Tommyrot, that's the first thing I thought of, too. However, one suspects that Obi-Wan did own R4, the droid he was working with in Ep III, so it's really very lame. At the moment, I favour the idea that at that stage he's still half in his 'Old Ben' character and feigning ignorance, which is I admit only slightly better.

So, if Mal is most like Han, (shoots first), who's Chewbacca?

Hmmm. Zoe kicks ass and has lots of hair, but I wouldn't say it's an exact correspondence.

I'm hesitating between Jayne (fighting style) and Kaylee (helpful in engineering work).

Chewie seemed to me to be a moderating force on Han, so I'm going with Kaylee.

I figured that Jedi don't really "own" much stuff, like the ships they fly or their droids. Being all ascetic and what-not....

Wookiees tear people's arms off when they lose games. Jayne. Obi-Wan is Shepherd Book.

So Simon and River are Luke and Leia? I guess one person's hodgeberries are another one's smooches.

I have to know--what is it about that scene that makes people think naughty things? I've seen it tons of times, before and after hearing about supposed subtext, and I do not see it. I see sibling tenderness and River being in a childike mindset, as she is wont to do, but what I don't catch is any undertone.

Anyone I finger-feed is a) incapable of feeding themself or b) someone I'm sexually intimate with or would like to be so. It's just... flirty.

I think the interpretation of that scene got skewed due to the shuffling of the air-date. If we had seen "Serenity" first as it was meant to be seen, we'd have seen more gradual development of the River/Simon relationship (although "Serenity" has the scene of Simon enfolding naked River in his arms and later on of River stroking Simon's lips with her fingers, so maybe not) and the hodgeberry scene would not have felt so jarring.

I think a lot of it is the archetypal postures; Simon kneeling at River's feet, River feeding the fruit to Simon. A woman offering a fruit to a man codes for sexual temptation, and she's feeding the berries directly to his lips. Because we hadn't seen them interacting much as 'brother and sister' until then (and remember that "Safe" was aired very early in the original broadcast--I think it was the 4th one to air) the scene took on a weird subtext. Also, I think Summar Glau and Sean Maher have this intense and not-quite-sibling-y chemistry.

Or it may be that I'm a perv.