Context: I made a poll on PieFed about the new post flairs (so if you are one of the few hundred people who have a PieFed account, follow that link and answer there). Unfortunately Lemmy has neither polls nor post flairs, so this post is to open up the discussion to the wider Fediverse, or rather the subset of it that encompasses Lemmy + Mbin + PieFed, which is called… what exactly?
Is Threadiverse too traumatic & tainted by association with Meta’s (all but entirely defunct) Threads? Is The Verse too cool/poetic/nerdy (but niche) to be understood? I highly advise against Lemmyverse bc mainstream normal people are far less tolerant of tankies than we who are here are willing to put up with. Simply listing the software available sometimes is the best option - like the Interstellar app supports all of Lemmy + Mbin + PieFed, but most support at best 1 or 2 of those - but usually is too long to say and does not roll off the tongue, plus will just keep growing as time goes on. Is Forumverse thus the least bad of the available options, or perhaps you have a better idea? 💡
Anyway, the start to a listing:
- Threadiverse
- Forumverse
- (The) Verse
- Lemmy + Mbin + PieFed
- Something else?
Jayne is gross as fuck, Mal can’t stop calling Inara “whore” every episode in a way that feels so indulgent, it’s a celebration of confederados, the list goes on.
Mal’s got this whole “I’ve got a code” and “I’m loyal to my CREW” shtick that’s trite and makes his morality too flexible which bumps against his “aww shucks I have a heart of gold” moments. They never critique his “code” which is actually pretty deranged, they just show these moments where he does the right thing and go “See? The confederado is actually a Nice Guy!”
Like let’s take a look at what he’s fighting against - yes, the government did something heinous with River, but he’s not trying to right that wrong nor was it the catalyst for why he is who he is. In fact, he goes out of his way not to do the right thing with her and constantly threatens to throw River and Simon out every time he gets in a bad mood.
Look at all these outpost towns that he ends up causing trouble in half the time because he wants to stick it to the government. He doesn’t have to live this life. He chooses it. Like I’m supposed to be proud of him for stealing medical supplies, realizing he didn’t do his due diligence in the slightest and regretted committing a crime, then not stealing it? He shouldn’t have been in that position in the first place. All he did was not consign a bunch of people to death - huge problem on their hands that happened because of him! We’re supposed to find that sympathetic and sweet?
The anti-hero thing did not age well. It doesn’t have any commentary and it doesn’t assess these moments with any sort of critical eye. Most of the crew is fine but Mal and Jayne (especially given what we now know about Baldwin) aged like milk and make it really hard to watch.
I think one of the major tropes present in the show was to demonstrate how there aren’t simply white hats vs. black hats (to use cowboy terms). Mal is a criminal, “forced” into living that way bc the government won’t “allow” him to live legitimately (except… really? Why won’t they again?). Therefore, the presence of great darkness within his lightness, or as you might prefer the presence of occasional boughts of lightness within his darkness, is not a “bug”, it’s a “feature” of the show, to walk out that yin and yang in a fantasy space opera setting.
Nobody is perfect. Some are far less so than others. Those at least tend to be aware of their imperfections, as opposed to e.g. The Galactic Empire muwhahaha, ahem cough, anyways they seem so stolid, so absolutely certain of their moral righteousness, that unlike the criminal Mal who often isn’t such a bad guy once you get to know him, commits atrocities the likes of which would turn people’s stomachs, if they knew (hence those are kept as closely guarded secrets).
So I think you missed that: from the perspective of the show, that was no accident - that was literally the entire point of what they were attempting to convey. Mal was not a “good guy”. He just had light in his darkness, the same way that the empire has darkness in its light (or is it rather the other way around?).
I think you’re giving Whedon to much credit tbh. I didn’t miss anything - I loved the show, I watched it a dozen times easily. Serenity a dozen more. It’s sloppy and indulgent and Jayne in particular is just vile in a way that’s vile, not funny.
We can deliberate about Mal, but Jayne…there’s no explaining that away. The only thing I’m glad we got was Jaynetown because that was just interesting on its own merits.