Una wrote: <I personally always think that Servalan is completely sane, and that her murderous behaviour has been trained into her by the brutal society in which she lives; bit like Travis' argument in 'Trial'. If Servalan had been living in a comfy western liberal democracy she would be a substantially different person.>

OTOH, she could quite easily have been one of Hitler's generals ... <g>

No, I agree, she's sane as I understand it (which isn't very far, because I *don't* know much about the subject). Personally, I don't find Servalan at all interesting for most of the series (and particularly dreary post Star One)), but - going back to Deliverance - there is that breif but brilliant little scene with Servie and Travis ...

TRAVIS: It was Maryatt. SERVALAN: Does it matter?

She's absolutely genuine, IMO - she really, truly *cannot* see that anyone other than herself matters except as far as they affect or can be used by herself. Both Avon and Vila are startlingly selfish - Travis is completely obsessed - but none of them give that impression of being unaware of anything *but* themselves and what they want. And Servalan does. Sane, yes, not quite human: but there's something warped, something actually missing in that mind of hers, and it's not *all* caused by being brought up in the Federation (that didn't help, of course). She's hollow.

That scene, short as it is, is my 2nd-favourite Servalan bit in the series (my favourite being in Gambit, of course :-)).

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