Talk:List of Babylon 5 characters

Still to add:

• a nicer view of the contents, like on the Babylon 5 characters category? Dunno - I'll worry about the aesthetics later, after everything else is working the way it's supposed to.

• I've copied the structure of these pages from List_of_Star_Wars_Characters and List_of_minor_characters_in_the_Firefly_universe, trying to make it neater where appropriate. How's it feel?

• Minor characters page - is a major character just someone with the most screen time? Or, given the nature of JMS's storytelling, where one character's actions echo for a very long time, can we call those minor characters who have a major effect on the plot of the series major characters? Talk! Now! :-p (I'd to try and get some discussion happening here before people start going nuts with merge/redirect/delete tags.)

In response to above: I guess the minor/major status depends on whether you look at it from the form point of view, or the content POV. In regard to form, a major character would be the one with a lot of screen time, which is the way the industry recognizes it. Content-wise, in a work like B5, a major character is an important one, which Valen certainly is. Personally, I´m not really sure whether or not label him "minor", but I wouldn´t jump the gun on that merger. Seems to me this page is long enough to stand alone, and I would certainly search for Valen, not Minor characters in B5, if I wanted to learn about Valen. Misacek01 (talk) 18:09, 24 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Brain melt. I "think" I know what is a major and minor character, and then I try to think where the character Valen fits, and my mind just melts. --Aladdin Sane (talk) 16:31, 3 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

• Appropriate links to and from this page.

• Clean up any lingering missing links from the minor character merges.

Feel free to add info below each point, or all your own work-needed points to the list. Quack 688 08:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

I see this article has been tagged as having too many copyrighted images. While I added a good bit of those images as an attempt to illustrate the characters in question, I can see why the tag was added.

So I'm curious as to what people think ought to be done. Should we take out all the images? Leave it as is? Only take out some of them? If only some are taken out, which ones should be left in?

Personally I feel kind of funny having images for only some characters and not others, which is why I added some in the first place, but whatever works for people and conforms better with policy. -- Amber Vietzke (talk) 06:15, 18 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

• It would be nice if someone went through and deleted the repeated use of the phrase "In the fictional Babylon 5 universe." I don't think there's much concern that many Wikipedia readers will confuse these characters with people in the fact-based Babylon 5 universe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.22.174 (talk) 21:15, 29 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

I agree. I have attempted to fix it, by adding a note at the top of the section, and removing all other references within the section. --Aladdin Sane (talk) 03:12, 1 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

Some of the fictional biographies are in present tense. Others past. I think the guidelines tell us to write of fictional subjects in the present tense as in, "Hamlet is a play by Shakespeare". —Aladdin Sane (talk) 22:20, 21 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Unless someone knows of a WP policy contrary to the one I just made up (well, maybe I learned it in school), the sort order precedence is surname (last name), given name (first name), and title.

Since Brother Theo has no last name, that I know of, I'm moving him from "B" to "T". I hope this makes sense. For example, Emperor Cartagia is under "C" not "E" which makes sense to me. --Aladdin Sane (talk) 15:55, 3 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aladdin Sane (talk • contribs) 15:51, 3 October 2009 (UTC) (doh)Reply

I can't figure out whether Dius is a first name or a title. Either way, I think the name Dius Vintari belongs under "V". --Aladdin Sane (talk) 16:03, 3 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

Here I thought I was being so smart. I'm using best guess to sort characters that have no first name, no last name, and no title. Specifically, Number One and Garibaldi's Aide. --Aladdin Sane (talk) 03:02, 6 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

In trying to comprehend how WP lists characters for B5, I'm finding this article and two lists for "Cast" all equally helpful and relevant. But a chore to edit, since inconsistencies may creep in. To make it easier, I'll add a "See also" section here. --Aladdin Sane (talk) 17:16, 3 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

Well, I hope to put more of this discussion in its own section (it was originally started above).

Let me make it clear that this is strictly personal opinion; please discuss. (Sorry about the length.)

