Ok - I've just finished the 3rd season and haven't seen anything after,, so bear with me if my response is uneducated:
But how do you feel that Delenn started the relationship? Oh sure, she pats his hand, but she is a person who comforts others. She pats lots of men's hands. It was the chemistry between them, which I don't think the writers were trying to insinuate she knew would be there, which turned the gesture into anything else. And from that moment to the moment they both have flashes telling them they will be together, it's actually Sheridan who pushes their relationship forward: he tells her how he feels, he asks her on the dinner date, etc. Now, obviously Delenn from the beginning of their relationship wanted to move fast in getting his friendship and trust: mostly, I would read, b/c she got burned when Sinclair didn't come to her until she was already cocooned, directly as a result of her moving so slowly with him that he didn't really trust her until it was almost too late.
But I would read that the romantic relationship between them she was not expecting. Nor, OBVIOUSLY were the rest of the Minbari (given that they told her not to rush with the transformation anyway), so I would think it was not some part of a Minbari manipulation to get John to sign on. After all, they were excessively pissed off when he was assigned - you think they already knew that he would be "the one that will be" who would lead them in the war and so they needed to give him that incentive? Not a lot of sense-making there. But that's just me.
Oh, and to the remark that originally everything that happens to Sheridan was going to happen to Sinclair: I agree for the most part, but think that does not include the relationship with Delenn. I think that they would have remained just friends. I just don't see how they would move fast enough after Catherine Sakai would have been taken by the shadows, to have him mourn her and then fall in love with Delenn. It just wouldn't be believable. It was already a stretch with John, that he didn't question that she was dead (they didn't, after all, ever explicitly say she was) but is made believable by the fact he'd already mourned her for three years, and inasmuch as possible, accepted her death.
In addition, it seems to me that originally the "theft" of Babylon 4 would not have taken place until some time after the contemporary war against the shadows was over. The whole "he ages because he gets re-exposed to the time field" seems like a makeshift addition to me - which would explain how Sinclair leaps to the assumption that b/c he had a flash of Michael dying, he's going to die if he goes to B4 (after all, they're getting a transmission where Ivanova dies, which doesn't happen because SHE goes to B4) It makes sense only b/c in the first ep they had him aged, and so had to explain that some other way than by natural time passing. Hence, the makeshift, which is really not valuable enough to put in there if they didn't need it to explain something. Plus, there are bunch of other inconsistencies from the first B4 episode to the second that fall in with that thesis - Zathrus originally made it seem as if "the one" he was pointing to was the main impetus behind the timeshift: that he was enduring the pain in order to achieve that goal, not simply because of a mistake. I also remember him at least insinuating (sry, it's been a couple months and I don't have the episode in front of me) that the stabilizer he gave that "the one" was his: that after he gave it, he no longer had one and would die. This obviously doesn't fit in with what happens in the 2nd episode , but makes more sense if you assume that at the time of the first episode, they assumed this was many years in the future (after Sinclair had learned how to make ships travel through time) and, of course, that the whole triumvirated "the one" thing was an addition after they decided to replace Sinclair.
Anyway, these are my thoughts, sry if I'm making some huge error on account of not having seen the last two seasons yet. However, if someone would help me out with one thing:
The end of season 3, while excellent, left me with a question:
How would Sheridan leap to the conclusion that in the future he saw when he came "unstuck" in time, he DIDN'T go to Zha'hadum? WHY would Delenn need to scream at him as he's being pulled away "Do not go to Zha'hadum" if in that reality she was able to convince him not to go? Now I know that he gets resurrected, thanks to my penchant for reading spoilers (bad me), so:
is this just supposed to be an error on his part due to the fact that he knows if he goes to Zha'hadum he'll die, and thus assumes that in the future he was alive, he didn't go, and thus he's actually recreating that future by going to Zha'hadum, (in which case, clever writers, silly (but brave and heroic, of course) John,
or is this an error on the producer's part and they're actually saying that he's right, in that future he DIDN'T go to Zha'hadum, and that by going to Zha'hadum, he's erased that future and Centauri is saved? In which case, silly producers, that doesn't make any sense, why would Delenn be so desperate for him not to go to Zha'hadum if in that reality he never went there!
Anyway, please don't answer the question in detail b/c I don't want to know everything that happens, just say "John's error" or "Producer's error"
Thanks!
