[ SECRET POST #2755 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2755 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 094 secrets from Secret Submission Post #394.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

07. http://i.imgur.com/dTmx6Hg.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

...

Okay, I love Londo as a character, but I have to admit I'm a little at a loss to see how you could identify with him. Maybe I'm focusing too much on the space politics aspects of his character, but it just seems like an odd thing.

[fingalsanteater]

well, how do people identify with characters like loki? it's not like they are identifying with the part of him that's all about the genocide.

[(Anonymous)]

I guess it's harder for me to divorce those aspects of Londo's character than it is for someone like Loki. Not sure why. It's just hard for me to divorce him from the background of his society and his political feelings and beliefs.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe the OP is a diplomat who feels conflicted about their country's actions?

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know anything about this character but IMO what makes a character good is their capacity to make people identify with them. That doesn't mean they completely think they are the character, it just means there was some part of the character that felt familiar to them.

[sabotabby]

I...can see it. I don't, but so many of us are willing to accept horrible things in the name of nationalism. I found of all the characters, he was the most realistically human.

[skippydelicious]

Was Londo really a villain? He's a tragic figure who made stupid decsions that got others hurt (a lot of others), fer shure, but a villain? Nah. The horrible thing about Londo, I always thought, was they showed how all those little decisions made full of good intentions (all he wanted really was his people to be respected again) could still lead down a dark path. It was the best television portrayal of the slippery slope in action.

[fingalsanteater]

Well, OP did put villain in quotes. I wouldn't call him a villain, per se, but one might view him in that light. Genocide and all.

It was the best television portrayal of the slippery slope in action.

Agreed.

[(Anonymous)]

The best television portrayal of the slippery slope in action is The Wire (all of it)

I think Londo crosses the line of "well-intentioned slippery slope", though. A lot of his decisions are bad decisions that are the result of his flaws as a character, not well-intentioned decisions that go sadly wrong. His desire for his people to be respected again (to me) isn't a virtue, it's one of his flaws - a pride, an arrogance.

[fingalsanteater]

I've been meaning to watch The Wire and you just inspired me to really do so.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think it was his desire that his people be respected that was the problem, it was his idea of what respect entailed. The previous greatness of the Centauri Empire was inextricably linked with conquest, and because Londo was a soldier and a warrior, he didn't really examine that link too closely until an orbit full of mass drivers and G'Kar's despairing rage rather slammed it in his face. He literally didn't imagine the conquered on a personal level until that point. His glorious image didn't have them in it.

It wasn't arrogance, as such, so much his complete failure to realise exactly what an empire built on military and physical conquest involves from the other side. He failed to understand that the thing he was imagining as 'respect' was in fact fear and hatred, until someone he personally knew actually responded to him with those emotions, with a soupcon of betrayed despair for good measure, in a way that he knew was fully justified.

Which is a kind of arrogance, I suppose, but I don't think it was arrogance in the sense that he believed his people should be seen as superior, and more arrogance in the sense that he honestly didn't understand that there could be people who genuinely and justifiably could be given cause to believe otherwise.

[quirkytizzy]

This. This is exactly what I was opening another window to write.

Londo is not so much a villain as he is a tragic character. His blind idealism to old ideas of glory and resentment and bitterness at current politics led him down a dark path that obliterated millions. But that wasn't his intention. It truly, truly wasn't.

I've identified with Londo before. I think every one of us has, at some point, made decision out of the best of our hearts and seen it go very, very wrong.

[fingalsanteater]

Londo is my favorite character, but identifying with him is a bit sad. He's rather a tragic character.

[(Anonymous)]

So this is the horribly-named Londo I have heard so much about? I hope that anon gets as upset about his weird hair...

[fingalsanteater]

Haha. Weird hair is pretty much the feature the uninitiated and non-fans pick up on first.

[quirkytizzy]

Lol - it gets better in the later seasons. The commentary of the director and the actors are spent laughing a good deal of the time about the struggles with the hair.

[sabotabby]

The hair kind of kept me from watching the show when it was actually on the air. (Well, and the silly robes, but I was used to Classic Who so that didn't put me off as much.) Years later I am glad that I got past the hair, because it really was an excellent show.

[fingalsanteater]

Oh great. I hate commentary but now I'm going to have to watch it with just to hear that.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, they should totally have just gone a rubber forehead prosthetic, those are so much less silly.

[(Anonymous)]

Was coming to ask if you made this secret. ;-)

[fingalsanteater]

Haha. Nah. I want to know who did though.

[caecilia]

LOL HIS HAIR