Belkar's trippy enlightenment dream sequence

[Puns de León]

I've been wondering about this one for a while, but I haven't been able to put my finger on it - is #606 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0606.html) referencing a scene from a movie, or TV? I wasn't a member of the forums when the strip was updated, so this might have already been addressed. It just seems to me like the constant shape-shifting and Belkar's bewilderment is something that might have happened in a Disney movie or some such thing, like the Genie taking Aladdin on a wild ride of personal discovery?

Edit: Not that kind of wild ride.

[Raging Gene Ray]

I remember someone mentioning that it was a reference to an episode of Babylon 5, along with the phrases "Evolve or Die" and "Giant in the Playground."

[Tempest Fennac]

I don't remember anyone saying it was a reference. There was a lot of debate over whether it was Shojo coming back to give Belkar the message, a pre-recorded dream which was part of the spell or Belkar's own introspection (I'm inclined to think it was Shojo himself based on how everything was probably too specific for a spell side-effect to be plausible and I can't see Belkar being that introspective, but I can see Shojo caring more about the gates being saved then Belkar's death potentially saving innocent lives overall).

[Ancalagon]

I remember someone mentioning that it was a reference to an episode of Babylon 5, along with the phrases "Evolve or Die" and "Giant in the Playground."

The B5-reference would be quite a stretch, I think. So I'd say it's none, just some "fever dram thing" (that of course looks similar to other dream sequences).

[Raging Gene Ray]

I've never even seen B5, but someone said one episode involved a convicted killer having a hallucination where a dead officer speaks to him and gets him to redeem himself somehow. I could be wrong, after all, this is months old secondhand information that was sandwiched in with hundreds of other posts.

[Aris Katsaris]

I've never even seen B5, but someone said one episode involved a convicted killer having a hallucination where a dead officer speaks to him and gets him to redeem himself somehow. I could be wrong, after all, this is months old secondhand information that was sandwiched in with hundreds of other posts.

If this was originally about G'Quon appearing to G'kar, then this is a fascinating glimpse of a real-life example of broken telephone

G'kar was the now exiled ambassador of Narn, attacking one of the architects of his planet's invasion.
G'Quon was a prophet, the founder of the religion G'kar followed.
And it wasn't really a hallucination (though he was drugged at the time), it was a vision sent to him by another alien, Kosh.

This is one of the best scenes of B5, so I hope you don't mind me if I post the transcript here.

This begins while G'kar is torturing (and mind-raping) the Centauri ambassador.


Voice: It is enough.
G'Kar: What? Who's there?
Voice: Just us.
G'Kar: Who are you?
Voice: I am who I have always been.

The scene changes, and we see G'Kar's father, hanging on a tree, near death, the victim of Centauri torture.

G'Kar: Father.
G'Kar's Father: It is too late for me, G'Kar. It is not too late for you. Honor my name. Honor my name.
G'Kar: No.

The scene goes dark. A different elderly Narn appear - fandom generally believes this is G'Quon, the prophet of G'kar's religion.

G'Quon: We are a dying people, G'Kar. So are the Centauri. Obsessed with each other's death until death is all we can see and death is all we deserve.
G'Kar: The Centauri started it.
G'Quon: And will you continue, until there are no more Narn, and no more Centauri? If both sides are dead, no one will care which side deserves the blame. It no longer matters who started it, G'Kar. It only matters who is suffering.
G'Kar: No. No, I have an obligation to honor my father's name.
G'Quon: And how have you chosen to honor that name? What is there left for Narn if all of creation falls around us? There is nothing. No hope, no dream, no future, no life. Unless we turn from the cycle of death toward something greater. If we are a dying people, then let us die with honor, by helping the others as no one else can.
G'Kar: I don't understand.
G'Quon: Because you have let them distract you. Blind you with hate. You cannot see the battle for what it is. We are fighting to save one another, we must realize we are not alone. We rise and fall together. And some of us must be sacrificed if all are to be saved. Because, if we fail in this, then none of us will be saved. And the Narn will be only a memory.

G'quon disappears.

Voice: You have the opportunity, here and now, to choose. To become something greater and nobler and more difficult than you have been before. The universe does not offer such chances often, G'Kar.
G'Kar: Why now? Why not earlier? All this time... Where have you been?
Voice: I have always been here.

Then G'kar turns and sees briefly a glorious image of an angelic being, before it vanishes into a brilliant point of light.


I can see how Belkar's own vision can seem similar. But the differences are bigger: G'kar was driven to bad deeds because of his the oppression his people were suffering -- wasn't the psychotic killer Belkar is. G'kar transformation after the vision was sincere. And the episode makes it clear that it's the telepathic alien Kosh Naranek that is sending those vision to G'kar's head, they aren't ambiguous in origin.

In general I don't see that much connection here. One might find just as big a connection with Franklin's vision in his walkabout, when he was dying from a knife-wound, and the vision motivated him not to give up.

In general, visions to motivate or redeem are a well-used trope. I doubt there's a particular reference here.

[Ancalagon]

Bad example, as Kosh is a master-manipulator and you could say that he, in this scene, turned the Narn into the cannon-fodder the war needed at this moment... the Narn were happy with that role, but that does not change the fact it was this scene were the meddling Vorlon made it happen as it was needed (from his point of view)...
It wasn't G'Guon who talked to G'Kar, but Kosh. Now, you COULD say that Q'Quon himself was under the influence of the Vorlons when he made his writings but a) this is unlikely as he was on a Shadow-planet and b), even if that was true, does that make anything better in regard to the "meddling, manipulating Vorlons"?

but even if that was true, it would not really resemble the Belkar-scene, as there was no real "shifting around in psychodelics". Both scenes only have in common that they are "dream and revelation scenes".

[Linkavitch]

Random question to the OP: does your keyboard have the little accented 'o' on it, or do you have to go through the whole thing every time you want to log in?

[The Rose Dragon]

Random question to the OP: does your keyboard have the little accented 'o' on it, or do you have to go through the whole thing every time you want to log in?

Or maybe his computer logs on automatically.

[Puns de León]

Random question to the OP: does your keyboard have the little accented 'o' on it, or do you have to go through the whole thing every time you want to log in?

Well, if by the whole thing you mean ALT+0243, then yes (though it is a bit of a pain, since I'm on a laptop and the numpad is superimposed on regular letter keys, and therefore kind of hard to line up, as the rows are all of different lengths), but as The Rose Dragon said, I haven't had to log in since I joined up a few days ago; unless I erase my history folder my info stays put. In any case, you get used to it after years of having to include accents for French, Spanish...


Anyway, I found the old thread that talked about the 'Evolve or Die' password and dream sequence, but it mentioned an episode of Babylon 5 featuring Sheridan at Z'ha'dum rather than G'Kar. By the way, I've never watched B5, so I have no idea one way or another. Might be the same one, for all I know.

I believe the Babylon 5 reference is correct in terms of the basic theme of 'Evolve or Die', but I was originally asking more about the physical manifestation. In particular, the teacher bewildering the student by talking to him from inside books and teacups and such is what seemed familiar to me. The changing bodies, the changing scenery, the whole surreal aspect of it.

Edit: Actually, here's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97340) that old thread.

[Laughing Dragon]

... G'kar transformation after the vision was sincere. And the episode makes it clear that it's the telepathic alien Kosh Naranek that is sending those vision to G'kar's head, they aren't ambiguous in origin. ...

Where did you get the last name for Kosh? I was always under the impression that, as far as names go, "we are all Kosh." Vorlons did not have last names ... is this some honorific that the Mimbari gave him?

[Ancalagon]

Where did you get the last name for Kosh? I was always under the impression that, as far as names go, "we are all Kosh." Vorlons did not have last names ... is this some honorific that the Mimbari gave him?

According to JMS, it's a title. But no clue what it means or who gave it out.

Also, I think the "We all are Kosh" is more like a lie or the Vorlon version of "You know, it does not matter how you call me, my name and everything around it is too complicated for your underdeveloped brain so if you like, you can just stick with Kosh." :)

edit: Ah, needed some time to think... the other vorlon also has an own name: Ulkesh (named in some canon novel I did not read), so "we all are kosh" was just a "shut up and call me whatever you want" from the more unfriendly Kosh II.

[Morquard]

Slightly offtopic:
Kosh Naranek and Ulkesh are the names the two Koshs have been refered to even back then while the show was running.
I'm not exactly sure how the names came up, they weren't menitoned in a show, but its possible JMS mentioned it in the newsgroup or somewhere.

"Evolve or die" pretty much sums up the Shadows motto. Every couple of thousand years they'd start a MASSIVE war, ravaging the entire galaxy pitching one half of the races against the others, and wiping out entire species, all because its their view of evolution. The strong ones survive the war and get stronger, the weak ones get cut away.

As for the dream sequence:
a) Could be Sheridan on Z'ha'dum, after he had died and was with Lorien. He didn't really transform like Belkar did.
b) Franklin on Walkabout... but he basicly met a halucination of himself and got in an argument with it
c) G'kar in Londo's quarters. Maybe. Even though it was Kosh doing it, the constant jumps to other scenes might be it, but then again maybe not
d) There's an episode, I think 3rd season, with a convicted criminal (serial killer actually) who had gotten a mindwipe, and was now a monk serving "the good of the community". Some relatives of his victims hired a telepath to induce some very disturbing visions in his head, so he would remember who he was and what he had done. At the end of the episode he lets himself get killed, because he can't live with the knowledge of who he had been, so it doesn't really fit either.

There might be something in season 5, with all those telepaths, but I deliberately forgot most of season 5, so I don't really know :)

Maybe could be referencing to when Garibaldi got captured and brainwashed, or when Sheridan got interrogated?

But I really don't think it refers to anything in B5.

[Skorj]

It's amusing that B5 actually had too many hallucinatory/dream sequences to keep track of. :smallbiggrin: But ultimately, I can't see the Giant referencing something like that for such a key character development moment. The modern culture references in OOTS seem to be restricted to jokes and throw-aways, not something you'd need to understand the core plot or character arcs.

[Thanatosia]

d) There's an episode, I think 3rd season, with a convicted criminal (serial killer actually) who had gotten a mindwipe, and was now a monk serving "the good of the community". Some relatives of his victims hired a telepath to induce some very disturbing visions in his head, so he would remember who he was and what he had done. At the end of the episode he lets himself get killed, because he can't live with the knowledge of who he had been, so it doesn't really fit either.
Such a good episode, esp the epilogue where Sheridan is confronted with the morality of forgiving the young Monk's murderer after his mindwipe.

Bad example, as Kosh is a master-manipulator and you could say that he, in this scene, turned the Narn into the cannon-fodder the war needed at this moment... the Narn were happy with that role, but that does not change the fact it was this scene were the meddling Vorlon made it happen as it was needed (from his point of view)...
I think the first Kosh was much more benevolently inclined then you make him out to be, and probably sent the vision explicitly to help G'kar, not to move him around on some chessboard.

[Laughing Dragon]

I think the first Kosh was much more benevolently inclined then you make him out to be, and probably sent the vision explicitly to help G'kar, not to move him around on some chessboard.

I believe that you're exactly right. Kosh 1 knew that G'kar (and by extention, all Narns) needed to move beyond hatetred in order to survive, or at least be remembered as honorable. As G'kar didn't become a religious figure until after the Vorlons had left the scene, it is unclear whether "Kosh" (actually a race as telepathic as the Vorlons may not have the same identity consciousness as we do ... so I think that it's possible that "Kosh" is actually what they all thought their name was) actually intended that outcome or not. After all, Vorlons just "listen to the song" and he was trying to bring G'kar from discordance into harmony.

As for Belkar ... I think that the sequence is most like G'kar, with a little more pure "dream sequence" mixed in for creative license. The fact that he put his own twist on it just makes him Belkar.

[Ancalagon]

Such a good episode, esp the epilogue where Sheridan is confronted with the morality of forgiving the young Monk's murderer after his mindwipe.

I think the first Kosh was much more benevolently inclined then you make him out to be, and probably sent the vision explicitly to help G'kar, not to move him around on some chessboard.

Probably. But that still does not change the fact he's moving the Narn into the position where they need to be - even if what happens is very good for G'Kar and his people. Kosh might even have liked that, but it still does not change he's a masterfully manipulator here who prepares an army who is willing to fight to the death for the cause of the Vorlons.

[Ancalagon]

After all, Vorlons just "listen to the song" and he was trying to bring G'kar from discordance into harmony.

Not quite. From chaos to order.