[teacake]

Shawnster wrote:

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The second overall arc centers around the Reavers and what they did to that poor man and his friends. This is a part I actually wonder if the movie, Serenity, contradicts. We get the statement from Mal that the "survivor" simply witnessed the Reavers and their horror and it drove him insane to the point he wanted to be just like them. At this point in the series we've not learned what the Reavers really are. To me, simply witnessing the horror isn't enough to drive the man to become a Reaver, especially after we learn that the Reavers are a result of terraforming gone wrong. Something in the atmosphere of the Reaver home planet, pumped there by the Alliance, is what drove them mad.

Now, here's another question concerning that. How did that atmosphere get onto the colonist ship? I can see that with the docking situation. The two ships dock and air is exchanged through the airlock during the Reaver raid. was that enough to cause the man to go nuts? Apparently. How, though, did the tainted atmosphere get on the Reaver ship? Was it originally on the ground? Did it have to be exposed to the poisoned atmosphere at some point?

I'm going to suggest that maybe the man was raped or had something stuffed down his throat that had been tainted by the Reavers and it grew inside him like a virus. I don't think we know much about people turning into Reavers via contact with them because usually no one survives once they get their hands on you.

I loved River's face during their EVA while hiding from the feds.