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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

Unless the reason she isn't sane is involuntary brain surgery and trauma.



She couldn't even take just medicine to reverse any of that all the way - they're shown helping in War Stories, but she's still... Well, word salad. This is a little beyond even just brain chemistry cocktail, we're talking brain damage here. Even if we weren't trauma doesn't just go away. PTSD is a psychological disorder, someone who has it by definition isn't sane, and the only way to get rid of it completely would be to get rid of the trauma. Instead, you deal with it. You put one foot in front of the other and you hold on as best as you can to where you are now, not where you were then. But you can't escape the memory, it's always there, just as vivid as when it originally happened.



So something intangible like confronting the Miranda secret is NOT going to cut it. It's lazy storytelling, it's these contemptible epiphany therapies that ignore the real world issues and consequences to turn plot and characters around on a dime.



I'm arguing about maintaining an actual realistic portrayal of mental illness, not applying an easy fix and moving on. Otherwise I'm pretty sure the storytelling and characterization would suffer for it.



I'm with Riona, if Zack and Joss continue to write River realistically, then I give them major credit. But if they fix River so they can turn her into a one girl psychic genius army with loads of romantic flings while the crew sits out on the sidelines, which is pretty much the inevitable end result we're talking here, that'd be pretty bad.



I think you are way off saying that people who suffer from PTSD are not sane. They may not be in perfect mental health but they do have their facilities. So in that regard you are also way off on my meaning. I simply do not think that post Miranda River has to psychotic breaks, or leave reality. That does not mean she will be mentally fine, it only means she will not be random soup in hair stabbin' crazy.



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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:River becomes sane. What frailties and faults does she have left? She is a psychic super soldier trained in infiltration who could take on anything the Alliance sent at her by predicting their every step two moves in advance and kill thirty people violently resisting her in a closed room 15 feet wide by 15 feet long. There isn't anything she couldn't handle on her own anymore at that point. The only thing that could take her down would be an army, but she wouldn't put herself in a position to be facing off against an army.



You are reading a hell of a lot into things. How do you know she is trained in infiltration? True she does have an affinity for hiding on ceilings, but other then that we never see her sneak into a place.



You are also wrong about what could take her down. She is not super girl. She is extremely good an hand to hand combat. She was not going against trained soldiers. I doubt she could handle much more then two Operatives. She is also not bullet proof, nor is going to start dodging bullets.





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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:True, but it becomes much less likely if you give her abilities some kind of downside or interference.



Again that all depends on the writer.



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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:Here, an example from the supplemental material. In one of the stories in Still Flying, River does try to warn Zoe and Wash that something is going to happen to him. I see a lot of indications that River is trying to prevent something she's foreseen, like in Better Days, Down Time, and The Other Half, and that something is probably the character deaths in the movie.



Imagine if you will that River can successfully communicate all problems that might be coming the crew's way with no problem, because she's now completely sane, and she's no longer inhibited by her fear due to the trauma she suffered at the hands of the alliance. Everything always works out for the crew.



Boring.



Imagine if she can tell them everything clearly, but everything happens no matter what because they can't fight fate.



Pointless.



Imagine if she can't tell them, no matter how much she tries, and she tries her best to stop it on her own, and she can't.



Them making it so River can predict the future is another reason I ignore the comics. Plus now she can jump off high places without getting hurt. Next she will be able to control fucking time or something.



I don't thin she can predict future events. I can accept she can sense what others are feeling. I might be able to take that she could sense somethings. Of course that does not mean she can sense everything and with perfect accuracy, even if perfectly sane. The extent of that ability, or lack of it, is up to the writer.





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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:TRAGIC. And well characterized. Then it becomes not just about River and her abilities, but the group effort to understand and fight, and maybe reverse the bad outcomes. Her abilities are in balance with the rest of the crew, and the rest of the crew have an opportunity to shine and determine the course of their own fates.



Her abilities are what the writer makes of them. Saying that someone could not write a sane, or at least saner, River without having her take over is a very limited vision and requires a lot of reading into what she can and can't do.



I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.