EpDis: Secrets Of The Soul

[Chilli]

Yeck. Pretty massive suck.

Franklin giving holier-than-thou crap to a race for genocide which was commited on its planet 800 years ago? Come on. Like humans had, at that point, not commited genocide in the last 800 years. Franklin just wouldn't be such a tosspot.

I do have to wonder about people, though, that can watch this episode .. and STILL don't believe that Byron is a whiny, hypocritic little shit.

Okay. One of his guys gets attacked in downbelow. He's brought into medlab, Franklin is trying to save him. Franklin asks Byron what happened. Byron, while seeming perfectly composed, gives Franklin something along the lines of ..

"He was attacked. By one of YOU."

Yeah, right. FRANKLIN is to blame. He's a normal, so of course he approves of this kind of stuff. Never mind the part where Franklin was running the underground railroad for years, getting thousands of telepaths out of Psi Corp, doing more for telepaths than Byron ever would do. What a petty little bigot Byron is.

Never mind the complete retardedness of his assertion in the end that the whole universe is to blame for his problems.

 

[GaribaldisHair]

I don't think the argument about Byron has ever been whether or not he was a whiny, hypocritical little shit, as he is clearly exactly that. He is also massively paranoid and has a massive chip on his shoulder.

I always felt the point of Byron was to draw the distinction between the fact that he isn't the most likeable of people but that ultimately he does have a point about the way telepaths are treated. Can the audience sympathise with his situation and his cause without liking him?

Me? Yes I could.

 

[vacantlook]

...Can the audience sympathise with his situation and his cause without liking him?

Me? Yes I could.

I, too. I doubt I could ever be friends with Byron, but that doesn't mean I think he's entirely wrong. I think a lot of people look at Byron and think he's supposed to be the Great Crusader of the telepath resistance plot line, but he's not. He's meant to be what sparks Lyta to become the Great Crusader, and that's about it. The rest of his characterization is left to show us how even those who fight against the Psi Corps can still be screwed up by having been raised/trained by the Corps; the Corps' influence on a person is far-reaching because they, pardon the pun, get into your mind. Also, we have to remember where the story of Byron and his group came from: from jms's time spent as a member of a somewhat freaky religious commune, something he eventually mentally freed himself from and left after some time. The audience isn't really supposed to want to run out and join Byron's group, but see it and realize exactly how screwed up being diseffected from society can make a person, see to what sort of strangeness someone who's desperate for welcoming and belonging will turn to, and how that doesn't necessarily make them a better person.

 

[maneth]

It's not my favorite episode, but neither is it my least favorite one.

 

[Elipsis]

Another C. Extinction of races has been done before (Markab), joint evolution has been done before (Centari). Byron is creepy and I think I'd like to take him up on that 4, 5, and 6 just for the ridiculous lines he delivers in the episodes when he's trying to win Lyta over. (Although that scene is probably his best moment.)

Puttering Peter is a lot like Special Simon, as the only other telepath in the colony that isn't a mute with long hair... you know he's in trouble from the get go. Not a very innovative plot, and aside from the end it does very little for me.

 

[Estelyn]

I agree with what was previously said about Byron's attitude toward normals - he doesn't differentiate between them. So what's the difference between him and those he despises?!

Lyta has become someone I don't much like anymore as well - her need to follow someone is annoying, and her choice isn't very good. I noticed a repeat of the melody of the "all come together" song as an instrumental theme behind her joining Byron's group.

The lack of privacy in the sex scene turns me off completely. The only good part is the revelation of Vorlon manipulation of teeps. However, Byron's anger is misdirected - he lashes out against the normals (again!), since the Vorlons are no longer available.

Zack's concern may be partially caused by jealousy, of course, but he is very sweet in his attitude. Too bad Lyta doesn't see who is really interested in her for her own sake.

The whole Franklin/Hyach plot element is less than gripping. All in all, this episode has little of real interest for me.

