Serenity: A Question

[butterfly]

Okay, how is the Operative like Jubal Early? I do not get it. To me, they seemed like completely, utterly different characters.

Jubal was a bounty hunter who was clearly nuts and who liked causing pain and threatening people, the Operative was an assassin who was very rational and straight-forward. And Jubal didn't Believe in much of anything (is it still River's room if River isn't in it?), much less a better world. And the Operative was exceedingly polite and open-minded, even while killing people (Young miss?). I can't picture the Operative threatening to rape Kaylee. And Jubal tried to deny to himself that he was a monster, tried to claim that it was just his job, whereas the Operative was just doing his job and was aware that that choice did make him a monster.

Seriously, I just really want someone to explain to me how they're alike.

Comments

[timba.livejournal.com]

I think they're fairly different as well, but I can see where people could say that.

I think it's mainly in their delivery. That calm, precise "this is what I am going to do and your impassioned speeches will mean nothing to me because I am not DOING this job; I AM this job."

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I guess I just saw such a difference in their calmness, the difference between a sociopath and a zealot. The belief angle was just such a strong part of the Operative, whereas Jubal operated from this complete lack of belief in meaning, to the point of wondering if River's room was still her room if she wasn't in it (which is really the line of his that most... defines him for me, I suppose).

[timba.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree. You just have to step down sometimes and look at it from John Q. Movie's point of view.

(I've discovered John isn't so smart. But he likes it when things go boom)

[popfantastic.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

The real answer, which I suspect few people will not just own up to: they're both black antagonists (ergo OF COURSE they are, like, THE SAME, right?). And I suppose they're both antagonists who do not get to develop beyond being antagonists. Beyond that, arguments can be made, but I've really got nothing. Their personalities and M.O.s are totally different.

[cofax7]

Or, both black antagonists who are after River and who are very good at their jobs and rather unique in their approaches. Also both have somewhat odd moral codes and self-images.

[popfantastic.livejournal.com]

Right, but to me what is interesting is exactly the differences between the ways they were good and the approaches they took, and I think that the people who are arguing that The Operative was just Jubal replaced for the purposes of the movie (a comment I have seen a great deal this week) are completely reducing and simplifying things, and not really impressing me in the process. What I love is the contrast between them: that Jubal was like a plague that entered the ship and had to be expelled, while the Operative was this all-encompassing outside force that was able to get to everything but the ship. And so on. (I should disclaim here that I haven't seen the film since spring, so I'm just presuming they haven't radically altered The Operative in editing.)

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's such a great way of explaining one of the main differences. Jubal as an infection is just brilliant image (and no, they haven't radically changed the Operative -- he never goes into Serenity).

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I really do wonder if they'd be compared so often if one of them had been white. And I seriously dislike wondering that. I just... don't normally see people make comparisons that I so completely don't see.

Because they didn't have at all the same interactions with the crew -- maybe the difference that stands out the most with me is the Inara reaction. Jubal does such a compete dismissal of the... femaleness of Inara, and the Operative comes across as more... enlightened than that. Not entirely the word that I'm searching for, but it'll do for the moment.

And, of course, Jubal wouldn't have been swayed by the message getting sent out, because he took things personally in a way that the Operative didn't seem to. And the Operative was working for A Better Tomorrow, while Jubal was just working for his bounty.

Also, the Operative was really hot. Seriously, is that part just me?

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Ah, yeah, that's the question that I don't particularly want to ask. But in this case, they really just felt so different to me, like the difference between... well, let's pretend that the actors do have a physical similarity (that I personally don't really see, because, OMG! the Operative was so hot!, but um.). So, let's go with Doctor Bashir of DS9 and Doctor Baltar of BSG. They look alike! They're both attracted to model-eske women! They're both even doctors, though different kinds! Hey, they're both the smartest men on their respective shows!

And one of them is a raving looney. I heart Baltar, but... dude, I would so much rather be in the same room as Bashir.

[ros-fod.livejournal.com]

They're both black?

I am kidding. Sort of, as I am also cynical.

[herself_nyc]

They had a slight physical resemblance, a little bit of a similarity in how they carried themselves, and I think The Operative's habit of telling people what their sin was reminded people of some of Jubal's verbal tics. I know it did me.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

But the Operative is really hot! And Jubal really wasn't! I mean. Really, really hot.

Was I the only person who thought that?

Which is only part of why they felt so different to me, but, honestly, I didn't think that they looked alike at all, apart from being black. Because did no one else notice how hot the Operative was? Seriously, he was really hot. I'd make an icon of him, but I'd be unable to resist making it spoilery, so I'm going to wait on that.

It's a case of me completely boggling upon seeing a comparison and going, "Dude, I don't see it at all." And then I tried to see it, the second time around, and, again, really didn't. And thus this post.

Jubal just seemed really... crazy to me. He was a complete River parallel, and she's the one who had to figure out how to beat him, whereas the Operative seemed to be cast to play against Mal and Book, with the belief angle. And Mal was the one who had to face off against him, because of that.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, part of the reason that I posted this was because I really can't see any other similarity.

And, upon getting comments, still think that the differences so very much outweigh the similarities, mostly because Fucking Nuts and Not Nuts is a fairly important line for me, and the Operative never struck me as crazy, just strong in how far he was willing to go for a belief that I (and Mal) considered flawed. But he clearly wasn't crazy, because he was able to access new information and change his mind when he realised that his previous outlook had serious flaws (a sinless world might be possible, but certainly not at the hands of the Alliance).

[ilanabean42.livejournal.com]

Well, they've both got the "I'm going to very politely talk about killing and other similarly upsetting things" thing going, so I can see why people would compare them, but they are different. Early was, I think, much more of a sociopath though, doing the job because he liked it, whereas the Operative did it because he felt it had to be done. They're both scary, but a different brand of scary.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Completely different brands of scary, I thought. The Operative honestly seemed... you know, kinda nice. In his own scary-zealot way. Not just polite, but nice.

Maybe the thing that bugs me is that I see a lot of people comparing them and then saying that they couldn't believe in the Operative's change of heart. Well, no, Jubal Early wouldn't have left them alone, because Jubal didn't care about Good, just about his bounty and about the correct way of doing things. The Operative seemed genuinely distressed that Mal had caused a bloodbath in the skies above them, and I really can't see Jubal caring a lick about other people getting killed.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

They're similar mainly in their preoccupation with what's right and wrong, and with sin, in their philosophizing to their quarries and the combination of quite horrific violence with a conversational tone. I thought Early was reasonably polite while threatening Kaylee with rape, no abusive terms involved, very goal oriented. Much like the Operative killing men and then expecting the young miss to go to work. (I don't see him threatening rape, because he doesn't much go in for threats, but I think he would commit it without a blink if he thought it was necessary to achieve his goals.)

Also both are aware that the violence they commit is wrong, and profess not to like it, but feel it is necessary to their job.

They're not completely identical, of course. Early hunts for profit, the Operative from conviction. We are given reason to doubt that Early's professed distaste for the violence is real, but no reason to think the Operative's is, given that he countermands the kill order. It's hard to see Early ever unquestioningly accepting authority to the point of taking orders, let alone giving up his name.

But they do remind me of each other, in that way that criminals and cops often come from almost identical backgrounds, even sometimes the same family. If Early had had something to believe in, he might have become something like the Operative -- his own turn for violence harnessed and disciplined, but also given a justified outlet, turned into a Holy War instead of eating him up inside until there was little left.

It's harder for me to think the Operative without belief would have turned into something like Early, but that's because I can only picture the Operative having lost belief, not who he would have been if he'd never had it. It's too much of what he was, or at least what we saw.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

But Early also smacked Inara just for talking to him, which is never a polite thing to do. The Operative killed the doctor for failure and the guards because he extended the courtesy of believing that they would die to protect the other dude.

Early hunts for profit, the Operative from conviction.

Hmm. I guess that this is such a profound difference to me (this and the whole 'but Early was nuts' thing), that it really does pretty much outweigh any of the possible similarities. The difference between someone who fights because they believe (or are capable of that level of belief) in something and someone who fights just to get a quick buck... well, in my mind, that's the difference between Mal and the captain who shot him in Out of Gas. And that's a really big difference for me.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Jubal smacked Inara for getting in the way of his job. So did the Operative.

well, in my mind, that's the difference between Mal and the captain who shot him in Out of Gas.

Sure. But if the captain from Out of Gas had been a wisecracking man who took care of his crew first and only, wore tight pants and was in love with a whore whose job he didn't respect, I would say he and Mal had some substantial things in common, despite the one big glaring difference. I would feel like the similarities were there to both highlight the differences and to suggest the road not taken, not that the difference made the similarity not count.

I guess also I feel like there's something intrinsic about the kind of person who believes you *can* make a better world by killing innocent children that is not too dissimilar in its monstrosity and its egotism from believing it's okay to rape strangers to make you money. He may do it for his belief in what's right, but part of me thinks part of him has to want it -- just like Jubal -- underneath all the justifications. Because if he purely hated it, he couldn't stay sane. Not for so long, not with no doubts, not without proof that he really was making things better of the kind he explicitly denies having or wanting.

Either that or he didn't stay sane. To me to believe so hard as that, with no cracks and no doubts and giving up your whole self to it, is almost a form of crazy in itself. And when you add the twistedness of *what* he believes on top of it, that he thinks you can make a right if you just pile the wrongs up high enough... yeah. I don't think crazy is one of the ways in which Jubal and the Operative are different. The Operative's just a lot quieter and more methodical about it.

The Operative doesn't just fight, he kills the innocent and the helpless. He's more like a terrorist than a soldier. And Jubal, in this analogy, would be like a hired assassin. Obviously professional killers and suicide bombers aren't the same thing, but they do have some things in common that I think are worth considering.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Maybe the biggest difference, to me, when it comes down to it, is in my reaction to them -- Jubal scared me. The Operative didn't. I thought they were both interesting characters, but I was glad to see Jubal floating out to a slow death, and equally glad that the Operative's life was spared. That's how very differently they struck me.

As for the Operative being nuts... I don't think that he could have changed his mind at the end, if he'd been so far gone. He was able to take in new evidence and adjust his beliefs accordingly. I just... I do believe that otherwise smart people can do stupid things because of something that they believe and that it doesn't make them crazy. Particularly not if they can manage to break out of the cycle.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

They both scared me. Actually, the Operative scared me way more, even though I also liked him better. Jubal was freaky, but petty. I could get a handle on him, 'cause he was broadcasting his desires all over the place. Respect, fear, money, status, pride, justification. Unsavory, but human in scale.

Whereas the Operative scared the piss out of me because he couldn't be angered, couldn't be distracted, couldn't even be made to question by anything short of the most extreme measures -- and even then, if Mal had shown him the tape *without* at the same time broadcasting it, so that the Operative had to choose whether to contain the damage and kill the Tams or switch sides, I'm not at all sure which he'd have chosen.

I thought they were both interesting characters too, and I wasn't sorry to see the Operative's life spared because I was convinced he was broken -- but he had to *be* pretty well completely broken to be safe to leave alive. And in fact, I was convinced he was so broken that unless somebody stepped in stat, I assumed he was gonna go fall on his sword as soon as Serenity broke orbit.

Jubal -- I was satisfied by the ending, but I wasn't particularly invested in it. If they'd had enough cash to buy him off, that would've struck me as just as fine. He's not a good man, but in a world with Niska in it he's a long way from the worst they've encountered. At least he didn't really rape. At least he felt he *needed* justification. I didn't feel like, in the normal way of things, he was much of a threat -- to individuals, until sooner or later some individual brought him down, but the Operative could topple worlds.

I don't believe crazy is something you can't come back from. (Just look at River). Therefore I don't believe coming back is proof that you weren't crazy. And I think stupid things are things that don't work. Things that do work by me aren't stupid, but rather scary-smart in a closed-system logic that doesn't allow for the reality and legitimacy of other people's point of view, and I think that's one of the main definitions of crazy. (Clinical narcissism, solipsism, sociopathy, borderline, all boil down to various forms of "my POV is the only one that matters, or even exists.")

I think the fact that it took the death of millions and his own complete immobility *and* the fact that he was too late to do anything about it to open the Operative's mind to even the possibility that the Alliance might be wrong is pretty extreme -- way past electricity on the scale of shock treatments, and even then, he didn't so much adjust his beliefs as lose them completely, and his very sense of self with them. That, by me, is not so sane. It's only saner than being exposed to the same evidence and not doing it. Which makes him arguably a kind of hero, but not therefore well-balanced.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Sure. But if the captain from Out of Gas had been a wisecracking man who took care of his crew first and only, wore tight pants and was in love with a whore whose job he didn't respect, I would say he and Mal had some substantial things in common, despite the one big glaring difference.

All I really see in common with Jubal and the Operative, even now, is a certain matter-of-fact way of doing their job. They didn't dress alike (Jubal had that dark red, spider-like space suit, while the Operative dressed in blues/greys), didn't approach the case anything similiar (above, mentions that Jubal's attack is all from the inside, like an infection, while the one place that the Operative doesn't get is inside the ship), didn't have the same relationship to the Alliance.

Jubal smacked Inara for getting in the way of his job. So did the Operative.

Jubal smacked Inara for getting into his head, 'visiting his intentions'. The Operative smacked Inara for, well, attacking him first. I just really see those as different.

[bhadrasvapna.livejournal.com]

I don't think he is quite like Jubal as an evolution of the existential "villian" (for lack of a better word).

All of Joss' shows are existential masterpieces. I doubt anyone could question this after listening to Joss' commentary on "Objects in Space." Since Jubal appears in "Objects in Space," he is cast as the existential villian.

What is paramount in Existentialism is free will. Without free will, we cannot give anything meaning. That meaning is given to us. Sartre wrote about this throughout his career. So did Camus and many of the French existential. Seeing as Nausea is what turned Joss onto existentialism (per himself in "Objects in Space") I feel it is proper to say his existentialism is not the earlier German camp, but the later French one.

Now with Jubal we have someone who is willing to take away someone's free will, which is systematically does by taking care of each member of the crew. River triumphs by taking control of Jubal's ship. This control wigs him out.

Transfer this to The Operative. He is taking free will away left and right. Murder is the ultimate usurption of free will. Unlike Jubal he has a belief that fuels this. Jubal was doing it for money. Various characters state how imporant/dangerous belief is. It is belief that fuels how we use our free will.

So this is the evolution I see. Both men take away free will. Jubal does it for money. The Operative does it for belief. Both men are dangerous, The Operative more so because belief is stronger than money.