Quote:

---

In a famous study half a century ago, the political scientist Edward Banfield coined the term "amoral familism" to describe how family solidarities in a southern Italian village decreased engagement in and trust of the political community as a whole. Rather than see their futures wrapped up in the success of their country and civic community, the villagers sought to maximize their family's situation by any means necessary, no matter what the cost to the larger community.

Over the past few years, economists studying social capital around the world have been studying the question anew, and have generally found that Banfield was on to something. In an important paper, Alberto Alesina and Paola Giuliano looked at 80 countries and found that those where the family ties were weakest tended to have the strongest levels of civic and political engagement and generalized social trust. And vice versa. The top performers in terms of civic engagement were northern European countries: Denmark, the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Germany. At the bottom were the Philippines, Venezuela, Egypt, and Zimbabwe. The U.S. (the greatest democracy in the history of the universe) came in 50th.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Wishimay:
......And THAT'S why we are the way we are.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Eh, the difference between Serenity and Sicily is that one of them involves a group of Robin Hood-esque archetypes. The merry men had to feed themselves too, you know.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by two:
Mal is Robin Hood-esque?

---

Quote:

---

And the Train Job, a town dies if Mal doesn't give back the drugs. That wasn't Robin Hood, either. If Mal had done anything else, he'd be an evil monster.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Ask yourself a slightly altered scenario:

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Wishimay:
Sure, when you look at it dispassionately, he looks bad, but when you look at ANYTHING dispassionately it looks bad...

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
It makes Mal's life more difficult, but then again, Mal has to live with himself.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by two:
Mal wants the whole Universe to get out of his way. If it doesn't move quickly enough, beware the Wrath of Mal.

---

Quote:

---

You make Mal sound like he is a deep thinker.

---

Quote:

---

Mal's no Buddhist, but he really needs the Right Livelihood. I'm almost certain, but I'm open to reason, that Robbery is the Wrong Livelihood

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
It's the only way he can see to survive though, and at the same time feel like he hasn't surrendered. It's kind of sad.

---

Quote:

---

Is Mal a Robin Hood? sometimes..if it made sense to him..but it isn't his mission.. He has no intention of overthrowing the sheriff. He just wants to live free apart from a world that no longer values his once held moral (and religious) code.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
. . . it's a step on the road to some greater story for him. One of the more positive possibilities along that trend is Mal reclaims his ideals and heroism, which he hasn't quite abandoned completely. . .

---

Quote:

---

Mal will be forced to or else die.

---

Quote:

---

Mal's criminal life is much more difficult, assuming the Whedons don't purge Mal's records magically. Official amnesia? Lost his file? A little too convenient for believable stories.

---

Quote:

---

The Alliance seems crude enough to murder annoyances such as Mal just on strong suspicion.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Mal may very well be in a death spiral . . . and his story will just continue to get more tragic and desperate and reckless and lost until the inevitable happens.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Who says he has to be law-abiding? The choice I was thinking of was more that he either dies or becomes a hero again, at least in the plan for the series anyway.

---

Quote:

---

Interpol will never ignore Mal after Miranda. Mal is responsible for thousands killed on that one day. Now he is notorious amongst criminals and the law. Criminals that might have allied with Mal were killed by the Operative. The Alliance military hate Mal for all the ships Reavers destroyed.

---

Quote:

---

Make new friends that protect him from Interpol (which is the best option. Where/Who are Mal's new friends? God and Joss only know, but please don't make them the Browncoats. I don't want him to re-fight the Unification War and lose.

---

Quote:

---

Since it was hollywood, they were all relatively attractive..real life might now have been so kind..in fact it would be fun to see how some of us, being honest, might cast the crew...same male/female roles, but with unattractives.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
We never did find out much about the underground group Simon worked with to get River out...

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Self defense and homicide aren't the same thing. When someone is just simply annoying or inconvenient Mal DOESN'T kill them, like in the Ariel theft, they just knocked out the arrogant doctor even though he could've possibly identified them. Mal only actually kills people if they threaten him or his crew first, and sometimes not even then. It makes Mal's life more difficult, but then again, Mal has to live with himself.

So yeah, the Robin Hood thing still pretty much applies. Or if you don't like that, Mal is basically a future Butch Cassidy - he robs from the people it makes sense to rob, gives back what wins him sympathy to the people who might shelter them, and rarely ever kills because he has a code against that.

Sicilian mafia and gangsters will kill people if they're just inconvenient or who could rat them out, so yes, there is a very large difference between them and Mal.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by two:
Interpol will never ignore Mal after Miranda. Mal is responsible for thousands killed on that one day. Now he is notorious amongst criminals and the law. Criminals that might have allied with Mal were killed by the Operative. The Alliance military hate Mal for all the ships Reavers destroyed.

---

Quote:

---

Mal does shoot the unarmed Alliance pilot on Haven. Mal may not shoot unarmed people all the time, but I think that he will shoot someone who could rat him out if he thought it was needed to protect his ship.

---

Quote:

---

He knew in the episode "Serenity" Dobson was going to have to be killed. He told Simon that it should be he (Simon) to do it. Had Dobson not gotten out of his room I thing Mal would have killed him later on.

---

Quote:

---

The crew steals the meds from the Alliance hospital to make a profit. Yes, they are selling it in areas where it is needed, but they are still selling it, and doing so for more than just what it takes to fuel that ship and feed the crew.