Here's what I've come up with so far: There are four categories of characters in B5, with respect to how to document them on Wikipedia (WP):

• 1) Major characters
• 2) Minor characters significant enough to mention
• 3) Minor characters not significant enough to mention
• 4) Valen

My opinion, based on other TV shows listed on WP, and their "significance" on WP, Major Characters can have their own page, Type 2 Minor Characters belong on this List page in the Minor Characters section, Type 3 Minor Characters we should remove, and, well, Valen I guess we should leave alone, because I don't think agreement will ever happen.

Having established that, I recently added Catherine Sakai to the Minor Characters List section. (I leave it to others to expand the entry.)

There may be other Minor Characters that merit listing here on this List page; I've really only thought about the pilot and Season 1, so far.

I think that characters that show up in but one episode (or less!) fall under Type 3, and should be removed from this List article; mentioning them in the episode article is plenty enough for WP. Examples include Colonel Ari Ben Zayn, Branmer (0 episodes; he's dead and even his body is never shown), Deathwalker, Dius Vintari, Richard Franklin, Jason Ironheart, Susanna Luchenko, Pius XV (0 episodes), and Turhan.

Look, if these characters are significant enough to mention on WP, then so are all the characters that are used primarily in one episode. For example (because it's on my mind), in "The Day of The Dead" there are three Brakiri that need to go on the list: The ambassador, the gong guy, and the candy seller. I don't think WP needs to list these in the Minor Character section of the List.

Likewise, Deathwalker is equally insignificant to a story told over 110 episodes and seven movies; she's dead after the episode and creator JMS states that the Dilgar are "as dead as doornails". Her significance is to the episode, not the story. Since the episodes have their own articles, another listing is redundant.

Going back to the "Day of the Dead" example: Dodger and Zoe are incredibly significant to the episode. But are they really important enough to the story to be listed under the Minor Characters section? If not, characters like Deathwalker need to go. If so, we have a lot more characters to list in this article.

With regards listing characters like Pius XV, look, the B5 story consists of 110 TV episodes and 7 movies. While there is other canon I admit, it is not required for the story, as JMS has said many times in messages, going back to probably 1991 (see [1]).

Hence characters found only in the novels/comics are by definition Type 3 Minor Characters and don't merit mention, except, perhaps, in the article on other canon.

There are other characters that I consider "definitely minor" and should be moved here to the List under "Minor Characters" and denied their own article on WP.

Number one among these is President Luis Santiago. The character is never portrayed, only shown. (If you're missing the distinction, please see The Treachery of Images to help understand the difference between a still photo and a portrayal). The character only becomes in any way "significant" in death. A character that is never portrayed, but only referenced by photo and in dialogue and only gains significance of any type by croaking, is to me a Minor Character at best.

One 'rule of thumb' I've been thinking about for establishing who's Major and who's Minor is to use the Cast List from the main article, since it is broken down by "Regular" and "Recurring" (I'm thinking that maybe Regular=Major and Recurring=Minor). I'm still trying to understand how valuable that may be as a guideline.

Any agreement or disagreement? --Aladdin Sane (talk) 19:26, 3 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

Rather than deleting the really minor characters from here altogether, does anyone agree or disagree that "characters that fail to cross an episode boundary" (Branmer, Jason Ironheart, etc.) should be moved to their respective episode article? They might fit in a subsection under "Synopsis/Plot", for example. In a case like that, a wikilink can still exist to the episode article from the main list here. —Aladdin Sane (talk) 03:53, 30 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

2015 update: The Luis Santiago issue I mentioned above has been fixed. The article is now merged here, to this article. Another article has replaced it at that location, about a deceased Filipino TV director.   —Aladdin Sane (talk) 09:30, 2 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Wonderful. The scope-defining statement for the article reads, "The list of Babylon 5 characters contains major and minor characters from the entire Babylon 5 universe." I think we forgot some little things from the universe, like oh say, the Crusade characters. Scope-defining should also include or exclude "secondary canon" (non-televised or DVD-published canon). We have one minor character here from secondary canon, the Pope. Do we add others, or exclude the Pope? —Aladdin Sane (talk) 18:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

While Virini is doubtless my favorite minister in Babylon 5 (a pity Project Pastels never saw the light of day), his article is sadly lacking in sources, and has been tagged for such for over five years now. I doubt the character has a great deal of real-world significance outside the larger context of the show, and must therefore, with regret, propose that his article be merged here. DonIago (talk) 13:16, 13 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

Notably, Virini hasn't been edited in over a year. If the article was in good standing that might be acceptable, but I think it's clear that in its current state improvement is needed. The lack of real-world context is a particular problem with regards to the standards for a Wikipedia article. DonIago (talk) 13:20, 13 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

  Done Klbrain (talk) 15:23, 21 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

So, virtually all B5 main character articles are over 90% plot (i.e. they fail WP:NOT#PLOT by a long shot) and WP:Original research, and they tend to be written from a WP:INUNIVERSE perspective. So there's no debate that the article require massive trimming and rewriting. In my experience, one paragraph of character arc description (i.e. plot) per season is sufficient, see e.g. Cameron Mitchell (Stargate) or Vala Mal Doran. Since B5 ran for 5 seasons, this means most character characters don't need more than 5 paragraphs of plot, maybe one more to cover other franchise appearances.

These character articles also don't demonstrate WP:NOTABILITY, but I believe one or two paragraphs about development, design, reception, significance, and influence of works (per WP:NOT#PLOT) could be added easily, so notability is not an issue per se. It's just no such real-world material has been added in the past 15 years, and (for now) there is no indication that this will change.

Per WP:WAF, Very rarely should such spinout articles be about a singular topic (e.g., character, plot item); either that topic has demonstrated its own notability, or should be merged into the main article or existing spinout articles. And per WP:MERGEREASON, If a page is very short and is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it with a page on a broader topic.

I already culled everything (to me) noteworthy from most character articles and merged them to this LoE per WP:SUMMARY. In the same step, I redirected them here, because otherwise we'd be back to 100% exact copies of this LoE and the character article. However, a few of the redirects were reverted, so we're back to the decade-long mess. As a quick solution for each stand-alone character, either replace the excessive article plot with the character arc summary from this LoE for WP:UNDUE, or redirect the articles back here again. If you want to add real-world info, great, but if it's just tidbits, you could also add it here first and wait until the character qualifies for a WP:SPINOUT. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:46, 26 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

If there is such a thing as WP:SNOW for merge, then I think we're at the threshold. Elizium23 (talk) 09:16, 26 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

I think the few characters who seem to be notable (Both JS, Delenn, Lyta, Ivanova, and G'Kar and LM) should remain as separate entries. Through for the latter two I could find only one reference, so they might be revisited with an AfD. But otherwise, they are just bad articles, but not TNT level. 99% plot, 1% analysis, but nonetheless notable, so no point in merging. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:48, 26 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Ideally I would say the characters appearing in the opening credits should each have their own articles. Practically, unless there's significant real-world coverage of the character in question (e.g. Keffer), they probably shouldn't have their own article. DonIago (talk) 13:36, 26 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Whoever merged Lorien managed to drop the quote about the question he posed to Sheridan. Please fix. Q-FUNK (talk) 13:33, 31 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

The Civ article has WP:INUNIVERSE and general WP:FANCRUFT problems, and as such is prone to WP:AFD. I suggest merging it into the LoC similar to how List of Stargate SG-1 characters and List of Stargate Atlantis characters do it. – sgeureka ^t•c 17:08, 9 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

• No opposition for a month, so merge performed. – sgeureka ^t•c 12:17, 11 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

