I just had the quote from Early about River's room possibly not being her room if she is not in it come up on the RQG, and decided that the difference between The Operative and Early, is that while they might both ponder such questions, The Operative would have pondered silently, and also come to a solid conclusion. Again, silently.

Then he would have killed the room. With a sword.

With a sword.

How weird is that?

Killing the room with a sword, alas, that would not have been done silently. That would have been accompanied by much philosophizing and moralizing.

Also, I added a "swiftly and" to one of the silentlies in my original pondering. I didn't think anyone would read or respond so quickly.

I am now once again pondering on how truly frelled Early's life would have been, had River actually gone with him. Because the first time I watched it, I had this idea that River was volunteering to go with him, thinking to somehow convince him to make her a partner rather than actually turn her in.

I just wondered where he was planning to put her. That little ship of his didn't seem like it had room for two bodies, alive or dead.

I'm thinking he had ways of handling that - sedative plus zip ties (or 25th century equivalent) equals a cargo issue rather than a proper seat with safety restraints issue.

I should specify that I think the sedative would be mainly used to ease a prisoner into position. Early would prefer to be able to monologue at a conscious victim.

She'd be begging for the crate her brother put her in.

I did not watch-and-post but I have been reading the comments since I had watched recently.

And in the theater I missed the entire rest of the movie because I sat there repeating "They killed Wash! They killed Wash!" Seriously, I had to see it again to figure out what happened after that scene.

Morgana is me.

I didn't do the W&P either. Serenity is still so very hard for me. There's so much good and fun and scary and exciting and warm and *them*. And then they killed Wash and the world stopped. And it never spun quite the same way again. Someone asked about staying to sing the theme while the credits rolled. I couldn't wait to get out of the theater so there was no lingering for nostalgic singing. If I hadn't been with other people I would have walked out after Wash died. It took more than a year before I could watch it again. I think I've made my peace with it, and then I watch Firefly eps and, no. I hated that Joss' preoccupation with the little girl being the badass became the theme. I hated that everything I loved about the series was sacrificed to showcase River. I'm still bitter, gee, could you tell? But I fixed it. In my world, Serenity never happened, Wash is still flying, and the crew is still doing the job.