----- Original Message ----- From: Susan Beth susanbeth33@mindspring.com
Fiona Moore wrote:
Better to take your chances on the Liberator, though, than to spend the
rest
of your life on a radiation-soaked planet rife with primitives, surely?
It seems to me that you are the one trivializing Meegat. You seem to be arguing that she should be seen by the others as a child in need of wiser heads to look after her. I saw her as a grown woman who was quite able to speak up and make her wishes/needs known about launching the rocket.
This point has been answered earlier by better writers than myself. But I would like to point out that she's *not* making *her* wishes known about the rocket. She is speaking for many people, following a religious tenet set down by Kashel the Wise and what she refers to as "The Fathers." I do not want to trivialise Gamete in the slightest, but I think a distinction should be drawn between her own wishes and the wishes she expresses.
she never said a word about wanting to leave the planet herself, did she? Or even hint that anyone else did either. Why isn't it good and non-chauvinistic that they respected her autonomy?
Again this is a timeworn point, I merely restate here. It would be good and non-chauvinistic if they did respect her autonomy, but, just as she never says a word about it, so they never even offer her the choice (and saying "they did offscreen" doesn't count either; she may equally have said she wanted to leave, offscreen). For that matter, she never directly asks them to launch the rocket either, she says "you will recognise Deliverance," and leaves them to figure it out. And they do manage to do that.
It seems to me that having Avon (and/or Blake and/or the entire crew) decide that it would be "better" for Meegat to join them on the Liberator *would* be patronizing. Who set them up to be her guardians? Why is the take of a stranger who has known her and her circumstances for a few minutes to be assumed to be wiser than that of Meegat herself with a
vastly
greater knowledge of the situation?
The question has *never* been one of Meegat being brought along against her wishes, it has always been one of whether she was given the *choice.* I agree, if Blake and Co. had decided it would be "better" to bring her along it would be just as reprehensible as leaving her behind, but what seems to worry people is the fact that it's debatable whether they asked her whether she thought it would be better to bring her along or not, at all.
I
mean, she wished for the rocket to be launched, but once it's gone,
there's
not much left to do but live out the rest of your life. As Chris Boucher said, be careful what you wish for...
Gee. Does that mean *everyone* who achieves their heartfelt wish might as well kill themselves at once?
No, but if your entire life is wrapped up in this wish, it might well mean your death-- as Travis' obsession with killing Blake killed him in the end. And I'd like to point out too that people who achieve things which are less wrapped up in their lives (winning an Olympic medal, e.g.), do frequently experience crises at the end of their careers, and some do suicide. The point I wanted to make is that, if an event of this magnitude happens, it is going to provoke some sort of crisis. If the Messiah returned, I imagine a lot of messianic preachers would feel a bit upset once the implications (i.e. that they were no longer needed) had sunk in.
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
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