Passion and embodiment

[cjbasicmodel]

Li, intersex Centauri goddess of Passion, fascinates me. She is depicted as a dancing nude figure, in a state of arousal (it seems), mid step, arms raised, head thrown back, in a moment of joyous abandon. The sculptor for the show really did a wonderful job of conveying a huge amount of information about a religion that is never explored or mentioned more than once in her pose. There is some canon-ish information about her out there, stating that she was based on a historical figure who advocated for romantic love, joyful engagement with sex, and big families. That last one feels a bit propaganda like, as though some scholar, eager to please the throne, tacked it on a century after her death. Who can say.

At any rate, Li owns herself and identifies herself as She, while still cultivating a masculine crest and utilizing her 'attributes' artfully in her exuberant dance. She Embodies her own interpretation of herself. While I am in favor of love and sex, it is her bravery and joyful exhibition of her body and self that is most compelling to me. I cannot fathom being that brave. Despite the restrictions and intense patriarchy and hierarchy of their culture, the simple existence of Li the dancer, Li the lover, Li the passionate, and the place of honor her statue receives in the Centauri ambassador's home and on his banquet table seems to indicate she's not a secret cult, not a quietly venerated or propitiated goddess. Rather, she is openly embraced and loved by her people, alongside the other 48 deities of the Centauri (49 if one is a liberal).

How interesting that must be, to be a small child at temple with your mother, to see a naked body that is just like (but not like) your own body, unashamed and enthusiastic. Not engaged in sex, not thought to be obscene. Just naked. Just like we all are under our clothes. How reassuring that must be. Some of your gods have bodies and they like living in their body. They like feeling their body and they like showing how happy they are by dancing.

What kind of a culture embraces that goddess, while also embracing rigidity and oppressive stricture in so many arenas?

I like to play with that. To compare and contrast human patriarchy with Centauri patriarchy. Convergent evolution made them so like us, and so very different. A society that a human viewer looks at and says, "Ah, I understand this. Polygamy is always horrible, patriarchy arises from religion, look how ostentations they are. Bourgeois bastards, the lot." And... Yes. Londo Mollari is the only husband we see in the show, and he's terrible. His wives are terrible (well, two are). The royal court of Cartagia is a collection of spineless dilettantes and sycophants. But these are a small sample size. What if there are happy families? Women who take the world they live in and bend it to their true will? A culture that values ostentation because it reveres artisans and creativity? Brave men who put their foot down and say "No more." Goddesses who dance naked under the sky?

Comments

[regionbetween]

li also fascinates me for the same reasons. i love that she exists and i feel like her alone says a good bit about centauri culture. that duality of the "goddess of passion" who represents this sexually free, artfully nude celebration of the centauri body, is worshiped by a culture of people obsessed with decorum and status and upholding such.
that is partially why the stuff with senna and her lovely father fascinates me so much and also breaks my heart. senna canonically is able to choose who she wants to marry and for love. londo helps put that in motion, breaking the cycle of something that he clearly felt bound by too. londo accepts senna's choice to say "no!" irt the creepy old man who wanted her in the trilogy, and he sticks up for her and protects and values her choices. lots of great development on londo's end there- going from seeing his wives as status symbols or his dancer lovers to encouraging this girl child who has nothing (no name, no status, she's from a dead house) to stand up for herself and say no. to be confident and assured.
we dont see other husbands in the show aside from londo. but we know of a father. refa.
when is centauri fatherhood brought up? when londo talks about being neglected. when he talks about his father's shoes being too tight. when vir's cousin talks about being bound by their parents rules and the rules of decorum. but what is implied in the trilogy with senna? senna feels so strongly about her family- mother and father- that she attacked the emperor with rocks with guards around. that she would rather live in the slums than be royalty with londo, because londo killed her father and indirectly killed her mother and is the reason she's alone. if she had a horrible family, like londo, like vir's cousins, would she feel this way? when londo gets angry at her, she thinks of her father. she becomes a scared child afraid of thunderstorms when she's met with londo's anger later on and she childishly wants her father's embrace. refa, the genocidal warmonger personally responsible for slaughtering innocents and breaking apart families upon families, holds his girl child (who will inherit nothing !!!!) because she is a little girl and she is afraid. and senna thinks of this fondly. this is based off of like two lines from the story but it's what i can infer from all of this and because i think about refa and senna a lot.
senna ends up becoming so fond of londo that she stays with him until hours before he died. londo becomes so fond of senna - senna refa! - that he considers saving her "saving all of centauri prime." just a fucking incredible story that i wish was executed better. but what does this have to do with that centauri duality mentioned, and shown with li's very existence? the idea that lord antono refa had a family he loved. a daughter he taught to be strong and say no- because that attitude surely didn't come from nowhere! londo trying to amend his wrongs by taking this refa girl in and forming a family of his own with her as a daughter-like figure. maybe there are happy families on centauri prime, but as the centauri are, vicious and cruel as they are passionate, they're led by centauri like lord refa.
the centauri are full of endless speculation and psychology and i love thinking about them and how they truly are a fucked-up mirror of humanity's worst. i think i went on a little tangent there but you really did cover the sexuality and sensuality stuff spot on i think. theyre prudes but also hedonists. how does that even happen? thats the centauri for you!

[cjbasicmodel]

I love your analysis of him/them. I don't actually have a lot to add, because I think you've said it so well, but I do want to note that I love that small hint of breaking generational cycles that Refa and Londo present, Refa entirely through Senna's memories of his gentleness to her, and Londo through his relationship with her, and his moments of reparenting Vir, of affirming his worth and his competence. It is a good portrayal of the realities of incremental change through time and society. No one parent, generation, or institution gets all of it right, or, honestly, even most of it right. But the choices and changes we make do matter. Maybe Senna WAS the baby of Antono's family, and by the time she came along, he'd had time to wish he'd done it differently with his older kids. Or maybe HIS father was kind and responsive to his children despite The Horrors all around, and there is a tiny legacy in House Refa of secure attachment, which is really funny and horrible in light of everything else. And when Vir and Senna join, those tiny choices that Amtono and Londo and Celes made changed everything for their people.