February 2002 posts
Links Between 'Dead Things' and 'Waiting in the Wings' Major spoilers.
Adult Content. Part One. -- Age, 01:36:42 02/06/02 Wed
There are spoilers in this posting for season five, six of 'Buffy'
and season three of 'Angel' as well as major spoilers for this
week's eps of 'Buffy' and 'Angel' as I compare the two. There's
also adult content.
I'm not going to analyze these eps much. I just want to point
out some of the similarities between them, similarities which
cannot be simply coincidence, in my opinion.
Before I do that I just want to say something about Buffy's going
to the police. I think that this is the intersection, so to speak,
of her adolescent attitude(black and white thinking, wanting a
heaven, but making a hell, and running away from responsibilities)
and the adult attitude of taking responsibility for herself and
her actions.
The three nerds/children attempt to create their version of heaven,
a heaven of childhood fantasy, but it leads to the opposite, an
adult hell of reality when they kill Katrina(as always the deconstructor
of the oppositional myth, the adult, Katrina, in this case, has
to be repressed, ie killed ).
Buffy is doing the same thing: because she wants to see herself
only as good, she is ashamed of herself for what she's doing with
Spike. No Buffy isn't an animal...only(it seems intriguing that
Fred on 'Angel' states that her first sexual fantasy was with
an animal.) In her shame Buffy uses the consequences of Katrina's
death(indictment and jail) as a punishment, but this is really
to keep her oppositional thinking intact(good opposed to bad).
She is attempting to preserve her good image of herself by being
punished for the shame that that image has created; and, this
is also Buffy running away from her familial responsibilities(by
being in jail, a kind of living suicide), by owning up to another.
The irony between our knowing she didn't kill Katrina and Buffy's
ignorance of this fact underscores this. Whedon is saying that
Buffy isn't guilty of a crime, not guilty therefore of any bad
in her relationship with Spike. She didn't come back wrong. There's
nothing wrong with her.
On the other hand, Spike is doing the opposite of what Buffy is
doing. She's trying to preserve the 'good' pole of the opposition
in herself; while Spike the vampire is trying to preserve the
'bad' in himself by attempting to pull her to the shadow world,
the world of dark. Both are still thinking in oppositions. In
this way, Buffy will try to get herself punished for something
that isn't wrong(don't forgive me); and Spike won't open to anything
more than the immediate consequences of his love for Buffy. Buffy
will own up to something she hasn't done and Spike will simply
throw away the body.
Both need to do the same thing: deconstruct oppositional thinking
in themselves: for Buffy there's nothing wrong with her aggression
and sexuality, ie nothing wrong with being an animal; for Spike
there's nothing emasculating about not feeding off of others,
ie nothing wrong with being human.
Okay let me explain more: Buffy in going to the police does take
responsibility for what she thinks she's done. This is the adult
way of dealing with things. Buffy believes that she is responsible
for the death of Katrina and wants to turn herself in. Unlike
the three nerds/children who really are responsible and don't
want to take the consequences of their actions. It is Buffy's
taking responsibility, her doing an adult thing that leads to
her discovery that she isn't responsible for the killing: she
has gone there not only to take responsibility for Katrina's death,
but also to punish herself for her shame and to run away, or at
least this is a symbolic representation of what she had wanted
to do on the tower back at the end of season five, run away from
life, but when she gets to the police station she begins to understand
that she's done nothing wrong and there's nothing to run away
from, ie the change from adolescent attitude to adult attitude
automatically changes the perspective: you can cope, you don't
need to run away and there's nothing wrong with your 'bad' side:
it's just part of your natural self. In acting like an adult she
begins to take charge of herself and see who she is, instead of
trying to blame the resurrection spell for her actions.
What I'm getting at is there are two reasons, one based on child-like
running away and oppositional thinking creating shame and the
other based on an adult-like way of taking responsibility which
are operating in Buffy as symbolized by the three nerds/children.
It is when Buffy does what the three nerds cannot do, take adult
responsibility, and not run away, does she start to face the problem
of Dawn and her own identity, because with the change of attitude
they won't be problems. Had she not, then she was as good as dead
anyway because the three nerds had her on tape. In metaphorical
terms if Buffy had been as childish as the three nerds, and not
wanted to own up, then symbolically their act would be her act:
she would have been defeated by her own pull to stay adolescent
as symbolized by the three nerds.
Katrina's death is ruled a suicide because this is what Buffy
had been doing in her adolescent way of dealing with the world:
running away by jumping off the tower. The three nerds represent
the adolescent way of doing things, the running away, the all
or nothing, the big leaps off of towers. The act of killing Katrina
by the three nerds as an adolescent act of trying to run away
from responsibility is likened in Buffy to her trying to run away
using death as a means. We are reminded of this when Buffy repeats
the words that she used on the tower. Whedon allowed Buffy that
one last act of suicide at the end of season five because she
was still an adolescent; this is why he allowed that act to be
both a suicide and an act to save the world: he was making allowances
for his adolescent character. Now that Whedon believes she's supposed
to be an adult such a way of running from life is not an option,
and is called suicide, the act of an adolescent trying to run
away from responsibilities in the same way that the three nerds
run away from theirs by killing Katrina. This is why Katrina's
death is ruled a suicide: it is the adolescent act of running
away.
Okay, as you know, I believe that right from ep one season one
of 'Angel' the 'Buffy' and 'Angel' eps were linked for content
each week, and the arcs were similar, and almost the same in theme
and content. Last week's two eps(aired on different weeks) had
the central motif of making money. The eps before that were about
deciding to live again, with invisibility/ghost, uncovering hidden
worlds, and Christmas stories common to both.
This week's two eps had many images and themes in common, and
were, as always, deliberately in my opinion made to be this way
for the several reasons I pointed out in an earlier posting.
Here are some of the possible common images and motifs, the links
between the eps:
Firstly, dance was common to both with Dawn learning to ballroom
dance and then jitterbug, dances from the past in 'Buffy'; and
with Angel's taking the Fang gang to a ballet which really was
from Angel's past, literally. In this way the motif of being in
the same choreographed steps was common to both episodes, with
the movement to start afresh coming at the end of both: the ballerina
stops the same performance and Angel begins to open to Cordy by
saying he wants a new pattern; while Buffy begins to open up to
Tara, a first step in beginning a new pattern.
The idea of being caught in time is also common to both as Buffy
is attacked by demons who create a time bubble distortion; and
the ballet is caught in the time control of the owner/wizard,
the Count... Dracula figure with the jewellery to match wanting
the ballerina all to himself, feeding off of his love for her,
perhaps like Spike may be doing, wanting all of Buffy to himself
because of his love for her.(And because perhaps like the ballerina,
Buffy doesn't love Spike or want to love Spike, Spike feels he
has to draw Buffy into his world in order to keep their relationship
going, ie draw her away from the 'good' she's attached to in order
to stop her from being ashamed of their relationship.)
(Incidentally it does seem that Tara's being a guide in Buffy's
dream and then being the light/guide helping to get Xander and
Willow out of the woods in 'Bargaining' seems to have significance.
The writers seem to be giving her some role in Buffy's movement.
We see this in Tara's deconstruction of opposites: it's okay to
love Spike; it's okay not to. She's presenting a more adult perspective.
Also if you noticed, there was a star/sun broach on Anya; and
stars on Dawn's blanket. These images, symbolic of childhood heaven
indicate that they still have issues arising from adolescence
or from wanting to make everything a heaven or from when Buffy
died.. It seems pretty obvious from Dawn's actions.)
End of Part One.
Age.
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[> Re: Links Between 'Dead Things' and 'Waiting in the Wings'
Major spoilers. Adult Content. Part Two. -- Age, 01:41:11 02/06/02
Wed
Again major spoiles for this week's eps. Adult content.
Getting back to the two ep links: the motifs of being enslaved
and taken over by another are common to both. The three nerd/children(I
don't even want to call them nerds because of what happened in
this ep; by trying to remain as children they had to stop the
adult world from seeking them out literally by killing an adult,
a young woman, and creating consequences that will bring their
childhood heaven into an adult hell sooner or later(speculation,
not spoiler.))
The three nerd/children use an orb, as the count uses his round
gem, both of which are very easily broken, to enslave the people
that they have feelings for. Both the Count and Warren cannot
let go of their objects of love: the Count creates of his a ballerina
doll to repeat the same steps over and over again, his heaven
thus creates her hell; Warren creates a French maid doll to use
over and over again, his heaven is her hell, with another word
for it being rape. The ballerina is equally being raped, but it's
dressed up(the tutu is simply another version of the French maid's
short skirt) in classical ballet: the Count cares not a fig for
the performance, for the ballet, for the music, for the expression,
for her art as the ballerina says to Angel. She is being made
to adulterate her art for the Count. Just as Warren is using Katrina
for 'love', the Count is using the Ballerina's body also. Both
are very much children as they are trying to create a fantasy
world, stop the natural progression of time.
I might suggest that this applies to Spike in the sense that he
is trying to have Buffy all to himself. It isn't rape, but there's
a movement on his part to separate Buffy from her human aspect.
Buffy also is wondering what is wrong with herself: why does she
allow Spike to do the things to her. Is she under his thrall?
I think the question being explored in both eps is whether love
and sexuality can be part of a mutual relationship or are they
still being used as ways of masturbating, as the three nerds/children
in 'Buffy' are really doing, or as the discussion about masturbation
at the beginning of 'Angel' indicates. Are the genuine feelings
of love still attached to trying to get something only for oneself
or is the love for the other person selfless as well. Obviously
Buffy's having died and Spike's not being able to save her is
part of the reason he dumps Katrina's body. Here is the opportunity
to save Buffy, to make amends to her. He fails again it seems
as the body is discovered. But there is a sense of his doing this
also only for himself, doing something that would endear her to
him only, to have their own murderous secret together away from
the human world. He would then have her all to himself for eternity:
I think the word for that is vampire, like the Count Dracula image
of the count in the 'Angel' ep.
In the 'Angel' ep, it is Fred and Gunn who represent this mutual
love as they may represent the deconstruction of oppositional
thinking through being a black male and a white female, and loving
each other with a respect for each other's point of view. In fact
the scene where Fred thinks she's lost Gunn because of the wound
is the antithesis of Spike and Buffy's when Spike thinks he's
lost Buffy to jail. Spike tells Buffy that her point of view is
wrong; while Gunn tells Fred that if she cares that much her point
of view must be right.
Not only this, but Wes's selfless act reinforces the idea of the
selflessness aspect of love in contrast to the selfish. He deconstructs
the myth both in the 'Angel' ep and repeated out loud in the 'Buffy'
ep of hurting the one you love by instead accepting the pain himself.
Of course the idea of secrecy is common to both episodes as Spike
dumps the body making it his and Buffy's secret; while the secret
lovers of the 'Angel' ep become the secret sexual encounter of
Cordelia and Angel.
There's also the motif of trust that is common to both. This may
be nothing, perhaps just played for humour but a couple of times
in 'Angel' Gunn mentions that he has trust issues; while on 'Buffy'
the issue of trust comes up between Spike and Buffy.
Also there is a connection between Buffy and Angel in the sense
of them feeling wrong about themselves. Angel doesn't feel like
he has anything to offer Cordelia, and even tells Lorne that he's
reading him wrong(ie giving him a false readout as Buffy suggests
Tara is doing when she tells her there's nothing wrong with her)
and Buffy feels there's something wrong with herself. I would
suggest that Angel's fear of a relationship is founded also in
the idea that he's going to repeat the same pattern over again;
I'm not sure, but Buffy may fear the same thing with Spike. He
is a vampire like Angel. But this may not be so, as Buffy just
can't accept that she can love a creature who doesn't have a human
soul. I'll have to think about that. I certainly would like someone
else to put forward a comment about this.
One other link may be in the idea of seeing the real me. Buffy
doesn't want to admit that it's been she and she alone who has
been allowing Spike to be sexual with her. She wants the resurrection
spell to have created a false self, a role she's been playing,
like a ballerina on the stage, but she finds out that this isn't
the case; she can't just dismiss what she's been doing as a script
written by the spell, and one in which she can simply remove her
costume so to speak to reveal her true self. Of course Angel and
the Fang gang step out of their normal selves and go into costume.
But do they uncover their true selves in doing so? Are Cordy and
Angel simply playing a role when possessed by the lovers, or can
the lovers only possess them because they are acting out their
true feelings for one another as Angel starts to suggest? The
motif of real self and playing a role is common to both eps. In
fact the motif is probably the same: by dressing herself up in
the costume of the resurrection spell, Buffy has revealed to herself
an aspect of her true nature; by Angel and Cordy getting into
costume also, they have revealed aspects of themselves that otherwise
would have remained hidden.
Okay, I think that's it.
Here are just a few observations that have nothing to do with
links:
One particular movie came to mind when watching both eps, but
in particular the 'Buffy' one: the film called 'The Collector'
starring Terrence Stamp and Samantha Eggar. It too is a story
about a guy who has feelings for a woman, but imprisons her.