This wasn't a merge, but a destruction - you have just eliminated a huge amount of information. One race - The Shadows - is simply absent entirely, as reflected in several posts on this talk page, probably because it is not represented by individual characters, and I assume that the Hand, the Gaim, Goblyns etc are absent for the same reason. The original article had categorisations such as the First Ones - again lost. There is a reason why WP:FANCRUFT is just an essay - there is no objective measure for the level of detail to be provided in the description of fictional universes; and there is no reason why lists of alien species/civilisations should be illegitimate when lists of individual characters are. I am restoring the Civilizations in Babylon 5 article. The lists of species/civilisations could be listed separately within this article instead, but just eliminating anything that doesn't fit into your concept of a list of characters is incredibly and pointlessly destructive.--Anonymous44 (talk) 22:41, 16 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Courtesy-pinging sgeureka (talk · contribs), as their above message is from four years ago but you sound as though you believe it's more recent ("you have just eliminated..."). DonIago (talk) 12:51, 17 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Doniago: Thanks for the ping. @Anonymous44: I currently don't have the mental capacity to argue or research the stand-alone article worthiness about TV shows I've never even watched, so I sent it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Civilizations in Babylon 5 for others to decide. – sgeureka ^t•c 13:49, 17 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Sgeureka: The merge of Civilizations in Babylon 5 dropped the sections on individual civilizations, leaving the redirect from e.g. Shadow (Babylon 5) without a target and creating a redirect loop from this article to itself. -- Beland (talk) 07:27, 19 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

In the TV series "Babylon 5" there is the character "Byron" List_of_Babylon_5_characters#Byron.
Having seen this series and having read the article Bobby Sands and seen the two images within it, it is quite obvious, to me, that "Bobby Sands" was the inspiration to "Byron" of "Babylon 5".
But I don't know of any source for this.
Please ping me. Steue (talk) 19:51, 26 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

This paragraph has some undeveloped thoughts: After the TV series, he spent several years on the run before moving to Paris, France, where he fell in love with a local businesswoman named Louise. But Michael Garibaldi was relentless in his pursuit, and eventually tracked him down. Bester was brought before the war crimes tribunal, and was tried in France for his crimes. He was sentenced to life in prison and subjected to the sleeper drugs that deprived him of his telepathic abilities. During that time, a statue was even made of the lost child of Fiona. He then spent the next 10 years in a maximum-security prison, and died shortly after the death of John Sheridan in 2281. The very day before his death, he finally accepted that he was indeed the 'lost child' of Matthew and Fiona Dexter, and his left fist finally reopened as a result. Even in death, Garibaldi pursued him. After Bester's funeral, Garibaldi went to the gravesite and hammered a wooden stake into the ground above Bester's coffin. This quite amused a departing watcher, who was fully aware of what Bester had done and been in life.[31]

• a statue was even made of the lost child of Fiona -- Ummm, who?
• he was indeed the 'lost child' of Matthew and Fiona Dexter -- No such names appear elsewhere in this article
• and his left fist finally reopened as a result -- This needs some explanation — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.93.233.24 (talk) 01:27, 30 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Why doesn't he have his own section? There are quite a number of mentions of him in the biographies of other characters. Kidburla (talk) 15:35, 8 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

There was an article on Morgan Clark, but it was deleted instead of being merged here. Please feel free to add a paragraph or two to this list. - Eureka Lott 17:35, 8 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

It would be really nice if someone were to:

Enlarge the photo, and

Identify the characters and races shown.

104.153.40.58 (talk) 01:18, 28 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Why is it that the Shadows (and everything associated with them, such as their planet) links back to this article (dozens of times), but nowhere is there a description of them? If there is to be no description, then why are there multiple links? The Vorlons get a short paragraph, but not The Shadows, even though the Vorlons are an important part of the opposition to The Shadows. Can someone knowledgeable please fix this? Cyberherbalist (talk) 07:39, 3 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Seconded. A section on The Shadows is missing.--62.73.72.3 (talk) 22:19, 16 October 2024 (UTC)Reply