Buffy season 6 up to Tabula Rasa
Aug. 18th, 2015 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethYou know the most frustrating thing about the magic addiction storyline is that up until Tabula Rasa it's pretty much perfect. Going way back to college Willow getting cranky at Oz for worrying she's getting in too deep, and initially noticing Tara's magic not Tara, Willow has been all for using magic and hasn't had a lot of time for noticing the drawbacks, however clearly articulated. Her answer to 'what if something goes wrong' has always been 'it won't'. She's powerful, she's smart, she knows more than anyone around her. And her little setback with the accidental vengeance? She's over it. Full speed ahead again.
Willow has no underlying belief system guiding her use of magic, or perhaps she does and she's simply at the top of it. She listens to no advice and answers to no higher power. She pretty much bullies gods.
It's a problem, the exact problem Tara points out, where Willow is just rearranging the world to suit herself. By Tabula Rasa she's demonstrated that in large ways and small, and her magic use has left its worries behind, which is greatly unwise since the risks remain.
Willow has consistently used magic to try and get rid of her own bad feelings. When she says she's sorry she only means she feels bad. The moment people stop being mad at her? The whole thing goes away for her. The problem is the bad reactions, not whatever she's 'sorry' about in the first place. No repentance, no learning, digging herself in deeper year on year.
Until mind control to get her lover back to snuggling seems like a good idea.
What Willow does is very nearly as creepy as what Warren will do. Tara has more of her own expressions and can have new thoughts, including doubt, fear, rage, disgust, and ending up at the exact same argument she was having before the mindwipe. Because the underlying problems remain, and Tara retains enough self, first time around, to notice that. So it's not Warren turning his ex into an automaton. But it's too damn close, and way over the line.
I'm really proud of Tara for walking away. She had an abusive family who tried to persuade her that she was evil and wrong, and it would be really easy to go from that to another abusive relationship, especially when her only new family are Willow's friends. But the writers didn't go there, thankfully. Tara stood up for herself, made it clear what the problem was, and set a reasonable goal. One week without magic.
And Willow decided it was much easier to just change other people that change herself.
Consistent. Reasonable problem for a magic user who always refers to things as a 'little' spell, even if they involve shifting everyone to another dimension. Everything she does is only little, so why fuss?
What she does to Buffy, not so little. And once again her fix is to change Buffy to be someone more like Willow needs her to be. She's not sorry, she just wants the bad feelings gone.
So Willow is using magic to feel good, which is a problem, and one with clear parallels to addictions like gambling or sex*, which involve using others, as well as substance abuse.
*(I know very little about these addictions, including if addiction is really the right word. abuse certainly can be.)
Where this story goes wrong? Is when it plunks down on substance abuse as the relevant sort.
When Tara tells Willow that for instance party decorations aren't what magic is for, when she says that Willow's first resort is magic without even thinking about it, if you compare magic to technology then that's pretty reasonable. I mean, if it's as simple as changing a desktop theme, why not?
But if it's ordering spirits around, telling gods what to do, and not incidentally rearranging the lives of everyone it touches, well, that's a pretty big why not. I mean you wouldn't even change someone else's desktop wallpaper without permission, because rude. Changing their universe? Er, slightly beyond rude. Rearranging reality to suit a whim would therefore be a problem. But the biggest problem is seeing people as objects to be pushed around and rewritten. Convenient admiring girlfriend becomes concerned girlfriend? Rollback to previous version!
... at which point, evil.
And the series isn't really good at articulating what precisely is evil here, because it goes down the substance abuse rabbit hole and makes it all about how it's messing Willow up.
Which is really rude to the wiccans they keep namechecking, the real life witches who use magic as religion.
But, that part hasn't happened yet this rewatch. Just Tabula Rasa.
Which this time was less funny.
Actually first there was Once More With Feeling, which I listened to this time mostly noticing the wobbly accents and how American it sounds. I know, weird, but I've been watching little TV and that often with the sound off, American is not what I usually listen to, so I keep actively noticing it.
Giles across these episodes... it's the point where he's most explicitly compared to a parent. Buffy compares him to her mum, because he's not the absentee dad who hasn't returned their calls since Dawn arrived. (You've got to wonder if he's even included in the spell.) Giles counters with 'rakish uncle'. And then in Tabula Rasa he and Spike conclude on their rather scant evidence (like the suit from the dream in Restless) that Giles is Spike's father, which I find somewhat hilarious given their relative ages but this being US TV we're probably not meant to see that. He's awkward around Spike like he sometimes is with Xander, but he does try. Plus there's Anya, mistaken fiancee. So polite in the face of such bad decisions. And then kisses.
And then he wakes up.
It's not funny this time, it's really sad.
Because he wakes up to a life with no son, no lover, and his deep seated conviction he's actually more of a problem than a solution to the people he loves most.
Giles needs a hug super badly.
Also I always notice now the statue of Janus that appears in the shop for this episode. It's above Giles a couple times. It's probably there to be the insides-to-outsides guy, the masks and selves symbol, but for Giles that's a huge great road not taken.
What does he really have? Money he doesn't seem to want, books he's leaving behind, and a tendency to get hit on the head a lot. People he cares about who see him as... someone to lean on, sure, but a father figure, a whole different generation, not a connection like they have with each other.
Giles gets evaluated as a father figure and found wanting.
But he's not their father. He's not even their teacher any more. He's a guy who went back to his own life, and got called back in. As a parallel to Buffy's situation, he's a guy who was finished, done, gone home, and finding new connections (though he jokes about it, finding an actual friend would be new to him after rather a long while in Sunnydale disconnected). He's also a guy who came back as soon as he was called. And he's going home again, but the song spell that made them all sing true things says 'wish I could stay'. So he's not going home to be happy and done, he's just leaving because he thinks he's a problem, 'standing in your way'.
:-(
As local representative of patriarchy his lot is not a happy one. But as patriarch he's rather failed at basic requirement the first. Nobody's father.
It's pretty miserable.
Also I don't think it's the most interesting story they could have told. I know, Giles/Ethan shipper, that's not likely to have been their focus, like, ever. I just... it would be such an easy link to draw. It's right there in the statue and in 'Randy' being an old name, because yes, Randall who died of demon. And Willow and Tara breaking up because of misuse of magic is, to the G/E reading, just like Giles went through once, though he was probably Tara. Only probably though. His family certainly thought he was abusing magic. Wait, that's Tara too. The layers of parallel would be why them sharing a song makes sense. The subtext is rich. But the text never goes there.
It's also vastly frustrating to me that a story about a woman finding her power and saving the world (a lot) is, repeatedly, a story about men feeling and in fact being useless, weak, knocked on the head a lot, standing in the way, unemployed because she doesn't need him any more. It's like... like when I've heard pitches for Supergirl stories that start 'Superman's off planet, because if Superman is around you don't need Supergirl'. Or it's like every paranoid nightmare of inverting the patriarchy. Women using their own power doesn't mean men are suddenly powerless, far from it. They don't need to be got out of the way to leave room for women to shine. If Giles was always the badass we know he can be that would make Buffy shine the brighter when he still needs her.
It's right up there with my frustration that Buffy might have power but she's portrayed thus far as wanting mostly 'to be like other girls'. The hell? Actually liking your power seems to be a symbol of badness, even when actually, everyone has power, like that one and only episode the whole school worked together. Power isn't something you have to be miserable about, just careful with.
Aaaand we've looped back to the other reason the magic addiction plot kind of sucks.
Because this girl power fantasy we've been watching really has a problem with women having power.
It's not cool.
Spike... if Spike is meant to be the bad boyfriend, at this point, I'm not seeing it. Buffy's the bad girlfriend, cause she's using him. 'this isn't real but I just want to feel'. Fair enough in some ways, interesting dive into depression and recovery, neat story, would kind of prefer it if it had more around it where women just, you know, rule. But it's a good story and it makes me cry in the right places and I've often needed to hear that little bit where Spike stops her dancing. Life isn't bliss. You have to go on living. Hardest thing in this world is to live in it.
And Spike's the only one who offers her what she needs right then. Everyone else is busy feeling guilty. ... Spike isn't big on the capacity for guilt, so that works out.
Spike's the one there reaching out, though he's also the one pushing away because he doesn't want to be played with. So Buffy stops playing... sort of.
The kiss with the rising music and the rising... music. :-)
I know Buffy's messed up right then. But the only thing I can see wrong with how Spike's been acting since Buffy died is the bit where he'll let Buffy have alcohol, and that was a one off that she got thoroughly sick from and got over. Can't decide in my own head if he'd have encouraged her to keep getting drunk. Don't reckon he would, because he didn't exactly take advantage and he seemed to be trying to help in logical to him ways. But, don't know. Still, she comes to him over and over, and he tries to do what she asks and be what she needs. I am not seeing the problem with that.
Up to Tabula Rasa. They put another twist on it in a minute.
That moment in Tabula Rasa when they get their memories back and Buffy just bluescreens... wow that's painful. All the hugs for her. That... ow.
Xander and his ongoing petrification about marriage yet lack of backing down ... The main reason I don't believe he summoned teh dancing demon is that Dawn says she didn't do it and then immediately lies about how she got the necklace. When they're singing it's truth, when talking, not so much. It seems like a signal Dawn is lying that she doesn't deny the summoning in the song, she just says it's illegal and her sister's the Slayer. She only denies it when she gets her capacity to lie back. So then Xander sticking his hand up... it's kinda plausible, but it makes more sense as heroism? I mean, he's done magic before when he had big feelings going on, but trying it alone and summoning a demon would be new. Plus he never sang about it, while singing about 'I'll never tell'. The only flip side is if he read a bad translation involving a marriage to a demon, well, he's... doing that. 'Am I marrying a demon' is in the song. So maybe. But it don't seem to be saying that. Because lies.
Xander is a very believable idiot to an extent that makes him a jerk. He's really, really trying though. Bringing up his past history of utter datelessness at his engagement party kind of... undermines the idea this is a love match? Maybe? I mean, he's scared and desperate about something, maybe it's both things at once, marriage and being alone.
And this is the story about a guy growing up? Finding a woman textually rendered powerless and hoping she doesn't think he's too useless or ordinary?
The frustration is back.
I like Spike. He's on a really interesting trajectory about rejecting evil and remaking himself. It's just that seems to have been rather on accident and involve readings counter to what writers have said about him?
It's a lot of interesting layers of story going on.
Willow has no underlying belief system guiding her use of magic, or perhaps she does and she's simply at the top of it. She listens to no advice and answers to no higher power. She pretty much bullies gods.
It's a problem, the exact problem Tara points out, where Willow is just rearranging the world to suit herself. By Tabula Rasa she's demonstrated that in large ways and small, and her magic use has left its worries behind, which is greatly unwise since the risks remain.
Willow has consistently used magic to try and get rid of her own bad feelings. When she says she's sorry she only means she feels bad. The moment people stop being mad at her? The whole thing goes away for her. The problem is the bad reactions, not whatever she's 'sorry' about in the first place. No repentance, no learning, digging herself in deeper year on year.
Until mind control to get her lover back to snuggling seems like a good idea.
What Willow does is very nearly as creepy as what Warren will do. Tara has more of her own expressions and can have new thoughts, including doubt, fear, rage, disgust, and ending up at the exact same argument she was having before the mindwipe. Because the underlying problems remain, and Tara retains enough self, first time around, to notice that. So it's not Warren turning his ex into an automaton. But it's too damn close, and way over the line.
I'm really proud of Tara for walking away. She had an abusive family who tried to persuade her that she was evil and wrong, and it would be really easy to go from that to another abusive relationship, especially when her only new family are Willow's friends. But the writers didn't go there, thankfully. Tara stood up for herself, made it clear what the problem was, and set a reasonable goal. One week without magic.
And Willow decided it was much easier to just change other people that change herself.
Consistent. Reasonable problem for a magic user who always refers to things as a 'little' spell, even if they involve shifting everyone to another dimension. Everything she does is only little, so why fuss?
What she does to Buffy, not so little. And once again her fix is to change Buffy to be someone more like Willow needs her to be. She's not sorry, she just wants the bad feelings gone.
So Willow is using magic to feel good, which is a problem, and one with clear parallels to addictions like gambling or sex*, which involve using others, as well as substance abuse.
*(I know very little about these addictions, including if addiction is really the right word. abuse certainly can be.)
Where this story goes wrong? Is when it plunks down on substance abuse as the relevant sort.
When Tara tells Willow that for instance party decorations aren't what magic is for, when she says that Willow's first resort is magic without even thinking about it, if you compare magic to technology then that's pretty reasonable. I mean, if it's as simple as changing a desktop theme, why not?
But if it's ordering spirits around, telling gods what to do, and not incidentally rearranging the lives of everyone it touches, well, that's a pretty big why not. I mean you wouldn't even change someone else's desktop wallpaper without permission, because rude. Changing their universe? Er, slightly beyond rude. Rearranging reality to suit a whim would therefore be a problem. But the biggest problem is seeing people as objects to be pushed around and rewritten. Convenient admiring girlfriend becomes concerned girlfriend? Rollback to previous version!
... at which point, evil.
And the series isn't really good at articulating what precisely is evil here, because it goes down the substance abuse rabbit hole and makes it all about how it's messing Willow up.
Which is really rude to the wiccans they keep namechecking, the real life witches who use magic as religion.
But, that part hasn't happened yet this rewatch. Just Tabula Rasa.
Which this time was less funny.
Actually first there was Once More With Feeling, which I listened to this time mostly noticing the wobbly accents and how American it sounds. I know, weird, but I've been watching little TV and that often with the sound off, American is not what I usually listen to, so I keep actively noticing it.
Giles across these episodes... it's the point where he's most explicitly compared to a parent. Buffy compares him to her mum, because he's not the absentee dad who hasn't returned their calls since Dawn arrived. (You've got to wonder if he's even included in the spell.) Giles counters with 'rakish uncle'. And then in Tabula Rasa he and Spike conclude on their rather scant evidence (like the suit from the dream in Restless) that Giles is Spike's father, which I find somewhat hilarious given their relative ages but this being US TV we're probably not meant to see that. He's awkward around Spike like he sometimes is with Xander, but he does try. Plus there's Anya, mistaken fiancee. So polite in the face of such bad decisions. And then kisses.
And then he wakes up.
It's not funny this time, it's really sad.
Because he wakes up to a life with no son, no lover, and his deep seated conviction he's actually more of a problem than a solution to the people he loves most.
Giles needs a hug super badly.
Also I always notice now the statue of Janus that appears in the shop for this episode. It's above Giles a couple times. It's probably there to be the insides-to-outsides guy, the masks and selves symbol, but for Giles that's a huge great road not taken.
What does he really have? Money he doesn't seem to want, books he's leaving behind, and a tendency to get hit on the head a lot. People he cares about who see him as... someone to lean on, sure, but a father figure, a whole different generation, not a connection like they have with each other.
Giles gets evaluated as a father figure and found wanting.
But he's not their father. He's not even their teacher any more. He's a guy who went back to his own life, and got called back in. As a parallel to Buffy's situation, he's a guy who was finished, done, gone home, and finding new connections (though he jokes about it, finding an actual friend would be new to him after rather a long while in Sunnydale disconnected). He's also a guy who came back as soon as he was called. And he's going home again, but the song spell that made them all sing true things says 'wish I could stay'. So he's not going home to be happy and done, he's just leaving because he thinks he's a problem, 'standing in your way'.
:-(
As local representative of patriarchy his lot is not a happy one. But as patriarch he's rather failed at basic requirement the first. Nobody's father.
It's pretty miserable.
Also I don't think it's the most interesting story they could have told. I know, Giles/Ethan shipper, that's not likely to have been their focus, like, ever. I just... it would be such an easy link to draw. It's right there in the statue and in 'Randy' being an old name, because yes, Randall who died of demon. And Willow and Tara breaking up because of misuse of magic is, to the G/E reading, just like Giles went through once, though he was probably Tara. Only probably though. His family certainly thought he was abusing magic. Wait, that's Tara too. The layers of parallel would be why them sharing a song makes sense. The subtext is rich. But the text never goes there.
It's also vastly frustrating to me that a story about a woman finding her power and saving the world (a lot) is, repeatedly, a story about men feeling and in fact being useless, weak, knocked on the head a lot, standing in the way, unemployed because she doesn't need him any more. It's like... like when I've heard pitches for Supergirl stories that start 'Superman's off planet, because if Superman is around you don't need Supergirl'. Or it's like every paranoid nightmare of inverting the patriarchy. Women using their own power doesn't mean men are suddenly powerless, far from it. They don't need to be got out of the way to leave room for women to shine. If Giles was always the badass we know he can be that would make Buffy shine the brighter when he still needs her.
It's right up there with my frustration that Buffy might have power but she's portrayed thus far as wanting mostly 'to be like other girls'. The hell? Actually liking your power seems to be a symbol of badness, even when actually, everyone has power, like that one and only episode the whole school worked together. Power isn't something you have to be miserable about, just careful with.
Aaaand we've looped back to the other reason the magic addiction plot kind of sucks.
Because this girl power fantasy we've been watching really has a problem with women having power.
It's not cool.
Spike... if Spike is meant to be the bad boyfriend, at this point, I'm not seeing it. Buffy's the bad girlfriend, cause she's using him. 'this isn't real but I just want to feel'. Fair enough in some ways, interesting dive into depression and recovery, neat story, would kind of prefer it if it had more around it where women just, you know, rule. But it's a good story and it makes me cry in the right places and I've often needed to hear that little bit where Spike stops her dancing. Life isn't bliss. You have to go on living. Hardest thing in this world is to live in it.
And Spike's the only one who offers her what she needs right then. Everyone else is busy feeling guilty. ... Spike isn't big on the capacity for guilt, so that works out.
Spike's the one there reaching out, though he's also the one pushing away because he doesn't want to be played with. So Buffy stops playing... sort of.
The kiss with the rising music and the rising... music. :-)
I know Buffy's messed up right then. But the only thing I can see wrong with how Spike's been acting since Buffy died is the bit where he'll let Buffy have alcohol, and that was a one off that she got thoroughly sick from and got over. Can't decide in my own head if he'd have encouraged her to keep getting drunk. Don't reckon he would, because he didn't exactly take advantage and he seemed to be trying to help in logical to him ways. But, don't know. Still, she comes to him over and over, and he tries to do what she asks and be what she needs. I am not seeing the problem with that.
Up to Tabula Rasa. They put another twist on it in a minute.
That moment in Tabula Rasa when they get their memories back and Buffy just bluescreens... wow that's painful. All the hugs for her. That... ow.
Xander and his ongoing petrification about marriage yet lack of backing down ... The main reason I don't believe he summoned teh dancing demon is that Dawn says she didn't do it and then immediately lies about how she got the necklace. When they're singing it's truth, when talking, not so much. It seems like a signal Dawn is lying that she doesn't deny the summoning in the song, she just says it's illegal and her sister's the Slayer. She only denies it when she gets her capacity to lie back. So then Xander sticking his hand up... it's kinda plausible, but it makes more sense as heroism? I mean, he's done magic before when he had big feelings going on, but trying it alone and summoning a demon would be new. Plus he never sang about it, while singing about 'I'll never tell'. The only flip side is if he read a bad translation involving a marriage to a demon, well, he's... doing that. 'Am I marrying a demon' is in the song. So maybe. But it don't seem to be saying that. Because lies.
Xander is a very believable idiot to an extent that makes him a jerk. He's really, really trying though. Bringing up his past history of utter datelessness at his engagement party kind of... undermines the idea this is a love match? Maybe? I mean, he's scared and desperate about something, maybe it's both things at once, marriage and being alone.
And this is the story about a guy growing up? Finding a woman textually rendered powerless and hoping she doesn't think he's too useless or ordinary?
The frustration is back.
I like Spike. He's on a really interesting trajectory about rejecting evil and remaking himself. It's just that seems to have been rather on accident and involve readings counter to what writers have said about him?
It's a lot of interesting layers of story going on.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-19 02:35 pm (UTC)But the only thing I can see wrong with how Spike's been acting since Buffy died is the bit where he'll let Buffy have alcohol
Here's something that I've noticed, and please tell me if you think I'm way off base here: up until "Once More With Feeling" he does treat her exactly like you'd expect someone to treat a friend. And then in his song, he tells her how he really feels: he's spending all this time around her because he's still in love with her, and he hates it because she doesn't return his feelings. Much as I like that song (it's the only one I ever listen to outside the context of the episode), the more I listen to it the more it sounds like he's complaining about being friendzoned. Then when Buffy rejects his offer of help later at the magic box (understandable given what he's just told her) he gets mad and literally tells her to GDIAF. He goes to help her anyway, but for all that he's willing to pitch in with the heroics, he feelings for her are still more selfish than not, and at this point that's going to get worse before it gets better.
I like Spike. He's on a really interesting trajectory about rejecting evil and remaking himself. It's just that seems to have been rather on accident and involve readings counter to what writers have said about him?
Where do they say these things and where can I find them? I've only gotten involved in this fandom relatively recently, and I'd like to know things like this.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-28 03:13 pm (UTC)I agree that covering up for Dawn made more sense because that episode is filled with plot-holes as well as ignoring character-growth:
1) Xander did learn his lesson in BB&B. Remember in S3 when Willow wanted to do the de-lusting spell? Xander was against it. He said that he and magic were unmix-y. He didn't trust himself with magic then, why would he do now? And really, Xander doing magic? By himself? That's more Dawn, who did magic to resurrect her mother in S5 than Xander who never did magic without a witch's involvement.
2) Then as seen in the episode, people sing about the truth and aren't able to hide their feelings. Why didn't Xander sing about summoning Sweet then?
3) And please, if Xander did summon Sweet, why would he wait until the last minute to tell his friends? From BB&B, Xander when realizing that the spell had backfired, he went straight to Giles so that he could fix it. I mean, Xander knew people were burning to death! Of course he'd say something !
And the sad thing about Xander being chosen to summon Sweet was only for the "Does that mean I'm your queen?" joke. Nothing about Xander's character development.
Because when it mattered like Xander cheating on Cordelia and leaving Anya at the altar he did suffer the consequences because both women didn't give him a second chance - like Oz did with Willow.
I mean even small things like Xander sneaking into the frat house to "save" Buffy from the frat guys in S2 except he was in it to have fun and prove that he's as good as those guys, he suffered humiliation for his immaturity. Having people murdered because he meddled with magic should have gotten more attention than that.