<For me, killing Blake is one step too far (the same if Avon had killed Vila). Without extenuating circumstances, this is just more than I can take from him.>

and Neil: <A death is a death is a death. Who killed whom is immaterial.>

True in the moral or existential (is that the right word :-)?) sense. Untrue (no matter how beautifully John Donne said it) in the emotional one. The death of someone - even a fictional someone - one personally cares about *does* matter more on that level than someone one doesn't (whether an unknown innocent on the evening news or the cannon-fodder on Gold.) That's a part of being human. As Ellynne said, that step was one too far for her; and for me too, as well, truth to tell.

To repeat something I said on FC a couple of months ago: suppose they hadn't been able to get Gareth, and instead it had been Jenna in that tracking gallery. Would the emotional impact have been the same? For me, much as I like Jenna, nowhere *near* it ... any more than that little shuttle trip would have had as much emotional impact had it been any of the other Scorpio crew there with Avon.

<What makes Avon so special? What makes Blake so special?>

Only the fact that I have an emotional commitment in both of them, and see them with a powerful one in each other, but that's enough.

<Avon killed plenty of other people through the course of the series. Come to think of it, so did Blake.>

Absolutely. But if Ellyne* (and - as I think you've all noticed - I) sees the Avon-Blake and Avon-Vila relationships as central ones, it does assume far more importance than when Avon shot Tynus or Travis. And Blake was innocent of betrayal, unlike Anna (and we all saw what killing *her* did to him. Given that I consider Blake as important to Avon *as* Anna, something I don't expect everyone else to agree with, I’d expect the impact on Avon to be even greater than at the end of Rumours - see below).

My own opinion is that firing was *not* a rational decision at all. Had he been thinking even semi-clearly, he would have been far better off using Blake as a shield against Arlen and then a hostage; but he was shooting *at* the pain as much as at the man (see Avon's face as Blake falls and he stares down at him to me it looks like he doesn't even understand what he's done. Then he freezes, not even glancing round as the rest are shot around him). But that is only my view, and goodness knows there's a *lot* of room for other interpretations in that scene.

<I have always seen that as a case of fannish wishful thinking.>

Sorry, Neil, I *have* to answer this frivolously ... sure it can be. But there's nothing wrong with thinking wishfully if I want to., true :-? (I suppressed it when writing my history thesis. Fanfic ain't history thesis's.)

Ellynne: <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.>

and Neil: <No matter what happens to him, Avon carries on.>

I don't see these as at all mutually exclusive, and I agree with both. Avon - if he survives - *will* carry on because he doesn't really know how to do anything else, but not at all as the same man. I've always liked a line from one of Bryn Lantry's stories (paraphrased because I've packed my collection up at the minute): "For six months I thought I'd beaten my own prophecy, until I came and looked on his living image. All that I ever was that was worthwhile I see in you, and I never see those things in a mirror. So I did die with him. Essentially."

Look at the changes from late 3rd to early 4th series, where he had the Rumours/Terminal/Rescue blows to deal with. The Avon in Power/Traitor/Stardrive is far harsher in voice and manner, more clipped and almost artificial (let no one blame the acting :-)) than he was earlier. And even after he thaws a bit (Headhunter/Assassin), it's still there. He was *hurt* by the tragedy, and he never really recovers (for even more 'proof', watch Redemption/Shadow, then any 4th season episode; there's a *lot* of difference between what he was and what he became). My view of Avon is someone who cares little or nothing for the majority of people, when he does care, it runs *really* deep (five days in an interrogation cell and the start of Terminal being rather hard to explain otherwise); killing an innocent friend, no matter how one could justify it, is going to be bloody difficult to live with. And yes, for me at least, the fact that it's *Blake* makes even even more traumatic. For Avon *and* for me.

He'll live with it, he has no choice. But he won't get over it. The pain is never going to go away.

<Though there is much to be said for a PGP scenario in which Blake survives and the two can be reconciled in some way.>

Agreed, with the proviso that I always prefer that it takes more than 30 seconds for Blake to forgive and/or forget ... :-) Seriously, most of my favourite PGPs are centred around just this point. Of the two finding what can be salvaged from the mess and that it's worth it.

*PS - Ellynne - I'm not trying to speak for you here, if I'm wrong about this, feel free to tell me. I'm just going by what I feel from your posts, and I could be wrong ...

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