Why I love Firefly (WARNING: SPOILERS)

POSTED BY: pdk
UPDATED: Thursday, December 28, 2006 07:47
VIEWED: 1358
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PDK

Thursday, December 28, 2006 5:42 AM

Like many people on this forum, I love Firefly, I have from the first time I watched it, which sadly was only about a year ago. My one regret is not watching sooner and getting in on the ground floor with the fan hysteria.

So, I got to thinking, why do I love this show so much, more than any other show, to the point where I can watch it over and over and talk about it without it ever getting old? Hell, I dressed up as Jayne for Halloween (and I do, by the way, bear a striking resemblance to Adam Baldwin).

I figured it out. The answer, lies in one of my all-time favorite video games, Final Fantasy VII (overall the best in my opinion, with VI as a close second). Please note that this post contains spoilers for for Firefly/Serenity and Final Fantasy VII. I don't expect this to be a huge problem since the crowd who watches Firefly and the crowd who plays Final Fantasy VII probably has a fair amount of overlap. Still, if you do not want to read anything that may spoil the show/movie/game, STOP READING!!!

(I'm getting tired of typing Firefly and Final Fantasy VII, so I'm just going to say FF and FF7 for them, respectively...cool? I'll also try my best to introduce the FF7 world to people who know nothing about it, but I'm sure I'll fail in that regard).

The first aspect comes in the story. Both FF and FF7 have extremely character-driven stories. While this may often lead to more slowly developing plot lines, I believe that this makes us more attached to the characters, and more attached to the events in which they find themselves. This is especially important to FF7 because you're actively playing as the characters, and it becomes so much more engrossing when you care about them and what they're doing.

I love character-driven stories because it never seems like the characters are along for the ride. They're making the decisions, controlling their own destiny, and you root for them. But enough mindless theory, time to back it up with a few concrete examples. In Serenity [Movie], as the Operative continues to bear down on Mal and the crew, Mal is faced with the $64,000 question, keep running away, or fight back (or give up for that matter). In War Stories, everyone decides to go and break out Mal when they could have easily left because of the danger or sought help from others, and you root for them. Come on, you know you said "Hell yeah" when you saw Jayne with about 12 guns strapped to him ready to take on Niska. In FF7, Cloud (the main character) is about to give Sephiroth (the main baddie) the black materia (which can summon a near-planet-destroying attack), but the game throws an interesting curve ball at you. You take control of a translucent, younger version of Cloud trying to impede himself from doing the obviously stupid. It does not work, he eventually does give up the black materia. This more than likely represents his conscience, and the fact that you are controlling it draws you in deeper.

The character driven story leads me to the second reason I love FF/FF7, the characterization. Everyone has tremendous, thoughtful, and thorough character arcs, the backstories are richly developed and explain things beautifully. More importantly, there are many character parallels. Cloud is a tortured, cynical, directionless leader who is this incredible set of damaged goods (like Mal), and (like Mal), finds himself after disaster and incredible self-doubt. Not all characters fit so nicely (I think the Mal-Cloud connection is the best), but we see a wide array of characters who, by all rights, should never have been together, but somehow find themselves together and depending on one another.

Also, the characters in both FF and FF7 are incredibly deep, and subject to incredible characterization (the strongest point of both these pieces of work). We come to learn that FF7's Barret (the idealistic brawn of the group), has a past he'd like to forget (he basically watched helplessly as his hometown was destroyed, and he indirectly caused it). Jayne is a surprisingly sentimental, emotional man. River goes from being

RHAEGARTARGARYEN

Thursday, December 28, 2006 7:47 AM

The coop dee gracie!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

My signature...Rhae.