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Kaylee Frye
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idol_reflection, and focuses on Kaylee Frye from Firefly and Serenity. This has full spoilers for both the series (including unaired episodes) and the movie. Many thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
inlovewithnight for the beta and ideas on where to expand.
No Power In the 'Verse Can Stop Me
AN: Serenity=The Ship, Serenity (TM)=The Movie and Serenity (TE)=The Pilot Episode.
When one is a character on a show with eight other people, and that show is cancelled after fourteen episodes, you would think it would be hard to develop a meaningful, fun, sweet and sad onscreen persona. Most serial television shows spend the first fourteen episodes developing the major players, and only show the back-up team through observing eyes, instead of in a “-----centric” episode. Although this was the case with Kaylee Frye, Jewel Staite and the writers were able to produce an awesomely layered girl.
We meet Kaylee three times, though in a varying order depending on how the viewer comes into the series. If you watched it on TV, you meet her in “The Train Job” as a viewer, in “Out of Gas” as Mal and in “Serenity (TM)” as an old friend. I met her in “Serenity (TE)” first, and the other option is to meet her in “Serenity (TM)” first. In any of those permutations, we get the same sort of initial picture of her, though neither seems to be overdone and repetitive. I am going to take you through my introduction to Kaylee; with a brief digression into the viewpoints of people I have introduced her to in my quest to make other people love the show. And we might also dabble in ‘shipping. Because it’s hard to avoid sometimes.
In “Serenity (TE)”, we get Kaylee first of all as The Switch Flipper, but this is mostly to establish her as The Engineer. Her first real scene comes with Mal and Jayne when they discuss passengers. Kaylee is immediately excited about the stories she might get to hear, and Mal says "I don't believe there's a power in the 'verse that'll stop Kaylee from being so cheerful. Sometimes you just want to duct tape her mouth and dump her in the hold for a month." That pretty much sums her up. Of course, one of those passengers does, in fact, have the only power in the ‘verse that will stop her from being so cheerful, but it’s still a nice touch. It also, very underhandedly, connects Kaylee to River, although we don’t get the rest of the conversation until “War Stories”, when we get both sides of “No power in the ‘verse can stop me!”.
In “Out of Gas”, we meet Kaylee as Mal did. And, let’s face it, we were pretty darn surprised, because as far as character entrances go, sex under the engine is kind of original. Mal initially calls her a “prairie harpy”, but when she fixes his ship in an off handed, sunny and completely unembarrassed way, he offers her a job on the spot. Mal has issues with the sex lives of the women on board his ship, but he continuously forgets what Kaylee is capable of. This innocence is built upon in “Shindig” when Kaylee compliments “Captain Tight Pants” in one breath and is immediately distracted by the food in the next. Something of it is shattered in “Objects in Space”, but I think I’ll leave that for the ‘ship section.
The Movie presented a unique and I assume hair-pullingly frustrating problem for the writers because we already knew Kaylee, but there might be one or two people in the theatre who didn’t. I watched “Serenity (TM)” with my older brother they day after he gave it to me for Christmas and when the mule left the cargo bay, he pressed pause (a rule if you have a question during a movie), turned to me and said “So the Captain and First Officer go way back, she is married to the pilot, the big guy’s a mercenary type and the engineer is in love with the doctor?” and I was all “er…yes. Well done Mr. Whedon!” because I was still entertained and my brother knew what the heck was happening.
In regards to Kaylee specifically though (she actually gets the last lines before we leave Serenity and head into Lilac), her characterization is spot on. All she says is “They’ll be back afore you can spit. Not that you…spit.” and then Simon walks away and she sort of smiles and the Alpha Centuraions start sending us a radio signal that says “We get it Joss”. Her innocence well established, we need to get to her earthiness, and that comes with the unforgettable “I ain’t had nothin’ twixt my nethers that didn't run on batteries goin’ on a year now.” which gets the predictable reaction from all parties present when she says it, and reflects nicely back to the “Have good sex!” from “Jaynestown”. The breaking of her innocence, again dealing directly with Simon so I’ll mention it later, comes in due course at the end of the movie.
Kaylee is one of the only female characters I can think of off the top of my head that is married to the ship. Kirk and Scotty were, Picard certainly was, Miles almost lost his own marriage over it and the less said about Dylan Hunt the better. But Janeway and Torres were not. I don’t know if that’s because the writers didn’t know how to do it, or if they didn’t think that a female character could be (er…there’s a slash/femslash argument here I think…but it’s very deeply buried), but in any case, Kaylee is.
I don’t just mean her mentioning the ship as a “she” with frequency, even though she is the only character who does with any consistency (Movie send offs notwithstanding). She is genuinely heart broken in “Out of Gas” because she was so caught up in Simon that she didn’t feel Serenity. She knows as soon as she sees him in “Serenity (TE)” that Book will be leaving on in her ship. When River “is” Serenity in “Objects in Space”, Kaylee finds the courage to act.
Her association with Serenity does interesting things to the (for lack of a better term) female triad on board the ship, mostly because it means there are five female characters. If we take River out (because she is Everyone All At Once), and combine Kaylee with the ship (which is easy, because they are), we are left with three characters: Kaylee, Inara and Zoë who will fill “the maiden”, “the mother” and “the wise woman”.
At first, it’s quite easy: Kaylee should be “the maiden” (innocent, ignorant and carefree). But at the same time she isn’t quite. She is much closer, thematically, to “the mother” because of her innate knowledge (she doesn’t actually have any mechanical training, she just does it) and protective role. Her innocence is so blinding that we forget how very, very world-weary she is.
Pairing up Kaylee with River as dramatic foils was a stroke of genius. River is the only character in the entire show that makes Kaylee look like a child (Mal makes her look like an innocent, which isn’t exactly the same thing), and vice versa (the dancing scene in “Safe” being the exception). They play together (the “Ah…the pitter patter of happy little feet in combat boots. SHUT UP!” is one of my favourite Mal-isms ever), and the result of that play presents Kaylee in her weakest state during the run of the series. In “Objects in Space” when she finally tells what she witnessed at the end of “War Stories”, we see Kaylee as a very scared child, completely undone by River Tam. Kaylee doesn’t really understand how engines work, she just makes them. River doesn’t really understand how to kill people, she’s just very good at it. When Kaylee finally does talk about it, she sounds like she’s tattling, which does an excellent job of reinforcing the innocence and yet complete and utter worldliness of both herself and River, and how isolated they are despite the camaraderie on board the ship.
This brings us (finally) to Simon. Before I begin though, I must admit to falling quite in love with Jayne/Kaylee in “Serenity (TE)” when she’s getting stitched up and he’s crouched outside the infirmary looking in at her and it’s all this nice tableau (inlovewithnight has written me a ficlet which is just perfect and matches my essay nicely).
Anyway, Simon seems to be how The Canon has gone and his relationship with Kaylee is quite important to how her character develops, and they are sort of adorable, so here we go.
The first time Simon chooses between Kaylee and his sister, Kaylee is dying. And he chooses his sister. Of course, one can argue that Hippocrates would have kicked in or that Simon knew there was no way Mal would call his bluff, but at the root of it, we have the problem of the Simon/Kaylee ‘ship, and it is named River. This continues for the entire series and most of the movie. In “Objects in Space” he sort-of-picks Kaylee, but his “help” for Early is mostly useless anyway, so I am not certain it counts, and since River is completely capable of taking care of herself in this instance, it doesn’t really matter anyway.
Kaylee has an undeniable attraction to “the pretties”, and Simon fits the category. Her simple materialism sparks an instant attraction to him, but he takes far longer to realize what she is trying to tell him (despite some very blatant signals on her part). This, coupled with a complete lack of privacy, sets up all sorts of obstacles in their path. It has been argued that Kaylee’s entire role within the show is to want Simon. This isn’t far off the truth. In the movie, that is her being, her essence…how she finds the courage to survive. The show has the luxury of a few more mechanical mishaps the odd episode where River is not the focus, so Kaylee gets a bit more to do, but all told, she remains a fairly limited character.
What I like best about Kaylee Frye is how she works within those limitations. She had little time for onscreen character revelation so what you see about her is what you get. Her honesty, her innocence, her ignorance and her earthiness are exceedingly apparent in everything she does. She surprises us with her frankness, charms us with her manner and provides insight with her observations about her shipmates and life in general.
And if nothing else, she has forever changed our perception of strawberries.
idol_reflection, and focuses on Kaylee Frye from Firefly and Serenity. This has full spoilers for both the series (including unaired episodes) and the movie. Many thanks to inlovewithnight for the beta and ideas on where to expand.No Power In the 'Verse Can Stop Me
AN: Serenity=The Ship, Serenity (TM)=The Movie and Serenity (TE)=The Pilot Episode.
When one is a character on a show with eight other people, and that show is cancelled after fourteen episodes, you would think it would be hard to develop a meaningful, fun, sweet and sad onscreen persona. Most serial television shows spend the first fourteen episodes developing the major players, and only show the back-up team through observing eyes, instead of in a “-----centric” episode. Although this was the case with Kaylee Frye, Jewel Staite and the writers were able to produce an awesomely layered girl.
We meet Kaylee three times, though in a varying order depending on how the viewer comes into the series. If you watched it on TV, you meet her in “The Train Job” as a viewer, in “Out of Gas” as Mal and in “Serenity (TM)” as an old friend. I met her in “Serenity (TE)” first, and the other option is to meet her in “Serenity (TM)” first. In any of those permutations, we get the same sort of initial picture of her, though neither seems to be overdone and repetitive. I am going to take you through my introduction to Kaylee; with a brief digression into the viewpoints of people I have introduced her to in my quest to make other people love the show. And we might also dabble in ‘shipping. Because it’s hard to avoid sometimes.
In “Serenity (TE)”, we get Kaylee first of all as The Switch Flipper, but this is mostly to establish her as The Engineer. Her first real scene comes with Mal and Jayne when they discuss passengers. Kaylee is immediately excited about the stories she might get to hear, and Mal says "I don't believe there's a power in the 'verse that'll stop Kaylee from being so cheerful. Sometimes you just want to duct tape her mouth and dump her in the hold for a month." That pretty much sums her up. Of course, one of those passengers does, in fact, have the only power in the ‘verse that will stop her from being so cheerful, but it’s still a nice touch. It also, very underhandedly, connects Kaylee to River, although we don’t get the rest of the conversation until “War Stories”, when we get both sides of “No power in the ‘verse can stop me!”.
In “Out of Gas”, we meet Kaylee as Mal did. And, let’s face it, we were pretty darn surprised, because as far as character entrances go, sex under the engine is kind of original. Mal initially calls her a “prairie harpy”, but when she fixes his ship in an off handed, sunny and completely unembarrassed way, he offers her a job on the spot. Mal has issues with the sex lives of the women on board his ship, but he continuously forgets what Kaylee is capable of. This innocence is built upon in “Shindig” when Kaylee compliments “Captain Tight Pants” in one breath and is immediately distracted by the food in the next. Something of it is shattered in “Objects in Space”, but I think I’ll leave that for the ‘ship section.
The Movie presented a unique and I assume hair-pullingly frustrating problem for the writers because we already knew Kaylee, but there might be one or two people in the theatre who didn’t. I watched “Serenity (TM)” with my older brother they day after he gave it to me for Christmas and when the mule left the cargo bay, he pressed pause (a rule if you have a question during a movie), turned to me and said “So the Captain and First Officer go way back, she is married to the pilot, the big guy’s a mercenary type and the engineer is in love with the doctor?” and I was all “er…yes. Well done Mr. Whedon!” because I was still entertained and my brother knew what the heck was happening.
In regards to Kaylee specifically though (she actually gets the last lines before we leave Serenity and head into Lilac), her characterization is spot on. All she says is “They’ll be back afore you can spit. Not that you…spit.” and then Simon walks away and she sort of smiles and the Alpha Centuraions start sending us a radio signal that says “We get it Joss”. Her innocence well established, we need to get to her earthiness, and that comes with the unforgettable “I ain’t had nothin’ twixt my nethers that didn't run on batteries goin’ on a year now.” which gets the predictable reaction from all parties present when she says it, and reflects nicely back to the “Have good sex!” from “Jaynestown”. The breaking of her innocence, again dealing directly with Simon so I’ll mention it later, comes in due course at the end of the movie.
Kaylee is one of the only female characters I can think of off the top of my head that is married to the ship. Kirk and Scotty were, Picard certainly was, Miles almost lost his own marriage over it and the less said about Dylan Hunt the better. But Janeway and Torres were not. I don’t know if that’s because the writers didn’t know how to do it, or if they didn’t think that a female character could be (er…there’s a slash/femslash argument here I think…but it’s very deeply buried), but in any case, Kaylee is.
I don’t just mean her mentioning the ship as a “she” with frequency, even though she is the only character who does with any consistency (Movie send offs notwithstanding). She is genuinely heart broken in “Out of Gas” because she was so caught up in Simon that she didn’t feel Serenity. She knows as soon as she sees him in “Serenity (TE)” that Book will be leaving on in her ship. When River “is” Serenity in “Objects in Space”, Kaylee finds the courage to act.
Her association with Serenity does interesting things to the (for lack of a better term) female triad on board the ship, mostly because it means there are five female characters. If we take River out (because she is Everyone All At Once), and combine Kaylee with the ship (which is easy, because they are), we are left with three characters: Kaylee, Inara and Zoë who will fill “the maiden”, “the mother” and “the wise woman”.
At first, it’s quite easy: Kaylee should be “the maiden” (innocent, ignorant and carefree). But at the same time she isn’t quite. She is much closer, thematically, to “the mother” because of her innate knowledge (she doesn’t actually have any mechanical training, she just does it) and protective role. Her innocence is so blinding that we forget how very, very world-weary she is.
Pairing up Kaylee with River as dramatic foils was a stroke of genius. River is the only character in the entire show that makes Kaylee look like a child (Mal makes her look like an innocent, which isn’t exactly the same thing), and vice versa (the dancing scene in “Safe” being the exception). They play together (the “Ah…the pitter patter of happy little feet in combat boots. SHUT UP!” is one of my favourite Mal-isms ever), and the result of that play presents Kaylee in her weakest state during the run of the series. In “Objects in Space” when she finally tells what she witnessed at the end of “War Stories”, we see Kaylee as a very scared child, completely undone by River Tam. Kaylee doesn’t really understand how engines work, she just makes them. River doesn’t really understand how to kill people, she’s just very good at it. When Kaylee finally does talk about it, she sounds like she’s tattling, which does an excellent job of reinforcing the innocence and yet complete and utter worldliness of both herself and River, and how isolated they are despite the camaraderie on board the ship.
This brings us (finally) to Simon. Before I begin though, I must admit to falling quite in love with Jayne/Kaylee in “Serenity (TE)” when she’s getting stitched up and he’s crouched outside the infirmary looking in at her and it’s all this nice tableau (
inlovewithnight has written me a ficlet which is just perfect and matches my essay nicely).Anyway, Simon seems to be how The Canon has gone and his relationship with Kaylee is quite important to how her character develops, and they are sort of adorable, so here we go.
The first time Simon chooses between Kaylee and his sister, Kaylee is dying. And he chooses his sister. Of course, one can argue that Hippocrates would have kicked in or that Simon knew there was no way Mal would call his bluff, but at the root of it, we have the problem of the Simon/Kaylee ‘ship, and it is named River. This continues for the entire series and most of the movie. In “Objects in Space” he sort-of-picks Kaylee, but his “help” for Early is mostly useless anyway, so I am not certain it counts, and since River is completely capable of taking care of herself in this instance, it doesn’t really matter anyway.
Kaylee has an undeniable attraction to “the pretties”, and Simon fits the category. Her simple materialism sparks an instant attraction to him, but he takes far longer to realize what she is trying to tell him (despite some very blatant signals on her part). This, coupled with a complete lack of privacy, sets up all sorts of obstacles in their path. It has been argued that Kaylee’s entire role within the show is to want Simon. This isn’t far off the truth. In the movie, that is her being, her essence…how she finds the courage to survive. The show has the luxury of a few more mechanical mishaps the odd episode where River is not the focus, so Kaylee gets a bit more to do, but all told, she remains a fairly limited character.
What I like best about Kaylee Frye is how she works within those limitations. She had little time for onscreen character revelation so what you see about her is what you get. Her honesty, her innocence, her ignorance and her earthiness are exceedingly apparent in everything she does. She surprises us with her frankness, charms us with her manner and provides insight with her observations about her shipmates and life in general.
And if nothing else, she has forever changed our perception of strawberries.