Wash- Serenity - Combat Experiance

POSTED BY: Booksword
UPDATED: Tuesday, February 8, 2005 16:55
VIEWED: 11188
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RANDOMLING

Tuesday, January 11, 2005 8:30 PM

Jonsan: I believe than Alan Tudyk's theory was that Wash had been in the war as a pilot (he didn't say which side) but had flown one sortie, been shot down and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp, entertaining the other prisoners with Javanese shadow puppets.

Veteran: you can probably be a fry-cook (and no doubt be fired!) before you're old enough to be conscripted...

It's an interesting line: "Actually I was fired, from a fry-cook opportunity. I can handle myself." What the hell kind of restaurant did he work in?

One thing that argues against him having been in the army is that prior to War Stories he has apparently never been in a fire-fight before. That's interesting. Have people never attacked the ship (The Train Job) before? Has he never been in a bar brawl turned ugly? It's not the fact that he might have seen action in the army, though he might; but that is one mollycoddled pilot. Has he never been to a bar with Jayne?

BOOKSWORD

Wednesday, January 12, 2005 9:21 PM

Actually I noticed on the Pilot they ran with ( The Train Job ) Zoe commented that the Captain went looking for Alliance friendly Bars to start a fight in.
Now if Im Wash, and flew for the Alliance, would I want to hang in an Alliance friendly Bar with my Browncoat wife.
Actually I dont blame Wash for not hanging around Jayne in Bars, I mean that big lug of toughness is a fight waiting to happen.

RANDOMLING

Thursday, January 13, 2005 1:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Booksword:
Actually I noticed on the Pilot they ran with ( The Train Job ) Zoe commented that the Captain went looking for Alliance friendly Bars to start a fight in.
Now if Im Wash, and flew for the Alliance, would I want to hang in an Alliance friendly Bar with my Browncoat wife.
Actually I dont blame Wash for not hanging around Jayne in Bars, I mean that big lug of toughness is a fight waiting to happen.

True enough, but Mal apparently only does that on Unification Day.

I do see your point though: I'd think a turncoat Alliance pilot would be even less thrilled by the prospect of hanging around Alliance-friendly people than a Browncoat. Of course, there's an even better reason for Wash not to be in that bar at the beginning of The Train Job - Mal, Zoe and Jayne are working, and it's his job to stay with the ship.

And he has been to a bar with Jayne at least once (Jaynestown). Granted it didn't turn into a bar brawl that time... but I'm struggling to believe that the man's never been in a firefight before War Stories. He was technically *in* a firefight in The Train Job, though he didn't use a gun.

Like I say, though - that is one mollycoddled pilot. (Makes sense, I guess. If your pilot dies, you're not going anywhere.)

BOOKSWORD

Wednesday, February 2, 2005 9:14 PM

Sorry, can someone clear up my memory some. Did he ever state he was never in a fire fight.

Maybe as a pilot he had no need to be in a firefight landside, if he did get shot down and captured all that training to be a top gun gone to waste.

Maybe in Warstories he was just bowing to Zoe and Jaynes more obvious skill in that department.

CYBERSNARK

Friday, February 4, 2005 3:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Booksword:
Sorry, can someone clear up my memory some. Did he ever state he was never in a fire fight.

Actually no. He just followed the statement with a funnier observation that grabbed the attention. Some people do that (I'm one of them); tell a half-lie by omission ('cause it's not necessarily anyone's business) to get a laugh.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

THALOS

Friday, February 4, 2005 4:41 PM

My suggestion is listen to the commentaries.

In almost all tense flying situations Wash is as cool as a cucumber. However, in the last episode filmed "The Message", when everyone knew they were already canceled, Wash acts all crazy in his flying. He then mentions, if memroy serves me correctly, that Joss had written Wash to be a goofy character in all circumstances except while flying. But since this was the last episode there was some flexibility allowed.

Of course now that I think about it, it may have been something Joss mentions during the end of Disc 4 "behind the scenes" stuff.

Unforetuneatly, there is no specific mention of whether or not Wash was a pilot during the war, although I remember somewhere the hypothesis that he did fly supply ships, or shipd not involved in any of the combat areas.

"Whoa, good Bible."

MICHIZURE

Friday, February 4, 2005 7:11 PM

Pilots are a peculiar breed. They are selected on their ability to manage multiple complicated and often conflicting tasks at the same time. (E.g., the engine is on fire: do I shut off the fuel and risk a power-off landing, or do I try to set down with power before the whole thing burns? Time's up! Did you decide, or did you die?)

This usually manifests itself as compartmentalization: creating a mental "box" for each significant activity, and concentrating on one at a time to the exclusion of all others.

So, when Wash is on the ground, he's a goof. When he's with Zoe, he's an attentive husband and lover. When he's behind the controls, however, all those superfluous behaviours go back in their boxes and he's all business.

While I doubt that Mr. Whedon has read up on pilot psychology, his profound innate grasp of human nature probably led him to the same conclusion.

Bonus question: Judging by Wash, and based on the following quote (from Walter Cronkite, during Vietnam) are spacecraft in Firefly/Serenity more like helicopters or planes?

Quote:
Helicopters Are Different From Airplanes
The thing is, helicopters are different from planes. An airplane by its nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by a deliberately incompetent pilot, it will fly.

A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other. And if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance, the helicopter stops flying, immediately and disastrously. There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter.

This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot. And why in generality, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts and helicopter pilots are brooders, introspective anticipators of trouble. They know if something bad has not happened, it is about to.

--------
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/traveller/fartrader
Far Trader: the handbook for interstellar merchants.

NONSEQUITOR

Friday, February 4, 2005 8:31 PM

It's just an observation, and this is the first time I have felt compelled to respond to a thread so be very impressed, but being int he war, even on the alliance side doesn't require Wash be a bomber, fighter pilot or even anything actually involved in combat. Wash doesn't strike me as the type to be involved in actual battle. But being Wash, I can see him there just not in that role.

With war, comes casualties, and with casualties come dogooders, like Simon who want to make things better. Unfortunately, the dogooders need a way to the front lines and then back, carrying whatever wounded they've collected, at least some of the time under fire from one or both sides.

If Wash served as a medevac pilot for the alliance medical core, it would jive with everything Wash is. Someone who is unable to take anything seriously except when he is down on the front lines undergoing crisis. Who thinks fast on his feet because in the midst of battle while trying to evacuate doctors and wounded things are constantly changing. Yet he is calm under pressure because face it freaking out ends up killing the soldier just as dead as the ambulence driver.

In this situation he would be disassociated from the actual fighting and even the doctoring, because his sole concern would be to get everyone there and back in one peice. He doesn't even particularly care which side is firing at him at any given time because either way, they are shooting and he is cannon fodder. From this view, authority would be his nemisis, because again from either side, they are the ones shooting.

Yes he may be Alliance, but his role in the war would be as much one of the Red Cross in a battlezone. He still wouldn't talk about it to Mal and Zoe, because they might not be kosher with that - especially considering that the medics left the independants on the field at Serenity Valley on the order of the Alliance.

Then once the war was over, while people in the battlefield were given new uniforms and nice suits, he found himself unable to take the more sane job of flying for a hospital like the one on Ariel (and face it how many of those could they possibly need) and he couldn't take the rigid authority and boredom of flying a cruiser or something as massive so instead he found a career being the getaway driver on Serenity. No rigid authority, and alliance or independant, and they don't mind shadow puppets on the bridge. What more could a luny like Wash ask for - except maybe the love of his life?

This would put him more on even keel with a helicopter pilot in my opinion. Plus I like Medevac pilot who's shot down better than even a bomber who's shot down because no one's going to intentionally kill medics or even their pilot with the exception of Niska - and he's a psychopath. Even if he does put on shadow puppet exhibitions.

VETERAN

Friday, February 4, 2005 10:17 PM

That's a good take on Wash. Reminds me of the Medics in M*A*S*H.

The one part I'm not sure of is the bit about the Alliance ordering the Medics not to pick up the Independents. From Zoe's conversation with Simon in War Storiesp/i] I got the idea that combatants on both sides were abandoned by the Brass.

NONSEQUITOR

Monday, February 7, 2005 11:02 PM

Actually I think there's a lot of similarities between Wash and the medics on M*A*S*H, I just didn't comment on that initially because I wasn't sure if anyone would really get it when I pointed out that Wash kind of reminds me of Hawkey Pierce, when he's working, he's all business, but the rest of the time he needs to be check into a good sanitorium for review.

Why would the medics leave their own troops on the ground in serenity Valley though? I got the impression that the independants got left and those who died after they were abandoned on the field were either finished off by wounds that went Septic, their comrads murdering them for their rations or just committing suicied because they were so depressed they lost. You could be right that alliance troops were still on the ground though, after all just because a battle is over doesn't mean everyone knows that (I believe that's how Andrew Jackson ended up fighting the battle of Louisiana two weeks after the war was actually finished)

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