By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 25 seconds ago

Babylon 5 We remember so affectionately today, more than 30 years after its creation, thanks to the narrowly woven story and the singular vision of the creator J. Michael Straczynski, but it is not the rise of John Sheridan, The Shadow War or the PSI-Corps which represent everything that is large in the series. Instead, it is the tragic saga of enemies that have not completely become friends but nevertheless respectful rivals, Londo, the ambassador of Centauri, and G’kar, the ambassador of Narn, who go from funny characters to make the public cry at the end of the series. In a series of space opera on intergalactic war and ancient civilizations, the greatest moment is a quiet conversation between two men who wanted nothing more than looking at the other to die first.

Two species at war

When the public is presented for the first time in the world of Babylon 5Londo (played like a drunk Shakespeare in the park by the park by Peter Jurasik) is the ambassador of noisy and too friendly Centauri who will take any lull in the conversation to boast of the power of the Empire, while G’kar (played by Andreas Katsulas, capable of emothing under a face of proshetics and makeup). Throughout season 1, the two are mainly characters to a note, and while entertaining even in this role, it is halfway in season 2 that the two ambassadors experience a dramatic change in their position which places them on the way to become the best part of the series.

In season 2 episode 9, “The Coming of Shadows”, the relationship between Londo and G’kar changes, while we also see, through the prophetic visions of the Centauri, that the two will kill themselves as old people. When the dying Centauri emperor passes to G’kar a message he is sorry for what the Empire did to the Narn, G’kar is delighted, going so far as to sit with pleasure and have a drink with Londo. What Narn’s ambassador does not know is that the hours earlier, at the request of Londo, the Centauri launched an attack on a colony of Narn.

With their species at war with each other, Londo and G’kar pass the next seasons bickering in public, becoming openly hostile and yet, over time, they begin to learn slowly how much on the shoulders of the other, the size of a burden that each carries, and their flamboyant hatred for each other starts slowly to cool. Very slowly.

The perfect stage flight duo

Both in the same scene are required to produce at least an astonishing line of line or face, including when the two are trapped in an elevator during the episode of season 3 “Convictions”, when G’kar is excited that he “has nothing to do and I can always watch you die!” The total disappointment that the NARN feels when he finally saved a brilliant and dark sequence which implies nothing more than two characters who hate each other.

During season 5, Londo and G’kar linked to the point where, during “A view of the gallery”, Mack, one of the technicians of the Babylon 5 station, hears the two quarrels and remarks: “So how long do you understand?” Even the two rivals formerly heated end up recognizing their respect for each other, and all of this led to Londo finally realizing his dream of life to become an emperor, only to realize that it means to abandon his own life.

The beating heart of Babylon 5

Before crossing the Imperial Palace to get on the throne, and the disastrous consequences that accompany it, Londo and G’kar share a single moment between them, when an exchange carries the weight of five seasons and years of understanding. While the future emperor finds it difficult to express himself, and how he will fail to see his friend, the NARN stands, and with more emotion than you expect from a network science fiction Series, that “Mollari, understand that I can never forgive your people for what they have done to our world. My people can never forgive your people. But I … I can forgive … you. “

All J. Michael Straczynski meant with Babylon 5 comes to the head in this powerful moment, which helps to raise the whole show above its contemporaries of the 90s. When the series was created for the first time, no one would have guessed the two most strangers of the main distribution of season 1 would become, by the last season, the beating heart of the series and, for many fans, the real stars. Londo and G’kar, thanks to the perfect combination once in the life of JMS writing and real chemistry of Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas, are the greatest appearance on the screen of not only stranger Characters, but all the science fiction characters from the 90s.