Inara. Making men (and women) sweaty since 2002.

Wytch brought up the 'D' word in relation to our favorite Companion. Dying. I've never been a fan of that theory (um...Morena confirming that theory never happened. never. ever.happened. Really. don't look it up! ).

Anyway, what thoughts have you all about Ms. Serra?

Charlie wrote:Wytch brought up the 'D' word in relation to our favorite Companion.

hey! i only brought that up so you could slap. it. down. LOL!

dear god and his fluffy angels but that Companion is an enigma to me.

I just love this thread's title! Haven't used that one yet.

It's Joss, king of surprise deaths. No way does he let the audience in on an impending death and then go through with it. Maybe she's saved from whatever illness, but at a very high price; and maybe the other characters find out little bits and pieces of her "secret" and come to the conclusion that she is dying but actually they are incorrectly interpreting and her secret is something else entirely.

What purpose does her dying serve? She is Mal's OTP, we know that from the man himself. Better to keep them alive and thwarted and fighting.

I was actually pretty sad at first with the whole dying theory, but then it made SO much sense.

But that doesn't mean there aren't other equally interesting interpretations for Inara.

Does she like her job or is she disappointed with the clients she has, or both at the same time? (Deep! Conflicted!)

Does she have commitment issues, does she secretly want to settle down, or is her reluctance to pursue a monogamous relationship an entirely reasonable response based on the prospects she has available? (Does she even want monogamy?)

What is driving her and what is she looking for in a partner?

gilliebeans wrote:

What purpose does her dying serve? She is Mal's OTP, we know that from the man himself. Better to keep them alive and thwarted and fighting.

What i said to charlie was - i can imagine Inara being at death's door and then... a miracle! Yo/Saff offers up her life in self sacrificing donor style. A manoeuvre which brings redemption in the Jossverse.

Saffron and redeemed? Is that... Even possible?

Bytemite wrote:Saffron and redeemed? Is that... Even possible?

Might take a while but clearly she was being set up in the show for some kind've development.
I can think of various possibilities.

More Inara conversation! I demand it! Why do you all think she left?

But as an aside, I kinda almost see Jayne and Saffron hooking up, because that would just be the most ****ed up hilarious thing ever.

gilliebeans wrote:It's Joss, king of surprise deaths. No way does he let the audience in on an impending death and then go through with it. Maybe she's saved from whatever illness, but at a very high price; and maybe the other characters find out little bits and pieces of her "secret" and come to the conclusion that she is dying but actually they are incorrectly interpreting and her secret is something else entirely.

haha, yeah. I mean he said she's "dyING" not "she's going to die," got to pay attention to the little details.

Plus I've long suspected that whole leak thing was actually set up by Joss and Morena in advance, to play with the viewers. I mean the person who asked that question in Dragon*Con said something like "my best friend's brother-in-law's cousin's girl friend said she asked Joss what was up with Inara," and then Morena confirms some hearsay story? No way. The person asking the question was totally a plant and I'm smelling a deliberate mislead.

Bytemite wrote:got to pay attention to the little details.

Plus I've long suspected that whole leak thing was actually set up by Joss and Morena in advance, to play with the viewers....I'm smelling a deliberate mislead.

i would love to believe this; alas, Better Days and Heart of Gold both suggest otherwise.

What Inara thinks is happening may not be what Joss is planning. : )

I have a theory that Inara *thinks* she is dying, but what she has is not nearly so imminently fatal as she believes. She's thinking she has limited time left, and that's a big part of what precipitated her move out of her comfortable groove at her Guild House, she wanted to get out and see the 'Verse before dying. It kicks her into high gear, and ups her intensity. She could be thinking she's dying for quite a while before she notices that she isn't, or at least she isn't as fast as she anticipated. Whaddaya think of that?

Also, even though I incorporated the "Inara has a fatal illness" thing into my fic, I just...don't...want..to...kill...her. I love her too much, and she and Mal have to have time for some goodness to happen, before I can let her die in my fic. I keep putting it off...like maybe I will have her die of that awful fatal illness when she's 87 and she and Mal have been happily married for 50 years. Yeah, that's right.

ebfiddler987 wrote:Also, even though I incorporated the "Inara has a fatal illness" thing into my fic, I just...don't...want..to...kill...her. I love her too much, and she and Mal have to have time for some goodness to happen, before I can let her die in my fic. I keep putting it off...like maybe I will have her die of that awful fatal illness when she's 87 and she and Mal have been happily married for 50 years. Yeah, that's right.

Well, I think all of you have heard my assurances that Inara is going to live in mine. Though I'm not adverse to tragedy. I've killed Mal in a couple of fanworks I've done. And Agent Rouka wrote a really good story once where Mal was in a death spiral after Inara was shot. I'm a sucker for angst, it fits with my cynical worldview. Fluff and comedy are always just momentary entertainment.

Watching Mal and Inara NOT get together is as good storytelling sometimes as when they do. That's why I like them really. There's just so many ways it can go, so many potential stories to tell.

Bytemite wrote:

Well, I think all of you have heard my assurances that Inara is going to live in mine. Though I'm not adverse to tragedy. I've killed Mal in a couple of fanworks I've done. And Agent Rouka wrote a really good story once where Mal was in a death spiral after Inara was shot. I'm a sucker for angst, it fits with my cynical worldview. Fluff and comedy are always just momentary entertainment.

Watching Mal and Inara NOT get together is as good storytelling sometimes as when they do. That's why I like them really. There's just so many ways it can go, so many potential stories to tell.

Spoiler:

ok, also - to save log-jamming under your fic i have some questions re your (excellently realised) take on Inara (and certain other characters); so i will come back to this thread here for that - when my brain is more focused and after a few re-reads of your latest

Oops. I really spoiled my story for you in regards to Inara.

Sometimes I talk too much.

Bytemite wrote:.As a girl Inara had entertained herself with fairytales and stories about the spirit world. There, she could escape from the tower into the wilds. Then her mother crossed over, and the fantasy lost the appeal. Later she learned she had always been far closer to that world than she wanted to be, halfway there already; living, and in some ways already gone. She had been specially selected, and it wasn't as beautiful or lovely as she had hoped. Story of her life, really.

i had never really put Inara and the spirit world together in that way; it's interesting*.
She would have graced Carnivale and no mistake. Maybe i was blinded by her Buddhism (hardly a spirits-free religion i know, i know).
i can buy a general disillusion too and it does give another reflection back to River (favoured child/Academy etc.).
i remember watching Briah Rose (dollhouse) and suddenly thinking how the fairytale illustration made me (unexpectedly) see Mal and Inara instead of Ballard (with a beard even!) and Echo.

but the ambivalent sense of protection and claustrophobia that Inara finds on Serenity - well your notions do bring a new focus to that. Family - parents etc. often a hot issue in Whedon forums. but i only ever went there with the Tams, never much explored the infancy, childhood or adolescence of the BDHs, except by proxy using a companion in training to suggest elements of Inara and River. (Oh and Jayne's Ma, but that was purely for comedy.) But it's always fascinating me as a reader.

Your Inara seems to bear the need for self-protection/self preservation as a weight. (but that could be me reading into stuff)

*interesting? yes - and i do surely hear the dancing feet of thumper the plot bunny!
could tie-in with the cargo of relics idea that Becky inspired AND lead a little into my post-bdm fic 'spiritual' which Inara isn't in (i wrote her out so often coz she's tricky).
oh the thinkyness.

'course now i will have to write the damn thing!...

I figure she was raised on Sihnon, with all the Chinese and Indian (Kalidasa for example wrote a story about a sprite that fell in love with a mortal and a curse yadda yadda happy ending) and Middle Eastern influence there's bound to be stories about spirits that she grew up with. And because her mother liked an education in the classics, I suspect that she also read stories like 1001 Arabian Nights, and about Robin Hood and etc, and I'd include some of the Victorian editted fairytales among them.

That romantic streak of hers has to come from somewhere.

Briar Rose and the Sleeping Beauty mythos is SO messed up. I think I've only made a reference once or twice in my story because I want to avoid the unfortunate implications at ALL BLOODY COST.

The only character who's family I haven't really explored is Wash. I suspect they would end up very similar to what Aliasse has written for them though, unless I wanted to do a take attempting to explore why Wash is so flexible taking the questionable piloting jobs.

Your Inara seems to bear the need for self-protection/self preservation as a weight. (but that could be me reading into stuff)

Hmm. Depends on what you mean. In my story she's very self-preserving and defensive about her own emotions, but that's because she doesn't really want anyone to get too close to her. In other ways she's actually self-sacrificing because she's very aware of her own death in a mortal and spiritual sense, which is a trait she shares with Mal.

re Wash; i know the other crew members are easy to finger for their emotional issues and what we know of their pasts - but i have occasionally wondered whether Wash, clearly a superb pilot, cracked up good and proper and that's why he fronts up so much on meeting Mal and Zoe, and why he has the whiskers and the shirt (adopted as a persona). That would explain why such a skilled guy is willing to take the jobs he does. No/one who knows him will hire him.

i never went there in my fics, but i have wondered.
this should be in the other thread now i know, sorry. On Inara... i shall come back in a while...

He has had other jobs, and seems to be a joker in all of them, but yeah, it's possible he's a sad clown with a tragic past that drove him more towards the criminal side of things. There's also indications that he's very self-deprecating, which tends to also be learned and internalized from how the parents treated them as kids.

Xander had the whole constantly fighting parents and sleeping in a cardboard box outside thing, after all.

With Inara i think it was partly a cumulative effect; being inside her head (as you wrote her) and her pangs of regret, small victories, thoughts of childhood and later disappointment. and her views on Kaylee.
Quite a sombre portrait, fitting enough for the story. And her sense of the fragility of others and worry for them;

Spoiler:

the reassurance that Kaylee looks for in her. etc.

your writing has real gravity.and you bring up sides to Inara i think i have yet to catch.
as does Becky's come to that; her Inara has a lot of internal pain and the Guild know how to make her feel ashamed etc.

It can be tricky to balance regret and sadness and sometimes even frustration and brittle hurt with Inara's grace. She won't burst into tears if anyone can see her, but she has pain in her life that's enough to bring her to that state. And she can control her anger, through Mal can erode that armor down to a fairly spectacular explosion. Then she has the positive emotions she shows, amusement or her subtle sense of humour, or nurturing or when she's pleased about something, even times when she's a little bit excited or eager about something, but she's always just a little but reserved in how she expresses herself.

Inara takes the mother role to most of the crew, shows it best with River and Kaylee and sometimes Simon and Book. I can also see Inara comforting Zoe and Jayne after the movie, so she also becomes motherly to them. Of course that doesn't really work on Mal. And she's friends with Wash, but it doesn't seem to go much further than that.

Aliasse's take is great because we get to see Inara hurting from leaving Mal, then seeing the state of the house she left and feeling herself to blame for it, and hurting from medicine she has to take (which turns out to also be a betrayal).

Then she leaves AGAIN and ends up at an actual temple. So Inara.

ah Inara, always with the leaving...