Welcome to the Kerr Avon Tribute Page, a page dedicated to celebrating Blake's 7's most renowned character. Let's face it, Blake's 7 just wouldn't be the same without the snarling, studded leather-clad adonis who alone could put Blake firmly in his place. Kerr Avon is Blake's 7. He is not merely a man, but a god, or at least a demi-god. Shame on those who think he's just an arrogant big-nosed bastard who hogs far more attention than he deserves. They are, quite simply, WRONG. And this page is here to show them why. On this page you will find:

• THE ESSENTIAL AVON - what makes him simply the best!
• FASCINATING FACTS - things you never knew about Avon.
• THE WIT AND WISDOM OF KERR AVON - only a sample, since whole gigabytes could be devoted to this!

THE ESSENTIAL AVON

AVON IS EXTREMELY CLEVER Blakes 7 abounds with examples of Avon's extreme cleverness. Right from the second episode we learn that he nearly stole five million credits from the Federation, which is an extremely clever thing to do. He's also smart enough to realise that staying with Blake on the Liberator is a pretty stupid idea - none of Blake's other followers even come close to guessing that. He then shows extreme cleverness in Horizon when he works out that he could survive alone on the Liberator with only Zen and Orac for company. And in Hostage he's the only one who thinks of telling Servalan where Travis is. In Power he defeats Gunn-Sar armed only with a glove and a small thermo-nuclear device, which just goes to show how incomparably clever Avon can be. In the same episode he gets the Scorpio back after Pella's stolen it, by using the teleport that all the others were too dim to think of. And right at the very end he's the only one still standing because everyone else was stupid enough to go and get shot - but not Avon!

Clever Avon throws Gunn-Sar off-balance by pretending to be a Stuka dive bomber.

AVON IS VERY CONSIDERATE

Although he pretends to be sneering, sarcastic and arrogant, anyone who's really watched Blakes 7 (and that means really watching it properly, by concentrating only on what Avon says and does) will know that this is just a cover for his true nature, which is really very sensitive. He's just a little bit indirect in showing it. Right from when he first appears on the London, he tells Blake and Vila how he could fix a deal with the crew so that only he survives - but he doesn't do this, so obviously he's really saying, 'Look how evil and ruthless I could be if I wasn't such a caring, tender-hearted nice guy.' Right through the series, Avon shows time and time again how considerate he really is. Take Harvest of Kairos when he rapidly shoots three guards in the back, thus sparing them the shock and emotional trauma of knowing that they are about to die.

And earlier, in Aftermath, he goes to enormous lengths to distract Dayna from the grief of losing her father, even venturing into the Sarran camp to rescue Servalan. A less sensitive man would have left her there and exploited poor Dayna's emotional frailty to find a chance to bang one up her, but Avon is entirely above such things. And what about Stardrive? Did he flick open the comm channel to tell Dr Plaxton she was about to undergo a painful and hideous death? No, of course he didn't. He's far too understanding. Of course, some people persist in arguing that Avon was prepared to leave Blake languishing on Cygnus Alpha while he and Jenna ran off with the Liberator, but they just don't understand. Avon was testing Jenna, and because he's extremely clever (see above) he found a way of doing it that simultaneously projected his ruthless, callous, self-seeking false persona to the fore.
In fact, he invests so much energy in developing this outwardly repellent facade that one can only conclude that Avon is actually a very considerate person indeed.		Avon's keen objective mind allows him to see people for what they truly are.

AVON IS INCREDIBLY MODEST

		Despite being almost obscenely intelligent with a fiercely burning flame of true humanitarian spirit in his heart, Avon goes to great lengths to play down these and all his other virtues. Faced with a piece of technology that even he can't comprehend, he doesn't whinge or whine or make feeble excuses, he just says, 'It's not my field' and leaves it at that. Examples of Avon's modesty abound in the series. For example, in Redemption, he could have gathered all the crew together and point out that he had discovered where Liberator was predicted to be destroyed, but instead he waited until he and Blake were alone before quietly mentioning it. Not that he got much in the way of thanks from Blake, of course, but this predictable response only serves to underline Avon's stoical side when dealing with people less perfect than himself.
Avon is cultured and refined, not an oafish lout.		Hostage is another good example - by contacting Servalan he has inadvertently put Blake in a potentially sticky spot (though Blake's arrogant approach and insistence on doing everything himself suggests that he deserved it anyway), but does he grovel apologetically? Does he whimper at the others to help him save Blake?

Of course not - he goes down to the planet and sorts it all out without a word to anyone. And gets shot by Travis for his pains. And at the end of Countdown, you might care to note the way he resists all pressure from Blake to burden other people with the tedious details of his private life - anyone else would have jabbered on for hours, but Avon is of a very different mould! In Aftermath he rejects Servalan's offer of co-rulership of the galaxy with the blatantly ridiculous excuse of being dead in a week. Utter rubbish, of course, since he could easily have gone on for years, while we know that Servalan only lasted thirteen weeks or so.

AVON IS UTTERLY TRUTHFUL

This is one of Avon's most endearing characteristics, and it's gratifying to know that most fans acknowledge it. Avon never lies - ever - and it's one of the great tragedies of Blake's 7 that the people he's forced to associate with are third-grade ignorants who stubbornly refuse to see what a reliable, honest, dependable, trustworthy person he is. This absolute honesty means that he occasionally lets slip personal details that we would never have guessed otherwise. Who could possibly have known that Avon isn't very keen on water sports if he hadn't told Dayna precisely that in Aftermath? This explains why Avon is never seen swimming or scuba diving in any of the 51 episodes he appears in. Would-be fan writers take note! Unfortunately, coming up against an unscrupulous villainess like Servalan puts him on the spot on a few occasions, but Avon can take such challenges in his stride. In Deathwatch, for example, he assigns all the underhand cheating and lying to Tarrant, though only after considerately checking first that Tarrant is prepared to be so unsporting. I have heard it argued that he used Dayna and Vila as bait for the Space Rats in Stardrive, but you only have to study the episode carefully to see that at no point whatsoever does he tell them that they are categorically not being used as bait, and if they haven't got the foresight to ask then they deserve everything they get. Some other statements by Avon also get misinterpreted, so it's worth making a bit of space to refute the scurrilous lies such incidents can generate:

"I'm just sentimental about money" (Shadow). What this means, of course, is that when it comes to money, Avon is just sentimental, not greedy or avaricious or anything unsavoury like that. "My name is Shevron, this is my wife Dayna" (Powerplay). Nowhere in the series is it stated that Kerr Avon is his full name, so we can assume that Shevron is a middle name, or maybe a nickname. "I need to kill her [Servalan] myself" (Traitor). The fact that he never does so is a testament to his aforementioned considerateness, because whenever he has the chance to kill her he stands back to let Dayna have a go, even though she keeps failing. "No good deed goes unpunished" (Rescue). Given the way everyone else treats him throughout the series, the truth of this statement should be self-evident.

The aired series often failed to place extraneous elements in their due perspective relative to Avon. Fortunately fan fiction and fan art can redress this imbalance.

AVON IS A SNAPPY DRESSER

Avon's sartorial taste is beyond all denial, as proven in episodes like Ultraworld and Deathwatch.

FASCINATING FACTS

It's hard to think of any aspect of Avon that isn't fascinating, but here are twenty of the most important.

1. Avon is the only character in Blakes 7 to have a river named after him.
2. 'Avon' spelt backwards is 'Nova', which means 'new', but that doesn't mean Avon is the opposite of new, ie old. He's just mature.
3. There was a Nova in the series, but he died, therefore Avon didn't.
4. Avon often wears black. So does another incredibly popular British science fiction character, Judge Dredd of Mega-City One. Both are grim-faced paragons you wouldn't want to trifle with.
5. However, Judge Dredd spends all his time enforcing the law, whilst Avon is usually more interested in breaking it.
6. Avon never once said, 'Thirty years, creep!' or 'Touch me again and you'll do time, punk!'
7. Nor did he ever ride an enormous motorbike, but he could if he tried.
8. Well, probably.
9. Avon is a vegetarian and a committed Animal Rights activist. He ate the apple in Moloch, but not the mouse.
10. Unlike Blake, who murdered and spit-roasted innocent wildlife just to maintain his 'rugged bounty-hunter' image.
11. Contrary to popular opinion, Avon does not like beating up women. He just likes beating up people called Sara, and unfortunately most of these happen to be women.
12. So if your name is Sara, start spelling it with an 'h' on the end and Avon will leave you alone.
13. Unless you want Avon to beat you up, in which case you needn't change the spelling.
14. Avon's hairstyle was initially based on that of famous pop star John Lennon, but it got changed as the series progressed when it became clear that he was never going to wear granny glasses or get shot dead by a maniac.
15. He did get shot by Travis in Hostage, but not dead, and besides it was probably all Blake's fault anyway.
16. So the troopers surrounding him at the end were either not maniacs or, more likely, they all missed.
17. Avon admired Dorian's taste in wine, so he must have been a connoisseur.
18. And he quoted Mark Twain at the end of Rumours of Death, making him an expert in 19th Century American literature.
19. He also admired Dorian's taste in women. That includes Soolin.
20. So it's a good thing he killed Anna Grant when he did, otherwise she might have teamed up with Dorian and betrayed him all over again.

THE WIT AND WISDOM OF KERR AVON

Some people think that Avon has no sense of humour, but this is because they fail to appreciate the subtlety of his finely-tuned mind. Sarcasm comes easily to him, but then it has to if he's to stand any chance of keeping his cool in the faceof the inanities his crewmates bombard him with. Unfortunately the series failed to develop his talent for ironic self-parody to the full, so it's necessary to provide some conjectural examples.

For example, Blake and Avon might be on an agricultural world. Blake, as usual obsessed with pointless trivia, points to the growing crops and asks, 'Is that wheat or barley they're growing here?'. So Avon replies, 'It's not my field'. Thankfully he knows better than to expect Blake to fall about laughing because he knows what a pompous git Blake can be.

Or suppose Avon's been ill for a few days, and then bravely returns to the flight deck. Cally asks him, 'How are you feeling?', and Avon responds with, 'Well, now.' Cally doesn't collapse in gales of laughter either, but then she's an alien and takes everything far too earnestly.

There are a few canonical moments to support such conjecture. For example, when Avon says, 'I'm not stupid, I'm not expendable, and I'm not going', nobody seems to realise that he has cunningly deployed two finite adjectival clauses with a third clause using the progressive form of the present indicative. Such a grammatically challenged mob should feel grateful that Avon deigns to associate with them at all, let alone live on the same space ship. And when Vila says, 'I have this terrible pain right behind my eyes', Avon's reply is 'Have you considered amputation?', but the ironies of this remark are lost on Vila, because it never occurs to him that eyes can't be amputated.
		Soolin watches enthralled as Avon demonstrates his masterful impression of a duck

AVON THE EXPRESSIVE

Lastly, as a final tribute to the man who not only made Blakes 7 but ultimately was Blakes 7, here he is in the full panoply of his emoting glory!

pensive	brooding	apprehensive	fascinated	resolute	lovelorn

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