#bc hbo likes shock value ??

[horizon-verizon]

“It’s only a 5 second clip, there’s no context”, sorry but there’s no excuses, Rhaenyra literally shaking and being visibly terrified of her husband is all we need to know.

Talked about this HERE.

Not to mention that it substantiates epi 10's choking scene that I argued was always about abuse. And HotD's predilection to use unsubstantiated and extra scenes of violence against women--bc most that wasn't even in the book or can be argued as having been there--to create more drama and shock value. and to appeal to the "the Targs were the most evil people who almost brought the Westerosi to their knees".

So yeah, I will "judge" a fucking "3-second" clip, even if it's just the HotD or HBO teams trying to get people talking. If you feel that DV is a great way to get people hyped about the show, reducing DV to a marketing ploy as if it isn't already undermined as a serious offense against women bc women are blamed for it (without bringing relief to the female victim in the show who is getting abused, it's just voyeuristic torture), then you are still also minimizing DV for money. You are still undervaluing rape as an "everyday unfortunate thing", using it so casually FOR MONEY. Abuse & r*pe become capitalist playthings.

Like, think about it! They expect us to believe that Criston is from Dorne or has a Dornish parent when there has been no show!proof bc:

other than Alicent saying he is Dornish based on looks alone, we have had no background scenes on Cole's life before going to KL nor do we see any courtier discriminating against him for his Dornishness (even Otto in epi 2 could be said to look down on his lower, noble classed no money-having assed self...bc Cole is still a nobleman, just a lesser one)

not only do not all Dornish looks "swarthy" and even if his mom was Dornish she'd more likely be the paler version who Daeron I calls "stony" (those who are the closest to the Dondarrions & Blackhaven , where Cole comes from), TWoIaF and F&B both call him a Marcher knight. Not a Dornish one.

So we are meant to think Criston Dornish with little to no proof AND knowing that he was never Dornish by canon. So show!Rhaenyra was taking advantage of a PoC man (the Dornish are not PoCs, they are "spicy" white people-equivalents, even the Martells). But we're also meant to think show!Daemon is either not being abusive nor that it's such a big deal bc "he was always mean to be an abuser". Criston isn't an incel, but Daemon was always an abuser of Rhaenyra...

Watch how some fans will also say that Rhaenyra deserves to get smacked around bc she "raped" and manipulated Criston & is a danger to men everywhere!

We don't think such things are bleeding into and have informed the writers into making Rhaenyra, Rhaena (tiktok and HERE), Rhaenys all diluted and isolated versions of themselves?!!! Same as with the whole Velaryons are paternity test and Laena choosing to kill herself shit!

[daensa]

i like this portrayal of daemyra bc too long the asoiaf fandom felt the comfort of turning off their brains when thinking about the repercussions of the targ marriage customs. this is not 'normal' and if you have read the series you see multiple moments where the abnormality of their practices is brought to question by the characters

the entire premise of the very first book depends on the horror of sibling incest being something abhorrent in their culture. the very love between jaime and cersei is painted to be toxic and all-consuming in the worst ways

a series using said dark themes to construct its story, culture, and universe doesn't mean that it's something that the reader is meant to find 'normal'. not to bring back the word 'shock value' into asoiaf/hbo discussions but that's an essential part of these sorts of narratives. you are supposed to be shocked and repulsed by their practices, which builds the reading atmosphere

those are not love stories. they are not romantic like modern romcoms we watch on tv. they are supposed to tell you something on their horror

[ellieslittlebitch69]

my name is fall, im 💅🏾, ✨new in town✨, and looking for tlou mutuals :) so I’m gonna post my hot takes and hope the right people find this <3 (pls don’t kill me for my opinions im sorry)

let me know what you thinks rats , mwah

-abby was done injustice. i wanted to like her SO FUCKING BAD, but she was treated as a plot device instead of a character

-joel’s death was just used as shock value and was SO untrue to his character, i could write a whole essay on this

-lev and abby’s relationship deserved more development. i think neil assumed we’d all come to love their bond immediately bc it mirrors joel and ellie… but it just seems bland to me idk

-bella ramsey is the perfect ellie. he embodies every aspect of ellie i wanted to see, while adding a breath of fresh air into the character. chefs fucking kiss.

-long, long time and left behind are IMPORTANT NARRATIVES IN TLOU. the story centers around ellie and joel, but tlou tells MULTIPLE stories of the apocalypse. to see love and queer representation is important, and hbo portrayed it perfectly.

-how come dina fully encouraged ellie’s rampage up until it meant ellie leaving? especially after talking about the loss of her sister, it made no sense to me that dina didn’t try to help ellie deal with her grief in a healthy way.

-part of me thinks that ellie is grateful for what joel did with the fireflies, but had too much pride to admit it. because she got to live she found purpose in jackson, met dina and even started a family. and i think if ellie had been given the choice, she’d be hesitant to die for the cause.

-jesse is so underdeveloped? they made him likable enough, but when he died it had no impact on me. and it’s barely mentioned afterwards?

-…abby’s dad did not seem that smart LMAO SORRY

[weirwoodking]

hi i was wondering if you would be interested in making a meta on the differences between show!sansa and book!sansa bc i know they changed a lot of her storyline but i don't understand why everyone hates on sophie turner? it can be short or inexistent meta if you're not up to it but i would be very interested to know what you have to say

I mean, the differences between the two are pretty simple. After season 4, D&D decided to cut Sansa’s book storyline, and replaced it with their own rewrite. This affected the plots of multiple characters, particularly Show!Theon’s and Show!Jon’s, but most of all, Show!Sansa’s, obviously. George himself has spoken on how much he hated what the show did with Sansa. He said in 2014 that he had “no idea what they were doing with Sansa or where they’re taking her storyline.”

I could go episode by episode and point out everything that’s wrong or is out of character, but it’s kind of useless. The show did not adapt books 4 & 5, it’s as simple as that, everything is different and feels like it’s out of character. For the first 4 seasons, I thought that Sansa’s story was handled fine (I haven’t watched GOT seasons 1-4 in over 4 years, so my memory is a bit foggy on the specifics tho). Sophie Turner isn’t exactly how I picture Sansa to look, but her acting was fantastic, especially for someone so young and for her first television role.

I personally haven’t seen people “hating on Sophie Turner”, but I’m not involved in the GOT side of tumblr, only the ASOIAF side, so I don’t see people talk about the actors that much. I do know that there are people in fandom (not just in the GOT fandom but in fandom in general) who will conflate actors with their characters. I have seen some toxic Show!Sansa stans do this with Show!Dany and Emilia Clarke (mostly last year). It seems to be more of a problem with female characters and actresses (‘cause sexism), and I think it’s really creepy and disturbing. Sophie Turner is not Sansa, so if anyone is “hating on her” because they didn’t like how the show changed Sansa’s story, that’s really fucked up. I don’t know much about the GOT cast, actually, I rarely watched interviews or behind-the-scenes videos. I don’t know if Sophie Turner has said that she likes the show’s ending or something like that, so if that was the case I could see people being critical of her opinion. But even if she did like the ending of the show and the way the writers changed her character after season 4, I still don’t think you should hate on an actor for that. Because the actors didn’t make the show, the showrunners did. It’s not on the actors to get everything right about their characters, it’s on the writers and directors to tell them the story and guide them through their acting. I don’t blame the actors for anything about GOT (no one should), I blame the writers.

What I find is the biggest problem about post-season 4 Sansa is how little regard they had for her character, while simultaneously claiming she was their favorite. I believe their exact quote was “Sansa was the character we cared about more than anyone”. Okay… then why did you cut her storyline? I feel like their whole “she’s our favorite character” act was more to try to defend against the criticism of the cutting of her storyline. What bothers me most is how they just casually threw her into the Ramsay plotline without thinking at all about what that meant. If you’re going to have one of the main characters of the show get serially raped, you need to think about what you’re doing and how to handle that horrific situation. In the books, the Jeyne Poole storyline is handled very carefully. The acts committed by Ramsay against Jeyne and Theon are never really shown, only implied, alluded to, or very briefly described. The show, on the other hand, explicitly showed Theon’s torture scenes, and made Ramsay a much bigger character in seasons 5 & 6 than he is in the books. I feel like they just used him for shock value, because so much of Game of Thrones revolved around shock value and in-the-moment reactions. I think they just saw Ramsay as a character they could turn into Joffrey 2.0, which is why they put Sansa with him. They didn’t care to follow Sansa’s book arc, they just wanted to continue the whole “caged-bird” thing with her, for shock value.

And to deflect against criticism, that’s why they made her so smart and powerful in the final few seasons. There’s next-to-no build up, no character development, no focus on her growth, the show just tells us that Sansa is the smartest character, and the audience is expected to agree. Because D&D did not care about showing her development. There’s a line in season 7, when Sansa and Arya kill Littlefinger, where Sansa says “thank you for all of your lessons, Lord Baelish.” And that immediately stuck out to me, because that sounds like something Book!Sansa would say. The show cut out Sansa’s Vale storyline, where she spends much more time with Littlefinger, and so… what “lessons” is Show!Sansa referring to here? They didn’t spend a lot of time together in the show. I do think that Sansa will defeat Littlefinger in the books, so that line makes sense for Book!Sansa.

What they did was cut Sansa’s storyline, throw her into a horrific situation that they used for shock value, and then expected to be praised when they made her a “girlboss” later on. They basically said “hey, we know we essentially erased this character’s arc and development, but at least we did a feminism, right?” And that’s what really pisses me off. The blatant disregard for female characters, then saying “no, we do care about them! Believe us!”

Lindsay Ellis has a really good video called “Woke Disney” that touches on this. Basically, she talks about how Disney’s recent live action remakes tend to make each of the princesses a “#girlboss” in a very corporate, fake-feminist manner that is very easy to see right through. (I recommend just watching the video, she goes more in-depth into the subject.)

A similar thing occurred with GOT (the show only had one female writer after season 4, by the way, who was a staff writer for season 8. And before that, only 4 episodes were written by a woman). D&D wrote a lot of problematic, misogynistic, homophobic, and racist things. Then they tried to cover that up with (to use a line from Ms. Ellis) a coat of #girlboss paint. For example, I remember after s8e3 (when Arya killed the Night King) came out, that was when the big criticism for season 8 really started. People saw how bad the writing of that episode was, and how ridiculous and anti-climactic it all felt. However, when people criticized the manner in which the Night King was killed (i.e. saying that it would have made more narrative sense for Jon to do it instead of Arya), there was another group of people who called that criticism sexist. “That’s sexist! You’re just upset that a girl did it instead of a guy!” Which… ugh... do I need to explain how idiotic that line of reasoning is?

And that’s kind of how the HBO show tried to get away with its misogyny, not just the misogyny of Dany’s ending, but of the whole show in general. “Look, we can’t be misogynistic, we had Arya kill the Night King! Look, we can’t be misogynistic, we had Sansa become a #girlboss!” Bullshit, you’re just trying to hide your sexism and bad writing behind a facade of fake feminism.

… *sigh* ...

Anyway, nothing but love for Book!Sansa, and nothing but hate for the writers of Game of Thrones. I hate how the show turned Sansa into a very polarizing character, when she shouldn’t be. None of the child characters of ASOIAF should be polarizing, they’re children for fucks sake.

I’m very excited to see where GRRM takes Sansa’s character in TWOW, I feel like she’s got an awesome journey coming up (hopefully involving her discovering her skinchanging powers, taking down Littlefinger, and heading north for home). 

