River-Sue, Kaylee-Sue, Inara-Sue... A spin-off thread to the Mary-Sue one.
POSTED BY: AgentRouka
UPDATED: Sunday, May 20, 2007 17:00
VIEWED: 8248
PAGE 3 of 3
Quote:
I hold my tv to a certain standard and I don't subscribe to the "Joss is God" club. If it jerks me around unreasonably, I'll abandon something and perhaps keep my enjoyment confined to the parts of canon that I could still accept.
As do I. The only other show I really watch is "House".
If I did not agree, I would also abandon it, but that does not mean my opinion is worth much.
It is the very same reason why I do not comment on OC's unless they are really good. Someone put in time and effort to create them and I have no right to go in and sully the whole thing.
There is an ongoing fanwork which i do not read for this very reason. The story intrigues me, but the OC does not. It spoils it and is a mary Sue. I tried overcming it, but I failed. but this does not give me the right to jump on the writer.
In the same way If say joss decided to take the characters in a direction I do not agree with, I would abandon the work rather than 'fight' it. (which to eb honest wa won't eb able to. And we will be too happy to see Firefly continue than anything else.)
Everyone has a right to ruin their work. I do not hold Joss on a pedestal.
I am of the opinion that if he was given enough time, he would have ruined it. There are simplifications in the BDM. he had to do them for a new audience, but they do detract from the series.
Joss has certain stories he wants to tell, certain character traits he want to explore, but I do not want Firefly to be another Buffy or another Angel.
I found Firefly to be pretty unique and want it to remain so.
But since it is his work, he has every right to do whatever he wants. Even if I disagree and sharpen pickaxes, learn to track adn hunt him down for them :)
I give the same courtesy to the writers on here.
Gotta say looking at this post it does look pretty hypocritical of me.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by nbz:
In the same way If say joss decided to take the characters in a direction I do not agree with, I would abandon the work rather than 'fight' it.
Everyone has a right to ruin their work. I do not hold Joss on a pedestal.
I am of the opinion that if he was given enough time, he would have ruined it.
Fascinating thread, you guys.
When you said Joss would've ended up ruining the show, I kind of laughed, because I've seen it happen before. The X-Files, for example. Chris Carter and Co. created a mythology so ingeniously convoluted with a group of geriatric government men as the conspiring villains. But around season six, it appears they just didn't know where to go next. They were crushed by their own mythology, ended up killing off the fantastic evil consortium, and replaced them with some lame-ass super-soldier alien-hybrids (no offense to Adam Baldwin - he was great). Not to mention, they committed acts of character-assassination, turning Agent Scully into a witless damsel-in-distress simply so Agent John Dogget (Duchovny's replacement) could rescue her - thus endearing himself to the audience. Yeah. We didn't fall for that.
Some people complain about the last 2 seasons of Buffy (the whole Buffy/Spike thing), and I do see their point. Same thing with Angel. Especially Angel, IMO. I mean, watch some of the first episodes and then watch some of last. It's a very different show. I personally don't think it was worse, just different. But the whole Cordelia/Connor thing was just wrong. And then her suddenly not being on the show and then dying...
What causes this? Why do writers/creators sometimes take main characters and make them do... out-of-character things? I would think, having written such an awesome characters, they would object to "sullying" them. It's puzzling. If you can't think of new things to do with your characters without committing character assassination, isn't it time to take a bow and say goodnight?
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I'm with the above here. I've stopped watching more than one show (X-files included) for the very reasons above. I think we, the viewers/readers, get very emotionally invested in characters, and if our view of them is disturbed, then we have to either change, or stick our fingers in our ears, close our eyes and refuse to play any more.
Or, if we are creatively inclined, we inflict our view of the 'Verse on the BSR.
I've made peace with my own view of the characters, the 'verse and their subsequent developement. And I don't normally join too many discussions, because I am, if not exactly a canon purist (OC writer, sorry) a writer who uses the original source material for reference and inspiration.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Obviously that example is pretty extreme, but you do get a lot of issues with characters acting out of character when people have their own axe to grind. If people are desperate to see Kaylee and Jayne together for example, sometimes they make Simon far too whiney and selfish. I mean, come on! The guy gave up everything for his sister!
This is probably my biggest fanfic gripe......the complete changing of a character to fit a storyline or, most often, a pairing.
I am a huge, personally biased Mal fan, and I constantly fight writing him as sweeter and more noble than he really is. I have to always remind myself of the fact that it's the full blend of his flaws and good qualities that make him the character I love in the first place. But I care about keeping him in character, and I *try* to include the many facets of his personality.
With that out of the way - sins and casting of stones and all.....
I *hate* the sweetification of Jayne. When someone wants to pair him with Kaylee or River or anyone seen as sweet and innocent, all of a sudden Jayne is a noble, thoughtful, sensitive, and selfless guy.
Simon as the whimp, the cold automoton, the homosexual or any number of gross exagerations of his personality......in fact I'd go so far as to say his character is the most badly and most often twisted by writers. He's a loving, brave, and intelligent man.
Yet because he's a bit cooler and more formal than the others.....is it really that easy a leap to sadomasochistic sex with Mal? Come on people.......
Kaylee as the complete whimp without a brain to stand on, Inara as the person who only exists to fight for no good reason with Mal, Zoe the cold, hard, kick-ass only girl........the list goes on. Sigh.
I appreciate it so much when people write and build on the characters as they were actually presented in the show, and not turned upside down to fulfil the writer's fantasies.
"Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you when she's hurting 'fore she keens. Makes her a home." .......We love you, captain.
"This is the captain. We may experience some slight turbulence and then.....explode"
www.serenityverse.com - Zoe necklace replicas, Serenity dogtags, jewelry, image gallery w/ custom DVD covers, other goodies!
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
We don't actually know what he was like after the valley. Apart from the slight suggestion of permanent incarceration and torture we know nothing.
I would expect what happened later to be a big thing in the shaping of the characters. he would have to learn his humanity again after release. (This is conjecture based on Rivers' words in Safe "they forgot how to be..." combined with "Take me out to the black. Tell them I'm not coming back" and soem place where it mentions they were gonna be tried for war crimes.)
You know I gotta chip in on this ;)
I agree with you, but I'm picking up a few other hints as well. We see Mal completely devastated at the end of the war. I do see him as having been through some pretty horrible things at the hands of the Alliance after that (see: The Losing Side ;) ).
But it's also interesting to watch him in Bushwacked, with the Alliance commander. He acts like he has a certain amount of expectation that he and his crew will be listened to and dealt with somewhat fairly. He's calm and expects Harkin?? to listen to reason.
When we see Mal in the Out of Gas flashback buying Serenity, he's cheerful, healthy, optimistic, and young-looking. He doesn't look or act like a man recently emerged from some hellish prison camp, or even the devastated man from the end of the war.
Something healed Mal to a great extent before that sequence. Yes, I think Mal was imprisoned and I think along the way he learned to cope with torture. I think he had to regain his humanity not just after he was released, though. I think, given how apparently soon he was "Mal" in the OOG flashback, the process had to have started while he was in the prison.
That's one reason my personal theory is that the Alliance didn't treat them altogether horribly. I think the process of healing from the aftermath of the war had to have started pretty early on.
"Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you when she's hurting 'fore she keens. Makes her a home." .......We love you, captain.
"This is the captain. We may experience some slight turbulence and then.....explode"
www.serenityverse.com - Zoe necklace replicas, Serenity dogtags, jewelry, image gallery w/ custom DVD covers, other goodies!
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
yeah well, I don't think I am athe most preceptive person in the world.
Notice how I went straight to a vague reference about something river said and never even considered Bushwacked? 
About OoG and the sale of Serenity, I see it a little different. He was also not wearing a browncoat when talking to the salesman, but a civvie jacket (which he also wore in The Train Job). There was some acting to get the ship. (you know... the most sincere fake smile ever he gives Badger in Serenity?)
Not exactly sure what my point is though, as I have been reading The Losing Side and enjoying it immensely. It's nice to see the Alliance not shown as "Evil", but real people that have some differing views and he fought a bloody war with.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Hey Jetflair!
I have to make a little note, just because this is so relevant to my own fic-verse...
Mal is indeed quite cheerful in the scene where he shows Serenity to Zoe for the first time, but I'm not so ready to take that to define his entire emotional state. In that moment, he's with Zoe, starting a new life, and has enough money to buy a ship, so things must be going pretty well for him lately. But that doesn't mean that he's cheery and optimistic through and through. Everyone has good days, even really messed up depressed people! And really, Mal shows in the series that he carries his wounds pretty deep, and can appear goofy even when he's far from it (Niska torture is the obvious example!)
So, my take is that he isn't all healed in that OoG flashback. I believe this because he isn't all healed at any point in the series - any interview with Nathan or Joss will back that up. (What's Nathan say about Mal being hollow and empty inside...?) And Joss wanted to make him even darker than the Mal we saw. He had to lighten him up to please Fox.
Part of what fascinates me about Mal is that he's found a way to set aside the broken part of himself so he can exist, and even have fun with things now and then. But I wouldn't call him optimistic. Not down in the core of him. The last line of the pilot episode, the last line of the comics... Mal's pretty much existing day to day, without much thought for the future, and his ship and crew are a big help with that. But I do believe he's a broken man, and stays that way until the events of the movie give him something to believe in. (Although that comes at great cost. Joss is sooo evil! LOL!)
I do agree re Harkin. Mal knows that not all individuals in the Alliance are evil, something you present extremely well in The Losing Side. Like you, I believe that Mal's treatment by the Alliance wasn't all awful, horrendous torture. I find that fics that go there are unrealistic, making the Alliance into flatly evil bad guys just to crank up the Mal angst. Angst is fun and all, but it shouldn't come at the cost of making Joss's gray-toned `verse black and white.
Good lord, see what my short little notes become? I'll stop now, before I tangent again! 
-----------------------------------------------
I'm the president. I don't need to listen.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME