Drugs in the verse.
POSTED BY: jewelstaitefan
UPDATED: Monday, August 10, 2009 08:21
VIEWED: 5933
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Something in the back of my mind finally came to the forefront.
The overall story arc of Firefly/Serenity is of the horrors of the government using drugs (Pax) to control the population (Miranda) and the thrilling heroics of Mal & co to expose those shenanigans. Yet, all through the show, it's touted as admirable that Simon keeps cramming drugs into River in his attempts to better control her, or subdue her, or make her more controlable.
Because this just came to me recently, I may have missed some of the subplots or undercurrents of this conflicting message.
Anybody else already have this covered?
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Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Something in the back of my mind finally came to the forefront.
The overall story arc of Firefly/Serenity is of the horrors of the government using drugs (Pax) to control the population (Miranda) and the thrilling heroics of Mal & co to expose those shenanigans. Yet, all through the show, it's touted as admirable that Simon keeps cramming drugs into River in his attempts to better control her, or subdue her, or make her more controlable.
Because this just came to me recently, I may have missed some of the subplots or undercurrents of this conflicting message.
Anybody else already have this covered?
I think it's overtly simplistic to view the drugs Simon gives River as a purely negative attempt to "controll her".
River's brain has been purposely damaged, and without those drugs, SHE is suffering, too. Do you think she's happy in those months before Ariel, when she has no means to control herself and is getting progressively more volatile? She's prone to panicky episodes, has sincere difficulty communicating with others and gets so caught up in symbolic details that she defaces food packaging and attacks people with knives.
Simon convinces her to agree with his Ariel plan by pointing out the benefits of diagnosing and correctly medicating her. After Ariel, she has the mental stability to actually have fun with Kaylee and connect with her, instead of the rare disconnected moment of fun that mainly takes place in her own isolated universe, like dancing in Safe. Simon is the only one she can really connect to before, afterwards, she starts really bonding with Kaylee.
Sure she dislikes having to be drugged, but I doubt that Simon is forcing anything on River that she doesn't recognize she needs. That moment in Safe where she throws his medkit, viewed in the context of the scene, is more about River flashing back to what the scientists did to her than it is about Simon's attempts to treat her. Do you think she could have done what she did in Object In Space without the stabilizing effects of her medication? Compare that River to the one in The Train Job.
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There's no such thing as a drug without a side effect. It's just if you can live with them or not. It also gives us a love/hate relationship with them, or how easily something that should be so good for us can take us to the dark side. What a tool for dramatic conflict. River was healing psychologically, but who knows where Joss would have taken her.
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Drugs do have benefits and risks. My daughter has Asparger's syndrome (high end autism). One drug she took helped her through a tough time but caused tremendous weight gain. So she stopped it and had a very hard time learning to cope without it.
Take Pax, it likely would be useful in small individual doses for certain people but when applied planet wide, to multiple personality types, had horrible consequences.
Talk about dramatic consequences.
http://fireflyfaninnc.livejournal.com/
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Well, this was a short-lived thread, eh? :-/
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I don't think the intent was to focus on the drugs. I think Joss et al were more about the Alliances need to control.
If it were another 'verse they might have used mind powers or alien parasites or somesuch, but this being the one with only humans of the common-or-garden variety in it they used drugs.
Joss doesn't seem to focus particularly on drugs - they featured in all his shows, but as far as i can remember (and i have the memory of a hamster, sorry) he seemed to condem alcohol more.
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Sorry for not maintaining a hot exchange for this thread, I've gotten more restrictions at work now. I still enjoy the intercourse, tho.
Quote:
Originally posted by seryn:
I don't think the intent was to focus on the drugs. I think Joss et al were more about the Alliances need to control.
If it were another 'verse they might have used mind powers or alien parasites or somesuch, but this being the one with only humans of the common-or-garden variety in it they used drugs.
Joss doesn't seem to focus particularly on drugs - they featured in all his shows, but as far as i can remember (and i have the memory of a hamster, sorry) he seemed to condem alcohol more.
Alcohol isn't a drug? Which definition of drug excludes alcohol?
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Quote:
Originally posted by ncbrowncoat:
Drugs do have benefits and risks. My daughter has Asparger's syndrome (high end autism). One drug she took helped her through a tough time but caused tremendous weight gain. So she stopped it and had a very hard time learning to cope without it.
Take Pax, it likely would be useful in small individual doses for certain people but when applied planet wide, to multiple personality types, had horrible consequences.
Talk about dramatic consequences.
http://fireflyfaninnc.livejournal.com/
Not trying to be insensitive, but many have speculated that autism has causative factors in drugs, whether drugs in the water supply, drugs in vaccines, drugs from the hospital or doctors, etc. Using drugs to treat a drug-sourced malady may not be the best example.
Rather than specific applications of specific drugs, I was considering if the larger view, the overarcing juxtaposition of stories, was intended.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Katesfriend:
There's no such thing as a drug without a side effect. It's just if you can live with them or not. It also gives us a love/hate relationship with them, or how easily something that should be so good for us can take us to the dark side. What a tool for dramatic conflict. River was healing psychologically, but who knows where Joss would have taken her.
Do you think she would have healed completely? Were the drugs absolutely needed? Could she have weaned off them? Does she still need drugs after Miranda? Were the drugs just a tool to accelerate her learning to cope, learning to work around her disabilities? Were they just a catalyst for healing? Or are they a crutch she will need always, or for a long time? Are these 9 months just a form of "therapy" for her to adjust to the real world?
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I really don't know. Simon called it paranoid schizophrenia - surgically induced. If the illness was the result of the psychological stress of the subconscious knowledge of Miranda, then that stress was relieved by the BDM. She was functioning at an increasingly high level of reality throughout the later episodes of the show and absolutely the movie, as if she was healing and adjusting to her mind altered state. Certainly at the end of the movie, she was as normal for a mind reading genius to be, so I like to think that she would be healed by Miranda, as was Mal. What Joss would do is another story, but in my little world, River's healing is the happy ending that the movie needed.
In our world, this is what Wikipedia had to say about recovery:
Coordinated by the World Health Organization and published in 2001, The International Study of Schizophrenia (ISoS) was a long-term follow-up study of 1633 individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia around the world. The striking difference in course and outcomes was noted; a half of those available for follow-up had a favourable outcome and 16% had a delayed recovery after an early unremitting course. More usually, the course in the first two years predicted the long-term course. Early social intervention was also related to a better outcome. The findings were held as important in moving patients, carers and clinicians away from the prevalent belief of the chronic nature of the condition.[171] A review of major longitudinal studies in North America noted this variation in outcomes, although outcome was on average worse than for other psychotic and psychiatric disorders. A moderate number of patients with schizophrenia were seen to remit and remain well; the review raised the question that some may not require maintenance medication.[172]
A clinical study using strict recovery criteria (concurrent remission of positive and negative symptoms and adequate social and vocational functioning continuously for two years) found a recovery rate of 14% within the first five years.[173] A 5-year community study found that 62% showed overall improvement on a composite measure of clinical and functional outcomes.[174]
World Health Organization studies have noted that individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia have much better long-term outcomes in developing countries (India, Colombia and Nigeria) than in developed countries (United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Japan, and Russia),[175] despite antipsychotic drugs not being widely available.
I hope this helps answer you rquestion.
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