It says quite clearly in the first bullet point of the description (relevant portion in bold);
- Not act (or at least it must not be supposed to act) without explicit instructions from its handler beyond a normal routine. This usually entails something with animal level intelligence which can be trained to obey. Sapient creatures can count if they still fit this criteria (that is they're forced to obey, choosing to because of Undying Loyalty or because they're being paid isn't an example).
I'm not sure I really understand your point. River Tam is far from the only human listed on the page and the Firefly example (along with a few of the others) have been on the page since it was YKTTW'd.
Edited by 79.79.196.241 TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer
Sapient CREATURES. Not humans. If there are other human examples listed then I missed them, but they probably shouldn't be there either; they should be under Battle Thralls and/or any number of Mind Control tropes.
You could make the argument that humans could count if they're explicitly treated like or referred to as animals (a la da'mane in the Wheel of Time books), but that is not the case with River Tam.
We don't have a full picture of how she was "supposed" to operate in combat before her brother rescued her, but she seems to have been trained as a mind controlled assassin capable of operating independently, which contradicts "Not act (or at least it must not be supposed to act) without explicit instructions from its handler beyond a normal routine."
Edited by 159.233.220.86
Contested example;
Original edit reason given for removal;
Counter argument;
Response;
The description says nothing about humans, brainwashed, indoctrinated, or otherwise. It ALWAYS uses words like "creature," "animal," "beast," etc. You could make an argument that she's a Battle Thrall, but certainly not this trope. No matter what's been done to her, she is certainly NOT an animal.
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