In which I rant about Delenn
Sep. 8th, 2022 05:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnSo, I just finished S4 of B5 and started S5, and there are lots of exciting and interesting and moving things going on, but, well, this particular rant is because it's just sort of happened that I have somehow got really intensely involved in Delenn's relationships (mostly in the sense of yelling OH DELENN NO (1) at her (and at ase and selenak when available)) and, uh, late S4 and early S5 happened and then my yelling started getting a lot more "...she just said WHAT??"
In the season finale of S4, there's a whole scene where Lennier is troubled about what Ivanova said about unrequited love, and she cups Lennier's face tenderly in her hand and says to him, "All love is requited." WHAT. NO. YOU DON'T SAY THINGS LIKE THAT. YOU ARE ABOUT TO GET MARRIED. TO A DIFFERENT GUY. I was like, well, she obviously can't mean it the way it sounds, and also she can't possibly know that he's in love with her?? Even though Lennier's crush is so obvious that everyone knows about it?
But he is in love with her, so this all (coupled with Sheridan and Delenn actually getting married) causes Lennier to go slightly insane! But because he is a responsible young Minbari, in 5x02, he does the very sensible thing of putting in for a transfer from B5.
So then we get a scene where Sheridan has just learned that Lennier is going away from B5 because of him, which he already suspected because Lennier's crush on Delenn is so large it can be SEEN FROM SPACE. BY ALIENS. (Sheridan being the alien in question.) And then we get this gem!
Sheridan: Heh, on Earth, we say, "Three's a crowd!"
Delenn: On Minbar, three is a sacred number!
Me: ...
Sheridan: ...
Me: Did... I hear that right?? Are you proposing a threesome, Delenn??
Sheridan: Well, I don't think I'm ready to handle that one, Delenn.
Me: SHERIDAN THINKS SO TOO. OMG.
Me: DO I NEED TO HAVE A NEW DYSFUNCTIONAL OT3. MAYBE.
Me: ALSO DO I NEED TO REWORK MY ENTIRE CONCEPTION OF MINBARI SOCIETY TO INCLUDE A LOT MORE POLYAMORY
Okay. I actually don't think that JMS intended the OT3 seriously (although if he did and this is the endgame I will laugh so hard). So. My new theory after watching this episode is that Delenn knows exactly how Lennier feels about her. And she's in love with him too. And when she said "All love is requited" she was just speaking the truth about how she felt about him.
Now, I don't think she wants to have sex with Lennier (2), because Sheridan is her guy and she wouldn't do what both of them would regard as a betrayal. And she's been pushing all of this to the back of her head because what she really wants, but won't admit to herself, is to have it all -- and she did manage that for a season or two. She wants Sheridan, who will be half of Interstellar Minbari-Human Power Couple and will additionally assuage her guilt about the war. But she also wants Lennier, who will do anything she says, who provides emotional support and devotion without ever asking for anything -- okay, yeah, I did go back to the Minbar episodes and that's literally what she says to Neroon about Lennier: "He's been a light for my footsteps, never asking, only giving" (3) -- he is the perfect and perfectly safe knight sans reproche, he won't ever ask from her anything she's not willing to give. But she wants to have that closeness, that intimacy, with Lennier that you would generally consider you'd have with a spouse -- but that is hard for her to have with Sheridan because, being non-Minbari, he really doesn't get her on a fundamental level that Lennier does. And Lennier is a safe person to have that with, because he won't be messy about asking to take the relationship any farther than she wants to take it, given that she really doesn't want to make it an overtly physical relationship.
In other words, she's having an emotional affair with Lennier.
Apart from it not being fair to Sheridan (though I don't think he realizes it's going on), I feel this relationship is deeply, deeply damaging and unfair to Lennier. There is a reason why superior/subordinate relationships are frowned upon! Delenn is using her position as his superior to basically trap him in a relationship where she is taking advantage of and sort of conflating his subordinate duties and his crush. Including, I must add, HAVING HIM ACT AS A RITUAL WITNESS TO HER AND SHERIDAN HAVING SEX and apparently thinking this is A-OK.
