her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you

[lotesse]

I had a thought while finishing the Serenity commentary track. When Joss talks about killing Wash, I was thinking that the reason why that choice was so galling is actually very clear in Joss' defense of it: he killed Wash in order to make us worry more about the other characters. Wash's death is instrumental in the trajectory of other characters, rather than being about himself. It develops others, not him. Which is also the problem folks have been identifying in the fridging of female characters, the dead bro walking problem, the Dances With Wolves/Samurai/Na'vi thing.

So this was sort of bothering at me, and then when I got to the bit where Simon gets shot Joss points out the payoff: you're more worried now, because Joss has established that everyone isn't getting out alive. I get the logic of that, but I've never experienced those emotions myself – I don't think Wash's death made me more worried about the rest of the cast, just as I wasn't more worried for Cap and Tony in Avengers after Coulson went down. Instead, what I think would absolutely gutpunch me – and what I now really really wish Joss had done with Serenity - would be to reverse the structure. If he had almost killed Wash, faked you out, and then last-minute-reprieved him – you thought he was dead but he wasn't – and then Simon went down, you would think at first that he was probably safe, by the same logic that killing one makes killing two more likely. He'll survive; this isn't a killing movie. So think if Joss had done that, and then Simon had really died. Not destroying viewers' comfort, but using it to lure them in to a false sense of safety, and then kill the character who really is the one that should die.

It would make sense in Simon's character arc, in a way that it totally doesn't with Wash's. Wash has everything to live for – he's a very futury sort of guy, in the 'verse. You get the sense that he's the sort who thrives more in new worlds than in old ones. He and Zoe and their babies could be a beautiful sort of image of the 'verse's happy ending, a reverse image of the white rich exclusive detached Tam family. Wash/Zoe is the Sam Gamgee/Rose Cotton of Firefly. But Simon – well, okay, so he could definitely pull a sort of Sacrificial Prince thing, Siddharta-esque, and dying for love, for River, would have a lot of meaning to and for him. It would also be sort of bleakly beautiful to have the adventure of Miranda, the purge that clears River's psychosis, be the thing that also kills her brother and caretaker. Miranda represents the worst sins of the Alliance; Joss says in the commentary that Simon is the best of the Alliance, the handsome talented principled knight-doctor. Having the two polarities cancel each other out might be pretty freaking cool.

And it would set up the end scene with Mal and River better, I think. I love that scene, but there's always been a way that it doesn't quite fit for me – a sort of thematic skip, if you will. The link between the theme of purity/sin/freedom and the theme of love isn't built up enough, maybe. “Love” isn't the final keyword that the end scenes have set up. But it totally should be, because “love” is an excellent final keyword. If Simon died for love, if River was experiencing pain and grief because of the loss that's the inevitable end of love, it would make Mal's paen to it much more resonant and sweet.

I think this might be my headcanon now. Bury Simon out in the stars, out in the desert, Simon, and Book, and Mr. Universe. There's a way that, in the same way that River and The Operative and Mal are involved in a shared plotline of dealing with their own demons and powers, Simon and Mr. Universe share a plotline about government, subversion, and whistleblowing; it would make thematic and practical sense for neither of them to survive.

Comments

[executrix]

But it *is* a war movie, and war is the ultimate example of, as Auden says:

Oh, death takes the innocent young,
Those with plenty of money,
The screamingly funny,
And those who are very well-hung.

If you start a war, then you WILL lose people who are too precious to lose.

Personally I figured that the flash finale would be Simon having to kill River, and then having to survive.

[thistlerose]

But Kaylee carried such a torch!

Your version is interesting, but I have problems with Joss killing off Simon, and not merely because then Kaylee would be sad, and we can't have that. If Simon had died, and River had gone to fight the Reavers, she would have been acting to satisfy her need for vengeance. (And also to protect her friends, but Simon comes first for her.) If Simon's only injured, she's acting solely as protector, and I think that's what finally heals her. (I don't mean heals her completely, but takes her as far as she needs to go in this story.)

