Name: River Tam
Actress: Summer Glau
Show/Book/Film: Firefly
Background: River Tam was a happy and contented child prodigy, living with her doting parents and loving brother, Simon, in ease and comfort, until she was sent away to a special school for gifted children.
The ‘special school’ was actually a place of terror, where the brains of the children were experimented on for reasons that are still not quite clear, but that may well have to do with attempts to create unusual mental abilities.
River was rescued by her brother and now lives on Serenity, the ship where he works as a doctor. They are both fugitives, still sought by the people who experimented on River.
The experiments on River’s brain have given her strange powers – she is able to read minds and knows things that others do not. However her experiences have left her disturbed and mentally fragile. She is beginning to make friends with Serenity’s crew, but is prone to odd behaviour which can make life difficult for them.
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