My Theory on Inara's Vial
POSTED BY: DanielFyre
UPDATED: Saturday, October 27, 2007 07:43
VIEWED: 16770
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When I first saw Inara's vial I along with a lot of you just thought she was going to kill herself before the Reavers got to her. In the commentary Joss said otherwise and everyone else has been wondering about what was in the vial and how it could be used as a weapon...Okay the only way I can think of it being used as a weapon multiple times is if it was filled with.............nothing. All Inara would need to do was fill it with air and cause an air embolus which would kill the reaver (or at least temporarily disable it before killing it). I'm a nursing student so maybe that's why my mind went there first but I donno that's the only way I can see that needle being used as a weapon multiple times. Becuase realistically she needs to kill a lot of reavers and she wouldn't be stopping to draw up poison and then inject again and again...bur rather she just pulls the plunger back gets air inject dead...do it again...it would take 3 seconds to do and the effects would be almost immediate. The other thing that someone suggested was that she inject herself with it and it would give her some kinda disease so anyone who had sex with her would die...Again this could be true...I don't know anyway those are my two theories...
-DanielFyre
"real men juggle geese"
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OK here is my theory and I would like to know what others thoughts are on this. In the pilot episode Inara is looking at the vial and Joss said it was another story line. In Out of Gas Inara says "I never wanted to die" when she is talking to Simon. In Heart of Gold Nandy tells Inara that she looks exactly the same as she before. I think the drug Inara was looking at was something that was keeping her young. That is the reason she couldn't be with Mal. You can't stay young forever and stay in the same place. It is also the reason she left the companion place. Please tell me if you think I am way off base on this and why. It is really driving me nuts trying to figure out if others think this could have been a storyline.
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I like that...I think that would be a very interesting storyline, but the only problem with it is she did end up going back to the companion house. You still may be right and quite frankly I hope you are 'cause it really would make the Inara character more interesting to me.
-DanielFyre
"real men juggle geese"
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Quote:
Originally posted by DanielFyre:
When I first saw Inara's vial I along with a lot of you just thought she was going to kill herself before the Reavers got to her. In the commentary Joss said otherwise and everyone else has been wondering about what was in the vial and how it could be used as a weapon...Okay the only way I can think of it being used as a weapon multiple times is if it was filled with.............nothing. All Inara would need to do was fill it with air and cause an air embolus which would kill the reaver (or at least temporarily disable it before killing it). I'm a nursing student so maybe that's why my mind went there first but I donno that's the only way I can see that needle being used as a weapon multiple times. Becuase realistically she needs to kill a lot of reavers and she wouldn't be stopping to draw up poison and then inject again and again...bur rather she just pulls the plunger back gets air inject dead...do it again...it would take 3 seconds to do and the effects would be almost immediate. The other thing that someone suggested was that she inject herself with it and it would give her some kinda disease so anyone who had sex with her would die...Again this could be true...I don't know anyway those are my two theories...
-DanielFyre
"real men juggle geese"
If we're discussing what's in the vial, I don't think it was nothing, since there's a dark substance actually in the vial. Although, I guess the syringe could be a weapon, give any reaver that tries to get on her a stroke... of the brain(that sentence almost ended badly).
My wild and crazy theory, that I just thought up five minutes ago, is that maybe the vial is full a of substance that whoever gets injected with it quickly develops an unconditional love or loyalty to the person that did the injecting. Kinda like the Confessor power from the Sword of Truth series, only chemically made, with like, hormones in the mix to signal the brain. The infected would then do whatever Inara asked, including defending her life.
Alright, that's it! We need the series back! ARGH!!!- Oops, sorry about that. Slight reaction.
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Find here the Serenity you seek.
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The vial, according to a vaunted Tim Minear storyline, which was very dark and unpleasant, contains a bio-weapon, which does kill anyone who has sex with the injected possessor. So, you get taken by Reavers, the party ain't gonna last long. Also sheds a sidelight on the possible use of Companion as Assassin.
The idea of the youth thing has been kicking about a while. It's a fun one. What with Joss and the 'v' word, I did wonder if Inara was a weary Immortal at one point.
