I treat them as mutually exclusive because the picture they paint of Blair is mutually exclusive. In one endgame, he is flying, doing what he loves best, serving with the Border Worlders he fought with in the game. In other . . .
Well, you’re only focusing on Blair and so only proving my point.
. . . he's a brooding figure who commands the Black Lance he fought in the game.
Yes, he does seem brooding, but does that mean his morals have been corrupted? And how do you know the “Black Lance fighters” he has at least some control over are being flown by the same evil people or for the same evil purpose or philosophy? You’re assuming too much. (But sure, those conjectures are possibilities.)
I continue to be puzzled over how some react to this particular endgame. I certainly can understand why we (I include myself) tend to think right off the bat that the “Black Lance fighters” referred to constitute the same evil force as in the game. We simply fall back on the familiar. Perfectly natural. But as I tried to suggest in an earlier post, that initial reaction creates a paradox because it contradicts what has come to be familiar about Blair.
Yet some of us are apparently in denial over this. Oh yeah, we have faith in the Black Lance to continue to be the Black Lance, but when it comes to Blair, we chuck that same kind of faith like a hot potato! It’s illogical. But I guess what it really speaks to is how incredibly
cynical some of us are about humanity generally. (Wow, now there’s a heavy point.) Stop it! Get a grip! Has Blair taught you nothing? You’re starting to think like Tolwyn and it frightens me.
In sum, we can’t say for sure what’s going on in that one endgame. (But it’s full of challenging possibilities.)
The two scenes show the kinds of man Blair could have become depending on the choices he made. They are *alternate* paths, and so are mutually exclusive.
No, I can’t agree that “as Blair goes, so goes the universe” (which is what you seem to be saying). Don’t pollute questions of canon with allegory. Those
should be mutually exclusive. (Though a Kilrathi might not think so.)
You can't remove the rest of the scenario and then insist that one fact in it is a credible possibility . . .
You have that reversed in this case. But yes, you can, either way.
. . . any more than a reporter can print a story that is generally contradicted by the facts, and insist one assertion in it is a credible possibility just because there's nothing to contradict it.
You are kidding me, right? Reporters most certainly have done that, as have editorial writers, as have media critics and pundits, as have we . . . in fact as we
do nearly every time we read or listen to a news account in the way we should–with a grain of salt and an independent mind. You surely aren’t saying, are you, that when you yourself read a news report you always believe either
all of it or
none of it?
I could equally say that it is possible that Blair carried on a secret affair with Flint that no-one ever knew about (despite the fact that her fighter was shot down over Kilrah and the canon says Blair eneded up with Rachel) based on the scene where Blair ends up with Flint.
If you think you can satisfy the “uncontradicted” standard, then knock yourself out! But for now let’s stick with the one endgame in WCIV.
Or then again, let’s not. That endgame doesn’t so much prove as simply
underscore the possibility that the Black Lance survives, in some organized form, in the other endgame too. That was the only (and I must say, rather humble) point I was trying to make when I referred to the one endgame originally. (Though I do also like that endgame, very much, for the paradox it presents.)
I say the endgame doesn’t prove the possibility because it’s
already proven by the current state of the canon. I sympathize that you really, really want the Black Lance to be no more. (I guess that explains why you’d go to the extreme of denying a “mere” possibility.) But the fact is there isn’t any scene or statement or “epilogue” that constitutes a definitive final chapter about the Black Lance let alone some of the other elements in this dark story. Until there is, their fate is an open question subject to arguments about possibilities (and which of them are probabilities). But keep the faith!