Big Damn Inara Theory
POSTED BY: raptored
UPDATED: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 23:35
VIEWED: 34764
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My Big Damn Inara Theory:
1) Okay, what’s in that vial that she pulls out in the Serenity pilot when the Reavers atttack? Joss has said it isn’t a suicide kit, which is what everyone assumes. I think the only other thing that make sense is that it’s something she can inject herself with to make herself go backward in time or enables her to reverse time on a limited basis. Some have suggested the vial is a sort of super-drug she could inject that would make her fight off the Reavers, but we already have “River the Assassin,” so I don’t think having two, (or three, counting Zoe) “warriror women” on the show makes much sense. I think the time-travel also explains a lot about her character. Such as:
A) She’s obviously afraid of giving into her attraction to Mal and getting attatched to members of the crew on a deeply emotional level. This is either because she knows she won’t progress far enough along with them age and time wise to keep up with them (since the reverse time travel somehow keeps her young) and she’ll have to watch them get old and die, which is too painful for her. Or, alternately, she’s actually been through many “previous” scenarios with Mal and the crew before the time frame of the show, and they all ended painfully, so she reversed time and started “all over again.” So she may also know the outcome of these relationships can only bring pain, so she simply avoids them. It also explains why she brings out the vial before the Reavers attack. Time reversal is only to be used sparingly and in the most drastic of circumstances, ect, since it may change the outcome of the future, ect.... (I think she may be an addict of the time reversal drug, or be under orders to use it in order to maintain her Companion status, but that’s a later post.)
B) It explains her “young and old” dichotomy pretty well. When we meet Nandi in HoG, the two were supposed to have gone through Companion training in House Maddrassa (sp?) together, but I think Nandi looks and seems considerably older than Inara, by about 10 years or more, maybe. Nandi even comments on this, saying something to her like, “you never change” or “you don’t look any different.” (Can’t remember the exact quote.) If Inara has been continuously using the time travel drug to keep herself young, she wouldn’t have aged, or else aged but not look any different. She also tells the Shepard in the pilot that he should “have the young doctor” look at his cuts. But to me, Simon and Inara seem to be the same age, at least physically. And she tells Mal in OoG that she likes a shuttle “with a few miles on it,” suggesting she’s been touring and piloting before as a Companion.
C) She seems to get upset as around birthdays and she tells Simon in “OoG” she doesn’t plan on dying. She could be trying to be immortal or have made herself immortal inadvertantly through use of the drug.
D) This is my own interpretation, but I think the biggest fictional influence on Firefly is the Dune Series of books by Frank Herbert. Joss has said that the original Dune is his favorite book, and there are a lot of fictional parallels between that Universe and the Firefly ‘verse. In particular: (from Wikipedia “Dune Universe” article) WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!:
“In Dune, there is only one source of natural melange (spice), the planet Arrakis (colloquially known as Dune). Melange is a geriatric drug that gives the user a longer lifespan, greater vitality, and heightened awareness; it can also unlock prescience in some subjects, depending upon the dosage and the consumer's physiology
Although it is called "spice" and can be mixed with food, melange is truly a drug: it is physically addictive, it has psychotropic effects, and stopping its consumption causes death after a painful period of withdrawal (although taking spice daily extends one's life by hundreds of years). Due to its rarity and value, the group controlling spice production on Dune controls the fate of the Empire.”
I know you’re saying: okay, smarty-pants, explain why she takes out the vial the first tim
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You obviously put a lot of thought in to this but I think there is a much simpler answer, she is a murderer. In Out of Gas in the commentary the one of the writers says that's there a clue in to Inaras past in the scene when Simon starts to describe what happens when you suffocate and Inara doesn't want to hear it. Now that could be explained away that she doesn't want to know how she is going to die. However if she had smothered some one say a client or a teacher at the academe then she would also be hearing how the person that she killed died. Now as for the "suicide kit" it could be a self defense kit where if the situation were to get a bit rowdy she could put them down or at least put them to sleep. Not the most efficient way I know but it is just a theory. This theory also explains why she signed on with Serenity, a ship that spends most of the time on the on the edge of the solar system. Joss also says in Objects in Space that a psychic is as far as he is willing to go in to sci-fi, and time travel is pretty far out there. Joss also has the habit of setting up a complicated mystery, but giving it a simple answer.
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Oh. My God. That's just...well.
Honestly, which 'verse were you writing about?` Joss said the furthest out he was willing to go was psychics. I mean for goodness sake, we're still using projectile weapons! Time travel? I don't think so.
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I wish I had a magical wish-granting plank.
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I'm not buying time travel, either. How can a drug affect time? A magic hourglass, sure... 
However, I think you may be on to something, but have just overcomplicated it. What if it's a life-extending drug, and Inara is actually several centuries old?
Now all your explanations make sense. She can't bear to make close emotional connections because she knows she'll have to watch her loved ones grow old, deteriorate, and die (see Heinlein's Time Enough for Love). She looks younger than Nandi because she hasn't aged since her days at the Academy.
Further, it could explain why she left the Academy. She can't remain anywhere for too long, nor can she accept any prominent public position, because eventually her lack of aging will be noticed. Who knows how many careers she's led, how many lives she's lived? Mal and the others would seem like infants to her.
She looks at the injector when the Reavers threaten because she's contemplating the irony of it: she's gone to great lengths to preserve her life, only to lose it in such a dreadful way. She is, perhaps, regretting her choice at last.
The "Immortal Inara" concept may not be the right answer, but I could buy it.
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Ain't about you, Jayne. It's about what they need.
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I'm not sure I can totally buy into the life-extending thing, but it's a damn sight closer than reverse time travel.
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I wish I had a magical wish-granting plank.
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I've got my own theory which can be summed up in two words:
Blade Runner.
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?
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I wish I had a magical wish-granting plank.
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Inara's a replicant?
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Ain't about you, Jayne. It's about what they need.
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Quote:
Originally posted by DonCoat:
I'm not buying time travel, either. How can a drug affect time? A magic hourglass, sure...
However, I think you may be on to something, but have just overcomplicated it. What if it's a life-extending drug, and Inara is actually several centuries old?
Now all your explanations make sense. She can't bear to make close emotional connections because she knows she'll have to watch her loved ones grow old, deteriorate, and die (see Heinlein's Time Enough for Love). She looks younger than Nandi because she hasn't aged since her days at the Academy.
Further, it could explain why she left the Academy. She can't remain anywhere for too long, nor can she accept any prominent public position, because eventually her lack of aging will be noticed. Who knows how many careers she's led, how many lives she's lived? Mal and the others would seem like infants to her.
She looks at the injector when the Reavers threaten because she's contemplating the irony of it: she's gone to great lengths to preserve her life, only to lose it in such a dreadful way. She is, perhaps, regretting her choice at last.
The "Immortal Inara" concept may not be the right answer, but I could buy it.
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Ain't about you, Jayne. It's about what they need.
I find that to be much more believable than time travelling. Upon being asked if she knows what in the vial, if it's a suicide kit, Morena answered that it's much worse. That's all we know.
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"Joss, if you kill him now I'll stuff a compression coil up your ass sideways!"
~ Kaylee, "Serenity in 2000 words or less"
Kaylee's the perfect woman!
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i'm a little surprised no one else has considered this possibility (or maybe you all have and have already dismissed it on another thread), however my suggestion comes in three parts.
-Morena said when asked that it was a truly horrible thing
-in one episode the captain says that the only way to survive seeing the savagery of the Reavers is to become one (I would also surmise that the only people the Reavers would "leave alone" on a ship would be one of their own kind), and...
-we know through the movie that a chemical was used to "pacify" the people of Miranda.
i am suggesting of course that this vial could have a chemical that could result in the same consequenses should someone take it. now i realize that she obviously cannot know that the Reavers were created by the alliance, or that the particular drug they used caused the catastrophy on Miranda, or even that Miranda exists, but who's to say the drug, or a facsimily thereof might not have leaked out. afterall, she never believes, like some of the crew and members of the alliance, that the Reavers are just stories...anyways, that's just a shot in the dark, i'll let everyone tear that theory apart now! :)
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