The problem with this ind of reasoning is twofold: first, if Asmodeus was not a demon, then the episode was about precisely nothing at all; second if we go down this path, then we have to also concede that there is no more evidence that Prince Vintari was a Centauri than that he was a Drazi in a changeling net.
About nothing at all? Are you kidding me? The episode had TONS of story. Part of the story was the character saying he was a demon - even if he wasn't a demon, the story is still about him saying he wasn't a demon. Not to mention faith and religion in the future, which was the whole point to be honost, not weather or not he was a demon... which was never confirmed. And no, Vintari wasn't a drazi. He never claimed to be a centari nor was he in a position where being a centari had anything to do with the plot. His position as a centari did, but not the fact that he was centari. The 'demon' character claiming to be a demon and the speculation regarding if he actually was a demon or not was part of the story. It's funny how you think that anything spoon fed to you by a character is all of a sudden a fact.
We assume that JMS is being honest with us because he always plants the seed of doubt in a character's beliefs before he pulls the switcheroo. He never has an episode depend on one thing being true, and then suddenly switch around and say "fooled you." He could easily have planted the doubt in everyone's mind in this episode had he wanted to. He didn't want to. THAT is the interesting point, IMO. No one seems to want to address it, though; they just want to invent rationalizations for why what they saw and heard must not be true.
Who said JMS wasn't being honost? He's a writer. His characters aren't himself talking to you. When you watch Lochley speak, you're listening to Lochley, not JMS. When the priest talks, it's the priests viewpoints and thoughts, not JMS's. Also, nobody is trying to "invent" realizations. There is no more proof that he was a demon then there is that he as an alien. That alone is a huge seed of, in your words, "planted" doubt... the fact that there is no proof either way. Just because there wasn't someone there to argue the other side doesn't mean the other side doesn't exist, or that the side we did see is an absolute truth.
It is possible, if you deconstruct things like this, to show that the Shadows and Vorlons were the good guys, and Sheridan and his ilk the bad
Um, there are no such things as good guys or bad guys. That's a matter of opinion... no matter what you do, there will never be a good guy or bad guy in babylon 5. Just the viewers perception of such. So I don't know what you're talking about with "deconstructing." You act as if you assume everyone automatically agrees with you on your views of good and evil. Tone down the arrogance and you'll realize your mistake. However, regarding the issue of weather or not there was a demon in the lost tales - we never were told that he was in fact a demon, characters may have believed that - but that doesn't make it a fact. Until it's actually proven, in the story, or just by JMS, it's still an open debatable discussion ... it's not "deconstructing" anything simply because there never was confirmation of a demon in the first place.
Lochley was far more experienced in the command of B5 than Sheridan ever was.
First of all, this is not a fact, it's a debatable opinion. Second of all, I never said Lochley wasn't "more" experienced then Sheridan. I said that Lochley didn't have the SAME experience as sheridan. Lochley may have been around B5 for a while now -- but that doesn't mean she had the same experiences and relations with vorlons and shadows that Sheridan did. How long you've been doing something doesn't give you some sort of godlike power or experience simply because it's been going on for some period of time. Sheridan in his four years of babylon 5 went through something that Lochley didn't in her 10 years, a huge galactic war involving ancient superpowers, ones who indeed manipulated religion of various races.
Plus, she had access to all of the records.
Records are one thing. Experiancing it and being invovled in it are completly different, they give you something no ammount of reading could.
The idea that she just grabbed for a priest as the first option, before exhausting all possibilities available on-station to explain the phenomenon she saw, is absurd.
Who said she grabbed a priest for some unknown reason? Maybe she just plain and simple didn't know what to do. She seemed to inform the priest about the events leading up to this possession, the smells, the temperature drops, but she neglected to even mention that she tried something else. I mean she literally said to the priest she didn't know what to do. She didn't know what other options or explanations to test out, or how to test them even if she could. Maybe she thought that using a priest first was worth a try, and if it turned out not to be so extreme that other possibilities would be tried after the priest. Maybe she thought about it and thought about it and there just wasn't anything apparent to her. Not everyone is perfect - and you have no idea what kind of scale she went through in 10 years. Just because in Sheridan's time a lot of stuff happened doesn't mean that Lochleys has to follow the same pattern. Listen to her list of 'pretty strange things' that she went through again. Strange foods? That doesn't even begin to compare to what Sheridan went through. If that's what comes to her mind when she thinks of what the past 10 years of her have been like, then it's pretty obvious that she didn't know what to do and had no where else to turn. I don't know why you want to assume she all of a sudden has some superiority over every other character.
