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Originally posted by shinyseven2:
Actually I think that the crew are much less perfect than the usual, less textured, space opera heroes.

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Originally posted by shinyseven2:
Actually I think that the crew are much less perfect than the usual, less textured, space opera heroes. If Mal were better at his chosen vocation of petty crime, he wouldn't be broke all the time and perpetually shot at by the people who are supposed to be on his side.

In many ways, Inara is a model Companion, but she fails in the critical job skill of not falling in love with completely unsuitable men.

And, while any geek (a substantial part of the Firefly audience, I'm sure) can sympathize, Simon obviously failed every part of high school not actually involving classrooms.

However, Jayne has already gotten much older than mercenaries generally get to be, so he must be pretty good at it...and let's not forget his Miracle of the Bent Scope.

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Originally posted by Waltzing:


Also I'd like to point out that there are also a few, let's call them, villain-savants. Namely, Yo-Saff-Bridg and Jubal Early. YSB is an expert at being all 'articulate', as well as obviously knowledgeable about mechanics and ships, and, I'd bet, many other things relating to crime. Jubal Early is intuitive to nearly psychic levels, and a master in combat. He very nearly beats our hero-savants, until being outwitted by River.

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what's interesting is Early as a sort of Anti-River
Yo/Saff as anti-mal - nandi as anti-inara etc... they (nearly) all have shadows - even jayne in jayne's town meets an 'opposite'...
Simon* and Zoe - not so much (but hell we only got one season gorramit!)

Book loses out by virtue of being the only crew member with no significant storyline. But the shadow to his Faith is not Mals lack of faith so much as it is the blind faith (and i do mean blind - even in the novelisiation he's still got the specs joss gave him originally) in the Alliance of the Operative**.

*it's possible to see Gabriel as a potential shadow - maybe if he had come back..

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** also gifted - a savant??? i'm beginning to think savant just means superhero...

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Originally posted by Waltzing:

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** also gifted - a savant??? i'm beginning to think savant just means superhero...

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The Operative is gifted, yes, but I don't think he's a savant. A savant is someone who is extremely gifted, beyond just, well, gifted. The Operative is good, and definitely scary, but I can't think of anything he did that's particularly savant-like. He didn't track Serenity, wasn't as fast a draw as Mal, and in the end he becomes a shadow, and it seems hinted at that he almost won't be able to go on living. Anyway that's my take on it. Any contradicting views/thoughts will be duly noted and considered.

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Originally posted by wytchcroft:


All the crew are creative with their talent (as indeed are their villain-echoes) but the Op is NOT creative - he is a steam hammer to crack a nut. "When your quarry goes to ground, leave no ground to go to" is the same degree of (lack of) imagination as collective punishment to weed out a lone culprit - plus Mal's ingenuity with the reaver onslaught didn't even occur to the Op as a possible happening - till it came out of the sky right at him.

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Originally posted by MerryK:
I understand your point of view...I didn't meant to hijack the thread, just was responding to someone else's post. I do think Serenity's crew is just a bit too talented for reality. But hey, it's fiction, and I guess their flaws make up for it.

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Originally posted by SeattleSunshine:
Savant doesn't mean what I think you guys seem to think it means. Savant implies scholar, as in study.

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Originally posted by MerryK:
I understand your point of view...I didn't meant to hijack the thread, just was responding to someone else's post. I do think Serenity's crew is just a bit too talented for reality. But hey, it's fiction, and I guess their flaws make up for it.

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I understand where people might think it is unrealistic but not as much as one might think. Not to say that there isn't any television dramatization. However, the way I see it, besides River, who is a psychic prodigy, no one else has unrealistic talent. Kaylee, Wash, and Jayne might not be typically gifted in the academic sense, they are gifted though. Mal, Zoe, Simon, and Inara all show varying levels of standard giftedness.

It might seem unrealistic to find so many gifted people in one place seeing as to even qualify as moderately gifted you must be in the top 98% (going by the IQ definition). That said, being gifted isn't all it is cracked up to be. It comes with a different way of learning, a different way of looking at the world, and often a full docket of mental issue sidekicks. Gifted people tend to band together just by chance. It is also fairly common for gifted people to rebel against or not fit in the established system. Think - Einstein's clash with the school system.

"I'm the brains of the operation." -River (BDM Screenplay)

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Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Regarding Book, I don't see his payment of fare as reason he's staying aboard.
Once the events of the Pilot come to pass, he's "in" because he knows the Tam secret, which is now a Serenity secret, and our BDH shouldn't distance them from him unduly. They even let him take off for a week during Ariel. He does show some usefulness in War Stories, but there is an underlying question before that if he's merely a religiosity spreader, or maybe there's more to him. Why else would Jayne accept him? Even during Safe, he does not seem to let his code get in the way of some criminal activity. His reaction, or lack of, to Dobson's killing tells a lot to Mal & Zoe.

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Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
I think a reply of mine is missing.
I intended and agree that savants are not perfect - they are only gifted in a focused application. Perfection is not the point here - just that they are gifted. In the Pilot, River is effecti8vely the primary catalyst for the problems/tensions which the show is based on - the 8 months from Pilot to BDM. And River is the Mother-of-all-Savants - and Serenity is likely the safest place in the verse for her, although Simon didn't know this when he tried to sneak her as cargo for a short trip - just that they didn't ask too many questions.

Simon would not have been in any "high school" as we conjure. By the end of his teens he already completed college, med school, internship, and was a trauma surgeon. If high schoool is for learning, he aced it. If high school is for making the dumb feel like they have some contibution to make in their community, Simon probably didn't have those courses, activities, or experiences.


Another thing. Other than BDM where the teacher is narrator at the beginning, and Book provides foreshadowing - even of his own death, the only foreshadowing and narration we get are from River.
So, does River ever speak an untruth? Other than the Book's hair thing in Jaynestown, I can't recall any.
Sort of fetching that, since she is providing the most accurate and valuable information in the show, the crew ignores her input.

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