Firefly - "Bushwhacked" - speculation
Nov. 6th, 2005 05:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedibuttercupBeen doing some more research for my next chapter of Book's Legacy. I'm really, really anxious about Mal's conversation with Inara-- my Muse doesn't want to deal with it any more than Mal himself likely does. I like her very much as her own character, but I have tremendous issues with the pairing; naturally, I'm afraid this is going to affect my writing. I want them to read natural, not as my mouthpieces, which, granted, they technically are, but still.
Anyway, I put in "Bushwhacked" before going to "Shindig" because I wanted to see again what she'd told the Alliance interrogator about staying aboard Serenity, and ended up getting snared by Mal's spookiness instead.
Earlier in the ep, after he tells Simon to drug the 'survivor', this bit of discussion takes place:
And then, in the aforementioned interrogation sequence, he tells Captain Harken the following:
And then there's Harken's mention that "I haven't seen torture like that since the war," referring to the 'survivor's' slit tongue.
This bothers me. It makes all my writer's nerves itch. "It's the place he's going to live from now on." --> "You call him a survivor? He's not."
*cough* Serenity *cough*
I really want to know now -- and am probably doomed to write, though I doubt in this story because it's likely to be very much darker than the angsty-but-trending-toward-H.E.A. tale I'm trying to weave -- just exactly what the hell happened during the war that made Mal sympathize so heavily with the poor bastard, and if that's how he feels about it, then how the hell he managed to hammer himself back into a mostly-functional, mostly-good man in its aftermath. Got to be more than just the Valley itself to it. I'd hazard a guess that Zoë had a lot to do with that recovery, and that it's also part of the reason he and Zoë are such iron-clad good friends but haven't a spark of sexuality between them.
*rubbing forehead* Damnit. Must go watch "Shindig" now and try to get the Inara Muse back.
Anyway, I put in "Bushwhacked" before going to "Shindig" because I wanted to see again what she'd told the Alliance interrogator about staying aboard Serenity, and ended up getting snared by Mal's spookiness instead.
Earlier in the ep, after he tells Simon to drug the 'survivor', this bit of discussion takes place:
BOOK
(relieved) So he'll live then.
MAL
Which to my mind is unfortunate.
BOOK
Not a very charitable attitude, Captain.
MAL
Charity'd be putting a bullet in his brainpan.
INARA
Mal!
MAL
Only save him the suffering. (pulls infirmary door shut)
MAL (cont'd)
All right, no one goes in here. Nothing more we can do for him now, not after what he's seen.
SIMON
What do you mean?
MAL
That ship was hit by Reavers.
JAYNE
Reavers?
WASH
[Tzao gao. - "Crap."]
INARA
Mal, how can you know?
JAYNE
He don't - that's how. No way. It was that other fella, the one we ran into, like I said before, he went stir-crazy, killed the rest, then took a walk in space.
KAYLEE
Just a second ago you said that...
JAYNE
Don't matter what I said. Reavers don't leave no survivors.
MAL
Strictly speaking, wouldn't say they did.
BOOK
What are you suggesting?
MAL
Doesn't matter that we took him off that boat, Shepherd, it's the place he's going to live from now on.
And then, in the aforementioned interrogation sequence, he tells Captain Harken the following:
HARKEN
You saw them, did you?
MAL
Wouldn't be sitting here talking to you if I had.
HARKEN
No, of course not.
MAL
But I'll tell you who did. That poor bastard you took off my ship. He looked right into the face of it. Was made to stare.
HARKEN
"It"?
MAL
The darkness. Kind of darkness you can't even imagine. Blacker than the space it moves through.
HARKEN
Very poetic.
MAL
They made him watch. He probably tried to turn away, and they wouldn't let him. You call him a survivor? He's not. A man comes up against that kind of will, the only way to deal with it, I suspect, is to become it. He's following the only course left to him. First, he'll try to make himself look like one. Cut on himself, desecrate his flesh and then, he'll start acting like one.
And then there's Harken's mention that "I haven't seen torture like that since the war," referring to the 'survivor's' slit tongue.
This bothers me. It makes all my writer's nerves itch. "It's the place he's going to live from now on." --> "You call him a survivor? He's not."
*cough* Serenity *cough*
I really want to know now -- and am probably doomed to write, though I doubt in this story because it's likely to be very much darker than the angsty-but-trending-toward-H.E.A. tale I'm trying to weave -- just exactly what the hell happened during the war that made Mal sympathize so heavily with the poor bastard, and if that's how he feels about it, then how the hell he managed to hammer himself back into a mostly-functional, mostly-good man in its aftermath. Got to be more than just the Valley itself to it. I'd hazard a guess that Zoë had a lot to do with that recovery, and that it's also part of the reason he and Zoë are such iron-clad good friends but haven't a spark of sexuality between them.
*rubbing forehead* Damnit. Must go watch "Shindig" now and try to get the Inara Muse back.
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Thank you
Date: 2005-11-07 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 09:01 pm (UTC)Wash
Date: 2005-11-07 11:19 pm (UTC)If we never get a sequel to SERENITY, I'm going to assume that conversation in "Heart of Gold" led to its inevitable conclusion and there's a Jr. Wash on the way, because the 'verse didn't deserve to lose him.
Re: Wash
Date: 2005-11-07 11:23 pm (UTC)LALALALALA
i haven't seen the movie yet! don't ruin it for me! if wash dies, maybe i won't.
waaaa
Re: Wash
Date: 2005-11-07 11:39 pm (UTC)I didn't say nothin'. Nothin' at all. No siree. (I forgot people still may not have seen it, after five weeks in release and spoiler-talk all over LJ). And regardless of anything else, JW himself has said all nine actors signed up for any possible sequels, so...
Do see it, regardless. Despite any individual (unspecified) possibly unsettling events, it's one of the best movies I've seen in years, and a fitting continuation of the show.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 07:44 am (UTC)Bushwacked is about the only ep that somehow got skipped over in our latest watching of Firefly on Sci Fi and DVD, would really like to see it again.
As for the Mal darkness. I've done a little research on the Civi War, for another fandom I was in which has turned into a historical novel idea I may never write. But as Firefly and the Unification war is clearly based on the Civil War and the West it makes sense that that's what I think of in reference to Mal, Zoe and the war. More so than WW II or other modern wars, the Civil War was largely fought by common people with little training or previous experience in dealing with the horrors of war, and this lead to them doing rather gruesome things. Add to that the fact that the technology to kill had greatly increased without the medical technology to heal made it a very heavy casuality war.
As for why Mal (and Zoe for that fact) have been able to look at the horror of war and come out sane and generally balanced... In Mal's case I like to think it's because of the good and unbreakable qualities he has, and that they shine through enough for him to have compartmentalized the horror he's seen, or done. What exactly he'd have been right after the war though is a damned good question. Although, from "Message" and the pilot, I see Mal as one who really truly believed in the indepence cause and even in their victory, perhaps up until Serenity Valley and his surrender. That I think, having that faith that may have kept him sane and somewhat human during the war, crushed, would have been the harder wound to heal from. Why he's so against God and such faith.
Mal in the War
Date: 2005-11-07 11:27 pm (UTC)> I see Mal as one who really truly believed in the indepence cause and even in their victory, perhaps up until Serenity Valley and his surrender. That I think, having that faith that may have kept him sane and somewhat human during the war, crushed, would have been the harder wound to heal from. Why he's so against God and such faith.
I'd add to this-- if you count the background info published in the Serenity RPG as canon, and it certainly fits in this case-- Mal lost his homeworld fairly early in the war, so the only things left to him would have been God, his cause, and Zoe, and he'd cling all the more fiercely to them for that, because he'd have to believe it would all have been worth it in the end. And then came the Valley... *wince*
RPG Reference (from Serenity Roleplaying Game, ISBN: 1931567506)
Shadow was a prairie planet that took well to terraforming. It was known for farms & ranches. There planet was almost entirely rural, no cities but a few towns dotted the surface. The people of Shadow were hard workers and independent-minded. It was one of the first to stand against the Alliance. Most of the planets young people volunteered to fight for Independence.
Shadow was aggressively bombed during the war in an attempt to break the Browncoats & teach them a lesson; it had the opposite effect.
Today, Shadow is a ghost planet. No one lives there. No one can.
Re: Mal in the War
Date: 2005-11-09 04:28 am (UTC)Thanks for the extra Shadow info. I tend to not mess with any parts of cannon material but a show/movie itself. Which with Firefly leaves lots left unexplained.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 07:45 am (UTC)