Angel 5: Is That It? Am I Done?
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I bet Zoe does a hell of a lot of talking with Wash. It's not a
her
thing. It's a them thing. They're comrades. They're a team. I'd be really really startled if romance was possible for them -- if it is indeed a friendship, I'd say it's a friendship that doesn't extrapolate.
This may be a semantic distinction that only exists in my head.
If I recall correctly, Mal was raised by his widowed and/or single mother. He mentions that his mom had a ranch, not that his folks had a ranch. Being raised by a single mom might account for his rapport with women who don't frip, like Kaylee and Zoe, and unlike Inara, whose frippery is apparent.
Being raised by a single mom might account for his rapport with women who don't frip, like Kaylee and Zoe, and unlike Inara, whose frippery is apparent.
But Kaylee wants to frip (though he thinks poorly of it), and he seems to be in love with Inara.
Also -- single mothers frip less?
I think that a single mother who owned a ranch would have less occasion to frip and probably less of the wherewithal to do it with.
Well, hard-working ranch owners probably don't have much time for frippery.
My point, aside from the flippancy, was that he seems able to befriend women who are competent at non-gender specific tasks, Kaylee and Zoe. Where he has more romantic feelings toward a woman with a more traditionally feminine occupation.
I think that a single mother who owned a ranch would have less occasion to frip and probably less of the wherewithal to do it with.
Was she poor? Poorer than she'd have been if she was married? It's a whole lot of hypothesis.
I think it's a bit of a stretch. As noted above, I think that Zoe is a soldier, and his soldier, and that's easy enough and gender-independent. So is Kaylee, plus she's just so damned cute. Inara is deliberately distant, and in a profession for which he has contempt.
I don't know if you have to infer how much his mother may have disdained pretty things to explain anything.
Do you think that Mal comes from a Jossiverse version of the King Ranch? Where they have servants and 'hands that did all the work while, he was sent to was sent off to some boarding school that the Tams would appreicate and his mom entertained high society in town somewhere? Because that isn't how I've imagined his childhood.
Not poor -- just not with lots of extras and less money and more land and livestock. That is what I've imagined.
Do you think that Mal comes from a Jossiverse version of the King Ranch?
I don't think his having a father in place or not has anything to do with whatever a King Ranch is -- that's my point. His mother could have had a fetish for porcelain puppies, for all I know. That's what I'm saying.
This may be a semantic distinction that only exists in my head.
Eh, quite possibly, but you've got a point. I think you're right that the basis for Mal and Zoe's relationship is that they're a team, above and beyond anything else. And they do talk--just not, you know, about their feelings and stuff. They have the "stoic guy thing" friendship down.
Zoe and Wash is different. She's in love with him, in a way I doubt she could ever be with Mal.
I don't know if you have to infer how much his mother may have disdained pretty things to explain anything.
I quite agree.
Hmm. It was an idle speculation, nothing more. And I didn't mean to imply that Mama Reynolds disdained pretties, only that she probably didn't have time for them. I never got the impression that Mal came from money. I think I heard him mention or imply that his life before the war was hard. He seemed to empathise with the settlers they dropped off with a few head of stock on some moon as soon as it was terraformed. But I could be entirely mistaken and have just read my own expectations into it.