 

[Boredom]

I don't think the argument about Byron has ever been whether or not he was a whiny, hypocritical little shit, as he is clearly exactly that. He is also massively paranoid and has a massive chip on his shoulder.

I always felt the point of Byron was to draw the distinction between the fact that he isn't the most likeable of people but that ultimately he does have a point about the way telepaths are treated. Can the audience sympathise with his situation and his cause without liking him?

Me? Yes I could.

A race hustler, Jesse Jackson type.

I agree with what was previously said about Byron's attitude toward normals - he doesn't differentiate between them. So what's the difference between him and those he despises?!

Lyta has become someone I don't much like anymore as well - her need to follow someone is annoying, and her choice isn't very good. I noticed a repeat of the melody of the "all come together" song as an instrumental theme behind her joining Byron's group.

The lack of privacy in the sex scene turns me off completely. The only good part is the revelation of Vorlon manipulation of teeps. However, Byron's anger is misdirected - he lashes out against the normals (again!), since the Vorlons are no longer available.

Zack's concern may be partially caused by jealousy, of course, but he is very sweet in his attitude. Too bad Lyta doesn't see who is really interested in her for her own sake.

The whole Franklin/Hyach plot element is less than gripping. All in all, this episode has little of real interest for me.

Will there be a Telepath War down the line? Wonder who the telepath face will be? Bester or Byron?
Bester is an object of resentment, so I guess if it's Bester, it will be telepaths defending themselves.
On the other hand, Byron is a walking resenment, and he may provoke the war the way Osama did.

 

[JoeD80]

The lack of privacy in the sex scene

Intentional to the story, to show that the telepaths in this group have dropped all barriers. Remember, the members of this group don't even attempt to block out thoughts of others (see the scene where Garibaldi walks in and Byron already knows everything he's about to say). Why would there be any privacy during sex? These people have chosen a different way to live, even different from most telepaths.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

I agree with what was previously said about Byron's attitude toward normals - he doesn't differentiate between them. So what's the difference between him and those he despises?!
.

Well, he did quit Psycorps out of disgust at killing normals, is non-violent, doesn't want to kill normals. But Psycorps, that he despises, and many normals, want to kill him and his band. There is that difference.

 

[Lennier's Tears]

I think this is a fairly average episode. Byron actually doesn't annoy me that much in this one. He isn't overly arrogant and condescending in any of the conversations he has, except perhaps early on at customs where he asks Zach "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" and then goes on about that for a bit. Yes, we get it, you're very erudite.

Really, he makes a LOT of sense in this episode. He loses me only at the very end, where he decides that all of the mundanes on all of the worlds the Vorlons messed with are to blame for the suffering of the telepaths and need to feel his wrath. As though the Vorlons didn't manipulate EVERYONE. I can totally see why any telepath would be distrustful of mundanes in general, because of everything that's been done to them as a group. But that is quite a leap there, Byron. And, what exactly would you have done if the Vorlons weren't gone? Attack their homeworld?

Incidentally, why DO all the telepaths wear black? Is it just so that it's easier for the audience to spot them when we don't know all of their faces? Or is there a reason for it in the story? Like, they're all in mourning until they get their own world, sort of thing? It's weird, because despite the obvious cult-like qualities of that group, they don't seem to be the type to suppress individuality.

The interesting thing about the telepath storyline, I think, is that we, the viewers, are all mundanes. The story makes us sympathize with the telepaths, but we'll always be mundanes and can't view it from any other perspective.

The Hyach-Doh story is alright, even if it doesn't matter much for the overall storyline. I do find the "everyone has to share their medical information for the alliance" story interesting. I'm sort of surprised that the Hyach representative and aide take Franklin's word for it when he says he'll die before he gives away their secrets. We, the audience, can believe it easily enough, since we know about Franklin's background, but these Hyach don't know that. On the other hand, they had their orders, so it doesn't really matter what they believe. Franklin does seem a bit self-righteous about things (it comes natural to him ), but he's angry about the secrecy, he isn't holding these particular Hyach responsible for the genocide committed by their ancestors. I think that's reasonable enough.

 

[Talvitar]

Franklin giving holier-than-thou crap to a race for genocide which was commited on its planet 800 years ago? Come on. Like humans had, at that point, not commited genocide in the last 800 years. Franklin just wouldn't be such a tosspot.

Okay. One of his guys gets attacked in downbelow. He's brought into medlab, Franklin is trying to save him. Franklin asks Byron what happened. Byron, while seeming perfectly composed, gives Franklin something along the lines of ..

"He was attacked. By one of YOU."

Yeah, right. FRANKLIN is to blame. He's a normal, so of course he approves of this kind of stuff. Never mind the part where Franklin was running the underground railroad for years, getting thousands of telepaths out of Psi Corp, doing more for telepaths than Byron ever would do. What a petty little bigot Byron is.

Never mind the complete retardedness of his assertion in the end that the whole universe is to blame for his problems.

Franklin: oh, I think he *could* very well be just such a tosspot. It's not the first time he's been, as you said, holier-than-thou, and an annoying little know-it-all.
Still, even for him, this was extreme. You'd think he'd learned some humbleness during B5 years.

Then again: I've never been a Franklin fan. I don't *not* like him - I'm just not a fan.

Byron has the same awesome type of logic as Franklin. Some people (in Byron's case, some other race, Vorlons) did something several hundred years ago, and boom, mundanes are to be blamed and have to be held accountable. The present day mundanes - who have nothing whatsoever to do with what happened to all Vorlon-treated races generations ago - should compensate to teeps. Why? What's the logic? I get that Byron is very upset, and he has the chip on his shoulder, and he's a martyr-in-the-making, but still. How is it possible, even for a second, to entertain the thought that present-day people are somehow indebted to teeps for the things Vorlons did?

I have nothing against a bit of stylish voyeurism in fiction but the sex scene with the telepaths all gathering to watch was intensely creepy. ***brrr***
Yeah, in ordinary circumstances they probably would've kept an illusion of privacy and not purposefully started to stare - I guess it was Lyta's visions that woke them up and startled them into staring. And of course it was meant to illustrate the "look we are all one happy family, no barriers!" mentality.
Nevertheless, nightmarishly creepy.

I always felt the point of Byron was to draw the distinction between the fact that he isn't the most likeable of people but that ultimately he does have a point about the way telepaths are treated. Can the audience sympathise with his situation and his cause without liking him?

Of course. I don't think there's anyone who would say that telepaths are treated nicely as a group. They are feared, so they must be contained => psicorps, which is a great example of a group containing itself. Creating, at the same time, an excellent way of highlighting the differences and building even higher barriers between teeps and mundanes.
I don't like Byron but he has a point, obviously. He is a character guaranteed to awaken mixed feelings. Just because I disagree with his style and his methods, doesn't mean his original goals aren't justified.

I feel for poor Zack Lyta would've had a good thing there. A truly kind soul.

 

[Looney]

Oddly enough some of the reasons listed are reasons I AM a Franklin fan. I see him as the Human character with the broadest spectrum. He genuinely has really good qualities and really bad qualities. I was just watching CONFESSIONS AND LAMENTATIONS, 2.18, and you really see how stress, and stems, make him a really S.O.B. For me Franklin is the most HUMAN of the human characters, flaws and all.

And yes I definitely agree about how odd it is that Byron expects current day society to take responsibility for what the Vorlons did. BUT I think it is excellent because what else is he supposed to do?! It is a VERY real reaction. When confronted with such information all someone in his position can do is point the finger of blame toward whomever his confused little mind can think of because he has built himself up as a leader and a leader needs to provide answers when their followers ask who is to blame.

 

[Karajorma]

It's probably the fact that humans have committed genocides that got up Franklin's nose in the first place. While the genocide might have been 800 years ago the current generation were willing to kill in order to cover it up. That puts them at the same level as Holocaust deniers at the very least. I can't blame Franklin in the slightest for getting angry at that. Maybe he did go overboard with it, but someone had just tried to kill him.