Until he snaps and asks for a transfer, anyway! Except that then, as he's leaving, he's all "I'm yours forever, Delenn, heart, body, and soul," and instead of telling him gently that he can't say things like that to her any more (or even better, "I mean this in the nicest way, but stop being ridiculous, Lennier!"), she just stands there and gazes at him soulfully, so, like, even though he leaves B5 in this episode, I am not really all that hopeful that he's actually escaped her gravitational pull and will meditate and fight his way to happiness or get himself a found family or else find some nice Minbari priest who isn't already married to settle down with.
I understand later in S5 is more Minbari stuff, so I look forward to having my mind changed then or having more OH DELENN NO moments. :) Or maybe both!
(Please do not spoil me for anything past 5x02!)
(1) I know it's being played for laughs in the episode, but seriously Sheridan should have dumped her after the second time she was all "Oh ha ha let me keep ANOTHER secret from you, after we had all that fallout and negative consequences from the first time!" including stupid petty secrets, like "hey, I could have told you about that Minbari ritual beforehand, but I of course didn't!"
(2) Though Lennier and Delenn do, in my opinion, have more chemistry than she and Sheridan -- sorry Sheridan -- I actually think I may perceive it this way because I can see her trying to be Human-attractive to him, which is on some level putting on an act/mask, whereas what I see between Delenn and Lennier, once I finally realized what I was seeing was attraction, is a more true, or at least more natural, version of how she acts when she's attracted to someone. (I'm really in awe of Mira Furlan, by the way, of putting in all this nuance to the way she acts.)
(3) I wonder now if this is the moment where she became aware of her feelings for Lennier. Though she was kind of too busy at the moment to do anything about it.
ase and selenak when available)) and, uh, late S4 and early S5 happened and then my yelling started getting a lot more "...she just said WHAT??"In the season finale of S4, there's a whole scene where Lennier is troubled about what Ivanova said about unrequited love, and she cups Lennier's face tenderly in her hand and says to him, "All love is requited." WHAT. NO. YOU DON'T SAY THINGS LIKE THAT. YOU ARE ABOUT TO GET MARRIED. TO A DIFFERENT GUY. I was like, well, she obviously can't mean it the way it sounds, and also she can't possibly know that he's in love with her?? Even though Lennier's crush is so obvious that everyone knows about it?
But he is in love with her, so this all (coupled with Sheridan and Delenn actually getting married) causes Lennier to go slightly insane! But because he is a responsible young Minbari, in 5x02, he does the very sensible thing of putting in for a transfer from B5.
So then we get a scene where Sheridan has just learned that Lennier is going away from B5 because of him, which he already suspected because Lennier's crush on Delenn is so large it can be SEEN FROM SPACE. BY ALIENS. (Sheridan being the alien in question.) And then we get this gem!
Sheridan: Heh, on Earth, we say, "Three's a crowd!"
Delenn: On Minbar, three is a sacred number!
Me: ...
Sheridan: ...
Me: Did... I hear that right?? Are you proposing a threesome, Delenn??
Sheridan: Well, I don't think I'm ready to handle that one, Delenn.
Me: SHERIDAN THINKS SO TOO. OMG.
Me: DO I NEED TO HAVE A NEW DYSFUNCTIONAL OT3. MAYBE.
Me: ALSO DO I NEED TO REWORK MY ENTIRE CONCEPTION OF MINBARI SOCIETY TO INCLUDE A LOT MORE POLYAMORY
Okay. I actually don't think that JMS intended the OT3 seriously (although if he did and this is the endgame I will laugh so hard). So. My new theory after watching this episode is that Delenn knows exactly how Lennier feels about her. And she's in love with him too. And when she said "All love is requited" she was just speaking the truth about how she felt about him.
Now, I don't think she wants to have sex with Lennier (2), because Sheridan is her guy and she wouldn't do what both of them would regard as a betrayal. And she's been pushing all of this to the back of her head because what she really wants, but won't admit to herself, is to have it all -- and she did manage that for a season or two. She wants Sheridan, who will be half of Interstellar Minbari-Human Power Couple and will additionally assuage her guilt about the war. But she also wants Lennier, who will do anything she says, who provides emotional support and devotion without ever asking for anything -- okay, yeah, I did go back to the Minbar episodes and that's literally what she says to Neroon about Lennier: "He's been a light for my footsteps, never asking, only giving" (3) -- he is the perfect and perfectly safe knight sans reproche, he won't ever ask from her anything she's not willing to give. But she wants to have that closeness, that intimacy, with Lennier that you would generally consider you'd have with a spouse -- but that is hard for her to have with Sheridan because, being non-Minbari, he really doesn't get her on a fundamental level that Lennier does. And Lennier is a safe person to have that with, because he won't be messy about asking to take the relationship any farther than she wants to take it, given that she really doesn't want to make it an overtly physical relationship.
In other words, she's having an emotional affair with Lennier.
Apart from it not being fair to Sheridan (though I don't think he realizes it's going on), I feel this relationship is deeply, deeply damaging and unfair to Lennier. There is a reason why superior/subordinate relationships are frowned upon! Delenn is using her position as his superior to basically trap him in a relationship where she is taking advantage of and sort of conflating his subordinate duties and his crush. Including, I must add, HAVING HIM ACT AS A RITUAL WITNESS TO HER AND SHERIDAN HAVING SEX and apparently thinking this is A-OK.
Until he snaps and asks for a transfer, anyway! Except that then, as he's leaving, he's all "I'm yours forever, Delenn, heart, body, and soul," and instead of telling him gently that he can't say things like that to her any more (or even better, "I mean this in the nicest way, but stop being ridiculous, Lennier!"), she just stands there and gazes at him soulfully, so, like, even though he leaves B5 in this episode, I am not really all that hopeful that he's actually escaped her gravitational pull and will meditate and fight his way to happiness or get himself a found family or else find some nice Minbari priest who isn't already married to settle down with.
I understand later in S5 is more Minbari stuff, so I look forward to having my mind changed then or having more OH DELENN NO moments. :) Or maybe both!
(Please do not spoil me for anything past 5x02!)
(1) I know it's being played for laughs in the episode, but seriously Sheridan should have dumped her after the second time she was all "Oh ha ha let me keep ANOTHER secret from you, after we had all that fallout and negative consequences from the first time!" including stupid petty secrets, like "hey, I could have told you about that Minbari ritual beforehand, but I of course didn't!"
(2) Though Lennier and Delenn do, in my opinion, have more chemistry than she and Sheridan -- sorry Sheridan -- I actually think I may perceive it this way because I can see her trying to be Human-attractive to him, which is on some level putting on an act/mask, whereas what I see between Delenn and Lennier, once I finally realized what I was seeing was attraction, is a more true, or at least more natural, version of how she acts when she's attracted to someone. (I'm really in awe of Mira Furlan, by the way, of putting in all this nuance to the way she acts.)
(3) I wonder now if this is the moment where she became aware of her feelings for Lennier. Though she was kind of too busy at the moment to do anything about it.
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Date: 2022-09-09 01:36 am (UTC)Also, wow, you are pretty far along! I hope you will continue to enjoy the B5 experience! (S5, as I'm sure you've heard, is... mixed :P)
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Date: 2022-09-09 05:28 am (UTC)I should be done with the watch by November!
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Date: 2022-09-09 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-09 05:41 am (UTC)-it was made in the 90's, so, you know, some things have aged well and some things have aged less well. It however does a whole lot of things right that not everyone was doing in the 90s (like not make a big deal out of queer characters). It also means it's a lot more episodic than current-day TV, although still in service of the 5-year arc. This was a plus for me, honestly, because the last couple of years sometimes I just want to watch my hour of television and get at least a little closure.
-Like a lot of shows, it's still finding its feet in the first season and really comes into its own in the second season. It's still worth watching a good bit of S1 because a lot of it comes back later. I can look for a rec set of episodes if you want.
-It also suffered from several actors leaving in the middle, which meant they had to rejigger the storylines. Mostly this is done quite well, but sometimes there are places where you can feel that a plotline had to be rejiggered.
-That all being said, JMS has a very good sense of history and it was kind of surreal watching it in 2022 and realizing, well, what a very good understanding he had of the ways that humans operate in the context of history. (That's super vague but I can't say more without spoilers)
-There are a couple of plotlines I found very compelling! For those alone I'd recommend it.
-I haven't watched S5 yet, but I have heard it is more uneven and the pacing isn't great (because they found out very late they'd get a fifth season, so they'd already kind of had to squeeze most of their stuff into fourth season). I will report back!
-I don't think JMS can write functional romantic relationships -- I don't think there is a single one on the show! Many of the non-romantic relationships are really great, though.
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Date: 2022-09-09 02:57 pm (UTC)I did write Delenn/Lennier fic a while ago (much of it is spoilery for later S5 I think so don't read that), so I have tried to deliberately not read their scenes in those episodes on rewatch as shippy in case I'm just reading in to them an emotional subtext that isn't really there... but... it still is there. I mean, at a serious stretch you could maaaaaybe buy the s4 finale as that she doesn't know how Lennier feels and is trying to reassure him about the general philosophical nature of unrequited love or something(???). But by 5x02 he as close to tells her why he's leaving, and she responds not by going "oh no! OK, let's try to make this easier for all of us," but by trying to get him to stay anyway. Including by reminding him he swore a vow to stay with her.
But (and this probably is a more shippy POV again) I find it hard to actively dislike her for it, because it comes across not so much that she doesn't care but that she feels she needs him so much she doesn't let herself think about what that might actually be doing to him. Because all the parts of her Sheridan doesn't know about/she doesn't tell him about, Lennier does and has been there to see, and is her link back to being Minbari, and will still forgive her anyway for the war when Sheridan probably wouldn't. (Or maybe he would? But I think she thinks he wouldn't, at least.)
But yes she should really have just let him go in 5x02. And the setup in the beginning that he's arranged to go before telling her makes it seem like he knew she wouldn't.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-10 04:10 am (UTC)RIGHT??
I mean, at a serious stretch you could maaaaaybe buy the s4 finale as that she doesn't know how Lennier feels and is trying to reassure him about the general philosophical nature of unrequited love or something(???).
Yeah, before this episode I thought it was some sort of Minbari philosophical thing like that. But now
But by 5x02 he as close to tells her why he's leaving, and she responds not by going "oh no! OK, let's try to make this easier for all of us," but by trying to get him to stay anyway. Including by reminding him he swore a vow to stay with her.
Oh yeah! I forgot to mention this conversation! Poor Lennier is all "I want to leave, and I can't tell you why," and Delenn is all "I know why." At which point, like you say, her response is to remind him of his vow, and also make abortive hand movements towards him like she really wants to touch him. :(
But (and this probably is a more shippy POV again) I find it hard to actively dislike her for it, because it comes across not so much that she doesn't care but that she feels she needs him so much she doesn't let herself think about what that might actually be doing to him.
Oh absolutely! I actually had "and she's pushing it to the back of her mind and not thinking about it" in a previous draft in the post and it seems to have gotten lost (I will add it back, because I do think that's a critical part of what's going on with her). I don't think she's hurting Lennier on purpose at all. And I don't dislike her (if anything, all of this is making me care a lot more about the whole Minbari storyline). One of the reasons I'm reacting so strongly to this is that I did something sort of like this when I was a lot younger, and it... did not end well. And I don't want to see Delenn making the same mistakes! It's like watching a friend do something that you know is going to Lead to Trouble, and you know why their personality is leading them to do the thing but also they should really stop, but they keep doing it...
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Date: 2022-09-09 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-10 04:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-11 12:51 pm (UTC)Because I think you've articulated Delenn's issues here really well, even though I land in a slightly adjacent interpretation--in my view she doesn't want Lennier sexually or romantically (at least as traditionally defined), but I agree that she loves him deeply and absolutely wants him as a key emotional pillar in her life, and relies on the part where he swore her undying devotion...and so takes and takes and takes from him without any acknowledgement that this is what she's doing. There's a power dynamic there that we can see, but for some reason she doesn't (because all Minbari mentor / mentee relationships are deeply weird?), and I just want to shake her for it. Just let him go!
Anyway, no spoilers, but just thought I'd come say I loved reading this. I am a ride or die Delenn fan, but one of the reasons for that is that she is complicated and sometimes deeply wrong, and I love that the show gives its characters that complexity.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-12 05:35 am (UTC)And yes! I think we agree on the important stuff :) And whether one calls it romantic or not is perhaps quibbling a bit about the definition of "romantic" :)
I am a ride or die Delenn fan, but one of the reasons for that is that she is complicated and sometimes deeply wrong, and I love that the show gives its characters that complexity.
Yes, this! As I said to