River's Sanity by ormaybemidgets

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

River's Sanity

POSTED BY: ORMAYBEMIDGETS
UPDATED: Thursday, June 15, 2006 09:11
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Thursday, June 15, 2006 7:43 AM

Is River sane at the end of the movie? Because I thought yes, but my friends said no, and now I'm doubtful. It was never like Mal said, "oh, hey, saneRiver, how's it going saneRiver, how's your sanity?" But I thought that that was the whole thing on Miranda when she threw up and said 'I'm all right.' Once like, "I'm alright, I threw up but I'm okay" and the next time more, "I'm not sick anymore." I thought the Reaver fight was also evidence, as she entered into that fight willingly-not triggered. She obviously decided that going into the Reaver-inhabited space was what she would do; she had the thought process My brother is dying, I have to save him. More than that, I thought her almostfight with the Alliance soldiers was pretty much proving that she was sane, because it seemed to me that she made the decision that she would fight them. Especially in that beautiful clip that no one ever mentions when the Alliance soldiers circle River and she tightens her grips on her weapons. And she seemed okay in the end, what with flying Serenity and talking pretty clearly to Mal. Plus she said she knew what he was thinking and it seemed like she just knew it comfortably, not like the psycic-ness was overwhelming her like in Objects in Space. The only example I can find against her being insane is that she was pretty freaked out during the Reaver fight (the Reaver fight, not her Reaver fight), but then again that could be because... I mean, they eat people. That's pretty freaky.

So... opinions and/or quotes from Joss that prove this one way or the other?

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Thursday, June 15, 2006 7:47 AM

MSG

I got the impression she was much better. I wouldn't say sane exactly, but she's not crazy River the freak anymore. She still has a way to go before she's normal( or more normal) but I'd say she's definitely not psychotic anymore

You're only young once, but you can be immature any time!

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Thursday, June 15, 2006 7:55 AM

MIRAMEL

my take on it was that she was better, the miranda thing was out of her system, but that she still had a ways to go, and she'd never quite be completely fine. the thing w/ ariel, where simon tells us they removed her whatchamakallit- that im figuring is still gone, and dealing w/ miranda cant really ahve fixed that. there are some scenes in the show when she's more or less normal, or where you can piece together that her thought proccess is perfectly normal, but just much faster then everyone elses due to the genious thing. given that, i would say that she's still all pyscic and atleast somewhat crazy (i mean, c'mon, if she wasn't, we'd have to learn the character all over agin), but the end of the movie was a "good day". just my figuring on the matter (altho yeah, that question's been bothering me for awhile)

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Thursday, June 15, 2006 7:59 AM

CYBERSNARK

I don't think it's a binary "sane/not-sane" matter.

River's better, she's come to grips with her nature, but she'll never be "normal" in any sense of the word.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Thursday, June 15, 2006 8:03 AM

ORMAYBEMIDGETS

Okay, I think I can agree with this. I completely forgot the Ariel thing (crazy since I've seen that episode more than all the others combined, Safe excluded). So, yeah, her amygdalla-excuse the spelling-is missing, so she can feel everything, but now we're thinking that she can control it, that it doesn't overwhelm her like it used to?

Also, the paranoid schitzophrenia-I can't spell, honestly-, which I always thought shouldn't have been written into Safe, isn't there anymore?

So she can... think? Like it's all clear up there? I'm also assuming that the trigger will no longer work, right?

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Thursday, June 15, 2006 8:04 AM

FUTUREMRSFILLION

I think her "insanity" was of a temporary nature. Being the sensitive that she is, the secret of 30 million people being dead for no reason ate at her and caused the behavior that we saw. I like to think that by getting to the root of the memories and letting the world know cleansed her of the guilt, because I think she was feeling the guilt. Her vomitting was symbolic of this.

Is she going to be "normal" No way, no how, she is too sensitive. Especially with the experiments to her brain.

Will she go after Jayne with a knife again? - well maybe.

I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"

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Thursday, June 15, 2006 8:13 AM

DEEPGIRL187

One thing I just wanted to comment on was about River's paranoid schizophrenia. I know there's artistic license and all, but to be perfectly honest, her symptoms don't fit. She doesn't really have any defined paranoid delusions. If she was, she would be much more hostile towards the crew, and questioning everything they did. If schizophrenia is what Joss was going for, then his best bet would have been undifferentiated schizophrenia. The symptoms she displays in the series are much closer to that.

Sorry about the rant, but it's been bugging me for a while.

P.S. - A much better example of paranoid schizophrenia would be the character Summer plays in The 4400.

**************************************************

Jayne: You wanna go, little man?
Wash: Only if it's someplace with candlelight.

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Thursday, June 15, 2006 8:18 AM

AGATSU

Like the sexy gal before me, I think that getting the Miranda secret off her chest made her a whole lot saner - and I don't think Mal would let her fly the ship if he thought she were still coo-coo.
Then again, letting a woman - insane or not - take the steering wheel is an act of insanity in itself, so maybe she just gave that bit of insanity to Mal. OMFG insanity is contageous!

*runs for the hills from the angry female mob* \o/

jk, I'm not a very good driver, myself.

Proud Member of the FFF.net Event Team
Department of All Things Insane
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Thursday, June 15, 2006 8:22 AM

FUTUREMRSFILLION

Quote:
Originally posted by Agatsu:
Like the sexy gal before me, I think that getting the Miranda secret off her chest made her a whole lot saner - and I don't think Mal would let her fly the ship if he thought she were still coo-coo.
Then again, letting a woman - insane or not - take the steering wheel is an act of insanity in itself, so maybe she just gave that bit of insanity to Mal. OMFG insanity is contageous!

*runs for the hills from the angry female mob* \o/

jk, I'm not a very good driver, myself.

Proud Member of the FFF.net Event Team
Department of All Things Insane
Serenity Now/Equality Now screenings / Serenity Day (unrelated):
June 23rd www.cantstoptheserenity.com www.serenityday.org
Serenity Summer Campaign:
June 23rd - Sept 30th www.FireFlyFans.net
Serenity 'Versary:
September 30th www.FireFlyFans.net
Be there or be a purple-belted poop head. (<- not the official slogan)

HEY! You get a walk cause of the sexy comment -

But I will race you anyday Dude! And I bet I will beat you too!

I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"

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Thursday, June 15, 2006 8:22 AM

ORMAYBEMIDGETS

Summary:

She lost the crazy of Miranda.

She still has the crazy of being psycic, but it's more under control.

She still has the crazy of her amygdalla.

She still has the crazy of knowing of the Blue Sun conspriacy. (Yes?)

She still has the crazy of being tortured for so long.

She still has the crazy of paranoid schitzophrenia?
Edit: I knew I wasn't the only one who thought she shouldn't have been diagnosed with it.

That's pretty 3:2 in favor of crazy.

I thought that her fighting on her own was a pretty big thing, but I'm not sure. I was thinking that this was the only time she's fought willingly, but it isn't. In War Stories she fought to protect Kaylee. Given it wasn't a hand-to-hand, but she still took on a risk: if her shots hadn't been so precise, they would have shot her first, and I'm thinking they wouldn't've missed.

Also, do you think that River was confident in her abilities? When she shot in War Stories, and the Reaver fight in the movie, and the almostfight with the Alliance, do you think she knew that she was going to win? It doesn't seem like such a big choice if she knew without a doubt that she would win. But when they were teaching her to fight in The Academy, it must have registered with her that she was winning. Plus the people who have come after her seem pretty ready to tell anyone and everyone that she is very valuable, and one of the star pupils; so I'm sure that they told her how gifted she was. (I'm trying to remember from the R. Tam Sessions whether they did or not, but I can't.)

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Thursday, June 15, 2006 8:33 AM

AGATSU

Quote:
Originally posted by FutureMrsFIllion:

HEY! You get a walk cause of the sexy comment - But I will race you anyday Dude! And I bet I will beat you too!

I bet you win that bet. So we both win. Yay! \o/

Proud Member of the FFF.net Event Team
Department of All Things Insane
Serenity Now/Equality Now screenings / Serenity Day (unrelated):
June 23rd www.cantstoptheserenity.com www.serenityday.org
Serenity Summer Campaign:
June 23rd - Sept 30th www.FireFlyFans.net
Serenity 'Versary:
September 30th www.FireFlyFans.net
Be there or be a purple-belted poop head. (<- not the official slogan)

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Thursday, June 15, 2006 8:35 AM

AMITON

Quote:
Originally posted by ormaybemidgets:
I thought that her fighting on her own was a pretty big thing, but I'm not sure. I was thinking that this was the only time she's fought willingly, but it isn't. In War Stories she fought to protect Kaylee. Given it wasn't a hand-to-hand, but she still took on a risk: if her shots hadn't been so precise, they would have shot her first, and I'm thinking they wouldn't've missed.

Also, do you think that River was confident in her abilities? When she shot in War Stories, and the Reaver fight in the movie, and the almostfight with the Alliance, do you think she knew that she was going to win? It doesn't seem like such a big choice if she knew without a doubt that she would win. But when they were teaching her to fight in The Academy, it must have registered with her that she was winning. Plus the people who have come after her seem pretty ready to tell anyone and everyone that she is very valuable, and one of the star pupils; so I'm sure that they told her how gifted she was. (I'm trying to remember from the R. Tam Sessions whether they did or not, but I can't.)

I'd have to say fighting on her own was always something that she was completely capable of, and knew how ridiculous her advantage over everything else in the 'verse was. She knew how gifted she was at math and she knew how well she did at the academy as a star pupil.

I think, however, that she abhorred the behavior. Think about how wigged out she became after just being near a gun in the pilot. Even with Simon holding it and assuring her that she was safe, she was about to demonstrate that she knew kung fu (in a figurative sense). Even in War Stories when she does the bust-a-cap scene, she doesn't want to be anywhere near the gun (certainly less so than Kaylee, and that's not nothing), but she, like in the BDM, makes a decision to "use her powers for good" and help someone that she cares about. I completely believe that her "must not look" lines had nothing to do with her eyes messing up her accuracy, I think that she would have shaken her confidence if she had to actually be confronted with what she was doing while she was doing it. That would have meant her death, and lilkely much more important to her Kaylee's as well.

Amiton.

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Thursday, June 15, 2006 8:52 AM

XEYRA

My take on this.

According to the R. Tam session, the secret of the Pax appears to have been something she picked up on quite early on in the Academy. In Session 22, she says "It's the Pax" and already seems to demonstrate psychic abilities, since she talks about the first one dying on the table and stuff like that. Actually, it seems she was already well on the way of becoming fully psychic even before they stripped her amygdala.

So, anyways, she is exposed to the death of 30 million people and the creation of Reavers fairly early in her stay at the Academy, which I say accounts for a lot of her mental disturbances. Having countless operations on her brain and adding to that the stripping of an organ that could help her control her emotions, only worsened her condition.

When she finally managed to purge her mind of Miranda (you notice how River is mouthing the doctor's words while Caron says them, in the hologram, as if she knew them by heart?), she says she's better, because she is. These horrible memories must have weighted on her for a long time, even if she was not conscious of them. So when she finally gets the secret out and throws up, she claims that she is better, because she is!

Is she sane? What is sane? What is normal? River was never normal. She was a genius with a highly intuitive mind. The Academy tempered with her mind to change the way she perceived things. She is a living weapon. She'll never be normal. But she is better.

Do you realize what it took River to jump into that room full of Reavers? With her amygdala stripped, she has no hole to crawl to in her mind and she was receiving the full rage and bloodlust of all those Reavers (to the point it incapacitated her). She had to push it out of her mind by sheer strength of will so she could do what she did. Because she wanted to protect her brother and the crew. Give them a chance to survive. Did she know if she was going to make it out alive? Probably not. She did seem to want to return as she closed the doors; you see her hands extended as the Reavers push her back. But she did it, she fought them off and would have fought the Alliance too, even if the odds were against her.

She'll never be normal, never be truly sane, because she'll always have to deal with minds not her own. But I believe that she has learned a form of control over herself. With the purging of Miranda, her mind is her own again, her lucid periods will be greater. She is mending, healing. Never to be cured, unless you can regrow her amygdala, but she is functional and on her path to become a more self-sufficient person.

At least that's my opinion. Feel free to comment. :)

*******************************
Wash: This landing is gonna get pretty interesting.
Mal: Define "interesting".
Wash: [deadpan] Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die?

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Thursday, June 15, 2006 9:11 AM

ORMAYBEMIDGETS

The last two posts have made wonderful points that I didn't even think of: 1)that River hated the violence, which is why she closed her eyes in War Stories and 2)that when she went in to fight the Reavers she knew she'd have to deal with all the anger and hatred that they were feeling. I was getting the impression that River's willingness to go into the Reaver fight to save Simon and the crew wasn't all that important, as she was confident that she would win; but these prove me wrong. She had a lot to deal with when she went in, although they weren't physical threats. She had to get over her own strong feelings against violence, and she had to contend with all the overwhelming thoughts and feelings that the Reavers would have, and therefore, that she would have.

(you notice how River is mouthing the doctor's words while Caron says them, in the hologram, as if she knew them by heart?
Yes. I love that part. River's standing right in front of the hologram and it's like she's talking just to River.

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