River's dialogue analyzed

POSTED BY: MerryK
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 09:20
VIEWED: 8734
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MERRYK

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 1:29 AM

I am one of those fic writers who can't just write from instinct...I have to examine and reexamine and analyze until I'm sure I can do it right. Especially when it comes to idiosyncratic dialogue/behavior. When it comes to River, she's a wonderful mix of crazy and lucidity, of genuine disconnection from reality and simple eccentricity. Even more, this mixture varies from episode to episode to movie, because of outside influences on her psyche. To get a better idea of how she progresses, I went through all the scripts for the show and movie and categorized each one of River's lines, from most normal to most abnormal.

The first category was Lucid, those lines that any girl in that position would say. "You are such a boob" and "I didn't get you anything" fall under this category, plus her direction giving in Objects in Space.

The second category I named Oddly Phrased. These are those things she says that are slightly weird, but probably due more to her natural character than any mental troubles. For example, before anything happens to her, her lines in Safe about "The Independents attacked us with dinosaurs.....we'll have to resort to cannibalism" show that she doesn't think typically even under good circumstances. After her treatment, I categorized such lines as "Ruby doesn't talk anymore; her voice got scared away" "I wonder who's in there" and "My food is problematic" in this section.

Next come the purely literal and logical lines, the technical ones, that come randomly. Probably she said similar lines before the treatment, but they are also prompted by her schizophrenia. "The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given proper vacuuming technique" and "Mal—bad—in the Latin" are good examples.

The last category is the Crazy Talk, stuff that there is usually an explanation for if you understand how River talks, but clearly comes from her fragmented mind. There are the somewhat crazy lines like "We'll take care of each other...I'll knit" and "I walked on my feet, and I heard with my ears". And then there are the more bizarre ones, such as "Old men covered in blood, never touched them but their drowning in it" and "They took Christmas away". The range of weirdness varies, but I ended up putting them all in this category. I also put her pure mind-reading stuff in this area, such as her analysis of Badger.

Lastly, I marked down moments where River has a fit or act of random fear.

I gave points for lines from each category, approximately one point per line of dialogue, though long speeches (such as her speech to Badger, Early, Simon in War Stories, etc.) are never given more than three points no matter how many lines, and if there are a couple short lines that follow on to each other, they are only given one point.

And now, the analysis part.

Obviously, River has more points in episodes where she has more scenes, and she only got points for Our Mrs. Reynolds because I included the deleted scene (I did not include any other deleted scene except the two extensions from the movie Serenity, from the locker scene and on Lilac). But there is somewhat of a pattern of her dialogue. I'll do an episode by episode analysis, and share more general comments at the end.

In the first episode, we only see River fearful mostly, no crazy moments at all. She gets a Oddly Phrased point for her line after exiting the cryo box and a Lucid point for her couple lines to Simon at the end, including one of her most lucid lines: "I didn't think you'd come for me." In the Train Job, we get lines all across the board, from her random throwing things in the infirmary to her statement of Serenity's classification to her "Two by two, hands of blue". In Bushwacked, too, she's all over, though much more crazy and frightened than lucid/technical. She's not lucid at all in Shindig, and once again is having little crazy fits.

It is in Safe that she gives a hint that she can still be lucid in any way. She still has lots of crazy lines, as well as many oddly phrased ones, and a couple random fits, but she also has almost a n

SHINYSEVEN2

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 4:21 AM

There's also the time delay you have to apply when someone is clairvoyant as well as telepathic--something that sounds completely batty on Tuesday in the desert makes perfect sense on Friday during the monsoon.

For a long time, I thought that Safe showed that although River is clairvoyant, she has ATROCIOUS judgment. But thinking it over more, she wasn't worried because she *knew* the Big Damn Heroes were going to turn up in time to save the day, so why shouldn't they get a chance to be really cool?

WYTCHCROFT

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 6:57 AM

great post - one i'll come back to... i think River's 'abilities' are undisciplined and therefore random seeming, especially as she herself moves without effort between the present and memory... and not all her memories are her own.

what's difficult in a fic is that River's 'crazy talk' - third person refrerential 'knights move' schizo-logic and all - actually reads as clunky quite often in a genuine script... it takes a performance and a director to make it work...

fic writers got a tough job on that one!:)

MERRYK

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 2:22 PM

Yeah...one thing in a fic writer's favor, though, is that we all know very well what Summer Glau sounds like, so it's pretty easy to hear River if the words are right.

--
"My way of being polite, or however...well, it's the only way I have of showing you that I like you. Of showing respect." Simon Tam, Jaynestown

NBZ

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 3:16 PM

wow!

Do we get a graph? (or a table?)

(clairvoyance is IMO not a part of her repertoire... When joss sais Psychic I choose to believe he only meant "reader"...)

EDIT - Does "Those Left Behind" fit into this?

MERRYK

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 3:19 PM

I could do that...but I'm not sure how to make that in a forum. Any ideas? I'd be happy to share if I can make it work.

No, I did not do Those Left Behind...probably should. I don't yet own it, though, so it might take a while.

I agree, it's not clairvoyance, she just reads things so that it seems like she's foretelling the future.

--
"My way of being polite, or however...well, it's the only way I have of showing you that I like you. Of showing respect." Simon Tam, Jaynestown

NBZ

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 3:26 PM

Probably best to do it in a spreadsheet program and take a screenshot. (if you send me the data I can do it for you... )

And you need to get a hold of TLB. not because it is spectacular in any way, (you may be disappointed as well it lacks the skills of the actors - even with pictures you still have to imagine how the lines would be delivered.) but there is a River scene which IMO gives some insight into some of Rivers less than lucid moments.

WYTCHCROFT

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 4:12 PM

always give me a chance to go william burroughs (on a budget ha ha!)... mixing past and future memory can be quite hypnotic.

generally - river makes very powerful associations - which may or may not be pertinent to the crew - but they can be useful to give extra insight to a character or a theme... a 'bad' river characterisation will use her as an 'enigmatic' exposition machine only...*

*might be guilty of that myself!!

personal P.S.: entering a weird cuppla weeks where my net access will be snatched and random - if i miss anything meantime - i WILL catch up!!:)

MERRYK

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 4:29 PM

I went back and edited it a little but here it is. Oh, and when I put the number of scenes, it is the number of scenes she actually speaks in.

--
"My way of being polite, or however...well, it's the only way I have of showing you that I like you. Of showing respect." Simon Tam, Jaynestown

MERRYK

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 4:31 PM

You're quite right about Those Left Behind...I forgot that there are important River scenes. I'll get to that as soon as possible, but until then I'll post what I have.

--
"My way of being polite, or however...well, it's the only way I have of showing you that I like you. Of showing respect." Simon Tam, Jaynestown

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