Is Firefly Amoral Familism?

POSTED BY: two
UPDATED: Saturday, October 6, 2012 01:09
VIEWED: 12608
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Originally posted by m52nickerson:
I would agree with chaotic-good to grey. That being said I don't think someone has to be selfish to be act amorally. Outside of the killing that crew and Mal do they also do quit a bit of stealing. Now they often do a fair bit of self justification while do it, but in the end it is still amoral.

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This is why Serenity is not a monthly comic: too much mental strain for a writer to justify new homicides by Mal every 30, 60, or 90 days. The Whedons should heartily go with "amoral familism", which succinctly justifies stealing from ( or killing ) anyone outside the "family" -- by family I mean the crew of Serenity. There is less mental strain on the writer and stories are much easier to devise.

The Walking Dead comics, which are big sellers, are an example of "amoral familism" in comics. There is even a TV show. Think about a monthly Serenity comic that eventually spins off a show on HBO or AMC!


The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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I think most of us would consider the crew becoming a bunch of sociopaths major character derailment.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
I think most of us would consider the crew becoming a bunch of sociopaths major character derailment.

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But if you look at it from the crew's side, they're not sociopaths. Same with The Walking Dead TV show. We're all just trying to survive the Alliance or the Zombie Apocalypse the best we can. It just so happens that some actors get in the way and have to leave the show earlier than they would like.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
It's very likely that in the original Robin Hood stories, if Robin Hood and the merry men were real, they kept at least some of the wealth they stole in order to keep themselves fed, clothed, and armed. Ultimately there are limits to how "Robin Hood-like" a real person can be compared to the mythic figure.

I think if Mal had the option, he'd be happy to do charity work in between earning money to keep them in the air. I actually agree with Two's ideas to some degree, I'd like to see Mal become involved with a charitable organization, possibly through Inara, but I also don't think he'd give up crime if he were doing that as he has too little respect for Alliance law for that. Charity work with some smuggling and tariff dodging, basically, and of course skirmishes when other groups try to steal the aid parcels from the crew during delivery.

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I have no doubts that Robin Hood would have taken some of what he stole to keep he and his men fed. That is not what we saw after the crew stole the meds. They were clearly making more money that what they needed to keep the ship in the air and food in their bellies. One of Wash's arguments for selling to the doctors directly was better prices, and I'm pretty sure he meant profit for them.

That is not to say Mal and the crew are not charitable when they can be. We see that a few time where they take jobs for little of no pay because people need help.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Not quite. One thief had buried a big cache of money underneath a Buddhist monastery, possibly before it was even built or during construction. Another thief told the crew about a rumour of a lot of money under the monastery that no one ever came back for or claimed. The monks didn't know the cache was there. If they had, the monk probably wouldn't have mentioned Jayne Cobb's own Robin Hood-esque hero of Canton legend when Jayne gave him money. So, it was treasure hunting, not stealing.

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A lot of treasure hunters in history have also been called thiefs. In the end they where still taking money that was not there's and for the purpose of making a profit. They did not go into it with any intent of giving it to charity.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
True. But that's what actually puts this IN Robin Hood Territory. Even if Haymer isn't as bad as Saffron says, they still make an effort to mostly steal from the rich or well off. In Robin Hood and the original stories, he was actually stealing back taxes collected by the Sheriff of Nottingham, but in more modern days that's been conflated to Robin Hood stealing from rich people just passing through Sherwood Forest, whether or not they were cruel or evil.

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The key to Robin Hood was what he did with his loot afterwards. Had Robin simply been keeping the money he would not be looked at in the same way. Now the crew of Serenity does go after the well off which does make them better than someone willing to steal from the poor. They also do so because the well off have more to steal.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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That is not what we saw after the crew stole the meds. They were clearly making more money that what they needed to keep the ship in the air and food in their bellies.

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Sure. But, at the same time, this really isn't that damning. A lot of effort is taken to show that the Alliance hospitals are wasteful with their medicine, that there's a good chance that medicine wouldn't have been used, and also that the Alliance is flush with resources and wealth.

The Alliance doctors certainly aren't selling their services for only the amount of money they need to keep their home and food on the table. The crew is probably selling for less than those doctors would ask, because after all, the medicines are stolen. And anyone distributing something valuable, like medicine, surely has the right to ask for some compensation and a comfortable living.

Stealing from the rich and selling to the poor at reduced cost is not perfectly Robin Hood, but I do think it's in the spirit of it. There is nothing wrong with making a profit so long as no one is harmed.

Actually the more questionable thing about all of this is that there's indications that they weren't selling those medicines for health reasons, but as recreational drugs.

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A lot of treasure hunters in history have also been called thiefs. In the end they where still taking money that was not there's and for the purpose of making a profit.

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Your initial argument was that it was stolen from a monastery of peaceful Buddhist monks, and that reflected poorly on the crew. It wasn't technically. We don't know who the original thieves stole it from, or even if they're still around to claim ownership (or, in the case of say stolen German artwork in WW2, if there are descendants who would claim it).

Maybe if we knew that, we might condemn the initial thieves and also think that the crew should return the money to the victims, as we did and they did when they stole the medicine from Paradiso. As it is, we don't know that - perhaps it was taken from a corrupt land baron.

Semantics says that in the end treasure hunting and thievery are similar, but what the crew was doing here was still technically treasure hunting, they don't become guilty of the original theft by proxy just because by various means they came into possession of the treasure. Not any more than someone buying (or stealing) artwork from an auction where the artwork was stolen from Germany in WW2 becomes guilty of the original theft.

The reason treasure hunters nowadays are looked down on is because it's seen as scavenging and cultural theft - most of them are targeting shipwrecks and there was technically no original theft involved.

In any case, the crew being thieves doesn't exactly preclude them from being Robin Hood-esque. That's not really an argument in contention here.

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Had Robin simply been keeping the money he would not be looked at in the same way.

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Well, if he had been keeping ALL the money, then yes. But it's likely Robin Hood kept some of it. That's just the likely reality.

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Now the crew of Serenity does go after the well off which does make them better than someone willing to steal from the poor. They also do so because the well off have more to steal.

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True. But that's just practical and also decent to poor people. If they stole from poor people they'd just be bullies. And it also doesn't preclude the good deeds they do sometimes for poor people - or that it appears Inara is familiar with a story from Mal's past which makes her think he's a Robin Hood-esque archetype. Or that Jayne IS actually an (accidental) Robin Hood archetype.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Sure. But, at the same time, this really isn't that damning. A lot of effort is taken to show that the Alliance hospitals are wasteful with their medicine, that there's a good chance that medicine wouldn't have been used, and also that the Alliance is flush with resources and wealth.

The Alliance doctors certainly aren't selling their services for only the amount of money they need to keep their home and food on the table. The crew is probably selling for less than those doctors would ask, because after all, the medicines are stolen. And anyone distributing something valuable, like medicine, surely has the right to ask for some compensation and a comfortable living.

Stealing from the rich and selling to the poor at reduced cost is not perfectly Robin Hood, but I do think it's in the spirit of it. There is nothing wrong with making a profit so long as no one is harmed.

Actually the more questionable thing about all of this is that there's indications that they weren't selling those medicines for health reasons, but as recreational drugs.

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I don't think there is anything wrong in making a profit, but I disagree that it is vein as Robin Hood. Maybe if they where selling the meds directly to be local Doctors that would be closer, but they where selling to the middle men. Regardless of everything else the crew is still selling and making a profit on stolen goods. I just don't put that in the "steal from the rich and give to the poor" category.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Your initial argument was that it was stolen from a monastery of peaceful Buddhist monks, and that reflected poorly on the crew. It wasn't technically. We don't know who the original thieves stole it from, or even if they're still around to claim ownership (or, in the case of say stolen German artwork in WW2, if there are descendants who would claim it).

Maybe if we knew that, we might condemn the initial thieves and also think that the crew should return the money to the victims, as we did and they did when they stole the medicine from Paradiso. As it is, we don't know that - perhaps it was taken from a corrupt land baron.

Semantics says that in the end treasure hunting and thievery are similar, but what the crew was doing here was still technically treasure hunting, they don't become guilty of the original theft by proxy just because by various means they came into possession of the treasure. Not any more than someone buying (or stealing) artwork from an auction where the artwork was stolen from Germany in WW2 becomes guilty of the original theft.

The reason treasure hunters nowadays are looked down on is because it's seen as scavenging and cultural theft - most of them are targeting shipwrecks and there was technically no original theft involved.

In any case, the crew being thieves doesn't exactly preclude them from being Robin Hood-esque. That's not really an argument in contention here.

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Your right them being thieves does not preclude them from being Robin Hood-esque. It is what they do with the things they steal that I think does.

That money under the monistary belongs to someone. If nothing else it would most likley be considared the Monks if the orginal owners did nto claim it.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Well, if he had been keeping ALL the money, then yes. But it's likely Robin Hood kept some of it. That's just the likely reality.

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My point is that the crew of Serenity is not just keeping some of the money. They are keeping all the money they make. The whole reason for them to steal the medicine was not to provide it to the poor, but as payment for getting Simon and River into the Hospital.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
True. But that's just practical and also decent to poor people. If they stole from poor people they'd just be bullies. And it also doesn't preclude the good deeds they do

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