Also the scene in the Bronze(?) when Buffy is above the others
with Spike reminded me of the scene with Willow and Amy; and of
the scene with Dru and Spike when he fed off of the human being
she killed. I got the sense that Spike was trying to pull her
into yet another opposition, that of predator and prey where he
and she are superior on the food chain, above the herd of devalued
potential human victims down below.
There was a repetition of the woods imagery when Katrina was killed
as if with the time demons we were going back in time as a kind
of retrospect from last year. Buffy discovers Katrina's body,
'The Body'; then she tells Dawn that she has to do this, repeating
the words she said on the tower. It's as if there's a small recap
of events to show where we've come from, the influences on Buffy
as she starts to take responsibility for her life. This would
coincide with the appearance of Tara as guide, as Kimberley, I
believe, suggested, to adulthood.
Finally, I can't tell you how awful seeing Katrina die was. This
vibrant intelligent self possessed young woman was simply snuffed
out in one blow by a child who couldn't see further than the consequences
to himself. And how could they not see that what they were doing
to her was rape? If this isn't a message about the importance
of growing up, I don't know what is? Playing at being a villain
when you are six is fine; it's called cops and robbers, and if
it's played by real kids and real adults then the kids get a real
charge out of having power over the grownups for a while. But
when young men who should be growing up attempt instead to play
at having children's fun with real adults, adult things happen,
with adult consequences, and a young woman has to suffer a terrible
price for her involuntary participation. You can't have real sex
with a real person and pretend to yourself that it's just a child's
game, a bit of fun.
Age.
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[> [> Re: Links Between 'Dead Things' and 'Waiting in the
Wings' Major spoilers. Adult Content. Part Two. -- Rufus, 02:18:47
02/06/02 Wed
If you liked the episode here's the lyrics to the Bush song that
played while Buffy and Spike were at the door before the demons
arrived to distort reality.
Out of this World
When we die we go into the arms of those that remember us.
We are home now out of our heads, out of our minds, out of this
world, out of this time.
Are you drowning or waving.
I just want you to save me.
Should we try to get along.
Just try to get along.
So we move we change by the speed of the choices that we make
and the barriers are all self-made.
That's so retrograde.
Are you drowning or waving.
I just need you to save me.
Should we try to get along.
Try to get along.
I am alive I am awake to the trials and confusion we create.
There are times when I feel we're about to break.
When there's too much to say.
We are home now out of our heads, out of our minds.
Out of this world, out of this time.
I believe that Tara just threw Buffy a lifeline at the end of
the show. Buffy may be able to feel with Spike, but she was still
drowning, waiting to be saved. It's time for her to move on, grow
up, which started when the dream made her go to the police.
Not only this, but Wes's selfless act reinforces the idea of the
selflessness aspect of love in contrast to the selfish. He deconstructs
the myth both in the 'Angel' ep and repeated out loud in the 'Buffy'
ep of hurting the one you love by instead accepting the pain himself.
Spike may not have fully grasped why the concealment of Katrina's
death was killing Buffy. The secret of an innocent death would
only have been a prison of guilt for Buffy, she understood that
what she thought she did was wrong.....something the Trio tried
to unload on her instead of taking responsibility for their actions.
As long as the death was a guilty secret Buffy would never have
been able to sleep again. It's when Spike had Buffy act out her
fear on him that he finally seemed to grasp the fact that she
needed to do what was right, even if it made her a literal prisoner
of the state.
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[> [> [> Re: Spoilers for 'Dead Things' Season Six. --
Age, 18:41:12 02/06/02 Wed
The dream may be Buffy's struggling with her animal instinct for
self preservation. She has been trying to deny that she's an animal,
but she can't. But to give into the instincts of the animal at
the expense of the human is like doing what Spike did.
In the exchange between Buffy and Spike outside the police station
it is the human talking to the animal. The animal is telling the
human that he's not going to let her waste her life; while the
human is telling the animal that there are human values. The two
characters, opposite in their thinking, are working against one
another. She can never be his girl; and he can't understand why
this is killing her. But both have value because we are physical
thinking feeling creatures.
When Spike says to Buffy that we hurt the ones we love, this is
not true; Buffy may love Spike, but that's not why she hurts him.
She hurts him, and he hurts her(by dumping the body) because of
their oppositional thinking, because the very thing that they
fear in themselves as demon(yes the human is the demon to the
vampire, the thing, the deconstructor of its opposition that must
be repressed by controlling it, killing it, showing that it has
no value other than as food) is what the other is attached to.
They hurt the one they love because the other is the aspect of
themselves they don't want to admit they have, or must have.
At what point do the two 'halves' influence each other enough
for them to open to what they fear in themselves?
Age.
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[> [> Re: nerds/children -- leslie, 09:29:49 02/06/02 Wed
I think of them as the Band of Evil Weenies. I think that sums
them up.
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[> [> Re: Spike and Buffy - fears and tensions. -- Caroline,
14:00:39 02/06/02 Wed
"I'm not sure, but Buffy may fear the same thing with Spike.
He is a vampire like Angel. But this may not be so, as Buffy just
can't accept that she can love a creature who doesn't have a human
soul."
I think that Buffy's problem is that, with the chip in his brain,
Spike is, in her view, like a criminal in prison. Without the
chip, she thinks that he would most likely revert to his instinctive,
people-eating ways. Her repugnance at feeling anything remotely
tender for such a creature is undertandable.
But Tara has helped to point out a few things here for Buffy.
Buffy doesn't realize that just as she is on a journey to self-knowledge
and maturity, so is Spike. He has basically been an adolescent,
taking what he wants etc, until he got chipped. With the chip,
he is starting to learn some scruples and, as a result, has become
less purely evil and more morally ambiguous. (Someone quoted Joss
in another thread talking about a lot of room inbetween the polar
opposites of good and evil, and that someone with a soul essentially
is someone who follows the 'evil star' not the 'good star').
Just as Buffy's continual denial of any redeeming feature in Spike,
Spike also wants her to deny her 'goodness' so they can be together.
He is also denying the dilution of his own evil, thus what he
said to her in the Bronze scene. Neither is seeing that they aren't
purely 'good' or 'bad' but perhaps existing inbetween the polar
opposites, as adults usually do. And that it can be a daily struggle
to find out what right and wrong are and to behave accordingly.
And here is the problem for Buffy: Spike began following the evil
star as a vampire - what star will he choose to follow if he becomes
de-chipped? Because along with acquiring his new scruples comes
an element of choice (free will?). Will he choose to follow the
good star? Or is it only his feelings for Buffy that have led
to these new scruples and he'll revert to his instinctive behaviour
once de-chipped? I think basically what I'm saying is that will
Spike choose adolesence or maturity and self-responsibility once
he has a choice?
I hope that I made some sense. Many thanks Age for a brilliant
piece.
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[> [> [> Re: Spike and Buffy - fears and tensions. Spoilers
to Present. -- Age, 18:48:37 02/08/02 Fri
A thought occurred to me as I was reading your posting: Whedon
has shown the transition from childhood thinking to a more adult
perspective to be one that is difficult and fraught with pain
and fear.
In one of the threads above(and I've forgotten which; please will
someone give me a memory) there was a mention of Angel and Spike
and a pattern continuing. This got me thinking(or perhaps I'm
simply repeating what the thread said above): firstly, Whedon
has already set up deconstruction of opposites by having the good
slayer attracted to the bad vampire. But, just as last season's
jump off the tower was Whedon's allowing Buffy an out due to her
adolescence, Angel's having a human, as well as a demon soul,
was another concession to adolescent Buffy: she had an excuse
for being attracted to him. But, with Spike there is no excuse
because he has no human soul. Whedon is making Buffy the adult
face a truth about herself because it's time to grow up. No more
excuses. No more outs.
But, as you point out in your posting it is difficult because
Buffy is afraid and is attached to certain ideas, even attached
to oppositional thinking. It's as if Whedon is describing the
process we all go through: as kids we have a certain set of instincts
and behaviuors set up by genetics which get reinforced or punished,
shaped by parenting and culture. We develop a sense of self divided
as good or bad: don't hit your brother; or boys don't play with
dolls, that's sissy stuff; or don't play with yourself down there,
it's dirty and evil. Our natural characteristics get shaped to
fit in the culture of the family and community in a way that is
necessarily simplistic, although not necessarily negative as my
examples imply. But, the process of conditioning of the child
is to prepare him or her to live in that society as a self among
other selves. It is a process of limiting the self; although it
can also be a process of harnessing the potential of the individual
such that unmanaged energy gets directed into a purpose that the
individual may use for his and society's benefit later in life.
It is the process of undoing the simplistic dichotomy whose inculcation
is a necessary step and which furnishes a stable and comfortable
structure that the child can understand which Whedon is pointing
at. Just as the structure provides a zone of stability and comfort
in which the child can learn and establish an identity, the process
of deconstructing the strict opposition of that structure is fraught
with pain and fear. But, it is necessary for the young adult to
do this, not become amoral and do whatever he or she wants by
short circuiting the process and becoming the equivalent of a
vampire like Warren, but develop his or her own identity by taking
responsibility for himself and based on his own values.
The three nerds don't want to go through the process, but want
to stay perpetual Peter Pans, living off society, ie types of
vampires.
That Whedon has made it so hard for Buffy by making the objects
of her desires so repugnant may show why there are so many vampires
in Sunnydale, why the process breaks down, especially if parents
never went through the process properly themselves. One of the
continuing motifs of these series is the parent who would rather
eat his or her young than bring them up, especially fathers.
What you said about evil star is interesting. Buffy has been trying
to get the star of childhood back, following its path in the night(death/vampire)
sky. This has been the parallel to the three nerds who equally
haven't wanted to assume responsibility for their lives but cheat
their way through it like children. But, the state of being an
adult comes in a physical sense despite what we want or think
should happen, and reality will pierce illusion(this is probably
why we haven't seen Buffy so much on patrol, as slayer she usually
represents the piercing of illusion, the slayer of myth, but recently
she's not been that at all.)
Then whether we like it or not, our actions will have consequences.
If we choose not to take responsibility, then we make someone
else pay the price as the three nerds make Katrina/Buffy. If we
choose to take responsibility then we pay the price, the price
of magic, the price of knowledge, the price of being a human animal,
the price of growing up. This then is what becoming an adult requires.
It is difficult and frightening, but, the consequences of remaining
a child are worse still.
To constantly run away from life and death is to become a vampire,
feeding off of others, making them pay the price.
Buffy seems to have chosen a different star, Tara's.
That's all I have for this posting.
As always the exchange of ideas has borne much fruit.
Thanks_Age.
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[> [> [> [> Re: Robots, Vampires and Growing Up. Spoilers
to Present -- Age, 19:29:11 02/08/02 Fri
I guess that wasn't it for the posting!
I guess this is the connection or equation between the robot and
the vampire: both are dead. On the one hand, following the morality
of others like a child is likened to being a human robot, not
taking charge of oneself, not being an adult; it is a form of
human death. On the other hand, following ones animal instincts
like a child is likened to being an animal robot, a vampire, it
is equally a form of death.
If we simply follow either the morality, the programming of other
human beings or the instincts, the programming of our genetic
make up, then we are equally dead. Two different types of machines.
This is why Whedon equated Buffy's coming to life(from having
been dead in the summer) with taking responsibility for her life
and becoming an adult.
'I'm just going through the motions, walking through the part,
I can't really see if this is really me and I just want to be....
alive.'(OMWF)
How do 'Dead Things' come to life? They take responsibility for
themselves.
Age.
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[> Spike, Buffy, and oppositional thinking -- Dariel, 11:43:20
02/06/02 Wed
Both are still thinking in oppositions. In this way, Buffy will
try to get herself punished for something that isn't wrong(don't
forgive me); and Spike won't open to anything more than the immediate
consequences of his love for Buffy....
Both need to do the same thing: deconstruct oppositional thinking
in themselves: for Buffy there's nothing wrong with her aggression
and sexuality, ie nothing wrong with being an animal; for Spike
there's nothing emasculating about not feeding off of others,
ie nothing wrong with being human.
This is the best explanation of Spike's trajectory that I've seen.
At the end of the door scene, when Spike finally opens it to look
for Buffy, the song lyric (from your later post) it just at the
point about "barriers that are all self-imposed." Spike
wants Buffy, but he's afraid to take a real step in her direction,
into her world. Being the Big Bad made him feel strong, while
his humanity only made him feel weak, vulnerable.
Can Spike make that step out of his own childish world, into the
real pain of life? All we know is that ME will torture us for
awhile before we find out! (Talk about bloodsucking fiends!)
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[> [> Welcome -- Grace, 15:58:43 02/06/02 Wed
Glad to have you! Once you come here (and have a brain!) you never
go back! :-)
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[> [> Re: Spike, Buffy; More Analysis. Spoilers S4,5.6 to/
Including This Week's Eps Both Series. -- Age, 16:02:40 02/06/02
Wed
I think what Whedon has realized is that it is the oppositional
thought structure itself that is the problem. I tend to see things
in theme and metaphor, and I'm always glad when others post replies
giving a more character based account.
As you say there is that wall, that division between them in that
scene. It's a great gulf that didn't exist for a moment at the
beginning of the ep: when they had that conversation under the
rug, together, they had stepped out of character, out of opposition(perhaps
another link to stepping out of character on the 'Angel' ep. )
They just were having a conversation. They just were. Then the
oppositional thought process kicked back in and that was that.
In the crypt division scene, Spike waits until Buffy has gone
before he comes out, and Buffy doesn't wait for Spike. As you
point out, this is exactly the symbolic representation of their
being attached to opposite poles, afraid to let go and embrace
the other, and let go of oppositional thinking. As I keep saying
in my replies(because my postings are always long and verbose)
it doesn't take a long posting to be a significant one. Thanks
for the observation. It is much appreciated.(The scene also shows
Spike going out to hunt her down and bring her to his side.)
Here are some things I missed.
I didn't properly show the identification of Katrina with Buffy.
Not only was Katrina strong and a fighter, but she was killed
as she attempted to flee to call the police. She was running when
she was killed. There is thus a symbolic reinforcement of the
idea of running away, with perhaps even the suggestion of symbolizing
the death of the running away girl in Buffy herself: Katrina is
running away(the running away girl in Buffy), but she's also an
adult going to tell the police: this is the same condition as
Buffy: the running away girl in Buffy is then dead(Katrina), but
the adult aspect of Katrina(the going to the police) is still
there, alive in Buffy. The writers have made everything symbolic.
This is why Katrina's death is ruled a suicide. The running away
aspect of Katrina was that which got her killed: had she not been
running, Warren wouldn't have killed her. Hence the running away
aspect is tied in with death: running away and death equals suicide.
(Again this is purely metaphorical, and not excusing Warren in
the least for what he did. I can't get over it; Katrina's death
has affected me more than any other death on this show.)
Also I missed Gunn's being a figure of deconstruction of opposites
from the beginning of the ep: it is he who is opposed to going
to the ballet because he's a hip Black guy who is into a hot band;
not only this, but he thinks he'll look dorky in a suit, but doesn't
allow that to stop him. Once at the ballet, Gunn is the Fang gang
member most appreciative of the performance. Unlike the Count
who cares nothing for the individual effort and art of his object
of love, Gunn is moved. He sees and appreciates what the dancers
are putting into their steps; rather than like the Count just
using the same steps to have his own 'love.' This appreciation
then extends to Fred.
The deconstruction of opposites and stereotyping demanded that
Gunn and Fred get together because of their being black and white.
I also missed Tara playing a role similar to Wes in that she walks
away from her lover, accepting the pain of separation in order
to allow her beloved what she needs, just as Wes walks away(well,
literally stands in front to protect Fred and Gunn.)
In an earlier posting I suggested that Joss Whedon in season five
was absolving us of any responsibility at all for ourselves: Adam
is dead, along with the idea of original sin; Dawn is not born
of woman, but made by man. Dawn is innocent. In Dawn's diaries
we see the mistaken idea that anything of what we are is actually
because of us. Dawn thinks she is writing down her own life when
in fact the entries have been created by the monks. What I'm getting
at is Whedon is using this to show that we had no hand in choosing
our body, character or upbringing, and that we bear no responsibility
for who we are at all. Once Dawn finds out she's the key she burns(flame/hell
image) the diaries in a symbolic gesture(another heaven of childhood
naivety leading to an adolescent hell of discovering we are born
to die) showing that her life isn't her own, but part of a chain
of reproduction. Who she is has nothing to do with her at all.
In this way, we are absolved of all responsibility: we can never
make a decision that is not based on something about our determined
character or the world etc, ie there's no free will. There's will,
but not free will. So we are not responsible. But, this season
Whedon is clearly showing what happens if, despite our not being
responsible, we don't take responsibility for who we are. At some
point we have to become adults, have to take responsibility for
our lives and accept who we are or drastic consequences will happen,
like Katrina's death.
The question of whether we are responsible or not is then irrelevant.
This is just something that needs to be done given that we are
agents in this world and will wield power that affects others.
And part of taking responsibility for ourselves is examining our
thought processes, our beliefs etc. But, of course, this is easier
said than done because of the fact of being determined by genetics
and upbringing.
Whedon is also suggesting that if we don't take responsibility
for ourselves as adults do, then someone else will, and we are
back to a patriarchal society in which the citizens stay as children
looked after and ruled over by an elite. This is why now we have
Buffy having to deal with Warren's act. He won't take responsibility
for it because he's a child; Buffy will now have to be the adult
and do something about it.
One last thing, it seems that the series 'Enterprise' at least
last week is using metaphor in its plots also. The ep last week
used the pressure on a ship to symbolize the psychological presure
of the members of an away mission. But what I really found fascinating(and
related, though not linked to 'Buffy') was the main focus of the
ep was on deconstructing the opposition of us versus them by cleansing
the mind of oppositional thinking through infecting each species
with a bit of the culture of the other. The infection of oppositional
thinking was cleansed by some of the culture getting under the
skin of the other. It was very clever. A good metaphor and related
to our discussion.
Thanks for your observation.
Age.
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[> [> Re: Spike, Buffy, and oppositional thinking -- leslie,
11:15:49 02/07/02 Thu
Something that has occurred to me on further reflection--which
may have been already commented upon--in the scene in the alleyway,
Buffy literally beats Spike back into humanity. Thinking back
to the times before Spike was in love with her, the more they
fought, the more vampiric he became. Now he has to put on his
vampire "mask" in order to allow her to regard him as
less than human, but he can't hold on to it.
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[> [> [> Re: Spike, Buffy, and oppositional thinking
Spoiler for DT -- Age, 11:18:55 02/08/02 Fri
This observation would relate also to Buffy in this ep unable
to hold on to her idea of being simply human: her mask, her resurrection
spell costume is lifted.
Thanks Age.
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[> Re: Links Between 'Dead Things' and 'Waiting in the Wings'
Major spoilers. Adult Content. Part One. -- Caroline - newbie
delurking, 13:22:29 02/06/02 Wed
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Completely agree. I'm going to
have to read this board more often - great stuff, not just drooling
over characters.
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[> [> Re: Links Between 'Dead Things' and 'Waiting in the
Wings' Major spoilers. Adult Content. Part One. -- Age, 16:23:54
02/06/02 Wed
You are welcome.
Actually character study is my weak point and I find much of what
I've missed in the postings of others on this board. Not only
this, but much comes out of posters replying to one another. Add
to this some fine essay writers and this board is well worth coming
back to.
'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Angel' are extraordinary TV series
in that they manage to combine character, plot and metaphor with
theme, and do it so seamlessly. Joss Whedon has managed to make
TV live up to its potential. That is extraordinary.
Age.
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[> [> [> 'They also serve who only stand and wait'. Spoilers
for current season. -- Rahael, 21:52:05 02/06/02 Wed
Just a couple of postscripts.
I'm struck that no one has made more of Joss's deliberate choice
of Giselle as the ballet in 'Waiting in the Wings'.
In Giselle, the forest is haunted by the ghosts of broken hearted
women. The Queen of them condemns men to their doom by making
them dance to their death. (Sounds familiar to me.) So here we
have the themes of love and vengence. And an examination on both
shows about the nature of love, passion and sex.
In Angel, we have Gunn and Wes fighting for Fred. We have Fred's
awakening passion for Gunn. We have Cordy and Angel, Cordy and
Groo, and of course the mysterious ballerina, her lover, and her
svengali, the Count.
In Buffy, we have Tara and Willow, we have Spike and Buffy, we
have Warren and Katrina. Just as Wes chooses the noblest way to
express his love for Fred (silence), and Tara steps aside as a
sign for her care for Willow, we have others who use love to stultify,
hold back and freeze the other individual - The Count, and Warren.
They choose to make puppets of the object of their love (which
Age has already pointed out).
Angel and Cordy are also made puppets in a grander drama momentarily.
Cordy is already wearing borrowed clothes anyway, posing as someone
other than herself as she sets off to visit the ballet.
The vengence motif in Giselle ties into Anya and Xander, and the
visit of Halfrek, who is still around in Sunnydale. The question
is, what is true love? how does it express itself? Must it be
'forever'? undying, passionate? or changing, tolerant and compassionate?
I think this season, we are seeing different versions of romantic,
platonic and parental love in both episodes. All are difficult
and painful. Even attempting to 'use' other people ends in the
horror of Katrina's death. I find Buffy's platonic love for Willow
and parental love for Dawn as equally moving and interesting as
the Spike/Buffy passion.
And yet again, I must recommend Powell and Pressburger's great
film, 'The Red Shoes' (Scorsese put it in his top 5 if that's
any incentive!). Its about a ballerina who at the final moment
has to choose between her career in dance and her lover. Her svengali
forces her to choose dance, her lover gives her an ultimatum -
leave with me tonight, leave the dance or lose me forever. She
hesitates too long (as the ballerina in WitW also does, as do
Wesley and Angel) and starts her performance that night. Too late,
she realises that she should have left with her lover. She jumps
off the stage, and dances over the landscape, and her lover sees
her coming. But too late - she jumps in front of a train and dies.
And of course, it ties perfectly with Giselle because the 'Red
Shoes', the ballet performed in the film, is based on Hans Christian
Andersen, where an Angel condemns a vain girl to dance and dance,
until she begs for her legs to be chopped off. So there's a link
here again with uncontrollable passion, and OMWF, and the Spike/Buffy
drama.
(Btw - just as Anyanka is referenced in WitW, we have the Faith/Buffy
drama reanacted in Dead Things. The accidental killing of Katrina
is a link back to the killing of Finch by Faith. And then, as
Buffy beats up Spike and tells him that he is unclean, dead, and
that she could never love or respect him, she is really beating
up on herself. An echo of the Faith-as Buffy/Buffy-as Faith fight
in 'Who are you?')
Finally, another side point. Yet again Buffy gets confronted with
a dead/dying robo/girl. This is the third time, by my count.
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[> [> [> [> Re: Thank you. Spoilers for S5,6 and This
Week's Eps of A/B. -- Age, 20:01:42 02/07/02 Thu
Thanks Rahael,
You are right, the ballet certainly needed to have a closer examination.
Thank you.
I am in awe of the cohesion of disparate imagery that has been
used to describe Buffy's having to grow up.
Spike says that there's always a price to using magic. That price
is knowledge. It is the Eden knowledge, the loss of childhood
innocence. Buffy has been wearing a costume herself, the costume
of a child who is running back after the far off(untouchable,
out of reach, 'Gone') twinkling of the star of childhood, the
sacrifice, the price, of being resurrected(the price of using
magic.) Believing that the spell was what was making her do the
'bad' things, Buffy now has to face herself without the costume:
she didn't come back wrong, the price is knowledge about herself,
a price that will lead her to a more adult perspective, one less
based on oppositional thinking. It all fits together: the magic
spell gave Buffy the opportunity to be more herself, by pretending
she was playing a role; it provided her with the knowledge that
would give her a more adult perspective, sacrificing her innocent
childhood thinking. The Eden allusion of the resurrection spell
didn't stop there, but the spell itself was the very mechanism
by which she gained the knowledge as Adam and Eve gained knowledge,
with the price, the sacrifice being her adolescence. Are these
writers great or what?
In regards to the star image, the star leading back to heaven
has been replaced by the other star, Tara, the one leading into
adulthood. The symbol for the longing for the mythological comfort
of childhood has been replaced by the immediacy(and real compassion)
of a human being. The fiction of the children's play acting(nerds
and Buffy), the going through the motions, has been replaced with
reality.
Everything changed in this episode. The villains did a real thing
to a real adult, changing them(as Buffy has changed into an adult)
into real villains with costs of their own to be paid in Buffy's
adult world. The costumes of these children came off, as did Buffy's(yet
another link to the 'Angel ep). It's no longer playtime for any
of them.
Buffy became an adult by taking responsibility for herself, a
responsibility that Whedon clearly showed in season five through
Dawn's diaries we don't have, but need to take or else who will?
In fact had Buffy's 'running away girl' not died(yes metaphorically
only) then Buffy as symbolized by Katrina would simply have been
the doll, the Buffybot that a male dominated society programmed
women to be. By taking charge of herself, Katrina fights back
like Buffy, then runs to tell the police: it is the running away
aspect of her that is killed(to symbolize Buffy's running away
mentality is dead); it is Katrina's taking responsibility aspect,
the adult aspect, that lives on in Buffy: the adolescent girl
is dead, but the adult lives on. The construction of this scene
and its metaphors was superb.(Again it's hard to talk about this
young woman's death in metaphorical terms only because as a character
her murder was just so awful.)
Getting back to links: just as Buffy has been wearing the resurrection
spell as a kind of costume(note both Spike and Buffy were naked
under rugs, not clothes to symbolize their having left opposition
behind for a moment) Cordy wears the borrowed clothes(as Rahael,
you pointed out.) But for both, perhaps, and this is speculation,
the borrowed clothes/costume have shown them their real selves,
or at least their real emotions/desires: the costumes have stuck:
the resurrection spell costume was really Buffy herself; and Cordy
is stuck with her borrowed clothes because they are too worn to
take back, ie they are hers.
One more thing, the scene in 'Bargaining' when the Buffybot gets
pulled apart symbolizes the pull of adolescence and adulthood,
and perhaps the shattering of the self through oppositional thinking.
One of the reasons that Buffy has not been able to pull herself
together and get on with her life, is that she hasn't wanted to.
Perhaps Whedon gave Buffy half a season to pull herself together
because he realizes how difficult the transition is to a more
adult perspective, or he's making concessions to his title character
because of Joyce's death, or he wanted to express the idea that
it was touch and go there for a while, fifty-fifty whether she'd
make it.
One last thing, some of the books I've read on dysfunction refer
to magical thinking, really overlaying a myth on a situation rather
than seeing what is. Perhaps the price of using magic(magical
thinking, as Buffy pretends that the spell is causing her behaviour
or that she can get back to the star of childhood; or Willow uses
it to justify her addiction) is disillusionment. You just keep
repeating the same pattern of thinking until it escalates, and
brings you out of your magical thinking, ie until the disparity
between your myth and reality become too great to ignore.
Thanks Rahael for adding more to the subject of the links. Thank
you for taking the idea seriously. Not that you wouldn't, but
I have met with some opposition to the links theory; although
not on any internet sites. Assuming that the eps are deliberately
connected(and I believe they are) this shows yet another level
of organization of content. I don't know how these writers do
it!
I have seen 'The Red Shoes.' Loved it.
Age.
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[> [> [> [> [> Re: Thank you. Spoilers for S5,6
and This Week's Eps of A/B. -- Rahael, 20:42:34 02/07/02 Thu
Thanks for responding!
A couple of further thoughts. I started by thinking about why
there were so many flashbacks to the past in these two episodes,
why Joss in particular refers again and again to old themes and
past episodes. It connected with the ballet performed - the ballerina
was being forced to dance the same performance again and again
until she had the courage to change her performance, break free
of the choreography.
Joss is simultaneously (and playfully) highlighting the way he
reuses old metaphors/themes, but also says something more serious
about how people deal with their most pressing dilemmas.
One point about Cordy's borrowed clothes. In her possessed state,
she asks Angel/lover to undress her, because only then would he
really see her as she was.
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[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: The Dance of Dead Black
Cats? Spoilers for S6 and DT and WITW -- Age, 23:56:00 02/07/02
Thu
Yes, how do 'Dead Things' come to life? How do robots/puppets/dolls
who follow the same pattern(dance)deal with life that is constantly
changing? How do you change the steps and make the dance your
own? One of the main links between the eps is that the ballerina
and Katrina both break free from their programming.
If Dawn is a symbol for adolescent Buffy, then at the beginning
of the ep, she is simply following the lead of Xander as he teaches
her how to dance; this dance scene follows directly after the
one in which Katrina(kat/cat, Buffy's been wearing black cats
on her clothing)is enslaved, ie made to follow Warren's dance
steps. Katrina then rebels and is killed for coming back to life.
The scene then shifts to the jitterbug dancing which is more energetic,
less form and more impressionistic(Anya and Xander.) It is a celebration
of life and movement rather than a dance of form.
But, Buffy's not part of that. She's still tethered(as symbolized
by the black tether choker around her neck and white top.) And
she goes up to see Spike, the other dead thing(or so she believes)
in the Bronze version of heaven(that's why they are above.) Does
she become animal? Does she stay human? It's the same oppositional
pattern, going from one to the other and back again, but not being
able to put them together. She's following a pattern. But that
pattern seems to be blinding her to the situation, to her condition.
Spike has that same pattern in him too: this is why his being
dead has been emphasized this season. He is the vampire who believes
that the human is to be devalued as shameful weakness(perhaps
Spike's love gets expressed as subjugation because of this?) While
Buffy is the human who is ashamed of her animal aspect, her black
cat(Miss Kitty?).
But, as other posters I've read on this board have suggested(if
my analogy is a correct interpretation of their analysis), perhaps
she's been acting more like the black cat and he the mouse, entrapped
by his love, to be toyed with as of late? A cat will catch a mouse,
keep it alive, and use it to play with. Then let it go; catch
it again etc. It's a form of play.(I'm not sure if this analogy
is correct, but I want to make this clear that the idea it's based
on isn't mine.) When then does play become real; this ties in
with the adolescent to adult arc of this season. It also presents
a reversal of roles that leads to more deconstruction of opposites.
This gets at the heart of the change from adolescent to adult
in this episode. We are patterns, forms, set up by genetics and
upbringing and culture. Do we then say, well, we'll just follow
the steps set down for us, or which are us? Or, do we examine
our very thinking and take charge of who we are. Buffy hadn't
wanted to take charge. She had wanted to stay dead in heaven.
How does this dead thing Buffy come back to being alive?
Whedon must think that we have sufficient will and self reflection
to be able to do this. But, as you say, it takes courage to reach
a different perspective. We are attached to what gives us meaning
and stability in our lives, even if that stability is dysfunctional.
What are the implications of a new view of life? What source of
comfort will I have to abandon? What will Buffy have to give up
to change her perspective?
This episode is so packed with meaning isn't it. And the links
between the episodes only reinforce the themes.
Thanks-Age.
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[> [> [> Re: Links Between 'Dead Things' and 'Waiting
in the Wings' Major spoilers. Adult Content. Part One. -- Caroline,
07:02:33 02/07/02 Thu
Agreed - the myth that Joss has created, and the fact that he
has made us care so much about it is extraordinary and had quite
ruined me for other tv viewing. I had more of a think about your
post last night and some other things gelled for me. I've long
thought that, for many women, the road to adulthood is like the
Perserphone myth. (daughter of Demeter, goddess of fertility,
goes walkabout one day, gets abducted by Pluto and taken to the
underworld to be his queen, is 'mythically' raped, Demeter goes
mad with grief, famine ensues, and a compromise is brokered. End
result: she spends half the year in the underworld with Pluto
and the other half with her mother).
Persephone is young and innocent (a child) and yet wilfully goes
to a 'dangerous' place as if compelled to learn about the mysteries
of growing up - physical love, passion, childbirth etc. She is
compelled to explore those things that are hidden from us as children.
In the end, she manages to encompass both the innocence of childhood
and the mysteries of adulthood - symbolized by dividing her time
between the two worlds.
I think that this relates to Buffy herself and her current relationship
with Spike. He represents her Pluto, her projection of what she
needs to come to terms with in herself in order to move beyond
childhood. And in that recognition, realize that the old polarities
or oppositions that she used to construct her reality are no longer
viable. (I think Spike is going through the same thing).
Now I haven't been watching Angel much lately (schedule conflicts)
but I think that there is an element of this happening too with
Cordy - except it appears that she is experiencing this not through
projection but within herself - she becomes half-demon. And Angel
has also taken his own dips into the underworld and returned.
Buffy has never really had a good handle on the sources and depths
of her power as a slayer. She was the 'good' part of the Faith/Buffy
opposition, the Angelus/Buffy, Spike/Buffy etc. She denies her
enjoyment of her powers. Yet she does need to understand where
her power comes from and what it means for her identity and role
as a slayer before she can know herself, know her world, accept
herself and then make free choices of what it is that she wishes
to do with her gifts - and integrate the disparate parts of her
self.
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[> [> [> [> Re: Spoilers for S3,4,5 and 6 to this
Week's eps. -- Age, 00:54:47 02/08/02 Fri
Thanks Caroline for the mythological analogy.
You wrote:
Perserphone myth. (daughter of Demeter, goddess of fertility,
goes
walkabout one day, gets abducted by Pluto and taken to the underworld
to
be his queen, is 'mythically' raped,
These elements are part of this season, especially 'Once More
With Feeling' where Dawn, who represented last year, Buffy's repressed
fertility(the Key, menstrual blood), is abducted by a Pluto character
and nearly made to be his underworld queen. It is Buffy, Dawn's
'mother'(Dawn was made from Buffy) who saves her, but in doing
so she nearly burns up from her own passion. Perhaps this is showing
that Buffy wasn't ready at that point to accept and manage her
sexual passions. She does however seem compelled to go back to
Spike. There is the rape element with the ballerina in WITW and
with Katrina(who represents Buffy.) But Katrina wakes up before
this happens. Unlike the ballerina who is a figure from the past,
Katrina, like Buffy, is a modern woman. Perhaps the rape element
of the myth has been altered slightly to reflect a different attitude
to sexuality?
Yes the division of Buffy and Faith was due to Buffy's shame after
having that night with Angel, and its deadly consequences. It's
part of the patriarchal shaming pattern in which sexual encounters
are punished as bad. Angel of course became the quintessential
patriarchal male, hating Buffy for getting power over him through
making him feel something for her.
Faith is the externalization and marginalization of what Buffy
became ashamed and afraid of: aggressive sexuality. She needed
a nice clean cut guy, Riley, who acted as her Christ figure, restoring
her faith/Faith in herself(her sexuality), to create the image
of safe sex within boundaries to allow her to become sexual again(she'd
thought she'd found that in Parker.)
There is an excellent posting(sorry I can't remember whose it
is) about Spike being the trickster, the character who brings
the element of chaos which is needed to break established form.
This got me thinking about the resurrection spell: Buffy was tricked
by it, tricked into expressing desires that she wouldn't have
ordinarily had if she hadn't thought that the spell was to blame.
In this way, Spike is the Pluto character as trickster, bringing
her into his world as a means of breaking down certain barriers.
You wrote:
Persephone is young and innocent (a child) and yet wilfully goes
to a
'dangerous' place as if compelled to learn about the mysteries
of
growing up - physical love, passion, childbirth etc. She is compelled
to
explore those things that are hidden from us as children. In the
end,
she manages to encompass both the innocence of childhood and the
mysteries of adulthood - symbolized by dividing her time between
the two
worlds.
This reminds me very much of Buffy and Dawn as symbols representing
the same person. In 'Once More With Feeling' Dawn is abducted
by the puppet men(hmm, more puppet imagery) and is attracted to
Sweet in a sexual manner, but then backs down because as a child
she's afraid. Dawn in season five also represented Buffy as human
being, or even human child. There is this sense then of the human
and the animal that is in the myth you have presented, or perhaps
the innocent and the knowing. How do we retain a certain innocence,
a certain openness of perspective once adult knowledge is gained?
Yes, Buffy's going to have to bring the disparate aspects of herself
together. Just as the Buffybot got pulled apart in 'Bargaining'
the live Buffy now has to pull herself together.
Thanks for the reply. If you have any more observations in regards
to this I'd love to read them.
Age.
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[> [> [> [> [> Re: Spoilers for S3,4,5 and 6 to
this Week's eps.Spoilers and speculation for Angel.... -- Rufus,
05:41:00 02/08/02 Fri
If you also think of what happened to Persephone, you have to
think about the nature of the slayer. Spike has some of it right,
Buffy is a creature of darkness, that's how she is able to do
the job she does. Buffy is feeling not part of either world be
it dark or light. The only thing that makes her feel is a creature
of the darkness, kinda an irony.
But I'm going to switch over to Angel for a bit. As soon as Darla
had Angel's son I thought of Angel's relationship with his own
father. One that at some point went so wrong that Liam became
isolated enough to be tempted into vampirism by Darla. Connor
may be an important figure in how Angel works all of that out.
If Connor for whatever reason ages like a soap opera baby, then
we could see the same struggle between Angel and Connor, as Angel
and his father. Just as Buffy will struggle with Dawn, Angel may
struggle with Connor. I just hope it turns out less tragic for
Angel than his original journey out of childhood. No matter how
different Angel thinks he is from his Dad, it's surprising how
much stuff bubbles out when life struggles triggers an event that
mirrors a parents childhood.
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[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Thanks Rufus Spoilers
for most seasons including 3/6 to this week's eps of A/B;speculation
-- Age, 10:20:59 02/08/02 Fri
Thanks for bringing the demon aspect into the discussion. We see
this dichotomy in Buffy herself: she has wanted to have just that
normal comfortable(Sunny) life in Sunnydale, but she's already
opened or been forced to open to what has been labeled as the
darker aspect of ourselves, the dale aspect of Sunnydale, the
aspect of the natural world which is the killer.
Nature is both our nurturer and our killer, but nature and us
are one. We were made by the forces of nature; we are the forces
of nature; we will keep the human forces of nature going. And,
if we overlay our developed capacity for differentiating aspects
of the world, namely recognizing ourselves, analysis and symbolic
representation, human values enter into the equation.
