Disclaimers still applicable. Some settling may have occured during shipment.
(Also, I should add that I am currently drugged up with narcotic cough syrup, so if this post is even more disjointed and nonsensical than usual, that's my excuse. :))
Fiona Moore wrote:
People can interpret whatever they like, but to my mind there's some that fits the text, some that fits the text with a bit of stretching and straining, and some that doesn't fit the text at all, and these should all be acknowledged as such.
I don't think we're actually in disagreement here, at all. It's just that I think there's a very important additional point to keep in mind, there, which is that different views are possible on just how much stretching and straining any one interpretation actually takes.
Not to sound utterly Tory here, but I do think it also has to be acknowledged that some people do have sensibilities which should be respected for politeness' sake (which I am blatantly disregarding at the moment, but in fairness I'll point out that we're both using serious warnings on the topic thread).
Definitely. I don't remotely disagree here, either, which is why I stuck serious warnings on my posts in the first place, and which is why I was actually rather reluctant to address the subject here at all. But, you know, in all fairness, it seems primarily to have been the *anti*-slashers who brought the topic up in the first place, and who seem to want to keep discussing the topic. In my experience, slash fans are generally been conscientious about people's sensibilities (if only because they don't want to deal with all the flak they're likely to get if they're not). That's why Freedom City exists (and, believe me, if this conversation were being held there, you'd be hearing a *lot* more from the pro-slash people). That's why every slash or adult zine or website I've ever seen has been very clearly labelled as such.
Thus, while I disagree with the idea of calling slashers "wrong," I can see why discretion might be advised.
There's a world of difference between the two, though, I think.
Avon and Blake (particularly on Avon's part).
As I'm sure you're aware, I don't agree, and for reasons we've discussed :).
Yup. But you asked for my opinion. :)
Jenna and Blake (almost entirely on Jenna's part, I think).
But the fact that in "Duel," Jenna is the one chosen to represent the "death of a friend" suggests it's mutual.
Well, it suggests Jenna is a friend, anyway. :) Actually, I agree, that's an interesting point, and one I'm still kind of mulling over. I don't think it's very *solid* evidence, personally, but, as I've said before, solid evidence doesn't really seem to exist one way or another, so... <shrug>
Possibly Cally and Avon (though perhaps more on Cally's than on Avon's).
As I said, certainly it's ambiguous. Although it's interesting, actually, that on her death she cries out "Blake!"
Something for which many, many explanations have been put forth, none of which has succeeded in fully convincing me. I'm still not remotely sure what that was about.
. Many people see having sex with men as
extremely out of character for Avon. Others don't. I don't; as I've said before, I can easily see the character as bisexual, based on what's on the screen.
Again, can you give me examples?
Ooh, once again, we're not talking about anything specific, just general, personal impressions. I'd say it's based on several things, though: his body langauge, the fact that he doesn't seem terribly concerned with conforming to conventional morality... If I were being flippant, I might say the way he dresses. :) Mainly, it's just that I don't see anything in him that screams "exclusive heterosexual." By contrast, Tarrant and Vila *do* strike me as very much "exclusive heterosexuals." I'm not sure what the difference is, really.
I did, and those were what I was referring to when I said that I thought slash which did take other complexities into account could work for me (although I have to admit, the slash I was thinking of when I made that remark didn't actually do much to my mind to explore the characterisation of/relationship between the partners, but made me think about other things, e.g. the ethics of terrorism). But as I've said, the PWPs I've seen tend to outnumber the stuff which interests me.
I won't dispute that PWP's probably outnumber the really complex and interesting stuff in slash. But then, I think that "shallow" action-adventure gen fiction probably outnumbers really complex and interesting gen fiction, too. Have you heard of Sturgeon's Law? 99% of everything is crap. :)
However, most of what I've read seems to go more along the lines of "Avon and Blake seem to respect each other but be suspicious of each other, Avon risks everything twice on a slim chance of finding Blake, Blake trusts Avon despite all the odds... why is this? I know, they're lovers!"
Ah, well, that seems to have the causality backwards, to me.
Sorry, not sure I understand. Please accept that I'm dumb, and spell it out for me.
Er, I thought I did, in the bit you snipped. I see that *emotional* attatchment as being primary in that relationship, and much slash fiction also sees it that way, I think. If Avon and Blake become lovers, it's because that complex emotional relationship already exists. It's not that that relationship springs automatically into being simply because they're having sex.
Does that make sense, or has the codeine muddled it up? :)
Fair enough argument :), but one also has to note that Travis (who has previously stated "I know that man better than myself") picked Inga as the bait to lure Blake to Exbar. Not Ushton; not Ushton and Inga (even if we assume that Blake has no other surviving relatives which might be equal candidates); not even a planetful of innocent people whom Travis will destroy if Blake doesn't talk. The bait has to be something Travis knew he would take-- hence he would have to go for somebody to whom Blake had a strong emotional connection. And again, if it had simply been the kin tie, why not Ushton, or both of them?
It makes perfect sense to me. Presumably, Travis knew that Blake and Inga had had a close emotional relationship (more like a brother-sister one than a cousinly one). Travis, if he really does know Blake that well, also knows how important family is to Blake, and that, in particular, the way to get to him is to use someone for whom he he's had not just familial feelings, but *protective* feelings. Even if it was a long time ago, and those feelings are no longer immediate (and he *does* say "she was important to me once," not "she is important to me," so that seems to be the case *regardless* of the nature of the relationship), Blake will remember that relationship and feel bound by it. (And this could be very much magnified by the fact that Blake's *actual* brother and sister are dead, leaving Inga the closest thing to a sibling he's got left.)
Basically, I *do* agree that Blake must have had a strong emotional attatchment to Inga. I just don't think it was sexual. People *can* have strong emotional attatchments to people with whom they do not have a sexual relationship, as I seem to recall you pointing out with respect to Blake and Avon. :)
OK, here's my reasoned argument for why I *don't* think it was sexual. When Ushton meets Blake, he tells him "you've grown." Which implies that he hasn't seen his uncle (and thus, presumably, his uncle's daughter) since he before he had reached adulthood.
Or it could be that he's gotten fatter :) (only joking! I accept your point).
:)
This is confirmed by the fact that Blake refers to having been to Exbar when he was "a boy." Now, we know from "Weapon" that Blake is 34. We don't know how old Inga is, but she looks quite young (and the fact that everyone keeps referring to her as a "girl" seems to reinforce that).
*All* females under forty seem to get referred to as "girls" at some point or other in the series. It was the 1970s after all.
True, which is why I said "seems to reinforce that" instead of "confirms that." But it was kind of an offhand point, anyway. Toss it out if you like; I don't think it makes a great deal of difference. :)
I think that's impeccably argued so far. However, at that age, people frequently do have romantic relationships which mean a lot to them at the time and afterwards, without actually having sex. This, though, doesn't make the feelings any less romantic, or important for both parties. Teenagers do also have crushes, which again are powerful for those involved, and which resonate in later life (as anyone who's ever met up with someone they fancied in secondary school later on knows) but don't generally lead to sex.
True. The possibility, like so many possibilities, is open. But, personally, I think the age difference is great enough that it's highly unlikely. (In other words, *I* see the theory that Blake and Inga had a romantic relationship as more of a stretch from canon than the theory that they had a more siblingesque kind of relationship. They're both within the realm of plausibility, though.)
[Jenna]
I find it easy to imagine that she did, in fact, do this and he utterly failed to respond...
But where does he utterly not respond? He does. I've pointed out how he touches her face in "Bounty."
I still need to re-watch that ep, because I don't remember this bit at all (despite having watched it multiple times in the last year or so).
In "Killer," they sit together on the couch, smiling and chatting with lots of eye contact. In fact, there is mutual eye-contact and smiling in many episodes.
The thing is, I do see evidence of *affection* between Blake and Jenna, but nowhere did he ever seem to me to display anything that looked much like sexual attraction. I'm telling you, I just don't see it. (And Blake and Avon make eye contact and smile...)
Btw, do you see "Redemption" as evidence that Jenna and *Avon* had a sexual attraction? The way that she's sitting cuddled up next to him in the cell?
Finally, in "Blake," Blake knows how she dies, suggesting that he cared enough to stay in contact throughout the wilderness years.
I don't think that's really evidence for much of anything. We don't know anything at *all* about what happened during those years. For all we know, it's a third-hand report he picked up on the rebel grapevine.
Hmm. Trying to decide if I see sexual elements in his interaction with Sara or not...
The scene I'm thinking of is the bit where he and the crew stage the gunfight to bring her out into the open. She comes out, he grabs hold of her and, possibly by accident but it does happen, grabs her breast.
You're kidding! OK, *that* I *must* re-watch! :)
They struggle briefly, during which time they are face-to-face, quite close together, and are making eye contact. Avon then punches her; she falls into the arms of the crewmen, and Avon says, rather absently, as he moves away, "You'd better take her. I rather enjoyed that."
Which to my mind suggests that what was intended to be a violent act suddenly turned sexual, for him if not her.
I tend to interpet that more as him enjoying the violence, the adrenaline rush... And feeling just a little bit weird about it, since Sara is such a tiny little thing that it almost seems wrong to be beating up on her, no matter how well she fights. But, OK, it's easy to see how that can be read as sexual, and that kind of a reaction seems quite in character for Avon. Not that it matters a whole lot for this discussion, as I never disputed the fact that Avon was interested in women...
Yes, that could be rather significant, couldn't it? And, really, I don't see much in the way of interest on Cally's part either before or after that. (A few very vaguely possible things, maybe, but, hell, less than for Avon and Blake, IMO.)
Again, if you're talking about a sexual interest,
Yes, that's what I meant.
while I do agree that the Avon-Cally evidence is slender and ambiguous, I've still yet to see a single example of Avon-Blake interaction that even falls into that category. The episode "Sarcophagus" is IMO a very clever one in the way that it has its cake and eats it as far as A/C is concerned, it gives and refutes evidence for both sides... but again, ambiguity for Avon and Cally is more than nothing for Avon and Blake.
