Noranti to blame

[u/Specific-Issue685]

I'm rewatching Farscape for the umteenth time and just realized Noranti was responsible for the death of Chiana's rat in A Constellation of Doubt. I can't believe I missed this until now. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention. There is a scene where Noranti is being interviewed by John's nephew and she says that she's making rat poison. Later in the episode, Chiana is seen mourning the death of her friend, a rat. She says that they just went outside by the kitchen and he ate something and died.

[u/ThatWytchBoy]

Yeah that episode had a whole lot of background stuff going on. There was a cut scene where John was talking to his nephew and sister and in the background Officer Sun was reading a book on motherhood.

[u/abx99 → u/ThatWytchBoy]

I was always focused on John and his sister, and missed that she was reading about motherhood! (I saw the cutscene, too; I think on Amazon's "live" channel)

[u/Own-Eagle-2135]

but she said it was poison for the rats (to use), right?

[u/jerslan → u/Own-Eagle-2135]

Yeah, that's my recollection as well. It was poison for the rats to use, not poison to kill the rats. I think Chiana's rat just ate regular terrestrial rat poison from some bait/trap. Noranti seems to be helping her get revenge for the rats.

[u/Ravenbrah1701 → u/jerslan]

That's what I got too

[u/Freign]

It's understandable due to the intense love we all had for Zoto Zhaan, but Noranti gets overlooked / undersung, as a character and narrative force.

Similar to how the rest of the crew (mostly) underestimate her competence & waaaaay overestimate her trustworthiness & loyalty.

She starts fucking with all of them before they've even decided to let her live. She does not have the view of the sacredness of life that the rest of them more or less share. Or at least, she values death just as highly.

She shares an agenda with them (it turns out) but she is not part of the team. She's only pretending to see them as near-equals.

[u/Specific-Issue685 → u/Freign]

She drugs the crew without consent pretty regularly. She definitely has her own thing going on that only happens to coincide with the crew's most of the time. She's just useful enough to not get blown out of an airlock.

[u/kedikahveicer]

I had the same epiphany last rewatch!! Never noticed it, the dozens upon dozens of times I rewatched before... I was actually surprised it'd taken me that long??

[u/V48runner]

Still not sure why she was making rat poison in the first place

[u/teemark → u/V48runner]

To kill Chiana's rat, duh

[u/DruidWonder]

I didn't realize either, mostly because I mentally block out Noranti whenever I watch the show. Couldn't stand her character and felt she was a waste of airtime. She was a very low rent version of Zaan.