The Worlds of Farscape (15 page)

Nor is Aeryn alone in her duplicity and dark past, as Pilot shares partial blame for the murder of Moya's first pilot. Though he did not pull the trigger, his desperate, selfish desires resulted in her death as evidenced by this flashback between Velorek and Pilot on the latter's homeworld, as confessed to Aeryn and Crichton by Pilot:

VELOREK: That's what I offer you. Stars.

PILOT: I dream of nothing else.

VELOREK: I offer you a Leviathan. All you have to do is agree to help me.

PILOT: But you said that for me to be joined, the old one would have to die.

VELOREK: That pilot will die no matter what you do.

PILOT: Ah.

VELOREK: If you don't come with me, I'll find someone else who will. Someone else who isn't afraid to take their place amongst the stars.

[end flashback]

PILOT: The fate of Moya's pilot was sealed at that moment.

Pilot's desire to see the stars was the inciting incident behind the murder of the first pilot, since Velorek would not have found another pilot so easily manipulated or self-serving.

Not only do Aeryn and Pilot share DNA (established in “DNA Mad Scientist” 1.9), but also guilt over their actions. Ultimately, their emotional arc and evolution through the plot allow them to move forward, or as Aeryn notes, “We've come a long way since then, Pilot. And we've still got a long way to go. Take the journey with me” (“The Way We Weren't” 2.5). While Crais remains the primary villainous force polarizing the episode, both Aeryn and Pilot work in opposition to Velorek's heroism, functioning as antagonists in comparison, yet ultimately managing to endear themselves to the audience through their character arcs, dramatized through their emotional epiphanies, obvious regret and eventual growth.

This complexity of expected character paradigms is one of the many deconstructive elements of
Farscape.
D'Argo and Zhaan demonstrate outright craven self-interest in “DNA Mad Scientist” when they cut off one of Pilot's arms in exchange for a map home (1.9). When confronted by Aeryn, neither evidences much genuine regret:

D'ARGO: Do you have something to say to us?

ZHAAN: The decision was a hard one, Aeryn. Our actions, even harder. But it is done—“

AERYN: How could you? Pilot is defenseless.

D'ARGO: Compassion. From a Peacekeeper.

AERYN: For a comrade. You attacked one of your own. Would you do the same to the rest of us?

D'ARGO: Of course.

Here, D'Argo and Zhaan are compromised in comparison to Crichton and Aeryn, with evil scientist Namtar as the apex of villainy.

Ironically, Aeryn will reverse roles with Zhaan and D'Argo in the next season when her involvement in the murder of Moya's previous pilot is revealed. Though the audience will have ample reasons to regain empathy for both D'Argo and Zhaan, at this moment, they shift from mentors and allies to Crichton, devolving into minor antagonists and/or erstwhile minions of Namtar. They have been misled by their own desires, true enough, but stalwart hero Crichton would never consciously yield to such base motives nor commit such a heinous act, even if Earth were served up on a platter. In fact, no mythic hero would promote such an agenda.

