Mal getting dumber?

POSTED BY: jewelstaitefan
UPDATED: Friday, March 6, 2009 09:09
VIEWED: 7910
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This derived from a discussion in another thread.
How many feel Mal was originally written as smarter, more devious, craftier character, and then became a bit dumbed down as the episodes rolled on?
Inara's comments about Mal in the Pilot, Mal's immediate understanding of the ambush aspects on Whitehall, and the prelude to arrival there, then his act in Bushwhacked when he supports Book spreading religiosity to the Reaver victims, sending Simon and Jayne to help.
Do you feel he becomes more transparent as the series progresses?
I understand this may be more difficult for those who saw the originally aired shows, having the ilot being the last one, and the other eps out of sequence.
If he was dumbed down, was it a result of the network messing the sequence? Or too many writers having their hands in the pie?
Or perhaps when he died it lowered his IQ and other capacities.

The list of shows where the primary characters have been dumbed down is far too long to recite, but I was wondering if browncoats felt FF was a victim of this phenomena.

What say you?

Please cite examples if you can. This may become relevant when reviewing which eps were written and shot first (already covered in another thread).

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Could you give examples of where you feel he is dumber than he should be? Do you think this actually progresses or is it just something you notice happening once or twice in later episodes?

I'm not going to argue against it on principle, but I wouldn't put it up to meddling from above and more to the writers, to be honest.

We got some brilliant eppies and some not-so-brilliant ones. There can be plot-holes and lazily written characters. So I figure it's not necessarily a far stretch to think that some writers better captured the depth of Mal's scheming brain and others less so.

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People always talk about the episode Trash and his decision to work with Saffron again...

My impression is he entered into that deal expecting to get screwed over by her, and had a back-up plan to turn the tables if she did. I think that's still pretty devious... Even if he does end up buck naked, stranded in the middle of the desert. A plan can't account for every contingency, he wasn't dead, he got the goods, so it worked out fine in the end. Good plan.

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I was wondering the views of others.
Not really dumb, exactly, but less crafty and devious, so "dumbed down" is the common phrase, even among such things as high-IQ tests.
When he fooled Simon, Book, Jayne in BW, that might not have been a feat, but he also got over on Inara and Kaylee there, as well.
Was he less crafty with Badger in Shindig than in Pilot? was he less crafty with Alliance in Safe than in Bushwahcked?

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Well, if you look at Mal's conflicted face when Inara sings his praises during that "Bushwhacked" scene, he may likely have been surprised himself, hehe. The point was not to alarm anyone about the Reaver trap, so he played up the convenient angle (funeral) to put everyone into their needed places (away or not away). It's not really a daring feat of intelligence or deception.

In "Safe" he had no angle to BE crafty with the Alliance. What could he have done, really? In "Bushwhacked" he isn't all that crafty, either. Hiding Simon and River outside the ship is a clever idea but fraught with danger, as well, and he wastes precious seconds getting Simon all worked up instead of just saying "I have a plan". He repeats that mistake with Tracey later, too.

As for Badger, he was crafty in neither episode. The pilot has him begging for business, albeit begging while tall. The second one has him dragged off for sandwiches and making testicle jokes while trying to push a few of Badger's buttons in revenge.

I don't find the situations very comparable, I guess, and I don't think there is a marked contrast in intelligence between the episodes.

Where we DO see a marked difference is Mal's anger. He's on the edge in the pilot in a way we don't really see later in the series, save "Bushwhacked". Shooting the horse is badass, his interactions with Simon are volatile, his jokes against him and Inara are unkind and less lighthearted, shooting Dobson is the epitome of cold efficiency, he snaps at Zoe, lies to Zoe.

The Mal of the pilot would not have played games with Saffron, I think. He may seem more crafty because he's less open about his softer side than we later see.

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So then you feel he becomes more open, and not so much dumber. Open as in transparent, regarding his softer side?

Who else?

I got the feeling in Pilot he was working multplie levels with Badger.
The wrench in Ariel did surprise me.

