Inara: more bad ass than she seems?
POSTED BY: Bytemite
UPDATED: Saturday, August 15, 2009 18:37
VIEWED: 17936
PAGE 3 of 11
Hmm. I guess I sort of take my impression on how it might be from children who are the wards of other institutions.
While the children of the guild would be important to the guild in the sense of being prospective future companions... It's not where the guild's focus is, I think.
Much like the Christian Church in Europe. They care for orphans, yes, but the church is more geared towards the training and practice of the clergy and their patrons.
And, of course, I think that children from rich upper class families might be courted for future guild positions by the guild more carefully than children already in their charge.
Plus, kids. They're always going places where they aren't supposed to, and I seriously doubt the guild would place their orphans under guarded watch.
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Quote:
KAYLEE
Everything's dusty.
INARA
Does it seem every supply store on
every border planet has the same five
rag dolls and the same wood carvings
of...
(looking at one)
What is this? A duck?
KAYLEE
That's a swan. And I like it.
INARA
You do?
KAYLEE
It looks like it was made with, you
know... longing. Made by a person
really longed to see a swan.
INARA
Perhaps because they'd only heard of
them by rough description.
Kaylee holds up a little painted souvenir dish with painted chinese characters on it.
KAYLEE
You think this'd make a nice gift?
INARA
A gift? For whom?
Kaylee just studies the dish.
KAYLEE
I just think it's nice. Kinda rich,
you know.
INARA
Oh. For Simon.
KAYLEE
I didn't say that.
INARA
Well, you don't do a very good job of
hiding your interest.
KAYLEE
He's just so < cute >. You wanna take
a bite out of him all over, you know?
Just then, Simon and River enter. Simon is nervous about being out and visible, a little frazzled at having to watch River constantly.
INARA
(to Kaylee)
Careful.
KAYLEE
Did he hear? I don't think he heard.
(louder, maybe too
loud)
Mornin', you two!
Kaylee's over-bright greeting just makes Simon more jumpy. He forces a smile, nods.
INARA
We don't usually see you two out and
about planetside.
SIMON
(tense)
We're trying something different
today.
River immediately goes to the farming equipment, starts touching things.
SIMON (cont'd)
River, careful with that, that's...
(helplessly to Kaylee)
What is that?
KAYLEE
That's a post holer. You dig holes.
For posts.
SIMON
(to River)
It's dirty and sharp. Come over here.
He steers her over to the crafts section with the women. He picks up the little dish Kaylee was admiring.
SIMON (cont'd)
(reads the Chinese)
"Jiangyin, Prairie Paradise."
(then)
Good God. They ask money for this
< crap >?
From Jaynestown, selected quotes.
Quote:
SIMON
Well. Canton really--
(breathes in)
--really stinks.
So, this is a place where they... they
make mud? A mud-based economy. That's almost
interesting.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Hmm. I guess I sort of take my impression on how it might be from children who are the wards of other institutions.
While the children of the guild would be important to the guild in the sense of being prospective future companions... It's not where the guild's focus is, I think.
Much like the Christian Church in Europe. They care for orphans, yes, but the church is more geared towards the training and practice of the clergy and their patrons.
And, of course, I think that children from rich upper class families might be courted for future guild positions by the guild more carefully than children already in their charge.
Plus, kids. They're always going places where they aren't supposed to, and I seriously doubt the guild would place their orphans under guarded watch.
Not guarded watch, no, but I guess I just don't see Inara unmotivatedly wandering the bad parts of Sihnon for contact with the unwashed masses. She probably had hobbies or read or did friend-type things with the kids already around her, and I don't see them being "rough kids", either. Why would the Guild put her in with kids who would either have behavioral or educational deficits? Why would they dabble in that at all?
I don't think the Guild is trying to raise it's own new Companions in such an institution but I do think they would aim to guarantee a higher end education and environment than a regular orphanage. They do not have the universal approach of the church, nor do they need to be open to everyone. I don't think they run lots of orphanages, though they may charitably give to them. If Inara was indeed raised by a Guild care facility, as opposed to her own mother or a foster mother, I think it would have been a smaller, exclusive place. Why would the Guild take over the raising of a Companion's child at all, if it wouldn't grant a certain privilege to that child, as opposed to handing her over to other relatives or an Alliance institution?
If anything, we can expect that the Alliance would have structures in place and that they would be well-regulated. Brain-washingly so, maybe, but nothing to motivate the Guild to set up a big rivaling program for anyone outside their own circle to begin with.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:Quote:
KAYLEE
Everything's dusty.
INARA
Does it seem every supply store on
every border planet has the same five
rag dolls and the same wood carvings
of...
(looking at one)
What is this? A duck?
KAYLEE
That's a swan. And I like it.
INARA
You do?
KAYLEE
It looks like it was made with, you
know... longing. Made by a person
really longed to see a swan.
INARA
Perhaps because they'd only heard of
them by rough description.
Kaylee holds up a little painted souvenir dish with painted chinese characters on it.
KAYLEE
You think this'd make a nice gift?
INARA
A gift? For whom?
Kaylee just studies the dish.
KAYLEE
I just think it's nice. Kinda rich,
you know.
INARA
Oh. For Simon.
KAYLEE
I didn't say that.
INARA
Well, you don't do a very good job of
hiding your interest.
KAYLEE
He's just so < cute >. You wanna take
a bite out of him all over, you know?
Just then, Simon and River enter. Simon is nervous about being out and visible, a little frazzled at having to watch River constantly.
INARA
(to Kaylee)
Careful.
KAYLEE
Did he hear? I don't think he heard.
(louder, maybe too
loud)
Mornin', you two!
Kaylee's over-bright greeting just makes Simon more jumpy. He forces a smile, nods.
INARA
We don't usually see you two out and
about planetside.
SIMON
(tense)
We're trying something different
today.
River immediately goes to the farming equipment, starts touching things.
SIMON (cont'd)
River, careful with that, that's...
(helplessly to Kaylee)
What is that?
KAYLEE
That's a post holer. You dig holes.
For posts.
SIMON
(to River)
It's dirty and sharp. Come over here.
He steers her over to the crafts section with the women. He picks up the little dish Kaylee was admiring.
SIMON (cont'd)
(reads the Chinese)
"Jiangyin, Prairie Paradise."
(then)
Good God. They ask money for this
< crap >?
I think this may be the shooting script. I took my clues from the actual episode transcript, and my embarrassingly detailed memory of certain scene deliveries:
It's a little bit different in small details, without the dusty line and without the "did he hear?" part.http://firefly.shriftweb.org/scripts/107.shtml
But even if it had been shot with that opening line, it wouldn't change the way the rest of it is delivered. Kaylee's not joking about the merchandise. She may smile through it, but she's not making fun of it.
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No, wouldn't be for people outside their circle... But they're kids. Even if Inara wasn't a little rapscallion, it's almost guaranteed someone in the orphanage would have been. And since we don't exactly know how many companions and training houses there are in the system, I doubt there's going to be enough companion orphans on every planet to justify a guild orphanage on every planet. So they're probably consolidated into one place.
I just see the orphanage kids all wandering the big city together during the day when they have free time. And playing with any other kids they meet... Who may not be from the same social class. Who's going to stop them, if the guild isn't watching them all the time?
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Different interpretations, I guess. I thought after Kaylee's comment, and Inara's comment, they both kind of laughed.
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I've been talking a lot about what I think. What do you think?
I gather you think she comes from an upper-class family?
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I've been talking a lot about what I think. What do you think?
I gather you think she comes from an upper-class family?
Upper class, upper middle class... something like that. I think she is very at home within those circles, if not emotionally, then habitually, socially, from early on. By the age of 12, she would have had a fairly solid social identity, methinks, and I don't see even a decade of Guild training erasing that, and I simply do not feel any "from lowly roots" things from her, in her interactions with people who actually are from lowly roots. I also think her socialising in any meaningful manner with "rough" kids would be more unlikely than not and also wouldn't be necessary to explain any of her interactions on the show.
What makes her different, to me, is not that she originally doesn't belong, but that she has always been singled out for beauty and talent and that she feels a particular restlessness, a longing for difference. (For whatever speculative or spoilerly reason.)
More generally about her childhood:
She definitely didn't have a normal nuclear family, but considering how somewhat solitary she is - and judging by Nandi's comments, probably always has been - she doesn't strike me as someone who was comfortably socialised in a big group in early childhood. I see her as having one fair exclusive female care giver, be that her mother or a foster parent or other kind of guardian. I don't think she has close living family. If there are distant relatives or an estranged father alive somewhere, she has no contact with them. The Guild would have felt like a natural extension of that female guardianship.
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What strikes me about Inara is her clear-thinking emotional and physical courage in dangerous situations. In the movie, we don't learn what transpired to make Inara call Serenity and get them to come to the Training House, but I think there must have been considerable pressure and menace. She already knows the Operative is a scary fellow. Then, when he and Mal start fighting, Inara can see what he is doing. She's learned some martial arts (the Blu-Ray documents make mention of this, right?), so she has an educated eye. When she watches the Operative, she can see all of the things he is doing right, all of the moves he has mastered. His strategy. I imagine her very quickly sizing him up, comparing him to, for example, her martial arts teachers from school or other practitioners she knows. And she can evaluate him and know that he is very, very good, and that he is acting with deadly intent. Inara knows how outclassed Mal is, how outclassed she is, and she goes in anyway, twice. She must know she has no chance of prevailing against the Operative, she's basically stepping in and getting beaten as a way to buy Mal a few seconds' time, to give him the chance to still be alive when her "incense" goes off. And she does this probably knowing that the Operative could kill her if he spared a few seconds to do it. I think it's incredibly courageous.
I have my own ideas about Inara's family life, but that's another long, long post.
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It's funny, because I see that possibility too in Inara, AR.
I think that her open-mindedness, tolerance, and sense of humour were allowed to develop on their own without interference... But she also has grace and restraint and a nurturing way about her that go beyond just guild training, which also does suggest a single very watchful female caretaker.
I wonder really if it couldn't have been both. I know that sounds weird, but maybe she was in an orphanage like that, and at the same time had the High Priestess of House Madrassa grooming her for later companion training, too. In a good way, not a creepy child sex slavery way, with Inara taking interest in the companion way at a young age because of her mother.
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