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Serenity - What’s in a Name?
Monday, February 20, 2006

Serenity - What’s in a Name?
By WHR,III
When Captain Malcolm Reynolds named his Firefly Class ship “Serenity” he strayed from over 800 years of naval tradition. This departure from the conventional practice of naming vessels gives us an essential glimpse into the personality of Mal and gives us a better understanding of his true nature. The process of naming a vessel is never taken lightly. In Mal’s case it may have been the most important event of his post-war life. As we shall see there are numerous reasons why the naming of his spacecraft was an important event to Mal Reynolds.
Let’s consider the age-old tradition of naming Naval vessels: The Royal Navy of Great Britain had sustained a venerable tradition of naming seagoing ships. The policies and practices involved in ship naming were the products of hundreds of years of custom and tradition rather than of legislation or law. Warships always bore conventional, and often motivational, names such as Centurion, Dreadnaught, Conqueror, etc. The British usually tried to give ships of each class similar names like the classic grouping, “Invincible”, “Inflexible”, “Indomitable”, and “Indefatigable.” Starting at the beginning of the 20th Century, U.S. Naval ships were named in accordance with a system tailored to ship types. Names of states, for example, were borne by battleships. Cruisers were named for cities while destroyers came to be named for American naval leaders and heroes. This tradition, no doubt, was still intact during the great Diaspora from Earth-that-was.
This brings us to Captain Reynolds’s choice of name for his 03 Firefly-class light freighter spaceship. Had he remained a traditionalist Serenity might have been named “Persistence” or “Endurance” from the last-stand attitude of the 57th Overlanders. Instead he decided on “Serenity”. At first, it seemed odd to me that the name of the most terrible and costly battle of the war between the Alliance and the Independents should be named after a word that means peace. Obviously, it was not. I imagine that Serenity Valley was just that before the war brought conflict and strife into the area. And this explains a lot about Mal Reynolds, the soldier. By naming his ship Serenity he proved that he would never forget what had happened at this battle, or for that matter, what he, and Zoë, had endured in the war itself. He would be reminded daily of both.
Serenity then was named not in the tradition of battles and wars, but in the ritual of something quite different. Civilian ships are almost always named in a different manner than ships of war. They carry names of leisure, of wit, of luxury, of life and living. This gives us the most compelling reason for Mal naming his ship “Serenity.” The word serenity means the disposition free from stress or emotion or the absence of mental stress or anxiety. And this is exactly why Mal named her after this most particular state of being. She was, after all, going to be his home! This then, is the genuine reason Mal named his ship “Serenity”. This is the place where he is most comfortable, most himself, most at ease, most serene. Serenity is…… home and family!

Kenosha, Wisconsin
20 Feb. 2006

COMMENTS

Monday, February 20, 2006 5:01 PM

FOLLOWMAL


That was beautiful Billy. I believe you are right too.


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