B5 - The Commanders
May. 24th, 2015 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akinoameI figure, while I still have some degree of brainpower, I should do a quick writeup on the commanders of Babylon 5 and what I liked about them or didn't like about them. I kinda want to do a writeup on all the major players, but I know I won't have the energy.
Commander/Anla'shok Na/Entil'zha Jeffrey Sinclair
The first commander of the last, best hope for peace. I wasn't sure what to think about him at first, thoughajora let me know about the character's PTSD and Michael O'Hare's schizophrenia ahead of time, so I was able to cope with the flat affect he had throughout his appearance.
Sinclair, overall, was a good character. But he was not the right person to run a space station and everyone knew it. A lot of the things I liked about him were things that made it harder on him. He sympathized with everyone aboard the ship and wanted to settle things without upsetting them too much--useful for a diplomatic station, but not good for someone in command. He was constantly walking the line between starting a war and maintaining the peace, and he seemed to take it personally as his job to do the right thing for everybody. So he'd stay up all night re-reading orders so he could do exactly what they literally said so he could get his way and not get in trouble for not following what his superiors wanted him to do. He did everything himself and seriously needed to learn to delegate--while he certainly trusted Garibaldi and Ivanova, he just didn't seem to know how to ask for help. And a lot of this seems to come from what was pointed out in The Gathering--the last time he was the leader of anything, it was his squad in the Battle of the Line, and he was the only survivor. He'd rather crash and burn himself if it meant he could protect the people around him.
These qualities make it understandable why he would be believed as the reincarnation of Valen, much less the fact that he would later become Valen. Of course a great leader like Valen would sympathize with all of the castes and do what he could to satisfy them all, of course he would try to build a great dream of peace, and of course he would have done this all on his own because Sinclair is clinically incapable of delegating anything to anybody.
He's not qualified to run the station, and he knows it. The reason he's there is because the Minbari personally asked for him--they saw him as a messiah and expected him to become one. But he never seemed to buy into it, especially in the companion novel To Dream in the City of Sorrows. But when you take him away from all of the pressure of running a station where you can honestly start a civil war based on what fucking COLOR you're wearing today, and he thrives as a leader. As Entil'zha of the Rangers, he did great and really seemed to come into his own. It was like he'd found where he belonged. And of course, the Rangers aren't exactly a team--they're an order, a society of spies and warriors, who walk the dark spaces between stars and worlds and face the shadows on their own if they must. It's perfect for him, and a Ranger 1 who can shoulder that responsibility on his own is exactly the kind of leader they need, the kind that both Humans and Minbari can respect.
Captain/President/Entil'zha John Sheridan
Ol' Nukem.
Orange Boy.
...Possible descendent of Kouta Kazuraba, based on wanton destruction, oranges, and forming a new species with a sort of Eve.
But mostly those oranges.
I make fun of him, but I really did like him. If Sinclair wasn't qualified to lead, Sheridan was qualified but not wanted--the Minbari didn't trust him, what with him nuking the Black Star after sending a distress signal that lured them into an asteroid field--though, to be fair, the distress signal was real and he only planted the nukes because the Black Star was going to destroy their wounded ship anyway and it was their only hope of fighting back. But he'd mostly kept his head down since, and it was easy enough to convince the evil President Clark that he was just a war hawk who'd follow orders and kiss ass.
Well, following orders absolutely not. War hawk? Not really. He prefers peace, but he knows that he has to fight for it, which makes him great as the leader of the Army of Light against the Shadow advance. Against the Clark Administration, he's a pain in the ass.
...Actually, "pain in the ass" is the perfect way to describe him. Again, I like him. But he is the anti-Sinclair on so many levels. For one, he delegates on EVERYTHING. He promotes Ivanova to full-bird Commander and puts more and more responsibilities on her shoulders, while not quite getting that there are some things he really should be doing himself. But he inspires loyalty and he's very personable--even trying to get Kosh to come out of his metaphorical shell (...which was also LITERAL, mind you) and getting Delenn to let her hair down (also literal).
