From: Helen Krummenacker avona@jps.net
But, I think it's also more than he can take as a character. An Avon who has knowingly killed Blake has destroyed something essential about himself. Whatever Blake symbolized to him - hope, idealism, selflessness - and whatever part of him (however grudgingly) connected to that is dead.
This is closer to home for me. It isn't that we need Avon not to be guilty. (Mistakes happen) It's that Avon wouldn't accept the mistake. To continue the story, we tend to need Blake to survive, or the mistake to be less terrible. Although, I myself would like any PGP to start with Avon's mental state thereafter, and deal with the question of what it would take to get him to be, well, human again.
Who says he isn't still human? At Redemption 99 there was a panel on weaponry in science fiction which I hosted with Steve Kilbane, and Steve can correct me if my memory's severely astray, and at one point it suddenly sunk into me that I was listening to some guy in the audience who was effectively admitting that he had machine-gunned defenceless prisoners in the heat of battle. He didn't seem any less human for it. I think it's easy to overestimate just how easily people can come to terms with some of the things they've done, often things far worse than Avon ever did. Some cope better than others, obviously, and some not at all, but by and large we're pretty resilient machines. (It is, conversely, equally easy to underestimate the impact that such things can have on an individual.)
If killing Blake left Avon somehow inhuman or less than human, then he was probably that way beforehand, and I don't see much evidence for that. Certainly no unambiguous evidence.
What is 'human' anyway?
Neil