<"David and/or Lesley McIntee" master@allisurvey.freeserve.co.uk writes re The End:

<The script doesn't specifically say, but I'd guess this was a directorial touch (and it could as easily be triumphant as protective...)>

I haven't heard Mary Ridge on the point, but Chris Boucher and Paul Darrow have both said they saw it as protective. But of course, Playing the Game means I need to ignore *that* and so you get ...

*Why* triumphant? Not just that I don't see it in his stance, but what has he got to triumph about in shooting Blake?

If he cares about Blake (an assumption perhaps, but easily bolstered with lots of evidence from S1, S2 and Terminal), he's just shot an unarmed, innocent friend.

If you believe he *doesn't* care about Blake, he's still just lost his base, his ship, his figurehead, his reason for shooting Blake (see below)*, his crew and is looking straight at his own death. Where would the triumph be in that?

Avon didn't feel any triumph or even satisfaction over *Shrinker's* death, and treated Travis's (Star One) as a minor distraction from the more important matter of Blake being injured and the Star One base being about to blow up.

I do think it's protective. This is hardly logical, but then, when his emotions get soooo out of his rigid control (as they do at the end of rumours, where he's less blanked-out by shock but actually, breifly suicidal) Avon doesn't act logically, and one of his most basic *instincts* always was to protect Blake.

Sally

* - Arlen has after all made it clear that whatever *was* going on with Blake (and remember, Avon actually hasn't the foggiest idea) it wasn't betrayal. My own belief is that Avon already realised that before Blake hit the floor and, in a state of complete shock over what he's done, doesn't even hear her, but then my belief is that Avon doesn't hear or see *anything* but Blake until the moment he raises his eyes and sees he's surrounded ... and even then is oblivious to what has happened with Arlen and his own people.

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