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EpDis: The Parliament Of Dreams
- Thread starter vacantlook
- Start date
RW7427
Super Moderator
But Delenn is a descendant of Valen... so Sinclair is her great grandpappy.
According to the original narrative breakdown for the show printed in the special Volume 15 of the scriptbooks, in the original plan for Sinclair, he would never have gone back in time to become Valen but instead would've gone forward in time with Delenn as his wife and the two of them having just had a child. Since it wasn't until at some point after the show had been rolling along for a bit that jms decided to make Valen be Sinclair gone back in time, I imagine that "The Parliament Of Dreams" was written with still that original plan in mind.
Then Zathras wouldn't have been able to tell Sinclair that he's the one that was, Delenn that she is the one who is, and Sheridan is the one who will be, right? :wtf:
vacantlook
Super Moderator
Then Zathras wouldn't have been able to tell Sinclair that he's the one that was, Delenn that she is the one who is, and Sheridan is the one who will be, right? :wtf:
The pre-Sinclair-is-Valen narrative outline for the progress of the story has the person of interest in the Minbari's prophecy being Sinclair and Delenn's son. That's why at the end of <i>Babylon 5</i> in that narrative the Minbari, now led by the Warrior Caste after they overthrew the Grey Council, conducted an assault against the Babylon 5 station and were the cause of the station's destruction. In that narrative, the Warrior Caste believed the prophecy said that Sinclair and Delenn's son would destroy the Minbari due to the ambiguous nature of how the prophecy was worded, and so the Warriors were trying to kill the son.
That's an interesting way to look at it; what the outline says is that the Warrior Caste were after Sinclair & Delenn because the inter-mixing of Human and Minbari DNA was an act of genetic treason since the Minbari placed a high priority on purity. This plot point still showed up in a bit of a different way in "Atonement."
vacantlook
Super Moderator
The outline says that the Minbari prophecy can be read in different ways, that "one outsider was foretold as being able to save the Minbari, give it a new birth," which is what the Grey Council believes specifically about Sinclair, or "that this outsider could cause the destruction of the Minbari race," which is what the Warrior Caste believes. That's what's playing out within the Minbari during the conclusion of the Earth-Minbari War.
Years later Delenn carries out his sex and species change in order to be able to give birth to Sinclair's child, which Delenn and others believed would bring about the rebirth of the Minbari race. Delenn and Sinclair don't hook up until a couple years after that, eventually ending up pregnant. The Warrior Caste was already pissed off at the religious Minbari anyway, the racial purity added insult to injury, so the Warrior Caste overthrows the Grey Council, orders the deaths of Delenn and Sheridan, and starts the war with Earth again, a major part of which is the Minbari's assault against the B5 station at the end of the show that led to the station's destruction right as Sinclair, Delenn, and newborn child escape on a shuttle.
In the sequel spin-off, the child would end up physically maturing at an excellerated rate due to exposure to the time rift from them bringing the Babylon 4 station forward through time. Their son becomes "a religious symbol" and the "focus of the prophecy, the boy-man whose birth signals... a new Golden Age", which causes the son to be the target of many assassination attempts.
So the show starts with the Minbari at the end of the war having schismed over Sinclair being the subject of the prophecy, but the sequel ends with the subject being Sinclair and Delenn's child, who ends up becoming the head of the alliance.
Years later Delenn carries out his sex and species change in order to be able to give birth to Sinclair's child, which Delenn and others believed would bring about the rebirth of the Minbari race. Delenn and Sinclair don't hook up until a couple years after that, eventually ending up pregnant. The Warrior Caste was already pissed off at the religious Minbari anyway, the racial purity added insult to injury, so the Warrior Caste overthrows the Grey Council, orders the deaths of Delenn and Sheridan, and starts the war with Earth again, a major part of which is the Minbari's assault against the B5 station at the end of the show that led to the station's destruction right as Sinclair, Delenn, and newborn child escape on a shuttle.
In the sequel spin-off, the child would end up physically maturing at an excellerated rate due to exposure to the time rift from them bringing the Babylon 4 station forward through time. Their son becomes "a religious symbol" and the "focus of the prophecy, the boy-man whose birth signals... a new Golden Age", which causes the son to be the target of many assassination attempts.
So the show starts with the Minbari at the end of the war having schismed over Sinclair being the subject of the prophecy, but the sequel ends with the subject being Sinclair and Delenn's child, who ends up becoming the head of the alliance.
Lennier's Tears
Regular
There are some MINOR spoilers for later seasons of Babylon 5 below.
I was just thinking the same thing. Those guys are really great.
This made me laugh out loud
I like the Parliament of Dreams. It's among my favorite early season 1 episodes, for sure. I think it's mostly the aesthetics that appeal to me. I really like the Minbari rebirth ceremony with Delenn in robes and all that. The Centauri gathering looks just like you'd expect a Centauri party to look, too.
I think that this festival, where all the alien races show off their "dominant belief systems" is a TERRIBLE idea. I'm guessing it's not just humans who have a long history of fighting bloody wars over that sort of thing. Unless all the groups invited to participate end up doing something like Sinclair came up with, I feel like there's going to be some conflict about who gets to perform THEIR service and represent their people. Even with the Sinclair solution, I could imagine some people being unhappy with their place in the lineup. I understand the sentiment behind it, but it seems like a terrible idea in practice. Exactly something you'd expect from Earth Central
Random stuff and things:
I was just thinking the same thing. Those guys are really great.
I wonder if Lennier would have killed him...
In this alternate universe of course.
This made me laugh out loud
I like the Parliament of Dreams. It's among my favorite early season 1 episodes, for sure. I think it's mostly the aesthetics that appeal to me. I really like the Minbari rebirth ceremony with Delenn in robes and all that. The Centauri gathering looks just like you'd expect a Centauri party to look, too.
I think that this festival, where all the alien races show off their "dominant belief systems" is a TERRIBLE idea. I'm guessing it's not just humans who have a long history of fighting bloody wars over that sort of thing. Unless all the groups invited to participate end up doing something like Sinclair came up with, I feel like there's going to be some conflict about who gets to perform THEIR service and represent their people. Even with the Sinclair solution, I could imagine some people being unhappy with their place in the lineup. I understand the sentiment behind it, but it seems like a terrible idea in practice. Exactly something you'd expect from Earth Central
Random stuff and things:
- Garibaldi is SO offensive. I have commented on that before, presumably in the thread for "Convictions", where he makes fun of a Drazi's religion. Pretty much any time we see him at customs he is doing something horribly offensive. There must be so many complaints about him
- G'Kar is wealthy and/or REALLY well connected. I know that that isn't exactly news, but it stood out so clearly to me for the first time that he has things other people on the station don't. That meal he is eating! Everyone else complains about how expensive everything is and how hard it is to get such and such food item. No problem for G'Kar. He's just casually eating a whole pig head (or whatever that is) for dinner. It's not a feast or a banquet or anything, it's just his normal dinner that he's eating by himself. See also "Whatever the price, I'll double it"
- Speaking of G'Kar, it also didn't really occur to me that during the course of the show, he has two scenes in which someone is trying to get him to scream and he says "I would die before giving you the satisfaction".
- "So many fishes left in the sea" will also make another appearance
- I love the introduction of both Na'Toth and Lennier. They're so different and both so excellent in their own way. I love "I can't have an aide who will not look up". It just seems like a thing Delenn would say to him, but again, later we'll get to see how it was said to her when she was an acolyte.
- I think "I don't mean to alarm you but your pants are talking to you" is a great line. I've had the opportunity to use it IRL a few times.
- Speaking of Catherine Sakai, I like the character a lot, and I was sad that we didn't get to see her again past the first season.
- She bought .. flarn?
- There's a lot of information about all the characters in this episode. Not a small amount of that in the Minbari ceremony when we get to see how everyone reacts to being given a strange piece of fruit. I love that!
Sinclair's stunt at the end is dumb. How much did that cost to fly in and room all those people? And the represenation of their religion is to say their name and religion, and what clothes they wear? How uninformative is that? I bet the aliens all thought that our religion involves shaking hands with weirdos. How many of them got horribly sick after that disgusting orgy of hand-shaking? I don't want anybody's sloppy-seventy-seconds all over my hand....
Are only those few ambassadors invited to the Earth presentation? I got the impression that the other races had more of a "come one, come all" approach. Do all those religious leaders just stand there all day while people come and shake their hand? How offensive would it be to be the leader last in line? "And, 2773rd, but not least, here's Crazy Eddie. He believes that he became god after he stuck his tongue into an electrical outlet and the angels in the toaster told him that he cannot be killed."
G'Kar getting out of his hit made no sense. Either the contract was that one assassin's alone and he's able to take a bribe and make it disappear, or the guild has a stake in it and will kill them both to retain their reputation. There's no middle ground there.
And was it that assassin's first day? How pathetic was he? Weird things start happening, and you shoot the person doing the weird things. You don't wait to see how it plays out. And hey, maybe chain the Narn down while you torture him.
Those spikes on the paingiver? Those would hurt to have kicked into your throat. I think flesh would fail before metal. But what do I know?
I liked the fishie song. Not in any sort of "I would listen to this of my own free will" sense, but it's catchy.
...heh. The fishie song is catchy.
It seems odd that Lennier knows Delenn is Grey Council, or at least that he's greeting her by title. Maybe I was wrong about that being a secret (in general, and not just to B5).
I liked Catherine. Their whole exchange was bordering the line of "too cheesy", but it didn't go too far.
Londo's drunken scene was a little forced. He was acting drunk instead of making me believe he's drunk. Everybody's laughter was forced as well. Lots of overacting in these first few episodes.
Are only those few ambassadors invited to the Earth presentation? I got the impression that the other races had more of a "come one, come all" approach. Do all those religious leaders just stand there all day while people come and shake their hand? How offensive would it be to be the leader last in line? "And, 2773rd, but not least, here's Crazy Eddie. He believes that he became god after he stuck his tongue into an electrical outlet and the angels in the toaster told him that he cannot be killed."
G'Kar getting out of his hit made no sense. Either the contract was that one assassin's alone and he's able to take a bribe and make it disappear, or the guild has a stake in it and will kill them both to retain their reputation. There's no middle ground there.
And was it that assassin's first day? How pathetic was he? Weird things start happening, and you shoot the person doing the weird things. You don't wait to see how it plays out. And hey, maybe chain the Narn down while you torture him.
Those spikes on the paingiver? Those would hurt to have kicked into your throat. I think flesh would fail before metal. But what do I know?
I liked the fishie song. Not in any sort of "I would listen to this of my own free will" sense, but it's catchy.
...heh. The fishie song is catchy.
It seems odd that Lennier knows Delenn is Grey Council, or at least that he's greeting her by title. Maybe I was wrong about that being a secret (in general, and not just to B5).
I liked Catherine. Their whole exchange was bordering the line of "too cheesy", but it didn't go too far.
Londo's drunken scene was a little forced. He was acting drunk instead of making me believe he's drunk. Everybody's laughter was forced as well. Lots of overacting in these first few episodes.
Springer
Regular
You're a hard person to please Wulf! I actually quite like this episode mainly because of how fun it is.
Actually, for the drunk Londo scene, only Peter Jurasik and the director knew he was going to get up on the table - none of the other actors knew and it caught them by surprise. That's genuine laughter from Jerry and Claudia!
I think the scene at the end with all the people representing Earth's religions is probably aimed more at the viewer than the characters. I think JMS is just trying to make a point with it, a kind of visual representation of IDIC. And test Michael O'Hare's memory while he's at it – he went all the way down the line and remembered everybody's name in one shot. There's a nice bit about it in the B5@20 anniversary book.
I wonder if Narn flesh is a bit more resilient than human flesh - otherwise you'd imagine it would hurt Na'Toth's foot, never mind G'Kar! But think about all the punishment meted out to G'Kar later on, such as the torture at the hands of Cartagia. Narn's are pretty tough.
I've said in the other threads that I focus mainly on the negative stuff because it's easier to talk about than what I like. If something works for me I just kind of accept it, but if something stands out as odd then I comment on it.
I come across as mostly negative, but I really wouldn't keep watching if I weren't enjoying it. I'm just not very good at... What do you call those strings of words that aren't mean? Oh yeah, "compliments". Horrible at those.
For example, O'Hare's memory... The way I heard it, they went down the line *twice*. Most people would be impressed enough at that, but my brain forced me to go up to the Lurker's Guide and confirm. So I'm suitably impressed at the feat, but instead I come across negative. It's my curse. =]
I'm willing to accept that I misread the laughter. I think the part of Londo's performance that puts me off is that there's no slurring. He's yelling coherently until he just plops down his head, which is not my experience with pass-out drunks. But maybe the Centauri brain speech centers are unaffected by alcohol, who knows. Just my takeaway from the scene.
And this is obviously setting up G'Kar to be a rather tough fellow. It just seems that kicking metal spikes into your boss's throat is ill-advised.
All of that being said, I believe I skipped my normal disclaimer which is that I did like this episode. I've enjoyed (to varying degrees) all the episodes thus far which is a pleasant surprise. On my last rewatch I didn't really feel that the series got started until Season 2.
I come across as mostly negative, but I really wouldn't keep watching if I weren't enjoying it. I'm just not very good at... What do you call those strings of words that aren't mean? Oh yeah, "compliments". Horrible at those.
For example, O'Hare's memory... The way I heard it, they went down the line *twice*. Most people would be impressed enough at that, but my brain forced me to go up to the Lurker's Guide and confirm. So I'm suitably impressed at the feat, but instead I come across negative. It's my curse. =]
I'm willing to accept that I misread the laughter. I think the part of Londo's performance that puts me off is that there's no slurring. He's yelling coherently until he just plops down his head, which is not my experience with pass-out drunks. But maybe the Centauri brain speech centers are unaffected by alcohol, who knows. Just my takeaway from the scene.
