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problematical〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: River Tam
CHARACTER AGE: 17
SERIES: Firefly/Serenity
CHRONOLOGY: After the events of the series, before the movie
CLASS: Hero (?)
HOUSING: Random please
BACKGROUND: River @ Firefly Wikia | River @ Wikipedia | Firefly/Serenity Reference Timeline
PERSONALITY:"So when I tell you that my little sister makes me look like an idiot child,
I want you to understand my full meaning. Everything she did, music, math,
theoretical physics, even dance. There was nothing that didn't come as naturally
to her as breathing does to us. She was more than gifted... she was a gift."
While delving into the person that River is, it's Simon who continually makes the point of noting the most important aspect of really knowing who she is: despite everything that's been done to her and everything she can do, whether naturally or because of the Academy's tampering, River herself is still a seventeen year old girl who has had terrible things done to her and who has a surprisingly limited view of the world despite all her knowledge. That being said, River does not see herself as extraordinary even while she acknowledges that she is different from others, even long before she was experimented on at the Academy. As a child she takes classes far advanced to her age and finds regular schooling slow however at no point are we shown that she resents the lack of stimulation that she's able to glean from them.
River's true love seems to be dancing as it's brought up several times in the series, both in conversation and in act. Dancing is a literal expression of freedom for her, something that (like others arts) despite mastering the actual steps of, is not limited to mere recitation. She is able to During her induction in the Academy she's shown to be nervous and yet at the end of the interview when asked if she wants to go forward with the enrollment, the only question we're shown that she asks is "will I still be able to dance"? Other times, for all her extraordinary abilities, it's simple and ordinary things that seem to enthrall her. When she and Simon are outside of the ship, rather than be afraid at the possibility of being caught by the Alliance or sharing Simon's phobia of being in space, River is utterly fascinated and delighted by the stars twinkling in the darkness. Her wonder is truly childlike, innocent and she wants to share that with her brother, asking if they can "go again" at a later time. At the end of the series, she and Kaylee are playing jacks and River treats it like the most involving game.
River seems aware that her grasp on reality fluctuates, recognizing that people are having a hard time understanding or parsing what she's saying. Her frequent use of metaphors is her way of communicating, as her mind works on a completely different level to most people. Composing her thoughts in pictures and speaking of them that way is also River's way of holding onto them in a more concrete manner, allowing her to hold them in focus.
Despite the fact that her lucid times seem few and far between, River is actually very aware of what's going on around her, both in her immediate and extended areas. Though her brain processes things differently to compensate for her inability to filter what she perceives and feels, she is cogently able to understand complexities of the people around her. She remarks to Simon that she "understands everything" but says that some of it's real and some imaginary, so in reality she's taking in MORE than what's in front of her, not less. River says that she "knows what he's given up in rescuing her". Between his medical career, his personal fortune to his relationship with their parents (particularly their father) and the safety and security of the Core life on Osiris for the dangerous life of fugitives on the run and pursued by the Alliance. River understands how much of a sacrifice that has been for him and most importantly, she wants HIM to know that she's aware of it because she is grateful. This underscores not just how close the siblings are but that despite the fantastic abilities River possesses, she has not been completely removed from the key factors of her personality.
When the rest of the crew put together that River is psychically inclined (referred to as a "Reader", suggesting that this is not an unheard-of phenomenon, for all it is mocked by Wash "that sounds like science fiction!") River uses their reactions to frame the offer to leave with the Jubal Early, as part of a plan to lure him off the ship. Though it's revealed as a ruse, I think that River probably has considered this as a viable option in the past, especially in light of trying to protect Simon and the others on Serenity that she has come to know and appreciate. She recognizes that she is putting them in danger by staying with them and feels that it's her fault for involving them in this. It's less an altruistic impulse I believe, than it is much closer to a child's desire to keep those she cares about happy.
River often goes to (what seem to outsiders) extreme lengths to convey what she's feeling, whether it be knocking objects around violently or talking nonsense when in truth she's trying to make what she sees line up with what she perceives. This is really well portrayed in the scene where she attempts to "fix" Shepherd Book's bible, taking it literally page for page and trying to break it down into things that she understands: logic, equations, and theories. It's actually very interesting that although River primarily uses allegory verbiage to describe her own state, when faced with symbolism in the bible she has the opposite reaction and tries to quantify it. She confesses to Book upon returning the pages she'd removed that "once she ripped the pages out of his symbol, they turned back into paper" and seems genuinely confused by this.
