Is Jeffrey Sinclair a Tragic Figure? (B5)

[Stravo]

Jeffrey Sinclair, the first commander of the Babylon 5 station, later to be Ranger 1 and finally goes back in time with Babylon 4 to become Valen, the most revered figure in Minbari history and win the last shadow war. I know he is portrayed to be heroic. He is the "closed circle" according to Kosh, the Entil'Zha, he fulfills a great destiny. However I could never help feeling sorry for the guy.

What's so tragic though? Well, for starters he completely adopted the Vorlon way of thinking and essentially became a mouthpiece for them. We see a hint of this before World without End when he sends a message to Garibaldi in Coming of Shadows and says "Stay close to the Vorlon and watch for shadows"

The Vorlons are waiting for him when he goes back in time and it is their backing that helps sell him to the Minbari (according to rpg material) and in the end makes the Minbari into the society that they are by the time of B5 which in many ways are the right hand of the Vorlons.

What's wrong with that? Well, not more than a season later the Vorlons are blowing up planets and exposed to be the manipulative douches that they are. Yet, poor Sinclair already left on his little trip back in time just to be able to be the Vorlon dupe and buy into their philosophical slant hook line and sinker and lead an entire race down that path. It's like leaving to be a missionary in some distant land only to have the church you represent turn out to be a satanic cult all along but you never find out.

More importantly, of all the characters in B5 Sinclair has the least free will and choice in his destiny. From the get go the Minbari have manipulated him, put a hole in his mind to cover up his interrogation at the Battle of the Line, had him assigned to command B5, watched him closely, hid things from him and with the help of Delenn much like the Vorlons did to us, they tried to condition him to have a favorable view of Minbari. When he is forced off B5 at the end of season 1 they manipulate things to have him assigned as the ambassador to Minbar where the indoctrination obviously becomes more intense.

The next time we see him he is wearing Minbari robes and commanding the nascent Rangers as Ranger 1. By the time we see him again in War without End he has fully bought into his indoctrination and accepted his destiny, ironically because the last bit of manipulation came from himself in a note written by Valen to Sinclair 1,000 years earlier.

When he takes his trip back in time he tells Delenn that he feels free because he knows what is coming and is fully embracing his destiny. It ends with him greeting the Minbari of 1000 years ago flanked by the Vorlons.

There really was no other road open to him by the end of season 1. We know he wanted to be married to Sakai and maybe even leave the military and try to start a family but that was not going to happen because the Minbari and Vorlons would not let it happen. I think he was partly aware of this manipulation because in the montage that plays during his trip back in time they do play the clip of the Soul Hunter who berates him that the Minbari are using him. But in the end he decided to embrace his destiny not because he wanted to but because in a way he was told to, finally and most poignantly by his own hand in a letter. It is only when he read that letter that he seemed to admit he no longer had any doubts.

By contrast John Sheriden takes up his destiny of his own free will. He defies Kosh and forces him to send a fleet to fight the shadows, he ignores the warnings that say he will die if he goes to Zha'hadum and does so anyway, and in one of the greatest scense in B5 he finally finds something worth living for and surrenders himself to Tock (death). Sinclair was never seemingly given those choices, never defied anyone, he did what he thought people wanted him to do. In other words Sinclair became a man others wanted him to be and I don't think really became himself. I find that the most tragic thing of all about the character.

Anyway what do my fellow B5ers say? Am I off about his characterization?

[Thanas]

This is a great post, Stravo. I will think some more about this and then respond in full.

[Knife]

I guess you can read it that way, I always thought about it in the classic time travel paradox type story telling. If some Minbari and probably the Vorlon's knew he was Valen, they had to 'mold', 'guide' him to fulfill his destiny or mess up a thousand years of history. Even this makes him a tragic character.

[Stravo]

I guess you can read it that way, I always thought about it in the classic time travel paradox type story telling. If some Minbari and probably the Vorlon's knew he was Valen, they had to 'mold', 'guide' him to fulfill his destiny or mess up a thousand years of history. Even this makes him a tragic character.

Agreed, I know I'm being hard on the Minbari and the Vorlons here. From their point of view what choice did they have? If Sinclair abandoned his destiny everyone is fucked. Either way he was trapped from the start.

[Tsyroc]

I guess you can read it that way, I always thought about it in the classic time travel paradox type story telling. If some Minbari and probably the Vorlon's knew he was Valen, they had to 'mold', 'guide' him to fulfill his destiny or mess up a thousand years of history. Even this makes him a tragic character.

Agreed, I know I'm being hard on the Minbari and the Vorlons here. From their point of view what choice did they have? If Sinclair abandoned his destiny everyone is fucked. Either way he was trapped from the start.

I think in the book To Dream in the City of Sorrows it's implied that Sakai somehow manages to get together with Sinclair in the past. At least Marcus receives a very old note in Sinclair's handwriting that says, "Thank you, from us both".

If that is the case then he found his direction and was able to be with the woman he loved.

[Ragnarok]

I guess you can read it that way, I always thought about it in the classic time travel paradox type story telling. If some Minbari and probably the Vorlon's knew he was Valen, they had to 'mold', 'guide' him to fulfill his destiny or mess up a thousand years of history. Even this makes him a tragic character.

Agreed, I know I'm being hard on the Minbari and the Vorlons here. From their point of view what choice did they have? If Sinclair abandoned his destiny everyone is fucked. Either way he was trapped from the start.

I think in the book To Dream in the City of Sorrows it's implied that Sakai somehow manages to get together with Sinclair in the past. At least Marcus receives a very old note in Sinclair's handwriting that says, "Thank you, from us both".

If that is the case then he found his direction and was able to be with the woman he loved.

That book is as canon as it gets too. It was written by JMS's wife, from his outline.

[NecronLord]

Let's see, he saved the Minbari from extermination, and saved the galaxy from ruthless beating at the hands of the Shadows for a thousand years. Yes, the Vorlons are bad, but people tend to forget just how fucking awful the Shadows are.

People take the Vorlons' actions much more harshly because in a sense the Vorlons betray the audience's expectations. But it must be remembered that comparatively, the Vorlons are by a very very long way the lesser evil.

The Vorlons only started blowing up worlds when the conflict escalated and when they were given an opportunity to actually wipe out the Shadows - while Sheridan asserts that is not their war aim, they are pretty clearly gunning for it according to every other scene. Both the Vorlons and the Shadows seem to be taking it seriously, and while 'you don't want to answer that do you' suggests that the Vorlons have not been trying previously, they have also not been on a general war offensive of that nature before. Even Morden says at this point, the Shadows are scared, and want to hide behind the Centauri presumably because they think the Vorlons are coming for them directly. The Vorlons never exterminated a species, as can be demonstrated by the fact that the Shadows seriously think that hiding their military might on Centauri prime will protect it 'they don't have the will' and certainly they have never exterminated a species for declaring their neutrality.

Saying 'The Vorlons are bad' is to reduce them to a caricature of evil. Even the Shadows are more complex than that, and they mete out buckets of suffering to anything weaker than themselves.

We see clearly in War Without End that the Vorlon/Minbari/Valen victory had meaning in preventing vast amounts of suffering. Forcing the Shadows into a thousand years of hibernation prevented them say, blowing up refugee ships to see who's the stronger for a thousand years.

It is also worth noting that the death of Kosh represents a change in dominant Vorlon philosophy in dealing with other races; Valen dealt with Kosh (to the point that Kosh recognized him in the pilot and wanted to greet him as a friend) and probably was the Vorlon he dealt with most closely.

In addition to winning the Last Shadow War, Valen managed to set up a social order that enabled a literal thousand years of internal peace for an entire species.

So, his personal achievements are at least saving the lives of countless Minbari who would have been killed in civil wars, were it not for the Gray Council, and with the Vorlons' backing, he saved probably billions from death in the Shadows' wars, thousands from mind-rape and forced integration with shadow vessels, and many millions more from slavery and oppression in the kind of social orders the Shadows prefer (say, Centauri occupation of Narn). This is hardly a life without meaning.

These are both real achievements, and while one may attribute them to the Vorlons, by that measure, we can attribute everything Sheridan did to Lorien, and also conclude that he is an unwitting dupe for the Speakers' agenda.

[Stark]

Achievements don't affect human tragedy. If they'd picked someone else to be their time-patsy, Sinclair could have had a life in which he achieved his own happiness, and not the happiness of others.

The laugh that the 'social order' he created nearly destroyed his own species is just the most obvious tradegy. It really does suck to be Sinclair.

[NecronLord]

Achievements don't affect human tragedy. If they'd picked someone else to be their time-patsy, Sinclair could have had a life in which he achieved his own happiness, and not the happiness of others.

This firstly presupposes that he's unhappy, which is both contradicted by canon, and presupposes that contrary to his entire character, he would actually elect not to do any of those things and doesn't find happiness in say, leading a just war (he is a professional soldier by choice, and later the leader of the rangers by choice, and he expressed no qualms about becoming Valen) or any of the other cool shit being Minbari-Jesus got him.

[Batman]

He might not find happiness in it but I still think he would have done it. Which I think is what truly makes him a tragic character. He chooses to abandon the life he knows, the woman he loves, not because he wants to, but because he knows it needs to be done. The needs of the many vs the needs of the few(or the one)-sound familiar? Sinclair chose the needs of the many. But he chose. Just as Sheridan chose to give Kosh the finger.

[Stark]

Yeah, because of the situation and the kind of man, he is doomed to his fate. this is 'tragedy'.

[Ahriman238]

I don't really see him as a tragic figure, except perhaps in the sense that his whole life was temporally predestined, but he didn't seem to bothered by it. Can you really say that his life in the distant past was meaningless if he singlehandedly saved civilization? I don't know if his woman somehow made it back later, but we know he had at least a few children.

Though... he did try and change events just before going into the past. Any answers for that?

[Patrick Degan]

Sinclair would be a tragic figure if, instead, the horrors of a thousand years of nearly unceasing warfare had unfolded anyway despite his best efforts to avert such a fate.

[Ragnarok]

The Vorlons only started blowing up worlds when the conflict escalated and when they were given an opportunity to actually wipe out the Shadows - while Sheridan asserts that is not their war aim, they are pretty clearly gunning for it according to every other scene. Both the Vorlons and the Shadows seem to be taking it seriously, and while 'you don't want to answer that do you' suggests that the Vorlons have not been trying previously, they have also not been on a general war offensive of that nature before. Even Morden says at this point, the Shadows are scared, and want to hide behind the Centauri presumably because they think the Vorlons are coming for them directly. The Vorlons never exterminated a species, as can be demonstrated by the fact that the Shadows seriously think that hiding their military might on Centauri prime will protect it 'they don't have the will' and certainly they have never exterminated a species for declaring their neutrality.

I don't exactly agree with the Vorlons when they had the chance that they were going to go full out against the Shadows. Even when they brought out their Planetkillers, the Vorlons weren't committing the full strength of their forces, just basically trying to eradicate any influence the Shadows had with the younger races and basically reset the game they were playing in their favor. They even went out and stated it, and that's why i'm of the opinion that in the game of ideology, the Vorlons, even though they were manipulating things with minute detail for years were actually losing that ideological war.

By destroying the message that the Shadows had spread throughout the younger races, the Vorlons win by default, and by that, totally fail at the Vigil. Hence the entire reason for Lorien stepping out when Sheridan appeared. He had been locked on Z'ha'dum contemplating his navel for millions of years. This change in the game, and both the Shadows and the Vorlons having lost their way (but the Vorlons to a far greater extent than the Shadows) is the Deux Ex that we saw at Corianna VI. Otherwise, the Younger Races would have stood no chance at all.

[NecronLord]

The Vorlons lost their way more than the Shadows? The Shadows murder entire species for daring not to serve them.

The only way your assertion makes any sense is if you assume the Shadows' bastardry has the merit they think it does.

[Ragnarok]

The Vorlons lost their way more than the Shadows? The Shadows murder entire species for daring not to serve them.

The only way your assertion makes any sense is if you assume the Shadows' bastardry has the merit they think it does.

That's to say that the Vorlons really don't do the same. They almost wiped out the Minbari when they rose up against their teachings. They destroyed the original Drakh homeworld (the Shadows actually saved the Drakh race, even though to them they were already an evolutionary dead end).

I meant that they completely lost their way in the last conflict. By destroying the message the Shadows were spreading, the Vorlons admitted their own defeat in the war of ideology, which was what the Vigil had become to the both of them. It wasn't about taking care of the young races, but rather seeing which of their racial philosophies was right. They were making them choose, and as Sheridan put it... the right choice was to not even choose at all. THAT was the reason Lorien got involved. When it had reached that point with the Speakers, they had either died off, or Lorien had retreated to Z'ha'Dum, and he let the Shadows and Vorlons decide for themselves and they reached a point where they fully knew themselves.

We also know that one of the meanings of actually reaching a level of First One, is that the race reaches a point of such hegemony that they become its embodiment from having learned to know itself so well after millions of years of evolution. Vorlons are Order. Shadows are Chaos. From what we know of all of the other First Ones, this is true as well. The Triad, Torvalus, Mindriders, Kirishiac, and Walkers, they all have one philosophy which their race attached itself to and they become it. Some to a greater extent than others.

The Vigil was hindering this in its present form, so while both the Shadows and Vorlons had lost their way and couldn't answer the questions that had defined them as First Ones anymore, how the Vorlons became at the end -- that the ends justified the means to prove they were right just goes to show just how off the deep end they had gone. Lucky Lorien was there to stop it, or imagine what another Shadow war would have looked like if the younger races had survived this one at all.

[Kane Starkiller]

Let's see, he saved the Minbari from extermination, and saved the galaxy from ruthless beating at the hands of the Shadows for a thousand years. Yes, the Vorlons are bad, but people tend to forget just how fucking awful the Shadows are.

First let me just say that I only know B5 from the TV series and have never read any books.
How do we know what actually happened in the "first" Shadow war? As the Vorlons tell it the forces of light united to defeat Shadows and their servants but as we later find out we need to take everything Vorlons told the younger races with a grain of salt.
Supposedly B4 served as a major station that turned the tide of war but in episode Z'Ha'Dum we see how easily Shadows ships can appear all around B5 without detection. How much of an impact would B4 have?

Even Morden says at this point, the Shadows are scared, and want to hide behind the Centauri presumably because they think the Vorlons are coming for them directly.

Actually it was Londo who said it and the theory doesn't really hold water. When the Vorlons do come to Centauri Prime the Centauri fleet did nothing of consequence. The planetkillers just kept coasting above the planet until called off. Centauri ships are roughly equivalent to Narn ships and we know what Shadow ships can do to Narn. Vorlon battleships are much larger than an average Shadow battleship and after million years of coexistence Shadows most likely knew about 50km Vorlon planetkillers as well. There is really no way that Shadows actually expected to be able to hide behind Centauri; the younger races were no more than a rounding error for the Shadows and Vorlons.


EDI:
Regarding the original question. The way I understand it is that JMS originally wanted to do a Lord of the Rings in space and the Shadows were intended to be the great evil. Only later he decided on the final shape of the story which I thought turned out great but left certain artifacts like Sinclair looking like kind of a dupe.

[Ragnarok]

Let's see, he saved the Minbari from extermination, and saved the galaxy from ruthless beating at the hands of the Shadows for a thousand years. Yes, the Vorlons are bad, but people tend to forget just how fucking awful the Shadows are.

First let me just say that I only know B5 from the TV series and have never read any books.
How do we know what actually happened in the "first" Shadow war? As the Vorlons tell it the forces of light united to defeat Shadows and their servants but as we later find out we need to take everything Vorlons told the younger races with a grain of salt.
Supposedly B4 served as a major station that turned the tide of war but in episode Z'Ha'Dum we see how easily Shadows ships can appear all around B5 without detection. How much of an impact would B4 have?

B4 was upgraded with Vorlon defense systems, and this was the point that the Vorlons started to more openly help the younger races. They recognized Valen for what he was, a nexus. So became more involved in the war. Before Valen, the younger races were completely disorganized and were getting defeated because there was no central planning or organization to make a credible fighting force. Valen changed that. He united Minbari into a cohesive fighting force that actually stood a chance against the Shadows as the Minbari even in that era had pretty impressive technology, as well as the other races that were capable of fighting back then which included the Markab, Yolu who had Minbari level technology as well, the Tak'cha, and some others which still survive to the current era and then he was able to drive back the Shadow advance. The war was a lot longer than what happened during the current era, it was fought over minimum 10 years and was far, far more intense then the war of 2261.

[Uraniun235]

Assuming the Vorlons had always remained neutral, what would have happened when the Shadows went and "knocked over the ant hills" as their spokesman claimed to Sheridan? Did they just blast everyone back down to rough parity and then see who would recover and rearm the fastest, or...?

[Kane Starkiller]

According to their claims had the Vorlons not interfered Shadows would only provoke the start of the war and then let the younger races fight it out to "serve the evolution".

[Stravo]

According to their claims had the Vorlons not interfered Shadows would only provoke the start of the war and then let the younger races fight it out to "serve the evolution".

Using past Shadow Wars as a guide the Shadows create strife between the younger races, forming alliances with some and undercutting others then they get the younger races to fight until some (or most) are exterminiated and the remaining races are now stronger.

Just because your race won the last Shadow War doesn't mean you get left alone. All it means is you've now won the honor of being target number one when the next shadow war starts. Essentially it's all trial by fires and if races die out then that's fine, they were meant to die out eventually the shadows just helped it alone.

Sometimes the shadows join in and openly attack the younger races as they did in the last shadow war or sometimes they do it more from behind the scenes.

The Shadows and Vorlons developed a twisted dance with the ebb and flow of the Shadow Wars. Usually when the Shadows begin to move the Vorlons pull back and let the Shadows run around then the Vorlons move in and unite the disparate races or even openly attack the shadows too to drive them back. Part of the reason Kosh tells Sheridan "It's not yet time, we are not prepared" when he demands the Vorlons join the war effort is not because they were not prepared to fight but because the part of the dance when the Vorlons are supposed to intervene has not yet occurred. It was the shadows turn in the war to be given a free hand.

Edit: Forgot to add that Justin sugar coated what the shadows do. It's not just kicking over an anthill. The wars are designed to exterminate races too weak to survive. I would guess that without Vorlon or Sheriden's intervention we would have seen the extermination of most of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, the Narn and Possibly the Centauri who would have overextended themselves. Leaving Earth and Minbari as clear "winners" until they started over again in a 1,000 years. Perhaps the next shadow war would have been a great war between Earth (Shadow proxies) and Minbar (Vorlon proxies) with all the younger races that arose in the ashes from the dead races caught in between.

[NecronLord]

First let me just say that I only know B5 from the TV series and have never read any books.
How do we know what actually happened in the "first" Shadow war? As the Vorlons tell it the forces of light united to defeat Shadows and their servants but as we later find out we need to take everything Vorlons told the younger races with a grain of salt.

Supposedly B4 served as a major station that turned the tide of war but in episode Z'Ha'Dum we see how easily Shadows ships can appear all around B5 without detection. How much of an impact would B4 have?

When we first see it in that war, B4 is guarded by two small Vorlon ships. Presumably they and their larger vessels would also intervene against Shadows directly attacking it.

Actually it was Londo who said it and the theory doesn't really hold water.

Straight out of the subtitle track, Morden:

- The Vorlons... - Will never attack Centauri Prime.
Small colonies, deep-range planets, sure.
But to destroy a world as big as this? No.
- They don't have the will.

The Vorlon High Command must never have ordered the destruction of a target with as many innocents on it as Centauri Prime for that to make any logical sense. The Shadows destroyed an entire young race's population out of spite during the last Shadow War (see above, the Crusade episode Racing the Night)

To say that the Vorlons are just as bad as the Shadows is laughable.

When the Vorlons do come to Centauri Prime the Centauri fleet did nothing of consequence. The planetkillers just kept coasting above the planet until called off. Centauri ships are roughly equivalent to Narn ships and we know what Shadow ships can do to Narn. Vorlon battleships are much larger than an average Shadow battleship and after million years of coexistence Shadows most likely knew about 50km Vorlon planetkillers as well. There is really no way that Shadows actually expected to be able to hide behind Centauri; the younger races were no more than a rounding error for the Shadows and Vorlons.

They expected to hide behind the Centauri's civilian population not their warships. They do not think the Vorlons would be prepared to murder three billion innocent people (although they themselves do it at the drop of a hat).

[NecronLord]

And, let's get this straight while we're at it; the Vorlons' planet killer attacks were less outrageous than the Shadows' too - while the Vorlons were unquestionably going to attack Centauri Prime and Coriana VI, and murder billions there, the Shadows send their Death Cloud against planets that were not even involved in the war as in Dureena's homeworld in A Call to Arms/Crusade, exterminating her entire species.

Beyond being said to be neutral in a top level canon production (and only vaguely implied to be vorlon-influenced in RPG works) there has never been any indication of a single Vorlon or Vorlon vessel on in or around Zander Prime at the time.

The Vorlons were at least attacking the enemy. The Shadows were blowing up innocent people for its own sake.

N.B. No, the above isn't to defend them, they're still murderous asstards. I cheered when the First Ones arrived and stomped on the Planet Killer at Coriana VI. The Shadows are just yet more murderous.

[NecronLord]

That's to say that the Vorlons really don't do the same. They almost wiped out the Minbari when they rose up against their teachings.

Blindingly stupid RPG dross I deliberately excluded.

They destroyed the original Drakh homeworld (the Shadows actually saved the Drakh race, even though to them they were already an evolutionary dead end).

Blindingly stupid wargame/RPG dross I deliberately excluded.

These episodes also effectively contradict the canon in that they require the Shadows to be making major strategic decisions on the predicate that the Vorlons have never attacked a world with billions of innocent people on it before... even though they have done so repeatedly (though one could certainly suppose the Drakh were all entirely evil at the time, they certainly do a good impression of that later, in which case, good on the Vorlons). The Shadows should not be that dumb, thus these incidents should be reckoned spurious.

Darkness and Light manages to somewhat hammer out the stupid of these episodes from past RPG products, if you've not read the original source-books... don't. Really, especially the Minbari one.

Still, I'm willing to play ball and use that stuff. If we admit RPG material, the Shadows' idea of a perfect universe is one in which everyone suffers infinite pain all the time. I can give page reference and quote if desired. The Shadows are inordinately worse than the Vorlons, in that system, who consider their ultimate goal to prevent the heat death of the universe.

As an aside, the genius of Darkness and Light is that one can excuse some of the more groanworthy bits written into the collective background over the years as the product of the other side's propaganda, as it is presented as a historical and somewhat speculative record from a very remote time in the future.