Buffy season 2
Jul. 8th, 2015 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI'm now up to Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.
That's a real low point for Xander, even compared to Hyena time.
I haven't had much to say about most episodes, again, because well chewed over. Surprise/Innocence, that guy who seemed really nice changes as soon as he gets what he wants. Phases, body hair and going through changes. The subtle, it is lacking, but the story is cool.
Also whenever Oz is around I'm pretty much just going :-D and <3 <3 <3
But BB&B... I kind of hate the ending. Kind of a lot.
Okay, so, there's a theme of abusive relationships, a tour of sorts of bad relationships, and then there's a whole forgiveness bit because everyone keeps screwing up and testing the limits on what is reasonable to forgive. Lies all everywhere that come back to bite people, Oz accidentally turning into a threat, comparison with Angel accidentally turning into a threat but he doesn't get to turn back. When do you forgive people? When they learn the error of their ways and honestly wouldn't do it again. When is there nothing to forgive? When it was on accident anyway. But sometimes it's on accident but they remain dangerous, and then what? Well, so far, lots of talking up how he's so different, and him going killing people.
And that's all tangled with the abusive relationship stuff, because knowing when to quit him is a key life skill. Er, usually a long time before the dead people.
So Xander gets dumped, and he decides the appropriate response is to change her mind with magic, which gets compared to 'the great roofie spirit' ie drugs/alcohol. And then it goes wrong for him and there's embarrassment followed by violence. He learns the error of his ways, boy howdy does he.
Except what error does he learn? Magic bad?
There's the thing where Buffy is in the raincoat and Xander says no, because it would be taking advantage. And yeah, it really really would, to the point there's a whole other word for it. But then at the end Buffy is all wow you didn't take advantage yaay you. Which actually creeps me out because she's basically thanking him for only drugging and not raping her? Like, that's minimum requirements. No, wait, that's already failed minimum standards, but the whole ongoing not sexually assaulting people is supposed to be baseline. In no world should he be thanked for that, or get any karma for it.
And yet the very end of the episode? He gets Cordelia back.
Why???
Because he could have been more of a creep, so that's okay???
No.
I can see why Cordelia would go there, in the whole saga of unhealthy relationships that is her life. Her history is dead people, rich people who turned out to want to sacrifice her to demons, dead guys who wanted to kill her, and Xander who calls her all kinds of rude names but actually sometimes saves her life. If she has low expectations, Xander must look new and different. Because everyone else just wanted her for her body, and now Xander wants her for her body and defends her sometimes. Wow, step up.
... so basically I feel someone needs to talk to Cordelia about standards and self respect, odd though that might seem for homecoming queen self centred girl. Because a guy you fancy who says only bad things at you? Still bad.
He did say that maybe they see something in each other. Like he was trying to be less of a jerk. But again, he still hasn't met baseline requirements. Baseline would be being neutral to someone. Dating kind of ought to require being good to them.
So Xander/Cordelia is there being this messed up no good relationship, far as I can see, with the recurring references to raging hormones and how they actually hate each other, and then Xander trying to magic her for revenge, and this would be a good point for her to dump him a lot.
But she doesn't.
She gets the empowering 'I can date whoever I want, however much of a loser they are' speech. And because all her friends are judging him on social class, there's no one to have the speech about how he should treat her better. :-/
Even if Xander learns valuable lessons from this particular screw up, he really ought to have to prove it first. Like, this way around, it goes straight from Buffy's speech about how he didn't take advantage to Cordelia taking him back, and it seems like a reward for stuff that is really absolutely legally required basics.
So I do not like it.
That's a real low point for Xander, even compared to Hyena time.
I haven't had much to say about most episodes, again, because well chewed over. Surprise/Innocence, that guy who seemed really nice changes as soon as he gets what he wants. Phases, body hair and going through changes. The subtle, it is lacking, but the story is cool.
Also whenever Oz is around I'm pretty much just going :-D and <3 <3 <3
But BB&B... I kind of hate the ending. Kind of a lot.
Okay, so, there's a theme of abusive relationships, a tour of sorts of bad relationships, and then there's a whole forgiveness bit because everyone keeps screwing up and testing the limits on what is reasonable to forgive. Lies all everywhere that come back to bite people, Oz accidentally turning into a threat, comparison with Angel accidentally turning into a threat but he doesn't get to turn back. When do you forgive people? When they learn the error of their ways and honestly wouldn't do it again. When is there nothing to forgive? When it was on accident anyway. But sometimes it's on accident but they remain dangerous, and then what? Well, so far, lots of talking up how he's so different, and him going killing people.
And that's all tangled with the abusive relationship stuff, because knowing when to quit him is a key life skill. Er, usually a long time before the dead people.
So Xander gets dumped, and he decides the appropriate response is to change her mind with magic, which gets compared to 'the great roofie spirit' ie drugs/alcohol. And then it goes wrong for him and there's embarrassment followed by violence. He learns the error of his ways, boy howdy does he.
Except what error does he learn? Magic bad?
There's the thing where Buffy is in the raincoat and Xander says no, because it would be taking advantage. And yeah, it really really would, to the point there's a whole other word for it. But then at the end Buffy is all wow you didn't take advantage yaay you. Which actually creeps me out because she's basically thanking him for only drugging and not raping her? Like, that's minimum requirements. No, wait, that's already failed minimum standards, but the whole ongoing not sexually assaulting people is supposed to be baseline. In no world should he be thanked for that, or get any karma for it.
And yet the very end of the episode? He gets Cordelia back.
Why???
Because he could have been more of a creep, so that's okay???
No.
I can see why Cordelia would go there, in the whole saga of unhealthy relationships that is her life. Her history is dead people, rich people who turned out to want to sacrifice her to demons, dead guys who wanted to kill her, and Xander who calls her all kinds of rude names but actually sometimes saves her life. If she has low expectations, Xander must look new and different. Because everyone else just wanted her for her body, and now Xander wants her for her body and defends her sometimes. Wow, step up.
... so basically I feel someone needs to talk to Cordelia about standards and self respect, odd though that might seem for homecoming queen self centred girl. Because a guy you fancy who says only bad things at you? Still bad.
He did say that maybe they see something in each other. Like he was trying to be less of a jerk. But again, he still hasn't met baseline requirements. Baseline would be being neutral to someone. Dating kind of ought to require being good to them.
So Xander/Cordelia is there being this messed up no good relationship, far as I can see, with the recurring references to raging hormones and how they actually hate each other, and then Xander trying to magic her for revenge, and this would be a good point for her to dump him a lot.
But she doesn't.
She gets the empowering 'I can date whoever I want, however much of a loser they are' speech. And because all her friends are judging him on social class, there's no one to have the speech about how he should treat her better. :-/
Even if Xander learns valuable lessons from this particular screw up, he really ought to have to prove it first. Like, this way around, it goes straight from Buffy's speech about how he didn't take advantage to Cordelia taking him back, and it seems like a reward for stuff that is really absolutely legally required basics.
So I do not like it.
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no subject
Date: 2015-07-13 08:54 pm (UTC)I mean I don't really want to go back to those dark days. Better to have knowledge than not. Just that it does narrow my possible consumed media to just about nothing at all.
*You'd think they'd just make media that isn't creepy and rapey, but that's not happening just yet.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-14 11:39 am (UTC)the more I see of Xander, the less I like him. It's a problem.
trying to avoid creepy rapey media is why I've been watching a lot of U rated cartoons. Sadly it's not a perfect fix...
no subject
Date: 2015-07-14 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-14 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-15 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-10 12:29 pm (UTC)And with the ending with Cordelia, it seemed like Cordy was flattered mostly because she misunderstood what Xander was doing? This would probably have been even creepier though, so you still have to side-eye her lol, but she seemed to take the spell being for her as in Xander wanting a love spell performed so that she would be unable to resist getting back together? Xander never actually tells her that his true intent was for her to suffer and be humiliated for breaking up with him, so her reaction was very much an awed "the spell was for me" when Xander is grumbling about the love potion not having any affect on her, she seemed to take it as proof of Xander being desperate to win her back
no subject
Date: 2015-07-14 11:44 am (UTC)and yeah, it was played like it was about Xander feeeeeelings. :eyeroll:
That read on Cordelia makes a lot more sense. If she thought Xander was so in love he did the spell so she'd feel the same way, rather than feeling so dumped he did the spell so she'd feel the same way.
I just finished watching The Wish yesterday, so that's the whole Xander/Cordelia relationship, and honestly it seems like Xander really liked the idea of having a girlfriend and doing sexy things with her, and Cordelia for a while liked Xander. She lost a lot of social standing and people treated her poorly about the relationship, like she expected, but she went there anyway. And then she finds out Xander was cheating on her and she's actually hurt and upset. Xander was just, like, angry she took his toys away.
So I'm not really liking Xander much at all.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-14 01:25 pm (UTC)And then later on he clearly did feel bad about Cordelia getting injured in Lover's Walk after seeing him with Willow, but in the very next episode he's urging Willow to move on from feeling guilty, he hardly seemed broken-up about it and determined to win Cordelia back in the way that say Willow was towards Oz. He made one gesture to win Cordelia over with flowers at the hospital, and that was it apparently?