Hands of Blue + Playing with Brains = Reavers?
POSTED BY: TenthCrewMember
UPDATED: Friday, March 18, 2005 21:05
VIEWED: 8360
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I'm going to have to agree with the people who think the Reavers are just people who have descended into savagery after being isolated for so long. Being out of society for so long just made them feel that they didn't have to answer to the rules of society. So they became violent plunderers (which by they way is what the word Reaver means. I don't think it's similarity to River is significant). The Reavers would have started by attacking another ship and probably killing and likely raping the other people. When they saw no consequences from their actions because of the spotty Alliance protection in the fringes, they continued committing crimes that got worse and worse. That cycle of escalating crime is seen today. Then other groups of vicious people would hear about the violent actions with no real repercussions and start on their own cycle of savagery. And there you have the Reavers. They're just humans who have stepped outside of society and instead feed off of it. Of course, I could be completely wrong. September should reveal the truth.
P.S. The taking of scalps started with the white folks. I believe it was the French who offered a bounty for each Indian killed, so people took the scalps as proof. The Indians later started copying it in revenge.
Now we have to be married. I'm in the family way.
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am I missing something or why is no one mentioning what Mal said about the Reavers being men who had no shielding on their nuclear engines on their ships and got mutated from that? or am I remembering something wrong?
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Quote:Well, let's review.
originally posted by Pennsylvania
am I missing something or why is no one mentioning what Mal said about the Reavers being men who had no shielding on their nuclear engines on their ships and got mutated from that? or am I remembering something wrong?
From FireflyWiki transcript for "Serenity"
http://www.fireflywiki.org/100.html
With regard to the Trans-U...
WASH
I'm picking up a lot of radiation... they're burning without core containment. Well, that's < nuts >, that's suicide...
MAL (upon slow realization)
Reavers
And that's all that's said with regard to the Reavers and the radiation.
The next mention of Reavers is in "Bushwacked"
http://www.fireflywiki.org/102.html
BOOK
I don't accept that. Whatever horror he witnessed,
whatever acts of barbarism, it was done by men.
Nothing more.
JAYNE
Reavers ain't men.
BOOK
Of course they are. Too long removed from
civilization, perhaps -- but men. And I believe
there's a power greater than men. A power
that heals.
MAL
Reavers might take issue with that philosophy.
If they had a philosophy. And if they weren't
too busy gnawing on your insides.
(then)
Jayne's right. Reavers ain't men. Or they
forgot how to be. Now they're just... nothing.
They got out to the place of nothing. And that's
what they became.
So if there was any mutation, it wasn't due to any radiation. Joss Whedon has maintained throughout that Humans can be much more cruel than any demon he ever dreamed up.
Personally, I'm much more inclined toward TheGreyJedi's description... which by the way was pretty darn creepifying and well written.
Fans come and fans go...but zealots are with you until the bitter black end.
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Quote:
originally posted by Pennsylvania
am I missing something or why is no one mentioning what Mal said about the Reavers being men who had no shielding on their nuclear engines on their ships and got mutated from that? or am I remembering something wrong?
In addition to Channain's comments, we also know that Reavers self-mutiliate as stated by Mal when he was under interrogation by the Aliance officer in Bushwacked. Mal stated that the lone survivor of the transport ship would "start acting like a reaver" and that one of his first acts would be to desecrate his own flesh.
So by that we would know that they mutiliate themselves as well as others. We know that he split his tounge by what the Alliance officer said. If you pause the DVD when the crazed man tries to throttle the officer near the end of the episode you'll see he also cut his cheeks open and drove shards of metal into his face like piercings. It's downright savage.
I believe that the reavers truely are "men gone mad at the edge of space" and not products of the Hands of Blue. Blue Sun is a corp located in civiliazed space. Reavers are out beyond the rim worlds. The distance has to be freakishly extreme.
I watched a documentary on the History Channel 2 months ago about Easter Island. Easter Island is perhaps the most isolated place on the entire planet that was ever settled by humanity. Just look on a globe, it's all by itself in the middle of the Pacific...no other island chains anywhere. Evidence points to a grand peaceful civilized culture that landed there after a long ocean voyage in impressively large canoe-like ships of pacific islanders. These people landed there, dismantled their boats for no known reason and started to build an impressive society, which after perhaps a thousand years yielded, among many things, the statues and mysticism the place is associated with. Then in as quickly as 50 years everything devolved and the culture falls into oblivion. The program maintained that scientific evidence proves that this occured because at one point all the trees and larger plants had been cut down for housing or burned for fuel. This created a unbalance in the society as agriculture failed and is the reason why the island is covered in only grasses and small shrubs today(with the exception of trees transplanted in the 20th century) The people of Easter Island 1000 years ago became Reavers. Tribes killed and ate other tribes. Then those stronger tribes turned on themselves and killed and ate each other. This wholesale slaughter continued until only a few hundred people remained. This is why the island was so sparcely populated in the 18th century when English explorers first landed and why the natives had no explaination for the statues on their own island that had always "just been there" as far as they knew. The Old Kingdom of Egypt fell into a Reaver-ish chaos when a climate shift in the Earth caused vast famine in northern Africa and the Nile dried up to a trickle. There are accounts on tomb walls in upper egypt of adults "eating their own children" Earth history proves that when people are isolated and subjected to hardship, slaughter can easily result.
Just like Joss said, Humans have the potential to be far worse than any monster he could conjure.
Do not fear me. Ours is a peaceful race, and we must live in harmony.
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