Firefly top ten characters

[acquiescence]

At scifiland we had a challenge to create a top 10 list for a show in the scifi genre. Soooo that gave me a lot of options, and since I've got a little downtime between hospital runs I thought I'd put this up real quick today. Firefly is pretty much my greatest scifi love, the first scifi show I got involved with in fandom, I actually watched the movie before I watched the show. My ex made me watch it several years ago, and I only really wanted to watch more for the music cause it was fabulous.

And then I started watching the show and I fell in love with the characters. And the story and it was just such a shame it never got it's chance as a show. I really feel like it was the best of anything Whedon has done and, with the exception of Dr. Horrible, he hasn't been able to come up with anything as great before or since.





#10 - Saffron

Saffron: Are you gonna kill me?
Mal: What? What kind of crappy planet is that? Kill you.
Saffron: In the maiden's home, I heard talk of men who weren't pleased with their brides...
Mal: Well, I ain't them. And don't you ever stand for that sort of thing. Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back.

Wash: I'm confused...
Saffron: You're asking yourself, if I've got the security codes, why don't I go in, grab it for myself.
Wash:: No, actually... I was wondering... WHAT'S SHE DOING ON THIS SHIP? Didn't she try to kill us?
Saffron: Please. Nobody died last time.

#9 - Shepherd Derrial Book

Inara: So, would you like to lecture me on the wickedness of my ways?
Book: I brought you some supper. But, if you'd prefer a lecture, I've a few very catchy ones prepped. Sin and hellfire. One has lepers.
Inara: I think I'll pass.

Kaylee: How come you don't care where you're going?
Book: 'Cause how you get there is the worthier part.

Malcolm Reynolds: Ah, hell, Shepherd, I ain't looking for help from on high. That's a long wait for a train don't come.
Book: Why when I talk about belief, why do you always assume I'm talking about God?

Book: If you take sexual advantage of her, you're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.

#8 - Inara Serra

Inara: I am grateful, you know, for the ill-conceived and high-handed attempt to defend my honor, although, I didn't want you to.
Mal: Gracious as that is...

Inara: You have such lovely hair. I'm sure the doctor would agree.
Kaylee: Who? Simon? No, he's much too- I mean I'm just- Do you think it looks better up?
Inara: We can experiment. We might even get wild later and wash your face.

#7 - Zoë Washburne nee Alleyne

Zoë: At last, we can retire and give up this life of crime.

Zoë: You never heard of Reavers?
Simon: Uh, campfire stories - men gone savage on the edge of space, killing...
Zoë: They're not stories.
Simon: What happens if they board us?
Zoë: If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh and sew our skins into their clothing. And if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order.

Zoë: Sir, I'd like you to take the helm, please. I need this man to tear all my clothes off.
Wash: Work, work, work.

#6 - River Tam

Simon: River?
River: I swallowed a bug.

Zoë: River, honey, he's putting the hair away now.
River: Doesn't matter. It'll still be there... waiting.

Gabriel Tam: Language, young man.
Young Simon: Sorry, Dad. The Independents attacked us with dinosaurs.
Young River: Simon lost his head in the heat of battle.
Gabriel Tam: Because there were dinosaurs involved, I think we'll let it slide.

River: Also, I can kill you with my brain.

#5 - Jayne Cobb

Jayne: Shiny. Let's be bad guys.

Mal: Can't get paid if you're dead.
Jayne: Can't get paid if you crawl away like a bitty little bug neither. I got a share of this job. Ten percent of nothin' is, let me do the math here... nothin' and a nothin', carry the nothin'...

Jayne: And if wishes were horses, we'd all be eatin' steak.

Jayne: Six men came to kill me one time. And the best of 'em carried this. It's a Callahan full-bore auto-lock. Customized trigger, double cartridge thorough gauge. It is my very favorite gun.
Mal: You offering me a trade?
Jayne: A trade? Hell, it's theft. This the best gun made by man. It has *extreme* sentimental value. It's miles more worthy 'n what you got!
Mal: What I got? She has a name.
Jayne: So does this. I call it Vera.
Mal: Well, my days of not takin' ya seriously are certainly comin' to a middle.

