First off, the new forum, SO shiny! Merci Glark!

Reavers fascinate me in a way no TV show's villains, for lack of a better word at eight in the morning, do. In the way that they're human, but with the worst in all of us brought out. That's pretty much it, other than I thought that the Reavers deserved their own thread because they are so awesome! But in a bad, cannabalistic, rape-your-guts-out kind of way.

Great name for this! I liked the shift in focus in the Reavers from the show to the movie. They were always the same creatures, but in the show, Reavers seemed to represent what humans themselves were afraid of- that they would one day venture too far out into space and lose what made them human. It is kind of like the old superstition that if you sailed too far, you would fall off the edge of the world. So the Reavers really served two functions; they were created by the government in order to show how government control equals bad, and yet they also were able to show people's worst fear in this new territory. They are a multi-level baddie, which is always enjoyable.

Omg, I just have to tip my hat to you YourMomOnToast, that thread title was too funny. I couldn't stop laughing. Because yes, they are!

Yea I agree with that sentiment as well, they're a kind of villain that has no agenda. Something like the Putty People from Power Rangers, but they were used as part of a larger plan.

Ha ha, I've only seen the movie but this topic title is priceless!

skillzdatkillz,you didn't just allude to Power Rangers, did you? That's hilarious! Welcome to my childhood.

And Glark, glad you liked my title! And it's worth checking out the show.[/done pushing agenda]

I'm glad that other people share my views about the reavers and also have to agree that they were focused on from different points of view in the show and the movie. Ah well, c'est la vie!

Oh I went there. Heh, for all its gripes and un-intentional comedy, I guess Power Rangers (the original baby!) was the gateway drug for me in terms of getting me into Buffy, X-Files all all the current good quality Sci-Fi shows. So it served a (here we go again..) larger purpose.

I'd love to see a spin-off show about Reavers or about an anti-Reaver sent to destroy all the Reavers, kind of like Blade. Oh man, too much fan-fic for my own good.

Some might say that River the Reaver Slayer was the anti-Reaver.

Interesting! I actually read it more as a warning that thinking you can perfect and control human life with technology is misguided, but I can see now that the government control run amok thing is pretty obvious too.

Oooh Spinland you just blew my mind! I never connected that before, interesting.. And I think Jacob mentioned that in the recap as well, that River was like Buffy because she's part of the very thing that she's trying to kill.

But I was thinking of something along the lines that a Reaver somehow reverts back to humanity slowly. With all the guilt and horrific memories of what happened. Okay, that sounds exactly like Angel's backstory...nevermind.

Wow, I never thought of that. I definitely see the connection though. I suppose my only misgivings about this, and why I'm still going to lean on my "government=bad" riff, is because the Reavers themselves didn't try to perfect human life through technology. Their creation wasn't like plastic surgery for the human emotions, and it wasn't a voluntary thing. They were unwitting participants in a government experiment gone wrong and then covered up. If it had been voluntary on the Reavers' part, it wouldn't have made the story less sad in any way, but I think the fact that the Reavers are as much of victims as anyone they rape/kill is a huge part of the story. It really does help emphasize Mal's contention with the Alliance, and furthers his thought that governments are only there to get in a man's way.

I also think that the different viewpoints about the reavers from the show to the movie was cool. It wasn't that the Reavers evolved, it was that the characters, who for years had believed the campfire stories and the "official" tale of the Reavers, founded in actual human fears, discovered that the truth was so much worse. The reason why the truth was never discovered was because the lie was so believable and appealing. It almost makes the government's cover-up all the more insidious.

Ooo, new board, shiny.

On topic:

If the Reavers were created in a horrible government experiment gone wrong, what would keep the Alliance from trying to come up with a cure? And how would cured Reavers live with themselves knowing that they've spread mayhem, death and destruction all over the 'verse?

Also, they made a lot of Reavers in their experiment, sure. But all one, maybe two generations. Eventually aren't they going to die out? Or are they breeding? And if they are, how do they keep from eating the babies, or ensuring that the babies are Reavers and not normal humans?

Pesky pesky questions.

Two words...second season.

Anyway, much love to the creator of this title. Made me laugh. :-D

My gripe with the Reavers is just that I don't see how they could maintain a spacefaring culture for several years. Mal can barely hold his ship together with one of the best mechanics in the verse slapping on the ducttape, but the Reavers can fly from planet to planet for years on scrounged and looted parts?

I did like them as a threat though - just the way Jayne says "Reavers" and bugs out his eyes whenever anyone says the word is enough to set the stage.

I'm not sure the Alliance wanted to deal with this problem. It would take a large force to deal with them and they are trying to keep the whole thing quiet.


Maybe they have a recruitment program.


Mal's problem is that he can't afford the parts and repairs. The Reavers can take whatever they need.

Remember, the Reavers don't care if the reactor leaks. I don't think they would even mind if a door seal let go and dumped all the air out. If the fix isn't up to snuff, all it has to do is hold until the next planetfall or jack another ship.

That's what makes Mal using them as his army in the BDM so incredibly awesome. And when the Operative says "there are many innocent people dying out there" and Mal says "you have no idea," kinda breaks my heart. Because even if there's horrible violent killers, they are innocent.


Based on the episode "Bushwhacked" when the guy who was the only survivor goes crazy and becomes a Reaver, I'm going to say they do. They kidnap people to torture them. Some of them probably end up Reavers themselves instead of just tasty morsels.

As I read the first part of your sentence, Blade came to mind, so that's kinda awesome. A rehabilitated Reaver would be interesting, though that is a bit Angel-like.

I had to go on record here as saying that Reavers are among the most terrifying movie or television villians I've seen. Their complete lack of conscience and purpose along with the reality that they're actually human somehow reaches this new depth of horror for me.

Thinking back to 2002 and the initial episode airings, I can remember thinking that the survivor-turned-Reaver felt a little cheesy to me, a little too over the top. Maybe it was the actor.

However, I can also remember being truly freaked out when they were going in silent running, dead silence, past the Reaver ship, and I'm not a person who easily feels much suspense over television and movies. (I'm the annoying person pressing fast-forward as the chick walks Slowly Down The Scary Dark Hallway Alone.)

I think maybe the Reavers were more scary when we didn't see them, personally. And I guess that's yet another reason the goddamn pilot skippage by FOX was bad, bad, bad. Maybe I would have been more scared in Bushwacked had I seen the pilot first.

I think that's why the alliance never delt with them. They can't replicate themselves, and after a while, they'll all die off, so why waste the army's resources just to save a few thousand lives on the outer worlds?

Well, didn't that one guy left on the ship with all the bodies basically turn into one after the Reavers attacked? Maybe they don't procreate, but they might possibly create new Reavers by doing similar things to other people. I don't think the Reavers were something that was just going to die out.

Well said. It hurts me too, when he says that. Because they really are just victims. Sometimes I think about how horrific that must be - to be turned into a monster. You know Mal was thinking about it.

I never thought about that before. They probably just thought it would go away and that Reavers would continue to be a myth to people on the central planets... and would eventually turn into that for the people who knew differently.

Both of these comments made me think of the myth of vampires. I have loved vampire stories for as long as I can remember. I think it is the tragic way they are presented. And, even if they are presented as monsters, literature and movies almost always present them as seductive monsters. Tragic, seductive, preying, but loving. The act of taking a human's blood is often pleasant for the victim. The vampire sometimes didn't choose to become the monster (and even if he/she did, the extent of what they would become wasn't fully known). I have always liked the heartrending theme of not wanting to but needing to take from another to simply live.

There are some similarities, but contrasted with vampires, Reavers are NOT attractive. They don't seduce, they rape. They don't drink, they eat. They don't try to fit in and appear beautiful, they mutilate their faces. But, they are still tragic victims of circumstances and were turned into monsters to commit atrocities.

That is an apt comparison, jadeblue, and one I never would have thought of. I think Reavers are all the more frightening because of the differences between themselves and vampires. With Reavers, rape and pain and an agonizing death are the norm, whereas with vampires, more often than not, they will feed and move on. Reavers are almost more frightening because with vampires, a person can blame their evil on the fact that they aren't human. But Reavers are the worst of us unleashed. All that they are is contained in us, making it all the more difficult to fundamentally separate us and them.

I found myself wondering a few times how exactly the events on Miranda may've gone down.

In Dr. Caron's holographic recording/warning, she pretty much outright states that it was a gradual loss of motivation/will-to-live for the 99.9% of non-Reaver Miranda citizens. Though how long this gradual transformation took to complete itself, ending in the last of them dying--whether it was a matter of days (at the very least), weeks (probably), months (maybe?)--is up for debate. I'm not sure if it could've been months, 'cause then wouldn't enough of the citizens have realized something was wrong with themselves and either signalled for help or gotten off the planet?

Of course that's assuming the Alliance, as part of their experiment, didn't jam all communications. Still, Miranda had to have been left with space-faring ships after it was founded, otherwise the Reavers would've always remained planet-bound. So why didn't any folks try to escape on those ships? Unless one of the first things the Pax did to their minds was cause them to not worry about feeling lacklustre. Or the Alliance was in orbit while all this was going on and shot down anyone who tried to escape.

So what was the 0.1% portion of the 30 million population who had the opposite reaction to the Pax going through at this time? (meaning there're approximately 30 000 Reavers total, give or take, as per Dr. Caron's, "about a tenth of a percent of the population" line) They couldn't have gotten to the point where they were attacking every non-Reaver in sight at the same time as the rest were beginning to slow down. Otherwise every body we saw on Miranda would've been torn up and there would've been a hell of a lot more blood all over the place. There wouldn't have been any gradual letting go for the non-Reavers, 'cause if the Pax worked near-instantly on the Reaver-folks, they would've finished them off toward the beginning of the infection.

So going Reaver probably wasn't akin to how some animals behave while suffering/dying from rabies--ie, normally skittish, afraid-of-human wild animals may approach you without fear, but also sporadically snap and attack anything that moves, even their own species/family. No, the folks who turned into Reavers more likely probably secluded themselves in their rooms/homes, or perhaps ran off to Miranda's wilderness to be alone. They were probably very irritable, quick-to-anger, but didn't wanna be around people at first during the initial uncomfortableness of their transformation. Or maybe they did wanna be around people, but were somehow only attracted to the other small percentage of the population who were going through the same change. Unlike the non-Reavers, they probably ate a lot (ravenous Reavers, would make sense), had sex with eachother (or just themselves) a lot, and began self-mutilation fairly early on.

Ugh, it's really horrible to imagine all the ways it could've gone for the Reavered folks, so I'll just stop for now. It probably had a lot in common with the way both gradual sci-fi disease-oriented and fantasy mystical transformations have gone in other works of fiction. Not instantaneous like the way infection worked in 28 Days Later. Nevermind comparisons to classical zombies--that film's Infected are the best, most alike human movie monster comparison I can think of for the Reavers--though they became so base that they probably wouldn't have been able to fly ships like the Reavers. However, just like the Reavers, they never attacked eachother from what we saw, for some inexplicable reason.

That's one point I wish Joss would address some day (unless he did in the DVD commentary or in the official Serenity Companion), how the Reavers remained as functional as they were despite being the rage-fueled, cruelty-and-conscience-unbound version of us.

Did we ever get confirmation on whether there were female Reavers as well? It would be fine with me if they were all male, though once you pit River against them in the film, it increases the much-brought-up Buffy/"girl-power!" comparisons to a nutty degree.

I figure the Pax killed the instinct for self-preservation, so that, even if they had means to escape or ask for help, they just didn’t care.

As for the Reavers, I think they banded together, took what ships they could find and headed for space. Probably with some superstition about the dangers of being on Miranda which also kept them from preying on the docile ones .

Interesting thoughts, Kris_AB. I think that most people gradually got more and more "peaceful", and the Reavers got more and more aggressive. But, since people were really not up to caring, it didn't matter that some people were going around attacking then killing and eventually eating others. Their ability to care decreased as the 0.1% of the population's ability to commit acts of unspeakable violence increased.

But, does that mean that the Reavers, toward the beginning of the process, recognized that something was wrong? Did they realize that they were acting crazy? That others were becoming more and more docile? There were so few of them, some of them had to be alone at first.

No matter what or how it happened, I agree that it is horrible to imagine all the different scenarios (and yet, here we are).

About how they manage to stay functional: I believe rumors of their insanity are greatly exaggerated. Yes, they like to do unthinkably hideous things to people, but so did Jeffrey Dahmer. It didn't mean he couldn't drive a car. All we really know about them is that they eat people alive, mutilate themselves (including their tongues), and have radiation leaks in their ships. We've never seen them rape anyone or wear their skins, and perhaps they do those things too, but in most respects they may be much more coherant than we are led to assume. Mal thinks they're completely nuts, but what makes him an expert on Reaver psychology? We don't even know that they actually fly without containment. They might use the same trick Serenity did. Perhaps they believe small doses of radiation make them stronger. Perhaps they do it to keep from being boarded. And perhaps it's simply their way of saying from a distance "Look at us; we're Reavers!" Kind of like kids using a loud stereo to mark territory around themselves. And they may actually be having perfectly intelligent conversations among themselves that only sound like snarls and hisses because we aren't used to hearing the Reaver "accent" caused by trying to yell over a mutilated tongue.

About whether or not there are females: Perhaps Reaver society is matriarchal. We don't see the females because they're on the ship. Perhaps those skin trophies we hear about are what gets female Reavers in the mood! Or, alternately, if you're compelled to attack people with your hands and teeth, size and power hath priveledges. Reaverettes might just have a higher mortality rate. Remember, most people, including most women, do not have the skill level of River. And of course, maybe there is violence among the crew, and to an even higher degree against the females. Or between the females, if they're the ones fighting for dominance.

About "recruitment": I think people were becoming Reavers long before the Pax, but this is the first time it's happened to such a large group of them that an actual Reaver society was formed. Though they only appeared ten years ago, Simon and even Book describe the stories about them as old campfire tales rather than as urban legends or some similar term. Jayne makes a very oddly phrased and OOC comment about them showing up "like the bogeyman from stories." I think stories of Reaver psychosis predate the Pax, and are a fairly common form for homicidal space madness to take. There have been plenty of modern serial killers who believed themselves to be vampires, because that is a powerful archetype in their culure. In eighteenth century France, it was werewolves. Among certain North American Indian tribes, it was Wendigo Madness. I think all the Pax did was cause powerful sadistic and masochistic urges, and the Reaver stories provided the blueprint for precisely how to act on those urges.

Well, you are what you eat.

As for how intelligent/sadistic the Reavers actually are. Let me quote some dialogue from the movie:

<Mal and crew sneaking ever so carefully through Reaver Space>
Shipcom: AGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH! AGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH! AGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I think there's some truth to all those stories about the Reavers raping and killing.

Or to look at it less flippantly, because it is an interesting perspective, maybe we can look at the Reavers' behavior as seen in the movie.

For the most part, there's no sign of strategy when they fight the crew towards the end of the movie or when they descend en masse on the Alliance ships, so they're probably not very intelligent in any way we would recognize. Yet they do seem to be able to operate ships and launch raids, which requires some organizational ability.

As for those who became Reavers on Miranda. The Reavers seem to me to be quite tall and large for humans. Perhaps people with a certain predisposition/genetic makeup were the ones who became Reavers? For example, large aggressive men might have been more likely to become Reavers than a tiny low-key female.

The "ARGH! ARGH! ARGH!" dialogue would indeed indicate to us muggles that they are not having coherant conversations. But how many people with hacked up tongues have you actually heard speaking English/Chinese fusion? If traditional Reaver lore includes tongue mutilation, and those who "cross over" feel a compulsion to conform to the rule (perhaps with a bit of not-so-peaceful encouragement by their fellow Reavers) then what sounds like unintelligible screeching to us may simply be how they pronounce the same basic words as everyone else. Although due to the insular nature of their society, I would assume that a sort of "Reaver slang" would quickly evolve that made use of growly throat noises at the expense of what we would consider finer articulation.
The attacking madly on the ground is, of course, a weak point in their sanity. Reavers eat normal people. Perhaps other Reavers are too "tainted." Or they believe that non-Reavers have some kind of life force that they need to take forcibly. But once they decide to pounce and eat, their strategy pretty much ends. That doesn't mean they aren't able to plan clearly until the prey is right in front of their nose though.
You could be right about various other charactoristics contributing to one's Pax susceptibility. In fact, it's unlikely that there wouldn't be such factors. Body mass, gender, ethnic type (did we ever see any Asain Reavers?") or any of a zillion more subtle factors.
I still think, though, that there was at least a strong fictional tradition of Reavers prior to the Pax. Except when they're about to get what they want most, they aren't uncontrollably insane. They're indulging in a sort of doublethink in which they in many ways act as insane as they feel Reavers are supposed to, but with loopholes for functionality.

I've wondered about their intelligence/coherence level too, but that they practice great dental hygiene seems clear. Freeze-frame closeups of two of the nasty ones from the raid/chase sequence early in Serenity reveal very white, healthy-looking choppers.

I guess they avoid eating diabetics.

Do you suppose they get much vegetables in their diet?

Actually, I do. I think the raids are for pleasure, for supplies, and for territorial display. Most of the time, they probably eat the same ship rations as anyone else. But if your a sadist with strong cannibalistic urges, and you're raiding a town anyway, where would the fun be in attacking a carrot? (Not to be confused with attacking Carrot Top, an urge which I understand quite well.)

And one I would encourage strongly in the interest of preserving the gene pool.

Oh, like anyone would willingly sleep with that thing!

Given that I have met people who prefer his annoying phone commercials to David Arquette's, I figure it must be possible that someone would.

Yeah, but that's like choosing between two different flavors of shit to eat.

And here I thought the Reavers would be the scariest thing in this thread... Yrrh.

Who else is imagining Carrot Top as a Reaver and is now huddled in the corner shivering?

Well, *now* I am. Thanks a bunch. ::joins the shivering::

Oh, man! Shove over in the quivering corner, there, you two.

I think the thing I found scariest about the Reavers is how we almost never saw them. In fact, in the TV show, we never saw them at all. And they still scared me to death. In just about every episode after Bushwacked, anytime there was an unexplained bump or a scary music cue, I expected Reavers to descend.

Example: In Out of Gas, after everyone else is gone and Mal falls asleep in Wash's seat on the bridge, there's a jumpy bit of music as the other ship pulls up. And I thought, "Not Reavers on top of everything else!"

Reavers, they scare me even when they're no where in the episode!

I sort of agree with this, but I take a slightly less charitable view. I think we never really saw them because, if we did, we'd realize how scary they weren't.

I know exactly what you mean. We should never have seen them. It's the only thing that really bugs me about Serenity. Other than the nothing that happens to Wash. The scariest monsters come from your own imagination and that's where the Reavers needed to stay.

That, of course, would require an entirely different storyline for the movie, but I'd be fine with that, considering how peripheral half the characters were to it anyway. I think that, while what "Serenity" did with them was interesting, it pretty much killed them for future use. Sort of like Batman killing The Joker, The Penguin, etc as soon as he meets them in the films. Exciting climax, but bad series investment. My biggest problem with the movie Reavers was simply that there were too damned many of them. Come on, there are so many of them that there is no route to Miranda in the entire system that you can fly through without being within pissing distance of a hundred ships? Space is BIG.
And then, when they attack, where do 99 per cent of them go? Is only the first ship that lands allowed to disembark? Because, while River did indeed kill an absolutely ridiculous number of them, that was nowhere near a visible fraction of all the ones that must have been in all those ships. They don't seem to be much for small crews. Are there still thousands of Reaver ships out there? On the series, I assumed that the total number of Reaver ships was single digit. Made them more special somehow. Now, they're like generic ninjas that pop out and get killed by the hero in between plot points.
Unless The Alliance kills them. Which sort of undermines the whole "Government= Bad" theme. The Reavers were created accidentally by a very small branch. The secret was kept by a very small branch. Most of Mal's so-called enemies didn't even know Reavers OR Pax existed, and if they rush to eliminate the threat as soon as they learn of it (and The Operative even felt so bad about it that he gave ordders to let two wanted fugitives walk) then the whole premise of the series starts to get wobbly.
"What's it about?"
"A bunch of people on a spaceship."
"What do they do?"
"They fly around and work. You know, like delivering stuff."
"Are they part of some cool outlaw conspiracy, fighting a totalitarian futuristic government or something?"
"Well, not really. One time they had cows on the ship, though. And sometimes they meet people with accents."
It just isn't the same anymore. Unless it's supposed to be a tale of Mal growing up and learning that the world isn't as black and white as he once thought. After all, the show got so much better when Buffy, grew up, didn't it? That was my sarcastic voice.

I must admit it crossed my mind when they first showed it on the Coretex. It would only really make any kind of sense if Miranda was right on the edge of the black, and going round takes too long, or is difficult for another reason. Maybe some pesky Tholians or something.



I assumed the majority was fighting in the air above. Bit like Endor - huge great big Empire but still beaten by a bunch of rubbish teddy bears.



I thought more than single digits but not huge numbers more.



I don't know about wobbly. If anything, surely it potentially makes it more interesting? Mal believes absolutely the Alliance is bad but what if he's shown that sometimes they really do have the general populace's best interests at heart? There'd be a conflict there that would be interesting from the pov of character progression and development. Maybe that was why Book was there - an Alliance type who's not all bad (all though he's clearly very annoying) and I say Alliance because he's not always been a preacher.



Maybe I dreamt it but I sort of thought that was the point? They work, they happen to work in space and they sometimes bang up against a government they don't think much of. If it was government conspiracies I for one would get very bored. That sort of thing turned me right off the X-Files.



Yeah Buffy growing up was painful.... I think on the whole though Mal is well aware the world isn't black and white. He only gets those blinkers when he deals with the Alliance.

I think that as long as both he and many Alliance people have those blinders toward each other, yet we are continuously led to believe that his viewpoint is still far too often correct, you've got a more interesting hero than if he just takes straight, normal jobs that the government approves of, but I can feel this drifting off topic before I've even begun to elaborate, so I'll fast-forward to something more relevant.
What if they find a Pax cure? This started out as an ethical question, along the lines of: "If a drug makes them evil, and then another drug can make them normal again, is it ethical to punish them for what they did while mad?" But then I started thinking about the problem of how the hell one would deliver the drug in the first place to large numbers of people trying to kill their saviors. Then I realized that was actually an interesting puzzle in its own right.
Let's say word is out, and high profile people, perhaps who had loved ones on Miranda that they'd been told were involved in secret research or something like that to shut them up, are screaming for these poor victims to be helped. The government comes up with a Pax neutralizer. It doesn't even have to be "Bam! You're cured!" It could more plausibly be something that is given to patients who are also undergoing some very deep emotional therapy. But you've still got to catch 'em and knock 'em out in the first place.
I think the government would kill them all, apologize, and move on. Use tried and true distraction techniques to reap the advantages of the public's short memory. But if they did try, then how would they capture them? The odds of River being there with a big wooden mallet in each hand when they land are extraordinarily slim. Hell, even the odds of a group of crack taser-snipers or whatever the futuristic stungunner term is being in the right place are terrible. So, is there even a potential solution, for some of them?

I believe an important point is to see the Reavers place in a western setting; Indians.

Indians roamed fairly randomly slaughtering most who got in their way, enslaving some and leaving a few untouched.

The Mirandan's would not be harmed by the Reaver's as they are family. In the way the Cheyenne families were massacred in 1864 at Sand Creek setting off a series of wars stretching to Wounded Knee 1890. The Reavers lashed out at those who caused their families to die.

I think maybe you'll find that some people would find it faaiirly unacceptable (unbelievably racist, perhaps?) to liken a race of people to horrific fictional monsters.
I'm fairly certain that Joss would not have had that in mind when writing the series.

Nothing like debating in the arena of ideas by implying the other guy is a racist and then presuming to speak ex catheda for someone whom I don't even know if you've even met him.

Well, in this case, Easterner, I don't think that helgecko was calling you personally racist. Just that the idea that the diverse Native American tribes that existed on the plains before America was discovered is in any way comparable to a group of humanoid creatures who revel in killing, raping, and wearing the skins of those they slaughtered; who attack without reason and who have no such feelings of sympathy or empathy, or any sort of intellectual reasoning or philosophy to guide them is more than a little suspect. The show and the movie both made it very clear that Reavers are not a race of people but either men (like Mal and his crew) who went to the edge of the universe and went insane from the nothingness -in that sense, more comparable to stories about ships sailing off the edge of the world and taking crews who could be any other but for the grace of God- or people who are also just like Mal and his crew who were manipulated and changed by the government into something dark and twisted and beyond the very evils that are possessed by humanity.

The Reavers in both cases are examples of very important things, but there is nothing to suggest they are in any way like Indians. There is nothing to suggest, for example, that:

The Reavers, it seems, would either not care or not be able to tell if a person were a blood relative. They would kill them regardless, because the government made them hyper-aggressive until every other vestige of humanity had been purged from them.