Lady Morella's prophecies about Londo

[Cold Fuzz]

I notice that there's never been a thread discussing Lady Morella's prophecies about Londo from "Point of No Return." The interpretation of one of them has been confirmed by jms himself while the others are still open, as are most prophecies.

I believe Lady Morella's speech went as follows: "You have three chances to avoid the fire that waits for you at the end of your journey. You have already wasted two others. You must save the eye that does not see. You must not kill the one who is already dead. You must surrender to your greatest fear, knowing that it will destroy you. If, at the end, you have failed with all the others, that is your final chance for redemption."

"The eye that does not see" has been confirmed by jms to be G'Kar's eye that was plucked out by Cartagia:

Why didn't Londo try to save G'Kar's eye?
Yeah...would've been nice if Londo had at least tried to do something about the eye that did not see Cartagia's splendor....

Everything else, as I said, is open to interpretation.

[maneth]

My guess is that the one who's already dead means Sheridan.

[SaberBlade]

"You must save the eye that does not see" is G'Kar.

Londo did nothing to stop Cartagia and this lead to him giving over control of an island to the Shadows, which ultimately screwed Londo as the Drakh wanted revenge. If he had just killed Cartagia when he had the chance, the Shadow's may never have been on Centauri Prime to begin with. So he failed that one

"You must not kill the one who is already dead" is Morden, who according to official records was dead.

After getting rid of the Shadows, he could have left Morden alive which may have an affect on the Drakh's interest on Centauri Prime. The Vorlon's were destroying planets with Shadow influences, so fair enough that the Centauri would want rid of the Shadows, but it went beyond that when Londo killed Morden as well, and then put his head on a pike. So he failed this one too.

"You must surrender to your greatest fear, knowing that it will destroy you" is him accepting there is nothing more he can do Centauri Prime, that it's basically all ****ed and that he has to die for things to change.

This was also his redemption as Vir would become Emperor, get rid of the Drakh and help rebuild the planet and create ties with the Alliance again. He had to accept that there was nothing else that could be done and as a result, that destroyed him as he had to be killed for the Drakh to be defeated.

[flobo]

I had always thought the one already dead was sheridan but it works indeed much better with morden. Great thinking .

[mad_gater]

yeah....anyone who would willingly side with such darkness and evil is already dead inside and as such their body is nothing more than a shell of their former selves

[Cold Fuzz]

Morden's true motivations (at least according to the canon novels) for siding with the Shadows are pretty surprising. His wife and children were apparently trapped somewhere in hyperspace. The Shadows, of course, led Morden to believe that their predicament was somehow his fault and that they would "rescue" his family if he served them.

Morden definitely could quality as the one who is already dead. If the "O" in one were capitalized though, the One who is already dead could definitely apply to Sheridan as well.

[s09119]

I always took the "surrender" line to mean allowing the Drakh to put a Keeper on him. It destroyed his life as he knew it and, for all intents and purposes, enslaved him. But in allowing himself to be essentially taken hostage, Centauri Prime was spared complete destruction by the Shadows' surviving allies... and Londo was allowed to keep on living.

[TwoLL's]

"The eye that does not see" has been confirmed by jms to be G'Kar's eye that was plucked out by Cartagia.

What I’d really like from JMS is an explanation as to how saving G’Kar’s eye was supposed to save him from his ultimate fate. Not that it wouldn’t have been nice for Londo to try and do something about G’Kar’s eye, but at that point he was already planning to kill Cartagia and get rid of the Shadow vessels based on Centauri Prime. He even managed to free Narn the way things worked out. Punishing him because he failed to save G’Kar’s eye in the process seems a little mean and I don’t see how it was supposed to change the whole arc of what ultimately happened to Londo and Centauri Prime.

As to the other two, Morden doesn’t make a lot of sense, since he was vowing revenge for what Londo did to the Shadow vessels when he was being taken away (a prophecy of his own?). Saving him would have endangered Londo’s whole planet both via the Vorlon planet killer and the fact that he would likely have brought the Drahk back with him anyway.

Though to be fair, it does make more sense than Sheridan. After all, Lady Morella promised that Londo could avoid his final fate if he did not kill the one who was already dead, and that if he failed all the others he would have a final chance at redemption by surrendering to his greatest fear and being destroyed. If one assumes the last refers to allowing G’Kar to kill him, and the former to Sheridan, he actually accomplishes both. He didn’t kill Sheridan, which by rights should have meant he already managed to avoid the fate that was to befall him. Since he obviously didn’t avoid that fate, Sheridan can’t be the one referred to. It had to be someone he did end up killing, like Morden.

If it was Morden though, it is another one where I would like to see just how his survival was supposed to save Londo (and presumably Centauri Prime) from their fate.

