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Date Posted: 23:27:35 11/03/02 Sun
Author: fresne
Subject: Re: "Shindig" Impressions, with spoilers.
In reply to: Darby 's message, ""Shindig" Impressions, with spoilers." on 09:48:10 11/02/02 Sat

So, did anyone else get this sense of Persephone's upper crust as this one generation deep?

I felt like I watching some fancy ball in 1880s San Francisco (or insert name of rough/cultured western town of your choice).

Lord's being id'ed by their sashes, but neither Kaylee or Mal knowing what that meant. Lord so and so trying to sneak a pistol into the ball. The fact that there was a weapons detector. Only necessary because people are trying to sneak in weapons. Of course, it could be an honor thing, since every one seems to be mentioning honor.

Then there's the fact that dueling isn't illegal. How weird. In the cultures that I'm familiar with where dueling occurs, dueling is illegal. Basically, most governments can't afford to have their young future leaders killing each other off.

On Persephone, that doesn't seem to be a problem. To have a man who has killed a dozen men walk around with impunity. Well, that's practically a face off at high noon.

I'm also very interested in the weapon that is used. I'm not as up on my swords as I used to be, but it looked like a rapier. That's also a little odd. Rapiers aren't about elegant point work like foil or epee. I'm not quite sure how to say this, but that's kind of hack and slash for a culture reaching for the level of elegance that we see in the ballroom scene.

If they're going to use edged weapons, I'd expect rules and regulations and a greater divorce of a sword as a weapon of battle. Forget weapon of a more elegant age, swords, particularly edged swords are about damage. And the way you fence with an edged weapon is much closer (i.e., not as many generations removed) to how you fight in battle with swords. Thus, to be honest I always found the charge and slash to very effect in saber bouts. No one expected it for some reason, although I did it all the time. Then again I didn't start from as far away as he does. Then again, this was ten years ago in college, so I may be remembering slightly off.

However, Inara might not want to quit her day job to become a fencing master.

I actually kind of expected her to explain how saber/rapier fencing is a lot like knife fighting. I'd be very surprised if Mal, given both a military and bar fight background, doesn't know how to fight with a knife.

All of which makes me wonder just how much Inara knows about fencing. What did she study in school? Why would Mal expect her to know the slightest thing about fencing? What is her social strata? Has it been washed clean through education? Or perhaps it's that she knows nothing about knife fighting.

There a couple of other things that interested me.

The insult to Kaylee's dress. They didn't insult its appearance or being last year's fashion, had a five hoop tier instead of four, wrong color, whatever. They said it looked store bought. That is to say that her dress was mass produced rather than requiring the care and attention of at least one "girl" to make a unique dress for her use. By girl, I assume they mean slaves. The preening they did at the remark that it takes a dozen slaves to dress…er, I forget her name, future-S1-Cordelia. That sense that wealth is measured here in the number of lives that one controls. I wonder what social coup would come from having a personal Companion?

And of course the dancing. So, in the ball scene, most of the dances that we saw were set dances. A set dance is a dance in which many couples carry out a series of coordinated steps. They tend to be complex and require lots of practice so you remember what follows what. As opposed to a waltz, which in it's simplest form requires people to remember, 1, 2, 3, repeat until the end of the dance. Of course, people in previous periods, lacking the internet or television, had the time to practice these dances. Most set dances evolved from folk dances.

Mal asks Inara to a set dance, not a waltz. He is familiar enough with the steps to only bumble a little. I've been social ballroom dancing for years and I bumble at the set dances. Okay, actually, I avoid them, which is what I did last night. Too many rules, I like making it up as we go along.

Anway, socially, Mal may be uncomfortable with the setting, but he's familiar enough to dance a relatively complex dance. He probably learned that kind of dancing on his mother's ranch. Different social milieu, same basic material.

The Shindig is his kind of shindig. He is familiar with the concept of the duel, just not the weapon. The dances, but not why they'd want to levitate a chandelier. Because they could. It's the kind of ostentation that makes me go, hmmm.

So, to review, it had dancing, which I liked. Nice choreography. Fencing, which was funny and seriously never put your sword behind your back. Made me think of the day our fencing master had us do movie fencing. Hit your opponent's sword to make sparks. It was a lot of fun. Pretty dresses of an interesting variety of styles. Although, Kaylee's dress was perfect as a dress for a frill starved girl. Very young in style and slightly off from everyone else's dresses, which given the styles in play, must have been hard to pull off. It had cultural hmms.

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