From: mss2@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: QL: "Promised Land": observations
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 07:56:35 GMT

In article <1992Dec16.071615.29745@midway.uchicago.edu> rck1@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
*SPOILERS* for "Promised Land" below.


>Another not-quite-perfect ending for a leap; sad, yes, but I guess
>it's bound to happen at least some of the times...I really felt
>sorry for the older brother (can't remember his name). I mean, he
>really did seem like a nice guy; he'd worked so hard for the farm,
>and truly cared about his family. When he was sitting in the corner
>after the cop car pulled away, I fully expected Sam to turn to him
>and give him some final words of wisdom (...perhaps Sam would have,
>if he hadn't happened to look across the street at that moment...)

	Someone (read "Al", who's the only someone available) ought to
explain to Sam that he _can't_ give totally happy endings to people.
Those aren't generally available.  All of the "happy" endings are
basically a matter of "he/she's alive as of 1996 (or whatever year)
and managed to get into his/her chosen profession" or some such.
Human life being what it is, if you went up to _some_ of those people
in 1996, they're probably not all that happy.  Others may be utterly
contented.  In 1996.  But in 1995 maybe he went through a heavy
depression.  Maybe in 2000 she's going to have to endure a really
brutal divorce.  And every single person Sam helps, without exception,
is going to die, most of them in fairly unpleasant ways, that being
the way things are.

	That doesn't mean what Sam does is worthless, any more than it
means _anything_ in life is worthless.  (_That_ question would send us
off on philosophical and/or religious issues which have no place here.
Suffice it to say that "God, Time or Fate" doesn't think it's
worthless, anyway, or Sam wouldn't be doing what he's doing.)  But
would the fact that someone he helped died in a car accident ten years
later mean that Sam's act in, say reconciling that person with her
father, or in saving his business, or whatever, didn't mean anything?
It meant itself-- every episode, Sam makes people's lives better then
and there.  In this episode, the older brother will come to a bad end.
But he'll live five years longer, and was reconciled with his
brother-- does Sam have to ensure that he lives till he's eighty-five
and dies painlessly in his sleep to feel he's actually done a good
job?  If so, he really is headed for some serious problems, because
whether or not God's taken charge of Project Quantum Leap, Sam ain't
Him, and doesn't have the power to do everything for everyone.  When
he realizes that, he's either going to have to accept it and try to do
what good he can or he's going to be faced squarely with the fact that
he expects himself to do the literally impossible.

	In part, Al's been contributing to this.  Every leap seems to
end with Al reciting the moral equivalent of "well, Sam, they all seem
to have lived happily ever after" to the point that Sam almost expects
it.  Of course, Al's just giving Sam the facts, but those _can't_ be
all the facts.  Al's only giving him the good news.  Which may be
because Al's only telling him what changed, and invariably Sam's
changes are for the better (even this week, the oldest brother is
hardly worse off than he would have been-- his life is still better,
even though it's still pretty bad).  But Sam's going to have to deal
with the fact that he's making a _better_ world, not a perfect one.
Hero or not, time jumper or not, he is, in the end, only human.

	Death comes to everyone, one to a customer, and pain is
distributed unevenly but widely.  Sam Beckett delays some deaths and
cures some pains, and for that he's a hero.  But he can't prevent
death or remove pain from the world, and Al should be helping him to
understand that before he really comes to a crisis.  Admittedly, the
crisis itself would make an interesting story, but in the end there
are only two possible endings for it-- and really only one, because
the other would essentially require that he despair of his mission,
probably fall into some sort of cynicism, and give it all up in favor
of staying in some reasonably comfortable host indefinitely.  So he'll
go through some soul searching, realize that it's worth it after all,
and return to business as usual.  Which is not to say that such a
story couldn't be well done but... I guess I think between Sam's
proven intuition and stated intelligence, he should be able to
figure this out if I can.  :-)

Mike
-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Indeed I tremble for my country
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 when I reflect that God is just."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
mschiffer@aal.itd.umich.edu	    Virginia (1784)
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