I do believe Avon was 'stressed' in Season 4 and also at the end of season 3. Don't know if anyone else read this into it, but in Sarcophagus when Avon says you can take my life, I think he's VERY serious. I think after Anna's death he is vaguely suicidal/ depressed - this is my opinion only, if you dont agree - good, if we all agreed life would be dull.

I agree he was stressed, but I don't think he was being suicidal when he told the alien she could take his life-- it was part of a statement of defiance... better to die standing like a man, than to be a pet living by her whim. I also think he would have taken that position at any time, not just because of the stress. It was a matter of Pride and Independence. Freedom in an individualized sense is every bit as important to Avon as freedom in a universal and political sense is to Blake, possibly more so. Perhaps *that* is the real meaning of Avon's acceptance of 'the torch' in the 4th season... he saw his friends lose family and loved ones, lost all his property, etc, due to the machinations of Servalan primarily, and the Federation in the sense that it provided Servalan the resources. There was no freedom for the individual without freedom for all. But that put him in the posotion of having to fight a battle that was possiblly completely unwinnable. My brother pointed out that the Federation was, in a sense a "water empire"-- one where the ruling system dictated the allotment of the most basic necessity of life, water (in the case of the Federation, this control included drugging it). Such empires, historically, do not get overthrown by rebels. Avon knew the fight was impractical from season 1, so he surely knew he was enlisting in a Lost Cause-- enough to make anyone stressed.