What's the story with Wash - our skilled Firefly pilot
POSTED BY: JaynezTown
UPDATED: Monday, August 23, 2004 19:23
VIEWED: 8349
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He's a great flyer and his skills are well know. He is a super pilot, managed to high tail it out of the hospital and lose those hands of blue in Ariel plus other folk like Tanaka or Renshaw have been trying to get him. Wash seems to be a bit of a legend like Rex White the Nascar champ was, the Captain von Richthofen known as Red Baron or the F1 champ schumacher.
However there seems to be more to Wash than his quick jokes, and flying skills. Unlike folks like Jayne, our pilot Wash seems to care a lot about what happened in the War. He has a fierce envy of what Mal and Zoe did in the war and seems to wish he were there in the action. He has a good heart, and has a real dislike for those alliance and feds but he doesn't seem to have done much in the old battles.
Now if he's a great pilot seems like he could get a nice paid job with the hands of blue type people as a flyer but it's clear that Wash and these folk wouldn't get along, unlike Mercs Wash isn't in it for the Cash and he seems to be a true browncoat. Wash of course loves Zoe a lot and they are very close, however he has no tales of war or honour. So what happened Wash ? Was he shot down in the early part of the fighting, did the high tail it like some chicken, or maybe the Independant commanders clipped his wings and grounded him for insubordination and some inappropriate acts and he never got to fight or fly.
Just wondering how Wash got to the place where he's at now, and what made him sign up with Mal instead of Tanaka or others like Renshaw and so forth.
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I don't think that Wash is a Browncoat. I think that the only real Browncoats on Serenity are Mal and Zoe.
Simon, River, and Inara seem to come from the Core worlds. We know that Inara supported the Alliance.
Jayne tells us that he didn't fight in no war, in Train Job.
Wash seems annoyed about the shared war stories of Mal and Zoe, and tells none of his own, so it sounds like HE didn't fight.
Kaylee seems unable to fight. When personal harm enters into the equation, she seems to fold up. Hey, I love her too, but I can't see her in a war. Also, she's probably too young.
Perhaps the homeworlds of some of them were not part of the resistance against the Alliance.
I don't think that Wash is jealous of having missed the fighting. I think that he is jealous of the bond shared between Mal and Zoe BECAUSE of that war.
The Real Me
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Quote:
Originally posted by JaynezTown:
Just wondering how Wash got to the place where he's at now, and what made him sign up with Mal instead of Tanaka or others like Renshaw and so forth.
My take is Wash was trained to fly in the Air National Guard, which he joined to avoid the Draft. He became involved with criminals to supply his coke habit.
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Quote:
Originally posted by PurpleBelly:
My take is Wash was trained to fly in the Air National Guard, which he joined to avoid the Draft. He became involved with criminals to supply his coke habit.
That was hi-larious. Thanks for the laugh
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Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First
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My theory is that Wash went to flight school as a result of some significant sacrifice by his family. He went through the program and did much better than anyone expected. Then one of two things happened. Either Wash came to some sort of moral crisis that made it impossible for him to be an attack pilot for the Alliance (The Huck Finn Theory, I call it), or, the war ended and they cut all the people in the training program loose (I call this one the Waldo Pepper theory). There's probably a good fanfic story somewhere in there.
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I suspect we may learn more in the movie
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wellllllll, according to Wash himself ( commentarty on OIS ) He was in the war ( doe snot say which side but implies was a browncoat ) was shot down on first sortie and did shadow puppets to amuse fellow prisoners. He feels he missed the war.
The Journey is the worthier part.
www.southdownabby.com
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Really!
I can't believe that I missed that. I'll have to watch that episode again. 
The Real Me
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Well, that's Alan's own theroy. Great one too, though. I hope Joss lets us know in the movie. Hope he uses Alan's idea. Check out Alan's commentary with Nathan in "War Stories" and with Jewel in "The Message"
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"Hell if Jesus had the power than so do I
To rise up from the dead and take up to the sky"
--Scissor Sisters
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Yeah, my take is that he was a "Scout" (part of the exploration service, it's a Traveller thing) before the war. He joined up and was shot down on his first mission during the war. I think that will be confirmed in the movie as one of the photos passed around shows him in a military style flight suit (with military style patch on the arm) in front of a wrecked ship of some sort... would tend to support the general story line, but who knows for sure till we see the final product.
Traveller, if you go to Sparta, tell them you have seen us lying here as the Law commands.
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