Heart of Gold
POSTED BY: wytchcroft
UPDATED: Friday, December 7, 2007 01:10
VIEWED: 9175
PAGE 3 of 5
I like Heart of Gold. It's a different kind of Firefly episode than the others. We learn more about Inara and Mal here than in any other episode. I like Mal's conversation & body language when he makes the move on Nandi...I like when he says he likes women folk when she asks him if he's sly,& I like it when he says it takes more than a few drinks to render his judgement blurry. There is a real connection between Mal & Nandi. He really needs to be with her too.....hey man, it's lonely out there in space. If Inara can separate sex from love, why can't Mal too?
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Quote:I agree. Definitely they hit it off. It's a shame she didn't live, cause there could have been all kinds of entertaining complications. But I guess an onboard Companion and a rogue wife is enough for poor Mal to deal with.
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
There is a real connection between Mal & Nandi.
Quote:Indeed! I think people are way too hard on Mal about this.
If Inara can separate sex from love, why can't Mal too?
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Has anyone noticed just how strange the entire actions of Mal are? Seriously, he is a man after all. He certainly was attracted to the very hot Mrs. Reynolds. I'm still hoping Mal and she hook up in the second movie. However, he's so goody goody two shoes about it. Even in Heart of Gold, he has to basically drink himself into sleeping with Nandi. For a man who has a few years on him, he seems to almost avoid physical intimacy with fairer sex. Even Inara is almost school girlish in her weeping scene after she finds out about the night before. For people who are very open about sexuality and with legalized prostitution, Mal and Inara have a perhaps way too romanticized notions of what love is. I really appreciate Jayne in that sense. What you see is what you get.
That's why i never kiss 'em on the mouth.
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
Excellent dialogue quote nbz! That does get the point across. And I agree about Inara's job - I think that's the convenient thing Mal's grabbed hold of to keep her at a distance. I don't think it's the heart of the matter.
I always have seen control and authority as their main points of contention - issues that were NOT cleared up in the BDM.
Quote:
Hunh. Now see, I don't take that as fake at all. Not even a little! Reavers on the horizon - kinda makes one be truthful. I'm not saying it was a declaration of unending love or anything, but just a sign that underneath the butting of heads there's something a bit warm and fuzzy between these two.
That is entirely plausible. But I always tend to remember the scene from Bushwacked. Mal has a manipulative side that is rarely shown. Time for a flashback.
Quote:
MAL: ...I won't have these people lookin' over my shoulder once we're gone. Now I ain't sayin' there is any peace to be had. But on the off chance there is -- then those folks deserve a little of it.
JAYNE: Fong luh, All of you.
He storms off. Simon follows. Book takes a beat, might say something, decides against it then goes. Kaylee's beaming at her Captain. Inara now moves to Mal.
INARA: And just when I think I've got you figured out.
She holds the look. Might kiss him. Doesn't. Instead she moves off. He watches her go.
KAYLEE: That was real pretty, Captain. What you said.
WASH: Didn't think you were one for rituals and such.
MAL: I'm not. But I figure it'll keep the others busy for awhile. No reason to concern them with what's to be done.
Now, tell me you didn't fall for that speech the first time around? (and if you didn't, more the fool me.)
In the pilot, the holding her shoulder, the slight rub, the look - very practised and smooth. To get the right reaction. Almost companiony I could say. He had no time to argue and used what he thought would get through her defenses. (now that raises all sorts of interesting issues and contentions).
Maybe I am reading it all wrong (because this I am not one way or the other about), but I do see him manipulating her there. is there warmth? yes. but it is calculated. Show the right emotion to get the right reaction.
Quote:
I think it comes from the fact that Inara laid down the law right off, and Mal set up his own defenses, so in any everyday non-Reaver threatened situation they manage to look at each other in a completely non-sexual way.
I see where you are coming from. I would like to add that he deliberately does it to shatter her porcelain. Put her on the wrong foot to get a real reaction and not something she has practised for hours.
Quote:
Um. What was this thread supposed to be about again?
heh, that is something I will never be able to do. Too scatter minded to stick to a topic.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Lawman:
Has anyone noticed just how strange the entire actions of Mal are? Seriously, he is a man after all. He certainly was attracted to the very hot Mrs. Reynolds. I'm still hoping Mal and she hook up in the second movie. However, he's so goody goody two shoes about it. Even in Heart of Gold, he has to basically drink himself into sleeping with Nandi. For a man who has a few years on him, he seems to almost avoid physical intimacy with fairer sex. Even Inara is almost school girlish in her weeping scene after she finds out about the night before. For people who are very open about sexuality and with legalized prostitution, Mal and Inara have a perhaps way too romanticized notions of what love is. I really appreciate Jayne in that sense. What you see is what you get.
That's why i never kiss 'em on the mouth.
Captain Malcolm Reynolds is a man who is in love with Inara, but as it has been stated several times in the series he has intimacy issues, so he has a difficult time talking with women and telling them how he feels. With Mrs. Reynolds, or Saffron he did not have intercourse with her or partake in any other marital activities because he felt that they were not wed and did not want to give her any ambiguous messages as to their relationship, and he did not want to take advantage of her submissive nature because that very nature grated on his nerves. With all that said I am sure he would have had sex with Saffron when she crawled naked from his bed if it weren’t for the fact that she drugged him and tried to kill the crew. As a man with intimacy issue myself, I find Mal’s predicament very believable, but I will admit that nobody would ever confuse me for a Hollywood actor.
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Quote:I fall for it every time I watch the episode LOL!
Originally posted by nbz:
Now, tell me you didn't fall for that speech the first time around?
Interesting argument, but I don't buy it.
Certainly Mal has it in him to manipulate folks. But generally he does it for a reason - ie in Bushwacked, he's getting people out of the way and keeping them from freaking out about the possible ka-boom. In the scene with Inara, there's no need for him to lie to her. I think it'd take less time to play tough captain and order her to go. (Scowl and say "Git!" ) But the moment is actually drawn out but what he does. I think he doesn't want his last words to her to be harsh.(By the way, I'm thinking I should watch the commentary again, because I recall Joss being particular about how the shoulder push should go. I think he wanted it to express softness, and be gentle. I didn't get the impression of it being fake, but of imparting real emotion. Could be remembering wrong...)
OK, to take a writer's view: It's the pilot episode, and Joss has a lot of info to impart on a lot of characters and not long to do it. He's already showed us that Mal is tricksey (and every time Mal is tricksey, Joss lets us know in no uncertain terms.) I think that this tiny little moment is there to tell us that Mal does indeed feel something for Inara, and that's all.
Last point: I don't think it would fit the series if Mal was so easily able to manipulate Inara. He shows on numerous occasions that he's clueless about her. Oi yeah, so if he was playing her here, that would change quite a few things for me. Hence my lengthy argument about something so silly LOL!
Quote:Totally! He probably also likes to remind her, and himself, that it's HIS ship LOL! You're so right, there's a bit of a power struggle going on between these two.
I see where you are coming from. I would like to add that he deliberately does it to shatter her porcelain. Put her on the wrong foot to get a real reaction and not something she has practised for hours.
Lawman - I don't know what it is that's got Mal so afraid of entanglement. I take it as a product of the war stuff, that he's too messed up to trust.
As for romanticizing, that's something I love about Joss. He gives me my romance and fluff without making me feel dirty about it, cause there's no Fabio anyway near it, and plenty of meatier stuff to make me feel highbrow about my taste in sci-fi.
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Quote:
Originally posted by rallem:
.....it ran out of power, so I wonder why the crew of Serenity didn't recover it for a prize.
Who's to say they didn't. There were no more eps after this one. Maybe it would of come up later how Jayne went looking for the laser and got all worked up when he returned to the ship to find Wash playing with it like it was a cap gun.
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I would think that if the laser were retrieved it probably would have been picked up just before he took Rance Burgess back to the house, and it probably would have been sold for a profit, because who needs an illegal laser pistol when you are trying to avoid the Alliance?
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Kaylee asked Inara about relationships in "Ariel".
Inara replied the rules are complicated.
This makes me wonder if there is some reason Inara is unable to form a relationship with Mal because of some Companion bylaw. This would put her in a bind. She loves him, but must adher to the rules of her order.
I also got the impression she was leaving the Companion life style behind at the end of the BDM.
So when she was crying in "Heart of Gold" it may have been the inability to start a relationship with Mal and not so much that he betrayed her. It must be a struggle to choose a life you have made a great commitment to and starting a relation that would ruin that life and may go no where.
I suspect that having a business relationship with Mal, renting the shuttle and working out of his ship, may exclude him from being a life partner. Business does not mix with pleasure.
http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler
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ya see, that's why i love this series. its so freaking complicated on so many facets of relationships just like in everyday life. and saffron is still oh so hot. and i'm sure i'm not the only person who cheered when mal got a kiss from inara.
that's why i never kiss em on the mouth
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