Cause and effect in Ariel by niknak

FIREFLY EPISODE DISCUSSIONS

Cause and effect in Ariel

POSTED BY: NIKNAK
UPDATED: Saturday, February 12, 2005 07:50
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Friday, November 26, 2004 4:03 PM

I've been wondering this for a while: Does River stab Jayne because he's going to betray her or does Jayne betray River because she stabbed him? Or did neither event cause the other?

I think the stabbing was put in the story by the writers to help people understand Jayne not liking River and because it would be harder for the audience to forgive Jayne if money was the only factor. Of course the writers' motivations are separate from the Characters'.

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Friday, November 26, 2004 4:10 PM

SERGEANTX

It's been mentioned that she was specifically aiming at the blue sun emblem on his shirt... but she surely sensed that he wasn't her biggest fan.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Friday, November 26, 2004 4:55 PM

POTEMKINVILLAGER

It's what I like best about the possible story arc: wide open. River's psychcic/telepathic/intuitive knowledge that Jayne would betray her for lotsa bucks, and the coprporate conspiracy angle involving Blue Sun's symbyotic relationship with the Alliance. Jayne was wearing a t-shirt with the Blue Sun logo. It was a government, ergo Alliance "school" that messed with River.

Still trying to figure out what is meant by River's response: "He looks better in red." Any ideas?

Seems to me the writers were creating new arcs to follow up on, to be slowly resolved as the series went on. The kind of plotting which really drew my interest (way after the fact, cuz I never heard of Firefly until abaut a year after Fox cancelled it). Sadly, such resolutions are not to be.

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Friday, November 26, 2004 5:22 PM

MINIME

Quote:
Originally posted by PotemkinVillager:

Still trying to figure out what is meant by River's response: "He looks better in red." Any ideas?

Always assumed that it meant that red blood was better than blue sun. the colour thing.
subtle.
or possibly my misinterpretation.

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Friday, November 26, 2004 5:27 PM

EMBERS

well Jayne was talking about turning her in for the $ right from the pilot episode...so the cut was immaterial IMO

But I do think that River wasn't cutting Jayne, I think she was cutting the Blue Sun symbol on his shirt (I was watching Shindig, trying to figure out which cans she took the lables off of...could they have been cans w/Blue Sun logos?)

River did say that Jayne looked better in red
LOL

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Monday, November 29, 2004 9:36 AM

ODDNESS2HER

If River knew what Jayne was going to do, why didn't she warn Simon not to trust him?

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Monday, November 29, 2004 1:50 PM

POTEMKINVILLAGER

Quote:
Originally posted by oddness2her:
If River knew what Jayne was going to do, why didn't she warn Simon not to trust him?

Let's be fair: those of us who like this show do so despite the many and varied holes in the plots. Don't shoot me, that's just a feeling I get. Probably a thread or dozen -- likely archived, too -- dealing with awkward plot holes. To be fair, Whedon & co., aside from the not-so-soon to be coming movie, never got a chance to resolve a lot of ambiguities. That, and they only had 46 minutes per episode in which to tell stories.

Additionally, I tend to think River's kinda got the hots for Jayne. Opposites attract, that sort of thing. Buffy/Angel-Spike, anyone? Doesn't mean River expresses such feelings in any rational way: she's just a kid.

Blah, blah, etc.

"The trouble with normal is it always gets worse."

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Monday, November 29, 2004 2:12 PM

THEREALME

Well, we sort of got a glimpse of what River's world is like at the beginning of Objects In Space. I'm not sure that she has any control at all, or even recognizes everything that she sees for what it is.

She might not even understand that she slashed Jayne.

Maybe if the Academy had completed her "training", then she would have been able to function better.

The Real Me

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Monday, November 29, 2004 2:35 PM

EMBERS

Quote:
Originally posted by oddness2her:
If River knew what Jayne was going to do, why didn't she warn Simon not to trust him?

I think that River was too incoheret before they went to Ariel...
it was after Ariel that Simon got her on better medication, and actually even afterwards she wasn't always able to communicate clearly...
but way better than she did before then!

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Monday, November 29, 2004 6:03 PM

DIEGO

You know, this is precisely the paradox I saw when I first saw Ariel. My visceral response was that River was punishing him before the fact, which then went ahead and gave Jayne another reason to betray them. Inverted logic? Yup.

