I really want to ask Joss about...

Huckleberry Finn. I just finished reading it for a book club and I can't help but see the thematic overlaps, down to the parallel between Mal's announcing "I aim to misbehave" and Huck's "All right, then, I'll go to hell." Of course, there are very significant differences in the characters' circumstances...I'd love to hear Joss' take on this. Also on Mal's decision to take the unconscious River from the Maidenhead and back to Serenity. Another possible "go to hell" moment.

Has anyone else read it lately?

Oh hi

Yes, I suspect that it actually IS similar, because in both cases the characters are articulating that they're going to do what they think is right, even if everyone else might condemn them for it. In Huck's case he doesn't fully know how to put this in words, that he's going to go against the established order, except in terms of the church supporting the inherent racism of the time - literally going to hell because he's going against the church's stance on morality.

Been a little while since I read Huckleberry Finn, but I remember it pretty well. Although I think Joss's language in Firefly is derived more from Westerns (tv and film) than from books, Mark Twain's writings have always been one of my inspirations for vocabulary, colorful phrases, and speech rhythms when I write Firefly fanfic. Both his "Mississippi" phase (Huck Finn, Life on the Mississippi, Puddinhead Wilson, and even Tom Sawyer, which I recently re-read with my kids) and his "western" phase (The Outrageous Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and lots of essays). But there's certainly the parallel that both Firefly and Huckleberry Finn feature characters who live at the margins of society. The trappings of civilization have done them little good in the past, and aren't likely to. They have little motivation to follow the rule of "civilized society." Yet they have their hearts in the right places, and they're not afraid to risk themselves for what's right, despite the high chance of being punished for doing so, in one way or another.