it's something else. Or he was lying, for whatever reason.

- I kind of love Ivanova lighting the candles in her menorah a whole, whole lot.

Season Three next!