--- Ellynne G wrote
Leylan's character: I think he represents the full tragedy of what the Federation can do to the good - or potentially good
- people under its
control. He _knows_ what's right and he's willing to make some gestures towards it, but with a great sense of futility.
I think that the Federation is in a state of political/ moral decline. We see figures like Rai in SLD and Samor in Trial who are essentially decent as well as the likes of Servalan and Travis. Leylan represents the old Federation which was essentially decent pulled down by Raiker who represents the new.
He gives Raiker authority when they're under attack. Perhaps he was caving into fear or just desperate for a plan. I _don't_ think he'd thought it through to the logical end. I did think he accepted responsibility for the consequences. But that was part of the same attitude. It's not the full scale, heated outrage we might expect from someone who had no reason to expect a sane officer would do this (or who knows that no sane officer serving under him would think he could do this and get away with it). It's more the resignation of a man who knows he should have seen it because it was what Raiker would do - and who knows the only option to hold Raiker responsible is to admit his own complicity and be punished right along with him.
I think Leylan knows what is right and that it is an option which is fast becoming unavailable to him. Raiker has no scruples and therefore knows exactly how to get the result he wants - by killing the prisoners until Blake surrenders. In a sense Leylan's abdication of responsibility foreshadows Servalan's coup. The old order which has been corrupted is destroyed by the new which is completely corrupt.
At the end, I think he was planning to take as much of the blame as he could to help spare the younger officer. Arguing that he did his best and lost (all true) doesn't cross his mind, not as a potentially winning argument.
I don't see that at all ! If anything I suspect that - had Raiker lived - Leylan would have submitted a report that would have destroyed himself and taken Raiker down with him. Of course, with Raiker dead...
So, I see him as a potentially good man who may not like the evils he sees but considers himself powerless to oppose them in more than very small ways. He may not like the status quo or the corruption but he sees himself as powerless to do anything about it - an attitude so strong it persists even when he has a postition of power where he _could_ do something.
I think that until Star One - and possibly afterwards - there are lots of Leylans in the Federation.
Stephen.
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