LIMINALOSITY'S BLOG

liminalosity

The Operative !!SPOILERS LURK WITHIN!!
Wednesday, October 12, 2005

SPOILERS! REGULAR SPOILERS AND LURKING VIRAL SPOILERS
Please read no further unless that's what you're looking for
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So, the Operative. I think he is one of Joss' more convoluted and subtle monsters. He seems to me to share a few character traits with Jubal Early, without seeming as bare wires crazy as Early. His zeal is on a par with Early, but it seems the Operative functions within something more like a self-created religious ethic, built of elements gleaned from military theory and Christianity, and maybe other sources I haven't recognized.

I have a theory, surprise, surprise. In the scene in the training house between the Operative, Inara and Mal, the Operative tells Mal he can't make him angry, and I think that's a sham. He presents himself as though he is as completely calm and in control of his emotions as he is of his physicality (as well as implying that he among all others is without sin). I saw him as very emotional and arrogant from his delivery of a couple of lines in his first scene:
1. the tone he uses when he asks the doctor 'do you know what your sin is?' seems very much like a disappointed and condesending parent to me, and
2. in his delivery of the last line in that sequence 'where are you hiding, little girl' the words 'little girl' fairly drip with venom.
I think he's acting like a guy who's trying to be something he's not.
Also take a look a his face at the companion training house when the guys on his ship tell him they are reading 7 signatures (from the 7 crybabies the crew launch as they leave orbit - and by the way, why wasn't it 8 signatures?) This is all pretty early on, he hasn't spent an hour with Mal yet.
I don't think his rage and pride are ramping up throughout the film so much as they are being brought closer and closer to the surface until the moment when he shoots Mal in the back. That's the act of a complete coward, but it was pretty clear to me that he had totally lost any remaining shred of control over his emotions when the Reavers showed up and he yelled 'summary fire!'

BTW, what do you think his sin was? I'm voting for Grumpy, I mean Pride.

COMMENTS

Thursday, October 13, 2005 5:26 AM

LIMINALOSITY


I was looking pretty hard for the backpack and hiking staff in that final scene with the Operative too, cuz I always thought Book's path had been something similar to how I view the Operative's (madness of the zealot, ephiphany, life of contemplation and good works). There was a discussion in a thread 'BD double meanings' that in the firelit scene on Haven, Book was telling Mal he was an Operative. I agree.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005 4:40 PM

LIMINALOSITY


I should have put this in as a thread, but it's probably obvious to anyone that I'm clueless about these things. Finding clues daily. Anyway.

I think you're right about Early, the photo in his ship of his mom (?) with the golden retriever and what River says about it sounded to me like he took the dog off into the woods to torture it.

Plenty of misguided Americans as well drop bombs and crash planes in foreign countries, fueled by a belief in something they see as a larger mission.

There was a great rant in a thread a few days ago by, I think it was Browncoat, about the Operative as samurai. It was good, but the thread has slipped into the void. Anyway, if I remember right, his take was that according to samurai traditition the Operative's next move would be to fall onto his sword, or go ronin (which is a kind of freelance samurai without the support of a house). There's more to it but I'm no expert.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005 3:46 PM

EMBERS


Personally I felt that Early was fueled by a real love of pain, he became a bounty hunter so he could legally indulge in giving out pain and fear.

But the Operative is on a different level, I think that he is the kind of Christian who kills doctors at abortion clinics, and the kind of Musslem who crashs plans into buildings. He believes in ideals and doesn't care how horrible the things he does is because what he does 'serves the cause'.
He believes in his perfect world and trusted the people who trained him and armed him. He was willing to have no name, or rank, or life outside of his mission.
So I'm curious, what happens to a man like that when he loses his mission, when he is completely disillusioned about his 'cause'? Most people react with anger and bitterness, and I'm guessing he is going to be attacking those who lied to him. JMPO


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