PTSD and Mal. Really?
POSTED BY: Bytemite
UPDATED: Monday, January 27, 2020 20:08
VIEWED: 36490
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There's my question, right up front. Does Mal really have post traumatic stress disorder?
The general consensus seems to be yes, he does.
Looking back on what we know about some of the major events in his life, they definitely would seem to qualify as traumatic experiences.
Those of us who write fanfic absolutely love the PTSD angle, because it's such a gold mine for really good Mal angst and characterization. "He's a good guy, maybe not a nice guy, but you have to sympathize with him because, look, PTSD." Heck, a fanfic I've got in mind is the reason I'm wondering in the first place.
But as I try to think back and recall examples of him having PTSD in the comics, tv series, or movie, there's nothing clear-cut at all.
Classic symptoms of PTSD are flashbacks, nightmares, insomnia, phobias, avoidance behaviours, paranoia/hypervigilance, anxiety, feelings of apathy or numbness, over-protectiveness, strained personal relationships, inhibited self-expression, and aggression.
And while, okay, Mal does exhibit quite a number of these symptoms, what he exhibits is really hard to separate from depression.
Don't get me wrong, depression isn't anything to sniff at either. There just aren't any "Oh, he SO has PTSD" moments that I can remember. There's a couple of times where someone manages to sneak up and startle him when he's engrossed in something, but that seems within the limits of normal behaviour. And in the cold opening in the pilot episode, he has what is unequivocally a system crash/ blue screen of death moment when the Alliance start carpet bombing the valley. But he is never shown to freeze in response to gun-fire, artillery fire, or bombardment, and has an impressive resistance to torture. He becomes agitated and aggressive when faced with the possibility of imprisonment, but that also seems within a realm of normalcy. The night with Nandi and that almost time with Saffron don't suggest he's had any trauma in that sense, either.
He doesn't seem to have any PTSD triggers derived from any events we could possibly attribute to his past. So, does he have PTSD?
Also, people seem to commonly agree that after Serenity Valley, Mal and Zoe spent time in an Alliance POW camp. I like the idea, but is there a canonical reference to that?
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Who ever said he has PTSD?
I never noticed this being a commonly used idea, actually.
That's a nice list of symptoms, though, and indeed, Mal exhibits a large number of them. I vote depression. He's definitely not 100%.
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That's odd, I see it all the time. Especially in a lot of hurt/comfort fanfiction. And apparently at one point on wikipedia, he was listed under "Fictional characters who suffer from PTSD."
A common theme in Mal/River fanfics seems to be that Mal and River's experiences with trauma and emotional/psychological problems are a good basis for a relationship. I don't necessarily agree on the relationship part, but my feelings on that don't rule out the possibility that PTSD could actually be something the two of them share in common.
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I don't think the PTSD idea is necessarily wrong, because he does show signs of paranoia/hypervigilance and over-protectiveness, and those aren't a symptoms you commonly attribute to depression.
But those symptoms could be just personality traits; he wouldn't have ever made Sergeant if he didn't take care of his troops. And the more obvious PTSD symptoms of flashbacks, avoidance behaviour, and trigger behaviours aren't there.
Mal has a tendency to hide his problems, makes his diagnosis really hard to pin down. It could be there's a lot we aren't seeing.
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Or it could just be that he doesn't need to have flashbacks to still qualify for PTSD.. and it might be a mix of PTSD and depression symptoms.
He's not unstable or suicidal or what we sometimes poculturally associate with the word "traumatized". Mal is fairly stable. But I really think the level of aggression and defensiveness are not character traits he took into the war, though his overt condemnation of every single thing that may have ever touched the Alliance might speak of a natural sort of paranoid/judgmental streak that was heightened by the war.
Some of it may be war trauma, some of it the massive and sudden shock of disappointment of the disastrous, prolonged surrender at Serenity Valley, some of it the loss of his family and home. He's got plenty of reasons to be messed up.
It's nothing like River's issues, though!
This being a common theme in Mal/River fics would explain why I haven't seen it. Mal/River goes against everything I believe about either character and I avoid reading it on principle. :)
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I am seeing a doctor at the V.A. Hospital in White River Jct, Vermont, which is the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and was talking to him about the series Firefly. The Doctor said Firefly was pure genius, and said that it covered PTSD so very well, and he wanted the other Doctors who work with PTSD in the VA to view Firefly as a training aid. I am not really sure what he meant whether he was talking about Serenity the pilot, or the whole series, and whether or not it was Mal or others who were victims.
http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html
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I'm not sure you can get more canon than Joss Whedon himself, but he stated many times in interviews during 2002-03 that the character of Mal suffered from severe PTSD. It is also in the Firefly Visual Companion. Briefly, he based Mal on characters that survived the Civil War battle of Gettysburgh, where the amount of pure carnage on the battlefield still can hardly be believed. Joss was reading I believe it was "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara while on vacation in England when he got the concept for Firefly. He wanted a survivor from a massive battle with the PTSD symptoms to struggle against the backdrop of an unforgiving world, much like Civil War survivors were treated.
The original Mal in the first pilot was much more classic PTSD, kind of like Mal was in Serenity. But Fox made Joss make Mal nicer, so he would be more likable to the audience, who really didn't have a clue back then what war did to people. After so many more years of war, we're getting a better idea now what PTSD does to soldiers.
But there are many clues in Firefly about PTSD: Wash's comment to Mal about Mal's intimacy issues, Mal only going for wobbly headed Geisha dolls after being caught by Niska, the comment by the twins Fanty and Mingo in Serenity that Mal was unpredictable, fought when he should have talked, etc. And of course he could never voice feelings for Inara. The earliest fanfic makes a great deal about PTSD and has some pure gems from some authors drawn to the show because of their own PTSD, and those people wrote some of the best Mal characters I have ever read.
If you don't have a basis in PTSD, you would probably just think Mal is a jerk. But since Joss is a genius, nothing is ever as it seems, and Joss gave us all an opportunity at looking at life through a different lens, thanks to Mal. Do some more homework, but I think you can see that Joss had a little PTSD himself after losing Firefly.
One day the people of the world will want peace so much that the governments will have to get out of their way and give it to them.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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I go for the Mal=PTSD theory (which is pretty obvious in my fics) but I think there are many levels of PTSD. The image of an ex-soldier going deep flashback and ducking for cover every time the garbage truck makes a boom is, I think, a Hollywood stereotype. It may happen to some very unfortunate souls, but the more common experience of PTSD is more like Mal: an inability to do basic life stuff, and a complete lack of attachment to or control of his own emotions and motivations.
I guess that throwing the term "PTSD" out there references some things that may not apply. Mal went through an extremely shitty time that messed up his ability to enjoy life. That much is quite clear from just about everything we know of him. Call it PTSD if you want, or not. The term works for me.
As for the POW camp - it may have been mentioned in the Visual Companion. There's a paragraph about Mal and Zoe's history, something about how a year or so after the war Mal found himself homeless and adrift (I'm totally paraphrasing my memory of something I read years ago - someone with the book handy please correct me!) This passage was the basis of my theories of the Alliance POW camp and the destruction of Shadow. But I think it's open to many interpretations, so have at it!
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hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
I go for the Mal=PTSD theory (which is pretty obvious in my fics) but I think there are many levels of PTSD. The image of an ex-soldier going deep flashback and ducking for cover every time the garbage truck makes a boom is, I think, a Hollywood stereotype. It may happen to some very unfortunate souls, but the more common experience of PTSD is more like Mal: an inability to do basic life stuff, and a complete lack of attachment to or control of his own emotions and motivations.
That's *exactly* how I would characterize it. While there may be clinical cases that exemplify PTSD with the utmost clarity, I don't think all cases are that clear cut and Mal seems to be one of the latter. I've known some vets from more recent wars and they can still function fairly normally, but they DO have nightmares sometimes, and they DO have trouble relating to people sometimes. That doesn't mean they jump at every slammed door or all have to sit with their backs to the wall looking out into the room to avoid a perceived ambush.
Which ep is it... War Stories...(?) in which we see Mal and Zoe still eating apples with a knife to be sure they're not filled with grenades even if they KNOW it's not possible? That sounds like clear-cut habit resulting from PTSD if you ask me. However, in the Alliance-friendly bar in Train Job, Mal has his back to the room, leaving himself open to a possible ambush, but he doesn't seem concerned (or maybe he trusts Zoe enough that he feels she can cover him... OR it was just the best stage positioning for the cameramen :P)
We do know Mal has intimacy issues though as well, it's just that he manages to get along reasonably well in spite of the residual trauma he may experience. Even with the limited canon, I think we can identify at least a mild to moderate case of PTSD.
Edit: I also refrain from reading M/R fanfic on purpose. Just doesn't compute with my 'verse.
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I went and looked up complex post traumatic stress disorder in Wikipidia and the one symptom that jumped out at me was:
'changes in, one's system of meanings, which may include a loss of sustaining faith or a sense of hopelessness and despair'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_post-traumatic_stress_disorder#Ad
ult_symptom_cluster
All of Mal's "personality quirks", except one could be explained as a normal reaction to combat and the stress of living on the run.
In fact, growing up on a ranch likely helped him cope in way. It provided early lessons in leadership and also dealing with loss. He grew up without a father (or so most think in that he only mentions his mother). He likely grew up with animals that hurt themselves or were slaughtered for food, the weather could make or break a season in an instant etc.
He's with in the range of "normal"(but who is normal any way?) except in one area, his faith. Mal isn't hopeless or despairing, but he did lose his faith, one of the symptoms of complex post traumatic disorder.
Usually faith sustains someone in a traumatic situation. A pastor or chaplain can provide enormous help in a traumatic situtation and in our military function as first line counselors on the battlefield and in the hospital.
It makes me wonder if Mal was such a believer that he expected his faith to fix every thing and when it didn't, that was his main trauma or did some trusted pastor/chaplain betray him in some way? I digress into the unknowable but very good fodder for fan fics.
http://fireflyfaninnc.livejournal.com/
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I'd add Zoe and River to the list.
(Yes, River's a no-brainer in this regard, I understand.)
I feel a little silly doing a psych eval on fictitious characters, but it's really no worse than a theoretical case study.
I'd even venture to say that Zoe hits the bar on more behavioral symptoms than Mal.
However she's got Wash to help her work through the intimacy issues. You could argue that she's even overly attached to Mal, and he can be viewed as her touchstone to the past traumatic event(s).
Ack! I need to go get some sleep.
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Rallem: Yeah, I think I might have heard you talk about that before, and that story might have been the reason I originally started researching this.
Rouka: Possible, he sure didn't have a high opinion of the Alliance even back then. I get the impression all his reasons were initially tax related (most Rim world economies were thought by the Independents to be unable to support an off-planet tax) as well as the issues of self-government we're all more familiar with. I don't think his dislike of the Alliance was an irrational one.
But the overprotectiveness, I think that may be kind of telling. The extremes he's willing to go to in order to keep the people he cares about safe, while admirable at times, are definitely irrational. He may have had a streak of that before the war, but I think he has a genuine fear of loss now that's kind of suggested at in Better Days. Did anyone else interpret Inara as accusing Mal of telling about the money just so his crew wouldn't leave the ship to start new lives? I don't know if I like that, because I'd always liked to think that Mal always put his crew first, but that seemed to be implied.
I agree about River's problems being on an entirely different level. And I don't really know much about Mal/River myself; now and then I try to broaden my horizons and read unusual pairings, but usually I don't get very far before I run into some personal mental hangups over some aspect or another. I was just using it as an example of a group that would probably consider Mal to have PTSD.
Katesfriend: Nice insight on the wobbly-headed dolls post Niska! That could definitely be construed as avoidance behaviour. Here I am trying to recall evidence for PTSD, and it turns out my magnifying glass just wasn't powerful enough. Might have to look more closely for clues next time I'm watching.
Mal4Prez: Yeah, I think your story was actually the first time I'd ever encountered the post-war internment camp idea, and I also really like jetflair's. The two of them and others I've seen made me wonder if that was made official somewhere. I've REALLY got to pick up the Visual Companion. Thanks.
And yeah, I agree, the definition of a disorder is when a person experiences a loss of function in everyday life. Mal? He's physically healthy, but he's not really functioning in any social or life capacity, is he? I think Nathan Fillion once described Mal's only goal as just to continue. I wonder if Mal thinks he's capable of handling anything more than that.
