Firefly/Serenity: Whats Book's story?

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Mr.Excellent

Eh - River isn’t well, but nor do we ever see her to be wrong on a question of fact. She doesn’t always respond to her perceptions rationally, and she’s got little emotional self-control - but she reads Jayne, Inara, and Mal extremely well (that is, consistently with what we know of their characters). It would be odd if her perception only became blurry with Book.

It’s not her perception I question; it’s her ability to interpret what she perceives.

Take the outtake from the first Saffron episode when she asks Book to marry her and her brother. This happens because the captain’s just gotten married (thus putting the thought in her head) and, judging correctly that Simon loves her more than he loves anyone, including himself, she thinks marriage is the best way for their relationship to proceed, and seems to think he will agree. If she can’t tell the difference between brotherly love and romantic love, nor understand why Book and Simon will be horrified at the suggestion, she’s not going to be a good judge of anyone’s motives.

I think she read Book correctly insofar as knowing the basic words going through his mind. But she wasn’t competent to interpret those words. Also I suspect that (since the root cause of her craziness was knowledge of what had happened on Miranda) that she was at the time very mixed up and might have mistakenly loathed herself, feeling guilty for what she knew.

[Lemur866]

Eh, I’m morally certain that her vision about Book was supposed to represent something he said in the past. I don’t see how it makes sense as anything else. I admit it doesn’t fit neatly with the other visions. But the point of the vision is that River can see an aspect of Book that no one else can, and to tease the audience about Book’s mysterious past.