discussion about a fairly big plot point in RDX via BTE

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I was listening to a Ganymede & Titan podcast on Back to Earth on my drive home today and a point they brought up made me think of something else. It's not slashy, per se, but I do think it's germane to this community, both sort of from that perspective and just because we all love discussing Dwarf so much.

Someone from G&T said they thought in BTE, Katarina represents Rimmer's need to get one-up on a superior officer and shove her in front of a bus - that his consciousness supplied it to make him happy, via the elation squid. They also said this is how Rimmer can get away with "killing" a fellow hologram without actually committing any sort of "murder" - since they're all in a mass hallucination where nothing is real, anyway.

Except for those of us watching the show, according to Kryten. (I just watched the part after Lister wakes up from the hallucination again, so I'd be fresh on these points.) He said due to quantum mechanics, we're all real, in a universe - I take it not theirs, necessarily, but that he was perhaps alluding to a parallel universe/dimension. Keep this in mind ...

So if Rimmer's mind can conjure up a fantasy to make himself feel better, the other guys' could too - or at least Lister's could, being a fellow human. If a friend or someone you loved died, wouldn't it make you happier to find out they hadn't died - even if it meant your brain had to do somersaults to make it so they just up and left you instead? Kryten's "confession" about lying about Kochanski's non-death was within the confines of the hallucination ... neither she nor the matter is discussed again AT ALL among the guys once Lister wakes up from the hallucination.

So here's my two points:

1. There's no indication that Kochanski did, indeed, not die in the Red Dwarf reality. Lister imagined she did not, to be happier and give himself hope - but there's no indication she'd be alive in his real life. So if RDX is indeed a continuation from BTE, either (a) we missed the conversation where Kryten admits that, indeed, he DID go against his programming and maintain a lie to his most beloved master for a long time, or (b) Lister has finally gone completely around the bend and the other guys are humoring his search for Kochanski at every turn.

2. OR ... RDX takes place in a parallel universe to BTE - but not the same universe - perhaps the one in which the Dwarfers exist in the same universe with their TV show viewers their hallucination created in BTE. One in which Kochanski didn't die; and/or Kryten lied about her dying and she's still alive out there, somewhere, for Lister to search for.

Do either of these make sense?

Comments

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

Gosh, the thought of Lister hallucinating KK back to life had actually never occurred to me. I doubt Doug would kill her off because, as we know, he has a lot invested in their relationship.

But I think it does make sense to view BTE as existing in its own continuity, since nothing happens in it which affects Series X. If anything, Lister seems to have gone backwards emotionally at the start of X, although by the time of "The Beginning" he seems more stable.