Cellardoor: Can any of us honestly imagine Mal being a sound sleeper? The man has got to have nightmares that would make John Wayne curl up in a fetal position.
NCBrowncoat: My interpretation on Mal's loss of faith isn't that he expected God's protection, intervention, or tolerance, but that he was sure that he was on the right side and couldn't believe God would let the right side lose. That God wouldn't let all the men and women he'd fought alongside die for nothing. He wasn't expecting a miracle, he expected men to do the fighting, call in air support, and win the war. It was only retrospectively, after the Independents lost, that he wondered why God didn't do anything to help them, and felt God had betrayed them. He'd be kind of a fair-weather believer if he expected God's helping hand all along.
Doesn't really surprise me to hear that loss of faith is commonly associated with PTSD, though.
Stinking Rose: Ah, Zoe and Mal. There's an interesting look at the issue. Zoe's definitely progressed to a more functional level than Mal has, but every indication is that after the War, she was the worse off. She was the one who joined up the Dust Devils, she was the one raging in the post-war mugshot included in the Serenity movie extras. It's strange, as strongly as Mal believed, and as angry as he is now compared to Zoe, you would have expected him to be worse, but I don't think that's how it was.
They definitely protect and look after each other though, no question. They know there are times the other is weak and needs help. Little bit of th
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Rallem: Yeah, I think I might have heard you talk about that before, and that story might have been the reason I originally started researching this.
Rouka: ...
But the overprotectiveness, I think that may be kind of telling. The extremes he's willing to go to in order to keep the people he cares about safe, while admirable at times, are definitely irrational. He may have had a streak of that before the war, but I think he has a genuine fear of loss now that's kind of suggested at in Better Days. Did anyone else interpret Inara as accusing Mal of telling about the money just so his crew wouldn't leave the ship to start new lives? I don't know if I like that, because I'd always liked to think that Mal always put his crew first, but that seemed to be implied.
I agree about River's problems being on an
Katesfriend: Nice insight on the wobbly-headed dolls post Niska! That could definitely be construed as avoidance behaviour. Here I am trying to recall evidence for PTSD, and it turns out my magnifying glass just wasn't powerful enough. Might have to look more closely for clues next time I'm watching...
Mal4Prez: Yeah, I think your story was actually the first time I'd ever encountered the post-war internment camp idea, and I also really like jetflair's. The two of them and others I've seen made me wonder if that was made official somewhere. I've REALLY got to pick up the Visual Companion. Thanks.
And yeah, I agree, the definition of a disorder is when a person experiences a loss of function in everyday life. Mal? He's physically healthy, but he's not really functioning in any social or life capacity, is he? I think Nathan Fillion once described Mal's only goal as just to continue. I wonder if Mal thinks he's capable of handling anything more than that...
NCBrowncoat: My interpretation on Mal's loss of faith isn't that he expected God's protection, intervention, or tolerance, but that he was sure that he was on the right side and couldn't believe God would let the right side lose. That God wouldn't let all the men and women he'd fought alongside die for nothing. He wasn't expecting a miracle, he expected men to do the fighting, call in air support, and win the war. It was only retrospectively, after the Independents lost, that he wondered why God didn't do anything to help them, and felt God had betrayed them. He'd be kind of a fair-weather believer if he expected God's helping hand all along.
Doesn't really surprise me to hear that loss of faith is commonly associated with PTSD, though...
Sorry about the long post, everyone.
I was thinking along your lines but my mind wandered off on a bit of a tangent, wondering if there was a more more personal component to Mal's loss of faith.
And I totally forgot about the protectiveness issue. A good Sargeant always takes care of his troops (crew) but it's magnified in Mal.
And that leads to the intimacy issues...volumes has been written on that.
http://fireflyfaninnc.livejournal.com/
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I was originally thinking about the soldier whom Zoe tasked to cover them while Mal went duck hunting and the soldier just froze. Even though it happened while the traumatic encounter was still occuring couldn't that have been PTSD too? They were there for quite a while.
http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html
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Yeah, that's a symptom of PTSD as well. Soldiers freezing up like that in battle was actually initially how PTSD was discovered. Back then, it was called "shell shock" (as in artillery shells) or the "1000 yard stare."
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Commander whats-his-face (the one they're "not gonna tell on" for losing it, screamin about how he'd lost his limbs)-- is the stage just before extreme shock, I believe, and we are shown him in extreme shock; fixed stare, frozen etc. Although shock can occur in PTSD it is different from PTSD as a syndrome.
Mal: I think he qualifies, definately. But as we don't see inside anybody's head (excepting River's on several occasions), we can't tell if he's Hollywood Flashbacking. But the startling, the continuity "gaps", the emotionally blocked tangle, and his "off" moments are there, as portrayed by Nathan Fillion, intentional or not. Mal is not flying with all sails, clearly. Joss said it was Mal's story through River's eyes, which I think says a lot about intent.
For the obvious, there is Serenity Valley, and Zoe's quote on that concerning her difference from Mal: "All I ever lost there was a war."
This implies a big loss for mal.
And one of River's plot functions seems to be to tell the audience (and other characters) what makes people (eg Jayne, Book, the boss in Safe, Badger, Saffron, Mal...) tick. So:
I'm not sure if it remains in the movie, but in the start of the shooting script there's a very lucid and candid moment between them where she looks straight at him, says "everyone leaves you", then goes back to the usual thematic word salad.
She's just summed up what I believe is Mal's greatest fear. Where everyone and everything he fights so hard to keep and protect is just...gone.
Out of Gas is literally that episode, right up through "You all gonna be here when I wake up?" Funny as all get out that Book's the one who comforts him, considering Mal's MO. Irony.
All these completely aside, there are what I see as tons of PTSD moments and reactions for Mal; in fact River is the only one who outdoes him. Mal is the high-functioning version. Besides having a brain in one piece. I'll see if I can make a list later, but the biggest example is Mal's "double personality"--even ever-tactful Inara mentions in the Movie that she doesn't know who he's going to be next when the stress gets piled on. Mal tries to be stable, but I don't think he is--that's his character weakness, which combined with his "honest streak" gets him in a lot of scrapes.
Nathan mentions that Mal is "hollowed-out inside"
and that hollow is filled with an anger that is distilled fear. Mal has major rage issues, that you can definitely see when spark touches gunpowder--he's easy-going, quiet, doesn't want a fuss and then wham--there's a bullet in your brainpan, and not in cold blood neither. Considering this fact that Mal is not a happy killing machine under normal circumstances (read: Jayne), something else must make him do this.
I wrote elsewhere that he seems to make the change when a crisis situation escalates to a temporary apocalypse.
List later. Always need proof.
"I think we lost our fuzzy dice back there."
"Going for a ride"
Another Sky
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Perhaps Nathan had some experience acting the PTSD symptoms from his role in "Saving Private Ryan," even though his role was not that big in the movie. I know the main characters except for Matt Damon had to go through a form of Basic Training together, and Matt Damon had to go through his form of Basic Training alone so the other actors wouldn't have a sense of familiarity with him. I wonder if the extras like Nathan had to go through a form of Basic Training too.
http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html
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I just saw this on the FFF.net quotation marquee, for what it's worth:
"He lost more than the war. He lost a sense of compassion and forgiveness. He lost his faith in God." - Nathan Fillion on Mal
Aside: isn't it phenomenal that we can have discussions like this about a show that lasted only one season and a movie? I continue to be astounded by the quality and complexity that Joss Whedon created in Firefly.
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I wanted to say something to the affect that Mal lost his belief in God, but I think due to the evidence of the series that he hadn't lost his ability for compassion and forgiveness.
http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html
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Another Sky: You're right, emotional shock is different from PTSD. A person has to suffer symptoms of PTSD for longer than six months for it to be considered such. Although, while Lieutenant No-arms-no-legs might be just freezing up in shock for an uncertain amount of time during the battle and after, we don't know how long poor Private Bendis (pilot episode) has been in his state. Serenity Valley was a campaign that lasted several weeks, and didn't exactly end when combat was (mostly) over.
Good points on the unpredictability and instability. He has very abnormal responses to stress. So far, his reactions seem scaled to the magnitude of the stressor, if surprisingly violent, but that could only be a matter of time.
You mention that he has continuity gaps and off-moments, could you elaborate on those?
A side comment: Jayne may be a crude brute, but I don't think he's a killing machine. I don't think it's the blood, explosions, or people dying that motivate him, but rather survival and the thrill of the hunt or fight. He's been shown to be bothered by death (Jaynestown, Serenity movie), and while it's not always a consistent reaction, I don't think that would be the case if he was JUST a killer.
Rallem: Hmm. Well, sometimes yes, and sometimes no. He definitely still has a conscience and even a bit of a noble streak, but compassion and forgiveness seem to be on a strictly case by case basis. He's not a soft-hearted man by any stretch of the imagination. He won't like it, but if he has to, puppies WILL be shot.
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Yeah, I think so, pretty much. When he is really ticked the years fall away and he is again back to his former self. He was, at the outset of the war, a true believer. By the end all he believes in has been pretty much striped away. He is left with a modified personal code, a very modified family unit, and his survival instinct, until the events of Firefly and Serenity. Written damn well with a "been there and done that" for real feel I find a lot of nuance and depth in his performance. For example, the way he got off is bunk in Serenity when Inara called. That was pitch perfect. All asleep, then, all awake on his feet. Oh, not an actual emergency, ok, I'll be a bit sleepy again. The whole crew (except Simon, and at times, River, are hyper-vigilant, and, time would have cured that)A change in engine pitch and they all know it and the most attuned respond the fastest. Etc. I think when Mal said "Wars over we're all just folks now" he acknowledged that all of them were damaged in their own ways. The least damaged among them were Wash, Simon, and Kaylee. Wash was essentially what was the best in them all. He, ah hem, died for their sins. Kaylee and Simon had the most in common in regard to being less damaged (?) and could heal their hurts and renew themselves in each other. Zoe has been able to compartmentalize her thoughts and put her losses away for private times. Book went through hell somewhere, sometime, and found essential belief once again. This was both his end and his salvation. Jayne has a very young spirit. He is a child in many ways and looks to Book and Mal for real guidance. On their own, they are a mess. Together, they are a formidable crew, an unconventional warfare unit extraordinaire, and a surrogate family. These are things that help deal with PTSD. Friends, Family, Understanding, a flexible approach, and acceptance. Mal accepts who and what he has become because, perhaps, way down deep, he feels he should be the way he was at the start. But, it was all too much, for too long, and the way he now process everything has changed and he may never recover fully. Additionally, however, if he were he would be less effective at what he does a be more vulnerable and open to more emotional damage.
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Group and relationship therapies are apparently commonly recommended treatments for PTSD; familiarity, tolerance, and acceptance help lessen current stresses as a patient copes with the old trauma. Seeking out some form of support and building his crew definitely would have been a beneficial activity for him.
Off hand, I'm more than willing to just label Mal's behaviour pattern as PTSD, but I'm still finding it ambiguous if he has PTSD in a technical, medical diagnosis sense.
On wikipedia, it says "PTSD sufferers re-experience the traumatic event or events in some way. As a result, they tend to avoid places, people, or other things that remind them of the event, and are exquisitely sensitive to normal life experiences."
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For a slightly more specialized source, here's the WebMD link:
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/post-traumatic-stress-disorder
And a key few paragraphs: "Although the disorder must be diagnosed by a mental health professional, symptoms of PTSD are clearly defined. To be diagnosed with PTSD, you must have been in a situation in which you were afraid for your safety or your life, or you must have experienced something that made you feel fear, helplessness, or horror. [I think all those emotions could have played out on Mal's face at Serenity Valley.]
The worse the trauma, the more likely a person will develop PTSD, and the worse the symptoms. The most severely affected are unable to work, have trouble with relationships, and have great difficulty parenting their children.
Research has shown that PTSD changes the biology of the brain. MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and PET (positron emission tomography) scans show changes in the way memories are stored in the brain. PTSD is an environmental shock that changes your brain, and scientists do not know if it is reversible."
It almost sounds like the cause is as important to the diagnosis than the symptoms (the effects themselves, if not more so.
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Sounds like sensitization.
Normally the term applies to things like allergies, which cause an immune response that escalates with repeated exposure. Initial contact with the allergen changes the body's physiology, so that thereafter the body always has a certain, sometimes worsening physical response to the stimulus.
