But there's "some guy out there who controls your life with his
word processor" in ALL television, ALL fiction. Even if it's a one
hour script, for another series, what happens to that character has
been determined by the writer. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FREE WILL IN
A FICTIONAL CHARACTER'S LIFE.

As for working within the B5 universe itself, as Ladira said, her
visions are of things that MIGHT be. The whole POINT is that people
make choices in this show. Yes, they're the choices the writer provides
them...but what other choice is there? If you can materialize Ivanova in
a real Babylon 5 and let her do as she chooses, I'm all for it. Until
then, somebody has to make up the story, and the universe, and the
situations.

And, once again, you're assuming that you know where fate is going
to take any given person on this show. And you're almost certainly
wrong at one level or another.

This kind of reminds me of conversations I find at conventions, when
I appear with the actors. The actors get questions like, "How do you go
about creating the character?" and I get, "What will the stories be?" as
though I was walking down the street one day, stumbled across these
independently-existing characters, and shoved them into this storyline.
You cannot, in any conceivable fashion, minimize the contribution of the
cast, which is superlative. But I created Ivanova, and Sheridan, and
Sinclair, and Garibaldi, and Kosh, and Londo, and G'Kar, and the Earth
Alliance, and the Vorlons, and the Psi Corps, and I write the words they
say, the rooms they're in, the changes in their lives. Just like every
novelist you've ever seen.

There's no such thing as a character having free will within the
structure of a story. Certainly they can seem to come alive in the
writing process, but that's not the same thing.

jms