100 sci fi women #68: Private Elizabeth (Dodger) Durman

So I know I have been a bit slack with this list of late, possibly because I need new inspiration – but you can always leave suggestions or entire posts at godardsletterboxes@gmail.com or in the comments. Today’s post comes from Flaming Culture.

Private Elizabeth (Dodger) Durman

I like to think of Babylon 5’s  Dodger as one the best female science fiction TV characters that never was.  She appears in exactly two episodes of Babylon 5 and in the second one she’s dead.  Private Elizabeth Durman, or ‘Dodger’, makes her entrance in the Season 2 episode, ‘GROPOS’, which stands for Ground Pounders – B5 slang for the twenty-second century ground troops who briefly stop over at Babylon 5, much to the consternation of the more decorous Earth Force Officers who staff the station.

While at the station, Dodger takes a fancy to Security Chief Michael Garibaldi, but when he mistakes her as looking for a relationship and implicitly accuses her of complicating his life, Dodger takes him down with a great speech that demolishes his assumptions about what she wanted from him.  They patch it up before the end of the episode, but Dodger is sadly killed in action along with most of the other Ground Pounders.  The episode feels designed to make a point about the tragedy and waste of war, and is a lesson in the importance of seizing the day because you never know how long you’re going to be around to enjoy it.  But Dodger is such a strong character that Neil Gaiman resurrects her in the episode he wrote for Season 5, ‘Day of Dead’, when an alien ritual gives some of the characters the chance to talk with dead people from their past.  Garibaldi’s encounter is with Dodger, who remains just as awesome post-mortem.

Despite her character’s short life-span, I think Dodger deserves recognition for her role in the development of female characters in science fiction TV.  She’s not unlike Battlestar Galactica’s Starbuck, only without the neuroses and self-loathing.  There’s nothing apologetic or self-pitying about Dodger: she’s totally herself, at ease with her sexuality, has a great sense of humour and is full of life, even after death.

I didn’t come here expecting to set up housekeeping. I’m a Ground Pounder.  I’m cleaning latrines one day, the next I might be up to my hips in blood hoping that I don’t hear the round that takes me out. You got it? In between I like to see what I can get to remind myself that I’m alive.  Right, it’s not romance, but it’s all I got time for.  I’m so sorry it’s not enough for you.

100 sci fi women #34: Delenn

Today’s contribution is once again from Teadrinker, which is lucky because I have been shockingly slack of late.

Ambassador Delenn  Babylon 5

Ambassador Delenn travels a difficult path over the course of Babylon 5. She begins the show as a powerful and mysterious member of the Minbari government. Her desire to promote understanding between humans and Minbari leads her to undergo a dramatic change and become a minbari/human hybrid. (Don’t ask how. There was a triangle thing and a cocoon involved and that’s as much as I can tell you). Finding herself an object of suspicion to both sides, ejected from the ruling council of the Minbari and faced with the oncoming Shadow war, Delenn has to work to rebuild her life and regain her sense of wholeness. What’s interesting about Delenn is that her character is based on tension, particularly between her moral and spiritual goals and her more impulsive, violent tendencies. She is extremely religious (she belongs to a religious caste) brave, compassionate and puts great value on life. But, like most of the Minbari, she has an edge and, when challenged, can be very ruthless. As a consequence of her violent side, she has to deal with her guilt over her role in the start of the brutal Earth v. Minbari war which ended 10 years before the show’s start date. She can also be secretive, but gradually opens up and reveals a more playful side in her romance with the station’s Captain, John Sheridan. Delenn and Sheridan marry at the end of Season 4 and their relationship is refreshing in its equality. The show represents them as two people for whom work is crucial and who give each other space to do what they need to do. Croatian actress, Mira Furlan, plays the role with absolute conviction throughout the series and gives us one of the more intriguing women in science fiction television.

John! It pleases me that you care for what I have become. But never forget who I was, what I am, and what I can do.