sebastienne

They can't be all dead...

I was astounded and crushed, to say the least. I had no idea when first seeing this episode that they were all going to be shot, apart from Avon; having been young and read the series rather straightforwardly heroically, the confrontation between Blake and Avon was a great shock, though fitting.

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servalan.livejournal.com

Oh! The tragedy!

(I angst over this endlessly.)

I love how Avon has clearly started to lose it and is mostly insane by the end. (I mean, the smiling. It's so wrong.) And Blake, from out of nowhere. And the deaths just piling up because we don't need protagonists anyway.

Ack.

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In the four months since I started watching B7, I have had to double-take on almost every post of yours I see - what's Servalan doing on L?!

Broken-Avon makes me far happier than it is probably expedient for me to admit...

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I first got into B7 fandom about ten years back, and as far as I recall, one of the first things I knew about the series - one of the things which tripped me over from being a casual watcher to being a somewhat obsessive fan - was how it ended. I've always been keen on spoilers. I caught 'Sevefold Crown' on Radio 4 (I have no idea why - I was on a longish car journey with my parents, and it happened to be on, and my father happens to have had a crush on Servalan for the last thirty years, so we just happened to listen to it), I caught season one on repeat on weekend afternoons, and then on my first tentative steps into the internet fandom, I found Judith Procter's transcripts and pretty much read up on the wholes series, more or less starting at the end (because it's *important* to know how a series ends before you've really started it, obv...)

I've since begun to suggest that if one doesn't know the ending of B7, then one should remained unspoilered for it - or at least unspoilered for the *specifics* of it, as it's really not the deaths per se that are the thing that kicks you in the stomach, it's the *context*, the sense of betrayal, the tragedy, the perfect senselessness of that last scene. But honestly? I don't know that it really affects one's enjoyment (if that's the right word...) one way or the other. The ending still has much the same impact when I watch it now as when I first saw it - even though I can remember every line between Avon and Blake, every nuance of delivery, every facial expression, every gesture, because I've watched the scene just *that* many times. Indeed, as

parrot_knight pointed out above - if one has been watching the series unspoilered, especially as a young and uncynical viewer, then the ending can come across more as the senseless bloodbath of Euripides than the dark inevitability of Sophocles. For me, watching the ending even for the first time, there never seemed to be any question of any other way of ending things. Because this is the universe of Blakes 7, where of *course* the plucky band of rebels can't defeat the armed might of the Federation, and of *course* Avon and Blake can't end their relationship in anything other than total misunderstanding, just as they've understood each other far too well and not at all in the whole of the rest of the series.

(I am aware, of course, that the writers left a get-out clause if they were recommissioned for season 5. Blake, shot with Avon's gun, is the only death with any blood - and, as you pointed out, the mess of blood on the white shirt is one of the most striking visual contrasts of the scene. All the others, including Deva the comp-tech, are shot either with Arlen's gun, or by the Federation troopers, with no blood, and an odd slow-motion effect. This leaves open a number of loopholes. Why were the Federation guards attacking? Clearly because they knew this was a rebel stronghold, not a nest of bounty-hunters. Arlen must have reported the rebel presence, and more significantly Blake's presence. Federation troops wouldn't want to kill a prize like Blake in the crossfire - stun weapons are much more likely. If recommissioned, then it would be revealed that the Feds only stunned Avon and his crew, and that only Blake and Arlen (shot by Dayna) are dead. Personally, I don't care much for that ending. Senseless it may be, but I tend to feel that the utter failure and confusion of the bleaker ending makes a much more fitting ending for the series.)

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then the ending can come across more as the senseless bloodbath of Euripides than the dark inevitability of Sophocles.

Fandom benefits from a classical education. :)

Personally, I don't care much for that ending.

Advocated by those whose secret agenda was David Collings as a regular, I suspect...

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You see, I would *love* to have David Collings as a regular in Blakes 7. That'd be *awesome*. I want to see him meet ORAC. I want to see him and Avon having snitty comp-tech arguments. I want to see him flirting in a genteel and Silver-like way with Soolin, who would find it oddly charming.

