Quote:

---

That is what I object to, the constant glorification of war and combat. When will we get our non-combatant hero?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by asarian:
Too action figure like. Out of character, really; and done for marketing reasons, no doubt, so they could stick her on that Serenity poster as the bad-ass killer girl.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by MerryK:
And Mal is macho.

---

Quote:

---

The non macho men are poked fun at quite regularly for their peacefulness, through Joss in self-deprecating humor or by the other characters.

---

Quote:

---

Jayne is occasionally made fun of because he jumps at any opportunity to fight, and sometimes Inara or Zoe pokes fun at Mal's impulsiveness/recklessness, but the tone is always more in favor of a little recklessness rather than avoiding conflict. All the characters are portrayed in a more admirable light when they pick up arms, whether in lighting, framing, or music. And your point about Zoe? Just adds to my point...why do we look up to her more than Kaylee, who has equal if not more talents, but in a peaceful area? Because Zoe is a soldier, and that is who the show portrays as admirable. That is what I object to, the constant glorification of war and combat. When will we get our non-combatant hero?

---

Quote:

---

Oh, and I never said that the women were shrinking violets...when I said macho men, I was comparing Mal to Wash and Simon, not the women at all. "Macho people as heroes" would have been a more accurate representation of my opinion.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by ImNotHere:
However, I do think someone should write the imaginary novel The Dead Starship Teachers' Society - set in Heinlein's Starship Troopers universe this tells the story of a man who decides to earn the right to vote by serving as a schoolteacher...and tries to help a class of meathead cadets bound for the mobile infantry get in touch with their sensitive side by introducing them to 20th century feminist Science Fiction.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by nbz:
Mal is a jack in a box - no matter how hard you knock him down, he will always bounce back. hence the torture he always has to go through just to get a glass of milk.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by psychotic:
Is Heart of Gold really that unpopular? Mal/Inara is my favorite ship in the series and seeing the tension between them is awesome. There's so much that they say to each other without saying words.

And you gotta love the baby dummy that Rance carried. Priceless!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by nbz:


All the BDH play important roles. And it is forgotten where Mal has been the butt of a few jokes too for his macho-ness. (HoG - immediately thinking it is him people want to get help from.

One thing that does surprise me though is that "Bushwacked" is statistically the least favourite episode among people. I personally rank it very highly.

(For bottom rung I would have a fight out between The Train Job and Heart of Gold. I think Hog would go on the bottom rung.)

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by out2theblack:

... and delivers a classic scene that shows River's not as 'wack' as most folk believe..."It's a ghost."

Subtle , understated , and perfectly rendered

by Miss Glau..

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by asarian:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by out2theblack:

... and delivers a classic scene that shows River's not as 'wack' as most folk believe..."It's a ghost."

Subtle , understated , and perfectly rendered

by Miss Glau..

---

'Cept that she says: "It's ghosts."


--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." --
Simon Tam

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Causal:
Of course, the final authority on what it was meant to be ("It's a ghost" vs. "It's ghosts") would be the script... AFK ...which just says "Ghosts." But of course, only Summer knows what she actually said in filming which is the final final authority (yes, there are two finals).

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by blackbeanie:
I'm not sure if this is considered unpopular, but...

I hate The Message.

Cannot stand it. I never watch it out of my own free will, only when I have no choice.
I have no idea why I hate it, I just do.

Only one good thing about it, "The Funeral". A masterful piece of compostion.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Arcadia:
One more unpopular opinion.

I think it was an utterly stupid move to have Inara flee from Serenity to... a training house? It just doesn't make sense to me when I really think about it. She's leaving Serenity because her feeling of attachment toward the crew, and Mal in particular, are interferring with her work, so she runs to a place where... she doesn't work at all? Really? I really hope that was just a convenience for the movie (both story-wise - it was easier to get things moving this way, and because having a practicing whore might have messed with the rating), and not something that would have been in the show, had it continued.

Arcadia (aka Greyfable and/or Katie)
www.stillflying.net -- picking up Firefly were Joss left off. We will hold 'til he gets back.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by wytchcroft:
i'm not knocking your opinions - this aint the thread - but i'm not sure i folllow...

if Inara left Serenity where would she go - in the short term? Sihnon is her home.

What's wrong with teaching what she practices - check the cut scene on the dvd??? teaching allows you to step and refresh your own skills - Inara hasn't 'worked' in a while.

The calming atmosphere of Sihnon is not a place to pine but to catch her bearings - and have the Companion side of herself recognised for a change - she has authority there.

I could go on - i can see quite a massive list of reasons why Sihnon would do.. And there's nothing much to say she isn't working from there out into verse gaining clients etc...

keep flyin:)

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AgentRouka:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by wytchcroft:
i'm not knocking your opinions - this aint the thread - but i'm not sure i folllow...

if Inara left Serenity where would she go - in the short term? Sihnon is her home.

What's wrong with teaching what she practices - check the cut scene on the dvd??? teaching allows you to step and refresh your own skills - Inara hasn't 'worked' in a while.

The calming atmosphere of Sihnon is not a place to pine but to catch her bearings - and have the Companion side of herself recognised for a change - she has authority there.

I could go on - i can see quite a massive list of reasons why Sihnon would do.. And there's nothing much to say she isn't working from there out into verse gaining clients etc...

keep flyin:)

---

She wasn't on Sihnon, though!! It was a little backwater Training House. If you watch the deleted scenes, it comes through in how she talks about the girls. That's not Sihnon standard, certainly.