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The "sexually transmitting toxin" seems to pretty much be the canon answer (and the one we took at Virtual Firefly), based on both Minear's discussed storyline and the clues Joss gave us.
The immortality one, while interesting to entertain, is pretty easily debunked. Although everyon remembers that Joss said the vial wasn't a suicide kit, few people mention that he continued to say it was something more "disturbing" or "disgusting" (I don't remember which). While it's POSSIBLE that could apply to immortality in some roundabout way, synching it with Minear's storyline makes it pretty clear, I think.
Folks are also quick to point to Inara's line about not wanting to die "at all," but I believe that Whedon actually states that there's a hint in the SCENE, not the line.
As for Nandi's line that Inara hasn't aged a day: it's POSSIBLE that it applies to immortality, but equally plausible, I think, that it's simply pleasantries exchanged between two old friends, or (more likely) a minor script change to account for the fact that while Nandi and Inara are supposed to be contemporaries, there's a ten year different between the two actresses.
www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."
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Air embolism????? Highly unlikely. She would have to inject a syringe full of air[bubbles don't do it] directly into the Reavers vein, a difficult task when the Reaver is attempting to rape/eat you alive.
Did you see the size of the syringe Jack Nicholson uses to end his life in"One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest? It had to be a 20-30cc syringe,much larger than the small one Inara had.
Whatever was in the vial was meant for her to inject into herself............
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Quote:
Originally posted by InpedendantLissa:
OK here is my theory and I would like to know what others thoughts are on this. In the pilot episode Inara is looking at the vial and Joss said it was another story line. In Out of Gas Inara says "I never wanted to die" when she is talking to Simon. In Heart of Gold Nandy tells Inara that she looks exactly the same as she before. I think the drug Inara was looking at was something that was keeping her young. That is the reason she couldn't be with Mal. You can't stay young forever and stay in the same place. It is also the reason she left the companion place. Please tell me if you think I am way off base on this and why. It is really driving me nuts trying to figure out if others think this could have been a storyline.
There's a line of technology and/or other things that we might think of as "impossible" that Joss never seemed willing to cross in Firefly. He's dealt with that kind of thing in his previous work, and I don't feel like these are the kind of stories he was wanting to tell this time around. While we might have seen the hints of such things down the line (kind of like the sythesized organs in The Message), it more likely would have taken the form of something in its early stages that Blue Sun or the Alliance are developing which still has nasty side effects, etc. And now that the BDM has been done, he couldn't even really go to that well without looking like he was repeating a plotline that he'd already done, since it would wind up looking too much like the Reaver plot.
Anyway, it's a good thought, and it would answer a lot of questions (I'd wondered about something in that general direction myself), but I just don't think Joss was going there. Just like aliens; I think if the 'Verse had lived for one episode or 100 episodes, we weren't going to see aliens come into the scene. (And if they did you could bet it would have been studio motivated, a concession accepted to keep the show flying so the rest of the story could still be told as intended.)
"When you can't do somethin' smart, do somethin' right!" -Jayne Cobb quotes Shepherd Book
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I've read in a couple of forums/fansites about Inara's secret: use of a substance to keep her youthful appearance. Not sure if the theory came about because of that scene where she is holding a syringe. I cant see her clinging to that substance with the possibility of reaver attack. She's pretty knowledgeable about many things...like realizing (too late) that Mal was only drugged but appeared dead and it was applied as a salve on the lips. I've been playing with the idea that she carries the drug with her. Just in case...to inject in herself (and maybe those around her) in hopes that the reavers will leave the "dead" bodies alone? She knows she's in a dangerous territory traveling on the borders...
dukusukker
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"noah's ark is a problem..."
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Maybe at the time, JW and/or TM hadn't quite developed the the Pax idea (1 in a thousand) as it is seen in the BDM, and the idea at the time that whatever drug caused "reaverism" caused it in all cases... (thought: maybe the original idea that Reavers were the degenerate dealers and addicts of some sort of crystal meth type drug) so, to avoid being the victim of a Reaver attack, the contents of the vial would turn her into one herself. An unpleasant but prefereble state.
Of course, that would then create another question; How did she come upon such a secret, as it is obviously not common knowledge in the 'Verse with all those daft "going mad on the edge of space" stories?
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