I'm still not swapping the ending though ^_^

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Soolin desperately needs to be charmed, really. It's a while since I've seen series four (or 'D', as I learned to call it in an age when fanzines were po-faced about such things), but I never really got a grip on her character - a sort of hardened, quieter Dayna, really.

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I'm an enormous fan of Soolin, actually, though I would sometimes be a little hard-pressed to say why (and it's not just her fabulous variety of hair-styles). She's probably my favourite female character in the show (well, jointly with Servalan, obviously...), despite the fact that she gets remarkably little back-story, character-development, or screen-time.

I adore her interaction with Avon, even though they are quite *stupendously* bad influences on each other. It's rather symptomatic of the change of tone in season four (and the change in Avon's character) that we lose Cally (a hardened guerilla fighter, yes, but also idealistic, empathetic, protective, well-balanced) and gain Soolin (cynical, detached, untouchable, who defines herself by her mercenary skills and takes pride in her lack of ties and allegiances). I love that Avon almost immediately understands her, and relies on her to watch his back as well as her own - in the latter part of the series especially, Avon-Soolin is the most prominent action double-act (see particularly 'Gold' and 'Warlord'. To paraphrase

sebastienne: 'Avon And Soolin Blow Things Up. I would *so* watch that spin-off.')

To be slightly contentious and oversimplifying vastly, she in many ways typifies to me one of the better broad characterisation trends of 'Blakes 7' - the way that female characters are allowed to be the exemplifiers of traditionally masculine skill-sets (Jenna the best pilot, Servalan the most powerful politician and military commander, Dayna the weapons and explosives expert, and finally Soolin the crack-shot) - without falling prey to the usual 'Blakes 7' tendency of completely forgetting these skills as the show goes on (Jenna, I'm looking at you and 'The Keeper of Goth' here.) This is no doubt because they just didn't have time with Soolin. But what we see of her in the series keeps up her cold, detached, cynical mercenary persona, while still adding notes of warmth to her interactions with the rest of the crew as the season goes on. There's no real question of her abandoning the others in 'Blake', even though there seems very little chance she'll ever get any payment now for, as she describes it in 'Aftermath', 'selling her skills' to them. One of the things that does sadden me a little about ending the show when they did is that this integration of Soolin into the crew could never be fully realised.

Except, of course, in fanfic. Which is one of the many reasons why I love the 'Last Best Hope' / 'Long Way Back' novella sequence. The casually cynical, sarcastic, untouchable Soolin, who becomes close friends with Tyce Sarkoff, is a member in good standing of Blake's Inner Council, and incidentally encourages Vila into saving the galaxy, is just what I'd have liked the series to do with the character. Being charmed by Deva would have had much the same humanising effect. For much the same reason, I have an odd fondness for Soolin/Vila. No, really.

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So I don't actually think spoilering should make *much* difference to one's appreciation, as the real impact comes from the delivery and the context. One thing I *do* insist on is that a new viewer doesn't watch the last episode until they've watched a *sizeable* amount of the rest of the show. As an *absolute minimum* they'd have to understand the intricacies of the Blake/Avon relationship (say, 'Spacefall', 'Cygnus Alpha', 'Horizon', 'Pressure Point', 'Hostage', 'Star One' and 'Terminal'), to have some fondness for the season four crew (say, 'Aftermath' for Dayna, 'Death-Watch' for Tarrant, 'Orbit' for the Avon + Vila relationship, 'Assassin' for Soolin, and something like 'Gold' for an ensemble piece), and to have charted Avon's character, from initial self-sufficiency to final breakdown - his patterns of trust and betrayal ( From: 'My people have a saying - the man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.' 'Life expectancy must be fairly short amongst your people.', through: 'Avon - for what it is worth - I have always trusted you. From the very beginning.', right up to 'Have you betrayed us?! Have you - betrayed *me*?'), his need to free himself from Blake but his inability to break away, his constant claims of superiority to Blake in the first two seasons, followed by his inability to compare with him in seasons three and four, and the spiralling pattern of failure from 'Terminal' onwards.