---

Quote:

---

They steal from a monistary. Again they give some money in an attempt to justify, or make right, their actions but they are still stealing.

---

Quote:

---

Even in Trash they try and justify stealing the Lassiter because of who they are taking it from. Well that is if you really believe Saffron.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by m52nickerson:
I would agree with chaotic-good to grey. That being said I don't think someone has to be selfish to be act amorally. Outside of the killing that crew and Mal do they also do quit a bit of stealing. Now they often do a fair bit of self justification while do it, but in the end it is still amoral.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
I think most of us would consider the crew becoming a bunch of sociopaths major character derailment.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
It's very likely that in the original Robin Hood stories, if Robin Hood and the merry men were real, they kept at least some of the wealth they stole in order to keep themselves fed, clothed, and armed. Ultimately there are limits to how "Robin Hood-like" a real person can be compared to the mythic figure.

I think if Mal had the option, he'd be happy to do charity work in between earning money to keep them in the air. I actually agree with Two's ideas to some degree, I'd like to see Mal become involved with a charitable organization, possibly through Inara, but I also don't think he'd give up crime if he were doing that as he has too little respect for Alliance law for that. Charity work with some smuggling and tariff dodging, basically, and of course skirmishes when other groups try to steal the aid parcels from the crew during delivery.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Not quite. One thief had buried a big cache of money underneath a Buddhist monastery, possibly before it was even built or during construction. Another thief told the crew about a rumour of a lot of money under the monastery that no one ever came back for or claimed. The monks didn't know the cache was there. If they had, the monk probably wouldn't have mentioned Jayne Cobb's own Robin Hood-esque hero of Canton legend when Jayne gave him money. So, it was treasure hunting, not stealing.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
True. But that's what actually puts this IN Robin Hood Territory. Even if Haymer isn't as bad as Saffron says, they still make an effort to mostly steal from the rich or well off. In Robin Hood and the original stories, he was actually stealing back taxes collected by the Sheriff of Nottingham, but in more modern days that's been conflated to Robin Hood stealing from rich people just passing through Sherwood Forest, whether or not they were cruel or evil.

---

Quote:

---

That is not what we saw after the crew stole the meds. They were clearly making more money that what they needed to keep the ship in the air and food in their bellies.

---

Quote:

---

A lot of treasure hunters in history have also been called thiefs. In the end they where still taking money that was not there's and for the purpose of making a profit.

---

Quote:

---

Had Robin simply been keeping the money he would not be looked at in the same way.

---

Quote:

---

Now the crew of Serenity does go after the well off which does make them better than someone willing to steal from the poor. They also do so because the well off have more to steal.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Sure. But, at the same time, this really isn't that damning. A lot of effort is taken to show that the Alliance hospitals are wasteful with their medicine, that there's a good chance that medicine wouldn't have been used, and also that the Alliance is flush with resources and wealth.

The Alliance doctors certainly aren't selling their services for only the amount of money they need to keep their home and food on the table. The crew is probably selling for less than those doctors would ask, because after all, the medicines are stolen. And anyone distributing something valuable, like medicine, surely has the right to ask for some compensation and a comfortable living.

Stealing from the rich and selling to the poor at reduced cost is not perfectly Robin Hood, but I do think it's in the spirit of it. There is nothing wrong with making a profit so long as no one is harmed.

Actually the more questionable thing about all of this is that there's indications that they weren't selling those medicines for health reasons, but as recreational drugs.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Your initial argument was that it was stolen from a monastery of peaceful Buddhist monks, and that reflected poorly on the crew. It wasn't technically. We don't know who the original thieves stole it from, or even if they're still around to claim ownership (or, in the case of say stolen German artwork in WW2, if there are descendants who would claim it).

Maybe if we knew that, we might condemn the initial thieves and also think that the crew should return the money to the victims, as we did and they did when they stole the medicine from Paradiso. As it is, we don't know that - perhaps it was taken from a corrupt land baron.

Semantics says that in the end treasure hunting and thievery are similar, but what the crew was doing here was still technically treasure hunting, they don't become guilty of the original theft by proxy just because by various means they came into possession of the treasure. Not any more than someone buying (or stealing) artwork from an auction where the artwork was stolen from Germany in WW2 becomes guilty of the original theft.

The reason treasure hunters nowadays are looked down on is because it's seen as scavenging and cultural theft - most of them are targeting shipwrecks and there was technically no original theft involved.

In any case, the crew being thieves doesn't exactly preclude them from being Robin Hood-esque. That's not really an argument in contention here.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Well, if he had been keeping ALL the money, then yes. But it's likely Robin Hood kept some of it. That's just the likely reality.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
True. But that's just practical and also decent to poor people. If they stole from poor people they'd just be bullies. And it also doesn't preclude the good deeds they do sometimes for poor people - or that it appears Inara is familiar with a story from Mal's past which makes her think he's a Robin Hood-esque archetype. Or that Jayne IS actually an (accidental) Robin Hood archetype.

---

Quote:

---

I don't think there is anything wrong in making a profit, but I disagree that it is vein as Robin Hood.

---

Quote:

---

Your right them being thieves does not preclude them from being Robin Hood-esque. It is what they do with the things they steal that I think does.

---

Quote:

---

They are keeping all the money they make.

---

Quote:

---

they will and have done amoral things when it has suited them.

---