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Guest Laurent.

Well I really don't think so. I always thought that she hurt herself playing around like kids do, but when asked about what happened she only remembered Frank yelling at her. I just presume that if their had been some sort of Legion force at work here it would have been at least a little more explicit on screen. Furthermore, I'm not even sure that Danielle Barbakow was meant by M&W to be interpreted as another form of the Legion. The only link between Legion and Danielle is the obvious "natural-born" evil... but then again this seems to be the case with many more Millennium killers.

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Guest kongstuffer

:hiya: Greetings Millennium fan boards. My first time here....I found you on "Chiller" boards. THANKX !

Well I really don't think so. I always thought that she hurt herself playing around like kids do, but when asked about what happened she only remembered Frank yelling at her. I just presume that if their had been some sort of Legion force at work here it would have been at least a little more explicit on screen. Furthermore, I'm not even sure that Danielle Barbakow was meant by M&W to be interpreted as another form of the Legion. The only link between Legion and Danielle is the obvious "natural-born" evil... but then again this seems to be the case with many more Millennium killers.

I had the same impression of Jordan's injury....but thought it less likely Legion and more likely "he who sends the polaroids" Her having no memory of what happened kinda puzzled me....but then she is quite young....and if it really was Legion then that would explain all of it. There is so much left up to our imaginations (I like that about Chris Carter) well again...I'm usually wrong ...?

I do think at the very least Danielle is influenced by Legion....but not necessarily possessed at the time....could be posession in the making.

At the end I assume she was taken away from her parents or given up. And into the hands of who....Millenium underground? I think so....but maybe someone could enlighten me on this. :helpme:

Edited by kongstuffer
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Well I really don't think so. I always thought that she hurt herself playing around like kids do, but when asked about what happened she only remembered Frank yelling at her. I just presume that if their had been some sort of Legion force at work here it would have been at least a little more explicit on screen. Furthermore, I'm not even sure that Danielle Barbakow was meant by M&W to be interpreted as another form of the Legion. The only link between Legion and Danielle is the obvious "natural-born" evil... but then again this seems to be the case with many more Millennium killers.

Greetings all,

I think we touched upon this fairly recently Laran and I know I stood with you then regarding Barbakow's assimilation into the Legion mythos but retrospectively I can empathise with Graham et. al. who concluded she had a rightful place amongst the roll call.

There are few significators that allow a simple Legion-identification-parade, few of the accepted incarnations announced their rightful place in the mythos nor did they share a veritable checklist of commonalities. One thing that is easily perceived is the malignity the avatars display has a profundity and causality more complex than psychological and criminological models allow for. There were hints, albeit subtle ones, that there was a metaphysical, anthropomorphic treatment of evil being explored in their narratives. Barbakow certainly sits neatly within that explanation being far too young to have her virulent enmity explained by the usual psychological, behavioral or social models. She is described as an 'old soul' - an occult term that is rightly 'old' and detailed as not provoking the normal human tenderness in her Mother who felt no empathy when looking into her eyes. Frank further proclaims that

"Recently I've seen, I've experienced evil. It feels like a force, like gravity, like the wind. It has blown across Cambodia, been a cyclone in Nazi Germany, it gusts throughout Los Angeles. Danielle Barbakow is a pre-storm, a breeze, of an approaching hurricane"

Succinctly, he can equate the evil he senses within her with sensations normally generated by more expansive, magnetizing situations than the proximity of solitary human child. Oddly both Lara and Frank seem to undergo a profound reaction to Barbakow's presence with Lara receiving a surprising number of angelic visitations compared with how reservedly the device was used throughout her story. She normally only displays 'profound' expressions of her facility when faced with considerable threat on a large scale i.e. the appearance of Odessa, the plot to murder The Old Man, the incarnation of the Magdalene in Clare McKenna and so forth.

Whilst I still concur that she is a negotiable addition to the Legion rank and file she can arguably be given a deconstruction to support the notion.

As for Jordan's injury. The narrative states that Jordan lacerates her 'lingual frenulum' and as the Dentist notes this can be as a result of blunt trauma. What the Dentist fails to add is that this blunt trauma is usually an overzealous or badly handled toothbrush so I think Frank, Legion and others are in the clear this time.

Best wishes,

Eth

PS KONGSTUFFER - What a superb name lol.

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Guest Laurent.

I guess the line between Evil (with a capital E) and Legion is even more blurred than I thought... I know this may be another one of those never ending discussions but here is how I see it, in a nutshell:

There are regular people acting evil (small e)...

There are Evil people (or evil-born)...

Then there is Legion... multiple parts of a single entity, different beings and consciousness with the same goal and objective.

This simplistic representation suits me for now.. I don't think Danielle was part of any supernatural entity... just a sign of the rise of Evil in the world.

Welcome to the board kongstuffer!! :hiya:

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just to let everyone know i have been promoting the tiwwa site over at the Chiller message boards, i guess its working

Nice one Joe, I had noticed the word 'Chiller' a few times of late but didn't realise you were the man of the moment. :clapping:

Hi Laran

Whether or not we conclude that Danielle was a Legion incarnation or not I thought it doubtless that there is a supernatural component to her narrative. I struggle to reconcile the idea that Danielle's 'raison d'être' can be ascribed to rational, organic, earthly sources as she is far too young to be a product of sociological and psychological mechanisms. With our current understanding of evil hinged upon these sciences it is impossible to apply them to Danielle comfortably and both disciplines would fail to explain how an infant could display such advanced, considered and mature expressions of malignity. As I mentioned Frank likens the burgeoning evil within Danielle to that of the collective enmity of Nazi Germany and sadly I can not think of one organic, cognitive reason why a child could or would possess an evil so magnanimous and malign.

It is fair to conclude that a marriage breakdown, stress of raising children, socio-economic factors, peer and gang pressure and on and on are unlikely to be issues to a pre-pubescent child and it is given to us that she has been raised in a stable and upstanding family. Lara notes the Barbakows consist of "...war heroes, ministers, captains of industry... with no indications of mental illness or violent tendencies".

Discount the obvious and we are left with only one possible explanation - 'She was born evil' that hallowed dictate so enamored of times gone by has regularly been shown to be a blanket idiom used by people unprepared to offer any serious consideration to an otherwise complex science and whatever our own stance on Morgan and Wong's writing they were not inclined to use such idle excuses to explain their characters motivations. If she wasn't born evil, raised evil or made evil by the trials of her existence then we have to conclude that there is a metaphysical slant being explored here.

Barabakow was to represent the first test to Lara and Frank after their exposure to metaphysical/philosophical evil at the hand of The Old Man. Given their profound reactions and the blatant incongruence they note between then evil they sense and the child who houses it it does seem that the narrative supports the idea of a supernatural evil being present here.

It is worth noting that Frank questions the Groups interest in the case at all as he slowly becomes more cognisant that the Group does not generally show interest in mundane, superficial cases and whilst Peter offers no reason the eventual assimilation of Danielle into the 'Group' indicates something far more lofty is at play here than a naughty child.

Of course there may be a thoroughly palatable explanation in the organic sciences for why a five year old murderer would blossom in the home of a loving stable family but I've yet to hear one to be honest. As I say Legion or no there is enough carrot dangling in this episode to reach the conclusion that something beyond the norm is occurring here.

Best wishes to all,

Eth

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Guest Laurent.

Great post Eth, as always. But you make the "born evil" argument look like a blanket term for a lazy "serial killer" explanation. I think the term feeds a much needed discussion about the nature of evil.

Let's just say that Danielle was not a sign of deeper supernatural forces. As you say, she is too young and her education is too good for her behavior to be explained by social factors of any kind. Then before assuming that she the child of the Devil, shouldn't we consider other possibilities? Maybe we can be born evil. What if the violent tendencies she displayed were of biological origins. Is the idea of evil as a disease any more ludicrous than to assert we can be affected by some supernatural force?

I think it is a serious subject. We see more cases of such happenings every year. Is it because we are, more than ever by the violence of popular culture, prepared witness such terrifying acts? Or maybe our culture has bred this new possibility; the spreading of a gene or mutation of the human psyche.

Getting a bit carried off here into off-topics territory but I think this episode is asking important questions. These things happen and we shouldn't be blind to them; which is exactly what Frank and Lara were there to explain.

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Hi Laran,

Please don't think I am 'arguing' with you my friend as I'm not, I'm simply enjoying the opportunity for a bit of Millennium banter.

I have to clarify why I wrote what I wrote for fear of otherwise appearing to be one who subscribes to generalizations. My philosophical musings with regards to 'evil' are not on display here simply my appreciation of its depiction within the source material. What I sought to proffer was not the suggestion that evil has 'no' biological origin, though as a biological scientist I would argue against this, but that Morgan and Wong did not write in such organic, scientific terms. The whole mandate of Season Two was to imbue Millennium with a philosophical, metaphysical property and take Season One's tellurian deconstruction of evil and imbue it with loftier, more ambiguous considerations drawn from ceremonial Grimoires, Gnostic Theology and so on and so forth. If we search for 'reason' in Season Two you can bet your bottom dollar that Morgan and Wong were not dealing with biological science, our acumen dictates that we search for a transcendental motif in the narrative as this was essentially the Morgan and Wong recipe.

If in an episode of angelic visitations, psychic ruminations and occult concepts we choose to look for reconciliation in the annals of the biological sciences my gut instinct is that we will find them wanting. Even if 'Monster' was intended to be a Morgan and Wong vehicle for examining psychological, sociological and biological agents responsible for 'evil' then one would have to conclude that its musings, with regards to Frank and Lara's facilities and their subsequent verdict with regards to the unfathomable nature of what is occurring here in respect of their scientific understanding, would be a lousy way of exploring it.

Broadly, no amount of chromosomal influences or imbalanced brain chemicals could comfortably explain why a five year old would commit murder nor would it explain why a child would possess a manner and thinking well in advance of her years and since the episode discounts psychological and sociological models as a means of explanation I can only assume that the heavy metaphysical slant this episode carries is intended to convey that we conclude that the metaphysical is important here.

I know I sound like a scratched record, repeating the same old mantra with every post, but it is representative of my firm conviction that 'Monster' attempts to discuss evil in terms not easily assimilated in the disciples of accepted science.

I shall put the record away now for fear of boring the pants off everyone.

Best wishes,

Eth

EDIT Laredo, Celt, Erin you around? What are your thoughts on this? Danielle Barbakow - biological anamoly or supernatural manifestation?

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