#firefly analysis

I have an assignment I should be doing, but #whatever. Analysing character names and what they mean is more fun, so we're doing this instead.

Malcolm Reynolds

As River points out in The Train Job, "Mal" means "bad", in the Latin. You can see it used as a prefix in maladaptive, malicious, malnourished, etc. Malcolm, on the other hand, means "devotee of Saint Columbia". So, Mal's full name refers to devotion, and he goes by a nickname that means bad. Because he's a mean old man and he doesn't care about anyone, of course (heavily sarcastic, that man couldn't stop caring if his life was at stake. That's kind of his main issue). Interestingly, you have the protagonist of this franchise going by a nickname that means the opposite of what he is in Latin, and in Serenity (the movie) it's revealed that the Reavers were created by an adverse reaction to the chemical G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate - colloquially referred to as "the Pax", which means "peace" in Latin. Aka the opposite of what it created.

Reynolds means "son of Reynold", which seems to be an alternate version of Reginald. Reginald means "powerful ruler". We don't know a lot about Mal's father, but from how he describes his mother in Our Mrs Reynolds, it seems apt. And of course he is, in his own right, a powerful ruler.

Zoë and Hoban "Wash" Washburne

Now, the Firefly wiki seems to think Zoë's full name is Zoë Alleyne Washburne, but I have no idea where they got Alleyne from. I'm also not sure where they got the umlaut from, since the Official Firefly Companion (at least, my copy of it) has no umlauts to be seen, but it's handy for me because I know a Zoe in real life who doesn't use the umlaut, so the distinction is useful. Anyway, Alleyne seems to mean "handsome" or "noble", as a variant of Allen, but I'll disregard that.

Zoë means "life" in Greek, which is ironic because, as she states when she takes the bullet out of Simon's leg in Objects in Space, "this is really not my area of expertise, doctor. I tend to be putting these into people more than the other thing." Despite this, Zoë seems committed to living. In a deleted scene from Serenity (the episode), she says you never leave Serenity Valley, "you just learn to live there", and she says in The Message that she's not so afraid of losing a child that she won't try and have one. Mal and Zoë both keep fighting, even after the war is over, to live in spite of what's been done to them (much like Simon and River... narrative foils...)

Hoban is a fairly uncommon name, and there seems to be some debate over what it means. The definition I like the most, when it comes to Wash, is "son of Óbán", with Óbán meaning "small stick" or "young". Wash is a fairly childish character, Inara even calls him and Jayne "inconsiderate schoolboys" in Chinese in Objects in Space. This is often emphasised next to Zoë - as is his height. In real life, Alan Tudyk and Gina Torres are both 5'11, but their argument in War Stories is deliberately shot to make him look shorter than her. Jayne would probably make a comment about stick size here.

Washburne means "from the flooding brook", so, despite the common meaning, "Wash" in this context would refer to "the swift moving current of a stream". He is a leaf on the wind, after all. Watch how he soars.

Inara Serra

Fittingly, Inara means "ray of light" or "heaven sent". This one's relatively self-explanatory, but also ties into her faith and Mal's loss of his own, and how that could be affected by a relationship between the two.

Serra, depending on the language, could mean "saw" (in Latin), "greenhouse" (in Italian), or "mountain range" (in Galician, Portuguese, and Catalan). I, personally, go with "mountain range" as my preferred meaning, partially because Morena Baccarin is Brazilian (and the script for Our Mrs Reynolds describes her as "from space Brazil) so a Portuguese last name would make sense. But there's also a sense of grandeur and splendour that mountain ranges invoke, which I think is also invoked by being in Inara's presence. I also think the mix of languages that could've influenced her last name works with the character - you've got a Brazilian actress playing a Buddhist character inspired by Geishas who fairly frequently wears clothing inspired by South Asian garments. Very multicultural.

Jayne Cobb

I've already talked about how I think Jayne's name could indicate that he's trans, and the various reasons why he might not have changed it, though the existence of a seemingly cis man named Tracey does have some interesting implications as to the frequency of men with feminine names (I do like to think of Tracey as also trans, though, so. If I had a nickel). Jayne is an alternate spelling of Jane, which means "God is great/merciful". This ties into Jayne's implied Christianity, as well as providing a point of contrast between him and Mal. Jayne lives a very un-Christlike life, yet maintains his faith, while Mal's morality aligns more with Jesus, but cannot bring himself to think of God as merciful after all he's been through. Also, Jayne is very much ok with sex work (for wildly different reasons than Jesus was) and, for all his vulgar and derogatory language, is shown to be quite personable with the sex worker he sleeps with in Heart of Gold (who is apparently named Helen, though I don't think that's actually said in the episode). Mal, on the other hand, repeatedly calls Inara a whore, while being quite respectful to her as a person separate from her job - the main issue being that Inara doesn't want to be separate from her job. Similar yet different approaches to concepts discussed in religion.

As for Cobb, I couldn't find anything that means other than. Corn. So I guess he's just kind of a corny guy. I'll see myself out. Not yet though I've got more to say.

Kaywinnet Lee Frye

So! Kaywinnet seems to have been made up for Firefly, as far as I can tell, but we can break it down.

Kay could mean "pure", or "wharf", or "key". As Serenity is her beloved ship and/or boat, and her dad's a mechanic, I like to go with the "wharf" meaning, to further demonstrate how seafaring concepts have translated to spacefaring.

Kaywin is a very uncommon variant of Gaius, which means "rejoice" or "to be glad". There ain't a power in the verse that can stop Kaylee from being cheerful. And we can assume the "et" at the end is a version of the "ette" suffix, meaning either the little version or the feminine version. Either works in this case.

