K-Town

"This whole place makes no sense..."

Actually it does, in a strange, off-centre kind of way.
       Mantrid is now the third character from the Light Universe that we've met on the twin worlds (there may be more, of course: I just haven't recognised them...) Is the Dark Zone - or, more specifically, are Fire and Water - a mirror of the Light Universe? Or of the Lexx crew's misadventures therein? Come to think of it, that's something of a daft question. We already know, from IWHS, that the Dark Zone occupies the same space as the Light Universe (used to): it's logical to assume that individual characters would exist in both continua as well - although it's also logical to assume that they would be opposites - i.e. 'good' in one universe and 'evil' in the other. Though that then opens up the question as to precisely what constitutes good and evil...

Ah hell, why not?

Dictionary definition of good: "having admirable, pleasing, superior or positive qualities: beneficial or advantageous." And of evil: "morally wrong or bad: wicked: harmful." You'll notice that these are not direct opposites. And that they are wide open to (mis)interpretation!
       The concept of 'morality' seems to be fundamental to individual perceptions of good and evil - and morality itself is very much a matter of individual choice. Some people, for example, choose to follow a code set up by their religion, or tribe, or country: some prefer to determine their own standards. A fundamentalist Christian would no doubt find the goings-on in Boomtown highly immoral and offensive, while a Satanist would most likely approve of Duke's immolation of those who've upset him! Personally I find much that is pleasing, admirable and positive in Prince (but then again, I admire Hannibal Lecter, so I'm perhaps not the best person to be writing about morality. Oh, I don't know, though. Nothing wrong with a different perspective!) Strictly speaking, morality - and immorality, come to that - are only meaningful if one adheres to some kind of moral code in the first place: otherwise one is simply amoral and anything goes. Much as it does on the twin planets, in fact. Fire and Water constitute a closed system: it's a fairly safe bet that the arrival of the Lexx crew is going to have profound and probably definitively fatal consequences for the inhabitants. Dammit.

Mantrid doesn't know what's 'going on', either at K-Town or - apparently - in the Fire/Water system as a whole. His "Perhaps it is my punishment" is a telling line; as Mantrid in the Light Universe his knowledge was vast. Now he remembers nothing. Well, that's one opposition anyway - or should it be seen more as a second chance? Probably not, given where he's ended up. Not much opportunity for making amends for destroying a universe when you're stuck in K-Town... (What kind of atonement could you make anyway? Makes Stan's 94 planets look a little tame, doesn't it.) (Back to Girltown - episode 11)
       I'm having trouble working out the point of this episode. We learn that Kai has been damaged, get to see something of what was done to his body, and discover a lot more about the work of the bioscholars - and also find out that in the absence of more technological assistance, a form of physical homeopathy (a second fall to correct the effects of the first) will have to serve to realign his systems. Fair enough - I'd always wondered to what extent Divine Assassins were adapted by the Divine Order, and now I know: it appears there's very little of the original human body left. But I still can't see what purpose this scene served, unless it was to please the fans who wanted to see an unclothed Kai. (I remember the Beans remarking - a long time ago - that they would show a naked Kai if enough people demanded it... I guess enough did.)

And what are we to make of those bizarrely contradictory and argumentative inhabitants of K-Town - apart from the fact that they are both very irritating and very dangerous?
       We haven't seen much of the cities on Fire, yet. Of those that we have seen, Prince's city (Princetown?) seems to operate under some sort of caste system - slaves to do all the physical labour, while his immediate servitors dress and act rather like priests with their ornate red outfits, ritual jewellery and carefully constructed rite of passage for their leader (heavy on the symbolism, too - candles everywhere and Prince cruciform as he's lowered: is Prince a deity?) His private chambers are lofty and spacious, if dark. Duketown is, unsurprisingly, run on militaristic lines. But K-Town - K-Town shouldn't be able to operate at all, if these denizens are typical of the rest of the natives...
       Hmmm. I might come back to this point in a later analysis.

Wondering Allowed

I would not like to try climbing in those boots of Xev's!

My question from the first episode has been answered, at any rate - there are bugs on Fire, at least in K-Town...

Poor Stan - "She goes off, somebody comes along, tries to eat me..." He's not having a good life.

K-Town looks a little like the Hall of the Divine Predecessors back on the Cluster...

... and Mantrid looks like a larva, which may add weight to the DZ mirroring the LU theory.

Kai's control and power rods are between his legs? Ho hum. Isn't that a bit clichéd? And weren't those rods just a little too long? But at least we now know that the brace is actually part of Kai, grafted on at the same time his body was mutilated, I suppose.

Purely a figure of speech, you understand... Back

Not for what he does, but for his sheer breathtaking honesty and self-awareness. He accepts what he is and neither denies nor apologises for it. Back

Fall? I hope we're not getting unnecessarily biblical here... Back