Uh, wow, this got really long… and I’m exhausted after thinking about the sh*w that much. Here, as a treat for reading all the way down to the bottom, have a Sansa WIP drawing that I haven’t finished yet:

[talkingabouteuphoria]

Euphoria S2 Ep 1 Thoughts (spoilers)

-hbo really said oh y’all want nudity??

-so many boobies but also some pen*ses??? and a v*g in the first couple mins?? is this allowed?

-okay this show really could be more diverse. i was happy to see kelvin harrison jr. got cast but then he had to leave due to scheduling. i think it could use just a lil more flavor. mckay (hot) is painted as such a villain and likely won’t get much screen time.

-does sydney sweeney /really/ need to get naked every episode? she’s so pretty and i’m sure she’s fine with it bc she has a rockin bod but like. she’s also such a talented actor and the character is so much deeper than showing her boobs close up every ep.

-big fan of elliott looking forward to more

-kat had 2 lines and one of them was about how she isn’t even relevant to the plot 💀

-director/writers said gia who??? they really give us a lot of her but like none at the same time

-i fucking hate nate. i know we are supposed to. if they explore his sexuality he’s going to be the only /gay/ one. what great representation

-speaking of nate. i see a lot of nate/cassie hate about them hooking up and it’s very one sided. they both were drunk and they both made their own choices. cassie is fake for sleeping with her besties ex. nate is the worst but we already know this.

-in this house we stan and protect fez and ashtray

-jules and rue… i’m already tired? idk

-bringing back this kodak film is so fucking beautiful and smart. the cinematography? oh they got MONEY. with zendaya, drake, and future on as exec producers? they got MONEY

-overall happy with the first ep even though it was chaotic. the first 20-30 mins were STRESSFUL but we made it through. i am only slightly ashamed to admit that i kinda really wanted to be cassie in the truck scene. and maddy is a look queen.

-not sure if fez is going to break lexi or if lexi is going to fix fez lol. if they kill fez off it won’t be until the last ep for shock value. nate and cal are gonna be up to something tho

-i hope to see each character be themselves and not a forced caricature. i hope maddy gets to show some more layers and cassie isn’t played as sad and hopeless. i hope rue and jules figure it out, blah blah blah. if there’s going to be more nudity, i hope it isn’t as forced (literally and figuratively) bc that’s when i get uncomfortable

*if you made it this far please sound off in the comments. i want to talk about this!!! xxoo

[sharonaparadox]

hd + subtitles available!

fandom: Euphoria (HBO) focus: Jules Vaughn audio: “Astronaut In The Ocean” by KZ Tandingan (Masked Wolf cover) coloring credit: “Break” by Evelyn Jackson font used: “Aaargh” by Tup Wanders program: Sony Vegas Pro 13

i keep hearing this song on the radio (the original, obvs, not the cover) and i hate it, but the chorus is so catchy that i knew i had to find a cover i tolerated and just get this idea out of my head

i originally watched euphoria just bc rue’s actor is in the mcu, and i figured i could just use the show’s scenes in some vid with mj, but i actually ended up kinda loving it? it isn’t perfect by any means, esp since it loves its shock value, like, “look at what these teens (played by adults) are doing!” but, like… underneath all that, it’s such an interesting and smartly-written show!

i hate getting into wip fandoms (esp here, since it could go poorly SO easily), but i just love rue and jules so much. rue is such a complicated but likeable protag, and jules was so fascinating to me even before her special therapy ep, which instantly rocketed her up to one of my fave chars in any media

i originally thought abt making this vid a little longer, but i honestly just like it like it is now! if this was an instagram edit, it would prob be one of those “finish this edit” things, haha. this is actually one of the quickest edits i’ve made with vegas, and it was actually just fun to work on :)

post-s02 edit: lol i was so right abt how it could go wrong bc shit got super messy. i still love rue and jules tho, together or separately, so ig i’ll see what the future has in store for them

[sagemoderocklee]

director’s commentary ⭐️ for IEYH? (or other fics of yours you’d prefer to talk abt!) ik you might not be able to say much bc of spoilers but maybe any thoughts/inspirations you had developing it? my favorite genre to read is horror/suspense so i’m excited! you always have such interesting concepts n explorations!

