Tangled Yarn

If we enter the Firefly ‘verse in the way its creators intended - via Serenity, the pilot episode of the series - it is plain from the first few minutes of viewing that the unification war is going to be important to the stories we will soon be told. The war may have ended six years before the start of the series, but the choice to start the pilot episode with a flashback to the war, is a hint that its presence will most definitely be felt as we continue our journey through the series. Similarly, if we first encounter the Firefly ‘verse through The Train Job, the same message is conveyed, though in a different way. Instead of a flashback, we see how on the anniversary of the end of the unification war, Mal starts a fight with an Alliance supporter. And if we come first to the film Serenity, the teacher’s words in the very first scene tell us about the war. Whichever way we enter the Firefly ‘verse, therefore, it is made very clear, that though the war is over, it is not forgotten.

One particular way in which the war lives on is in some of the relationships between characters. Chief amongst these relationships is the one between Mal and Zoe:

ZOE

Nearly half a million people lay dead on that field at day’s end. About a third of them winners. Can you imagine that smell? Can you imagine piling up the bodies of soldiers, of friends to build a wall because you got no cover?

SIMON

Mal was there with you.

ZOE

He was my sergeant. Commanded thirty odd grunts. Five days in, there were so many officers dead, he commanded two thousand. Kept us together, kept us fighting, kept us sane. By the time the fighting was over, he had maybe four hundred still intact.

SIMON

Wow, that’s a hell of a—

ZOE

I said the fighting was over. But you see they left us there. Wounded, and sick, and near to mad as can still walk and talk. Both sides left us there while they negotiated the peace. For a week. And we kept dying. When they finally sent in med ships, we had about a hundred and fifty left. And of our original platoon, just me.

Mal started out in command of thirty soldiers and only one of those, Zoe, survived until the end. It is not hard to imagine how Mal and Zoe’s experiences in Serenity Valley created a special bond between them. The events described in the comic Better Days suggest that perhaps Mal and Zoe went their separate ways for a time after the end of the war. Zoe comments of the Browncoats’ surrender that Mal “took it personal, shut down some”, while she became a “dust devil” and continued to fight. But as Zoe says:

ZOE

Once you’ve been in Serenity, you never leave. You just learn to live there.

Instead of getting far away from each other in an effort to forget the tragedy of Serenity Valley and the disappointments of the war, Mal and Zoe chose to work together again, this time as civilians, on a ship called, of course, Serenity.

Zoe’s relationship to Mal as her captain does not seem to differ at all from what we see of her relationship to him as her sergeant. She clearly respects his authority and often calls him “sir” or “captain”, but, equally, she isn’t afraid to express her disagreement with his views or decisions. This relationship is one source of tension between Zoe and Wash:

ZOE

If the Captain says it's all right...

WASH

What if we just told Mal we needed a couple of days, 'stead of asking him?

ZOE

He's the Captain, Wash.

WASH

Right. I'm just the husband.

This tension comes to a head in War Stories. Wash changes the shuttle ignition sequence so that he can take Zoe’s place on a mission with Mal, telling them that he “can’t stand the thought of something happening that might cause you two to come back with another thrilling tale of bonding and adventure”. When Mal and Wash are captured, the topic of conversation quickly turns to Zoe:

WASH

I mean, I'm the one she swore to love, honor and obey!

MAL

She swore to obey?

WASH

Well, no. Not... But that's just my point! You she obeys! She obeys you! There's obeying going on right under my nose.

MAL

Look, Zoe and I have a history. She trusts me.

WASH

What's that supposed to mean?

MAL

Don't mean a thing. But you're making out like she blindly follows my every word, that ain't true.

WASH

Sure it is.

MAL

Not so. There's plenty of orders of mine that she didn't obey.

WASH

Name one!

MAL

She married you!

The experience of being tortured alongside Mal is a turning point for Wash in his understanding of the relationship between Mal and Zoe. Before heading off to the job which will lead to their capture and torture, Wash jokes to Zoe about not stopping for “beers with the fellahs” and wonders if they will sing army songs. It seems that beers and songs are his idea of bonding between fellow soldiers, but this changes after he and Mal are tortured:

WASH

He's insane.

ZOE

I know it.

WASH

I mean... you told the damn stories. Saved you in the war. But I... I didn't know...

ZOE

You mean Mal?

Wash has his own Serenity Valley experience and begins to understand Zoe’s relationship to Mal in a new way.

In the course of Firefly, we meet two other former soldiers who fought with Mal and Zoe. One is Monty, a fellow smuggler, and a fellow victim of Yo-Saf-Bridge:

SAFFRON

You and Monty fought in the war together, right? Yeah, I smelled that. The war buddy bond’s tough to crack.

Perhaps Saffron’s companion training helps her to see that the relationship between Mal and Monty is not simply one of two acquaintances who happen to be in the same business, but the deeper kind of relationship that comes from a shared history in the war.

The other former soldier we meet is Tracey, a rather inept individual who only survived the war because Mal and Zoe were looking out for him:

TRACEY

You know, it's funny. We went to war never looking to come back, but it's the real world I couldn't survive. You two carried me through that war. Now I need you to carry me just a little bit further. If you can.

When Mal and Zoe lift up the coffin containing what they think is Tracey’s corpse and prepare to bring it to Serenity, Shepherd Book tries to assist them, but Zoe refuses his help. It seems that having metaphorically carried Tracey through the war, Mal and Zoe want to be the ones to carry him, literally, at what appears to be the end of his life.

It is not just the relationships between former soldiers which are affected by the memories of the unification war. The war colours Mal’s relationships with many of his acquaintances, such as Badger, for example:

BADGER

What were you in the war? That big war you failed to win? You were a sergeant, yeah? Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds, Balls and Bayonets Brigade, big tough veteran, now you got yourself a ship and you're a captain! Only I think you're still a Sergeant, see. Still a soldier, man of honor in a den of thieves.

Badger’s needling of Mal about the war is not the only reason why the two men don’t get on, but it seems to be part of it.

Another example of the influence of the war on how characters relate to each other comes in Bushwhacked, when Commander Harken brings up the war as he questions Mal:

HARKEN

It's a very loyal crew you have there. But then I can tell by your record you have a tendency to inspire that quality in people— Sergeant.

MAL

It's not "sergeant." Not anymore. War's over.

HARKEN

For some the war'll never be over.

Mal tries to downplay his involvement, perhaps because he realises that an Alliance cruiser is not the best place to start a fight. Does he really believe that the war is over? He is no longer fighting against the Alliance as such, but he admits in the film Serenity that it “tickles him” that Simon and River have stuck a “thorn in the Alliance’s paw” and that is clearly one of the reasons why he risks having them on board Serenity. Similarly, in The Train Job, on learning that there are Alliance feds on the train, the prospect of robbing it pleases him as it will make them look “all manner of stupid”. The unification war may be over, but Mal continues to wage a cold war against the Alliance.

We learn in one of the flashbacks in Out of Gas that Inara supported unification, to which Mal replies, “Well, I don’t suppose you’re the only whore that did”. I wonder how the knowledge of this difference between them affected their relationship in the early days of Inara’s stay on Serenity. The contrast between this flashback and the present day shows clearly how the coolness between them has been replaced by warmth and understanding, but it seems likely that this thaw was not made easy by their differing views on the war. Perhaps Inara’s position has changed somewhat after seeing what life is like on the rim, and how much the Alliance meddles.

Another character whose relationships are very clearly affected by the war is Shepherd Book. In fact, his war experiences have affected him so deeply that he does not talk about them at all, and dies without ever having told Mal or the others aboard Serenity the story that we will learn in the comic The Shepherd’s Tale. Despite this, however, he manages to develop some close relationships with members of Serenity’s crew.

For Book, as for Mal, Zoe and others, the war may be over, but in the tangled yarn of their relationships, its effects linger on.