Could be PTSD is a chemical sensitization to an unusual quantity of adrenaline or other fear/fight-or-fight response related chemical. The dose makes the poison, you know. Changes the body's physiological reaction to the pathway permanently.
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It has been mentioned that the Original Malcolm Reynolds was a darker brooding character and the network insisted that Mal be made a more likeable person, so I wonder if the original would have been more convincing even though I am told by a psychiatrist fan of the series that the series was a masterful display of PTSD.
http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html
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Jayne: when I said "happy killing machine", I was a little on the caffeine, pardon. What I meant by that apparently flippant phrase is that when Mal kills, it's from a totally different motive than when Jayne kills. Jayne kills for reasons, whether he's happy about it or not. Mal, according to his nature, tries to resolve without killing first. But push his buttons in a particular way and we skip that step real fast---go on emotional fast-forward. And while Jayne certainly sees his killing as simultaneously a.) part of his job and b.) kind of a problem, Mal gives the impression that he is deeply disturbed about it, though he wouldn't and can't take it back.
In other words, deep down Jayne has accepted(or possibly never questioned) the inevitability of killing people in his job, and in those very specific circumstances, Mal has not.
Not in the mechanics of the thing(that's obvious), it's a very fine difference: like so many other things he's accepted the *possibility* of killing people, and has killed people. It's the *certainty* that eludes him.
Feel free to contest. :D
Whoever said that Jayne is a young soul and several of the others are old souls, I think hit it dead on(pun unintended) for the quality they emanate.
I'll get around to posting that Mal list sometime this week.
"I think we lost our fuzzy dice back there."
"Going for a ride."
Another Sky
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Ah, yes, then I do agree with that. The motivations and emotions between even Mal/Zoe survival killing and Jayne survival killing are two very different sorts of mentalities, no contest here. And Jayne has a simplicity that's almost childlike that somehow makes him in a spiritual sense seem not as guilty.
I wonder. If Joss Whedon HAD gotten Fox to let Mal be darker all through the series, would THAT have been a Hollywoodized version of PTSD? People with Mal's sort of PTSD can't always be gloom and glower, can they? Maybe it's more realistic that he has multiple layers and sides to his personality.
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Oh, yeah, definitely about the different sides. It's what makes Mal's character.
Sometimes during the series and the movie I hurt because he's smiling, but it's the smile that shows he knows he's not happy. He just wants to truly laugh for a minute without the anchor around his neck--obviously the humor's in him, and it's just wrong. Again, that same quick intensity for humor seems to oddly be part of the fuel for explosive anger...whatever that means. Examples again elude me, and I am procrastinating doing real work by fantasizing about the character motivations of a show that was canceled...oh lets see HOW many years ago? Yes, this is the most complicated show I've ever come across.
Jayne: My acquaintance adores him. Asked why: "He's just so crude and stupid and mercenary...and he can't help himself." I got a good laugh on that one.
Do you think there's a difference between Mal's "PTSD" and Zoe's?
"I think we lost our fuzzy dice back there."
"Going for a ride."
Another Sky
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I don’t think Zoe is suffering from PTSD, and that she was able to reconcile any losses she may have experienced during the war. Wasn’t it posted above somewhere that Zoe said all she ever lost was the war?
I think Jayne is anything but stupid. Sure he is crude and mercenary, and he acts stupid at times, but through out the series Jayne did hints of his true intelligence, I think. I believe Jayne is using his act as a sort of tool to disarm any possible adversaries by leading them to believe he is stupid, slow witted, or to under estimate his abilities. I think a hint to this is in “Out of Gas,” when Jayne tells Mal he was smart enough to find them, and Mal responds by looking at Jayne shocked and replying that he was.
http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html
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Quote:
Originally posted by rallem:
I don’t think Zoe is suffering from PTSD, and that she was able to reconcile any losses she may have experienced during the war. Wasn’t it posted above somewhere that Zoe said all she ever lost was the war?
Well.. unlike Mal, Zoe is probably really in denial about her PTSD.
In no way is she completely fine. She seems fairly unable to truly open up to Wash. She has completely unnecessary conflicts with im, like in War Stories, denial of th reality around her (Babies on Serenity? Hello?), the same compulsive apple cutting that Mal does. her entire life revolves around the job she had in the war. Mal made his own path, Zoe just follows him.
I don't blamne her, but she is definitely damaged.
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Agreed, and also, in Better Days, it says that it was Zoe who became a terrorist for a little while after the war. Not Mal. Maybe Mal had just become defeatist and too depressed to fight by then, but it seems to me like Zoe had more trouble letting go of the war than Mal did.
Zoe's military soldier, not volunteer. She was born and raised vesselside, according to various canon sources. When her side lost and she was no longer a soldier, I suspect she had no idea how to function outside military life. I'd even go as far as to say she thought her life was over, because what else did she have? So she looked to join back up with some version of her old life, and ran with the Dust Devils for a little while.
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Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:Quote:
Originally posted by rallem:
I don’t think Zoe is suffering from PTSD, and that she was able to reconcile any losses she may have experienced during the war. Wasn’t it posted above somewhere that Zoe said all she ever lost was the war?
Well.. unlike Mal, Zoe is probably really in denial about her PTSD.
In no way is she completely fine. She seems fairly unable to truly open up to Wash. She has completely unnecessary conflicts with im, like in War Stories, denial of th reality around her (Babies on Serenity? Hello?), the same compulsive apple cutting that Mal does. her entire life revolves around the job she had in the war. Mal made his own path, Zoe just follows him.
I don't blamne her, but she is definitely damaged.
I think Zoe is less damaged than you think. She wanted to have a baby with Wash even if it were going to be difficult and with the possiblity of losing it.
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Zoe's definitely improved. It's hard to tell how much.
As of just before Miranda, I think she was more stable than Mal in a PTSD sense. After, with Wash gone, who knows?
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Quote:
Originally posted by rallem:
I think Zoe is less damaged than you think. She wanted to have a baby with Wash even if it were going to be difficult and with the possiblity of losing it.
Well, that's the choice all prospective parents make, but there's having a baby under whatever are the "normal" circumstances of your time, and then there's having a baby in decidedly more dangerous circumstances. It's not like Zoe doesn't have a choice here, she just values sticking with Mal is their unstable, violent rebel life over a safer life, the way Wash would prefer - which would be the much more responsible choice.
I think she's trying to stick to her military roots at all cost, as has been said here. Not the mark of an undamaged person.
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My take on Zoe is that her upbringing prepared her for the end of the war. When you grow up a soldier, you know that you might die in an ugly way, or you might lose in a uglier way. I'm not saying she didn't get hurt - it would appear that she lost her family along the way, and that must have sucked quite a lot - but she would have always known that a life of peaceful retirement wasn't in the cards for her. She was prepared for loss, even trained for it.
Mal, on the other hand, grew up loving a certain kind of life, then volunteered for the military because his way of life was in danger (one assumes). He had a cause he believed in and he thought God was on his side. He probably believed his side would win, even if he didn't make it through, because the Independents were *right*. Losing, and losing the way he did, was a complete betrayal by God and all that should have been structured and orderly in the `verse. He was in no way prepared for that.
So while losing damaged them both, I think it was much more profound for Mal. Zoe knew how to take a beating and move on in her usual soldierly way, but Mal was completely destroyed.
ETA: I also don't see Zoe's hard-assed attitude as purely a consequence of losing the war. I think she was always was a tough soldier, and she'd be the same no matter what. Really, I see no PTSD-type symptoms in her, other than the apple thing, which I don't find unreasonable.
The only real oddness I see in Zoe is the strength of her attachment to Mal, that her partnership with him overrides even her marriage. But I wouldn't call that war damage. Not sure what I would call it.
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Hmm. I could see that. Zoe joining up with the Dust Devils and continuing to follow Mal could have been just that, trying to hold on to her "usual soldiery way." Just because the Dust Devils were terrorists doesn't mean she was an angry terrorist trying to keep the fight going at any cost. Could be it's just all she knows.
Their relationship is definitely more than JUST a war buddy thing, even though I hear war buddies can be really close too, best friends. Mal and Zoe are beyond best friends. I think of them as brother and sister in arms, blood mixed by battle, and for a good while they were the only family they each had left. There's no one they can rely on more, and therefore no one they're more loyal to. Their roles as sergeant and corporal are force of habit and surface only, underneath, they're pretty equal, and Zoe questions Mal's orders and actions more than Wash gives her credit for. Like about leaving that man behind in the movie, or whenever his plans veer slightly too close to reckless.
In fact, even back during the war, I suspect Mal wasn't a hardass about people bringing up practical objections to his orders. His style back then seems to have been very fluid, taking ideas from his men as needed and applying them to whatever crazy greater goal he had in mind.
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
ETA: I also don't see Zoe's hard-assed attitude as purely a consequence of losing the war. I think she was always was a tough soldier, and she'd be the same no matter what. Really, I see no PTSD-type symptoms in her, other than the apple thing, which I don't find unreasonable.
The only real oddness I see in Zoe is the strength of her attachment to Mal, that her partnership with him overrides even her marriage. But I wouldn't call that war damage. Not sure what I would call it.
I agree that Zoe isn't damaged in the same way Mal is, partly through her upbringing. But at the same time she has a much easier time hiding her "damage" behind Mal. She doesn't bear the responsibility of making choices, she follows Mal. She doesn't have to justify anything, she just points at Mal's often-expressed anger. She doesn't have to become friends with anyone because she has to be there for Mal 24/7. She doesn't have to confront herself because she has Wash to focus on, this baby-containing future to fantasize about. Marrying Wash, in that regard, isn't THE step toward healing or all that brave, because it provided her with a great distraction from herself.
In a way, Zoe has moved on even less than Mal has. Mal is the one who made himself a home, Mal is the one with close bonds within the crew, Mal is the one making all the choices (only rarely questioned by Zoe). In her own way, Zoe is incredibly passive, as if afraid to take a step on her own.
Hell, I think when Mal and Inara get together, their relationship will be healthier than Wash and Zoe's because I think Mal would actually want to open up to Inara, or at least be able to communicate why and when he doesn't. Which Zoe is really really bad at with Wash.
I find it fascinating that this doesn't jump out at others like it does at me, because it occured to me fairly early on about Zoe. :)
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I guess I just have a different perspective of Zoe, although mine's kind of fuzzy around the edges. I see her questioning Mal a lot, and I don't see her hiding behind his command. If he does something she doesn't like, she confronts him about it.
I agree with you that she was damaged and probably still is, and that getting onboard Serenity helped her a lot, but just how much is hard for me to tell.
For me it comes back to the Dust Devils. Did Zoe join them out of habit, out of a desire to maintain her habits, or because she was affected by the war? I could see it all three ways, and two of those suggest PTSD.
And if she has PTSD, just how much is she healed? How much of Zoe's stoic behaviour is her military upbringing, and how much is a defensive mechanism?
Something I do agree with you is that she really latched on to Wash, to the point where she didn't really interact with the rest of the crew apart from Wash and Mal.
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I have no doubt that Mal was an eclectic leader in combat, and I think Zoe might have been his heavy hand when it came to doling out punishment, unless it was a situation which required the Sarge's touch. I think to Zoe and Mal Serenity is their idea of home and heaven, where they can get a good crew and take jobs as they need them. That probably was the reason Zoe mellowed out on the idea of Serenity not being operational, when Mal brought up the subject of them being able to stay out of the ALliance's reach.
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Quote:I just don't agree - she decided to follow Mal, didn't she? OK, maybe that's my own fanon, but a career military Amazon woman ended up second in command to a volunteer, and that seems odd to me. You think a person like Zoe let herself get into that situation unwillingly?
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
I agree that Zoe isn't damaged in the same way Mal is, partly through her upbringing. But at the same time she has a much easier time hiding her "damage" behind Mal. She doesn't bear the responsibility of making choices, she follows Mal.
She does have an easier time hiding her damage than Mal, but I don't think it's "hiding behind" Mal. I guess it's a difference in how we see what she truly is. You seem to be saying she is not truly her self when she's with Mal. I think she is, and she's chosen her place intentionally.
She does have a tendency to go along with Mal when he's walking a fine edge, I think that's because he earned her respect in the war, and she has chosen to make him lead dog. Face it - Zoe is not a natural leader. She's not a people person (witness the interview in Bushwhacked.) She has no ambition to run things herself, but feels more comfortable with some semblance of military rank-and-file to guide her along. Now, I'd hate that with a passion, but I'm not of the military mentality. It makes sense to me that someone with her upbringing would be comfortable living in the shadow of a leader she respects. Doesn't mean something's wrong with her.
