River Tam
River Tam is a female television character who features in Firefly.
Contents |
Biography
River Tam
During River's early childhood, she grew up alongside her brother, Simon, part of the wealthy Tam family on the Core planet of Osiris. It was remarked often that she was extremely gifted intellectually from a very young age, and also very graceful. She has been portrayed and described consistently as having always had both a strong thirst for knowledge and a love for and intuitive grasp of dance. By the time she was 14 years old, she had grown 'bored' with her studies and was already in the graduate program for physics. It was at this point that she was sent to a government learning facility known only as the Academy. While her parents and Simon believed the Academy was a private school meant to nurture the gifts of the most academically talented children in the Alliance, it was in fact a cover for a government experiment in creating the perfect assassin. While in the hands of the Alliance doctors and scientists, River was secretly and extensively experimented on, including surgery that stripped her amygdala. In the R. Tam sessions, the progression of her youthful descent into insanity is shown, as are hints of her psychic abilities. The R. Tam sessions' portrayal of her initial interview with a member of the Academy indicates she had previously had strong “intuitive” abilities in addition to her high intellect and ready grasp of complex subjects. How and when this translated into her apparently full-fledged mind-reading abilities is unknown, but the R. Tam Sessions implies that she may have already had some form of latent psychic abilities prior to being recruited.
Overview
Personality and attributes
River, when she is calm and lucid, appears to be quite pleasant, nice and sweet. Both Mal and Kaylee have taken note of this, Mal remarking that "I find River pleasant enough myself". She gets along well with Shepherd Book, as demonstrated in "Jaynestown". In the first excerpt of the R.Tam sessions we might have made the observation that this was her original personality. However, probably as a consequence of being experimented on and hence partly damaged, she is often a bit odd, occasionally making inappropriate comments and throwing tantrums.
Powers and abilities
Notes
- River Tam was created by Joss Whedon where she was portrayed by actor Summer Glau and featured in the setting of the Firefly universe.
Appearances
- Firefly:
External Links
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