Shall We Gather at the River? by zoid

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Shall We Gather at the River?

POSTED BY: ZOID
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 05:52
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Tuesday, April 27, 2004 5:34 AM

Fellow Browncoats:

So I'm on the thread topics page and up in the upper left is a screen cap of Mal looking down into River's steaming container (sounds really wrong to say 'River's steaming box') when it occurs to me: the next thing we see from a viewer's perspective is an overhead of River in a fetal position in the box.

Naked girl, curled fetally in a well-padded metal womb. ...And Mal is bringing her kicking and screaming into the world. She doesn't just stand quietly and step from the box; she screams, gasps, opens her eyes wide, then slips fluidly to the floor, head first. The doctor, her brother, then cradles her crying form (notice her hair is wet?) and calms her. Strongly suggests a birth scene doesn't it?

Great imagery, which one supposes signifies something important, given JW's intellect. But what?

I'll get out of the way now, and let y'all have at it. Don't forget to visit Sanmi's simply-titled "best pair" thread, too. I think she's onto something...

Respectfully,

zoid
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(Of River) "Little Sis? I could see big things for her all along. Her and her brother both. I always knew they'd be worth something, y'know?"

- Jayne Cobb, Game Warden and co-proprietor, "Cretaceous Park", Hera; from A Child Shall Lead Them: A History of the Second War of Independence Wilkins, Richard

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Tuesday, April 27, 2004 5:52 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

I had noticed the suggestion of River's emergence from the box as a sort of "birth" myself, and had even pointed out the similarities to friends. I was quite surprised to never see anyone else bring it up here before.

All of the elements of that scene in Serenity give the viewer the feeling that River is being "born", or perhaps "reborn" when Mal opens the box to find out what Simon is hiding.

Personally I think it is akin to some sort of awakening or rebirth of River. The River that Simon knew is gone, forever changed by what the Blue Hands did to her. The girl that comes out of that box is different than the girl that entered the academy, for better or worse, it seems to early to say.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

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