But he also seems to operate by his own set of rules--and I guess this is where it reflects the times, since the Clintons are accused of operating the same way, and there is a LOT about Sheridan that reminds me of Bill. He's a politician at heart, so I like seeing him as President of the Interstellar Alliance a little more than commander. I don't think he ever bought into the whole messiah thing so many others saw in him, but I will agree with Duck Amok Garibaldi about him not really considering the consequences of his actions--see my comments about him delegating too much. He gets on Kosh's case about the Vorlons not joining the war, and by convincing Kosh to join, Kosh gets killed. And partially downloaded into Sheridan's brain--look, they were totally boyfriends, okay? And his decision to break away from Earth--while I agree with the principles, it did create a MASSIVE clusterfuck that nearly brought down everyone else with him. It really took until Luchenko convinced him to retire that he understood the consequences--he only agreed when he was guaranteed immunity for all of his subordinates. And when he knew he'd already been elected President, because Sheridan was kind of a magnificent bastard like that.
In a way, I think being President suited him better, since it did put more responsibility on him, and he could set up specific departments to do the jobs that he thought were better suited to others. But with the Centauri/Drakh bullshit, yeah. He shot himself in the foot there. Yes, Londo was definitely in league with the Shadows. But he recognizes what a fucking stupid thing it was to do. You think he's a leak? Don't fucking handle things the way you did, which alienates Londo and pushes him right where the Drakh want him.
Captain/Colonel Elizabeth Lochley
I honestly think she was the best at running the station.
Hear me out.
First, while I disagree with her reasoning why she still fought for the Clark Administration, I can understand her reasoning--this was a time when they needed to PROTECT Earth, especially from herself. Sheridan couldn't do that and cut himself off from the realities of life on the homeworld and colonies. He sent a powerful message and proved he would stand by Mars, but he lost the opportunity to make changes back home, the way Luchenko and presumably Lochley were doing.
I wasn't entirely sure how to take it when she came aboard and flat-out said that if B5 had this much chaos, it meant things weren't running well. I thought it was presumptuous, ignoring the very personality of the station itself.
But she had a point.
Sinclair was trying to make a difference, but he was out of his league and then got shuffled away to Minbar.
Sheridan was a war leader and politician, paying more attention to the goings on outside the station than within.
With Sheridan able to handle the outside stuff, Lochley was able to clean up B5, to some degree. What Sheridan lacked, Lochley had. She was better organized, and like Sinclair, she endeared herself to the poorer populations of the station. She was the only one in command who regularly went to Downbelow and even had a favorite fast food place there--if Sinclair were still around, I'm sure he'd have loved going down with her for the sketchy BBQ burgers she loves. She's more diplomatic too, able to even be friendly toward Bester when the rest of the crew would love to peel his face off. And she manages to thwart him within the rules--and you realize that's why she stayed. Because she knows how to work within the system to fix things.
Honestly, I feel like Lochley was the better successor to Sinclair. Like him, she had a rough background--no PTSD, but addiction in her youth, running away from home, and her implied girlfriend dying of an overdose, scaring her into coming home and cleaning up. She's better at taking a stand than he was, however, and when she doesn't like something, she fucking makes sure you KNOW. She and Garibaldi clashed all the time in season 5, but she was also sympathetic to him for going off the bandwagon, sharing her dirty little secret with him to get him to lower his guard. They never really became friends, but they gained a respect.
I feel like Lochley was the people's commander, the way Sinclair started. Sheridan became a myth, larger than life, more beloved among the aliens than the Humans. And that's fine. But Lochley was brought aboard to heal the rift between B5 and the Earth Alliance, and she went a long way to make the Humans there feel like someone cared about them too. She managed to bring stability to the station, something that had never happened in the years it had existed before her run. Hell, she even theorized that it was Garibaldi and Sheridan that brought the chaos, and it seemed pretty damn plausible.
So, yeah. I love all three of them, but they all had their own ways of leading, and I think that Lochley was probably the most effective. Sinclair probably would have reached that level, given more time, and Sheridan quite honestly was best suited as a politician, since he was better at political maneuvering than either one of them.
Commander/Anla'shok Na/Entil'zha Jeffrey Sinclair
The first commander of the last, best hope for peace. I wasn't sure what to think about him at first, though
ajora let me know about the character's PTSD and Michael O'Hare's schizophrenia ahead of time, so I was able to cope with the flat affect he had throughout his appearance.Sinclair, overall, was a good character. But he was not the right person to run a space station and everyone knew it. A lot of the things I liked about him were things that made it harder on him. He sympathized with everyone aboard the ship and wanted to settle things without upsetting them too much--useful for a diplomatic station, but not good for someone in command. He was constantly walking the line between starting a war and maintaining the peace, and he seemed to take it personally as his job to do the right thing for everybody. So he'd stay up all night re-reading orders so he could do exactly what they literally said so he could get his way and not get in trouble for not following what his superiors wanted him to do. He did everything himself and seriously needed to learn to delegate--while he certainly trusted Garibaldi and Ivanova, he just didn't seem to know how to ask for help. And a lot of this seems to come from what was pointed out in The Gathering--the last time he was the leader of anything, it was his squad in the Battle of the Line, and he was the only survivor. He'd rather crash and burn himself if it meant he could protect the people around him.
These qualities make it understandable why he would be believed as the reincarnation of Valen, much less the fact that he would later become Valen. Of course a great leader like Valen would sympathize with all of the castes and do what he could to satisfy them all, of course he would try to build a great dream of peace, and of course he would have done this all on his own because Sinclair is clinically incapable of delegating anything to anybody.
He's not qualified to run the station, and he knows it. The reason he's there is because the Minbari personally asked for him--they saw him as a messiah and expected him to become one. But he never seemed to buy into it, especially in the companion novel To Dream in the City of Sorrows. But when you take him away from all of the pressure of running a station where you can honestly start a civil war based on what fucking COLOR you're wearing today, and he thrives as a leader. As Entil'zha of the Rangers, he did great and really seemed to come into his own. It was like he'd found where he belonged. And of course, the Rangers aren't exactly a team--they're an order, a society of spies and warriors, who walk the dark spaces between stars and worlds and face the shadows on their own if they must. It's perfect for him, and a Ranger 1 who can shoulder that responsibility on his own is exactly the kind of leader they need, the kind that both Humans and Minbari can respect.
Captain/President/Entil'zha John Sheridan
Ol' Nukem.
Orange Boy.
...Possible descendent of Kouta Kazuraba, based on wanton destruction, oranges, and forming a new species with a sort of Eve.
But mostly those oranges.
I make fun of him, but I really did like him. If Sinclair wasn't qualified to lead, Sheridan was qualified but not wanted--the Minbari didn't trust him, what with him nuking the Black Star after sending a distress signal that lured them into an asteroid field--though, to be fair, the distress signal was real and he only planted the nukes because the Black Star was going to destroy their wounded ship anyway and it was their only hope of fighting back. But he'd mostly kept his head down since, and it was easy enough to convince the evil President Clark that he was just a war hawk who'd follow orders and kiss ass.
Well, following orders absolutely not. War hawk? Not really. He prefers peace, but he knows that he has to fight for it, which makes him great as the leader of the Army of Light against the Shadow advance. Against the Clark Administration, he's a pain in the ass.
...Actually, "pain in the ass" is the perfect way to describe him. Again, I like him. But he is the anti-Sinclair on so many levels. For one, he delegates on EVERYTHING. He promotes Ivanova to full-bird Commander and puts more and more responsibilities on her shoulders, while not quite getting that there are some things he really should be doing himself. But he inspires loyalty and he's very personable--even trying to get Kosh to come out of his metaphorical shell (...which was also LITERAL, mind you) and getting Delenn to let her hair down (also literal).
But he also seems to operate by his own set of rules--and I guess this is where it reflects the times, since the Clintons are accused of operating the same way, and there is a LOT about Sheridan that reminds me of Bill. He's a politician at heart, so I like seeing him as President of the Interstellar Alliance a little more than commander. I don't think he ever bought into the whole messiah thing so many others saw in him, but I will agree with Duck Amok Garibaldi about him not really considering the consequences of his actions--see my comments about him delegating too much. He gets on Kosh's case about the Vorlons not joining the war, and by convincing Kosh to join, Kosh gets killed. And partially downloaded into Sheridan's brain--look, they were totally boyfriends, okay? And his decision to break away from Earth--while I agree with the principles, it did create a MASSIVE clusterfuck that nearly brought down everyone else with him. It really took until Luchenko convinced him to retire that he understood the consequences--he only agreed when he was guaranteed immunity for all of his subordinates. And when he knew he'd already been elected President, because Sheridan was kind of a magnificent bastard like that.
In a way, I think being President suited him better, since it did put more responsibility on him, and he could set up specific departments to do the jobs that he thought were better suited to others. But with the Centauri/Drakh bullshit, yeah. He shot himself in the foot there. Yes, Londo was definitely in league with the Shadows. But he recognizes what a fucking stupid thing it was to do. You think he's a leak? Don't fucking handle things the way you did, which alienates Londo and pushes him right where the Drakh want him.
Captain/Colonel Elizabeth Lochley
I honestly think she was the best at running the station.
Hear me out.
First, while I disagree with her reasoning why she still fought for the Clark Administration, I can understand her reasoning--this was a time when they needed to PROTECT Earth, especially from herself. Sheridan couldn't do that and cut himself off from the realities of life on the homeworld and colonies. He sent a powerful message and proved he would stand by Mars, but he lost the opportunity to make changes back home, the way Luchenko and presumably Lochley were doing.
I wasn't entirely sure how to take it when she came aboard and flat-out said that if B5 had this much chaos, it meant things weren't running well. I thought it was presumptuous, ignoring the very personality of the station itself.
But she had a point.
Sinclair was trying to make a difference, but he was out of his league and then got shuffled away to Minbar.
Sheridan was a war leader and politician, paying more attention to the goings on outside the station than within.
With Sheridan able to handle the outside stuff, Lochley was able to clean up B5, to some degree. What Sheridan lacked, Lochley had. She was better organized, and like Sinclair, she endeared herself to the poorer populations of the station. She was the only one in command who regularly went to Downbelow and even had a favorite fast food place there--if Sinclair were still around, I'm sure he'd have loved going down with her for the sketchy BBQ burgers she loves. She's more diplomatic too, able to even be friendly toward Bester when the rest of the crew would love to peel his face off. And she manages to thwart him within the rules--and you realize that's why she stayed. Because she knows how to work within the system to fix things.
Honestly, I feel like Lochley was the better successor to Sinclair. Like him, she had a rough background--no PTSD, but addiction in her youth, running away from home, and her implied girlfriend dying of an overdose, scaring her into coming home and cleaning up. She's better at taking a stand than he was, however, and when she doesn't like something, she fucking makes sure you KNOW. She and Garibaldi clashed all the time in season 5, but she was also sympathetic to him for going off the bandwagon, sharing her dirty little secret with him to get him to lower his guard. They never really became friends, but they gained a respect.
I feel like Lochley was the people's commander, the way Sinclair started. Sheridan became a myth, larger than life, more beloved among the aliens than the Humans. And that's fine. But Lochley was brought aboard to heal the rift between B5 and the Earth Alliance, and she went a long way to make the Humans there feel like someone cared about them too. She managed to bring stability to the station, something that had never happened in the years it had existed before her run. Hell, she even theorized that it was Garibaldi and Sheridan that brought the chaos, and it seemed pretty damn plausible.
So, yeah. I love all three of them, but they all had their own ways of leading, and I think that Lochley was probably the most effective. Sinclair probably would have reached that level, given more time, and Sheridan quite honestly was best suited as a politician, since he was better at political maneuvering than either one of them.