Divine Madness - Elizabeth Roy

Divine Madness
Choice blog
Elizabeth Roy
4/23

In one of my favorite films, Serenity, a young girl (River) is turned into a kind of 'killing machine' by the government. She has phenomenal fighting powers, and when she is triggered becomes capable of truly horrific things, despite the fact that she's only a girl (about 18) and does not seem to be a bad person. To me, this bears a lot of similarity to the bacchae or maenads. The followers of Dionysus, they were all women, mostly young ones. They were the worshippers of Dionysus and fell into madness or frenzy in which they became capable of horrific acts. In one of the most famous Greek plays, The Bacchae by Euripides, Pentheus is ripped into pieces by his own mother with her hands. In such a way, River is even capable of hurting those who care about her and who she cares about when she is frenzied. Yet, both kinds of madness are divine in a way. At the end of Serenity (spoilers!!!) River's divine madness saves the rest of the crew, allowing a horrible crime to be unmasked.