From: blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se Subject: blakes7-d Digest V98 #308 X-Loop: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se X-Mailing-List: archive/volume98/308 Precedence: list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/digest; boundary="----------------------------" To: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se Reply-To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se ------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blakes7-d Digest Volume 98 : Issue 308 Today's Topics: [B7L] Breakfast with Blake and Co. Re: [B7L] Breakfast with Blake and Co. Re: [B7L] Breakfast with Blake and Co. Re: [B7L] Travis has three faces RE: [B7L] Breakfast with Blake and Co. Re: [B7L] Breakfast with Blake and Co. Re: [B7L] Sula, Servalan, Augustus and cornflakes [B7L] Re: Travis has three faces [B7L] Piracy [B7L] Guards! Guards! at Darlington Civic Theatre Re: [B7L] Re: Travis has three faces ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 13:45:09 PST From: "Joanne MacQueen" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Breakfast with Blake and Co. Message-ID: <19981213214509.17462.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain > Mad Avon, Toothy Tarrant, Sexy Soolin, Daring Dayna and > Controlled substance abusing Vila. Pat, what happened to the alliteration? You went so well in the middle of the set. But it provided a good start to my Monday morning. Just like the cereal producers claim! Pity I hate that stuff (goes soggy on me, and then I can't bring myself to eat it), because I'd be happy to collect the set. [ although I think there might be some people who'd look for a collection solely made of Tarrants, or Avons. never mind] So how would the rest of the characters be advertised - Caring Cally, Brave Blake? Suggestions, anyone? Regards Joanne Impressed as she was by the World Wide Web, Ann couldn't help wondering about the World Wide Spider. --caption, Judy Horacek cartoon. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 15:18:50 PST From: "Penny Dreadful" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Breakfast with Blake and Co. Message-ID: <19981213231851.5015.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain >So how would the rest of the characters be advertised - Caring Cally, >Brave Blake? Suggestions, anyone? > >Regards >Joanne > I want a Scary Servie and Twisted Travis (collect all two). Oh, and a Jealous Jenna. --Penny "Cough Syrup Makes It All Seem Even Funnier" Dreadful ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 20:01:40 PST From: "Penny Dreadful" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Breakfast with Blake and Co. Message-ID: <19981214040140.4043.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain I myself said: >I want a Scary Servie and Twisted Travis (collect all two). No: Sneaky Serpent Servalan and Tacky Traitor Travis; Gallant Gormless Gallumphing Gan and Avaricious Avon. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 18:25:39 +0100 (BST) From: Judith Proctor To: Lysator List Subject: Re: [B7L] Travis has three faces Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sun 13 Dec, Dunne, Martin Lydon - DUNML001 wrote: > 1980 Blake's 7 annual, published by IPC. > Why is Travis a guy with a goatee and no obvious cybernetic attachments? Probably because the artists lived overseas and had hardly any reference pictures. You'll find the same few character costumes crop up again and again, even when they were no longer being worn on screen. I'd bet that they simply didn't known what he looked like. (They usually get his rank wrong in the annuals) It's interesting to consider the impact Travis had on the series. He did a lot of the dirty work which allowed Servalan to get things done without having her hands personally dirty. One of the things I have always like about the series is its many shades of grey. When Travis is first introduced, one of Servalan's aides says that he would never serve under Travis because of the man's reputation as a butcher. Even Federation officers have a conscience as was shown in several episodes. Yet in spite of his reputation he was still able to continue with Servalan's backing. 'Trial' shows us the double standards of the military. Travis's speech in his defence is wonderful. Did the Federation make him what he was? Was he completely a product of his training? How much of his desire for revenge against Blake was genuine and how much was it fostered by Servalan for her own ends? (I can imagine a situation where some low-level mind manipulation was used on Travis to exacerbate that hatred.) Did Travis have a conscience? Yes, I think he did. He regretted Maryatt's death (in 'Deliverance') even though he did nothing to prevent it. In fact, that says more about his obsession than anything else. He was willing to sacrifice the man who had saved his life in order to get at the man who had disfigured him. That seems beyond obsession - why should he have become so extreme? Did he have other grudges against rebels? Was it mind manipulation? or was it simply the nursing of a long grudge that grew deeper and stronger every time Blake defeated him? Judith -- http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7 Redemption 99 - The Blakes 7/Babylon 5 convention 26-28 February 1999, Ashford International Hotel, Kent http://www.smof.com/redemption/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 10:32:35 +-100 From: Jacqueline Thijsen To: "blakes7@lysator.liu.se" Subject: RE: [B7L] Breakfast with Blake and Co. Message-ID: <01BE274D.11336AE0@cmg71700449> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Penny Dreadful said: >I want a Scary Servie and Twisted Travis (collect all two). >No: Sneaky Serpent Servalan and Tacky Traitor Travis; Gallant >Gormless >Gallumphing Gan and Avaricious Avon. Oooh, me too, me too, me too! Please somebody tell me where I can get them! Drooling Jacqueline (couldn't think of anything that started with a "J".) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 01:42:07 PST From: "Rob Clother" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Breakfast with Blake and Co. Message-ID: <19981214094207.4067.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain Penny "Spock on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays" Dreadful: >No: Sneaky Serpent Servalan and Tacky Traitor Travis; Gallant >Gormless Gallumphing Gan and Avaricious Avon. Obnoxious Orifice Orac? Simpering Servile Slave? Bugger it, can't think of one for Zen. Anyone got a dictionary? -- Rob ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 11:46:42 +0000 (GMT) From: Una McCormack To: Lysator Subject: Re: [B7L] Sula, Servalan, Augustus and cornflakes Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Pat said: >Or what if Sulu's coup had succeeded? A worse overlord than Servalan? And how would Avon have taken it?!? Rob said: >The power struggle between Servalan, the old president and the High >Council is one of the most absorbing threads in B7. It is much bigger, >and much more important, than anything Blake and his rabble get up to. Ooh, yes, I realy agree. I love stories that focus on this sort of thing. Really puts Blake's activities into perspective. Focusing on the real power. All the Sula/Servalan exchanges in 'Rumours' take on really interesting undertones if you read them in this sort of context. Una ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 12:43:07 EST From: Tigerm1019@aol.com To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Re: Travis has three faces Message-ID: Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-12-14 02:20:32 EST, Judith wrote: << It's interesting to consider the impact Travis had on the series. He did a lot of the dirty work which allowed Servalan to get things done without having her hands personally dirty.>> I agree. I think he was instrumental in her rise to the presidency. Part of what might have handicapped Servalan a little in the third and fourth series was that she had to do her own dirty work and had more difficulty blaming things on someone else. This may have been part of what led to the coup in "Rumours of Death." <> Very true. However, in "Trial" Par said that Travis was a commander who didn't waste his men's lives. Also, he did show some compassion for Docholli in "Gambit." I think Travis just kind of lost it when it came to rebels or suspected rebels. <> I think Travis' psychosis was focused on rebels in general and Blake in particular. I also think it got progressively worse over time and that Servalan did have something to do with that. Some of his desire for revenge was undoubtedly genuine, but I also think Servalan had it magnified for her own ends. Maybe something was done to his mind while he was recovering from his injuries. Travis is a ruthless man, but not without compassion or conscience. I also think he started going off the deep end before Servalan betrayed him in "Trial." It's also very possible that he had other grudges as well. Some rebel groups may have been very destructive and cost a lot of troopers' lives. Tiger M ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 12:56:27 EST From: Tigerm1019@aol.com To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Piracy Message-ID: Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit A while back, there was a thread about the kairopan stunt in "Harvest of Kairos" and several people claimed that it was merely piracy. I agree that it was piracy, but I think there was more to it than that. By stealing the kairopan, Tarrant and the Liberator crew would have been hitting the Federation in a place where it would really hurt: the bank balance. It takes money to run a government, and from the looks of things, the Federation was pretty shaky at that point. The loss of several billion credits worth of a valuable resource would have had to hurt. Also, the scam almost worked. If Tarrant had not been up against an opponent who knew him very well (his former commanding officer), it probably would have. I was also thinking of the similarity between the Liberator crew and a pirate crew. In a typical pirate crew, the captain was only in command during battle. In all other circumstances, the boatswain was in charge, and all the crew members had a vote on important issues. I did notice that in many battles, Tarrant was giving the orders. Tiger M ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 18:43:56 +0000 From: Julia Jones To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Guards! Guards! at Darlington Civic Theatre Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Just received the Darlington Civic Theatre programme for the spring season: Mon 22 - Sat 27 February Evenings: Mon-Thurs 7:30pm, Fri at 6 pm and 9pm, Sat at 5pm and 8pm Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards! Adapted for the stage by Geoffrey Cush "Quite literally, an explosion of laughter." Newcastle Evening Chronicle Paul Darrow hangs up the black leather of Avon from TV's Blake's Seven and exchanges it for the breast-plated buffoonery of Captain Vimes. The convoluted plot centres on a police style watch in the city of Ankh- Morpork and Darrow delights the audience as he switches from comic drunk to hard nosed cop. Along the way there's an orangutan librarian who only communicates using charades; a six foot dwarf called Carrot and characters like Death with a comedy routine for every person incinerated by a marauding dragon! Tickets: Ł5, Ł10, Ł12.50, Ł14.50 Fri at 6pm: all seats Ł10 Discounts: Senior Citizen, JSA holders, Parties 10+ Ł2 off (discounts do not apply to restricted view, Friday at 6pm & 9pm and Saturday at 8pm). Drama discount: See 4 of the 6 plays this season and save 30%. Top two tickets only. No other discount applies Opening Night - 20% off top two ticket prices only (no other discount applies) Friends Reception - Monday 22 February There's also a nice photo of Lady Sybil and Errol. -- Julia Jones ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 21:35:07 +0100 (BST) From: Judith Proctor To: Lysator List Subject: Re: [B7L] Re: Travis has three faces Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Mon 14 Dec, Tigerm1019@aol.com wrote: > > In a message dated 98-12-14 02:20:32 EST, Judith wrote: > > << It's interesting to consider the impact Travis had on the series. He did a > lot > of the dirty work which allowed Servalan to get things done without having > her > hands personally dirty.>> > > I agree. I think he was instrumental in her rise to the presidency. Part of > what might have handicapped Servalan a little in the third and fourth series > was that she had to do her own dirty work and had more difficulty blaming > things on someone else. This may have been part of what led to the coup in > "Rumours of Death." I disagree there. I think Servalan became president because she was Supreme Commander of the space force at the time of the Andromedan invasion. She felt that powerful central control was needed to fight the alien threat, siezed power and never looke back. All Travis did to aid that process was to encourage the aliens to invade! Travis may have helped her in many ways, but I think the coup would have been successful anyway. I agree that she might have found a dedicated henchman useful in season 3 where she was weakened by pursuing Liberator personally (which says a lot about the sad state of he space force that she was willing to risk so much to gain Liberator), but Travis was particularly fanatic where Blake was concerned. Would that dedication have been as strong when Avon was commanding Liberator? > > < grey. When Travis is first introduced, one of Servalan's aides says that he > would never serve under Travis because of the man's reputation as a butcher. > Even Federation officers have a conscience as was shown in several > episodes.>> > > Very true. However, in "Trial" Par said that Travis was a commander who > didn't waste his men's lives. Also, he did show some compassion for Docholli > in "Gambit." I think Travis just kind of lost it when it came to rebels or > suspected rebels. That's quite possible. The people who were massacred may have meant no more to him than Jews did to Hitler, but his own men were people like him. Travis, I think, came up through the ranks and this may have given him a natural desire to protect the interests of the troopers. He would have felt that he had something in common with them and perhaps have had a certain mistrust of high ranking officers. Witness his early insolence towards Servalan. > I think Travis' psychosis was focused on rebels in general and Blake in > particular. I also think it got progressively worse over time and that > Servalan did have something to do with that. Some of his desire for revenge > was undoubtedly genuine, but I also think Servalan had it magnified for her > own ends. Maybe something was done to his mind while he was recovering from > his injuries. There's an interesting comment in 'Weapon' where Travis refers to his visits to the 'retraining therapist'. What's that about? Did it involve some kind of mental manipulation. On days when I'm treating the two Travisis as separate individuals (which I do occasionally for purposes of writing a story) then I assume that the 'retraining' was to make the second man believe that he was the first as this is the first episode in which Brian Croucher appears. The first Travis became unstable or died in a fight or accident (or Servalan had him killed). Brain prints are a given technology in Blake's 7, as is memory adjustment, so it woud not be impossible to create a second Travis. The fact that Servalan used the first Blake clone to test Travis is also indicative. Why test unless you have a reason to? And what was the involvement of the clonemasters? Did they create the second Travis as well as the Blake clones? > Travis is a ruthless man, but not without compassion or conscience. I also > think he started going off the deep end before Servalan betrayed him in > "Trial." It's also very possible that he had other grudges as well. Some > rebel groups may have been very destructive and cost a lot of troopers' lives. Yes, he was under a lot of pressure before then. He says at one point that he could have defeated the rebels several times if it was not for Servalan's insistance that Liberator be taken intact. Some times Blake outwitted him (as in Seek Locate Destroy), but other times Travis had plain bad luck. The ploy in Project Avalon should have worked. As far as studying character goes, what does 'Duel' tell us about Travis? Judith -- http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7 Redemption 99 - The Blakes 7/Babylon 5 convention 26-28 February 1999, Ashford International Hotel, Kent http://www.smof.com/redemption/ -------------------------------- End of blakes7-d Digest V98 Issue #308 **************************************