Her phobias are far-flung and varied, both real and imagined though the clearest one is being taken away from Simon and returned to the Academy by the Agents or as she calls them, the Hands of Blue. She also gets scared of things that trigger memories of the experiments done to her, such as the sterile setting of the infirmary and the hospital on Ariel. She acts out this fears, sometimes violently and only Simon seems to have any aptitude for calming her down. She also has opposite reactions to what she does than most people would: when she slashes Jayne across the chest with a kitchen knife, she then laughs and says he looks better in red. The physical side effects of having her amygdala removed is, as Simon explains, a literal inability not to feel scared or anxious and so there are few times when she's genuinely relaxed on all levels.
In one of the R. Tam Sessions she compares herself to the Princess and the Pea tale because she isn't sleeping, citing what the doctors are doing to her as making it impossible to rest. She's agitated and upset, even though she doesn't fully understand what it is they've done to her yet. After that she requests a mission to occupy her, insisting that she's ready and can handle it, that "she's reasonable". This is desperation talking, both to leave the Academy itself and to give her focus. Since she'd begun sending messages to Simon by this point, it's very likely that if she'd been granted any kind of mission that she would have abandoned it and sought out Simon herself.
Family, specifically her brother, is the paramount of importance to River. As a child we see that she's constantly hanging around Simon, engaging him in playtime fantasies and imaginations that he humoured. When she's sequestered at the Academy with limited communication to her home and family and once the doctors there started altering her perception, she insists on seeing Simon in person and says that writing him, which has been her primary form of communication, isn't good enough. She's so desperate to speak with him that she hides coded messages in her letters, trusting that he will be able to decipher them which he does.
So much of River's demonstrated personality is tied up in her brother (which is both factual but also tied up largely in the fact that we only see River briefly interacting with her father in one short flashback, leaving us to guess at the familial bonds or lack thereof) but she genuinely holds him in the highest regard; something, ironically, that Simon also thinks of his sister. In a deleted scene, River even puts a throw pillow under her shirt and announces that she's having Simon's baby and that Shepherd Book should marry them. While it's nearly impossible that River doesn't understand the literal idea of marriage even in her sheltered upbringing, the remark shows that she considers hers and Simon's relationship to be outside normal sibling tenets, as though it has surpassed them. Part of her intake interview to the Academy asks about Simon and there's instant, clear reverence in River when she tells the doctor that Simon is a surgeon and that she could never do what he does.
Despite her unparalleled ability to read people and situations, there is an unusual moment of disconnect when River and her brother are in danger and she tells Simon that their father will come and rescue them. In flashback scenes to the Tams childhood it's made blatantly obvious that despite River's extraordinary abilities, it is Simon who is the family's pride and that River is portrayed almost as an afterthought such as the scene where Gabriel Tam cuts his daughter off in order to continue speaking with Simon. Additionally their parents consistently and even blithely ignore Simon's repeated concerns about River's safety once she's enrolled at the Academy. So it does seem odd that, when River expressly says that people are easy to listen to even when they're not speaking, that she would miss such an obvious familial tension; instead I think that she remains purposely blind to it, much like the many games of pretend she engages in with Simon regularly and that's why she continues to assure her brother that their family is still "whole" - preserving the metaphor for him, taking her cues from what she believes he wants.
In large part due to the way she was treated by her parents (as something of an oddity, an over-imaginative child who had trouble telling reality from fantasy, second to her brother and his accomplishments) River feels insecure about her abilities. Certainly what the Academy did to her has not helped but in the R. Tam Sessions we see that she has doubts almost right away, telling the doctor that she "might not be the right subject for the program" and wishes to transfer back to regular school, even knowing that it's "too slow" for her and that she won't get any challenge out of it.
POWERS:
Reader - Empathic/Telepathic (CANON)
River is an empath with telepathic/precognitive leanings, referred to in canon as a "Reader". She's able to sense bad vibes left from Reavers on the derelict ship and cites "Mal" as meaning "bad" in the Latin, referring to his troubled character. She reacts to violent sounds she couldn't hear and she knew Saffron stole something without watching her. River claims that "people say things all the time without talking" and was able to glean detailed information from girl Ruby's mind about her past. Also during the R. Tam Sessions, she tells Dr Matthias that she's not progressing but then gets a flash of the effect of the Pax and how a patient died on the table. In Serenity, she is taken along on a heist and points out to Zoe which one of the hostages is about to go for his gun. This power will have a permissions post.
Barriers - Hard Light Constructs (PORTER)
Via the Porter, River will gain the ability to construct hard-light barriers, usually in the form of walls or bubbles. At first she will not be able to control these and they will react to her emotional and mental state, but with practice she'll be able to set them how she wants.
FINAL NOTES:
CHARACTER NAME: River Tam
CHARACTER AGE: 17
SERIES: Firefly/Serenity
CHRONOLOGY: After the events of the series, before the movie
CLASS: Hero (?)
HOUSING: Random please
BACKGROUND: River @ Firefly Wikia | River @ Wikipedia | Firefly/Serenity Reference Timeline
PERSONALITY:
I want you to understand my full meaning. Everything she did, music, math,
theoretical physics, even dance. There was nothing that didn't come as naturally
to her as breathing does to us. She was more than gifted... she was a gift."
While delving into the person that River is, it's Simon who continually makes the point of noting the most important aspect of really knowing who she is: despite everything that's been done to her and everything she can do, whether naturally or because of the Academy's tampering, River herself is still a seventeen year old girl who has had terrible things done to her and who has a surprisingly limited view of the world despite all her knowledge. That being said, River does not see herself as extraordinary even while she acknowledges that she is different from others, even long before she was experimented on at the Academy. As a child she takes classes far advanced to her age and finds regular schooling slow however at no point are we shown that she resents the lack of stimulation that she's able to glean from them.
River's true love seems to be dancing as it's brought up several times in the series, both in conversation and in act. Dancing is a literal expression of freedom for her, something that (like others arts) despite mastering the actual steps of, is not limited to mere recitation. She is able to During her induction in the Academy she's shown to be nervous and yet at the end of the interview when asked if she wants to go forward with the enrollment, the only question we're shown that she asks is "will I still be able to dance"? Other times, for all her extraordinary abilities, it's simple and ordinary things that seem to enthrall her. When she and Simon are outside of the ship, rather than be afraid at the possibility of being caught by the Alliance or sharing Simon's phobia of being in space, River is utterly fascinated and delighted by the stars twinkling in the darkness. Her wonder is truly childlike, innocent and she wants to share that with her brother, asking if they can "go again" at a later time. At the end of the series, she and Kaylee are playing jacks and River treats it like the most involving game.
River seems aware that her grasp on reality fluctuates, recognizing that people are having a hard time understanding or parsing what she's saying. Her frequent use of metaphors is her way of communicating, as her mind works on a completely different level to most people. Composing her thoughts in pictures and speaking of them that way is also River's way of holding onto them in a more concrete manner, allowing her to hold them in focus.
Despite the fact that her lucid times seem few and far between, River is actually very aware of what's going on around her, both in her immediate and extended areas. Though her brain processes things differently to compensate for her inability to filter what she perceives and feels, she is cogently able to understand complexities of the people around her. She remarks to Simon that she "understands everything" but says that some of it's real and some imaginary, so in reality she's taking in MORE than what's in front of her, not less. River says that she "knows what he's given up in rescuing her". Between his medical career, his personal fortune to his relationship with their parents (particularly their father) and the safety and security of the Core life on Osiris for the dangerous life of fugitives on the run and pursued by the Alliance. River understands how much of a sacrifice that has been for him and most importantly, she wants HIM to know that she's aware of it because she is grateful. This underscores not just how close the siblings are but that despite the fantastic abilities River possesses, she has not been completely removed from the key factors of her personality.
When the rest of the crew put together that River is psychically inclined (referred to as a "Reader", suggesting that this is not an unheard-of phenomenon, for all it is mocked by Wash "that sounds like science fiction!") River uses their reactions to frame the offer to leave with the Jubal Early, as part of a plan to lure him off the ship. Though it's revealed as a ruse, I think that River probably has considered this as a viable option in the past, especially in light of trying to protect Simon and the others on Serenity that she has come to know and appreciate. She recognizes that she is putting them in danger by staying with them and feels that it's her fault for involving them in this. It's less an altruistic impulse I believe, than it is much closer to a child's desire to keep those she cares about happy.
River often goes to (what seem to outsiders) extreme lengths to convey what she's feeling, whether it be knocking objects around violently or talking nonsense when in truth she's trying to make what she sees line up with what she perceives. This is really well portrayed in the scene where she attempts to "fix" Shepherd Book's bible, taking it literally page for page and trying to break it down into things that she understands: logic, equations, and theories. It's actually very interesting that although River primarily uses allegory verbiage to describe her own state, when faced with symbolism in the bible she has the opposite reaction and tries to quantify it. She confesses to Book upon returning the pages she'd removed that "once she ripped the pages out of his symbol, they turned back into paper" and seems genuinely confused by this.
