Unpopular Opinions
POSTED BY: Lexan
UPDATED: Monday, August 3, 2026 22:05
VIEWED: 61897
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Asarian, I totally agree with your comments on the problem being with Inara being in denial about being a whore rather than Mal not accepting her being a Companion. He very much wants to get her to take the blinkers off but that would be to tear down the fabricated shiny world in which Inara lives. The most telling comment Mal makes for me in "Shindig" is where he tells Inara that they don't see her and how it is the lie of it that gets him. He does not look down on her or disrespect her but rather sees her as better than the Companion she aspires to be. It hurts him to see her demean herself by pandering to people who have no actual love or affection for her.
I think part of Inara's wariness when it comes to Mal is that he is not blinkered by her glamour, he sees her as she really is and she doesn't want to face that, to have to admit that what he says may hold merit so she undermines him. In Heart of Gold Inara rebukes an embarrassed Mal as he comes out of Nandi's room putting on his shirt by telling him that one of the good things about being a Companion is not being puritanical about sex. I wanted to laugh out loud especially as her reaction when she goes off to that room, sinks on the floor and cries her eyes out, does not support that assertion. She is also having problems with the sex, I think hitting home most forcibly because Mal spent the night with Nandi, a self confessed whore. While Inara pretends she is above that because she is a Companion I think she is secretly jealous of the freedom Nandi has to simply offer herself to Mal where Inara cannot. And she can hardly claim the moral highground when she deliberately pretends to have no feelings for Mal in that regard. She is the one after all who drew the line that must not be crossed from the outset ("I will not be servicing either you or your crew") so it is not as if he has been unfaithful to her yet that is how she acts.
It is one of the things that annoys me about Inara. I actually would have loved to have seen Nandi as a semi recurring love interest for Mal rather than her getting killed off in HoG. Those two are a jolly good match for each other, they understand each other and share a mutual respect.
As for Kaylee and Simon, I don't think they would have stayed together but I think after sexing each other a time or two the novelty would wear off leaving too many differences for them to mesh into a long standing couple. I do think their affection and respect for each other would remain and they would be be firm friends after agreeing that it just wasn't working romantically.
I hated Book and Wash getting killed off in the BDM. I felt it was just done for impact and didn't really serve the story especially when you consider all the terrible injuries Mal, Zoe, Simon, Kaylee and Jayne incurred and miraculously survived. Mal surviving being run through with a sword among numerous other injuries was pretty unbelievable but made good drama. Zoe being cut open down her back then being filled with crazy foam to seal the wound was pretty novel too but I liked it. I thought Inara going into the fight against the Reavers with a bow and arrow looked pretty stupid and not very practical. The decision seemed more to make her look elegant in battle rather than practical. Would have been more impressed had she been firing a gun. What was she supposed to do once her six arrows had been fired?
I loved the series and really enjoyed the movie (apart from losing Wash and Book) but they were in a way two different animals. I was puzzled somewhat by Simon's changes and disconcerted that with everything they had gone through in the series, and all that Serenity and her crew had done in taking him and his sister in, protecting and hiding them from the Alliance etc, he doesn't confide in anyone the fact that there is a safe word should his sister be triggered into becoming a homicidal assassin. That simply never seemed believable to me given how noble and honourable I have always considered Simon to be at his core. It is as if everybody
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Quote:
Originally posted by AMDOBELL:
Asarian, I totally agree with your comments on the problem being with Inara being in denial about being a whore rather than Mal not accepting her being a Companion. He very much wants to get her to take the blinkers off but that would be to tear down the fabricated shiny world in which Inara lives. The most telling comment Mal makes for me in "Shindig" is where he tells Inara that they don't see her and how it is the lie of it that gets him. He does not look down on her or disrepect her but rather sees her as better than the Companion she aspires to be. It hurts him to see her demean herself by pandering to people who have no actual love or affection for her.
You said this so very very well. :) Thanks for sayin'. It is exactly like you said.
It bugs Mal, to no end, that Inara won't try and break free from her self-imposed bonds. The 'not being under anyone's heel' thingy is just something which is deeply ingrained in Mal's personality. Even, or especially even, when it's your own heel. I just recalled this convo from the outtakes of "Our Mrs. Reynolds", where Saffron is caught having stolen some food:
BOOK
There's certainly no harm done.
MAL
And I say there is. Good deal of harm.
And it's starting to tick me off.
(...)
But what I got even less use for,
is a woman who won't stand up for herself.
It's the subservience Mal cannot stand. Not out of disdain or some such, but simply because he wants Saffron to live up to her potential. Like he wants Inara to see past what she is, and onto what she can be: more than a Companion; truly "better than."
Quote:
I think part of Inara's wariness when it comes to Mal is that he is not blinkered by her glamour, he sees her as she really is and she doesn't want to face that, to have to admit that what he says may hold merit so she undermines him. In Heart of Gold Inara rebukes an embarrassed Mal as he comes out of Nandi's room putting on his shirt by telling him that one of the good things about being a Companion is not being puritanical about sex. I wanted to laugh out loud especially as her reaction when she goes off to that room, sinks on the floor and cries her eyes out, does not support that assertion. She is also having problems with the sex, I think hitting home most forcibly because Mal spent the night with Nandi, a self confessed whore. While Inara pretends she is above that because she is a Companion I think she is secretly jealous of the freedom Nandi has to simply offer herself to Mal where Inara cannot. And she can hardly claim the moral highground when she deliberately pretends to have no feelings for Mal in that regard. She is the one after all who drew the line that must not be crossed from the outset ("I will not be servicing either you or your crew") so it is not as if he has been unfaithful to her yet that is how she acts.
Again, you hit the nail on the head. On all counts. Yes, all the training, the rationalizing, the keeping up the air or professionalism, it all comes crumbling down in the face of real humanity. Her reality breaks down--breaks thru, rather. The denial, this we are past. Now she gets to the real questions. About herself. About who she truly is.
--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam
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I agree to some degree with everything that has been said in regards to Inara and her view of herself and the role she services. But I don’t think for a minute that we should forget that Mal and Inara are both tragically flawed human characters that make mistakes, hurt each other and others (Nandi) in the process of protecting their insecurities and fragile egos. And as much as I agree that Inara lives a life of illusion, I can’t help but to sympathize with her plight as she was trained and indoctrinated at a young age (like 12?). Being a Companion is all she has ever known, and having Mal, the man she loves, constantly belittle and disrespect what she holds as a life truth must be unsettling and his behavior viewed, by her, as serving no purpose but to hurt her. It’s judgmental and destructive on Mal’s part and doesn’t in anyway endear me to respect HIM as a person. Gosh, Mal, do you think she got it that you thought her job was below you and degrading? I mean you told her every chance you got, and then you wondered why she left?
And after Nandi figured out what really going on, I don’t think she was very impressed with his behavior either, “You didn’t give me the whole truth, Mal”, any prospect of them having a relationship was null and void well before she got burned (no pun intended) by the fiasco of Mal and Inara’s dishonest floor show. She probably couldn’t wait until they got the hell off her moon.
As much as I adore the series and love the movie, I do think that Inara’s understated arc in the movie is the shedding of her Companion facade, best illustrated at the end with her no make up scene. It is a step in the right direction for the both of them to work toward a more accepting relationship and a barb truce.
Bearing and sharing witness to the horrors of Miranda will cause life changing events for this crew. It's that big guys, it fried poor River's brain.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Platonist:
I agree to some degree with everything that has been said in regards to Inara and her view of herself and the role she services. But I don’t think for a minute that we should forget that Mal and Inara are both tragically flawed human characters that make mistakes, hurt each other and others (Nandi) in the process of protecting their insecurities and fragile egos. And as much as I agree that Inara lives a life of illusion, I can’t help but to sympathize with her plight as she was trained and indoctrinated at a young age (like 12?). Being a Companion is all she has ever known, and having Mal, the man she loves, constantly belittle and disrespect what she holds as a life truth must be unsettling and his behavior viewed, by her, as serving no purpose but to hurt her. It’s judgmental and destructive on Mal’s part and doesn’t in anyway endear me to respect HIM as a person. Gosh, Mal, do you think she got it that you thought her job was below you and degrading? I mean you told her every chance you got, and then you wondered why she left?
And after Nandi figured out what really going on, I don’t think she was very impressed with his behavior either, “You didn’t give me the whole truth, Mal”, any prospect of them having a relationship was null and void well before she got burned (no pun intended) by the fiasco of Mal and Inara’s dishonest floor show. She probably couldn’t wait until they got the hell off her moon.
As much as I too adore the series and love the movie, I do think that Inara’s understated arc in the movie is the shedding of her Companion facade, best illustrated at the end with her no make up scene. It is a step in the right direction for the both of them to work toward a more accepting relationship and a barb truce.
I'm liking what you wrote. There's good posts in the 'Verse; not many, Lord knows, but you only need a few. :)
--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam
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Ok, now here's a really unpopular opinion... I don't like Joss doing Dollhouse with FOX. There, I said it. We've always been dissing FOX for being just about money, and yada yada yada. And now Joss goes and makes a new series with them, as if they didn't cancel Firefly. Man, would I would loved it had he told them they could stick Dollhouse where the sun don't shine! Guess it really IS all about the money, then. :(
Best shoot me now. Or... we could talk more.
--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam
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Quote:
Originally posted by Platonist:
I agree to some degree with everything that has been said in regards to Inara and her view of herself and the role she services. But I don’t think for a minute that we should forget that Mal and Inara are both tragically flawed human characters that make mistakes, hurt each other and others (Nandi) in the process of protecting their insecurities and fragile egos. And as much as I agree that Inara lives a life of illusion, I can’t help but to sympathize with her plight as she was trained and indoctrinated at a young age (like 12?). Being a Companion is all she has ever known, and having Mal, the man she loves, constantly belittle and disrespect what she holds as a life truth must be unsettling and his behavior viewed, by her, as serving no purpose but to hurt her. It’s judgmental and destructive on Mal’s part and doesn’t in anyway endear me to respect HIM as a person. Gosh, Mal, do you think she got it that you thought her job was below you and degrading? I mean you told her every chance you got, and then you wondered why she left?
And after Nandi figured out what really going on, I don’t think she was very impressed with his behavior either, “You didn’t give me the whole truth, Mal”, any prospect of them having a relationship was null and void well before she got burned (no pun intended) by the fiasco of Mal and Inara’s dishonest floor show. She probably couldn’t wait until they got the hell off her moon.
As much as I adore the series and love the movie, I do think that Inara’s understated arc in the movie is the shedding of her Companion facade, best illustrated at the end with her no make up scene. It is a step in the right direction for the both of them to work toward a more accepting relationship and a barb truce.
Bearing and sharing witness to the horrors of Miranda will cause life changing events for this crew. It's that big guys, it fried poor River's brain.
doncha think that Better Days ties in real well with all this?
unpopular opinion: i LOVE the comics!
(and a cunning bump for anothersky)
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After skimming this thread, I agree River is sane, Message is the last episode, and I gotta get me some 4400 DVDs to check out more Summer - it had seemed interesting for a few eps that I sorta caught, but went Hollyweird later.
Kaylee was great. HoG was not the best ep. Simon's skills are unimpressive, mostly be cause this verse has a low standard for medical talent.
Mal sees 2 women in the series who live up to their potential: Zoe and Kaylee. (and Nandi is his kind of stupid).
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It is my opinion that a troll resides in the room below the bridge of Serenity because a troll lives below every bridge.
It is my opinion that Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu is a silly name, and should be the name of the next big movie. 
I think that was a good idea to kill Shepard Book in BDM but not so much Wash because Shepard Book was a complex character with a long lost past which could have an entire BDM made with the crew backtracking his past to solve a problem, but with Wash what can we learn about him? Did they really juggle goslings on that planet?
http://swyzzlestyx.com/index.html
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I'm too tired to state the reasons at the moment but:
1. I didn't like the BDM
2. I dislike BDM River as a character. I think it would have been better with out her.
3. I dislike BDM Simon.
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Yeah, wytchcroft, Mal's pretty pitiful in the comics, I like them too...did someone say flawed and non-heroic? And Inara, thinking on Mal while she's working, and then he beats Mal to a pulp. I guess Inara didn't heal him enough??? lol
and River the Ninja Turtle Girl on the llama...love them
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