My Favorite Characters: Serenity Then!

Procrastinating, as ever, I planned but never made a favorite genre character post last week. Perhaps that is fitting, as I can easily pretend it was all on purpose. I can attribute some smidgen of slack-assedness to the 26th Century cargo-ship pilot Hoban Washburne from the late, lamented series Firefly. Which is not to say I admire him for laziness. No, sir. I've got him beat all hollow in THAT department, thank you very much! And it's not a trait I hope to expand upon. Yet.
Played with affability by the excellent Alan Tudyk, Wash was 'the voice of reason' on the commercial space vessel Serenity. A calming influence on his motley shipmates. He wasn't a traditional hero, per se, but a hell of a practical sidekick. Wash was a loving husband, even if he did take it to the point of jealousy. He could be called a sensible survivor, or, as some prefer, an abject coward. Certainly easy to identify with him there. When cannibals & mad cowboys come at me with lasers, I'm not gonna be looking very Captain America myself.
Mostly I like Wash because his most vital role on the ship was: jester. When everyone is flying madly off the handle it's always good to have a grounded guy there to politely interject the obvious. If he can do it in a humerous way and defuse tension with a clever quip, so much the better. Part of that credit is for the writers, part for the actors.
Moreover, I liked his collection of toy dinosaurs. What can I say? I'm easy to please.
(More on that subject later.)