B5 episode Passing through Gethsemane
Apr. 4th, 2006 01:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethJust finished watching another disc of B5, up to "Passing through Gethsemane". The one that deals with the death of personality, the mindwipe.
Usually I have thoughts about what Angel did to Connor, and the others, connected to bits of this.
But tonight my main thought is all inside B5.
The monk at the center of the story considers the moment in Gethsemane where Christ chose to stay, knowing he would be killed, to be the emotional center of his faith. He believes that that death redeemed everyone else. So it was Christ's sacrifice saving the world, and that moment was when he wondered if he was brave enough to go through with it.
So when the monk finds he's done very bad things, and there are people that want to kill him for it, he stays still and lets them, believing that moment to be his Gethsemane.
Well I very much disagree. Or, if I agree, I have to look at the whole Christ thing in a very different light.
The people hunting the mindwiped monk had done bad things. They were carrying hate around. They had broken laws and done things with intent to harm. But they were not, at the moment he realised who he was, murderers.
But then he stood still. Didn't go to the law. Stood there and let them kill him.
Let them become murderers.
Made them carry that.
There were laws, and there were systems, and there were things that could be done in his world to face the issue of if he was paying enough for what he had done. But he didn't go to the authorities, secular or religious. He went to the people that wanted to kill him.
Worse, they wanted to send him to hell.
He let them do a very bad thing. The fact that it was him on the receiving end doesn't make it not-bad. He can forgive them, but that doesn't mean they did not do the bad thing. And he set it up so they could do it.
That was very, very wrong. In order to help *them*, to save *them*, to keep *their* souls from serious harm, he needed to keep himself alive, go to the authorities, get things sorted out while there was still a possibility of everyone getting through it in one piece.
As it was, he got himself killed, knowing he took his murderer down with him, turned him into exactly what he couldn't handle being himself.
There's nothing of redemption in that. Just screwed up pride, thinking one's own crime to be the one so heinous god and the church can't handle it.
No. Such. Thing.
Always there is a way out. Much to pay, much to learn, but never any way to get stuck.
But he made the wrong choice here, a whole set of wrong choices, and someone else got to carry them. Very wrong.
I reacting to that quite strongly today.
Letting people do bad things is bad for the one doing them, not just the one done to. So just doing nothing is bad for *everyone*. Wrong thing to do.
I had to mention someone religion to say this point, but I'm not trying to insult peoples religions here. Just trying to say what the story said to me.
Usually I have thoughts about what Angel did to Connor, and the others, connected to bits of this.
But tonight my main thought is all inside B5.
The monk at the center of the story considers the moment in Gethsemane where Christ chose to stay, knowing he would be killed, to be the emotional center of his faith. He believes that that death redeemed everyone else. So it was Christ's sacrifice saving the world, and that moment was when he wondered if he was brave enough to go through with it.
So when the monk finds he's done very bad things, and there are people that want to kill him for it, he stays still and lets them, believing that moment to be his Gethsemane.
Well I very much disagree. Or, if I agree, I have to look at the whole Christ thing in a very different light.
The people hunting the mindwiped monk had done bad things. They were carrying hate around. They had broken laws and done things with intent to harm. But they were not, at the moment he realised who he was, murderers.
But then he stood still. Didn't go to the law. Stood there and let them kill him.
Let them become murderers.
Made them carry that.
There were laws, and there were systems, and there were things that could be done in his world to face the issue of if he was paying enough for what he had done. But he didn't go to the authorities, secular or religious. He went to the people that wanted to kill him.
Worse, they wanted to send him to hell.
He let them do a very bad thing. The fact that it was him on the receiving end doesn't make it not-bad. He can forgive them, but that doesn't mean they did not do the bad thing. And he set it up so they could do it.
That was very, very wrong. In order to help *them*, to save *them*, to keep *their* souls from serious harm, he needed to keep himself alive, go to the authorities, get things sorted out while there was still a possibility of everyone getting through it in one piece.
As it was, he got himself killed, knowing he took his murderer down with him, turned him into exactly what he couldn't handle being himself.
There's nothing of redemption in that. Just screwed up pride, thinking one's own crime to be the one so heinous god and the church can't handle it.
No. Such. Thing.
Always there is a way out. Much to pay, much to learn, but never any way to get stuck.
But he made the wrong choice here, a whole set of wrong choices, and someone else got to carry them. Very wrong.
I reacting to that quite strongly today.
Letting people do bad things is bad for the one doing them, not just the one done to. So just doing nothing is bad for *everyone*. Wrong thing to do.
I had to mention someone religion to say this point, but I'm not trying to insult peoples religions here. Just trying to say what the story said to me.