Bio:
“Played with Kaylee. Sun came out, and I walked on my feet
and heard with my ears. I ate the bits, the bits stayed down, and
I work. I function like I'm a girl. I hate it because I know it'll
go away . . . I threw up on your bed.” - “War Stories”
There is no question that River Tam was a prodigy. Correcting her
brother Simon’s spelling at three and his mathematics at six,
River excelled at everything she set her mind to. She steamrolled
through the standard school curriculum and at fourteen, was sent
to a special academy, run by the Alliance. It was supposed to be
a safe learning environment, where she could develop her skills
in peace.
But as is the case with the Alliance, nothing is what it appears
to be. This was no school, it was a government-sponsored classified
institution, where River was nothing more than a lab rat. The Alliance
doctors surgically picked her brain apart, dissecting her genius,
and enhancing her natural psychic abilities. As Simon found out
in “Ariel”, the doctors also stripped her amygdala,
depriving her of the ability to filter out emotion.
River feels everything she experiences acutely, and due to her psychic
ability, she feels everything that others do as well. She is known
as a Reader, able to detect the thoughts and emotions of others.
And ever since Simon discovered what was truly happening to her,
and broke her out of the facility, the Alliance has been hot on
their heels. The uses for an uncommonly graceful and innocent-looking
child psychic are too numerous to count, and they want her back,
at any cost.
When she first comes onboard Serenity, it’s in a cryogenic
chamber, where she is alternately a sick girl and a bargaining chip
between Dobson and Simon. But River slowly comes into her own, forming
bonds with the crew and its captain. Mal seems to understand her
more than he cares to admit, and eventually comes to consider both
her and her brother part of his crew and under his protection. River
befriends Kaylee as well, going so far as to save Kaylee’s
life in “War Stories”, by shooting three of Niska’s
guards with her back turned and her eyes closed. Interesting ability
for a seventeen-year-old girl who sometimes can’t function
properly.
One wonders if any power in the ’verse could stop a completely
sane River Tam.
Portrayed By: Summer Glau
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