From: "Marian de Haan" maya@multiweb.nl
It's him leaving Orac for Servalan to grab in the first place that I
find
hard to credit.<<
To be fair, she wouldn't have had a go at all if Mellanby (or Dayna?)
hadn't left the gun lying around in the first place.<
Still, one would expect someone with Avon's survival instinct to want to keep his only means for returning to Liberator with him at all times, especially when his enemy is around. All the more since Servalan has told him that she's after Orac. (This is what I meant by sloppy writing :-) )
Hm, but let's look at it another way. Avon, as it stands, has a choice of leaving Orac in the workroom or keeping it with him wherever he's sleeping. Now, if he suspects that Servalan is after Orac, to keep Orac with him would mean that he would spend a sleepless night, as he could not be unaware that if he were guarding Orac, Servalan would likely kill him while he slept to take it. If he leaves it in the workroom, he runs the risk of her stealing it, but at least he will be alive to chase her afterwards. Remember, also, that Orac is useless to Servalan as things stand except as a bargaining chip-- Avon has Orac's key, so Orac can't do anything; even if she had the key, Avon has his bracelet, so she can't use it to get off Sarran. The only thing she can use it for, as she says, is to bargain with.
Furthermore, Avon probably doesn't expect her to try anything. The area around Chez Mellanby is full of homicidal Sarrans, and she is as unfamiliar with the planet as he is. Without a gun, she is unlikely to run the risk of stealing Orac-- it makes more sense just to play along and hope. However, the fact that one of the Mellanbys leaves a gun lying around changes the balance of power, and she seizes the opportunity. It's a risky plan; by killing Mellanby (which she has no choice but to do-- it's unlikely that she expects to find him there, since he was only waiting up since Lauren wasn't back) she puts herself in the position of having to leave the base, and even with the gun the locals do catch her and string her up. Avon is likely to be aware that any plan she could think up would be dependent on luck and therefore easy to foil. So there's little reason for Avon to take Orac to bed with him :), and in fact a few good reasons not to.
See-- not sloppy at all :).
his words might be a comfort to Dayna (although a consolation attempt is rather out of character for Avon--<
Not if he sees it as the quickest way to get Dayna to help him find Servalan.
But really, it works against that, since she's likely to want sympathy not sarcasm-- but then as you say, compassion was never Avon's forte.
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Bitter and twisted at http://nyder.r67.net
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