Zhaan Question... Looking for Some Insight

[kire]

Okay, I'm very new to Farscape and I just finished watching the first season, and I've just watched the first few eps of the second season.

My question is, Zhaan is REALLY unpredictable in what she says and does. Why?

Like, sometimes she's thrown into tough situations where she does really really well and comforts and helps those around her, and other times she seems to veer towards being a coward and just outright ignoring others.

Why the hell does she act like this? Am I off base in what I see?

[auroraSun]

I always paired Zhaan unpredictable with her struggle between the priestess within her and the hidden warrior. She tries to subdue the warrior within her, but occasionaly she can't control it. At least, that is what I contribute it to, though it could just be the writers not knowing what to do with her ;)

[sny]

Here's my basic take on Zhaan. After seeing some of the Zhaan background eps, where they go into more detail about why she was a prisoner, and who she murdered, and why, I came to the conclusion that auroraSun did, basically. I'll expand a bit, though.

Zhaan worked for years to become a priest, to control her emotions, to exude love and caring, to get in touch with her spiritual side. Unlike (I hesitate to say this, but it's kind of a parallel) Vulcans, who can be highly volatile and violent and emotional in their "natural state", Delvians don't try to suppress emotion completely, they try to channel it to higher purpose, to serenity.

Zhaan committed a murder. In fact, she murdered her lover. As this page (http://www.farscapefantasy.com/zhaan.html) points out, she is rather unique in that she really is guilty of the crime she was accused of. She had good reason as to why she murdered her lover, but the murder essentially "let loose" her baser nature. Rhapsody in Blue is a great episode to watch closely, in order to see what Delvians are like when their dark impulses take over. To see what Zhaan is afraid of. When pushed too hard, they go completely insane. Zhaan did.

Zhaan is always afraid of this, I think, particularly in seasons 1 and 2. Several times, she tells the rest of the crew that she spent many cycles of her captivity creeping back from the madness the murder spawned to her state at the beginning of the series. She's always mindful that giving in to her dark desires, violence, hatred, etc., could push her into insanity again. She maintains a very tight control on her serenity. Or tries to. I note she's often more comfortable with violence that's more impersonal, say, blowing up a command carrier with explosives she manufactures, as opposed to one-on-one violence. Like most of us are. (Some people talk all gung-ho about bombing a country but couldn't personally shoot an individual, that sort of thing...)

She often does ignore the needs of others in her quest to stay in touch with her spiritual side. (Mind the Baby comes to mind, particularly. She's on a Seek when the rest of the crew is begging for her help. By the end of the ep, she seems to have seen the light a bit about how love is more than just being in touch with your spirit and saying you love all living beings.) In the first and early second season, the crew is still in the midst of all the growing pains of becoming "one big, Jerry Springer dysfunctional-type family", but eventually, Zhaan comes into her own as a consistently "motherly" figure. She does a better job as the series progresses of balancing her spiritual needs with the here and now and the physical needs of the rest of the crew.

Mostly, Zhaan is a very real, imperfect character. She has flaws, just like the rest of the crew. She wigs out more impressively, sometimes, but even John has his ups and downs. He can coolly waltz into a heavily guarded spot under Scorpy's nose in one ep, but squeals like a little girl when confronted with a baby Drak, for instance. Even Pilot, who seems to be the most serene member of the crew, wigs out in The Way We Weren't. Zhaan's ups and downs make her a more interesting and real character to me. She would be very annoying to me if she always knew what to do and always responded just so.

Stacie