Mal's backstory

POSTED BY: BYTEMITE
UPDATED: Thursday, March 24, 2016 01:39
VIEWED: 20506
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TWO

Saturday, February 23, 2013 11:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
I've read that comic before over on the site Serenity Tales.

I like that The Black explains why Mal is still at war with the Alliance while other defeated soldiers have accepted peace. What makes Mal so very different? What happened to him before war started!

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

RIONAEIRE

Tuesday, February 26, 2013 1:25 AM

In the scene in Our Mrs. Reynolds where Mal mentions his mama's ranch and the hired hands, he gives the impression that he doesn't have an "actual" father as I recall. So that's why I've always assumed that most of Mal's boyhood was without his father. Technically it could be that his father just wasn't part of the picture, had run off or something, but I somehow always assumed that he was dead, or might as well have been.

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

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, February 26, 2013 5:02 PM

But what if his mom owned the ranch and ran it, but Mal's dad was still in the picture as the cook or something?

EBFIDDLER

Tuesday, February 26, 2013 7:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
But what if his mom owned the ranch and ran it, but Mal's dad was still in the picture as the cook or something?

Very cool idea. Why should we assume it was HIS ranch and she would only run it if he were gone?

TWO

Tuesday, February 26, 2013 8:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
But what if his mom owned the ranch and ran it, but Mal's dad was still in the picture as the cook or something?

Who was the cook and who's the rancher has zero power to explain Mal's spectacularly unique behavior. Mal has this superheated hatred of the Alliance that interferes with everything. That hatred has got to be about more than losing the war or else there would be millions of Mals roaming the 'Verse.

Mal's backstory needs some reasons unique to Mal explaining why he is ruining his life (and Zoe's) by forever being at War. He just doesn't know when to quit smuggling and get a regular job and pay his taxes. Why? why? why? is Mal the way he is? Serenity Tales: The Black by Bill Mudron gave one explanation out of many possible.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

RIONAEIRE

Wednesday, February 27, 2013 1:12 AM

I might need to watch it again, but what Mal said about the ranch hands providing guidence of the paternal variety made me think he didn't have a fixed and steady father figure. that's why I assumed Mal didn't have a father. Am I remembering that scene wrong? Of course Mal's mom could have run the ranch and his dad could have been the cook, but what he said about paternal guidence from the ranch hands indicated to me that, more likely than not, Mal's actual father wasn't part of the picture.

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

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, February 27, 2013 3:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ebfiddler:
Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
But what if his mom owned the ranch and ran it, but Mal's dad was still in the picture as the cook or something?

Very cool idea. Why should we assume it was HIS ranch and she would only run it if he were gone?

In fairness, even in the big RPG handbook with Mal giving his own bio, he doesn't mention his dad at all. He mentions his mother and a ranch overseer. No father. So something probably DID happen. Or maybe one of the hands on the ranch was his father but he never found out which one, could have been born out of wedlock which would probably have been a big deal on Shadow.

But why indeed? Mal's mother could have had both a strict education regiment with a strong dose of core dance and manners, AND run the ranch as a savvy businesswoman.

EBFIDDLER

Wednesday, February 27, 2013 3:43 PM

I agree with Riona that Mal's father is probably out of the picture -- that's how I wrote it in my headcanon backstory for Mal. But I like challenging the stereotype that a woman wouldn't run a ranch unless there were no man to run it; and also the stereotype that all the ranch hands have to be male. Joss Whedon's future 'Verse seems to have more gender equality than the world we live in today -- I like extrapolating on that. Two's got a good point that Mal's anger has more than simply "losing the war" behind it. I tend to think that losing a war AND having your home planet rendered uninhabitable would do it.

TWO

Wednesday, February 27, 2013 6:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ebfiddler:
Two's got a good point that Mal's anger has more than simply "losing the war" behind it. I tend to think that losing a war AND having your home planet rendered uninhabitable would do it.

Then many veterans from Mal's planet would be like Mal. And many veterans from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden would have gone Mal-ish on the USA. But they didn't. Mal ( & poor Zoe ) seem all alone.

I like a backstory where something uniquely terrible happened only to [young, prewar] Mal and set him on course for Serenity and a rendezvous with River and his heroic destiny. His story gets wilder, stranger and faster AFTER the movie. If he slows down, there wouldn't be a good reason for a sequel in Hollywood.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

EBFIDDLER

Wednesday, February 27, 2013 8:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
I like a backstory where something uniquely terrible happened only to [young, prewar] Mal and set him on course for Serenity and a rendezvous with River and his heroic destiny.

Agreed! Something happened to Mal, that didn't happen to Zoe, that pre-dates their first meeting (which we presume was in the war -- although I've read fanfics where they knew each other before the war, too). I've worked something of that kind into my headcanon backstory for Mal, but I most certainly won't reveal it here! ;-) No, it will be revealed in good time in my fanfic, where it has already been hinted at. (It was also hinted at in the series.)

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