JMS: Why "War Without End"

[B5JMS Poster]

Subject: JMS: Why "War Without End"
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 No. | DATE        |  FROM
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+  1: May 29, 1996: Gary Scott Malkin <gmalkin at xylogics.com>
+  2: May 30, 1996: armata at vms.cis.pitt.edu
*  3: May 30, 1996: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)

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From: Gary Scott Malkin <gmalkin at xylogics.com>
Lines: 53

WWE Spoiler space ...































... just in case.


I've been thing about the title and, knowing that all of the titles mean
something, trying to decide what that something is.  I've come up with
two possibilities.  WWE could refer to the fact that the Shadows will be
back in another thousand years (the destruction on Centauri Prime shows
that the Shadows are not completely dead, and Delenn said as much to
Sheridan in the cell).  The other possibility is that it could refer to
the causal loop created by the time travel; the heros must do what they
do because they've already done it.

Am I close?

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Gary Malkin                                          Cheap, Fast, Good
(617) 238-6237                                       Pick two!





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From: armata at vms.cis.pitt.edu
Lines: 70

In article <31ACC0AF.167EB0E7 at xylogics.com>, Gary Scott Malkin <gmalkin at xylogics.com> writes:
> WWE Spoiler space ...
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-> I've been thing about the title and, knowing that all of the titles mean
> something, trying to decide what that something is.  I've come up with
> two possibilities.  WWE could refer to the fact that the Shadows will be
> back in another thousand years (the destruction on Centauri Prime shows
> that the Shadows are not completely dead, and Delenn said as much to
> Sheridan in the cell).  The other possibility is that it could refer to
> the causal loop created by the time travel; the heros must do what they
> do because they've already done it.
> 
> Am I close?

I thought it referred primarily to the first idea (that the war never 
ends, as Delenn said, but battles are won/lost and players change), 
with echos of the second (the time loop).

But there was a third that came to mind at the end of WWE2, and I 
wonder if it was intentional or subconscious on JMS' part. At the end of WWE2, 
the One turns out to be three-in-one; Zathras refers to the One 
who was=the beginning of the story, who is=the middle of the story, and 
who will be=the end of the story; and the ep title is War Without 
End.   All this seems just too close to the Christian prayer the Glory Be
to be coincidence ("Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the 
Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.")  

Or maybe it's just the general tenor of religious
ideas in the core of the series that is being reflected here, 
and which are summed up so concisely in the Glory Be.


Joe



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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Lines: 9

As Delenn says, the war is never entirely over...there are always new
battle to be fought.  If it ain't the shadows, it's the shadows over
Earthdome of a more human nature.


 jms



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