No military commander behaves like that. Admitting you cannot handle something yourself is the last resort, not the first.
She didn't say she couldn't handle it, she said she didn't know where else to turn. Hence, the priest.
Curious how things you like are obvious, and things you don't are sussceptable to any kind of weak rationalization. Asmodeus was clearly not impotent; at one point, he rocks the station and surrounds it in fire. What he lacked the power to do was leave Simon Burke without an exorcism, it seems. That was the essence of the episode: determining why he wanted that.
I NEVER said he was impotent or weak. I said he clearly NEEDED something from us... and you'd be an idiot to try and argue that. He did need something from us, because yes, he did have power, and despite all that power he still tried to pry something out. The fact that you missed that point leads me to suspect you're not even trying to read my posts but simply refute them to comfort yourself into feeling right. Nobody ever said for a fact that he needed an excorism to leave. The fact that you think that just shows you're thinking on the surface, in one dimension, with spoon fed information. There's so much more to it then that. You don't know how deep his deception went. You don't know what he really wanted. (Though it would seem he wanted to be free of Earth. That desire doesn't mean anything though really to either side of the argument, because demon alien or anything else he could have easily been trapped or bound to Earth in some way.) You don't know what he was trying to do to get what he wanted. All you do know is that he manipulated Lochley and the Priest, and that he used religion as a ploy for his minipulation. Even if he was a demon, he still abused religious context to try and get what he wanted. If he wasn't an alien, then he used religion as a way to mask his power and appear bigger then he was.
That was the essence of the episode: determining why he wanted that. If the "secret" resolution was that he was really just an alien and Lochley and Father Cassidy simply wrong, why film the episode at all?
LOL! Is that all you see? Really, was the only thing you saw in the whole episode a priest trying to uncover a demons deception? The story, like all of babylon 5, was about so so so much more then just a simple plot. It's not a matter of having a "secret" resolution of him really being an alien. It's not about plot at all. It's a debate between religion and science. It's a way to look at insights onto both sides. It's a way to create discussion and thought... to examine our beliefs, to examine how far we are willing to take them, to examine our naiveness and our confidence, to question what we don't understand - even more so to question if we should even at all question what we don't understand. On top of that - the episode provided a very well-done subtle social exmination underneath. Said examination being of faith and religions future - as mankind ventures into space. The line was brought up directly in fact... and beyond that one line the whole episode was, in part, about said concept.
The fact that you think the whole episode was just so you could watch a demon trick people and then watch the priest figure it out is pretty funny. There's much more to science fiction then just watching a story unfold. And not only that, but there's much more to a good story then just a plot and "secret" resolutions.
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grumbler
17 years ago
"About nothing at all? Are you kidding me?"
Nope. If the sory was not about Lochley and Father Cassady finding a real, live demon, then it was about an alien convincing them that they had. If the latter, so what? There is no story there.
"And no, Vintari wasn't a drazi."
To quote, well, you, this "was never confirmed." We actually have more evidence Asmodeus was a demon than that Vintari was a Centauri (in that expert people doubted it, researched it, and concluded that it was true).
"It's funny how you think that anything spoon fed to you by a character is all of a sudden a fact. "
It is funny how you can say decisively that "no, Vintari wasn't a drazi" simply because that "fact" was, to use your own words, "spoon fed to you by a character." I am simply applying the same logic to two situations. You are changing the logic based on what you believe a priori. See the difference?
" First of all, this is not a fact, it's a debatable opinion."
No, it is a fact. Lochley has held command for eleven years. Sheridan held command for four years. Eleven is greater than four.
" I said he clearly NEEDED something from us... and you'd be an idiot to try and argue that."
And I _also_ said he clearly NEEDED something from Lochley and Cassidy... and you'd be an idiot to try and argue _that_.
"...demon alien or anything else he could have easily been trapped or bound to Earth in some way..."
That is awfully weak. The story told us why he was bound to earth, and yet you reject the given explanation and claim that he could "easily" have ben trapped by some mysterious "other" way. Occam's Razor argues that weak "some way" should be rejected in favor of the simpler, no-additional-explanation-needed conclusion that the episode actually reached.
"It's a debate between religion and science."
No, there was no debate between science and religion in the episode (that debate presumably occurred before father Cassidy was summoned to B5). That is, after all, part of my point (the other part being the question of why JMS would write a catholic-Church-style demon into the B5 universe). Avoiding the real question of what happened and why in favor of issues you wish you had seen presented is a waste of time.
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Heliosphere
17 years ago
Oh grumbler. Don't take my post out of context and try to bend it into what you want it to mean. It just makes you look silly.
Nope. If the sory was not about Lochley and Father Cassady finding a real, live demon, then it was about an alien convincing them that they had. If the latter, so what? There is no story there.
No offense and i'm sorry to be blunt but are you dumb? Seriously. Who the hell said the story has to either be about Lochley finding a demon or an alien? The story was about the situation on babylon 5 - religion in the future - science vs religion - and so forth. All these things and much more is what the story was about. The 'demon' thing was just an aspect of a much larger story.
To quote, well, you, this "was never confirmed." We actually have more evidence Asmodeus was a demon than that Vintari was a Centauri (in that expert people doubted it, researched it, and concluded that it was true).
It's about common sense. He's a centari because the story isn't debating that. The story here is about a battle of morals and what ifs. It has nothing to do with him being a centari. The story with Asmodeus on the other hand, is about religion and faith vs science and logic. And no, there is no more "evidence" that he was a demon then that Vintari was a Centuari. A character saying he's a demon and shooting up fire doesn't make him a demon no more then spikey hair makes Vintari a centari... but in the story with Vintari it is irrelevent if he's a centari or not, and in Lochleys story the aspect of him being a demon or something else is what the whole story is about.
No, it is a fact. Lochley has held command for eleven years. Sheridan held command for four years. Eleven is greater than four.
It's funny how you took my words completly out of context. It isn't a fact. The only thing that's a fact is how long Lochley was in command - NOT how much experiance she had. I was reffering to her experiance and capiablities as a commander - which are COMPLETLY debatable. She could have commanded Babylon 5 for 18 years and still not have had to deal with even half as much as Sheridan did in just his 5. So yes - her experiance level is debatable. How long she commanded doesn't matter, what she commanded and what she gained from it, does, and that is completly open for discussion.
That is awfully weak. The story told us why he was bound to earth, and yet you reject the given explanation and claim that he could "easily" have ben trapped by some mysterious "other" way. Occam's Razor argues that weak "some way" should be rejected in favor of the simpler, no-additional-explanation-needed conclusion that the episode actually reached.
Haha. No, I didn't reject anything. I said it's open for debate... because, YES he could have been trapped on earth by ANYTHING! The story did NOT tell us he was bound to earth. He HIMSELF told us he was bound to earth. What a character says is not a fact. You really have no idea what the character was really after or really describing. It could have been an actual demon trapped on earth from God just as easily as it could have been an alien trapped by some form of technology. You honostly have no proof either way. Things characters say are arguable, becuase they are not facts, they are characters words. There's nothing mysterious about it. But the fact is, we , the viewers have no idea what the real picture was -- only what it appeared to be. Part of Babylon 5 is discussing and being open minded to such debate - are you sure you really like babylon 5 or do you just enjoy spoon fed stories?
No, there was no debate between science and religion in the episode (that debate presumably occurred before father Cassidy was summoned to B5). That is, after all, part of my point (the other part being the question of why JMS would write a catholic-Church-style demon into the B5 universe). Avoiding the real question of what happened and why in favor of issues you wish you had seen presented is a waste of time.
Are you blind? There was a HUGE debate between religion and science! Just because there's no scientist arguing with the priest doesn't mean the debate didn't exist. Just as in a book you must look past the words to see what's really there, in babylon 5 you have to look past and above the dialog to see the whole context of the situation. What's not said is equally as important as what IS said. Why would JMS write a cruch style demon into the b5 universe? The answer is painfully obvious. TO KEEP PEOPLE THINKING AND DEBATING! That's what this is all about! Discussion and thought! Not just watching a story so you feel good inside. It's about thinking and examining the world around us!
