Inara: more bad ass than she seems?
POSTED BY: Bytemite
UPDATED: Saturday, August 15, 2009 18:37
VIEWED: 17936
PAGE 5 of 11
I keep coming back to Inara's behavior concerning River, from the beginning, but most especially in the BDM. Brave, as I said before; also, consistently nurturing and tolerant, and very adult. Inara acts as one who has clearly defined, deeply felt moral standards and obligations regarding a child in her care. I think that comes from being loved and cared for, day after day, by a woman that she loved - and, importantly - admired very much. Maybe they weren't congruent as far as temperment; maybe Inara and her mother didn't understand each other very easily, that may be a reason for the reserve, the emotional caution that is so much a part of her. I also think about the maternal aspect of Inara when I watch her very first conversation with Simon, about the immunization packets and Simon's behavior after Dobson shoots Kaylee. She is gentle with him in word and manner, but she doesn't let him off automatically. I hear a clear moral challenge in her tone when she explains how dear Kaylee is to all of them. I see it in her face when she waits, quietly, while he stammers out his miserable reply. Then she very quickly reads him as sincere, and offers him honest empathy. It's very intriguing to me, as I think about it, what she reveals to him when she describes herself as "lost in the woods" along with everyone else. Hmmm. So very personal. That bears more cogitatin'.
And, I don't necessarily think Inara had an absentee or unknown father growing up. I don't want to make the assumption that if Inara's mother was a Companion or retired Companion, she couldn't have had a stable relationship with the father of her children. I don't think her family is healthy and whole when we meet her, but there are so, so many ways for a family to fall apart, so many ways for hearts to get broken that have nothing to do with Companioning. Especially in times of political unrest and war.
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I think it's possible for companions to marry have children, and be happy. Complicated, like Inara says, they probably have to apply to the guild, and work out pre-nuptials and different versions of their contract if they want to continue to keep practicing... The guild might even evaluate prospective partners to make sure they meet some kind of standard for the continued respectable image of the guild and other companions.
If a practicing companion gets involved with someone without all the oversight, I suspect there'd be a LOT of trouble, and so generally companions and the guild all try to be ambiguous about whether they're allowed to have relationships on the side. It discourages issues with the clients who feel more than the companion does.
I imagine most companions prefer to retire instead, or take up teaching the companion skill, passing it on to their daughters in the way of geisha. Except for the sex parts, because that would be squicky.
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AR: Maybe the High Priestess was the "Abbess" so to speak of the orphanage, and had connection to House Madrassa. I wonder how many Priestesses one house might have?
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Quote:Combat? Self-defense training makes sense to me, but combat doesn't at all. Companions are lovers, not fighters. I am quite sure Inara knows how to defend her own person, but she's surely not someone who's been trained for all-out combat. I believe that's part of the reason for the bow and arrows in the movie - that's a sport weapon, and makes sense that a Companion would how to use it. She wouldn't be so good with a big ole gun.
Originally posted by Bytemite:
She knows how to use a bow and swords, and in her profession, it would make sense if she could handle herself in hand-to-hand combat.
I'm all with you, though, that Inara isn't a helpless damsel. Fics that present her like that are pretty much unreadable to me!
Quote:Actually, on the episode commentary, Joss says that that opening scene in the bar was meant to show that Inara is not at home in Mal's world. It's part of the whole arc - she doesn't fit in his world, he doesn't fit in her world, but in the end they find that they don't fit in their own worlds either, and are happiest to share engine brew in the cargo bay. (Joss said it better, I'm sure! Shit - or was it Jane? Did Jane Espenson do the commentary for that one?)
Also, I see Inara as having been a bit of a rough and tumble little girl, before she began Companion training. She seems very at home in an old trampy freighter, and in a low-class dive watching Mal and Jayne shoot billiards.
As to your first point: I do like to think that Inara had a different kind of upbringing from the Guild, just because it seems rare that a Companion would choose to join a freighter. I think it's been made clear that she was running from something, but she had to have some reason for choosing Serenity. If she'd been a total upper class snob, she'd have chosen something much nicer.
But we don't know what drove her out of her life in the Guild, and we don't know how uncomfortable she might have been in her first days on board. She certainly wasn't warm and cuddly in her first meeting with Mal. She was a bit of a condescending snob actually. ("...on a vessel of this... type.") So I don't see that she's comfortable in this "edge of the Rim" life. I do see that she's open to it, and I think there must be a reason for it.
BTW - this line of reasoning was behind the background I wrote for her in my fic, which was lower class though not abusive or at all violent. I wrote humble roots for her because I wanted to explain why she ran to Serenity. But I don't think my take is canon because of what Joss has said about her mother being in the same business.
Anyhow, Inara does enjoy the "adventures", and certainly isn't too bothered when the crew crosses the line of the law, as long as no one is harmed. I don't think that's because she's rebellious in nature. She's basically respectful of the Alliance. Supported them even. But I think she holds her own morals above what the government defines as proper.
As to the inspiration fic, it seems a fun little bit of AU, an interesting version of Inara's background. But I don't think it rings true to the character. (From jackwabbit's post here, I don't think it was meant to.) Canon Inara just doesn't have that kind of violence in her.
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ETA: also meant to say - what's up with the orphanage thing? I'm having a hard time picturing the Guild as an orphanage, since it's something that's highly respected, damned competitive, and very much associated with luxury and wealth.
I mean, surely the Novices don't get silks and jewels from the age of 12, but little orphan Annies sleeping in bare dorms... Really?
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Well, there's a difference between the training house, and an orphanage. I don't think they'd be housed in the same building... Or that the training house would even be in the same building as the business offices and companion quarters for House Madrassa.
Kids can be a bit destructive. Stains, torn fabric, knicks, broken things... I'm not so sure if I were the guild, and my main interest was simply providing shelter, food, clothing, and a rudimentary education for orphans, that I'd surround them with things that are expensive and irreplaceable.
Inara is ALWAYS a condescending snob to Mal, doesn't mean she is one or started out one. In that particular case, she was acting that way to negotiate a better price for the rent.
Hand to hand combat does not mean combat/war and gun-training.
I like something GillianRose wrote about in The Misfortune, how Inara slowly comes around to understanding the crew's rule breaking. But I also think... She likes breaking rules. Thinks it's thrilling.
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Quote:I'm missing something: are you saying that the Guild has a side mission working with orphans, orphans who have nothing to do with the actual business of the Guild? If so - cool. Guild doing charity work - I like it!
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Kids can be a bit destructive. Stains, torn fabric, knicks, broken things... I'm not so sure if I were the guild, and my main interest was simply providing shelter, food, clothing, and a rudimentary education for orphans, that I'd surround them with things that are expensive and irreplaceable.
Or are you saying that the kids who get into the Guild start in the orphanage, as in the Novices actually live in the dorms until they grow up a bit? That's the concept that would stump me. My bad if it's not what you meant.
Quote:LOL! How come everytime I chat with you it goes so quickly off topic?
Inara is ALWAYS a condescending snob to Mal, doesn't mean she is one or started out one. In that particular case, she was acting that way to negotiate a better price for the rent.
My point was not about any Mal/Inara dynamic, it was about Inara's comfort level with Serenity's way of life. You are claiming (correct me if I'm wrong!) that she is comfortable with it, so much so that she must of been of some lower class before joining the Guild. I was responding to that issue, and that only.
And my point was: I don't see the comfort level. Besides, the opening scene in Shindig makes the point that she doesn't belong there. Of course, the same episode makes the point that she doesn't belong in "her" world either, so there certainly is wiggle room there. She's got some kind of complicated background, that's for sure!
Quote:Uhh... then what do you mean by "hand-to-hand combat" and "bad-ass"? Because when you say those words in a Joss-verse, I picture Inara going all River.
Hand to hand combat does not mean combat/war and gun-training.
Quote:I like GillianRose's ideas too.
I like something GillianRose wrote about in The Misfortune, how Inara slowly comes around to understanding the crew's rule breaking. But I also think... She likes breaking rules. Thinks it's thrilling.
But I don't see Inara getting any joy-ride thrill out of rule-breaking purely for the sake of rule-breaking. She sure as hell got a thrill out of out-foxing Saffron, but that was because Saffron needed a take-down.
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Quote:
I'm missing something: are you saying that the Guild has a side mission working with orphans, orphans who have nothing to do with the actual business of the Guild? If so - cool. Guild doing charity work - I like it!
It would have to be supplemental to whatever programs the Alliance runs, but on big worlds, just like in our world today, I think there would have to be spill-over to other institutions. I'm not exactly sure how that would work, but there's two ways I can think of the orphanages being organized. Either they take only selected children (maybe some who didn't have a companion as a parent, on a case-by-case basis), and the orphanage is consolidated into one place, or the guild, like religious groups in current times, may try to set up orphanages as they can wherever they are located, and take whatever children they can. For charity, like you said, and because of the spiritual side of the guild. But they would always, always take the orphans of companions, because that would be what the orphanages were originally set up for.
In the event that a companion dies with children and no one to look after them, guaranteed Guild care would be kind of a perk. There might even be some kind of day care component in there too, for the busy practicing companion mother.
But no, I don't see active recruiting of companions out of the program or coercion or brainwashing involved... Unless the child expresses an interest in joining the guild and receiving training. Otherwise, I picture them receiving a general Alliance sanctioned education until they're 12, and receiving scholarship and support to go into whatever programs at the Academy they choose. Hopefully not any of the ones involving surgery, but I get the impression that not all of the curriculum at the Academy involves violations of human rights. River and whoever her classmates were seem to have been special cases.
Quote:
My point was not about any Mal/Inara dynamic, it was about Inara's comfort level with Serenity's way of life. You are claiming (correct me if I'm wrong!) that she is comfortable with it, so much so that she must of been of some lower class before joining the Guild. I was responding to that issue, and that only.
And my point was: I don't see the comfort level. Besides, the opening scene in Shindig makes the point that she doesn't belong there. Of course, the same episode makes the point that she doesn't belong in "her" world either, so there certainly is wiggle room there. She's got some kind of complicated background, that's for sure!
Heh heh, that was one of the few times where I wasn't bringing up the Mal/Inara dynamic. :) I was just explaining how Inara isn't a snob, and why that reflects on her background. The specific example just happened to involve Mal.
I actually think Inara was very comfortable at least until the fight broke out, which is more an example of Mal's issues than it is an example of normal lower class life. Afterwards, during the fight... I don't know. Clearly she was nervous when the fight started and when they made their get-away. She didn't ACT happy then, I admit, maybe because it was getting too dangerous. But when Mal first steals the money off the slavers, I have a hard time reading her. There are rare times she approves of some of Mal's darker behaviour, like when he shoots Dobson. But other times, like when he catches the kid who picks his pocket in the Message, she just shakes her head in disapproval. There's a lot of contradiction in her, her "Robin Hood" references and what not.
In fact... Now that I think of it, do you think that may be a reflection of how Mal treats her profession? Disapproving face-to-face, but when the other is out of earshot, suddenly the other's job is "honest work" or "noble?"
Quote:
But I don't see Inara getting any joy-ride thrill out of rule-breaking purely for the sake of rule-breaking. She sure as hell got a thrill out of out-foxing Saffron, but that was because Saffron needed a take-down.
Like you said, I think there's wiggle room
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Also, both Inara and Kaylee do laugh after kaylee's "longing" comment, and after Simon goes off on his tirade and tells him off about not thinking much of the people who chose this life, Inara gives him a look as she follows Kaylee out. It's hard to read again, it's not angry, it's not sympathetic, it's seems to me to be somewhere between disapproving, troubled, and unhappy.
http://www.thewb.com/shows/firefly/clip-actually-i-was-being-ironic/e6
4bd01015
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Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:Quote:
Originally posted by jackwabbit:
Oh, and yes, Inara can hold her own. And deep down, she ain't as much of a "lady" as she lets on. That IS my honest opinion that ain't likely to change, unlike the mom/past angle.
Perhaps we just differ in our definition of lady, mayhaps?
Indeed. I think Inara does have all the outward appearances of being lady-like, but deep down she does enjoy getting her hands a bit dirty, so to speak. It's Trash that makes me certain of this. She looooooves her role there.
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