GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Thoughts on River...

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCERENTZ
UPDATED: Saturday, April 3, 2004 20:18
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 2125
PAGE 1 of 1

Friday, April 2, 2004 6:03 AM

CAPTAINCERENTZ


I have seen several posts regarding heavy speculation on River and most of it is very cool and quite imaginative. From seeing the few shows that I have and from some of what I read I have come upon what I think is a fairly simple explanation for River's 'powers'. Read below and tell me what you think!

River is INCREDIBLY inteligent - Taken from what Simon has told about River on more then one occasion.

River has some psychic ability. This manifests itself in many different ways.

1. She appears to be able to 'know' when an intensely emotional event is about to happen and sometimes knows when some crew members are about to touch/activate something that was last touched by someone in a highly emotional state. Like the ship's log scene in 'Bushwacked'.

2. She can also 'channel' someone's personality and take one more then just one aspect of that person's personality. She does this with Badger and I presume also during the time she shoots 3 Alliance soldiers and proclaims that she is 'unstoppable' or something. (I believe that she channeled one of those highly skilled soldiers and 'used' his abilities to shoot him and his compatriots.) This power seems to manifest itself when she is in some kind of danger, as nobody really knows what Badger would have done before she started talking to him using his accent, sentence structure and level of "I'm a peon, but I think I am better then you. So, I will talk down to you like the dirt I am, but think you are..." way that Badger often treats people.

3. Sometimes she is greatly precognizant and able to 'see' events that will happen in the near, meaning close to a few weeks or months, future.

Beyond that, there is some cool things to speculate about...

Perhaps the 'removing of her medula' was designed to mold her into an emotionless 'machine' that could be an effective Assasin or spy, as being able to channel people's skills and likely knowledge can be extremely effective in such situations.

It's also possible that those surgeries were designed to push her mind even farther then she was naturally, possibly allowing her to channel/read the mind of anyone anywhere within and outside of Alliance control.

All in all, she is a very interesting character.


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, April 2, 2004 6:41 AM

BROWNCOAT1

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


Quote:

Originally posted by CaptainCerentz:
I have seen several posts regarding heavy speculation on River and most of it is very cool and quite imaginative. From seeing the few shows that I have and from some of what I read I have come upon what I think is a fairly simple explanation for River's 'powers'. Read below and tell me what you think!

River is INCREDIBLY inteligent - Taken from what Simon has told about River on more then one occasion.



I agree. Simon has pointed out on more than one occasion that River is smarter than he is. He even reminded his parents of how River was correcting his spelling when she was three.

Quote:

River has some psychic ability. This manifests itself in many different ways.

1. She appears to be able to 'know' when an intensely emotional event is about to happen and sometimes knows when some crew members are about to touch/activate something that was last touched by someone in a highly emotional state. Like the ship's log scene in 'Bushwacked'.



She has definitely shown signs of being empathic. Her sensing Book being shot in "Safe", and her sensing the emotion from Wash & Zoe in OiS.

Quote:

2. She can also 'channel' someone's personality and take one more then just one aspect of that person's personality. She does this with Badger and I presume also during the time she shoots 3 Alliance soldiers and proclaims that she is 'unstoppable' or something. (I believe that she channeled one of those highly skilled soldiers and 'used' his abilities to shoot him and his compatriots.) This power seems to manifest itself when she is in some kind of danger, as nobody really knows what Badger would have done before she started talking to him using his accent, sentence structure and level of "I'm a peon, but I think I am better then you. So, I will talk down to you like the dirt I am, but think you are..." way that Badger often treats people.


You lose me a little here.

I don't think she is "channeling" a person or their abilities here. I think w/ Badger she was merely reading his mind/emotions on his past & where he grew up, and was imitating his accent to mock him.

The 3 people she shot in War Stories were not Alliance, they were Niska's thugs. I don't think I would call them highly trained, perhaps motivated and well armed. I think she simply used mathmetics to plan where to shoot, and she closed her eyes and fired. Impressive when you think she shot 3 men w/ 3 shots without a miss. I am not so sure if this was simple math, or perhaps somepart of her "sensing" them through the tampering done by the Blue Hands.

Quote:

3. Sometimes she is greatly precognizant and able to 'see' events that will happen in the near, meaning close to a few weeks or months, future.


Her sensing the danger of the fire that was about to happen in OoG, her sensing the approach of the Blue Hands in Ariel, and many other instances show that she has some ability of precognition. Added to her other abilities it makes her one very useful (or perhaps dangerous) young woman.

Quote:

Beyond that, there is some cool things to speculate about...

Perhaps the 'removing of her medula' was designed to mold her into an emotionless 'machine' that could be an effective Assasin or spy, as being able to channel people's skills and likely knowledge can be extremely effective in such situations.

It's also possible that those surgeries were designed to push her mind even farther then she was naturally, possibly allowing her to channel/read the mind of anyone anywhere within and outside of Alliance control.

All in all, she is a very interesting character.




I find your theory of surgery to allow her to push past the normal limitations of the human mind. We use a very small part of the potential of the human mind, what would we be if we could use say 50% capacity of our brain? 75%? 90%? It could be that River is an experiment at unlocking that potential. Not sure why they would turn off her emotional filter though.

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


NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, April 2, 2004 8:13 AM

ZOID


Okay, everybody's convinced River's got true ESP. Even Joss said something to that effect on DVD commentary.

But, like the slug I am, I am going to deny that being extra-sensitive necessarily means Firefly's a fantasy. Anybody ever read any A.C. Doyle? Holmes can walk into a room and within 5 minutes, tell you that a crime was committed there, who did it, what their emotional state was when they committed the crime, what cleaning fluid the maid used to tidy the room, and where she grew up... And what kind of marmalade she had on her toast that morning...

