"Bushwacked" Analysis by Sydni64

FIREFLY EPISODE DISCUSSIONS

"Bushwacked" Analysis

POSTED BY: SYDNI64
UPDATED: Thursday, June 24, 2004 06:36
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Thursday, June 24, 2004 2:37 AM

Hello, fellow browncoats,

I hope I'm doing this ok (I'm a new poster). I've just posted some longish analysis of Bushwacked over on my livejournal, in case anyone is interested in checking it out: http://www.livejournal.com/users/sydni_64/29283.html

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Thursday, June 24, 2004 5:57 AM

SYDNI64

It might be easier if I just post the content here, even though it's long. These are my thoughts on the idea of "nothingness" in this ep:

Firefly 103: Bushwacked

The theme of this ep is the thin line between humanity and nothingness, civilization and nothingness, life and nothingness, or simply, something and nothingness*. Simon remarks that it's unsettling that a very thin piece of glass in a helmet could be all that separates a person from "nothing." When a floating corpse hits Serenity, Jayne's explanation is that he must have gone stir-crazy and gone out for a "walk in space," and was then killed by the "nothing,” the vacuum. We never learn for certain why that man was outside of the ship (was he killed by the Reavers? was it a mad attempt to escape? was it entirely unrelated?), but it is likely that in a roundabout way, Jayne was right: the man was killed by "nothing," as we learn that the Reavers are men who moved too far away from civilization and were changed by the "nothing" they found. Jayne insists that the Reavers are not men at all, Book says that they are, and Mal gets the last word when he says that the Reavers aren't men on account of they forgot how to be men, and now they are "nothing."

The three men's differing takes on the Reavers are telling. Jayne's view is perhaps predictably simple: "Reavers ain't men." If he has any capacity to appreciate subtle degrees of difference between "man" and "not-man," he does not show it. His description makes no reference to what the Reavers were, how they’ve come to be what they are, or what is in their minds or hearts. The truth of their being is for him a brute fact: Reavers ain't men, they're things to be feared and avoided, and that is all he needs or, it seems, wants to know about them. Book's view is perhaps equally simplistic: of course the Reavers are men, he says, only they've lost their way. Book's description is hopeful--if one has only lost his way, then he need only be led back to the right path. Perhaps this is exactly the view we should expect from one who is called a "Shepherd." It is Mal who provides the most subtle and nuanced view of the Reavers, and the one that rings most true: the Reavers became so intimately involved with "nothing" that they forgot how to be men, and now that they aren't men, they are nothing. This, then, is the danger of nothing--when you face it, it changes you and claims you. It is underscored later when Mal informs the crew and later the Alliance that the derelict’s survivor (Mal would reject the term "survivor") has no choice but to emulate the Reavers. He came too close to "nothing," was forced to stare upon it, and now must become it. This all brings to mind a certain famous saying of Nietzsche's. Further, Mal tells us that the Reavers "gnaw at your insides." They will literally render their victims hollow, merely shells with nothing inside.

Simon, who in this ep reveals himself to be more than a little phobic about the nothingness that is the vacuum of space, has a brush with the danger of nothing when, tricked by Jayne into thinking he needs to suit up before boarding the derelict, is told by Kaylee that he has put his helmet on incorrectly. In a real situation, his naïveté would have prevented even that thin glass from protecting him from "nothing." In a more metaphorical sense, this might suggest that Simon lacks the resources to adequately protect himself (and River) from the dangerous influence of "nothing." (This recalls Simon's actions when faced by a certain moral problem in Firefly's pilot ep: he threatens to allow Kaylee to die if the crew of Serenity will not bend to his will. One can't imagine this is the sort of thing he would have done before being thrust into his new situation, having lost nearly everything and now having only his sister standing between his having something to live for and his having literally nothing.)

Early in the ep, Simon is joined by Inara and the two stand together, observing the other crewmembers playing with a ball and a suspended hoop. (River observes them, too, but is very much on her own, separate from the Simon-Inara pair). Simon and Inara are the two characters with the most formalized and "civilized" upbringings. Inara asks Simon who is winning. He responds that he does not know, because the crew is not playing by any "civilized rules" he is aware of. When Wash is called away, Kaylee invites Simon to join in the play. Simon complies, thereby changing from passive observer of the crew's lack of civilization to active participant in it. This exchange goes a long way toward locating Kaylee as a lure, inviting Simon to experience the fun of forgetting about the rules (even while this ep warns of the dangers that lie therein).

The concept of "nothing" has three modalities in this ep. The first modality is "nothing" as literally nothing, where it retains its intrinsic opposition to a "something." This sense of "nothing" is carried over from eps 101 and 102, expressed in Mal's resistance to religion. When the crew is discussing whether they should look for survivors on the derelict, Book asks if he should remind them about the Good Samaritans. Mal responds tersely that he'd rather Book did not. He is opposed to and impatient with the idea that there is a "something," a divine entity or entities, an afterlife, and presumably many other things that can not be detected with one's five senses here and now. Later, Mal relents when Book insists that he be allowed to give the dead their final rites, pointing out that our treatment of the dead is what separates persons from Reavers. Again, the danger of "nothing" is underscored. It's not just nothing itself that will get you into trouble, but going through life as though there is nothing beyond it will change you for the worse, as well. Book's argument is that regardless of whether there actually is an afterlife (a "something"), there is a real moral and practical danger in acting as though there is only nothing. (In the philosophy of religion, this would come under the heading of pragmatism.) Mal accepts this argument, even as he invokes a version of it as a way to distance himself from his decision to let the rites be done: "I ain't saying there's peace to be had, but if there is, I reckon these folks deserve a little bit of it."

Perhaps a clearer case of "nothing" as simply the opposite of "something" is when Mal orders that Serenity's cargo be put into clear view. Having nothing out on the floor will draw the Alliance's suspicion and invite danger. Having everything out in plain sight will avoid the same.

The second modality is "nothing" as simply space itself, the great vacuum that presents a physical danger if one does not take precautions against it, but also yields great possibility--new worlds to be colonized, new cargo to be appropriated.

The third is "nothing" as the abyss, the darkness, the void, the great moral danger into which man can so easily fall. It is the nothing that claimed the Reavers. It is the nothing that ordinary people can become if they become too disdainful or negligent of certain conventions of civilization, as Book reminds Mal.

"Nothing" does not always have negative connotations, as when River and Simon hide outside the ship, cloaked in the nothing of space. "Nothing" is their salvation in that case. River is delighted by the adventure; Simon would rather be somewhere else. And just as "nothing" qua complete lack of civilization is a danger, so is the clearest symbol of civilization that we see on screen: the Alliance. Still, the civilization of the Alliance should not be seen as a counterbalance to the nothingness of the Reavers: it is clear that the Alliance has much to fear from that "nothing."

In differentiating among three modalities of nothingness, I do not mean to suggest that they are always separate. Two or more often occur together in the same instance of "nothing," or the same "nothing" is itself two or more of these things. Space qua “nothing,” in particular, tends to represent both physical and moral danger.

Why are the Reavers so frightening? It is because they will gnaw your insides. If they do not afflict you with literal and physical nothingness, they will leave you figuratively and morally hollow. They represent the great dangers of space: they are mysterious and frightening entities with the will and ability to kill you, they are the evil that you can become if you are not very mindful of your moral wellbeing and the danger of "nothing", and they are the problematic flipside of rejecting the norms of civilized behavior. The Reavers are bad because they can hurt you, but it is worse yet that they can change you, a fact Mal appeals to when he announces that mercy for the derelict's survivor would be to put a bullet through his head rather than to allow him to go on, changed as he is by the Reaver attack.

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Thursday, June 24, 2004 6:36 AM

PIERSNICA

That's a very astute analysis. I'd say something more significant, but I think you pretty much summed it up.

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