And the problem with teaching what she practices is that she is not practicing. Her job that means so much to her, the main point of contention between her and Mal... suddenly set aside for teaching? After she left because Serenity holds her in ties?

That smacks of pining. There is very little that gets me up in arms like people interpreting this move as "She couldn't sleep with other men anymore, not after she realized what Mal meant to her!" because it's... wrong. Bad. Not Inara and kind of women-oppressing, really, considering Mal had no problem sleeping with someone else knowing he loves her, so.. what's the point of suddenly putting Inara in a chaste teaching position, really?

If she is leaving to protect her independence, why return to an entirely different kind of committment? Why change everything, after all? She didn't need a refresher course, since she worked all the time on Serenity.

She could have gone anywhere, really. And worked there. The movie put her in a Training House for the sake of convenience. It neglected a lot of things about her character for the sake of convenience, but this one bugs me the most because it takes away the greatest point of conflict between Mal and Inara and replaces it with "Mal has trouble admitting his feelings" which is just wrong, as he was about to tell her right there in "Heart of Gold".

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AgentRouka:

Commence my unpopular opinion:

1) Deciding to leave the ship was the healthiest, smartest thing Inara did in a long time. Mal said he respected her, but he didn't and staying would have been nothing but self-torture, no matter how much leaving breaks Mal's heart. He just wasn't ready to let her be herself, and she knew it.

2) She and Mal will never get to gether until he accepts her job. And by accept I don't mean "You WERE a whore, but I love you anyway." but "I love you even though you are a practicing Companion."

And I think he would have done it, during the series. That would have been the entire point of their relationship: teaching Mal what unconditional love really means.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by asarian:

Commence my unpopular rebuttle:

Mal respects Inara; honestly, he does. :)

---

Quote:

---

I was gonna say: "He respects Inara, but not her profession." Glad I didn't, though, because Mal actually has no problem with whores at all. See Heart of Gold.

---

Quote:

---

I specifically said "whores", because I think Mal has issues with Companions, rather. And not even for their profession, but for the hypocracy; for "The lie of it," as Mal put it. Mal puts down Inara's profession, not because he has moral gripes with whores, but because Inara basically denies being one!

---

Quote:

---

She is hurt when Mals calls her one, because she's largely in denial about what she does for a living.

---

Quote:

---

Oh sure, she got her fancy training down to an art: tea ceremonies, a civilized tongue in her mouth, silky dresses, sponge baths, the works. But all that training accomplishes precisely that: it causes Inara to see herself as anything but a whore. "Better than," so to speak. It is that self-delusion that irritates Mal. Which is why he keeps calling her one to her face.

---

Quote:

---

It's, in the end, not Mal who needs to accept she's a whore, but Inara herself. :) If she did away with the facade, Mal would accept her profession, no problem; like he accepts and respects Nandi, no problem.

---

Quote:

---

Except, of course, that once Inara accepts she's whore, she can no longer be one! The denial is the only thing that makes it work; society's denial, really; no need to put it all on dear Inara;

---

Quote:

---

'respectable' folks, like on Persephone, who needed a way to make whoring socially acceptable. So they called it something else; made em courtisan-like, and endowed them with some social status and wealth. But, in the end, a whore, by any other name, is still a whore.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
as it were the characters were changed

---

As a Vulcan of my aquaintance is fond of saying, change is the essential nature of all existence.
Please elevate yourself to a higher point, and travel on.*

*get over it Chrisisall

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by pachelbel:


I believe he said "change is the essential process of all existence."

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AgentRouka:

Inara is not a stupid woman, nor one in the habit of promoting hypocrisy. The only thing we see her lying about in the series is the depth of her feelings for Mal, nothing else. If she felt that Companioning was whoring, she'd own it, because she doesn't do things she doesn't believe in.

---

Quote:

---

She fights against the denigrating word because she believes that its wrong.

---

Quote:

---

It's a front. An easily believable sham he puts up to keep Inara at a distance. Actually, I think Mal has zero trouble admitting a difference between a "whore"-type prostitute and a Companion-type, just like he wouldn't have trouble admitting a difference between the skill level of a highly trained singer and a merely talented one.

---

Quote:

---

You presuppose an origin to the Guild there that has no proof. (...) It's just as likely that the Guild was created by prostitutes, or therapists or a mix of both, to promote exactly those ideals.

---

Quote:

---

You seem to start from the position that prostitution is in itself unrespectable, saying that social acceptance and wealth must be tied to a facade. Is that just my impression?

---

Quote:

---

Could you allow for the possibility that on Core worlds prostitution is a truly accepted and respected profession, without hypocrisy or hidden disdain involved or do you consider that impossible?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Platonist:
Soul mates don’t always equal a "relationship".

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Platonist:
So, I guess my unpopular opinion (since that is the thread), is that Mal and Inara actually have a strong foundation for a good relationship, never a perfect ten, but maybe a seven...OK a 6 tops!

---

Quote:

---

my unpopular opinion is that Mal kinda has a thing for Saff..

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Platonist:

I should clarify, I think Mal and Inara have quite a bit going for them as far as a relationship, which I personally think they already have. On a score of 1 to 10, it may be a 1, but it does exist. LOL

They both share a love of home (Serenity), family (she was in agony leaving both), a sexual attraction, a free spirit (their independence), trust, ("she wouldn't set us up willingly") and on one level respect (she's a real cherry blossom, no denying it"). They laugh together; even their arguments are funny.

And, strangely, there is a lot of honesty in the words "whore" and "petty thief". Honesty is a big component in my experience for a successful relationship.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by asarian:
Provided Joss don't kill her first, of course. :)

---