Quote:Or maybe she simply chooses not to. Because she did at least once take a step on her own - the Dust Devil thing. She must not have liked it out there on her own, because she didn't stay with it.
In a way, Zoe has moved on even less than Mal has. Mal is the one who made himself a home, Mal is the one with close bonds within the crew, Mal is the one making all the choices (only rarely questioned by Zoe). In her own way, Zoe is incredibly passive, as if afraid to take a step on her own.
Another point where we see different: I don't have the problem with a child on the ship. (Other than that I find baby-rearing fics boring as hell LOL!) These characters are not living in our world. No where is 100% safe. They have to take what they can get.
In the Killer Angels analogy, Zoe lost the Civil War and now she's out in the Wild West, trying to eke out a living. Sure, a lot of folks would say: "if you're gonna have a baby, leave this crew of miscreants and go back East to raise it proper!" But she simply can't live in the East (return to the Bushwhacked interview). She knows what she wants in life, what's important to her, and she's not giving it up. She wants to have her thing with Mal and her thing with Wash too. She's demanding that she have both, on her own terms.
I think it's brave of her, and I admire it. But then, I've never believed that child rearing must take place under rigidly defined conditions. I think "safe" can be more dangerous for a child than letting him or her experience life as it is. Personally, I would never raise my kid in suburbia. But that's me.
Not to say something that everyone knows: aren't these characters the shit? So many different interesting ways to see them, and so many relatable issues.
Bytemite: I see it more like you do. Mal and Zoe have a strange and deep relationship, certainly something outside the norm. But that doesn't automatically make it unhealthy. After what they lived through, I think they should live life on their own terms.
As for the Dust Devils: I wonder if we'll ever learn of the circumstances of that? Maybe another comic series years down the road? It takes so long!
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I heard someone say that somewhere canon, maybe one of the visual companions, it's written that Zoe was transferred into Mal's command about 2.5 years before Serenity Valley.
Never seen it myself, so I don't know for sure. Kinda makes you wonder what both of them were doing those 7.5 years before then if it's true.
I like your fanon though. :)
As for their relationship, there could possibly be an element of trauma touchstone there. But I think their relationship is far, far more positive and forward focused for both of them than it is negative or constricting.
Rallem: Kinda like it is on the ship, except for those "out-the-airlock" moments, eh? :)
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I guess we disagree on many points, then.
It's not that I see Zoe as a frail skeleton of her true self, waiting to break as soon as Mal is out of her sight, but I think that not all of what she does is healthy and it is not the normal "not a leader" kind of reluctance, but a fairly extreme reluctance to truly confront herself or step outside the chain of command-life she knows.
It's not all there is to Zoe, but I see it clearly.
Children on Serenity.. I guess it's the difference between living in a lonely cabin on a hostile, violent prairie in 1850 - and living in those conditions in 2009. The former was a wide-spread way of life, the latter is a real choice with vastly unnecessary dangers.
I get that "wanting it all" is a brave thing for women to do but there is a line to draw between brave and selfish. She's selfish with regards to Wash and she's selfish with regards to a child. Marriage is a partnership and so far the only one making concessions has been Wash. It's the reason I see their marriage failing (before being reconciled) in my personal canon. It'd be one thing if they both wanted it that way (Crazy, but less selfish) but Zoe completely disregards Wash's reasonable protest, as if his opinion doesn't count. With this serene "I want to meet our children one day", as if his worries hadn't even registered. I find the whole scene supremely creepy, actually. It's not like they'd have to move to the Core. There's a big range of places I'm sure some even Zoe could tolerate for a while, and I doubt everywhere is as frequently in mortal danger as Serenity is.
This inability to compromise with Wash, even truly communicate, aknowledge his right to have a say in their lifestyle choice.. it really struck me. I can't see anything but bad in this scene and it's pretty key to me.
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It's too bad they didn't get to keep the money in Better Days.
In that comic book, Zoe expresses that she would be willing to leave Serenity with Wash and start a family in a safe environment provided they had the money.
And, I assume, if Zoe felt that Mal would be okay if she left.
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Good points everyone, enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts. I'm not wanting to take sides here, but from my viewpoint it seems by the time Zoe was ready to leave Mal to start a family with Wash, it was too late, time wouldn't let her, Wash dies.
The BDM has always left me with the impression that Zoe realizes that Mal and Serenity are no longer offering her what Wash can, maybe sometime after Lilac, but then all hell breaks loose and her and Wash are committed to see Mal through one more time, metaphorically, help him out of the Valley, too. Unfortunately it’s Wash that dies. Ironically it’s Zoe that stays and Mal is victorious this time and rejuvanated to take on another challenge...see Inara for that:)
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Rejuvenated? I can't imagine any of the crew being exactly rejuvenated after that. Even Mal.
Despite his very inspirational speech, I don't think it was a fountain of spirit that he was operating on after Book's death. Sure, there were some noble reasons to do what he did, but I think he was motivated by first survival, and after Haven, and finding Miranda, vengeance.
Even IF Book's death boosted him up in some way(unlikely, because in the end it's ANOTHER person Mal's lost and failed), he then would've gotten kicked in the face by whatever newfound spirit he had when Wash died. It'd be a belated response, because they were pretty busy, but the emotions would have to be there and I think the whole business would hit Mal very hard. He takes the responsibility he has for his crew very seriously. And, Wash and Book were friends (or as close as Mal gets to having friends).
Inara staying (or being ambiguous about leaving, at least), is kind of a consolation prize. All in all, the crew lost, even if they succeeded.
But I agree with you on Zoe. I think she was ready to go away with Wash, just the opportunity got stolen from her.
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Hmmm, doesn't Joss say something to the effect (on the CE comments) that Zoe looses something in the BDM and Mal gains something? I was just going by that, no judgment on what Mal may or may not internalize about Wash's death, in general terms it's a big win for Mal, even though he lost crew. He's kind of used to that being in command. Its part of the responsibility you need to shoulder.
And you’re right, it will be a delayed reaction, because Mal, I think, started to recognize what Zoe and Wash wanted, a life shared in love and without violence i.e., creating a child, together. It wasn’t happening on Serenity. And I hate to bring this up, but does Mal look all that depressed at the end of the movie? He at least looks like he’s ready to move forward.
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That's what Mal does... Doesn't mean he's necessarily happy or feeling good about events.
Compare him at the end of the movie with him at the end of Trash. THERE is a content, victorious Mal. Bit of bravado to cover the embarrassment, true, but I do think that Mal considers the heist a big success, and is satisfied by how things turned out.
I picture Mal as having never really taken the death of his men well, or having been able to get over it easily. He goes on, but each time he gets a little more damaged. Look at when Tracey dies. Tracey turned on them! Mal was the one who had to shoot Tracey! But once again, I'm sure Mal sees it as he failed Tracey. And he doesn't seem to even have to know someone very long for the same response (Nandi).
It kind of goes along with the whole over-protectiveness and fear of loss aspect of his possible PTSD. He might not show it, he might shoulder it and still manage to be the leader, but in the case of him having PTSD I think death is going to hit him hard in general because he's sensitized to it.
EDIT: I think Joss was talking about Zoe losing Wash and Mal getting a chance with Inara in that comment. Not that Mal's better off from an emotional standpoint than when he started the movie. Although, with Inara around, he might be able to get better... At least until she drops her bombshell on him.
The guy really can't catch a break.
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I am wondering if Zoe had struggled through the four degrees of separation during the battle with the Reavers, or if maybe that was a temporary emotional journey and the real four degrees of separation began after Serenity was rebuilt. I in the past have dealt with grief and figured my emotional struggles were over only to find later on they weren’t, so I wonder if Zoe will face similar delayed struggles.
I wanted to discuss Mal’s possible ptsd reactions if he were to get acquainted with Inara in a romantically, but I don’t want to reveal Inara’s secret because it is a spoiler.
http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html
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People can only grieve when they have the time to devote to it. Poor Zoe's obviously trying to keep herself busy, but eventually the repairs will be done, and they'll be sailing through the black again, all alone, not much to do between planets, and she'll be STUCK.
You could try skirting around what her secret might be, I probably know what you're talking about and can follow along. >_> I understand not wanting to say it out right, and a lot of people would appreciate it since this thread isn't marked for Inara spoilers.
Or there's a thread that I started a while back to discuss Inara's secret that 2x2 revived recently, I think it's still hanging around the front page. We're pretty easy about discussing Mal/Inara in there, since their relationship would have to be a big part of dealing with Inara's secret.
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Good point, Bytemite. That's true--what people don't realize is that you can't grieve when you don't have time or situation to--the body and the mind remains in a kind of self-imposed stasis, gets stuck. You save it, push it down, because stopping to process it right now could get you severely injured or killed(or at least it feels like it if not literal). So remains the status quo. (I agree with the point about them dealing with the stress differently anyway, but I would say it's Mal that compartmentalizes, Zoe denies--it's just that Zoe has a good layer of denial laid down to walk on and Mal gets his ugly little compartments mixed up sometimes. Tracy gets his innards scooped. Whatever floats your firefly class.)
Both of them have grieved a little, obviously, by degrees, but not enough, because neither of them have been in a situation where they can do this.
It's always "keep moving, keep continuing".
War(ahem) is a great example of this. So is smuggling, constantly keeping your head above the surface and just below the radar, essentially treading water.
In fact, it's one of the best jobs Mal/Zoe could have to replicate the emotional experience of the Unification War.
Moving on to PTSD Gender differences: thought this was interesting...
"Gender Differences in the Presentation of PTSD:
There are also differences between men and women in the presentation of PTSD. Women are more likely to have symptoms of numbing and avoidance and men are more likely to have the associated features of irritability and impulsiveness. Men are more likely to have comorbid substance use disorders and women are more likely to have comorbid mood and anxiety disorders, although many disorders comorbid with PTSD are commonly seen in both men and women."
this site for the non-captain-dummy-talk about amygdalas and such: http://www.dangerousbehaviour.com/Disturbing_News/Gender%20Differences
%20in%20PTSD.htm
"I think we lost our fuzzy dice back there."
"Going for a ride."
Another Sky
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Another point, about 'rejuvination'.
Mal thrives on stress--the same thing that breaks him. But it's not that kind of stress.
Killing Wash and Book, especially where Mal gets to watch both of them die from situations he "caused" affects him deeply, but again, we're just adding to this volcano of pain, shame and guilt inside him.
HOWEVER, I think he WAS rejuvinated in ACTION that resulted in some good, RESOLVED a few things--ie sending the signal everywhere(thumbing their noses at the Alliance in the biggest way ever, not to mention undermining at least something), braving the reavers (the bogeyman is not as scary when you see dead ones), confronting the Operative in hand to hand combat and living...there's quite a list at the end of Serenity.
"I think we lost our fuzzy dice back there."
"Going for a ride."
Another Sky
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I can see the numbing part in Zoe, maybe, but anxiety?
I guess whenever she and Mal are out on a job, she does seem to be the one who worries, and he's the one who's reckless. But she's always so unflappable about it, it's really hard to call that anxiety. And she's certainly not a startler.
On the surface, I think they definitely would be tempted more by criminal jobs than folks who hadn't fought for the Independents, after discovering the scarcity of legal work out on the Rim. There's an element of continuing the rebellion there.
But I also think they couldn't HANDLE more peaceful work, even though they recognize the danger and that it could get them killed. They've been going on sheer adrenaline so long, real peace and quiet probably makes them antsy. And now that they're criminal, they also probably can't see a way out of it, and that's compounded by the sort of stasis they've entered since Serenity Valley.
In the Serenity movie, they pulled off a lot, but it was a pyrrhic victory. And I can see the government being able to suppress the message easily in the Core, so I wonder how much change the crew would see. Mr. Universe's equipment was only able to reach about 30 moons, supposedly (in Our Mrs. Reynolds) there's around seventy worlds in the verse. They were only able to reach half, and most of them would be on the Rim and familiar with Reavers anyway. If you're looking at a second War of Independence, you might get one out of the Miranda broadwave, but it would be unsuccessful again, because one of the major supporting planets from the original war (Shadow) was destroyed. To have any chance of success, the Independents would need some Core and Border worlds to join in.
If they suffered through so much, managed to get the message out, but saw nothing for their efforts, I think there'd be more despair than rejuvenation. Success, like Inara staying, would be a consolation prize.
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Just wanna say: This is really one of the most enjoyable threads in a long time! Everyone is offering great insight! Thanks for sharing, all of you! 
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Earlier I wrote that I wanted to discuss Mal's PTSD symptoms when he will be forced to deal with Inara's secret, but was hesitant to discuss a topic which was a spoiler, and then BYTEMITE said we might be able to discuss this by skirting around the actual secret, so I will give it a try. This question will require speculation, but here goes; how will Mal react when forced to deal with the knowledge of Inara’s secret? Will Mal’s reactions be muted due to his PTSD, or will they be explosive due to his PTSD?
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To further elaborate, because I also want to see what people's takes on this aspect might be, Inara's secret is highly speculated to be a tragic one.
How will he deal with further tragedy? Especially in regards to Inara, who, since he might actually love her, or at least might believe he does, is kind of a whole different level of personal tragedy than loosing Serenity Valley or even Wash and Book.
I've heard it said here that that the spirit he might have regained from Miranda might prepare him. Could be.
Mal's got just a bit of a martyr complex on top of the survivor's guilt. He's started to kind of accept tragedy as his lot in life, and I think he even kind of believes that he might deserve it. I predict more stoic suffering.
But it'd sure be interesting if he finally snapped. Imagine a scene where he's BERATING poor Inara over it, he doesn't want to, but he can't help it. That would be heartwrenching, for both of them.
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I am going to ask the doctor who told me about the Firefly/PTSD connection to come here and meybe give his views regading this discussion.
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Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Just wanna say: This is really one of the most enjoyable threads in a long time! Everyone is offering great insight! Thanks for sharing, all of you!
I agree. Just wish I had more time for replying! I've been pondering the deal with Zoe - she definitely does have a selfish stance regarding the baby argument, I can see that. I still don't know if I'd say that's due to war damage or an unhealthy attachment to Mal. Like, if the Independents had won, or at least lost in a less ugly way, would she be into settling at a wholesome homestead somewhere? Would she not be close to Mal? Or is it just her nature to want to be near the action? (I mean the action of the jobs on Serenity, not the action of Mal LOL!)
I guess I like the challenge of her unusual relationship with Mal, and I balk at writing it off as unhealthy. If the character of Zoe was the same loyal second-in-command but male, would this be such an issue? (This is not meant to be a rhetorical question - I'd need to think a lot before I decided one way or another myself.)
Also, I know she has options besides going to the Core (back East in the Wild West analogy) but I don't think any of those options are safe. Maybe safer than straight up doing crime, but on the Rim there's always slavers and hill people and crooked lawmen and gangsters like Niska around. Serenity could be one of the safest places for her. You know, if the crew stuck to the bobbly-headed doll capers.
So much more to respond to on this thread, so little time!
ETA: For anyone who's read my fic The Fish Job, one of my beta readers sent me this oddly relevent article this morning:
http://health.yahoo.com/news/reuters/us_ecstasy_help_ptsd_victims_get_
better.html
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I followed the link to an article for PTSD sufferers to take Ectessy, and I am opposed to recreational drugs being taken for any type treatment. Are they now going to precribe Ectasy for victims of rape? Wouldn't that be a form of PTSD?
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>_>
Rallem: The way I see it, if people are going to rule out recreational drugs, they'll have to rule out medicinal drugs and alcohol. Lots of pharmaceuticals have much worse side effects and are more addictive than recreational drugs. I don't really take any kind of drug, but if something can help someone, I don't really understand drawing arbitrary lines on what is and what is not recreational/legal. But maybe I should read that article first. :)
Mal4Prez: The funny thing about Zoe is, I think this life seems perfectly normal to her. She doesn't see anything wrong with it (aside from understanding the inherent dangers), because even before she went to the war, this seems to have been how she was raised (on a ship, in the military). I suspect her parents might have been members of militias that later became part of the Independent forces.
That makes it harder for her, if there is any trauma and PTSD (and I'm starting to think that there probably must be to some degree), for her to recognize it and want to do anything about it.
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Quote:Rape is indeed a cause of PTSD. Ecstasy is not, as far as I know. (Your wording is a little unclear, so I'm not sure what you mean.) I wouldn't worry about it being prescribed. This research is fringe at best.
Originally posted by rallem:
I followed the link to an article for PTSD sufferers to take Ectessy, and I am opposed to recreational drugs being taken for any type treatment. Are they now going to precribe Ectasy for victims of rape? Wouldn't that be a form of PTSD?
Still, MDMA (ecstasy) has been used on-and-off by psychiatrists through its history. Without going too far TMI, my own use of MDMA (well researched in advance and carefully done) was the starting point of dealing with my own PTSD. If I knew a local psychiatrist who made use of it, I'd be there in a second.
Not that I'm recommending it to anyone - mind altering drugs certainly can be dangerous. Thing is, all kinds of anti-depressants and such are used in massive amounts, and that's acceptable, right? So the fact that some dumb teenaged ravers misuse and overuse MDMA is tragic to me, because it could do great good. It's so random, like how alcohol is A-OK because it's legal, even though it destroys countless lives of those who abuse it.
Anyway, my point in posting the article here is that it relates to certain scenes in my fic. If you haven't read it, this will make no sense to you. No big.
Bytemite: makes perfect sense about Zoe. I'm having the problem that I can't separate what I see as her upbringing and basic personality from the effect the war may have had on her.
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A bit of the same, actually, and I'm REALLY glad the conversation here brought in Zoe a bit. I'm getting a much better idea of her character, and it's helping me with some of my own writting...
I'm even starting to see where the dividing line might be, I think... Being that she was raised on a ship, her thinking that she and Wash could raise a child on Serenity isn't really so unbelievable. But I suspect that the ship that served as her childhood home wasn't in nearly so much danger, almost all the time. Serenity seems to be a magnet for trouble. It's that willingness to go along into danger, despite her worries and everything she has to live for that could be the unnatural part of the equation that the war put into her.
And speaking of Serenity as a trouble magnet, I wonder about the coping mechanisms of the other characters on board. Kaylee could be traumatized fairly easily, and she seems to have some sort of wall up, she recognizes they do crime, but there's a disconnect there too. Like she's not letting herself follow through the crime part to the consequences of the crime, that they're hurting and sometimes killing people. Wash too, for some reason, is aware how dangerous it is for Zoe, but in War Stories, I don't think he really expected to get into danger himself.
Inara... She seems to alternate between being horrified by what they do but having to accept it, and trying to tell herself that Mal is a better person than he is/thinks he is.
I think Mal shields Kaylee ( and to some extent, Inara) as best as he can, and Zoe shielded Wash. What gets through, they have to cope with.
Now, with Wash gone, I wonder if Zoe will become more aware of the dangerous aspect of their lifestyle, and decide she wants to do something about it.
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Maybe this will shed some light on the difference in Mal and Zoe's reaction to chronic stress and coping mechanisms:
UCLA STUDY ON FRIENDSHIP AMONG WOMEN
By Gale Berkowitz
A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special.
They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our tumultuous inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and help us remember who we really are. By the way, they may do even more.
Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women. It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research---most of it on men---upside down. "Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible," explains Laura Cousino Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. "It's an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers.
Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral repertoire than just "fight or flight." "In fact," says Dr. Klein,"it seems that when the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the "fight or flight" response and encourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead. When she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect. This calming response does not occur in men", says Dr. Klein, "because testosterone---which men produce in high levels when they're under stress---seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen", she adds, "seems to enhance it."
The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made in a classic "aha!" moment shared by two women scientists who were talking one day in a lab at UCLA. "There was this joke that when the women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and bonded", says Dr. Klein. "When the men were stressed, they holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we were onto something."
The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one scientist after another from various research specialties. Very quickly, Drs. Klein and Taylor discovered that by not including women in stress research, scientists had made a huge mistake: The fact that women respond to stress differently than men has significant implications for our health.
It may take some time for new studies to reveal all the ways that oxytocin encourages us to care for children and hang out with other women, but the "tend and befriend" notion developed by Drs. Klein and Taylor may explain why women consistently outlive men. Study after study has found that social ties reduce our risk of disease by lowering blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol. "There's no doubt," says Dr. Klein, "that friends are helping us live." In one study, for example, researchers found that people who had no friends increase d their risk of death over a 6-month period. In another study, those who had the most friends over a 9-year period cut their risk of death by more than 60%.
Friends are also helping us live better. The famed Nurses' Health Study from Harvard Medical School found that the more friends women had, the less likely they were to develop physical impairments as they aged, and the more likely they were to be leading a joyful life. In fact, the results were so significant, the researchers conclud
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Now there is an aha moment for me! Our success at small team combat is similar to the feminine coping mechanism! Bonding, Team reliance, tending to, and for, each other, learning to communicate on multiple levels, planning, preparing (tending to the little personal routines that help with state of mind). It's an onion, keep peeling!
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I am adding this to the PTSD thread even though it may be misplaced and maybe it deserves its own thread, but in the beginning of "Safe," River as a child says to Simon as a child that they've been cut off by the independent squad using dinosaurs, and that they would have to resort to cannibalism. This is obviously a personal foreshadow of both Simon and River, but what is not obvious is its meaning. Is River confusing the battle of Serenity when Mal’s unit was cut off, to the ship Serenity which had plastic dinosaur toys in its bridge? What did she mean, when River said they would have to resort to cannibalism? Did Mal and Zoe have to resort to cannibalism while fighting in the Battle of Serenity, or was she referring to the Reavers?
http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html
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I am adding this to the PTSD thread even though it may be misplaced and maybe it deserves its own thread, but in the beginning of "Safe," River as a child says to Simon as a child that they've been cut off by the independent squad using dinosaurs, and that they would have to resort to cannibalism. This is obviously a personal foreshadow of both Simon and River, but what is not obvious is its meaning. Is River confusing the battle of Serenity when Mal’s unit was cut off, to the ship Serenity which had plastic dinosaur toys in its bridge? What did she mean, when River said they would have to resort to cannibalism? Did Mal and Zoe have to resort to cannibalism while fighting in the Battle of Serenity, or was she referring to the Reavers?
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:Quote:Rape is indeed a cause of PTSD. Ecstasy is not, as far as I know. (Your wording is a little unclear, so I'm not sure what you mean.) I wouldn't worry about it being prescribed. This research is fringe at best.
Originally posted by rallem:
I followed the link to an article for PTSD sufferers to take Ectessy, and I am opposed to recreational drugs being taken for any type treatment. Are they now going to precribe Ectasy for victims of rape? Wouldn't that be a form of PTSD?
Still, MDMA (ecstasy) has been used on-and-off by psychiatrists through its history. Without going too far TMI, my own use of MDMA (well researched in advance and carefully done) was the starting point of dealing with my own PTSD. If I knew a local psychiatrist who made use of it, I'd be there in a second.
Not that I'm recommending it to anyone - mind altering drugs certainly can be dangerous. Thing is, all kinds of anti-depressants and such are used in massive amounts, and that's acceptable, right? So the fact that some dumb teenaged ravers misuse and overuse MDMA is tragic to me, because it could do great good. It's so random, like how alcohol is A-OK because it's legal, even though it destroys countless lives of those who abuse it.
Anyway, my point in posting the article here is that it relates to certain scenes in my fic. If you haven't read it, this will make no sense to you. No big.
Bytemite: makes perfect sense about Zoe. I'm having the problem that I can't separate what I see as her upbringing and basic personality from the effect the war may have had on her.
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From what I wrote, did you think I was saying Ecstasy was a cause of PTSD? I don't understand how you got that from what I wrote, but let me assure I do not think that at all. It was mentioned that in someone's opinion there was no difference from the recreational drugs and the prescribed drugs, but there are differences. I am sure some of the prescribed drugs meant to treat mental illnesses can be as potent as their recreational counter parts, or have side effects as debilitating, but the difference between the prescribed drugs of choice and taking recreational drugs hoping for the best is that the prescribed drugs have very specific purposes. When a doctor prescribes a certain medicine to a patient, he or she does not just give just any medicine to their patient and then pray for the best. The doctor would list the symptoms suffered by the patient and try to quantify which are most important to cure and then weigh the list of medicines capable of helping the patient to the possible side effects known to those medicines. Personally I think the doctors who are helping our young soldiers and other victims of PTSD deal with their trauma want the victims to not take any form of mind altering medicine so the patients would be lucid while trying to sort out their issues.