Zhaan and D'Argo, after all, evidence dark pasts as well as heroic moments throughout the series, their characterizations informed by a deconstructed paradigm which eschews rigidity and embraces flux. Even Moya,
Farscape's
embodied, literal space (the crew actually lives on her) and nurturing female character, occasionally threatens the lives of her passengers. However, Crais most eloquently expresses this poststructuralist agenda, evolving from snarling, almost melodramatic heavy, to antihero, to cathartic, tragic hero by the climax of his own hero's journey. Crais is not only the most unhinged of the
Farscape
antagonists in that he is a man truly obsessed, but he could be described as a melodramatic trope taken too far, a symbolic figure of unmitigated vengeance. And yet, he also offers the most extreme example of the deconstruction of character, a character that shifts from the villainous to the heroic, since it is Crais that changes the most over the course of the series. He evidences truly heroic traits as the character evolves through the plot: stalker to uneasy ally to savior. Though his anger is motivated by love for his brother, and we soon learn, a whole-lotta-guilt, his actions are initially over-the-top and obsessive-compulsive. Crais is not John's first obstacle after clearing the wormhole; his “new” friends present him with difficulty, but it is Crais who drives the story's engine. In fact,
Farscape's
resident villains are wonderfully capable in this regard. Crais, however difficult, complicated and self-serving, has been victimized by Scorpius, a fact which supplies the character with his initial sympathetic moments. His obsession with Crichton results in the loss of his command and everything he “thinks” he values; who does not relate to a man suffering from undeserved misfortune, no matter how much he has brought it upon himself through his own internal flaws and failings. In fact, this only makes him more “human,” albeit with deep anger control issues (a problem shared by many characters in the
Farscape
universe), ironic given the oft-posed question of “what is human” asked by the show. Later in the series, Crais steals Moya's offspring Talyn without permission, morphing into the antihero in binary opposition to Crichton's post-modern, almost metrosexual version of the hero, a binary, defrocked Peacekeeper-in-contrast to Scorpius' more literally pointy-toothed villain. Antiheroes, of course, are not the antithesis of the hero. As defined by Christopher Vogler:

Anti-hero is a slippery term that can cause a lot of confusion. Simply stated, an Anti-hero is not the opposite of a Hero, but a specialized kind of Hero, one who may be an outlaw or a villain from the point of view of society, but with whom the audience is basically in sympathy. We identify with these outsiders because we have all felt like outsiders at one time or another [41].

Of course, the society defined here is not Peacekeeper society (though that could also be one argument), but Western society, hence John's placement at the pinnacle of the hero cycle and thus explaining the logic of Crais' function as antihero, particularly in comparison to Scorpius, the greater enemy of both Crais and John.

Crais' evolution does not happen immediately, but over several episodes, as he and Moya's offspring Talyn repeatedly offer aid, often reluctantly on Crais' part, to Moya's crew. Vogler's antihero definition fits Crais during this part of his evolution:

Anti-Heroes may be of two types: (1) characters who behave much like conventional Heroes, but are given a strong touch of cynicism or have a wounded quality..., or (2) tragic Heroes, central figures of a story who may not be likeable or admirable, whose actions we may even deplore... [41].

Crais and Crichton share an uneasy partnership; neither likes nor trusts the other, but mutual hatred of Scorpius binds them throughout the second and third seasons, until Crais' self-revelations lead him to a heroic mutation, which surpasses his prior role in the story.

By the end of Season Three, new threats glimmer on the horizon as Crichton grapples with Scorpius over wormhole technology and the specter of the Scarrans looms large, as well as new villains, such as Grayza (“Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing” 3.21). Crais' evolution through the series eventually leads him to the surprising act of self-sacrifice. By this point, Crais has pushed past antihero and lapsed into the heroic, despite his claim that he is only motivated by selfish concerns as evidenced by this sequence between Crais, John, and Aeryn as they plot to destroy Scorpius' command carrier and thwart his acquisition of the wormhole technology. Crichton believes that Crais has betrayed them. In fact, he is offering to sacrifice his own life:

AERYN: And you should listen to him now.

CRAIS: All that I have cared for, gone. My parents, taken away from me. My brother, dead. So now, I live, I plan, I do, all in the service of my own interest. In that, I believe I am not unique in the universe.

CRICHTON: Snap this up; I've got to get back.

CRAIS: Despite all of this, I understand the power of the technology that Scorpius is attempting to harness. I understand the horror that will wash over this galaxy if anyone wields this weapon. And last of all, I now know I am the only individual capable of stopping it.

Crais evidences the most noble of qualities at this juncture in the series, self-sacrifice for the good of the universe.

Shared concern for the greater good links the two men, despite their mutual dislike of one another. It takes John several beats to fully digest Crais' plan:

CRICHTON: Where do we meet up with you and Talyn?