I could go on. I most probably will if at all encouraged. What I mean is that 'Blake' is the culmination (or perhaps the lowest point of the downward spiral) of everything that has gone before. I've no idea how it would stand up as an independent piece of television, but I'm certain it wouldn't have anywhere near the same devestating impact as it does at the end of 52 50-minute episodes. Read the scripts if you can't get hold of the eps, but don't just blunder in blind, or it won't *mean* anything. That's the most important thing, more so in many ways that remaining unspoilered.

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Yes, I mean, a lot of this hit me unconsciously, I think, and I'm only just beginning to untangle it now. Like the heart-breaking hurt in "Have you - betrayed me?" coming after seasons of (overtly, at least) refusing to trust anyone.

I just cannot begin to articulate how great it was to have you show me this. I really don't think there's any way that I would have stuck it out through the dodgy episodes and faithfully watched everything in the way that I have, without your enthusiasm to keep me going. And oh, oh, how thankful I am for that now. You are entirely right that it would not be the same without knowing the characters (or even "feeling" them, because, as I say, much of my response is only beginning to be untangled) in the way that I have come to. I wonder what it would have been like for someone watching it as it aired, with it as their favourite show that they avidly waited for week-on-week, season-on-season, like many of us have done with Buffy or New Who?

And I agree that being spoilered made very little difference to me - as you say, it adds to the sense of inevitability, building up through the catalogue of failures that is those last few episodes - but the Blake/Avon thing coming as a surprise did seem to heighten its senselessness for me. So perhaps I had the best of both worlds? Although I admit it's hard to read any crew containing Avon and Soolin and strictly heroic, however many revolutionary conferences they are holding!

And - why no Servalan?

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I think the 'why no Servalan' question is again one that can be answered on several levels. The first is a production one - they didn't know they were writing the last episode ever, Jackie Pearce had been in an awful lot of season 4, you can kind of understand her not being in at the end. Indeed, I have more than half a suspicion that as and when season 5 opened, the crew would have woken up to find themselves captured by Servalan - she'd been buzzing around the galaxy doing so many odd jobs in season 4, there's no reason she shouldn't have been doing some law-enforcement on Gauda Prime.

But I think a better reading is the in-universe one, the one where they actually do die at the end. If Servalan had been involved, it would have been a show-down - a final confrontation between the Federation and the rebels, with the representatives of both those powers present. Even with the terrible misunderstanding of Blake's death, Servalan's presence would have made it very clear that the Federation had won - had *achieved* something important. Without Servalan, it's a small Federation operation on a backwater planet, clearing out a nest of trouble-makers like they've done on dozens of other worlds, nothing special. They probably don't even know Blake is there. (As I noted above, this is one major way in which I interpret Blakes-7-which-ends-at-season-four very differently from the-theoretical-Blakes-7-which-continues-into-season-five: if the crew survive season 4, it's because the Fed troopers knew there was a prize there worth taking with stun guns (Blake), making it a major operation; if the crew die, it's because the Feds didn't know Blake was there (presumably because Arlen didn't or wasn't able to report it) and so just killed the rebels in the usual way. Since the show ended at season 4, I tend to take the latter view.)

Essentially, if Servalan were there, the operation becomes a planned attempt to capture or kill Blake (and perhaps the others, as Servalan's set up very competant Blake-traps-for-Avon before, and may somehow have done so here.) It becomes important. Without Servalan, it seems like it's probably just another Federation operation - an operation they should have been able to escape from, if it hadn't been for the tragic misunderstanding. It's small, it's obscure, it's pointless, and thus perfect. They don't die heroically in a great last stand, and Blake doesn't become a martyred figurehead for the rebellion. It's just another day in the Federation. Which is ultimately what destroys them.

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I see the ambiguity they've set up there - and agree that the lack of Servalan adds to the pointlessness of it all. After four seasons of her as Big Bad, even coming back from death in a most spurious manner to continue tormenting them - it's wonderful that she has nothing to do with it, in the end. The world, I think, is like that. Perhaps this is why I like it so much - the horrible heart-breaking realism..

