Pretending to be deeper than I am - about the series by minime

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Pretending to be deeper than I am - about the series

POSTED BY: MINIME
UPDATED: Thursday, October 13, 2005 14:42
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Wednesday, October 12, 2005 1:27 PM

I was reading someone's review of 'Jaynestown' recently and got to thinking about that episode and the episode 'Objects in Space'. One is about symbols having a meaning and a validity almost entirely separate to their actual existance, and one is about objects having a reality and a validity separate to the meanings we impose upon them.
Been a fan for over a year (that's when the DVDs came out in Australia!) and this just occurs to me now.
Are these ideas contradictory? complementary? the same? in any way related to the tv show?

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Wednesday, October 12, 2005 3:24 PM

BLINKER

Never did make that connection. Good one.

_________
Sliders: Gate Haven - http://slidersweb.net/blinker

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Wednesday, October 12, 2005 3:45 PM

DONCOAT

Quote:
Originally posted by minime:
I was reading someone's review of 'Jaynestown' recently and got to thinking about that episode and the episode 'Objects in Space'. One is about symbols having a meaning and a validity almost entirely separate to their actual existance, and one is about objects having a reality and a validity separate to the meanings we impose upon them.
Been a fan for over a year (that's when the DVDs came out in Australia!) and this just occurs to me now.
Are these ideas contradictory? complementary? the same? in any way related to the tv show?

Well, arguably, 'Objects in Space' is about objects not having a reality and a validity separate from the meanings we impose upon them.

Just as Jayne is not the Hero of Canton, the gun is not a tree branch -- until someone imbues it with branchness, or him with heroism.

Joss is an avowed existentialist, so he'd probably say that a falling tree makes no sound unless River is there to hear it.

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Wednesday, October 12, 2005 7:19 PM

STAKETHELURK

Looks like others got here first, but I’ll say my piece, too:

Interesting post. I feel that the two ideas are complimentary. I’m no existentialist, but I’ve taken the crash course over at All Things Philosophical on Buffy the Vampire Slayer ( www.atpobtvs.com, where they are presently discussing Serenity), so I feel vaguely qualified to write an answer.

The episodes present themes that are two sides of the same coin. If objects exist separate from their meanings, then meanings exist separate from their objects. You can imbue an item with a meaning that does not logically make sense, such as making Jayne into a Robin Hood-style hero or a handgun into a branch.

What we are supposed to take away from these episodes is that objects have no inherent meaning, we imbue them with that. Once we are aware of that, like River, we can imbue things with new meaning (the frightening gun becomes a harmless branch). Once you know that meaning can be separate from objects, you can take control of meaning instead of reacting to it. Part of existentialism is the noble lie, imbuing something with meaning to make it good and thus improve your own life. This is what the mudders do with Jayne. It doesn’t matter that Jayne is selfish and unheroic, what matters is that his example--false though it is--uplifts and improves the lives of the mudders (even by a small amount). If they put the statue back up even after seeing the true face of Jayne, all the better--they have gained control over meaning and are using it to improve their own lot in some small way.

That’s what makes Jubal Early so scary. River sees the gun and sees that it can be imbued with a different meaning. The gun is just a thing, an object in space; it’s people who make it a weapon, give it meaning and purpose. River sees this and thus gives it a different, benign meaning. Early also knows that the gun can have any meaning he wants to give it and he still views it as a weapon, considers it pretty when viewed as a weapon. He sees that it can be other things and he still chooses to make it a weapon.

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Wednesday, October 12, 2005 9:23 PM

MINIME

Impressive answers... was missing this kind of interaction on FFFn.
incidentally, i enjoy atpobtvs, but my favorite is Slayage, which is an online journal, and occasionally gets mired down in it's on acadaemia, but anyway. ( www.slayage.tv)
Ok, to the topic at hand.
Is that the essence of a hero? or even in less exalted terms, the essence of someone who leads a 'good' life - someone who tends to prefer to inbue things with a positive meaning rather than the other way around. As for example, River with the gun/branch, the Cantonese with Jayne... all our BDHs with each other (admittedly not all the time!). The show(s) might be about nine different people looking out into the black and seeing nine different things, but mostly what they see is good. Even for realists/cynics like Mal and Jayne, they seem to have a bent for seeing good things.
Interesting point about the Mudders resurrection of Jayne's statue. I guess I had always seen it as a weakness or a negative thing that they had seen the worst in him and ignored or deliberately misunderstood it. But you are all correct, to see a flaw and still be able to see something heroic or inspiring in the same thing (as in Book and the Bible) is... well, important in coming to terms with life.
On the other hand, maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe integrating 'reality' (whatever that is) with ideal isn't important, and whatever connects us to the 'ideal' is the only thing that matters. (What would Plato say?)
Maybe even more simple - whatever enables us to do what we have to is the important thing, regardless of 'reality' or anything else that might get in the way.
I'm kind of stream-of-consciousness-ing, and I've never studied any of this stuff in a non-internet/reading books way, so forgive me if I make no sense or if I'm saying things which are so obvious that they don't need saying.
Thanks for this discussion... sorry about the length and incoherence of this post.

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Thursday, October 13, 2005 1:30 AM

DONCOAT

Humans have the bizarre ability simultaneously to hold mutually contradictory ideas about the same thing. The Mudders can think of Jayne as a hero, even though they know that he's just a crook who screwed up.

Oddly, this isn't necessarily a sign of insanity. For the Mudders, keeping Jayne on his pedestal (literally!) is a coping mechanism. In fact, it would be more insane if they insisted on believing only one of the two contradictory ideas -- that's the road to fanaticism.

So, where does that leave River? Is she insane because she sees only the branch without considering the gun? Or sane because she's able to cope with a scary object by reinterpreting it? Is this why she understands, but she doesn't comprehend?

And Early is pretty clearly insane, yet he can and does do plenty of self-examination and holds deeply contradictory notions. So while that ability may be normal and healthy, it's not exactly a hallmark of sanity.

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Thursday, October 13, 2005 2:19 AM

URAJZED

There's an allusion to Serenity as well. We hear Early say something like "These old Fireflies - these are a good ship." But is he seeing the same thing as the others? Takes us back to Zoe's first impression vs. Mal's, in the flashback in Out of Gas as well as Inara's first impression. Then River assuming the voice of the ship... is it the ship that has meaning, or is it the meaning that is given to it, the people who inhabit it? Then Early's dismissal of Kaylee's body as without meaning to him. He seems to act as if he has no choice in this evaluation, as if it's part of the job, but River aptly reminds him that it was his choice to take the job.

The bodies and the ship are just objects in space.

"Is it still River's room, even when she's not in it?"

"Don't make faces."

u

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Thursday, October 13, 2005 2:42 PM

MINIME

Therefore - is personhood something innate, or something bestowed upon us by others around us?
Also now reflecting on the movie - the question of whether River is a 'real person' and also regarding the Reavers.
Is that too spoilery? Sorry.

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