Firefly characters you DON'T like

POSTED BY: BYTEMITE
UPDATED: Wednesday, July 13, 2016 05:55
VIEWED: 17508
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AGENTROUKA

Saturday, February 2, 2013 11:42 AM

We're already missing his charming side before Mal arrives, though. Inara is clearly put off by his blatantly sexual compliments ("All of them wish you were in their bed.") and attitude toward her work ("She blushes. Not many in your line of work do that.") or trying to tell her how to live her life ("You belong here, Inara, not on that flying piece of gos se.") and so on. You already know he's.. not a truly nice guy and has an arrogant, controlling side.

It's really very stark, the contrast to his wave.

I sort of like GillianRose's version in "The Misfortune" where the circumstances of their meeting are pretty dramatic and shrouded in an air of gratitude and distraction. That would justify to me why Inara never picked up on those things, so I incorporate it into my head canon.

I remain astonished that there are no characters I inherently hate, where I don't blame it on lazy writing. That's.. I'm baffled. It hinders my whining!

Hey, maybe we could do a thread where we talk about aspects of characters, especially the main cast, that we don't like? :)

BYTEMITE

Saturday, February 2, 2013 6:19 PM

The question is, would Atherton's statements have really seemed so controlling and bad if you only saw up to before Mal shows up? Inara was starting to be hesitant, true, but compare Atherton's comments to something Kaylee might say to her.

Both Kaylee and Mal have commented that Inara's presence on Serenity is inexplicable, would probably comment if she blushed about something, and both Kaylee and Mal have talked about "her world" as something separate and better than Serenity.

It's Atherton's behaviour after Mal shows up that really shines a different light on everything, though there's a certain subtle vibe he has about it before then that hints at it that Inara starts to react to. So even though it seems obvious to us, I can see how it might not be obvious to Inara until right up to that party. So I do think it was pretty subtle.

MOOSE

Saturday, February 2, 2013 7:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by FollowMal:

Edited to add: Is there a Supernatural thread around here?

One pops up every now and then in the Other SciFi Show forum. Great show, but I haven't kept up with it the past few seasons.

AGENTROUKA

Saturday, February 2, 2013 8:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
The question is, would Atherton's statements have really seemed so controlling and bad if you only saw up to before Mal shows up? Inara was starting to be hesitant, true, but compare Atherton's comments to something Kaylee might say to her.

They did strike me as that on first viewing. I distinctly remember rolling my eyes and going "He's evil. Meh." long before Mal showed up.

It's not only what he says but the way he says it, how he reacts to Inara and just the general vibe. Very different from Kaylee, where the fangirling is pretty obvious.

So for my own personal enjoyment it's necessary to think up an excuse for why Inara, who has met him before, never picked up on that trait of his. Obviously, my own opinion on this is the only correct one, so you must be wrong when you see it differently.

BYTEMITE

Saturday, February 2, 2013 8:49 PM

I am actually bringing up the whole Atherton thing in my chapter I'm writing, but I was using the explanation I used. I have vested interest in trying to come up with a believable explanation for this, we should brainstorm.

Perhaps my problem is I'm coming from a direction where I've personally experienced emotional abuse from people I thought were nice and fun and charming for years, but they were manipulating me all along. And I like to think I'm not particularly dumb, so I like to think Inara had something similar going on with her and Atherton.

AGENTROUKA

Saturday, February 2, 2013 9:46 PM

I see what you mean. I also think that Inara hasn't known Atherton for very long and he IS a client, albeit a charming one, so her own emotional investment should be pretty limited and her guard pretty high. Weeding the bad from the good is what she does, so the fail here - after at least one prior engagement - seems.. out of character. Even if his behavior was subtle, which I don't think it was, she's supposed to be High Priestess material, and they introduce us to her work by making her seem blind to his character after repeated exposure? Lazy writing to turn her into a damsel for Mal to defend.

I could buy that Inara IS aware of these tendencies and chose Ath for superficial reasons, and that she could reasonably manipulate him back outside of a dramatic influence like Mal. Which would play into the implication that she went ahead with their engagement after the duel challenge. She simply feels no personal threat from Ath, his attitude notwithstanding. This also jives with her telling Mal, "yes, you managed to push him into saying something" as well as "Because it's my decision, not yours."

That or GillianRose's scenario, where Inara was literally distracted when she met him. I like that scenario because there Inara's emotions blind her, not some inexplicable lack of perception.

Most curious about what your chapter will contain. :)

EBFIDDLER

Sunday, February 3, 2013 5:11 PM

Characters I dislike:

Rance Burgess has very little in the way of redeeming qualities.

Tracey is a treacherous whiner, and stupid, too.

