Serenity Found

by Jane Espenson

  The outlaw Malcolm Reynolds adheres to the principles of peaceful exchange and respect for Natural Rights, while the outlaw Rance Burgess adhered to whatever furthered his own ends.

  In the struggle between Burgess and the girls in the brothel over possession of a baby Burgess called his “property,” Nandi pointed a shotgun at him and warned, “You don’t get gone, we’ll be well within our rights to drop you.”

  Burgess’s reply was revealing: “Only rights you got,” he said, “are the ones I give you!”

  It’s an attitude that stands in remarkably stark contrast with Mal’s. Mal-a man who only steals from those who have not rightfully earned their possessions, a man who avoids killing people unless they are threats to his life or the life of another innocent, a man who avoids shooting unarmed men until he finally decides to take on the Alliance once and for all-was faced with an individual who flouted the unjust government law, but was actually lawless in his heart.

  At first glance, one could believe that they were kindred spirits. When they met, Burgess’s wife told Mal, “My husband makes a distinction between legality and morality, Mr. Reynolds.”

  Mal agreed, and replied, “I’ve said that myself.”

  But his mood was clear. He could see how Burgess operated, and he didn’t like it.

  When Burgess observed, “Bending one unjust law is a small thing when it comes to protecting one’s family,” Mal nodded. “I think I understand you,” he said, with sarcasm lacing every word.

  The distinction was clear. Burgess was, in fact, Mal’s dark alter-ego. Mal favors peaceful relationships, even in societies with no written laws, while Burgess favored force, intimidation, and oppression. Mal will bend the rules to be left alone. Burgess would bend the rules, and make up his own, to get what he wanted or thought belonged to him.

  Mal recognizes that no one has a property right to another person, even if he makes a law that says so. Each individual is unique-including a child with DNA distinct from his father and mother-and it is implied that because Burgess was already married, and had engaged in the commercial act of soliciting a prostitute, the living fruit of that sexual encounter was not his to raise, it was the mother’s. Avoiding the tricky issue of abortion in this tale of feminist power and rights, something remarkable emerged as Mal fought to protect the ladies of the brothel and the mother of the baby Burgess had fathered: we saw an implicit acknowledgement of the sanctity of contract. It was understood that this religious maniac, this man of low moral character who imposed his law where Alliance law was pushed aside, had already paid for sex, and had given up his right to be a partner in the upbringing of the child. It was also clear that Burgess did not acknowledge that fact, and Mal was right to oppose him.

  Burgess showed us the path Mal could have followed. Both men are individualists of a sort. Mal simply allows others to be individualists as well. It is because of Mal’s strong moral character, and the effort he expends to keep it, that he walks this path.

  In fact, it is this undeniable trait of the individualist-hero that leads to the weakening of Alliance authority at the triumphant conclusion of the film Serenity.

  Though his decision to accept River and Simon Tam on his ship is often questioned by many in his crew, though the Alliance authorities hound them at every turn, Mal adheres to his principles-and his sense of obligation-and keeps them aboard. He grows to accept them, and to eventually realize in the film Serenity that River herself holds the key to the destruction of the Alliance rule.

  We discover that River’s great mental acuity was manipulated by the Alliance in terrible experiments, conducted at what was supposed to be a school for gifted students off her home world (a remarkable indictment of government education). But they did not count on River escaping with her brother, and carrying with her not only the scars of that state-sponsored torture, but the secret that no government official wants revealed.

  With heroic strength of character, Mal and his company risk everything they have, including their own lives, to tear the façade off the government utopia and show what hides beneath: experimentation, mass murder, and the creation of horrific human monsters. The man-eating Reavers, infamous in every sector of the ’verse, are the product of Alliance attempts to create a better world on the planet Miranda, to placate subjects and make more efficient workers for the totalitarian utopia. Most of the subjects affected by the Alliance creation called the Pax simply lay down, and died-a horrific metaphor for the diminution of man’s ambition under the corrosive influence of socialism. But for a small cohort of the Mirandans, the drug had the opposite effect. Instead of losing the will to live, they acquired the desire to kill: they became the ultimate incarnation of the deadly side of government force, the final infringement of the Lockean rule. The madness, the horror, and the bloody slaughter of the Reavers is the responsibility of those who wished to force their will on others, just like Rance Burgess, and just like so many Alliance cronies from whom Mal and company fled throughout the series Firefly.

