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

[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.