Mal knew.. right?
POSTED BY: ShinyLetsBeBadGuys
UPDATED: Friday, December 22, 2006 00:11
VIEWED: 14119
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I don't think he knew at all. I don't think that's how it would have played out at all if he knew. Joss was more messing with us. We all think "omg he knows now!" and then blammo we're hit with the truth. He's just a dope. It was a great end to an already hilarious episode.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Katesfriend:
I think Mal knew and was just messing with Inara about her potential feelings for him - testing the waters, so to speak. Mal was not portrayed as that dense in the series. He figured out Jayne's betrayal fast enough in Ariel. He masterminded the Alliance/Reaver destruction in the BDM. But most importantly, as Joss likes to link incidents together between episodes to tell a bigger story, there's a very telling scene in Out of Gas. When Inara tells Jayne that Companions don't kiss and tell, Mal's response is to say "So there is kissing?" and then give her that smile that says SO much more. I don't think I'm reading too much into it. I think Joss did it on purpose for that reason. Mal knew, he just didn't know what to do with the information yet. So he played with her mind.
But Mal's knowing would completely contradict "Heart of Gold" where Mal sleeps with Nandi because he does NOT know that Inara has feelings for him.
Not to mention, the feelings between Mal and Inara are something that both take pretty seriously. So seriously, that they act like complete drannits about it. If Mal had such a solid confirmation of her feelings, such an unexpected and real angle, I doubt he would waste it on purpose, just to mess with her.
Look at how hurt he is when Inara talks about their "strictly business-like relationship", and at their tentative reconciliation at the end of "Shindig". This thing between them is important to him and personal. Look at the fluster when he asks her not to stay with Atherton.
I just can't see Mal blowing the first and only actual chance in that way.
In other words, plant me firmly in the "He did NOT know" camp.
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Well ya'll, so far it looks like including myself 4 people think Mal knew and 8 people think he didnt know. Everyone's theories make a lot of sense, and though we'll never know for sure I think its better this way.
Whether you firmly believe he knows or didnt know, I think everyone can agree that it is ambiguous. And looking at the rest of the series, I think ambiguity looks like the most likely answer.
When that scene was written it was probably not mal DEFINITELY knew or definitely DID NOT know, but more like did she know that he knew or did he knowingly not know she was knowing him being not in the know...know..knew. You know?
Hahaha regardless, I think if Joss' goal was for people to linger on that scene and keep them wondering then he has difinitely succeeded.
Keep posting though! Everyone's got their favorite relationships, Mal/Inara is obivously mine one because of the ambiguity and two because who hasnt been there?
"None of it means a damn thing"
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Mal wasn't being dense so much as he was being a GUY, which, I will freely grant you could be construed as one in the same.
I think he was really just entertaining himself with the idea of Inara in a little bit of PGGA (Provocative Girl-Girl Action), an idea that most men would find endlessly fascinating (i.e., I'll be in my bunk).
WE'RE GONNA CRASH? I DON'T WANNA CRASH!
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What browncoatjim said. Mal was indulging his fantasies. At this point (and, I think, right up until Heart of Gold) he was clueless about Inara's feelings for him.
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I'm pointin' right at it!
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I think he really believed that Inara really couldn't gorram stand him, and it was fun for him to needle her because of what he perceived to be his unreturned affections.
WE'RE GONNA CRASH? I DON'T WANNA CRASH!
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Well, I think he didn't know Inara kissed him in Our Mrs, Reynolds, cuz, as said before, he doesn't think Inara cares about him. But...
I think he knows Inara has feelings for him by the end of Heart of Gold. Can we agree on that point? I'm pretty sure he figured that out after Nandi said to him, "You didn't tell the whole truth about Inara's feelings for you yesterday." (probably not verbatim there.)
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Always havin' a good time!
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Quote:
Originally posted by ShinyLetsBeBadGuys:
Howdy ya'll, got another question for ya;
In Our Mrs. Reynolds when Mal confronted Inara at the end of the episode, he knew that Inara had kissed him not Saffron right?
A friend of mine and I are convinced that he did, that he was just doing his thing by messing with Inara, but I have to make sure. How do I do this? Ask Joss, well maybe at a later date, but I'm more than satisfied seeing what ya'll think about it.
So: Mal knew Inara kissed him, not Saffron
or
Mal was just doing some wishfull thinking, and being dense
"None of it means a damn thing"
Personally? I would go down a middle path. "Shindig" has already happened. So he and Inara have had some...interesting moments concerning what they feel about each other. My argument is that Mal does think Inara ain't raring to get him into bed...but he's not completely sure. He's dense...but not in the way everyone on the No sides has him being. To me, Mal's thinking along the lines of "Inara thinks I'm a petty thief and an ass...doesn't she?"
Basically, I wanna put forth the theory that he's dense to a point. He ain't missing the signals...just misreading them. Cuz trust me when I say that's mucho easy to do;)
So...Mal's more waffly than he seems. "Our Mrs. Reynolds" happens and suddenly he finds out Inara was found unconscious in his bunk. Presumably, Jayne or Simon gives him the heads-up on how she knocked him out before he learns about Inara's situation. We have zero clue if Inara has ever visited Mal's bunk before, but ya gotta assume Inara's has some serious training when it comes to poise and balance. Which leaves Mal with an interesting question: since it seems rather difficult to believe Inara would slip and fall, how did she end up unconscious?
Now...most people here think Mal would simply decide Saffron seduced Inara and they kissed, ending with Inara unconscious. But I would propose that Mal would come to wonder how she ended up in his bunk if Saffron got to her. Saffron's not the biggest woman around and I doubt Inara's light as River is. With this line of consideration, Mal has to start thinking on scenarios where Inara gets into Mal's bunk just after Saffron smooched him and he passed out. But he's gotta dismiss that rather quickly, cuz as much as he thinks Inara dislikes him, she would try and alert the crew to his condition...and Inara would certainly not be in the right frame of mind to get seduced.
Mal's now at a rather difficult mental juncture about deciding on what he thinks happened. He's basically stuck with either Inara getting traces of the GK-laced lipstick on her via physical contact with him or her having a klutzy moment as soon as she sees his unconscious body in his bunk. Either way, the scenario has Inara having a certain type of emotional reaction to seeing him laid out by Saffron...one that would ask him to believe Inara cares more than she lets on.
He ain't sure, so he sets up a moment where he can see if Inara will react in a certain way when he asks about how she ended up knocked out. Only problem is that he's dense and interprets her response as embarrasment to getting suckered somehow (cuz that is a lot easier to deal with than knowing Inara's got a jones for him and is emotionally paralyzed by her fears).
So yeah...basically I wanna argue that Mal was a lot more aware than people give him credit for. He doesn't know for certain, but I think by "Our Mrs. Reynolds," he's starting to wonder if something's going on with Inara. She's been on the boat for about a year by then (or close to) and you would assume she would have packed up long ago if she was truly affected by how Mal handled things. But she's still there, she's inserted herself into situations to protect the crew when she could have simply charmed any law enforcement and gotten out of her rental contract...and she possibly had an emotional reaction that led to her getting knocked out;)
BEB
Literature has shown us some of humanity's greatest achievements; history, some of o
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I don\'t think Mal really knew at all.
-River
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BlueEyedBrigadier--
your theory does make a certain amount of sense,
except for the factthat an "emotional reaction" would still not imply a romantic attraction or even a sexual one.
He already knows from "Shindig" that Inara cares enough about him not to want to see him dead (and judging her character, it can be easily inferred she'd probably not want to see JAYNE dead, either, and seeing him passed out like he was, it could cause an emotional reaction for anyone with some sensitivity.
Incidentally, it's Mal who does most of the revealing in "Shindig", while Inara runs out on him in the middle of it. (hello, "Heart of Gold" mirror!)
Pretty much all the revealing Inara does on the show is outside of Mal's presence and her interactions with him tend to leave room for the "Just friends, decent person, general human affection" sort of justification. He even knows she has an inklling of his feelings for her (See the tense scene in the pilot episode), but for him? Much foggier.
So it's not that easy for him to assume or even suspect anything as silly and foolish as her kissing him out of sheer relief, or if so, not to react more emotionally to that himself.
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