Well, I'd agree with that to an extent. Certainly the A/C ambiguity is a major facet of "Sarcophagus," so it's *there* in the episode in ways that A/B never was. More textual than subtextual, you could say.
I think that's one reason why I don't really understand the argument that so many people seem to be making, that since there's no solid evidence for slash relationships obviously there *weren't* any.
There's no evidence at all, that's the problem-- which still to me implies that to say that they existed falls in the same category as saying Avon likes disco-dancing.
<Shrug> Seems to me that this eventually just boils down to a fundamental differnce of viewpoint, really.
For me, engaging with the show is all about exploring the *possibilities*. Anything that opens those possibilities up and gives me more to think about, new ways of exploring the characters, different interpretations to choose from, I'm glad of it! Why would you want to cut off areas of possibility out of hand? And why on earth would you want to insist that *other* people should do it? (Er, that's a generic "you," not anything directed at you, personally, Fiona!)
Cheers, cos I'm not insisting anything of the sort :).
I didn't believe that you were! :)
Just arguing for more acknowledgement as to what's a strong possibility and what's a bit of a stretch of credibility, and what's a fantasy.
Cheerfully and happily acknowledged!
To which I add that, IMHO, sexual tension between Avon and Blake is a tiny, tiny stretch of credibility, and actual A/B sex is a moderate-to-somewhat-large stretch. Whereas it-was-the-clone is a *very* large stretch, and Avon-likes-disco-dancing is a stretch of light-years. :)
Hmm. If that was their intent, IMO, it wasn't particularly successful. Thank goodness. One of the things that I particularly like about B7 is the way the characters actually develop and change over the course of the series (and their relationships with each other seem to develop and change, as well).
True, though as I argued in my article "There Is A Hole in Your Plotline" (Zenith Magazine, 2000 <buy it, buy it>),
Bought it. :)
compared to series which were actually intended to have a soaplike element (e.g. B5), the changes are pretty subtle and minimal.
They certainly were so compared to B5, but, based on what I remember of the article, I think I do see them as being more significant than you do.
Furthermore, the point Boucher seems to be making there is not that relationships couldn't develop and change, but that they shouldn't change so much or in such a way that somebody dropping casually into the series midway in couldn't pick up pretty quickly on the relationships between the characters.
I dunno, though. Seems to me that someone coming in at, oh, say "Terminal" is going to be pretty darned confused about who this Blake person is and exactly what Avon's relationship is to him. As an off-the-top-of-my-head example. Or, a while back, I showed a third-season episode to a friend of mine who'd only seen part of the first season. He was confused. "What happened? Who *are* these people?"
However, were an explicitly-portrayed romance to happen between, say, Blake and Jenna, a lot of internal continuity would need to be built up. It's true that one could tune into one episode and understand them as friends, and then into another and understand them as lovers, but it does require a bit more viewer explanation than simply having Travis say "I'm on the run from the Federation."
I dunno, that seems to me to underestimate the intelligence and flexibility of the audience somewhat. They were friends. They became lovers. What's so hard to understand about that?
I do see where Boucher was coming from on this, though.
(Another parallell e.g.: as someone who watched DS9 for a while, lost interest and then happened across an episode a few years later, my reaction was "Odo and Kira?!? When? How?" Not hard to see they were involved, but a bit harder to understand what had happened to the characters).
Hmm. Whereas my reaction when it was revealed that Odo was in love with Kira was "He *is*?!" [pause] "Oh, yes, of *course* he is!" But then, I *was* watching the show from the beginning, so admittedly my perspective is different.
True enough. But where one draws the line between something that fits well with canon and something that doesn't is going to differ a lot from person to person.
As we've seen. But I'm still campaigning for a continuum!
Oh, well, I'm *always* in favor of a continuum! But the simple fact is, no two people are going to place everything on exactly the same places on that continuum.
Gotcha, and I understand that this is based on your experience. But, you know, that's the second time a style of fic that I like has been dismissed as "shallow" on this list in recent memory, and, frankly, it does prick at my emotions a little. (No, I'm not looking for an apology, or anything.
You're getting one, or a partial one anyway :).
No, no, definitely not necessary.
But as I said, I have only my own experience to go on.... can you give me an example, either online or on an offlist post?
I'll give it a little thought (perhaps once the cough syrup wears off :)), and give you some examples off-list.
Blake's 7 is about human beings responding, in their own varying, individual ways, to life in a violent, corrupt, unfair and uncaring universe.
The way I see it, that sentence covers a *hell* of a lot.
Including politics and allegorical representations :). Bit too character-oriented for my take, but hey, as we've both been saying, live and let live...
Well, you know, if it weren't possible to take a character-oriented approach to the series, I wouldn't be watching it, let alone be enthused enough about it to want to spend hours on-line discussing it. :) But this kinda goes back to my (very badly expressed, IIRC) comments to Neil about the "characters vs. ideology" thing, which I'm not entirely sure I want to get into again...
Oog. Get me alone at a con sometime (assuming I make it to one in the next few years, grumble grumble) and I'll tell a few stories...
You're probably more likely to make it to a con in the next few years than *I* am, alas. <Deep sigh>