I suspect part of the attraction between Blake and Avon was that Blake understood Avon all too well. Remember 'Cygnus Alpha') where Avon finds the guns on the flight deck and promptly pulls one on Blake. Blake carries on talking to Jenna as though nothing had happened.
Although I think trust was the key ingredient in their relationship, I don't cite this scene as part of it. It wasn't trust as so much good reading of character that made Blake ignore the gun. This was early days - indeed, Avon tries to abandon Blake on Cygnus Alpha later in the same episode.
Yet, by 'Time Squad', only the next episode the relationship is clicking into place and by 'The Web' it is fully forged. What factors made that happen?
Here's one obvious one. Avon tried to abandon Blake on Cygnus Alpha - did Blake know? There's a fair chance that Jenna would have told him. He had to know that something delayed the teleport - he'd have asked what happened.
Yet his reaction is not to turn on Avon, but to give him a second chance. In 'Time Squad', he and Jenna teleport over to the alien capsule. He's taken with him the person who stopped Avon abandoning hin on Cygnus Alpha and leaving Avon with Vila and Gan, neither of whom would be able to stop Avon. Vila hasn't the willpower, Gan can't use a gun.
He's given Avon exactly the chance he had before, but with the odds improved and he's staking his own life on the result. What kind of a man does that make Blake? Either a fool, or a man who is prepared to trust to an extrordinary degree.
Avon even challenges him with the danger of the situation. Blake gives Avon a reply that gives no verbal reassurances of faith (which Avon would probabaly have seen as palatitudes in any case), but continues to calmly place his life in Avon's hands. (and that split infinitive is *deliberate*, so there)
Blake was a man of actions, not words. He could use words, but they were never his primary weapon. He lived by what he believed and Avon, who was used to people who promised everything and did nothing, was faced with a man who trusted him and had a cause that he believed in.
Avon was a man of his word, which was why he tried so hard never to give it. Only once (that I can recall) did Blake ask him for an actual promise. The rest of the time, he took the basic sense of honour under the cynicism for granted - which I suspect Avon found very frustrating and also drew him to Blake like nothing else could have done.
The only time Blake asked for a promise was when humanity was at stake. He wasn't asking Avon to protect Blake, but to take them all into danger for the sake of people that Avon cared nothing for.
Last changed on 20th of March 1999