ATTN JMS: possible link between bab5 and dune

[B5JMS Poster]

Subject: ATTN JMS: possible link between bab5 and dune
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 No. | DATE        |  FROM
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S  1: Sep 26, 1996: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)

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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Lines: 53

"Is G'kar a Paul Atreides type character. in fact is the whole Narn race
based on the fremen?"

No.  This is the difference between fanfic and fiction, where you create
something on your own.  Were the fremen based on a race Herbert read about
in someone else's novel, or did he come up with them on his own?  (Granted
using lots of historical notions.)  He came up with them on his own.

But TV people are always asked whose world they borrowed for their
material.  This is not a flame, only an observation.  If I'd written this
as a novel, no one would be asking these questions.  It doesn't
particularly upset me...I simply consider this as part of the ongoing
educational process about how TV is made.

Yes, we do come up with our own ideas sometimes.

"he facts that made me think of this are: The sword in the 3rd episode
which must have blood on the blade before it's sheathed."

Some samurai have this tradition; that's where Herbert got it.

"The Dust and what it does to G'kar (from this it seems that the dust is
very like spice)"

Some say they get the same effect from peyote.

"The whole religeous thing that the Narns love so dearly."

Religion predates Dune.

"Now maybe i think this because Dune is one of my favourite books, and I
want to see a connection with it and Bab5."

Bingo.

This is what I've said for a long time...lots of people tend to view B5
through whatever book or saga they're most familiar with, or which means
the most to them.  Somebody says it's Dune, somebody says it's Lord of the
Rings, or the Prisoner, or Blake's 7, or Star Wars, or something
else...not because that's what it IS, but that's the filter through which
they *perceive* it.  It's a frame of reference issue.

There's nothing wrong with it, it doesn't bother me, like I said...but the
problem really is with what's perceived, not with what's written, or how
it's written.

Sort of a case of Shroedinger's Saga.


 jms



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