In message F43fdfdhNzW3l1GM3h3000071cc@hotmail.com, Sally Manton smanton@hotmail.com writes
I'm inclined to think any story about an 'outlaw band' is liable to pick up echoes of the Robin Hood story, because of the latter's influence on culture for hundreds of years - it'd be bloody hard work keeping it *out*. What we have is Robin and his Dirty Half-Dozen - who, the BBC being what it is, are not all *that* dirty (there aren't a *lot* of crime sprees in the series, even after Blake takes his Cause and disappears, just enough to remind us that these are supposed to be crooks as well as rebels).
Well, Terry himself said that his concept for Blake's 7 was Robin Hood leading the Dirty Dozen in space. I think he said in more than one interview that Blake was intended to be a Robin avatar.
One interesting result for me - I was reading an avatar novel, the one with Soolin as Maid Marian and Avon as Guy of Gisbourne, and was having a bit of trouble deciding whether Robin in the novel was a deliberate avatar of Blake, or whether the strong resemblance was because Blake himself is an avatar of Robin.
One of the things I like about _Blake_ is that it's a very appropriate ending for something drawing from the Robin Hood legend. Films and most tv versions of Robin Hood (although not the version with Paul Darrow as the Sheriff of Nottingham) tend to omit the end of the story:-).