CRAIS: You don't. Starburst in a confined space where the energy can't dissipate ... will be the hero's death that Talyn deserves.

CRICHTON: You're gonna die.

In fact, both men will sacrifice themselves to prevent Scorpius from gaining wormhole technology (John's binary twin dies earlier in the season), a fitting symbolic end and heroic death for Crais' character. The Scarrans, the conflicted Scorpius, and Grayza continue their pursuit until the show's finale.

Crais, untrustworthy, unhinged, heartbroken, difficult, stands opposition to John's often amusing, occasionally perplexed, always engaging personification of the hero, deconstructs the paradigm with jaded sorrow.
Farscape
may deconstruct heroes, but it has not changed the need for them. Perhaps Joseph Campbell said it best, commenting on the idea that there is no longer room for myth in today's society:

The modern hero, the modern individual who dares to heed the call and seek the mansion of that presence with whom it is our whole destiny to be atoned, cannot, indeed, must not, wait for his community to cast off its slough of pride, fear, rationalized avarice, and sanctified misunderstanding. “Live,” Nietzsche says, “as though the day were here.” It is not society that is to guide and sage the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal—carries the cross of the redeemer—not in the bright moments of his tribe's great victories, but in the silences of his personal despair [337].

Society may have outgrown the belief in heroes, but we have not outgrown our need for them. With this in mind,
Farscape
may disrupt and deconstruct the heroic ideal in some respects, but what the series offers instead is a revisionist world, a mythic journey with an existentialist edge. John Crichton participates in a mythic quest but on his terms. He complains, he jokes, and he feels emotion, exploring the Uncharted Territories of
Farscape.

1.
Note that Peacekeepers, for all their xenophobic, overwrought militaristic might, function exactly as the name implies. They keep the “peace” throughout the universe, invited by other governments/worlds to maintain order, most often at the expense of the “sub-human Other,” at the request of the ruling class. From the point of view of a Peacekeeper, their goal is to provide requested protection, eschewing colonization. Ironically, the paradigm of Colonialism ensues through this relationship.

2.
Or, indeed, soldiers following orders throughout history.

Campbell, Joseph.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces,
3d ed. Novato: New World Library, 2008. Print.

Dundes, Alan. “Binary Opposition in Myth: The Propp/Levi-Strauss Debate in Retrospect.”
Western Folklore
56.1 (Winter 1997): 39–50. JSTOR. Web. 15 November 2011.

Nietzsche, Friedrich.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Eds. Kark Ameriks and Desmond M. Clarke. Cambridge Texts,
Kindle
ebook.

Thomson, Iain. “Deconstructing the Hero.”
Comics as Philosophy.
Ed. Jeff McLaughlin Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005. 100–129. Print.

Vogler, Christopher.
The Writer's Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers,
2d ed. Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions, 1998. Print.

Sherry Ginn

I have discussed the issues of love and sex in science fiction in a number of publications and presentations in the last few years, and I generally include examples from
Farscape
in all.
¹
This essay, however, looks at the issue with respect to
Farscape
in more detail than in those previous works.
Farscape
lends itself to such an analysis for a variety of reasons, first and foremost because it is a love story and was so from the very beginning of the series. Secondly, the characters were more freely sexual than those in science fiction series preceding it. As I noted in my analysis of the television series of Joss Whedon,
Farscape
is also about love: love of home, friends, family, lovers, and life. And, as much as Rockne S. O'Bannon, the creator of the series, wished for the series to examine real sex among real “people,” the series fell far short of the mark he hoped to achieve. My discussion of the twin issues of love and sex is filtered through the lens of two theories particularly relevant to contemporary human psychology. These are evolutionary theory, as discussed by scholar David Buss and his colleagues, and the Triangular Theory of Love, proposed by psychologist Robert Sternberg. I provide a short “lesson” on both of these theories first and then discuss each theory with respect to
Farscape
and its characters.