Buffy season 6 and 7
Nov. 3rd, 2015 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI've had 'write about buffy season 6 and 7' on my to do list for long enough that I have, on the whole, forgotten what I was going to write. So, ticklist:
buffy
cruciamentum
dawn
not chosen
xander
'good times' love magic
willow
crossing the line
Spike
spiiiiiiiike
spike
Giles
nobody hugs?
male authority figures: principal, watcher, preacher
only 5 episodes of something to hit
the whole leadership popularity thing
... I'm sure there were thoughts to go with them at some point...
Buffy and Cruciamentum: when Buffy turned 18 the Watchers Council, specifically Giles, drugged her into losing her Slayer powers, so she was just a normal girl, and conspired to lock her in with a single vampire.
It was a transformative moment in her relationship with authority. It was a betrayal. And it very nearly got her killed.
Now Buffy is in charge of training Slayers, what does she do?
She takes a bunch of normal girls and locks them in with a single vampire.
So, okay, the key differences here would be that she hasn't taken anything away from them to make them normal, they just start out normal. And there's a bunch of them to one vampire. Later they tell the tale and winning was all about teamwork.
But still, this key moment in learning that adults are not always on her side, she duplicates it to train new Slayers.
And the justification is that she's showing them how strong they already are, but the 'it makes you a better Slayer' line was trotted out for her 18th too, and did not seem to convince.
Buffy training Slayers had a lot of telling them they already knew how. That was Buffy's experience as a Slayer, the dreams and the instincts added together to make her better with any weapon she picked up than Giles was after years of awake training. And that's a side of being the Slayer that they don't need to wait for, apparently.
(I think in that comic spin off the dreams got split off from the power on accident? Making a new and very different Slayer?)
The other thing Slayer training did with the yelling and calling someone a maggot, that part wasn't very well examined. Probably Kennedy hadn't consciously understood why the movies involve that kind of shouting. The idea is to break down the individual personality of the trainee and build them up again on spec as part of a group. The suffering is a big buy in that leaves them thinking the result must have been worth all that. Plus if it breaks them early on at least they won't break while being actively shot at. That's my understanding anyway. But what of that would apply to training Slayers? Do they really need their individual identities stripped off? Isn't it being individual, different from other Slayers, that made Buffy survive so long? And they don't have any choice about leaving if they break. You make them feel like their trainers are against them too, and lo, you get the result shown. Unhappy girls do not healthy Slayers make. Support and getting along with each other do.
Buffy's techniques put a division between her, boss lady who can shove them into bad situations, and the other Slayers, loyal sisters who have their backs. It kept them off balance and for a while made them more willing to listen to the one who seemed to know how to deal. But once they got a bit more collective confidence? That divide split wide open, and they pushed Buffy away.
It wasn't quite like when Buffy rejected the Council. She was annoyed at them on the basis that they were all orders and no fight. Can't say that of Buffy ever.
But it is the down side of being an authority figure when the allegiance that draws others to you is not in fact voluntary. As soon as they were presented a choice that wasn't just 'die alone or obey' they chose someone more fun.
Leadership as popularity contest. The kind of empty campaigning that makes people like you with sweet things they don't need? Not awesome. Party right before the vote, pretty empty. But Faith had a bunch of a point when she said Buffy should know their names. If there isn't enough of a connection there to keep them believing in her, snap, fault line breakage.
Dawn had a whole set of problems based on nobody paying enough attention to her needs, according to Dawn. And that would be for the reasonable reason of, you know, Sunnydale. And nicking stuff wasn't the most massively helpful way to deal with it.
Neither was wishing they wouldn't leave. Because then there was problem as soon as it became clear they actually wanted to. I mean, not wanting to be trapped, fairly reasonable, so Dawn's sulk on that occasion, not reasonable at all. But it was because stuff and things and cumulative problem. Dawn's life to date has been all losing people and learning not to trust people. Difficult to use that as a foundation for much.
I liked the episode where she thought just for a while that she was Chosen. Slayer power for the win. But Dawn was doing pretty well without the supposed Slayer instincts. So the whole actual study and training and smarts? At least equal to being near-Chosen.
Then Xander had that little speech about how the Chosen will never know how difficult it is not to be Chosen. Which, okay, yeah, but, well, outside of Sunnydale, that's everyone. I mean, people choose. And sometimes they choose each other, and that's cool, but that's not generally what Chosen means here. So you can translate it as not-famous or similar, but it doesn't have an RL exact equivalent. RL, it's just a whole bunch of people plugging along getting stuff done. All Council, no Slayer.
Still a cool speech.
The episode 'Him' with the jacket of crush? That... that was not a good thing. In general. That was not okay. I mean, he's the age they were in high school when the teacher hitting on the students was evidence of being a giant bug demon, and yet now, Buffy does it and it's funny? It's on the whole not funny all over.
Also Xander sighing and remembering the love spell of near tearing apart as 'good times'? Ugh. No. Very ugh.
I mean his only redeeming feature in that episode with the love spell originally was his going to Giles and just saying how bad he'd screwed up. He seemed to understand the screw up that was his. But being able to look back on it with fond nostalgia? That says he learned nothing.
I kind of thought he'd learned something.
The bit where Buffy saved Dawn and said how no boy was worth your life, that was a good bit. That was an excellent bit.
... that was the same girl talking who fed herself to her boyfriend.
Probably the significant difference is doing it for life saving, not just attention. That's a pretty big difference.
So it was a bunch of attempted funny and then a suicide attempt with a PSA speech. Tonally kind of... no.
I did like the way high school looked so different from their season 7 perspective. Dawn's all caught up with where they started, but that looks so much worse now, because how young to be in how much danger?
It does irritate me that the solution this time around was never 'tell the whole school and enlist their help'. I mean, for one glorious battle when it's people the protagonist's own age, they went there. And it got people killed, so that would be an in-universe reason not to do it again. But this year, they're telling young people all about the danger and getting them prepared to face it... but only if they're Chosen. Even Dawn's junior scoobies don't get the full scoop. And that... well, aside from being the logic underlying aristocracy and a number of eugenics movements, that's just not terribly useful when translated to the real world. Help and support each other! If sufficiently matching! Otherwise, well, kind of sad their head exploded, but hey, that's life on the hellmouth for you.
Buffy was doing her best, but her best did not include teaching everything she knew, so I object to it.
Setting up Sunnydale amnesia to pretend that wouldn't even work? Worldbuilding choice I hate.
Even if it is quite a lot like trying to explain racism and sexism and ablism over and over and over: it gets through to people who haven't experienced it, but not as often, and it don't always stick.
Willow: Crossing the line
When Willow went after Jonathan and Andrew, Buffy told her that if she killed them she would be crossing the line. And, okay, that's definitely a line. But Buffy had just watched her kill Warren, so, er, line crossed? Emphatically?
Willow gets away with so much shit because protagonist privilege. I mean, I know Ethan flag waving is a little unnecessary to the only people likely to read this, but, Ethan didn't get away with ANYthing, he got the shit kicked out of him for things much smaller than Willow did and got all hugs and sympathy.
Fic dealt with the parallels and contrasts very much better than canon ever did. Canon is very frustrating about its treatment of magic users. Even ANDREW got more rope than Ethan.
(*waves little Ethan flag some more*)
If killing Warren was the acceptable side of the line, that's a vengeance model. Eye for an eye, death for a death. Warren killed Tara so his death is somehow allowed. And I just watched an Angel episode where Buffy turned up chasing Faith and reckoned she had a right to, I don't know, punish her, do vengeance on her, something. Because Faith was bad to her. It's a model that means actions are bad if they're the first in a chain? Or odd numbered? If things are even then hey, good guys still! And, well, no. Nope. Just no.
Willow and magic is Willow trying to exert power on the world while keeping her own mental model of poor little powerless victim Willow. Because most of the time it's fine, it's nothing, she's doing nothing and it's all nothing much so you don't need to worry. Right up until she trips up splat into how very huge her actions have been. But the first time she does that is the time she gets invited to be a vengeance demon, and she didn't seem to learn a whole hell of a lot from that. Next time she had serious major pain she went and passed it on again too. Vengeance model Willow. Except sometimes the show draws a line between vengeance (disproportionate) and justice (exactly equal), which again would be the line that lets Willow stay right side of it after doing a murder.
The idea that doing a murder is just of itself wrong? Possibly should lead to 25 to life in prison?
That idea doesn't get much traction on this show.
It frustrates me that Anya in Selfless doesn't get to make this argument about vengeance and justice even by implication. Anya's friend considers herself a justice demon, because the children need her. There's a moral model to be made where there's badness done and these women have power to do badness in return. Like furies doing vengeance on those who spill family blood, but with a different patch to patrol each. The vengeance model of 'justice', done as you did, eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth, was the prevailing model for a really long time. Payback was payback. And what would make the vengeance demons wrong under *that* model would be their excess. For a tooth they take a mouthful, and probably a whole dental practice. Anya could come to understand her actions as wrong solely on that basis. And that would involve a strong sense of self, and doing things for what seemed like good but now seem like outdated reasons.
But no, we find Anya mostly just believed whatever was around and soaked it all up. Mushrooms Anya to go with Andrew and his evil adjacent problem. And I dislike that strongly, even though it's a plausible reading of her characterisation, and her walking off to decide who she is makes a reasonable resolution to that problem. Her whole relationship with Xander seemed to be based on him being the focus of her persona who got summoned to Sunnydale. Developing a sense of self away from him, girl power.
... but couldn't she have been powerful anyway? Her friend mentions her 'take back the night' thing, only doing vengeance for women. Taking back power for women who have been wronged is a pretty solid mission. Going from 'got dumped' to 'turned into a worm' is taking it too far. But she could start with a solid core that saw the needs of others and responded to them rather than, like, replacing her own self with them.
There are no strong female role models on Buffy. Buffy is one kind of strong, but she's got nobody gone before her, not in thousands of years. And that's pretty troubling. It's erasing women's strength at the same time as purporting to be about women's power. Buffy shares her power, but it had been uniquely hers to share. That's never been true. So much as I love the ending, every girl who can stand up will stand up, well, we've been standing all along. The further from the moment I get, the more it bothers me the show could never see that. As if feminism had to start with one 90s girl.
Other things I was going to write about...
Spike Spike Spike
yeah, that's... I am seldom coherent about Spike.
See the thing is he has the most promising arc of any character on the show. He goes from soulless and selfish evil, to realising he needs other people (even if at first just as happy meals on legs), to getting to like people, to active self sacrifice... and that's not enough, because he still doesn't understand how to connect to people. He sees he's not enough as he is, without a soul. Being the big bad is still not enough even when he changes who it's aimed at. He needs to become more. So he just sets out and does it.
Spike getting his own soul back out of a deeply felt need for it isn't a redemption narrative, it's an enlightenment one. And there's a general agreement that people with souls can get all the rest of the way through enlightenment to realise their Buddha nature. So Spike's the one that goes first out of demons, and could show them the way.
Pretty huge, theologically.
... show has girl in title, girl's boyfriend gets biggest character arc. maybe *sigh*?
But it's still proper interesting.
And while standing there letting himself burn would be a powerful ending, I'm still glad it wasn't a full stop. I'm not sure about the direction things went in Angel, but, I do like the idea that a single grand gesture doesn't pay for all or end things. Work keeps going.
Been watching Angel and with Faith especially he has an emphasis on saving souls that's key. Necessary. Useful. ... not always front and centre.
But the characters that do get saved, that were definitely in the darkness but get all the way across the board, those are really good stories to tell.
Of course it's also handy to have ones that just, you know, don't fuck up, but we can't all be saints. So. Enlightenment stories for the win.
Also? Spike so pretty. ... and I'd like to say I'd have spent as much attention on his arc if he wasn't, but I know me. Pretty really helps.
... in related news, episodes of Angel with Lindsey in them really have my full attention.
I kind of like that arc too, because there's some very good compare/contrast in there. And a great big argument about what side he ends up on and for what reasons.
Spike though, he's doing his level best to be team good, and when he feels he doesn't have enough good in him, he doesn't give up and call himself a monster, he goes and gets more.
Big win.
Giles: nobody hugs?
Okay, so, it's not just that I fancy him that makes me find that very sad. He's stranded in a sea of young people who don't seem to consider him quite entirely real. And neither does the narrative. He so seldom gets a complex inner life. The role of obstructive patriarchy is today played by. Never mind that his friends and quite possibly his family have been systematically killed before he even gets back to Sunnydale, here he shall get so little sympathy he doesn't get so much as a single hug.
I'm not saying I'd have been any better as a young person. I mean my social skills are fairly rudimentary now. ... I typed faily, they're that too.
I'm also not saying that having hurt feels justifies being bolshy patriarchy. Nope. Other people get to make their own decisions, your feels don't steer them, and deciding to kill someone's boyfriend for their own good is so far past the line the line zoomed past so fast it's probably on fire.
But in seven seasons we never saw him have anyone to turn to for emotional support. He's so isolated in Sunnydale that when his best frenemy turns up he goes out and gets drunk with him. ... at least drunk, and certainly responding with happy face when he thinks the chat up is aimed at him. ... I like Ethan, but if Ethan Rayne is the closest you get to emotional connection, that's... that's a problem.
And it's a limitation on the whole Scoobies saving each other thing. People of other ages get left out.
Conclusion: Giles hugs would have been good.
Male authority figures: Principal, Watcher, Preacher.
This show is not subtle about feminism and the evils of patriarchy. Patriarchy gets a variety of suits, and ends up being wrongity wrong wrong. And obviously Preacher in this set is way off the scale, because the other two are team good, at least in intent. But they all get to represent evil authority who want to take women's choices away.
It bothers me that we didn't get any female authority that, you know, survived. Or was remotely helpful. We got more evil older women than good, I think, though possibly just because we get more evil than good in general.
The presence of evil Preacher lasted a handful of episodes. There's like 5 episodes in the season where there's someone to hit. And he does a lot of damage, but in the end he just needs hitting where it hurts.
Season 7 set itself an impossible challenge though, with the First as the opponent. What can you do to combat incorporeal evil that works mainly via temptation? Ignore it. Ignore it some more. Also, ignore.
You can't banish it, you can kill its bringers but it can make more, you can't end evil as a thing in the world.
So the season had to sidestep and bring in a different enemy. Preacher dude is simplistic compared to the First. Ubervamps, aside from suffering very swift villain fatigue and becoming far easier to kill after their first outing, just weren't a Story in themselves. They're the least interesting bits of vampires, the strength and hunger, and they're still weak to the same things. Going down there in force and burning them out worked. And should have worked with a barrel of flammables and some matches too.
Most of season 7's challenges were on the inside, like how Spike had to face up to what he'd done before he could stop letting it control him, and Buffy had to be boss instead of kick against bosses. All cool, but a bit tricky to make into a boss fight.
Think they did pretty good within the constraints.
Hope that was what I wanted to write about ... mostly season 7 as it turns out. Think I forgot a bunch of things by waiting this long, but so it goes.
Meanwhile I'm on the last episode of Angel season 1, and one of the most interesting things about it is how, when Buffy turns up, she swiftly seems entirely irrelevant. Way to establish your show as its own independent thing. And way depressing if that's supposed to be the love of his life: as soon as they're not fighting the exact same good fight the exact same ways, side by side? All they've got left is arguments.
I don't ship it.
I do like to watch it though.
buffy
cruciamentum
dawn
not chosen
xander
'good times' love magic
willow
crossing the line
Spike
spiiiiiiiike
spike
Giles
nobody hugs?
male authority figures: principal, watcher, preacher
only 5 episodes of something to hit
the whole leadership popularity thing
... I'm sure there were thoughts to go with them at some point...
Buffy and Cruciamentum: when Buffy turned 18 the Watchers Council, specifically Giles, drugged her into losing her Slayer powers, so she was just a normal girl, and conspired to lock her in with a single vampire.
It was a transformative moment in her relationship with authority. It was a betrayal. And it very nearly got her killed.
Now Buffy is in charge of training Slayers, what does she do?
She takes a bunch of normal girls and locks them in with a single vampire.
So, okay, the key differences here would be that she hasn't taken anything away from them to make them normal, they just start out normal. And there's a bunch of them to one vampire. Later they tell the tale and winning was all about teamwork.
But still, this key moment in learning that adults are not always on her side, she duplicates it to train new Slayers.
And the justification is that she's showing them how strong they already are, but the 'it makes you a better Slayer' line was trotted out for her 18th too, and did not seem to convince.
Buffy training Slayers had a lot of telling them they already knew how. That was Buffy's experience as a Slayer, the dreams and the instincts added together to make her better with any weapon she picked up than Giles was after years of awake training. And that's a side of being the Slayer that they don't need to wait for, apparently.
(I think in that comic spin off the dreams got split off from the power on accident? Making a new and very different Slayer?)
The other thing Slayer training did with the yelling and calling someone a maggot, that part wasn't very well examined. Probably Kennedy hadn't consciously understood why the movies involve that kind of shouting. The idea is to break down the individual personality of the trainee and build them up again on spec as part of a group. The suffering is a big buy in that leaves them thinking the result must have been worth all that. Plus if it breaks them early on at least they won't break while being actively shot at. That's my understanding anyway. But what of that would apply to training Slayers? Do they really need their individual identities stripped off? Isn't it being individual, different from other Slayers, that made Buffy survive so long? And they don't have any choice about leaving if they break. You make them feel like their trainers are against them too, and lo, you get the result shown. Unhappy girls do not healthy Slayers make. Support and getting along with each other do.
Buffy's techniques put a division between her, boss lady who can shove them into bad situations, and the other Slayers, loyal sisters who have their backs. It kept them off balance and for a while made them more willing to listen to the one who seemed to know how to deal. But once they got a bit more collective confidence? That divide split wide open, and they pushed Buffy away.
It wasn't quite like when Buffy rejected the Council. She was annoyed at them on the basis that they were all orders and no fight. Can't say that of Buffy ever.
But it is the down side of being an authority figure when the allegiance that draws others to you is not in fact voluntary. As soon as they were presented a choice that wasn't just 'die alone or obey' they chose someone more fun.
Leadership as popularity contest. The kind of empty campaigning that makes people like you with sweet things they don't need? Not awesome. Party right before the vote, pretty empty. But Faith had a bunch of a point when she said Buffy should know their names. If there isn't enough of a connection there to keep them believing in her, snap, fault line breakage.
Dawn had a whole set of problems based on nobody paying enough attention to her needs, according to Dawn. And that would be for the reasonable reason of, you know, Sunnydale. And nicking stuff wasn't the most massively helpful way to deal with it.
Neither was wishing they wouldn't leave. Because then there was problem as soon as it became clear they actually wanted to. I mean, not wanting to be trapped, fairly reasonable, so Dawn's sulk on that occasion, not reasonable at all. But it was because stuff and things and cumulative problem. Dawn's life to date has been all losing people and learning not to trust people. Difficult to use that as a foundation for much.
I liked the episode where she thought just for a while that she was Chosen. Slayer power for the win. But Dawn was doing pretty well without the supposed Slayer instincts. So the whole actual study and training and smarts? At least equal to being near-Chosen.
Then Xander had that little speech about how the Chosen will never know how difficult it is not to be Chosen. Which, okay, yeah, but, well, outside of Sunnydale, that's everyone. I mean, people choose. And sometimes they choose each other, and that's cool, but that's not generally what Chosen means here. So you can translate it as not-famous or similar, but it doesn't have an RL exact equivalent. RL, it's just a whole bunch of people plugging along getting stuff done. All Council, no Slayer.
Still a cool speech.
The episode 'Him' with the jacket of crush? That... that was not a good thing. In general. That was not okay. I mean, he's the age they were in high school when the teacher hitting on the students was evidence of being a giant bug demon, and yet now, Buffy does it and it's funny? It's on the whole not funny all over.
Also Xander sighing and remembering the love spell of near tearing apart as 'good times'? Ugh. No. Very ugh.
I mean his only redeeming feature in that episode with the love spell originally was his going to Giles and just saying how bad he'd screwed up. He seemed to understand the screw up that was his. But being able to look back on it with fond nostalgia? That says he learned nothing.
I kind of thought he'd learned something.
The bit where Buffy saved Dawn and said how no boy was worth your life, that was a good bit. That was an excellent bit.
... that was the same girl talking who fed herself to her boyfriend.
Probably the significant difference is doing it for life saving, not just attention. That's a pretty big difference.
So it was a bunch of attempted funny and then a suicide attempt with a PSA speech. Tonally kind of... no.
I did like the way high school looked so different from their season 7 perspective. Dawn's all caught up with where they started, but that looks so much worse now, because how young to be in how much danger?
It does irritate me that the solution this time around was never 'tell the whole school and enlist their help'. I mean, for one glorious battle when it's people the protagonist's own age, they went there. And it got people killed, so that would be an in-universe reason not to do it again. But this year, they're telling young people all about the danger and getting them prepared to face it... but only if they're Chosen. Even Dawn's junior scoobies don't get the full scoop. And that... well, aside from being the logic underlying aristocracy and a number of eugenics movements, that's just not terribly useful when translated to the real world. Help and support each other! If sufficiently matching! Otherwise, well, kind of sad their head exploded, but hey, that's life on the hellmouth for you.
Buffy was doing her best, but her best did not include teaching everything she knew, so I object to it.
Setting up Sunnydale amnesia to pretend that wouldn't even work? Worldbuilding choice I hate.
Even if it is quite a lot like trying to explain racism and sexism and ablism over and over and over: it gets through to people who haven't experienced it, but not as often, and it don't always stick.
Willow: Crossing the line
When Willow went after Jonathan and Andrew, Buffy told her that if she killed them she would be crossing the line. And, okay, that's definitely a line. But Buffy had just watched her kill Warren, so, er, line crossed? Emphatically?
Willow gets away with so much shit because protagonist privilege. I mean, I know Ethan flag waving is a little unnecessary to the only people likely to read this, but, Ethan didn't get away with ANYthing, he got the shit kicked out of him for things much smaller than Willow did and got all hugs and sympathy.
Fic dealt with the parallels and contrasts very much better than canon ever did. Canon is very frustrating about its treatment of magic users. Even ANDREW got more rope than Ethan.
(*waves little Ethan flag some more*)
If killing Warren was the acceptable side of the line, that's a vengeance model. Eye for an eye, death for a death. Warren killed Tara so his death is somehow allowed. And I just watched an Angel episode where Buffy turned up chasing Faith and reckoned she had a right to, I don't know, punish her, do vengeance on her, something. Because Faith was bad to her. It's a model that means actions are bad if they're the first in a chain? Or odd numbered? If things are even then hey, good guys still! And, well, no. Nope. Just no.
Willow and magic is Willow trying to exert power on the world while keeping her own mental model of poor little powerless victim Willow. Because most of the time it's fine, it's nothing, she's doing nothing and it's all nothing much so you don't need to worry. Right up until she trips up splat into how very huge her actions have been. But the first time she does that is the time she gets invited to be a vengeance demon, and she didn't seem to learn a whole hell of a lot from that. Next time she had serious major pain she went and passed it on again too. Vengeance model Willow. Except sometimes the show draws a line between vengeance (disproportionate) and justice (exactly equal), which again would be the line that lets Willow stay right side of it after doing a murder.
The idea that doing a murder is just of itself wrong? Possibly should lead to 25 to life in prison?
That idea doesn't get much traction on this show.
It frustrates me that Anya in Selfless doesn't get to make this argument about vengeance and justice even by implication. Anya's friend considers herself a justice demon, because the children need her. There's a moral model to be made where there's badness done and these women have power to do badness in return. Like furies doing vengeance on those who spill family blood, but with a different patch to patrol each. The vengeance model of 'justice', done as you did, eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth, was the prevailing model for a really long time. Payback was payback. And what would make the vengeance demons wrong under *that* model would be their excess. For a tooth they take a mouthful, and probably a whole dental practice. Anya could come to understand her actions as wrong solely on that basis. And that would involve a strong sense of self, and doing things for what seemed like good but now seem like outdated reasons.
But no, we find Anya mostly just believed whatever was around and soaked it all up. Mushrooms Anya to go with Andrew and his evil adjacent problem. And I dislike that strongly, even though it's a plausible reading of her characterisation, and her walking off to decide who she is makes a reasonable resolution to that problem. Her whole relationship with Xander seemed to be based on him being the focus of her persona who got summoned to Sunnydale. Developing a sense of self away from him, girl power.
... but couldn't she have been powerful anyway? Her friend mentions her 'take back the night' thing, only doing vengeance for women. Taking back power for women who have been wronged is a pretty solid mission. Going from 'got dumped' to 'turned into a worm' is taking it too far. But she could start with a solid core that saw the needs of others and responded to them rather than, like, replacing her own self with them.
There are no strong female role models on Buffy. Buffy is one kind of strong, but she's got nobody gone before her, not in thousands of years. And that's pretty troubling. It's erasing women's strength at the same time as purporting to be about women's power. Buffy shares her power, but it had been uniquely hers to share. That's never been true. So much as I love the ending, every girl who can stand up will stand up, well, we've been standing all along. The further from the moment I get, the more it bothers me the show could never see that. As if feminism had to start with one 90s girl.
Other things I was going to write about...
Spike Spike Spike
yeah, that's... I am seldom coherent about Spike.
See the thing is he has the most promising arc of any character on the show. He goes from soulless and selfish evil, to realising he needs other people (even if at first just as happy meals on legs), to getting to like people, to active self sacrifice... and that's not enough, because he still doesn't understand how to connect to people. He sees he's not enough as he is, without a soul. Being the big bad is still not enough even when he changes who it's aimed at. He needs to become more. So he just sets out and does it.
Spike getting his own soul back out of a deeply felt need for it isn't a redemption narrative, it's an enlightenment one. And there's a general agreement that people with souls can get all the rest of the way through enlightenment to realise their Buddha nature. So Spike's the one that goes first out of demons, and could show them the way.
Pretty huge, theologically.
... show has girl in title, girl's boyfriend gets biggest character arc. maybe *sigh*?
But it's still proper interesting.
And while standing there letting himself burn would be a powerful ending, I'm still glad it wasn't a full stop. I'm not sure about the direction things went in Angel, but, I do like the idea that a single grand gesture doesn't pay for all or end things. Work keeps going.
Been watching Angel and with Faith especially he has an emphasis on saving souls that's key. Necessary. Useful. ... not always front and centre.
But the characters that do get saved, that were definitely in the darkness but get all the way across the board, those are really good stories to tell.
Of course it's also handy to have ones that just, you know, don't fuck up, but we can't all be saints. So. Enlightenment stories for the win.
Also? Spike so pretty. ... and I'd like to say I'd have spent as much attention on his arc if he wasn't, but I know me. Pretty really helps.
... in related news, episodes of Angel with Lindsey in them really have my full attention.
I kind of like that arc too, because there's some very good compare/contrast in there. And a great big argument about what side he ends up on and for what reasons.
Spike though, he's doing his level best to be team good, and when he feels he doesn't have enough good in him, he doesn't give up and call himself a monster, he goes and gets more.
Big win.
Giles: nobody hugs?
Okay, so, it's not just that I fancy him that makes me find that very sad. He's stranded in a sea of young people who don't seem to consider him quite entirely real. And neither does the narrative. He so seldom gets a complex inner life. The role of obstructive patriarchy is today played by. Never mind that his friends and quite possibly his family have been systematically killed before he even gets back to Sunnydale, here he shall get so little sympathy he doesn't get so much as a single hug.
I'm not saying I'd have been any better as a young person. I mean my social skills are fairly rudimentary now. ... I typed faily, they're that too.
I'm also not saying that having hurt feels justifies being bolshy patriarchy. Nope. Other people get to make their own decisions, your feels don't steer them, and deciding to kill someone's boyfriend for their own good is so far past the line the line zoomed past so fast it's probably on fire.
But in seven seasons we never saw him have anyone to turn to for emotional support. He's so isolated in Sunnydale that when his best frenemy turns up he goes out and gets drunk with him. ... at least drunk, and certainly responding with happy face when he thinks the chat up is aimed at him. ... I like Ethan, but if Ethan Rayne is the closest you get to emotional connection, that's... that's a problem.
And it's a limitation on the whole Scoobies saving each other thing. People of other ages get left out.
Conclusion: Giles hugs would have been good.
Male authority figures: Principal, Watcher, Preacher.
This show is not subtle about feminism and the evils of patriarchy. Patriarchy gets a variety of suits, and ends up being wrongity wrong wrong. And obviously Preacher in this set is way off the scale, because the other two are team good, at least in intent. But they all get to represent evil authority who want to take women's choices away.
It bothers me that we didn't get any female authority that, you know, survived. Or was remotely helpful. We got more evil older women than good, I think, though possibly just because we get more evil than good in general.
The presence of evil Preacher lasted a handful of episodes. There's like 5 episodes in the season where there's someone to hit. And he does a lot of damage, but in the end he just needs hitting where it hurts.
Season 7 set itself an impossible challenge though, with the First as the opponent. What can you do to combat incorporeal evil that works mainly via temptation? Ignore it. Ignore it some more. Also, ignore.
You can't banish it, you can kill its bringers but it can make more, you can't end evil as a thing in the world.
So the season had to sidestep and bring in a different enemy. Preacher dude is simplistic compared to the First. Ubervamps, aside from suffering very swift villain fatigue and becoming far easier to kill after their first outing, just weren't a Story in themselves. They're the least interesting bits of vampires, the strength and hunger, and they're still weak to the same things. Going down there in force and burning them out worked. And should have worked with a barrel of flammables and some matches too.
Most of season 7's challenges were on the inside, like how Spike had to face up to what he'd done before he could stop letting it control him, and Buffy had to be boss instead of kick against bosses. All cool, but a bit tricky to make into a boss fight.
Think they did pretty good within the constraints.
Hope that was what I wanted to write about ... mostly season 7 as it turns out. Think I forgot a bunch of things by waiting this long, but so it goes.
Meanwhile I'm on the last episode of Angel season 1, and one of the most interesting things about it is how, when Buffy turns up, she swiftly seems entirely irrelevant. Way to establish your show as its own independent thing. And way depressing if that's supposed to be the love of his life: as soon as they're not fighting the exact same good fight the exact same ways, side by side? All they've got left is arguments.
I don't ship it.
I do like to watch it though.
no subject
Date: 2015-11-05 09:46 am (UTC)gotta run but want to read this in depth and reply and nod (on the predictable things BUT MAYBE NOT JUST) and discuss but gotta run
no subject
Date: 2015-11-05 04:22 pm (UTC)This used to bother me until I realized: the Watcher's Council had no reason to think that Buffy would ever have to face a vampire without her powers, and Buffy had every reason to think that the potential slayers would. She didn't drug them or make the challenge artificially harder. In fact it was probably easier than an actual fight would have been: they were fighting one vampire, in an enclosed space (making it harder for him to escape or sneak up on them), with Buffy and Spike standing close by in case things got out of hand. Buffy's not putting them in some arbitrary death match for the sake of "proving themselves" (or whatever bullshit justification the Council gave for the Cruciamentum), she's giving them experience fighting a vampire together so they're not running in blindly when they have to do it for real.
I mean, I know Ethan flag waving is a little unnecessary to the only people likely to read this, but, Ethan didn't get away with ANYthing, he got the shit kicked out of him for things much smaller than Willow did and got all hugs and sympathy.
I wasn't a fan of Willow's whole "magic addiction" story arc for a whole lot of reasons, but I don't think her being forgiven was just a matter of "protagonist privilege". Most of the time, she was never trying to hurt anyone (who wasn't a hellgod); she was acting out of thoughtlessness and arrogance, not malice. Even after she went Dark Willow, she was able to come back and recognize that she'd made a huge (HUGE) mistake and needed to change. Ethan is acting out of malice (or at least, a complete and knowing disregard for other people's well-being) and he never appears to be sorry for anything he does.
I'm not sure about the direction things went in Angel, but, I do like the idea that a single grand gesture doesn't pay for all or end things. Work keeps going.
This is a pretty good articulation of how I read Spike's story arc in Angel — he has to learn that he's not done yet. I know some people think Spike was out-of-character in Angel season 5, but I don't agree. He acts like an immature jerk around Angel, because that's the kind of relationship the have. He doesn't go out and start saving people, because having a soul doesn't automatically make you a big shining hero — as far as he's concerned he's done his part, and he needs a shove in the right direction before he sees that he's not done yet. And he doesn't run out and find Buffy because he feels like it would make his death at the Hellmouth less meaningful. I've heard a lot of people say that this is a lame excuse, but remember how much he didn't want Buffy to know he'd gotten his soul back in "Beneath You"? Soulful Spike cares a lot more about what Buffy thinks of him, and in that case I think he was afraid she'd think he only got his soul to try and win her back (which IMHO, wouldn't have been entirely wrong.) By dying on the Hellmouth to save the world he's at least earned her respect, but if he miraculously survives and shows up at her door a month later? Maybe not.
no subject
Date: 2015-11-06 09:40 pm (UTC)I think my objection is to the enclosed space, on account of running away being a perfectly valid life choice.
Willow wasn't trying to hurt people, she was just altering their brains so they would do what she wanted them to do. She wiped her girlfriend's memories so she would stay all loving and snuggly and continue to have sex with her, instead of continuing to have her own opinions. Deciding that's not malicious is like saying drugging Tara would be fine cause she'd feel better. Thoughtless arrogance doesn't actually make it better.
Repentance is a significant difference though.
Also I tend to forget that the dominant reading of Ethan, and probably the authorial intent, isn't quite how I see him. I mean, from a certain point of view, everything he does draws attention to problems that were there before he was, and puts people in a position to do something about them. Something funny, granted, but still something. I'm not saying he's a good guy, but there's ways to read him where he's not empty malice. And he'd be more interesting that way, but less canonical.
He's probably there for teh lulz. And he's quite unlikely to change by now.
Still, the whole no trial no possibility of his sentence ending and then what the comics did, not a proportionate response.
I feel Spike in season 5 got bent out of shape by the needs of the plot. It's kinda plausible, but the author is showing. Spike cares about what Buffy thinks of him, and also how she is, if she's surviving, if anyone reliable is watching her back. I'd find stalking her again more plausible than staying away. But okay, he stayed away, that's an interesting and very insecure character too.
The idea that Buffy of all people wouldn't understand that a sacrifice is no less heartfelt for being temporary... kind of hard to credit.
I haven't rewatched season 5 yet so I'll have opinions with more accuracy later.
no subject
Date: 2015-11-09 06:30 pm (UTC)No, it doesn't. But I think (and maybe I'm wrong) a person acting out of malice is "further gone" than a person who has some other motivation. If you're doing something that hurt people out of ignorance, or desperation, or any reason other than actually wanting to hurt people, then it's possible that once your problem is addressed, you'll stop doing whatever you're doing, repent, make amends, etc. But if "hurting people" is your whole motivation to begin with, then it's unlikely that anything will be able to convince you that you shouldn't.
*idle rambling*
Date: 2015-11-10 08:51 am (UTC)Oh god, the old ancient bunnies are chomping at my heels again :)
No but really. Every villain (and every minor character) is the hero of their own story. And we are not told that story. Where was Ethan when he was Willow's age? Where was he two years before he came to Sunnydale for the first time? Everyone have their reasons.
no subject
Date: 2015-11-07 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-09 06:54 pm (UTC)I see Andrew as someone who really wants to prove himself and be part of something big and important, and although he's really intelligent as far as magic/nerd stuff goes, he doesn't have good people skills and is a terrible judge of character. So it's really easy for powerful and charismatic people to lead him along and convince him to do what they want. It's not a perfect comparison, but he kind of reminds me of some people I knew who were really excited about joining the army after finishing high school and never seemed to give any thought to the fact that they might have to kill someone.
no subject
Date: 2015-11-10 07:47 am (UTC)Andrew assisted in rape and hands-on murder*. "Peer pressure" is just not enough of a redeeming excuse at this point :( I have little sympathy there. I'm sorry. This isn't character bashing - Andrew is Andrew, I'm okay with that. It's the writers' choice (or the other characters' choice) to consider him a good guy after this kind of behaviour and with zero consequences or accepting of blame or sincere remorse, that I have a problem with.
*There's some psychological differences that can be discussed between young people excited about military service (their reasons, social norms, etc) versus people who participate in violence that is not institutionally sanctioned and involves direct contact with victims.
*agreeing by way of quote*
Date: 2015-11-10 08:45 am (UTC)Wesley: I have, in fact, faced two vampires myself, under controlled circumstances, of course.
Giles: No danger of finding those here.
Wesley: Vampires?
Giles: Controlled circumstances.
Re: *agreeing by way of quote*
Date: 2015-11-12 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-10 08:40 am (UTC)That was - seemed to be - Joss' point all along, for a very long time. "Down with the establishment", rogue slayers do it better, don't even need the handbook! You'll find similar anti-authority "rogue group" vibe from him in Firefly and in the Avengers.
From what I vaguely remember, Buffy trying to be the rigid authority figure is part of her.. deteriorating, choosing the wrong path. Not fitting in by not being "herself". Is that a false memory?
Not-Chosen in RL is... like some people are brilliant musicians, or artists. And then the rest of us, not so much. And sometimes that hurts, because... touched by divinity. You know? The idea of the amazingly skilled as Chosen, touched by divinity. Special - well they are special. But the idea is that most of us aren't, but it doesn't make us *less*. I think. It's very hard to accept.
"Probably the significant difference is" age. Age. I hope.
And then right away you say " Dawn's all caught up with where they started, but that looks so much worse now" so yeah! That.
I think the idea of telling the whole school in Buffy's time is that they all knew Buffy. And now it's just... "this nobody from class, her older sister says things, wtf". It won't have worked the same way, maybe?
Ethan.
Ethan never wanted redemption and kindness. He doesn't want to be a good guy.
Having said that, being tortured and locked up for eternity and killed, a little harsh. More than that, it's not at all in the slayer's jurisdiction, and shouldn't be in the power of the US military. That's RL levels of creepy af. Nope.
So I'm not saying he needs to be coddled by the slayer and her kin, just that they had no right whatsoever to do what they did, it's worse than when Faith stabbed that guy. Because: prolonged torture. Of humans. Of anyone. Nope.
"Willow trying to exert power on the world while keeping her own mental model of poor little powerless victim Willow" oh my god I have SO MUCH rl political rant right now. About people/countries/powers/organisations who do this. Kill and maim and conquer and go around saying "poor wee me".
"The idea that doing a murder is just of itself wrong? Possibly should lead to 25 to life in prison? That idea doesn't get much traction on this show." Well it's about a *slayer*. The show is literally called "Buffy who gets to murder people".
I always wondered why Anya didn't become a radical lesbian separatist with serious social activism... I mean I know why, I'm just saying, that's what should've happened, as a direct result of the last thousand years.
Interesting that Joss referred to Loki as "the Spike". Not sure if he meant character arc or "snark + leather = lady magnet". Could mean either.
"And neither does the narrative" THIS "so little sympathy" THIS MUCH
This "grownups aren't real" thing maaaaaybe has some point when they're all 16 (also, not really? they're not 10) but when the show's about grownups, this weird unseeing of Giles is... Hey, remember invisible girl? But also the writers' attitude. Writers, you were grownups when you wrote this. Giles was... in his 40s when he started? Come on. Not to mention that 80 year olds deserve sympathy if shit happens their way, and much shit happened to Giles. All the things he had to give up. Buffy was bitching because she couldn't get to be a cheerleader, imagine all the things Giles missed out on.
"goes out and gets drunk with him" which is so fanfic trope, btw. Pre-ANM, fics that started with "Ethan shows up and he and Giles just GO OUT TOGETHER" had to establish and work hard to convince us that could happen. TPTB waltz in and it's just the only logical choice.
"female authority" exactly. Who was grownups? Joyce? She was played dumb most of the way. Jenny? She was breezy and not really that influential on the younger girls. Buffy's a grownup figure to Dawn, which is just sigh. No wise elderly women, no confident middle aged ones. No teaching. No watcher women - Post, who was evil and one-ep, and Giles' grandma or something was mentioned. Where are the teachers? Not in the school sense, in the "women teaching the younger women" sense. Why are "strong women" all very young (and pretty, and skinny, and white)?