The Savant Crew
POSTED BY: jewelstaitefan
UPDATED: Wednesday, May 15, 2019 23:47
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I felt savant was descriptive of a mostly isolated gift or talent. KayLee has that gift with mechanics, nobody else has, and she's not gifted in most other areas. Wash would have the flying talent. Jayne is clearly not "well rounded", but an excellent tracker (among other things of similar use).
Zoe and Mal have some training in military arts and skills, but have risen beyond the sub-par training levels of "volunteers". I feel their gifts lie in the areas of leadership, cunning, seeing the overall picture. Mal has some deficiencies, and thus is not really well-rounded, but more so than the crew he's hired. Zoe seems the most well-rounded.
The crew is savant, not as much Mal & Zoe, I think.
River has gifts which are incisive and focused in precise applications, but not everything is connected. Pluss few in the verse seem to be readers. Thus her savant description.
That's how I was conjuring things. I understand this may all be because Joss is just not interested in detailing the "sciency" things needed in SPACE, but it results in these characters having unusually focused gifts. How many parallels to KayLee can one find?
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I understand your point of view...I didn't meant to hijack the thread, just was responding to someone else's post. I do think Serenity's crew is just a bit too talented for reality. 
But hey, it's fiction, and I guess their flaws make up for it.
--
"My way of being polite, or however...well, it's the only way I have of showing you that I like you. Of showing respect." Simon Tam, Jaynestown
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I didn't see any hijack. Just part of the discussion. I was just trying to contribute more.
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Oops, double post. My bad.
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I agree that Kaylee is a gifted mechanic but I don't think that she's as unschooled as people think she is. She says herself that she worked for her dad, thus implying some level of instruction, she also knows what all the parts in Serenity are called and if she hadn't had any learnin' she wouldn't have been able to name them. So I think she had to at least have had some schooling. Either that or space ship engines are really similar to farm equipment or whatever they had on her planet.
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KayLee said she learned from what her dad told her, but she never been on a Firefly before, never been in space before, never worked on the engine in Firefly before.
Bit of a jump from general wires and fuses to understanding intricate unique workings. Plus to know more than the ship's mechanic Bester, even more of a gift.
On another matter, I just rewatched the Serenity CE bonus "SciFi Inside: Serenity" where Joss and Nathan discuss the Savant Crew. So I guess I picked it up from there, not an original thought in my head.
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Savant doesn't mean what I think you guys seem to think it means. Savant implies scholar, as in study.
Quote:
Originally posted by MerryK:
I understand your point of view...I didn't meant to hijack the thread, just was responding to someone else's post. I do think Serenity's crew is just a bit too talented for reality.
I understand where people might think it is unrealistic but not as much as one might think. Not to say that there isn't any television dramatization. However, the way I see it, besides River, who is a psychic prodigy, no one else has unrealistic talent. Kaylee, Wash, and Jayne might not be typically gifted in the academic sense, they are gifted though. Mal, Zoe, Simon, and Inara all show varying levels of standard giftedness.
It might seem unrealistic to find so many gifted people in one place seeing as to even qualify as moderately gifted you must be in the top 98% (going by the IQ definition). That said, being gifted isn't all it is cracked up to be. It comes with a different way of learning, a different way of looking at the world, and often a full docket of mental issue sidekicks. Gifted people tend to band together just by chance. It is also fairly common for gifted people to rebel against or not fit in the established system. Think - Einstein's clash with the school system.
"I'm the brains of the operation." -River (BDM Screenplay)
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Quote:
Originally posted by SeattleSunshine:
Savant doesn't mean what I think you guys seem to think it means. Savant implies scholar, as in study.Quote:
Originally posted by MerryK:
I understand your point of view...I didn't meant to hijack the thread, just was responding to someone else's post. I do think Serenity's crew is just a bit too talented for reality.
I understand where people might think it is unrealistic but not as much as one might think. Not to say that there isn't any television dramatization. However, the way I see it, besides River, who is a psychic prodigy, no one else has unrealistic talent. Kaylee, Wash, and Jayne might not be typically gifted in the academic sense, they are gifted though. Mal, Zoe, Simon, and Inara all show varying levels of standard giftedness.
It might seem unrealistic to find so many gifted people in one place seeing as to even qualify as moderately gifted you must be in the top 98% (going by the IQ definition). That said, being gifted isn't all it is cracked up to be. It comes with a different way of learning, a different way of looking at the world, and often a full docket of mental issue sidekicks. Gifted people tend to band together just by chance. It is also fairly common for gifted people to rebel against or not fit in the established system. Think - Einstein's clash with the school system.
"I'm the brains of the operation." -River (BDM Screenplay)
You may wish savant to mean scholar, or imply scholar, but it was used in this thread for it's common usage and meaning, it's definition and meaning as referenced by "idiot savant". Most people do not learn much via scholarly routes.
From Random House Webster's: savant: a person of profound learning.
From Merriam Webster's OnLine: savant - 1: a person of learning; ESPECIALLY: one with detailed knowledge in some specialized field (as of science or literature).
- 2: idiot savant.
also MWOL: idiot savant - 2: a person who is highly knowledgeable about one subject but knows little about anything else.
None of those make any mention of scholarly, and the lack of mention clearly implies an ambiguous source or route of learning or knowledge.
Since most "scholarly" learning includes more "well rounded" subject matter, the high level of understanding of these characters talents, while not being formally taught to be that highly proficient, implies a level of savant.
Regarding the part about highly gifted or talented peoples meeting via coincidence, this is actually a real life phenomena. Highly gifted people actually gravitate towards each other, and when passing by actually attract the attention of each other. I would find it more surprising if some of our characters were actually working with or near less capable individuals. I would have expected Bester to become an annoyance to most of the crew had he stayed. Jayne is an annoyance, but most of the crew can put up with him due to his unique talents, which he was brought in for.
It has been agreed that Wash has not shown the giftedness which was written into the script, and Joss commented about it to Alan and Tim Minnear during The Message.
Don't know why Inara's talents are downplayed here - she was supposed to be one of the youngest Madams at Madrassa House, so that can't be just pure chance, or standardization.
A technical point about the gifted/borderline genius definition. It is not the top 98% (which would be almost everybody, 49 out of 50 people would be "gifted" or "genius". It is actually the top 2% of the population, or those above the 98th percentile.
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If there is an idiot savant on Serenity, it may be Kaylee, since it is implied she has an abnormal and intuitive talent when it comes to machines.
The others are just above average intelligence and active in a field of their particular strength - or Jayne. Be that through talent or training or both.
And the real reason why so many above average talents are on Serenity? Mal and Zoe.
They have a GREAT working relationship, which colors their expectations toward other crew members. They are used to excelence from each other, especially Mal from Zoe, and since Serenity is Mal's shot at a new life, he'll be choosy, where he can afford it.
Wash has the reputation to impress Mal, and he stays because he impresses Zoe somewhat more meaningfully. His talent, though obvious, is never really compared to other pilots who shared his training. Is he THAT much better?
Bester - very tellingly - is OFF the boat as soon as someone brighter and more talented (and motivated) comes along.
Inara's clever guts get her the shuttle at a lower price than Mal wanted - and because she offers a unique advantage directly related to her talents.
Jayne's talent gets him hired, otherwise he would have been dead or off the boat as soon as they were safe from his ex-boss.
Simon's skill as a doctor allows him to survive the pilot eppy and be hired by Mal.
Book is an exception in that his passenger fare likely allows him to stay while he chooses to do so because he is fascinated by Mal's unique personality, a large part of which is his talent for leadership.
River is an exception in that she is more of an object for the longest time. Her victim status allows her to stay as Simon's ward. But as soon as she displays a talent, Mal tries to take advantage of it, too.
So it's indeed that they gravitate toward each other because they are talented/smart/highly trained. Either because Mal selects the best for Serenity or because they select Mal. Someone without an advantage to offer wouldn't get to stay on the ship.
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Regarding Book, I don't see his payment of fare as reason he's staying aboard.
Once the events of the Pilot come to pass, he's "in" because he knows the Tam secret, which is now a Serenity secret, and our BDH shouldn't distance them from him unduly. They even let him take off for a week during Ariel. He does show some usefulness in War Stories, but there is an underlying question before that if he's merely a religiosity spreader, or maybe there's more to him. Why else would Jayne accept him? Even during Safe, he does not seem to let his code get in the way of some criminal activity. His reaction, or lack of, to Dobson's killing tells a lot to Mal & Zoe.
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