Y: The Last Man, Babylon 5, and the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict

[lodessa]

This morning I was on my way to work with Kyle after getting Jamba Juice( a. OMG why did I think that was a good idea when it was sooo cold! b. Jamba Juice doesn't seem to have nutrition facts on their website anymore except for one flavor and I can't find anywhere else that has them on the new Breakfast things [I got the Berry Topper].) We were listening to NPR because Kyle broke his ipod and doesn't have a CD player in the car only a tape thing with an adapter. They were talking about Boeing being butthurt about not getting this airforce contract and a bomb aimed a recruitment facility (Which was "not terrorism"... presumably because it was white US citizens doing it not Arabs). Of course then they moved on to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and people's sons being killed and women being afraid to sleep at night and suddenly I remembered something interesting from my previous night's reading.

sophia_helix lent me the first volume of Y: The Last Man recently and last night I read it (quite interesting by the way). The basic premise of the series is that one day everything male (human or animal) dies suddenly en mass (except one guy and his monkey). Well the aspect of the story that I started thinking about this morning was the plotline of an very militant woman in the Israeli army who becomes the head of it when everyone above her dies, and that since basically Israel is the only country with a military left after the men all die, she basically just starts taking over. The people start getting dissatisfied with this, enough is enough, but she claims they need more of a "buffer zone". Now this is hardly the first time I've head the term, or even the first time I've heard it in relation to the Israeli/Palestinian issue. But somehow the combination of these factors made my brain connect it to Babylon 5 and Narn/Centauri conflict.

The Centauri use the excuse of a buffer zone for almost all of their military actions, especially against the Narn. And as soon as that connection was made in my brain I definitely felt like the political situation warranted looking at with the lens of Jewish history (after all Babylon 5 has a lot of Jewish references and influences)... but I felt like it was odd that the Centauri (especially when they were being so badly behaved) would be characterized as Israel (Given the other examples of Jews in the show... not because the Israelis don't have a lot of blood on their hands). But then of course I realize that the Narns really better exemplify Jewish History and Israel's militant state. They were enslaved for 100 years (Egypt anyone), executed en mass( You can bet they say "Never Again"), and as a result have become fanatically militant and sort of hard to be around. I don't think that it's a direct allegory. I think it's much more generalized and thematic, but I do think that there is some sort of suggestion in the show's handling of the Centauri/Narn conflict and particularly in G'Kar's transformation. I haven't finished the series yet (I'm still about halfway through season 4) but I really do feel like the idea that the desire to destroy the other will destroy you and the only way for either to survive is to help each other... even if the scars never heal and there is no love lost between you.


(No cuts because most of this is terribly general and/or is something revealed in the first episode/volume... and because I think this should be of interest [or create interest] in people who aren't familiar with either canon.)

Comments

[unanon.livejournal.com]

Y: the Last Man continues to be good throughout, BTW. I've yet to read the last 10 issues (since I stopped getting comics altogether), but it's one of the very few comics I deeply regret quitting.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine has the trade paperback so I'll be reading them in that format... which I like because I get more story at a time. I find sometimes comics can be really frustratingly brief.

It's good to hear a second rec of them though.

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Ooh, awesome. I love Y. Hope you enjoy the rest of the series; I need to catch up with it all now that it's over.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

Well sophia_helix has promised me 2-9 (minus 8) out of it looks like 10 volumes? So I should be enjoying it all rather quickly (I will probably just pick up the remaining two and gift them to her).

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Well, the final trade doesn't come out till July.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

Ahhh. That's probably why there's no picture for the last one on amazon.

[caitiedidit.livejournal.com]

This was interesting. I've always been compelled to watch Babylon 5, even though I'm not much of a Sci Fi fan. BSG got to be way too much Sci-Fi for me, circa Season 3, so I can't decide whether or not it's worth it. But I'm attracted to it because it's supposed to have such a tight and excellent arc. What do you think?

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

Well it is very sci-fi but it is also excellently plotted and coherent. As I was explaining to hobviously about a week ago, when she said pretty much the same thing to me... In a way it is more sci-fi than other sci-fi shows because the interplanatary/interspecies part of it is so terribly central to the themes and plot and point. Whereas with a lot of shows you could have the same plot essentially in a different setting. But I feel like that makes that aspect more relevant and less... whatever. Also they actually do HAVE A PLAN, unlike BSG and for that reason it doesn't fall apart like BSG of VM or any number of shows that have disappointed us. Honestly, for most people the main stumbling block would probably be the decade old TV graphics more than anything else.

Also if you tell me what you liked vs. disliked about BSG particularly I could probably give you a better guess.

[caitiedidit.livejournal.com]

I really hated most of the stuff with the Cylons, starting around the end of S2. I especially hated everything about their ships. I hated the reveal about the final five. I hated all of the supernatural stuff that worked its way into the show -- with that, I felt like there should have been more plausible deniability, so that viewers could look at it either way, sort of like Kara was a believer and Lee wasn't. Kara coming back from the dead -- if she's not a Cylon, if Lee really saw what he saw -- would be inexcusable to me.

But, I mean. I grew up reading fantasy. I do like interesting universes and their political dramas.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

I think you will like B5 then. Basically everything that seems supernatural could be science also... the line between the two is very blurry in an effective way. Basically the big thing is that it all makes sense. The world building is so much more solid that B5s as well as the plot and characterization and everything else.