The Quiet Power of Inara Serra

The legendary TV series Firefly brought us over a dozen incredible characters, but the hardest to understand yet arguably strongest is the companion Inara. Despite her controversial career choice, she is the voice of comfort, wisdom and the matriarch of the Serenity's crew.

*If you haven't seen Firefly spoilers and also what's wrong with you? Seriously, get your life together and watch it.*

Inara is a companion. In the Firefly universe this essentially means a high priced prostitute, but she is so much more than that. Inara is a lady in every sense of the word. Trained not only in the physical aspects of her job, she is also well versed in the art of conversation, tea service, and socializing. She frequently mingles with the upper crust of society, honored and accepted in her station and even envied for her lifestyle. She works from the Serenity as a way to expand her clientele and see what the universe has to offer, converting one of the shuttles into her own private lounge.

Inara's strength doesn't come from her ability to fly a ship or shoot a gun, but from the pure feminine energy she extrudes in every aspect of her being. Her cabin is a drastic contrast to the rest of the ship, decorated in silks and cushions, making it a soft welcoming place, as opposed to the hard edges and metals in the rest of the ship. She speaks gently whenever she talks, even in anger or frustration, using her force of will rather than volume to defend her space.

Her relationships with her shipmates are as diverse as the crew itself. With Kaylee she acts as an older sister, with River she becomes a mother. With Jayne she's more of a scolding nanny and most interestingly besides her psudeo love interest is her relationship with Shepard Book. Shepard in this context is a traveling minister for a vaguely unexplored Christian denomination, and when he first meets Inara both seem slightly standoffish, as their professions seem to be polar opposites. They quickly grow to see the wisdom in each other's council, and form a mutual respect in one another, sometimes even appearing as the only sane people on the ship.

Inara-focused episodes don't break out into her firing a gun or chasing down a spaceship. They focus mainly on her place as a companion and what that relationship brings out in others. The most notable episode featuring this is Jaynestown, where a wealthy merchant hires her as a companion for his son, with the hope to "Make him a man" by taking his virginity.

Inara, in true form, performs her job but explains to the young man that what they did does not make him a man, and that it's not her place to do so. She helps him navigate his complex feelings of masculinity and his relationship with his father, helping him see that weather or not he is a man is up to him, not up to his father or society. He defines his masculinity, which ties into the other characters conflict and ends up saving the day.

It's easy to say Inara is a throw-away character by hearing her profession described. Most prostitute characters are played purely for laughs, occasionally as tragic characters like Les Miserables Fantine, but rarely are they painted as people to respect or admire. In Firefly's short lifetime we met a strong fascinating woman that exemplified femininity, not despite her profession but because of it, making her one of fiction's strongest women.