  In a powerful speech, Mal tells his crew that they are done running. It is time to take a stand, and time to fight.

  “A year from now,” he begins, “maybe ten, they’ll swing back to the belief that they can make . . . people . . . better. . . . And I do not hold to that.”

  For those who died at the hands of the government, for those who suffered due to their policies, for those who may be hurt in the future, the Serenity crew pit their wills and bodies against the forces of the Alliance in the “free-speech” broadcast facility of Mr. Universe. Following in the footsteps of Shepherd Book, Wash, the beloved pilot, dies; Kaylee, Simon, and Zoe are critically wounded as Reavers attack; Alliance troops invade; Mal nearly dies in one-on-one combat. But they succeed. They persevere in telling the horrible truth that lies behind the pristine mask the Alliance has worn for far too long.

  After all the travails and adventures we’ve seen them endure, the remainder of the Serenity crew return to their ship to rebuild, fueled by new hope and optimistic resolution. River, the haunted girl who held the government’s terrible secret, helps steer the ship up into the sky. She sits beside Malcolm Reynolds, the outlaw who adhered to a higher law from centuries past, and smiles at him as they dart into the black.

  It is a remarkable conclusion to a story that began by chronicling the death throes of freedom at a place called Serenity Valley, and it is an amazing story of triumph for Mal.

  We’ve taken a long and exciting journey with him, on a ship called Serenity, a ship that was its owner’s only hope of finding a measure of freedom in this new, unkind world.

  But really, the hope for freedom always existed within the heart of Malcolm Reynolds. He was a man willing to skirt the law to do what was right, willing to engage in private commerce even when it was verboten, and whose beliefs in loyalty, honor, and integrity will always represent the core human virtues that freedom requires to survive and prosper.

  Take my love, take my land.

  Take me where I cannot stand.

  I don’t care, I’m still free.

  You can’t take the sky from me.

  At its heart, freedom is an intangible thing. It is a concept. It is an ideal. Malcolm Reynolds may have looked to the sky and seen his hopes for freedom embodied in his beloved ship, Serenity, but, in fact, the freedom was embodied in him, and his decision to live as freely as possible.

  The same is true for each of us.

  P. GARDNER GOLDSMITH worked in the script departments of Outer Limits and Star Trek: Voyager. He received the Writers’ Guild Fellowship in 1998, and the Institute for Humane Studies Fellowship in 1996. His articles have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, The Freeman, Human Events, SFX (U.K.), Naked (U.K.), Manchester Union Leader, TechcentralStation.com, FEE.org, Mises.org, and LewRockwell.com. Gard was “2006 NH Libertarian of the Year,” runs www.libertyconspiracy.com, and his first book, Live Free or Die, is due in July 2007. He would like to thank Leah and Jill. . . .

  And to let
you know that he owns a handsome brown coat.

  There is something classic and powerful about two characters sharing the role of hero in a single world. I’m thinking of Butch and Sundance, Kirk and Spock, Stewart and Colbert. In the piece that follows, Swendson argues that Mal and Simon are co-heroes of the Firefly saga, and she makes a good case. If the classic hero takes a familiar journey, Mal and Simon certainly travel roads that run through the fascinating tulgey woods nearby.

  A Tale of Two Heroes

  SHANNA SWENDSON

  Before you can tell a story, you have to know whose story you’re telling, and when you’re watching or reading a story, you want to know whose story it is. In other words, who’s the hero? Not the hero in the sense of who wears the white hat and beats the bad guys, but more in the mythological sense-the man on a mission, the one who has to step out of his comfort zone and face potentially life-threatening situations and be forever transformed in order to achieve his goals.

  Who’s the hero of Firefly? In the television series, that changed from week to week, depending on the plot of the particular episode-Mal was usually the one taking the lead, but Simon was the criminal mastermind behind the caper in “Ariel,” Wash refused to leave a man behind in “War Stories,” River saved the day in “Objects in Space,” and even Jayne got to be a hero in “Jaynestown.” But whose story does the saga as a whole tell? At first it seemed pretty obvious that Mal Reynolds would be our hero. He was the first character we met, the captain of the ship, the one running the show. But after facing the battle of Serenity Valley in the opening sequence, he became a man very specifically without a mission. All he wanted was to make enough money to keep his ship and his crew going so that he never had to answer to anyone else ever again. As much as he hated the Alliance, he wasn’t ready to start a rebellion, fight the Alliance (except in self-defense), or do much of anything other than stay out of the way. He was done with missions and grand fights, causes, and that sort of thing. He’d learned that great causes only get your heart broken.

  Then along came Simon Tam, the young doctor who was very much on a mission: to rescue his sister, keep her safe from the Alliance, and figure out what they did to her and why-and then maybe, just maybe, fix it. He didn’t know yet if that would involve something as small as finding the right dosage of the right drugs to make her sane again or something as large as changing the entire government so that it wouldn’t try to get her back to finish whatever it was that it was doing to her, but he didn’t much care. Whatever it was, whatever it took, he’d do it-and he’d do it willingly, without much thought for what it cost him. He’d already given up everything he had and everything else that mattered to him. Any further sacrifices-up to and including his life-would be relatively inconsequential to him.

  Now, that’s a hero of mythological proportions-the man on a mission greater than himself who is willing to take on all odds and overcome all obstacles to carry it out. And from a storytelling standpoint, that mission was also the element of change that kicked Mal’s story into gear. Simon and River’s plight was the catalyst that forced Mal into action and out of his comfortable world, into the unknown where he’d have to take a stand eventually. When he offered Simon a job instead of kicking Simon and River off Serenity at the end of the pilot, he forever changed life on board his ship. That put Mal on a path toward possible rebirth and transformation.

  So, who is the hero of Firefly, the man on the mission, or the man who takes on that mission even though he’s not quite ready to believe in it fully? Maybe it’s both.

  SUPERFICIAL DIFFERENCES, VOLCANO SIMILARITIES

  At first glance, Mal and Simon couldn’t appear to be more different. Mal is from a more rough-and-tumble part of the ’verse, a former ranch kid who grew up to be a soldier and then a mercenary/thief/smuggler/transport ship captain. He talks with a drawl and uses uncultured slang, dresses in Western/cavalry gear, and goes out of his way to subvert most rules of social propriety. He’s comfortable with guns and violence as a way of life.

  Meanwhile, Simon is from a cultured, wealthy background in the Core of the system. He’s educated-a doctor-speaks properly, avoids swearing (unless it’s appropriate), and dresses in perfectly tailored business attire. His concession to the more casual life in his first months on board Serenity was to stop wearing a necktie. He knows all the rules for proper social conduct and abides by them, even when nobody else around him follows those rules and even when that kind of behavior is seen as more insulting than polite. Before coming on board Serenity, he seemingly had little experience with violence. He’ll pick up a gun if he has to in self-defense, or in defense of his sister or shipmates, but he’s far better at patching up the results of violence (or being the victim of violence) than he is at committing violence himself.

  Beneath the surface, however, these two men are very much alike, which could explain both why they clash so often and how they also manage to develop a certain respect for each other. Both of them use snark and sarcasm as weapons when they feel threatened or when they want to keep someone from getting too close to the truth. Both of them would do absolutely anything to protect the people for whom they have responsibility. Mal’s protectiveness of his crew is very much like Simon’s protectiveness toward River. They both also have an old-fashioned, courtly attitude toward women that occasionally gets them in trouble with their respective romantic interests. Inara wasn’t particularly impressed when Mal got himself into a duel over her honor, and Kaylee was outright insulted at Simon’s implication that she wasn’t the kind of girl he’d get drunk and have sex with in a sleazy bar.

  In spite of Mal’s often gregarious nature, he has a talent for annoying others that’s very much like a talent he himself noticed in Simon. Book remarked that Mal wasn’t overly concerned with ingratiating himself with anyone, while Mal commented on Simon’s remarkable talent for alienating folks. Neither of them is good at forming close, intimate relationships. Zoe is really the only person on Serenity who is what one might call Mal’s true friend, and even their relationship is more businesslike than emotionally intimate. Whenever Inara gets close to anything resembling emotional closeness with Mal, he resorts to sarcasm or outright obnoxiousness. Simon is too new to have true friends on the ship, but he’s not trying too hard, either. His focus is on River, and when he gets too close to intimacy with Kaylee, he falters, as in “The Message” when he managed to compliment her without thinking, but when she asked for more compliments he panicked and ended up infuriating her instead after he weakly turned the compliment into a joke. Both are shown to have a knack for planning. Mal’s plans are usually mocked because they tend to rely on improvisation, but they often end up working in the long run, while Simon’s effort at playing mastermind in “Ariel” was later referenced as the best job the crew ever pulled.

  Both men also play big brother roles-Mal with Kaylee and Simon with River. These interactions serve as a humanizing touch for both characters. In “Serenity,” when Mal was generally being a jerk to everyone, he was nice to Kaylee-and since the audience couldn’t help but like Kaylee, we figured this meant he was basically an okay guy. Almost every scene of Mal being mean, harsh, or cruel was balanced by a scene of him being a good “big brother” to Kaylee. In that same episode, Simon’s devotion to his sister thawed his personality significantly. He was introduced as a potential villain, the one we were led to believe was the Alliance spy, and even after we knew he wasn’t the spy he still could have been a bad guy-he was a wanted man desperate enough to essentially use Kaylee as a hostage to ensure his escape. Until his sister was revealed, he came across as cold, distant, calculating, and a touch arrogant, but once we saw him with River and learned what he’d done for her, all was forgiven.

  Even those similarities are still somewhat superficial, though. If you want to really know a man, you have to see how he reacts in a crisis. Or, in the words of the Firefly universe’s psychotic dictator/warrior poet Shan-Yu, you have to tie him up and hold him over the volcano�
��s edge. When either Mal or Simon is held over that metaphorical volcano’s edge, they both react the same way-with sarcasm, stubbornness, and a touch of recklessness. Both of them come into their own in a crisis, where even if they’re not in control of the greater situation, they’re totally in control of themselves and willing to stand up to or take on anyone. They don’t back down, even when all looks lost.

  We first saw this trait in Mal during the flashback at the beginning of the pilot “Serenity,” when he was able to keep his troops together and get his job done under fire, even if that required improvising. Simon first demonstrated his ability to think under pressure when he coerced Mal to make a run for it by refusing to treat Kaylee until Mal agreed not to turn him over to the Feds. Later, we saw that he didn’t let a death sentence hanging over his head slow him down at all. Instead of groveling and begging for his life, as many people would do, he kept arguing with Mal, up to the point where he got himself decked. He flung himself off a catwalk and fought with the federal marshal when River’s safety was at stake-the kind of reckless move you could imagine Mal making. Mal never gave a straight answer as to why he hired Simon instead of stranding him on Whitefall, as he’d originally planned to do, beyond “You ain’t weak, and that’s not nothing,” but it’s not hard to guess that Simon’s feistiness under pressure had a lot to do with it.

  These core traits repeated themselves throughout the series: Mal thinking his way calmly through the life-threatening crisis when the ship died in the middle of nowhere in “Out of Gas”; Simon’s icy dressings-down of both a hospital resident and the federal officer who captured him in “Ariel.” They even have similar ways of dealing with Jayne. When Simon quietly lectured Jayne about his disloyalty during the Ariel caper in “Trash,” he echoed some of the terms and arguments and even the hint of ruthless menace that Mal used when lecturing Jayne on the same event at the end of “Ariel.” Both focused on the concept of crew unity and loyalty.