When I was young, every time I walked through the mud room on the way out the backdoor to do some outdoor activity (basketball, tennis, or some epic war involving all the “guys” — what are apparently today called “action figures”), I noticed stacks on stacks of thin, black boxes piled on top of the filing cabinets. I never knew what was in them growing up, but I did notice the one standing upright in the corner in front of the window had some strange German words on it: “Wacht am Rhein.” I had a vague notion they were games in there, somehow, but they didn’t look like any games we were used to playing, certainly not from the side. We did play a few of those games once in a while, particularly War of the Ring, and I did play some sports games, but most of them never got to the table.
Don’t get the misunderstanding we did not play board games when I was young. It wasn’t all video games, you know. We had regular game nights throughout my youth. We regularly played Careers, Trivial Pursuit, Hail to the Chief, Scrabble, Pit, Clue, Pick-It, card games, and a whole lot of other games. I even got them to play Dungeons & Dragons … once. There was a Risk session … once. That caused more frustration than happiness, perhaps because of our impatient youthfulness (and the imminence of MacGyver). Perhaps that was a main factor none of those thin black games from the mud room ever made it to the table.
As you probably haven’t guessed by now, those stacks upon stacks of thin, black plastic games were my dad’s extensive SPI wargames collection (though our friends over at Simulations Publications, Inc. would prefer we call them “conflict simulations”). This is probably the point of this reflection when I should say “if only I’d known then what I know now …” or words to that effect about regret, perhaps in a wistful voice. But I’m not going to do that. I have enough things I have done to regret without adding things I haven’t done to the list. Besides, I don’t know if I would have been all that ready for them. It wasn’t like I was totally ignorant of military history: I had seen 1776 and Gettysburg several times … but that was about it, so no real chance of recreating anything remotely historical existed. (I’m still rather skeptical I’m all that ready for them now, as far as having a good grasp of the historical situations upon which the games/simulations are based.) Additionally, looking back upon that time, sure there are some things here and there I would change if I were Sam Beckett, as most of us probably have, but it’s not like there is a big gaping hole of “missing family time” it would replace. As I said, we had regular family game nights my entire life, so in that sense it would have been more of a lateral movement.
I grew up listening to and watching Jack Benny, Fibber McGee & Molly, Abbott and Costello, the Marx Brothers, Danny Kaye, Martin and Lewis, M*A*S*H, Star Trek, MST3K, Red Dwarf, and countless others (see our forthcoming final issue), playing board games with my family, basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, golf, flag football (usually only for one season, true, but it still happened), youth symphony, Awana, and a lot more things that would shame any of today’s “I’m too busy” youth. They have no idea what it’s truly like to be busy. And I still had time for comic books and video games, somehow. When CCGs came out, my brother and I got in on that, emphasizing the first “c” more than the “g,” but we did manage to play sometimes. So I don’t have a lot of things to regret from back then in this way; I’d have difficulty choosing what to replace with wargames. True, more time with Dad would have been nice, but he was never too busy when I wanted him to go out and play catch or take me to Comic World. As I said, I probably wasn’t ready for wargames too much, so I don’t know if that would have helped.
The good news, really, is we are in a second golden age of boardgaming, and wargames are benefitting from that as well. Many of the first generation of giants upon whose shoulders the rest of us stand are gone (H.G. Wells, obviously, Charles S. Roberts, Redmond A. Simonsen) or out of the biz (Jim Dunnigan), but many of that early generation are still churning out games (Mark Herman, Richard H. Berg, Don Greenwood, etc.) and not only are they still making quality manual war boardgames, they are continuing to expand and improve their game depth, designs, and mechanics (beyond the traditional hex-and-counter, we are seeing the surgence of card-driven games, point-to-point movement, impulse movement, “fog of war,” and more variations). Instead of only Avalon Hill and SPI vying for the market, we have GMT Games, MMP, Victory Point Games, Worthington Games, Columbia Games, Clash of Arms Games, and more. Also, just as we saw a few issues ago with comic books, modern shifts in marketplaces (such as eBay) are allowing a great deal of used products to get from unwanted homes to new homes, so the older games and companies (Victory Games, 3W, The Gamers, Game Research/Design, etc.) long out of print can reach new generations of fans. Yard sales, too, provide hope and possibilities for rescuing old treasures.
Interest in military history is as high as ever, if not even increasing, as recent trends in actual military combat have triggered (if you’ll allow the expression) interest in COIN (counterinsurgency) and guerilla tactics and conflicts. The Vietnam War (and its combatants) is finally becoming socially acceptable discussion material (thanks, in no small part, to Tim O’Brien). Moviemakers and television studios will never tire of recreating historical conflicts, and the demands for accuracy are perhaps higher than ever (which, admittedly, tends to lend itself to graphic content more often than not). This has also led to waves of revisionism as well, no doubt, but if Jared’s articles are even remotely true (and I suspect he is far more accurate than most want him to be), it would be better for all of us to appraise history more circumspectly, especially if we are driven by a desire to know the truth and not just postmodernly critique/lambaste former heroes for the sake of critique: truth can surely stand the scrutiny.
And few things are undergoing more scrutiny by intelligent people (actually intelligent people, not just self-serving degree holders) than military history. Strategy & Tactics is still going strong. Despite the doomsayers who prognosticate the end of the printed word, the wargaming tribe is recalcitrantly ignoring such trends, as several printed war history magazines (with or without accompanying games) are being published each year (World at War, Modern War, Against the Odds, etc.). Concurrently, the wargaming tribe is also embracing modern technology — it’s not wholly constituted by sexagenarians who refuse to role anything not cube-shaped. Check out BoardGameGeek.com. That, along with ConSimWorld.com, is a major gathering point for wargamers to discuss (we can call it that), share videos, critique, assist, and further the hobby. Most “grognards” (old-time “hardcore” wargamers, taken from the complaining Old Guard of Napoleon’s army) are generous enough to offer advice or strategy — or at least keep the hobby alive. Additionally, Mark Herman, one of the near-original gang at SPI back in the day, recently published a Battle of the Bulge game for the iPad. The company that put it out, Shenandoah Studios, was co-founded by another of the early SPI gang, Eric Lee Smith. We should not be surprised wargamers are also on or around the cutting edge of technology. Wells, Roberts, and Dunnigan were innovators, not followers. I recently heard it said of Jim Dunnigan he has always been so far ahead of the curve it’s flat where he is (or words to that effect). That was from, I believe, Ed Wimble, designer of several Napoleonic games. I heard it on a podcast, one of the more respected podcast series about wargames, Guns, Dice, & Butter (if it wasn’t Ed Wimble, I apologize, but it was someone on an early podcast of GDB). I’m not big into podcasts, but the wargaming tribe moves with the times — or, perhaps as more likely, the times move with the wargaming tribe.
They are a knowledgeable bunch. Most of them are into wargames because they know about history, intimately, and are interested in working it out for themselves, checking out possible scenarios, historical what-ifs, and the like. They are not into wargames because they want to pretend to be Adolf Hitler and wipe out non-Aryan Europe. That sort of piffle can be left where it originated. Just listen to a few early podcasts of Guns, Dice, & Butter. Listen to Mark Herman or Ed Wimble or Nick Karp talk about history. You’ll think you never heard anything about history before. I’ve started to understand why my history-major librarian father has been into wargames for so long: they combine knowing things with fun. That’s what the kids call a “no-lose situation.”
My dad no longer has his mighty collection. He gave me the War of the Ring game and sold most of the rest of the collection years ago to help pay for my brother’s college education. Again, let’s not lament anything — life’s too short. The good news is somehow we have both returned to wargaming. Not surprisingly, it was instigated by my dad a few years ago. I can’t quite remember the order of events, but somewhere along the line on some visit back home we played, fittingly enough, Tactics II, the revised version of Tactics, the first board wargame. It has a square grid, but all the basic components of wargaming are right there. Shortly after that he ordered me a few other classic Avalon Hill games: Waterloo, D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, Gettysburg, and Midway. We have even played Waterloo together. Then, he gave me his remaining copies of Blue & Gray I and II, two classic SPI-quadrigames, four smaller games in one package all from one war or general idea (like four modern battles, four battles of the middle ages, things like that). He recently got another copy of B&G I, and we have been playing them by e-mail for the last few months (part of the benefit of these earlier, simpler games is they are driven by what some disparagingly call “IGO-UGO” systems, but they lend themselves brilliantly to long-distance play). Since we trust each other, we can be honest with what combat results happened, and then we can retreat each other’s pieces when necessary to the other person’s best advantage, just as if it was happening in person. Now that he has gotten back into playing, and I have enjoyed getting into it as well, our collections are both increasing once again. They will never match what once was, but in a way they will be even better, since now these collections will have been played. So there is no need to lament what “might have been” – it’s happening now, probably better than it would have been. I’m also getting my daughter started on wargaming as well. True, we don’t play according to the written rules, but she is getting really good at punching out counters and shuffling cards. It’s never too late or too soon to start wargaming.
As with most things I do at Summit, I founded the Strategic Gaming Club a few years ago primarily so I could play my games and have a good time. Once in a while I do things for the benefit of the students, but usually it’s primarily for me. The good part about that is, as a generous giver, I share and let whoever is willing to join me on these journeys come along for the ride. Though we haven’t quite played as many of the classic wargames as I would have liked, I certainly have had a good time playing Diplomacy, Civilization (in the Michael Wood elective — I mean “Intro. to Archaeology”), and Settlers of Catan (I am not calling Settlers a wargame, so please don’t tell the BGG people I did) with the kids over the years. I’m hoping, though, that next year’s Intro. to Historical Gaming (aka “Intro. to Wargaming”) elective will allow me the opportunity to play a lot more of these games, especially some of the new ones I have gotten recently (thanks, mainly, to my dad, who helped increase my gaming collection tremendously in 2012: Here I Stand, For the People, Fall of Rome, Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage, Through the Ages, among others. These are the games Julia and I have been “playing” together. She’s also good at making up rules.). EBay has also been helpful to me in the last few months, as I have been able to get many old and classic OOP games (not to forget my gracious wife’s willingness to let me get them as well). I’m definitely planning on playing them (even more than I’m definitely planning on reading all the books in my house). Having a class will make that plan come to fruition even sooner, I hope. Of course, I’ll also need to be familiar with them before class starts so I can teach them and provide enjoyable learning/gaming experiences to the students as well.
I suppose this means I’ll need to spend much of the summer playing wargames and studying military history. Shucks.
We would have dallied with Heartbeat City by The Cars and perhaps Savage Garden by Savage Garden and quite likely Machine Head by Deep Purple (which I listened to essentially non-stop this past summer) … and probably a few more forgotten gems of days gone by. But, as we know by now, this exciting phase of our journey together is drawing to a rapid and not necessarily premature close, so we only have time for a few more thoughts on this and that. One of the more important things to consider when entering the musical section of the Realms of Gold is whether to acquire or at least dally with the many diverse incarnations of “greatest hits” albums, or should one simply embark on a systematic, chronological listening of a band’s output in the order in which it first occurred. As with most issues worth discussing, it is not so simple a decision.
To Greatest Hits
Some bands, even the best, have so much output it may be in one’s best interest to hunker down with a greatest hits volume or two for a significant period of time, especially if one is a casual fan. Perhaps the best example of this is The Beach Boys. I certainly don’t mean this as a derogation to one of the greatest bands of all time. I’m in the process of acquiring all of their albums, but such is not a task for the layfan. Listening to their regular albums is an eye- and ear-opening experience, not necessarily always in a positive way (who knew Brian Wilson felt that way about vegetables?). Part of the issue, as we said, is the voluminous output of the band: not every album can be Pet Sounds, and not every song can be “Barbara Ann” or “Good Vibrations.” A very understandable nightmare is being stranded on a desert isle with only “Fall Breaks and Back to Winter (W. Woodpecker Symphony)” to listen to.
If one only gets a single- or double-disc greatest hits from the Beach Boys, one will most likely miss out on some rather enjoyable tunes, such as “Do It Again,” depending on which greatest hits collection one gets (the Beach Boys have several). Yet, if you do get a two- or three-disc mini-set of greatest hits, you will get most of the songs you want to hear from them on a regular basis. It will certainly save a good deal of money, especially since their entire oeuvre is extensive. Admittedly the recent re-issue series have made it more cost effective by doubling up their albums, though many of them are becoming out of print, so it still remains a bit of a challenge to get all the albums. Thus, for most people, getting some Beach Boys greatest hits will more than suffice.
Another potentially good example of bands for which a greatest hits collection would suffice is at the other end of the output spectrum, such as Guns N’ Roses. Their output is not that huge, compared to a number of popular bands, so acquiring all of their work would not be nearly as expensive. The question, though, is “do I really want to own all GNR’s material?” For most of us, the answer is most likely “no.” Sure, we would enjoy having ready access to a couple of their songs, but most of their regular albums are replete with songs we wouldn’t want to hear once, let alone multiple times. Thus, for a band such as GNR, their greatest hits compilation is a grand solution, especially as it also collects a number of non-album rarities one would like to have but would have great difficulty in cost- and time-effectiveness tracking down individually.
A third reason to get a greatest hits album is perhaps the most irritating, especially to fans who already have the entire output of their favorite band: sometimes a band (or their o’erpowering contract holders) will release a new song, a variant mix, or something not-yet-released only available now with a dozen or so songs you already have, likely in multiple formats. This is rarely enjoyable for the die-hard fan, but it could be an ideal place to start for the newcomer to the band. We are living in an age of re-releases, often with previously unreleased “bonus” material, and though this can get expensive, it is a good test for one’s level of fanaticism. As of this writing, I have all the recent U2 re-release anniversary collections … except for the Achtung Baby sets. I’m still waiting on that one, thinking it would be better for a Christmas gift than a self-purchase. Some fans, though, may intentionally reject getting a “greatest hits” album from their favorite band just to get one or two new songs, especially since they aren’t “greatest hits” in any real way. Certainly my least favorite greatest hits album I own is Collective Soul’s 7even Year Itch, which I acquired simply because it had two new songs not available anywhere else (at the time). Considering my great affinity for Collective Soul, one might find this surprising, but we shall discuss that in a moment below.
In sum, a number of good reasons exist why one should consider being satisfied with greatest hits collections: immediate access to the best music of a band’s output too numerous to collect in its entirety, immediate access to the best music of a band’s output too dissimilar to your general tastes to enjoy more than what is generally accessible, and the possibility of getting a good start on a band “new to you” with some additional bonus material you wouldn’t find in the basic album releases. As the introductory title of this examination intimates, our time in this present incarnation is intimidatingly limited — we have to make the most of it while we can. Committing to a number of bands’ entire outputs can strain one economically as well as relationally, since so many good books are out there to be read, so many good games out there to be played, and, oh yes, time with Jesus and your family. Contenting oneself to what can usually rightly be called “the best” of a band’s work can be the right solution.
Not To Greatest Hits
On the other hand, life’s brevity does not necessitate we settle for others’ opinions or conformity to the mainstream herd-like acquiescence. Radio popularity is not innately inimical to quality music, but neither is it in any real way a meaningful standard. A significant amount (if not most) of the best songs in the history of the world would not fall under the penumbra of “radio hit.” Some publically funded radio stations still play lengthy classical numbers, and some usually late-night radio hosts (who have achieved some sort of fame in other arenas) tend to delight their cultured audiences with “deep cuts” and extended tracks, but neither of those are the issue here.
Sometimes you may hear a new song on the radio that is actually good; sometimes you may hear a good classic (of liberal denotation), so the radio is not always a waste of time, but the increasing sway of the radio and its dictatorial hegemony has been a significant deterrent to the dissemination of quality music in recent decades. Perhaps we are in the waning throes of such a sway, as new media outlets are continually forcing once seemingly-implacable forces (cable television, radio stations, periodicals, the motion picture industry, and especially the increasingly outmoded “hard copy” home artifact such as an actual compact disc or even digital video disc) to rethink not only their strategies for success but also their very survival. In an information age characterized by streaming and clouds and digitization, he who controls the access to information (or music selection) will have increasing control over aesthetic direction. Perhaps the radio will no longer be king … but in any event, someone else will. Do you want to be content with accepting whatever “they” say is a band’s best music? Can you not judge for yourself whether the popular numbers are really a band’s best numbers?
If you are really interested enough in a band to actually pay for their music (admittedly, much of what I say here will make no sense to anyone under the age of 24), why not go straight for their output in the order in which they created it? See how they developed musically and lyrically; see what influences affected their styles and attitudes with each successive album. Not only will you get a better understanding of a band you claim to like, you’ll also have fewer duplicate tracks than had you started with a greatest hits album and worked backward. Additionally, you will discover potentially numerous songs you enjoy, regardless of whether they are heard over the airwaves or selected for greatest hits consideration by companies most likely equating economic prosperity with aesthetic greatness, which we all know is utter shash.
A moment ago, I mentioned my irritation with Collective Soul’s greatest hits collection. As I said, the fact I had to get 10 songs I already owned in order to acquire two new songs that aren’t even “greatest hits” was quite frustrating. Loyalty to the band won out, but the irritation still exists. Similarly, U2’s second greatest hits compilation, The Best of 1990-2000, had new songs written and released in 2002! I was glad to get them, but I would have rather gotten what the title indicated, their greatest hits during that period of time, and acquired the other songs in a forum with even more otherwise-unreleased material. Returning to Collective Soul, my main frustration with that collection is the jarring nature of the tracks in the order on the disc. To me, each Collective Soul album is a cohesive unit. I’m not saying they are all concept albums, mind you — I’m simply saying each album is a unified whole, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. To rip a few songs out of context and shuffle them with songs from other albums, jaggedly traveling back and forth in time and style, is not as enjoyable to listen to as the entire albums. This may be a personal issue, considering my great affinity for the band and their music, but it is an important issue worth considering when pondering whether or not to pursue a band’s greatest hits collection (especially as sometimes the versions of the songs you really want are non-traditional renditions without any warning whatsoever).
Thus, settling for a greatest hits album is not always the proper choice. For a band in whom you have genuine interest, delighting in their entire output in the order in which they created it and grew artistically is definitely a better choice than settling for a statistical assessment from an Entertainment Finance major whose main criterion for a good song is revenue (no offense to the business majors out there). If you are going to spend time with a band, why not be a dedicated fan and really delight in what the band has to offer, especially if it is a band whose lyrics you don’t have to blush over or skip when grandma comes into the room?
There is Always Time for What Matters
It’s not a simple “yes” or “no” question after all. Sometimes it’s a good choice to go with a greatest hits album; sometimes it’s better to invest in entire albums. When I eventually got into music listening/collecting, I did both for some bands. Naturally, I started my Queen collection with their double Greatest Hits I and II — nothing wrong with that. But now’s the time to move on to their entire history. On the other hand, I’m quite content with my Billy Joel greatest hits albums (and River of Dreams).
Certainly we are not arguing for relativity in musical quality or aesthetics. Beauty and Art are transcendental values wholly objective and not in any way subjectively constructed. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Instead, we have an issue in which context is king. Because “good music” is not relative, some bands are better than others. Some deserve more of your time than others. Some “great bands” can be easily condensed to one, two, or three discs of greatest hits without much significant loss. Some “one-hit wonders” have albums that deserve more attention than most people are willing to give them (e.g., The Dream Academy created a great number of enjoyable songs far beyond “Life in a Northern Town”). This way, you can discover a great number of “forgotten gems” you will treasure all the rest of your days. Music is an integral part of a quality life. There is time to find the bands and music you enjoy. There is always time for what matters.
Ten issues. Where did the time go? Three Christmas specials, two music series, and a partridge in a pair of trees later, we are still going strong yet willing to go out on top. There is no tradition like a new tradition, and we were proud and glad to be a new tradition of yours for these three years. Now we will all get to start some new traditions next year without Redeeming Pandora in our lives. I’m not sure what those will be right now, but when the time comes, I’m sure we’ll all think of something.
Did we watch Santa Claus Conquers the Martians last year in Humanities? … Maybe. Was I the only one still in my jim-jams Christmas morning last year? … Yes. Did I feel bad about that? … No.
2012 has been another interesting year for us. We got to visit Dubuque again, see the family and some old friends Neil, Dave, Weber, Nate, Jessica, and Jon. That was comforting and enjoyable. My niece was born, my son learned how to walk, my daughter is developing into a selfless young girl, and my wife is even closer to a Master’s degree. Me? Well … I finally played some wargames I’ve been carrying around for years. Oh, and I read Othello for the first time, with the help of the Class of 2013, so that’s something. I also finally read Giant-Size X-Men 1, if that means anything to you. Summit saw the graduation of its largest senior class to date, all 27 of ’em … and I read every single senior thesis more than once. That was about half of my year right there, but I was glad to do it. More importantly, my wife and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary this past summer. We went to The Melting Pot. We went to the Outer Banks for our 5th anniversary. At this rate, we’ll probably go to the living room for our 15th anniversary. Let’s hope Domino’s will still have those yummy parmesan bread bites.
Last Christmas for us was probably the last of the great Christmases, at least in terms of all the family being together. We might not have another Christmas like that for a while, but that’s okay … we had it last year. This year promises to be good in its own way, and that’s what you have to do, really — take it one at a time. I don’t want to sound selfish; obviously recent events have turned a lot of families’ Christmases upside down, and we know Christmas is often a rough time for many families for many reasons. We are living in a fallen world, and Satan is regent over this world, even though Christ is risen and reigning. We do hope you will still find some reason to be merry this Christmas. The Light of the world is still shining.
One thing I don’t miss about Christmastime in the Midwest is driving in the snow. Sure, we’ve had a few snow days here, and one or two of them have been legitimate, but snowfall here is nothing compared to Dubuque snowfall. I’m all in favor of global warming, if it meant living in Dubuque without having to drive in the snow. If global warming was a real thing that actually existed, of course. I also don’t miss having to wetvac the basement all April long, which is another story for another time. Of course, if we were in Dubuque, it might be possible we’d actually get to sing Christmas carols at church, so … we’ll see.
Christmas is starting to mean different things as I get older. Obviously having children and no longer being part of the young generation are key factors in this metamorphosis. Sleeping on December 24th is not the challenge it used to be, most likely because my bedtime is later than it was (though not as late as it was in college, for some reason — somehow, 9 o’clock went from “oh, it’s only 9? let’s start a movie” to “it’s already 9?”). Now I’m part of the team getting the house ready for Christmas morning, moving presents and stockings and whatnot, instead of being the one imagining what the tree and couch will look like in the morning. Exhaustion settles in much easier than it used to. Though my lists are not any shorter than they used to be, there’s more difficulty in making them than there used to be. That probably sounds more materialistic than I mean it to be, but it should indicate a waning sense of acquisitiveness as I get older. Coupled with the fact our house is out of space, the desire for things just isn’t there like it used to be.
It’s interesting to look back at the old wish lists, see what moods and fancies I was in back in the day. Not too surprisingly, my fancies go in phases (common among wargamers). Some years I’m hankering for video games; some years, such as this year, I’m leaning more toward board and wargames. We are still a few years away from playing a lot of family board games, but we believe in stocking up when the deals are right. Coming from a family of gamers helps as well. The majority of the list are the typical fare: music, MST3K box sets, graphic novels, the occasional book, a classic TV series perhaps. Maybe a gift card or two. Ideas, really — not things. Experiences, ideas, opportunities for growth and improvement — these are the denizens of my wish lists.
Again, this is not to sound acquisitive. The desire for intellectual and spiritual (and emotional) experiences are what I request for Christmas. If that’s greedy, I suppose I’m greedy, then. I don’t need any new things, of course, and I am the first to admit that. I wouldn’t be disappointed if I didn’t get anything new this year. I have plenty of unread books, unplayed games, unstudied albums, and unwatched series/movies to fill up a few lifetimes. Toward that end, I have become more active in recent years about giving away things, especially books. Part of the challenge of this, though, is deciding what to give to deserving others (especially alumni) and what to keep for my children. Their interest isn’t high currently in books without pictures, but hopefully there’s time. In the meantime, if you want anything, let me know. I’ll see what I can do. If you’d like to get together for some wargaming, we could definitely work on that as well.
Lord willing, my parents will be flying in for Christmas night this year, allowing most of us to gather again for Christmas dinner (though my brother will be missed). One benefit of this is that we’ll be able to do Christmas morning two days in a row. I, for one, plan on staying in my jim-jams for both mornings. I will not feel bad about that. Some traditions are worth holding on to.
It’s time to say “farewell” to our final Christmas issue of Redeeming Pandora. Our first instinct might be to be sad to see such an entertaining and edifying part of our lives disappear, but that would be the wrong path to take. As Theodor Giesel said, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” Now go keep the old traditions worth keeping. And start a few new ones, while you’re at it.
Oh, let’s have a Patrick Swayze Christmas, one and all.
As part of our year-long wrap-up party, and in honor of our 10th issue, we thought you might be interested in getting a brief update on some of the students who helped make Redeeming Pandora over the years. This issue we hear from first season’s Emily Grant and second season’s Lia Waugh.
Emily Grant
I am currently a student at Christopher Newport University. A Chemistry major and a Leadership minor, I spend my time roaming the halls of the science building, procrastinating on writing my lab reports, and avoiding working on papers about the multiple theories of Leadership. A sophomore, I currently live with former Summit students Julie McIlhaney and Emma McNally.
Lia Waugh
I’m working fulltime at Tidewater Orthopedic Associates Physical Therapy clinic. I take the patients through their exercises, do different treatments on them (Cold Laser Therapy, Ultrasound), and love every part of it. My coworkers and boss are great people, and everyone gets along very well and has fun working together. I can’t think of a more rewarding job than having a patient come in having not been able to walk and being able to watch them progress and walk (and more). I love that I’m able to directly impact people’s lives, even if it’s just with a smile and making them feel better. My dream is to end up in the missions field, whether it is medical missions or not. I just want that incredibly badly. I do night classes at Thomas Nelson and have not been mugged or shot yet. It’s not as bad as people think; the work is actually really hard. But I love my classes; the more I study Biology, the more my love for God deepens. So that’s where I am! Eagerly waiting to see where else God leads me. Even though I’m only a couple of months into college, I’m in awe of seeing how God has used some of my darkest hours to make me into the person He wants me to be. He truly does make beautiful things out of the dust.
It’s not true that I don’t like Christian music. If you read last year’s series on forgotten musical gems, you delighted in some of the most truly Christian music produced in recent memory, regardless of whether the albums were candidates for Dove Awards. I enjoy Christian music. Like all intelligent beings, however, I don’t like things because of their labels but because of their intrinsic merit (and/or potentially their symbolic merit, given the situation). We have already bemoaned elsewhere the general vapidity of what passes for Christian music in popular circles today, so we certainly need not recapitulate that theme here. What is worth noting (as we continue our year-long focus of revisiting old friends and tying up loose ends) is the high-water mark of Christian music: 1995. In addition to the beloved Michael W. Smith album I’ll Lead You Home, 1995 was the year that gave us perhaps the two most important and best Christian albums in the modern musical era: dc Talk’s Jesus Freak and Jars of Clay’s eponymous full-length debut album. Though they were both released late in the year and didn’t start amassing their widespread worthy acclaim until essentially 1996 (the summer we heard those albums nonstop), 1995 was the year the modern era of Christian music began. Yes, Sandi, Amy, the Steves, Keith, and Michael (and Carman and Petra and Psalty) had been doing great stuff in the ’70s and ’80s, but their work had rarely travelled beyond the boundaries of in-house Christian listening circles. Not to say that non-Christian listening audience acceptability is a requisite for good Christian music (often that is a sign of the opposite), but these two landmark albums in question here are an obvious demarcation point in the quality and direction of contemporary Christian music. When I say “quality” I am not saying what came after these albums were necessarily better, I am saying they became the new standard to which all that has since come has been and should be judged. If that is not the case, then they are definitely worthy of being considered forgotten gems.
Jars of Clay
Most of us can agree had Jars of Clay done a Harper Lee and not released another thing after this album, they would still have cemented their status of “mandatory listening.” Upon first listening to this album, opening with “Liquid,” one is immediately struck with the unique Jars of Clay sound. What Emily Dickinson did for poetry, Jars of Clay did for music — no one can copy it because it is truly unique. Musically the album travels a diversity of tonalities and moods, yet somehow they are all recognizable as Jars of Clay. It’s not that they do anything really “groundbreaking” technically. I’m not saying they invented backtracking, overdubbing, or things like that. I’m saying it’s a great album with a distinct, unmatchable sound.
Since this is something you probably have access to, and is only “forgotten” in the sense you haven’t thought about it for a while (which, come to think of it, is exactly what “forgotten” really means) — perhaps in contrast to many of last year’s “forgotten gems” which may have been entirely new to you — we need not dwell on the particulars of this or the next album too much. You probably remember the experiences and feelings of where you were when you first encountered Jars of Clay. As mentioned already, the opening sounds are arresting: part synth, part medieval chant, part deceptively pop — I dunno … it’s just Jars of Clay. The lyrics of “Liquid” are likewise deceptively simple: repetitive, yes, but true. “Sinking” continues the mood and appreciation: we are finally listening to something fresh, something true, and something better than just “contemporary Christian music.” Obviously “Love Song for a Savior” is a top ten (or so) greatest Christian song of the 20th century. Those poor saps in the secular world didn’t know what they were doing when they played it on radio stations and malls the country over (just like “Flood”). That’s fine. People in the kingdom of darkness usually don’t know what they are doing (but we shouldn’t make fun of them for it). It made soundtracks all over and deservedly so. Three songs into the album, three distinct sounds, three remarkable demonstrations of musical skill and devotional precision — this is what Christian music is supposed to be.
“Like a Child” is likewise an enjoyable and encouraging and challenging song. No one is going to stop the album when this comes on. Same for “Art in Me.” It helps remind us of Ephesians 2:10 but not in a pedantic way, which is just what Christian aesthetics should do. By the time we get to “He,” we think we have the “Jars of Clay sound” down, and though the song doesn’t do anything to change our growing impression of who they are, it expands our awareness of their range of topics. They had an ability to sing about topical things as well as transcendental things in a way that made it all important and worth listening to, even if the subject is one we would normally dismiss in anyone but our favorite artists. Some consider it the best song on the album (of course, there are those who say that about every song); some forget it exists — but it’s there. Don’t skip it. The extended outro is a gripping yet comforting reminder of who God is — not in the most profoundly intellectual way, perhaps, but this is a musical album, after all, not a systematic theology monograph. “Boy on a String” is a great reminder of two important things: 1) Jars of Clay is a musically diverse band, and, more importantly, 2) they are here to worship God more than entertain us — that they worship God in a way that also entertains (and challenges and motivates) us is a nice bonus, really.
“Flood” may have been most people’s first experience of Jars of Clay, and that’s just fine. Hearing it on what the kids call “secular radio stations” was a bizarre experience, but I don’t think (if memory serves, which it may not do in this instance) I heard it over the Dubuque airwaves before I heard it toward the end of the album in the kitchen of Lake Geneva Youth Camp. The backlash against Jars of Clay for having a “crossover” hit is inscrutable to me — what part of “in the world but not of the world” is so difficult to grasp? All of it, yes … I know. But it shouldn’t bother us when others also enjoy hearing a song by a Christian musician — it’s not like the message or authenticity of the song or artist was compromised when they wrote it. They weren’t pandering. They were just making superior music, like all Christian artists should be doing. “Worlds Apart” is possibly the finest aesthetic experience of the album, which is saying a great deal, all considered. It asks questions we often ask (with a haunting musical accompaniment we usually imagine for ourselves anyway). “Blind” is a good album closer, despite being musically unlike most of the album. Again we are treated to the diversity and skill of Jars of Clay’s musicality. It is a calming, mellowing conclusion (before the secret bonus conclusion). “Four Seven” is a good bonus, a more up-tempo “by the way, this is who we are and why” secret ending to a top-notch album, all the more remarkable for being a debut album.
Now that you have been reminded of an album you used to listen to with great regularity, I suspect if you were to dig it out again and give it another listen you would be pleasantly reminded why you spent all those hours listening to this exquisite album in the first place.
Jesus Freak
You put this in and you think … wait, is this dc Talk? You check the jewel case and realize yes, yes it is. The new and improved dc Talk. If you need to think of it in these terms, it was the band that made tobyMac happen (does that help?). Hopefully you have a good working memory of this album and have only slightly forgotten it, so little needs be said about it here. But when does that stop us here at Redeeming Pandora?
“So Help Me God” is arguably not the best song on the album, but it does give us a good dose of the new sounds and attitude of the band — despite all the times we listened to Free at Last, Jesus Freak was, frankly, a welcome relief and definitely a step toward full maturity for the band (perhaps realized on Supernatural). “Colored People” was another good song, far more musical and intelligent than a lot of their previous album. It wasn’t my favorite song on the album, but listening to it again now, the musicality of it is refreshing. “Jesus Freak” was probably my least favorite song, perhaps because it seemed to be trying too hard musically to be hip. It was too much like Free at Last for my taste — and I enjoyed Free at Last. The guitar solo also was not pleasant to listen to — and this is coming from a guy who enjoys a great number of Angus Young guitar soli. Part of my disfavor was the term “freak,” most likely. It was part of that whole “the term ‘Christian’ is blasé, now — we need to be fresh and hip for a new generation” movement that did more harm than good for the church. Without trying to sound hubristic, I knew it was shash from the beginning. I get the basic sentiment of the song, what it is intending to say: “don’t be afraid to be a Christian — reputation is less important than piety.” Yes, I get it (and got it even then). But being devoted to Christ is not “freakish.” The world was created by and intended for subservience to God — it’s those who reject that that are the freaks. So for me this is the low point of the album (not counting “Mrs. Morgan” and the “reprise” later). Others lapped it up like syrup on pancakes, and I was fine just letting that go.
Unquestionably, though, one of the real treats of the album is the fourth song, “What If I Stumble?” That is a great song from beginning to end, even if the beginning makes you think your cd player has skipped to a Seals and Crofts album. The sentiment is still powerful, even today (hopefully that’s not a sign of lack of spiritual maturity). dc Talk next takes a once-popular song, “Day By Day,” from a lackluster musical, Godspell (no offense), and makes it interesting and enjoyable. “Between You and Me” continues the atmosphere of greatness. Critics look at this and pick on its lyrical simplicity (again missing the entire point of the worshipful atmosphere). Certainly I’m in favor of intellectual profundity (you have been paying attention these three years, right?) in musical worship and doctrine, but sometimes lyrical concision performs that even with a “simple” hook. Repentance begins with a simple act of realization and confession of one’s wrongdoings — often with a simple declaration as repeated here. “Like It Love It Need It” is a better song than is usually accredited — give it another listen and hopefully you will agree. Even though it says rock-and-roll won’t save you in a rock-and-roll song, it’s not really ironic, since none should be expecting rock-and-roll to save them. Part of the success of the song is its critique of self-righteous Christianity … and we all know there’s enough of that around. Present scholarly journals excepted, of course.
If I say to you “In the Light,” would that be enough to cause you to dig out your old Jesus Freak album and listen to it again? I know it would for me. Don’t feel bad for listening to this song an average of five times an hour for the rest of your life. It is clearly the apex of the album and evokes genuine emotion every time you hear it. I, too, am still a man in need of a Savior.
“What Have We Become?” is a not-so-subtle critique of contemporary Christianity and rightly so. It is strong but not harsh, penetrating but not pejorative. Musically, it is one of the better selections on the album, showing off again the great decision of the group to do real music this time around, singing well and not just rapidly speaking lyrics at us with electronical backbeats. “Mind’s Eye” is another solid song, blending musical skill and intelligent lyrics. “Alas, My Love” ends the diverse album with another new sound: a proem of sorts, finishing up with a solid musical outro both eerie and energizing. Give it all another go.
That was a Year
I can’t prove any cause and effect, but after that came Bloom by Audio Adrenaline (probably made before the two albums discussed) and Newsboys’ Take Me to Your Leader in ’96 (though some would say their Going Public in ’94 was better — let’s not argue). ’96 also saw the debut of Third Day. MercyMe was just starting out and certainly owes a great deal of their success to the albums of ’95 (and ’94 and ’96, sure). The more recent bands the kids seem to like also owe a great deal to these albums: your Casting Crowns, your Switchfoot, your … well, frankly, I would just embarrass myself to guess as to what the kids are listening to these days — let’s just say the whole positive, encouraging crowd owes a great deal of its ontology to Jars of Clay and Jesus Freak. 1995: now that was a year. Go dig these albums out of your garage or wherever you keep your ’90s memory-bilia and remember and re-enjoy a couple of foundational forgotten gems. You may even realize they are much better than the provender being offered to you today as gourmet fare.
Well, here we are again. A third volume of Redeeming Pandora. And they said it wouldn’t last. In this final year of the journal, we thought we’d go all out and make these final four issues as memorable as possible. We’ll hear from some old friends, tie up some loose ends, and keep bringing you eye-opening and heart-warming articles for the rest of our journey together. Here, just in case you were interested, are some of the works I read and reviewed this past summer. I hope you enjoyed the absence of required summer reading this year. I know I did.
Marvel Masterworks: The X-Men, Vol. 3, Roy Thomas and Werner Roth
Roy Thomas starts off his tenure as writer of the X-Men by showing off his knowledge of Marvel history — this could have been a good thing, had he done something interesting with forgotten characters or former X-Men villains. However, he just sort of parades meaningless moments and characters who should have been forgotten and doesn’t do anything spectacular with them. Yes, he does create the Banshee, but he makes him a confusingly-motivated ancient man and needs several tries before he can do something with him. A great deal of the issues in this collection feature a dead-end plot thread of Jean leaving the team to attend Metro College (enrolling during the summer, for no reason). It’s a dead end because Jean usually finds the time to join them on their missions anyway. Despite initially feeling relief she is no longer a fighter, she apparently takes the time to sew new uniforms for everyone and rejoins them anyway. All supporting plot threads that could have been interesting, such as Ted Roberts, Jean’s classmate who suspects the teens are the X-Men, are inexplicably dropped without any resolution. Thomas even brings the Mimic back as a teammate of the X-Men — at Xavier’s request! — but this goes nowhere, despite some good character moments, since after a few issues Thomas has the Mimic lose his powers again. It’s worth reading because it is classic X-Men, and Thomas does manage to get a few good character moments in there (he finally gets the Scott/Jean romance going after a while), but it’s not the best storytelling done in the X-Universe. I read the individual issues, by the way, not the collection named in the title (it’s just easier to call it that for your ease).
Batman: The Killing Joke, Alan Moore and Brian Bolland
This is not for the faint of heart. Its reputation is well-deserved, even if Alan Moore himself has distanced himself from his work (as is his wont, apparently). Bolland’s artwork abets the grim story in unnerving ways, even without the remastered work in the recent deluxe treatment. The work does not let up in its grotesquery, so don’t read this if you are planning on going to sleep soon. We may never know if this is the real origin of the Joker, which would be all for the best, but it makes frighteningly good sense. It’s short enough to be read in one sitting, which would be the way to go (if you are mature enough to read this). You don’t want to linger, even though it will linger with you for a while. It’s fast-paced, even with the pervasive mix of flashbacks and present-day action, and keeps you gripped, probably more so than any other Batman tale. It’s the Dark Knight at his darkest.
Batman: Knightfall, Vol. 1, Chuck Dixon
Finally, after all this time, it’s come out in a nice TPB and I have read it. Without all the preliminary prologue stuff, non-Batman readers might be a bit lost for a time, such as who Jean Paul is, why Bruce is already beleaguered, when Bane fought Killer Croc, for examples, but it shouldn’t bother people too much. Bane’s origin is dark, but he doesn’t do much except wait throughout the TPB, other than the entire Arkham thing and breaking Bruce Wayne’s back. It’s not nearly as boring as that sounds, since he is a fairly intelligent villain, though the addiction to Venom diminishes him somewhat, since it’s not just about his personal strength and intellect. Anyway, the inevitable backbreaking isn’t the climax of the story, which is more impressive than I thought it might be — the real story is the destruction of Batman, the idea, the symbol. As Bane says toward the end, JP as the new Dark Knight (emphasis on the Dark, not the Knight) does more to destroy Batman than he did, since he just broke Bruce Wayne: turning Batman into no better than the evil he conquers, Jean Paul becomes perhaps a worse nemesis for Bruce Wayne than even Bane is, but we’ll see what happens in part two. The pacing is an odd thing for a 19+-part series, depending on whether you add the non-numbered parts of the story: sometimes issues take place immediately after each other, sometimes days pass, but all of it is fairly rapid in the beginning, following Batman and Robin’s attempts to recapture the inmates from Arkham, though Batman doesn’t treat Robin all that well whether he is Bruce or Jean Paul. Even so, one doesn’t need to pay too much attention to the time factors, since the breakdown of Bruce Wayne is the central idea of volume one, and the creative teams do a fairly fine job with it. The clash of ideas (the nature of good, for example) are highlighted at times, though they take a backseat to the action more often than not, but it’s still a good read that holds up after all these years.
Marvel Masterworks: The X-Men, Vol. 4, Roy Thomas
Unfortunately, Roy Thomas proves himself not very capable of delivering very good stories with these issues. He tries his hand at a major storyline (for the time) with the mysterious Factor Three story, an extended conflict of a mysterious group whose only redeeming value is the introduction of Banshee. Somewhere along the line, Thomas drops the whole “Jean is away at Metro College” thing with no explanation at all, another example of this creative team’s inability to sustain much. At times, Thomas proves he is capable of delivering quite interesting character moments, notably giving Jean a personality for the first time in the series since issue 1. Not only that, but we have the beginning of Jean’s telepathic skills as well, just in time for the startling conclusion in the final issue of this collection: the death of Professor Xavier. The Factor Three main story has some potentially good points, like the “trial” of the X-Men by former foes, but as mentioned above, Thomas never brings the good ideas to successful conclusions. Too often, especially by the end of this collection, Thomas breaks out an inane deus ex machina to finish off the story, often saying the villain was an alien from outer space, destroying all personal interest in the conflicts. This collection also has some of the worst X-Men issues perhaps of all time: the combat with Spider-Man in #35, the Mekano issue in #36, the battle with Frankenstein’s monster in #40 (you read that right), and the utterly inane Grotesk battle in #s 41-42 resulting in the death of Xavier. You know a comic issue is bad when you are longing for the days of El Tigre, the Locust, or even the pirate ship. The new uniforms do nothing for the series other than give Thomas an excuse to stereotype Jean again (despite turning around and giving her one of the best scenes in #42 she’s had since the beginning, as mentioned above). One would think it impossible to make a bad issue starring Spider-Man and the X-Men, but Thomas and Co. somehow managed to do it. All the auguries point to the need for a new creative direction. It is starting to become clear why the X-Men were cancelled.
The Great Hunt (Wheel of Time #2), Robert Jordan
Say what you will about Jordan’s style, he eventually gets around to telling an interest-holding story. Not to say the beginning is boring, since he is creating a rather large world, increasing the cast and conflicts first introduced in The Eye of the World, while adding more layers of time’s repetition as he goes. It’d been a few years since I read TEotW, so I was a bit concerned getting back to the saga whether I would remember enough to make it worthwhile, since starting over would take a fair amount of time; I read some online summaries to refresh my memory, which wasn’t quite as thorough as I thought it was. This was helpful, but Jordan does a pretty good job of reminding his audience of the things worth remembering early on in the first part of The Great Hunt. This was very nice of him, no doubt because his original audience would be reading them a year or two apart as well. There’s a great thickness in these volumes, which makes one think a lot happens, but not much really does in this volume — that’s not a bad thing, though, since he knew he was creating a massive saga occurring essentially at the end of time, just before the Last Battle. He doesn’t have years and years to cover, so a lot of detail happens. Some readers might be put off by this, but if they are, one wonders why they are reading this series in the first place. Jordan didn’t hide the fact he was intentionally recreating a combination of Tolkien, Arthurian Romances, and just about everything else. Knowing that helps enjoy his overt use of myth and archetype — he’s not really trying to say anything new, so readers who get frustrated and say, “oh, that’s just like when that happens in…” are missing the whole point. It’s a slow-building story, but again that’s because it is part 2 of 12/14 — if Jordan just threw every race, every item, every conflict, every character at us all at once, it would be a jumbled mess and not enjoyable. This book was enjoyable, ever more so once I got used again to his style/diction. True, a few threads are left unresolved, again because it is part of a series, but the story is somewhat self-contained even if one hasn’t finished reading TEotW the day before starting this. It has enough twists, turns, and developments to make it an enjoyable read for those willing to take the time to read it.
Fables: The Deluxe Edition, Vol. 5, Bill Willingham
Focusing on characters generally on the periphery to date, the three storylines collected in this edition are rather enjoyable, especially if one has wandered away from the Fables Universe for a while (perhaps mostly waiting, as I am, for the deluxe hardcover editions). Either the language is much more palatable for most of this book or it’s much less noticeable (hopefully the first), which adds to its enjoyment. Time is a sort of tricky thing here, since the first two storylines (the first focusing on Jack, the second on Boy Blue) occur somewhat simultaneously with each other and the previous storyline of Snow and her cubs (seen only briefly here toward the very end of the third storyline collected here). The “rest of the universe” attempt is rather bold — it really didn’t work for Battlestar Galactica, but somehow Willingham pulls it off, perhaps aided by the general familiarity we have with the characters (though that never helps too much with Willingham). It’s nice to see Beauty and the Beast coming into their own, even though it has taken five years (not that we can really tell unless paying close attention). The characters are starting to grow up, which is odd considering it has been hundreds of years since they have been in this plight — perhaps recent events have shaken them out of their comfortable torpor. The third storyline is another clever addition to the Fables Universe, bringing in the Arabian Fables, having been earlier bridged with the return of Mowgli, in a nice touch. It’s a clever story with an ending that works a lot better than the Roy Thomas/Gary Friedrich era of X-Men in the “that’s what you thought” vein. The Adversary is revealed, but that doesn’t help anyone much, allegiances are tested, but as with most endings to the deluxe editions, a kind of peace settles in by the end, ready for the next big thing. Nicely done, this.
Justine (The Alexandria Quartet #1), Lawrence Durrell
Durrell has created an interesting approach to fashioning literature (or at least, followed Joyce and Woolf the way they wanted to be followed): part dream, part memory, part compulsion. It returns to itself quite well, though it doesn’t really lean toward repeated readings, since most readers probably will want to continue on with the series. Just review the beginning again once you’ve gotten to the end and it will be even more impressive. It starts out slowly, sectionally, as if it wants you to take your time in reading it, but that doesn’t help remember it much by the time you get further into the book. Remembering all the characters can also be a bit tricky: Pombal, Pursewarden, Clea, Capodistria, Scobie, Nessim, Memnijian, etc., etc. There’s a large supporting cast, but it’s almost as if you don’t have to pay too much attention, since the focus (when it starts to focus) becomes on the bizarre “love” quadrangle of the main characters (the love is not a real factor in the book, since Durrell is creating a story about human interactions/relationships that are driven by just about everything except love). Durrell’s vocabulary and diction are enticing for much of the book, but stylistically interest comes in waves, receding and gathering. The small sections can work to one’s benefit this way, if the reader perseveres through the middle where Durrell seems to be focusing more on his style than on the content. I understand style was probably his main focus anyway, but it’s almost a bit too thick in the middle. Durrell manages to maintain the style through the entire novel, but he eases up the intensity by the end, making it almost detached (a different kind of detached, since detachment is a key thematic and stylistic marker for the entire book, especially its characters). It wasn’t as gripping as the critics I’ve read make it sound, but that was probably just me. I’m willing to give the rest a try, sooner or later.
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Donald F. Glut
It was interesting finally reading this book. It was much closer to the movie than the first novel, so it was difficult to find too many differences. Some stand out, though: Yoda is a swift-moving blue creature in the book, one notable difference; Leia and Han’s farewell was also different — instead of the iconic “I know,” we have a different exchange, not nearly as memorable. A few of Lando’s lines are different as well, but not too many different scenes exist — on the whole it is, as I said, interesting but not terribly impressive. I’m not sure why a book was made, beyond the usual pecuniary reasons, I suppose. But still, it is classic Star Wars, at a time when the Expanded Universe could fit on one very small shelf, and thus it is worth reading for that reason. The uncertainty of the characters and their destinies are there, and much more “authentic” than in Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. The characterization of Darth Vader is still slightly discrepant, so his comments and motivation for finding Luke are different and intriguing. I still say it would make more sense to say TESB occurs 6 months after ANH, and RotJ takes place 3 years later, unlike what is “officially” recognized. It still doesn’t make sense why 1) Han would wait 3 years to settle his debts with Jabba, 2) Ben would wait 3 years to tell Luke to seek out more Jedi training, 3) Darth Vader would take so long to track down Luke, as experienced as he is in the Force, and 4) the Rebels are only just now setting up shop on Hoth (where have they been in the meantime, why did they need to leave?) at the beginning of the book. If it were only 6 months between the destruction of the Death Star and this, all of that would make a bit more sense. And it would be more conceivable how Luke could become so much stronger in the Force in a few years between Empire and Return, how they could start to infiltrate Jabba’s palace, and how they could get so far on the Death Star without any mention of it in Empire. But that’s just me. It wasn’t a great book, but it was nice to go back to that time in the Star Wars Universe. Things were so much simpler then.
The Complete Wargames Handbook: How to Play, Design, and Find Them, James Dunnigan
This was a pretty good read, though I was hoping it would be better. The subtitle is somewhat misleading: yes, Mr. Dunnigan spends some time talking about how to play, design, and find wargames, but most of the book is him telling us about himself, his work, and the history of wargames (from his perspective). I would have preferred much more time on what the subtitle says, especially playing and designing them, but since Mr. D indicates multiple times only a small select few are smart enough to really understand the math (and thus the essence of the games), he doesn’t really deign to tell us too much more than that. Perhaps he wants us to go back and get all the back issues of S&T and Moves, which will really explain the things he doesn’t want to go into as much. Since he got into wargames because he wanted to analyze history and learn more information, Mr. D takes the position this is really the best reason to get into wargaming — yes, he does emphasize (once in a while) the importance of “fun” (since they are “games”), but it’s not nearly as important to him (and thus, real wargamers) as the historical inquiry and conflict simulation (since that’s the more “proper” term than “wargame”).
Mr. D’s tone throughout, unfortunately, displays this “I’m really smart, most of you aren’t” attitude. When telling us the history of wargames, he gives a backhanded mention of Avalon Hill, doesn’t name Charles S. Roberts at all, then let’s us now he and SPI saved the wargaming industry single-handedly for a decade, until he wanted to move on to bigger and better things, primarily his writing career. Hopefully his other books are better written, but this had a fair amount of typographical errors (perhaps the big need for a revised edition, 10 years later, prevented time for proofreading). In the appendices, Mr. D gives a decent list of other wargaming companies (as of 1992), and even almost gives some respect to AH, but it’s a little late in coming. The computer wargames section, though, does not hold up well. It isn’t even very interesting from a historical perspective, which is rather ironic considering the whole purpose of the book.
I fondly remember the ol’ 386 days and signing on to play games online (well, starting the dialing process, having a sandwich, reading a Michener novel, and then finish signing on and starting to play), but it wasn’t as great as Mr. D makes it out to be (which is not being said from rose-colored contemporary days, since I don’t play computer games today). Obviously, at the time, it seemed incredible, but since he also says the computers were inferior to the strategic capabilities of manual wargames, it’s a rather weird section, almost as if he needs to validate his career choices in shifting to computer games, or at least promoting them. The book is good, though, and he is helpful at times, even if he does repeat himself quite a bit (in the same paragraph, many times) and does talk down at the reader too much (especially for someone who didn’t really want to get into gaming, left it after an admittedly fecund decade, and moved on, sort of). He does give some helpful ideas in playing and designing (though not nearly as much as I had hoped), and it was worth reading, especially for people starting out in (manual) wargames, if any such person exists.
Marvel Masterworks: The X-Men, Vol. 5, Roy Thomas
Again, I only read the X-Men issues separately, not the other issues included in this oop collection. This really shows why the series was cancelled after another year or so — the quality just was not there. Certainly some exceptions exist in this group, thanks solely to the art of Jim Steranko for a couple of issues, and the introduction of Lorna Dane is a great idea, but it’s an idea that doesn’t go anywhere here. Instead, this run is full of ideas that seemed good at the time but ultimately failed: it picks up with the funeral of Xavier, and the letters pages at the time are adamant in the complete, irreversible nature of Xavier’s death (obviously we know how that turned out); this is followed up with the break-up of the team, by the FBI of all people, as if they have some sort of jurisdiction over the team. This is typical of the issues here: potentially fine ideas hampered by illogicalities, inanities, and failed execution. Had the X-Men volunteered to split up, giving the creative team a chance to highlight different characters in a short series, that could have been great — instead, it contradicts decisions already made, goes nowhere, and provides some of the worst stories in the history of the X-Men. Magneto is brought back, supposedly killed off, and brought back again a couple issues later, with henchman Mesmero we’ve never seen before but is apparently Magneto’s life-long acolyte. Juggernaut is brought back for what almost was a confrontation of Marko’s human side and the loss of his step-brother, but this, too, goes nowhere, and the issue devolves into a meaningless battle and an inane deus ex machina ending. This run suffers from a lack of continuity, coming most likely from the great turnover in writers, artists, and decision makers. We see again a fight with the Avengers begun for no reason and ending simply because the issue has run out of panels. It does have some nice moments, oddly enough from Toad, but they are overshadowed by the general shoddy work. Jim Steranko’s work does a good deal to stave off ennui with the series, though once his contributions end, the series immediately plummets to slipshod work again, as if no one was paying attention to the possibilities of quality work. The last X-Men issue features a humdrum battle with Blastaar (who spends most of the issue facing away from the audience) and some of the worst treatment of Jean in the entire series (with Bobby even joking they never should have allowed women to start voting). The series is sadly and definitely on its last legs here in its initial run.
Reading for Redemption: Practical Christian Criticism, Christian R. Davis
For most of this fortunately short (but not quite short enough) book, Mr. Davis’s title is more true than he probably intended. Most of his interpretations in the body of chapters exhibit “reading for” redemption, indeed, almost to the point of “reading in” (as in “reading redemption into the work”). He stretches his case rather thin for some books (especially Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter), and some works he twists out of shape to make fit his pattern (e.g., Ivanhoe). His standards for popularity are also rather bizarre — drawing upon some arcane source of publishing statistics to identify historically popular novels (Tale of Two Cities, Uncle Tom’s Cabin) to see if his particular formula for successful redemptive works fit the past, with varying degrees of success (but since he is doing all of the quantifying, things work or don’t work mainly by his say so). The postmodern/postcolonial works chapter strikes hollow throughout — he is reading for his formula, not for what is there, judging the works by the presence or lack of his criterion. Likewise, the chapter on lyric poetry stretches his ideas rather thinly, which he himself admits, but an admission does not excuse poor treatment of the subject.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this work is he either expects you, the reader, to be familiar with the works already, or he just doesn’t care if he tells you the ending or reveals the major surprises. Beware: check the table of contents; if you want to read one of the books mentioned without having it spoiled, he will spoil it for you. He rattles off almost all the major plot/character points for each book. It’s one big spoiler alert. Additionally, his diction throughout reminds one of a term paper — perhaps this is his Masters thesis modified into a short nonfiction of semi-criticism. This does not make the work more enjoyable, however; nor do his noncommittal diction and tone (the tone is all “I suggest” this and “please consider” that, though he doesn’t use those specific words too often). I don’t say this to be too disparaging, since he is trying to do something fairly important: returning literary criticism to an important focus, connecting it to what matters in “real life,” too. Mr. Davis does have a fairly good grasp of many topics, as evidenced by his philosophical overviews in the introduction and conclusion. In fact, the introduction, conclusion, and afterword are the best parts of the book. It’s too bad he didn’t just take that sort of tone and approach for his literary explorations in the middle chapters; the book would have been much better.
His survey of Christian criticism in the afterward is again biased by his criteria of successful criticism, and it does seem a very abbreviated survey of Christian criticism, but it’s probably more exposure these other works would get without it, so it’s a fairly nice inclusion. Overall, he does have some good ideas I was glad to read, and his major idea of the necessity of all three parts (creation, fall, redemption) to be a truly real/successful work of literature is a good idea to embrace, but his own application of the theory is a lot of what I try to teach my high school students not to do: mostly plot telling and forcing his theory into the works he addresses. Were this book a sandwich, the bread would be far more digestible than the filling.
Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus, Vol. 1, Jack Kirby and Vince Colletta
Wowzers. It takes Kirby a little while to get going, until we realize it is all part of the plan and remember Kirby is the King for good reasons. Mark Evanier gives us some interesting insight into “the plan,” though, in the afterward: Kirby was planning on giving these new series away shortly after getting them started, ever desiring to create anew. That doesn’t initially sound like a great plan for a new universe with a structured major story arc, but Kirby had a way of making things work, even if no one else around him could understand what he was doing. It is somewhat discouraging to learn this “Fourth World Omnibus” does not have the great finale Kirby planned, once he was committed to telling the story himself (at least Babylon 5 got to tell its tale; Lost as well). What is it about editors, owners, decision makers, and their near-total inability to make the right decision, to use wisely the great talent under them? Pope Julius II tells Michelangelo, “Paint that ceiling.” DC tells Kirby, “No, you can’t finish your mighty epic.” Sci-Fi channel tells Farscape, “Sorry, you can’t have one more season to finish your story.” Honestly. I suppose it makes sense, though, that the really creative people have the basic sense not to go into top business executive levels and stay down at the creative people level. This is a great place to start, since Kirby makes it all new from issue 1 — you don’t really need a familiarity with the DC universe to know who is who or what is what: Kirby makes it all up as he goes. Despite the lack of a specific plan, the King tells some interesting tales. Sure, there’s the Kirbyesque over-the-top dialogue (but, for a story about a world coming and taking over the world, and New Gods usurping the Old Gods, some over-the-top dialogue is necessary), and there’s the seemingly requisite ’70s racism (meet Flippa Dippa, the African-American Newsboy who always wears scuba gear, and Vykin the Black, the Black New God), but they don’t spoil the entire enterprise. It’s quite a ride, and it’s only beginning.
Han Solo at Stars’ End, Brian K. Daley
To really enjoy this, one must try to remember what life was like before the Expanded Universe was large and complicated. I said that earlier for Empire Strikes Back, but it is still true for Brian Daley’s early Han Solo trilogy. Daley’s Han Solo doesn’t sound too much like “our” Han Solo. Like many people who write sci-fi, he doesn’t quite capture the feel, the characters, the universe, and instead makes the characters talk like they would had they been living in the ’70s. This is frustrating and disappointing at times, but if the reader can just acknowledge it and not let it be so much of a distraction, one can appreciate the effort much more. Similarly, it’s not much of a “Star Wars” book, since it has nothing to do with the Force, the Empire, the Rebellion/Republic, or anything beyond the names “Han Solo,” “Chew-bacca,” and “Milennium Falcon.” Yes, Daley has set himself up for that, creating a kind of backstory for Han before he had personally encountered any of those things, so those familiar elements would of necessity be lacking … but that doesn’t make the enjoyment of it any more palpable. By the end, though, it becomes a mildly enjoyable generic science fiction adventure. The final act is decent and even generates some suspense and interest in the ancillary characters Daley has created. It’s not the greatest, but again the circumstances under which it was written were completely unlike today, so sentimentality wins out again here. It’s nice to have it read after carrying it around for 20-some years.
Batman: A Death in the Family, Jim Starlin, Jim Aparo, and Mike DeCarlo
It’s hard to imagine how this story could have gone any other way. As part of DC’s “you decide” campaign to get the audience more involved in the creative process (which rarely ends up as successfully as you want it to be, since, if the fans were really the creative ones, they’d be doing the actual creating themselves), audiences were allowed to call in to vote on the fate of Jason Todd, Robin 2. By a much smaller percentage than I would have thought, the people chose death for Jason Todd. He didn’t seem to be that likable of a character, and he is partly responsible for his own death, but it was still a fairly significant deal to have him killed, even in a universe that kills off and resurrects characters seemingly constantly. Yes, they did eventually bring him back as a villain, but it took several years. Jason Todd can be seen again in the pages of Red Hood and the Outlaws. Jim Starlin does a good job in making even the usually unlikable Todd meet a heartbreaking end, in circumstances making his death much more tragic. With a four-issue storyline, the reader might expect a thorough conclusion, especially since the introduction and development of the story is well detailed. The story, however, just stops. My initial reaction was frustration, since I had put the time into reading the entire arc: I wanted a good resolution, even knowing in advance what the outcome was going to be.
After thinking it over for a time, I realized Starlin did exactly what needed to be done: the Joker/Batman saga never stops. Battles are fought and finished; the war rages on forever. There was no need to “wrap up” the death of Jason Todd, since it would not be something from which Batman could just accept and move on. It remains with him to this day. In this way, Starlin and Co. have crafted a realistic story that resonates with everyone, even if they are not comic book fans. Death is a meaningful, consequential part of life. It’s not something that can be wrapped up in a few panels or pages. The original audience may have delighted at the possibility of eliminating an irritating character and reveled in contributing to the direction of Batman’s life, but the creative team turned it into a showcase of the best parts of Batman as a hero: sacrificial, caring, grieved by loss and failure, tormented by his commitment not to kill and sink to the level of Joker and others like him. From a distance, this might seem like a “typical” Batman story (Batman vs. Joker, Joker gets away), but it is far from that. It’s a moving story that shows us the heart of Bruce Wayne, why he wears the cowl, and the sacrifices he makes to be a real hero. This book is not to be missed.
Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God, John Piper
You know a John Piper book is bad when fans of John Piper don’t think it’s very good. Such is the case with this book. At the beginning, Piper names a few other books written about how Christians are to love the Lord with their minds. Read those instead. Read J.P. Moreland’s and James Sire’s books. This is not a good book. It is written poorly, and though he does say things that are true, none of them are significant revelations necessary for the reading of this book. Do every 3 paragraphs need a new heading? No. John Piper thinks every 2-3 paragraphs need a heading. I can’t explain why. In his impatience to spout all of his repetitive comments, Piper can’t even follow his own train of thought. He says he is going to return to his 1 Corinthians passage at the end of the next chapter; two pages into the next chapter, he is back to it, saying the same thing about it he has been saying for the last three chapters. The book is quite redundant. Piper tries to do something “different” by focusing on a Biblical defense of loving God with the intellect, or at least he says that’s what this is about. It ends up being mostly a “thinking is good for Christians after all” apologetic, harping on a couple of already self-explanatory passages. He doesn’t reveal anything new on the subject, and the notion a substantial portion of genuine Christianity doesn’t think Christians should use their brains is fatuous … isn’t it? Do real Christians still doubt Jesus wasn’t telling a joke when He said “love God with your mind”? If so, as I said, read Moreland and Sire to find out why Jesus wasn’t telling a joke. If you want a better “life of the mind” book, alternatively, read Father James V. Schall’s books, especially The Life of the Mind. It’s a far more Christian book than this intellectual abysm.
—
That was fun. You’re probably wondering, “But Mr. Rush, those had almost nothing to do with your advertised summer reading goals. What happened?” Good question. We watched a lot of Magnum, P.I. this summer. Many of the books on my list are still by my bedside, waiting patiently. For some series, such as Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars trilogy and Chris Claremont’s graphic novels, I decided to read the works ahead of them, in part because of my delight in doing things in order and because I hadn’t read them yet either. I got pretty close to finishing up the first run of X-Men before Chris Claremont came along and salvaged it. I was hoping to read more New Mutants, though I spent that time doing other fun things, such as preparing for 11th Grade Bible, delighting in some Emmaus Bible College Online courses from iTunes University.
This list probably looks like I spent a lot of time reading this summer, but it doesn’t take too long to read those comics. You are probably also wondering why I read all those Batman books, since I’m a confessed bigger fan of Marvel — it’s nice to keep some mystery in our relationship after all these years, nice to know I can still surprise you. I did read a few other things, such as The Hunger Games, and I finally finished Y: The Last Man, and I made some progress on the ol’ Syntopicon and continued my “read through the Bible in a year” plan … but it really wasn’t that much of a reading summer. At least, it didn’t feel like it. Unlike many summers gone by, I didn’t spend too much time playing video games, either. So what did we do this summer? Julia and I engaged on a perpetual non-stop game of Candy Land, for one thing. We all took quite a few family walks around the neighborhood, delighted in yard saling (saleing?), grilling on the grill, and accomplishing a good deal more leisure than we got to last summer. On the whole, it was a pretty good summer. I’m not bragging; I know many of you had summers far less enjoyable, filled with strenuous work and disappointing situations (or worse) — I’ve had summers like that, too. Hang in there, kids — they won’t all be rough. Remember: God won’t leave you in the rough seasons any longer than necessary for your well being and His glory.
We hope you have enjoyed this issue of Redeeming Pandora. Only three more to go! Don’t be sad about that, though. Treasure the good times. We certainly do.
Up next: our 10th Issue Extravaganza! See you next time, Faithful Readers!
Whatever Happened to Good Ol’ Meat-and-Potatoes Christianity?
A little over a decade ago in his book Kingdom Education, Dr. Glen Schultz quoted Barna Group research indicating something like 88% of kids growing up “in the church” leave it shortly after high school graduation (for several reasons, not just college experiences). In 2011, the Barna Group summarized five years of research with six reasons the youth are leaving the church: 1) the church is too overprotective, 2) their church presents Christianity as something shallow or irrelevant, 3) the church comes off as antagonistic to science, 4) the church communicates issues of sexuality poorly, 5) the church is too xenophobic and exclusive, and 6) the church seems unfriendly to those who doubt (some wording has been paraphrased).
Later last year, the Barna Group supplemented that research with five “myths” people erroneously believe why the youth are fleeing the church: 1) people lose their faith when they leave high school, 2) dropping out of church is a natural part of one’s spiritual journey, 3) college experiences are a key factor in leaving the church, 4) young Christians are becoming increasingly Biblically illiterate, and 5) young people will return to the church as always happens.
That list is not entirely helpful, since the Barna report elaborates on those ideas more specifically beyond what our present focus is here (readers are certainly encouraged to check out both of those articles), and not every point is relevant to our present inquiry. Some of these ideas are pertinent here, though, and since the following article was conceived before I read the Barna reports, it is somewhat comforting to be supported by such a reputable source (though “comforting” is perhaps an inappropriate term for such a distressing subject).
Our focus here is not just about why young adults/near-adults leave the church, though that is part of it. The Barna research concludes the church is somewhat to blame, but it is perhaps too lenient (perhaps because the main thrust of both articles is to get you to buy, and maybe read, the latest books by the president of Barna Group) and too narrow in its focus. Our purpose here is to broaden our vision beyond polls and standardized surveys. Some may consider this article a petty rant about personal grievances, a tirade against things I don’t particularly like. Admittedly, some of the initial items in the list may seem somewhat petulant, but that was not my intention in including them (the latter items should be overtly significant issues, at least). I consider them all valid contentions in an overall effort to encourage the church to examine itself and its practices. It’s time we are open to the possibility the church is (at least in part) responsible for the mass exodus of young parishioners. Perhaps the church deserves to lose the children.
1. Quiet Time
Admittedly, this is not a corporate church issue, but it can possibly be one part of the overall problem (why kids willfully reject the church and Christianity). As an aspect of Christian experience, the “quiet time” has undergone a diverse life of favor and disfavor. Is it Biblically supported? Some would look to Jesus’ example of leaving the disciples early in the morning to pray fervently for protracted periods of time as the basis for the “quiet time.” Others seem just to declare it to be an important, almost necessary, component of daily Christian life, based on nothing more than a fabricated aura of spirituality surrounding an atypical human act. The problems with basing one’s conception of the value of the “quiet time” on Jesus’ behavior are twofold: 1) we don’t have Scriptural evidence Jesus did this on a daily basis, 2) the verses usually indicate Jesus went away to pray for a long period of time. I have never heard those insisting on the “quiet time” call it a long period of time. Instead, those who advocate the “quiet time” make it a simple, brief, self-serving activity. It is never advertised as a half-hour or longer activity; most make it out to be a 10-minute activity necessary for one’s daily wellbeing or authenticity as a Christian. Jesus didn’t get away by Himself to make Himself feel better for praying to His father. “Quiet time” advocates tell you it is for your own good, that it will refresh you and give you energy for the day, like it is some sort of spiritual caffeine supplement. See the self-contradicting irony: it is both a necessary ritualistic component to authentic spiritual maturity as well as a convenient, unobtrusive make-yourself-feel-better/pick-me-up/start-the-day-off-right little treat. 10-minute “quiet time” devotionals are all about checking off Bible reading from a daily checklist, enabling the quiet timer to feel good about himself without having done anything substantial. True, reading the Bible can benefit people even without their will, but reading the Bible a few minutes a day just to do it is not genuine spiritual maturity. Advertising spiritual growth as a convenient, fit-it-into-your-schedule supplement certainly does not give an accurate view of the Christian life to the kids. Why maintain an allegiance to a faith that requires nothing more than 10 minutes of your day? The “quiet time” is not real. Christianity is not about making you feel better.
[Editor’s note: the above paragraph was written before this year’s Retreat. Mrs. Lane’s enjoining to spend 45-plus minutes of quiet, solitary Bible reading and meditation, with actual interaction with the meaning and implications of lengthy Bible passages is clearly different from what most people advertise the “quiet time” to be. By all means, spend a great deal of time regularly praying and studying and meditating on the Word of God free from distractions.]
2. Altar Calls
Part of the danger of altar calls is the notion of “Seeker Churches.” What part of Romans 3:11 is unclear to people who administrate the functions and operations of local churches? As will be addressed later, evangelism is not a corporate church function. The church gathers to glorify God and grow mature. Messages designed to communicate the importance of becoming born again, directed primarily to the unregenerate visitors who may or may not be present in the (for lack of a less accurate word) audience cannot be the sole presentation from the pulpit/stage.
Not that I am denying the importance of people learning for the first time the importance of regeneration — let’s not be ridiculous. Likewise, let’s not be ridiculous by looking to Acts 2:41 as some sort of permission to do this. I’m not denying the Spirit can convict and seal 3,000 souls today, but Peter is not addressing a church meeting, either. He is speaking to an audience of all unsaved people (except for the 10 other Apostles). Paul and Peter both rail against churches spending too long on basic doctrine without moving on to more advanced spiritual substance (1 Corinthians 3:1, 1 Peter 2:2). I don’t understand why churches think ending each message every week with a “now that you’ve finally been convinced of the truth of the gospel thanks to this one message and the peppy music you heard, come up and prove how you are now saved” call to the audience is a sign of genuine conversion or rededication. Shouldn’t actual discussions between those who are spiritually mature and those who are apparently coming to Christ occur before any public display is made? How do we know it is genuine conversion and not just an emotional response to the many emotionally-driven elements of the contemporary church service? I am not outright denying the possibility anyone could ever “get saved” in a church service, especially in light of Acts 2:41 as we have just referenced, but we should also acknowledge the Bible makes it clear genuine conversion is known by the fruit in the life of the person now saved and being saved, and that takes some time. The problem is the pressure altar calls make on people to react immediately the way the church people want them to react, and despite the many times Jesus encourages those hearing Him on the Sermon on the Mount to “do their business with God the Father” in secret, altar calls demand an immediate, public display of nascent righteousness. It is often difficult to accept the validity of these — and I have been to two Promise Keepers conventions. Certainly baptisms are to be public displays of justification, but altar calls are not “come up and get baptized,” but rather “come up and get saved” most of the time.
Concerning the altar calls that aren’t justification related, I am frequently confused by these as well. Admittedly I am personally averse to situations of embarrassment. Not that those who heed the call are concerned about looking embarrassed, especially if they are actually being moved by the Spirit to seek immediate counsel, but just as churches should never do an “open mike response session,” enjoining spontaneous public displays of repentance, rededication, or just plain outbursts of catharsis could hardly be what Paul had in mind when he wrote on the importance of structured worship meetings done decently and in order (1 Corinthians 14:26-40).
Altar calls are not doing things “decently and in order.” Children who grow up in the church and never experience something those around them consider worth going up to the altar may feel their experience of Christianity is inferior, and thus maybe they aren’t “doing it right.” Instead of pressuring people to respond in such an emotionally-charged way and have these dramatic experiences, perhaps churches should encourage those so moved to seek out one of the multiple leaders of the church for authentic discussion and verification, and then the church can be notified in an orderly manner about the great ways the Spirit is moving in the lives of those in the local body. Everyone is benefitted/edified that way, which is partly why the Church exists in the first place, and the kids are not awkwardly pressured to leave their seats week after week (before they leave their seat for good).
3. Kids on Stage
Similarly, some churches seem to take a perverse pleasure in embarrassing the children of their congregation. I’m not just talking about the annual, painful to anyone whose child is not on the stage at the moment (and even to some whose are), Christmas Pageant (which may or may not be Biblically accurate), though that is part of the problem. I’m talking about the entire practice of bringing the children on stage to sing some songs, do some skits, or whatever other nonsensical reason old people give for wanting to make young people cry. Sure, some kids have real talent at an early age. Let them be the ones who sing for the grownups. Let the gifted actors do the plays (written by actual, professional playwrights, please — never any skits). Don’t make all the kids in the nursery or children’s care wing come up and “sing” for us. Most aren’t really singing, not well. Most are shouting. Others are not paying any attention. Some are scared out of their minds. Some are crying. Are the adults doing anything to soothe these poor children? No. No, the grownups who have been given charge of the wellbeing of these children by God are sitting far away, laughing at their misfortune. Perhaps the parents think the kids will not remember these experiences, since they are just kids. Take it from me, kids remember these embarrassing and painful situations. If you don’t want kids to leave your church when they grow up, stop putting them in embarrassing and painful situations. Stop doing stupid things in general.
4. Gym Night
I have enjoyed some quality Gym Nights over the years, don’t get me wrong. The problem is not with gym nights ontologically — the problem is akin to some of the reasons the Barna Group found in their surveys over the years: if “Christianity” is solely about fun, without any doctrinal substance, the church is not a relevant or important aspect of life. Clearly this is not true: Christianity and corporate church life are integral (i.e., necessary) for life to be done correctly. Churches, then, need to stop advertising it as a meaningless garden party. It’s one thing to appeal to the “video game crowd,” but another to appeal so much the experience is nothing distinct from their normal video game habits. Churches would do well to remember the old adage: “what you win them with is what you win them to.” If Gym Night has an equal balance of athletic/hobby activities and authentic worship/devotional/purposive sanctification activities, keep the Gym Nights coming. If, however, as seems to be the case too often today, Gym Night is nothing more than a “hey, we do those things, too” open house with no Biblical message or teaching involved, shut it down. Christianity does not need to be “cool.” The kids are choking to death on “cool” in the unregenerate world. Christianity needs to offer the Word of Life. As the Barna Group found, the kids have nothing substantial upon which to ground their ephemeral faith. Give them authentic experiences and sound, doctrinal content. If our message of the cross is not a stumbling block, it’s not an accurate message. Don’t water down the gospel just so you have enough bodies for Scavenger Photo Hunt Night.
5. Small Groups
As with Gym Nights, the problem is not “small groups qua small groups.” The danger is the growing dependence on small groups as a substitute for corporate worship church meetings. If a church is so large it needs to advertise small groups as the way to get to know people and build relationships instead of at corporate meetings, it’s probably time to break off and form a new local church or two.
Small groups can serve very useful functions in the development and maturity of the individual Christian and the church body as a whole, but not if it is just “Gym Night for Adults.” I’ve been to planning meetings and informational sessions in which the whole point of starting some men’s small groups was to give men an opportunity for a social club and pretend it was somehow authentic Proverbs 27:17 in action. Concerning the recent trend of sermon-based small groups … blerg. I acknowledge my personal experience of Christianity is quite distinct from most people’s experience. Sermon-based small groups aren’t my idea of a useful time, but for some perhaps it is — so I don’t want to just tear them down wholly.
Small groups need to be purposed for spiritual growth and maturity. I’m obviously not saying grownups aren’t allowed to have fun as Christians, nor am I saying every moment of small group time has to be super-spiritual and ultra-sanctified. Fellowship is a necessary component of Christian/church life, clearly, but if we proclaim the point of corporate church life is solely to sing a few songs together and hear a topical sermon in the same room together, and maybe taking the Lord’s Supper once a quarter (if time permits), our conception of church life has become woefully distorted. If the adults can’t model healthy, genuine mature Christian community for the kids, it’s no wonder they feel no need to continue with church life once they become adults.
6. Worship Leaders
Again, I’m not here to excoriate the entire group of this newly-created entity called the “worship leader.” I know a few members of this group, and they are not in question here. Clearly we are in a bit of a crisis of terminology, symptomatic of the larger epistemological crisis of why the kids are fleeing the church. Frequently we will hear speakers remind us “worship is not just singing,” but in our programs (I’m sorry, “bulletins”) we look down and see “Worship Leader” for the name of the person who leads the band (excuse me, “worship team”). If we want the kids to know and worship accurately, we should probably start using terms correctly, especially in the literature we hand out to everyone who comes into the church (pardon me, “church building”).
I’ve visited local churches in which the worship leader spent nearly all of the time with his eyes closed, engaged in some secret business to which none of us were privy. I certainly don’t begrudge a Christian from worshipping and experiencing God privately, but if a person is supposed to be a leader of other people, even for only 20-some minutes a week, it’s not too much to ask that the person keep an eye on the people he is supposed to be leading.
You can always tell the worship leaders who spend a great deal of time listening to live albums of their favorite Dove Award-winning professional bands, since they try to recreate the mood and audience reactions immediately and on nearly every song, even if the congregation in front of them is wholly unprepared for it. Then they will tell us to spend a few minutes with the Lord individually, right where we are. This may sound like a good idea, but aren’t we gathered for corporate worship? Why are we supposed to do individual things in a corporate church meeting? Can we not effectively worship God solitarily at home, or does your musical accompaniment make it more authentic?
Similarly, you can also tell the worship leaders who are really frustrated preachers. During the super-spiritual quiet part of the song, the worship leader will go off on a ten-minute mini-sermon, usually motivated by his frustrations with the congregation and why they aren’t spiritual enough. Worship leaders: stop talking. The kids wisely do not connect “being talked down to” with “worthwhile Christianity.” Stop being part of the problem. Stop telling us to “make this our prayer this morning.” It’s not a prayer, it’s a song. Why are you telling us we sound great? and why are you demanding we sing louder? You aren’t the judge of our worship; we aren’t singing to you. And you can stop going to the a cappella bridge every time and stop singing, telling us to do all the singing for you. Leading by abstention isn’t really leading. Oh, and worship leaders: the words to the song are being projected up on the screen. You don’t have to keep telling us what words are coming next.
7. Accompanied/Extemporaneous Prayers
It’s quite possible the most annoying things worship leaders do is accompany prayers, whether from themselves or someone else (like the preacher). Are we supposed to be listening to the words being prayed over us (or at us, depending on the temperament of the person doing the praying) or the music being played? Stop with the sensory overload. First you rail against the kids’ constant digital music obsession (while you tell them to go have a quiet time), and then you put music to the prayers, as if they must be more palatable or entertaining for the congregation. Let’s try to avoid hypocrisy if we want the kids to remain active within our ranks.
The more time I spend in Virginia, the more I tend to agree with C.S. Lewis concerning the value of traditional, planned-out prayers, such as are found in the Book of Common Prayer. Extemporaneous prayers are not, as everything under scrutiny in this article, naturally and wholly repugnant, especially when occurring in a Breaking of Bread service, but the practice of it needs improvement. An emotive background score is not going to salvage a theologically spurious and structurally disorganized prayer. Rambling is one of the things Jesus specifically warned against concerning prayers: don’t use too many words like those who want to be noticed, He said. If you are going to pray, great — I’m certainly not discouraging prayer; just try to be accurate and coherent. Especially if you know you are going to be leading an official leading prayer in the forthcoming service: there is nothing unspiritual about planning your prayer out in advance. Certainly we in the congregation benefit more from orderly, planned out sermons; why do we think prayers have to be spontaneous in order to be spiritual? A good planned-out prayer can be quite beneficial, perhaps even more so than a heartfelt, impromptu “thank you, Father, for dying on the cross for us, and as the preacher comes to give us Your word, Lord, we ask that your Son be with us during this meeting.” Poor doctrine, no matter how heartfelt, is not really beneficial or spiritual. Not that I’m disagreeing with the Bible, which clearly says the Spirit helps translate our oft-times feeble and erroneous prayer, but why not do our part and pray accurately and preparedly when we have the chance? As mentioned above, chaotic disorganization is not appealing to adults; it certainly isn’t appealing to the youth struggling to overcome their own internal near-adulthood chaos.
8. Contemporary Christian Music
Little needs be said here, surely. Churches should really stop treating the singing of hymns like some sort of special treat or palliative to the older generations, as if they need to be coddled or appeased once in a while. You certainly don’t need me to tell you the depth of theological content in songs of the church has steadily decreased over time to its current abysmal state of emotive shash. While that is an unabashed generalization, it is more accurate than not in most cases. Perhaps your experience is different. Send me the address and meeting times of your local church. The blatant rejection of the worship-musical output of the history of the church connects to the next point.
9. Rejection/Ignorance of Church History
I suggest to you kids would not leave the church so quickly if they 1) knew God accurately and 2) knew the church accurately. Assuming these kids who leave the church are actually born again Christians (not to open up a whole other can of worms), if they knew God increasingly more accurately, why would they possibly walk away from Life itself? And if they knew what the church was, its history, its musical history, its theological and doctrinal history, its heroes and shapers and martyrs, would they really be so quick to walk away from a history that truly belonged to them in substantial ways, both emotional and intellectual? if they truly considered themselves members of an integrated Body? Doubtful.
It’s bad enough preachers throw down volumes of systematic theology as some sort of anathema to genuine Bible study, but to keep the congregation ignorant of the life history of the organic organization to which they are declared a vital part (either unintentionally or willfully) is inexcusable. Even if it is a supplementary “Sunday School” class on Church History, or a small group that meets to read and discuss key works of theologians or missionaries or martyrs of the faith throughout history, do something to make the kids and the older people aware of the history of this thing called the church. Too many Christians go around thinking the church exists solely for them and their particular weekly needs. The church is far older and more important than that. I’m not saying every local church has to have a lending library, but each church should make awareness of the history of the church (the one Body of Christ) a priority. Clearly this cannot happen in “seeker-friendly churches” designed mostly for evangelistic outreach. Apparently the purpose of those sorts of groups is to “get people into Heaven.” However … that’s not what the Body of Christ is about.
10. Governing Structure
This may seem out of place, since it isn’t an aspect of in-service church experience, but it is quite possibly an important aspect of church life whose impact is generally ignored. Related to the significant issue of mega-churches, if the local church is not enabling and encouraging the regular use of each member’s spiritual gifts, given to them by the Holy Spirit Himself, the church is not functioning properly.
How this relates to governing structure and the children fleeing the church may seem tenuous, but it is connected. As boggling to the mind as it may seem, despite the clear governing structure indicated throughout the New Testament (especially the Pastoral Epistles), a significant number of churches have, for all intents and purposes, one person at the top called the “head pastor.” Where is this position in the New Testament? That’s right: nowhere. The church is not a feudal organization. Perhaps the head pastor talks about how great the board of elders is, but if he is the man doing all the teaching virtually every week, things are not right.
Added to this confusion, American churches in the 21st century seem to be in the habit of advertising for new pastors and leaders across the country. What does this tell the kids in the congregation? There is no future for you here, basically. If we want new help, if we have positions (new or old) to fill, we will find them from the national marketplace, not from within. In total contrast to Paul’s direction for the governance and promulgation of church leaders, solely through one generation discipling the next, churches would rather steal from one another. So the kids see no future in the church. If anyone else in the congregation has the gift of preaching, he certainly can’t use it here, since the head pastor is responsible for 40-some sermons a year. And we wonder why the average length of the pastorate in America today is about 18 months. Maybe if churches operated more Biblically, with a multitude of teachers and preachers under the governance of elders, supported by a multiplicity of deacons, the leaders wouldn’t get burned out so quickly, kids would see value in staying loyal to the local church (since the local church is actually loyal to its members), and the church would more likely be growing spiritually and not just numerically.
11. Topical Messages
Topical messages have their time and place: holidays, kairotic moments, seasons of that sort. However, if the kids get nothing but topical sermons week after week, year after year, we should not be surprised the kids walk away from the church. A steady diet of topical messages gives the kids the impression the Bible is a disjointed, unconnected encyclopedia. Spiritual maturity does not come from an ignorance of the Bible as a connected whole. Advertising the annual “preaching through a whole book of the Bible!” as if it is a rare delicacy is not terribly impressive, especially since the “preaching through a whole book of the Bible” means the preacher covers multiple chapters in one sermon while talking about only a couple of verses. This is not a rigorous commitment to the Apostles’ teaching. Without a commitment to systematic, expository preaching, the church is not going to grow spiritually.
Perhaps you will think that is too bold a claim to make. The New Testament, however, disagrees: read Hebrews 5:11-6:2 and 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 as key examples of the importance of maturing from basic principles of the faith to maturity. Maturity — genuine knowledge, in fact — comes from understanding truth, reality itself, in terms of relationships (see The Idea of a University by Cardinal Newman). Knowing the flow of the Bible, God’s providential work through history, does not come from a few verses here and a few verses there. Jesus’ extensive knowledge of the Old Testament did not come from a topical survey of some pertinent messianic prophetic passages. To consider Paul’s use of the OT as a topical approach is to misunderstand him completely. Viewing Hebrews as nothing more than a pastiche of unrelated verses or concepts is bad hermeneutics (to put it nicely). Topical messages cannot be the only approach to Bible preaching. The congregation may enjoy topical sermons more, preachers may enjoy giving them more (since they are easier to prepare — and by “prepare” I mean “download from some other pastor’s website”), but I’m quite certain the Bible actually condemns giving messages to people just so they will feel better. Something about ear tickling, as I recall.
For you pastors out there who will respond “I don’t have time to prepare expository messages each week,” I refer you to the previous reason kids leave the church. The reason you don’t have time to do your job accurately is 1) being an elder has become a salaried position (this could have been addressed earlier, but it is such a mind-blowing notion to me I don’t have the heart to talk about it at length), and 2) you are trying to do too much. Follow the Pastoral Epistles and develop multiple teachers and preachers capable of effectively dividing the Word of Truth to the people. If multiple teachers and preachers are on the rotation, including all of the elders, all of you will have time to prepare systematic expository messages. Everyone wins. And more importantly, the church operates correctly, the children grow and will more likely find no reason to leave the church; most importantly, God will be more glorified through it all.
12. Matthew 28:19-20 vs. Acts 2:42
Finally we have the crux of the issue, at least as far as I see it. The Barna Group and others view this issue differently, and that’s fine — I’m not saying I’m more right than they are. The point of this overview was to present other potential reasons why the kids don’t stay in the church after they grow up. The absence of doctrinal truth is most likely the main reason — since the church has not given them an accurate understanding of who God is, what the church is, who they are in Christ, the purpose of life, and all the rest of the key answers to existence available only through God’s revelation, we shouldn’t be surprised they don’t stick around for more of the same. The main issue, as I see it, then, is on what fundamental principle or idea the local church functions: Matthew 28:19-20 (the so-called “Great Commission”) or Acts 2:42.
Some of you are already antagonistic, since I had the audacity to call the revered “Great Commission” “so-called.” Others of you will say something akin to “the church has had a long history dating back to Genesis 12 and YHWH’s covenantal promise to Abram, and though Matthew 28 occurs before Pentecost it is still part of the lengthy outworking of God’s single-yet-multifaceted plan to return mankind to the Tree of Life and full relationship with Him.” Obviously. I’m not denigrating either the importance of Matthew 28:19-20 or the validity of its connection to Acts 2:42 (and their origin in Genesis 12 and even Genesis 1-2). What I am saying here is in the practical operations of local churches in America in the 20th-21st centuries, noticeable differences exist between churches grounded upon Matthew 28:19-20 and those grounded upon Acts 2:42, and the churches driven by Acts 2:42 seem (to me, at least, and feel free to rebut) more Biblically authentic.
In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus is talking directly to the Apostles. As you know, the debate is whether Jesus’ words to them also apply to the people who later become disciples of Christ after Pentecost. The Apostles are unique to the church, which sounds painfully obvious, but many people tend to forget that simple truth. Few Christians seem to grab hold of the several diverse commands Jesus gave His followers before His crucifixion, though many are quite eager to glom on to Jeremiah 29:11, since it makes them feel so good. What is it about Matthew 28?
The parallel passages have significant contributions to the notion of going into all the world and making disciples. Luke 24:48 says “You are witnesses of these things.” Part of the reason Jesus sends the Apostles out to the world is they actually saw Jesus, His sufferings, and His resurrection. We are not witnesses of any of those things. Mark 16, most of which is somewhat suspect, adds quite unusual aspects to the effects of evangelism according to the Great Commission: “in My name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents by their hands and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:17-18). If these things are supposed to accompany evangelism as prescribed by the Great Commission, not too many people in North America have been recipients of the Great Commission. John 20:23 adds Jesus saying “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness for any, it is withheld.” Do non-apostles have the same authority? Effectively, by claiming the Great Commission for all Christians, one is claiming every Christian has the ability to pick up snakes and drink poison with impunity, forgive the sins of everyone or not at their own discretion, and every Christian actually witnessed the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
We can’t just take one version of the Great Commission and not the others, can we? Some would say we could, arguing since the Matthew account is outside, and Mark, Luke, and John are inside, the different gospels aren’t really talking about the same particular event, in that Jesus was spending His post-resurrection forty days with the Apostles talking about many important things. But since they are so similar, can these different versions really be talking about different sendings? How many times is Jesus commissioning His disciples? Especially since they are to wait around until Pentecost, it doesn’t make much sense to say Jesus is really giving them different commissions. Acts 1 also emphasizes the people who receive the “Great Commission” are eyewitnesses to Him: “you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (verse 8). Once the hundreds of people listed in 1 Corinthians 15 and everyone else who actually saw Jesus were dead, clearly no one else who took up the mantle of the Great Commission could be following it literally.
The New Testament emphasis on evangelism is actually more on personal lifestyle than actual departure from one’s location. Paul says some evangelists are given as gifts to the church, but others are given different gifts, so not everyone has the “gift of evangelism.” The Great Commission is not the same thing as 1 Peter 3:15’s “ready defense,” and Peter is certainly addressing members of the church. Paul’s oft-used Romans 10 passage about the importance of evangelists going out into the world also includes the oft-overlooked reminder these people are sent out by the church, in that most people are actually staying behind in a supportive role.
All of this to say I’m still a bit skeptical the Great Commission is literally for every Christian to follow, since only a limited number were actual witnesses to the content to be spread by the recipients of the Great Commission, and the New Testament epistles emphasize personal lifestyle evangelism more than actual packing up and going somewhere else for most Christians. Evangelism is not a corporate church function, since it exists as an entity for the growth and maturity of itself. “Now,” as Bill Cosby said, “I told you that story to tell you this one.”
Churches built on the “Great Commission” seem to be essentially the kinds of churches described throughout this article: their main focus is not on the actual Christians within the congregation but everyone else in the community. Their definition of success as a church is increased attendance. Of course I’m not saying it’s bad for churches to grow or care about people not on the attendance roster. I would be ecstatic if everyone in the world became an authentic Christian. But success for the Body of Christ is not solely numerical growth, especially if numerical growth is based solely on statistics of numbers of people who walk in the door, with no knowledge of whether these people are actually Christians or not. Success for the church is identical to success for the individual Christian: conformity to Christlikeness. This is spiritual growth, not just numerical growth. Transfer from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light (justification) is crucial, obviously — but purpose does not cease there. If it did, the church would not exist at all: Christ would just call us home immediately upon regeneration, and the sealing work of the Holy Spirit would not occur.
In contrast are churches built on Acts 2:42: “And they devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching, fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.” Here we have the conduct of the original church in clear, concise language. These are the activities of the church. The rest of the New Testament corroborates this so evidently it needs no elaboration here. Churches built on Acts 2:42 exist for the spiritual growth of the Body of Christ. Obviously visitors are encouraged and welcome — it’s not like non-Christians are banned from coming through the doors — but sermons are not directed at them. Acts 2:42 churches value evangelism, they send out and support missionaries, and they equip and encourage those in the congregation to be prepared with a ready defense for the hope found within them. They regularly celebrate communion and strangely enough never run out of things to say about Jesus and what He has done. They know personal lifestyle evangelism is far more effective in reaching lost souls than altar calls — perhaps they got that from Jesus’ example in the gospels. They are governed by a plurality of elders, supported by a plurality of deacons, and disciple the successive generations in the intellectual content of the faith, the history of the church, and the use of their spiritual gifts. Instead of trying to make church fun for the kids, giving them nothing substantial upon which to base their faith as they grow, churches founded on Acts 2:42 focus on the Head of the church as the source, reason for, and purpose of life itself.
Meat and Potatoes
The purpose of this monograph was not to rant against the things American Christianity enjoys which I personally dislike, though it may have seemed like that. I didn’t say much at all about a great number of things that irritate me, which I admit is probably small comfort. Likewise, my intent was not to set up a straw man argument, making Matthew 28 churches all bad and Acts 2:42 churches all good, and while I admit it could be interpreted that way, it would be dishonest to reject the position outright: the distinctions are real. I have seen them in many churches across the country. Churches are geared either for those who aren’t there yet (Matthew 28) or those who are (Acts 2:42).
Matthew 28 churches, despite their claim they exist to make disciples, rarely do that very thing. In an effort to always be appealing and entertaining, they rarely go beyond the elemental things (if spiritual matters are ever discussed at all). God’s wrath and justice are never mentioned, and the kids must always have a good time (especially at Trunk-or-Treat). Missions trips are often undertaken, surely … but hardly ever (if even then) are they advertised for the sake of those who haven’t heard the gospel. They are something to make you, the Christian, feel better about yourself, as if missions trips exist solely to make you feel like a better Christian, to get out of your comfort zone, and check off the “short-term missions trip” from your Pillars of Christianity checklist, like reading through the Bible in a year, going to that super-spiritual youth retreat every summer, and, of course, making sure all of your radio presets are set to music both positive and encouraging. Matthew 28 churches are eager to declare the time for Bible study is over: now’s the time for action. Since the emphasis is always on going away to feel better about yourself, it is bemusing they are irritated the children actually heed that message. It is quite possible these churches deserve to lose the children.
Acts 2:42 churches, whose reason for existing is not just to get larger numerically so they can afford to hire more staff but instead abet spiritually maturation of the Christians within the congregation, are more likely to retain the kids as they grow older, since they aren’t trying too hard to be fun and relevant. Instead of fun and games, these churches provide truth and life. That’s what the kids want. That’s what the kids need. That’s the Christianity we all need.
Pass me the meat and potatoes, please. The children and I are hungry, and we wouldn’t mind staying for dinner.
References
Barna Group. “Five Myths about Young Adult Church Dropouts.” 19 September 2012.
—. “Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church.” 18 September 2012.
Schultz, Dr. Glen. Kingdom Education: God’s Plan for Educating Future Generations. 2nd ed. Nashville: LifeWay Press, 2003. 1998.
In the introduction to this thesis, I declared my purpose here is not to describe Babylon 5 as a Western epic in allegorical ways, as if the main characters must be precise representations of Achilles or Odysseus, or that its plot must be a war story or a journey tale. Instead, I demonstrate Babylon 5 utilizes the foundational elements of the Western epic analyzed in part one to tell a new epic story with heroes that strive to gain a transcendent understanding of themselves and their universe. Since the Odyssey is markedly different from the Iliad, while still being an equal epic, it is reasonable to allow for variation within the epic concept, in both characterization and story construction, as long as a connection to that foundation still exists. The most significant element of the Western ancient epic genre, how the characters make choices to understand themselves and the nature of their reality, is also the most important element of Babylon 5. Though most of the main title characters throughout the series are exemplary individuals and perform different functions on the station, the two human leads of the series, Commander Jeffrey Sinclair and Captain John Sheridan, demonstrate Babylon 5’s reinvention of the Western epic hero. Just as the Homeric heroes are made more impressive by their counterparts, two key alien characters, Ambassador Londo Mollari and Ambassador G’Kar, exemplify the nature of Babylon 5’s complementary characters to its heroes.
Commander Jeffrey Sinclair
Jeffrey Sinclair is the first commander of the Babylon 5 station from its initialization in the Earth year 2256. Season one begins after the station has been operational for two years. Throughout the season, Sinclair expresses occasional surprise that he was chosen for such an important position, in charge of an interplanetary peacekeeping station housing the advisory council of representatives from the five dominant species in the galaxy. Part of his surprise over his position comes from his comparative low military rank as only a commander in the military structure that owns and operates the station, Earthforce. Other officers perhaps more qualified and higher in rank come to the station at times and express their disgust that Sinclair has such a prestigious command. It is soon learned that Sinclair got the post because the alien race who helped build the station, the Minbari, until recently Earth’s main enemy, demand he get it. Why they want him specifically is a significant first season plot thread.
Descended from fighter pilots, Sinclair is a warrior before he is a diplomat, even though he represents Earth on the Babylon 5 Advisory Council with the other four major races. As the man in charge, Sinclair could easily be an Agamemnon-like character, letting his military background and ruling position go to his head, but series’ creator and co-executive producer J. Michael Straczynski dispels that connection: “the character of Sinclair is not a jingoistic military leader. He’s a very thoughtful man” (Back to Babylon 5). Unlike the group of warriors in the Iliad who are only loosely unified but mainly concerned with self-interests, the main crew of the Babylon 5 station is cooperative and cohesive (mostly). Sinclair rarely has any need to coax or threaten his command staff members to do their jobs; the Earthforce military in which they serve is more dedicated than Agamemnon’s motley group of polis chieftains. Instead, Sinclair spends most of his time during the pilot movie and first season growing into his diplomatic role and taking responsibility for his choices and his crew’s decisions, facing their consequences head on. The episode “Eyes” intentionally deals with the ramifications of the choices Sinclair makes during the season prior to that episode. He is clearly not an Agamemnon type, interested only in his personal gain.
The first season, aptly titled “Signs and Portents,” reintroduces the series beyond the pilot movie The Gathering, familiarizing the audience with the major characters and conflicts in the Babylon 5 universe, giving many of the command staff individualized episodes to flesh out their characters; the major plot arc of the series is foreshadowed as well. The major mysteries and extended plot lines of the first season revolve primarily around Sinclair, however. In addition to why the Minbari want him to command the station, his personal epic quest begins at the end of The Gathering. Sinclair is missing a twenty-four hour period of his life from the conclusion of the recent Earth-Minbari war. As the Minbari are about to overcome Earth’s final defenses at the infamous Battle of the Line, Sinclair watches his fellow pilots be destroyed until he decides to ram the lead Minbari ship with his own fighter. On his attack pattern he blacks out and wakes up the next day, only to learn the Minbari have surrendered, minutes away from complete domination of Earth. In the ten years since the war, Sinclair never discusses his experience with anyone until now. At the end of the movie, a Minbari assassin declares to Sinclair “there is a hole in your mind.” This, plus other incidents throughout the first season, motivates Sinclair to find out what happened to him.
Sinclair’s motivation, then, as an epic hero, is self-understanding. Unlike Agamemnon whose self-knowledge is limited by material possessions, Sinclair’s ability to know himself is incomplete because he is missing part of his memory and thus a portion of his identity. In this sense he is like Odysseus, and his warrior heritage and isolation from his society by the end of the season also make him like Achilles. Furthering his connection to the epic heroes is his moral ambiguity; he manipulates and lies at times to achieve (in his estimation) some higher good — not simply to be deceitful or wicked. In one sense he does this because he believes it is part of the nature of life: “Everybody lies,” he declares. “The innocent lie because they don’t want to be blamed for something they didn’t do. And the guilty lie because they don’t have any other choice” (“And the Sky Full of Stars”). The characters do not inhabit the same amoral universe as the Homeric heroes, since the Babylon 5 heroes all contend for transcendental values of service and good, regardless of their individual beliefs. Sinclair’s background of three years of Jesuit training help enable his personal freedom to lie and manipulate for a greater good, such as saving life and solving crimes. In “The War Prayer,” an episode about the burgeoning hate group Home Guard interested in eradicating the growing alien presence and influence on Earth, Sinclair declares he hates the hate groups, yet he is not above pretending to be like them in order to infiltrate and bring them down. In the same episode, he threatens violence against Ambassador G’Kar so he will agree to his peace proposal with another race. In “And the Sky Full of Stars,” Sinclair lies to his friend Ambassador Delenn (Mira Furlan) of the Minbari once he realizes she has been lying to him about his missing twenty-four hours. In order to forestall a workers’ strike on the station in “By Any Means Necessary,” Sinclair manipulates a government representative into allowing him to use “any means necessary,” which to Sinclair means redistributing budget allocations, infuriating his own government superiors in the process. His morality is flexible, in part because he does not fully know who he is and what his role in the universe is. Once he fully understands himself and regains his missing hours, he fully commits to the steadfast unity of the epic hero character — but not until then.
In the epic tradition, Sinclair’s flexible morality is only part of his characterization: he is not just a liar trying to discover what happened to him during that missing day. Sinclair, like Achilles for much of the Iliad, is internally lost. His two closest friends both recognize this: Delenn though she sometimes deceives him, does so because she is actually watching him for her government, believing him to be a fulfillment of prophecy, and so she lies to protect him. She gives him information at times and also keeps him ignorant of certain things for his own good, she believes, knowing that he will take any risk for his friends or for the right thing, because, she says, “[h]e’s looking for a purpose” (“A Voice in the Wilderness” part two). Security Chief Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle) arrives on the station with Sinclair and has known him for several years. Garibaldi knows he must do well in this position or he will probably lose his military career because of several mistakes in his past, including alcoholism. As Sinclair’s oldest friend, Garibaldi does not want to fail him or let Sinclair fail himself. After Sinclair unnecessarily risks his own life for the third time, Garibaldi confronts his reckless behavior, suspecting it has something to do with Sinclair’s experience during the Earth-Minbari War and now having to work side-by-side with his former enemies. Perhaps Sinclair is looking to find “something worth dying for because it’s easier than finding something worth living for” he tells his friend in the episode “Infection.” Garibaldi wonders if that is the definition of being a hero, and in part he is correct. Epic heroes need to find something worth living and dying for. Achilles knows he must die if he is to be a hero in his culture and finds it is worth the price, committing the rest of his life to heroism and glory. Odysseus, by rejecting life with Calypso to return to Penelope, rejects immortality for mortality, favoring humanity and death over an eternal static life. Returning to his family, growing old and dying, in an ironic way, are worth living for to Odysseus because he values humanity with all its defects over all else. Life itself becomes Odysseus’s purpose, just as it becomes Sinclair’s, after he knows who he is.
Though he learns what happened in his missing day before the end of the first season, Sinclair takes two more years to fully understand its consequences and his purpose. This all occurs behind the scenes, since he is transferred off the station at the beginning of season two and sent to the Minbari as Earth’s ambassador. Like Achilles, Sinclair is only able to learn what he needs to learn as an epic hero while he is separated from his society. Toward the end of season three at the turning point of the series in the two-part “War Without End,” Sinclair returns to the station to resolve plot threads and his maturation as a full epic hero, finally knowing himself and his role in the universe. He tells his friends “All my life, I’ve had doubts about who I am, where I belonged. Now I’m like the arrow that springs from the bow. No hesitation, no doubts. The path is clear…. My whole life has been leading to this.” His self-understanding is clear, and he is ready to perform the actions of a fully-realized epic hero now that he has learned what he must learn. He knows that he will not return from this mission, but he does what he must because he is an epic hero, choosing to do what only he can do. For Achilles and Odysseus, following their heroic impulse leads them to personal glory and the restoration of order. Sinclair’s heroic impulse is different, since Babylon 5 refashions the Western epic into something new. Sinclair’s heroic impulse and newfound self-awareness lead him not to the self-centered goals of the ancient epic heroes, but instead to sacrifice himself and leave his friends and society in order to save them all, transforming the epic hero into a more munificent, selfless character. In this way, Sinclair salvages the better attributes of Hector from the Iliad, validating personal sacrifice in a new kind of community no longer defined only by battlefield victory. Achilles returns to society because it is the only community he has, however much he may want to change it. Odysseus restores his society because it is his home and family, clearly a self-interested goal. Sinclair, however, saves his society by leaving it (what Hector could not do) because it is worth saving, not just because it exists; he values humanity and its continued existence more than his own life and place in it. Through his sacrifice he achieves the eternal renown sought by the ancient epic heroes, but his motivation and method are quite different in Babylon 5’s refashioning of the Western epic genre.
Captain John Sheridan
Jeffrey Sinclair is not the only epic hero of Babylon 5. He plays a pivotal role in the series, yet after the first season, the main character becomes Captain John Sheridan, Sinclair’s replacement on the station. Like Odysseus, Sheridan is a traveler, coming to Babylon 5 after years exploring the outer edges of known space. His quest is to learn the true nature of his universe in order to save it and remake it, which he does in an archetypal journey that follows Campbell’s path of the Western epic hero.
Departure
Sheridan’s call to adventure occurs at the beginning of season two, when he is transferred from his life as a deep-space explorer captaining his ship named, ironically, the Agamemnon. Sheridan is also nothing like the Homeric Agamemnon. Sheridan’s departure from the life he has known and enjoyed for so long signifies his gaining of freedom and distance required to better understand the society and universe the hero inhabits. The station is the epicenter of the important activity in the series; while Sinclair must leave it to find himself, Sheridan must board it to understand reality and become an epic hero. Though Sheridan goes through a realistic period during the first few episodes of season two in which he regrets his decision and questions his ability to be a diplomat and station manager, he soon realizes the value of the opportunities and unique life possible on this significant interstellar port.
The next phase of the epic journey, according to Campbell, the advent of supernatural aid in the form of a protective figure, comes from Vorlon Ambassador Kosh (voiced by Ardwight Chamberlain). The Vorlons are an ancient race shrouded in so much mystery that they even hide their genuine appearance from other species, preferring to interact with others (which is quite rare) in encounter suits, masking their features and even true voices. Kosh’s arrival on the station is the instigating plot of The Gathering. Yet, during his first two years on the station, Kosh spends almost no time performing his ambassadorial functions; he is rarely seen during the first season except in mysterious, inscrutable circumstances. It is not until Sheridan replaces Sinclair that Kosh becomes an active and involved character. Keeping in line with his inscrutable nature, Kosh first appears to Sheridan as a protective figure through a telepathic dream while Sheridan is being held captive on an alien ship. The vision motivates Sheridan to seek out Kosh’s assistance. Kosh agrees to teach Sheridan about himself and, ultimately, to become an epic hero by understanding the nature of the universe — as Kosh puts it, “[t]o fight legends” (“Hunter, Prey”). The legends Sheridan learns to fight are the misconceptions the Vorlons have been perpetuating about themselves as they manipulate other races over the centuries. Kosh also prepares him to fight the legends of the Vorlons’ enemy race the Shadows, which, at the time Kosh becomes his supernatural aid, Sheridan does not even know exist. He still has much to learn under Kosh’s tutelage. All but one of Kosh’s lessons occurs off screen, but Sheridan becomes more adept at understanding the universe because of Kosh until events lead Sheridan to cross what Campbell calls the threshold of adventure. As with Telemachus, epic heroes are not made in the classroom.
Sheridan’s crossing of the threshold is his encounter with Mr. Morden, the Shadows’ covert emissary (and spy) to Babylon 5. Sheridan’s connection to Mr. Morden is complicated but crucial: Sheridan’s wife Anna (played primarily by Melissa Gilbert) supposedly died three years earlier when her science ship disappeared. Morden, however, was on that ship, and he is still alive. Sheridan engages in morally dubious behavior to investigate why Morden is alive but his wife is not. Virtually every character enjoins Sheridan to release Morden for various reasons, including Ambassador Delenn and Kosh. His choice whether to release the emissary of his enemies without finding out the truth about his wife is the end of his departure phase in what Campbell calls “the belly of the beast.” Sheridan chooses to release Morden so the Shadows will not suspect their presence in known by the Vorlons and other races. With this decision, made freely as a sacrificial hero, Sheridan’s self-understanding is changed. Kosh and Delenn tell him more about the Shadows and the true conflict raging in the universe among the superior races, furthering his progress as an epic hero. Cementing the change in his identity and his journey, Sheridan asks Kosh to change the nature of his instruction. Instead of just fighting legends, he wants to know how to literally defeat the Shadows. He is even willing personally to take the fight to their homeworld, Z’ha’dum (the same planet upon which his wife met her death and Morden did not). Kosh warns him of the serious nature of his transformation and the possible occurrences if he continues on his epic path: “If you go to Z’ha’dum, you will die,” he explains. Sheridan, with Achilles-like resolve and acceptance of his fate, is now sure of his role in the conflict: “Then I’ll die,” he replies. “But I will not go down easily, and I will not go down alone” (“In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum”). He fully crosses the threshold of his epic quest of cosmic understanding.
Initiation
Just as Odysseus’s initiation is what Campbell calls “a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials” (97), Sheridan’s journey is against the seemingly ambiguous mythical inhabitants of his universe, and like Odysseus, Sheridan needs more than physical strength to overcome millennia-old races engaged in a “war without end.” Sheridan’s journey to understand the two sides of the conflict, the Vorlons and the Shadows, with the younger races caught in the middle, occupies most of season three. His biggest trial is uniting the younger diverse alien races against the Shadows; he eventually succeeds, but the victory is costly — Kosh is killed. Without his mentor, Sheridan turns to the next phase of his quest, Campbell’s Mother Goddess. For Sheridan, this is Ambassador Delenn. Babylon 5 continues its re-envisioning of the Western epic by changing the Mother Goddess into a romantic relationship for the hero. The more Delenn and Sheridan work together to understand the universe and save the races in it, the more their romance grows until Sheridan’s next phase of his initiation, the confrontation with the Temptress.
Sheridan’s Temptress, in a typical Babylon 5 twist, is the unexpected return of his wife Anna, apparently back from the dead. As the Temptress, Anna entices Sheridan to return with her to Z’ha’dum; there, she claims, he will complete his quest and learn the truth (though from the Shadows’ perspective). Much like Circe the Temptress directs Odysseus to the Underworld to learn what he must, Anna directs Sheridan to the Underworld of the Babylon 5 universe, Z’ha’dum. Sheridan’s journey to the underworld furthers his connection to the Western epic hero, but unlike Odysseus, Sheridan is actually killed as Kosh warned. His willing descent is intentional by the series’ creator and episode writer Straczynski. “The journey of John Sheridan is the classic hero’s journey. The hero often ends up going into darkness, dying, being reborn, and coming back in a newer, better form” ( Introduction to “No Surrender, No Retreat”). Straczynski clearly understands the path of ancient heroes according to Campbell, incorporating it into the major plot of the series, providing a helpful context from which to analyze the show as an intentional rebirth of the Western epic.
Odysseus’s “atonement with the father” phase of Campbell’s path brings him the wisdom and advice he needs to complete his restoration of his home and identity. Sheridan, though, already knows who he is — he must learn the nature of the external reality and how to live in it. Sheridan dies at the end of season three in his attempt to destroy Z’ha’dum, but when season four begins, he is apparently alive in an underground cave devoid of any context. Here Sheridan meets Lorien (Wayne Alexander), the first sentient being in the universe. Lorien considers the Vorlons and Shadows his “children,” since their races came after his and he essentially reared them. In turn, the Shadows and Vorlons have been rearing the humans, Minbari, and other younger races, but have now lost their way. Sheridan’s atonement is metaphorical — by meeting the ultimate father, Lorien, he can finally understand the nature of the universe, the conflict raging in it, and his purpose. His sacrifice for this atonement includes not only his misconceptions about what he thought he knew of the universe including the war itself, but also his misconceptions about himself and his reason for being. He must accept that he is dead.
Lorien explains Sheridan is dead, but because he has not yet accepted it, he is stranded in a Dante-like limbo state of the underworld. Before Sheridan can resume his quest, he must accept his death and fully learn what epic heroes must learn. Lorien’s words parallel Garibaldi’s advice to Sinclair three seasons earlier:
You can’t turn away from death simply because you’re afraid of what might happen without you. That’s not enough! You’re not embracing life, you’re fleeing death. And so you’re caught in between, unable to go forward or backward. Your friends need what you can be when you are no longer afraid. When you know who you are and why you are, and what you want. When you are no longer looking for reasons to live but can simply be (“Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?”).
Sheridan’s zealous, yet naïve, willingness to die in destroying the Shadows is not enough — knowing how to fight is only part of the epic hero’s nature. Sheridan was unwilling to have Kosh teach him about himself, and his ignorance returns to him here at his death, but Lorien gives him a second chance. Lorien’s advice to no longer be afraid of death is the opposite of Calypso’s offer of immortality, but the results are the same: Odysseus and Sheridan embrace life. “It’s easy to find something worth dying for,” Lorien continues. “Do you have anything worth living for?” Sinclair needs two years of self-discovery before he can answer Garibaldi’s question; Sheridan, though, knowing himself, has an immediate response for Lorien. “Delenn!” is his declaration as he yields to his death. As Odysseus abandons immortality to regain Penelope, Sheridan embraces his mortality so he can return to his love Delenn and be the epic hero she needs him to be. Living the human life, with its failings and brevity, is valuable to the epic hero and so it should be for us all, as Lorien’s caution that life should not be lived just to avoid death rings true for the epic heroes of Homer and Babylon 5 as well as the audiences of these stories. Because death awaits us, life is valuable and should not be squandered; it must be lived wisely and well, with accurate self-knowledge and proper understanding of the universe.
After yielding to his death and accepting the nature of his reality, Sheridan is revived by Lorien, finally prepared to be the epic hero he must be. He knows that his wife and past are truly gone, despite the Shadow’s machinations and deceptions, and he is prepared to embrace his new life with Delenn and win the Shadow war, now that he fully understands the nature of the conflict.
Return
Campbell refers to the onset of the completion of the hero’s journey as the “crossing of the return threshold” (37), in which “[m]any failures attest to the difficulties of this life-affirmative threshold” (218). Despite returning from the dead, Sheridan experiences many failures as he nears the completion of his cosmic quest. In his absence, the younger races disband again, and, worse, the Vorlons begin attacking them as well in an effort to eradicate all traces of the Shadows and their influence. The young races have no chance of surviving a war against both the Vorlons and Shadows, let alone winning it militarily. Sheridan eventually rallies the races again to renew the fight.
The penultimate sub-phase of the hero’s return, what Campbell calls the “Master of the Two Worlds” (37), applies to Sheridan as it does to Odysseus. He not only has the knowledge to complete his quest, he has the understanding of life and death to do what is necessary to win the war. Since his ultimate boon is knowledge not weaponry, and since his quest is philosophical and cosmic in nature, Sheridan’s conclusion to the war is also philosophical in nature. Through Babylon 5’s reinvention of the epic, Sheridan finishes what Achilles started. Having no desire, for a time, to follow his heroic impulse, Achilles returns (somewhat reluctantly) to his only mode of earning glory, having no power to eliminate the gods or change the culture of society in any substantial way. Sheridan, however, ends the ultimate war by understanding it, sending the gods of his universe away. In doing so he reinvents the hierarchy of the universe itself, and transforms the heroic impulse from glory and pleasure seeking into a clearer, more accurate philosophy, discussed in further detail below.
In completing his quest, Sheridan allows everyone to understand the nature of the conflict by showing them what the Vorlons and Shadows really are, bickering parents. The Vorlons and Shadows want the younger races to choose which of them is correct in how they rear them, but the proper choice is not to choose at all. Under their manipulation, no one could truly make any significant choices. When Sheridan sends the Shadows and Vorlons away, all the people, not just the heroes, can make their own free choices. Without guiding or manipulating races over them, the younger races have all the choices and all the responsibilities. By conquering his enemies by understanding the nature of the universe and humanity’s place in it, Sheridan completes his journey and enjoys Campbell’s final sub-stage, the freedom to live, though with the freedom to face the consequences of his choices with responsibility.
As the major epic heroes of the Babylon 5 universe, Jeffrey Sinclair and John Sheridan depend heavily on the Western epic hero bases of Achilles and Odysseus, while also transforming the character type in new directions. Like the Homeric heroes, Sinclair and Sheridan do not change much as characters. Sinclair learns who he is and what his life’s purpose is, but this does not transform his sacrificial nature or his valuation of all life. Sheridan learns the true nature of the universe, but he is still a stalwart leader and passionate defender of justice and right. What these epic heroes learn, instead of changing them internally, refocuses their pre-existing natures into epic heroes with more defined purpose. Babylon 5 transforms the Homeric epic hero by adding selflessness and sacrifice to the heroic impulse, yet it never strays too far from its most important foundation. The fundamental message of the show, the importance of choice, is consistent with the Western ancient epic as embodied in their epic heroes.
Unchanging epic heroes, as discussed above, are complemented by important characters that provide contrasts to the natures of the heroes. Hector and Telemachus provide notable juxtapositions for Achilles and Odysseus, highlighting the particular elements that make the heroes superlative in their poems. Similarly, Babylon 5 surrounds its heroes with significant, developed counterparts to expand the universe and reflect the singular achievements of Sinclair and Sheridan. Part of the series’ reinvention of the Western epic genre, however, is that, while traditional epic heroes are surrounded by static characters, the epic heroes of Babylon 5 are complemented by dynamic characters that grow and change over five seasons. Centauri Ambassador Londo Mollari and Narn Ambassador G’Kar, the remaining two members of the Babylon 5 Advisory Council, demonstrate Babylon 5’s use of character development based on choices and their consequences made by these characters.
Ambassadors Londo Mollari and G’Kar
Much like Achilles has a comparative equal in Hector to add to his greatness, Sinclair and Sheridan are set against powerful representatives from other races. As Ambassadors to Babylon 5, speaking for their peoples, Londo and G’Kar begin the series with great significance. The Centauri Republic, however, have recently diminished in power and importance. Londo spends most of the first season drinking and gambling, bordering on a buffoon. In a poignant moment of the pilot movie, Londo laments that he is only there to grovel before the magnificent Earth Alliance, to try to attach his fading people to the humans’ destiny. He yearns for the glory days of his once-proud and expansive Centauri Republic, which has now become a tourist attraction.
G’Kar of the Narn is more dominant at the beginning, often reveling in the fact his people have recently broken free from under Centauri rule, though by a devastating war. G’Kar exerts sway over Londo early on, parading around the station with a single-minded pomposity. The audience soon learns his behavior is a façade when he cautions Sinclair’s visiting girlfriend Catherine Sakai (played by Julia Nickson) that “[n]o one here is exactly what he appears,” not even him (“Mind War”).
G’Kar and Londo reveal who they truly are at the onset of the series by their responses to Mr. Morden’s question “what do you want?” in the first season episode “Signs and Portents.” The Shadows are looking for new allies. All pomposity aside, G’Kar’s response lucidly shows his anger: “What do I want? The Centauri stripped my world. I want justice!… To suck the marrow from their bones and grind their skulls to powder.… To tear down their cities, blacken their skies, sow their ground with salt. To completely utterly, erase them.” G’Kar has no dreams or ambitions beyond Centauri destruction. As long as his people are safe, he does not care about anything else. Such a narrow vision does not satisfy Morden or his Shadow superiors.
Londo’s response, however, is precisely what the Shadows are seeking:
I want my people to reclaim their rightful place in the galaxy. I want to see the Centauri stretch forth their hand again and command the stars. I want a rebirth of glory, a renaissance of power. I want to stop running through my life like a man late for an appointment, afraid to look back or to look forward. I want us to be what we used to be! I want … I want it all back the way that it was.
Londo commits to “the good of his people” at any cost, even his self-respect, and by the end of season two, the Centauri re-conquer the Narn, and G’Kar is subordinate to Londo.
While most complementary characters of the Western epic make few choices but suffer the consequences of the heroes’ decisions, the complementary characters in the Babylon 5 universe face the effects of the heroes’ choices and eventually their own, but it takes time. G’Kar, desperate for assistance against the Centauri re-occupation of his homeworld, does not fully accept the responsibility for his first season vitriol: “But what else could I do? When you have been crushed beneath the wheel for as long as we have, revenge occupies your every waking thought. When everything else had been taken from us, our hatred kept us alive” (“Acts of Sacrifice”). He is unwilling to acknowledge his choice of anger and vengeance, separating himself from the heroic. In the same episode, Londo laments the repercussions of his earlier actions. “Suddenly, everyone is my friend. Everyone wants something. I wanted respect. Instead, I have become a wishing well with legs.” Though he acknowledges more of a connection between his choices and their consequences than G’Kar does by this point in season two, he is not at the heroic level of facing those consequences with responsibility. They both, however, are being changed by their choices and soon realize this.
By the start of the third season, Londo better realizes the terrible consequences of his alignment with Morden and the Shadows and tries to sever those ties; he is still concerned solely with the good of his own people regardless of what happens to anyone else. G’Kar, however, learns the importance of valuing all life, not just one’s own kind. Assuming the form of G’Kar’s prophet in a vision, Kosh teaches him that he
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…. 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 (“Dust to Dust”).
G’Kar rises to the challenge of being better and different than he was, finally acknowledging the reality that people make choices and now he must start to accept the consequences with responsibility. The nature of his choice, linking him to the heroic while also distinguishing him as a dynamic character, is to sacrifice for the good of others. No longer does he care and act solely for his own people’s safety, like Londo does; instead he regards the epic valuation of life itself as something worth fully embracing, flaws and all, regardless of race or species. Londo, though willing to sacrifice himself, is still limited by his narrow focus and value only of his own people.
G’Kar demonstrates his new understanding and sacrificial nature throughout the third season, most notably when he rallies the Narn on the station in support of Sheridan when they are attacked by Earth forces. He also demonstrates how far he has changed as a character mid-way through the series when Delenn tells him in “Ship of Tears” they had to let the Shadows conquer the Narn homeworld so the Shadows would believe they were still working in secret. G’Kar accepts the news with such equipoise Delenn is moved to tears. He has “come a long way,” since she first met him, Delenn admits. But he is not fully realized; someday he might be able to forgive her, he says, “but not today.”
By the end of the series, after making many more choices too numerous to discuss here, Londo finally accepts the consequences of his actions in the fifth season episode “The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari.” In order to survive a heart attack brought on by years of hidden guilt, he finally faces G’Kar and apologizes for what he has done, for the first time in his life. Even so, an apology does not clear him from his responsibility, and his years-long commitment to the good of his people at any cost catches up to him. As he ponders his final moments of freedom, he tells G’Kar, “Isn’t it strange, G’Kar … when we first met, I had no power and all the choices I could ever want. And now I have all the power I could ever want and no choices at all. No choice at all.” His comments fully illustrate how far his character progresses through the seasons. From a drunken buffoon lamenting the loss of an empire to a hardened puppet emperor, Londo makes many choices and at last faces the consequences with responsibility, even though it leads to his destruction. From first to last, Londo is motivated by one thing, the good of his people. He goes to Babylon 5 for his people, he aligns himself with the Shadows for his people, and he sacrifices his freedom for the good of his people. This single-mindedness connects him to the heroic by establishing his function as a suitable complement to the heroes Sinclair and Sheridan; yet, because he changes and develops as a character, he is a new element in the epic genre.
In his response to Londo, G’Kar similarly encapsulates his own character growth from the beginning of the series: his people can never forgive the Centauri nor the Centauri forgive the Narn for what they have done to each other, “but I can forgive you,” he says (“The Fall of Centauri Prime”). From hated nemeses and pawns in each other’s plans for revenge, they progress to the point where Londo can ask for forgiveness and G’Kar can grant it. More than just having a refocused purpose, they are new people.
While most Western epic complementary characters want to be epic heroes, most fail. Londo and G’Kar, however, have no desire to be heroes; they connect Babylon 5 to the Western epic by providing foils for the heroes, and they distinguish the series from its epic foundation by expanding the possibilities of characterization within the genre. Given the focused development of the series as an epic narrative, Babylon 5 shows the logical growth of its characters based on the choices they make and their consequences.
Chapter Four — Structure, Plot, and Theme
Having examined four of the central characters that create the story of Babylon 5, the well-defined structure, plot of historical significance, and theme of transcendent understanding remain to analyze the series as a refashioning of the Western epic genre.
Structure and Shape
Much of the reason characters such as G’Kar and Londo have cohesive developments and characters like Sheridan have significant personal journeys over multiple seasons comes from the planning done by Straczynski. Before the series went into production, Straczynski established its overall content and direction. Kurt Lancaster, in his work analyzing the series from the fans’ perspective, recounts Straczynski’s anecdote about the program’s origin:
In 1986, while taking a shower … [Straczynski] received a flash of inspiration for a new kind of science fiction series with a five-year arc. Straczynski explains: “In the shower at the moment of this revelation, I dashed out and hurriedly scribbled down what would become the main thrust of the series before I could lose the thread of it…” (5).
As one of the executive producers and writer of ninety-two of its one hundred ten episodes, Straczynski maintained great control over the series, ensuring its connection to his original vision.
As noted above, the first season, “Signs and Portents,” is the exposition that introduces the universe, diverse inhabitants, and political and religious institutions that provide most of the conflicts in Babylon 5 throughout the remaining seasons. Season two, “The Coming of Shadows,” is the rising action in which the characters discover forces beyond their current level of understanding are at work in the universe. The complication comes in season three, “Point of No Return.” The command staff of Babylon 5 separates from Earth, and Sheridan commits to his heroic path. Season four, “No Surrender, No Retreat,” acts as the falling action, ending in the climax of the major plotlines developed in the previous seasons. Season five, “The Wheel of Fire,” is what Straczynski calls the “denouement. It shows the consequences of what the first four years [developed], now being brought down to human form” (Introduction to “The Wheel of Fire”). With an intentional beginning, middle, and end, Babylon 5 distinguishes itself from typical television programming while aligning itself more to the literary realm. Its structure furthers its connection to the Western epic genre in more ways than one.
Like the ring composition that unites the episodes of the Iliad, Babylon 5 has a similar cohesion. The series begins with The Gathering as the final complement of the station’s crew and Advisory Council arrive. Assemblies initiate many epics: the Iliad begins with a gathering of Achaean leaders; the Odyssey begins with a gathering of Ithacan elders. Completing the ring structure, the series ends (excluding the epilogue “Sleeping in Light”) with a new command staff replacing the old, departing crew in “Objects at Rest.” Each character fulfills his or her purpose on the station and moves on to new ventures. The series begins with the completed construction of the station; the series ends with the destruction of the station in “Sleeping in Light.” Ring composition is symbolic but cohesive, and Babylon 5 implements it well: one story ends while a new story begins. In addition to classical ring composition, the series also incorporates other epic narrative structures.
In one sense, as indicated by the shape of the series and season titles, Babylon 5 has a typical plot arc, beginning with the pilot movie, climaxing with the two part “War Without End” in the middle season, and culminating in the final episode. In another sense, as the ring composition indicates in the series’ ending marking a new beginning with a new crew as the old crew disbands to new opportunities, the series tells its story through what playwright Bertolt Brecht and other critics call “epic theater.” Contrasted with Aristotelian or dramatic theater, epic theater for Brecht instructs the audience so they not only experience the story and understand the world but are moved to change it. The characters in epic theater are shown in process and development, not as fixed. Certainly this kind of “epic” diverges from the Western epic of unchanging heroes such as Achilles and Sinclair, but it accurately applies to characters such as Telemachus and Londo Mollari. Dramatic theater moves the audience’s emotions, whereas epic theater demands decisions: Babylon 5 does both. It moves the audience partly by the loss of several key characters, and it demands the audience decide on how to live, ideally as people with transcendent self-awareness. By tackling pertinent issues of the time, such as the nature of parenting in “Believers” or the role of the citizen in a government that limits personal freedoms, Babylon 5 demands the attention and awareness of its audience, to both the series and reality itself. It does this through Brecht’s epic theater narrative structure. Perhaps the most significant element of this, as Lancaster emphasizes, is the development of the story itself as a process, just as the characters are in process. Scenes and episodes “thematically progress toward an ending — but not in a rising climax …, but rather through the depiction of historical moments. Straczynski shows the five-year history of Babylon 5 as a historical process” (16). Lancaster comments further that the audience does not watch Babylon 5 to find out what is going to happen at the end, since the series spends a great deal of time telling the audience what will happen to the characters in prophetic episodes like “Babylon Squared,” “Point of No Return,” and “War Without End.” The purpose, as its epic theater structure makes clear, is to find out how the series arrives at its destination, much like how Achilles’s anger will be resolved in the Iliad or how Odysseus will eliminate the suitors in the Odyssey — the audience does not wonder whether these events will happen. The focus is on the course, not the finish, highlighted by the fact the characters still go on even as the series ends and the station is destroyed. By emphasizing its progression as dictated by the choices and developments of its characters shown over the spans of entire episodes and seasons, Babylon 5 refashions the epic narrative structure, utilizing both traditional ring composition and modern epic theater techniques.
Plot of Historical Significance
In addition to the personal journeys of the series’ two main heroes for personal and cosmic understanding, Babylon 5 covers a vast scope of intergalactic events that profoundly affect the universe of the series, describing the rise and fall of empires and the effects of wars and their aftermaths.
The Narn race, as described above, begins the series having won a pyrrhic war of attrition against the Centauri Empire, enjoying freedom for the first time in one hundred years. The Centauri, by contrast, are a waning people, no longer as expansive or powerful as they once were, now a tourist attraction, as Londo says. By the end of the second season, these empires’ fortunes are reversed again, as the Centauri re-conquer the Narn and expand out into the galaxy. Toward the beginning of the fourth season, the Narn are free once again and the Centauri descend into obscurity until the end of the series when the Narn exact final vengeance upon the Centauri, virtually destroying their civilization. The Centauri turn away from the rest of the galaxy in self-imposed isolation and stagnate for twenty years until Londo and his allies are finally overthrown. Though G’Kar learns the importance of sacrifice and understands the universe better, his people do not listen to his teaching, despite their efforts to make him a king and a prophet. He leaves his people to their willful ignorance, for his sake and for theirs. As Kosh predicts early in the first season, both the Narn and the Centauri are dying people, consumed by their short-sightedness and vengeful attitudes. The didactic message is clear: those who focus only on their own interests and ambitions have no substantial future.
The human race, however, is predominantly on the rise throughout the series. That is not to say the series posits humanity as flawless and superior. On the contrary, a strong faction of humanity acts egregiously for much of the series, eventually forcing the Babylon 5 crew to break away from Earth control in season three and motivating Sheridan to lead an armed liberation to Earth in season four. On the whole, however, humanity is depicted as an improving, admirable people. In the pilot movie, Londo claims he is on the station to try to attach his people to the humans’ rising destiny. Delenn is also on the station to learn more about the human race and their potential. One of the reasons humanity sets itself apart from the others is because mankind forms communities, a rare and admirable trait according to Delenn. The Minbari are divided by social castes; the Centauri care only for appearances, power, and prestige; and the Narn are concerned only with freedom and revenge. Only humanity seeks to bring diverse peoples together for mutual protection and understanding, and thus are the people with a destiny and a future, another clear lesson from the series. The choices of a people, as well as individuals, bear great significance in Babylon 5, either to abet an empire’s downfall or to ensure a people’s rise to prominence.
Besides the rise and fall of peoples, the plot significance of Babylon 5 is depicted through many wars, despite its initial premise as a gathering of ambassadors to one location to end intergalactic hostility through peaceful diplomacy. The Earth-Minbari war is the main progenitor of the “Babylon Project” that leads to the construction of the station, and its ramifications are still felt throughout the first season, especially in the character of Sinclair. Approximately a decade before the Earth-Minbari war, many of the main characters’ fathers fight in the Dilgar War, the aftermath of which helps establish Earth’s interstellar prominence and the League of Non-aligned Worlds, the amalgamation of the other, less powerful races who have a collective voice on the Advisory Council.
Season one’s two-part “A Voice in the Wilderness” witnesses the Mars Rebellion, which is portended in previous episodes; earlier, the Mars Food Riots bring together many of the main characters so they know each other before reuniting during the course of the series. Season two features the latest incarnation of the Narn/Centauri conflict as well as Earth’s growing military expansion onto other, minor worlds. Season three concerns the present version of the millennia-old “war without end” between the Vorlons and the Shadows. After the conclusion of that war, the fourth season proceeds to the Minbari Civil War and Sheridan’s War of Earth Liberation.
These wars do not happen for no reason; they all proceed from the freewill decisions made by the characters and how they face the consequences of their choices, as well as how they react to the free choices made by their enemies. “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars,” the final episode of season four, shows a war between Earth and the Interstellar Alliance, the new diplomatic council Sheridan creates after the Shadow War; this war occurs five hundred years after the events of the series, but it is not the only future conflict foreshadowed in the waning episodes of the series. Throughout the final season, which culminates in the climactic Centauri War, many characters presage a forthcoming Telepath War between the growing, powerful Psi Corps of telepaths on Earth and the non-telepathic populace. Episodes such as “Rising Star” and “War Without End” indicate a coming war against the allies of the Shadows who resent losing to Sheridan, whose son will play a significant role in that battle. Thus, the story of the station sees a great amount of militaristic action before, during, and after the five years of the series: it confronts the aftermath of earlier wars, engages in many wars, and sets up many future conflicts all because of choices characters make and how they understand their society and place in the universe. The characters fight epic battles both cosmic and personal; they uncover, solve, and participate in assassinations, affect “the rise and fall of empires,” and learn the true nature of the universe. Some sacrifice their wellbeing and freedom for the good of others and live to tell the tale like Odysseus; some sacrifice their lives like Achilles, though again, for the good of others, unlike Achilles. Much of its significance comes, as well, from Babylon 5’s theme of transcendent understanding.
A Theme of Transcendent Understanding
Religion, as one means of attaining transcendent understanding, plays a crucial role in Babylon 5. The Western epic displays religious elements, obviously, in the form of the Olympian gods and how the heroes relate to them, but Babylon 5 also explores a diversity of religious beliefs. One of the earliest episodes, “The Parliament of Dreams,” showcases the dominant religious beliefs of the Centauri and Minbari. The word “dreams” in the title is not derogatory, as if to say religious beliefs are insubstantial. The episode, as well as the entire series, validates the beliefs of people without commenting on their accuracy or utility. Instead of showing a dominant Earth belief in that episode, Sinclair gathers one person each from dozens of belief systems and introduces them all to the alien ambassadors, giving each equal worth and significance. A Roman Catholic stands next to an atheist; a Muslim stands next to a Jewish man. In the future, declares Babylon 5, mankind will still have a diversity of religious beliefs, and they are all valid beliefs to have. Later, one form of Narn religious belief is shown in “By Any Means Necessary”; another race celebrates a powerful religious event in “Day of the Dead.” Many races are polytheistic in the Babylon 5 universe, though some also believe in a “Great Maker” (cf. “Infection”). The Centauri are both polytheistic and believe in the Great Maker. Sinclair, mentioned above, has three years of Jesuit training. Executive Officer Susan Ivanova (played by Claudia Christian) is a non-practicing Jew, but she eventually sits shiva for her deceased father in “TKO.” Garibaldi, despite being raised Catholic, is an atheist for much of the series, believing only in what he can see, which accounts in part for his deep-seated antipathy toward telepaths. G’Kar’s religious beliefs help his character development as noted above. As the head of the religious caste of the Minbari, Delenn performs many religious ceremonies throughout the series, always valuing other peoples’ beliefs, especially “true believers” — anyone with a sincere faith. She even forces Sheridan to take a break from strategizing against the Shadows to attend a gospel meeting in “And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place.” Sheridan spends time with the Dalai Lama in his youth. Many missionaries from various races come to the station in season three; a group of human monks even take up residence onboard.
As a narrative component, religion is never portrayed as a negative or foolish thing, though sometimes belief systems come into conflict. In “Confessions and Lamentations,” an entire race is wiped out by a plague, though they believe it is a divine punishment. Possibly the most thought-provoking stand-alone episode of the series is the first season episode “Believers,” in which alien parents do not want Chief of Staff Dr. Stephen Franklin (Richard Biggs) to operate on their child, even though it is the only way to save his life. More than a simple materialist doctor, Franklin is a Foundationalist, believing that all life is sacred, whether human or alien. During the Earth-Minbari War, Franklin quits his government job when he is instructed to give his Minbari research over to the military. Franklin contravenes the parents’ wishes and operates because “a child deserves a chance of life,” he says. His fellow doctor confronts his apparent religious inconsistencies: “You don’t disapprove of superstition, if it’s your superstition…. Your god is medicine, and you can do no wrong in his service.” Sinclair is not happy that Franklin countermands the parents’ wishes, but he appreciates Franklin’s concern for life. Life itself, lived well, is an important element in the religious universe of Babylon 5. It does not make judgments on which belief system is right; it simply shows religion as a possible, meaningful component of life and one valid way by which to understand reality.
More than the simple existence of supernatural beliefs, how the ancient heroes deal with the transcendent elements of reality around them, such as the Olympian gods and destiny, is a key theme of the poems that establish the Western epic genre. The ways the heroes interact with the divine distinguish them from the other characters. Achilles questions the gods and comes to understand his society and place in it better than those who simply acknowledge the gods and follow them without question. Babylon 5 likewise features the conflict between mortals and immortals, but in its refashioning manner, the conflict becomes something else. The deities of the Babylon 5 universe are not the various entities in which diverse races believe; instead, the real deities in this epic universe are known as the First Ones: Lorien, the Shadows, and the Vorlons.
As Sheridan discovers during his cosmic quest, the “gods” with whom the younger races interact in the Babylon 5 universe are loosely akin to the amoral deities of Achilles’s and Odysseus’s world, but instead of simply being personifications of ultra-powerful character types, the Shadows and Vorlons are personifications of philosophical ideologies, each represented by a question. The Shadows, through their emissary Morden, ask the question “what do you want?” The Vorlons, through their inquisitor Sebastian, ask “who are you?” Lorien asks Sheridan the third important question, “why are you here?” These questions not only represent the nature of the interaction between the mortals and deities in the epic of Babylon 5 as a philosophical conflict but also demonstrate the series’ emphasis on knowing oneself and the nature of the universe. Only through understanding do the heroes accomplish their goals — just like the epic heroes of the Western tradition. Babylon 5, as an epic, asks the important timeless questions of life and humanity. Such metaphysical questions of identity and purpose cannot be explained by scientific inquiry and so are answerable only through other means such as literature and artistic works like this television series. By asking the important questions of meaning, Babylon 5 urges its audience to find sufficient answers, just as its heroes find sufficient answers to accomplish their goals; through emphasizing the importance of choices and consequences in addition to asking such crucial transcendent questions of understanding, Babylon 5 unites itself to the Western epic. Like with the various religions depicted during the series, Babylon 5 does not offer any easy answers to these questions. It gives the responsibility of finding the answers to the audience.
As personified ideologies, the Vorlons are beings of order and light; they demonstrate this by appearing to most races as angels, though this is part of their manipulation. When Sheridan finally confronts them in the climactic “Into the Fire,” their representative appears as a veiled woman in a block of ice. The Vorlons are frozen. They do not like change; they represent unchanging order. The Shadows, in contrast, are agents of chaos and conflict; they live to serve evolution and constant progress. Such is their message in that episode: serve evolution. Constant change, progress through conflict is their ideology, made clear by Morden and others in “Z’ha’dum.” Representing angels/light and shadows/dark, the symbolic interpretation of these races is informative.
Northrop Frye’s archetypal and mythological interpretation in Anatomy of Criticism presents the conflict of light and dark as “two contrasting worlds of total metaphorical identification, one desirable and the other undesirable” (139). Babylon 5 in its characteristic way modifies Frye’s general archetype in that both the Shadows and the Vorlons, despite being overt metaphors, want to be the “desirable” metaphor. They each want Sheridan and thus humanity at large to choose one of their options, their way of life: choose order or chaos, they demand. The Western epic is driven by choice, but Achilles and Odysseus do not have a choice of which transcendent ideology to serve.
Babylon 5 is not about conforming to an intrinsic or extrinsic model of behavior — the best ideology is proper self-understanding. Once one rightly understands oneself and the true nature of the universe, then one can live freely. Sheridan combats his deities by asking them their own questions. The Vorlons, though, do not know who they are, only that they believe in order. Similarly, the Shadows do not know what they want, only that evolution must be served through chaotic conflict. Because they cannot answer their own questions, Sheridan knows that their two options are not enough. Instead of choosing between the order of the Vorlons and the chaos of the Shadows, Sheridan chooses not to choose. Sheridan rejects both of them. Without their allegiance the Vorlons have no purpose; without conflict, the Shadows are lost. Lorien provides the solution: join the rest of the long-gone First Ones beyond the rim of the galaxy and let the younger races develop on their own. Sheridan agrees and ends the cosmic conflict through transcendent understanding. As an epic hero representing humanity itself, Sheridan interacts with his deities differently than Achilles and Odysseus deal with theirs. Achilles and Odysseus want the freedom to transcend their cultural limitations and define their own fate, but that ultimately cannot happen. Even by embracing life and restoring order to his home, Odysseus does what Zeus wants. Sheridan and Babylon 5 take the Western epic in the direction its foundational heroes want to go but cannot. By sending the gods away, mortal humans are free to live and rule the universe their own way. Babylon 5 clearly emphasizes the importance of understanding oneself and the universe. By understanding the nature of the conflict, Sheridan allows humanity to become what it needs to be without the external manipulation of the gods. The epic series confronts transcendent reality and gives humanity the central place. No longer are heroes and others subject to the whims of the gods as Achilles lamented. Sheridan the epic hero empowers humanity with the knowledge of the nature of the universe, and so everyone has the ability to make their own choices with responsibility. In one sense, we are all epic heroes now. In order to live well, everyone should gain an accurate self-understanding and know their place in the universe. We all have the responsibility to face the consequences of our actions. This is the message of Babylon 5, the rebirth of the Western ancient epic genre.
Conclusion — The Importance of Choice
Having examined the four major elements of the Western epic genre, 1) a lengthy narrative with a defined structure and shape; 2) a developed central hero; 3) a plot of historical significance; and 4) a theme of transcendent understanding, as well as the texts of the epic poems, many of the series’ episodes, and critical secondary sources, this inquiry had endeavored to demonstrate that Babylon 5 not only utilizes the original elements of the Western epic but also refashions those elements in new ways.
Further research into this area should certainly be done. Given more time and space, an exploration of each episode and its contributions to the series as a Western epic would provide further insight than this initial survey can supply. More archetypal critics and theories, such as those of Northrop Frye and Carl Jung, could also provide pertinent interpretations of the series. Further quotations from cast and crew members, especially creator J. Michael Straczynski, would supplement an analysis of the series. Additionally, since Babylon 5 re-makes the epic genre, contrasting the series with other, non-Western or non-Homeric epics such as the Aeneid, Argonautica, or Kalevala, would only enhance an understanding of the value and literary merit of the series, thereby increasing the limited body of scholarship on science fiction, especially televised science fiction. More work could be done from a literary perspective such as comparing the Aeneid as a written epic with Babylon 5 as a literary epic from predominantly a single author (unlike the oral narrative nature of the Homeric poems that this investigation has purposefully avoided). Finally, since this thesis focuses on the pilot movie and five seasons of the series, further research could incorporate the additional telefilms, novels, comic books, and the spin-off series Crusade, all of which are considered canonical by the series’ creator.
The Homeric poems set the foundation not only for the epic genre but also Western Civilization’s literary heritage. Babylon 5 transforms that foundation for a new medium of storytelling, serialized television. The audience and method of narration are also different. Yet, fundamentally, both the ancient epics and Babylon 5 have similar messages: life is meaningful and important because individuals matter and have choices, consequences, and responsibilities that help guide their lives. Individuals have the ability to change their world — they are not just caught up in the impersonal forces of time and history. Sheridan’s actions in “Into the Fire” clearly show this. Humanity, even with its flaws, even with its brevity, is worth fighting and dying for. Life, regardless of species and gender, is valuable because of its brevity and because living well is challenging. Because of this message, Babylon 5 is intrinsically worthwhile as a literary/televised work of art. That it is a modern refashioning of the Western epic with the same message secures its place as a meaningful narrative on par with the ancient epic poems.
Odysseus’s key moment is not the destruction of the suitors or the reunion with his family; instead, his key moment is his renunciation of immortality proffered by Calypso. Beye sees that renunciation as an acceptance of “human life over anything else. … Having affirmed human life over everything else, Odysseus is fully prepared for the suffering that Calypso has forecast. It is part of living” (177). Odysseus demonstrates clearly that normal, mortal, human life is more desirable than the amoral, changeless immortality of the gods, even with the concomitant pain, suffering, and eventual death. “Odysseus represents a love of life so extreme that every experience of it, including suffering and finally death, is valuable and desirable,” continues Beye (178). Odysseus chooses to return to mortal life, furthering the emphasis of the importance of choice.
Similarly, Sheridan’s key moment is his acceptance of his mortality so he can be more fully human, more fully alive by not being afraid of death. By embracing life and love, acknowledging the fleeting nature of them both, Sheridan can truly be what he needs to be. Certainly the series proclaims that message to its audience as well. Life is valuable because it is brief — but it must be lived wisely. Living simply not to die denies the importance and purpose of life, to live meaningfully, accepting the consequences for choices, sacrificing oneself for the wellbeing of others, daring to love and be loved.
Lorien makes this clear to Ivanova in “Into the Fire.” As an immortal being, he is without love, joy, and companionship. These traits are what the Vorlons and Shadows miss as well. Since they are also virtually immortal, they have grown lonely and sad. Mortality, Lorien explains to Ivanova, is a gift from the universe so mortal races can appreciate life and love. He urges her to embrace the illusion of love’s immortality as only mortal humans can. Love, experienced only by mortals such as Sheridan and Delenn, is worth living and dying for.
Delenn thoroughly understands the ephemeral, yet hopeful nature of life. “All life is transitory. A dream. We all come together in the same place at the end of time. If I don’t see you again here, I will see you in a little while, in the place where no shadows fall,” she tells Sheridan in “Confessions and Lamentations.” Though she knows life is brief, it has the utmost value to her, which she makes clear at her ultimate testing point by Sebastian, the Vorlons’ inquisitor: “If I fall, another will take my place,” Delenn claims. “This is my cause! Life! One life or a billion — it’s all the same!” (“Comes the Inquisitor”). Because she recognizes the importance of all life and is willing to sacrifice hers “[n]ot for millions, not for glory, not for fame [but for] one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see,” she proves herself to be the right person “in the right place, at the right time,” says Sebastian. Life is Delenn’s cause, as it is Odysseus’s, Sinclair’s, Sheridan’s, and the epic genre’s itself. Like the epic heroes, Delenn is freely willing to sacrifice herself for the sake of life, a commitment she chooses to make.
The Iliad does not portray the Trojans as villains or the Achaeans as champions in any significant way. Both races have flaws and admirable traits. Though the text favors Achilles, Hector, too, is fully human, even as the enemy of the epic protagonist. All life is valuable in the epic genre. As G’Kar learns, it is similarly not just one race or one kind of life that is valuable in the Babylon 5 universe. For the inauguration of the new Interstellar Alliance, G’Kar writes in his Declaration of Principles that “[w]hoever speaks for the Alliance does so with the understanding that it is the inalienable right of every sentient being to live free, to pursue their dreams” (“No Compromises”). The hate groups on Earth and the station are obvious antagonists in the Babylon 5 universe because they do not appreciate life in its many forms. As G’Kar’s principles make clear, sentient beings have the right to disagree with us, except when they act in opposition to life. The Narn and the Centauri fade into isolation and obscurity because they are only concerned with their own selfish ambitions. Humanity is on the rise in the universe because it values cooperation and peace with all races in the universe.
In his resignation speech at the close of season four, Sheridan emphasizes the significance of life and its connection to choices, encapsulating the epic genre itself:
Now, the time I spent on Babylon 5 I learned about choices and consequences and responsibility. I learned that we all have choices, even when we don’t recognize them, and that those choices have consequences not just for ourselves, but for others. And we must assume responsibility for those consequences. I and my fellow officers had to choose between what we were told was right and what we believed was right. And now I take full responsibility for those decisions (“Rising Star”).
The crew of Babylon 5 choose to do what they believe is right for the good of all life, not just themselves or their own kind. Babylon 5 demonstrates the importance of choice not just from the characters, but for the audience, as life has meaning in part because of the choices real people make — not just characters in a television program. Even though this life has pain and sorrow and is indeed transitory, the responsibility of choosing to live well is not unbearable. Londo is told by prophetess Lady Morella (Majel Barrett) in “Point of No Return” that “there’s always choice. We say there is no choice only to comfort ourselves with a decision we’ve already made. If you understand that, there’s hope.” Hope is why we should not fear or hesitate in accepting responsibility for choices or living life fully and well, despite the struggles and risk of pain involved.
It is little wonder that the only on-screen lesson Kosh teaches Sheridan is that beauty and hope exist, even in unexpected places and during the darkest times, even though we have to sacrifice and struggle to enjoy them (“There All the Honor Lies”). We must choose to live well, to understand ourselves and our place in the universe, taking comfort from the fact that there is still beauty and hope in the world. Ivanova echoes this idea in the waning moments of the series finale “Sleeping in Light”:
Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. There would never be another. It changed the future, and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future, or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, because if we don’t who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places. Mostly, though, I think it gave us hope that there can always be new beginnings. Even for people like us.
If we accept that all life is valuable, that our choices affect not only ourselves but those around us, and we are willing to face the consequences of those choices with responsibility, we need not fear living sacrificial lives for others. That is what the Western epic intended, though the ancient poems and heroes are limited by amoral gods and the heroic impulse of self-satisfying glory. Babylon 5 takes the ideal qualities of the epic and transforms the genre, becoming what Straczynski calls a series “about hope, to a large extent. If you boil down the series to its very finest points, it says that one person can make a difference; one person can change the world. You must choose to do so. You must make the future or others will make it for you” (Back to Babylon 5). Accurate self-knowledge and right understanding of the universe allow the ancient epic heroes to complete their quests. Likewise, accurate self-knowledge and right understanding are the ultimate good in Babylon 5, not just for epic heroes, but for everyone. With honest answers to the central questions of life such as “who are you,” “what do you want,” and “why are you here,” individuals and humanity as a whole has hope for itself and for the future. With proper understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe, we can make choices that allow us to live wisely and well. This is the lesson of Babylon 5 as a rebirth of the Western ancient epic genre.
Works Cited In Part Two
“Acts of Sacrifice.” Babylon 5: The Complete Second Season — The Coming of Shadows. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Jim Johnston. PTN Consortium. 22. Feb. 1995. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place.” Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season — Point of No Return. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. David Eagle. PTN Consortium. 14. Oct. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“And the Sky Full of Stars.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Janet Greek. PTN Consortium. 16. Mar. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
Babylon 5: The Gathering. Dir. Richard Compton. 1993. DVD. Babylon 5: The Movie Collection. Rattlesnake Production, 2004.
Back to Babylon 5. Behind-the-scenes feature. Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. DVD. Warner Home Video, 2002.
“Believers.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. David Gerrold. Dir. Richard Compton. PTN Consortium. 27. Apr. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
Beye, Charles Rowan. Ancient Epic Poetry: Homer, Apollonius, Virgil with a Chapter on the Gilgamesh Poems. Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc., 2006.
Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Trans. John Willet. New York: Hill and Wang, 1964.
“By Any Means Necessary.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. Kathryn Drennan. Dir. Jim Johnston. PTN Consortium. 11. May. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 2nd Edition. Bollingen Series XVII. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1968, 1949.
“Comes the Inquisitor.” Babylon 5: The Complete Second Season — The Coming of Shadows. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Mike Laurence Vejar. PTN Consortium. 25. Oct. 1995. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“Confessions and Lamentations.” Babylon 5: The Complete Second Season — The Coming of Shadows. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Kevin Cremin. PTN Consortium. 24. May. 1995. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“Day of the Dead.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season — The Wheel of Fire. Writ. Neil Gaiman. Dir. Doug Lefler. TNT. 11. Mar. 1998. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“Deconstruction of Falling Stars, The.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fourth Season — No Surrender, No Retreat. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Stephen Furst. PTN Consortium. 27. Oct. 1997. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“Dust to Dust.” Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season — Point of No Return. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. David Eagle. PTN Consortium. 5. Feb. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“Eyes.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. Larry DiTillio. Dir. Jim Johnston. PTN Consortium. 13. July. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“Fall of Centauri Prime, The.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season — The Wheel of Fire. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Douglas Wise. TNT. 28. Oct. 1998. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
Frye, Northrup. The Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957.
Homer. The Iliad. Trans. Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1951.
—. The Odyssey. Trans. Richmond Lattimore. New York: Harper and Row, 1967.
“Hunter, Prey.” Babylon 5: The Complete Second Season — The Coming of Shadows. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Menachem Binetski. PTN Consortium. 1. Mar. 1995. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum.” Babylon 5: The Complete Second Season — The Coming of Shadows. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. David Eagle. PTN Consortium. 10. May. 1995. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“Infection.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Richard Compton. PTN Consortium. 18. Feb. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“Into the Fire.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fourth Season — No Surrender, No Retreat. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Kevin Dobson. PTN Consortium. 3. Feb. 1997. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
Introduction to “No Surrender, No Retreat.” Behind-the-scenes feature. Babylon 5: The Complete Fourth Season — No Surrender, No Retreat. DVD. Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc., 2003.
Introduction to “The Wheel of Fire.” Behind-the-scenes feature. Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season — The Wheel of Fire. DVD. Warner Brothers Entertainment, Inc., 2003.
Lancaster, Kurt. Interacting with Babylon 5. Austin: U Texas P, 2001.
“Mind War.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Bruce Seth Green. PTN Consortium. 2. Mar. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“No Compromises.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season — The Wheel of Fire. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Janet Greek. TNT. 21. Jan. 1998. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“No Surrender, No Retreat.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fourth Season — No Surrender, No Retreat. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Mike Vejar. PTN Consortium. 26. May. 1997. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“Objects at Rest.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season — The Wheel of Fire. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. John Copeland. TNT. 18. Nov. 1998. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“Parliament of Dreams.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Jim Johnston. PTN Consortium. 23. Feb. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“Point of No Return.” Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season — Point of No Return. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Jim Johnston. PTN Consortium. 26. Feb. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“Rising Star.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fourth Season — No Surrender, No Retreat. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Tony Dow. PTN Consortium. 20. Oct. 1997. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“Ship of Tears.” Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season — Point of No Return. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Mike Vejar. PTN Consortium. 29. Apr. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“Signs and Portents.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Janet Greek. PTN Consortium. 18. May. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“Sleeping in Light.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season — The Wheel of Fire. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. J. Michael Straczynski. TNT. 25. Nov. 1998. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“There All the Honor Lies.” Babylon 5: The Complete Second Season — The Coming of Shadows. Writ. Peter David. Dir. Mike Vejar. PTN Consortium. 26. Apr. 1995. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“TKO.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. Larry DiTillio. Dir. John Flynn. PTN Consortium. 25. May. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“Very Long Night of Londo Mollari, The.” Babylon 5: The Complete Fifth Season — The Wheel of Fire. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Kevin Dobson. TNT. 28. Jan. 1998. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“Voice in the Wilderness, A” Part One. Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Janet Greek. PTN Consortium. 27. July. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“Voice in the Wilderness, A” Part Two. Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Janet Greek. PTN Consortium. 3. Aug. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“War Prayer, The.” Babylon 5: The Complete First Season — Signs and Portents. Writ. D.C. Fontana. Dir. Richard Compton. PTN Consortium. 9. Mar. 1994. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
“War Without End” Part One. Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season — Point of No Return. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Mike Vejar. PTN Consortium. 13. May. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“War Without End” Part Two. Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season — Point of No Return. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Mike Vejar. PTN Consortium. 20. May. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
“Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?” Babylon 5: The Complete Fourth Season — No Surrender, No Retreat. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Kevin Dobson. PTN Consortium. 11. Nov. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2004.
“Z’ha’dum.” Babylon 5: The Complete Third Season — Point of No Return. Writ. J. Michael Straczynski. Dir. Adam Nimoy. PTN Consortium. 28. Oct. 1996. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2003.
No, not really. But this does seem like a good place to finish our nearly year-long journey through some elite-level forgotten gems of the musical realm with an appropriately titled and themed album from one of the most underrated bands of the twentieth century, The Moody Blues. Adaptability is not a sign of weakness: it is a sign of strength, especially when it is not Vichy-like. The Moody Blues survived the musical fads and fashions of more than four decades, which is something only a select few bands can say with anything remotely resembling self-respect. Sure, they have had line-up changes over the years, since their main reconstruction in ’66-’67, but other than U2, who hasn’t? Their creative hiatus after this album allowed the band to grow in better ways than numerically, and we are much richer for it as listeners, with their solo and duet works as well as the great output from ’78-’03 (not to mention all their live shows and albums and compilations in the last decade), including my two favorite Moody Blues songs, “Your Wildest Dreams” and “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere” (though, since the latter is a sequel to the former, perhaps we could call them two parts to one ultra-elite magnificent song). The band clearly needed and benefitted from a break after this album, just like we all need a break after this school year and season of fantastic journaling. Even so, this album is a great album from beginning to end, with no real weak links (despite what some people say about “When You’re a Free Man”). Though tensions were high and emotions were frayed, The Moody Blues produced some of their best work here, and we should always have Seventh Sojourn handy in our music playing machines (whatever they look like in your home and/or automobile).
“Lost in a Lost World”
The album, demonstrating its over-taxed circumstances of construction, begins with a borderline pessimistic song, though it gains a great deal of optimism for most of it, and this song is more accurately disconsolate than sheer pessimistic, since this opening number at least recognizes the potential and only source of hope. “I woke up today, I was crying / Lost in a lost world” — that’s about as disconsolate as any of the songs we’ve explored this year. In a sense, though, it is how we should react a fair amount of the time as Christians: “So many people are dying / Lost in a lost world.” It’s true. The world is full of people “living an illusion,” whether it is tethered by racism, classism, or just generic atheism. Revolution is not the answer; it’s just another threat, “another form of gun” used to do wrong unto others what was wrongly done unto them. Mike Pinder, fortunately, points us to the way out of this mess: “Love will find us in the end … / We’ve got to bend / Down on our knees and say a prayer.” Genuine communion with spirituality is the only way out of this physical mess, since the mess is not physical in origin: the ultimate problem is spiritual disharmony with God, and thus with Love and Reality. The music throughout the song maintains the disconsolate tone, with its march-like syncopation. The music feels like it is a band playing the wrong kind of venue, sort of like the concert band is forced to do the parade instead of the marching band. Things are out of place, sounds are out of place (without being discordant or harmonically off). Even the hopeful bridge can’t escape the overbearing music, since the people are not yet where they need to be, even though salvation is possible and near. Sometimes songs don’t have to be happy to be worth hearing (and heeding). “Lost in a Lost World” is one such song. Mike Pinder’s lyrical and musical contributions should likewise not be forgotten in the great history of The Moody Blues.
“New Horizons”
“New Horizons” is a quintessential example of The Moody Blues’s ability to create complex songs. We knew that from the very beginning, with Days of Future Passed, but they never lost that possibly-genius ability. The lyrics are fledglingly optimistic, to neologize for a moment. Justin Hayward presents us with that painful moment of transition during the ending of one phase of life and the beginning of something new and better, yet still experiencing the lingering memories and sensations of mistakes made and regrets unforgotten, coupled with the bolstering hope of the good memories and sensations available to provide future comfort when the other sensations have been accurately accounted for, quantified, qualified, and compartmentalized. It’s the “someday” line/word that evokes the most emotion, I think. He knows (not just thinks or guesses, he knows) he will “find my own peace of mind” — there will be comfort and love and joy and contentment to be experienced. He’s “never going to lose your precious gift” (the “your” being the lady love he has to leave, most likely, or whatever situation in life on from which it is time to move). It will always be with him; he is “beginning to see” what this new life will be; he will find that peace of mind … someday. The music mirrors this borderland realm — it is always trying to move forward, it is very willing to do so, but it is not fully prepared to get there just yet. It’s a bit difficult to explain — listen to it and find out what it’s much better than can be accurately described here.
“For My Lady”
Flautist Ray Thomas has created quite the impressive sea shanty with “For My Lady.” I’m not certain he was going for a sea shanty with this thoroughly beautiful song, but he did it. Though this and “New Horizons” were written lyrically by different people, they form a good pair on this album. “For My Lady” embraces the outright gentleness and peaceful resolution to life’s changes and challenges not fully attainable in “New Horizons.” It’s certainly one of the most optimistic and encouraging songs in my admitted limited musical experience: “Oh I’d give my life so lightly / For my gentle lady / Give it freely and completely / To my lady” says the sweet chorus. Unlike the current trends of mixing lyrics with antagonistic musical accompaniment, “For My Lady” is both lyrically and musically sweet (not in a syrupy way, either — not that there would necessarily be anything wrong with that if it was). Not surprisingly, the flute dominates the melodic line and musical interlude, which fits well for the ideas of the song: “Set sail before the sun / Feel the warmth that’s just begun / Share each and every dream / They belong to everyone,” says the final verse. Admittedly the flute is associated with rather shady characters in myth and lore around the world, but the archetypal notion of the flute, the warm summer day, sailing the breeze-driven sea, dreaming the day away (for a time, not for ever), being in love — a selfless, self-sacrificial love, and thus Biblically accurate — all make for a superb song. More songs should sound and speak like this.
“Isn’t Life Strange?”
Furthering the album’s increasingly overt theme of questing for identity, understanding, and finding one’s place in the world, John Lodge’s first of two songs on the album (strangely enough, the only two single releases from the album, this and the closing “I’m Just a Singer…”) continues to ask penetrating questions: how do we know who we are? who are we supposed to be? how does the passage of time connect to our understanding of who we are? Though these are not the questions he asks verbatim, they are essentially what his lyrics imply: life is strange, love is strange, both are hard to understand yet both are essential. There is a sense of the return to despondency with this song, as the narrator seems to be lamenting lost love reminiscent of “New Horizons” in contrast to the optimistic togetherness of “For My Lady.” Even so, the chorus remains optimistic in its zeal, supported by the musical uniqueness of its accompaniment: “Wish I could be in your heart / To be one with your love / Wish I could be in your eyes / Looking back there you were / And here we are.” The force of the music makes me think there is great hope underlying these potentially melancholy lyrics. The verses add to the theme of redeeming the time: “Isn’t life strange? / A turn of the page / A book without light / Unless with love we write,” says the first half of verse three (by my count). Life is meaningless without love — as this has been one of the main themes of the entire run of Redeeming Pandora, it’s nice to realize we agree with The Moody Blues.
“You And Me”
With a flip of the record, we realize what we thought initially was a tone of despondency was in fact simply the main theme of the album: The Moody Blues are simply asking the questions we are all asking about life, its purpose, its meaning, and they have been telling us all along they have just as few answers as the rest of us have. They are no more despondent than we should be — optimistic, in fact, as we should be. Just as we saw in “Isn’t Life Strange?,” questions abound … but so, too, does love.
The Moody Blues are certainly a product of their time, even though a vast majority of their great songs have lasted in an ageless quality (with or without the synthesizer) because of their timeless content. “You and Me” is a fine example of how The Moody Blues can transcend their time while being very much dependent on the time: without any coaching, those of us who may have missed the Nixon Administration (and those flanking it) would not have been able to tell this is a protest song against the Vietnam War. The opening line, “There’s a leafless tree in Asia,” sounds innocuous enough to me, leading me to think about the general ecological concerns people have, especially since the opening stanza is replete with geological thoughts: “Under the sun there’s a homeless man / There’s a forest fire in the valley / Where the story all began.” Experts tell us, though, the opening line alludes to Vietnam. Allowing the accuracy (not to be precious) of such an interpretations, as stated before, the song has outlived its contemporaneity and transformed in the intervening years to be a still-relevant cry against general ecological and sociological mismanagement (to put it in overly-kind and apolitical terms).
The chorus of this impressively up-tempo protest song disabuses the interpretive misalignment upon which most of us operate (at least through our initial listening-through of the album): “All we are trying to say is / We are all we’ve got / You and me just cannot fail / If we never, never stop.” They aren’t trying to plunge us into despair by claiming we are all lost in a lost world; they aren’t telling us to forsake the past and seek new horizons. They are just “Singing all [their] hopes and dreams.” They are just as mystified about life as the rest of us. Of course, as Christians, we have a stronger grasp on purpose and direction, and though it is somewhat painful to disagree with The Moody Blues, we know we are not all we’ve got, which is the quintessence of why we don’t have to be disconsolate in this lost world — because we once were lost but now we’re found. The encouragement they offer (“never, never stop”) is potentially futile unless it is coupled with alignment with Ultimate Reality, with the God Who is Love. Once we have done that, and the “you” becomes “You,” this song becomes as authentically Christian as anything out there (perhaps more so).
“The Land of Make-Believe”
I like this song. Maybe I’m in the minority, but that’s quite all right with me as you know by now, if you’ve read other articles in this very issue. Since we are not here to spiritualize things, which we all know is bad hermeneutics (you are missed, Dr. Dave), it wouldn’t do any good to say “they are really singing about Heaven and the life to come.” It’s possible The Moody Blues are just imagining a utopia in which “heartaches can turn into joy,” since that doesn’t happen in this present incarnation as much as we would like. Regardless of whether they are truly singing about Heaven or just a fairy-tale land reminiscent of the underworld in Final Fantasy IV, the fundamental message of the song is true: “Love’s the only reason why” we exist, “Only love will see us through / You know what love can do to you.” This life is all about love, indeed. Perhaps the “make-believe” of the title is not as serious as it at first seems, and they are ironically reminding us “it’s only make-believe because not enough of you live this way yet.”
“When You’re a Free Man”
Like the previous song, Mike Pinder’s “When You’re a Free Man” imagines a utopian society, but the musical accompaniment this time makes us think we are in a sort of Kafkaesque utopian society (if we can use such a word without being cliché … which isn’t an adjective, anyway, people). The song is about the quick passage of time, but the music is slightly slower than if you paused the album (but I kid The Moody Blues — as I said earlier, I like this song, even if most think it is the weak link on the album). We shouldn’t be too surprised this song is another tribute to Timothy Leary, though why The Moody Blues are so keen on referencing him is somewhat beyond me. Fortunately they seemed to have outgrown him by the time they regrouped after their hiatus following the album under present examination. Again, we don’t want to spiritualize the album, and we would be straining that notion if we tried to “rescue” this song too much from its original intention, but again, if something is true, it’s true, regardless of who originally said it or why. When The Moody Blues enjoin us with “Let’s be God’s children and live in perfect peace,” it’s still a pretty excellent idea (if you’ll allow the expression), even if they meant it not as well as we would have liked. I’m rather skeptical we will see Timothy Leary again when we are all free from the sin which so easily entangles us … but I wouldn’t be surprised if we are still singing The Moody Blues songs then.
“I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)”
One last time (before a five-year hiatus), The Moody Blues remind us they are no experts on life — they are just a rock and roll band. Don’t look to them for answers — go out and live your own life. Fortunately for us, we know where the answers for life are located. Fortunately as well, we can enjoy great music like Seventh Sojourn from The Moody Blues, especially when we have the answers to the questions they ask. They ask the questions better than most bands do, and by this time in their diverse recording career, they were polished, poised, and, well, petered out. This song musically mirrors the band precisely this way: full of energy, being themselves (not what people expect them to be), asking intelligent questions all the way … eventually they run out of steam and it all comes crashing to a halt. Fortunately again, they picked it all up again soon enough (with some rather impressive solo and duet work in the meantime, especially Blue Jays, which we all know should have ended with “Saved by the Music,” but that’s a story for another time), and we can enjoy it all today. This is probably one of their most recognizable songs, and certainly one of their better numbers, which is saying a good deal considering their vast, diverse output. It’s a fitting end thematically to the album: what appeared to be pessimistic despondency was just sincere appraisal and confusion of a world out of tune — something is not right (totally depraved, in fact, in a lost world), and sometimes moving on means letting go, but hope still exists (as evidenced by this very journal’s raison d’être)and love will see us through. In the meantime, don’t go searching for answers in the wrong places. Just enjoy the music.
Music is the Traveler Crossing Our World
From Days of Future Passed (you aren’t counting The Magnificent Moodies, are you?) to December and everything else in-between, The Moody Blues have given us a thoroughly enjoyable output, with Seventh Sojourn one of their most enjoyable albums from beginning to end with no real weak links. For those who know only the ’80s synthesizer oeuvre of The Moody Blues (which, don’t get me wrong, is one of my favorites, since I’ve already admitted my favorite MB songs come from then), it’s time to go back to the band’s early era. Check out all their early albums, and though you’ll probably find some of their early stuff rather strange (after DFP, which is the most melodic and brilliant orchestral concept album ever made), you will find Seventh Sojourn is a gem that should not be forgotten. Don’t just take my word for it — listen to them for yourself. I’m just an editor for a scholarly journal.
Goodnight and Good Listening
We hope you have enjoyed our brief look at some of the forgotten gems of our recent musical past; I know I have. If you have been encouraged to listen to any of these albums and discover an enjoyable musical addition to your appreciation for life in its multifarious beauties, or rediscovered an old musical gem of a friend you had forgotten, then our work is done for another season. We at Redeeming Pandora wish you a continued delightful musical journey, whatever your tastes and fancies. Continue to seek out new horizons and enjoy the best of what is being made today, but don’t forget the gems of days gone by. You’ll be glad you kept them with you all of your days. Goodnight and good listening, friends.
See, I told you. It took an extra year, but we managed to find time to talk about Genesis’s first post-Gabriel-era album, A Trick of the Tail. As we’ve said elsewhere, it would be fatuous to contrast different albums from the same artist as if they are in competition, and certainly comparing or contrasting different eras of Genesis’s long, multifaceted career, would be especially fruitless. Some people prefer the Gabriel era, some the Collins era — neither is “wrong” in that preference. Both are wrong to say one era is “better” than the other. Different eras, we also said, were marked by different creative tendencies — so we are not here to say A Trick of the Tail is anything other than a great album marked by many continuing elements from the Gabriel era as well as the nascence of new artistic directions (though the radio-friendly “pop music” version of Genesis most know best did not really come about until the line-up was down to Phil Collins, Tony Banks, and Mike Rutherford — and even then not until their late ’80s releases). We begin in 7/8 time…
“Dance on a Volcano”
In a complex junction of rhythm and accent, Genesis proves they have not any musical talent in the intervening period transitioning from the Gabriel era to the Collins era (and we would do well to remember Phil Collins didn’t want to be the new vocalist in the first place, so any charges against him of greedily turning a great progressive rock band into a mainstream pop machine are thoroughly ungrounded in reality). They are truly superlative musicians. The message of the song is clear enough, once we have waded through the conflicting musical and lyrical barriers intentionally constructed to mimic the ideas presented: life is full of complications and dangers, but it is important. “You better start doing it right.” From the very beginning of the album we are reminded why we should always listen to more Genesis: their music is superb and their lyrics are true.
“Entangled”
“Entangled” is another great example of Genesis’s ability to create a thoroughly musically enjoyable song while simultaneously singing about something frightening or miasmatic. “Miasmatic” works especially well here, considering the song is about a virulent plague and a medical staff only too eager to experiment on patients to find, essentially, a nostrum. On the other hand, we can’t question how beautiful the music is. This album is full of songs aesthetically superior to many albums, including other Genesis albums. The weight of this song increases throughout, making the experience of it exponential until the, as Tony Banks himself put it, “cathedral-like” conclusion. It is reminiscent of “Comfortably Numb” in a loose way, but it never gets as rock-heavy as Pink Floyd’s song. Instead the weight comes from the cohesion of various musical lines, driven by the keyboards and not a guitar solo. It’s still excellent, though.
“Squonk”
“Squonk” is one of those songs you think, from afar, that can’t really work that well, can it? people aren’t going to like it that much, are they? But somehow, Genesis made it work. Dipping back briefly into their “songs inspired by myth” mode, Genesis crafts a multi-sectioned song using typical fairy tale accoutrement alluding to the squonk (a ferocious animal in the forests of Pennsylvania that dissolves into tears when captured, according to some), though in typical Genesis fashion, the squonk captured here is not ferocious after all, but a simple, quiet creature preferring to be left alone, afraid of everything, likened to an ugly duckling. It’s not an anti-hunting song, it’s not a pro-forestry song … it’s another impressive Genesis “getting you to think about it” song, driven by musicianship.
“Mad Man Moon”
Continuing the construction premise of multiple musical sections, “Mad Man Moon” is a kind of ternary form. I’m tempted to call this song more “conventionally pretty” than “Entangled,” but I don’t want that to be taken as a slight against “Mad Man Moon.” It truly is a lovely song — Tony Banks’s lyrics are typical Genesis, in that they are evocative and sweet and painful and revivifying at once. The opening section of longing tinged with regret slowly blends into the middle section of the Sandman, whose castanets and syncopation bring the dreamer/narrator back to the opening melodic section, forcing him and us out of our dreams. We, too, are “forever caught in desert lands,” but we should heed their warning and not “disbelieve the sea.” There is more to life than this, but we don’t need to dream to find it or escape ourselves now.
“Robbery, Assault and Battery”
The middle “Sandman” section of the previous song feels like it comes back again, mixed with a call-back to “The Battle of Epping Forest” from Selling England by the Pound. It’s easy to consider this the weak link on the album, but it’s not as easy to support that claim with meaningful reasoning, other than because it feels so much like “Epping Forest” on a localized scale (individual crimes and felonious altercations, not a massive gang war) it’s not outstanding as the rest of the album. This is not even a fair criticism, I admit — musically it is engaging and full of variety, as so much of the album is. The atypical syncopation has not gotten tiresome, even after so much use; it’s just one of those songs that doesn’t quite seem to get where it wants to be, but even still the journey there isn’t all that bad. I know this is faint praise; perhaps the best I can do now is to say the song deserves far more appreciation than I have given it. Give it a go yourself.
“Ripples…”
Though most of our collections don’t have the ellipsis, it was there originally, and likewise this song does a tremendous job reminding us of the major musical ideas on the album, fitting much better in with the album as a whole. Again we have a song characterized by the weight of its sounds. It tries to overwhelm us with beauty, and it comes pretty close. If you enjoy songs that are beautiful and worth delighting in, you have found another one, thanks to Genesis. Delight in this song, friends. The extended musical break toward the close of the song reminds us of “After the Ordeal” and “The Cinema Show” from Selling England, but that can’t possibly ever be a bad thing. Don’t be bothered by the lyric reminding us the good times of the past leave and don’t come back. It is never too late to seek a newer world. The point of life is to move on the beauty to come — take those memories with you as you sail away to a better life to come.
“A Trick of the Tail”
The penultimate song on this potentially-ultimate album sounds like a mix of “Squonk” and “Robbery,” but that is also not intended as a criticism. It works well, in part because of the shorter length of this song — it doesn’t allow itself to drag on too long in its imitative mood. The fantastical lyrics loosely influenced by William Golding’s second novel The Inheritors (again, “loosely”) remind us more often than we like to remember the grass is not greener in other pastures. If we are not content with what we have now, we will be utterly disappointed wherever we go to find more or other things. Let’s not be too hasty to leave the cities of gold we are in now, as Candide himself showed us long ago as well. Better to dream of unnamed streets of gold, anyway. Leave the searching for cities of gold to Esteban and his friends.
“Los Endos”
Leave it to Genesis to conclude an album driven mostly by beautiful sounds with an instrumental displaying once again their musicianship. Combining various motifs of most (if not all) of the other songs on the album, “Los Endos” is a perfect “exit music” piece recalling to our aural memories some of the highlights of the forgotten gem we have just heard. Perhaps more impressive is that the song works by itself, even if you haven’t heard the original sources. Banks, Collins, Hackett, and Rutherford blend the best bits of previous material into an enjoyably new musical experience in its own right. We should expect nothing less from these masters of music. If you are wary of Peter Gabriel’s concept album era, if you are tired of Phil Collin’s radio-friendly pop era, well, first of all, quite frankly, that’s rather silly. Stop that (I say to you in love). Then give this middle period album, A Trick of the Tail, a try. It has a great deal of the best of both other eras with very little of the potential drawbacks. You will really enjoy this forgotten gem.
Redeeming Pandora 