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Indeed, I have more than half a suspicion that as and when season 5 opened, the crew would have woken up to find themselves captured by Servalan

Isn't there a line which is open to that interpretation, that there's a mysterious ship approaching? It could just have carried the Federation troopers, I suppose.

I think that your in-universe explanation was the one which Chris Boucher says was in his mind at the time; though of course he also says that whoever had their contracts renewed would have miraculously survived. It builds on so much that has gone before - Blake's delusional faith in his ability to break the system, Avon's cynicism masking his own idealism, which he in turn is unable to sustain, degenerating into just another warlord of a frontier planet (as seen in Warlord).

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Yes, I mean, a lot of this hit me unconsciously, I think, and I'm only just beginning to untangle it now. Like the heart-breaking hurt in "Have you - betrayed me?" coming after seasons of (overtly, at least) refusing to trust anyone.

YES. Exactly this. Those key concepts and phrases which just echo throughout the show and throughout their relationship. Cally's Auronar saying ('the man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken') is the one I always think of as summing up the keywords - trust, betrayal, misunderstanding.

Avon constantly trapped and manipulated by Blake, simply because Blake seems to *trust* him - Avon, who takes such care to ensure that *no one* trusts him. When Blake says in 'Star One' that he has 'always trusted' Avon, 'from the very beginning', you can't be sure if it's true or not - it's *Blake*, and Blake is quite capable of either a) actually trusting Avon from the beginning, even though that's a bloody stupid thing, or b) actually believing by 'Star One' that he's trusted Avon from the beginning, even if he didn't. Either way, and intentionally or not, it's exactly the phrase Blake needs to set Avon's behaviour on a course through the next two seasons which will lead, inevitably, to Gauda Prime. After the battle, Avon is left with the Liberator (the finest ship in space, the ship synonymous with Blake, Blake's crew, Blake's cause, Blake's rebellion), a crew which looks all too readily to him for leadership, and the knowledge that Blake trusted him. The very fact that the show continues to be called 'Blakes 7' even after Blake's departure takes on a significance which cannot be removed merely by saying that it was a convenience of production. They are still Blake's crew.

Blake's rarely-mentioned absence is a tangible presence, an absence which becomes pivotal in 'Terminal' and tragic in 'Blake'. Blake trusts Avon with his ship, his crew, his mission - and don't forget that throughout the first two seasons Avon has consistently claimed he could do a better job as leader than Blake - and Avon progressively fails. One of the things I suspect the writers were attempting with Tarrant (not quite successfully) was undermining Avon's position and credibility as leader by offering an alternative option - one who was, in many ways, a combination of Avon's season one & two cynicism and Blake's youthful energy, charisma and ambition. As Avon is to Blake in the first two seasons, so Tarrant could have been to Avon in the last two. Whether you feel that works or not, Avon's status as leader is threatened, just as Blake's was. At the end of season 3, he loses the Liberator - a worse blunder than Blake ever made, though he came close once or twice. At the beginning of season 4, Cally dies - the same signal of failure as nearly broke Blake in 'Pressure Point'. And over and over, especially in season 4, Avon fails to achieve either his own stated goals from the early seasons (wealth, security: note the loss of the feldon crystals in 'Games', the money in 'Gold', the Xenon base in 'Warlord') or Blake's goals which he has inherited (the failure to take the tachyon funnel in 'Orbit' [which also, incidentally, loses him the trust of the only crew member remaining from Blake's original seven], the inability to broker an alliance between independent factions in 'Warlord', his most overtly Blakish action.)

