Wondering About Them Reavers...
POSTED BY: Yersinia
UPDATED: Wednesday, December 15, 2010 15:35
VIEWED: 13989
PAGE 2 of 3
The Firefly Wiki covers Reavers. http://www.fireflywiki.org/Firefly/Reavers
Here is a quote:
"Exactly how sentient individual Reavers are remains an open question. Although they clearly must have some retention of any original knowledge prior to their madness (as evidenced by their command of starships and weapons) Reavers are as without fear as they are without mercy, and they have never been seen to speak or indeed communicate (although that may be because any time they are observed they are on the hunt). The sole sound they make is an insane, wordless scream, which adds to the mystery of how a group of creatures little more than beasts could run a starship to the degree that they do."
There isn't much explanation (or speculation) of why Reavers are the way they are. Most people are happy with "Reavers are that way because that's how Joss Whedon made 'em."
We will never know much about Reavers until there is an opinion poll of the writers who worked on Firefly, especially Joss Whedon's opinion. If anybody knows the nature of Reavers, it is the writers. The kind of questions to ask the writers:
Reavers use kamikaze and suicide tactics when fighting humans. Why? Don't Reavers want to live? Why do Reavers mutilate their faces? Don't Reavers feel pain? [I hope the writers don't answer, "Reavers are like that because it is scary. No other reasons are necessary."]
What is the IQ of a typical Reaver? Are they dumb or smart? [I think they are smart because that makes for scarier stories.]
What is the lifespan of a Reaver and how do Reavers increase their numbers?
A) Reavers are going extinct because all Reavers were created at the same time on Miranda.
B) Reavers convert humans to Reavers with Paxilon.
C) Reavers convert humans with telepathic mind control. [That's my favorite answer.]
D) Reavers convert humans with brain washing and torture.
E) There are cute little Reaver babies with ferocious Mommies who wear too much makeup. 
The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is at
www.fileden.com/files/2008/8/13/2048723/Serenity-190pages.pdf
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Many of those online references were done before BDM, and some were not updated after.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Yersinia:
The Verse of Firefly has no non-human characters like Star Trek has Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, and so on, but it does have the Reavers who are obviously different from "normal" humans, so what I'd have liked to have seen would have been occasional scenes aboard a Reaver ship about to begin a raid (or in process of one -- such as attaching that multi-snakelike booby trap thingie to snare or destroy rescue ships as they did in Bushwacked), stuff like that, every once in awhile -- not every single episode made (or even every single episode in which there were Reavers), but here and there in occasional episodes with Reavers, just enough to show us how Reavers interact with each other and what their "society" is like. That's the kind of thing which to me adds depth to the worldbuild and makes the storytelling even more meaningful on the character-driven plane.
After this post, I must admit a guilty pleasure of mine. I like to daydream about future episodes of Firefly. The Alliance goobers deny the existence of Reavers. Most sensible folk are aware and wary of them. I fancy the Alliance patrols coming across reaver ships, or booby-trapped ships and being eradicated by the reavers they don't believe in. I fancy this a repetitive ongoing sequence in the show, becoming a cliche perhaps. The verse version of Wily E. Coyote dying every episode.
This gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
Does this make me a bad man?
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by two:
The Firefly Wiki covers Reavers. http://www.fireflywiki.org/Firefly/Reavers
Here is a quote:
Most people are happy with "Reavers are that way because that's how Joss Whedon made 'em."
I clicked the link and read this whole WIki in full -- so I "snipped" all of your posted quote except the one here I consider relevant (because I unfortunately suspect this is also part of the reason why we didn't get to actually see anything which would explain Reavers or their "society," and why they were portrayed as cardboard villians with no dimension of their own). So, OK, IF -- and I say IF because I'm not a psychic with access to Mr. Whedon's thoughts -- if this is how Joss Whedon really felt, that viewers would be happy to believe, with no explanation whatsoever, that Reavers are, and can be the way they are simply because he says so, I've lost a lot of respect for the man because IMNSHO that's an insult not just to my intelligence, but to intelligence per se. Oh, I'll still watch my Firefly DVDs (I love the crew and everything ELSE about it). While it's also true that I never viewed Mr. Whedon with the kind of esteem most people seem to on Firefly forums anyway (aw heck, I never viewed Gene Roddenberry with that kind of near godlike worship either), the only thing left after contempt of intelligence I can attribute to Mr. Whedon -- unless he DID plan to eventually expand on the Reavers if only Firefly hadn't been cancelled out from under him -- is laziness (as in he was too lazy as a conceptualist/writer to actually trouble himself to develop his protagonists' enemies, and given how wonderfully he developed the protagonists, he certainly had the talent!). Then again, this is also the same man who made quite a success of himself with shows like Buffy and Angel which necessitated that people believe in VAMPIRES....eeesh. So who knows.
Well, I guess I better duck, run and hide after I finish this post because who knows who's going to be goram pissed at me!
Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
After this post, I must admit a guilty pleasure of mine. I like to daydream about future episodes of Firefly. The Alliance goobers deny the existence of Reavers. Most sensible folk are aware and wary of them. I fancy the Alliance patrols coming across reaver ships, or booby-trapped ships and being eradicated by the reavers they don't believe in. I fancy this a repetitive ongoing sequence in the show, becoming a cliche perhaps. The verse version of Wily E. Coyote dying every episode.
This gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
Does this make me a bad man?
Not at all!
Some of that would have been fun, too.About daydreaming "future" episodes of Firefly, I found this forum the other day where they'd been writing, instead of prose fanfic stories, screenplay style stuff presented as "how it might have been" new episodes had the show not been cancelled. I read a number of these (and plan to read more), and thus far I think they're wonderful. They gave me that real "you are there" feeling; in my mind I could see all the locations and see/hear the crew acting and saying everything they did, and I mean everything! For a moment I actually tried to make myself think, "Well, this is still fan stuff, Joss Whedon didn't write it," except then I realized, Whedon didn't write all the actual Firefly episodes either (in fact, he didn't even co-write EITHER of my two favorite episodes, "Out of Gas" and "Ariel"!) -- so I said to myself, OK, yeah, this COULD have been possible and proceeded to continue immersing myself in these "new episodes." Obviously, being fan-written, they're not "canon," but IMO they're as exciting and fun as the "real thing." If you haven't seen them already, they're here:
http://www.stillflying.net/
"Call me if anyone interesting shows up..."
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
YERSINIA, there is Firefly - the Virtual Season http://www.firefly-tvs.com/guide.htm
and other site you already found for screenplays:
http://stillflying.net/
Joss Whedon did not tell everything upfront about Reavers because that would ruin the surprise in a later seasons, years after Serenity visits Miranda. It is like the very successful show "Lost" where J.J.Abrams keeps the nature of the Island slightly mysterious. Joss told the audience a great deal (maybe too much) about Reavers in the third episode, "Bushwhacked". The audience is suppose to feel all smug and superior because we figured it out before Mal or the Alliance. I know I'm feeling smug!
My working theory is that the guy in Bushwhacked that looks like a Reaver is really a Reaver. Simple, right? I don't explain him away as some survivor of a Reaver attack with post-traumatic-stress syndrome making him believe he is a Reaver. The guy is not imagining that he is a Reaver; he is the real thing. Last month he was a farmer and this month he is a mass murderer.
There are typical science fiction examples of this -- Reavers are like either the robot armies or the clone armies in StarWars. Joss Whedon did not tell you that because knowing too soon will ruin the show. The robots are on kill sprees in StarWars. Shoot a thousand robots and there are always more being made on the assembly line. What you want to do is cut the radio communication between the robots and their masters. Same problem with the clone armies in StarWars; you don't need to kill all the clones; shoot the Emperor.
Like TV's "Lost" and the mystery of the Island, the mystery on Firefly is "Who controls the Reavers?" River shoots that person in the final episode, #140! Or maybe Reavers only have a single conscious mind spread out across all the Reavers. Break the telepathic link (like the robot armies in StarWars) and the Reavers all fall down. Again, that would be River breaking the link, being the hero in the final episode. In the grand tradition of science fiction self-sacrifice, River has to die to destroy the Reavers. Didn't see that coming, did you? That is why Joss Whedon always kills the ones we love. 
The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is at
www.fileden.com/files/2008/8/13/2048723/Serenity-190pages.pdf
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I've often thought that the reason Reavers may stay near Miranda is so that they can give themselves enough of a dose of Pax-laden air that they stay Reavers. Or perhaps doing so might replenish the supplies of Pax on their ships for recruitment.
And perhaps the air processors on ships are built to eventually filter out this contaminant. So the Reaver might attack the ship in Bushwhacked, the survivor, in addition to the horror of his family dying, he gets enough of a dose of the Pax that he becomes a Reaver. The crew did not stay long enough to get enough dose of the Pax to have any long-term effect both on Miranda and the Bushwhacked ship, and on the Bushwhacked ship, much of the chemical may have already been filtered out.
Similarly, I imagine Reavers before they BECAME Reavers were plenty horrified watching everyone they know die around them, while in the meantime they were undergoing uncontrollable changes themselves.
I think a combination of fear, anger, and hopelessness out of the range of average human levels triggered by a traumatic experience, plus Pax, makes Reavers.
Also, the radiation in question on the Reaver ships wouldn't be poisonous, I think, this isn't fission so there's no Uranium, Cesium, etc. I do know that the beta emissions and gamma emissions from a fusion reaction can cause burns and genetic mutation. Reavers are most likely sterile. Also, living on the ship may constitute lethal long term exposure, but perhaps not an acute lethal dose of radiation.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Yersinia:Quote:
Originally posted by two:
The Firefly Wiki covers Reavers. http://www.fireflywiki.org/Firefly/Reavers
Here is a quote:
Most people are happy with "Reavers are that way because that's how Joss Whedon made 'em."
I clicked the link and read this whole WIki in full -- so I "snipped" all of your posted quote except the one here I consider relevant (because I unfortunately suspect this is also part of the reason why we didn't get to actually see anything which would explain Reavers or their "society," and why they were portrayed as cardboard villians with no dimension of their own). So, OK, IF -- and I say IF because I'm not a psychic with access to Mr. Whedon's thoughts -- if this is how Joss Whedon really felt, that viewers would be happy to believe, with no explanation whatsoever, that Reavers are, and can be the way they are simply because he says so,
I do not believe this to be the case.
I have heard numerous mention of Joss listening to some idea and then asking about how or why that idea would or should fit into the show or story, he wanted to know the background and backstory.
All that I've heard contradicts the suggestion in your quote.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Nothing about Miranda and its' 30 million dead people makes any sense. Nothing about the 30,000 Reavers makes any sense. And for me it doesn't have to. The Miranda storyline provided a nice vehicle for River & Mal to air out some of their inner struggles, and that made for some great cinematic drama. The "science", or any logical reality surrounding the Miranda/Pax holocaust is pure fantasy speculation, likely given to us in that manner by Joss on purpose to drive us all a bit nuts ourselves.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Nothing about Miranda and its' 30 million dead people makes any sense. Nothing about the 30,000 Reavers makes any sense. And for me it doesn't have to. The Miranda storyline provided a nice vehicle for River & Mal to air out some of their inner struggles, and that made for some great cinematic drama. The "science", or any logical reality surrounding the Miranda/Pax holocaust is pure fantasy speculation, likely given to us in that manner by Joss on purpose to drive us all a bit nuts ourselves.
A central mystery in Firefly is the Reavers. Since Joss Whedon is playing a game of make-believe with the audience, he won't show them his cards until the end of the game, which would be the last episode. Then Joss gathers his poker winnings. If he was foolish and told the audience almost everything about Reavers in the early episodes, a large part of his audience would quit the game because they feel cheated.
Sometimes when the show-runner tells the audience what was really happening behind the scenes, half the audience hates the explanation. I read a great deal of complaining about the last hour of the final episode of Battlestar Galactica. If Starbuck (the dematerializing, angelic version of Starbuck) had entered the co-ordinates to New Earth in the first season, the show would have ended on episode 13, not 73. Ronald D. Moore, executive producer of Galactica, would have been unemployed. Joss Whedon would do what Ronald Moore did, wait until the end of the show to explain the mystery.
I predict that half the audience of TV's "Lost" will be angry at J.J.Abrams when he reveals on the final episode of Lost that the Island is no mystery. It is really an ancient and gigantic alien spacecraft that crashed into the Atlantic, killing all the dinosaurs. Then the island moved to the Pacific to wait for the Oceanic flight.
The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is at
www.fileden.com/files/2008/8/13/2048723/Serenity-190pages.pdf
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Cause: Pax on Miranda.
Effect: Miranda depopulated, Reavers.
Cause:Miranda depopulated, Reavers.
Effect: Alliance War to distract the verse.
Cause: Alliance War for Domination.
Effect: Independents, Browncoats.
Cause: Independents lost, browncoats defeated.
Effect: homeless unemployed people of moral standing.
Cause: Reavers, browncoats, Alliance domination.
Effect: Firefly and Serenity.
What's to complain about where Joss' storytelling is concerned? I'll take it all.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME