Ariel - and Mal's forgiveness
POSTED BY: TauSetiPrime
UPDATED: Monday, August 2, 2004 02:19
VIEWED: 23705
PAGE 6 of 7
LOL...
methinks you have the first series then...
there is a second series of elfguest that the Pini started but had guest help on...I bought that too...
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Quote:
Originally posted by dewshine:
I know this doesn't belong here, but didn't Crow die?
I haven't got the reference, but my understanding of Crow's demise is that it is Whedon's note to myself not to write an episode over a weekend ever again.
This is the last time. The last time ...
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Aside from Crow... I think Mal and Jayne have an interesting dynamic. Jayne must fear Mal on a certain level. And Mal is somewhat of a broken man. Mal lost his faith in God and put his faith in Serenity and her crew...His crew, his ship. Mal is able to do very very dark things to protect that faith...its all he has left. It will take more than Jayne saying "sorry, kill me but don't tell the others why" for Mal to forgive what he has done. So Jayne is someone that Mal watches...and perhaps expects to betray him, after all, that's how Jayne became a member of Mal's crew. Mal has not forgiven Jayne, but shown him mercy as long as Jayne behaves himself.
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Soupcatcher's reprint of the article analyzing the show based on the "code of honor" vice the "code of law" really resonated with me... perhaps because I was raised and lived my whole life in the South. It's not an abstract thing to me. In the smaller towns here in Texas (and elsewhere in the South), the code of honor is still very real, and hard as chrome steel. Yet that analysis went almost unremarked in all the following posts. Most of the posts seem to be trying to decode some obscure algorithm of "utility"... he spared so-and-so because Mal thought he might be an asset later. Or deception... Mal thought he could fool Jayne into repentance. This is needlessly complex.
I think that "code of honor" analysis explains much of why Mal responds the way he does. Why did he tell Simon he would kill him honorably? Because Mal determined that at his core, Simon is an honorable man who has sacrificed his own life to do right by innocent family. Yes, Simon's actions put Mal's crew at risk... but that risk could not be avoided by Simon if he was to follow his honor, because it was the crew's action that was going to force a dishonorable result upon River. Why did Mal kill Crow so ruthlessly? Because Crow took great glee in revealing to Mal that he was a man without honor... Crow never realized he was signing his own death warrant. Why does Mal, just barely, spare Jayne? Because by his contrition, Jayne shows that MAYBE he has what it takes to become an honorable man.
I'm not saying that honor is the sole criteria that Mal uses to determine the outcome of an encounter. For example, on the battlefield, you kill not because your opponent is dishonorable. You kill because your opponent will kill you if you don't kill him first. If your opponent surrenders, THEN the code of honor comes into to play: the honorable man spares the surrendered enemy. I think Mal see's Jubal's invasion of the ship as an attack by an enemy combatant. Jubal Early's honor (or lack of) is never the question (that's why its never explored). He is a combatant on a battlefield and he puts Mal's people at risk. The rules of the battlefield say that Mal kills Jubal, Jubal kills Mal, or one of them surrenders. Jubal may not have seen it that way... that was his mistake.
Also, real people are sometimes motivated by more than one thing. Threatening Mal's crew is a big influence on the "kill him" side of the equation. Doing so for a valid reason might buy you a few moments to make your case before Mal kills you.
As for the others, this post is already too long to extend with further analysis. Does anyone else want to see if the code of honor applies to the other characters that he kills or spares?
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I just think that Mal didn't space Jayne because Mal has a heart and even though Jayne betrayed his crew and himself. He couldn't live with himself killing Jayne.
"Jayne is a girl's name"-River
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I was thinking the same thing when I was watching it last night.
'Jayne is a girl's name'-River
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Bravo, Danfan!
* The Real Me claps for perhaps a bit too long *
You put in a nice little bundle something that I thought I had sensed, but could never articulate.
Then again, I guess I count as a Yankee boy. 
But my mom was from Tennessee!
I think you are correct. I think that Mal was quite ready to space Jayne. I think he did offer Jayne a chance with the radio, but I don't believe that it was a show at all on Mal's part.
Later, in "Objects in Space" (ignoring the debates on episode order), when Jayne does not want to take things in a "Jayne's fault" direction, Mal is almost savage with his reply, which almost sent Jayne scampering. No, I don't think Mal has compeletely forgiven Jayne yet.
The Real Me
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Hey Danfan, glad to hear that I wasn't the only one that article resonated with! I was a bit surprised that no one really commented when I re-posted Hank Parnell's article and that it kind of slipped through the cracks. In my mind he hit the bulls-eye in his characterization of Mal. After reading his article it was like a light came on for me.
I agree with you that many responses in this thread seem to be over-analyzing Mal's actions (positing that he was playing a psychological game with Jayne in the airlock scene). It reminds me of an earlier thread where some people had a problem with Kaylee's actions during the Out of Gas flashback and saw her fling with Bester as inconsistent with her innocent character.
The context of the future as envisioned in Firefly is different from the context of today. You have to make up your own rules as you go along and Mal, as a man of honor, has a set of abiding principles that he does not deviate from.
I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!
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TheRealMe,
Mom's from Tennessee? You're not a Yankee. You are family on walkabout!
;-)
Whenever you're ready, you're welcome back home.
"The sun is riz, the sun is set...
And here I is in Texas yet."
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