I'm kind of glad this was written before Guantanamo, so it can make its point as a more general condemnation without being forever linked to just one incident (and my own government's done that kind of thing before, and not even all that long ago). But rewatching it while all this is going on is eerily appropriate, right down to the 'and you don't technically exist according to the laws set up for this kind of situation, so you're not getting a trial' points.
Which is why I think his personal arc ends at Z'ha'dum, which is the culmination of these developments.
*nods* Although I think there's a great deal of missed opportunity re: Anna, and how Sheridan deals with (effectively) killing her. As it's written, he just seems to forget all about it after Z'ha'dum, except for that one moment you mentioned in Rising Star. In that case it could just be a Sheridan thing - he deals with issues he knows he can't face by doing something big, drawing a line under it and then pretending it's all over, which is probably the same reason he doesn't want to know what Delenn did in the war.
Here we get into "how much do memories define a person" territory, which two other favourite shows of mine have examined beautifully.
Have you seen Memento? I had a great discussion about memories and personality after watching that film at university a few years ago, where I was the only one arguing that you can still have a personality without any memories (or any ability to have memories, in that case). I'm not sure whether I still believe that - it bothered me hugely at the time that personality could be defined by something so fleeting, and I'd just spent a year's holidays working in a nursing home where a lot of the residents had severe dementia and therefore very few memories left. (This episode also has the exchange between Franklin and Ivanova about seeing God in the eyes of the dying, which reminded me of doing that kind of work too. I'm not sure Franklin's right, but I've seen some odd things.)
With Anna, it strikes me that the Shadows wouldn't send her to Sheridan unless she was unchanged to a pretty large degree. Later on he says he just knew it wasn't her, but I don't think he's so sure back on the station, given how angry he gets with Delenn and the way he can't even completely rule out that she's genuine when he says it's 'almost certainly a trap'. Again, that might be Sheridan - he sees things as very black and white, so if Anna's been altered to the degree where she'd serve the Shadows, then obviously she's not Anna any more. Plus, he needs to be able to live with himself.
I think the only other time whe see Morden lose his cool - but then spectacularly - is when Londo blows up the island Selini.
That's my favourite Morden scene. Even Londo getting his guards to kill Morden's Shadows doesn't quite do it - it's the knowledge that Londo has just completely ruined all his plans, and it's a wonderful reversal of that also-supposedly-rhetorical "Why don't you eliminate the entire Narn homeworld, while you're at it?" line early on in their relationship.
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branchandroot
Re: (I)
Date: 2005-01-04 04:29 pm (UTC)Yeah, isn't it just...
I'm kind of glad this was written before Guantanamo, so it can make its point as a more general condemnation without being forever linked to just one incident (and my own government's done that kind of thing before, and not even all that long ago). But rewatching it while all this is going on is eerily appropriate, right down to the 'and you don't technically exist according to the laws set up for this kind of situation, so you're not getting a trial' points.
Which is why I think his personal arc ends at Z'ha'dum, which is the culmination of these developments.
*nods* Although I think there's a great deal of missed opportunity re: Anna, and how Sheridan deals with (effectively) killing her. As it's written, he just seems to forget all about it after Z'ha'dum, except for that one moment you mentioned in Rising Star. In that case it could just be a Sheridan thing - he deals with issues he knows he can't face by doing something big, drawing a line under it and then pretending it's all over, which is probably the same reason he doesn't want to know what Delenn did in the war.
Here we get into "how much do memories define a person" territory, which two other favourite shows of mine have examined beautifully.
Have you seen Memento? I had a great discussion about memories and personality after watching that film at university a few years ago, where I was the only one arguing that you can still have a personality without any memories (or any ability to have memories, in that case). I'm not sure whether I still believe that - it bothered me hugely at the time that personality could be defined by something so fleeting, and I'd just spent a year's holidays working in a nursing home where a lot of the residents had severe dementia and therefore very few memories left. (This episode also has the exchange between Franklin and Ivanova about seeing God in the eyes of the dying, which reminded me of doing that kind of work too. I'm not sure Franklin's right, but I've seen some odd things.)
With Anna, it strikes me that the Shadows wouldn't send her to Sheridan unless she was unchanged to a pretty large degree. Later on he says he just knew it wasn't her, but I don't think he's so sure back on the station, given how angry he gets with Delenn and the way he can't even completely rule out that she's genuine when he says it's 'almost certainly a trap'. Again, that might be Sheridan - he sees things as very black and white, so if Anna's been altered to the degree where she'd serve the Shadows, then obviously she's not Anna any more. Plus, he needs to be able to live with himself.
I think the only other time whe see Morden lose his cool - but then spectacularly - is when Londo blows up the island Selini.
That's my favourite Morden scene. Even Londo getting his guards to kill Morden's Shadows doesn't quite do it - it's the knowledge that Londo has just completely ruined all his plans, and it's a wonderful reversal of that also-supposedly-rhetorical "Why don't you eliminate the entire Narn homeworld, while you're at it?" line early on in their relationship.