From: ramsey@cua.edu (Betsy Ramsey)
Subject: Re: Blake's 7 Ending (SPOILERS)
Organization: The Catholic University of America
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 03:13:05 GMT

Spoilers for "Blake", the last episode of BLAKES 7.  Article contains
discussion of Avon's state of mind in the fourth series.

In article <1992Sep2.211516.20367@enterprise.rdd.lmsc.lockheed.com>,
baylor@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com writes:

> I believe it's general consensus (I know it's my opinion) that
> towards the end of the last season, Avon was going insane from the
> stress.

I disagree with this.  I like what I believe is your earlier analysis
better.  In article <1992Jun12.194343.28170@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com>,
you (or someone else at LMSC named baylor) wrote:

> Avon was the ultimate survivor.  That's why the rest of the crew
> followed him.  He killed as his survival required and never appeared
> to show guilt.  He was ready to dump Vila out the airlock in "Orbit"
> and only stopped looking because he found another way to save the
> shuttle.  He fried the lady-scientist who installed the new drive in
> Scorpio & appeared to immediately forget about her (no mourning).

Avon does what he has to do in order to survive, and doesn't apologize
once it's done.  In the case of Dr. Plaxton, I think his comment "Who?"
was intended to drive this point home.  I don't believe Avon literally
forgot that Dr. Plaxton existed.  How could he?  Scorpio was powered
with her stardrive from then on.

I, too, had some problems at first with Avon's seemingly inappropriate
laughter at the end of "Gold".  Since then I've come to accept the view
that what else was there to do, really, but laugh and go on.  As he did.

> Then, of course, he freaked out & shot Blake in the final episode.
> Again, I say that shooting Blake would not be out of character if
> Avon thought Blake was a danger, but normally Avon would be quick,
> efficient, and passionless about it.

Agreed (well, except about the "passionless"--he showed some amount of
remorse after the fact when he shot Anna).  But, in general, yes.

Much as I love both Avon and Blake, I, too, believe that Avon would
kill Blake promptly, neatly and thoroughly if Blake really ever did
betray him.

> Instead, Avon was frantic.

Yes.  Interesting, isn't it, that in this one situation (out of many,
some of which were much worse, IMO) Avon loses his cool.

> So Avon was insane and distraught, then everyone was killed, and he
> was in a position where no escape was possible.

I could bring myself to believe that Avon was, if not insane, at least
having some sort of stress-induced breakdown if we'd had more evidence
of it in previous episodes.  What I saw in the fourth series was Avon
doing the best he could under very difficult circumstances to fight the
Federation as effectively as possible while keeping at least some
margin of safety for himself and the others (admittedly in that order).
There were a lot of defeats, but some successes also (they did get the
stardrive, learn the formula for the Pylene 50 antitoxin, and prevent
the tachyon funnel from falling into Servalan's hands).  I didn't see
any gradual disintegration of Avon's sanity as the series progressed.
The Avon of "Warlord" is no less sane than the Avon of "Traitor", in my
view.

-------
   Betsy Ramsey, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC
            Internet: ramsey@cua.edu,  Bitnet: ramsey@cua
		 Opinions expressed here are my own.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv