River's abilities
POSTED BY: Smaug
UPDATED: Saturday, July 29, 2006 12:05
VIEWED: 7079
PAGE 3 of 4
Quote:
Originally posted by Smaug:
But at the very end.. Mal says.. "But I suppose you already know what I am going to say."
To which River replys "Yes, but I like to hear you say it".
I think what you're forgetting here is that River has a puckish sense of humor. She's not saying "Yes, I know what you're about to say," she's saying "Yes, I know you suppose I know what you're about to say." She's being playful with someone she has honest affection for.
Seriously, I don't think River's abilities are simply defined, or have clearly-marked limits.
But now that she's made her peace with Miranda, I think it likely her control is going to increase steadily.
"She's tore up plenty. But she'll fly true." -- Zoë Washburn
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Or maybe she only got fragments of what he was going to say. It would have been confused in her head, so she would have wanted to her Mal say it, all coherently.
Or, possibly I'm just trying to make it fit because I like that part so much. :)
-
DB: Doesn't exactly fit the thug in the profile alley. Wait, what?
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Well, here's a bit of an example that seems to indicate River as being able to actually read thoughts instead of just being highly intuitive.
She "read" the Parliament men's minds well enough to know Dr. Caron's speech in the transmission by heart, since you can see her mouthing it at the same time as the woman. It seems she mouths through it all in the script, though we only see it briefly in the movie.
There's quite a bit of evidence in both series and movie that don't really work if River was just highly intuitive or empathetic, but there are quite a lot of good theories about this. To me, she is psychic, like Joss says, and that can involve lots of things.
She has instances where she seems to really be able to read someone's thoughts (she does mouth Mal's words in the BDM while she's locked in the pantry) and emotions, instances where she seems to know some things that have happened (like in Bushwacked, she knows the ship has "ghosts" and she wakes up from a nightmare because of the screaming, to which Simon replies there's no screaming and River answers that there was). And then there's her apparent prescience, if you want to assume her mention of fire in Out of Gas did not exactly refer to the candles burning but the explosion that was coming.
According to the R. Tam Sessions, she was already very intuitive, so it didn't take much to turn her into a psychic. By Session 22 she is already "reading" because, since she mentions the PAX, I assume she has already "read" Miranda from their minds, not to mention the reference to the first one dying on the table, from having been cut on too deep.
Can River have some kind of "suggestive" power too? I wouldn't know. What made Jayne go out into the pantry? I tend to believe it was a mix of alcohol and the discussion about the danger River poses and perhaps some noise he heard from within that reminded him she was there, since by the time he got into the pantry she was already free, so he might have heard something. But that's me.
Speculation is good. Once you open parts of your brain to certain abilities, who knows, maybe you can use it in ways never before imagined? With River purged from the memories of Miranda, and looking better by the end of the movie, she might be able to attain some control over her abilities... and, well, maybe they'll keep on growing. We can all speculate and write dozens of stories in your heads, and until Joss proves us wrong, we'll just keep on wondering...
*******************************
Wash: This landing is gonna get pretty interesting.
Mal: Define "interesting".
Wash: [deadpan] Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die?
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I am interested in the idea that “her ability to read minds is keyed to the strength of the emotion behind the thought, the stronger the emotion the is easier it is for her to read.“
The best evidence for River being a telepath, I think, is in the BDM, when we see her mouthing Mals words as he speaks them “the thought crossed my mind”. The important thing is the timing. How the discussion went, Jaynes point about what they might have to do with River, and even Mals response, could all be predicted, at least by River. But to mouth those words, at the exact moment Mal spoke them, is a lot harder to explain. If River is not a telepath, the best explanation is games with time cuts in the editing suite, and I do not like that kind of explanation.
The obvious problem with “telepathic River” has always been the events where she clearly has been surprised e.g. by Dobson in the pilot, the Alliance assault troops at the end of the BDM, and even by Early in OiS (she did not warn Simon before Early boarded Serenity). The strength of emotion idea might provide an explanation.
One problem I can see is that in “War Stories” River had to look round an object to see Niskas troops firing at them. Surely, having been roused with a few minutes notice to fight a pitched battle against an unknown opponent, those men must have been feeling some strong emotions and therefore be readable?
My other reason for believing that River possesses enhanced intuition, rather than some paraphysical sense, is that I think it fits better into the ‘verse. Joss has clearly gone to some trouble to keep the ‘verse free of FTL travel, time travel, mystical anything, aliens, AIs, nanotech, and all the other trimmings that typically show up in space opera. Having gone to all that trouble, I find it hard to believe that he would create one solitary telepathic character, and then put her near the centre of the show.
