Cuddly wuddly Sally Manton wrote:

Alison wrote:

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<But here you seem to be saying 'this is definitely the truth about Gan's character' - and that seems to me to be a meaningless statement. Where is truth held? What does 'truth' mean when we are talking about a work of fiction?>

Yes, yes, a hundred thousand times yes!!!

No, no, a billion times no!!!

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I do rather like Gan (though he'd be a fair way down on my list of favourites). I like most of them. The thing is this isn't the Battle of the Bulge or a treatise on well, anything,

Wrong again, Manton!

it's a TV show which we all enjoy

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for our own reasons,

That's true.

and even if those reasons are simply "I like the

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characters this way, thank you",

That's true.

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that's a perfectly valid POV.

To a degree.

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It really *is* okay if Steve R thinks Gan is a homicidal maniac

Well, he'd be right. Gan is a homicidal maniac.

and I think

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he's just the only ordinary man in sight pushed into an extraordinary environment

Then you'd be wrong, then wouldn't you?

- or if someone like Judith Seaman thinks that GP Blake really

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did intend to sell Avon out (an argument I can't even begin to

comprehend,

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but so what?),

She'd be wrong as well.

as long as it's remembered that I *don't* have to agree if I

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don't think it's warranted.

Good. Progess at last. A statement must be justified. If I say something that cannot be justified, then you have the right to attack that statement and show where I have gone wrong. If I think you are right then I will ajust that statement. But what we are implicity accepting here is that there is an actual "truth". That B7 isn't just a collection of random scenes and random words that can be justifiably assembled any way you see fit. If that was the case then B7 would be a programme unique in the history of televison. What people are doing in Lysator is saying, "Oh, I don't understand that bit, it must be bad writing. I can do whatever I want with the programme." This quite frankly moronic arrogance has now spread to include individual episodes. "IMO Avon killed Blake because he mistook him for Travis", like hell did he.

Listening to people give their own very

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different versions can be lots of fun

It can also be extremly boring, especially when they start running about like chickens with their heads cut off if someone says something that contradicts their own personal fanons. "How dare you say that about Avon. I'm leaving the lyst. Blub, blub."

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if that's kept in mind; it was last year and before that and can be again.

If all IMO's were valid, then life would have no meaning.

Sometimes I think I've accidently walked into an episode of The Prisoner.

"In some place, at some time, all of you watched a television series called Blake's 7. And had knowledge that was invaluable in protecting you from an enemy. You are here to have that knowledge stifled, or reduced to an IMO. Unlike me, many of you have accepted the situation of your imprisonment and will die here like rotting cabbages. The rest of you have gone over to the side of our keepers. Which is which? How many of each? Who is standing beside you now? I intend to discover who are the prisoners and who are the warders."

Or, if you prefer:

"This farce, this twenty-first century Bastille that pretends to be a pocket democracy. Look at you. Brainwashed imbeciles. Can you laugh? Can you cry? Can you think? Is this how they tried to break you till they got what they were after? In your heads must still be the remnants of a brain. In your hearts must still be the desire to be a human being again."

In the last episode Number 6 met number 1. It was he all along.

Jenny

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