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The ship, the crew, the mission: he fails them all. The trust which he feels Blake placed in him - a trust he struggled so hard to avoid, but which eventually he surrendered to and asked for (Star One: 'Couldn't you bring yourself to trust me just this once?') - has been betrayed (unwillingly, but nevertheless) and the only way out is to hand over responsibility to Blake again, the person who imposed that trust in the first place. Note that in both season 3 and season 4, Avon has been looking for Blake for a while - Blake is both his responsibility and the only person to whom Avon will relinquish responsibility. In 'Terminal', Avon is contacted by Blake (or by a message he believes might possibly come from Blake - even the slightest possibility must be followed up), and so drives himself to the brink of collapse and his ship past its tolerance levels to find him. And I don't think anyone really believes that it was to find that wealth and security which the message promised him - it was simply because it was Blake, that nexus of trust and responsibility. It was Blake who had contacted him, so he had to reply - after all, rescuing Blake is both a way of showing himself better than Blake, and a necessity because of the faith Blake has that Avon will rescue him. The hallucinatory sequence plays very strongly on this:

'BLAKE [waking up] Well, you certainly took your time finding me.'
...
'AVON Are you going to tell me about this discovery that is going to make us rich and invincible?
BLAKE I'll take you to it.
AVON You mean after I get you out of the mess you've got yourself into? Just like old times?'

In 'Blake', we find that this time Avon has taken the active part (though the end of the episode suggests that Blake had confidence that Avon was going to join him some day: 'Avon, I was waiting for *you* - ') in making contact with Blake, having ORAC trace 'a line through the pattern of infinity'. Avon has been aware of Blake's presence on Gauda Prime for quite some time, but to make the first move in contacting him would be an admission of failure. The fact that Avon *does* make that move in the last episodes shows just how deeply he feels he has failed - there is nothing for it now but to had the ship, the crew, the mission back to Blake. It's a heart-breaking admission.

And then, of course, comes the misunderstanding.

TARRANT He sold us, Avon. All of us. Even you. [Avon lowers the gun and approaches Blake.]
AVON Is it true?
BLAKE Avon, it's me, Blake. [starts to move forward]
AVON Stand still! [Blake does] Have you betrayed us? Have you - betrayed *me*?!
BLAKE Tarrant doesn't understand!
AVON Neither do I, Blake!
BLAKE I set all this up!
AVON Yes!
BLAKE [starts forward again] Avon, I was waiting for YOU. [Avon brings the gun around and fires. Blake is visibly hit. Avon fires again. Blake continues his approach, and Avon fires a third time. Blake stops, but is still standing. Avon swings the gun up to point at Blake's face. As his knees begin to buckle, Blake grabs Avon's arms.]
BLAKE Avon... [He collapses; Avon lets him go. Blake falls at Avon's feet.]

Because really, at that point, there's nothing else that could happen: trust, betrayal, misunderstanding.

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...and that's where I lose the ability to articulate and wind up a gibbering fangirl wreck.

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kasumi-astra.livejournal.com

Everybody's dead, Dave :-)

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Everybody. Is dead. Dave.

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dyddgu.livejournal.com

Broke me too :-( Though I did have an inkling what to expect, as it was always mentioned in shows I watched as The Greatest Sci-Fi Ending Ever &c &c.

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highfantastical.livejournal.com

You should join B7 fandom, it's incredibly great.

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I've been given some fanzines by

calliope85 - I think that August is going to be pretty B7-fandom heavy. But have you got any recs of any kind? Sites, authors, ideas...?

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highfantastical.livejournal.com

It depends what you like - the author who hits my personal emotional kinks most is

hafren (her profile links to her personal site, one story may be triggery and doesn't have a warning, but I can tell you which if necessary), and I also must give the highest possible recommendation to

executrix, her stories are often incredible blends of B7 with another text (e.g. Gaudy Night, various Shakespeares, an Iris Murdoch novel). My personal favourites among her stories are "Cora has Two Daddies" and its sequel, "Her Father", which are posted at http://www.liberated.org.uk/index2.htm. There is also the new B7 archive, http://www.b7fic.com/, which opened a couple of weeks ago and seems to have a fair amount of content already - some of it is undoubtedly rubbish, but there are good authors there too, I hope they continue uploading older stuff.

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ex-leighwoos982.livejournal.com

Everyone says it's meant to be the greatest end to a series, especially on TV countdown shows. Which is why it's the only bit of Blake's 7 I have seen.

Obviously no chance of a sequel

But what if the Beeb tried for a BSG style re-imagining? Would you go for that? Even if there was 50% chance it would turn out like the new Robin Hood?

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