ATTN JMS: Surprised You??? (SPOILER for "Interludes and Examinations")

[B5JMS Poster]

Subject: ATTN JMS: Surprised You??? (SPOILER for "Interludes and Examinations")
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 No. | DATE        |  FROM
-----+-------------+--------------------------------------------------
+  1: May 12, 1996: r1cdb at dax.cc.uakron.edu (Christopher D Blue)
*  2: May 12, 1996: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
+  3: May 12, 1996: ROY-Laurent Castellucci <castell at IRCM.UMontreal.CA>
*  4: May 13, 1996: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)

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From: r1cdb at dax.cc.uakron.edu (Christopher D Blue)
Lines: 75

WARNING!

	I SAID *WARNING,* DOGGONE IT!!!!!!!!

THIS POST CONTAINS BIG OL' HONKIN' *SPOILERS* FOR

	-->"INTERLUDES AND EXAMINATIONS"<--

If you have not seen this episode, You are *NOT* authorized to read any
further! Trust me; it's for your own good! Your mother and I worry about
you, you know...

ENTERING SPOILER SPACE

















EXITING SPOILER SPACE
	If you read further and come across something you didn't want to
know, I can't stop you, but don't blame me for not being here to aid
you--it was your choice!


	I am surprised that you were surprised at the death of Kosh coming
as it did. I was wondering why, though. Was it the specifics of the
event--i.e. you were planning to kill him sooner or later, but it turned
out to be sooner?
	See, I have always expected you to kill him off--quite frankly, I
didn't expect him to live this long. You have rooted B5 deeply in the epic
tradition, and Kosh was the mentor figure. With very few
exceptions--Nestor alone comes to mind--the mentor always dies, and the
hero eventually becomes greater than the mentor was. And often, the mentor
dies well before the halfway point of the journey is reached.
	So why the surprise? When Kosh led you down the path to his end,
he was just following tradition. It was not his time--past it more like.
	I don't want to come off as callous--I will miss Kosh greatly. I
thought he was one heck of a character, and that this was a capital
farewell episode for him.
	I just want to check my thinking on something though, because it's
a thought as frightening as it is hope inspiring. The reason Kosh gave in
to Sheridan--it seemed to me that was shame. Here was a human--someone the
Vorlons were supposed to be superior to...someone Kosh could discipline
and insult like a child...who was willing to die alone in a hallway to
make a point, while Kosh himself was not willing to die to cement an
alliance of hope. I'm thinking that Kosh looked at that--at this person
who has done all the Vorlon, and the Inquisitor and Fate wanted him to
with no regret and no fear, and Kosh felt pretty dam' petty at that
moment, because he himself was not standing up to as much as he and his
people demanded from the lesser races.
	And he took that moment, and chose to grow up some more. Bravo, Kosh!

	Of course, I could be nowhere near the ball park with that...

Later,

	--Blue!
-----------------------------------                     |-|    *
                                                        |-|   _    *  __
Those fools on the Science Council--THEY LAUGHED AT ME! |-|   |  *    |/'
They said I was MAD...that my theories wouldn't work!   |-|   |~*~~~o~|
But I'll show them--I'LL SHOW THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!       |-|   |  O o *|
                                                       /___\  |o___O__|	 

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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Lines: 58

spoilers....























Yes, I think Kosh sort of "hit the wall" when he saw that Sheridan wasn't
going to go away; I think finally he was ashamed, and recognized his fear,
and in a sense the air went out of him, and he reconciled himself to what
had to be.

You're right about the mentor; sooner or later, the mentor has to step
aside (or fall by the wayside) for the others to grow into the hero's
journey.  Originally this was slated to happen a bit later...I think, on
some level, I was reluctant to do it, because to write this kind of stuff
you have to *feel* it yourself, and I think I was avoiding that as much as
Kosh was avoiding his fate.  I didn't want to go through writing that.  So
I kept putting it off.  I knew it *had* to be done...but not yet....

