Stephen Date wrote:
--- Jenny wrote:
: No. It's a deliberate act. The malfunction
didn't "scramble his brain
: impulses," it removed his restraints.
That's your interpretation.
Not just mine, and it's one that fits all the facts. Look at the script too-- Avon says the Limiter is "feeding scrambled impulses into his brain." It's not the *brain's* impulses that are scrambled. It's the limiter's.
I have to say, given the half a dozen or so times in the last couple of years that I've watched "Breakdown" (how sad is that !) That the impression I got from the script is that Gan's homicidal mania is caused by the scrambled impulses caused by the limiter. These impulses are removed by Kayn and hey presto Gan returns to normal. This is entirely feasible, people who suffer severe head injuries can become aggressive and violent afterwards. This happened to a friend of mine a few years ago after he was involved in a car accident. He is now pretty much back to normal.
Absolutely. The author is playing a double game.
He also says, "It's not my field". If the author didn't want to generate doubt then there would have been no qualification. Later Professor Kayn, an expert (one of the exclusive specialists to whom Avon defers earlier in the episode, saying that they're the ones who know about this), says regarding Gan:
I think the author may be establishing the need to urgently find a neuro-surgeon. Avon's competency with a vor-ray scan or what ever it was, does not equate to an ability to perform complicated brain surgery. Also the remark is in character. "it's not my field" is intellectual speak for "Whilst I have not studied the subject formally, I'm probably still right". (in Avon's case we can discount the probably).
Ah. Disagree. Avon sometimes gets it wrong.
Nowhere do
Kayn or Renor suggest that Avon's diagnosis is incorrect.
Not directly, no.
KAYN: Farron is a bureaucratic fool. I'm talking about stability, Renor, stability. With no stability there is no progress. RENOR: Progress to what? Brain implantation? KAYN: A dangerous psychopath? Certainly. Or would you prefer he'd been executed?
Kayn also describes the crew as muderers, maniacs and mindless destroyers. This is really rather inaccurate, even in Season 4.
Yes, but when it comes to a surgical procedure he has to be more precise. If he isn't Renor, who would know these things and with whom he is arguing, would put him right.
The expression may be an indicator
of Kayn's political sympathies rather than a considered diagnosis.
It's both. See above.
Jenny
_________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
--- Jenny Kaye wrote: >
Absolutely. The author is playing a double game.
Which means that the text allows for multiple readings - not one correct reading and then the readings of other people who haven't been paying attention.
"it's not my field" is
intellectual speak for "Whilst I have not
studied the
subject formally, I'm probably still right".
(in
Avon's case we can discount the probably).
Ah. Disagree. Avon sometimes gets it wrong.
Sorry, I was alluding to Avon's lack of humility, not his accuracy. But there is nothing in Breakdown to suggest that he is wrong in this occasion.
KAYN: A dangerous psychopath? Certainly. Or
would
you prefer he'd been executed?
Kayn also describes the crew as muderers,
maniacs and
mindless destroyers. This is really rather
inaccurate,
even in Season 4.
Yes, but when it comes to a surgical procedure he has to be more precise. If he isn't Renor, who would know these things and with whom he is arguing, would put him right.
He isn't arguing with Renor about surgical procedure. He's arguing with him about politics. The dynamic between Renor and Kayn is quite a complex one. Renor is obviously upset by Kayn's callousness and is torn between his natural deference to his senior and his objections to Kayn's actions. It would be wrong (from the writers point of view) to have Renor take Kayn literally and suggest that he has made an incorrect diagnosis. Also Kayn is a neuro-surgeon, not a clinical psychologist and is therefore probably prone to using terms from the other disciplines in a slap dash manner. I can imagine him describing someone as a schizophrenic, in the popular sense (split personality), rather than the clinical sense in a common room discussion merely to annoy the psychologists present.
Stephen.
____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie
-
Jenny Kaye -
Stephen Date