#4 - Simon Tam

Jubal Early: You folks are all insane.
Simon: Well, my sister's a ship. We had a complicated childhood.

Simon: I'm trying to put this as delicately as I can... How do I know you won't kill me in my sleep?
Mal: You don't know me son, so let me explain this to you once. If I ever kill you, you'll be awake. You'll be facing me, and you'll be armed.

Simon: This is what going mad must feel like.

River: I remember everything. I remember too much. And some of it's made up, and some of it can't be quantified, and there's secrets, and...
Simon: Hey, i-it's okay.
River: But, I understand. You gave up everything you had to find me. You found me broken. It's hard for you. You gave up everything you had.
Simon: Mei-mei, everything I have is right here.

Simon: In all that time on the ship... I've always regretted... not being with you.
Kaylee: With me? You mean to say... as in sex?
Simon: I mean to say.

#3 - Hoban 'Wash' Washburn

Wash: Everything looks good from here...
Wash: Yes... Yes... This is a fertile land and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land and we will call it... This Land.
Wash: I think we should call it your grave!
Wash: Ah, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!
Wash: Ha ha ha, mine is an evil laugh, now die!
Wash: Ahh, no God. Oh, dear god in heaven.

Wash: So, I'm Zoë. Now, what do I do?
Mal: Probably not talk quite so much.
Wash: Right. Less talking. She's terse - I can be terse. Once, in flight school, I was laconic.

Wash: Did she really make fresh bao? Quaint!
Zoë: Remember that sex we were planning to have *ever* again?

Wash: I am a leaf on the wind - watch how I soar.

*sobs*

#2 - Kaywinnit Lee 'Kaylee' Frye

Kaylee: Don't pay anybody in advance. And don't ride in anything with a Capissen 38 engine, they fall right out of the sky.

Simon: In all that time on the ship... I've always regretted... not being with you.
Kaylee: With me? You mean to say... as in sex?
Simon: I mean to say.
Kaylee: To Hell with this. I'm gonna live!

Jayne: Captain, can you stop her from bein' cheerful, please?
Mal: I don't believe there's a power in the 'verse can stop Kaylee from bein' cheerful. Sometimes you just wanna duct-tape her mouth and dump her in the hold for a month.
Kaylee: I love my captain.

Kaylee: Sometimes a thing gets broke can't be fixed.

Kaylee: You're gonna come with us.
Book: Excuse me?
Kaylee: You like ships. You don't seem to be lookin' at the destinations. What you care about is the ships, and mine's the nicest.
Book: She don't look like much.
Kaylee: Oh, she'll fool ya.

#1 - Captain Malcom 'Mal' Reynolds

Mal: Bendis, look at me! Listen. We're holding this valley, no matter what.
Bendis: We're gonna die.
Mal: We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. And you know why? Because we are so... very... pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die. Huh? Look at that chiseled jaw, huh? Come on!

Bandit: You gonna give us what's due us and every damn thing else on that boat. And I think maybe you gonna give me a little one-on-one time with the misses.
Jayne: Oh, I think you might wanna reconsider that last part. See, I married me a powerful ugly creature.
Mal: How can you say that? How can you shame me in front of new people?
Jayne: If I could make you purtier, I would.
Mal: You are not the man I met a year ago... Now think real hard. You've been birddoggin' this township a while now. They wouldn't mind a corpse of you. Now you can luxuriate in a nice jail cell, but if your hand touches metal, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.

Inara: Mal, you don't have to die alone.
Mal: Everybody dies alone.

Mal: Well look at this. 'Pears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Zoë: Big damn heroes, sir.
Mal: Ain't we just.

Mal: But it ain't all buttons and charts, little albatross. You know what the first rule of flyin' is? Well I suppose you do, since you already know what I'm about to say.
River: I do. But I like to hear you say it.
Mal Love. You can know all the math in the 'Verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as a turn in the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells ya she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her a home.

Man ... this show.