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rallem: I always took that scene as just an in-joke flashback--what with the dinosaurs etc. As well as foreshadowing that the Mal-Zoe and River-Simon storylines were destined to cross. A reminder for the audience of the connectedness of the 'verse.
I don't think series-River is confusing anything--I actually saw the whole thing as *Simon's* flashback that happened to feature River because that's the two things he's thinking about--there was the beginning of his doctor career, and how they used to play together, and now how everything is utterly, irrevocably different.
Flashback-River COULD be getting garbled Alliance reports and using them in her scenario--any Alliance brutality on Hera could easily be twisted to be the fault of the Independents.
I don't know...maybe there's some deep meaning, and maybe there isn't. Could be the difference between understanding and comprehending, or just the difference between cows and beagles.
I don't think she was getting mental messages from the future, if that's what you mean there.
EDIT: YES PLEASE CAN WE GET THAT PTSD DOCTOR ON HERE IF THEY HAVE THE TIME AND INCLINATION? THANKS!
"I think we lost our fuzzy dice back there."
"Going for a ride."
another sky
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Rallem: Well, that's if the FDA does their job, which, at this juncture, I'm leaning towards not. With every new pharmaceutical drug that comes out on the market, and the minimum amount of testing they do, you're really making an assumption that drugs'll do what they're advertised short term and long term. Doctors aren't much help either, because lots of them are pressured into pushing specific drugs.
As for young River's scene, I've heard people connect it to Mal and Zoe, but the thing that confuses me, if that's what was intended, why River is taking the Alliance's side. She and Simon were cut off by the Independents, not purplebellies.
AnotherSky: Ooh, I like your idea about the Alliance propaganda, though, could be she's seeing right through it and making fun of it with implausible scenarios involving dinosaurs and cannibalism accusations.
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I don't want to stray too far from Mal and Zoë or from PTSD as it is the topic of this thread, but I was thinking the scene with River and Simon as children showed River's potential as a reader before she was "trained" by the Alliance. Could River's story be an analogue of someone with PTSD who is treated with pharmaceuticals?
I suppose you’re right with the doctors being pressured to prescribe some drugs over another, but I don’t know for certain because I visit a V.A. hospital where the brands of drugs are constantly changing so there can’t be any pressure to one type of drug or another. The constantly changing of drug brands in the VA does save the government money in the long term, but when the veterans receive yellow pills with a different name from the white pills they usually receive then they tend to get confused. Was it just a change in drugs, or did the VA mess up again, and should I take these?
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
As for young River's scene, I've heard people connect it to Mal and Zoe, but the thing that confuses me, if that's what was intended, why River is taking the Alliance's side. She and Simon were cut off by the Independents, not purplebellies.
AnotherSky: Ooh, I like your idea about the Alliance propaganda, though, could be she's seeing right through it and making fun of it with implausible scenarios involving dinosaurs and cannibalism accusations.
Or she's jus a little five-year-old playing a simple game based on the world she knows and her own morbid imagination. :)
I vote she heard stuff on the news (War! Alliance vs. Independents! Battles!), added the undiminishing allure of dinosaurs and the creepylegends of cannibalism and - viola - game! She's a genius and highly intuitive but I doubt she was making political statements. To me, the scene is supposed to show us what they were both like as children - actual children, to better contrast the scene of broken semi-adults that follows.
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
I still don't know if I'd say that's due to war damage or an unhealthy attachment to Mal. Like, if the Independents had won, or at least lost in a less ugly way, would she be into settling at a wholesome homestead somewhere? Would she not be close to Mal? Or is it just her nature to want to be near the action? (I mean the action of the jobs on Serenity, not the action of Mal LOL!)
Oh, but you assume that the trauma of defeat at the end would be to blame for their PTSD in the first place. I think it's the war in its entirety, because it was such a brutal and ugly war all the way through. (Where IS Zoe's family, anyway? Dead, likely.) I think you are right in assuming that the seeds for Zoe's behavior pobably lie in her childhood, but I believe that the unhealthy degree to which she takes it are due to war damage, and that even in the case of a victory, she would have had greater issues connecting to people and letting go of Mal than she would have without the war.
Quote:
I guess I like the challenge of her unusual relationship with Mal, and I balk at writing it off as unhealthy. If the character of Zoe was the same loyal second-in-command but male, would this be such an issue? (This is not meant to be a rhetorical question - I'd need to think a lot before I decided one way or another myself.)
Oh, it'd definitely be an issue for me! The same way Mal and Inara's conflict about her job is a big issue for me. If Zoe was a guy and in a gay marriage with Wash, or with a female Wash, and their dynamics were the same, I'd be grumbling about the guy who expects his woman to live her life in second place after his overt attachment to his war past, asking her to have children on a boat she thinks is too dangerous for that life.
Quote:
Also, I know she has options besides going to the Core (back East in the Wild West analogy) but I don't think any of those options are safe. Maybe safer than straight up doing crime, but on the Rim there's always slavers and hill people and crooked lawmen and gangsters like Niska around. Serenity could be one of the safest places for her.
That's only the places we've seen because the crew has criminal business there. They wouldn't exactly represent the average solid settlement. I don't claim the Rim is a happy suburb, nor would Zoe be happy in one, but there have to be places that are comparatively safer for a toddler than a rusty ship with regular violence and crime, danger of law enforcement, crazy mobsters and just plain disrepair. To claim Serenity would be safer is a bit of an optimistic stretch.
Quote:
You know, if the crew stuck to the bobbly-headed doll capers.
But with Simon and River on board, how likely is that? Zoe makes zero mention of changing this lifestyle to reassure Wash, which would have been the most effective way to try and get him further onto her side. Why not, if this is what she's considering? We also don't know how well the doll-capers pay, comparatively. Considering how she crew is doing without Ambassador Inara to sink to the point where they are in the beginning of the movie, it stands to question how easy the legitimate jobs really are to come by.
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Quote:
But with Simon and River on board, how likely is that? Zoe makes zero mention of changing this lifestyle to reassure Wash, which would have been the most effective way to try and get him further onto her side. Why not, if this is what she's considering? We also don't know how well the doll-capers pay, comparatively. Considering how she crew is doing without Ambassador Inara to sink to the point where they are in the beginning of the movie, it stands to question how easy the legitimate jobs really are to come by.
Why would Zoë reassure Wash about changing their lifestyle? I believe Wash is a pilot and must love doing what he does. I think his excuse at not having children was not a comment on their lifestyle, but rather on the idea of having children. With this said I think the Zoë is not a sufferer of PTSD because she does have the desire to move on and have a family and is working towards that goal. Mal on the other hand is still lost in the woods, and perhaps it’s Zoë’s sense of loyalty which keeps her on board the ship so she can get him out of the woods. In BDM she mentions that in time of war they would never leave a man behind, and Mal responded that may have been why they lost. Maybe that comment stung Zoë’s sensibility about her purpose on Serenity.
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Quote:
Originally posted by rallem:
[B ]
Why would Zoë reassure Wash about changing their lifestyle? I believe Wash is a pilot and must love doing what he does. I think his excuse at not having children was not a comment on their lifestyle, but rather on the idea of having children.
Well, let's look at the dialogue and judge again.
Quote taken from here: http://www.twiztv.com/scripts/firefly/season1/firefly-113.htm
WASH
All I'm saying is we're living pretty deep in the rough and tumble, and I don't see that changing any time soon.
ZOE
Nor do I.
WASH
Well, I'm not sure now is the best time to bring a tiny little helpless person into our lives.
ZOE
That excuse is getting a little worn, honey.
WASH
It's not an excuse, dear. It's objective assessment. I can't help it
if it stays relevant.
ZOE
I don't give a good gorram about relevant, Wash. Or objective. And I'm not so afraid of losing something that I won't try havin' it. You and I would make one beautiful baby. I want to meet that child one day. Period.
Wash is arguing about nothing BUT their lifestyle and Zoe's disregard of his opinion is actually worse than I remember. It's a nice soundbite ("I'm not so afraid of losing something I don't try having it") but if you approach parenthood with the attitude of "I don't care about anything that might imply changing anything about my life", then you're. not. ready.
Quote:
With this said I think the Zoë is not a sufferer of PTSD because she does have the desire to move on and have a family and is working towards that goal.
Working how? She married a great guy - decent first step. But that's where her "working" stops. Which shows a pretty substantial disconnect from her plans and wishes and her ability/willingness to actually work toward them. Which is one of the things prompting suspicion of PTSD.
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Looking at Zoe after losing Wash and her chance for children with him may have some insight into this issue.
I can't imagine a scenario where Zoe could recover and heal from Wash's death while on Serenity. Too many memories. And I suspect she might hold onto that hurt as long as she could out of some kind of loyalty to Wash.
But I also doubt Zoe would leave Serenity to heal unless Mal asked her too. And she'd try to fight it.
I think, maybe, she might be clinging on to whatever threads she can to keep going on. After the war, Mal, Wash, and her hopes for a baby, those were her threads.
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Quote:
Originally posted by rallem:
From what I wrote, did you think I was saying Ecstasy was a cause of PTSD?
"Are they now going to precribe Ectasy for victims of rape? Wouldn't that be a form of PTSD?"
I wasn't sure if that could have referred to the prescribing of E to rape victims, since the rest of your posts have been very anti-drug use. (Yes, I am that literal sometimes.
) I also didn't think you were asking about rape as a cause of PTSD because the article I linked to plainly discussed rape as a cause of PTSD, and I figured you'd read the article. You know, since you were commenting about it. (Yes, I'm also a smart ass sometimes. 
)"It was mentioned that in someone's opinion there was no difference from the recreational drugs and the prescribed drugs, but there are differences."
Whose opinion? I haven't seen that said on this thread. Did I miss it?
"Personally I think the doctors who are helping our young soldiers and other victims of PTSD deal with their trauma want the victims to not take any form of mind altering medicine so the patients would be lucid while trying to sort out their issues."
But doctors do give mind-altering medicines to PTSD patients. I think a point you’re overlooking is that prescribed drugs ARE mind altering. Alcohol is too, as are cigarettes, as are many kinds of food. Mind altering is a regular part of our lives, and sometimes a very healthy one. It's only a small minority that take it to the extent that you seem to be assuming, that of teenagers at raves or hippies the woods, tripping their brains out on anything they can find. I'm not talking about that. I never was.
The main difference between legal and illegal drugs, to me, is that legally prescribed drugs have a carefully controlled content. The patient knows exactly what’s in them, and the doctor can provide safety guidelines as to reactions with other drugs, side effects, etc. Legal drugs become illegal when the same substance is concentrated or mixed with other things, so that the control, the safety factor, is lost. But it's the same chemical. It alters the mind either way.
Anyhow, the article I posted mentioned some interesting bits about brain chemistry and the “cuddle chemical” oxytocin, which also came up in the article Katesfriend posted. Clearly, PTSD is a problem with the chemistry of the brain, and some studies are finding that chemical treatment helps. This may include chemicals currently tested and approved as well as those that aren't.
So, Rallem: keep an open mind my friend. If everyone refused to consider new kinds of treatments, we'd still be in the dark ages torturing sick people and wondering why they don't get better.
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Quote:Not really. In fact, I've written some pretty damned traumatic events for her during the war. But I still see the effect on her as very different from Mal because of their upbringings. That’s not to say that Zoë has no damage, but I don’t see hers as being the driving force of her life, and I don’t see her taking her anti-socialness to as unhealthy a degree as Mal does. That may just because I view the baby situation so differently than you do. (More on that below.)
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Oh, but you assume that the trauma of defeat at the end would be to blame for their PTSD in the first place.
Quote:
If the character of Zoe was the same loyal second-in-command but male, would this be such an issue?Quote:
Oh, it'd definitely be an issue for me! The same way Mal and Inara's conflict about her job is a big issue for me.
But what about Zoë’s attachment to Mal? Consider a man who loves being a Marine and wants nothing to do with civilian life. He wants his wife to move to a base in Japan (or wherever) because the Corps is his life and he wants to stay with his Regiment. Yes, he may be selfish, but would you say he’s *damaged*?
Setting aside the danger-to-baby issue for a moment, I see Zoë’s attachment to Mal in that light. She likes a military structure. She has to have things that way, similar to how a painter *needs* to paint or an explorer *needs* to climb Everest. Are these people selfish? Sure. Can they live without doing their thing? Absolutely. But, to them, living any other way would not be living. It would be hugely unselfish for you to move to India and serve the poor for the rest of your life, but would it be satisfying for you with your upbringing and your needs? Does it make you damaged that you choose to live your way instead?
Quote:I’ve interpreted the criminal element as being pretty much everywhere, because the crew so regularly encounters normal people trying to live normal lives but always having to carry guns and deal with outlaws. The local law has very little power and the Alliance isn’t interested, (Train Job) so it makes sense to me that crime and danger would be everywhere. Gels with Mal’s picture of life on the Rim, how settlers get dropped off with just a few supplies, and some of them make it. (Some of them.)
That's only the places we've seen because the crew has criminal business there.
Quote:No doubt, Zoë is selfish, but I think not in an uncommon way, nor in a way that has to be attributed to psychological war damage.
But with Simon and River on board, how likely is that? Zoe makes zero mention of changing this lifestyle to reassure Wash, which would have been the most effective way to try and get him further onto her side.
In the conversation you posted between Zoë and Wash, the way she dismissed his argument is, I think, not because she’s not considering his feelings, but because they’ve gone through it before. (“That excuse is getting a little worn, honey.”) And I think she has a point. How many people keep putting off a scary step because their situation isn’t perfect? Granted – “not perfect” for Wash and Zoe is pretty damned not perfect. But, again, their world is not our world.
The fact that Serenity has such a hard time finding jobs that are both legal and profitable is a pretty good argument for why it’s a better place for Zoe. How likely are she and Wash to find a legal and profitable job elsewhere? Not very, and then they’d be poor and stuck in one place, where I believe they’d be more easily victimized by the dregs of the Rim or sickened by things like Boden’s.
Yeah, I see that as their choice: stay on Serenity, or go look for a job in a mine that might end up killing them and their kids. Every option has risk. At least on Serenity she knows her risks, and has some control over them.
Wow, long post. Good thread! I haven't been this chatty about Firefly in a long time!
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Ooh, I like that, if there's trauma to be found, keep it to whatever violence that bothers her, and whatever lifestyle choices she makes, leave 'em as lifestyle choices/upbringing.
>_> Can I steal that theory to use in my writtings? Pretty please?
EDIT: Something else occurs to me. the baby thing, as of HoG, is still in the argument/planning stages. I think Zoe is fully aware that there are issues she's going to have to confront on the path to having a baby. I mean, I don't she'd go ahead and have a baby without letting Mal know about it. Then there'd be fighting there, and she'd eventually have to reach a compromise with Mal AND Wash about issues of safety. I think that all she's trying to do, as of HoG, is to get Wash to consent to maybe having kids in the first place, and that they'll work out the hurdles together as they come up.
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
That’s not to say that Zoë has no damage, but I don’t see hers as being the driving force of her life, and I don’t see her taking her anti-socialness to as unhealthy a degree as Mal does. That may just because I view the baby situation so differently than you do. (More on that below.)
It's not just the baby situation that has me taking this view of Zoe, although it is the culmination. But, I guess, if you don't see it, I'm not going to try and convince you.
Quote:Quote:
If the character of Zoe was the same loyal second-in-command but male, would this be such an issue?Quote:
Oh, it'd definitely be an issue for me! The same way Mal and Inara's conflict about her job is a big issue for me.
But what about Zoë’s attachment to Mal? Consider a man who loves being a Marine and wants nothing to do with civilian life. He wants his wife to move to a base in Japan (or wherever) because the Corps is his life and he wants to stay with his Regiment. Yes, he may be selfish, but would you say he’s *damaged*?
It's not an attachment to a job, or profession, though, it's an attachment to a specific situation, a daily reenactment of a deeply stressful time with the person with whom she shared that time.
And if that marine would place his wife and children in danger to pursue this reenactment life, ask her to move to a volatile wilderness to have children there, then absolutely would I consider him damaged, because I'd be wondering where this disconnect between reality and wishful "want it all" came from.
Quote:
Setting aside the danger-to-baby issue for a moment, I see Zoë’s attachment to Mal in that light. She likes a military structure. She has to have things that way, similar to how a painter *needs* to paint or an explorer *needs* to climb Everest. Are these people selfish? Sure. Can they live without doing their thing? Absolutely. But, to them, living any other way would not be living. It would be hugely unselfish for you to move to India and serve the poor for the rest of your life, but would it be satisfying for you with your upbringing and your needs? Does it make you damaged that you choose to live your way instead?
I don't really think that these things are comparable, though, because your examples lack the quality of hanging on to a highly stressful and traumatic time.
If a person lost their entire family in a climbing accident and then continued to climb dangerous rocks every day, I'd say some damage, but whatever. If they packed their baby and dragged their only semi-skilled spouse along to climb dangerous rocks, I'd say serious damage.
Quote:Quote:I’ve interpreted the criminal element as being pretty much everywhere, because the crew so regularly encounters normal people trying to live normal lives but always having to carry guns and deal with outlaws.
That's only the places we've seen because the crew has criminal business there.
Regularly, normal people, really? I think there is probably a far wider spectrum of environments on even the Rim, than we have seen in those 14 episodes. I'm certain we've mainly seen the extreme end of lawlessness and poverty because those environments support the crime the crew do. Mal's example of Rim settlement could apply to recently terraformed places while ignoring an array of more established places because no one needs to drop people there.
Quote:Quote:No doubt, Zoë is selfish, but I think not in an uncommon way, nor in a way that has to be attributed to psychological war damage.
But with Simon and River on board, how likely is that? Zoe makes zero mention of changing this lifestyle to reassure Wash, which would have been the most effective way to try and get him further onto her side.
You could assume she has always been selfish and short-sighted, that she has always been wired to cling to another person's life choices to replicate a military structure instead of entertaining the thought of chan
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I think Zoe is fully aware that there are issues she's going to have to confront on the path to having a baby. I mean, I don't she'd go ahead and have a baby without letting Mal know about it. Then there'd be fighting there, and she'd eventually have to reach a compromise with Mal AND Wash about issues of safety. I think that all she's trying to do, as of HoG, is to get Wash to consent to maybe having kids in the first place, and that they'll work out the hurdles together as they come up.
But she outright refutes the idea of change.
"I don't see things changing" "Not do I."
Plus the "I don't care about objective" thing.
None of this sounds like someone out to convince Wash of having a baby in general, or any thought to the realities of change involved.
If that was the point of the conversation, it would be completely different, methinks. Something like, "I know we would need to make changes, but.." instead of "you're making excuses, and I'll ignore them."
What about that conversation gives you the impression that Zoe is looking to compromise and work with Wash? I'm honestly a little confused.
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Quote:Sure, especially since I'm not entirely sure what you mean LOL!
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Ooh, I like that, if there's trauma to be found, keep it to whatever violence that bothers her, and whatever lifestyle choices she makes, leave 'em as lifestyle choices/upbringing.
>_> Can I steal that theory to use in my writtings? Pretty please?
I agree re Zoe and Mal, btw. I don't see Zoe's stance to be: let's do it right now dammit! I think she's aware of the danger of the Tams situation and the need to talk to her boss about her maternity time and all that.
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It's not so much that I think she's trying to compromise at this point, but that she's trying to simplify her argument, asking Wash to consent just for now to the idea of children, then LATER work out the details with him.
I really don't have a whole lot there to support that interpretation, but it's always how I've percieved it.
Also, I'm kind of in between you guys. I think her possibly selfish clinging to a military life and her stoic manner of expression is her upbringing. I also see plenty of times that she confronts Mal if she thinks he's wrong, so I don't think their relationship is defined by their military roles. But I DO think her reaction to danger IS possibly an indication of emotional damage from the war.
I've met plenty of soldier kids, and they all act just like Zoe, WITHOUT having ever been in a war. In fact, a lot of them are annoyed by how strict their parents are, and it baffles me how much they want to follow in their parents footsteps, go off, shoot guns, join the army... But it's all upbringing. I wasn't raised that way, so I'm like Wash. I can only observe it, not really understand it.
But the way she reacts to danger... Looking at what I've read here about PTSD, in a subtle way, it fits. It fits a lot.
Look at the dynamic between Mal and Zoe in the Train Job, when it's the two of them and there's a regiment of fine Alliance soldiers on board with them.
What's Mal's response? Reckless. Impulsive. "Let's do it anyway."
What's Zoe's response? "I think your brain's missing," but what does she DO? She goes along with it, despite her very reasonable worries. She recognizes the danger, but goes right into it, instead of asking, "well, wait a minute. How else could we do this?"
THAT I could go ahead and call PTSD "damage."
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Quote:Yeah, we're probably at an agree-to-disagree point... but what fun is that? LOL!
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
It's not just the baby situation that has me taking this view of Zoe, although it is the culmination. But, I guess, if you don't see it, I'm not going to try and convince you.
(And you did go on to try and to convince me, btw.
)Quote:...is your view. I don't see her life on Serenity as a constant reenactment of the war. That's the point I'm trying to make: I think she likes being there for reasons that aren't based in trauma.
It's not an attachment to a job, or profession, though, it's an attachment to a specific situation, a daily reenactment of a deeply stressful time with the person with whom she shared that time.
Quote:And yet, we never saw them.
Regularly, normal people, really? I think there is probably a far wider spectrum of environments on even the Rim, than we have seen in those 14 episodes.
Peaceful, settled places would need stuff. You know, food and supplies and services. This would be a source of those profitable and legal jobs that Serenity can't find, which suggests to me that these places aren't out there. At least, not in great numbers.
Quote:But I don't see Zoe as purely all this. She has these traits - who isn't flawed? - but since I see her verse differently than you, and therefore her situation with Wash and Mal differently, I see these traits as much being less severe.
You could assume she has always been selfish and short-sighted, that she has always been wired to cling to another person's life choices to replicate a military structure instead of entertaining the thought of change, that she has always been a sucky communicator and was emotionally closed-off...
Quote:I'm not arguing that she is static.
Damaged Zoe is a person I find infinitely more interesting than static Zoe.
Quote:But she never said the latter. What we saw was one short little bit of an ongoing argument, and we don't know what came before.
Plus, Zoe doesn't use that very effective argument with Wash. "We're as safe here as we would be anywhere else, maybe more so", would much more convincing than "I don't care"
Quote:Perhaps because, in their prior arguments, he brought up several excuses before this one? Maybe she thinks he has other reasons for not wanting to have a child? Or maybe she feels he wants to get her away from Mal for reasons other than child-bearing safety, so there's a whole nother level to this argument that hasn't surfaced yet?
But she calls it an excuse! How is that not belittling his opinion?
We don't know. The information is limited, and there are many ways to interpret it.
Quote:Certainly both situations happen. But I don't think this situation is either extreme, and I don't think only Zoe or only Wash is at fault. I think they both have valid arguments, and it's wrong to completely vilify one of them based on such incomplete information. (ETA: I know, vilify isn't the right word. But you know what I mean, right?)
But how many people use exactly that reasoning to put off responsible changes, because they want something and they want it now?
Quote:I think I'm looking at what's been presented in the series and movie and keeping my interpretation within that `verse. Of course, in a realistic multi-planetary society there would be some version of comfy suburb all over the Rim as well as the Core. But we've never seen it. All we've seen is a lot of Rim people living very very hard lives and Core people living overly structured and controlled lives. That's just the fictional Firefly verse as we've seen it thus far.
I think you are ignoring middle options in favor of extremes. Just doesn't seem very realistic...
..or as far as that can apply to a tv universe.
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:Quote:Yeah, we're probably at an agree-to-disagree point... but what fun is that? LOL!
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
It's not just the baby situation that has me taking this view of Zoe, although it is the culmination. But, I guess, if you don't see it, I'm not going to try and convince you.
(And you did go on to try and to convince me, btw.
Gah, you're right, I did!
Break the cycle, Rouka! It truly is time to agree to disagree. But thank you so much for the discussion!
Plus, since lack of argument now leaves me some space in this post: HOW'S THE WRITING GOING?
<-- that is my greedy face
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The arbitrators of this debate suggest we take a 30 minute break for drinks and cookies. :)
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I like the arbitrators of this debate. They have good ideas.
