General Ramblings and Questions after re-listening to Battle Ground

[Mira]

However, this is what I really want to respond to.  Looking at some of the Dresden Files novels in the manner you describe looking at Skin Game,  I'm reminded of the TV series Babylon 5; which Jim has stated he was a fan of.  The first season of B5 probably had the most "one and done" or standalone stories, compared to the other four seasons of the show.  Within these standalone stories the viewer would often receive little tidbits of information that had significance to the overall story arc.  When re-watching the series even some of the weaker episodes can be made more enjoyable when you spot these "Signs and Portents" of future developments in the overall storyline.  Plus, there were call backs within B5.  Something that happened in the first season of the show and seemed to be finished; such as the episode about Babylon 4 or a one episode love interest of Londo Mollari, would be revisited two seasons later and turn out to be of great significance.

However what you are saying about the first season of B5 wasn't what the creator JMS planned at all for his five year arc.  What happened was his star Michael O'Hare was severely mentally ill and had to be dropped from the show.  Yes, there was a couple of stand alone episodes in the first season, but most contained plenty of Easter Eggs to hint about the next five years.  That all had to change when Sinclair played by Michael O'Hare had to leave to the show.  Actually the first season almost didn't get completed because of his mental state.   JMS did a remarkable job scrambling to make the final four years more or less fit his planned arc.  O'Hare was convinced to stay on his medication long enough to guest star in two later episodes that tied up a loose ends about Valen and Babylon 4.  JMS had promised O'Hare that he'd keep his secret from the public, upon O'Hare's death the story finally came out.  O'Hare's story is very sad, he continued to have problems staying on his medication, and finally died homeless of a heart attack.

[CrusherJen]

While that's true (poor Michael O'Hare!), it's not quite the whole story. Knowing actors might drop out of availability during the shooting process, Straczinski has admitted to writing "trap doors" so that characters could be written out without too much impact to the main storyline, which was plotted out in advance. Of course, there were still unexpected things that had to be worked around-- the Vorlon/Shadow arc was wrapped up quickly due to looming cancellation after the fourth season, and then the show got renewed for a fifth year... But for the most part, as far as we know, the main arc worked out more-or-less as planned.

[Mira]

While that's true (poor Michael O'Hare!), it's not quite the whole story. Knowing actors might drop out of availability during the shooting process, Straczinski has admitted to writing "trap doors" so that characters could be written out without too much impact to the main storyline, which was plotted out in advance. Of course, there were still unexpected things that had to be worked around-- the Vorlon/Shadow arc was wrapped up quickly due to looming cancellation after the fourth season, and then the show got renewed for a fifth year... But for the most part, as far as we know, the main arc worked out more-or-less as planned.

Except that Sinclair would have been the focus all through the arc.  The trajectory remained the same but with in that he had to do some switching.  I'd like to know when that interview of JMS was made, because he he did say stuff like he had made plans because actors leave all of the time when O'Hare was alive, he kept his promise to him.  I don't know when you watched the show, I was a fan of the show and of Sinclair from the beginning.  A lot of us fans were very unhappy when O'Hare was dropped from the show.  We had a website back then as well, and JMS was part of that and would answer our questions and enter in on the debates from time to time.

Nothing was said about O'Hare's illness, it was all about ratings and needing a bigger star. Now JMS could very well have begun to rewrite the show towards the end of the first season because it was a miracle that O'Hare kept it together as well as he did to finish the first season.

[CrusherJen]

I watched pretty much the whole thing during its first run (except for the last year when it jumped to cable, but I caught up later)... and I've seen the whole thing many times since then.

I don't remember when I originally saw the quote from JMS. Before I made my post, I went to double-checked and found it referenced on Wikipedia. The source it listed was The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 (http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/misc/cc-leave.html), and that site says it's from 1997:

From JMS, August 14 1997
How can the story continue without one of the main characters?
One of the first things I had to do, in plotting out the storyline, was to set aside trap doors for *every single character*, because you never know when or how the real world is going to impinge upon you. An actor can quit, or get hit by a car, or slammed by a meteor...there's no way to control the characters the way you do in a novel. That's a given. But you can't bring X-million viewers along to a certain point, then say, "Well, all the stuff we were going to do we can't because X isn't here."

