Babylon 5 Rewatch Season 1 Episode 3, "Born to the Purple".
https://reactormag.com/babylon-5-rewatch-born-to-the-purple/ The key to understanding this episode is to recognize the significance of the phrase—Born to the Purple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_in_the_purple To dye a cloth purple was costly and difficult for a long time in history, and therefore only the wealthy could afford it. This cost is why it became the choice of those in power to create a distinction enforced by decree that only the 'nobility', the political elite who had power, could wear those colors. This episode focuses on the concept of nobility and who is truly born as noble. It contrasts the personality traits associated with being noble with the social status of being noble. This conflict is epitomized in the character of Londo Mollari. Noble personality traits bring to mind someone who possesses outstanding qualities embodied often in the fairy tales and stories of legendary Chivalry, the noble knights of the Round Table of Camelot. Londo wishes to be one of those legendary noble knights, yet he realizes and is afraid that he is only someone who was born to the purple—someone who has this status by the mere fact of being in the social class and bloodline. It is explained in this episode that those in power hold that power by blackmail. They gather incriminating evidence of the misdeeds of others and then wield the threat of publicly denouncing those misdeeds as the means to gain ascendency in the social and political system. Thus, to be noble of the royal houses on Centauri is to act ignobly. Londo, who we later learn has three wives, still craves and desires to be thought of as noble in the legendary meaning of the word, which is why he falls in love with Adira, a young dancer of the Centauri race. Here, Larry DiTillio uses the cliché of the prostitute/illicit dancer with the 'heart of gold' who falls for the elderly gentleman. This fits with JMS's usage of cliches to take them and then to give them life, and then transcend them. Here, the cliché is realized in the personality of Londo who fantasizes and wishes he was deserving of being one of the legendary chivalric knights. He desires this and yet knows at the same time that he falls far short of that fantasy. This trait of wishing to be a chivalric knight explains his actions in the series when he aids others who are acting heroically and thus, like those chivalric knights, over and over again for 'no' immediate benefit. He wishes by that act of support to garner for himself a bit of recognition that he can see himself as acting as a true chivalric noble and, of course, wishing and hoping that others will see him in that manner as well. Therefore, his action of seeming to 'lust' after the young dancer is no longer a mere cliché but an actual insight into his true personality. It is a wish-fulfillment to have someone accept him as what he wishes he was, rather than to be seen merely as the ignoble rich old man who can buy a woman's 'favor'. This is why he is obsessed with seeing Adira dance. It is an outward act of his conflicted personality. Londo feels betrayed at first when he discovers that Adira stole from him. He feels that she betrayed his fantasy more than that she merely stole and betrayed him in actuality. However, once he is told that she is a slave, then he immediately gains a new perspective on her actions. He can now forgive her, sees he assumes that being a slave will justify any act, no matter how ignoble it is to gain one's freedom. This is, of course, why he understands and secretly respects G'Kar and the Narn race. They were enslaved by the ignoble acts of his people, which drove the Narn race to act ignobly to gain their freedom. Londo offered the broch to Adira as a sign that he wished her to be noble and to see herself as such. He wishes her to recognize that she deserves to be socially and politically noble because she showed noble personality traits by seeing that he was worthy of her attention and love. This episode is a masterful study of the dual meanings of the word nobility.
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Babylon 5 Comments
Currently, on the site Reactor [ https://reactormag.com/ ], previously Tor.com, there is a series of blogs that will explore Babylon 5. [ https://reactormag.com/columns/babylon-5-rewatch/ ] The problem is that the analysis of the show fails to catch some important points that reveal and explain the show. For instance, the very first post completely fails to notice the importance of the opening line in each episode. First off, to appreciate what JMS is doing, you need to pay attention to the literary symbols he is alluding to. Such as in the introduction to all of the episodes they begin with the following line: “It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind.” That phrase is a reference to J R R Tolkien’s ‘Third Age of Middle Earth’. https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Third_Age https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Third_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Arda#Third_Age To fail to recognize JMS use of that phrase is to fail to understand what he is doing throughout the whole series. What JMS is doing by using that phrase, ‘The Third Age of Mankind’, is alerting the perceptive viewer that this is no ordinary TV series, but one that is going to be a giant multiple ‘book’ series in the same manner as The Lord of the Rings. Additionally, it will be an Epic in the same manner as the LOTR, in that it is a grand fantasy covering a vast geography and pre-history. It will also literally allude to similar themes as LOTR. In Tolkien’s Third Age, the supernatural forces of the First Ones were either directly present or their agents were present and active. At the end of this age, the world was left with the retreat or passing of these beings out of space/time, and thus, all creatures were not directly affected by their influence. Those supernatural forces were allegorically and metaphorically the forces of Chaos and Order. Once they left, all beings had to rely solely on their free will to choose how to live. This is exactly what JMS’s world of Babylon 5 is. The Super-Natural First Ones are here as a species that represents Chaos and Order, and they are trying to control the universe of beings. They try to solicit and guide them, and the whole ancient war between these two forces will once again play out until Sheridan proclaims, “Get the Hell out of our galaxy!” By this act the Third Age comes to a close. By doing this, Sheridan is declaring that henceforth all beings will need to rely on their own free will to decide how to think and how to act. They will now be condemned to a state of existential freedom as Jean Paul Sartre described, they will have to face the responsibility for their own actions and choices without the influence or guidance of those Super-Natural beings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7-165hJAis |
Gary Jaron's musings.
In my High School Art Department someone had made an ornate sign on hung it on the wall that read: 'Ignore this sign completely.' A paradox couched in sarcasm and irony. This blog is for random musings on anything and everything that comes into my head. Archives
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