And that's when, for lack of a better explanation, Kosh stepped up and
began to pull me in that direction in the script.  It was time.  His
passing shouldn't be frittered away or minimized; it should happen at the
right moment, and this was that moment.  It's almost impossible to
describe this to a non-writer, but the character, this fictional
construct, was simply determined to have his way, and that was the end of
it.  I kept trying to dance away in the script, to go back into safer
waters...but each time was pulled back in this direction, until finally I
had to admit that yes, this was the right time, and the right way, to do
this.

And Kosh fell.

But what finally convinced me was the realization that this was not only
right for now, but right for *later*...though you won't know what that
means for a while yet.


 jms



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From: ROY-Laurent Castellucci <castell at IRCM.UMontreal.CA>
Lines: 83

On 12 May 1996, Christopher D Blue wrote:

> WARNING!
> 
> 	I SAID *WARNING,* DOGGONE IT!!!!!!!!
> 
> THIS POST CONTAINS BIG OL' HONKIN' *SPOILERS* FOR
> 
> 	-->"INTERLUDES AND EXAMINATIONS"<--
> 
> If you have not seen this episode, You are *NOT* authorized to read any
> further! Trust me; it's for your own good! Your mother and I worry about
> you, you know...
> 
> ENTERING SPOILER SPACE
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> EXITING SPOILER SPACE
> 	If you read further and come across something you didn't want to
> know, I can't stop you, but don't blame me for not being here to aid
> you--it was your choice!
> 
> 
> 	I am surprised that you were surprised at the death of Kosh coming
> as it did. I was wondering why, though. Was it the specifics of the
> event--i.e. you were planning to kill him sooner or later, but it turned
> out to be sooner?
> 	See, I have always expected you to kill him off--quite frankly, I
> didn't expect him to live this long. You have rooted B5 deeply in the epic
> tradition, and Kosh was the mentor figure. With very few
> exceptions--Nestor alone comes to mind--the mentor always dies, and the
> hero eventually becomes greater than the mentor was. And often, the mentor
> dies well before the halfway point of the journey is reached.
> 	So why the surprise? When Kosh led you down the path to his end,
> he was just following tradition. It was not his time--past it more like.
> 	I don't want to come off as callous--I will miss Kosh greatly. I
> thought he was one heck of a character, and that this was a capital
> farewell episode for him.
> 	I just want to check my thinking on something though, because it's
> a thought as frightening as it is hope inspiring. The reason Kosh gave in
> to Sheridan--it seemed to me that was shame. Here was a human--someone the
> Vorlons were supposed to be superior to...someone Kosh could discipline
> and insult like a child...who was willing to die alone in a hallway to
> make a point, while Kosh himself was not willing to die to cement an
> alliance of hope. I'm thinking that Kosh looked at that--at this person
> who has done all the Vorlon, and the Inquisitor and Fate wanted him to
> with no regret and no fear, and Kosh felt pretty dam' petty at that
> moment, because he himself was not standing up to as much as he and his
> people demanded from the lesser races.
> 	And he took that moment, and chose to grow up some more. Bravo, Kosh!
> 
> 	Of course, I could be nowhere near the ball park with that...
> 
> Later,
> 
> 	--Blue!
	
	We don't know all that much about how Vorlons think, but that was 
the impression I got as well.  Twice now, Kosh has lived up to the terms 
of the Inquisitor, risking all to help the others, and both times it tokk 
someone else to convince him to do it.  I think Sheriden's description of 
him as afraid was on the button.  Kosh probably said it most eloquently 
himself, "when you've lived as long as I have, I guess you kind of get 
used to it." He had long ago stopped thinking that he himself had to 
sacrifice his fair share in all this, and only was shaken out of his 
complacency by having his hypocrasy underlined for him by sheriden.

LC

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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Lines: 14

Mainly, I think I was just trying to avoid it...put it off as long as
possible...but the character knew, even more than I did, that this was the
right time to do this.  It's a very hard thing to do this to a character;
the only way to get that kind of emotion into a script is to feel it
yourself as you're writing it, and that's a painful thing to do.  So I was
avoiding it.  But he outfoxed me...as usual.

That's Vorlons for you.



 jms


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