Thoughts concerning River's power and its nature

POSTED BY: Hawk
UPDATED: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 02:08
VIEWED: 4399
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MISGUIDED BY VOICES

Monday, November 8, 2004 10:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by wesleywyndham:
But up until Objects in Space I don't believe there was any event that could *only* be explained by pyschic ability.

Not sure that the meeting with Badger scans here - it wasn't just a girl putting on an accent that spooked him; you could see she genuinely "knew" thinsg about him.

Then in "Safe", she knew not just things about the girl, but also the village elder.

Quote:

I'll go back and listen to the commentary for Objects in Space again, but I would feel a bit cheated if Joss started down the "oh, she's psychic, she's a pre-cog" path, as it would give an easy get-out for any plot situation where the writers couldn't think of anything better. E.g, "oh yeah, we knew these bad guys would do that because River had a 'vision'." Bleh.

I agree, if they took the easy route - but River's powers come at a price. Look at the way it seems to work - she's at her most powerful when she's at her most unstable.

"I threw up on your bed"

SIGNYM

Tuesday, November 9, 2004 7:03 PM

Same response as in (extra) thrilling heroics- I would be disappointed if River was "psychic". So far, her abilites have real-world explanations- even in OiS where she is deconstructing Jubals' personality, she has obviously gone over the photos and notes in his ship and has been able deduce the salient parts of his pathology. The "mind reading" could be a very sensitive rendition of body language. The explanation is that by short-circuiting the amygdala ALL of the input goes diretly to the cortex (hte computing part) w/o any "filtration".

If Joss ever reads this--- JOSS- CAN YOU HEAR ME?_ the superpoer type hero seems a little far afield from his original inspiration, which was the Civil War ex-soldiers.

PURPLEBELLY

Tuesday, November 9, 2004 7:23 PM

I really don't want to bore most people yet again with a reconstruction of Purplebelly's 'Verse, but I do hope someone will run with the idea that River can read other peoples' repressed emotions and the associated thoughts. It works for me ... the narrative device that is, not the surgery.

SERENE

Tuesday, November 9, 2004 7:41 PM

In the Objects In Space commentary, Joss repeatedly states that River is psychic and Early is simply highly intuitive. He also implies that the thoughts she was picking up from the other crew members were both past and future events.

While she is "psychic", based on Joss' philosophy and his writing ability, I doubt it will be handled in the usual "easy plot device way". In fact, I'd expect there to be a "scientific" explanation for what she can do, and we've already seen the limitations in her ability to communicate (and perhaps even understand) her abilities.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, November 9, 2004 7:50 PM

Depending on how it's handled, it could be a major diappointment or it could be OK. The problem that I have with super heroes is that it makes the story less relevant to mere mortals.

The other thing is that in order to have a credible (balanced) story the villains must be of equal caliber - equally complex, equally gifted, equally believable. That was one of the really really stupid things about Waterworld- the "good guy" is relatively believable, the "bad guys" were so stupid and cartoonish they would have never survived for more than a decade. I hope the "bad guys" in the movie are more than just prop monsters (so to speak).

PURPLEBELLY

Tuesday, November 9, 2004 8:45 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I hope the "bad guys" in the movie are more than just prop monsters (so to speak).

Ejiofor is the most talented actor in the cast, so the outlook is fine.

HAWK

Tuesday, November 9, 2004 10:05 PM

Precognition really annoys me as a concept.

The feeling that everything is "on rails" if you like is a little boring, and yes; destiny, fate, they're classic deus ex machinas in speculative fiction. Why waste time coming up with a valid explanation when it was meant to be?

It also irks on a personal level; some may say it disturbing to imagine feelings of control taken away from you and this is my own highly complex psychological whoosibobs coming out into the open. Probably true, but also I just don't put much stock in it.

PURPLEBELLY

Tuesday, November 9, 2004 10:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Serene:
In fact, I'd expect there to be a "scientific" explanation for what she can do ...

The quasi-medical hook is the surgery to River's amygdala. River is purportedly unable to repress her emotions: the extension to this is that she is able to read the repressed emotions of others and at a distance. The apparently forward readings could be earlier instances of an emotion expressed later.
Only Purplebelly believes this

SERENE

Tuesday, November 9, 2004 10:52 PM

What gives me hope is that the classic use (abuse?) of fate in fiction runs so thoroughly against how Joss seems to view the world. I'm hoping he'll explore what precognition could mean in a world in which there isn't a grand plan, there isn't fate.

That seems ripe for exploration and I'd be curious to see the results. Or he may just completely screw it all up, but I'd wager it would still be amusing and fun to watch.

HKCAVALIER

Wednesday, November 10, 2004 2:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by PurpleBelly:
I really don't want to bore most people yet again with a reconstruction of Purplebelly's 'Verse, but I do hope someone will run with the idea that River can read other peoples' repressed emotions and the associated thoughts. It works for me ... the narrative device that is, not the surgery.

Much as nobody seems interested in talking about psychic awareness like it actually happens, I'll do what I can with this. It really seems so much more interesting and fruitful to try to understand the actual phenomenon than to suss out what Joss's make-believe rules are for a make-believe superpower that he made up.

Yes, Purplebelly, repressed emotions are right on the money in terms of the actual experience of myself and other sensatives. That stuff's the first thing that hits us when we walk in a room, particularly if it's as powerfully supressed as the feelings that come up in OiS. The repressed emotions of parents often show up in their children. I've worked with many parents who repress all their own rage to the point where they truly don't think it exists and can't understand why one of their children has such a violent temper. Emotion has to go somewhere.

As to the pre-cog stuff that Hawk objects to: try not to think in such black and white terms, it's not that either the future is utterly unknowable or it's all been written before the dawn of time. Time has a flow, events, personalities tend to flow in a certain direction. Think of precognition as the perception of temperal cliches, if you will. If someone has been greatly abused by their parents or past lovers, they carry it in their faces or in the way they walk or in the way they breath and if you're sensative enough to notice, you can pick out the patern (as can future abusive partners, though not at all consciously--happens all the time). The abuse of a little girl by her father is very extreme and has a very distinctive "signature."

Sometimes people feel the pain of someone else as if it were happening to them. Some of us feel this kind of empathy on a very regular basis, to the point where we get extensive information about a person's emotional history.

Nothing supernatural here, just natural in ways that a lot of people can't seem to recognize. Does that seem right to you?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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