Re: Believers, technically, it's David "The Trouble with Tribbles" Gerold not letting the adorable kid live. (JMS didn't start writing all the episodes until mid s2.) This is actually one of the episodes that made critics sit up and pay attention back in the day when they still thought JMS was kidding about the whole five season arc/ novel on television concept, and was held up as an example of how B5 was not like Star Trek (in a script written by one of the big ST writers) and thus something new and worth watching.

There is, I believe, a joke among the Londo/G'Kar portion of fandom, and it goes something like this: you know you ship them when your answer to "What happened in No Surrender, No Retreat?" is not "An epic last stand against the Shadows and the Vorlons," but rather "Londo tries to get G'Kar to share a drink with him."

True, but you have your epic battles confused. Rumour tells me the one in No Surrender, No Retreat is between Sheridan & Co. and Clark's forces, because the Shadows have long gone and we're in the climax of the Earth Civil War.

By Any Means Necessary made andraste when she first saw it write in her review that if you have an episode which can be summed up as "G'Kar pouts because Londo won't give him flowers", you really have to wonder why it took everyone so long to slash them. :) Anyway, they are at their funniest here, true, while at the same time it makes a point about how important G'Kar's faith is to him. And yes, that's one of the few things Londo doesn't get early on about G'Kar. (Londo never was, never is and never will be religious, which doesn't mean there aren't things he believes in. I also love the last word on this, Vir's Londo story he tells in Sleeping in Light, about Londo hearing the Pak'mara sing and declaring that he doesn't believe in any of the 40-something gods of the Centauri pantheon, not really, but if they did exist these would be their voices.)

Re: Morden's choice; ruuger once wrote a "Five things that never happened to Londo Mollari" for me, and one of them was of course that Morden picks G'Kar, not Londo, in s1. But from Londo's pov, so we don't have exploration of what went on with G'Kar. As to how far G'Kar would have gone; the thing is, just as Londo wasn't the only Centauri Morden was in contact with, just the first, I think that Morden would have made sure to get other Narn interested as well, so that by the time G'Kar would come to a personal line he wouldn't cross (which would have been definitely after the destruction of Centauri Prime, not before), it would not depend just on G'Kar anymore.

(On a lighter note: andraste once wrote an AU in which G'Kar is female, but as interested in non-Narn sexually as ever. This means Morden has to do a lot more than just ask "what do you want?" in the Shadows' cause...)

G'Kar has three breaks from fate which correspond with Londo's three chances: Morden not picking him at a point where G'Kar WOUld have gone along with genocide is one of them. The other two are Turhan having his heart attack before G'Kar can assassinate him (if G'Kar either had succeeded or tried to kill the Centauri Emperor on a peace mission, HE would have been the one to start the second Narn/Centauri war, and there would have been a lot less sympathy for the Narn on Sheridan's part, especially given that G'Kar's prepared denial not withstanding, he did have the backing of his goverment for that assassination), and Kosh intervening with a vision in Dust to Dust. Now, that G'Kar uses those lucky breaks to become a better person is solely due to G'Kar, but get them he did.

At this point Londo can't possibly want what's good for the Centauri, because he wants what he's been taught to want, and the thing he's been taught isn't any good. It's broken. So he's going to get it all, and he's going to get it all broken.

Quote from In the Beginning, slightly paraphrased because I don't have it here and there isn't a transcript online: "In my life, I had four wives, and in my way, I cared for them. But I loved Centauri Prime. And look what I did to her!"

Re: the Faustian pact: not quite. He has gotten Morden and the Shadows interested, but I think the point of no return is even later than asking Morden for help the first time; it's when after the attack on the Narn outpost, i.e. when he knows exactly what the mysterious "allies" are capable of now, asks for a second time. That's when he sells his soul.

Delenn: deborah_judge pointed out to me that she never answers the "what do you want?" question through the show, but Lennier brings it up again in s5. She does answer the Vorlon's question, "Who are you?", when volunteering to be tortured by Sebastian, and the contrast to her dealing with Morden tells you about the deference Delenn has for the Vorlons and that she might be more confident with one of the questions, but not the other.

What Morden is wearing is a crystal pendant, actually; you can see it more clearly in In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum. But yes, of course it's another of JMS LotR fanboy things. I, err, might have used that in in this DW crossover involving the Master.