Babylonia!

Patrick

Patrick is a mid-40 year old geek with an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a master's degree in Information Systems. Nothing he says here has anything to do with the official position of his employer or any other institution.

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10 Responses

  1. Damon says:

    It’s stories like this that “flesh out” the background of the B5 universe and it does it pretty good. It’s not a great episode, but it’s interesting in that you get a better persepctive that things are going on outside of the title characters and creates some depth to the station.Report

  2. Dman says:

    I wonder if this episode happened while all the fight movies were doing well. When was Blood Sport?

    I really liked the Ivanova part though. It was nice to see more of her character. I just wish when they focus on Ivanova, it would not be little throw away stories like this and involve her more in the main plots. Oh well.Report

  3. Reformed Republican says:

    which is apparently MMO-for-aliens.

    I think you mean MMA-for-aliens. I doubt they are playing some futuristic form of Everquest or WOW.

    I cannot remember the name of it. Is the book an actual Harlan Ellison title, or is it a made up title, since it is the future?

    It was never entirely clear why humans were kept out of the Mutai. It seems like they are the only race forbidden from entering, though I guess that could be because it was only the story about an earthling. However, if the only keep out the humans, when there are hundreds of races, that is a very specific descrimination. The lack of respect of culture was mentioned, but are humans the only race to disrespect other cultures?

    I also think the fight should have ended with a clean win by the champ after a close fight. The draw just seemed a little forced.Report

    • I got the feeling that humans were allowed into the Mutai at one point but they kept dying. It’s not (just) the respect issue, it’s how fragile they are.Report

    • Patrick in reply to Reformed Republican says:

      I think you mean MMA

      Fixed.

      It was never entirely clear why humans were kept out of the Mutai.

      You didn’t watch a lot of Saturday Morning Kung-Fu Theater, did you?

      One long-standing plot trope in American martial arts movies (and occasionally various Hong Kong/Chinese/Japanese ones) is the forbidden outsider becoming accepted. The knowledge of the Fu is special. It’s for us, not those round-eyes (or women, or Japanese if the anti-hero’s school is Chinese, or vice-versa if reverse). See: Kung-Fu Panda for a less racially/sexist loaded version of the trope.

      In the context of the B5 Universe, I think it was JMS’s shot at showing that there is xenophobia on the part of some of the aliens, as well (terraphobia?)

      I also think the fight should have ended with a clean win by the champ after a close fight. The draw just seemed a little forced.

      The parallels to Rocky are a little too pat for it to be a coincidence; JMS was taking the Rocky story and “fixing” the end, to my thinking.Report

      • Reformed Republican in reply to Patrick says:

        One long-standing plot trope in American martial arts movies (and occasionally various Hong Kong/Chinese/Japanese ones) is the forbidden outsider becoming accepted.

        I get that. However, it does not work as well if the “forbidden outsider” is one race out of hundreds. Usually, the forbidden outsider is every race except for the chosen one. The Mutai appears to be very inclusive, except for humans.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Patrick says:

        You’d think that there’d be a handful of races out there that would excel at hand-to-hand (perhaps at the price of something else…) but a race that, say, had a lot of bony spikes coming out of their head. Or a race that came from a world with 2-3x gravity. Or a race that had arms that were a foot longer than other races.

        Or…Report

      • James K in reply to Patrick says:

        Now I want to see a Krogan fight in the Mutai.Report