Talking about Firefly. No, really.
So while procrastinating being incredibly productive these past few days, I have been rereading Ender's Game.
A caveat, here: every time I sit down to reread Ender's Game, I sit down to read a VERY SPECIFIC VERSION. Which is to say, I read the parts which take place in battle school, and ignore the rest of the book.
Except I'm really bad at it. Because, you know, other stuff happens, and I want to READ other stuff that happens, and then I always end up disappointed, because the battle school parts of the book pretty much exactly hit on what I love in stories, and the rest of the book is just... not. The first time I read it (I do not feel like questing for it in my LJ, but it's there somewhere), I said something along the lines that I thought it would be a gifted child/boarding school story with some military elements, and instead it turned into a military story with some gifted child and boarding school elements.
But, anyway. I was reading, and reading, and reading, and as I was reading, it finally cemented all of my issues with Serenity in one sentence:
River is not Ender.
Dude, I know. That's obvious. Or should be. But, like, the character archetype, they're in a similar category.
And this is the part, from the beginning of Ender's Game, that Ender loses by the end of the book and, I'd argue, River has throughout Firefly but loses by Serenity:
This was school. Every day, hours of classes. Reading. Numbers. History. Videos of the bloody battles in space, the Marines spraying their guys all over the walls of the bugger ships. Holos of the clean wars of the fleet, ships turning into puffs of light as the spacecraft killed each other deftly in the deep night. Many things to learn. Ender worked as hard as anyone; all of them struggled for the first time in their lives, as for the first time in their lives they competed with classmates who were at least as bright as they. (Ender's Game, page 45, emphasis my own)
Ender is identified as special in the beginning, and we never truly see him against anyone with an equal skill level. He struggles, but largely his struggling is artificially imposed, as the school attempts to direct him towards a very specific path: they want him to be a leader.
The entire point of the River/Simon plot of Firefly- and I should note that while this always bothers me, this bothers me EXTRA when I am rereading Ender's Game because I am reminded of the contrast that should be there, which is why I am ranting, hi- is that River ISN'T singled out as the leader. She is supposed to be a weapon. She is supposed to be one of many, and the thing that makes her special is Simon.
Like, whether you read the show as Crazy Space Incestuous or not, it's pretty impossible to not read River and Simon as defined by each other. Simon risks everything to save River. (I am not going into the question of whether or not River is a victim. None of you want to hear that rant. My short ansewr is: she is a victim of what the alliance did to her, but she is not characterized as A Victim. ANYWAY.) Throughout the entire series, River was one of many people- possibly not "many" in a global sense, but certainly in a "more than a few given they have an entire academy for it" one- who were part of this... I don't even know the right word. Conspiracy? Let's go with that. The tragedy of River's storyline is not that she was there for so long, but that although Simon rescued her, OTHER PEOPLE ARE STILL THERE. And they're going through what River had gone through- whatever made her fear the blue hands and lose her grasp on normal linear logic- without the hope at the end of the tunnel in the form of Simon saving them.
When the movie points River as the only one, the Special-est Special in Specialdom, that changes the context of everything. If River is the most special person at the Academy, then she is not just Brilliant- she is the top of the top of the top, the single figure who could do what she can do- so what do they do? They break her.
I can't see how this makes sense to the Alliance's plans, especially considering that River's family, which as far as we know- and it's certainly pretty strongly implied- is comfortably pro-Alliance. She would have happily worked with them, a little eight-year-old scientist (or whatever)- and if she were the most brilliant option they'd ever had, incredibly capable, incredibly tactical, able to read minds to some degree (I actually disagree with that- I just think she's incredibly perceptive and picks up on clues- but whatever), I don't see why they would risk the experiments on her brain not working.
So I keep going back to my original assumption: that River was one of many people they were experimenting on. That she was far from the only one, merely the only one who got away. That as a result, the River story is not about how she's such a special girl, but about how she has such a special relationship.
Moreover, the way that she's unable to make sense (to... most people; I generally find River pretty easy to understand) completely doesn't function with what the supposed goal was- that is, making her one special fighting machine- given she retained her will and her ability to think for herself and plot inventively, but lost her capacity to be fully understood by others. Wouldn't it make sense to go in the other direction, unless there were other people who were able to think the way she does- which is, apparently, skipping many in between steps? Create one person, just for the lulz of figuring out experiment-y stuff, and it makes no sense to use someone like River, who could be useful even without being partially destroyed and inpossible to communicate with; create an army like that, and it's a group that can speak in code and be amazingly functional.
Ender, conversely? The harm to Ender is always done to make him stronger. It may be flawed, it may be completely immoral- and it totally is- but it's effective. If the goal is to make River a functional super soldier, and it ended up like she did in Serenity, the Alliance basically failed. Which, I mean, it's fascinating if that IS the story, but that doesn't seem to be the story given by the text- the text seems to imply the Alliance was happy with what they did and Simon wasn't, not that the Alliance viewed River as a mistake. She's not one of the magical people that hides among the flowers, you know?
This is, of course, why I want to someday write long Firefly fic. I want to write about River at the Academy, and NOT being the smartest or the best, and hearing vague things about what goes on with the oldest and best and wanting to be that, but being too young, and then being drawn in and figuring things out just a little too late to stop it from happening to her, and. Yeah.
Apparently my my One True Story is not a happy one. I honestly would not have guessed that. I kind of assumed my One True Story involved Muppets.
...Wow. When is the last time I wrote meta for a fandom that any of you knew about? Hee.
A caveat, here: every time I sit down to reread Ender's Game, I sit down to read a VERY SPECIFIC VERSION. Which is to say, I read the parts which take place in battle school, and ignore the rest of the book.
Except I'm really bad at it. Because, you know, other stuff happens, and I want to READ other stuff that happens, and then I always end up disappointed, because the battle school parts of the book pretty much exactly hit on what I love in stories, and the rest of the book is just... not. The first time I read it (I do not feel like questing for it in my LJ, but it's there somewhere), I said something along the lines that I thought it would be a gifted child/boarding school story with some military elements, and instead it turned into a military story with some gifted child and boarding school elements.
But, anyway. I was reading, and reading, and reading, and as I was reading, it finally cemented all of my issues with Serenity in one sentence:
River is not Ender.
Dude, I know. That's obvious. Or should be. But, like, the character archetype, they're in a similar category.
And this is the part, from the beginning of Ender's Game, that Ender loses by the end of the book and, I'd argue, River has throughout Firefly but loses by Serenity:
This was school. Every day, hours of classes. Reading. Numbers. History. Videos of the bloody battles in space, the Marines spraying their guys all over the walls of the bugger ships. Holos of the clean wars of the fleet, ships turning into puffs of light as the spacecraft killed each other deftly in the deep night. Many things to learn. Ender worked as hard as anyone; all of them struggled for the first time in their lives, as for the first time in their lives they competed with classmates who were at least as bright as they. (Ender's Game, page 45, emphasis my own)
Ender is identified as special in the beginning, and we never truly see him against anyone with an equal skill level. He struggles, but largely his struggling is artificially imposed, as the school attempts to direct him towards a very specific path: they want him to be a leader.
The entire point of the River/Simon plot of Firefly- and I should note that while this always bothers me, this bothers me EXTRA when I am rereading Ender's Game because I am reminded of the contrast that should be there, which is why I am ranting, hi- is that River ISN'T singled out as the leader. She is supposed to be a weapon. She is supposed to be one of many, and the thing that makes her special is Simon.
Like, whether you read the show as Crazy Space Incestuous or not, it's pretty impossible to not read River and Simon as defined by each other. Simon risks everything to save River. (I am not going into the question of whether or not River is a victim. None of you want to hear that rant. My short ansewr is: she is a victim of what the alliance did to her, but she is not characterized as A Victim. ANYWAY.) Throughout the entire series, River was one of many people- possibly not "many" in a global sense, but certainly in a "more than a few given they have an entire academy for it" one- who were part of this... I don't even know the right word. Conspiracy? Let's go with that. The tragedy of River's storyline is not that she was there for so long, but that although Simon rescued her, OTHER PEOPLE ARE STILL THERE. And they're going through what River had gone through- whatever made her fear the blue hands and lose her grasp on normal linear logic- without the hope at the end of the tunnel in the form of Simon saving them.
When the movie points River as the only one, the Special-est Special in Specialdom, that changes the context of everything. If River is the most special person at the Academy, then she is not just Brilliant- she is the top of the top of the top, the single figure who could do what she can do- so what do they do? They break her.
I can't see how this makes sense to the Alliance's plans, especially considering that River's family, which as far as we know- and it's certainly pretty strongly implied- is comfortably pro-Alliance. She would have happily worked with them, a little eight-year-old scientist (or whatever)- and if she were the most brilliant option they'd ever had, incredibly capable, incredibly tactical, able to read minds to some degree (I actually disagree with that- I just think she's incredibly perceptive and picks up on clues- but whatever), I don't see why they would risk the experiments on her brain not working.
So I keep going back to my original assumption: that River was one of many people they were experimenting on. That she was far from the only one, merely the only one who got away. That as a result, the River story is not about how she's such a special girl, but about how she has such a special relationship.
Moreover, the way that she's unable to make sense (to... most people; I generally find River pretty easy to understand) completely doesn't function with what the supposed goal was- that is, making her one special fighting machine- given she retained her will and her ability to think for herself and plot inventively, but lost her capacity to be fully understood by others. Wouldn't it make sense to go in the other direction, unless there were other people who were able to think the way she does- which is, apparently, skipping many in between steps? Create one person, just for the lulz of figuring out experiment-y stuff, and it makes no sense to use someone like River, who could be useful even without being partially destroyed and inpossible to communicate with; create an army like that, and it's a group that can speak in code and be amazingly functional.
Ender, conversely? The harm to Ender is always done to make him stronger. It may be flawed, it may be completely immoral- and it totally is- but it's effective. If the goal is to make River a functional super soldier, and it ended up like she did in Serenity, the Alliance basically failed. Which, I mean, it's fascinating if that IS the story, but that doesn't seem to be the story given by the text- the text seems to imply the Alliance was happy with what they did and Simon wasn't, not that the Alliance viewed River as a mistake. She's not one of the magical people that hides among the flowers, you know?
This is, of course, why I want to someday write long Firefly fic. I want to write about River at the Academy, and NOT being the smartest or the best, and hearing vague things about what goes on with the oldest and best and wanting to be that, but being too young, and then being drawn in and figuring things out just a little too late to stop it from happening to her, and. Yeah.
Apparently my my One True Story is not a happy one. I honestly would not have guessed that. I kind of assumed my One True Story involved Muppets.
...Wow. When is the last time I wrote meta for a fandom that any of you knew about? Hee.