In coming to Sunnydale, if I read you correctly Rufus, Buffy wasn't
just trying to make a heaven for herself by fleeing the vamps,
she was fleeing the dark aspect she had opened to, and has been
either trying to flee it or master it ever since. At the end of
season three, after a year's struggling with the slayer, the human
identity, divorced from the slayer, is triumphant: nearly all
the slayer blood is drained, and weak Buffy the human being only(nearly)
fights the mayor by running away from him. She doesn't fight as
the slayer, but as a human being only, giving the other human
beings the opportunity to open to their animal sides and fight
back. This mastery of her dark side came in the form of putting
Faith in a coma.
Perhaps then once Faith is resurrected(you can't repress something
forever) the symbolism of Faith changing her mind and not running
away points to the beginning of what we are seeing in season six,
with season five being the necessary stage for Buffy(realizing
she can withstand the instinct for self preservation, ie not giving
up Dawn, when she needs to(and remain a human animal and not just
become an animal, ie she will go to the police and take responsibility)
to feel safe enough to open to her darker aspect. As Rahael pointed
out, this week's ep reminded us of Faith's mistake and her beating
on herself out of shame. Like Faith, Buffy would have gone to
jail, but unlike Faith, Buffy didn't make a mistake; her 'dark'
side didn't lead her to kill someone. Can she trust it, her dark
side. Trust keeps coming up. And I think because of her previous
experience she can trust the animal within. This question of trust
relates to Spike: could she trust him not to feed off others without
the chip.
This also relates to the Persephone myth that Caroline related
in that Buffy doesn't get overwhelmed by the knowledge she gains.
She doesn't just become the animal, but retains the human also.
In relation to this I keep hearing Tara's words echoing: you think
you know what you are, what's to come. It is she who brings knowledge
in the dream, and she who is the mechanism of uncovering knowledge
in this ep by telling Buffy there's nothing wrong with her. You
think you know who you are, well, here's the first inkling: what
you've been doing is you, not a result of the resurrection spell.
One more thing, another poster suggested an allusion to 'Cat People'
the films about humans who are also large black predatory cats
who can only return to human form if they kill another human,
ie kill the human in themselves. This allusion then is another
reference to oppositional thinking. These people cannot integrate
the human and the animal, and can be only one or the other. This
relates also to Angel/Angelus who reverts to animal form, Angelus,
if he has a moment of true happiness, ie when he becomes completely
human.
I think you are onto something Rufus in regards to Connor. Angel
set out to take his anger at seemingly being rejected by his father:
Angelus may have been a creation of his father, but it was also
a reaction on the part of Liam himself. While Liam set out as
Angelus to be the best his father wanted him to be, in the only
way opposite to his father, ie establishing his own identity,
the initial thrust of the turning was revenge. (Speculation only,
not based on spoilers, are there any spoilers for 'Angel'?)Holtz
will play a role in Angel working out his relationship with his
father, and as you said, Connor will play a role too. Just as
Buffy's arc is about deconstructing oppositional structures, perhaps
Angel's arc is as well in that Angel will come to realize through
Holtz how he must raise Connor differently than his father raised
him in order to break the cycle of vengeance.
Thanks Rufus.
Age.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Spoilers for S3,4,5 and 6 to
this Week's eps. -- Caroline, 12:36:45 02/08/02 Fri
Age, thanks so much for your post. I was at work and couldn't
really flesh out all the parallels I found with the Demeter/Persephone/Pluto
myth, but you found stuff in there of relevance to Dawn that I
hadn't thought off. I agree that Faith is the product of Buffy's
first and disastrous sexual encounter - the first 'rape', descent
to the underworld, initiation into the mysteries. Faith is the
externalization of Buffy's shame - in season 3, Buffy gets to
say Faith bad, Buffy good, gets to hold on to her sexless relationship
to Angel - now isn't that totally about idealization! Nice and
safe again. As is Riley.
Late in season 3, Buffy is determined to kill Faith in order to
save Angel after he is poisoned (kill the externalization of the
bad) but when Faith gets away, she offer herself to Angel. And,
there appears to be some unity again when both Faith and Buffy
are in the hospital at the end of season 3 and have their mystical
communtion - with Faith in a coma and Buffy recovering from Angel
draining her blood. Buffy first tried to kill her external bad
side (Faith) and couldn't, but then her bad side actually came
to her aid - some form of symbolic unity, made in a very partial
way? Perhaps this signals some level of comfort with the darkness
of her slayer powers. But she still ends season 3 in the nice
safe place in terms of her identity as a woman. Persephone still
has more challenges.
Buffy's next challenge to the nice, safe place is Spike. I did
read some of the Spike as trickster thread. Spike is a joker or
trickster in mythological terms, and even has some of the elements
of the Shakespearean fool with his perceptiveness and truth-telling.
But what I find fascinating about Spike's development is not only
does he represent Buffy's Pluto but she represents his Pershephone!
He's going through what Buffy is going through in reverse and
I'm in complete admiration of the writers for making this symmetry
work. He originally was innocent as William the poet, made a complete
descent into the underworld literally as a vampire and now is
being challenged on his own big badness and evil by Buffy as Persephone.
Since they both feel such a compulsion towards one another, it
is clear that there are unconscious drives at work in both. In
Buffy that drive is to uncover the shadow within herself (I'm
thinking in Jungian terms here) and in Spike the drive is to uncover
the good that he has tried to bury for a century. The chip makes
it possible for him to do that. These drives will remain compulsive
until each brings them to conscious view and deals with them in
some way and then the power of the compulsion will be lost.
I've read lots of stuff about Spike being the Big Bad, eternally
evil etc, representing the bad boy that all women loved to be
with in their 20s etc. I find this view really naive. First of
all, remember what we know from oppositional thinking. Whatever
has a front has a back etc. Yin and yang, always a polarity. Anyone
who successfully projects cynicism is covering up the hope and
idealism inside, anyone who projects badness is covering up the
good inside and vice versa. We see this with Buffy, with Willow,
with Angel/Angelus and with many of the characters on BtVS (what
about Giles killing Ben in the Gift - pretty bloody morally ambiguous
if you ask me!!). As we have all observed through season 5 and
6, Spike is groping his way to a better accomodation between Spike
(his self-constructed bad persona) and William the innocent naive
poet who believed in truth, beauty and love. Both were extremes
and Spike via the chip has the opportunity to balance his internal
scales. What happens after he has been de-chipped is anyone's
guess - I guess that depends on whether he comes to a successful
accomodation with his drives and compulsions or not.
Love the observation about Dawn representing Buffy as a child
- fits very well. And I love how Dawn gets to voice much of the
pain and anguish that Buffy must have felt at her age but couldn't
really act upon because of her duty as a slayer.
As for retaining innocence once we grow and mature - that's a
hard one. Perhaps a successful accomodation of our unconscious
drives can leave us hopeful about the future but the innocence
of childhood is based on ignorance, one that we all, like Persephone,
are either consciously or unconsciously drawn to overcome and
rip aside the veil. But hope and compassion are things I hope
don't age at all.
BTW - loved the Bush song during the door scene in Dead Things.
It's so relevant to both Buffy and Spike. They've both died, they
both feel like they've come 'home' with each other but they both
feel 'out of their minds' and 'out of this time' (apart from the
world), they've both looking to each other for some sort of salvation
(witness their compulsive feelings for one another), and the final
line really made me think. Does Joss and ME want us to think that
their barriers are self-made? And then the stuff Tara says about
Spike doing good - that really got me thinking the thoughts I've
outlined above.
Would love to hear what others think. This has also made me realize
that I need to catch up with Angel too.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Spoilers for B/A most
seasons to this Week's eps. -- Age, 16:30:53 02/08/02 Fri
A quick reply to yin yang:
In another posting I mentioned the basic structure of the series
is like a yin yang symbol: Buffy the human female holds the masculine
phallic symbol in her hand, representing the idea that the qualities
she has are not all feminine; while the defeminized male vampire
must guard his heart(feminine symbol, emotions/womb) showing that
despite his behaviour he's not without the feminine. The deconstruction
of opposites is inherent as the male animal vampire must have
the feminine human blood.
Buffy must feel that she is the one who poisoned Angel in the
sense of bringing her sexuality to him. She is accepting the role
of women as Eves(evil.) In the transfer of blood scene between
Angel and Buffy, she then accepts the role of servant(and semen
vessel for men as the giving up of the apple/womb/fertility to
men in the Eden myth symbolizes), her body as vessel giving of
herself to the patriarchal male . This scene is played out as
sexual intercourse by a vampire, the male of patriarchy, which
is like a biting/staking of a woman in order to draw sustenance
from her and to show her she's the devalued pole of the binary
opposition. Buffy's giving of blood, her female strength, is a
way of undoing the wrong she feels she's done to him. If indeed
she has succombed to patriarchal thinking(and why not, we have
only just emerged from such a society, and her first big love
reinforces the beliefs through becoming Angelus) it is little
wonder that good Buffy is ashamed of her sexual and aggressive
side, her demonized side, her(in my opinion) slayer.
I see what you mean about William/Spike.
I'm a bit slow, but the name that Liam takes for his plunge into
the dark pole of opposition is a play on what his father wanted
him to be: his father wanted Liam to be an angel; so, Liam decided
to go one further and become Angelus. Angel as a name reminds
us of where Liam's human/demon dichotomy came from: the thought
structure set down by his father.
Getting back to Spike. I think that the extensive use of metaphor
has led people to think in terms of the oppositionally based good
and evil. This was indeed reinforced at the beginning of the series
because we were being given an adolescent's point of view: things
are either really bad or really good, oh no, it's the end of the
world(this is another reason why season five ended with yet another
apocalypse: Whedon gave his adolescent title character one last
event based on adolescent thinking before having her grow up.)
But as the structure of the metaphors suggests(Sunny/dale repression)
the aim is the deconstruction of opposites.
In childhood terms a demon did take over Spike: the world is made
up of real good and evil forces; in adolescent terms, it is portrayed
as if a demon came in and took over Spike when in fact this is
just a metaphor, the beginning of the adolescent process of deconstructing
childhood myth. In adult terms there is no demon, no angel, but
simply necessary aspects of a human animal which must be managed
and not repressed.
We as human beings may indeed think in terms of good and evil
if we wish, but these are simply value judgements, judgements
based on what we value. Do we value power as in a male dominated
society? Then killing the weak is a good thing, they deserve to
be used and killed because they are the opposite of us; do we
value human life, then killing is bad. Do we value the feelings
of others, then hurting them is wrong. If we value power and yet
value the feelings of others, then we may make heroic feats of
strength in the service of others the good.
I think your assessment of Spike is correct. He was the innocent,
the good and it marginalized him. He decided to forego that for
power. In some sense his turning, like Liam's, was based on revenge:
I'll show them. It is an act not of evil, but of immaturity. The
emphasis on the death aspect of Spike's vampire metaphor this
season reinforces your idea. If Buffy tried to kill an aspect
of herself, but failed; then what aspect of Spike did he try to
kill in himself and failed too.
One more point of comparison/parallel between Buffy(Dawn) and
Spike(William): they both used the literary arts in a naive way,
one for poetry, the other for chronicling what she, Dawn, innocently
thought was her own life, before being drawn to the underworld.
Doesn't it give you goosebumps, the degree of creative organization
in these series?
Thanks Age.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Spoilers for B/A
most seasons to this Week's eps. -- Caroline, 10:27:44 02/09/02
Sat
Age, I'm enjoying our responses to each other so much that I don't
want to let this go! I've always know that this show is not about
what it's about (if you know what I mean) but this season has
upped the ante by a lot. I agree about the degree of creative
organization in the writing - part of the brilliance of the creation
of the character and the universe she inhabits.
A note on patriarchy - even though Buffy is in many ways an empowered
woman, she still has bought into many of the patriarchal views
of her world. Joss did create a world where the blonde doesn't
get killed by the bad guys, and one where women do have a starring
role - slayers, witches, techopagans etc. But, while gender roles
are being redefined, some elements of behaviour do harken back
to the patriarchal mould, particularly the hidden, unconsious
side - much of it relating to sexuality, menstruation, blood,
childbirth, etc. (We're in agreement about the poisoning of Angel
and the 'need' based on shame for Buffy to shed her blood for
him - lots of metaphors mixed in here - she gives birth to him
through shedding her blood, sacrifices herself as a saviour etc).
That's part of why I find the trajectory of the Buffy and Spike
relationship so fascinating - as each of them (hopefully) integrates
the respressed parts of their psyches, will they each continue
to buy into these same patriarchal values? After all, in her conscious
life, Buffy has the very unpatriarchal role of slayer but unconsiously
still feels the 'stain' of being feminine in a male world. Spike
(as William) in his conscious life had the more feminine role
of poet and has driven that into his unconscious in his Spike
persona. Could coming to an accomodation with their repressed
desires (resulting in thei integration of conscious and unconscious)
lead them out of the patriarchal perspective?
Would love to hear you views.
Caroline
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Spoilers for
'Nightmares'; 'Billy' B-S6, A-S3 to present. More links. -- Age,
17:00:12 02/09/02 Sat
I agree with your assessment of Spike.
Your Persephone analogy may apply to Cordelia and Angel. The events
surrounding Cordy's visions are related to her not taking responsibility
as drugging herself through painkillers rather than facing the
need for her 'demon' side(as symbolized by Billy in 'Billy' an
allusion to the boy Billy in the first season ep , Nightmares';
Skip the other demon represents Cordy's demon after she's accepted
responsibility. To get at Cordy's hidden demon, Angel had to descend
to the underworld, just as Buffy has descended this season by
coming back to hell. Also just as Buffy has covered up her demon
with the resurrection spell, Cordy covered hers with the painkillers.
I reckon that Willow too will use magic again now that she too
has taken responsibility for it, and is learning to manage, hence
integrate it into herself.
What I'm getting at is the arcs of Cordy and Angel, and Buffy
and Spike are the same. This is why taking responsibility, as
Cordy does for Billy(symbolically her demon) leads to her coming
back to life again. On 'Angel' as well as 'Buffy' Whedon is equating
deconstruction of opposites with adult perspective and letting
go of the strict following of animal instinct or another's morality
like a robot as a form of coming to life.
This is all I can say right now. I've been at work and must assemble
my thoughts more(they bubbled to the surface all day.) Either
I will add to this thread or if this goes to archive I will start
another. But it definitely seems to me that both arcs are similar
and based on the mythological story you related.
A couple of things, just as Buffy is tricked into revealing her
hidden demon side, Angel is forced into releasing Billy. Also
the puppet imagery of this week's eps is echoed in the 'Billy'
ep by the men being used as Billy's puppets, carrying out the
hatred he refuses to acknowledge he has. There does seem to be
a deconstruction of opposites happening as well because in 'Billy'
the men were made to be the physical abusers of women(who fought
back, hence the opening to the demonized side of women, the agressive/sexual
side.) But in this week's 'Buffy' ep it is Buffy, a female who
is the abuser, a woman with power taking the traditionally male
role of beater(with Spike taking the feminine.) Another poster
in another thread mentioned do we have the right to treat people
badly just because we think they are bad? There is thus a cross
series antithesis. Not only this, but the dire consequences of
not taking responsibility(Katrina's death this week) were already
shown in 'Billy' with several deaths and beatings.
The arcs are, like last year, and the year before that, the same
story.
Okay, I need to go and review some of the 'Angel's from this year
to fully flesh this out, but I think you were on to something
when you suggested the same thing was happening on 'Angel.' And
you provided the template on which they are based.
As I said I'll try to flesh this out more; if not here, then I'll
start a new thread.
A patriarchal society by definition is made up of children. Whedon
is using his theme of Oh grow up as the Scoobies become 21 to
show the deconstruction of the myths that such a society would
propagate. Whedon is chronicling the change in our society to
the post patriarchal, with the deconstruction of the absolute
opposites of men as the good, valued and women as the Eve-il,
devalued. But, we are still in a transitional period, with the
slayer being something that is deconstructing myth, but not yet
fully accepted for what it is, as Buffy doesn't know yet that
it's a demon(that's just speculation, not a spoiler)) such that
she could begin to see it in a different way.
One last thing, in 'Billy' it is suggested that men are primordially
misogynist, but this is by Lilah and then refuted by Fred in order
to expose the old lie that men are hardwired haters(and thus a
healthy relationship between men and women is a priori impossible,
that indeed men and women are opposites, men hating women naturally
because men are good and women are bad.) It is suggested that
Billy brings out a primordial misogyny in men through his infectious
touch. It is however quite different: the infection is a metaphor
for a cultural infection of ideas such that men are culturally
programmed like puppets to be misogynist, just as in this week's
'Buffy' we see that women have been influenced to be sex toy dolls
or servant robots to men, following their programming. This doesn't
excuse the men; it simply means that men and women as they become
adults have a responsibility to examine their thoughts and beliefs
and take responsibility for them, ie figure out what harm those
thoughts could produce or whether even those ideas make any sense
whatsoever. To do otherwise is to lead to a world in which Warrens,
trying to run away and not take responsibility, kill Katrinas,
and Billys run away creating the same devastating consequences.
In this way, these child-men force an authority to rise to protect
society from them, and we are back to patriarchy.
One last thing. I have to get these ideas out before they get
lost in the ether of my brain: just as Cordy doesn't want to show
to the Fang Gang her situation regarding the painkillers; Buffy
doesn't want to show her situation to the Scoobies. The two characters
in the same week 'uncover' aspects of themselves, so to speak,
with Cordy uncovering her vision side(leading to her accepting
easily becoming part demon(and anti-patriarchally, in that she
doesn't give a damn about her appearance, the female tool in a
male dominated society for getting male approval; she actually
looks for horns and a tail, signifying the devil, the d'Eve-il/of
Eve, whose pejorative value had been deconstructed by the self
sacrifice death of Darla, the demonized woman;) and Buffy uncovering
the identity of the nerds, her own pull of adolescence as she
makes the transition to the adulthood that Cordy as champion is
making.
The allusion to 'Nightmares' in 'Billy' is necessary because a
lot of the themes about not taking responsibility, the absolutes
of oppositional thinking and the consequences of these two form
the basis of this ep.
Thanks-Age.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Bronze (SPOILER for Dead Things) -- verdantheart, 07:29:24
02/06/02 Wed
I've read over several comments about the scene above the dancefloor
in the Bronze between Buffy and Spike, and I tend to disagree
with what I've seen said so far.
I think what it said wasn't so much about Spike as about Buffy.
Spike still wants to believe he's the Big Bad, so why wouldn't
he act the bad boy--especially if he believed he could get away
with it? Besides, he's pushing her deliberately--he wants her
to sort out her feelings, too, in the hope they tip in his favor.
But the point is, although Buffy said, "don't," she
didn't do anything about it. She didn't have to do this, she could
have stopped Spike easily. "Why do I let him do those things
to me?" Buffy asks. Why, indeed? She doesn't have to. Really,
the only conclusion is that part of her wants to do it. But there's
still a part that doesn't want to. Therefore, she's conflicted
and unhappy as this takes place. Furthermore, the belief that
she came back "wrong" gives her a rationalization for
her behavior. When Tara explains that she's still the same Buffy,
she has to face up to the fact that whatever part of her wants
to do this kind of thing is really part of her, not some demonic
influence or spell.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> Pygmalion -- Malandanza, 08:07:32 02/06/02 Wed
"I've read over several comments about the scene above the
dancefloor in the Bronze between Buffy and Spike, and I tend to
disagree with what I've seen said so far... Besides, he's pushing
her deliberately--he wants her to sort out her feelings, too,
in the hope they tip in his favor."
My feeling is that Buffy is excusable in her conduct because she
hasn't sorted out her feelings. She is still feeling the aftereffects
of being torn from heaven (twice, thanks to the amnesia spell).
Spike caught her at a the lowest point in her life and added to
the confusion. Spike doesn't want her to sort out her feelings
-- if she does, she'll stake him. He would rather that she stayed
confused -- and cutting her off from her friends is the best way
to keep her believing all the lies about herself. Even before
The Yoko Factor, we knew that Spike was an adept at manipulating
other people -- the whole thing reminds me of Pygmalion (if Professor
Higgins had been a blood-drinking, masochistic murderer):
Higgins: Oh, it's a fine life, the life of the gutter. It's real:
it's warm: it's violent: you can feel it through the thickest
skin: you can taste it and smell it without any training or any
work. Not like Science and Literature and Classical Music and
Philosophy and Art. You find me cold, unfeeling, selfish, don't
you? Very well: be off with you to the sort of people you like.
Marry some sentimental hog or other with lots of money, and a
thick pair of lips to kiss you with and a thick pair of boots
to kick you with. If you cant appreciate what you've got, you'd
better get what you can appreciate.
And Eliza's comments are also appropriate -- the focus has been
on Buffy's physical abuse of Spike (but Spike and Buffy don't
really injure each other) rather than on the emotional abuse he
inflicts upon her.
LIZA. Oh, you are a devil. You can twist the heart in a girl as
easy as some could twist her arms to hurt her
Spike knows where Buffy is most vulnerable and rarely restrains
himself from hurting her -- not just in this episode: previous
episodes are filled with his "creepy small talk" (all
from this season).
SPIKE: Don't you get all prim and proper on me. I know what kind
of girl you really are.
*
SPIKE:
Not yet. But I'm in your system now. You're going to crave me
like I crave blood. And the next time you come calling, if you
don't stop being such a bitch, maybe I will bite you.
*
SPIKE: Only a matter of time before you realize. I'm the only
one here for you, pet! You got no one else!
*
SPIKE: Don't you get it? Don't you see? (He smiles at her, cruelly)
. You came back wrong...came back a little less human than you
were.
*
SPIKE: Oh, poor little lost girl....She doesn't fit in anywhere,
she has no one to love
*
I saw the chat in the Bronze as merely a continuation of his past
behavior. He knows exactly how to hurt Buffy and ME are reminding
us yet again that he enjoys inflicting pain upon her as often
as possible -- and if there's degrading sex involved, well, that's
a bonus.
And, just in case we missed the point, they gave us Warren and
Katrina to reinforce that Spike's obsession is unhealthy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> Re: Pygmalion -- ponygirl, 08:21:54 02/06/02 Wed
"And, just in case we missed the point, they gave us Warren
and Katrina to reinforce that Spike's obsession is unhealthy."
But Spike was Katrina in Buffy's dream, the victim. And I really
do think that both the Bronze scene and the sex scene in Buffy's
bedroom took place entirely in her mind. She was using Spike to
voice her deepest fears.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> Re: Pygmalion -- Wynn, 08:39:51 02/06/02 Wed
I don't agree that Spike doesn't want Buffy to sort out her feelings.
I think that he does. At the end of OMWF he says to Buffy "The
day you suss out what you do want, there'll probably be a parade."
He doesn't want Buffy to be confused about her feelings. Now what
he wants Buffy to conclude from her feelings is different. He
seems to want Buffy to accept the darkness and accept his world,
but I don't think it has so much to do with Buffy being manipulated
by the Big Bad and being deliberatley hurt by Spike. I can't remember
a time when Spike (before his dream in Out of My Mind) intentionally
tried to hurt Buffy. His cruelest comments are reactions to things
that Buffy has said to him. In OMWF, he tries to explain to Buffy
how he doesn't want her around if she is just going to use him
for information. Buffy takes this as he doesn't want her around
period. Then Spike gets angry and says he hopes she dances until
she burns (which he ignores when he goes to the Bronze and saves
Buffy). I see his comment in Smashed where Buffy came back wrong
as a result of her telling him that he is an evil disgusting thing.
Almost like an eye for an eye; you hurt me so I'm gonna hurt you.
I'm not saying that this is right, but Spike isn't trying to hurt
Buffy. He does love her. He is just confused about how to express
the love, and he is confused about what he thinks she needs from
him (he thinks she wants and needs Big Bad). Spike seems to want
Buffy to just accept him and her feelings for him, and the way
he thinks he can do that is by trying to make her equal with him.
That she has darkness in her just like he has goodness in him.
I hope this made sense. All in all, I see Buffy and Spike as two
individuals trying to sort out and understand and accept how they
feel about each other. They are just going about it in not so
good ways.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> Re: Pygmalion -- Mystery, 12:48:32 02/06/02
Wed
Spike is scared. He has what he wants (Buffy), and yet he is terrified
he's going to lose her, like he lost Dru. He's trying to pull
her in, give them more in common, make her believe that he's the
only one that can relate to her, understand her, live with her.
He's deliberately playing on her fears that her inability to keep
a man, no matter how in love with her he is, has to do with the
fact that she's a freak of nature. She's the Slayer, too powerful
for any guy, that she would turn him 'bad.' One night with her,
Angel turned evil. Parker was all great and sweet until he had
her and then he left/ran. Riley became obssessed with vampire
"kisses." Ben turned out to share a body with Glory.
All these men and they all turned bad. Maybe she's been trying
to turn them into bad boys, she'll reason with herself. Spike's
bad to begin with, no fear in "corrupting" him.
Spike knows this, and he'll play on it. He'll try to brainwash
her with it. He wants her helpless so she can be as dependant
on him as Physically-ill Dru once was. I don't think he's doing
THIS specifically. He's in love, and he wants her to be his forever.
Just like Warren wanted Katrina to stay with him. It's a twisted
kind of love, but Spike has never known any other kind.
I was also hit with Buffy discussion with Tara at the end. When
Tara points out that Spike loves her, and Buffy is turning to
that for comfort, Buffy reads it as "I'm using him?"
I think that's what she's hating herself for. She thinks she can
never love him, but she's using his love for her as her pick-me-upper.
Sorry lost the rest of my momentuum on this. I do that alot.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> Re: Pygmalion -- leslie, 09:23:24 02/06/02 Wed
"And, just in case we missed the point, they gave us Warren
and Katrina to reinforce that Spike's obsession is unhealthy."
