Time, time, time. When Mal suggests they all run, Nandi tells him 'it took her years to cut this piece of territory from other men's hands, to build this business up from nothing. It's who I am, and it's my home...'
So, years implies a significant ammount of time. The series is set five years after the war, so I would think that she must have left the Guild around that time, or shortly thereafter to give her the 'years' she's spent getting the Heart of Gold to where it is at this point. She also tells Mal she 'was gone long before' Inara left Sihnon, and if we assume that Inara has recently left Sihnon when she rents Mal's shuttle, which was 8 months before the beginning of the series, (which puts the war only 4 years and a few months from done) then I would think this lends weight to Nandi leaving shortly after the war, so that those 'years' could exist between then and now.
Why she ended up on the moon where the HoG is, I have no idea, but I believe the girls were all already there; Nandi tells Mal she 'trucked out to the border, learned to say ain't, and came looking for work. Found this place. ... It was a dung heap, run by a pig who had half the girls strung out on drops. There's no Guild out here, they let the men run the houses and they don't ask for references. We didn't get along.'
So basically, I think she came here, found the conditions the girls were working in deplorable, and went about changing that - how exactly she did that would make a good story too ;o) Grit, determination, hard work, and an iron will I'd bet, not to mention a keen business sense and her talent for readin' folk. But I digress :o)
The Dulcimer Incident, I think, was a last straw sort of thing. She tells Mal that she realized then that 'a Companion's life might be a little too constricting', but I think it's more likely that she'd been feeling that way for some time. I think she chafed under the structure of the Guild, I think she's too independent and willful, too impatient to sit through the day to day 'monotony' of training and practicing. I think she began to feel dissatisfied within the confines of that structure, until she reached a breaking point. I think, like Mal, she balks under 'oppressive' authority, and she has that same natural-born-leader characteristic that Mal has, and the same protectiveness of her 'family'. To me that speaks of a certain confidence of self - whether she obtained that after leaving the Guild, or if it was something she possessed already (and was why she felt so confined within the Guild) could be debated, but I think I tend toward the latter. Or a combination of the two. Those characteristics must have been somewhat present in her before leaving, but she may have been 'forged' and 'tempered' into the woman she is now through her struggle to wrest control of the Heart of Gold from the men of the moon.
I do like the idea of her entering the Guild at a slightly older age, I think that's highly plausible.
As to the shunning, I would think that Nandi obviously had to do something more than just smashing a dulcimer. There are a multitude of possibilities there: an extreme 'tantrum', destruction of property, screaming, yelling? Something political, related to the War? to her beliefs and background? Publicly embarrassing the Guild? It would have to be something pretty big to result in a shunning I would think - or... here's a thought. Maybe when she took up work as a whore, using her Guild taught skills, maybe *that's* why she's been shunned, for taking the 'trade secrets' outside the Guild, lowering to that standard, shaming the Guild that way, that sort of thing... hmm. Actually, I kind of like that idea, for my own personal take on Nandi and the Guild. I'm going to have to think on that some more.
Great discussion! I love Nandi *SO*, and now I've got a new idea to think about!!! Yay! Thanks, darlin'!
no subject
Time, time, time. When Mal suggests they all run, Nandi tells him 'it took her years to cut this piece of territory from other men's hands, to build this business up from nothing. It's who I am, and it's my home...'
So, years implies a significant ammount of time. The series is set five years after the war, so I would think that she must have left the Guild around that time, or shortly thereafter to give her the 'years' she's spent getting the Heart of Gold to where it is at this point. She also tells Mal she 'was gone long before' Inara left Sihnon, and if we assume that Inara has recently left Sihnon when she rents Mal's shuttle, which was 8 months before the beginning of the series, (which puts the war only 4 years and a few months from done) then I would think this lends weight to Nandi leaving shortly after the war, so that those 'years' could exist between then and now.
Why she ended up on the moon where the HoG is, I have no idea, but I believe the girls were all already there; Nandi tells Mal she 'trucked out to the border, learned to say ain't, and came looking for work. Found this place. ... It was a dung heap, run by a pig who had half the girls strung out on drops. There's no Guild out here, they let the men run the houses and they don't ask for references. We didn't get along.'
So basically, I think she came here, found the conditions the girls were working in deplorable, and went about changing that - how exactly she did that would make a good story too ;o) Grit, determination, hard work, and an iron will I'd bet, not to mention a keen business sense and her talent for readin' folk. But I digress :o)
The Dulcimer Incident, I think, was a last straw sort of thing. She tells Mal that she realized then that 'a Companion's life might be a little too constricting', but I think it's more likely that she'd been feeling that way for some time. I think she chafed under the structure of the Guild, I think she's too independent and willful, too impatient to sit through the day to day 'monotony' of training and practicing. I think she began to feel dissatisfied within the confines of that structure, until she reached a breaking point. I think, like Mal, she balks under 'oppressive' authority, and she has that same natural-born-leader characteristic that Mal has, and the same protectiveness of her 'family'. To me that speaks of a certain confidence of self - whether she obtained that after leaving the Guild, or if it was something she possessed already (and was why she felt so confined within the Guild) could be debated, but I think I tend toward the latter. Or a combination of the two. Those characteristics must have been somewhat present in her before leaving, but she may have been 'forged' and 'tempered' into the woman she is now through her struggle to wrest control of the Heart of Gold from the men of the moon.
I do like the idea of her entering the Guild at a slightly older age, I think that's highly plausible.
As to the shunning, I would think that Nandi obviously had to do something more than just smashing a dulcimer. There are a multitude of possibilities there: an extreme 'tantrum', destruction of property, screaming, yelling? Something political, related to the War? to her beliefs and background? Publicly embarrassing the Guild? It would have to be something pretty big to result in a shunning I would think - or... here's a thought. Maybe when she took up work as a whore, using her Guild taught skills, maybe *that's* why she's been shunned, for taking the 'trade secrets' outside the Guild, lowering to that standard, shaming the Guild that way, that sort of thing... hmm. Actually, I kind of like that idea, for my own personal take on Nandi and the Guild. I'm going to have to think on that some more.
Great discussion! I love Nandi *SO*, and now I've got a new idea to think about!!! Yay! Thanks, darlin'!