Hi anon! thank you so much for sending this! IEYH is harder to talk about, given it’s one short--by my standards--chapter in, but I absolutely love that fic and am so happy to talk about it! I think there’s still plenty of stuff I could say right now--not as much as once it’s done, but I can at least chat a bit!

I’ve always been like a lowkey fan of horror, but like at the start of the pandemic (in the states) I got really into just binging horror (that maybe says a lot about my response to the pandemic lol). Like anything I could find--good and bad. I think it honestly started before that with the Haunting of Hill House netflix show, but I actually had the time once I was out of work to really just throw myself into horror. Anything on netflix, hulu, hbo max, shutter--I only pay for one of these, I promise I’m not giving all my money to all these different platforms--I would watch. So when GaaLee bingo came up and some of the prompts were so suited to a good supernatural horror story, I was pretty much chomping at the bit.

I talked a lot with my roommate, who’s a HUGE horror fan and someone whose thoughts I highly value and respect, to get some advice. I also read The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and rewatched it, looking for those things in horror that I like.

There’s a lot of bad horror out there. A lot of stuff that’s just gratuitous in suffering and violence, a lot of stuff that uses trauma for shock value instead of to explore trauma. And I’m not interested in that. It’s one of the things I love so much about Hill House. It doesn’t feel gratuitous. It feels like a real exploration of trauma through the metaphor of this haunting. All the things that happen in the show lead to a resolution for the family, and even though there’s a lot of tragedy, there’s a sense of peace and closure at the end of it.

Obviously, I’m not afraid of character death or inflicting trauma on characters, but there’s always a reason for it, and I think with horror in particular, when you approach death, suffering, trauma, etc it has to be done with a lot of care. And figuring out what the point of my horror story was, was the most important step in the process.

Writing horror is very different than anything I’m used to writing. Though I would say that Deadweight was the actual first horror fic I wrote, it wasn’t like intensely obvious because the horror element/the monster was never seen, so I think , a lot of people reading that thought the thing chasing Lee and Gaara was just like some undead shinobi from the 4th war. When I wrote that fic, even though I wasn’t focusing on it as a horror fic, it was still a challenge because getting that sense that good horror fills you with--that dread, that anxiety, that feeling of being watched--was not easy.

For me, personally, I do believe in supernatural things. I’ve had my fair share of experiences, so when I approach writing IEYH, I do try and recall those feelings of being alone in a house and feeling a presence with you. Feeling like you have to race up the stairs because something is chasing you. Feeling only safe in my room, like it was a barrier against something.

Horror is by far one of the hardest genres to write. I’d say horror and comedy are the hardest, but with horror there’s like this very particular challenge because the sort of headspace I need to be in is different than anything else. I really need to tap into something with horror that I don’t usually do with other genres. Which is partly why the next chapter of IEYH is still sitting partially finished lol I am very excited about that chapter. initially i wanted to get it out by the end of this month, but then I started working on Absolution, so we shall see!

but i am very glad you’re excited for the update! And hopefully I can chat about this again once the fic is done!

[sometimesrosy]

Do you think The 100 does a better job of tying up narrative threads in a way that’s more obvious & meaningful than other shows bc they’re telling a mature, gritty, epic story on a channel that is geared toward a younger audience & so they’re not afraid of using tropes & don’t feel the pressure to use shock value or overly subvert expectations bc they know The CW is not the right audience for that? Obviously Jason being a great storyteller is a huge part of that, but just a thought.

Huh. That’s an interesting concept. I don’t know.

I do think that they were HEADING in the grimdark direction and were really reveling in it in, I think, season 3, and the reaction to that was so…. STRONG, that they re-evaluated their direction and the EFFECT that their story had on the viewers and the world. 

It’s still an anyone can die show, but it is not so callous about it anymore. So I guess in effect it does end up being about the  station it’s on and how the audience reacted to what they did. On HBO, it might have flown. Like it did with GOT, but look where that led D&D. Down a bad path. WHICH I think is even better for THIS show, because they saw that too. They don’t want to do that to this show. 

I still do not know if this story is going to end with our heroes dying or surviving in the final battle, but I believe they are more aware about being thoughtful with their stories and how the audience takes it. And I do think they are telling a story about trauma and recovery…. which lets be honest, ALL post apocalyptic stores are doing. It’s just that some post apocalyptic stories think there is no hope for humanity and some think there is hope for humanity and I think THIS show has hope for humanity.

The only question is whether or not our heroes get to live in that hope or if they sacrifice themselves for the rest of humanity. 

[jenniferstolzer]

Babylon 5 rewatch Episode 1.10 Believers

A sad and, for me, frustrating episode that’s got the mask of being about the war between science and faith, but is actually the war between respect and reason. Shon’s parents (and Shon as well) believe that the soul escapes when the skin is punctured and so refuse a routine surgery that could save their young son’s life. More thoughts under the cut. 

K here’s my hot take on Believers. Let’s start with things I don’t like about this ep for the sake of discussion

1, I don’t like the conflict much, not because of the obvious parallel to the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses and others (you’ve seen this covered in a medial drama I guarantee. Usually it has to blood transfusions.), although that is frustrating as well, it’s that certain events take place in the ep to serve the message and it avoids the real issue in my opinion -- one of respect. 

Firstly, Franklin takes a stand at the beginning that he and Hernandez should respect the parents religious beliefs but really what he’s saying is that we need to USE those beliefs to convince the parents to reject those beliefs. He actually doesn’t respect their faith at all and thinks them pretty stupid for following them. He lies to them and manipulates them the same way the does Shon with the Gloppit egg... giving him something fake to believe in b/c believing in something has measurable medical results. He thinks the parents beliefs about the Celestial Egg are the same as the Gloppit Egg -- a teddy bear for their whole culture to take to bed b/c they don’t understand the dark can’t hurt them. 

2, I think I’ve mentioned before on my blog that I am also a person of faith, and while I’m not one that will refuse a blood transfusion, it’s hard not to have Franklin’s disrespect play more prominently into the issues. Hernandez is my hero b/c she at least is being honest and at least calls him out on his hypocrisy. When the parents show up and are like “We don’t believe in surgery,” Hernandez comes right out and is like “If you don’t have this surgery he’s going to die.” to be sure the parents understand that. Them understanding and still persisting with their religious philosophy is not them being stupid. They understand what’s going on and they’re quite vocal to pretty much every person on the station in their persistence. Franklin treating them like idiots and using their faith to lie to them is really slimy, and aside from Hernandez he’s framed by the script as arguably the one in the right.

3, If Franklin, Hernandez, Sinclair, or anyone else did just a smidge more research to explain what happens when people lose their souls in this culture (there’s a traveling robe for it and everything, you know someone’s gotten poked at some point and set this precedent) they could have saved everyone a lot of trauma. I know the information is ther eto be found, because Hernandez finds it just one second too late. I mean it’s super upsetting. No one wants to watch a child die of illness, especially if they are being denied the medicine they need for ANY reason religious, political, financial or otherwise, but some things are outside the physician’s hands and these aliens and their religion is one of those things. Shon would have died, but he would have died calmly with pain management and his loved ones around him, instead of being rejected and screaming. Like if the outcome was to be “kid died” regardless of Franklin’s action, he can learn a hard lesson without putting that poor child through having his parents calling him a demon and pulling a knife on him, then having to march to his own death. Like I get it, Franklin assumed that when they saw their kid they’d abandon their dumb religion and embrace him with thankfulness, but if you’re gonna gamble like that you should know what happens when this kind of situation comes up and be prepared to also kidnap that kid. Like, there’s no easy solution to this, that’s the point of the experiment, but him not looking up what happens when someone’s been punctured in this culture is a serious and arrogant misstep, and no one else looking it up is convenient to the plot. 

4, What did this family think was going to happen when they came to B5? They made a one-way trip (bc its stated that Shon’s not going to survive another space flight) hoping that council race medicine will cure their kid -- and it can! But it requires surgery. DUH!!! Have they never spoken with ANY member of another race before? Like... do they not believe in phones either? They believe in space ships apparently. Do they believe in wikipedia? B/c just a tiny bit of resaerch on their part and they could have stayed home and let their son die like they obviously want to the way they want to according to their own beliefs. You came out here to get news you then immediately reject and it causes trouble morally, emotionally, professionally, and politically for everybody. The show still frames their BELIEFS as backward and unreasonable, but I venture their actions are the more damning to their intelligence. If you didn’t want B5 medicine, don’t come to B5. Maybe they were hoping for another solution and that Franklin would work a miracle... okay sure... but that’s as big a risk as Franklin performing the surgery and hoping the parents are okay with it when they see the results. It all feels very divisive, and works in the service of the shock ending without answering questions. In the service of the audience reaction. I’m okay with trying to affect your audience but as seen from the stack of words I’ve just produced I have some issues with how it was done. 

Things I liked

1, Sinclair made the right decision diplomatically. It’s not the place of an alien culture to discard another culture’s beliefs. Regardless on the question of saving the life of the child Sinclair can’t, as representative of earth in this instance, step in. I’m glad the show acknowledged that. 

2, I like that Shon is smart enough to know that the gloppit egg isn’t real, and he’s doing the same thing to Franklin that Franklin is doing to his parents -- that being allowing him to continue with what he believes is a false faith b/c it makes them feel better. It’s a nice demonstration of what’s occurring.

3, Glad Franklin still tried to offer his resignation b/c he should have been fired and it’s only Sinclair’s faith in him that kept that from happening. Since I’m asking the show to address issues, that one like succeeded in addressing that one.

4, I like that the parents went to every council race appealing for help and they all had to shrug and be like “You’re asking a whole people to help you when you talk to me about it. It’s not as simple as asking an individual person to empathize. Anything I do requires government approval.” And the parents are just bug-eyed b/c they apparently come from a very tiny world and have no concept of diplomacy on the scale they’re now dealing with. It makes me wonder what appealing to the League of Non-Aligned worlds would have resulted. I know I mentioned I loved the Abbai before... but talking to Kalika about this. They also have a matriarchal, community-based society with strong emphasis on religious piety. Not saying it could produce different results than talking with Delenn, but it would be a valid option. Or maybe talking to the Brakiri, they have a strong faith in the spiritual. Maybe they did appeal to these races but were turned down b/c the league has one vote as a whole and asking every member race to stand on their behalf was too big. At the very least, I’m sure they could have found a race to give them political asylum if it benefitted a cause they agreed on -- ie respect for divergent religious beliefs. 

I’m sure there’s a lot of room for discussion on this episode. I’m not going to pretend that I’m the beginning and the end of this topic, but that’s also not the point of the episode. Believers is all about asking ourselves how we would have behaved and what we value. A person who emphasizes faith in their life might be more sympathetic to the parents, a person in the medical field might empathize more with Franklin’s position. Everyone can agree that killing children and letting children die is unpleasant, and personal feeligns, religion, and politics have the possiblity to complicate any situation in the most upsetting ways.

Watch B5 now streaming on HBO Max