River Tam is a

fictional character In fiction, a character (or speaker, in poetry) is a person or other being in a narrative (such as a novel, play, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life perso ...

of the ''Firefly'' franchise. River is portrayed by actress

Summer Glau Summer Lyn Glau (; born July 24, 1981) is an American actress best known for her roles in science fiction and fantasy television series: as River Tam in ''Firefly'' (2002) and its continuation film ''Serenity'' (2005), as Tess Doerner in ''The ...

in the 2002 TV series ''Firefly'' and the 2005 film '' Serenity''. The nature of the character and her role in the franchise has garnered praise. In 2005, Summer Glau won the '' SFX'' magazine award for Best Actress for her role as River in ''Serenity''. Glau later won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, again for her role as River in ''Serenity'' in May 2006. Glau was also runner up for ''Best Actress/Movie'' in the

SyFy Genre Awards Airlock Alpha, formerly SyFy Portal, is an entertainment news website focusing on science-fiction, fantasy and comic book television series and films. History After a collaboration between Michael Hinman and Greg Boubel, the site debuted August ...

for 2006.

Production details

Joss Whedon Joseph Hill Whedon (; born June 23, 1964) is an American filmmaker, composer, and comic book writer. He is the founder of Mutant Enemy Productions, co-founder of Bellwether Pictures, and is best known as the creator of several television serie ...

selected

for the role after having previously worked with her on another of his shows, ''

Angel In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God. Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles ...

''. River Tam was Glau's first major role. Glau's inexperience assisted her in playing the character: she likened River's emotional withdrawal to her own initial apprehension on the set. In many of the hand-to-hand combat scenes featuring the character, particularly those in '' Serenity'', Glau's own experience in ballet dancing was incorporated into her fight choreography.

Depiction

During River's early childhood, she grew up alongside her brother, Simon, part of the wealthy Tam family on the "core" planet of Osiris. She was graceful and intellectually gifted. She is described as having a strong thirst for knowledge and a love for and intuitive grasp of dance. By the time she was fourteen years old, she had grown "bored" with her studies and enrolled in a graduate program for physics. It was at this point that she was sent to a government learning facility known as "The Academy".'' Serenity'' While her parents and Simon believed the Academy was a private school meant to nurture the gifts of talented children, it was in fact a cover for a government experiment in creating assassins. While in the hands of Alliance doctors and scientists, River was secretly experimented on, including surgery that damaged her

amygdala The amygdala (; plural: amygdalae or amygdalas; also '; Latin from Greek, , ', 'almond', 'tonsil') is one of two almond-shaped clusters of nuclei located deep and medially within the temporal lobes of the brain's cerebrum in complex ver ...

." Ariel (Firefly episode)" According to Simon, the Alliance attempted to isolate River from her family, though she managed to send a call for help by putting a coded message in a letter to her brother. Simon decoded the message and set out to rescue his then sixteen-year-old sister, despite his parents' insistence that he was being paranoid. In his quest to locate and free River, Simon enlisted the aid of anti-governmental groups, exhausting his personal fortune and sacrificing a promising medical career. The

R. Tam sessions ''Serenity'' is a 2005 American space Western film written and directed by Joss Whedon in his feature directorial debut. The film is a continuation of Whedon's short-lived 2002 Fox television series ''Firefly'' and stars the same cast, taking p ...

depict her descent into insanity and portray hints of her

psychic abilities This is a list of alleged psychic abilities that have been attributed to real-world people. Many of these abilities pertain to variations of extrasensory perception or the ''sixth sense''. Superhuman abilities from fiction are not included. Psy ...

. She references the "G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate", which would later be a plot point in the film ''Serenity'', and mentions the Academy's first subject "dying on the table." The first session clip indicates she has strong "intuitive" abilities and can easily understand complex subjects.

Reception

In 2005, Summer Glau won the SFX Magazine award for Best Actress for her role as River in ''Serenity''. Glau later won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, again for her role as River in ''Serenity'' in May 2006. Glau was also runner up for ''Best Actress/Movie'' in the

for 2006. The nature of the character and her role in the franchise has garnered both praise and criticism from various reviewers. Some have positively likened the character's erratic behavior to

autism The autism spectrum, often referred to as just autism or in the context of a professional diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental condition (or conditions) characterized by difficulti ...

. Dr. Karin Beeler of the University of Northern British Columbia compared and contrasted River to Buffy Summers, protagonist of the '' Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' franchise (also created by Joss Whedon), in her book ''Seers, Witches and Psychics on Screen: An Analysis of Women Visionary Characters in Recent Television and Film''. Beeler labeled the character an

anti-heroine An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero) or antiheroine is a main character in a story who may lack conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism, courage, and morality. Although antiheroes may sometimes perform action ...

, in comparison to the more heroic role of Buffy Summers. Film critic and horror author Michael Marano also compared the character to Buffy, citing the two characters' combat prowess as similarities and describing River as the

apotheosis Apotheosis (, ), also called divinization or deification (), is the glorification of a subject to divine levels and, commonly, the treatment of a human being, any other living thing, or an abstract idea in the likeness of a deity. The term ha ...

of Joss Whedon's strong female characters.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tam, River Female characters in television Television characters introduced in 2002 Fictional psychics Fictional sleeper agents Fictional characters with schizophrenia Fictional characters with eidetic memory Fictional super soldiers Fictional criminals Firefly (TV series) characters Science fiction film characters