Talk:Reaver (Firefly)/Archive 1

Merge with "Reavers (Firefly)"

I have reverted the redirection of this article to Reavers (Firefly) for two reasons:

1. Unless a noun is always plural, its use as a title should be singular (Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Prefer singular nouns). Since one can speak of a "Reaver", the singular is correct.
2. Regardless of which title is correct, one should not simply change an article with a significant edit history to a redirect to another article. The two articles should be merged into the correctly titled article, and the edit history of the eventual redirected title should be posted on the talk page of the finished merged article.

I've therefore added merge tags to both articles and posted appropriate notes on both talk pages. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:13, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. —Josiah Rowe 03:52, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, sounds like a good idea.

The following is the page history from Reavers (Firefly) after the merger, to provide credit for the material originally created there:

• (cur) (last) 13:01, 18 October 2005 (UTC) Kizor (Merging, redirected.)
• (cur) (last) 14:47, 17 October 2005 (UTC) Josiah Rowe m (?Origins)
• (cur) (last) 14:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC) JamesHarrison m (?Origins)
• (cur) (last) 23:48, 7 October 2005 (UTC) Delirium m
• (cur) (last) 20:28, 7 October 2005 (UTC) EurekaLott m
• (cur) (last) 21:44, 4 October 2005 (UTC) EurekaLott m
• (cur) (last) 21:03, 4 October 2005 (UTC) Jeffq (+mergewith "Reaver (Firefly)", correct title per article title policy)
• (cur) (last) 04:36, 4 October 2005 (UTC) Viriditas (Category:Firefly)
• (cur) (last) 04:36, 4 October 2005 (UTC) Viriditas (?Origins - dab Miranda (Firefly))
• (cur) (last) 19:13, 3 October 2005 (UTC) Josiah Rowe m (?Design - rephrasing, spelling)
• (cur) (last) 19:10, 3 October 2005 (UTC) Josiah Rowe (Reaver design by Bernie Wrightson!)
• (cur) (last) 22:17, 1 October 2005 (UTC) Mirv m (Reavers (television series) moved to Reavers (Firefly))
• (cur) (last) 22:15, 1 October 2005 (UTC) Miraculouschaos
• (cur) (last) 22:14, 1 October 2005 (UTC) Miraculouschaos
• (cur) (last) 21:29, 1 October 2005 (UTC) 66.92.16.68 (?Behavior)
• (cur) (last) 20:54, 1 October 2005 (UTC) Miraculouschaos
• (cur) (last) 20:53, 1 October 2005 (UTC) Miraculouschaos
• (cur) (last) 11:28, 1 October 2005 (UTC) 68.225.171.78
• (cur) (last) 03:35, 1 October 2005 (UTC) Mirv m (someone beat me to this, I see :))
• (cur) (last) 01:45, 1 October 2005 (UTC) Hydragon
• (cur) (last) 09:49, 30 September 2005 (UTC) CronoDroid
• (cur) (last) 22:54, 25 July 2005 (UTC) Jugalator m (disambiguate)
• (cur) (last) 21:46, 29 June 2005 (UTC) DocileWalnut m

— Jeff Q (talk) 23:07, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Fan speculation about Pax operation

(Fans have speculated that the chemical affected the amygdala or the hypothalamus of the human brain, both of which are known to affect emotions such as aggression and pleasure.)

Fan speculation is verboten in Wikipedia. The above text is delete-bait unless we can find a reliable, verifiable source. (And that does not include fan discussion boards.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 08:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Just because someone added "Fans have speculated" to the beginning of it doesn't mean it should be removed, IMHO. There's the kind of speculation that's 100% speculation (i.e. Wash left Zoe pregnant at the end of Serenity), and the kind that has some factual basis that could possibly warrant inclusion (i.e. the above.) --Pentasyllabic 08:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia wants sources. Speculation is only acceptable if it comes from reliable, published sources. Fans and their blogs and messages boards are not considered reliable sources. The quality of the speculation is totally irrelevant. To quote Wikipedia:Verifiability, "As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." (Emphaisis in the original.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 02:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Alright, if it's official WP policy. --Pentasyllabic 03:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Clarification?

"It also makes them easier to detect, which means that a possible Reaver target has a chance of not being noticed if they power down, rather than flee (which Reavers instantly notice and will pursue)." -- above excerpt from the article. This doesn't make sense the way it is written. How does the Reaver ship being easy to detect affect the chances of someone not being noticed? Does it mean instead that it allows enough time for the target to respond and power down rather than continuing on and appear to be fleeing from the Reavers? Janet13 07:46, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I rephrased the sentence to make the connection clearer. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Sourcing and footnotes

Since we have an ongoing problem with sourcing and improper original research with Firefly and other TV-show articles, I'm working on adding some encyclopedia-quality referencing. I've added some footnotes here that direct readers to the appropriate sources for the article text, especially that which can be confirmed by episode review. I invite everyone to use this Wikipedia:Footnotes system to improve the verifiability of our work on these articles. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:45, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Source for paragraph 2 of "Behavior"? All kinds of stuff here, sourced in "Bushwhacked", which is either merely hinted at or stated by Mal. Bushwhacked doesn't actually feature Reavers directly, only the one "survivor", who may or may not have become a Reaver. Specifically: "when faced with capture, victims have been known to attempt suicide..." That is very probably true, but I don't think we have a source for that in Bushwhacked, and I doubt we have one at all. (If a character said that, it should be referenced to the character, right?) --63.162.81.179 13:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Per the above comment: "when faced with capture, victims have been known to attempt suicide..." Dr. Caron, Sarah Paulson's character in Serenity clearly attempts to take her own life before the gun is pulled away from her head and she is pulled out of frame of her holographic recording device. Taken directly for what it says, "when faced with capture, victims have been known to attempt suicide", I'd say Dr. Caron's behavior verifiably supports that statement. Suitmonster 19:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I've added Suitmonster's scene as a reference for the formerly sourceless statement. I've also replaced the old ref/notes footnoting system, which resulted in an orphaned note for this article, with the Cite.php system currently recommended in WP:FOOT. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 21:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Origins

Someone should add in the information from "Bushwhacked" about the bizzaro proto-reaver the crew encountered.

Those weren't proto-Reaver, those were the Reavers. ⇒ JarlaxleArtemis

If by proto-Reaver, you mean the guy who the Reavers left alive but mad (IMDb lists him as "The Survivor"), there is already information about this in the article, including a citation of the episode:

The Reavers do occasionally intentionally leave survivors of their raids, but they drive these survivors mad through forcing them to watch the torture of those they were with, effectively turning them into second-hand Reavers. The Reavers also severely mutilate themselves (i.e., by cutting themselves, peeling off their skin, and/or sticking bits of metal into their flesh).

The suvivor wasn't one of what we now know of as the original Reavers, whose condition was induced pharmacologically, but Mal's monologs on the subject in "Bushwhacked" indicated a belief (his, at least) that Reavers made more Reavers in that manner. It raises the interesting general question of whether and how the original Reavers propagate, and if not, if they will die out on their own over time. However, this is all extrapolation of the material, and analyzing it without outside sources would be original research. We need to stick to what we can cite. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:23, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe the things described in "Bushwhacked" look pretty much the same as things on Miranda. After we learn how Reavers actually appeared (from action of Pax), it is very easy to assume that the stranded ship in Bushwhacked underwent the action of Pax, too. Remember - there were no signs of fighting at all, it looked like "everyone has just abandoned the ship" until they found bodies. I believe at the time the episode was written, authors already had the plot of Reavers origin planned, and they probably looked forward to reveal that things in Bushwhacked were the result of the same influence. It is actually very likely that ship was never visited by "outside" reavers, but the bodies were actually mutilated by "The Survivor" himself, who was in the process of becomeing a reaver at the time when Firefly found the ship. Of course, these all are pretty much my own assumptions, but I hope you will agree they are very likely ones. I will not add them since I have no adequate source to cite; however, it may be appropriate to correct the statement int the article: "At least one normal human during the course of the regular series, a victim of a Reaver attack himself, began exhibiting and emulating Reaver behavior. Such converts would not figure significantly in Reaver population because of their rarity and the tendency of the Reavers to booby trap their own former killing grounds." - it just looks too much speculative bearing in mind the possibility of Pax exposition on that ship. --217.146.242.74 16:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

BTW, this article is just asking for pictures --P-Chan 06:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Added one....plange 23:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Image placement

I moved Image:Fireflyreaver.jpg so that it's the primary image for the article. Why? For starters, it's a largish picture for the section it has been placed in (Design), causing it to break through into the next section (which looks really ugly; almost as bad as the Reaver itself...).

More importantly, however, it doesn't actually showcase anything about the design of the Reavers. Some concept art would work wonderfully under that section (provided that it was expanded some). Since it is the only picture we have, it would be best used as the top-left image. EVula 14:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

that's fine, can you just change the wording on the rationale for the image?plange 16:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Reivers

Should there be a mention of the historical Border Reivers as inspiration? From reading the wiki article it's clear that some aspects of the groups are similar, very similar. Is there any mention of reivers in Whedon's interviews or writings? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.129.231.237 (talk) 03:03, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

Without a source it would all pretty much be original research, a no-no here on Wiki. JBK405 04:55, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Reavers = Rakshasas?

The page Rakshasa (fiction) previously contained this entry:

The Reavers in the television show "Firefly" and its spin-off movie "Serenity" are a modern-day science fiction depiction of the Hindu Rakshasa. Although not indentified as such, the similarities between the Reavers and the Rakshasa (cannibalism, savage and brutal violence, complete and utter disregard for life, human or other wise) provide for an adequate comparison between the two human sub-species.

Now, I don't really know what I'm talking about, since I've not seen the series, only the Serenity movie, but the similarity seemed extremely superficial to me from the description, and I found no mention of it on this page, so I removed it. SpectrumDT 19:58, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Origin from Beowulf?

Could the name reavers be an allusion to Beowulf, line 162-3, "nobody knows / where these reavers from hell roam on their errands" ? Since it comes right after a description of Grendel's savage attacks on Heorot, it would make sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Duhknees (talk • contribs) 16:42, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

It's a possibility, but not one that we can put in the article without proof, as the connection is weak enough that the author could've got the inspiration from a number of other things or come up with it himself. It would be different if Firefly was clearly designed after Beowulf, or the similarity was blatant (which it is, e.g., in the case of the Minute Man character's resemblance to Captain America in Freedom Force, a game that commits every last cliché of 1960s superhero comics). But still an intriguing idea. --Kizor 16:59, 14 September 2007 (UTC)