I think Jayne wins because he already has a Kicker of a*ss*es t-shirt named after him.

[ edited by Anonymous1 on 2008-03-22 03:25 ]

Anonymous1 | March 22, 06:25 CET

And let's not forget My Bodyguard... no matter how badly Adam Baldwin probably wishes we would.

Haunt | March 22, 06:45 CET

Jayne without a doubt! Heck, I'd have more fun laughin' at the poor guy, but in a scrap he'd be the one I'd want on my side. 'Sides... Jayne's power is in the hat. When he wears it no power in the 'Verse can stop him. :P

Mudkicker | March 22, 06:55 CET

Not on the list, but I'd want Mal. Tenacious, brave, and super-stubborn. Yup ... [/Gary Cooper]

Tonya J | March 22, 07:31 CET

I'd rather Cameron. Jayne might actually talk and I'm afraid I would hurt him.

TamaraC | March 22, 07:31 CET

I can take care of myself, but if I had to choose I'd take Zoe over Jayne. She's stealthy, has those wonderful dual shot guns and most of all she knows how to STFU when it's important. I would likely slap Jayne into next Sunday, for the way he talks about women. I like the thought of all the slappin' women musta given him in times past. Sort of like Mason on Dead Like Me - without the drugs.
This is my bodyguard pet.I shall call him "Captain Slap-Face."

I could also shove him out of the ship upon take-off, accidental like. Just not before swiping Vera and his hat.
You see why I prefer Zoe, I swear I'm not violent in real life!

ErynTzun | March 22, 08:02 CET

I just know I'd choose poor old Worf last. For a long time they used him too cheaply as the "guy who gets tossed against a wall to demonstrate that this week's threat is really serious," to the point where if he were my bodyguard, I'd expect him to get tossed against a wall as soon as anything dangerous happened.

Lara Croft ... are we talking the Angelina Jolie version or the pixelated version? Because that's a difference that matters, man :)

Jayne all the way, provided I had the cash to keep him "loyal."

Ghalev | March 22, 08:06 CET

That's just the thing: Jayne's only as loyal as you're able to outpay anyone who wants you dead. What good is a bodyguard if he's too mercenary to give you peace of mind?

Xoynx | March 22, 08:14 CET

Jayne can kick my ass anytime.

madmolly | March 22, 09:57 CET

I'd pick Jayne. Mainly so I could borrow his hat, which would be all kinds of fun.
He may be completely unreliable, but I have an apple tree and could bribe him with impunity.
Plus, maybe if I pay him enough I'd get some 'extra service'.

I'll be in my bunk...

missb | March 22, 10:28 CET

ewwww. Anyone thinking that Jayne was even the least bit sexy really makes me be all grossed out.

TamaraC | March 22, 10:54 CET

Cameron. But I also like Buffybot.

darn, I have a thing for 'bots I guess, I'm such a nerd :P

Krusher | March 22, 14:37 CET

I'd pick Buffy herself over any of these, but here it's Cameron. Even if she has the nasty tendency to kill innocent people to help the mission.

GVH | March 22, 15:59 CET

Hey, I think Cameron just let those innocent people get killed. I don't think she actually killed any innocent people.

Anonymous1 | March 22, 17:55 CET

Well, Enrique (who Cameron shot to death) hadn't done anything wrong from one perspective (he would've betrayed Sarah to the authorities but then Sarah is a dangerous fugitive and escaped mental patient as far as the world knows).

For the mission and to protect John i've no doubt that Cameron would kill an innocent (literally) without blinking. Frankly, that's exactly what she should do and in a similar situation I hope i'd have the courage to do the same (in that 'verse we are, after all, talking about saving billions of lives if they prevent Judgement Day and our entire species if they don't prevent it but only save John).

(from that list she'd be my pick but one of the comments mentions Takeshi Kovacs from Richard Morgan's books and that's a pretty good call - in that 'verse he's an ex Envoy and those are guys that even their own side are terrified of. You send in one to bring down entire regimes, kinda like Special Circumstances for those that've read Iain M Banks)

Saje | March 22, 18:18 CET

A man called Jayne.

magnus carnage | March 22, 22:55 CET

Cameron, definitely. she's loyal and will finish the mission and she isn't obvious, which can be very,very useful.
With Jayne,I'd be worried he'd double-cross me.

Can't I pick Hunter? (from 'Neverwhere') She kicks ass,too.

okelay | March 23, 01:41 CET

For the mission and to protect John i've no doubt that Cameron would kill an innocent (literally) without blinking. Frankly, that's exactly what she should do and in a similar situation I hope i'd have the courage to do the same (in that 'verse we are, after all, talking about saving billions of lives if they prevent Judgement Day and our entire species if they don't prevent it but only save John).

Oooh, I smell the musky aroma of a morally ambiguous debate around here somewhere...

Haunt | March 23, 03:00 CET

Jeez, what happened to the unashamedly evil debates of days gone by ? Now it's all shades of grey this and morally ambiguous that ;-).

I'm not sure it'd be morally good, that depends on how you define "good" itself (some might say it's whatever benefits the most people) but it'd be pragmatic. It is, to quote 'Flash Gordon' - yeah, I went there ;) - "a rational transaction - one life for billions". Or have you seen 'Sunshine' Haunt ? Cillian Murphy's physicist character Cappa is asked exactly this question and says:

(that pause BTW, is - maybe bizarrely, out of context - actually there to emphasise that he doesn't pause - it's more a conversational beat)

Saje | March 23, 03:28 CET

I actually chose Alice from Resident Evil. There are these little trust issues I have with Cameron and Jayne.

If I had to choose anyone from the sci-fi verse, I think it would be Harry Dresden from the Dresden Files novels. He's one of the few I'd trust not to kill me. I can think of lots of people from the Buffy and Firefly verses that would be cool to have at your back, but if there's some situation where I have to die for the greater good, I'd like to make the decision myself. I can't think of many characters from our fandom that would give me the option, except for Angel maybe.

And it's nice to see another Sunshine fan, Saje. It was a little uneven, but still a good movie mostly.

deepgirl187 | March 23, 04:51 CET

Enrique did betray them. He had already called the FBI agent.

Yes, I think Cameron would kill innocent people for the mission. But I don't think she ever will because the writers will not do that. There is a line there. Seemed like Cameron had killed Enrique for something he wouldn't have done but then it turned out that Enrique had already contacted the FBI agent.

[ edited by Anonymous1 on 2008-03-23 02:59 ]

Anonymous1 | March 23, 05:57 CET

Hmmm, someone mentioned choosing Mal. Well, yes he is tenacious, brave, and super stubborn but he also yells a lot. Zoe doesn't yell that much. I think I'd rather have her as a bodyguard. Besides, that would free up Mal for, um, other stuff.
I don't have enough money to pay Jayne. He'd sell me out in a New York minute.

NYPinTA | March 23, 06:32 CET

That was me. And I would trust Mal explicitly, or is that implicitly (Well, both). Unlike um .... someone whose first initial is "J"...

[ edited by Tonya J on 2008-03-23 03:43 ]

Tonya J | March 23, 06:41 CET

Okay, I would pick Jayne just for the joy of having him around. I don't know, I feel like I could straighten up his attitude towards women. In fact, I think his attachment to his mother and his naming his gun Vera, Jayne is really soft about women but puts on a macho show so that people don't catch on. And he's pretty!

ninjapigeon | March 23, 06:52 CET

Hey Saje, I'm a HUGE fan of moral ambiguity, and the whole "good of the many/good of the one" debate thrills me beyond the telling of it. And in truth I'd likely fall on the side of killing baby Hitler to save millions of future victims as well... probably. My earlier comment should have had a smiley behind it, maybe with a little wink thrown in, just to let you know I was actually ENJOYING that musky odor.

Oh, and Sunshine is an absolutely amazing, stunning film that made it onto my top 25 list for last year.

And if we're considering bodyguards NOT on the list provided, I'll take Agent 355 from Y: The Last Man ftw. ;) (Or maybe Lornette "Mace" Mason from Strange Days, I can't decide.)

[ edited by Haunt on 2008-03-23 04:35 ]

Haunt | March 23, 07:30 CET

Mace had a lot of hard in her, no messing.

Yeah, I got that you were a musky odour fan Haunt ;). My feeling re: killing baby Hitler is, it might be morally wrong and I might (figuratively since i'm not a believer ;) be damned for doing it but that I should take the hit anyway, that ultimately compromising my morals isn't as bad as the millions of deaths I could've prevented (i'm assuming it'd work and there'd be no Twilight Zone-ish twist in the tail ;). Course, with anything like that, the question is, when does the price become too high, when (if ever) is it not worth living because we've died inside, lost our humanity ? Or put another way: to waterboard or not to waterboard, that is the question ?

(and I very much enjoyed 'Sunshine'. Even though, as deepgirl187 says, it's not flawless and I think the last third almost descends to a standard sort of sci-fi horror the acting and finale pull it back. Ultimately, it's a "proper" science fiction film and there aren't many of those made these days. It's also absolutely beautiful, if you're not moved by the images of the Sun - mother of us all - then you're not moveable IMO. Shows what can be done with $40 million when lesser film-makers can spend 4 times that and end up with half the film)

Enrique did betray them. He had already called the FBI agent.

Yes but my point is, telling the authorities about a dangerous fugitive and escaped mental patient is NOT an evil act so in that sense Enrique is "innocent" (he clearly did it for selfish reasons but i'm assuming you're not saying selfishness is a valid reason for shooting someone to death ;).

But I don't think she ever will because the writers will not do that. There is a line there.

Oh I very much hope you're wrong about this Anonymous1. Part of the interest for me with Cameron is the opportunity she affords the writers to play with our sympathies, to test how far we'll follow her, to essay the moral conundrum Haunt raises. And even if she didn't pull the trigger on the dancer and her brother she might as well have - she could've saved them (at basically no cost to herself, probably literally without even breaking stride) and didn't. A sin of omission is still a sin (though part of the point of the show is, can Cameron "sin" ? I.e. is "she" even a moral agent ?). I really hope they don't lose all that ambiguity and story potential just because some people don't want to see Cameron being mean.

Saje | March 23, 13:34 CET

Saje, part of Cameron's mission is to keep the whereabouts of John and his activities secret, and in that respect the action in your spoiler was actually part of the mission. If the others hadn't turned up she may well have done it herself. They didn't know John but they knew parts of the puzzle. So you could, at a stretch, argue they came under the "Killing baby Hitler" clause.

zz9 | March 23, 16:09 CET

That's a pretty stretchy stretch there zz9 ;).

(they'd never met John, they didn't know about Terminators, they didn't know about Skynet, they didn't know where anyone lived, the sister had nothing to do with any of it. Basically, the guy was a chess player that got in over his head selling a valuable commodity to a criminal gang and his sister was a dancer. Cameron didn't leave them for the mission, she left them because saving them wasn't the mission)

It's kind of beside the point anyway. I'm not saying Cameron won't have reasons if/when she kills innocents (or allows them to die) otherwise why would she do it (it's not like "she" gets any pleasure from it) ? I'm saying that those reasons may have absolutely nothing to do with whether the person deserves to die, with whether they've actually done anything wrong i.e. they may just be in the wrong place at the wrong time (it was arguably the pragmatic thing to kill Andy Goode but Andy Goode just wanted to create an AI, he wasn't a bad man by any measure so it wasn't the moral thing).

ETA: Or was it ? ;)

(i.e. are the two things the same)

[ edited by Saje on 2008-03-23 14:22 ]

Saje | March 23, 17:14 CET