Re: parallel visuals between MotFL and CoS...yes, precisely. In some
ways, they were set up as mirror-image parallels of one another, to show
how the wheel turns, to quote G'Kar. The opening council meeting, the
attacks, the determination to kill the other, alternately Garibaldi or
Sheridan having to stop them by calling on the question of consequences if
followed up on...it shows CoS as sort of the "dark mirror" of the first
episode. Everything we saw when we first thought we knew what the series
was has now totally reversed and been turned on its head.

They also focus on one of the main questions that B5 addreses itself
to: what is important to you? what are you willing to sacrifice? how far
are you willing to go to get what you want? For me, a large measure of
defining WHO we are is by WHAT we are willing to do, and what we want, and
the means by which we pursue those goals. The other theme of course is
sacrifice, which recurs throughout the show in one form or another.

Sometimes, I think, people get so caught up in what's happening and
why that they miss what it's *about* on a more cellular level. And that's
the question of who we are. Identity. The importance of *one single
person* and the ability of that person to act as a fulcrum, intentionally
or otherwise, upon which vast events can turn. Choices. What you value
most. Those, to me, are the issues most worth exploring. We're told
every day, beaten down with the notion that we're powerless, that we
can't change things, you can't fight city hall...and of course it's not
true. You can fight. And sometimes, you can even win.

jms