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Quote:I agree. Probably because I assume Zoe's a reasonable person who's aware of the issues involved in raising kids. It is totally an assumption - I could be wrong!
Originally posted by Bytemite:
It's not so much that I think she's trying to compromise at this point, but that she's trying to simplify her argument, asking Wash to consent just for now to the idea of children, then LATER work out the details with him.
I really don't have a whole lot there to support that interpretation, but it's always how I've percieved it.
Funny how one's understanding of a character can completely change the interpretation of a scene, huh?
Quote:I can sort of see that. But I don't see the Train job exchange as Zoe having serious doubts as to whether they should go ahead with it. I do think it's her role in the partnership to bring up practical challenges that Mal overlooks, but I think if she'd had serious reservations she'd have been more forceful. Besides, she looked quite relaxed, even flippant, as they went ahead with it. I didn't see any PTSD kind of freeze-up or anxiety.
But I DO think her reaction to danger IS possibly an indication of emotional damage from the war.
ETA: Damn! And here's me still in max debate mode! Do I really have to take a time out?
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Ha, I've never seen anyone able to give up a debate right when it gets good, not if they care about the topic.
No, you're right, it's not so much that Zoe has a freeze-up, or crippling anxiety. It's more that she's almost able to ignore or dismiss anxiety over concerns that she might otherwise give more consideration, and go into dangerous situations anyway.
From my civilian perspective, that doesn't seem like a normal response someone would have to their own concerns. Maybe that's part of her personality, but that could ALSO be a conditioned response to danger and war time situations, I think.
Oh, AR, I just thought of something on your side of the argument. Wash says in Those Left Behind that he could take a job on any ship he wanted, and the only reason he's staying on Serenity is Zoe.
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Quote:
Whose opinion? I haven't seen that said on this thread. Did I miss it?
The opinion was posted by Bytemite
Quote:
Rallem: The way I see it, if people are going to rule out recreational drugs, they'll have to rule out medicinal drugs and alcohol. Lots of pharmaceuticals have much worse side effects and are more addictive than recreational drugs. I don't really take any kind of drug, but if something can help someone, I don't really understand drawing arbitrary lines on what is and what is not recreational/legal. But maybe I should read that article first. :)
I wanted to say more but cannot find the post I am responding to anymore. I will try again on my other computer in a bit.
http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html
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Quote:OK - this I see. But (I just can't stop saying that LOL!) isn't that just part of a good soldier? Oh, you brought that up too. Good!
Originally posted by Bytemite:
It's more that she's almost able to ignore or dismiss anxiety over concerns that she might otherwise give more consideration, and go into dangerous situations anyway.
Hmm, yeah she could use a little less soldier-ness. Her future in the series surely would have gone that way, toward finding her own voice separate from Mal. Would have been interesting!
Quote:Good point.... I often forget the comics, since I have only read through them once or twice.
Oh, AR, I just thought of something on your side of the argument. Wash says in Those Left Behind that he could take a job on any ship he wanted, and the only reason he's staying on Serenity is Zoe.
AR - working on the writing. Slowly! Just blogged a bit about it, in fact...
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Ha, I've never seen anyone able to give up a debate right when it gets good, not if they care about the topic.
I know myself. It's better to quit now before I start frothing at the mouth.
Quote:
Oh, AR, I just thought of something on your side of the argument. Wash says in Those Left Behind that he could take a job on any ship he wanted, and the only reason he's staying on Serenity is Zoe.
Why thank you. So yeah, there's that for employment options. :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
AR - working on the writing. Slowly! Just blogged a bit about it, in fact...
Exciting! Thanks. :) And yay for spring break?
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
OK - this I see. But (I just can't stop saying that LOL!) isn't that just part of a good soldier? Oh, you brought that up too. Good!
Hmm, yeah she could use a little less soldier-ness. Her future in the series surely would have gone that way, toward finding her own voice separate from Mal. Would have been interesting!
It technically is part of being a good soldier... But Mal and Zoe's relationship is not JUST that of the sergeant and their underling corporal. He wasn't giving her an order, so a "hop to it" reaction isn't what we're seeing there.
If she had given him an alternative, he would have thought it over, but she didn't even try to think of one. She just went along, ultimately unphased by the danger. It's like the prospect of danger occurred to her on a logical level, but actually noticing and feeling her own concerns beyond pointing them out to Mal didn't seem to happen.
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I know this fell off the front page, but today on NPR I heard an interesting interview on the topic of PTSD.
According to Dr. Michael A. Grodin, from the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights, one aspect of PTSD observed in Tibetan monks who were imprisoned and are now exiled is homesickness, a longing for familiar and stable surroundings.
I think that has some particular insight into Mal's case, considering that he lost Shadow, and tried to establish a life on Serenity.
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Something I noticed a while back...people are really intertwining their arguments about the characterization of the character and their love of the character and what that means for the characterization.
And thus...we have frothing at the mouth which is sensibly defrayed by a cookie break.
Now, an example. Since this was originally about Mal, I'll use him: I love Mal to pieces. Doesn't mean that I'm gonna have to sugarcoat the times where he's just plain cold blooded (instance: SERENITY, shooting the surrendering Alliance pilot)--in order to interpret him, even though I really, really want to ignore those clear examples. I love my captain, but everybody has facets--and other people might interpret those facets differently. Doesn't mean they hate your beloved character.
Good that we're bein' all sensible here, a browncoat characteristic! Back to PTSD in it's possible manifestations--and when I get back I can put that list down that I promised about Mal and examples.
"I think we lost our fuzzy dice back there."
"Going for a ride."
Another Sky
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I agree, Mal is bad... He just has hurty bits that are fun to talk about, especially in how they might affect/influence some of his worse behaviour.
Still looking forward to that list. :)
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Speaking of Mal,
I've always found this to be an interesting essay on Mal and what the other characters symbolize in the story and how they relate to him:
http://www.soulfulspike.com/aspects_of_mal.htm
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I think to some extent the debate here is less about the characters and more about what constitutes "damage". What is PTSD, and how is that different than just a person being changed from their experiences? Surely a person will be affected and changed by their wartime experience, if they weren't, I would be seriously concerned about what kind of damage they're already suffering. (Tangent: I tend to see Mal's "strength" throughout War Stories as evidence of such damage.) But my impression of PTSD is that it implies a disruptive, uncontrollable interference, more than an evolution. It's termed as a malfunction of brain chemistry. But either way it's a moot point because the purpose of such a diagnosis is to facilitate treatment. It's naming something so that it can be isolated and dealt with as a pathology. So in fiction, it's kind of an oddly narrow topic to debate, when you're exploring the complexities of characters more than trends of populations.
In the series, we aren't shown Mal or Zoe having nightmares or panic attacks or what not, but we are also seeing them a good six years out from the trauma. We do see these symptoms in River, whose trauma was much more recent, and much more profound, what with a stripped amygdala and all. But Mal and Zoe, being anatomically intact, seem to have found solutions for coping with the trauma. Namely traipsing around together in freedom, even if not in security. Are these ideal solutions? Not really. "This is what I do, darlin', this is what I do." Mal does not want to be a petty thief, that's just the only tolerable option for him. "There's no place I can be / Since I found Serenity".
Now I don't think Zoe is as tied to the freedom thing as Mal, but she is tied to Mal. So in her argument with Wash over the baby issues, it is not that his arguments are not well founded, it is that they are just not relevant. She doesn't have rational reasons for being on the ship with Mal - she has a need to be on the ship with Mal. That is how she is coping; that is how she is surviving. Mal has a need to be free, so he's stuck doing the petty criminal stuff, because he can't take the "Alliance mince work." And she is with him. So yes, I suppose that is damage, but it is also a triumph in carrying on. Their life on Serenity is what allows them to function. So Zoe's choice is not whether or not to give up the thrills and glory of criminal enterprise to have a baby. Her choice is simply whether or not to have a baby, because her circumstances aren't changing.
So is Zoe's attachment to Mal unhealthy? Yes and no. Out of the context of their experience in the war, it'd be pretty darn unhealthy. But in response to the deficits the war caused? It's adaptive; it's what makes her healthy. It's not poor, damaged Zoe. It's Zoe found a way, Zoe found a life, Zoe found some happiness, and is willing to pursue more. You go girl! Using a crutch is only unhealthy when you don't need it. So the interesting question is, when (or if) she will stop needing it. Would she recognize that? Or would habit or loyalty prevent her from moving on? Of course her fate in Serenity renders the question a bit moot, but I'd argue that we've already seen evidence of her progress - marrying Wash against orders, and all. I also think it is illuminating to look at what she was like earlier. Tracy's impression of her during the war leads me to believe not only is it in her nature to be terse, serious, and controlled, but that she has actually expanded beyond that to be a healthier person. Smiling, even.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ain't. We. Just.
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But isn't it a little simplistic to consider it a triumph if she is only able to function under this one particular, dangerous set of circumstances and is unable to adapt to any other situation even if the plans or people she holds so dear might require it?
I think that's damage.
That Zoe found a way to cope with her damage - in a limited way - doesn't mean that it's a triumph over her damage, it just means she hasn't been completely destroyed. But then not everyone who suffers from PTSD or other such war damage is completely destroyed, they cope. In healthy or unhealthy ways. Still means that they are damaged.
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Platonist: really good essay! I especially like the breakdown of the scene in Serenity Part 1 just after Kaylee gets shot - every character reacts as some sub-id of Mal would. Interesting, for sure. I won't restate the discussion here, but if anyone hasn't read that essay yet, you should!
This sentence also stood out to me: "Zoe is the soldier that has never been betrayed – because her first loyalty is to Mal." I think this is particularly relevant to our discussion, and oddly fits both sides of the debate. On one hand, Zoe was less damaged by the war because she had her loyalty to Mal, and that never faltered. On the other hand, having that level of faith in a regular human person is inviting trouble. Hero worship can set unfair expectations, and lead bad places for both parties. I’ve been on both sides of that myself, to my regret.
Even so, I think the heathly/unhealthy-ness of Mal and Zoë’s relationship depends on how aware Zoe is that Mal is flawed. I would argue she is very much aware. I think if he really screwed up she'd be able to step back without being dragged down with him, or hating him for betraying her. I think she could even become the strength of the relationship if it became necessary. I guess that's why I just can't see this thing they have as bad.
Quote:I agree - well stated! I agree that Mal and Serenity are crutches for Zoë, but crutches can be pretty useful, right? I guess AR and I differ on whether it’s still a useful crutch. In the end, no one but Zoë could decide that. And she’s not a real person damnit, so we’ll never know LOL!
Originally posted by nosadseven:
Now I don't think Zoe is as tied to the freedom thing as Mal, but she is tied to Mal. So in her argument with Wash over the baby issues, it is not that his arguments are not well founded, it is that they are just not relevant.
NSS – the rest of your post made me think of this analogy: it’s like Mal and Zoë have lost use of their emotion legs and both are in emotion wheelchairs. Mal is sitting in a corner and stubbornly refusing to go to physical therapy where, with a lot of work, he may walk again. Zoe, on the other hand, is getting to her appointments and giving it a try. Maybe she doesn't always try her hardest, and maybe it's slow going, but she's making an effort.
I think Wash, being a whole, undamaged kind of person, can’t see the wheelchair she’s in. He wants to go disco dancing, and can’t understand why she can’t simply will herself to walk and just get the hell on with things. I mean, the war was seven years ago, right? But emotional damage heals at its own pace, and it can’t be seen so it’s hard to judge.
I also agree that she’s made a lot of progress since the war. Maybe just the fact of wanting a baby is a huge step for her, who knows? And probably it would be a sign of her ongoing recover if she could leave Mal and Serenity to pursue her own goals. But I think she’s not ready for that yet. She chooses to be where she is for a reason – maybe that reason is, it’s good for her. Maybe.
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Oh - I've also meaning to mention this: I think the best thing a parent can do to be a good parent is to be happy. Zoe could force herself to leave Serenity, but if she feels she has unfinished business there, whether outside observers like us choose to label it "healthy" or "unhealthy", she will have problems down the road. Dissatisfaction and regrets would lead to resentment of Wash, and little ones see that stuff.
Of course, the same can be said of Wash being forced to stay on Serenity when he'd rather leave. He would have had the same stuff to deal with, if he wasn't so busy dealing with being DEAD. (Still too soon to be flippant about that? )
And this is why I love Joss - nothing is simple. These two were in a pickle, no mistake. And that's just how life is.
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