Why River is more sane than you.

POSTED BY: jewelstaitefan
UPDATED: Thursday, January 17, 2008 18:34
VIEWED: 10061
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PONYXPRESSINC

Sunday, January 6, 2008 6:34 PM

Quote:
"I think the only practical definition of crazy is "I don't get it, and no one I like gets/would get it".

Hit the nail on the head there.

I think the meaning of the IQ scores varies a little, there is a percentile table here http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/IQtable.aspx. Enjoy

.

STEAMER

Sunday, January 6, 2008 10:33 PM

Well, without trying to stray too far off topic -

I have Asperger's Syndrome my own self. But it's like Serenity: you never truly lose it, you just learn to live with it and to feel more secure in who you are because it's part of you. Having said that, it's been my observation that no one really cares, least of all many of my past teachers and one of my past bosses (of course I only found out I was an Aspie about three years ago, and I had finished school some time before that). So you may be asking, How does this relate to River and whether or not she's truly insane?

Asperger's, autism, ADD, a lot of other mental disorders you can name - high intelligence and low social skills are dead giveaways. Such folk are extremely intelligent, but they have such a hard time expressing themselves that they come off as dumb, or weird, or otherwise different. (I mean no offense to anyone who has one of those disorders - RiverFlan, you least of all - this is just what I've discovered of myself and other Aspies I've known.) The only problem is not the individual's: People fear what they don't understand. Take River, for instance. In her case, she wasn't born with it, but the Feds did irreparable damage to her grey matter and now she has a mental imbalance that makes the people around her uncomfortable and/or nervous. Even if she hadn't been through it she still might have had a rough time: remember her comment about Simon in the R. Tam Sessions? "He hates it when I can tell which girls he likes." Or something along those lines. Even members of her own family might have been unnerved by her intelligence even if she hadn't had any trouble expressing herself.

But, now she does. The rest of the crew doesn't understand. From that comes, at the very best, concern. When people can't understand something or someone, they try to put it in terms they're familiar with: River comes off as crazy, so to everyone else's minds, she is crazy. First impressions can be misleading but many folk have a hard time getting past them unless they're willing to get past them. Even then, River's unpredictability is a source of constant vexation to the crew. IMO, there's still a girl beneath the weapon, but characters and fans alike seem to be having an awfully difficult time seeing the girl.

I wrote a short fanfic (or tried to - never have completed it) set during OiS, where Serenity has a heart-to-heart with River just before Jubal sneaks on board. When River realises he's coming, thus follows the exchange:
RIVER
He's crazy, but not stupid.
SERENITY
You sure?
RIVER
It takes one to know one.

Which suddenly brings me to a burning question.

Does River think she's crazy?

Think about it. Just because everybody else thinks (perhaps mistakenly) that she's crazy, does she agree with them? Or, being the only one on the ship who knows what really happened to her, does she have a different view of herself? That she's not crazy, she's just highly intelligent and now unable to express herself in a clear manner due to somebody else's impersonal and inhumane motives?

I used to think the problem was mine. Then I found out I had Asperger's. When I found that out and came to terms with it, the problem was no longer mine. It was on the bastards who knew I had it and chose to ignore it and believe instead that I was retarded. But I don't give a good gorram what anyone else thinks about it anymore, because I know the real story.

And only River knows hers. Based on that:

What does SHE think???

Small, concealable
Weapons done
With a 'bwah!'
Mal aims his gun
FIREFLY

Captain of the New England Browncoats
http://www.myspace.com/nebrowncoats

RIVERFLAN

Sunday, January 6, 2008 11:23 PM

That means that you're pretty near the genius mark, USMCH. The way I remember it, 100-115 was average, between that and 145 was above normal, and 145+ was genius.

And I'm odd about that- I have to read all of a thread before I reply to anybody, or if it's a thread I've visited before, I have to read all the things that people have said since I last visited. And no, I'm not OCD, I'm just weird .

#~%~~*~~~&~~~*~~%~#

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PONYXPRESSINC

Monday, January 7, 2008 7:24 AM

Quote:
"What does SHE think???"

That's a very good question and not one that's easy to answer. From what I can recall she is her most self-aware (pre-getting the Miranda thing off her chest) after playing chase with Kaylee and during the bullet in the brainpan bit. The latter misery I thought was more about what the Academy programmed her to do and what she had sitting in her head. The former seemed to be about her clarity slipping away. As far as I can remember it was her clearest moment of there is something wrong with me, rather than everyone else just doesn't get it.

There was a bloke I worked with when I was supervising a night shift a long, long time ago who had schizophrenia. He came off his meds without his Doctors approval and I spent a chunk of one night talking to him because he saw birds flying out of the back of a machine and understandably was scared out of his wits.

At that point he knew he was sane, but we were all crazy because we couldn't see what he could see. Baring schizophrenia giving him an altered perception that allowed him to see things that were there that we couldn't, I think probability is on the side of the rest of us being right and him being wrong.

With that in mind plus some other people I have come across in similar situations I think she would think she was sane regardless of what anyone else thinks, which in some ways I think she has a right to believe because all of her bizarre moments make some kind of sense when you look back at them. As someone said, she had some damn good reasons for slashing Jayne; the argument is whether the action was out of proportion to the cause.

Interested to know what other people think, particilarily if they can come up with a more conclusive argument.

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Monday, January 7, 2008 7:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by PhoenixRose:
I thought the snow on the roof comment was about, well, Book's hair. The snow on the roof is too heavy. His brain is in terrible danger.

To address the first post here, well, my IQ has been tested at 140. Now, not that I know the IQ of everyone I've ever talked to, but I don't think it's til someone hits 'average' that I start to think they're a bit mentally sub-normal. Likewise, it's the average and below crowd who seem to think that I'm just a bit odd, to use the wording of one of them. Maybe I'm wrong, and the people who think I'm out of my mind and I think are idiots have IQs of 120 or possibly even higher than that... but I have trouble believing that is the case. Now, Jayne might pigeonhole River into 'moonbrained' because he doesn't understand the complexity of it. The trauma and the drugs and the stripped emotional filter heightening extra-sensory abilities that no one fully understands, and the genius mind that drives it all, but the fact is that she is a little disjointed. Her own reality matrix has been fragmented. Though she may know more than anyone, she has trouble putting it into words, because she's so fragmented. She sees and feels things that aren't, for all intents and purposes, real. Like leaves and a tree branch that exist only as her perception of an object. Like thoughts and emotions that exist outside her own experience. Jayne doesn't understand that, because he doesn't have the intellect to understand that. He just sees it as crazy. It's not because her IQ is so much higher than his, it's because he doesn't understand the difference between 'moonbrained' and 'traumatized/controlled/fragmented' and probably doesn't much care to.

But I don't think River is entirely sane. I don't think that anyone who's been through what she went through and can see all the horrible things that exist inside certain minds could ever be entirely sane. It's not her fault nor the fault of her birth, but the fault of the medical team who made her a reader and drove needles into her eyes.

I don't think that being cautiously ashamed, or selectively ashamed, or in any way ashamed of who I am is any way to live my life.

Reading this practically sounds like an endorsement of what the first post was (or what I tried to make it), with certain points further detailed. However, I do get the impression your conclusion disagrees.

In response to this and other posts, we should remember that River does eventually regain control over herself, regarding reality/memory, etc. Joss specifically says this in the BDM commentary, after she vomits on Miranda - when she says "I'm OK now" or similar.

I had assumed when youse guys said "insane" you meant a permanent condition, irreversible. Of course, since River does come around, it is obviously not permanent - but that does not mean we will understnad her fully now.

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Monday, January 7, 2008 7:51 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by RiverFlan:
Gee, that sounds like me. I was tested for IQ when I was in preschool, and I got 180. Serious. But I also had Asperger's syndrom, or autism, so I had to get a lot of training, and it was only when I hit high school when I completely outgrew my autistic symptoms.

My grade-school teachers were, most of the time, stupider than me, and I'd always suggest better ways to do the lesson, because I got what they were trying to show, and the teachers would then label me as stupid because I obviously didn't know what they were talking about. One of them, my first grade teacher, even landed me in ISS because she was an athletic type and was just reading the textbook most of the time. Which is pitiful.

So I understand what JewelStaiteFan was trying to say. But that doesn't mean she isn't insane. She definately isn't fully in touch in reality, and that could be classified as insane. Insanity doesn't automatically mean stupid, and smarts don't mean sanity. Indeed, there is a fine line between genius and insanity, and River is walking directly on that line.

What is ISS?
In second grade we were taught multiplication in math class. I didn't like the extra writing and pencil/paper usage the way it was taught (long form), so I just wrote the answer and figured the intermediary calculations in my head. I also mentioned my method to my teacher, who said that method will not work and I was not allowed to do it. In 7th or 8th grade my math teacher caught me multiplying my way (I always did, just didn't tell anybody) and asked about it. She wouldn't tell me what it was, but said I would learn about it in 9th grade. The method I had developed was more formally known as algebraic multiplication. My 2nd grade math teacher (and many in between) were convinced I was stupid. My 9th grade teacher (who accelerated me through courses) said I would forget more about math than most people would ever learn. (He also made a wager against another of my math teachers - both became advocates of mine - that I would ace the math section of the PSAT, this was back before it was dumbed down, and the average number per state who aced the math section was less than 1.)

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Monday, January 7, 2008 8:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by PonyXpressInc:
Quote:
"I think the only practical definition of crazy is "I don't get it, and no one I like gets/would get it".

Hit the nail on the head there.

I think the meaning of the IQ scores varies a little, there is a percentile table here http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/IQtable.aspx. Enjoy .

It is widely understood that the IQ number is essentially meaningless without specifying the scale it is referenced to (the scale it was scored on). In the linky above, the 2 scales (Weschler and Stanford/Binet) are the 2 closest scoring scales. Most other scales are very widely varying in comparison of numerical scores.
The best "level field comparison" is to use the percentile. Find the test your IQ number was scored on, and find the percentile of that score.

I did not realize so many here were well versed in psychometry discussion. When I referred to IQ numbers in the thread starter, it was for Stanford-Binet, where Standard Deviation was 15 points.
On GCT scale, it would be 12 points.
On Cattell, about 27.

PONYXPRESSINC

Monday, January 7, 2008 2:46 PM

Quote:
"In response to this and other posts, we should remember that River does eventually regain control over herself, regarding reality/memory, etc. Joss specifically says this in the BDM commentary, after she vomits on Miranda - when she says "I'm OK now" or similar."

Out of curiosity I went to check the commentary on my DVD. As River did the vomiting and over the top of the next scene Joss complemented David Newman for music that made it clear that "...she really is saner..." Is he more firm about her sanity on a different commentary, or elsewhere? I only have the UK version.

RIVERFLAN

Tuesday, January 8, 2008 3:05 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
What is ISS?

It's an acronym for In School Suspension, which basically meant locking me up in a room where I'd be isolated all day, doing homework, no recess, not eating lunch in the cafeteria. Which sucked, especially since I didn't commit any crime other than being smarter than the teacher.

As you were folks, sorry for the hijacking.

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www.richlabonte.net/tvvote/index.html
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98% of teens have smoked pot, if you are one of the 2% that haven't, copy this into your signature.

LEXAN

Thursday, January 10, 2008 7:08 AM

Quote:
Hey - we should all have our wardrobes color-coordinated for our IQ ranges. That way, I wouldn't waste time trying to communicate with folks who are too smart or too stupid for me! Maybe just hats. My IQ group could be green, and I'd only socialize with other green hat-ers. The blue hats can clean my floors and hang out in seedy bars, and the red hats can design my cell phone and meet their red hat mates over chat groups for smarties. It'd be perfect!

Hahaha. LMAO!

Though I don't consider IQ to be the deciding factor to a person's intelligence by any means, I assumed River's IQ to be in the range of 200+; basically inhuman intelligence.

I have always questioned River's 'insanity', for current lack of a better word, for I had defined the term as a state of mental derangement and distortion of sociological, physical and psychological reality. Even this definition is questionable, as many individuals who have been classified as mentally insane over the years have seemed to have a heightened sense of reality, assumedly due to their genius. There is an indubitable connection. 'There is a fine line between genius and insanity'. This quote demonstrates the fact that a person's perception can be enhanced by intellectual superiority in such a way that it transcends the comprehension of a person within the normal range of intelligence. Physical, visual and auditory information can be interpreted, and proximately confabulated, by such an individual in a way that could not be understood by the general populace. These unconventional and transcendental methods of communication and expression could manifest in the form of analogies and metaphores, or even, in River's case, obscure poetry (which contains the prior).

River is, quite undeniably I think, inimitably exceptional. Her personality, which many believe to be changeable and not constant, was not clearly defined in Firefly or Serenity but her character was ever present. I think she is one of the inconceivable few (if she were real...) who has an enhanced sense of clarity and cognition, which is regularly confused with mental derangement (I won't say quite yet that she isn't insane, because even though the word is associated with a 'false' sense of reality, I believe we could perhaps 'translate' this to mean 'transcendental'). Many of her statements are delivered as though the literal meaning of the words is how they should be taken, despite their abstract and irregular quality. However, what is a 'literal' inference or statement? To answer that question, one would have to provide the many meanings of words and what their dubious further meanings are. By this I am reminded of the episode Objects in Space, in which River chooses not to imbue certain objects with meaning. In this case, the theory is applied to the words and how they can be thought of in the same way as the objects. This raises the question of whether River perhaps applies different meaning to the words and sentence structure she uses, to create an entirely different implication, perhaps devoid of meaning as we know it! This is getting a little abstract but it makes sense if you apply the 'objects in space' idea to word usage.

I don't think the fact that River is indeed disturbed and mentally unstable could really be contradicted, which is mainly because of the harmful inflictions that were dispensed to her brain. It is possible that this made her enhanced cognizability a burden in some way, obviously causing psychological and consequently physical pain.

Aaaah, I love River. Such a challenging and richly diverse character!

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