Hmm, I would say the opposite--seeing Warren's abuse and murder
of Katrina makes Spike look positively sunny in comparison. For
all the molecular malarky Tara comes up with to explain why Spike
can hit Buffy, it seems to me that the underlying metaphor is
that he can hurt her because she is vulnerable--i.e., on some
level she does love him--and he can hit her because he does love
her--i.e., on some level he knows that he is not going to kill
her, which overrides the chip. And god knows she gives as good
as she gets.
It also seems significant that while Buffy is overwhelmed with
conviction that all her friends would despise her if they knew
about Spike, when she finally admits to Tara, what is her response?
If you love him, it's okay, because he certainly loves you. Now,
granted Tara is the Queen of Empathy and also only knows the post-chip
Spike, but she is also damned perceptive.
There is a real line being set up here--Warren is human and thus
presumably has a soul, but he is far and away more evil than soulless
vampire Spike. Spike kills to feed, and threatening as it may
be that he feeds on humans, he's basically a carnivore writ large.
Warren is actually a murderer--he kills out of anger and fear
and to increase his sense of power. I'm really interested to see
how Jonathan develops out of this situation; Andrew has already
retreated into denial-land, but Jonathan is just starting to realize
what he's gotten into and seems to be wondering if he has the
guts to do the right thing. My suspicion is that either he is
going to try to betray Warren and Warren will kill him, or he
is going to be so conflicted that he finally does commit suicide.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> Re: Jonathan -- Malandanza, 09:39:26 02/06/02
Wed
"Jonathan is just starting to realize what he's gotten into
and seems to be wondering if he has the guts to do the right thing.
My suspicion is that either he is going to try to betray Warren
and Warren will kill him, or he is going to be so conflicted that
he finally does commit suicide."
I'd say a third option is possible -- that Jonathan remains loyal
(after all, he is now an accessory to a murder and its cover-up)
but that Warren mistrusts him. Warren is reasonably observant
-- Jonathan's comments can't have gone unnoticed. If Warren allows
his imagination free reign, he may pre-emptively try to remove
the potential weak link -- either killing Jonathan or forcing
Jonathan to go to Buffy for his own safety (as Faith fled to the
Mayor to protect herself).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> Re: And the fourth option... -- WW, 11:01:26
02/06/02 Wed
Jonathan may find the strength to break away from Warren, or even
to destroy him. He might betray him to Buffy, or kill him, himself.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> [> Re: And the fourth option... --
leslie, 12:37:26 02/06/02 Wed
Admittedly, anything is possible. Maybe it was the sychronization
between the FX reruns and the new shows, but it seemed to me that
Jonathan was getting the same look on his face that he had when
he tried to kill himself several years earlier that evening.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> [> Re: And the fourth option... --
Dichotomy, 16:17:41 02/06/02 Wed
That's what I was thinking: That Jonathan will either directly
or indirectly help the Scoobies defeat Warren.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: And the fourth option...
-- DEN, 17:52:32 02/06/02 Wed
And things will be complicated because Jonathan's crime was not
metaphorical like abusing magic, or even committed in the service
of a demonic BIG BAD, like Faith's killings for Mayor Wilkins.
Jonathan is guilty of a real-world first degree murder. It doesn't
matter legally which of the three swung the bottle. Any competent
prosecutor could put him on death row, or in prison for life.
Will the scripts cut him Faith's slack?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: And the fourth option...
-- fresne, 10:53:02 02/07/02 Thu
Not a lawyer, I'd have to go for Jonathan 1 count of accessory
to second degree murder, 1 count of kidnapping, and 1 count of
attempted rape in terms of charges for this incident. And on a
separate issue, grand larceny - the bank job, the jewel heist.
Assault - the security guard. Hmmm...Seems we really should have
been taking them seriously.
Although, a good DA could probably bargain down to accessory to
attempted rape, since things hadn't progressed that far yet.
1st degree murder being premeditated, while 2nd is a crime of
passion, manslaughter being whoops/oh my. Accessory deliniating
between, I threw the rock. I held his coat while he threw the
rock.
Wonder what Faith was charged with? Manslaughter - Dep Mayor.
1st degree murder - the archeologist, Manslaughter - the nurse.
Couple counts of assault. Theft.
Interesting, as an aside, that Katrina saw her revenge/thier punishment
fairly typically of the average view of our criminial justice
system. "Let's see how you like being raped."
I.e. You're going to prision and you will literally be someone's
bitch.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: And the fourth
option...a bit off topic, but fun. -- DEN, 14:50:22 02/07/02 Thu
fresne, I'm not a lawyer either. But in most states a killing
committed in the course of a felony (kidnapping)becomes first-degree
murder. As for Jonathan being charged as an accessory, he was
a full participant in the kidnapping, and in such cases even those
only marginally involved share the legal liability of the actual
killer. I agree that the usual prosecutor's approach would involve
a guilty plea to lesser charges in return for rolling over on
Warren and Andrew. And I can't imagine any lawyer not urging Jonathan
(and his parents) to make a deal before Andrew did. Jonathan is
SO not cut out for life in Oz!
Your last observation is really interesting--it shows how readily
we viewers could get caught up in the comic-book world the geeks
lived in. Their story is like the ending to one of Kipling's poems:
"And so we was all murderers/That started out in fun."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> question on faith's
crimes? -- anom, 22:36:47 02/07/02 Thu
"Wonder what Faith was charged with?...Manslaughter - the
nurse...."
When did Faith kill a nurse?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: question
on faith's crimes? -- fresne, 07:17:18 02/08/02 Fri
When she woke up from her coma. I thought that was the crime that
she was charged with.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re:
question on faith's crimes? -- Scroll, 09:07:56 02/08/02 Fri
Actually, it was a girl visiting the hosptial, not a nurse. And
she didn't kill her, only beat her up very badly. I think she
was mainly charged for her assaults in L.A. and for the murder
of Lester Worth from Graduation 1 (and any other murders committed
under the direction of the Mayor).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> Spike didn't only kill to feed, he didn't feed
off of either slayer he killed (NT) -- dochawk, 11:25:07 02/07/02
Thu
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> Re: Spike didn't only kill to feed, he
didn't feed off of either slayer he killed (NT) -- leslie, 19:04:14
02/08/02 Fri
You know, I realize that, in retrospect. And I have been trying
to figure out why I interpret Spike as essentially aggressive/threatening/dangerous,
but not, as base, evil. And I also really can't regard his killing
of Slayers as murder--it seems more like death in battle. And
I think I have realized where my attitude comes from. (Aside from
the fact that my parents' cat is named Spike, and it is therefore
a name I associate with cats, and I love all cats, even when they
are torturing mice.)
Anyway, I was editing an essay on what mythologist Georges Dumezil
calls "the three sins of the warrior" in the context
of Celtic mythology, particularly the figure of Cu Chulainn. Cu
Chulainn is the warrior hero of the Ulstermen, whose job is to
protect them from their enemies by fighting the warrior heroes
of other tribes/kingdoms. Cu Chulainn also has this rather charming
little habit of going into what is called, in the Irish, a "riastrad"
when he goes into battle. Riastrad is usually translated as "warp
spasm" or "distortion." His body turns around inside
his skin so that his feet are pointing backward; his hair stands
out from his head so that an apple would be impaled on every hair;
one eye sinks into his head so that it cannot be seen, while the
other pops out so that it lies on his cheek; his muscles swell
to an enormous size; and a "hero's light," sometimes
described as a spout of blood, emanates from his forehead. He
also becomes extremely hot and unable to distinguish between ally
and enemy; the first time he experiences the riastrad and heads
home, he has to be dunked into a series of vats of water until
he literally cools down enough to be part of society again. His
hair is also described as being of three colors, white, red, and
black, which is probably a reference to the Celtic practice of
dying their hair with lime, which would make the parts that have
been dyed frequently turn white. In other words, the Iron Age
equivalent of peroxide.
So Cu Chulainn is a fearsome warrior, but he is also a charming
young boy. Fighting causes him to put on the Celtic equivalent
of a vampire face. And although his services as a warrior and
defender of the tribe are necessary, there is an acute awareness
in his stories of the ambivalence of having to have warriors in
the first place.
To me, Buffy and Spike are both warriors of their tribes. Spike
shows up in Sunnydale offering to "protect" the vampire
tribe from the Slayer. The Slayer protects humans from vampires.
Their relationship traces a rather typical pattern in heroic epic
of "noble adversaries;" you may be on the opposite side
from another warrior, but if you are both good warriors, you respect
each other, and when faced with a third opponent who does not
play by the warrior rules, you may form a (temporary) alliance
against them, and then revert to your original opposition.
Looking at Cu Chulainn as a paradigm for Spike, it is also interesting
to look at the story of "Serglige Con Chulaind" or "The
Wasting Sickness/Love Sickness of Cu Chulainn." In this story,
Cu Chulainn falls alseep and has a dream in which two women in
fancy clothes and with enigmatic smiles on their faces approach
him and then whip him into a pulp. It turns out that one of these
women is Fand, the wife of the god Mannanan mac Lir, who is estranged
from her husband nad has fallen in love with Cu, and the other
is Li Ban, whose husband needs Cu's assistance against his Otherworldly
foes. Cu is unable to move or speak until he agrees to go fight
these foes, and his reward is an affair with Fand. Spike's love
for Buffy seems to be very much a serglige, which comes to him
in a dream, is directed towards a supernaturally endowed woman
who beats him senseless, and is accompanied by an inability to
carry out his usual task of fighting his people's traditional
enemy.
This is the thing about the Celtic otherworld: the people of the
sidh are "other" to humans, but humans are "other"
to the sidh-folk. Yet, while they are mutually "other,"
they also are mutually dependent. Somehow, I see Spike's actions
in the context of "following the traditions of his tribe"
rather than "being bad by the traditions of Buffy's tribe."
I also think that this is the source of much of Buffy's discomfort
with her role as Slayer and her feelings for Spike. It's one thing
when Angel has a soul as a special circumstance, but if Spike
can have some kind of "goodness" and an apparent capacity
to develop something approaching a soul when there is a chip in
there that overrides his riastrad, then what does that mean for
what she has been doing all these years? From the human point
of view, she is a warrior and protector, but from a vampire point
of view, *she* is a murderer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> Huh? In Fool for Love, we were shown Spike
feeding off the Boxer Rebellion slayer. -- Caroline, 15:10:44
02/09/02 Sat
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> Thank you. That's what I was trying to allude to earlier,
but you said and supported it better (NT) -- dochawk, 11:20:09
02/07/02 Thu
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moral Judgement: Is Willow getting Shafted -- Drucilla, 08:05:57
02/06/02 Wed
At some point in the Show, every character has done something
stupid, bad and selfish.
Example:
Tara:Screwing with Demon spell to protect self
Oz:Sleeps with Veruka
Dawn: Shoplifting, Halloween, skipping school
Buffy: Running away from home. How she treated Riley. 'When She
Was Bad'/ Frat Party-Cult ect. General Self absorbtion.
Xander: Not telling Buffy about Willow's attempts to re-soul Angel.
Summoning Sweet
Jenny: Not telling about Angel's curse
Giles: Ripper
Anya: joining up with Vamp Willow to destroy Sunnydale
Willow: Abusing her magic for selfish reasons
Faith: killing Mayor's lackey, killing a munch of unnamed civilians,
torturing Wesley, trying to kill Angel and Willow, joining the
mayor, Stealing, beating up the general public, ect.
Cordelia: General Selfishness and Cruelty
So my question is: does it seem to you that Willow is judged more
harshly for her wrong doing than other characters. Is she enduring
more consequences than they had too?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> More than some, less than others -- Sophist, 08:18:18 02/06/02
Wed
Well, Xander has gotten off scot-free from both incidents you
mentioned; he always does. Tara got away pretty lightly for her
spell. Dawn hasn't paid any consequences yet. Faith, of course,
has suffered the most but deserves it the most. On the other hand,
Buffy _always_ has her flaws thrown in her face, usually by her
friends. I'd say Willow is in the middle.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> Re: Moral Judgement: Is Willow getting Shafted -- CW, 08:40:24
02/06/02 Wed
I think you are close to answering your own question if you'd
follow through with what happen to some of those people.
Tara got off pretty easy.
Oz ended up losing Willow because of it. After she got over losing
him and moved on, he still had to suffer for what happened.
Dawn, the jury is still out.
Buffy, well she suffers half the time anyway it's hard to tell.
Xander got away with it.
Giles nearly lost Jenny over something he'd done in his Ripper
days.
Jenny's failure to be a true friend, eventually got her killed.
Anya figures she is suffering by not being a demon any more. She'd
know better than I do.
Faith is in prison for what she did, and isn't likely to get out
soon.
Cordelia has just begun to understand how made others feel. Not
much of a punishment, but at least she's stopped hurting others
as part of her daily routine.
Willow nearly got Dawn killed two different ways in one night.
Yes, it's the same Dawn, Buffy gave her life to protect. Buffy
didn't throw her out of the house, nor has she ended her friendship
with Willow over it. I'd say they were fairly lenient with her.
My take on Tara leaving her is that it's more for Tara's personal
integrity and safety, than for punishing Willow. (See my fan-fic
Possessed at the Fictionary Corner for my ideas about that.)
So, yes, Willow is getting worse than some have gotten. But, on
the other hand she's come off a lot better than some others.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> Re: Moral Judgement: Is Willow getting Shafted --
Yellowork, 09:10:57 02/06/02 Wed
Hi! Just thought I ought to mention how much more I would have
respected Will if she had intended to kill the wee brat. Still,
there is always tomorrow, grasshopper. Bye!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> Re: Moral Judgement: Is Willow getting Shafted --
Scroll, 09:46:22 02/06/02 Wed
Hi everyone, this is my first posting so please be gentle in your
replies. I've been lurking here for about a year but never had
the courage to voice my opinion before. Well, I'm at work and
quite bored. So here it is:
I agree with CW about Tara's reasons for leaving. Tara left to
protect herself, not to punish Willow. Twice Willow erased Tara's
memories to make her own life easier (a form of abuse?) and never
once seemed to feel any remorse.
While I enjoy the way Joss portrays Willow's ongoing battle with
her addiction, I think he has yet to address Willow's past arrogance.
I don't think Willow has even apologised to Tara yet, at least
not that we've seen.
Tara's demon-hiding spell was motivated by fear and Oz sleeping
with Veruca was instinctual; this doesn't excuse them, but it
does make us more sympathetic. They eventually realise they're
wrong and stop themselves; Willow has now reached that point as
well. But she hasn't been punished by anyone except when Dawn
slapped her. She's suffering now from withdrawal, not from punishment
being meted out by Buffy or anyone else.
Just wanted to add that I love this discussion board for the thoughtfulness
of the posts and the incredibly brilliant posters here.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> Welcome, and keep posting! -- Cactus Watcher,
09:57:57 02/06/02 Wed
People will say you're one of those incredibly brillant posters
in no time at all. ;o)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> Re: Moral Judgement: Is Willow getting Shafted --
Malandanza, 10:01:09 02/06/02 Wed
I'm not sure Tara got off that easily -- she severed all her connections
with her family (a difficult thing to do even if your family is
dysfunctional) and I have no doubt that she punished herself (off
screen) for her blindness spell.
Which brings me to my point: in most cases, punishment comes from
within. Buffy and Oz suffered the most because they have the strongest
consciences (even punishing themselves for involuntary acts).
Guilt also consumed Giles and Jenny at various times and even
Faith first suffered from her own internal conflicts before committing
herself to the care of the California Department of Correction.
So if Willow, Xander and Anya have not suffered in proportion
to their crimes, perhaps it is because they have underdeveloped
consciences. (And, I agree, the jury is still out on Dawn -- she
hasn't been caught yet plus she is very young).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> Shafting Willow -- manwitch, 10:23:36 02/06/02
Wed
I think Willow's punishment is more severe than we realize and
at the same time not enough to do her good. One of the things
about "growing up" is not just holding yourself accountable
for your actions, but having others hold you accountable for them,
to have acknowledgment that you are an adult.
At start of S6 I think it was extremely important for Willow to
express her power and to have it validated by others. She wanted
to "help Buffy." She wanted Buffy's appreciation for
her help. She wanted to be acknowledged, it seemed to me, as Buffy's
equal if not superior in this regard. Her leadership style with
the scoobies was also very Power-centric. Unlike the somewhat
chaotic commune that Buffy more or less led, Willow was "The
Leader" with votes and placards saying "Leader of Us,"
and she stood atop the crypt and gave orders, mainlined into people's
brains, no discussion, just direction. When she fell apart, and
Dawn was hostile to Buffy, Willow tried to be all psychiatrist's
daughter and take responsibility as a way of making Buffy feel
better. "I'm the one who was..." she started. Buffy
cuts her off with the word "Drowning." In that little
moment, everything Willow has been after is cut from underneath
her. She is Buffy's charge. She has always been Buffy's charge.
And even Dawn knows it. It was Buffy's responsibility to make
sure Wil was ok.
What diminishment. It must've been devastating for her. I think
that's a brutal punishment that we haven't commented on much.
But Buffy, in her attempt to be a friend and to build her own
accountability, has kept Willow in a state of dependency. Maybe
not on Magic anymore, but dependent nevertheless.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> Re: Shafting Willow -- fresne, 11:36:19
02/06/02 Wed
A dependency which feeds Buffy's own need to beat herself up.
"See what a bad person I am, I didn't/don't notice that Willow
is drowning, what Dawn is doing/feeling, etc."
She feels so bad, wrong, that she's grabbing more and more guilt.
Buffy, despite her good front, is clearly drowning herself. She
doesn't feel forgivable. Doesn't want to feel forgivable.
And Dawn can sense this despair, (although not necessarily understand
it) thus the outburst that Buffy would rather be in heaven than
be with her.
And now that Buffy and Spike are having sex, and not "actually
having a conversation" she can no longer talk to him about
her problems, which is what she was doing all the way up to OMwF.
Instead, now he is one of her problems.
The final scene of the episode was wonderful in that now Buffy
has a completely unbiased outlet. No emotional investment like
Spike. No guilt like Willow. No other issues like Dawn. Just someone
not to be okay with.
Given the way that Buffy's description of Spike as she was beating
him, I was particularly intrigued by her description of him as
dead inside, which is how Buffy describes herself. As others have
noted, Buffy is punishing herself as she punishes Spike. And oddly
enough, I think, trying to drive him away before even the evil
fiend leaves her. Because everyone leaves her, she's so unworthy.
However, punishing him, (makes me think of the sacrificial goat
that is given the tribe's sins), doesn't work for Buffy
Just as Willow giving Buffy responsibility over Willow can't work.
Willow protests a bit that Buffy isn't responsible for her, but
Willow doesn't lay it down, "No, I'm responsible for me."
You're right, it is incredibly devaluing and quite frankly, if
Willow is going to get past her root problem, her sense of inferiority,
it is behavior that must stop.
Lots of guilt being pushed around this episode. Buffy feels guilty
about Spike. Buffy feels guilty for not noticing Willow. Buffy
feels guilty for not being there for Dawn. The Troika gives Buffy
their guilt (except Jonathan, who may/might embrace it). Spike
asks for Buffy's guilt, a guilt that he isn't really capable of
feeling.
Hmmm...which briefly brings us to the guilt thread down a ways.
Buffy's clinging to her guilt is, to a certain extent, also a
way of avoiding her issues. Like someone drowning in a wading
pool.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> [> Driving Spike away -- Vickie, 13:37:33
02/06/02 Wed
Wow! Your point hit a nerve. I think you are right.
This board has been full of Buffy's abandonment issues. She has
good reason to believe that men will always leave. Let's see:
Her dad: divorced her Mom, came by *some* weekends for a while,
is now completely absentee even after her Mom's death.
Her first Watcher: died.
Angel: left her "for her own good"
Parker: user
Riley: left her for "not needing him enough"
Giles: left her "for her own good"
Part of what she is doing with Spike, imho, is testing him. Being
absolutely bloody awful to him, more awful than she truly is.
Because if he says then, maybe he won't leave her.
ymmv.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> [> [> Re: Shafting Willow -- yez, 12:22:24 02/06/02
Wed
manwitch wrote:
"I think Willow's punishment is more severe than we realize
and at the same time not enough to do her good. ..."
At start of S6 I think it was extremely important for Willow to
express her power and to have it validated by others. ... What
diminishment. It must've been devastating for her. I think that's
a brutal punishment that we haven't commented on much. But Buffy,
in her attempt to be a friend and to build her own accountability,
has kept Willow in a state of dependency. Maybe not on Magic anymore,
but dependent nevertheless."
Interesting. I agree, with the caveat that I think Willow had
already started dealing with the fact that she needed help --
and therefore was "dependent" to a certain extent. Remember
the scene in "Wrecked" where she pleads with Buffy for
help. I think I'd be surprised if Willow interpreted the drowning
comment as a diminishment. It seems par for the course that, eventually,
her work goes a little wrong.
If Willow is being treated harshly -- whether by the gang or the
writers -- I think it's necessary. She is so intelligent and intellectually
curious and oriented to how things work and manipulating things
so that they work "better," that I think her moral self
exists much closer to the dark side than the other characters,
except for perhaps Anya. She needs to be kept in tighter reign
because her intelligence/power could make her such a threat.
Our little Willow really does have something of a god complex,
I think. How often have we heard her say and say again, "Nothing
will go wrong. I can do it." And it's not in the "put
me in, coach" kind of way -- it's the "everything can
be figured out and can be made to work the way you want them to"
kind of way.
Reminds me of Glory's "you can't hurt me, I do what I want,
I'm a god" talk.
Buffy and Willow certainly do have different leadership styles.
Buffy is more of the lead by example type because that's her strength.
Willow is more of a chess player -- that's one of her strengths.
Also, Buffy doesn't regard herself as particularly intelligent
it seems, whereas Willow is the unchallenged brain of the group.
Buffy has kept them all in a state of dependency, I think. But
isn't that nature of her slayer role? People need her -- that's
why slayers exist, right?
This got me started thinking about parallels between Willow and
Warren and Jonathan's descent into "evil." Warren was
the Buffybot's first programmer, then Willow figured it out and
"fixed her" to help the Scoobies. Jonathan's magic has
had amusing glitches, but has been getting progressively more
serious. Similarly, Willow's magic binge brought forth a nasty
demon...
yez
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> Re: Moral Judgement: Is Willow getting Shafted -- Vickie,
10:15:00 02/06/02 Wed
I don't think so. Willow isn't really being punished by her friends
so much as they are stressing the danger of what she is doing.
And magic, wrongly handled, is a lot more dangerous (to all in
the area) than say, shoplifting.
It's important to notice, as Malandanza pointed out, that the
real punishment (as such) is coming from within these people.
I think Xander has gotten away with not telling Buffy about the
attempted resouling is that he still believes he was correct.
Can't explain the Sweet thing. That shoe hasn't yet dropped.
Willow is getting shafted, if so, by her own conscience and by
the strength of her addiction to power. Not by her friends.
just my twelve cents (too long for two).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[> [> Re: Moral Judgement: Is Willow getting Shafted --
Drucilla, 14:08:05 02/06/02 Wed
Remember this in Season 3:
Larry: So she's putting out right, I mean why else would you be
going out with a sophomore. Let me guess, the sweet and innocent
thing is all an act right?
Oz: Actually she's an evil mastermind. It's fun.
It was interesting that you mentioned intelligence in terms of
Jonathan, Willow and...the other guy...the blonde one. And it's
true, the raw power that comes with their potential is both impressive
and scary.
It takes a certain combination of being abused** and intelligence
to create moral ambiguity in ones character. This creates a character
that has not been seen much in Joss' world. There is not much
earned virtue in the Buffyverse. The characters are either Good
or Bad. And being Good or Bad is their natural state of being.
Previously, a Bad person was forced to to be Good through external
forces. For example, Anya was forced to become human, Spike was
forced to obey the chip in his head. --- But a character that
may not be naturally good, but chooses to be good despite temptation,
achieving their own virtue through pure will, has been absent.
Earned virtue is different from natural virtue because it is attained
through sacrifice of emotional and physical gratification. It
is also the strongest kind of virtue because it earned in spite
of oneself, not because of oneself. To most characters the act
of being good or bad was easy, because it was there natural state
of being--they had neither the depth to see the gray areas, nor
the awareness to realize why things were gray. The question becomes,
will Willow or perhaps Jonathan step up and earn this virtue,
and how will they do it.
Did I relate what I was thinking well enough?
What do you guys think?
--Dru
**When I say abused I mean disempowered. All the characters are
in different stages of attempting to gain personal power. For
Example, The Watchers council trying to take away Buffy's Power.
Xander's drunk/abusive parents undermining his personal power.
The Entire world against Faith, ect. In fact Willow and Jonathan
and whatshisname have been consistently hurt by well everyone----consider
the reasons for Jonathan's attempt at suicide, Willow's parents,
the way Willow had been unacknowledged for her gifts.
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[> [> [> Re: Moral Judgement: Is Willow getting Shafted
-- manwitch, 14:37:29 02/06/02 Wed
"But a character that may not be naturally good, but
chooses to be good despite temptation, achieving their own virtue
through pure will, has been absent."
I think this perfectly describes Spike. His obsession with Buffy
starts in School Hard. Almost none of his interaction with her
is dictated by the chip. Especially the end of Fool for Love.
The chip isn't what stops him, its seeing Buffy in pain. And he
just wants to help.
Don't get me wrong. Spike obviously still has some problems. But
I don't agree with Buffy that there is nothing good or pure in
him. His love for Buffy seems to be on the up and up.
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[> Re: Moral Judgement: Is Willow getting Shafted -- Goji3,
17:20:50 02/06/02 Wed
Am I the only one who view's Xander not-telling about the restoration
of Angel's soul in Becoming part 2 as a nessesary thing?
I've even had it refered to as "The Lie". That's just
a li