Text 16516, 72 rader
Skriven 2007-08-01 19:44:04 av Josh Hill (2992.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: Is there any reasonable way to interpret "Over Here" withoutaccpeti
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On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:20:02 +0300, Janne Mikola <janne.mikola@tut.fi>
wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I just watched Voices in the Dark and all the extras. First of all I 
>must say that tears started welling up in my eyes when I watched Andreas 
>and Richard memorials.
>
>But now to the story of the Lochley-part. Both visiting actors did a 
>great job. The story would have been very great as a separate movie with 
>no connections to Babylon 5, just as a random scifi movie. But now that 
>it is part of the Babylon 5 canon, I'm having difficulties with going 
>through it.
>
>If I recall correctly, never before has any kind of divine entity 
>interacted in Babylon 5 universe through miracles. Sure there has been 
>religion involved in very many occasions starting from Brother Theo and 
>Minbari's religious cast. Even JMS himself has stated a long time ago 
>that "religion [...] has always been present. And it will be present 200 
>years from now. That may not thrill me, but when one is a writer, one 
>must deal with realities, and that's one of them. To totally ignore that 
>part of the human equation would be as false and wrong-headed as 
>ignoring the fact that people get mad, or passionate, or strive for 
>better lives. [...] In the Babylon 5 universe, all the things that make 
>us human -- our obsessions, our interests, our language, our culture, 
>our flaws and our wonderfulnesses -- are all still intact.". I know this 
>may sound weird to some of you, but simply put: I don't have any 
>problems with supernatural, it is divine elements of religions I have 
>trouble with.
>
>Yes, there has been religion involved before. But this time it was 
>different, now it seems that it is part of the Babylon 5 canon that god 
>and devil exist and they're able to perform miracles, and even are doing 
>them, and at least the devil is speaking directly with mortal people 
>through his minions withs words which can be heard and recorded. Put in 
>extravagant way - it should be from now on always speculated that why 
>doesn't Lochley seek for divine intervention when B5 is in trouble.
>
>This is kind of hard to accept as an atheist (JMS has stated he's an 
>atheist too, btw). Because as JMS said in the extras of the DVD, Babylon 
>5 universe works for me as a place to go to "playing" with people I'm 
>come to like and know. I know I'm getting lots of "get over with it, 
>it's just a story" -type replies to this message, and of course I will 
>"get over with it". It's not about that.
>
>During the second half of the Over Here I was all the time waiting for 
>some small signals somewhere which would hint that the allegedly 
>possessed person really wasn't possessed - that it would be some plot of 
>let's say Drakh or other Shadow-minions. Or some kind of chain of events 
>which would have caused so much doubt that for instance Lochley would 
>have said that "she doesn't anymore know what that was", or such. Or 
>mental instability of people, self-suggestion of priest and malfunction 
>of Babylon 5 scanners. Whatever. But there weren't any. God and devil 
>from now on exist in Babylon 5 universe, and in any situation it is 
>possible that they're interacting and intervening again.
>
>Share your thoughts.

I would have liked to see the religion business made ambiguous, e.g.,
the characters might have speculated -- as a possibility -- that the
demon was not supernatural but rather a race cast down by the First
Ones or some other powerful entity.

-- 
Josh

"Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is
good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."
	-- Samuel Johnson
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