Improving Rivers intuition would require some form of cognitive enhancement, but we will probably have that long before we fly to another star.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
I am interested in the idea that “her ability to read minds is keyed to the strength of the emotion behind the thought, the stronger the emotion the is easier it is for her to read.“
This is a good idea. Picking thoughts that are accompanied by strong emotions should be easier for her, because, well, they're probably the loudest, at the forefront of one's mind, the most important and thus the most difficult to hide from. Consider that River's amygdala was stripped, so she really can't NOT feel everything, thus strong emotions and strongly emotional thoughts are probably harder to keep from invading her.
I do think that, with some probing and concentration, she could read more out of someone. Stronger emotions make it easier to read, less stronger emotionally require something more out of her.
Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
The obvious problem with “telepathic River” has always been the events where she clearly has been surprised e.g. by Dobson in the pilot, the Alliance assault troops at the end of the BDM, and even by Early in OiS (she did not warn Simon before Early boarded Serenity). The strength of emotion idea might provide an explanation.
She felt something in the pilot, it seems, because she wakes up moments before he appears. But she's still disturbed and disoriented by then, having come out of cryo, and things are probably very jambled in her mind, so it's natural she was surprised by Dobson.
She wasn't so much surprised by the troops when they broke down the wall, even if she wasn't facing them. You're probably refering to her surprise when she is thrown against the wall in the BDM and a hook or something suddenly bursts through the wall? Well, regard the situation she was in: in the middle of a fight with Reavers who, just moments before, had paralyzed her completely due to their absolute rage. I think she might have been a bit busy trying to stay alive and fight through the Reaver's strong emotions to realize Alliance men were about to send hooks into the wall.
As for Early in OIS, she seems to wake up *because* of him, because we hear his voice and she immediately opens her eyes. It's a common belief that when she was listening in on the crew talk about her (the wonderful scene where she is extraordinarily balanced in the rail), she was also listening to Early. And maybe she didn't tell Simon because she knew this bounty hunter was going to be dangerous? Who knows how River's mind works and what really motivates her? Her not warning anyone of Early is not testament against telepathy but more of River's strange workings.
Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:One problem I can see is that in “War Stories” River had to look round an object to see Niskas troops firing at them.
It's possible she can feel these men, but to do the maths maybe she needs the visual clue first? She probably can't see the obstacles in a room that would hide those men only through some mental probing. She'd need to look for a second to make a mental map of the area and then fire. Which she did.
Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
My other reason for believing that River possesses enhanced intuition, rather than some paraphysical sense, is that I think it fits better into the ‘verse. Joss has clearly gone to some trouble to keep the ‘verse free of FTL travel, time travel, mystical anything, aliens, AIs, nanotech, and all the other trimmings that typically show up in space opera. Having gone to all that trouble, I find it hard to believe that he would create one solitary telepathic character, and then put her near the centre of the show.
I understand your reasoning, and if we were going to limit ourselves to the series, it might be a working idea. But the movie (though some people consider it a different animal, it's still Joss's and his view and so it's canon) and even the R. Tam Sessions came to prove that simple intuition doesn't work. It doesn't explain Miranda (and a whole lot of other things).
How
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I agree that mouthing Mals words as he utters them is the best evidence for telepathy, but I went into that in a previous post, so I won’t waste any more of anyone’s time.
Considering the Miranda recording; it is not clear to me that River being able to predict Dr Carons words in a recording is evidence of telepathy. For one thing, if you know a few words from a sentence you can often then predict the next few. River might then be able to reliably predict Dr Carons next syllable, which would be the only ability she needed to lip-synch with her. Alternatively, if we assume that River must have already been familiar with the recording, it must have been transmitted after it was recorded. A telepath might then read the mind of someone who had seen a copy of it, but River might simply have dug up a copy of that recording. It is possible that this copy is what River was looking for on the Cortex after she escaped from the storage locker. Notice as well that most people would only remember the gist of Dr Carons report – they would not remember the exact words, and so no telepath could read them in their minds.
Much of the rest can be explained by River paying more attention to her existing senses than anyone else, or even by her being the youngest person in the room with the best hearing.
There is of course, the incident with the key Parliamentarians. I am inclined to turn this argument around, and say that it is evidence that River is not a telepath. If she was known to be a telepath, then having her encounter people with sensitive information in their heads would be an obvious security risk, even to a non-professional like Dr Mathias, or the MPs bodyguards. Dr Mathias, above all people, should surely know what River is capable of.
If River is “just” deeply intuitive, such a meeting might not seem dangerous. The Operative, however, might well think such a meeting dangerous. Even small pieces of information can have great value. All it takes is for someone important to suppress a reaction when Pax is mentioned, and you know what to look for.
But from the Operatives point of view, individual secrets may be less important than an understanding of “The minds behind every military, diplomatic and covert operation in the galaxy“. A telepath could only tell you what the key minds intended to do, not what they would do if XYZ happened. A telepath could not tell you what you needed to do or say in order to have them obey your will – in the same way that River knew what to say to have Jubal Early (and the rest of the crew) obey her will in OiS.
So far as the Alliance assault squad is concerned:
Quote:
Originally posted by Xeyra:
She wasn't so much surprised by the troops when they broke down the wall, even if she wasn't facing them.
She was clearly visible, alone and armed – but not with a weapon of any use beyond arms reach. Either she was surprised, or she was stupid. If she was expecting them she should have been hiding behind the wall to ambush the troops as they entered the room, or at least have dropped to the floor and hidden among the bodies. Instead, she was posing. (Very unRiverine I should think, although it must be an image that launched a thousand screensavers.
)Quote:
Originally posted by Xeyra:
That's what I think. Doesn't mean it's shared by all. :)
Now there is a quote that clearly describes me
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
Considering the Miranda recording; it is not clear to me that River being able to predict Dr Carons words in a recording is evidence of telepathy. For one thing, if you know a few words from a sentence you can often then predict the next few. River might then be able to reliably predict Dr Carons next syllable, which would be the only ability she needed to lip-synch with her.
You make a good point. I have a friend who tends to mouth as we speak, sometimes, though not with so much accuracy as River. Still, I do believe River does that because she already knows the message and what the doctor is saying because of having read the secret from the parliament men's minds. Read the message. Known about Miranda and seen the bodies and known about Reavers, even if the knowledge was buried within her (burning up her brain) because she saw it in the parliament's men's minds. That's how I interpret it. That's how I see and explain this.
Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
It is possible that this copy is what River was looking for on the Cortex after she escaped from the storage locker.
Actually, it seems to be clear enough that she was looking for the location of Miranda in that scene. Even Mr. Universe, the hacker supreme, didn't seem to even know about Miranda, so I doubt such a transmission was hanging around in the cortex to find. Not to mention River wouldn't really have had time to do such a thourough search of the cortex for a message, hear it, and then search for Miranda's location. But it's an interesting theory, nonetheless.
Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
Notice as well that most people would only remember the gist of Dr Carons report – they would not remember the exact words, and so no telepath could read them in their minds.
I guess this would depend on the members of parliament. Maybe they had good memories or maybe they saw the transmission so many times they could recall it by heart, like we usually do with a poem we love or with a letter that has touched us deeply, whether positively or negatively. You don't have to have a photographic memory to remember something so clearly (my mother, for example, still remembers quite a lot of meaningless things she learned in school, like names of train stations and such, and can quote quite a few things by heart, word for word).
Something like Miranda is not something you forget easily, not when you're responsible for the death of 30 million people. Even ambitious and power-hungry old men blink when they exterminate a world... Besides, our memories aren't usually lost, they're just put into storage, buried under new information, but even if twelve years have passed, they would remain in there, somewhere, and River saw them.
Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
There is of course, the incident with the key Parliamentarians. I am inclined to turn this argument around, and say that it is evidence that River is not a telepath. If she was known to be a telepath, then having her encounter people with sensitive information in their heads would be an obvious security risk, even to a non-professional like Dr Mathias, or the MPs bodyguards. Dr Mathias, above all people, should surely know what River is capable of.
I think this speaks more about Dr. Mathias pride than anything else. You have to consider that Mathias is a scientist who seems to think River is his "star pupil", a prodigy, which is why she seems to have been shown to the Parliament men ("show me off like a dog").
What does this mean? Well, Mathias's greatest sin is pride, says the Operative. A scientist with a pet project that he headed and was so ingrossed in he didn't think of how wrong it was (he doesn't really seem to care when he describes what's being done to River when he's talking to Simon).
Would a man like this really stop to think that putting a member of his project, especially one as gifted as River, was going to be dangerous to the men who were funding his little experience
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Instead, she was posing. (Very unRiverine I should think, although it must be an image that launched a thousand screensavers.)
In her pose, I think she's looking to the others for approval. Obviously she won, and she knows it's what the crew wanted, and that she was fighting for their lives; but I think that when she had to look around and see all those bodies that she had killed, she became less sure. Notice that she doesn't raise her head in a "look what I did" way. She keeps her head down and looks at them almost through her hair, as someone would do when they're ashamed.
But that very part-when the blast doors open and River's posing there-has got to be the one that makes the least sense. As you mentioned, if River knew the Alliance were coming, she shouldn't be standing in the middle of the room with her back to them. And also, of course, Kaylee was supposed to rig the doors so that they couldn't open. And even if she didn't do that, there's no one to open the doors. However, I'm completely willing to accept that it was done for the imagery and not for sense-making, because that scene is so good.
Also-just noticed it. When the Alliance breaks the wall down, River just kind of puts her head down, real slowly. Like "here we go again". I'm guessing it's because she just went through so much: strong emotions from the Reavers, having to kill, the physical exertion of a fight; and now she's going to have to do it again. But she doesn't even hesitate, and I love that part. The camera zooms in, and she gets a better grip on her weapons, and you know she's ready. It's not the old River anymore. She wasn't triggered by a Fruity Oaty Bar. She's going to fight to protect the crew, her family, because she can. She can finally use what's been hurting them for so long to help them, to save them.
-
DB: Doesn't exactly fit the thug in the profile alley. Wait, what?
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I could quibble about a couple of minor points but... it would be pedantry.
Quote:
Originally posted by Xeyra:
And until Joss comes out and says "River Tam can/cannot read thoughts", we're free to make our own minds about things.
I agree that there is no smoking gun: we cannot definitively say “River is/is not a telepath. (I cannot even imagine how any single incident could prove that River is NOT a telepath.) So for the moment all I can say is:
If River was a person in the real world, I would not conclude she is a telepath, because I do not actually need to conclude that she is, and there is a distinct shortage of telepaths, pre-cogs etc in the world.
If I was a person in the ‘verse, I would not conclude River is a telepath, because I do not actually need to conclude that she is, and there is a distinct shortage of telepaths, pre-cogs etc in the ‘verse.
After all, River is a product of an Alliance lab, not “an ancient mystical religion”, like a Jedi.
And I prefer it that way: SF/ fantasy has far too many mystics and “perfect soldiers” who are just stronger/ tougher/ dumber than average. I like the idea that what is really important is a better understanding of your people, and of your adversary.
So in part, I believe as I do because I want to…
In the meantime, before we get The Proof, all we can do is look for patterns, that can give us an idea of what Rivers limits are, and therefore how she works. Hmm...I may post on that later. Any ideas?
One last admission:
I said above that:
Quote:
Originally posted by Cavalier:
The best evidence for River being a telepath, I think, is in the BDM, when we see her mouthing Mals words as he speaks them “the thought crossed my mind”. The important thing is the timing. How the discussion went, Jaynes point about what they might have to do with River, and even Mals response, could all be predicted, at least by River. But to mouth those words, at the exact moment Mal spoke them, is a lot harder to explain. If River is not a telepath, the best explanation is games with time cuts in the editing suite, and I do not like that kind of explanation.
I was wrong. That discussion was in the dining area. And River was in a locker in that room. When the door was closed on her, it was still possible to hear Simon talking through it. So River could have kept track of the conversation the normal way. Aaaargh...
BTW - I like your sig. Its the ability of pre-Academy River that I most envy.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Smaug:
This is a question about River's abilities at a specific time in the movie.
she does her ninja/assasin thing and makes her way to the bridge. In the process of doing that.. she takes down Simon.. and the shot of her looking down upon him with the gun.
I realize Joss did that to keep us on the edge.. and guessing what the )(#*$)#($* is River doing.. and what is she capable of. Once we find out what she is doing.. my first thought is that she had to take out Simon because she read him at the time that even he would have tried to subdue her. However.. they have a brief conversation and River says that she had to show them.. and Simon says something like.. "you could have just asked"... while nursing his soar throat. To which River replies "I didn't know if you were going to put me to sleep". Or something to that effect.. I may not have the exact wording right.
Anyway... but that is the question.. How could River have NOT known what Simon was thinking? Wouldn't she have known weither or not he would have tried to subdue her and put her to sleep?
Smaug..
The way I read the movie, Jayne, Simon etc approached the kitchen/ dining area from the stern. When Mal realised that River had taken control of that area and it would be impossible/ very dangerous to enter it, most of the crew followed a side route to the bridge.
Simon remained, River opened the door, took him out, and then headed back to the bridge. She got there before the crew, and without encountering any of them, so she must have gone back through the kitchen…
The point is: Simon was not in her way, and she did not need to go anywhere near him. She must have deliberately remained to ambush him, the only person on the ship who could stop her.
So probably when she said “I didn’t know if you were going to make me sleep”, she did not mean “I didn’t know if you were going to make me sleep at that moment”, she meant “I didn’t know if you were going to make me sleep before I completed everything I needed to do”.
Simon could not have known what he would think it necessary to do in the next half-hour or so, so no amount of mindreading could have told River what he would do.
Aside from that: River has always spoken most eloquently when she is lying.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME