Mal and slavers?
POSTED BY: slayer730
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 05:01
VIEWED: 7999
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What's the deal with Mal's hatred of slavers? He mentions this on more than one occasion. Is it simply because he thinks it's wrong or could it be something deeper?
Also, does Badger dabble in slaving? He's sure checking that girl over in Serenity like he does.
***Never judge a book by its movie***
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Slavery seems to be a well-established part of the Firefly 'verse. There's the mention of the transportation of slaves for terraforming crews in the teaser of "Shindig," as well as the comment later in the show from the guy who steps in to put down the lady insulting Kaylee.
We know next to nothing about Mal's life before the war, except that he was raised on Shadow by his mother and her ranch hands. Possibly their settlement was raided by slavers sometime after Mal left home?
wo men ren ran zai fei xing.
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Quote:
Originally posted by slayer730:
What's the deal with Mal's hatred of slavers? He mentions this on more than one occasion. Is it simply because he thinks it's wrong or could it be something deeper?
Also, does Badger dabble in slaving? He's sure checking that girl over in Serenity like he does.
***Never judge a book by its movie***
Could be that Mal just finds slavery morally wrong, as most people do. I think though that it runs a bit deeper than that for our Captain. Mal has this overpowering need for freedom. It is why he fought for the Independents, and why after the war he bought Serenity, to get out into the black, as far from the Alliance & their interference as he could go. Someone who places such an emphasis on freedom would naturally despise slavery as it is deprives the victim of freedom and control of thier own lives.
As for Badger, he obviously dabbles in slavery as evidenced by his inspection of the woman in "Serenity". It would seem that Badger has his hand in anything that will produce a credit, illegal or questionable.
"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."
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Quote:
Originally posted by BrownCoat1:Quote:
Originally posted by slayer730:
What's the deal with Mal's hatred of slavers? He mentions this on more than one occasion. Is it simply because he thinks it's wrong or could it be something deeper?
Also, does Badger dabble in slaving? He's sure checking that girl over in Serenity like he does.
***Never judge a book by its movie***
Could be that Mal just finds slavery morally wrong, as most people do. I think though that it runs a bit deeper than that for our Captain. Mal has this overpowering need for freedom. It is why he fought for the Independents, and why after the war he bought Serenity, to get out into the black, as far from the Alliance & their interference as he could go. Someone who places such an emphasis on freedom would naturally despise slavery as it is deprives the victim of freedom and control of thier own lives.
As for Badger, he obviously dabbles in slavery as evidenced by his inspection of the woman in "Serenity". It would seem that Badger has his hand in anything that will produce a credit, illegal or questionable.
"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."
Now, that's interesting. I took that scene as Badger passing that woman for work in the red-light district... will have to go back and watch it again. (Oh, twist my arm)
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Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving and revolving at 900 miles an hour... The Galaxy Song, Meaning of Life, Monty Python
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My feeling is that Joss wanted to shake things up a little bit. Everyone hones in on the fact that the Independants were like the Confederacy and the Alliance is comparable to the Union. But on several occasions where slavery is brought up it's all on Alliance planets which makes me think that slavery is legal in the Alliance even if slave traders (owners, not so much) are considered lowlifes.
Some evidence for this:
In Shindig the cutting remark to the useless society girl about needing 12 slaves to get her into her dress didn't raise any eyebrows.
When Mal and the slaver at the beginning of the expisode are talking about the slaver's modifications to the ship to carry them it didn't seem like he was going out of his way to be covert about how he made his money.
In Jaynestown the foreman says that most of the labor are indentured servants, to my mind the ones who weren't would be slaves most likely because Mudder work doesn't look like something that anyone would willingly sign up for.
Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. But it seems to be that possibly the Independents were anti-slavery as part of their politics, they wanted each planet to govern itself as it saw fit, so it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to think that that belief also extended to every individual's rights. So a flip flop of the expected Civil War conventions would be something that I think Joss would do just to mix things up a little bit.
Pain is scary...
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Those are some very, very good points, I'd say. Another note on Jaynestown - Mr. Higgens says something about "owning people" when he's talking to Inara. At the very least, that's the way he FEELS about the mudders. I think they're supposed to be more of indentured servants. There's also Inara calling Mal an indentured servant in Train Job. I like the comment you made about flip-flopping the slavery issue from the Civil War. Might be Joss WAS thinking along those lines.
I don't know if it's strictly LEGAL in the Alliance, but slavery must be a pretty unenforced infraction if it's not.
I think the idea of Mal being against slavery for some secret reason is quite likely - Joss has kept his past very hidden, and the clues about hating slavers and even hating prostitution make it sound like Mal doesn't like people owning people (he tried to convince Saffron that she wasn't his property, either). Any hints we have as to why?
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Quote:
Originally posted by Forrestwolf:
Those are some very, very good points, I'd say. Another note on Jaynestown - Mr. Higgens says something about "owning people" when he's talking to Inara. At the very least, that's the way he FEELS about the mudders. I think they're supposed to be more of indentured servants. There's also Inara calling Mal an indentured servant in Train Job. I like the comment you made about flip-flopping the slavery issue from the Civil War. Might be Joss WAS thinking along those lines.
I don't know if it's strictly LEGAL in the Alliance, but slavery must be a pretty unenforced infraction if it's not.
I think the idea of Mal being against slavery for some secret reason is quite likely - Joss has kept his past very hidden, and the clues about hating slavers and even hating prostitution make it sound like Mal doesn't like people owning people (he tried to convince Saffron that she wasn't his property, either). Any hints we have as to why?
I think we need to figure out, does "Indentured Servant" mean the same thing in Firefly as it meant here in the real world?
A slave was owned outright, but an indentured servant was someone who worked to pay off a debt of some sort. Granted, the type of work, the working conditions, and the rights of each were virtually indistinguishable, but there was a difference between them two.
I think, Mal hates slvers for a mixture of reasons. One, he's basically a good and moral person (despite his career choices and such). Two, I think that, somewhere in his unrevealed past, he had a close encounter with slavery--maybe his mother was taken? , Maybe he himself had some time as a slave, escaped by joining the army, and found true meaning in the Browncoats?
Or, as has happened, mnaybe I haven't the slightest idea what the hell I'm talking about.
--The Hat
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"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne
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Thanks, wasn't sure if I put exactly what I meant down in a way that anyone but me could figure out what I'm saying. Very good point about Saffron too.
The feeling I get is that the Independants were politically on the anti-slavery side of the fence, but the other things you mentioned made me think a little about Mal specifically.
I think you're right that there is something more to it than politics, he has some reason to not just be against the idea of slavery but there's something deeper involved as well. When he's talking to Saffron he mentions his mother's ranch was pretty big, 40 hands, I work on a ranch and let me tell you to need to have 40 hands that's a pretty darn big ranch. The affection he obviously has for them makes me think that they weren't either slaves nor indentured servants, so either Shadow was always Independant leaning even before the outbreak of the war, or his mother just didn't go in for that sort of thing and hired all the hands. This could mean that Mal was brought up to not like slavery, but somewhere along the road it went from an intellectual dislike to downright hatred for it.
To my mind he'd be (ironically) something like the Union soldiers down in Georgia when Sherman marched to the sea, they were enforcing government policy by freeing the slaves, but I'm sure some of them did it just because it was policy, while others were doing it out of deep abolitionist beliefs.
Another thing he mentioned to Inara was something along the lines of,"Playing by their rules and doing what they say will only make you a slave." I think that could be part of the reason he doesn't like Companions, not out of sexual prudishness (which he does have some of) but out of the fact it's someone willingly enslaving themselves, which to his mind would be worse than being taken as a slave.
Or something like that. My take is it's a combination of Independant ideology, mixed with an anti-slavery upbringing and then *something* else happened to turn him into a 'true believer' abolotionist. I could be wrong, only Joss knows, but that's what makes the most sense to me.
Pain is scary...
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Quote:
I think we need to figure out, does "Indentured Servant" mean the same thing in Firefly as it meant here in the real world?
A slave was owned outright, but an indentured servant was someone who worked to pay off a debt of some sort. Granted, the type of work, the working conditions, and the rights of each were virtually indistinguishable, but there was a difference between them two.
I think, Mal hates slvers for a mixture of reasons. One, he's basically a good and moral person (despite his career choices and such). Two, I think that, somewhere in his unrevealed past, he had a close encounter with slavery--maybe his mother was taken? , Maybe he himself had some time as a slave, escaped by joining the army, and found true meaning in the Browncoats?
Or, as has happened, mnaybe I haven't the slightest idea what the hell I'm talking about.
--The Hat
***************************
"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne
There definately is a difference between indentured servants and slaves historically, and you were right on the money there.
I don't think they can be used as interchangable terms in the FF universe though. If using 'indentured servant' was just a socially polite way of saying slave then I think that Mal would have probably tried to take down Higgins instead of just smuggling the mud off the planet. I don't think he could do nothing based on his proven morality.
Then again he could just be picking his fights, he'd know that on Persephone slavery wasn't illegal or if it was the ban wasn't enforced, but he didn't try to kill all of the society types who possibly owned slaves, just Ath.
Taking on slaveholders on an Alliance planet where Feds are roaming around is different than taking out a little jumped up moon lord though. We know he'll do that from Heart of Gold...which puts a spin on why he'd fight to help whores, he sees an attempt to enslave them further so fights to help them.
Or I could just be overanalysing everything.
Pain is scary...
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Quote:
Originally posted by Gunhand:Quote:
I think we need to figure out, does "Indentured Servant" mean the same thing in Firefly as it meant here in the real world?
A slave was owned outright, but an indentured servant was someone who worked to pay off a debt of some sort. Granted, the type of work, the working conditions, and the rights of each were virtually indistinguishable, but there was a difference between them two.
I think, Mal hates slvers for a mixture of reasons. One, he's basically a good and moral person (despite his career choices and such). Two, I think that, somewhere in his unrevealed past, he had a close encounter with slavery--maybe his mother was taken? , Maybe he himself had some time as a slave, escaped by joining the army, and found true meaning in the Browncoats?
Or, as has happened, mnaybe I haven't the slightest idea what the hell I'm talking about.
--The Hat
***************************
"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne
There definately is a difference between indentured servants and slaves historically, and you were right on the money there.
I don't think they can be used as interchangable terms in the FF universe though. If using 'indentured servant' was just a socially polite way of saying slave then I think that Mal would have probably tried to take down Higgins instead of just smuggling the mud off the planet. I don't think he could do nothing based on his proven morality.
Then again he could just be picking his fights, he'd know that on Persephone slavery wasn't illegal or if it was the ban wasn't enforced, but he didn't try to kill all of the society types who possibly owned slaves, just Ath.
Taking on slaveholders on an Alliance planet where Feds are roaming around is different than taking out a little jumped up moon lord though. We know he'll do that from Heart of Gold...which puts a spin on why he'd fight to help whores, he sees an attempt to enslave them further so fights to help them.
Or I could just be overanalysing everything.
Pain is scary...
Nah, I doubt you're overanalyzing anything. It's kind of hard to do that here, since we have so little info to go on--everything's wide open, all stops pulled out, etc.
I think you're probably right about, well, pretty much all you posted... except he didn't really try to kill Ath, it was more defense with a dash of "If I Kill Him Defending Myself To Frikkin Bad For Him" thrown in...
--The Hat
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"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne
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