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Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
So then you feel he becomes more open, and not so much dumber. Open as in transparent, regarding his softer side?

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No transparent, so much. Obviously.

They certainly play up the more lighthearted humor and we see a much greater range of lighter emotions. Overall, he is more serious and somewhat quieter in the pilot episode. We do not see a silly fight that exposes his paranoia like the one with Inara in "Trash", Mal getting all befuddled about Saffron, struggling to memorize medical terminology in "Ariel", wearing a pretty floral bonnet.

The Mal in the pilot is closer to the Mal in the movie - harsher conditions face him in both than they do in the series, which is one explanation. You can come out of the pilot expecting a darker direction in the series than you get, just as you can suspect the series to be darker when you've only seen the movie.

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I got the feeling in Pilot he was working multplie levels with Badger.

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Levels how?

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Now young'uns, allow me to begin by asking you to at least refer to FireflyWiki.org, specifically character listings and planetary geography. It is not "whitehall" nor is there any "white tall". The planet is WhiteFALL and the person Mal's having to beg... that is negotiate with is Patience. Discussions like this go a bit more smooth when the facts are well stated. A little research never hurt anybody, I promise.

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Jewelstaitefan wrote
How many feel Mal was originally written as smarter, more devious, craftier character, and then became a bit dumbed down as the episodes rolled on?

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I believe if you listen to the commentary, there may be mention of the fact that the NETWORK made them soften things somewhat. If it's not on the commentary, it's mentioned somewhere. It's been discussed before, but this was some time ago, and my memory goes fuzzy. Being an old FireflyFogey and all.

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Jewelstaitefan wrote
...in Bushwhacked when he supports Book spreading religiosity to the Reaver victims, sending Simon and Jayne to help.

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I believe what is being missed here is there was a tiny measure of "craftiness" involved here, as it kept his somewhat more twitchy passengers busy doing something and distracted them from the fact that Serenity had been subjected to a booby trap and needed to be disconnected before everyone went BOOM.

It also shows that Mal is willing to utilize Book and his religiosity to serve his own purposes when need calls for it. I would have liked to have seen their discussion on that.

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Jewelstaitefan wrote
Do you feel he becomes more transparent as the series progresses?

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In the Pilot, Mal was already on the raggedy edge of his anger. After the pilot, Joss had to pull him back from the edge a bit.

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Jewelstaitefan wrote
The list of shows where the primary characters have been dumbed down is far too long to recite, but I was wondering if browncoats felt FF was a victim of this phenomena.

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Firefly? A victim of a network getting it's dirty-pesky little fingers into the story works and messing with Joss's head? NO! How can this be!?

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AgentRouka Wrote
As for Badger, he was crafty in neither episode. The pilot has him begging for business, albeit begging while tall. The second one has him dragged off for sandwiches and making testicle jokes while trying to push a few of Badger's buttons in revenge.

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This entire segment confuses me somewhat (too many "he's" being referred to), but I get the gist that Mal was just pushing buttons. Mal does that. I think he does it to distract everyone else from thinking about what he's thinking about, or to put them off the idea that he is thinking of something crafty so he can surprise them with it later.

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AgentRouka Wrote
Shooting the horse is badass, his interactions with Simon are volatile, his jokes against him and Inara are unkind and less lighthearted, shooting Dobson is the epitome of cold efficiency, he snaps at Zoe, lies to Zoe.

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Shooting the horse, according to a horse-crazy friend of mine, was pretty darn practical, since the horse was apparently trained against the automatic flight instinct that would have answered all the shooting going on and sent that horse running for home, hearth and alfalfa. Since that horse wasn't running, it had to be taken down.

I would like to submit that, yes, Mal was toned down through the course of the series, but that chances were very good that Joss would have brought him back up to the pilot standards, and possibly past them. That much anger has to be dealt with some time, and we would have seen and enjoyed the progression. Joss is all about progression.

Veteran of the Throes of Cancellation—FFF.net fan since 010703

Doing the impossible makes us mighty
Minnesota Browncoats
http://www.mnfirefly.com/portal/html/index.php

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