[SaberBlade]

I don't think that it was necessarily the eye of G'Kar that would save Londo, but the realisation that Cartagia was mental and needed to be stopped. If Londo had done something about Cartagia before the eye was taken out, the new Emperor would have no reason to punish G'Kar (as it was Cartagia's present to Londo) so the eye would be saved. He would not have given permission for the Shadow's to set up a base which would have spared Londo from killing Morden and blowing the crap out of that island.

All of this in turn, would have kept the Drakh away from Centauri Prime as it was because of Londo they were interested in it.

Londo spent most of time trying to convince the Emperor into doing things differently because he wanted to save his people, but if he had just killed Cartagia before everything was set in motion, everything would have been completely different. Morden fits with "must not kill the one who is already dead" long before Sheridan died at Zahadum.

At least that is my theory, perhaps I should spam JMS' email account to get him to confirm/deny it.

[nx01a]

I don't think that it was necessarily the eye of G'Kar that would save Londo, but the realisation that Cartagia was mental and needed to be stopped. If Londo had done something about Cartagia before the eye was taken out, the new Emperor would have no reason to punish G'Kar (as it was Cartagia's present to Londo) so the eye would be saved. He would not have given permission for the Shadow's to set up a base which would have spared Londo from killing Morden and blowing the crap out of that island.

All of this in turn, would have kept the Drakh away from Centauri Prime as it was because of Londo they were interested in it.

Londo spent most of time trying to convince the Emperor into doing things differently because he wanted to save his people, but if he had just killed Cartagia before everything was set in motion, everything would have been completely different. Morden fits with "must not kill the one who is already dead" long before Sheridan died at Zahadum.

At least that is my theory, perhaps I should spam JMS' email account to get him to confirm/deny it.

Not killing Sheridan [and Delenn] in the 'future' of 'War Without End' was Londo's final chance, I think, and the one referenced by not killing the one already dead. Morden may have been injured during the nuclear blast, but he was regenerated by the Shadows. Sheridan was DEAD! Sheridan is The Man!

[Dimbo_Sama]

For killing Cartagia out-right. Londo would of been hanged, drawn, and quartered.. He was trying to serve his people's best interests whilst keeping himself alive. And after Cartagia died, he would of learned of Mordens' involvement in the death of Adira and would of tried to kill him anyway. The thing being he wouldn't of been in the position of Prime Minister to plan any of what he did. He would be in prison, and if by some chance he did get to and kill Morden the Shadows would of killed him instantly as Morden was their liason with the rest of the galaxy.

The only way the plan would of worked is the way it did, to make it look like natural causes, or maybe, someone from one of the dead ministers' houses or something.

I think it's more the fact that Londo played it too quietly, and that he didn't protest against the treatment of his 'present' for fear of Cartagia's reaction that ment he couldn't 'Save the eye that does not see'

[DigiFluid]

Not killing Sheridan [and Delenn] in the 'future' of 'War Without End' was Londo's final chance, I think, and the one referenced by not killing the one already dead.

Having just watched this the other day, I can confirm this. When Emperor Londo released Delenn and time-shifted Sheridan, he said that this was his last chance to save his soul.

The 'one who is already dead' refers to Sheridan, not Morden.

[Jershon]

Some points I have:
1. Save the eye that does not see - G'Kar is the only that makes sense here. Some have suggested that Londo failed in this because he didn't prevent G'Kar from loosing his eye. The prophecy didn't say "save the eye that soon would not see" but instead said "save the eye that does not see" implying that the eye itself was already gone when the saving needed to be done. Londo didn't know that G'Kar even lost his eye until they were already back on Narn. Most likely that option meant to spare the person who had lost the eye.
2. A lot of the issue that people seem to have about Sheridan being the "one who is already dead" is a misinterpretation of Londo Mollari's "fate". In season 2 Londo tries to get support from the Technomages to ensure his rise to greater power at home. Elric gives him a counsel that coincides quite nicely with the "fate" that Londo asks the Lady Morella to see for him. Elric said that he saw a great hand reaching out of the sky (Londo's hand) and that millions were crying his (Londo's) name. Mollari then asked if those were his followers, to that Elric replied that they were his "victims". Londo's fate as we saw it in the series was tragic as it was but the envisioned fate was much worse. If Londo had turned towards hate and rejected G'Kar he would have likely become a true ally of Mr. Morden and Cartagia. If he turned against Sheridan and continued with the Drahk keeper his atrocities would have made Cartagia's "monsterhood" seem like child's play. The darkness that awaited Londo wasn't death but a form of devolution to dark deeds.
3. We've seen over and over again that Londo had no qualms about dying for his people. He was a patriot and that was all he needed to agree to serve anyone or kill anyone or die himself to help his people. But as we saw in "The Long Night of Londo Mollari" he was afraid of judgement, of recompense and retribution. He couldn't bare to look behind him because he knew who it was standing there. Also he often referred to the reckoning that he would endure at his death proving that the thought was at least frequently on his mind.

I hope all that has made sense.