(no subject)

[eye_of_a_cat]

He's not dead.

This isn't just denial. My favourite characters always die, to the point where my friends consider it a kind of spoiler warning - anyone I mention liking will die, get used to it. (I believe other people have this ability with goldfish or houseplants.) I've had a long time to get used to this, and if I really thought Lennier was dead, I'd be able to accept it with only minimal grumbling. I'm convinced he isn't, though.

Firstly, the toast to 'absent friends' in SiL, which everyone bar me seems to think means 'dead friends'. I know the others mentioned are canonically dead by this point, but 'absent' could just mean 'absent' in Lennier's case, which is what I assumed when I first saw SiL - Delenn just hadn't seen him since Objects at Rest.

Secondly, Morden's hints in Day of the Dead. It's Morden. I don't trust Morden.

Thirdly, the speculation for Crusade, in which both JMS and an abandoned script apparently imply Lennier dies during the Telepath War. It's not directly stated anywhere I can find, but it's implied pretty heavily. Well. Not only do I think this doesn't mean Lennier's dead by the time of Crusade, but I'm halfway convinced that it proves he's not.

I don't trust JMS either (a bit more than Morden, maybe), and I know that in the past he's been very, very secretive about future plot developments. (He's definitely lied about things on at least one occasion to distract people from guessing.) Even with Crusade being cancelled (and the Telepath War predates Crusade), it seems extremely unlike him to give away a plot point involving a character death so lightly. He's not given up working within the B5 universe, so why tell everyone about a plot point which hasn't happened yet? And if he did want to, for whatever reason, why not just say it outright rather than dance around it, all the time dropping hints which are much, much more obvious than all his normal ones? Something is suspicious here.

I think it suits JMS to have people assume Lennier's dead. Giving away future plot points doesn't usually suit JMS, but pointing people down a different route so they won't expect them does, and I think that's what he's doing here.

That's about 75% reasoning with reference to JMS's sneakiness in the past, and 25% clamping my hands over my ears while shouting very loudly "It's not true! It's not!" Which isn't a bad ratio, all things considered.

Comments

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

There's also Delenn's "until I see a body Lennier isn't dead" in Darkness Ascending. Which I take as encouragement to have the same attitude. Unfortunatley, it could also mean - if Delenn thinks he's dead (if you take the line in SiL that way) then he most definitely is.

Although, I wouldn't put it past Lennier to fake his own death to keep Delenn from tracking him down. It's what I would do in his position. She's very, very unwilling to let him go - and he really needs to get away from her, at least for a time.

My feeling, though, is that JMS's treatment of Lennier's fate is just JMS going on a homicidal rampage against his own character, which he's not above doing. (Talia is the most obvious example - all that setup, and he kills her in a trivial way. Anna is another example - Sheridan kills her and doesn't care, and we're not supposed to either.) I think that was JMS's intention with the diary - to thow out something so OOC that it undermines anything we might have liked about Lennier. Kind of like 'Everything nice Talia did for Susan was really the program talking' . (grumble) As to why JMS had to destroy Lennier that way - I think in the end he just couldn't stand having a rival for Sheridan. It's just like 'Deconstruction' or Garibaldi's brainwashing - anyone who has anything negative to say (or feel, or imply) about Sheridan must have something wrong with him. It's what I'm most angry at JMS about.

So, I don't see a lot of hope for JMS writing something Lennier-friendly in the future - unless he's gotten over his need to make Sheridan into a Mary-sue, which would be very nice. Still, I do think it is canonically possible.

About that conversation with Morden...

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

(Since Morden's been in my head recently, I asked her, er, him a few questions about this conversation.)

First of all, I think the conversation most makes sense as Morden trying to get Lennier to play a part in the destruction of Centauri Prime, in which he quite succeeded. Second of all, the things Morden said are quite ambiguous, and don't really mean anything. As far as I remember, the only two pieces of information he gives are 1) "Delenn does not love you like you love her, and never will." (which, if you are less self-hating than Lennier, would be a simple statement of the obvious - there are many ways in which Delenn's love for Lennier is different than her love for him, not the least that it will never feel unrequited.) and 2) that he will find out if there is life after death "soon enough" (which, since there's no time frame, and any time is soon to someone who is dead or immortal, doesn't mean anything at all. Even if we discount the possibility that he could be destined to find out about life after death in some way other than dying.)

I'm also stuck on the King Solomon reference. If Neil Gaiman didn't notice that by having Lennier ask for wisdom he was making him into King Solomon, well, he should have. (The King Solomon narrative is, as far as I can remember, the only Biblical narrative where God asks 'what do you want' instead of just giving a blessing.) Especially after all the hints (and the occasional outright statement) about Delenn training Lennier to be her successor. If Delenn is the messianic figure, her sucessor would be the Solomonic figure. One would think.

The problem is, JMS didn't write this episode. So maybe we can't hold him responsible for hints and allusions in it. Still, these hints are as canon as anything, certainly as canon as things JMS says he thought of but never filmed.