Why River is more sane than you.
POSTED BY: jewelstaitefan
UPDATED: Thursday, January 17, 2008 18:34
VIEWED: 10061
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I have seen that many here consider River to be insane. I have seen different reasons given for that conclusion. I am far from convinced, and am greatly tending toward thinking she has no problems with sanity.
I am not trying to make you feel inferior, but if you fear finding yourself less sane than River, this is your opportunity to jump to another thread.
1. River is extremely intelligent. You nor I are expected to understand her, and niether is Simon, let alone the rest of the BDH.
For several decades now (in our time) it has been known that if 2 people do not have mental abilities rated within 15 IQ points, they will never be able to fully and completely communicate with each other. It is just not possible. This is not an insurmoountable obstacle, but it helps to understand the problem. Einstein was married to a woman decidedly not his equal (how could she be?), but through years of marriage they could communicate well enough to remain married. She always admitted that she had no idea what he did for work or how he did it, and she could never understand it or it's importance - but she understood from others that it was important.
This is normally not a problem for most people. If somebody has an average intelligence quotient (IQ 100), then the 1/3 of the population just smarter than him/her (IQ 101-115) and the 1/3 just less smart than him/her (IQ 85-99) will be within this range of full understanding capability - or 2/3 of the population. The farther below IQ 85 the other goes, the more he will have difficulty understanding them, and he/she will suspect the other is mentally impaired. Likewise, the farther another is above IQ 115, the same difficulty in understanding will occur, and the same conclusion will surface - the average intellect person will think the IQ 120 person is mentally impaired - until other references provide clarification (like a IQ 110 person points out that guy is way smarter than he, he aced all the tests, he does this or that better, etc.) This is such a common occurance that it was normal practice for public school teachers to place all genius children into the slow learner's group because the teacher was clueless about the child's abilities, and the mis-classification would continue unitl an IQ test was administered. Public school teacher will also try very hard to dumb down the studuents who outpace their classmates. A person of IQ 115 will generally understand he/she is smarter than most, but will still be able to understand 1/3 of the population between average and his level (IQ 100-114) as well as 5-10% of the population just smarter than him (IQ 116-130) - the vastly smart people (IQ 131+) he will have the same difficulty understanding as the below average (IQ 99 and below) population.
Some here seem to have not paid attention to Simon's Pilot speech - he went to THE BEST medical academy in the verse and was in the top 3% of his class. And River makes him look like an idiot child. He will NEVER be able to understand her or what she says or the way she views things in the way he could with his classmates. Almost nobody will. His biggest advantage in communicating with her is the shared experiences of siblings, and her willingness to suffer the fool in him and therefore dumb down her talk to his level, as well as their understood love for each other and the knowledge they are 2 alone in the wind, they must stick together. This still means they will suffer communication problems, both ways (she will not understand him, either - but she will understand him better than most others she meets, who will be even farther away on the IQ points scale).
In River's IQ range, +/- 15 IQ points account for probably less than a tenth of a percent of the population. And the likelihood of her meeting any of these people while on the fringe are fairly nil. Most extremely intelligent people find intellectual peers by congregating in similar professions, thus meeting them occurs in work environments - they might meet while working for NASA. River can't go to any of these places -
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Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
I have seen that many here consider River to be insane. I have seen different reasons given for that conclusion. I am far from convinced, and am greatly tending toward thinking she has no problems with sanity.
I am not trying to make you feel inferior, but if you fear finding yourself less sane than River, this is your opportunity to jump to another thread.
1. River is extremely intelligent. You nor I are expected to understand her, and niether is Simon, let alone the rest of the BDH.
For several decades now (in our time) it has been known that if 2 people do not have mental abilities rated within 15 IQ points, they will never be able to fully and completely communicate with each other. It is just not possible. This is not an insurmoountable obstacle, but it helps to understand the problem. Einstein was married to a woman decidedly not his equal (how could she be?), but through years of marriage they could communicate well enough to remain married. She always admitted that she had no idea what he did for work or how he did it, and she could never understand it or it's importance - but she understood from others that it was important.
This is normally not a problem for most people. If somebody has an average intelligence quotient (IQ 100), then the 1/3 of the population just smarter than him/her (IQ 101-115) and the 1/3 just less smart than him/her (IQ 85-99) will be within this range of full understanding capability - or 2/3 of the population. The farther below IQ 85 the other goes, the more he will have difficulty understanding them, and he/she will suspect the other is mentally impaired. Likewise, the farther another is above IQ 115, the same difficulty in understanding will occur, and the same conclusion will surface - the average intellect person will think the IQ 120 person is mentally impaired - until other references provide clarification (like a IQ 110 person points out that guy is way smarter than he, he aced all the tests, he does this or that better, etc.) This is such a common occurance that it was normal practice for public school teachers to place all genius children into the slow learner's group because the teacher was clueless about the child's abilities, and the mis-classification would continue unitl an IQ test was administered. Public school teacher will also try very hard to dumb down the studuents who outpace their classmates. A person of IQ 115 will generally understand he/she is smarter than most, but will still be able to understand 1/3 of the population between average and his level (IQ 100-114) as well as 5-10% of the population just smarter than him (IQ 116-130) - the vastly smart people (IQ 131+) he will have the same difficulty understanding as the below average (IQ 99 and below) population.
Some here seem to have not paid attention to Simon's Pilot speech - he went to THE BEST medical academy in the verse and was in the top 3% of his class. And River makes him look like an idiot child. He will NEVER be able to understand her or what she says or the way she views things in the way he could with his classmates. Almost nobody will. His biggest advantage in communicating with her is the shared experiences of siblings, and her willingness to suffer the fool in him and therefore dumb down her talk to his level, as well as their understood love for each other and the knowledge they are 2 alone in the wind, they must stick together. This still means they will suffer communication problems, both ways (she will not understand him, either - but she will understand him better than most others she meets, who will be even farther away on the IQ points scale).
In River's IQ range, +/- 15 IQ points account for probably less than a tenth of a percent of the population. And the likelihood of her meeting any of these people while on the fringe are fairly nil. Most extremely intelligent people find intellectual peers by congregating in similar professions, thus meeting them occurs in work environments - they might meet while working forNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by StrangeBird:
Intelligence has nothing to do with sanity. River IS emotionally and mentally disturbed and slightly unstable due to the experiments done to her at The Academy, that much is without question and is stated in the series and movie by Simon himself, more than once. I'm fairly certain the majority of Browncoats know this... somehow you seem to think we're all idiots and incapable of knowing our favorite TV show word for word. God knows the best of us have seen each episode at least two dozen times. I know I have. Also IQ does not a genius make. I've met very creative and successfull people with a fairly average IQ and one that had a very low IQ who was an amazing artist.
I must ask you... are you yourself on some sort of mind altering drug yourself? Or was that rambling, grammatically challenged essay just the work of a very bored, sleep deprived mind? I know I currently have a very bored, sleep deprived mind and I can understand how such a rambling could come about. As a matter of fact I've done them before on this very board. I did take the time to spell check though. I really do need it most of the time.
Yes, caffeine.
I am regulalry interrupted here at work tonight. I have already done a half dozen correction sessions for the "spelling" or typing errors - our corporate spyware here has tremendous gaps in keyboard timing. I do apologize for the remaining grammatical and spelling errors. Posting bits and pieces here and there does tend to make the flow disjointed, but I tried to mend the words together.
I've considered posting this for a few weeks or a month now. Been kind of busy instead. Perhaps I should not post the other topics I've been considering - some of them might be lengthy as well.
Also, yes an IQ does a genius make. The reverse, however, as your examples portend, is not always the case. You would be correct if stated that an IQ does not a savant make.
Quote:
Finally, I must add that I have never thought of River as insane.... you on the other hand may truly be downright certifiable.
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"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction." Albert Einstein
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Well either way I meant no offense if you took it as such. I actually agree with a few of your points. It's just that you make so many I find it hard to know which are your own opinion or just facts you are presenting. I do however stand by my belief that you are completely bugnuts.
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"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction." Albert Einstein
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Anyone remember her going after Jayne with a butcher's knife?
All kidding aside, whether insanity is the correct word to use, she's clearly mentally unstable, and anyone would be after having their brain played around with. I'm trying to remember, if this was canon or speculation, that her amygdala had been stripped. That is going to affect her mental capacities, and we know she was intelligent, but mentally stable, from the flashbacks in the series.
~~~~~
"Sounds like something out of science fiction." ~Wash
"We live in a spaceship, dear." ~Zoe
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Hey - we should all have our wardrobes color-coordinated for our IQ ranges. That way, I wouldn't waste time trying to communicate with folks who are too smart or too stupid for me! Maybe just hats. My IQ group could be green, and I'd only socialize with other green hat-ers. The blue hats can clean my floors and hang out in seedy bars, and the red hats can design my cell phone and meet their red hat mates over chat groups for smarties. It'd be perfect!
To the point: River is clearly unable to function in society. It's not about smarts - it's about functionality. The girl is nuts. Just because there are reasons for her kind of nuttiness, don't mean she ain't got it.
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hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left
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I'm not sure what the point of this long post was. It must have gotten lost in the length - or I'm just not intelligent enough to figure it out . . . but I had to comment on the below . . .
>River is just spouting gibberish so badly that I must assume the writers had no idea that the rest of the scriptwriting was on target (they just thought she was supposed to be insane).
Firefly was Joss' baby. Joss had approval on what was written. Just because you or I may not LIKE it, or think that it 'flows' with how we see the rest of the characterization, doesn't mean its not exactly how he wanted River to behave in one particular instance.
I thought the hair 'snow on the roof is too heavy, it might collapse' was a brilliant piece of writing and more than likely a metaphor for something else going through River's mind, something a bit more serious than those simple words would mean to anyone not River.
"A government is a body of people usually notably ungoverned."
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Quote:
Originally posted by Leiasky:
I thought the hair 'snow on the roof is too heavy, it might collapse' was a brilliant piece of writing and more than likely a metaphor for something else going through River's mind, something a bit more serious than those simple words would mean to anyone not River.
"A government is a body of people usually notably ungoverned."
The "snow on the roof" bit was a pretty blatant criticism of organized religion, right? Since the whole eppy they were going back and forth about the Bible, faith, what is right or wrong, broken or fixed. She comes to apologize to him, but in the end.. too much snow on the roof too many issues connected to religion. "Just keep walking, preacher man."
And River's is absolutely crazy. It's not because people don't understand everything she says but because she is unable to control her behavior (Butcher knife.) or even attempt to make herself understood by using simpler terms (Aaah, the crazy HAIR!). Which is different from the arrogance or fatigue that sometimes very intelligent people develop when they cannot bear to explain things more simply (again and again).
River isn't unwilling, she is incapable. That's what makes her crazy.
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>The "snow on the roof" bit was a pretty blatant criticism of organized religion, right?
It definitely could be for some. For others, it could mean something different, I suppose. For River - only Joss and the writers know if it meant something else (maybe that they would touch on later on down the line - and it never happened because the series was canceled). They didn't spell it out for us, they let us take what meaning we wanted to from her crazy comments.
>River isn't unwilling, she is incapable. That's what makes her crazy.
Exactly. She wants to be a normal girl, but she's 'broken' and unable to control herself.
"A government is a body of people usually notably ungoverned."
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All this talk about River being crazy is, well, crazy talk. :)
Is she insane, though? Depends on what you call insane. If you use a rather clinical frame, and define insanity as "The inability to stay connected to reality," then yes, she could be called insane. Thing of it is, though, she has a problem with her brain being missing. :) Or part of it, at least. Reality comes in either too pronounced, or she becomes otherwise too disconnected from it (with flashbacks to her traumatic past). "This is paranoid schizophrenia," as Simon called it. Who am I to argue with that diagnosis?
But crazy she ain't. Or if she is, she's my kinda crazy.
--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam
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