Which is not to say that Wash's death isn't horrible and seemingly arbitrary. Zoe gets a taste of a peaceful life, and it's cruelly taken from her by the monsters that the government made.

I like the idea that Zoe might be pregnant at the end of the film. I've heard that that's Gina Torres's head canon, which makes me happy.

[executrix]

Mind you, my career as a Whedon apologist and spoiler whore came to a peak during the BDM preview season, because if he *had* killed Simon I would have bailed. No, this is not logical, but there it is.

[kudilu]

I'm not sure about the River vengeance/protector thing. It is easily possible to have a mortal injury that doesn't kill quickly, and isn't obvious that it's going to no matter what you do. If everything from that section of the movie was the same up through Mal coming back up and the doors opening on River, and only then do we find out Simon's dead, she'd still be doing it as protector. Or even if Simon's still alive at that point, and there's extra stuff before the end that has him die of the injuries, it would still work. Assuming with this scenario we've got grievously injured Wash and Simon, and we don't know which, if either of them, is going to survive until after The Operative has the Alliance people stand down, we'd still get to have Zoe's grief/fury near-suicide-by-Reever before Jayne pulls her back, and we'd still get River protecting the whole lot of them.

[thistlerose]

I just assumed that, in this scenario, Simon was killed outright, the way Wash was. It's sort of anticlimactic if he dies of his injuries after everything's been said and done, though I guess it could happen. River would still be acting as protector, but it would really, REALLY suck for her if the guy she was trying to protect died anyway.

(Don't get me wrong. I don't LIKE that Wash died! That sucked royally too!)

[executrix]

One of my longest fics (Gifted Children) is a fusion of The Gift about an older sibling's conflation of heroism with suicidality. As much as Simon is grateful for having the chance to, in some sense, save River, it's also something he can't help failing at, and the only way he can quit the job is by dying. So even though it would bother *me* a lot more if Simon died, it's really a lot more painful when Wash does because as far as he's concerned he could happily be Zoe's husband and Serenity's pilot forever.

[sholio]

So this was sort of bothering at me, and then when I got to the bit where Simon gets shot Joss points out the payoff: you're more worried now, because Joss has established that everyone isn't getting out alive. I get the logic of that, but I've never experienced those emotions myself – I don't think Wash's death made me more worried about the rest of the cast

Yeah ... I think it actually had the effect for me of making me care less. I remember my emotions at that point in the movie were mostly pulling back and trying not to get involved with whatever happened next, because I figured that either a) the whole thing was some kind of fakeout (there's going to be a reset button of some sort), in which case there was no point in getting too worked up about it, or b) he was going to pull a Blake's 7 ending, and I could only think, "I looked forward to this movie for years so that you could kill everyone off? Seriously?"

And then once it became clear that everyone else was going to survive, I was less delighted at their survival than angry at the transparent manipulativeness of Wash's death scene and the fact that Wash and Zoe didn't get a happy ending and it wasn't faaaaaair. ;_;

/is maybe a little biased.

Blakes7: the 20 Previous Generations

[executrix]

I never remember to check if it happened exactly 50 minutes in, as per Scream2, but let's not forget about the Shepherd not making it out either (...although I have had some fictional fix-its.) Of course a B7 ending is a real possibility from a B7 fan. (B7 actually takes place 500 years *after* Firefly.)

[princessofgeeks]

thank you; fascinating.

[killabeez]

Your idea makes a lot of emotional sense to me. It definitely would have worked better for me, and I think I agree with your reasons as good explanations for why.

[executrix]

Although a geometry proof of delayed death could also be constructed out of "abdominal injury just like Kaylee's" and "we're at the corner of No and Where."

[auroramama]

Headcanon accepted. This is beautiful criticism.

[ilthit]

You might well have a point.

Then again, killing Simon wouldn't have hurt me, and I think Joss was trying to hurt us.