And this is obviously setting up G'Kar to be a rather tough fellow. It just seems that kicking metal spikes into your boss's throat is ill-advised.
All of that being said, I believe I skipped my normal disclaimer which is that I did like this episode. I've enjoyed (to varying degrees) all the episodes thus far which is a pleasant surprise. On my last rewatch I didn't really feel that the series got started until Season 2.
Springer
Regular
We've all watched these episodes so many times that it becomes hard to find new things to say about them that are good, so it's only natural that we start to pick out details that don't quite work for us on the umpteenth viewing. I'm the same, but I try to ignore those faults so that I can keep enjoying the series. Otherwise I'd just start to get annoyed with it! I imagine most TV doesn't hold up to the kind of scrutiny we have given B5 over twenty years, so it's probably faring quite well.
I do really enjoy these discussions though, going into all the minutiae of the episodes. If there is a facet of an episode we don't like, it's often fascinating (to me anyway) finding out why that episode was the way it is: was it a choice of director or JMS, a budget problem, the limitation of a 40-minute TV show, a result of the era in which it was made or just a plain old mistake?
It also seems I'm quite rare in that I actually quite enjoy season 1 and really liked Sinclair. In some ways he's more relatable to me than Sheridan is, who is more of your typical TV hero. So I tend to give season 1 an easier ride than many people!
> try to ignore those faults so that I can keep enjoying the series.
I'm usually commenting on these threads the day after I've watched the episode. I'm sure I forget dozens of the random minutiae that my brain picks out while I'm watching but most of it doesn't really stick in my head for more than a moment. I don't let most of these thoughts interfere with my enjoyment of the show at the time, but they come back to me the next day as I'm thinking back on it.
> it's only natural that we start to pick out details that don't quite work for us on the umpteenth viewing
That's my take on these threads. Few people are truly 'complaining', but it's what every topic breaks down to when analyzed enough.
> really liked Sinclair
I'm definitely not ready to admit to that yet, but he's growing on me. When B5 was new, I'd started watching with Sheridan so I think he was "the one" through all my rewatches. It's been a while since my last rewatch so I think I'm approaching it all with a more open mind and fewer expectations.
I'm usually commenting on these threads the day after I've watched the episode. I'm sure I forget dozens of the random minutiae that my brain picks out while I'm watching but most of it doesn't really stick in my head for more than a moment. I don't let most of these thoughts interfere with my enjoyment of the show at the time, but they come back to me the next day as I'm thinking back on it.
> it's only natural that we start to pick out details that don't quite work for us on the umpteenth viewing
That's my take on these threads. Few people are truly 'complaining', but it's what every topic breaks down to when analyzed enough.
> really liked Sinclair
I'm definitely not ready to admit to that yet, but he's growing on me. When B5 was new, I'd started watching with Sheridan so I think he was "the one" through all my rewatches. It's been a while since my last rewatch so I think I'm approaching it all with a more open mind and fewer expectations.
Lennier's Tears
Regular
I'm quite fond of Sinclair as well. I always wish I could have seen more of him. He isn't a super charismatic leader or a great orator. He's just this sort of quiet, private guy who likes to spend his downtime alone his quarters with a drink and some poetry. He's not the kind of guy who'd vie for a spot on the shortlist for possible Babylon 5 commanding officers. He probably had to sit and think on that job offer for a while. If it hadn't been his starfury the Minbari had pulled in at the Line, he'd probably have lived a more quiet life out of the public eye. Well, actually he'd be dead, but let's say he survived the Line
Sheridan, on the other hand IS a charismatic leader and an orator. He's this hotshot EarthForce posterboy, kinda.
I like an introverted character. That is to say, I like to see some diversity in characters, and on Babylon each character has their own distinct personality, which is nice.
I was sad when Sinclair suddenly disappeared after Season 1, but I obviously also like the Sheridan character. My mom was quite upset, too, when I set her up with Season 2 VHS tapes. I think she called me to complain
Sheridan, on the other hand IS a charismatic leader and an orator. He's this hotshot EarthForce posterboy, kinda.
I like an introverted character. That is to say, I like to see some diversity in characters, and on Babylon each character has their own distinct personality, which is nice.
I was sad when Sinclair suddenly disappeared after Season 1, but I obviously also like the Sheridan character. My mom was quite upset, too, when I set her up with Season 2 VHS tapes. I think she called me to complain