I eventually rejected the idea. The more parsimonious explanation that she was reacted to the Blue Sun sign made a lot more sense to me. Having effects cause causes is the sort of stuff you see in Voyager and Enterprise.

On the other hand, sometimes in Real Life (TM) effects precede causes. A friend of mine was trying to find her keys one day. We tried all the logical places, and then traced her steps. Our campus building was locked because it was a weekend. So when she realized she had lost her keys she walked around the building and threw rocks at the windom of another friend's office. I walked around with her, and right where she stooped to pick up rocks. . . were her keys.

In short: she went to find another way into the building because she had lost her keys, and in so doing — lost her keys!!!

Anyway, I meandered off-topic a bit. But my main point is that I quite understand why you would get the feeling that River was reacting to something that hadn't happened yet, and in so doing, cause that thing to happen. But I think there's a danger of reading too much into River.

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Monday, December 6, 2004 4:30 PM

SHEALYNN88

My immediate assumption on rewatching it recently was that she was punishing Jayne for turning them in. I never noticed the logo. I guess the only one who knows for sure is Joss. Maybe. I like the paradox of the whole idea. :)

Shealynn

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Friday, January 7, 2005 12:36 PM

TALLCARDDEALER

Here's my interpretation of River's actions against Jayne:

Simon explained at the beginning that he couldn't do much to help River, because he didn't know what was wrong with her. Serenity just didn't have the equipment to do a proper examination. The only place that had the right equipment.........was an Alliance hospital.

I figure that Simon had been entertaining the idea for some time of leading the crew in breaking into an Alliance hospital to use the 3-D imager. Eventually he figured out that he could coax them with the hospital's medicine supplies, available in surplus within and worth a fortune on the streets.

Before 'Ariel,' River had always been acting a little crazy and unpredictable. Nightmares about ghost ships, imitating Badger's accent, shredding Book's bible. But she was never dangerous. Slashing Jayne across the chest OUT OF NOWHERE changed all that. As Jayne pointed out, "Next time little sis gets in a murderin' mood, might be Kaylee she goes after, or Inara." Maybe it was the Blue Sun logo, but no one could really tell. Besides, Jayne had worn that thing before without River acting up.

If it WAS the logo, then it means that River really was getting worse. So the whole point of the incident was that her condition was deteriorating, and she was becoming violent and even more unpredictable. Simon decided that now was the time to put his daring plan into action.

It also occured to me that River might have been punishing Jayne for being rude to Simon a moment before. Again, Jayne was ALWAYS rude to Simon, but that didn't matter if River was getting worse. She could also have reacted to Jayne sharpening his knife, and decided to get one of her own.

Every well-bred petty crook knows that the small, concealable weapons always go to the far left of the place setting.

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Friday, January 7, 2005 2:46 PM

ALIENZOOKEEPER

Quote:
Originally posted by Tallcarddealer:
As Jayne pointed out, "Next time little sis gets in a murderin' mood, might be Kaylee she goes after, or Inara."

I think Jayne is letting on that he's not as dumb as he pretends. That's exactly the order I'd choose, to get Mal's attention, Kaylee in peril, then Inara, where, in fact, Kaylee would be the most likely to be in danger. Inara's had training, after all, and isn't mousy.

As for River's quote, about looking better in red, that always makes me think back to Dark Angel, for no good reason. There was an episode where the heroine gets ubered-up on 'Red', I believe, and makes a dramatic entrance with bleeding eyes, telling the bad guys "I look better in red." before she proceeds to beating the red stuff out of them. But I doubt that it was a nod to Firefly's predeccessor.

Wish I had both of them back on TV, along with LOST, Angel and maybe Alias. A new episode followed by sequential reruns to help new viewers catch up, five nights a week. I'd call it the Vinnie Network.

Vince the alien zookeeper

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Wednesday, January 12, 2005 5:37 PM

DIRTYBROWNCOAT

This came up in another thread, and one poster said something along the lines of the possibility of red representing things like malice, anger, and hatred. I forget who the poster was, though.

And it was true that Jayne had been contemplating selling River and Simon out since day one, but there was a difference between contemplating and doing. It could be that the slash was just that one last push he needed before deciding "okay, this chick is toast."

Or, who knows? Maybe he'd been in contact with the feds all along, from Serenity to Ariel.

Simon: You...you came for us.
Mal: You're on my crew.
Simon: Right. I guess I just didn't...you don't even like me.
Mal: You're on my crew. Why we still talking about this?
-Safe

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Wednesday, January 12, 2005 7:00 PM

DIETCOKE

For me it was the "last straw" for Jayne. It wasn't just the money, she was trouble and she need to go. AND he could make some money in the process!

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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 6:59 PM

the movie is not the Series. Only the facts have been changed, to irritate the innocent; the names of the actors and characters remain the same

Quote:
Originally posted by niknak:
I've been wondering this for a while: Does River stab Jayne because he's going to betray her or does Jayne betray River because she stabbed him? Or did neither event cause the other?

Yes.

Would you like me to expand on that? River (later) kills three guys with one shot each while her eyes are closed. Had she wanted to kill or even disable Jayne, she could have done that without leaving the food prep area of the galley. What she did was precisely what she wanted to accomplish -- slashing the shirt across the Blue Sun logo & cutting Jayne so he'd bleed on it.

Jayne may have felt that this justified him selling River & her bro' protector to the Feds, but I think he'd have done it even without this incident. He didn't think of either of them as fellow crew members, has openly suggested turning 'em in ever since he learned the Alliance was hunting them, and only passed up his first chance (in the pilot ep) 'cause that would have required turning on his cap'n. He took the first opportunity to sell 'em out when he thought it wouldn't involve (what he thought of as) his crew mates.

Keep the Shiny Side Up

Wutzon: Eric Johnson, "Trademark", from "Ah Via Musicom"

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Thursday, February 10, 2005 5:11 AM

MAGICALTREVOR

There are some shots of Jayne with his knives before River gets the kitchen knife. The audience is also shown Inara and Kaylee playing Mah-Jong in the same scene so it appears that River wants to join in and play with Jayne. However with her being mentally ill at that time, what she thinks is play is actually dangerous.

Personally, I'd be annoyed if someone who was a danger to society slashed me with a knife as they should have been kept separate so as not to harm anyone. (Now I'm getting paranoid becaus I'm in Glasgow (unofficial knife crime capital of the world)) dosh would also be a welcome bonus in this case.

MT

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Thursday, February 10, 2005 5:54 AM

THIEFJEHAT

We know that River's perceptions of real world events/items is abnormal. A friend observed to me that just as she was holding a gun in OIS and saw a stick, what if she was holding the knife in Ariel and saw a red paintbrush? Perhaps she was marking Jayne for what he was, a potential traitor. Surely the blue sun shirt didn't help her state of mind either. Or perhaps she slashed Jayne only because of his shirt which would be an impulsive act of agression against Blue Sun in the same vein as the canned goods. Or maybe she was, as Jayne would put it, "Just acting crazy".

The beauty of it is that it's great storytelling. We caught a glimpse of her mind in OIS. We know that her condition is degrading due to what Simon says to Mal. Because River is unable to express her perceptions in a logical fashion we are left with our conjectures, and surely Joss had golden nuggets hidden in these sequences for fans to find in later seasons. I'm just so sad that we may never know.

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Thursday, February 10, 2005 10:12 AM

the movie is not the Series. Only the facts have been changed, to irritate the innocent; the names of the actors and characters remain the same

Quote:
Originally posted by magicaltrevor:
(Now I'm getting paranoid becaus I'm in Glasgow (unofficial knife crime capital of the world))

Shouldn't a proper Glaswegian smile when he says that? (I thought perhaps the stacked parentheses were intended as a textual representation (they do seem to stretch out more on one side than the other (the left side, as I look @it (would that make it your right?))))

Keep the Shiny Side Up

Wutzon: Stevie Ray Vaughan, "Couldn't Stand the Weather", from "Essential SRV & Double Trouble"

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Saturday, February 12, 2005 1:41 AM

MAGICALTREVOR

Well I just live here. Even if I was born there, I don't think I could take pride in the hostility and the NEDs.

MMMMM...... Burberries...... ;)

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Saturday, February 12, 2005 7:50 AM

the movie is not the Series. Only the facts have been changed, to irritate the innocent; the names of the actors and characters remain the same

Nobody gets me

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