Organization: Penn State University
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 20:49:33 EST
From: <DCC117@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.starwars
Subject: Garm Bel Iblis

 Um....
  Here I go again with some wild speculation,
  so don't take this seriously, but:

 WARNING : This post deals with material or events from Timothy
 Zahn's books HEIR TO THE EMPIRE and DARK FORCE RISING.
 If you have not read these books and do not wish to spoil
 your enjoyment of them should you read them at some point in
 the future, do not examine the remainder of this post.
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     When I was first reading DFR, the secretive nature of
 Bel Iblis' character led me to believe that he might
 end up an enemy of the New Republic, or turn out to be
 some kind of villain.  Of course, I dropped this notion
 eventually, but lately I've been thinking...

     I was reading ( I forget what newsgroup it was ) this
 listing of descriptions of all the episodes from the
 series BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.  One of the episodes I
 remembered ( vaguely ) was a story where the Galactica
 encounters this powerful guy with his own ship who
 seemingly comes out of nowhere and is ( I think ) a
 figure from the past.  His name was Count Iblis.
 The guy has a commanding personality and joins up
 with the Galactica, taking part in various battles
 with them.  Now, from my limited D&D experience I seem
 to recall that "Iblis" is either the name of some
 diabolic/demonic creature from the lower planes or
 is very close to the name of such a creature
 ( Eblis, I think ).  Furthermore, I think this name
 is culled from actual mythology and not a creation of
 Gygax and company, so the name has some connotation
 with demonology.  ( Boy, I did great research for
 this post, didn't I? )
      The point is that, lo and behold, Count Iblis
 turns out to be the devil, or a similar being.
 And then there's the nagging fact that
 Garm Bel Iblis has exactly the same last name.
 I think there are a lot of similarities between
 the two characters, and I'm wondering if there's
 any import to Han's mentioning of the legend of
 the ghostlike space-wandering "Peregrine" character
 in relation to Bel Iblis.

 So what's going to happen with Bel Iblis in The Last Command?

 Of course I'm not assuming that Zahn would do anything
 involving Satan, it's just that the similarities seem
 strange...there's still the possibility that Bel Iblis
 is an evil character worming his way into the New
 Republic's confidence.  Maybe the "real" Bel Iblis actually
 died ( as a lot of the characters assumed he did ) and
 the Bel Iblis in DFR is some kind of doppelganger....

 So let's assume that Bel Iblis IS actually some
 ominous evil character....some character who
 we might be able to fit into the Star Wars universe...
 maybe a character that we already know exists
 ( from other sources, perhaps ) and whose
 posturing as Bel Iblis could explain that character's
 lack of other visible manifestation...and Bel Iblis
 is worming his way into the REPUBLIC's confidence,
 corrupting it from within...SENATOR Bel Iblis...

 Get it?

 Again, just idle speculation.
 My personal feeling is that Bel Iblis is a good guy.

 Maybe ol' GBI will be the one to speak
 "The Last Command".........

########################################  DCC117@PSUVM.PSU.EDU
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#   *  * * * * * * *   * * * * * ** *  #    / |_| \    CORELLIAN
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########################################    ^:::::^  ( STOLEN SIG! )
"Let's do some damage, shall we?" - GBI
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.starwars