Plot hole in "Gathering" (Spoilers)

[Spidy]

I was rewatching The Gathering today in preparation for the arrival (hopefully this weekend) of my B5 DVD set, and I noticed something very odd in Lyta's vision of the attempted assassination. While I understand that she sees her own body while in another's mind, how the HELL did the assassin stick a skintab on the back of Kosh's right hand? He certainly doesn't shake hands, and there's no way he would reveal himself to Sinclair. And don't tell me it's just Lyta putting a human POV on things, cause the doctor found the poision when Lyta told him to look on Kosh's hand. I'm not even sure Kosh has a hand when he doesn't want to.

Anyway, assuming Kosh is in humanoid form even while in his suit, how did the assassian even get the poison into his system?

I'll stop now.

[Radhil]

It may not be Lyta putting a human POV on Kosh's memory, but it might be Kosh projecting one for Lyta's benefit.

Or glowy light things weren't in the budget. *shrug*

[Spidy]

Even if it is Kosh making things simpler for Lyta, how did Doctor Kyle find the poison with only "it's in his hand" to go on? Certainly it's a specific enough location to find the poison, but how can that information be correct, considering Kosh's encounter suit?

I so confused.

[Kevin]

First, I highly recommend heading over to Lurker's Guide and reading a big dose of all of the JMS comments there which pretty much answer all of your questions.

Second, you misunderstood what helped Kyle; it wasn't where the poison was, it was what type of poison: a skintab. This helped him limit down the possibilities and correctly identify the compound running rampant in Kosh's system.

Third, Kosh is showing Lyta himself through a human perspective; it ain't a hard thing to do when it's just one human looking in on him, more of a reflex then anything.

As for why he showed himself to Sinclair... well there's many reasons to debate that.

Chances are had Sinclair stayed on the show, eventually all would have been explained for our characters benefit at some point in the series. Once Sheridan was moved on, it seemed a bit silly to harp on events that were really central to the Sinclair character moreso then anyone else.

[grumbler]

One of the advantages to this site is the ability to do a search of JMS posts for something like "Kosh" and "hand" and get results like this (from 08/19/1993):

Re: the skin tab/Kosh's hand/encounter suit question...one of the reasons I can't wait for the series to get on the air is so that we can make one thing clear, once and for all: it is NOT an error, not a plot hole, it is a plot POINT. It is a question that our *characters* will be asking each other. How can this be? This will come up more than once, starting with "The Parliament of Dreams" episode.

jms

[CRONAN]

Yes, Kosh's hand was hands down the coolest moment in ''the Gathering'' Really gave the movie a much needed sense of wonder.

One thing I find odd is that you never see a Vorlons arm while hes inside his encounter suit all throughout the series (that ive seen at least), since their suits dont seam to have any arm extentions (at least you cant see them under the cloak). This being so, one would think Kosh would have ignored the profered hand and give a slight nod....

Having seen the gathering after the five year run, I kind of found it to be passive, mediocre and very exposition heavy. While the tidbits of plot were interesting to me, as a fan, I dont think anyone who had seen this decade earlier could have imagined the sheer scale of epic story telling jms had in store for us later.

Must..get......s-s-sseason............four.

[grumbler]

Cronan, I agree that in many ways JMS "tried to hard" in The Gathering (hence the exposition) but I have long since forgiven him. I think adding graphics to the "Line" scene and others to break up the exposition would have done wonders for the episode, but that would have cost too much....

[CRONAN]

Hmmm. I think I've worked it out....

I think that, originally, Kosh's suit came with arms, which provided the vorlon with a more physical, and thereby less attention-drawing, way of interacting with the world. After his near death experience however, he opted to remove the arm pieces and keep the hands on interation to the minimum. Of course all the other vorlons would have followed suit, since Kosh was the first among them to be sent out as an observer.

Unless I'm missing something.

[grumbler]

I think, as JMS noted (05/06/1996), that

Kosh extended a hand...because he recognized Sinclair.

Now, from that I take it that Kosh actually extended his own, physical "hand" (which would just be an extrusion of his "glowing jellyfish" form, of course) rather than some sort of mechanical appendage to his encounter suit.

What would Sinclair have seen the hand and arm to look like? Whatever Kosh wanted, of course. One would presume an "angel's" hand and arm, as that was the image the Vorlons had decided to use with humans.

the reason he did so, of course, was because he knew Sinclair was to be Valen and so wanted to impress Sinclair right off the bat.

A better question, though, is why Kosh was fooled by the changling net. He knew what Sinclair looked, smelt, gorkked, and vippled like. The makers of the net knew nothing about Vorlon senses, and so how would they know how to fake the gork and vipple of Sinclair?

[CRONAN]

Well to answer that question you'd have to have intimate knowledge of Vorlon sensory mechanisms at your disposal. I think its safe to assume that Vorlons are not 100% infallible.

Perhaps the sight of ''Valen'' threw Kosh off guard, long enough for the assassin to strike. I think, had he been prepared, he would not have been fooled so easily.

Edit: here a jms quote:
Here's the one thing that amazes me, speaking of seeing the pilot for the gadzillionth time...there is one great big huge gaping visual anomaly/inconsistency in the pilot that so far no one has noticed. It's so massive that when I first saw it, I just about fell out of my chair. But the director said "No one's ever gonna see it, no one's ever gonna notice it, *trust* me on this." I was absolutely convinced that he was wrong. Apparently he was right. At some point in the future I'll tell you what it is...and when you see it, you're going to wonder how the hell you avoided seeing it before, it's *that* big. But not for a while yet. (And the few smaller things mentioned here ...ain't it.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sounds pretty sneaky. Anyone know what it is?

[Kevin]

It's in the second trial scene. Benjamin Kyle is standing where Sinclair is supposed to be standing... hell Kyle isn't even supposed to be in that scene.

[Andrew_Swallow]

The original design of the Vorlons had them as bipeds with two arms, 3 finguers per hand and a big hump on the back. It was changed just before filming. Pity the skin tap was not transfered to the side of the neck.

Alternatively the Vorlon's faked the entire poisoning, possibly to give themselves an excuse to show off their fleet.

[CRONAN]

Ahem (clears throat)

*kosh*

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Kevin
It's in the second trial scene. Benjamin Kyle is standing where Sinclair is supposed to be standing... hell Kyle isn't even supposed to be in that scene.

Just watched that ep again, and Kyle is standing in the doorway, and Sinclair in the dock, as expected. That isn't JMS's "great big huge gaping visual anomaly/inconsistency."

However, no-one even comments on the fact that human eyes can withstand a heavily-chlorine atmosphere (as established by Dr. Kyle) in the Medbay with no eye protection at all (the breathers in the pilot don't cover the eyes). THAT was the discrepancy, IMO.

And yes, A_S, the whole crisis was arranged by the Vorlons.

Also note that the "hand" seen by Lyta is not HER hand but a glowing hand projecting from a shiny black sleeve... i.e. it was Kosh's "dream hand taken form."

[grumbler]

Originally posted by CRONAN
Well to answer that question you'd have to have intimate knowledge of Vorlon sensory mechanisms at your disposal. I think its safe to assume that Vorlons are not 100% infallible.

But that is the point of my post: in order for the whole conspiracy to move forward, they would have to believe that their understanding of Vorlon senses was 100%, because anything else would make the Changeling Net useless... kinda like being the right color but smelling like dogshit.

Not the biggest plot hole, but a plot hole all the same.