General Discussions
Critical Info Or Red Herring?
POSTED BY: zoid
UPDATED: Tuesday, June 8, 2004 21:31
VIEWED: 6932
PAGE 4 of 4
Tuesday, June 8, 2004 9:31 PM
HKCavalier wrote:
Quote:
The general populous may not know what this or that general looks like, but wouldn't Malcolm Reynolds know the face of the guy that perpetrated the Serenity Valley Massacre?
I don't think it's ever been referred to as a 'massacre'. Remember, in the opening scene of the pilot, Mal's convinced his side is going to win, right up to the point he's ordered to lay down arms.
The deleted scene that divulges the information on the Battle of Serenity simply says that Gen. Wilkins devised a "deep-flank maneuver" that eventually led to the defeat of the Independent armies. This means that the Independents were defeated fair and square: they got outflanked. It happens.
Zoe goes on to fill in the details. The survivors of the battle -- victor and vanquished alike -- got left without food, water, and medical aid for an additional two weeks, while the armistice was negotiated. Two weeks!? Without food, potable water and personnel dying of sepsis from even minor wounds, it must have approximated Hell.
A telling bit of dialogue on the horrors of the post-battle carnage comes not from the participants, but from River and Simon's child's play reenactment of the battle in "Safe":
YOUNG RIVER
Our platoon, Simon. We got outflanked
by the independent squad, and we're never
gonna make it back to our platoon.
(beat)
We need to resort to cannibalism.
YOUNG SIMON
That was fast. Don't we have rations
or anything?
YOUNG RIVER
They got lost. We're gonna have to eat
the men.
I believe cannibalism did occur after the battle, as well as other horrors too unthinkable to mention (especially since I've mentioned 'em before; don't wanna sound too much like a broken record). That's why Mal has forsaken God. Anyone living through that nightmare must certainly have come to the conclusion that God had forsaken them.
So, I don't think Mal necessarily blames either side's military leaders for the worst of the carnage that took place on Hera, in that valley. He blames the politicians for leaving them to suffer and die, and he blames God.
BTW, it was River's fanciful mention in that same scene that the Independents "were using dinosaurs", combined with Wash's love of toy dinos, that made me think of the "Cretaceous Park" business venture for Wash and Jayne...
Respectfully,
zoid
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"Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me." The Ballad of Serenity
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