Book's line in Objects in Space?

POSTED BY: Geiiga
UPDATED: Monday, October 15, 2007 14:43
VIEWED: 30285
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GROOVYAL

Sunday, April 23, 2006 9:40 PM

pretty much everybody seems to like the operative-idea... well i dont... it would be just too easy... too startrek-like-easy... too damn disappointing easy

so i came up with an other theory:

you all watched "pulp fiction" for sure...
there are these two guys, vincent vega (john travolta) and jules (sam l jackson). the got shot at and then jules thinks about what he does and decides to leave this life of crime in favor of something religious... so i'd say, this is our book... used to be some kind of gangster, something happend, made him make up his mind and leave the crime behind...

than there is the question as to why he got this medical treatment...

so as we've seen in ff-verse there are some female politicians... and maybe he once have slept with the right one

Well! If it aint somethin'!

FOEHAMMER

Wednesday, April 26, 2006 3:10 PM

I would lean most towards Book being a former Alliance officer. You don't see the faces of the officers because they are ususally back at the HQ with the planning staff and directing the action, not running around shooting people. He probably rose through the ranks and that would explain his shooting and hand-to-hand skills.
I don't believe he was an operative. He probably worked with operatives at one point, that would explain his detailed knowledge of their methods. He even might have been involved in Operative training. Maybe he left when the training became more than just obstacle courses and detective skills. Maybe he left when the program became what snared River. Ending up on the same ship as a fugitive from that program would really push his moral boundaries. He feels loyal towards the Alliance in general but disagrees with their methods. He would be conflicted. His choice of becoming a Shepherd would lead him to believe that perhaps running into River & Simon was a test from God.

I think that Book's line "I don't care whether you're innocent or not. Where does that leave you?" would be his internal struggle. River picks up on Book having a moral argument with himself.

Ok, I'm rambling...
___________________________________________________

It's been a good while since anyone but me touched my plow, so don't think I ain't interested....

MARVLGRL

Thursday, April 27, 2006 4:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Legolad:
There are enough clues in the series to assume that Inara is dying, presumably from some fatal disease. Particularly this exchange from "Out of Gas":

INARA: I love this ship. I have from the moment I saw it.

SIMON: I just don't want to die on it.

INARA: (glances away) I don't want to die at all.

The implication seems ot be that since she has to die, she wants it be on Serenity. Put that together with the memory River reads in "Objects in Space": "I'm a big girl. You can tell me." To me, it sure seems like she's remembering talking to her doctor, and finding out about her terminal illness. I guess this interferes with all the hopes for a happy Mal/Inara relationship. Sorry about that; maybe I'm wrong.

Hi fellow browncoats. Long time reader, first time commenter here. I couldn't leave this one alone. Inara ill? I think it's plausible but not likely. My notion is that Inara is running away from something. She literally says to Simon, "We're all running from something." I just get the distinct feeling from when we see her buying the shuttle for the first time that she's trying to escape some aspects of her life as a companion. Sure, she's still practicing the profession but I'm just getting a "I need freedom" vibe from her. I think she may have felt too confined in her old life. I think she wants to be saved but is conflicted with the fact that she was taught to be so independent and self-reliant. Her's is a tortured character.

I certainly welcome other thoughts or reactions to this! Thanks :)

"How'd ya like a bite of this green apple, America?"

FLAME

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 2:31 AM

I'm not sure what I think about Inara's secrets, but just an FYI - the shooting script for The Message ...

http://www.twiztv.com/scripts/firefly/season1/firefly-115.htm

... mentions that Inara "finds a small package, squarish, addressed to her. She smoothly slips it beneath her outfit without anyone noticing, turns to see Kaylee arrive, looking glum."

That didn't show up in the episode that was aired, as far as I can tell, but it's an interesting tidbit.

~ Flame ~

SERENITY on the big screen in Raleigh, NC, June 22, 2006!!
http://www.monkeyshinesbeadery.com/serenity/shindig/

FLAME

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 2:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geiiga:
Now, Simon's bit was kind of putting blame on her for separating him from his career, and Jayne's bit was almost an apology for the events in Ariel, but Book's line (and, come to think of it, Inara's) don't make much sense in context.

I'm coming late to this discussion, and I apologize for the long post, but I've given a lot of thought to this question.

I think what River was seeing was secrets. Everyone's secret is different, some have to do with her, some don't.

No one on this thread (from what I can tell) has mentioned the shooting script from The Message. I don't know whether people consider shooting scripts to be "canon" or not, but I think they offer some interesting tidbits. (See my post about Inara, above.)

In The Message script, after Book drives Womack off of Serenity, Jayne says: "Either you spent a lotta time fightin' bad cops... or bein' one." And Book answers, "Maybe both."

In the context of that exchange, I went back and looked at some other Book "clues":

In OUR MRS REYNOLDS -

BOOK
It's a Carrion House. Scrap shop,
takes ships, pulls 'em apart or fixes
'em up.

WASH
Doesn't sound that scary...

MAL
That pattern you're looking at is a
net. We fly into that we're more
than helpless. It'll turn the ship
into one big electrical conduit, burn
us all from the inside out.

BOOK
Some of the newer ones'll just hold
you, then the scrappers'll override
the airlocks, pull the Oh-two, or
just gas you. They're not looking to
deal with survivors.

JAYNE
One day you're gonna tell us all how
a preacher knows so damn much about
crime.

In TRAIN JOB -

BOOK
This Adelai Niska you're talking
about?

JAYNE
Now how would a Shepherd know a
name like that?

(Book doesn't actually answer the question, just says that he knows Mal made a deal with Niska - but I think he knows even more about Niska.)

BUSHWHACKED -

BOOK
What if that ship's a crime scene?

SAFE -

Book notices that the men who come to buy the cattle are "jumpy."

His ident card gets him to the infirmary "at once" after they were reluctant to take him before.

WAR STORIES -

Book has read the works of Shan Yu, warrior poet and psychotic dictator. Enough to be able to quote it. Then, later, he's seen reading a book (script says "not the bible"). He carries Shan Yu around with him?

BOOK
This is precision work.
Sharpshooters. From the look of
these wounds, I'd say a 54R sniper
rifle. Laser sights.

JAYNE
You do a lot of shootin' at the
abbey, Shepherd?

Then a little later in the scene:

JAYNE
Only one kinda transport I know
leaves that kinda mark.

ZOE
Fast burn rocket shuttle.

BOOK
Craft like that wouldn't commonly be
part of a ship. More likely we're
looking at--

ZOE
A space station.

And, of course, he's terribly good at shooting kneecaps. The script reads:

ZOE
You're going to hold this ground,
understand me? That's an order.

The far door opens and one of NISKA'S MEN storms for them, gun raised. In a flash, before even Zoe gets a bead on him, Book fires from the hip, hitting the guy in the KNEECAP.

He pitches forward with a SCREAM, his face smashing into the side of the Mule -- out cold.

Book turns to Zoe, calm and ready.

BOOK
Understood.

And finally, Book tells River in JAYNESTOWN - "You don't fix faith, it fixes you." Which I think refers to his changing his life from being that "bad cop" to being a better person.

SO... for those of you still with me ... my take is that Book was a lawman, a fed, a crooked one, who didn't care if someone was innocent or not, then he turned his life around, withdrew from the world, looking for redemption.

That's how he seems to know so much about ships, weapons, and criminal activity.

And just wanted to point out, the script says "During all this, River wanders unnoticed right between the two of them" in OBJECTS. If she's "unnoticed" I don't think they were thinking of her, specifically. Like I said, she sees secrets. Jayne's secret just happen

SPACEANJL

Wednesday, June 14, 2006 11:06 AM

I think Book was a cop, too. Not an Operative (I don't think they retire, I think they might GET retired) or a soldier. And I think he was probably not a totally honest one - think Remy in the Big Easy rather than LA Confidential though.

SpaceAnJL

MANNY

Thursday, June 29, 2006 8:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by HighWiredSith:
So no one thinks River tuned into the fact that Shepherd Book was an alliance operative, a mole, a spy - maybe a rogue spy working for some covert group inside the alliance, a group that wanted to keep River on the run to maybe see what she was made of, what she would do? And maybe Book was having his own reservations about his mission, maybe he was contemplating turning rogue or already had? .

("Serenity" spoiler alert)

I thought the same thing. Remember when Book is dying, and Mal calls out for the Doc? Book gasps "River" to Mal, as if he is about to share some info, or "secret" to MAL before he dies. I wondered if he was about to confess to such a thing before he passed away.

Alas we'll never know. Ah that Joss.....

TWILIGHTJACK

Wednesday, August 9, 2006 5:50 PM

Operative-Book doesn't sit too well with me. First, let's go with the obvious reason: Book is too old. If the Unification War ended only six or seven years ago, then Book could not have reasonably been a field agent during that time. The man's in his sixties, at least. In the second place, I don't believe that a man without any "official" existence would be able to use his ident-card to gain immediate treatment at an Alliance hospital. Unless he was on official government business, it just doesn't make sense that the Alliance would leave that option open to him. Thirdly, the parallel is just a bit too obvious for my tastes. Oh, one other thing: as Simon points out in "Ariel", "Important people don't do field work." I refer again to Book's reception aboard the I.A.V. Magellan.

The corrupt lawman angle also seems a bit too pedestrian to merit the reception he receives in "Safe", which to my way of thinking is the most important piece of evidence we have regarding Book's past.

Someone above pointed out that a politician would be too publicly visible to disappear or be completely unknown to the crew, esp. Simon, who's been on the core most of his life.

A high-ranking Alliance officer is similarly too public a persona to explain the crew's complete ignorance of him. . . unless he oversaw covert operations.

See, I don't think Book was an operative; I think he was a director of covert operations for the Alliance during the war. High-ranking Alliance brass, without anyone in the civilian world having ever heard of him. After the war, he retired honorably (again, he still gets five-star treatment from the Alliance), and retreated to a monastery to contemplate the things he had seen and done, which obviously disturbed him to no small degree.

TERRI

Wednesday, August 9, 2006 6:35 PM

Yeah, I think that Book goes deep into the Alliance hierarchy, but Operative? Nah, that's a little too far fetched for me. The line was a little too plebian for an Operative (IMHO). They speak in more grandiose terms that put your in awe with their use of metaphor and juxstaposition. Yeah, this sounds like some sort of local guy putting the squeeze on some other local guy. But knowing the way Joss writes, he'll probably turn out to be the former leader of the Alliance or something.

TWILIGHTJACK

Wednesday, August 9, 2006 7:21 PM

I'm going to be content with banking on a former leader of the Alliance military. The Glorious Leader of the Anglo-Sino Alliance would be a bit too well known to pose as a shepherd.

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