Unpopular Opinions
POSTED BY: Lexan
UPDATED: Monday, August 3, 2026 22:05
VIEWED: 61897
PAGE 18 of 25
Quote:
Originally posted by Arcadia:
One more unpopular opinion.
I think it was an utterly stupid move to have Inara flee from Serenity to... a training house? It just doesn't make sense to me when I really think about it. She's leaving Serenity because her feeling of attachment toward the crew, and Mal in particular, are interferring with her work, so she runs to a place where... she doesn't work at all? Really? I really hope that was just a convenience for the movie (both story-wise - it was easier to get things moving this way, and because having a practicing whore might have messed with the rating), and not something that would have been in the show, had it continued.
Arcadia (aka Greyfable and/or Katie)
www.stillflying.net -- picking up Firefly were Joss left off. We will hold 'til he gets back.
Excellent point, Arcadia!!
That always bugged me. It seems entirely counter-intuitive and sevres no purpose other than to show Inara to be pining for Mal - "saving herself for him" or some such thing, which is neither in character for her nor does it fit the situation
Commence my unpopular opinion:
1) Deciding to leave the ship was the healthiest, smartest thing Inara did in a long time. Mal said he respected her, but he didn't and staying would have been nothing but self-torture, no matter how much leaving breaks Mal's heart. He just wasn't ready to let her be herself, and she knew it.
2) She and Mal will never get to gether until he accepts her job. And by accept I don't mean "You WERE a whore, but I love you anyway." but "I love you even though you are a practicing Companion."
And I think he would have done it, during the series. That would have been the entire point of their relationship: teaching Mal what unconditional love really means.
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i'm not knocking your opinions - this aint the thread - but i'm not sure i folllow...
if Inara left Serenity where would she go - in the short term? Sihnon is her home.
What's wrong with teaching what she practices??? - check the cut scene on the dvd...
and teaching allows you to step back and refresh your own skills - Inara hasn't 'worked' in a while.
The calming atmosphere of Sihnon is not a place to pine but to catch her bearings - and have the Companion side of herself recognised for a change - she has authority there.
I could go on - i can see quite a massive list of reasons why Sihnon would do.. And there's nothing much to say she isn't working from there out into verse gaining clients etc...
keep flyin:)
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Quote:
Originally posted by wytchcroft:
i'm not knocking your opinions - this aint the thread - but i'm not sure i folllow...
if Inara left Serenity where would she go - in the short term? Sihnon is her home.
What's wrong with teaching what she practices - check the cut scene on the dvd??? teaching allows you to step and refresh your own skills - Inara hasn't 'worked' in a while.
The calming atmosphere of Sihnon is not a place to pine but to catch her bearings - and have the Companion side of herself recognised for a change - she has authority there.
I could go on - i can see quite a massive list of reasons why Sihnon would do.. And there's nothing much to say she isn't working from there out into verse gaining clients etc...
keep flyin:)
She wasn't on Sihnon, though!! It was a little backwater Training House. If you watch the deleted scenes, it comes through in how she talks about the girls. That's not Sihnon standard, certainly.
And the problem with teaching what she practices is that she is not practicing. Her job that means so much to her, the main point of contention between her and Mal... suddenly set aside for teaching? After she left because Serenity holds her in ties?
That smacks of pining. There is very little that gets me up in arms like people interpreting this move as "She couldn't sleep with other men anymore, not after she realized what Mal meant to her!" because it's... wrong. Bad. Not Inara and kind of women-oppressing, really, considering Mal had no problem sleeping with someone else knowing he loves her, so.. what's the point of suddenly putting Inara in a chaste teaching position, really?
If she is leaving to protect her independence, why return to an entirely different kind of committment? Why change everything, after all? She didn't need a refresher course, since she worked all the time on Serenity.
She could have gone anywhere, really. And worked there. The movie put her in a Training House for the sake of convenience. It neglected a lot of things about her character for the sake of convenience, but this one bugs me the most because it takes away the greatest point of conflict between Mal and Inara and replaces it with "Mal has trouble admitting his feelings" which is just wrong, as he was about to tell her right there in "Heart of Gold".
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Yeah, that sounds about right. When you're at a sci-fi convention or the forums, it would be OK to say you're a Browncoat because these people would know about Firefly. But I imagine if you were to tell a WW2 vet or a Holocaust survivor that you're a Browncoat, you might get some dissaproving looks and maybe even get spat at in the face and "Hitler Youth"'s thrown at you.
It's interesting how in the show Joss uses some political terms and subverts them. Thus "Browncoats" means the good guys and "Alliance" is EVIL, even though the Alliance in WW2 were the good guys.
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"And it starts with a sentence that might last a lifetime, or it all might just go down in flames. If I let you know me, then why would you want me? Each day I don't is a shame. Each day I don't is a great shame."
Loudon Wainwright III - "Strange Weirdos" off the "Knocked Up" soundtrack
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Add me to the list of those who feel that The Messenger's plotline falls apart at the point where where no one on Serenity's crew takes the time to explain their plan to Tracy.
Lovely ending sequence, though.
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Shindig is one of my least favorite episodes. It seems that a lot of people really like that episode, but I could never get into it that much.
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"Do not fear me. Ours is a peaceful race, and we must live in harmony."
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Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:Quote:
Originally posted by wytchcroft:
i'm not knocking your opinions - this aint the thread - but i'm not sure i folllow...
if Inara left Serenity where would she go - in the short term? Sihnon is her home.
What's wrong with teaching what she practices - check the cut scene on the dvd??? teaching allows you to step and refresh your own skills - Inara hasn't 'worked' in a while.
The calming atmosphere of Sihnon is not a place to pine but to catch her bearings - and have the Companion side of herself recognised for a change - she has authority there.
I could go on - i can see quite a massive list of reasons why Sihnon would do.. And there's nothing much to say she isn't working from there out into verse gaining clients etc...
keep flyin:)
She wasn't on Sihnon, though!! It was a little backwater Training House. If you watch the deleted scenes, it comes through in how she talks about the girls. That's not Sihnon standard, certainly.
And the problem with teaching what she practices is that she is not practicing. Her job that means so much to her, the main point of contention between her and Mal... suddenly set aside for teaching? After she left because Serenity holds her in ties?
That smacks of pining. There is very little that gets me up in arms like people interpreting this move as "She couldn't sleep with other men anymore, not after she realized what Mal meant to her!" because it's... wrong. Bad. Not Inara and kind of women-oppressing, really, considering Mal had no problem sleeping with someone else knowing he loves her, so.. what's the point of suddenly putting Inara in a chaste teaching position, really?
If she is leaving to protect her independence, why return to an entirely different kind of committment? Why change everything, after all? She didn't need a refresher course, since she worked all the time on Serenity.
She could have gone anywhere, really. And worked there. The movie put her in a Training House for the sake of convenience. It neglected a lot of things about her character for the sake of convenience, but this one bugs me the most because it takes away the greatest point of conflict between Mal and Inara and replaces it with "Mal has trouble admitting his feelings" which is just wrong, as he was about to tell her right there in "Heart of Gold".
y'know this is a great reply!!
partly becoz although i don't necessarily agree - you make well argued and valid points , i'm forced to think again here - and you could well be RIGHT!:)
my head can accomodate both sets of possibilities...
since there aint much in there already - ha ha!
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There's no doubt an obvious change in Inara's portrayal from the series to the BDM. She starts bawling midway through HOG and continues to be misty eyed until the wave she sends to Serenity in the movie. It's always bugged me to no end.
I think Joss's attempt at showing her to have inner conflict about her love of family (and Mal) and her chosen lifestyle falls flat and she does come off as nothing more than a teacher, in love, pining away for Mal.
I've come to understand it as Joss running out of time.
He created all these interesting complications, which were suppose to take the run of the series to deconstruct and explore, and wrote them away when he reduced their dialog to a few chosen lines and looks that the viewers are left concluding, "Oh! I get it! They're, in love, but they aren't good at talking about their feelings."
It is clearly a simplification of their issues and since Joss has artistic license he can change and manipulate the characters as he sees fit to meet his writing objectives, which became: Inara being a Companion (she was a whore, what is there to get?) is just not as important as Mal's arc and River's secret to be devulged.
And if there is a sequel (fingers cross), I doubt very much we will see any Companioning taking place, except Inara following Mal around like a lost kitty and Mal hopelessly trying to show her how much he cares, because we all know, he still won't be able to talk about his feeling for her until at least the third act.
OK, rant over...but more... and why do I care? The Inara in the series was one of my favorite characters and
I hated her being reduced to nothing more than Mal's left behind lost love. But, I understand and deal with it just like Wash's unneccesary death.
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Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Commence my unpopular opinion:
1) Deciding to leave the ship was the healthiest, smartest thing Inara did in a long time. Mal said he respected her, but he didn't and staying would have been nothing but self-torture, no matter how much leaving breaks Mal's heart. He just wasn't ready to let her be herself, and she knew it.
2) She and Mal will never get to gether until he accepts her job. And by accept I don't mean "You WERE a whore, but I love you anyway." but "I love you even though you are a practicing Companion."
And I think he would have done it, during the series. That would have been the entire point of their relationship: teaching Mal what unconditional love really means.
Commence my unpopular rebuttle:
Mal respects Inara; honestly, he does. :) I was gonna say: "He respects Inara, but not her profession." Glad I didn't, though, because Mal actually has no problem with whores at all. See Heart of Gold. I specifically said "whores", because I think Mal has issues with Companions, rather. And not even for their profession, but for the hypocracy; for "The lie of it," as Mal put it. Mal puts down Inara's profession, not because he has moral gripes with whores, but because Inara basically denies being one! She is hurt when Mals calls her one, because she's largely in denial about what she does for a living. Oh sure, she got her fancy training down to an art: tea ceremonies, a civilized tongue in her mouth, silky dresses, sponge baths, the works. But all that training accomplishes precisely that: it causes Inara to see herself as anything but a whore. "Better than," so to speak. It is that self-delusion that irritates Mal. Which is why he keeps calling her one to her face.
It's, in the end, not Mal who needs to accept she's a whore, but Inara herself. :) If she did away with the facade, Mal would accept her profession, no problem; like he accepts and respects Nandi, no problem. Except, of course, that once Inara accepts she's whore, she can no longer be one! The denial is the only thing that makes it work; society's denial, really; no need to put it all on dear Inara; 'respectable' folks, like on Persephone, who needed a way to make whoring socially acceptable. So they called it something else; made em courtisan-like, and endowed them with some social status and wealth. But, in the end, a whore, by any other name, is still a whore. And, deep down, Inara knows it, too. As does Mal. And, again, being a whore is fine in Mal's book, just so long as there's no lie about it. So, in short, Mal does, indeed, not fully accept Inara as a Companion; but I'm fair certain he would accept her as a whore -- as I'm equally certain Inara herself wouldn't.
Had the series continued, I think, at some point, Inara would have given up being a Companion. Not because Mal would have insisted, but simply because Inara would eventually have come to see the lie of it, too. Half of history is hiding the truth; and you simply can't be together with someone who constantly keeps 'unhiding' it to your face. At which point you either face matters, or you leave -- the latter is what she did, naturally. Also because Mal slept with Nandi, of course, and Inara realized she was in a situation which was only hurting her. Unrequited/impossible love and some such. But even if HoG had never happened, things having stayed equal, Inara, at one time or another, inevitably would have had to make a similar choice.
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"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam
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Quote:
Originally posted by asarian:
Commence my unpopular rebuttle:
Mal respects Inara; honestly, he does. :)
I'll agree with you there. And rephrase my earlier opinion to say, "He respects her but he doesn't treat her that way." Which essentially renders his respect meaningless.
Quote:
I was gonna say: "He respects Inara, but not her profession." Glad I didn't, though, because Mal actually has no problem with whores at all. See Heart of Gold.
I also agree with that.
However...
Quote:
I specifically said "whores", because I think Mal has issues with Companions, rather. And not even for their profession, but for the hypocracy; for "The lie of it," as Mal put it. Mal puts down Inara's profession, not because he has moral gripes with whores, but because Inara basically denies being one!
That's where I profoundly disagree.
I think there is a difference between whoring and companioning. Both are types of prostitution, but with very different objectives.
Also, the word "whore" has in and of itself negative connotations. I don't blame Inara for rejecting a word that has over millenia been used to denigrate women's sexuality.
The demand to equate whoring and Companioning is a demand to denigrate the Companion profession. It denies the value of the Companion profession, something Inara believes in very strongly.
Quote:
She is hurt when Mals calls her one, because she's largely in denial about what she does for a living.
Profoundly disagree again.
Inara is not a stupid woman, nor one in the habit of promoting hypocrisy. The only thing we see her lying about in the series is the depth of her feelings for Mal, nothing else. If she felt that Companioning was whoring, she'd own it, because she doesn't do things she doesn't believe in.
It would certainly make her relationship with Mal easier. But she doesn't. She fights against the denigrating word because she believes that its wrong.
She's proud of her job, which is essentially a type of sexual therapy, even though she occasionally indulges in more shallow clients like Atherton. Her judgment is not 100%, as we see, but that doesn't mean every client is that way. The female Senator wasn't, Higgins' son wasn't. We haven't seen any Core clients, so we don't know what a not-Border world client would even be like, and judging by Mal's attitude, the Border worlds are not as in favor of Companions as the Core worlds.
Quote:
Oh sure, she got her fancy training down to an art: tea ceremonies, a civilized tongue in her mouth, silky dresses, sponge baths, the works. But all that training accomplishes precisely that: it causes Inara to see herself as anything but a whore. "Better than," so to speak. It is that self-delusion that irritates Mal. Which is why he keeps calling her one to her face.
But who says it's a self-delusion? Mal doesn't have to be right about this. I don't believe it is.
More importantly, I also don't think that Mal believes this.
It's a front. An easily believable sham he puts up to keep Inara at a distance. Actually, I think Mal has zero trouble admitting a difference between a "whore"-type prostitute and a Companion-type, just like he wouldn't have trouble admitting a difference between the skill level of a highly trained singer and a merely talented one.
Mal's just as freaked out about being in love with Inara as she is about being in love with him. Inara's weapon is professional distance, Mal's is to create an air of disrespect. Easypeasy and effectively hurtful.
Quote:
It's, in the end, not Mal who needs to accept she's a whore, but Inara herself. :) If she did away with the facade, Mal would accept her profession, no problem; like he accepts and respects Nandi, no problem.
Hardly. He wasn't in love with Nandi and her job wouldn't bother him one bit because there is no desire for exclusivity there. He does desire exclusivity with Inara, which is the rub with her
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