Discussion of the B5 Novels (Spoilers)

[AsIs]

Vir traded Miral to Durla because the sight of her reminded him of how low he sunk. It was painful for him to be around her because of what he had done. And it also presented him with the opportunity to get intelligence for his movement. He used her, plain and simple. He wasn't malevolent. But even if the ends are just, using someone is evil.

Is Vir as dark as Londo, hell no! But he is not untouched by darkness as Londo believes.

[ProfCrash]

I do think that Vir's asking Galen to make Mariel love him indicates that he is not the same person we once knew. Vir knows, as does Galen,that he is not doing it to get information or build a resistence but to get revenge. The information and the like is a nice side dish but it is not the real reason.

Then Vir gives Mariel to Durla. Why? To gain more info but more because he could not stand having her near him knowing what he did. Every day, every night he saw her pining for him and he knows that the affection is not genuine.

Can you imagine Vir ever doing this or condoning this behavior prior to B5 ending? Had he found out Londo had done something like this, he would have flipped.

Does this make him evil? No. Does it signify that the Vir who looked for soultions that would not hurt people is gone? Yes. Does it signify that the Vir who was willing to sacrifice himself before intentionally hurting someone is gone? Yes. Does it mean that the Vir who was appalled at his fiances role in killing Narns was gone? Yes. Because he did the same thing.

He was willing to sacrifice Mariel, not for the cause, but to appease his injured ego. That was a huge change and to try and say that it wasn't a big deal I think is missing a great deal. Even Vir says that he has damned himself by taking that action.

[iznardy]

well, here's my "Grand Scheme" take on Vir:

From the very beginning, Vir has been an "outsider" on Centauri Prime. He isn't part of the cliche of courtiers who wield power and he isn't respected by them or by the heads of the houses.

Basically, he's just a numnutz who was conveniently sent to a distant post.

Ironically, Vir, with his aversion to all the established Centauri values (toadyism, blackmail, assassination, political manuevering, jingoism, etc.) becomes the antithesis of the Old Order. He is Centauri Prime's conscience, the guy who wants to work with the League of Non-Aligned Worlds and who tries to assist the Narn in escaping Centauri oppression. And--more through Londo's efforts then his own--he's carried into the corridors of power.

In the Legions of Fire book, Centauri Prime can only be saved is someone oppposes the drakh. Londo tries to do it, and is in a good position to do it, because he is an experienced fighter in political arenas and knows exactly how the Court works. But the drahk take him out of the contest by controlling him.

The Old Order, represented by Durla and his minions, are no threat to the drakh because they are too busy with their own agenda and with political infighting to even realize the threat.

That means someone like Vir has to organize a movement that will overthrow both the Old Order and the drahk. But if Vir fights in the old Centauri fashion--using blackmail, power mongering, and assassination to claw his way up the social ladder--then he will fail. Because he will simply become yet another cog in the Old Order, equally corrupts and debauched.

What happens in Legions is that Vir uses members of the Old Order to bring down the Old Order. We sympathize with the fate of Mariel because we see her mostly in her "new" personality--the engineered personality that she displays after Galen alters her motives. In fact, this is a "false" Mariel. Mariel was a scheming, murderous social climber, not very different from Durla, and certainly a lot different from either Vir or Timov. Left to herself, Mariel would never have worked against the established Order on Prime. She only does it because of the technomage's changes to her motivations.

Okay, so did Vir punish Mariel for selfish reasons and hurt pride? Sure. Does he regret it? Sure. But that's in part a sign that the old Vir is still around. Did the Old Order on Centauri Prime ever care about who they victimized? Did Lord Refa, or Cartagia, or Durla? No, never. They had no consciences.

By the end of the story, Vir, though his own actions, and through things that people do to him, is no longer an "innocent." But he maintains a lot more of his original innocence than other veterans of Centauri politics. His coming to power represents the birth of the New Order. Vir will never rule the way Cartagia or the Regent or Londo did. He will never tolerate the kinds of abuses of power that were a regular part of Court in previous reigns.

To imply that Vir has lost his old self is to say that he is diminished as a person by his actions in Legions. I can't see it that way. If anything, he's an example of how a basically good person has to make hard decisions. I still think his "using" Mariel is an example of a mistake, or a moment of weakness, that he went through and regrets; I don't think its an example of a darkness inside him.