Lee means "meadow", which ties into all the floral patterns Kaylee likes.

Frye means "seedling" or "free". I like to go with "free", because that's more or less the whole point of the show.

Simon and River Tam

Simon can mean "listen", "hearing", or "flat-nosed". I like to go with "listen", as he's very, very observant (and his nose isn't really flat). The distinction between listening and hearing can be made with Simon and his parents - Simon listens to what River means, while his parents (willfully or otherwise) only hear what she says. In her letters. Which they read. But you get the idea.

River, of course, refers to rivers, which ties into her becoming copilot after Wash's... retirement. I also wish she and Wash got to bond more, because he's always seemed very sympathetic to her and Simon (as well as also being on the more childish side). Rivers can be quite unpredictable, and dangerous, and house all sorts of creatures, and be prone to overflowing and flooding everyone around them. But they can also be calm, and pretty, and serene, and a source of peace to those around them, and an essential agricultural and environmental feature.

Tam has a few meanings, and is also a name shared between Vietnam and Scotland (do what you will with the genius child prodigy siblings having a partially Asian last name). The most important of which, in my opinion, are "innocent", "honest", "naive", "twin", and "heart". These are also fairly self-explanatory, but they are so very dear to me.

Derrial Book

The highly requested character analysis of Jayne Cobb, in relation to Saint Jane Frances de Chantal (payment in limbs not necessary). Full disclosure, there's not a lot of information about Jane Frances de Chantal, so I did get most of this from Wikipedia.

Before she was a nun, she married a Baron, and she and her husband hosted hunting parties for neighbouring nobles. I don't think Jayne is ever mentioned in canon as being a hunter (ironically, though, Book is), but considering what we know about him, we can extrapolate. He's an expert marksman, he has a lot of guns that he knows a lot about, and he tracked Mal and Zoë before he joined their crew. It's unclear how many skills used in tracking Mal and Zoë could translate to tracking prey, I suspect it would largely be determined by whether he followed them from planet to planet or if it all took place on the one planet*, but it certainly gels with his character that he'd enjoy hunting. I also imagine it would be a source of food, considering pretty much everyone on Serenity is poor, and yet Jayne still sends money home to his family, indicating that his family is also not exactly well off.

*side note here, Jayne's Firefly wiki page says Jayne's old crew tried to rob Mal and Zoë on Caliban, and then on Caliban's wiki page says that it's the sole moon of Miranda, and is only occupied by Reavers? It's been a while since I've watched Serenity (the movie) so I don't remember if it's ever said when the Reavers were created, and Out of Gas never specifies when Jayne joined the crew, but that doesn't exactly gel with the events of Serenity? Also, Serenity says that Miranda is constantly surrounded by Reavers, but it orbits the edge of an occupied system? That never quite made sense to me. But anyway, I digress. Back to Jayne and Jane.

Jane's order, the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, stood out for two reasons: its acceptance of old and sick women, who'd been turned away from other orders, and it's public outreach, while the standard for nunneries was seclusion and self-discipline. And, as we all know, Jayne was hired for public relations!

When criticised for accepting sick and old women, Jane famously said "What do you want me to do? I like sick people myself; I'm on their side." We know Jayne's sibling, Mattie*, was sick with the damp lung and, presumably, had been for some time when he got that letter (given the use of "still"), and Jayne's money helped treat them, which many have interpreted as Mattie being chronically ill. In real life, there's Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, colloquially known as "wet lung", which causes severe shortness of breath, as well as everything else that comes with not getting enough oxygen. It can be caused by sepsis, pneumonia, covid, major injuries, breathing in harmful substances, and more, and is often fatal (though getting less so as treatment improves). If Mattie had a fatal illness, there likely would've been more information and a more serious tone to the letter, and "damp" tends to indicate less liquid than "wet". This leads me to believe that "damp lung" is a less fatal ailment, potentially chronic rather than acute, maybe caused by some terraforming quirk, like Bowden's malady. This is a very long-winded way of saying that Jayne obviously does help at least one sick person, and I think he'd be able to look at any sick kid and see his sibling in them. Similarly, no matter how much he pushes it down and pretends he doesn't care, he does have his own code, and has several crises of conscience throughout 14 episodes. Had he been raised in a world that allowed room for empathy, where survival was more of a given and didn't have to take precedence, I think his attitude would be similar to Jane's.

*another side note - presumably this was intended to be a nickname for Matthew, but it occurred to me the other night that it could also be short for Matilda, and now that's stuck with me.

The idea of accepting specifically outcasted women also ties in well to my trans Jayne headcanon. While I think Jayne leans into misogyny in order to try and pass (more common than it should be), I do think growing up as a girl and seeing how the women around him were treated would have affected him, as well as the period of time a lot of trans men and trans mascs go through where we've transitioned socially and maybe we've started transitioning medically, but we don't pass, so we're just seen as dysfunctional women - not to mention growing up as a girl and knowing there's something "wrong" with you, and hearing it described as a sickness.

Also, the name Jane means "God is great/merciful", which goes well with Jayne having faith despite living a very un-Christlike life, while Mal's morality is much more aligned with Jesus, but, due to his experiences in the war, he does not think God is merciful. At all. I should do a full post about their names actually.

(this is an essay I wrote for uni, that I thought might be of interest to people here too. It's the first draft before I had to cut things down because I was 200 words over the limit, so it's unrefined and a bit rambly. Enjoy!)