Open your mind, there's a lot more to babylon 5 and science fiction then just watching a story. It's a shame you don't see this, because it makes you incredibly arrogant.
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grumbler
17 years ago
"Oh grumbler. Don't take my post out of context and try to bend it into what you want it to mean. It just makes you look silly."
Can you please stick to the arguments and not take these side-trips into absurdity? I don't look silly in my arguments.
"No offense and i'm sorry to be blunt but are you dumb? Seriously."
No offense, but could you just can the ad hominems? Seriously. If you are going to persist in these *beep* comments, our conversation will end.
"Who the hell said the story has to either be about Lochley finding a demon or an alien?"
You do. You are the one talking about an alien. The episode isn't about that, but you claim it is.
"The story was about the situation on babylon 5 - religion in the future - science vs religion - and so forth."
The "situation on Babylon 5" is that they appear to have a bona-fide demon on their hands, and Lochley ends up summoning a priest. There is no discussion of science versus religion, just about religion in the space age. The story is _about_ a man apparently possessed by an old-style catholic-Church demon, and it concludes that this is precisely what has happened. There is no "larger story." These stories are explicitly self-contained.
"It's funny how you took my words completly out of context. It isn't a fact. The only thing that's a fact is how long Lochley was in command - NOT how much experiance she had."
That is what "experience" is - the actual doing of something. It is funny how you cannot grasp that fact.
"Haha. No, I didn't reject anything. I said it's open for debate... because, YES he could have been trapped on earth by ANYTHING! The story did NOT tell us he was bound to earth. He HIMSELF told us he was bound to earth. What a character says is not a fact."
If you do not accept the conclusions reached by Lochley and Cassidy, then you reject them and say "it is open for debate." In a strict deconstructionist sense, it is, but then so is every thing else mentioned by a character, like the fact that Vintari is a prince on Centauri Prime. If you want to play the "just because characters say it doesn't make it true" card, you have to conceded that we didn't necessarily see a B5 commander, a Catholic priest, a Minbari prince, or a technomage - because all we have to go on with them is that a character said who they were.
"Are you blind? There was a HUGE debate between religion and science! Just because there's no scientist arguing with the priest doesn't mean the debate didn't exist. Just as in a book you must look past the words to see what's really there, in babylon 5 you have to look past and above the dialog to see the whole context of the situation."
The "debate between religion and science" takes place off-screen, before Cassidy is even summoned (because once he is on-station, there is no debate between religion and science), WHICH IS PRECISELY WHY THE EPISODE IS SO INTERESTING. JMS has never done this before. He has always, before this, left another explanation on the table. You want so badly for that to be true this time that you summon reasons to believe it out of thin air.
"Open your mind, there's a lot more to babylon 5 and science fiction then just watching a story. It's a shame you don't see this, because it makes you incredibly arrogant."
Ah, condescension on top of ad homs and personal attacks! How astonishing.
Not.
Look at my posts, and look at yours, and just try to consider which ones a third party would find "arrogant."
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Heliosphere
17 years ago
Congratulations grumbler. I don't put people on my ignore list very often - but you just made it. Can't stand people who are arrogant and closed minded such as yourself - not to mention people who twist and ignore a posters words simply to see what they want to see. Believe what you want - think there was proof a demon was in babylon 5 all you want - enjoy being spoon fed information, and keep your mind closed. Fine with me, but i'd rather not debate with someone who's not willing to accept that there is a debate at all - the fact that you think I was arguing he was an alien ALONE proves that you're an idiot. I never was arguing that there was an alien. I was arguing that it's open to debate and not only that but it's important to debate such an issue becuase that's what the point of this episode was. If you wish to ignore the fact that a debate does exist, go ahead. I won't waste my time debating weather or not a debate exists with you simply because you're to arrogant and closed minded to ever believe anything that's not in front of your face. I bet if JMS himself said that the topic is open for discussion you'd call him wrong. Think what you want, say what you want, but i'm done wasting my time with a hopeless cause such as yourself. Ignored.
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grumbler
17 years ago
Feeble. Feel free to drop out of the debate, but don't pretend that it is because of my "arrogance" and "closed mind" when it is clear that you are abandoning the debate because you are unable to answer my points.
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