Speculations/theories on Reavers and the role they play.

POSTED BY: Candall
UPDATED: Tuesday, June 22, 2004 22:25
VIEWED: 10803
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CANDALL

Thursday, June 17, 2004 7:04 AM

True. My impression was, however, that the ship was so tightly packed with people, that what was left was all that could be crammed in with them.

BROWNCOAT1

Thursday, June 17, 2004 12:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Candall:
Quote:
Originally posted by PurpleBelly:
Elsewhere a parallel has been drawn to pirates of the seventeen/eighteenth centuries, who also sustained a degree a technical expertise, for their time, on the fringes of society. If your violence produces income , it will at least get you to tomorrow and even encourage recruits from the hopeless My kind of life don't last too long, Preacher

Wow, great rebuttal! This is going to be a really fun discussion for me :)

Although, my thought is that the connection to piracy is broken in that, from what we've seen, the Reavers aren't necessarily looking to turn any sort of profit. They didn't attempt to take anything in terms of cargo from the transport ship they hit in "Bushwacked," including the much-needed food. And that statement can work with either the supplies that Mal and Zoe found, or the bodies they left hanging from the ceiling when they could have easily dragged them onto their ship and eaten them later.

Their drive to kill seems purely animalistic. They destroy life, eat their kill, and then move on. I just don't buy the idea that this all happened merely because they were isolated. I think there's more to it, and I'm ready to admit that my own theory could be, and probably is wrong... but I'm sticking to it, because it still makes sense to me.

The behavior of the Reavers in Bushwhacked puzzled me on several points. Why did they leave some of the bodies of the cargo ship behind hanging up if they eat the flesh and wear the skins? Why would they take some, but not all? Seems they would want to store the kill, or was the abandoned cargo ship to act as a food cache, hence the booby trap. The trap could have been to protect their food and perhaps trap other food.

Why did they leave the young man behind? Did he hide and saw & heard what was done to the rest of the crew, driving him insane, or was he left behind intentionally? Could the bodies left behind have been "food" for him? Did they mean to return for him once he fully turned?

Why were there no signs of a struggle? The ship's log did not indicate any sort of trouble, and Kaylee said that the engine was working fine, so the ship was not disabled. So why did the people on the ship not put up a fight? Surely some of them were armed. Did the Reavers use some sort of ruse to dock w/ the freighter and gain access? If so, that implies that they are not merely single-minded beasts, but thinking, devious hunters.

Why was that one body (the one that bounced off of Serenity's cockpit glass) floating around in space? Was it a Reaver or a pilgrim? Was the person forcibly ejected from the ship, or did they commit suicide to avoid being taken by Reavers?

Lots of unanswered questions. I wonder what Joss will cover in the movie as it has been said that there will be Reavers in the movie.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

CARDIE

Thursday, June 17, 2004 2:25 PM

I can't answer many of those questions either. I did assume the floating body was one of the settlers who threw himself out an airlock rather than face Reaver torture.

The other big question is how Mal knows so much about Reavers.

Cardie

MANTICHORUS

Thursday, June 17, 2004 2:32 PM

'Reave' is an archaic (really, really old) term for taking something by force.
Therefore, a 'Reaver' would be someone who takes things by force. Just thought I'd add my own two cents...

-------------------------------------------
"BADGER: You think you're better than other people.
MAL: Just the ones I'm better than." -Shindig.
-------------------------------------
"MAL: Gotta say, doctor, your talent for alienatin' folk is near miraculous.
SIMON: Yes, I'm very proud." -Safe.

CYBERSNARK

Thursday, June 17, 2004 2:54 PM

Hmm. . . So couldn't a reader also "take" something by force?

Remember what River said about being able to kill Jayne with her mind. Maybe the Reavers (or at least the "turned" victims) are "walking dead."

Some psi-enabled "Queen Reaver" mind-rapes them, ripping out everything in their head --effectively killing their brains' higher processing capabilities. The sub-cortex, OTOH --the reptilian sub-brain that handles things like feeding and sex drives-- that remains intact (either the mind-rapist can't reach it, or there's just nothing useful there).

The victims regress to animalistic monsters (raping victims and wearing their skin as some subconscious attempt to regain what was taken from them), while the "Queens" now know (and feel) everything that the victims knew --like how to set traps and operate ships.

I like this idea. . .

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

MANTICHORUS

Thursday, June 17, 2004 3:05 PM

Now, that idea seems a little disturbed to me Cybersnark... (Not implying a damn thing.)

Mind you, it is an interesting theory (or possibly even a theorum. (Nods like he knows what he's talking about...))

N.B- It's spelt 'theorem', NOT 'theorum'. Ruttin' idiot.

-------------------------------------------
"BADGER: You think you're better than other people.
MAL: Just the ones I'm better than." -Shindig.
-------------------------------------
"MAL: Gotta say, doctor, your talent for alienatin' folk is near miraculous.
SIMON: Yes, I'm very proud." -Safe.
-----------------------------------------------
Writing at: [url] http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=520496 [/url]

THEFERRYMAN

Thursday, June 17, 2004 3:27 PM

My thought is that Reavers are normal humans. Not necessailry savageas. More like barbarians. They hit transport ships, people who cannot stand up against them. Barbarians weren't stupid (they crushed Rome). Merely a lower level of civilization.

Eating flesh and wearing skins? They might. They didn't find then everyone on board (16 families, I believe).

That entire set-up seemed like a trap to me (which is why the Alliance destroyed it I think).

Lasytly, River was scared of them. Who wouldn't be? Inara had her little death serum ready and Jayne almost shits his pants at the thought of them.

"No power in the 'verse can stop me."
-River

THEFERRYMAN

Thursday, June 17, 2004 3:28 PM

My thought is that Reavers are normal humans. Not necessailry savageas. More like barbarians. They hit transport ships, people who cannot stand up against them. Barbarians weren't stupid (they crushed Rome). Merely a lower level of civilization.

Eating flesh and wearing skins? They might. They didn't find then everyone on board (16 families, I believe).

That entire set-up seemed like a trap to me (which is why the Alliance destroyed it I think).

Lasytly, River was scared of them. Who wouldn't be? Inara had her little death serum ready and Jayne almost shits his pants at the thought of them.

"No power in the 'verse can stop me."
-River

DAVEY

Thursday, June 17, 2004 4:06 PM

We do know that at least one Reaver ship had some kind of magnetic grapples, and was fast enough to outrun a Firefly lovingly maintained by the best mechanic in the verse, not to mention being flown by an ace pilot, so running down a colony ship, modified for a one shot trip should be a piece of cake compared to that.
The fact that the ships log didnt show any signs of trouble could just mean that they were too busy trying to get away, I suppose.
I always thought that the corpse they ran into was a suicide, killing himself rather than letting the Reavers take him, but when you think about it this could be an indicator that the settlers werent armed, after all if you are going to kill yourself and you have a gun handy you would use it on yourself rather than go through the lengthy death involved in spacing yourself.

As for my theories about the whole question of Reavers I'm starting to wonder if they are going
to be as bad as our imaginations have made them, I'm toying with the idea that they are going to be the Firefly version of Native Americans.You may scoff but when you think about it at one point people believed them to be bloodthirsty, inhuman savages nothing more, sound familiar?
I imagine that people coming across a wagon train full of settlers in the Old West that had been hit by a war party would see pretty much the same results as we saw on the settlers ship, after all skinning someone is only an extension of scalping them!The stories told would only grow more lurid with each retelling until the legend of the Reavers is born.
Of course this is probably rubbish and I'm on the wrong track altogether!

VIVAFIREFLY

Thursday, June 17, 2004 4:23 PM

I agree that River and the reavers are probably connected some how. But there is one thing no one ever mentions about the reavers. Reavers existed in the X-men comic books years before they were ever in Firefly (something I found out by accident a few months ago). When I saw this I was intrigued so I started looking up a few things about them to see what they were.
The x-men reavers were cyborgs created by the government to kill mutants. I think that the firefly reavers might also be cyborgs created by the government (or the blue hand men) although I don't know what their purpose was. Because this is only a theroy I don't have any proof but I do have a few other things that lead me to this conclusion.
First (and my strongest point) is the man in bushwacked. After Mal says that he's crazy and that he would try to become a reaver. You only get a few shots of that mans face and none of them are really clear but at one point it looks like he's stuck pieces of metal onto his face. Now if he's doing this while imataing the reavers then theoretically the reavers also had metal on their faces (or were made of metal like the cyborgs).
There is also the fact that Joss Whedon is a X-men fan (I think he even wrote a x-men comic book). And since their not widly known it wouldn't shock me if he changed them a bit and put them in firefly. Plus it wouldn't be the first time Joss Whedon had robot-people in one of his shows.
I have other points too but most of them don't have much proof and one is kind of disgusting and mostly psychological.

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