What Gives With Inara?

POSTED BY: Jongsstraw
UPDATED: Thursday, September 6, 2007 14:59
VIEWED: 15078
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JONGSSTRAW

Monday, August 13, 2007 8:00 PM

For such a highly skilled companion, she is quite un-settled in her own feelings. We clearly feel and see the love she has for Mal...in every episode, especially Shindig, Our Mrs. Reynolds, Heart of Gold...but in Objects In Space she pulls away from Mal in the end when he is concerned about her bleeding lip...it's a real rude reaction she gives Mal. Was she scorned that bad? Is all the companion training moot when confronted with her own personal feelings? Is she even used to having personal feelings? I don't think so. Mal was hurt far more by her occupational liasons.

MSG

Monday, August 13, 2007 8:17 PM

I'd think part of the training would be to concentrate on the responses and emotion sof others and making them feel special, important, desired, what have you and I'd bet that she hasn't had much practice in dealing with her own. Also, I'd say she's not sure about what she feels for Mal. She's attracted to him and she finds him , in some ways admirable, but he's also a thief and mercenary, and I'm sure a long way from what she pictured as her ideal man. Plus, there's the fact that he's not too sure of her and definitely dislikes her job. Now she chose that job and spent a massive amount of time training and is obviously( from Nandie's comments) at the top of her field. I'd say she's pretty proud of what she does and to have Mal be so dismissive of it probably bothers her and deep down makes her question whether he doesn't value her. With all that it'd make you a little hesitant to start up something...especially with a man who has his own commitment and romance issues and never comes out and asks you for a date.

"I'm not all that interested in the mental health of people who want to kill me. "- Leroy Jethro Gibbs

JONGSSTRAW

Monday, August 13, 2007 8:28 PM

But...but...they were SO close so many times from actually just grabbing eachother and locking lips....it's very frustrating!

I mean, ya know, the end of Our Mrs Reynolds...she is just barely standing on her own, knees a'wobblin', lips a'twitter, ready to be swept up and taken upon, but Joss would have none of that. And the emotional tension at the end of Objects is a cruel extension of Nandi's death...it's all just very sad....and I hate sad.

At least Serenity gave us hope they'd be together again on the ship, and who knows how it could go from there.

EMPIREX

Monday, August 13, 2007 8:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
but in Objects In Space she pulls away from Mal in the end when he is concerned about her bleeding lip...it's a real rude reaction she gives Mal.

Funny how people can all watch the same scene and have different reactions to it. My take on the lip-scene was that she was shocked by his touch and how it made her feel - so she pulled away because she was afraid and startled by her own feelings - not any rudeness on her part.

Though Mal probably read it as: Don't put your grubby hands on me.

*sigh*

Patsy: When you were two years old, we tied you to the central reservation of a motorway.

Edina: But you were like a homing pidgeon, sweetie....back within a week!

JONGSSTRAW

Monday, August 13, 2007 10:22 PM

Empire, I think you're right...I didn't mean to imply that Inara was intentionally rude, or even rude itself, but I wonder what Mal must have thought about her un-easiness at his caring touch. First he gets the news she's leaving just as it seems he's about to open up to her at the end of Hearts...then this response in Objects. After seeing these episodes more and more frequently now...like what else is there I'd rather watch, I'm understanding much better the strange awkwardness between them in the movie.

BROWNCOATTILIDIE

Monday, August 13, 2007 10:34 PM

Mal says some pretty funny/nasty things directly to Inara probably for his own amusement and because he knows she can handle it. She more often than not hits back with equally witty comments of her own. Mal does, however, support her chosen career behind her back on many occasions and he tries to keep her out of their 'crime' whenever he can. As we learned in Heart of Gold neither of them like complications and, let's face it, if they were to hook up it would be beyond complicated. Would Inara give up her job for Mal? Would Mal find honest work? Attracted as they are to each other, I don't think it'd work and it makes for much better viewing with them always wondering what might be...

They Can't Take The Sky From US!!

HUGHFF

Monday, August 13, 2007 10:42 PM

IMHO, there's a strong difference between Inara's professional and personal lives and intimacies. That's how she can be so upset by Mal hooking up with Nandi yet not by her own sexual encounters. She isn't puritanical about sex but she knows Mal is, therefore she recognises that his actions are of considerable significance. Of course, there is then the issue of how she can expect to have a relationship with him when he disapproves of his profession. That, I think, is why she can't hook up with him.

www.cpfc.org - my life
www.nbhs.school.nz - my work

WYTCHCROFT

Monday, August 13, 2007 10:57 PM

"
Mal says some pretty funny/nasty things directly to Inara probably for his own amusement and because he knows she can handle it. She more often than not hits back with equally witty comments of her own."

- probably for his own amusement???

i think more likely as a defence, to keep a distance there, an armour. Inara does the same - although more subtly. they both seem afraid at times of the obvious sympathy/understanding/attraction between them - yet neither one is willing to risk the others dismissal of them.

there are many potential scenarious between them that could be explored. but in terms of the show on tv? a high risk of the 'Moonlighting' factor if they actually got together and the friction was lost...

SCHOOLBOYSWINK

Wednesday, August 15, 2007 11:11 PM

O.K. Inara and Mal. Having in the past minutes written and deleted two in depth analyses that would have filled entire tomes, I'm going to try once more to stab straight to the heart of it.

Mal loves Inara, and he tries to hold her at arms' length because he is afraid to fall in love.

Inara loves Mal, and she tries to hold him at arms' length because she is afraid to fall in love.

(The reasons why they are afraid to fall in love, both the obvious ones and my opinions about some more tenuous ones, were left on the cutting room floor.)

Inara sees right through Mal. She also thinks that Mal sees right through her, and is waiting, vulnerable, for him to make the first move. Clients worship Companions, probably take the lead from them. What she respects in Mal is the opposite of that attitude, that he loves her as a person and not a trophy. She wants him to come to her, to take the lead, and to let her be sure that she's right so she can stop feeling vulnerable about his feelings. ("Just tell me.")

O.K... Here's where the conlict comes in: Mal DOESN'T see right through her. Inara has done her job to well (and maybe the fact that she is an Alliance type had sowed enough distrust in the first place), so he has NO idea that he is supposed to make a move. ("None of it means a damn thing.")

So, every time they start to get close, Inara walks away to see if Mal will finally follow her, and Mal just stands there with a vacant look on his face like Simon in a mutated-cow-in-a-tube tent.

That's how I see it, and that's as small of a nutshell as I can make it.

"When you can't do somethin' smart, do somethin' right!" -Jayne Cobb quotes Shepherd Book

JONGSSTRAW

Thursday, August 16, 2007 12:32 AM

Thanks for your great insights Schoolboy...based on what you wrote I almost wish you had posted your "doctorate" here. Great stuff!

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