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The crossover that didn't - speculations on Buffy and Angel's final meeting -- KdS, 06:11:26 12/07/02 Sat

BBC rebroadcast Life Serial the other week, and I took the opportunity to have a look at Fredless on video. Having seen S6/S3 as a whole and the episodes leading up to that point in order, I think I can produce a retrospective speculation on what exactly went down to send both Buffy and Angel racing for the comfort of saturated fat. A word of warning: I come from a fairly anti-B/A background position. Diehard B/A shippers may be disturbed by the following speculation.

At this point in Buffyverse continuity, Buffy and Angel are at very different and unprecedented emotional positions. Angel, IMO, is at one of his most even keels in the series so far. As I see it, until he got the phone call in Carpe Noctem, he'd gone through his grief over Buffy's death, and was finally, after almost three years, ready to move on emotionally from the torments of their relationship. He'd had poor dear James's demonstration of how adolescent passion leaves you reduced to a crumbling husk, and some very wise words from Cordy, at this time perfectly poised on the balance between plain speaking and compassion. However, more importantly, he's accepted that his soul doesn't turn him into a shining, uncorrupted knight, and that redemption is an endless, asymptotic process rather than a medal that comes down shining from the sky when you've suffered and mortified yourself enough. Finally, and most significantly, what he went through with Darla has hammered into him that viewing another person as the symbol of your redemption is destructive for both of you, and grossly over-simplifies the other person.

Buffy, however, has finally cracked. Unlike Angel, she's had her redemption, and then had it snatched away from her by well-meaning friends. She's tormented by existence, struggling to find any kind of reason to exist and tempted just to let it all go again. (As I type, I've suddenly been struck by how close to Angel at times that situation might be. Hmmm.) After her mother's funeral, she'd been horribly tempted to let herself sink back into the comfort of an old relationship, but stopped herself, remembering how badly things had turned out before and that nothing had changed. Now she's losing both her moral compass and more importantly her sense of self-preservation.

Now I can see the circumstances of Buffy and Angel's meeting all too clearly. Angel, as I see him, wouldn't be human if, at some level, he hadn't been relieved that she had finally gone and a painful chapter of his life was over. (Although with his great, tender conscience, he'd be tormented all the more if he let himself admit it). I can imagine him horrified to find Buffy nakedly desperate for any kind of solace. I suspect that Buffy wouldn't have told him that she'd been in heaven, even given that he hadn't been in any way responsible for her resurrection. Even if she had, he would have been more sympathetic, but even more worried by the fact that she'd be looking to revive the past, despite the pain that had been associated with it. Angel would probably withdraw, recognising that the old destructive cycle had started again, and realising more clearly the reasons why it was destructive. He'd be desperate to help her, but convinced that any relationship between them with her in such an unstable state would only be destructive to both of them. Given the way that Angel tends to become more uncommunicative the more pain he's in, Buffy would only be able to see her old lover inexplicably withdrawing from her, sparking all her old abandonment fears. Angel would probably react by trying to explain that he wasn't the rock or the ideal she sees him as - possibly driven to describe some part of the Darla disaster, possibly confessing the original Hyperion incident, or some other past failure that we haven't seen in detail.

Whatever happened, I suspect the denoument would have been Angel explicitly bringing up the continued existence of the happiness clause as a reason why they couldn't be together, and Buffy shocking both of them by blurting out something suggesting that she wouldn't care if it got activated. (Great excuse to die heroically without it being your fault, and to have everyone sympathising. Hey, all that cool Duel in the Sun sexiness as well). Melodramatic, possibly, but B/A has never been anything if not melodramatic. And while there has been considerable debate recently over whether Buffy does have a general death wish, she admits to having had one in the immediate past in Gone, and I have great difficulty in explaining Spuffy without bringing it in to some degree. After that there'd be nothing bar the yelling and storming out.

Anyone else agree/disagree?

[> Re: The crossover that didn't - speculations on Buffy and Angel's final meeting -- Rob, 08:08:09 12/07/02 Sat

For the most part, I agree. I'm not sure, though, that Buffy didn't tell Angel about being in heaven. She was always very honest with him, shared things with him that she couldn't with her friends. And I think that having told Spike, she would feel wrong in not telling Angel. In fact, this revelation would intensify the problems of them getting back together all the more. The way I saw it was that after their meeting, Buffy wished she could have stayed with Angel, whereas Angel found closure. I think he left happy, on the one hand, that she's no longer dead, sad, on the other, knowing that she is not so happy herself to be back. But I think that over the summer, he had finally come to grips with Buffy finally being out of his life forever. When she came back, he was able to say a real goodbye and truly close that chapter in his life. And at this point I really can't see the two reuniting as lovers, even if Angel were to shanshu, because Angel, in this year, has had his world rocked upside down--by Darla, by Holtz, by Connor--and at this point their life experiences are very different. I think becoming a father changed Angel a great deal. Buffy wasn't around during Connor's birth, but Cordy was. I think the fact that Buffy didn't have these experiences with him, before, during, and after Connor's kidnapping, they will never be the same again.

Rob

[> A Plotter's perspective... -- ZachsMind, 10:53:32 12/07/02 Sat

I don't know why I'm tempted to do this. I try to keep my mouth shut nowadays when people comment on the shipping of the series. I guess it's just that though I disagree with it, this post was very well constructed and I believe the other perspective simply deserves equal time.

This need to defend the non-shipper perspective inevitably gets me in trouble because I find myself in the minority among Buffy fans, but speaking not as a person who glamorizes the relationships of either the Buffy or the Angel tv series (with the possible occasional exceptions of Willow & Oz or Willow & Tara cuz they just looked so cute together), I must say that the denouement of the Buffy & Angel romance was when he left to go to L.A.

When Graduation Day came and went, and they fought side by side one last time, then he looked at her and walked off between two fire engines and disappeared in the smoke. THAT's your denouement, and speaking from a writer's standpoint, it don't git much better than that. It's the modern equivalent of Roy Rogers riding off into the sunset on his horse.

The alleged 'meeting' that the characters had in season six was just a private extra thing the writers threw in, because they felt it important that the two were seen to still remain in some contact, as exes of their caliber tend to do. The writers let the audience know there's no hard feelings between Angel & Buffy. From a writer's standpoint, it's important to note that between both characters for a myriad of reasons.

The Thanksgiving episode or the time Angel returned briefly to fight Riley, or when Buffy caught Angel on his own show with Faith. That was all falling action. It's over. They parted as friends and fellow champions on the side of good. What more could we possibly want?

Buffy chose her calling over her love for Angel, when she pierced him with the sword and sent Angel to a hell dimension for one hundred years. Something by the way which STILL haunts him, as we learned recently when Angel's son Connor did something comparable but on a much smaller scale. This was something from which their romantic relationship could never recover. She chose her job over her man.

Was there ever a happy ending all tied up in a bow? No. That's precisely what makes Whedon's works so memorable. I simply don't understand when people insist the Buffy Angel relationship was written wrong or that it should get revisited or whatever. Had Whedon done so, it woulda been more like Prince Charming & Cinderella and I for one woulda changed the channel and never came back. Angel is a 250 year old vamp with a soul. Buffy is one TENTH his age; a twenty-something slayer with a superiority/inferiority complex. How else could it have realistically gone down?

There are some who believe that every soul who passes through your life, be they long time friends or just complete strangers who bump you in the shoulder, walk in and out of your life for a reason. When they show up in your life, they have something to teach you, and you have something to teach them. It's most often not readily apparent just what that is, and what one might think it is on the surface is probably completely and utterly wrong.

Buffy and Angel entered one another's lives with the help of a near Cupid-like guy named Whistler. They helped one another learn life lessons and when they'd taught one another all they could, they moved on. From a zen-like perspective it's all really a win-win kinda thing.

Not a storybook happy ending, but Buddha would approve.

[> [> Re: A Plotter's perspective... -- Q, 12:45:32 12/07/02 Sat

>Angel is a 250 year old vamp with a soul. Buffy is one TENTH his age; a twenty-something slayer with a superiority/inferiority complex. How else could it have realistically gone down? <

I agree with this statement a lot, but what really confuses me now, is the Spike/Buffy shipping going on. Angel/Buffy didn't work for a reason. Lots of reasons, actually, as you sum up well in the quote above. Why in the world would a Buffy/Spike relationship be any different. He is still hundreds of years her elder, she still has the superiority/inferiority complex, he still can't live a normal life in the light of day.

Spike presents the SAME problems with a different hairstyle. How can people point out these problems with a B/A relationship, and then support a B.S. relationship?

I'm always confused when it comes to Spuffy!!!

[> [> [> Not all of the same problems. Spike has no "happiness clause". -- Rob, 13:30:10 12/07/02 Sat

The age and vamp-gonna-live-forever problems are still there. But the thing that truly separated B/A is that they could never act out on their feelings for each other so that Angelus wouldn't come out to play.

Rob

[> [> [> [> about Angel's age.... -- black_eyed_veiny, 14:01:08 12/07/02 Sat

WHy is it no one evers gives his *correct* age: 340+ years? Why is that 100 or so years in a hell dimension set aside as though it never happend?

[> [> [> [> [> Probably because he doesn't physically age. -- Rob, 14:15:45 12/07/02 Sat

[> [> [> [> [> [> It's just a shame David Boreanz visibly has, really! -- slain, 18:23:13 12/07/02 Sat

Though I get round this by pointing out that Angel went to hell - that's got to add a few wrinkles to anyone.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Brent Spiner had a similar problem on STNG... -- ZachsMind, 21:44:49 12/08/02 Sun

He looks noticeably different in season one episode one "Encounter At Farpoint" compared to the last episode of the seventh season. In the episode "Time's Arrow" somewhere around I think the fifth season they did explain that his head is a couple centuries older than the rest of him because they were forced to leave it buried in a cave due to a time travelling mishap. That helped to explain the aging a bit, but it didn't help explain why he kept gaining weight.

Ironically, Leonard Nimoy's aging over the years has sorta helped him when he reprised his role of Spock in the films and the two parter "Reunification" in STNG. He just always seemed the right age for a slow-aging vulcan no matter where they set him in the timeline. A tip of the hat to serendipity I suppose.

Eventually they'll have to think of something to explain why Angel's aging. Granted, after a century sent to hell by Buffy coupled with a summer swimmin' wiff dah fishes, it can simply be argued that he hasn't been very kind to his body. David's aging gracefully from what I can tell though. No remarkable difference between the first episode of Buffy and now. A little bit here and there but compared to Brent Spiner, David's got nothing to worry about.

[> [> [> [> [> We don't know exactly how long he was in hell (100 is just a guess) -- Dan The Man, 20:44:19 12/08/02 Sun

[> [> Re: A Plotter's perspective... -- Dan The Man, 13:30:51 12/07/02 Sat

"Buffy chose her calling over her love for Angel, when she pierced him with the sword and sent Angel to a hell dimension for one hundred years. Something by the way which STILL haunts him, as we learned recently when Angel's son Connor did something comparable but on a much smaller scale. This was something from which their romantic relationship could never recover. She chose her job over her man. "

I agree with most of your post, but I interpreted these events a little differently. One, I thought the reason that they couldn't be together was more about the fact that Buffy could turn him in to a monster(the curse), their age difference and that he could not live in her world than the scene you reference in Becoming (2.22). That scene was more about Buffy being stuck with one of the most horrible possible choices, kill your first (maybe true in Buffy's mind) love (who is the one person most responsible for Acathla opening the vortex) or let the world be sucked into hell (where you, Angel and everyone else you know and love would suffer eternally). That's not really a choice and even after she did it, it broke her. Also, the scene in Deep Down (4.01) that you reference plays Buffy sending Angel to hell for laughs. I don't think he blames Buffy in any way, shape or form for what she did. In the fact, the tortured character that Angel is probably believes that he deserved to be sent to hell. Buffyís line about killing Angel in Selfless (7.05) makes it sound like she more emotional baggage related to that event than Angel does.

Just my two cents.

Dan The Man

[> [> [> Which brings up another problem.... (AtS spec....) -- Briar Rose, 15:14:09 12/07/02 Sat

"The Happiness Clause" that Angel is under is never going to allow Cordy and Angel to become "one" either. For that matter anyone that Angel truly loves.

This turn toward trying to get a coupling out of Angel and Cordy is doomed to failure. Because it can only be done by dismissing the entire Angel/Angelus backstory OR it will mean that the newly capable, strongly centered, self confident and wise Cordelia will have to assume that Angel doesn't actually LOVE her and never can, otherwise fullfillment of the entire "mature love as one" concept can't be attained.

Now would anyone as self loving and strong as Cordelia Chase accept a relationship with a man who can't totally and sincerely love her with her full knowledge? Would any self respecting woman? I don't think so. I also don' think that my beloved Cordy should be put into that position.

I know... The arguement is that "maybe Willow fixed the curse!" Well, I have to doubt that since Joss does tend to base his theological ideas of Magick as always being of the bad and most of all, each tends to backfire in ways that always cause consequences to cause more problems than it solves (which I do not agree with...)

Willow took the curse directly off a disk of Jenny's. The disk contained the original curse in Ancient Sumarian (or some other magickal language that defied interpretation, even by Jenny.... as all magick in the Joss-verse seems to do.) So what are the odds that either Jenny or Willow removed the "True Happiness Clause" from the curse. IMO? Highly unlikely. Especially since, even if Jenny could have made an addendum, I doubt she would have. Jenny was never a fan of Angel, especially since she knew him as Angelus for a longer time than as Angel.

[> [> [> [> There's also the possibility...(just spec, no spoilers) -- Rob, 15:59:27 12/07/02 Sat

...that the happiness clause WILL be removed some time in between now and when Cordy and Angel finally do get it on. ;o)

Rob

[> [> [> [> [> Ah ha!!!! Hadn't thought that far. Thanx, Rob. -- Briar Rose, 13:17:28 12/08/02 Sun

[> [> [> [> [> Re: There's also the possibility...(just spec, no spoilers) -- Juliet, 19:20:18 12/08/02 Sun

I disagree...that doesn't really seem to fit the tone of the show, so I don't think the writers will.

It just seems a little too happy-endingish for Joss and Co. However, there could be a nice plot twist where Angel sees how things can go wrong even without the clause.

Basing this on the fact that nothing ever really works out there.

[> [> [> [> [> My personal theory for some time has been... -- KdS, 03:21:27 12/09/02 Mon

Given the standard ME style, I've always thought that Angel will lose the happiness clause, shanshu, and become completely human...

For about three minutes before he gets blown to hamburger.

Should writer's just shut up? -- Sara, aka OCD girl according to a certain 12yr old, 07:15:20 12/07/02 Sat

I'm late in meeting Darby, and the little monster is harrassing me about it, but I want (or as the rotten little kid is saying "have") to throw this out here:

Would it be better if artists did not comment on their work? In a post below, there's some very emotional discussions going back and forth based on an interview with David Fury. It seems like some of our most acrimonious (did I spell that right?) discussions are based on ME interviews. I do believe that some of them involve writers purposefully playing games with fans (perhaps even pushing buttons, as it were...), which I think shows a real lack of civility and respect towards the people who are appreciating their work. But, I actually don't want to address that particular aspect of the issue.

In it's most basic form, the question is does a writer speaking of their work enhance or damage the reader/viewer's experience. I'm a huge J.D. Salinger fan, and a huge C.S. Lewis fan. On the one hand, I read every letter, diary and autobiographical word Lewis wrote that I can get my grubby little paws on. On the other hand, I avoid every item written about Salinger that isn't a pure discussion of his work. After reading "In Search of JD Salinger" I really regretted it and decided to respect his desire for privacy, which I think has helped my continued appreciation of his work by keeping out external noise. (Though I would recommend "With Love and Squalor" a very interesting collection of essays about the stories, not the writer.)

Much as I love the personal papers of C.S. Lewis that I read, I'm very inclined to think that any book is better if we don't know what the writer had in mind. I actually think that it's irrelevant - it's what we get when we read/see the work that is interesting. I say it takes the fun out of it when we come up with some elegant interpretation and have a writer jump in with a "nah, that's not right!" kind of comment. What do you guys think?

- Sara, who's probably about to get quite the lecture on punctuality from the little monster (and maybe even some help spelling...)

[> Re: Should writers just shut up? -- slain, 07:46:22 12/07/02 Sat

Do remember that interviews, even whole interviews, are very selective. Not only are they edited, they're also based on set questions, and the end result is not the writers telling us about their work, but someone else chosing what they want the writers to say, to an extent. Seeing as good interviews mean contraversial remarks which the interviewees probably felt were misrepresented or not fully explained, ergo interviews are always unreliable.

So my advice is as ever - don't read them. No one's forcing you to, unless you're strapped to a chair in a 'Clockwork Orange' fashion. Or, if you do read, don't put so much credence in them. The art is more important than the artist, not the other way around. Interviews are about the artist first, and the art second; therefore, when set aside the art itself, they don't always add to it in a positive way.

[> Re: Should writers just shut up? -- KdS, 08:23:59 12/07/02 Sat

Know where you're coming from. Without going into detail - once read a biography of one of my then favourite musicians and was so repulsed by the guy's apparent real world personality that I've never been able to listen to his music the same way since. On the other hand - one of my favourite prose fiction authors has a home page where he does Q and As with fans that is absolutely superb and puts over a very likable persona.

Depends on the writer's personality - on the individual person. Also depends on the fan's attitude to the work. If somebody likes an author's work for the snark they won't be put off if the author is an asshole in real life (can think of some personal examples if you're desperate but don't want to discuss named people). If they liked to think of the person as some beloved guru figure things could get messy.

As far as the question of authorial responsibility - without mentioning names I sometimes get the impression that if authors feel that people are putting more emotional investment into their work than they intended they can either get defensive and clam up or try shock therapy to try and throw the responsibility off - see William Shatner's infamous "Get a life, it's just a TV show" or words to that effect. Can come off as very aggressive even sadistic, but I'd imagine it can be very threatening if you get the impression that people are viewing you as wiser than you are and you're not naturally self-aggrandising. Can also be a problem if the fan's interpretation of something is very opposed to the author's, especially if the particular interpretation is threatening to the author for some personal reason.

[> [> speaking as a writer and writers' daughter -- leslie, 09:10:24 12/07/02 Sat

First of all, I think readers/audience tend to put too much value on the writer's interpretation of his/her own work. The writer's interpretation is not the definitive interpretation; once the intent is stated, you can try to gauge whether the writer was successful in conveying that intent, but that's only one aspect of the finished work. As a writer, once you've finished writing it, your interpretation of what you've written is about as authoritative as anyone else's--one possibility among many. Furthermore, often after the thing is written, even loooooong after it's written, you may suddenly realize that there is stuff in there you never realized you were putting in, and it's been there all along, you just never saw it before. Remember, you write with more than just your conscious mind, but you analyze what you've written only with your conscious mind. And when you're writing a television or moive script, my god--there's what the writer intended, what the director intended, what the actors intended, what the set designer intended, for crying out loud.

The other thing is, as I have learned over the course of my whole life of living with writers and other artistic people, just because you're a writer doesn't mean you're necessarily a nice person. Doesn't mean you have to be mean, or eccentric, or melodramatic, or any of the other artist stereotypes, but the persona that emerges from your work does not necessarily correspond with your public persona (which, in turn, may not actually correspond with who you feel you "really are" inside.) And, as Spike in my Thanksgiving dream reminded me (in his persona as Speaker of Unpalatable Truths): "You know, writers are inherently somewhat evil." (I now have this posted over my desk.)

Learning about a writer, in terms of life and persona or in terms of authorial intent, gives you one axis for understanding the work, but it isn't the only one. And in the particular case of BtVS, I think we have to take writers' interpretations of what's going on with even more caution than usual, not because they're "lying" to us, but because this is an ongoing work, and the longer it goes on, the more clear it becomes, to me at any rate, that the writers themselves are going back to things that have been written previously and discovering buried meanings that they didn't realize at the time, which they then start working over and exploring more deeply. This isn't retconning, it's writing.

[> [> [> Could Not Have Said It Better -- neolurker, 20:01:59 12/07/02 Sat

[> I guess it depends on what they are discussing -- shadowkat, 09:12:33 12/07/02 Sat

Much as I love the personal papers of C.S. Lewis that I read, I'm very inclined to think that any book is better if we don't know what the writer had in mind. I actually think that it's irrelevant - it's what we get when we read/see the work that is interesting. I say it takes the fun out of it when we come up with some elegant interpretation and have a writer jump in with a "nah, that's not right!" kind of comment. What do you guys think?

Agree with you on this one Sara. I've been avoiding threads that discuss writer's interviews lately. Because I think it does detract from their work. While I enjoy the writers commentaries on the DVD's - I hate their posts to the internet and their interviews. Similar response by the way to actors - I love the actors interviews on Inside Actors Studio but hate the interviews on talk shows. The difference? One is information objective discussion about the process of creating a work of art the other becomes an exercise in trivality.

I don't care what SMG's religious background is or who she's married or what she likes to eat. I care about how she views her work, how she figures out what to portray in a character on stage. I find what people do for a living fascinating.

Taking this back to your topic - I don't care what David Fury thinks about rape, serial killers, who he's married to or what direction he thinks Whedon should take the show.
Fury isn't in charge, it's not his show. What I do care about is how his writing is affected by the direction and production departments. What the process is of writing a tv show, the techniques involved. I don't care how he views the characters - because I know that only Joss Whedon's views on this are really important. If Fury goes against that view - Whedon will change the script. Just as if SMG does something with her character improvisationally that doesn't fit - Whedon will delete it.

I read the writers interviews mostly to figure out how the wrote the scripts, what thought process went into it and how that script changes as it comes to screen.

There's an excellent program on Bravo at 8pm EST called from Page to Screen which discusses the process that a book is brought to a movie screen and the changes it undergoes in the process. Last week's was La Confidential. This coming Monday will be Lord of The Rings. They interview everyone involved in the process, from the author to the screenwriters to the directors to the actors to the producers. That to me is fascinating.

Regarding writers like Tolkien, CS Lewis, JD Salinger, and other fiction icons? I find that knowing their intent sometimes not always takes away from my enjoyment of their story. Because as a writer I know that most writers have really no idea what theme or message they wanted to get across. My Dad who is a self-published writer was stating that when he writes - he thinks okay I want to explore why someone would kill someone else and how they'd do it. He writes mysteries. James Joyce used to tell people that what he intended is whatever they see in the novel. He certainly wasn't going to spell it out for them.

OTOH - I loved reading a book by Stephen King On Writing which explored how he went about writing a book and how ideas developed, the overall process of writing. And I've also read books by William Goldman on screenwriting - Goldman wrote Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Princess Bride, Marathon Man, and the screenplay for Misery. He relates in his book Which Lie Did I Tell - how he had to tone down the infamous hobbling scene in Stephen King's original so that it wouldn't overwhelm the visual audience, that and the actor playing the role couldn't handle it.

James Marsters views regarding the SR - attempted rape scene as well as Jane Espenson's - I found enlightening.
For Janes - see Rufus' reposted quotes below. Jane gives marvelous and insightful interviews. She gets the idea that we are more interested in thinking process. Marsters states on Shore Leave - why he felt it was necessary to do it, how he hated doing it and why, and how he handled it. He says that he treated it as a choregraphed fight and for once did NOT use method - b/c he felt it was necessary to make SMG as comfortable as possible in that scene and he knew she might worry about him b/c as a method actor he doesn't pull out of character between cuts - while she does. He usually goes into character and stays there throughout filming. Most of the other actors are only in character when the camera rolls. For this scene - Marsters deliberately changed his acting style and shifted, making sure she knew he was no longer in character and in complete control. He moved off her between takes and did what was necessary to make it easier on her. This was informative to me - because i wondered as an actor how one handles a scene like that.
Marsters also said that while he despises scenes like this and can't watch them, he felt that the writing was some of the bravest he'd seen and worthy of a good performance. And he was glad the writers kept to their vision. Go to spikespotting.com to find Shore Leave interviews.

That type of stuff I find interesting.

What annoys me is when writers tell me what their themes are or tell me - well I intended to do this or that. I don't care. Words words words - don't tell me! Show me!
If I wanted to be told things - I'd watch programs like the Practice or West Wing ...which tend to be on the preachy side, I like ambiguity, I like having to figure it out on my own. Also I feel that when a writer does try to explain what they intended - they cheapen their work and disrespect the intelligence of their reader/audience. If the reader/audience didn't see what they intended, saw something else entirely? They'd lost them. PArticularly if the reader preferred his/her own interpretation. It's the writers job to get it across in the text, in the visuals in the narrative. You have little or no control over how others view it of course. But to go out there and preach to the audience - "stupid people you were supposed to see this!" is well suicide. Because the people who you just called stupid are going to decide to stop wasting time looking at your work. After all - they have better things to do. Entertainers perform at OUR leisure...if we decide to stop reading them, looking at them or listening to them - then they are out of a job. While you should never allow a fanbase or audience or reader to compromise your work - you also should not insult or disrespect them. They are after all providing you with the rare gift of sharing it with them, and it is a rare gift. How many of us would give our eye teeth for a similar privelege? To be heard - someone must be willing to listen. We often forget - that the other person does not have to.

A classic example of a writer looking down on his audience is Jonathan Kanstan (??) the guy who wrote The Corrections. He may be a wonderful writer - but I know lots of people who refuse to read anything he's written based on his interviews about his work. Instead of letting his work speak for itself...he went and talked too much about it. Flouted his own ego. And for a writer - that is a tempting and at times disastorous thing to do.

Anyways just my two cents...or rather rambling ten cents on the topic ;-) SK

[> [> Re: I guess it depends on what they are discussing -- leslie, 09:50:45 12/07/02 Sat

"A classic example of a writer looking down on his audience is Jonathan Kanstan (??) the guy who wrote The Corrections. He may be a wonderful writer - but I know lots of people who refuse to read anything he's written based on his interviews about his work. Instead of letting his work speak for itself...he went and talked too much about it. Flouted his own ego. And for a writer - that is a tempting and at times disastorous thing to do."

Jonathan Franzen. I went to college with him, though I don't think I've seen him since graduation, and I have to say, I think he really got screwed by the press with the whole Oprah controversy. If you go back and look at the development of that whole thing, what it started with was, he didn't want a sticker with someone else's name on it slapped on *his* book. For all that people kept referring to "the Harper's essay" in which he had written about his philosophy of writing, no-one seemed to have read it thoroughly enough to have noticed that even there, he talked about pulling out of writing a movie script because he didn't want other people rewriting his work, didn't want his material diluted. If you read that essay, the whole Oprah blow-up seems positively preordained.

His point is not that he looks down on his readers, but that he dislikes the commercialization of publishing, the bottom-line approach to selling books. It's a question of the context in which the book is read, not who reads it. He wants his work to be considered as art, not as commodity. As with his hapless alter-ego in The Corrections, who is trying to write a blockbuster screenplay, but as his girlfriend points out, "But Chip, the entire first act is a lecture about the anxieties of the phallus in Tudor drama!"

[> [> [> Re: I guess it depends on what they are discussing -- shadowkat, 12:41:48 12/07/02 Sat

I agree on the whole Oprah thing btw. Personally I have no problems with Franzen - of course I haven't read the articles or seen the interviews that got people so riled up.

I wasn't really referring to the Oprah controversy, but some other comments he made both on Charlie Rose (?? - sorry very bad with names) talk show and in several articles that had friends of mine incredibly annoyed. I'm not sure exactly what the quote was - but it had something to do with writing the definitive American novel and no one else accomplishing it. Apparently he came across as somewhat pretentious in his comments, but according to people I know who've read his book - this is just his style.
(shrug)

At any rate - I agree with your response to KdS.
Ann Patchette, who wrote Bel Canto, has a lovely take on this - she says that she believes a work of literature is a piece of art created by the interaction of a reader or audience with the work itself, that each reader or viewer brings something new to it and interprets it in different way, so that in a sense every one experiences a slightly different work. And to her - true art is the result of that interaction.

[> [> [> [> Re: I guess it depends on what they are discussing -- slain, 17:11:09 12/07/02 Sat

Ann Patchette, who wrote Bel Canto, has a lovely take on this - she says that she believes a work of literature is a piece of art created by the interaction of a reader or audience with the work itself, that each reader or viewer brings something new to it and interprets it in different way, so that in a sense every one experiences a slightly different work. And to her - true art is the result of that interaction.

That's definitely true - art doesn't exist in a vacuum. Take some modern art - a canvas which is just one or two colours doesn't have a lot of depth, but the audience brings it to it. Of course some ironic art plays with that, by mocking the audience for reading so much into something which is deliberately vacuous (I see Warhol's Empire State Building as an example of this), where the joke is on the audience. But really seeing as art is about our reaction, if we have a reaction to very simple abstract art then it's valid - what ironic modern art mocks is the critics claiming abstract art is better than more conventional forms, because it's more oblique.

In Buffy, there's already a complicated universe which seems to imply that, regardless of the viewers, the show has meaning. But it doesn't, unless it's viewed, it being a TV series, not a private journal (and even private journals are written for an imagined, future audience). I think Joss always recognises that the viewers bring as much to the series as he does - he makes that very clear in his DVD commentaries. I think why some writers irk the viewers is that they seem to not only priviledge their own interpretation (which is valid, seeing as they are the creators, after all), but to discount other fan's interpretations, be that interpretation that Spike is redeemable without a soul, or whatever.

Ultimately I'm a Joss believer, however, so that while I argue against the right of David Fury or Marti Noxon to discount viewer's interpretations in favour of their own, because I view Joss as the authorative Holy Trinity (Creator, Executive Producer, Story writer) I think what he says goes; but he's always undermined any factual basis the show might have, and always linked it with universal themes which he doesn't pretend to understand.

[> By all means NO -- ZachsMind, 09:20:22 12/07/02 Sat

"Would it be better if artists did not comment on their work?"

In a word: No.

However, most artists learn to shut up anyway. It's not that it's better. It's safer. Oftentimes when asked, many actors in film will claim to never watch him/herself in their own shows and films. Whether this is truth or a lie is speculation, but it saves the actor having to critique him/herself and appearing narcisistic before their public.

Objectively, it is better for anyone in the industry to be outspoken and honest. It's better at all times. However, in a media oriented society where one is considered guilty until proven boring, honesty is far from the easiest policy. Silence, while not golden, does at times give the illusion of humility among artists.

"In a post below, there's some very emotional discussions going back and forth based on an interview with David Fury. It seems like some of our most acrimonious (did I spell that right?) discussions are based on ME interviews."

It can be argued that avid fans of the series would argue regardless of where the information came from or who was talking.

"I do believe that some of them involve writers purposefully playing games with fans (perhaps even pushing buttons, as it were...), which I think shows a real lack of civility and respect towards the people who are appreciating their work. But, I actually don't want to address that particular aspect of the issue."

Why not address that issue? It could be an integral part of it.

Put yourself in Whedon's shoes. You have a show that you believe in, but the network it's on has a marketing department that's unreliable, and your sources and research tells you that your real success is due to a small cult following that grew from grass roots and is all over the Internet. Do you appease the unreliable marketing department and kiss the butts of people in suits who could care less about the art you're doing? No.

You turn to the people who actually watch the show, listen to their schizophrenic prattling, and respond as best you can. And yes, sometimes that's gonna include playing with the heads of the people who actually watch the show. When you're sitting at a campfire and there's a guy telling the circle around the fire a story, you think that guy's not gonna play with your head? It's part of the fun of storytelling.

"I'm very inclined to think that any book is better if we don't know what the writer had in mind."

That's your opinion and you're welcome to it, but I'm exactly the opposite, and both opinions are equally valid. I think most people fall somewhere within the spectrum. Some prefer not to know anything about the people behind the scenes. Others want to know everything.

For all I know, being aware of the color of towels in David Fury's bathroom at home could be a vital clue to an injoke that he slips into an episode of Buffy. Okay. That's an extreme example but y'know whut ah mean, Vern. Understanding the person telling the story can sometimes help in understanding the subtext of the story. You may be satisfied with just discussions of an artist's work, but others may need more. Most of us fall somewhere in between.

"I say it takes the fun out of it when we come up with some elegant interpretation and have a writer jump in with a "nah, that's not right!" kind of comment. What do you guys think?"

There are three different forms of the same work of art.

1)What is objectively there.
The Mona Lisa consists of oil based color pigmentation placed upon a flat canvas by the use of various brushes and other tools. It is several hundred years old and due to great care the artifact is aging gracefully, as paintings go.

2) What the audience sees:
A digitally touched up copy
The alleged hidden face
Images of Mona Lisa For A Modern World
Museum of Science's view of Leonardo

3) What the artist intended:

God only knows what DaVinci truly intended. There's speculation, but his actual reasoning behind the painting of the Mona Lisa has been lost. Why? Because no one thought it important to preserve a definitive answer. So now we don't know and we probably never will. And that's a loss. It's a shame.

If someone unfamiliar with western culture or soup cans at all were to be exposed to Andy Warhol's soup can and didn't then investigate what a soup can is, they would just see a flat image on a canvas that to them would probably have no meaning. By learning more about the artist's perspective, we come to understand the artwork more and therefore can better see through the eyes of that artist, rather than just see our own subjective view of his or her work.

The same holds true in writing or any other medium.

Leonardo communicated to an audience with the Mona Lisa, but some debate that what he had to say to us, and what we "hear" when we are exposed to his work, are not the same thing. If we could better understand why he painted the Mona Lisa, then we could better understand the work itself, and consequently the artist that created it.

So by all means don't shut David Fury up. In fact give the old bastard a microphone. Give him a megaphone. Let him shout from the rooftops.

Maybe you don't want to listen, but I do, posterity does, and history will.

[> [> i hate it when I miss a tag! -- ZachsMind, 09:45:51 12/07/02 Sat

[> [> Re: By all means NO - okey dokey then -- Sara, way more waffley than it looks, 17:17:43 12/07/02 Sat

I agree that avid fans would disagree regardless of what writers say, but it seems like the disagreements take on a far more personal note when they are triggered by interviews. My suspicion (and it's only that - I personally avoid interviews most of the time so don't have a strong point of reference) is that when a statement is made by the writer it isn't treated as merely an opinion or theory by the audience. If it takes an emotionally charged issue lightly, or even with a viewpoint that someone finds upseting, it has much more weight than just any old person posting. But - let me make something really clear, the fact that people might find it upsetting (although I really hate to see members of this community hurt or reliving painful experiences) is not why I bring up this question.

The question really comes from an honest wondering on my part of the role of the artist's intentions in interpretation of their work, and the effect knowing the intentions has on the experience. That's why I didn't want to directly address a writer's desire to manipulate an audience after the fact with commentary, whether it be venting in response to criticism or just plain enjoyment in getting people upset. (I worked with one man who would enter an office shared by four women, make a few statements that he knew would get them angry and then go back to his own office and laugh at the results. Sometimes I do wonder if there aren't some ME writers that have a similar personality quirk, but maybe not...)

Anyway, would Shakespeare have the staying power if his character's motivations were crystal clear? This is a real question, I'm not a Shakespeare fan and I know that it's something I really just don't get. I took a couple of classes on Shakespeare (hey, they were 1/4 courses so they were a really fast 4 credits) and I loved to watch the acting students read everything but the kitchen sink into the dialogue. How much of the empty framework around the beautiful words (even a dummy like me knows they're beautiful) is what that keeps his plays such living documents?

Posterity absolutely loves definitive answers, but in art isn't there something to be said for a little mystery?

-Sara, who really can't decide, yes...no...mystery...clarity...aahhhh!!!!!

[> Re: Should writer's just shut up? -- Miss Edith, 17:38:57 12/07/02 Sat

If writers can make intelligent points in interviews I am more than prepered to listen. But if the interviews are confusing and contradictory it does take away from the experience. E.g Marti infamously describing Buffy's behaviour as "actually something that a heroic woman would do if she's afraid of being domesticated". That was regarding Buffy's treatment of Spike in season 6 and personally was a real WTF moment for me as I see nothing heroic about punching someone in the face for saying he loves you. But then Marti does make comments that I find thought provoking such as suggesting Spike is heroic because of his struggle to find the better part of his nature. That has me hopeful that he will actually be explored as a character, rather than used as the evil boyfriend theme. Her comments did at some points take me away from the show as I kept hearing about how Spike was based on her past and her abusive ex and it did not cause me to respect the work.

I generally enjoy Joss's comments and appreciate his snark towards the fans. But David Fury always seems to take it too far to me and border on offensive. Jane's interviews I enjoy as she seems to give her work deep though and be genuinely interested in helping cast light upon it. I guess it's to do with public relations and tact. If you aren't great at interacting with your public and your interviews get circulated all over the net as an example of what a jerk/idiot you are then it's probably best to stop commenting on what you were trying to say. Let the fans pick up their own meanings and make you look cleverer than you are. That would be what I would do if I were a Bts writer. JMHO.

A question about Oz's wolf form -- Laurence, 20:25:34 12/07/02 Sat

How come Oz looked different in Season 2 than in Season 3/4? He was a six foot tall, walks on two legs, with a wolf head on Season 2 but in Season 3 he's short and looks more like an ape. What happened?

[> Big gay possum -- Apophis, 22:15:43 12/07/02 Sat

All I know is that Joss sais that the original suit looked like a "big gay possum." Personally, I liked it. The later look didn't remotely call to mind a wolf. I suppose the original might have been too unwieldly; it didn't particularly suit chases or stunts.

[> [> Also... -- KdS, 02:42:30 12/08/02 Sun

As I recall the original costume in Phases was worn by a stuntman but in S3-4 Seth Green himself played Oz-as-wolf. May have been a question of actor's comfort or that it was hoped Seth Green could get some emotion across.

[> [> Re: Big gay possum -- slain, 06:55:11 12/08/02 Sun

Very arresting subject line, Apophis!

I think also the werewolf changed because the character became more serious, and permanent. I can't really imagine 'Beauty and the Beasts' (one of my favourite episodes, though no one else seems to like it much!) with Oz as the wolf with the immobile mouth. It would just have been silly, and in this instance silly wasn't something they were looking for.

[> [> Re: Big gay possum AND... -- Darby, 07:47:06 12/08/02 Sun

Joss said something almost as disparaging about the second werewolf incarnation, but I can't remember what and I can't find it anywhere. Anybody know what the second suit was described as?

Game Without End, But Apocalypse Nigh (vague spoilers S5-7, mostly a Very Long, Rambling Spec) -- Haecceity, 22:28:27 12/07/02 Sat

This is primarily a response to a thought Honor H tossed to the board and Alcibiades elaborated upon, filtered through my reading of the first chapter of James P. Carseís book, ìFinite and Infinite Gamesî (It would have been based upon more than the first chapter of this very small book, but after Iíd underlined almost the entire thing, I figured I had more than enough fodder for a post;) Let me say right off that I do not agree with everything Mr. Carse has to say, but his work has provided a conveniently organized framework for constructing a big ëol speculative theory of whatís going on this season. ****Warning---this is most definitely a case of brain blurt. Whatever was in my head just tumbled out in no apparent order and it got just too damn long to English Composition Class edit. Therefore, it starts out strong, but kind of rambles out at the endómy brain got tired. Hopefully you guys will get the gist .*****

Enough with the caveats, here are the original posts:

Date Posted: 14:56:13 12/04/02 Wed
Author: HonorH
Subject: A speculation (spoilers through 7.9)

I'm sure we've all been wondering about how Buffy's going to beat the First Evil, especially if it doesn't get itself a body she can pummel. Well--what if she doesn't have to beat it? What if all Buffy needs to do is keep things balanced? Frustrate its plans?

I fully expect her to be trying to beat it for most of the season, only to come up head-first against Uber-Vamp and Bringers and assorted other minions. If she changes her tactics, though, she could throw it off. The point for her wouldn't be winning--it would be making sure the FE doesn't win. Play to a draw rather than play to win.

Do I have something here, or am I on crack?

Date Posted: 23:29:46 12/04/02 Wed
Author: Haecceity
Subject: Neat Idea
In reply to: HonorH 's message, "A speculation (spoilers through 7.9)" on 23:29:46 12/04/02 Wed

Have you heard of a book called "Finite and Infinite Games" by James P. Carse? Coincidentally enough I just picked it up in the bookshop this afternoon. Haven't got a chance to read it yet, but the blurb on the back makes me wonder if it doesn't speak to your notion here.

"Finite games are...games with winners and losers, a beginning and an end. Infinite games are more mysterious--and ultimately more rewarding. They are unscripted [Well, not in our case ;)] and unpredictable [okay, back in it here]; they are the source of true freedom."

Its a thin little book, so I'll give it a go and get back to you, but this idea of yours sounds like it would be very exciting, story-wise!

---Haecceity

Date Posted: 09:51:07 12/05/02 Thu
Author: alcibiades
Subject: Reply to HonorH and Haecceity's now archived thread/A Plague of Jungianism

This went to the archive as I was posting.

Spoilers for Checkmate/The Lymond Chronicles and the Earthsea Trilogy

About playing to a draw and keeping things balanced:

This is what I am currently thinking.

So far the two powerhouses of the Buffyverse, besides Buffy and a yet to be revealed Dawn have come up against their demon selves -- played not at all incidentally by the same actor. I think that might be important.

During STSP I was annoyed at the stupid coincidence of a flesh eating monster appearing in Sunnydale just as Willow returned -- it seemed too easy. Gnarl wanted to devour her, just as the blackness devoured Willow last year.

So too, Spike's ubervamp is empowered by his (transmogrified pig's) blood, just as he has been empowered by the blood of others.

Willow was paralyzed to act by her fears, both mentally and then physically when Gnarl touched her. Spike is now immobilized on a cross-thingee. We have yet to see if he can begin to fight this on his own without any help.

It seems that everyone is coming up against their monster selves -- played by the same guy embodying these roles.

Anya came up against her monster self too -- and fought it.

So I think Dawn -- we have seen Dawn's journey start with the visit from her mother and her agonizing over whether what she was told was true -- and Xander and perhaps Giles will all have to do it as well.

And finally Buffy will have to do it. And I think she will eventually need the help of friends and family to do it. Just as Willow did. Just as Spike probably will.

Kind of like Gad fighting himself as his final adversary in the Earth Sea Trilogy or at the end of Checkmate/The Lymond Chronicles, the symbolism of Lymond, newly resurrected non-volitionally from the mostly dead, after losing the battle with himself at the Authie, and with Marthe -- his shadow self -- in the room, playing chess with himself as his own adversary before he makes the final journey back from death -- very much with the help of family and friends and his loved one -- at the VERY moment that Marthe, his shadow self is killed off.

Hey, this Jungianism is starting to infect everything!
*********************************************************************************************

Now for my response. All quotage is from ìFinite and Infinite Gamesî by James P. Carse, more particularly from section 1: ìThere Are At Least Two Kinds of Gamesî

Here are the basic concepts:

ìA finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. If a finite game is to be won by someone it must come to a definitive end. It will come to and end when someone has won. Finite games can be played within an infinite game, but an infinite game cannot be played within a finite game. The rules of a finite game are unique to that gameóthe rules may not change in the course of playóelse a different game is being played. The rules of an infinite game must change in the course of play. The rules are changed when the players of an infinite game agree that the play is imperiled by a finite outcomeÖThe rules of an infinite game are changed to prevent anyone from winning the game and to bring as many persons as possible into the play. Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries.î

So, what has this to do with the Buffyverse? Very simply, I think the series has shown Buffy and the Scoobies gradually realizing the existence of an infinite game beyond yet encompassing their finite game of ìGood v. Evilî, or to be more specific, ìHumans vs. Demonsî. Further, I think the reason theyíve glimpsed this has everything to do with Buffy, her nature and how she performs her role as the Slayer.

The Chosen One
Buffy has been trained to be a finite player, but her nature (and that of her ìrebelî Watcher) is to (unconsciously) seek infinite play---Thus Buffyís allowance for grey area, her self-determination, her struggles against the ìrulesî laid out by those masters of finite play, The Watchersí Council (They talk about being a vanguard, a barrier, but we know that theyíre really playing to WIN).

ìTo be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated. Training regards the past as finished and the future to be finished. Education discovers an increasing richness in the past, because it sees what is unfinished there. Training repeats a completed past in the future. Education continues an unfinished past into the future.î

I think weíve seen throughout the show Buffyís rejection of training in favor of following instinct, which oftentimes leads to mistakes that she learns from. From the end of Season three (fittingly, graduation) on I think we see Buffy turn to Giles not for answers but for information. Season 4 practically has this as its themeóthe importance of learning over training. Riley, anyone?

No One Expects the Spanish Inquisition
ì[It is by} surprising our opponent that we are most likely to win. Surprise in finite play is the triumph of the past over the future. The Master Player who already knows what moves are to be made has a decisive advantage over the unprepared player who does not yet know what moves are to be made. A finite player is trained not only to anticipate every future possibility, but to control the future, to prevent it from altering the past. This is the finite player in the mode of seriousness with its dread of unpredictable consequence. Surprise in infinite play is the triumph of the future over the pastÖî

[Okay, donít want to be sexist here, but Iíve always thought there was a reason that the Slayer is a girl, and I think itís tangled up with this notion of protecting pasts and forging futures. A tradition in narrative (and history) exists that men will die for ìhonorî, for the preservation of their good names as a sort of title, whilst heroines seem to die either for other people or for some sort of ìcauseî, yet rarely one to which their names are attached. (Iím ignoring women religious martyrs who suffered death to protect their ìhonorî meaning ìvirtueî, a given, not made thing, as a manís ìnameî is perceivedómostly ëcause it might totally undermine my proposition, but also ëcause I just canít shake the thought that itís not the same thing.) This is not to divide the two into camps of good and bad, merely to look at the thought that one of the intrinsic tensions between the Slayer and her band of male authority figures might be their disparity of purpose.]

The Vulnerable Slayer
ìBecause infinite players prepare themselves to be surprised by the future, they play in complete openness. It is not openness as in candor, but openness as in vulnerability. It is not a matter of exposing oneís unchanging identity, the true self that has always been, but a way of exposing oneís ceaseless growth, the dynamic self that has yet to be.î

From the very first we have been told, and in some instances have seen, that Buffy is unusual as a Slayer, mostly because Buffy thinks firstly with her heart. She trusts her instincts, relies on her dreams. She does not follow blindly the dictums of her watcher a la Kendra, nor does she reject outright the rules of the game a la Faith. Buffy has been Chosen for the ìwarî, but Buffy chooses her battles, and they donít always involve winning at any cost.

ìSince infinite players [I take this to mean a ìpurely aware of its being an infiniteî player, not a conflicted, unaware of her place as either finite/infinite, in-transition player that I think Buffy is] do not regard the past as having an outcome, they have no way of knowing what has been begun there. With each surprise, the past reveals a new beginning in itself. Inasmuch as the future is always surprising, the past is always changing.î

I donít think Buffy thinks this way. To her, the past is everything. But considering the little wrinkle in time that is Dawn, we (the audience) have to be aware that in the Buffyverse, the past may not be what we think it is. And this might be very well where they are headingóto a revelation of a ìtrustedî past that will blow all expectations to bits.

Death is Your Gift
I think that it was Buffyís sacrifice in the Gift that forced her to become an active player in the infinite game---
ìInfinite players die. Since the boundaries of death are always part of the play, the infinite player does not die at the end of play, but in the course of play. The death of an infinite player is dramatic. It does not mean that the game comes to an end with death; on the contrary, infinite players offer their death as a way of continuing the play. For that reason they do not play for their own life; they live for their own play. But since that play is always with others, it is evident that infinite players both live and die for the continuing life of othersÖIn infinite play one chooses to be mortal inasmuch as one always plays dramatically, that is, toward the open, toward the horizon, toward surprise, where nothing can be scripted. It is a kind of play that requires complete vulnerabilityÖwe can always say of them that they ëdied at the right timeí(Nietzsche).î

ìInfinite play is inherently paradoxical, just as finite play is inherently contradictory. Because it is the purpose of the infinite players to continue the play, they do not play for themselves. The contradiction of finite play is that the players desire to bring play to an end for themselves. The paradox of infinite play is that the players desire to continue the play in others. The paradox is precisely that they play only when others go on with the game. Infinite players play best when they become least necessary to the continuation of play. It is for this reason they play as mortals.î

Thus my feeling that the Slayer was originally this maintainer of a balance, a player of an infinite game. I think that however it happened, the institution of a Watcher as ìtrainerî and authority figure over the Slayer was an attempt to harness the power of an infinite player for a finite game. Thus we see the undercurrents of disparity between what a Slayer is described as vs. what she is. There have been all sorts of allusions to the Slayer as a kind of knight errant for the powers of good and truth and all that (quite frankly old-fashioned, patriarchal) crap. When really, she is a force of Nature, a maintainer of balance, an organic, evolving exponent of the Life Death Life cycle. ìIt is for this reason they play as mortals.îócomes perilously close to explaining a why behind the whole idea of a Slayer, a line of girls Chosen to maintain balance, but short-lived.

The BBW acting as Finite Playeró
I think what weíve got this year is a big ëol identity switcheroo. Whatever elemental, formerly balance-keeping power the BBW is, itís said itís had enough with the grand game, with the maintenance of balance. It wants an end, the relief of a finite game, with winners and losers and nothingness after. And itís targeting the Slayer, that definition of finite player to be its opponent, perhaps depending upon her resistance to bring on the Apocalypse it craves. Whatever it really is (because harbingers or no, I just donít think itís being all up-front and honest with us re: being the First Evil), itís evil now, because what it seeks is an end to everything.
ìÖFinite playersÖmust hide their future moves. The unprepared opponent must be kept unprepared. Finite players must appear to be something other than what they are. Everything about their appearance must be concealing. To appear is not to appear. All the moves of a finite player must be deceptive: feints, distractions, falsifications, misdirections, mystifications.î

ìEvil is the termination of infinite play. It is infinite play coming to an end in unheard silenceÖEvil is not the termination of a finite gameÖ[It] is not the attempt to eliminate the play of another according to published and accepted rules, but to eliminate the play of another regardless of the rules. Evil is not the acquisition of power, but the expression of power. Infinite players understand the inescapable likelihood of evil. They therefore do not attempt to eliminate evil in others, for to do so is the very impulse of evil itself, and therefore a contradiction. They only attempt paradoxically to recognize in themselves the evil that takes the form of attempting to eliminate evil elsewhere.î

The Gathering
Finite games can be played within infinite play, but infinite games cannot be played by finite rulesóI think this is the tension we see in Early Season 7 Buffy and her ìI am the lawî posturing. An insecure Buffy trying to go back to her secure role as a master player in a finite gameósheís been trained to play by certain rules (good vs. evil), but is now being forced by the actions/posturing of the BBW to see the totality of the real, underlying, infinite game. Her natural, unconscious and therefore not understood instincts as a Slayer are at war with her ideas of being a Slayer. She has been torn apart by knowing one thing and thinking another. But in her dealings with Anya and even more so with Spike, Buffy is recognizing that within herself that seeks to destroy the evil in others, is curbing it, allowing decisions to be made without her authority. Itís gradual, but there. What has Buffy been doing this entire season so far? Gathering together her family, all unique, but alike in one respectóthese are all dual personalities. They are humans who contain monsters, monsters whoíve become human, or humans who are the sources of elemental powers. They straddle boundaries in their very being. They may be the only ones fit to ensure continued play.

******Okay, this started off well, but seems to have come up with a terminal case of ramble and gone on so long that Iím not even sure it makes sense any more. So Iíll just let you folks sort it all out;)******

---Haecceity
signing off to ice down her brain and have a nap, but probably not until I catch up on all the threads I missed out on while I wrote this.

[> Really excellent thoughts! (more spec and rambling) -- HonorH, 23:40:43 12/07/02 Sat

It encapsulates a suspicion that's been growing in my mind: the First Evil (as good a thing to call it as any) is counting on Buffy to resist it in hopes that it can harness her power to achieve its ends. It's hoping that the clash between itself and the primal power of the Slayer will bring about the End.

An addendum: I believe Buffy isn't just "a" Slayer, she is THE Slayer. Faith is part of the line of Slayers that began before Buffy and continued after her. Buffy, however, has taken a position that's unique, and has grown to far greater power because of that unique position. That's what I believe the First Evil is ultimately after.

A further addendum: I also think the reason the First is suddenly up on its feet and ready to rumble is because the good vs. evil balance has already been tipped mightily. First, it was tipped by Buffy being revived in "Prophecy Girl" and the advent of there being two Slayers rather than just the one. Remember, even the Powers weren't expecting Buffy to go on living (per Whistler in "Becoming"). Darla's resurrection possibly off-set that, but then the monks created Dawn, and all balances were off again until Darla was re-vamped, driving her deeper into darkness.

Then Buffy was resurrected out of true death, and I think at that point, all bets were off. Such an event could have even sent ripples back into the past, which caused Darla to conceive Connor, which threw things off even more. Not to mention Spike throwing his lot in with the side of Good, which is in no way an everyday thing.

At this point, there was pretty much chaos. Sahjahn brought back Holtz, Spike and Buffy began a destructive, obsessive affair, Quartoth was opened, and Willow absorbed more power than any human was meant to have, and the Powers gave Cordelia a promotion. All of this roused the First Evil and perhaps gave it the idea that the time was ripe for everything to be annihilated. Perhaps it's not just the First, too--perhaps it's the Beast in L.A., if it's not an active (or even unwitting) agent of the First.

Watch your step. There might be a point in there. I'm not sure. Going to bed myself now.

[> [> Why I love multiple viewpoints -- Haecceity, 13:35:12 12/08/02 Sun

I tend to be a big-picture, general themes sort of girl, and often miss the specifics that led to the "feeling" in the first place. Your post really encapsulates the sort of specific events in the Buffyverse that may have brought about this power's change of heart.

Off to mull things over more specifically,

---Haecceity

[> Amazingly... -- Darby, 07:44:42 12/08/02 Sun

I made my post above before I read this one, but there's a lot of parallel evolution of thought here! We're just seeing different players and outcomes within a very similar game concept.

The idea of finite vs infinite contests was fascinating, one of those things that will alter my perceptions in such areas from now on...

[> [> Some Shameless Thread Maintenance Of My Own... -- Haecceity, 13:43:38 12/08/02 Sun

...since I'll be responding to your intriguing ideas up above in a Spike thread, which has much the better chance of hanging about indefinitely:)

---Haecceity

[> Much better than a 'Huummm....' more like an 'Ooooooo!' -- OnM, 08:55:19 12/08/02 Sun

So, the show is on hiatus for several long weeks (the singular new ep in another two weeks notwithstanding) and here on the board not only are we not getting 'restless' but there have been some of the most thoughtful, intelligent and insightful posts since... well, since the last ones that got posted!

;-)

Seriously, I want to send out a big thank you to all of ATPo's more recent contributors for helping to make this community better than ever (and it was great to start with!) I don't always have a chance to respond to your wonderful work the way I would like to, but that doesn't mean it isn't appreciated, so keep it coming!

Always keeping plenty of printer cartridges handy,

-- OnM

[> Re: Game Without End, But Apocalypse Nigh (vague spoilers S5-7, mostly a Very Long, Rambling Spec) -- Wisewoman, 09:27:25 12/08/02 Sun

Haecceity, I've read only your post so far and not the two responses, so I hope I'm not repeating anything.

It's been many years since I read Carse but this has brought most of it back to me. I remember that I managed to have Finite and Infinite Games flow seamlessly into my early investigations into Buddhism, cosmic consciousness, enlightenment, and all that good stuff. It became my belief then (and now) that we, the earth, the universe, life, all of this, is a game that cosmic consciousness is playing with itself. Carse's statement that, "Infinite players play best when they become least necessary to the continuation of play. It is for this reason they play as mortals," seems to be in line with this contention, giving to infinite players the capacity to decide to play as "mortals," and, in fact, the capacity to decide to play at all, which I believe is a decision we each undertake every time we "pass on." (Oops, major metaphysical alert, there.)

Willow's season 7 theme that, "it's all connected" gave me hope early on that this may be where Joss & Co were heading. My recent attempt to engender discussion (LOL!) on the definition of murder (and evil) as it applied to vampires was based on what you seem to be saying toward the end of your post, that in order for the infinite game to continue a balance must be maintained, and that balance relies on infinite players being able to see evil as necessary to the balance, rather than becoming reactionarily enmeshed in a finite fight against evil, with the aim to erradicate it altogether.

And of course here's a major philosophical issue as well: is there an objective, definitive standard of evil? We all can point to things (and people) that define for us the concept of evil, but how mutable is that? How vulnerable to extenuating circumstances? What is intrinsically and universally evil, in every/any situation?

Wait, wait, I'm starting to ramble here myself! Where was I going? Ah, Joss the Atheist, and whether I can hope/believe that he might also maintain a Buddhist perspective on metaphysics. I know from personal experience how difficult it is for an atheist to open to any sort of spiritual or metaphysical inquiry, but it is possible, and ultimately immensely rewarding. I've clung to this tenuous hope for several years. You've just reminded me that I should be hoping Joss has read Carse as well!

Great stuff, H. I hope I'll be able to contribute more coherently later on.

dub ;o)

[> [> Oh, oh, and another thing... -- dub ;o), 09:33:39 12/08/02 Sun

Remember Buffy's revelation to Spike that she had been "in heaven," and that she was "torn out of there, by my friends?" Okay, up until the end of Season 5, Buffy was a finite player in a finite game, and she ended her play in fine style. Now she's off where the good players go, kicking back and maybe considering another stint on the game board, this time as an infinite player when, through no fault of her own, she's forced back into a finite game in the same damn role! No fair! No wonder she was pissed, and depressed. I hold it as self-evident that one of the rules of the infinite game is that the players come onto the board each time with absolutely no memory of the game, its rules, or their place in it. But Buffy took up play at the beginning of Season 6 with at least a vague memory of "heaven." Might that have affected her status as a finite player as well? Might it be enough to set her on the path the infinite player, as you suggest?

Okay, I'll stop for a while now...

;o)

[> Re: Game Without End, But Apocalypse Nigh (vague spoilers S5-7, mostly a Very Long, Rambling Spec) -- shadowkat, 15:07:17 12/08/02 Sun

It's gray drab sunday, so I keep finding myself drifting to the internet and frolicking on the Board. Yet another amazing post, Haccenity.

Methinks you may be on to something here. A few comments or impressions on what you wrote:

1. I think weíve seen throughout the show Buffyís rejection of training in favor of following instinct, which oftentimes leads to mistakes that she learns from. From the end of Season three (fittingly, graduation) on I think we see Buffy turn to Giles not for answers but for information. Season 4 practically has this as its themeóthe importance of learning over training. Riley, anyone?

(If you guys haven't noticed, I've finally gotten the hang of the italics thing...next I'll try bold.)

This reminds of what my Dad used to say. Education is meant to teach one how to learn/think not to train one to parrot information back. Hence his desire to send me to a liberal arts school. Buffy learns through experience and pain and trauma how to think, not how to parrot or follow the rules.

Part of the reason I think some of us had difficulties with Riley is he did follow rules almost to exclusion of everything else. Then the rules and the organization that created them turned out to be a sham...rotten and capable of horrible things. And Buffy states that he has a choice - he can either join another organization or he can do what she's done - set out on his own, take what he learned and figure out his own path. ie. Take his own Initiative.

Going back to Von Franz - sorry she's the only one I have available in my library at the moment - she states in an interesting folk story the perils of following or parroting others - doing what we've been trained.

This is from an old Iranian fairy tale called the Secret of the Bath Badgerd:

The great and noble Prince Hatim Tai receives orders from his king to investigate the mysterious Bath Badgerd [castle of nonexistence] When he approaches it having gone through many dangerous adventures, he hears that nobody ever returned from it, but he insists on going on. He is received at a round building by a barber with a mirror who leads him into a bath, but as soon as the prince enters the water, a thunderous noise breaks out, it gets completely dark, the barber disappears, and slowly the water begins to rise.
Hatim swims desperately round until the water finally reaches the top of the round cupola, which forms the roof of the bath. Now he fears he is lost, but he says a prayer and grabs the centerstone of the cupola. Again a thunderous noise, everything changes, and HAtim stands alone in a desert.
After long and painful wandering, he comes to a beautiful garden in the middle of which is a circle of stone statues. In the center of the statues, he sees a parrot in its cage, and a voice from above says to him: "Oh hero, you probably will not escape alive from this bath. Once Gayomart (the First man) ffound an enormous diamond that shone more brightly than the sun and moon. He decided to hide it where no one can find it and therefore he built this magical bath in order to protect it. The parrot that you see here forms part of the magic. At its feet lie a golden bow and arrow on a golden chain, and with them you may try three times to shoot the parrot. If you hit him the curse will be lifted, if not you will be petrified, as were all these other people."
Hatim tries once and fails. His legs turn to stone. He fails once more and is petrified to his chest. The third time he just shuts his eyes, exclaiming, "God is great", shoots blindly and this time hits the parrot. An outbreak of thunder, clouds of dust. When all this has subsided, in place of the parrot is an enormous beautiful diamond and all the statues have come to life again...The people thank him for their redemption.

Now von Franz interprets this in this manner:
"The demonic parrot signifies the evil spirit of imitation that makes one miss the target and petrify psychologically. - the process of individuation excludes any parrot-like imitation of others. Time and again in all countries people have tried to copy in "outer" or ritualistic behavior the original religious experience of their great religious teachers ....and have therefore become petrified. To follow in the steps of a great spiritual leader does not mean that one should copy and act out the pattern of the individuation process made by his life. It means that we should try with a sincerity and evotion equal to his to live our own lives." (Man & His Symbols, pp. 235-236)

Okay so how does this connect to Buffy and your statement?
Simple. Riley parrots the actions of the army, initiative, he goes back to what he was "trained" to do.

Kendra parrots the words in the books - remember how book learned she is in What's My Line? She knows what they say by heart. But when Drusilla attacks her in Becoming Part I? Kendra is literally "petrified" - by Dru's look and Dru easily cuts her throat.

Buffy does not follow books. She does not follow the training of the Watchers. She searches her own way. This - going back to OM's Kwasiwatch theory from Dune - reminds me of Paul Atredies journey, another character who found his own path, who did not follow what his mother or father told him, instead he thought it out for himself. Not following the dictates of someone else.

Buffy is learning this as are the other characters. Xander who is beginning to realize life is not about borders and an end zone - not when your girl-friends are witches and vengeance demons.

2. I donít think Buffy thinks this way. To her, the past is everything. But considering the little wrinkle in time that is Dawn, we (the audience) have to be aware that in the Buffyverse, the past may not be what we think it is. And this might be very well where they are headingóto a revelation of a ìtrustedî past that will blow all expectations to bits.

Interesting idea. I've been told that there is such a thing as history revisionism, what this means is that the tellers of history retcon it or retell changing what really happened in the process, so that unless we actually have documents from that period we know not what really occurred.
History becomes in a sense fiction. Isn't this what the Monks did when they implanted the memories of Dawn in the SG (including Spike, Anya and Riley or in fact anyone who came into contact with Dawn?) They revised history, did a retcon to implant Dawn in Buffy's life. So that now the history we saw and have visual proof of is not necessarily the same as the history that Buffy has visual proof of and is in Buffy's head. The people in the box are now suddenly living a life outside of the boundaries of the story...their history is different in small ways that what was originally shown. It's sort of like the temporal anomalies constantly and annoyingly discussed on Star Trek or mentioned in H.G. Wells Time Machine. I think Issac Asimov or someone wrote a time travel story once in which people went back to Dinsaur times as tourists and someone accidently stepped on a dragonfly and by doing so inadvertently changed everything. How much has Dawn's existence in Buffy and the gang's heads altered their perception of their own history and their feelings concerning it? Will we ever know? Since the history or the memories now implanted in their heads has never been seen by us - the unseen viewers watching them?

3. I think what weíve got this year is a big ëol identity switcheroo. Whatever elemental, formerly balance-keeping power the BBW is, itís said itís had enough with the grand game, with the maintenance of balance. It wants an end, the relief of a finite game, with winners and losers and nothingness after. And itís targeting the Slayer, that definition of finite player to be its opponent, perhaps depending upon her resistance to bring on the Apocalypse it craves. Whatever it really is (because harbingers or no, I just donít think itís being all up-front and honest with us re: being the First Evil), itís evil now, because what it seeks is an end to everything.

Hmmm...like this idea alot. I always thought the idea it was just the first evil was lame. And isn't it interesting that Buffy does not refer to it as the first evil like the Watcher Council does but rather just as the FIRST.

Perhaps it's the FIRST thought, first life, first view, first particle, before anything was concieved. And all these years it's been part of a balancing act...and now it's tired and wants a big finish. And thought it would get one - until Buffy kept changing the rules. Coming back from the dead, not once but twice. Hey - cheating - if you are playing a finite game. But infinite game (assuming I'm understanding the concept correctly) - it's not cheating at all.

It reminds me of the role-playing games I watched people play as a child and often played myself - games that went on for days until we just well stopped. No one won. No one lost. I've been told GO can be played like this if the players are equal in strength.

Buffy not only came back from the dead - she had a tricky way of flipping the players. Buffy kept changing evil players to grey and good players to grey. As Xander states in Normal Again - prior to Buffy - Willow wasn't into magic. Because of Buffy's cause - Willow tries the deepest darkest spell to restore Angel's soul and this time it's not done out of vengeance but to help. Wonder if that made a difference? Ensouled Angel2 seems very different than Ensouled Angel1 now that I look back on it. Is the intent behind the spell important? According to the precepts of magic it is = if you do something out of evil - it taints you, you do good...Then we have Spike - who against all odds helps Buffy save the world not once, not twice, but I'm pretty sure at least three times -(against Adam, he stops the demons from getting in and disrupting the Prometha spell in Primeval), (against Angelus in Becoming),
(Against Glory in the Gift). We also have him helping her and saving lives off and on throughout Seasons 5 and 6 and even to a tiny degree in Season 4. And that was before he had a soul. Then he does the unimaginable - he goes after one and earns one with trials.

And what Anya? Anyanka is flipped into a mortal by Giles and becomes good by falling for Xander, D'Hoffryn gets her back but only briefly until she chooses to flip again. Buffy was supposed to just kill her - Anyanka was not supposed to wish the lives she killed restored.

The game has changed. It's no longer about how vamps you kill and a new slayer being called. That was the old game - the game evilSpike had played, the one he became known for succeeding at - kill the slayer. As he states in Seeing Red - this isn't how it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be Vampire kills slayer and picks his teeth with her bones.

4. ìEvil is the termination of infinite play. It is infinite play coming to an end in unheard silenceÖEvil is not the termination of a finite gameÖ[It] is not the attempt to eliminate the play of another according to published and accepted rules, but to eliminate the play of another regardless of the rules. Evil is not the acquisition of power, but the expression of power. Infinite players understand the inescapable likelihood of evil. They therefore do not attempt to eliminate evil in others, for to do so is the very impulse of evil itself, and therefore a contradiction. They only attempt paradoxically to recognize in themselves the evil that takes the form of attempting to eliminate evil elsewhere.î

Now you lost me...not sure I understand this quote. So is evil according Carse - when we attempt to change the rules or is it when we attempt to kill the infinite game??

Her natural, unconscious and therefore not understood instincts as a Slayer are at war with her ideas of being a Slayer. She has been torn apart by knowing one thing and thinking another. But in her dealings with Anya and even more so with Spike, Buffy is recognizing that within herself that seeks to destroy the evil in others, is curbing it, allowing decisions to be made without her authority. Itís gradual, but there. What has Buffy been doing this entire season so far? Gathering together her family, all unique, but alike in one respectóthese are all dual personalities. They are humans who contain monsters, monsters whoíve become human, or humans who are the sources of elemental powers. They straddle boundaries in their very being. They may be the only ones fit to ensure continued play.

This makes sense. We have so many dualities. We have had them all along. This year is about, i think fusing them and getting to the real idenitites underneath. In Spike - we're finding the man underneath the monster - the opposite of the Angel tale btw which was the monster hiding underneath the man. In Seasons 1 - it's not until halfway through that we discover Angel is a vampire in the episode Angel. In Season 2 it's not until mid-way through that the gange discovers what a monsterous vampire lies inside him. What was on the surface for Angel was the man, what lay underneath was the vampire/beast. With Spike the story has been the reverse. Spike was introduced as a monster. We knew what he was from the get-go. Or so we thought. We did not know a man, an apparently good, kind man lurked underneath the surface - over the last five years we've been seeing glimmers of him, bits and pieces. (Opposite of Angel - where we saw glimmers, bits and pieces of the monster). As early as Passion - we see a glimmer of the man inside Spike - maybe even earlier with his kind devotion to Drusilla. They did the same things with Faith and Buffy. And all the other characters. Anya - we had seen the monster - we started getting glimmers of the girl underneath. Willow we saw the kind soul but started getting glimmers of the monster beneath. Who is each character at heart? Don't know yet. But I'm sure they'll tell us before they are through.

And Buffy? Buffy is taking to her role as guidance counselor and it is slowly subplanting her role as slayer in her thought-processes. She is becoming Marshall Buffy as opposed to Hitman Buffy or Solider Buffy or Demon Hunter Buffy. She is beginning to see that she herself has the power to define what the slayer is - not the Watcher Council and not her friends. She defines who she is.

Maybe that's one of the themes of this exercise? Having the strength and conviction to define who you are and to be that person - to be the captain of your own soul and master of your own fate - regardless of the consequences?

SK...good post Haccenity, now my brain is tired. Hope my ramble made some sense and I'm not just hopelessly confused.

Link to Shooting Script for Buffy 7.2 "Beneath You" -- Rufus, 23:42:58 12/07/02 Sat

Psyche's Transcripts

[> Re: Link to Shooting Script for Buffy 7.2 "Beneath You" -- slain, 07:20:21 12/08/02 Sun

This is the original ending, by the looks of it. Which, on paper, I kind of prefer (at least in the context of NLM), but perhaps when it's filmed doesn't work so well. I wonder if that footage will ever be released?

[> [> Difference between aired episodes and shooting scripts -- shadowkat, 10:55:56 12/08/02 Sun

Again evidence of the difference between the beauty of visual ambiguity on the screen and explicit words in a script.

I agree with Drew Goddard who says - "shooting scripts should not be used as canon, only what you see on the screen should be."

I think this script like Never Leave Me is demonstrative of the difference between one writers view of what the others want and the creator/whole team/actors/director/production etc's view. It also once again demonstrates the difference between reading a script or book and watching a movie or tv show. If you get the chance? I highly recommend you see the Bravo documentaries on Monday nights called from page to screen.

This coming Monday will be Lord of The Rings. Last week they did LA Confidential. During the one on LA Confidential by James Ellroy - Ellroy believed that his work was way too complex for adaptation. Too many characters, too many subplots. But the writers figured out what to cut and what to place on the screen - they cut out a whole plot about serial killers for example, and they changed the ending so that the villain died at the end when in the book? The villain survives. Both works became separate.

Here I see a similar thing going on. I prefer what aired, why? Because I love ambiguity. I love the visual metaphors.
Some of the problem with last season was the writers told us too much at times when less would have been more - something Whedon excels at usually. When you say less in a tv serial - you allow more to be said slowly over time.

The ambiguity in this scene - gave more poignancy to Spike and to Buffy's story. Since we were in her pov - we were able to see her confusion. Instead of having long speeches - we had striking visuals. Instead of showing us Spike's burns - they are alluded to...with steam.

How the visual medium changes a written work continues to fascinate me. There are people who can't read or understand Shakespears written plays - they read them in high school as a chore. But take them to Baz Lurmans (sp??) Romeo+Juliet with Leonardo Di Caprio and well they love it.
Or show them Kiss Me Kate - the musical. Or have them watch Roman Polanski's Macbeth. Or Kennethe Branagh's Hamlet or even the modernized version of Hamlet with ethan Hawk. Suddenly you get Shakespeare. Because while the words are beautiful on the page - they were meant to be performed. And in the performance? Dialogue is always cut or dropped or abridged. Have you ever directed a play? I have. What you start with is the play, the bare words and you copy the play and past it into the pages of a notebook with huge margins - the margins are for you to make notes on the text. You cut punctuation. You cut lines that don't work and block others and you do it often as your actors read the lines adding their own intonations and mannerisms. Sometimes a line that looks wonderful on the page - sounds silly and horrid out loud or read by the actor. But you can't tell this by reading the line - you must perform it, it must cease to be one dimensional and suddenly become three dimensional.

Stephen King despised Stanely Kubrick's version of the Shining, he felt that Kubrick hurt the audience and he much preferred his softer ending. So King redid it himself years later. I prefer Kubricks' version. But they are two very different stories.

Another example is A Clockwork Orange which Kubrick filmed without the 21st chapter - creating a violent allegory for the age. Kubrick was interested in understanding the reasons for random violence. Burgess who wrote the novel was interested in growing up and the violence of it.
Both are interesting works of art. The film does not contain all the words of the book - it builds on them.

I guess what I'm trying to point out is that whatever we might read in the shooting script - it is in some ways a separate piece of work from what has aired. Why? Because the shooting script is the work of really one author.
The episode that aired? The work of the cast, crew, directors, cameramen, producers - numerous people. One is solo - well if you don't count the comments of the other writers who worked on it, and one is a collaborative work - which all of television is.

[> [> [> Re: Difference between aired episodes and shooting scripts -- slain, 15:33:33 12/08/02 Sun

Yes, we can't really tell which ending would have worked, as I said - on paper the shooting script seems to work better in the context of NLM, but as we'll most likely never get to see the film of it, of course the actual ending is the only one worth considering in any significant way. Whether or not the fact that the scene was filmed, then was rewritten and reshot, gives it more credence, I don't know. Probably not. I think the final scene says everything the shooting script did, but more obliquely; my point is that perhaps, for the benefit of fans who don't seem to want to read into metahpor and symbolism so much, the shooting script scene would have worked better. Just idle thoughts!

[> "Director's Discretion.." -- ZachsMind, 21:15:04 12/08/02 Sun

It's left unclear who actually made the change from the shooting script to the actual aired version. Personally I think the choices made for the final version are much better than what we see here in the shooting script. "How ya like me now?" I can visualize it and I can see why they didn't go with it in the end.

Was it the director who made that choice? We don't know, but just the same I'd chalk this up to "director's discretion." It may read well on the page but nothing beats actually being in the thick of it. Having the actors there and the cameras and the lighting on the set. It was a much more powerful statement to end the scene looking at Spike's back with smoke wafting up about him, than having him just kneeling before her with his arms stretched, facing her. THEN cutting to a reaction shot of Buffy, before blackout. I think the dailies of that woulda just looked almost laughable in a sad way. It would have had far less dramatic impact. "Can we rest now, Buffy? Can we rest?" That spoke infinitely more than "How ya like me now?" which sounds almost like a punchline. Almost like it needs a laugh track behind it.

Also, comparing this passage:

SPIKE (cont'd) So I could be the kind of (laughs) Person ...you could care for, the man you would come to ... the man you could love.

..to this:

SPIKE: Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nevó (chokes up) to be a kind of man...!

This scene didn't need nervous laughter. Spike was beyond nervous laughter. The character's been stripped down in so many ways. Granted, the ladies and gay men in the audience liked to see Marsters naked practically every episode for the past two seasons, but I think that's been done as much for artistry as for ratings. It's symbolic of what's been happening to him. One by one the trappings and masks and vices that Spike has hid behind have been stripped of him. He's lost the illusions that vampirism granted him. He always thought he was the Big Bad but he never really was. He killed two slayers. Big deal. He'd been riding on past glories and successes yet found them empty. With the chip he could no longer hunt. When Drusilla left him for a chaos demon he learned how cold and empty her love for him had been all this time. He did everything he could to bring her back to health and make her happy, and she repaid him by leaving. His ego, his dignity, everything that he wrapped around him to make him think he was bigger than he was just came tumbling down like a stack of cards. He's as much stripped naked within as without in "Beneath You." It's a culmination of the fall of the character from a potential big bad monster in season two to a shadowy husk of a man.

I'm intrigued by how revealing Jessie's talk to Xander is in the second episode of the first season, and how it applies to Spike's rise & fall.

XANDER: Jesse, man. I'm sorry.
Jesse: Sorry? I feel good, Xander! I feel strong! I'm connected, man, to everything! I, I can hear the worms in the earth!
XANDER: That's a plus.
Jesse: I know what the Master wants. I'll serve his purpose. That means you die. And I feed.
BUFFY: Xander, the cross!
XANDER: Jesse, man. We're buds, don't you remember?
Jesse: You're like a shadow to me now.

The power that vampirism offers its new victims is overwhelming, and with the human soul removed from the body at death, there's nothing holding the id of the human body & brain, the more base and animal instincts, at bay. The new vampire thinks it's still the same person it once was with all these new powers, but it's far worse. It thinks it's a god when it's merely a demon. It feels all this power surging within it but in reality the power comes from a darker place and the new vampire is only that power's pawn. It's a servant to a master. It's a slave to its own desires and those powerful enough to control it. It's an illusion of power, with emptiness and longing as its only true reward.

It's taken two centuries for Spike to realize that. When he first got sired he felt that rush of power too, and thought he was this big powerful bad guy, when in actuality he was never all that great. Both in "Lessons" the very first episode of season seven and in the most recent one "Never Leave Me," The First Evil made a point to say to Spike that Spike was learning something about himself.

From Lessons: "The next few months are going to be quite a ride. And I think we're all going to learn something about ourselves in the process. You'll learn you're a pathetic schmuck, if it hasn't sunk in already."

From Never Leave Me: "You're the one who couldn't hold his end of the bargain. You're the one who couldn't take care of what's-his name, you're the one who had to make breakthroughs and learn something about himself."

It's very telling. In the past Buffy has been the one to take those perilous heroic journeys, and make those painful decisions, and learn hard truths about herself. She's the hero. The show IS named after her, after all.

But now what we're seeing is Spike taking that long walk from nobody to champion, provided he's wise enough to walk the path of good. That still remains to be seen.

[> [> Oh yeah. Forgot again. Spoiler Warning for above: from WttH (1.1) to NLM (7.9) -- ZachsMind, 21:17:48 12/08/02 Sun

[> [> Actually I was talking about rewrites tonight. -- Rufus, 23:19:16 12/08/02 Sun

Was it the director who made that choice? We don't know, but just the same I'd chalk this up to "director's discretion." It may read well on the page but nothing beats actually being in the thick of it.

A rewrite of the ending could have been as simple as a verbal suggestion by Joss or a combination of people, leaving the finished product still basically Petries. The director could also during shooting suggest how a shot woudl look better or have better impact based upon what he saw so far.

Now as to what would have been better, you really can't say for sure because we will never know exactly how the changes came about, and we never saw the shooting script as it appears at Psyche's on the screen.

Just a little correction.....Spike was supposedly vamped in 1880 so depending on his age at infection he still comes out less than 200 years old. From the Shooting Script for Fool for Love....

INT. ENGLISH DRAWING ROOM - 1880 - NIGHT

We cut to a high-society drawing room of the late nineteenth century. Young people mingle and politely flirt.

SUBTITLE: LONDON, 1880

We pan across the crowd to find, sitting alone and staring longingly out the window, young WILLIAM. Spike before he was Spike. The biggest sissy imaginable. Chewing thoughtfully on the end of a pen, mumbling...

Also another disagreement......

The new vampire thinks it's still the same person it once was with all these new powers, but it's far worse. It thinks it's a god when it's merely a demon. It feels all this power surging within it but in reality the power comes from a darker place and the new vampire is only that power's pawn. It's a servant to a master. It's a slave to its own desires and those powerful enough to control it. It's an illusion of power, with emptiness and longing as its only true reward.

The vampire is a human form infected...it is the same person possessed by the soul of that first demon who started the vampires as we have seen them so far in the Buffyverse. If the vampire was just a seperate entity that took over a body and kicked out the hosts personality, memories, mind....then Angel would be a ridiculous show as Angel would never have had any culpability in any of the killings done by Angelus. The fact that even with a soul Angel tried to be what he once was as a vampire proves to me that the person is the same the state of the soul is the thing that changes, and the soul is more of a moral compass, not the whole mind of the person. Angel is Liam, and Spike is William.

But now what we're seeing is Spike taking that long walk from nobody to champion, provided he's wise enough to walk the path of good. That still remains to be seen.

Spike has indeed done heroic things. Most of what he has done has been based upon self interest and following behind Buffy. But now with a soul, with that choice to pick the road to the monster or man this could be where a true hero may be born.....but not yet.

It would have had far less dramatic impact. "Can we rest now, Buffy? Can we rest?" That spoke infinitely more than "How ya like me now?" which sounds almost like a punchline. Almost like it needs a laugh track behind it.

I think you can't say that for sure unless you have the actor act out each alternative....I found the irony of that statment played right could have just as much impact as "can we rest". I think part of the reason this end was changed was that it gave away too much about Spike's state of mind where I think Joss and Co. wanted it more open to speculation and debate.

[> [> [> Re: Actually I was talking about rewrites tonight. -- Doriander, 02:56:27 12/09/02 Mon

A rewrite of the ending could have been as simple as a verbal suggestion by Joss or a combination of people, leaving the finished product still basically Petries. The director could also during shooting suggest how a shot woudl look better or have better impact based upon what he saw so far.

Buffista folks have some insider contacts and I remember them discussing this (still having trouble navigating their board though so I canít find the specific thread). Some nifty trivia: JM supposedly hated that electric blue shirt. JW hated it more when he saw the dailies. Joss, script doctor that he is, decided that Spike should take it off in the rewrite. The acknowledgement of it as ìcostumeî infused poignancy to why it looked it silly.

[> [> [> I respectfully disagree... Okay. I disagree with a jab at your ribs -- ZachsMind, 08:10:03 12/09/02 Mon

"The vampire is a human form infected..."

Beep. Sorry. Wrong answer. Would you like to try for Double Jeopardy where the scores can really change?

"it is the same person possessed by the soul of that first demon who started the vampires as we have seen them so far in the Buffyverse. If the vampire was just a seperate entity that took over a body and kicked out the hosts personality, memories, mind....then Angel would be a ridiculous show as Angel would never have had any culpability in any of the killings done by Angelus. The fact that even with a soul Angel tried to be what he once was as a vampire proves to me that the person is the same the state of the soul is the thing that changes, and the soul is more of a moral compass, not the whole mind of the person."

Take the vampirism out of a vampire and he turns to dust. Calling it an infection gives the indication that the victim can be healed. The victim's brought to the brink of death when s/he is turned, at which point the human soul is removed from the mortal coil & a demonic equivalent is put in its place. The human mind and body think it's still the same person, but there's now a demonic force at the wheel. It's like trading a halo & wings for a tail & pitchfork.

This is one of the most fascinating things about both series and why places like ATPoBtVS online are so intriguing. What actually constitutes a human being? Is it the body, mind or soul, or a combination of the three? When Angel loses his human soul, the demonic presence takes control and he becomes a different person. The body & mind are still the same but the spirit of Angel is removed and replaced by something that allows the more base animal instincts to have more control, and twists the mind's talents by using the knowledge in the victim's (in this case Liam's) mind for purposes of evil rather than good, chaos rather than order, destruction rather than creation, villiany rather than the goals of a champion.

"Angel is Liam, and Spike is William."

Liam, Angeles & Angel are not the same individual. They share the same body & mind but not the same soul, and therefore are unique. Liam however, is long gone. He died when Darla turned his husk into a vampire. Try to 'remove the infection' and all that will remain is dust.

Oh and by the way.. William the Bloody? Dead too. Died when Dru sired him. Whatever Spike is now with a human soul, he's not William the Bloody & he's not Spike. Just like Angel is not Liam or Angeles, yet retains the memories and motor memory skills & other physical & mental attributes of his previous incarnations. Eventually this new incarnation of Spike's gonna want a new name, to claim his own individuality.

[> [> [> [> I disagree with your disagreement -- Caroline, 09:40:46 12/09/02 Mon

Giles in S1 talks about the vampire infecting a human host. In S2, Buffy tries to make a distinction between Angel and Angelus and Angel tries to contradict her before he is interrupted. Also Angel explicitly states that it's not the monster in him that needs killing, it's the man (I think this was Amends in S3???). And we also have Darla's statement (can't remember which ep) about what we were informs what we are - she's referring to vampires.

So I have to go with Rufus on this one.

By the way, perhaps you could find a more careful way of disagreeing with someone than writing

"Beep. Sorry. Wrong answer. Would you like to try for Double Jeopardy where the scores can really change?"

To my mind, that sort of thing may come across as fine face to face but can be misinterpreted without all the cues of body language, inflection and tone of voice. Because I'm sure you didn't mean to be snarky or disprespectful to Rufus.

[> [> [> [> [> We can agree to disagree. No sweat off my nose. -- ZachsMind, 10:35:54 12/09/02 Mon

My dear, sweet, Caroline.

I meant to elbow him in the ribcage, as I explained. Not sure how much plainer I could have made it. It was meant in jest. I'm painfully aware such jocularity is often misinterpreted, which is why I said, "okay. I disagree while I elbow you in the ribs." Not sure how more clear I could have made that. The "Beep Sorry" line is a quote from the movie Die Hard. A reference which may have been to obscure for you.

As for your reference to Giles in season one, what follows is one of the quotes I'm going by. Would be interested in more specific references to what you inferred from those other moments in the storyline. This is from The Harvest:

GILES: The books tell the last demon to leave this reality fed off a human, mixed their blood. He was a human form possessed, infected by the demon's soul. He bit another, and another, and so they walk the Earth, feeding... Killing some, mixing their blood with others to make more of their kind. Waiting for the animals to die out, and the old ones to return...

XANDER: We've gotta get in there before Jesse does something stupider that usual.
GILES: You listen to me! Jesse is dead! You have to remember that when you see him, you're not looking at your friend. You're looking at the thing that killed him.

From Angel:

GILES: A vampire isn't a person at all. It may have the movements, the, the memories, even the personality of the person that it took over, but i-it's still a demon at the core, there is no halfway.

From Who Are You in season four:

ADAM: You fear death. Being immortal, you fear it more than those to whom it comes naturally. Vampires are a paradox.
Boone: (nervously) Okay. We're a paradox. That's cool.
ADAM: Demon in a human body. You walk in both worlds and belong to neither. I can relate. Come. We have a lot to talk about.

Vampirism is an infection. I'm not denying that. However, it's an infection that KILLS its host and mutates the remains so that it can better suit the new host - the demonic presence replacing the human soul. This is why vampires are referred to as the undead. They behave as if they are alive but they're no longer living human beings. They've become something else. A different creature whose physical, mental and most particularly metaphysical behavioral properties are similar in some ways to its host prior to the cohabitation, but the parasitic infection takes over the host and it becomes an entirely different entity.

We can agree to disagree, but I believe my position holds more water when compared to canonical material from the series.

First you got Liam. A snot-nosed upstart braggart of immaturity and foolhardiness. He's attacked by the vampire Darla, infected by vampirism, which KILLS him and allows the vampirism to run rampant in the physical husk that once was Liam. The human body that was Liam is overtaken by a demon host and the infection alters the biochemistry of the body to make it more presentable to this demonic creature. It becomes Angeles. Though retaining some human characteristics, it's most certainly no longer human.

About a century later, the gypsies curse Angeles by returning the human soul without removing the demonic presense. Angeles is still a vampire, but now the human soul takes control of the human vessel, with the demonic part of him forced to take a backseat (after several internal struggles no doubt). This new entity has Liam's human soul but retains all the physical characteristics and the mental processes of Angeles. It's no longer JUST Liam. Liam's body is dead. It's been remodelled to assume a new behavioral matrix for vampirism.

It's not Liam, and it's no longer Angeles. A vampire with a human soul becomes a new man. A different kind of being from what he was before. Angeles becomes Angel. Remove the soul from Angel, he reverts back to Angeles. Remove vampirism from Angeles, OR Angel, you have what's left of Liam, which is three century old dust.

Again. Not sure how much plainer I can make it.

[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: We can agree to disagree. No sweat off my nose. -- Rufus, 16:32:15 12/09/02 Mon

I meant to elbow him in the ribcage, as I explained.

Who is him? As I'm a woman.

You take out the fact that the demon is a hybrid and that they are who they once were and the show Angel makes no sense and the constant flashbacks to past mortal and vampire history means nothing as once the soul is returned or Angel became human like in season one of Angel....the show would make no sense. But, if you take a person and you infect/possess them with the soul of a demon, then you have more to work with. If the vampire is a seperate demon, no past human there, then why is Angel worried about redeeming himself as the soul should have been a form of a cure.

[> [> [> [> [> I see the equation a little differently -- Dan The Man, 11:54:23 12/09/02 Mon

First of all, souled vampires are a different can of worms from a human and the vampire that they become. A vampire retains the human's memories, knowledge and body but not their soul. So basically a vampire is a twisted version of the human. I agree with Zachsmind that infection is the wrong way to word it because to quote Angel "Yeah, there's not actually cure for that"(AtS City of Angels (1.1))

Now, when it comes to souled vampires, things get a little different. Here are my thoughts. Angel is both Angelus and Liam. Angel is not one at the exclusion of the other. He is both.

"Everything that I am, everything that I have done, has led me here."
-Angelus(Becoming, Part I)

That quote to me defines the guilt that Angel feels. He would not exist if not for the actions of Angelus. Also, Angel's continued existence keeps Angelus alive as well.

Also, I think this equation is more fitting:

Angel = Angelus + Liam

Also, three additional direct responses to comments in your post.

Here is the passage in Amends(BtVS 3.10) that you referenced:

ANGEL
It told me to kill you. You were in the dream, you know -- it told me to take you, to lose my soul in you and become a monster again.

BUFFY
I know what it told you. Why does it matter?

ANGEL
Because I wanted to! Because I want you so badly, I want to take comfort in you and I know it'll cost me my soul and a part of me doesn't care. I'm weak. I've never been anything else. It's not the demon in me that needs killing, Buffy. It's the man.

BUFFY
You're weak. Everybody is. Everybody fails. Maybe this evil power did bring you back, but if it did it's because it needs you. And that means you can hurt it. You have the power to do real good, Angel, to make amends. But if you die now, then all you ever were was a monster.

Now, to me, this is about the fact that Liam wasn't much of a man and that fact Angel is capable of doing bad things despite his soul.

Darla's quote in The Prodigal(AtS 1.15):

"What we once were informs all that we have become."

This line refers to the fact that Liam's history, knowledge and memories are part of what shapes Angelus in the monster that he becomes. But they are not the whole equations, Darla siring Liam to become Angelus is part of the process as well. At least, that's my view of it.

I think Zachsmind's subject line and the fact that he was using a direct quote from Die Hard illustrated pretty well that he was joking around.

Anyway, that is my two cent on the subject.

Dan The Man

[> [> [> [> [> [> Hmm... I'd almost buy your approach, but there's just one problem... -- ZachsMind, 13:41:44 12/09/02 Mon

If Whedon & the writers ever set up a storyline where something somewhere could actually cure Angel of Angeles and remove the demon in Angel without killing him, reverting him back to Liam 100%, then I'd buy it. However, right now if one were able to remove the demon from the body of Angel, he'd simply revert to dust, because so far as I can tell, Liam died the night Darla sired him. The human body has been mutated beyond the ability to function without dark mystic means.

If the Powers That Be somehow intervened and replaced the demon in Angel with whatever's the opposite (an actual angel? Maybe?) that could possibly resolve the issue, but then Angel would be part Liam's soul and part angelic symbiant. And Whedon's made a point to avoid being anything but vague about the antonym of demon. I have read reports that he's actually aetheist. Don't know that for sure, but if he were to solidify that the "heaven" Buffy went to when she died is the Judeo heaven, the Christian heaven or the Muslim equivalent, or that it's none of the above, it's very possible he'd find himself losing a percentage of his audience.

It's kinda hard for Whedon to keep things vague for us if he ventures into that territory, and shows that a vampire can in fact be "healed of the infection." It would also mean that this entire time, Buffy's been killing actual human beings who suffer from an illness, as opposed to evil creatures that have infiltrated dead human bodies. It would upset the ambiguity of the series as a whole. If what you say is true, Buffy's been killing creatures which could have been saved by other means and live a normal life. It'd be like if someone like Buffy killed AIDS patients in cold blood in an attempt to stop the spread of that disease. I don't know if I personally would want to watch the series go down that path.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Just to muddy the waters even further... -- Shiraz, 14:02:00 12/09/02 Mon

We do have one example of a (post-dusting) vampire becoming human again - Darla.

Now whether this was the same woman that died in 1609 (mini-rant: There were no white women in Virginia in 1609!) we have no way of knowing. But the fact remains that somehow, a Vampire was made back into a human.

-Shiraz

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> TSILA Darla was NOT a vampire-turned-human... -- cjl, 14:40:04 12/09/02 Mon

She was a damned soul, roasting in a hell dimension somewhere, who was brought back to Earth and clothed in the human flesh she had at the time of her death (1609). VampDarla was dusted in Buffy S1, and was not part of the equation...

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: TSILA Darla was NOT a vampire-turned-human... -- Shiraz, 12:19:55 12/10/02 Tue

But she had memories of her "life" as a vampire. She knew Angel and was desperately trying to return to her vampiric state.

If that was just her human soul given flesh again, then the last thing she would remember was meeting the Master.

-Shiraz

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Yeah, that thought occurred to me too.... -- cjl, 12:33:34 12/10/02 Tue

Not quite sure how Wolfram and Hart pulled that off. If the soul leaves the body after the host has been vamped, how did Human!Darla Mark II remember everything that happened since the Master walked into her room in 1609? Is there some sort of etheric "tether" linking a vamped body to its departed soul? (Waiting to be "yanked" and the soul reeled back in when the occasion demands it?)

But it's still not a case of vampire-turned-human. The vampire body was dusted. She was reincarnated as a human being. I just can't figure out how she had the 400 years of vamp memories...

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Confusing subject that ME has never made very clear -- shadowkat, 15:03:08 12/09/02 Mon

but from the rumors regarding Angel Season 4 and the current Spike arc? I think it should get much clearer soon.

Part of the problem is we have a writer/creator who prefers to tell his stories through metaphor and leave certain things open for debate. He doesn't like to tell us everything. Thank you god! Yes, finally a writer who does not underestimate the intelligence of his audience and feel the need to preach to them. If only the rest of the bunch (by bunch I mean the writers on West Wing, Practice, ie any show not written by ME) thought like this. (sigh, sorry for mini-rant).

At any rate - from my reading and analysis of the text - I think Dan, Rufus, Caroline and Zachsmind could all be right. Both arguments work. The problem is? I have no clue which is the right one.

Problem #1 Confusing concept that can be argued ten ways: the soul canon or soul metaphor or whatever term makes you happy.
I did an entire essay on soul metaphors and I still have no clue what or where ME is going with it. Whedon was even vague about this when he was asked directly in a Q & A at Playfair: "oh it's a moral compass..." okay and what exactly do you mean by that Whedon? Conscience? Well no, not exactly.

To muddy the waters - we have a host of paradoxical episodes on souls and what they mean. Living Conditions (goes with the whole conscience pov, as Buffy loses her soul, she becomes more and more unreasonable and homicidal),
Double or Nothing (you give up your soul - you die),
Who are you? (soul is your complete identity), Angel (conscience), Surprise/Innocence (definitely conscience, but also all that is good in you, all your memories of love), Becoming Part II (your memories of love again),

So options? 1) ME is misleading us on the whole soul thing and you can be good or bad regardless. all the soul does is link you to living things. while the demon links you to evil things. You choose what to do with that. Spike ignored his demon link. Warren ignored his living thing link.

2. The soul is the moral compass and you can't choose good or redemption without it canon.

3. The soul is your complete personality and moral compass (somehow I don't think this one works with the textual references...)

4. The soul is just a device Whedon used to make the whole the boy turns bad when you sleep with him metaphor work and has been trying for the last four years to find a way of writing around it or out of it, because let's face it - it's a limiting metaphor and not all that interesting in the long run and goes against Whedon's own religious beliefs.

And add your own favorite theory right here: ____.

Problem #2 confusing concept : what is a vampire? a human-hybrid? an infected human (aIDS metaphor/addiction metaphor), a cursed human (the fairy tale) or just an undead thing that is a demon wearing a human mask?

1. Do we believe Giles and the Watcher Council - who ME keeps pointing out aren't as reliable as we thought or as knowledgeable? If so - it's the whole infection thing.
And the vampire is not the human, he takes up house in the human's body and walks and talks like the human, but human is gone. Buffy's view in Lie to Me - which btw may be Whedon's hint to the audience that Buffy is wrong - the title after all is Lie to Me and Giles does lie to her in the end of the episode.

2. Do we believe Angel's interpretation which is slightly confusing and contradictory? Angel's view is closer to Rufus' interpretation. Angel believes that who he once was influences the vampire. He says this in Dopplegangerland and remembers it in Dear Boy and Darla. He also alludes to it in Amends. Angel believes the only thing that changes when you lose your soul is the conscience goes...the ability to choose good. (A point he religiously holds to no matter what, contradicts himself on everything else but that - because well he sort of has to right? I mean how could he live with the stuff Angelus did if he thought he could choose not to do it? This is where Spike differs somewhat from Angel - Spike does not for one instant believe that he didn't have a choice before now. Probably why he's so nuts. It's confusing because half the time angel acts as if he had a choice as Angelus and the soul shouldn't count - Angel contradicts himself - no wonder Connor hates him.)

3. Darla - who is of the opinion that without a soul you can't really love. She shares Angel's opinion on this.
Maybe because she can't quite buy the fact that her and Liam didn't know how to love before they were vamped...but whatever. Darla also is of the opinion that the soul made her a better person than without it.

4. Holtz - doesn't believe a soul matters except to give you something to lose. All Vamps = evil

5. of course Wolfram and Hart...

6.Adam (see Zachsmind post)

7. Spike ( who appears to be somewhere closer to Caroline and Rufus' view and believed a soul would make him a better man, but at the same time believes he's the same man he was when he was killed - he just became something more.)

So who is the best authority? No clue. Are Vampires evil?
Probably. Are Vampires with souls good? Depends. Is every vamp very different? yes, of course.
Can all the vampires be saved by getting souls? probably not. By getting chips? not if the chip also contains a nifty trigger that turns them into a weapon. What the heck is ME trying to say here? I don't think they know at this point...but one can hope.

At any rate - I think or rather hope they'll answer some of our questions this year and not just raise more questions for us to endlessly debate on this confusing topic.

SK (who is now thoroughly confused by the whole soul debate and vampires are evil debate and the chip debate and doesn't know what she thinks.)

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Confusing subject that ME has never made very clear -- Angela, 16:13:02 12/09/02 Mon

LOL is it time to start debating Magick as a metaphor again?

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> SK, refer to my posts in this thread about Angel and the ep I will remember you.. -- Rufus, 17:10:32 12/09/02 Mon

Another reason to watch both Buffy and Angel, the mythos of the vampire is more fleshed out in ATS because the protagonist is a vampire.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> I don't see that.. at least not recently.. -- ZachsMind, 17:39:40 12/09/02 Mon

I mean maybe they fleshed it out more in earlier episodes? I've only started watching Angel relatively recently. Caught part of last season in reruns and am watching the new ones this season dutifully although I don't enjoy Angel as much as I enjoy the Buffy series. They haven't been focusing so much on Angel as a vampire. Although that does appear to be changing in the near future because-- *spoilage self-censoring =P*

We might get the answers soon, but I think Whedon purposefully keeps it vague to allow for interpretations from many different authors. It could be that ALL the above is true, from differing points of view. Whedon may purposefully tweak things when writers bring new episodes to him, to purposefully allow for multiple interpretations.

Does anyone know if a Buffy/Angel "Writer's Bible" exists somewhere? If Whedon's pinned anything down in the area of this debate, he would have explained it in detail to his writing staff.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: I don't see that.. at least not recently.. -- Rufus, 17:47:52 12/09/02 Mon

I mean maybe they fleshed it out more in earlier episodes? I've only started watching Angel relatively recently. Caught part of last season in reruns and am watching the new ones this season dutifully although I don't enjoy Angel as much as I enjoy the Buffy series. They haven't been focusing so much on Angel as a vampire. Although that does appear to be changing in the near future because-- *spoilage self-censoring =P*

ATS may not be as enjoyable for you but it does make it more clear just what Angel has been as a vampire...some of the better eps that do this are I will remember you ep. 8 season one, and The Prodigal ep 15 season one. I've ordered the season one DVD already and it would be a great resource. It does make it rather clear that vampirism can be termed an infection, possession, curse. But what it also makes clear is that what you once were informs all that you become.....and by that it means that the vampire is the person who once was corrupted by a demon infection, once the infection takes hold the soul or moral compass along with the persons life is gone but they still are who they once were, and that remains a constant through mortal, demon, mortal in season one's ATS Angel in I Will Remember You. We also see more of it in how Angel parents Connor.

The only resource I know of is either my hard drive....or the Watcher Guide one and two for Buffy and Angel: Casefiles for ATS. Then there are the shooting scripts and transcripts at Psyche's. You can also find out neat stuff at Masq's epsisode quide and the rest of her web site.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Hah! You couldn't spoil Rufus if you left her out of the fridge for weeks! -- Wisewoman, 18:01:44 12/09/02 Mon

She's the original Spoiler Trollop!

As to the Bible, I'd bet good money it is and has always been in Joss's head. The things that have already happened, the "canon," they've all got access to that, but I suspect he lets them know just enough at a time so they don't mess up any of his potential future options.

;o)

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> <g>Yes the First Virtue with a slightly impure habit....;) -- Rufus, 18:24:37 12/09/02 Mon

To describe Joss I think of the word adaptable....I don't think he gives a hoot about ships but understands their frustrating power over fans. He does give us what we want only to make us wish he hadn't.....so remember never ask or desire anything of either show or you will get it and regret that you did.....leaving me a happy non-shipper....I like them to a point but never base my whole love of a show on them.

I search out every interview that I can that Joss has given and found they all sound somewhat similar...he has a party line and basically sticks with it. I believe that he has a basic outline of where things will go remembering at all times an actor may leave or not work out. He also flips back and forth between science and magic while showing the failings and strengths of each. Sometimes they say the same thing and just have different ways of getting to certain conclusions. One thing to note....I feel part of his message is that to go only one route be it science or magic, you can lose touch of life as a whole.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Oh, WW I forgot to say..........."Other Trollop"......;) -- Rufus, 18:26:08 12/09/02 Mon

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Reconciling Who Are You and Double or Quits with the rest of the episodes... -- KdS, 03:25:53 12/10/02 Tue

I'm generally convinced by Masq's analysis in the "metaphysics" section of atpobtvs.

Body = physical form
"Spirit" = unconscious and conscious personality
"Soul" = conscience, connection to the deep natural law/Powers of Good

I must confess, I don't see that there's a problem in "Who Are You". Wilkins's device might have transferred both Buffy's and Faith's souls and spirits between bodies or just the spirits - it doesn't matter a great deal for the story, although the possibility that just their spirits were transferred brings up some interesting possibilities given that Faith found a new moral awareness while Buffy didn't backslide at all.

The use of the word "soul" in "Double or Quits" is IMO impossible to reconcile with existing and subsequent canon if you take it at face value - remember that in "I've Got You Under My Skin" it was implied that a human could survive with the soul congenitally missing. The only explanation as far as I can see rests on ignorance and misunderstanding - Jenoff was actually eating peoples' "spirits" by Masq's definition but used the word "soul" either because he was genuinely confused or just thought it sounded cooler. Angel and Cordy, however, took it literally and wrongly assumed that, if Jenoff had done his thing on Angel, Angel would have become Angelus and not a dead spiritless husk.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Actually, that happened in Season one Angel ep 8 "I will remember You" -- Rufus, 17:08:16 12/09/02 Mon

I don't know if you watch both shows or have watched both from the beginning.....I have..I also take notes.

If Whedon & the writers ever set up a storyline where something somewhere could actually cure Angel of Angeles and remove the demon in Angel without killing him, reverting him back to Liam 100%, then I'd buy it. However, right now if one were able to remove the demon from the body of Angel, he'd simply revert to dust, because so far as I can tell, Liam died the night Darla sired him. The human body has been mutated beyond the ability to function without dark mystic means.

Angel encountered the Mohra demon in season one ATS. The blood of the Mohra caused Angel to return totally to human form....

Cordy: "Alive?"

Angel: "Buffy and I were attacked by some kind of demon. I- I tracked it - and killed it (Holds out his right hand) A-and some of its blood mixed with mine."

Doyle laying two fingers on his wrist: "And you wound up with a pulse?"

Doyle: "It's called a Mohra demon. They're pretty powerful assassins, soldiers of darkness kind of thing. They take out warriors for our side, like you and Buffy. (Quotes from book) 'Needs vast amounts of salt to live'."

Angel: "It was heading towards salt water."

Doyle quoting: "'Veins run with the blood of eternity.' There it is. Its blood has regenerative properties."

Angel: "What, they could have done this? How come I keep getting the feeling that you're not telling me everything."

Doyle: "Because I'm not. We're both on a need to know basis here."

Angel pacing: "I need to know about this. Is this permanent? Am I - am I normal Joe now? Can I have a normal life? I want to speak to the Powers-That-Be."

Angel goes to the Oracles....

Angel: "What's happened to me?"

Woman steps to one side of Angel: "It's true then, brother."

Man on Angel's other side: "He is no longer a warrior."

Angel: "It was the demon's blood. It wasn't the Powers-That-Be that did this?"

Man: "The Powers-That-Be? Did you save humanity? Avert the Apocalypse?"

Woman: "You faced a Mohra demon. Life goes on."

Angel: "My life as a human. I'm not poisoned or under some spell?"

Woman looks up, after a beat: "The Auguries say no. If it has happened it was meant to be."

Man: "From this day, you will live and die as any mortal man."

Doyle: "So? Don't they deserve a little happiness after all they've been through?"

Cordy sighs: "Let me explain the lore here, okay? They suffer, they fight. That's business as usual. They get groiny with each other, the world as we know it falls apart."

Doyle: "Well, he's not cursed anymore. And anyway, you can't be sure that they're.."

Angel was returned to life, and he was exactly the same guy, the guy who at the time loved Buffy, the only difference is that he was mortal and the same guy he has always been as Liam/Angelus/Angel....just the amount of demon he had balanced by the soul, or removed by the blood of another demon or the Powers that Be.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Actually, that happened in Season one Angel ep 8 "I will remember You" -- shadowkat, 19:48:46 12/09/02 Mon

Yep - saw that episode and the one Darla became human. Have both on tape. Agree with your views on it. Thanks for the reminder - I'd forgotten.

So that proves the vampire part of your arguement but leaves the soul part still a matter of confusing debate.
And we still don't know what's going on with the chip.

Methinks however both debates will be resolved this year.
(Probably with the writers looking down at us and saying "stupid people" couldn't you see this is what we meant all along???) For what it's worth? I agree with Rufus' take on all of this - for two reasons: 1) she predicted what happened at the end of most of the seasons fairly accurately and 2) whoever is a lover of cats and chocolat can't be wrong. ;-)

No seriously - my gut tells me Rufus is most likely right on this one Zachsmind. Check out the old Ats scripts on Pysche's site for additional info.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: The Chip and why the FE failed in Never Leave Me -- Rufus, 20:58:36 12/09/02 Mon

So that proves the vampire part of your arguement but leaves the soul part still a matter of confusing debate.
And we still don't know what's going on with the chip.

I did a post on the Trollop board about why the First Evil, in my opinion has lost control over Spike.....

Trollop Group

Subject: Why the First Evil has lost control over Spike.

People have been wondering why or how the First Evil could lose it's hold over Spike. I think that I have partially answered this question before in other posts on Multiple Personality Disorders and Spike. What we have to remember most of all is that Spike has endured the trauma of having his soul returned. It would be like reliving each and every killing he has ever done with the new perspective granted him by the soul or moral compass.

How did the First Evil get Spike to begin with? I think that answer is easy enough if we consider what Multiple Personality Disorder is.

Contrary to prevalent opinion, MPD patients do not have more than one personality; the so-called different personalities are fragmented components of a single personality, abnormally personified and dissociated from each other. Colin A. Ross, M.D.

I think it was made pretty clear in Beneath You that Spike was a fragmented personality. He spoke of himself as more than one. This could have arisen from confusion on his part that the voice he heard as alternately Buffy, Drusilla, and others...was not his imagination or madness. But at the same time he was in fact insane while frantically trying to rebuild who he now is as an ensoulled vampire. It was the reintroduction of the real Buffy in his life that made the difference between insanity and what we are beginning to see surface.

Periods of missing time occur when aspects of the personality take turns being in control of the body and memory barriers are erected between them. Patients also experience symptoms such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse, sleep disorders, sexual dysfunction, psychosomatic symptoms, and symptoms that mimic schizophrenia. MPD patients have experienced the most extreme childhood trauma of any diagnostic group and therefore exhibit the psychobiology and psychopathology of trauma to an extreme degree. The good news is that once diagnosed, the MPD patient can be brought back to health. Colin A. Ross, M.D.

The First Evil took advantage of the memory barriers Spike had managed to construct to use a part of the self to carry out killings unbeknownst to the rest of personality of the vampire known as Spike. But what it never took into consideration was Spikes intense love for Buffy was more powerful than the machinations of a being intent on destruction. The person that Spike once was as William was no killer, he didn't like violence. Part of a demon is present and that part of Spike was used to kill without the constraints of the new soul that troubled the rest of Spike. It had been confusing to see Spike speak to seemingly many people. Though at times raving Spike was in fact engaged in conversation with the FE. So this constant back and forth between Spike and himself, and Spike and the First Evil, was enough to confuse Buffy into thinking that Spike was simply unsalvagable. But, as Spike began to slowly draw himself together in an attempt to appear normal he was beginning the process of becoming better. Once his attention was taken from being so self focused, Spike began to break the ties with the FE.

Now that Spike has sought out Buffy, asked for her help, and she now understands he needs it, the FE can no longer seduce Spike with dreams and hopes of the imagination that worked when Spike got back into town. Once Spike became aware he was killing he began a journey to sanity, and the FE could no longer use Spike as a weapon. A sane Spike is the last thing that the FE wanted and that may have been the reason he was closeted in the basement of the school, away from others.

I think at first the Spike we saw was like Angel in flux, between two worlds, trying to figure out where he could or would deserve to belong to. Both men were changed by their interactions with Buffy, good thing Spike didn't have to go so many years before deciding to try to rejoin the world.

As for that last scene with the First Evil in Never Leave Me, the anger is there, the anger of the lost control over a Spike who could see it in a new way and not be swayed by lies no matter how packaged. The FE promised the soothing lie, the lie that was used to create a brain washed killer. A lie that upped the body count that Spike
never wanted to add to again. Buffy offered the truth, a painful truth but one that would allow Spike to make informed choices on who he will eventually become.

***********************************************

I underlined parts of the quotes used that can give you an idea of why the chip seems to work on Spike depending on what state he is in. The part of Spike that the chip isn't working on is simply unaware of the fact that he should be reacting to the chip. The Spike that forms the intent to harm and isn't under the influence of mind control, reacts to the chip because he knows it's there...the part of his fragmented mind doesn't. Now here's a question is...was Dru right...does electricity lie..has the chip not worked for awhile and Spike still reacts to it because he feels the need to punish himself for having feelings of wanting to harm others?

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> sorry forgot to mention the post above has spoilers up to Never Leave Me -- Rufus, 20:59:45 12/09/02 Mon

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Well you convinced me. -- shadowkat, 21:04:39 12/10/02 Tue

Agree on what you posted above - makes logical sense and fits what my gut tells me.

Now here's a question is...was Dru right...does electricity lie..has the chip not worked for awhile and Spike still reacts to it because he feels the need to punish himself for having feelings of wanting to harm others?

Been thinking this for some time. I wouldn't be surprised if Spike's chip stopped working long before he ever got the sould and just didn't know it. Possibly stopped actively working when Buffy beat him up in DT. OTOH the Lurker could have disabled it and didn't tell him? shrug. Don't know.
But something tells me they aren't going to tell us b/f 2003, if then.

[> [> [> [> Re: I respectfully disagree... Okay. I disagree with a jab at your ribs -- Rufus, 16:27:34 12/09/02 Mon

You said.....Beep. Sorry. Wrong answer. Would you like to try for Double Jeopardy where the scores can really change?

To which I use Psyches transcripts to remind you that.....

From Season one BTVS......The Harvest

Giles: The books tell the last demon to leave this reality fed off a human, mixed their blood. He was a human form possessed, infected by the demon's soul. He bit another, and another, and so they walk the Earth, feeding... Killing some, mixing their blood with others to make more of their kind. Waiting for the animals to die out, and the old ones to return.

It's an infection or in more simple words a curse.

You said..........

Take the vampirism out of a vampire and he turns to dust. Calling it an infection gives the indication that the victim can be healed. The victim's brought to the brink of death when s/he is turned, at which point the human soul is removed from the mortal coil & a demonic equivalent is put in its place. The human mind and body think it's still the same person, but there's now a demonic force at the wheel. It's like trading a halo & wings for a tail & pitchfork.

The infection of the demons soul acts as a supplement that allows the form to unlive.....creating a hybrid human/demon...the contribution of the demon is not that of a mind or personality and memories, but of animation, strength, and a predisposition towards evil.

If you look at vampires they are a form of a curse, a revenge parting gift to humanity....and yes they can be healed as Angel was returned to human state in season one of Angel when he got some demon blood on him and was returned to human state....no difference in who he was other than the fact the demon infection was gone.

Liam, Angeles & Angel are not the same individual. They share the same body & mind but not the same soul, and therefore are unique. Liam however, is long gone. He died when Darla turned his husk into a vampire. Try to 'remove the infection' and all that will remain is dust.

I disagree, if the human who once was is gone then the constant acting out of Liam's problems when even the soul is returned makes no sense. William is Spike and Liam is Angel......same guys different states of being.....but still the same guys with the same emotional baggage as when they were mortal....Darla still has said it best.....

The Prodigal...

Angel looks over at the body of his father and gets up: ìYes?î

Darla: ìBut his defeat of you will last life times.î

Angel: ìWhat are you talking about? He canít defeat me now.î

Darla: ìNor can he ever approve of you - in this world or any other. - What we once were informs all that we have become. (Angel looks at his fatherís body) The same love will infect our hearts - even if they no longer beat. (Angel looks at his motherís and his sisterís body) Simple death wonít change that.î

If Angelus was not Liam then why bother go to the trouble of completing a contest with the father? Why even care? Angel is still growing up as he still Liam, with the same family issues that got to him as Liam. Connor is just an opportunity to get it right with his son what he failed to do with his own father.

You said........

Just like Angel is not Liam or Angeles, yet retains the memories and motor memory skills & other physical & mental attributes of his previous incarnations. Eventually this new incarnation of Spike's gonna want a new name, to claim his own individuality.

I'd agree with you if it weren't for the fact that humans constantly change their names to suit how they feel about themselves. Angel took on that monniker as a reminder of how his sister Kathy was one of the first people he killed....he can never forget what he has done. Names mean nothing....and add on the fact that both Angel and Spike feel responsible for what they did while soulless.

[> [> [> [> [> Great arguments, Rufus! You never fail to amaze with your uncanny referencing abilities! -- Rob, 11:42:44 12/10/02 Tue

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