Companions 'Gilded Cage'
POSTED BY: Bytemite
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 21, 2010 08:47
VIEWED: 36140
PAGE 3 of 11
She might have talked to Fess. I can't imagine it's safe to go to an engagement with just a potentially forged psychological profile and no visual confirmation. Dad paid for the subscription, with Fess as the benefactor/client.
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So I guess the determining factor in how someone imagines Inara might feel about her profession is based on how often Inara encounters the irritants/frustrations/depressing stuff I mentioned, and whether it's common enough that the behaviour is a regrettable but inherent part of the profession.
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I think the determinative factor in how I imagine Inara relates to her profession is how Inara feels about herself.
If you're right, and Inara is a female mirror of Mal, then there has got to be a little self-loathing in her soul. Whether or not its related to her job, or a larger part of her personality, I don't know enough to say.
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Mal's self loathing is all bound up in Serenity - the war and the people he lost, and now the ship he named after it as self-laceration and the crime he does with it.
I don't see Mal pre-and-during-Serenity Valley as particularly self-loathing. Though who knows? Maybe he's a cheerfully sinful self-loather. Maybe he had some kind of childhood trauma that really screwed him the hell up that his current PTSD built on. Maybe Ma Reynolds didn't hug him enough.
But anyway, from what we can see, those are the two main sources of his self-loathing. The Battle, and his Job.
So Inara might have the job side, but what could be the battle side? Maybe in her past, she's also had some deeply personal battle that she lost. Or maybe she's fighting that battle now, and hating herself for it. Hmm...
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mal's got a real deep martyr streak, which to me suggests a measure of self-loathing. and i think we can relate his martyrdom his life before the war: dude is a volunteer, after all. but i agree that his self-loathing comes down to Serenity Valley and his job. or, more broadly, we could frame it as guilt. he's guilty to be alive, and his work makes him feel like a bad guy.
perhaps inara has a similar dynamic? not necessarily guilt over her job, though perhaps bound up to it? does she feel guilty to be alive, guilty to be in comfort, etc...
just curious: if she were fighting her battle now, what would it be?
also, i like the idea of mal and inara as mirrors, but i think it might ultimately be unfair to only frame "the her" through "the him."
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We already kinda have to view Inara through Mal's POV anyway, why not go all the way? And there ARE little things that support the idea that Inara might not be completely happy, and from what I see, it's not the crew, it's not the ship, and it's not necessarily Mal.
And Mal and Inara have enough parallels that I think it justifies analyzing them this way.
Of course, it's also extremely speculative, but I like to think it's intriguing and that as a model for Inara, it could explain some of her behaviour and maybe that whole attraction thing we see.
Guilt to be alive or in comfort, it's an interesting idea. We know Inara supported unification, it could be she's having to come to terms with the suffering of the people on the Rim and blaming herself for supporting that.
And there's her secret, which could be construed as a battle, which she would hate herself for dragging the crew into it.
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One might think of her as a mirror but not as a perfect mirror - just as Simon and the Operative both function at times as mirrors for Mal, but not in every aspect. Simon, having to leave behind, and/or losing faith in the way of life he grew up with; and the Operative, going through that moment of being hollowed out. So maybe Inara's character reflects back some facets of Mal's character, his experiences and struggles, but not all of them. Because objectively, Inara might be seen to have so many advantages. She's educated, cultured, smart; she's poised and effective socially; she's beautiful and seems to be well-connected. Joss has said that Companions retire and go on to other prestigious professions, so I don't see her being made to stay in the Guild against her wishes. And really, in comparison with the problems of so many of the people in the 'verse, the idea that Inara's "problem" is that her job sometimes bums her out but she doesn't get herself exercised enough to look for another - it doesn't have the same weight. She's a clear-thinking and decisive character. I think whatever the cause is of her solemnity, it's much stickier and more personal than professional. Maybe part of her steadfastness in the face of hostility and provocation is that she's been through something much worse than, say, a threat by Atherton Wing and there is very little that can really scare or hurt her now.
It may well have been something related to the War.
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That's fair to say, and of course considering we don't know much I could definitely take my metaphor too far.
Technically, it seems to me like Mal had a lot of advantages - living on a ranch isn't easy, but it sounds like they had a BIG ranch, which suggests to me they were pretty well off. Plus the dancing and poetry. He downplays it though because it doesn't help him fit in to the life he has now, and the life he has now... pretty much lacks advantages.
I agree, I like the guild, and I don't like Inara being their little slave. I think making them evil from the get-go is a little unfair. Maybe there's a basis in reality, because in modern times sex trade rings aren't at all nice, fluffy, or respectable, but it kind of nice to see a version that tried to eliminate all the bad. If it's going to happen, I think the guild is how I'd like to see it happen.
Interesting you mention the war, Platonist told me once that Joss said that there were terrorist attacks on Sihnon early in the war.
Imagine Inara in a bombshelter, with a building partially collapsed on top of it. Oh! With injured little kids! Poor Inara. :(
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beyond supporting unification (which also supplied Mal with one of his greatest lines "Don't suppose you're the only whore that did"), how personally invested was inara in the war? i have a hard time imagining it having any impact on her life. how much did it touch her? or is it only after her own personal crisis sends her off into the rim on board a seedy Firefly, that she understands what she was supporting? I wonder what it would be like to go from a glittering life on Sihnon to Mal's element, which is essentially, crap.
also, big neato...I really think the idea of indepdendent terrorist attacks has a lot of narrative promise. granted, i've always half-hoped that mal would just go off the deep end and start killing innocents. i sort of dislike inara, in that i see her as one of the few things preventing him from being blowing up innocents. well, that, and his well hidden decency.
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You're not the only one.
(tvtropes warning)
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NobleDemon
Quote:
However, every so often a situation presents itself and he's just not willing to go the extra mile necessary to be completely evil. He'll topple your castle, but he'll do it right after everyone has cleared out first. He'll also be obsessed with explaining this behavior so people don't think he's gone soft.
Mal blurs between a jerk with a heart of gold (though further on the nice side than Jayne) and a noble demon (due to his tendency to make excuses for the good he does). He's also probably a Knight in Sour Armor and a Byronic Hero.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralityChain
Quote:
The Morality Chain is a character who is the reason another character is Good. Almost always a female love interest or a mother. As long as this person is alive; her target of affection will at the very least be a Noble Demon.
If a Morality Chain were to fall, commit betrayal or get seriously hurt or die, there is nothing to prevent a Face Heel Turn happening so fast and so hard that the unchained character is chopping up his former teammates with gusto before you can say "Neutral Evil". This is more than the Roaring Rampage Of Revenge; everyone has to suffer.
Anyone else here think that if Inara were to die, that Mal would have a pretty good chance of going completely axe-crazy out of grief? Hell, she just leaves for two months and he's about ready to shoot Simon and River and dump the bodies.
Maybe Mal isn't quite so extreme as this, but honestly it's hard to tell sometimes.
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