So in a way, the structure of the story is kind of like a computer game tree...pull out a piece along the way, and it goes down a different path, but ends up at exactly the same point at the end. It's the difference between different *results* and different ways of *getting* there.

You can do a story about a platoon in WW II, for instance, and some of the platoon may live, die, be injured, whatever...but the story of WWII is the story of WWII.

Beyond that, a challenge is just that: a call to see just how good you *really* are, kid. If you've ever seen GLORY, there's the scene in which one of the Massachusetts 54th is being taught to shoot. He does just fine, hits the target, reloads fine...when nobody's shooting at him. At which point the colonel starts firing a revolver right next to his head, teling him to try and do it NOW, and do it FAST, with ten thousand guns firing at him.

That's when the art comes in, that's when the skill comes in...in dealing with what you *don't* expect.

Like I said, it's hard to say which parts of the narrative were planned and which were on-the-fly, but the man himself said there were "trap doors" from the beginning, and I've got no reason to doubt him. >shrug<

I wish I'd been around those boards then, it must have been so much fun to be able to interact with the creator of the show as it came out!

(I also prefer Sinclair to Sheridan, but what really curdled my spoo was Marcus and Ivanova...)

[Mira]

I wish I'd been around those boards then, it must have been so much fun to be able to interact with the creator of the show as it came out!

In 1997 Michael O'Hare was still alive, he died in 2012, JMS kept his promise, trap doors? Many supporting actors changed from the pilot with little or no problem. But when the main star goes, half the stage falls away.  One story line that had to be reworked was originally Catherine Saki who was Sinclair's love interest and to whom he became engaged to at the end of the first season.  She surveyed planets for possible economic exploitation for big galactic companies, she insisted on going into dangerous areas for this reason.  Remember the episode where G'Gar warned her, and actually sent in Narn fighter ships that saved her?  She was the one who was supposed to disappear because of the Shadows at some point after the engagement or perhaps marriage.  The groundwork was laid for her disappearance in that first season, it made logical sense in the whole story arc.  When Sinclair was dropped from the story, it was Sheriton's wife that disappeared, it worked, but not as well, because we never met her and had no emotion invested in her.  Another Easter egg was the "marriage" ceremony between Sinclair and Delenn, during the week of diverse religions festival. I suppose that was one of the easier things to fix.  The intrigue with Bestor was also well laid in the first season, the conflict between him and Sinclair became personal, they managed to switch it up in the later seasons, but again with less effect.

[Snark Knight]

But some time (not too long before the start of Dead Beat) Future!Harry took down Real!Cowl, and replaced him.  The guy Harry dueled at Bock Ordered Books was his future self.  Molly is Kumori, because (a) younger female sidekick Harry trusts, & (b) he needs the Winter Lady's immortality to use Mother Winter's Ways through time.

That theory has real problems with why FutureHarry would be curious to duel PresentHarry and see "what the Wardens are so worried about" & why he's disappointed to find Harry isn't stronger than he turns out to be, and why FutureMolly would ask what happened to his hand when PresentMolly already knows.  Weird things to mention solely for the purpose of misdirecting Harry if their identities are so very unlikely for him to have guessed anyway.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

I have long had the theory that Cowl is in fact 5 Misters from different points in time standing on each other’s shoulders in a long robe.

Who is to say that what we have seen as Cowl is not in fact an ectoplasmic projection like Harry recently employed?. Cowl could be anyone as the projection doesn’t have to look like the actual person, and they could be in their own home hundreds of miles away, establishing an alibi.

[CrusherJen]

@Mira: Since I preferred Sinclair too, I agree that some of the reworked beats might not have worked quite as well with Sheridan... but I still appreciate how JMS was able to change course and still get basically the story he wanted told without the lead actor he started with.

Though if I might suggest, we could take this conversation to the Media Favorites thread, if you like? As much fun as this is for you and me (and it is fun!) it is a little off-topic in a Dresden thread...   ❤

(No offense is intended, I just don't want to get smacked by the mods for derailing...  )

[g33k]

That theory has real problems with why FutureHarry would be curious to duel PresentHarry and see "what the Wardens are so worried about" & why he's disappointed to find Harry isn't stronger than he turns out to be...

I think this could easily be a bit of misdirection by Future!Harry.  He's trying to portray Cowl as this mysterious non-White-Council Kemmlerite wizard who nevertheless seems to know White Council secrets.

... and why FutureMolly would ask what happened to his hand when PresentMolly already knows ...

Molly may not have realized Harry was injured at this point; she didn't get more than an occasional glimpse of Harry until the next book, and Harry had been explicitly avoiding Michael and his family for a couple of years (since picking up Lasciel's coin 2-3 books back).
 

...  Weird things to mention solely for the purpose of misdirecting Harry if their identities are so very unlikely for him to have guessed anyway.

Also an entirely-valid perspective.  I cannot say you are "wrong" here.

[morriswalters]

I think this could easily be a bit of misdirection by Future!Harry.  He's trying to portray Cowl as this mysterious non-White-Council Kemmlerite wizard who nevertheless seems to know White Council secrets.
Molly may not have realized Harry was injured at this point; she didn't get more than an occasional glimpse of Harry until the next book, and Harry had been explicitly avoiding Michael and his family for a couple of years (since picking up Lasciel's coin 2-3 books back).
 
Also an entirely-valid perspective.  I cannot say you are "wrong" here.

What's the point?  How does it serve the plot? Butcher laid ground in Cold Days to set out how it would work.  He had Vadderung spell it out.

[Regenbogen]

What's the point?  How does it serve the plot? Butcher laid ground in Cold Days to set out how it would work.  He had Vadderung spell it out.

I think Kumori is Future!Maggie, not Molly, because of her attitude towards necromancy and her wish to end death. Maggie has lost so many important people in her life already as a child. This would make sense, that she would want death to end, like she said. In Dead Beat. OK, now one could say Molly could have lost people too in the future. Or perhaps Michael would have died at Bianca's Party, if Cowl hadn't changed the outcome. But to me she doesn't feel like Molly. There have been lots of discussions, and I think she could be both Molly or Maggie under the right circumstances, but to me she doesn't feel like Molly.


And it serves the plot: their interference caused a change in the timeline, which is now the timeline we are reading about. Maybe Harry's Hand hasn't been damaged at that time, if Future!Harry/Cowl wasn't injured, because.... no idea, perhaps because this was one of the consequences when they changed their past. And Cowl did it repeatedly. He was there with Kumori in Grave Peril and Dead beat. And he was there alone in White Night (if it even was him, but I think Harry wasn't wrong), and I think each time he changed what would have happened. Maybe he changed a bit and the outcome was worse than the original or there were aspects he wasn't aware of before. So he had to change something else at another time. Or maybe it was all planned out.

[g33k]

What's the point?  How does it serve the plot? Butcher laid ground in Cold Days to set out how it would work.  He had Vadderung spell it out.

The "point" (narratively) would be to revisit stuff from the POV of more-aware Harry.  We know Harry has missed a huge amount of subtle things going on around him; Jim repeatedly has said so.  So it adds context, clarifies mysteries, maybe even completely changes our understanding of some scenes.

If Jim is still planning on a Lawbreaker novel for each law, that's my #1 bet for the time-travel one, a "casefiles retrospective" where he hits a whole bunch of prior Cases (including fixing Little Chicago).

[morriswalters]

The "point" (narratively) would be to revisit stuff from the POV of more-aware Harry.  We know Harry has missed a huge amount of subtle things going on around him; Jim repeatedly has said so.  So it adds context, clarifies mysteries, maybe even completely changes our understanding of some scenes.

If Jim is still planning on a Lawbreaker novel for each law, that's my #1 bet for the time-travel one, a "casefiles retrospective" where he hits a whole bunch of prior Cases (including fixing Little Chicago).

He's already done a number of them. But if the time travel book is just to get a new perspective on the books I'll pass even if I don't die of old age first. I've read them already.

[Mira]

He's already done a number of them. But if the time travel book is just to get a new perspective on the books I'll pass even if I don't die of old age first. I've read them already.

Yeah, a number of us will die of old age, and agreed.  Now maybe Jim can pull it off, but you are right it is basically the same formula for every time travel story.  But I guess that can be said for a lot of stories.

[morriswalters]

That I might not survive to read the books isn't the point. What do the books have to say that would make it worth living to read them might be a better way to think about it?