Is it because he's empathic? Telepathic? Telekinetic?

No. He's perceptive. He sees, smells, hears things in a way other people do not.

Genius -- of the sort River is a magnifold of -- has been defined as the ability to make cognitive leaps. The way the genius sees the world and its workings is very different from the way 'normal' people perceive it. Read William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition". Or anything on Einstein...

If River may be defined as being extra-perceptive, it does not necessarily require that something 'supernatural' is going on.


Respectfully,

zoid

P.S.
Dogs' noses are so sensitive they can smell one part of urine in a million parts of water. Butterflies see in ultraviolet, invisible to human sight, to locate mating partners. Bats use echo-location to navigate in the total darkness of caves. Dolphins use sonar to locate and differentiate between food and predators in murky coastal waters. Many animals are sensitive to EM radiation and can tell when earthquakes and tornados are about to occur, although humans appear to be clueless.

Does this make these organisms psychic?


_________________________________________________

"River didn't fix faith. Faith fixed River."

- Senator Richard 'Book' Wilkins, Independent Congress
from A Child Shall Lead Them

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, April 2, 2004 10:13 AM

THEFOP


Quote:

Originally posted by zoid:

Dogs' noses are so sensitive they can smell one part of urine in a million parts of water. Butterflies see in ultraviolet, invisible to human sight, to locate mating partners. Bats use echo-location to navigate in the total darkness of caves. Dolphins use sonar to locate and differentiate between food and predators in murky coastal waters. Many animals are sensitive to EM radiation and can tell when earthquakes and tornados are about to occur, although humans appear to be clueless.

Does this make these organisms psychic?


_________________________________________________

"River didn't fix faith. Faith fixed River."

- Senator Richard 'Book' Wilkins, Independent Congress
from A Child Shall Lead Them






Somebody once told me that these abilities did indeed make animals psychich. Operating on this theory, I went and got my cat, set him down in front of me and said "Okay, Grisgris, what are the numbers for tommorows Lotto 649?" He look at me, blinked twice, and walked away in a disdainful manner. So I decided to try again "Lottery's not your game eh? Who's going to win the Stanley Cup this year?" Wherupon he bit me savagely on the ankle and hid under the couch.

As such, I can only assume that the person I was speaking with was wrong.

once the snow got so deep you almost couldn't hear margaret atwood

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, April 2, 2004 10:18 AM

GHOULMAN


... and I gotta point out what a FABULOUS actress she is. Wow. Just wow. Oh, and this thread is fascinating... to quote a certain blueshirt.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, April 2, 2004 11:37 AM

OBSESSED


The psychic vs. genius argument has already been beaten to death at http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=3173
and just to put in my 2 cents, Joss has told us that she is psychic! When you write and direct your own sci-fi show, you can decide if you want psychic characters. Until then, please accept that this is science FICTION. Psychic abilities do exist in this world. River has known things that she could not possibly know. There was no way for her to know that Ruby's mom had killed her sister; she might have known that something traumatic happened and noticed that her mother was not around, but the story is just too specific to be inferred from the evidence available. There's other evidence too, but it doesn't even matter because the creator, writer, and director told us that she is psychic, so there's no reason to have to debate this. Sorry to beat a dead horse here, but the argument in the thread I posted above went on way too long and got more and more ridiculous and desperate, so I don't want to see a general thread on river get sucked into that bog.
OK, tirade done.......

Book: I'd forgotten - you're moonlighting as a criminal mastermind now.
Simon: No, but I'm thinking about growing a big black mustache. I'm a traditionalist.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, April 2, 2004 1:38 PM

LILLYBELLA


I have watched my DVD colection and damn was this an amazing show. I laughed and was very touched at how close Simon and River are to one another. Who else would give up his life as he knows it to get his sister and save her. River maybe different but Simon loves her anyway. Rememeber that scene with Early and Simon and Early realizes that she is in his ship. Eventhough Simon knows that he cannot take Early he still attacks him to save River....... I still cannot work those stupid emotions....

Lillybella

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, April 3, 2004 7:53 AM

CYBERSNARK


Quote:

Originally posted by zoid:
Anybody ever read any A.C. Doyle?

Also, River's "She sees, but she does not observe" comment echoes something Holmes once said about Watson.

"You see, Watson, but you do not observe."

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, April 3, 2004 8:16 AM

STATIC


Okay.. .

I HATE to nit-pick, but. . .

River didn't say "She sees, she doesn't observe." She said, "She understands, she doesn't comprehend." And Mal's response to that is a slightly sarcastic, "I'm glad we made that distinction." which suggests that he isn't aware that there IS a distinction.

Also. . .

They didn't remove River's MEDULLA. . .turning her into an emotionless robot. . .

They stripped her . . .something else that starts with an 'M' and as you may recall, Simon explains very clearly that doing that makes it IMPOSSIBLE for a person to suppress or contain emotion. To quote him, "She feels EVERYTHING! She can't NOT!"

==================================================
"Wash. . .we got some local color happening. A grand entrance would not go amiss."

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, April 3, 2004 8:48 AM

FIREFLYTHEMOVIE


The stripped her amygdala. Which almost starts with "M".

NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, April 3, 2004 6:07 PM

STATIC


FINE. . .NIT-pick why don't you?



==================================================
"Wash. . .we got some local color happening. A grand entrance would not go amiss."

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, April 3, 2004 8:18 PM

VETERAN

Don't squat with your spurs on.


Quote:

Also. . .

They didn't remove River's MEDULLA. . .turning her into an emotionless robot. . .



You're right. The medulla is at the base of the brain anyway. Besides stripping it would most certainly be fatal.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

YOUR OPTIONS

NEW POSTS TODAY

USERPOST DATE

FFF.NET SOCIAL