Firefly (TV series)/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions
Firefly (TV series)/Headscratchers (view source)
Revision as of 21:20, 22 September 2014
, 9 years ago→Jayne's Attitude in "Jaynestown"
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* Is nobody else bothered by Jaynestown? Actually, I should clarify --- I love Jaynestown, it's a great episode, but it seems like a really bad example of discontinuity. To wit: the amoral, devil-may-care Jayne is profoundly shaken by the Mudder's act of sacrifice, and it gives him A Lot To Think About. It's strongly implied He'll Never Be The Same Again. And then, one episode later, he's...the same Jayne we've always known. If I'm not wrong, we scarcely see any sign at all of a different Jayne until Serenity.
** Actually, I am a little bothered by Jaynestown, for completely different reasons. About three days after I first watched the episode, it dawned on me that Stitch actually had a legitimate grievance. Jayne did kind of, you know, drop him three stories and abandon him to Boss Higgins' (non-existent) mercy. Four years in a box? I'd be torqued as well. Stitch never does anything that Jayne himself wouldn't have done if their positions had been reversed, and he winds up with death by blunt force trauma, mere hours after being let out of the box. I didn't necessarily feel bad for the guy, but it's awful tough for me to hate him.
*** Where did you get the idea that you were supposed to? Stitch is basically just Jayne but a lot more bitter. You root for Jayne because he's on the good guys' side (nominally), therefore you root against Stitch because he's trying to kill Jayne, but that doesn't mean you have to hate him or think he's 100% incorrect about everything. Try to step back a little from that 1 and 0 way of looking at things... he can be an antagonist without being completely and objectively wrong about what he's doing.
** Wasn't that sorta the point? That the Mudders were deluded in hailing Jayne as a hero, and that in reality he is, well, kind of an ass? He smashes his own statue to hammer the point home that keeping him a a symbol of goodness is stupid on the Mudders' part. That whole episode is about the uselessness of symbols, really. Jayne isn't a great symbol of righteousness, losing his virginity doesn't work as a symbol of young Higgins becoming a man, and then there's Book's poor Bible that River took to "fixing"...
*** In any sort of realistic context, someone who spent 4 years in a box that small would be too crippled to move. I assumed the box was a part time punishment, and he spent the rest of his time at hard labor.
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