Atherton was never a good person, but he has been riding a wave of charm for a long time. Some people see through it (like Harrow, who dislikes Atherton immediately) but others are taken in. Charming people often get away with things, when someone whose manners were more blunt would be called on the carpet for exactly the same behavior. I think that Atherton is a fair representative of a certain kind of entitled-feeling person, a type who is not uncommon in Inara's world, and that's why he doesn't ring the alarm bells with her so much as he ought.

Having said that, I dislike Niska because he is just too over-the-top. I love Michael Fairman's performance of Niska, and I like the episodes that involve him, particularly War Stories, but the character smells too much of "supervillain" and is too comic-book-like for my taste. Evil insane crime boss with unlimited financial resources and evil henchmen who unfailingly do his evil bidding? Meh.

I love Saffron as a villain because her kind of evil is thoroughly life-like. I know people who are kinda like Saffron. She is the villain I love to hate.

Early, too, was a creepy and unique bad guy. Not a cardboard cut-out villain like Burgess or Officer Womack.

As far as main characters go, River-as-super-kick-ass-unstoppable-psychic-warrior-princess bugs me. River of the show is much more interesting to me than River of the movie. In my own fanfic, I tend to downplay the superhero tendencies they gave this character because it begets crap plots like "It's Never Easy." Now, if they'd write it so that her "super" powers were as much of a liability as an asset...I could go for that. But please don't give me "everyone else screws up and River saves the day with her super powers" for a plot. That I can only take in limited doses.

BYTEMITE

Sunday, February 3, 2013 7:41 PM

Oooooh, I kind of like that it's hard for Inara to tell entitled rich guy from entitled rich sociopath until something challenges his dominance. Maybe?

Inara probably has to deal with her share of spoiled pampered adult brats in her job, but she probably sees that as harmless in limited doses, if a little shallow and superficial. Atherton might've seemed like more of the same, until he was provoked and the scary side came out.

Maybe her reaction when Atherton asked her to be her personal companion, or when he was making embarrassing inappropriate comments, maybe it wasn't fear or apprehension, but more of an inward "oh no, this again. *sigh*"

It would be in keeping with her response to Kaylee in the pilot episode after another spoiled rich kid fumbled some kind of proposal, and it would also explain why she was angry when Mal interrupted Atherton's creepy vibe - she thought it was more of the same, annoying, but not something from which she needed rescuing that might jeopardize her engagement.

Quote:
(like Harrow, who dislikes Atherton immediately)

Supposedly Harrow knew Atherton because they go to the same country club, but yeah, Harrow has been around Atherton enough and heard enough rumours that he has kind of a dislike for the guy, or maybe he saw some particularly bad behaviour from Atherton that made him think poorly of him. Atherton seems like the kind of guy if a waiter got his drink order wrong, he'd get nasty and throw the drink in their face and go on a long petty rant about it. And then probably refuse to tip or try to get the guy fired.

Quote:
I dislike Niska because he is just too over-the-top. I love Michael Fairman's performance of Niska, and I like the episodes that involve him, particularly War Stories, but the character smells too much of "supervillain" and is too comic-book-like for my taste.

Yes, I agree. Maybe not quite supervillain, there probably are guys like that in the criminal underworld, but I get what you're saying. With Niska, the way he was written became almost like a charicature.

Burgess was also a charicature, so also not very fond of him, but for some reason Burgess seemed more realistic than Niska.

Quote:
"It's Never Easy."

Yes. :( I think River is at her best writing when her powers are kind of scaring the bejesus out of everyone, and as such she's like a force of nature, you don't really know whether the backlash will be against the crew or their enemies. There should be concerns that River is almost as much as a liability as she is an advantage.

I really don't think River should ever be written as an easy "We win" button.

RIONAEIRE

Tuesday, February 5, 2013 3:58 AM

I get a kick out of Niska, I think the comic book sadist super villain thing is fun and entertaining.

Eb's theory on Atherton is spot on. Inara is so used to snobby rich antics that she doesn't realize that this is something beyond the norm ... or is it.

I like it when River saves the day sometimes. But if she saves the day all the time it gets boring, I like it when everyone on the crew is doing interesting/helpful/story worthy things and all the attention isn't put on one person to the detriment of others. Plus stories that mainly focus on River are more likely to write her wrong eventually and make her stable/boring/cured/Mary Sue/they all mean the same thing to me, so I don't like those stories. But anyway a healthy dose of River saving the day sometimes is good but not too much please.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, February 20, 2013 2:55 PM

Bumped for more Firefly discussion. Also because this thread needs to fulfill it's ulterior purpose: that of helping me CONQUER THE WORLD- yeah not really.

But there are mad schemes at work here. Schemes about understanding various fan and fanfic phenomena that have been observed.

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