Her phobias are far-flung and varied, both real and imagined though the clearest one is being taken away from Simon and returned to the Academy by the Agents or as she calls them, the Hands of Blue. She also gets scared of things that trigger memories of the experiments done to her, such as the sterile setting of the infirmary and the hospital on Ariel. She acts out this fears, sometimes violently and only Simon seems to have any aptitude for calming her down. She also has opposite reactions to what she does than most people would: when she slashes Jayne across the chest with a kitchen knife, she then laughs and says he looks better in red. The physical side effects of having her amygdala removed is, as Simon explains, a literal inability not to feel scared or anxious and so there are few times when she's genuinely relaxed on all levels.
In one of the R. Tam Sessions she compares herself to the Princess and the Pea tale because she isn't sleeping, citing what the doctors are doing to her as making it impossible to rest. She's agitated and upset, even though she doesn't fully understand what it is they've done to her yet. After that she requests a mission to occupy her, insisting that she's ready and can handle it, that "she's reasonable". This is desperation talking, both to leave the Academy itself and to give her focus. Since she'd begun sending messages to Simon by this point, it's very likely that if she'd been granted any kind of mission that she would have abandoned it and sought out Simon herself.
Family, specifically her brother, is the paramount of importance to River. As a child we see that she's constantly hanging around Simon, engaging him in playtime fantasies and imaginations that he humoured. When she's sequestered at the Academy with limited communication to her home and family and once the doctors there started altering her perception, she insists on seeing Simon in person and says that writing him, which has been her primary form of communication, isn't good enough. She's so desperate to speak with him that she hides coded messages in her letters, trusting that he will be able to decipher them which he does.
So much of River's demonstrated personality is tied up in her brother (which is both factual but also tied up largely in the fact that we only see River briefly interacting with her father in one short flashback, leaving us to guess at the familial bonds or lack thereof) but she genuinely holds him in the highest regard; something, ironically, that Simon also thinks of his sister. In a deleted scene, River even puts a throw pillow under her shirt and announces that she's having Simon's baby and that Shepherd Book should marry them. While it's nearly impossible that River doesn't understand the literal idea of marriage even in her sheltered upbringing, the remark shows that she considers hers and Simon's relationship to be outside normal sibling tenets, as though it has surpassed them. Part of her intake interview to the Academy asks about Simon and there's instant, clear reverence in River when she tells the doctor that Simon is a surgeon and that she could never do what he does.
Despite her unparalleled ability to read people and situations, there is an unusual moment of disconnect when River and her brother are in danger and she tells Simon that their father will come and rescue them. In flashback scenes to the Tams childhood it's made blatantly obvious that despite River's extraordinary abilities, it is Simon who is the family's pride and that River is portrayed almost as an afterthought such as the scene where Gabriel Tam cuts his daughter off in order to continue speaking with Simon. Additionally their parents consistently and even blithely ignore Simon's repeated concerns about River's safety once she's enrolled at the Academy. So it does seem odd that, when River expressly says that people are easy to listen to even when they're not speaking, that she would miss such an obvious familial tension; instead I think that she remains purposely blind to it, much like the many games of pretend she engages in with Simon regularly and that's why she continues to assure her brother that their family is still "whole" - preserving the metaphor for him, taking her cues from what she believes he wants.
In large part due to the way she was treated by her parents (as something of an oddity, an over-imaginative child who had trouble telling reality from fantasy, second to her brother and his accomplishments) River feels insecure about her abilities. Certainly what the Academy did to her has not helped but in the R. Tam Sessions we see that she has doubts almost right away, telling the doctor that she "might not be the right subject for the program" and wishes to transfer back to regular school, even knowing that it's "too slow" for her and that she won't get any challenge out of it.
POWERS:
Reader - Empathic/Telepathic (CANON)
River is an empath with telepathic/precognitive leanings, referred to in canon as a "Reader". She's able to sense bad vibes left from Reavers on the derelict ship and cites "Mal" as meaning "bad" in the Latin, referring to his troubled character. She reacts to violent sounds she couldn't hear and she knew Saffron stole something without watching her. River claims that "people say things all the time without talking" and was able to glean detailed information from girl Ruby's mind about her past. Also during the R. Tam Sessions, she tells Dr Matthias that she's not progressing but then gets a flash of the effect of the Pax and how a patient died on the table. In Serenity, she is taken along on a heist and points out to Zoe which one of the hostages is about to go for his gun. This power will have a permissions post.
Barriers - Hard Light Constructs (PORTER)
Via the Porter, River will gain the ability to construct hard-light barriers, usually in the form of walls or bubbles. At first she will not be able to control these and they will react to her emotional and mental state, but with practice she'll be able to set them how she wants.
FINAL NOTES:
