Did you ever see the Babylon 5 episode "Passing through Gethesemene"? Interestingly enough, it seems that "Death of Personality" still comes second to spacing as the worst way to execute someone.This way is not better than simply locking him up.
I am at best tentatively pro-execution anyway. I find "death of personality" to be FAR worse.
I've never watched Babylon 5. Or, well, I've seen the first two episodes, and it never caught my interest.
They were the same people. We saw them before and after and they were the same people in almost all meaningful ways.
They didn't remember being SHIELD agents, but aside from that? They believed in the same things, had the same principles and most of the same issues (except those directly related to the removed memories). Cal is still himself, mostly, just without the memories of the last few decades and a name change.
Now, why that is could be a subject for debate, with people being more than the sum of their memories, and TAHITI only changing memories very selectively (most of our personality is actually determined by the time we're four years old...I doubt TAHITI messes too much with early childhood memories), being the two most obvious theories...but whatever way you look at it, it's not meaningfully the death of personality or identity, since while the name might change, who the person is does not.
Even from that perspective, I don't find it very palatable. You ARE your memories. Your experiences are what make you a unique individual. This new Cal might be a different individual with a similar worldview...but he's still not Cal.
At best, he's Cal as he was before he met Jiaying, but even that is a largely different person.
Did you ever see the Babylon 5 episode "Passing through Gethesemene"? Interestingly enough, it seems that "Death of Personality" still comes second to spacing as the worst way to execute someone.This way is not better than simply locking him up.
I am at best tentatively pro-execution anyway. I find "death of personality" to be FAR worse.
Cal's personality is still there. It doesn't seem to have been severe as b5s brainwipe.
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The Pet Avengers were Lockjaw, Lockheed, Speedball's cat Hairball, Kar-Za's smilodon Zabu, Falcon's falcon Redwing, Ms Lion, and Throg - the Frog of Thunder.
[Pet Avengers tangent]
I think Speedball's cat was named Niels (some sort of science joke that goes over my head, maybe a Niels Bohr reference?).That team could totally expand to include Cosmo (telepathic/telekinetic Russian dog / cosmonaut), Brightwind (Dani's Pegasus), Red Wolf's wolf, Hugin and Munin (Odin's ravens), Old Lace (telepathic deinonychus associated with the Runaways), Pizza Dog (from the recent-ish Hawkeye series), Princess Python's python (or perhaps that one could join the Pet Masters of Evil?), etc.
[/Pet Avengers tangent]
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Hairball is the cat's name for himself. Niels is his slave name ;) (You'd have to own a cat...)
Cosmo's already been shown in the MCU. He's licking the collector's face at the end of GotG.
You also forgot Dane Whitman's (Black Knight... um... II?) various flying horses.
~LAUGHTER~
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Even from that perspective, I don't find it very palatable. You ARE your memories. Your experiences are what make you a unique individual. This new Cal might be a different individual with a similar worldview...but he's still not Cal.
Is someone who loses their memories of the last 10 years no longer the same person? It's an interesting philosophical question. I personally feel that while our memories are integral to who we are, there's a bit more to us than merely that, especially later memories.
Developmental Psychology and a host of research strongly indicate that most of who we are as people is formed very early indeed (as I mentioned in my last post), and I'd strongly argue that if those memories are left intact, so's the person's identity as such. They can be changed or hurt badly by memory removal that doesn't touch those first years (or touches only very lightly), but that's not the same thing as being destroyed by it.
At best, he's Cal as he was before he met Jiaying, but even that is a largely different person.
Right...but what if that's the person he wants to be again? Do we have the right to say that that's a form of suicide rather than simply choosing to change oneself?
Now don't get me wrong, I think this is, in many ways, basically permanently maiming someone. And thus that doing it to people is normally highly immoral.
But then, I'd argue the same is true of chemical castration or a sufficient degree of forced psychiatric medication. Both of which seem like valid things to give to certain kinds of criminals instead of, or in addition to, other punishments. Especially if they request them.
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Hairball is the cat's name for himself. Niels is his slave name ;) (You'd have to own a cat...)
Cosmo's already been shown in the MCU. He's licking the collector's face at the end of GotG.
You also forgot Dane Whitman's (Black Knight... um... II?) various flying horses.
I also forgot Agatha Harkness' familiar, Ebony, who may or may not be an intelligent demon cat-person in cat-form (and can definitely turn into a panther). Gosh, there are a lot of super-pets! (Not even counting all the Asgardian animals, like Odin's ravens, wolves and Sleipnir, Thor's goats, etc.)
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As for the death-of-personality thing, I'd be more concerned if I thought it was going to last. It's comic-stuff. Even death is just a temporary thing (with an unpopular characters prison sentence lasting longer than a popular character's 'death'). Brain-wiping? It will last exactly as long as the plot requires, and not one second longer.
It certainly is one reason why I would never have believed Ward for a stone cold second when he *volunteered* to have his mind wiped. It's darn close to volunteering to be a zombie to ask to have your brain killed and your body still walking around as, for all you know, your killers slave.
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Something I could see....
That would be cool.
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I'm expecting Skye to have a puppy next season.
or she will finally buy Fitz his monkey
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I was genuinely moved by that last scene with Cal and Skye. Maybe it's because I have 2 daughters.
Cal - That would be...
Skye - I know: "Best... Day... Ever"
Cal - No, there's only 1 of those *Skye's birthday*
Scene ends with them both in tears. THAT, I get.
Because of that I gotta say I felt really sad for Skye and Cal both at the very end.
Cal - Oh, I didn't catch your name
Skye - ... Daisy
Cal - (with mild emotion) Well that's a pretty name.
Her whole campaign arc for 2 seasons is "who are my parents?" Now she knows, definitively, who her father is, where he is at all times, and has proof that he has NO idea of her. In a way that's worse, y'know?
But like Coulson says: that's the price.
This way is not better than simply locking him up.
I am at best tentatively pro-execution anyway. I find "death of personality" to be FAR worse.
He was resigned to his fate of being locked up for the rest of his life in some SHIELD prison. He'd made peace with that. It would have been a fitting punishment (he seemed to HATE being confined), and affords a chance to properly rehabilitate him and fix some of the psychological damage he'd suffered due to trauma and his undead wife mind f+$&ing him for 25 years, combined with a cocktail of drugs that included "gorilla testosterone and peppermint".
That chance is gone. If they ever need him again and reverse the mind wipe (if it's even possible, which is unclear), he'll be the same old Cal. Erratic, trustworthy only as long as his daughter is on hand, and possibly with a full-on murder-hate boner for the people who violated his mind.
I would like to point out that they told him that was what they were going to do to him before he assisted him, and then he willingly walked into the room where they did it.
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One thing I'd love to see in Season 3....
Ward plugs the device in, the screen in front of him comes alive, and Ward says, "Hello Dr. Zola."
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One thing I'd love to see in Season 3....
** spoiler omitted **
It'd be kind of amazing, yeah. And maybe we could get an appropriate robot body for the guy.
Agents of Shield has me desiring so many B through D-list supervillains now after seeing what they did with Mr. Hyde...
Hell I can almost see them getting freaking Turner D. Century to be cool if they put work to it. Or Scourge.
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Skye's Quake to be part of "Secret Warriors" storyline.
Saw a teaser trailer for season 3 fittingly in a New York cab.
Dang blast it. Somewhere the other day I saw an article which showcased a new promo poster for Season 3. Can't find it now.
Either way, I'm looking forward to it. Although my viewing might be delayed due to studying. Thank ye gods for DVR.
You? Studying? What? Advanced brain eating? The best ways to hunt down the last remaining humans? How to win friends and eat people?
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Did you ever see the Babylon 5 episode "Passing through Gethesemene"? Interestingly enough, it seems that "Death of Personality" still comes second to spacing as the worst way to execute someone.This way is not better than simply locking him up.
I am at best tentatively pro-execution anyway. I find "death of personality" to be FAR worse.
I've never watched Babylon 5. Or, well, I've seen the first two episodes, and it never caught my interest.
Kind of a tangent here, especially considering the age of this post, but the first season of Babylon 5 is one of the weakest, and episode 2 is the single worst episode in the series. I would give it another shot, because seasons 2 through 4 are some of the best Sci-Fi made.
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Kind of a tangent here, especially considering the age of this post, but the first season of Babylon 5 is one of the weakest, and episode 2 is the single worst episode in the series. I would give it another shot, because seasons 2 through 4 are some of the best Sci-Fi made.
I kind of like the way you think, good sir. I think I shall place you on the list of those to be devoured last during the zombiepocalypse.
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Babylon 5 is one of my favorite series ever. I remember watching the entire series (on rerun) in the late 90's on TNT.
Babylon 5 is one of my favorite series ever. I remember watching the entire series (on rerun) in the late 90's on TNT.I only got cable to watch Babylon 5.
(Had to keep it when the young ones got addicted to Cartoon Network...)
Londo, Ivanova and even Vir and Delenn remain quotable to this day.
Ivanova:" On your way back to the station, please take the time to refresh your memory of the Babylon 5 mantra: Ivanova is God."
Delenn to Sharidan: "Why do your people always ask 'are you ready' before doing something monumentally foolish?"
Sharidan: "Tradition!"
Delenn: "The only man to have ever defeated a Nimbari cruiser in battle is behind me. You are in front of me."
My apologies for not getting the exact quotes, but these remain with me to this day. Carry on!
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Sorry, the single best line in Babylon 5 goes to Vir: "I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave, like this [smiles and waves his fingers at Morden]."
Well, Vir was specifically mentioned as having some of the best lines. The rest of us are presenting lines from the others, so it's all good.
Delenn: "The only man to have ever defeated a Nimbari cruiser in battle is behind me. You are in front of me."
The rest of that one is "If you value your lives, be somewhere else." It's one of my two favorites in the whole series. The other is this one:
"Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova. Commander. Daughter of Andre and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth. I am Death incarnate, and the last living thing you are ever going to see. God sent me."
And Vir's response to Mr. Morden's perennial question, What do you want? is a really great one, especially since later on he actually gets to do it.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. Always boom tomorrow.
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It took me some time to realize that Jiaying was Selene : a vampire using other people's lifeforce to both stay young and healthy and fuel her powers and who happens to be the psychotic leader/protector of a hidden people.
Ooh, that's a good catch. She didn't have the crazy levels of extra power that Selene had (to use that stolen life-energy to animate matter or enhance her own physical attributes), but still, a neat parallel.
(It's also possible that we didn't get to see her full potential, since both Daisy and Not-Lightning-Lad seem to be able to develop their core abilities to do things unrelated, like levitate or make water bend all funky...)
I am hoping for some more creative, and less 'human' looking Inhumans, in the next season. Most Inhumans shouldn't look like scrubbed young 20-somethings fresh off the latest CW show. More creative Inhuman talents than 'shoots lightning' might also be neat. Karnak, Gorgon and Medusa, to name three, had far less 'common' super-powers, and that was part of their quirky charm.
(It could be funny to have a character able to turn people into stone, or at least paralyze them with a glance, since the Inhumans were about a team with members named 'Medusa' and 'Gorgon,' neither of which had anything to do with the classical creature.)
That said, the budget is what the budget is, and if 'Inhuman' looking Inhumans are going to end up looking as terrible as Gordon and his eyeless face-mask, maybe it's best to stick to the pretty young actor-models...
[B5 tangent] Heh. 'Moon-faced assassin of joy!' is one of my favorite lines from Londo. Also, from G'Kar and Natoth 'You will know pain. You will know fear. And then, you will die.' <cheery wave> 'Good bye!' [/B5 tangent]
Well...as far as more bizarre inhumans...we are getting Lash this season. but yeah the weirder ones are just a lot harder to pull off on a TV budget.
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That depends on what you prefer in your TV. The show gets truly epic in seasons 2-4, but there are bright spots in seasons 1 and 5. It's been a while since I have watched, and as a result my memories blur the great stuff with the dull stuff (especially as the foreshadowing starts to pay off), so I can't tell you exactly where.Please tell me it gets better after a first few episodes.I've never seen babylon 5You should correct this egregious oversight immediately.
Dunno. For now it seems to be a weak attempt at banking on Star Trek fame with some similar stuff. I hope that I am wrong.
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Well, JMS did initially offer it as an outline for a Star Trek series....they told him it would never work. Then they launched a completely original idea that he had nothing to do with called Deep Space Nine.
I was unaware of the connection until now, but now I'm amazed I didn't see the similarities.