January 2002 posts
My Dog Skip (or Skip's "my dogg"!) -- neaux, 07:10:27 01/15/02 Tue
what makes Skip so likable.. its probably that he seems like an ordinary dude who just happens to have a job with the powers that be . Also maybe its that he sounds like joe ordinary but looks like a demon with a doorknocker hanging from his chin (which is also cool).
So I guess bringing him back for another episode was the cool thing to do... but I remember last season or so ago when TV Guide did a write up on Lorne and how cool he was.. and them BAM! Lorne is a regular on the show now.
soo you think Skip will become more than an extended cameo?
[> Yay! Another Skipaholic! -- vandalia, 11:14:07 01/15/02 Tue
Skip just struck me the first time I saw him. Just 'doing his job' kinda demon. I hope we see more of him, he's so great. I'm glad he got a cameo last night!
Fred and Wesley have grown on me. -- bookworm, 07:44:47 01/15/02 Tue
It's funny how appealing they are now. When they made their respective debuts, they were characters I equated with nails screeching across a chalkboard. But here, in "Birthday," Fred is shy and quirky, not a bundle of insanity and eccentricity. Then I was reminded of how much Wesley has grown since Sunnydale. If Cordy's a hero in this episode, so is Wesley. The guy who fainted at the sight of demons is now fighting demons one-armed in Cordy's alternate reality. Too bad Cordy had to take him on a "forced death march down memory lane" about the humiliating kiss.
[> Fred and Wesley the Renaissance duo -- matching mole, 10:38:04 01/15/02 Tue
Has anyone else noticed how that one or the other of Fred or (particularly) Wesley seem to know something about virtually everything that is even vaguely scientific or academic? Recently it seems to have been medical topics. Wesley seemed to know quite a bit about pregnancy and about Cordelia's medication. Fred knew how to read Cordelia's MRIs and catscans. This seems to be a common view on TV - the science guy knows everything and so can be treated as a source for any handy piece of knowledge.
This is in sharp contrast to the 'research mode' we see on both BtVS and AtS where mystical information has to be tracked down in books (which are at times unreliable).
Is this due to time constraints, laziness on the part of the writers, or are they trying to tell us something?
I have no idea - any thoughts?
[> [> Re: Fred and Wesley the Renaissance duo -- Rattletrap, 11:28:52 01/15/02 Tue
Both Fred and Wesley are clearly widely read, and both seem to have enough academic training that they would know where to look for general information on most subjects. I have always been under the impression that Fred and Wesley do some research, but most of it off camera. The subjects about which they've demonstrated knowledge recently (e.g. pregnancy, cat scans) are fairly straightforward and common bits of scientific and medical knowledge. This information is widely published and should be relatively accessible to anyone with a scientific background; thus, it would not require the long hours and painstaking research like Giles and Willow had to do when faced with a new demon. It seems, to me, a bit unnecessary to show them on camera thumbing through Black's Medical Dictionary, Gray's Anatomy, or JAMA every time some bit of knowledge is needed; and entirely reasonable to assume this has gone on while we were engaged with more interesting aspects of the story.
[> [> [> I see your point -- matching mole, 11:55:56 01/15/02 Tue
What you say sounds pretty reasonable, I guess it just doesn't fit in well with my personal experience. Too much time in academia among those who know an enormous amount about very defined topics. I have a Ph.D. in biology and my knowledge is reasonably broad (because of teaching intro courses) compared to many people I know. Yet I know almost nothing practical about medicine. And if I was given some physics data (beyond what you would get in an intro class) to interpret I'd be reading background material for days before I could give an answer.
My primary reason for raising this issue is that I've found the research theme in the Buffyverse a refreshing change from the stereotypical polymath characters on many sf/fantasy shows that always seem to have the appropriate bit of information at their fingertips.
[> [> [> [> My pet peeve on research... -- Moose, 22:05:43 01/15/02 Tue
Who writes the books? And where is all the detailed information coming from?
Sometimes on Buffy I get the *plot device* vibe off just how complete the information is in the books. Anyone that does any amount of real research into obscure facts/history knows that they don't find encyclopedia-like entries on a subject just waiting for them. And half the battle is verifying the veracity of what you do find, something which is *never* done on Buffy. It can be obscure or hard to understand, but for some reason the information is never outright wrong.
While I understand the why behind it (undercutting exposition would be pointless in a story--most of the time), real research involves more than just reading. Though let me add that I am far happier with the "going to the books" for information than simply having a character "know" everything that is needed to drive the plot forward.
-Moose
[> [> Re: Fred Wesley and vampire hunter D the Renaissance trio -- vampire hunter D, 12:15:57 01/15/02 Tue
I don't have any problem with this. What they show is a great deal of simple knoledge and trivia about a broad range of subjects. That is not uncommon. Hell, I'm like that. I am such a vast resevoir of useless trivia that mt friends (back when I used to have some) always came to me when they needed to know some factoid (and not to bkow my own horn, but I rarely responded with an 'I don't know').
and to those of you wondering, I know nothing about pregnancy, but I could tell something's wrong with Cordy's cat scans.
[> [> They're both nerds who spent most of their lives studying. That's my take on it. -- bookworm, 13:03:54 01/15/02 Tue
Fred and Wesley are both voracious readers, curious about anything and everything under the sun, and probably have genius level IQ's. They're also shy people who likely didn't have much of a social life in high school. Such people tend to gravitate towards libraries and the Internet. It's not outside the realm of possibility that they could have picked up a wide assortment of knowledge about many different subjects.
[> [> Re: Fred and Wesley the Renaissance duo -- Amber, 21:42:40 01/15/02 Tue
>>>>
Has anyone else noticed how that one or the other of Fred or (particularly) Wesley seem to know something about virtually everything that is even vaguely scientific or academic? Recently it seems to have been medical topics. Wesley seemed to know quite a bit about pregnancy and about Cordelia's medication. >>>>>
Back in early Season One Wes went with Cordy to the hospital when she was inpregnated by a demon. Presumably he remembered a lot of what he learned then and was able to apply that knowledge when the gang was investingating Darla's pregnancy.
[> [> [> Re: Fred and Wesley the Renaissance duo -- JM, 22:01:22 01/15/02 Tue
As well as serving as deus ex machina, I think it is also supposed to illustrate their characters. Fred is probably off the charts genius. Which explains why she often seems to exist in her own special world. (And why Gunn is falling for her.)
Wes is probably not as inately genius, but he was driven from a young age and probably can't help himself from tracking down every bit of arcane knowledge. I think their omnivorous thirst for knowledge is supposed to act as a metaphor for the different ways each finds dealing with the world difficult. Plus it's convenient for the writers.
[> [> Re:Wesley and medical knowledge etc -- yabyumpan, 22:39:02 01/15/02 Tue
I watched the Prodigal again tonight in which Wesley distects a demon and seems to have pretty good knowledge of what should and shouldn't be there. It occured to me that it may well be part of Watcher training "comparative biology, theory and practical". It would explain his knowledge of medical procedures and also various drugs. Learning to read a CAT scan would probably have been part of his training as well.
[> [> Re: Fred and Wesley the Renaissance duo -- maddog, 09:37:25 01/16/02 Wed
Well comparing Giles to Wesley is the problem. Giles wasn't the typical watcher. He had reference to all the books, but never had the "I've memorized all of them" attitude that Wes always had. Just because Wes has become more of a man doesn't mean he loses all those years of studying. And as for Fred(who I've been a big fan of since the first episode with her), it's pretty obvious she was brainy before she got caught in Pylea. So I'd say the difference is in the brain capacity of the two groups. Wes and Fred just seem to be insanely well read and/or smart, while the only rivals on the Scoobie side are Giles and Willow and I just don't think they match up.
I don't believe this!! -- Wisewoman, 08:38:01 01/15/02 Tue
I just received the following e-mail:
Congratulations! Halo Awards Nomination Greetings all!
You are receiving this email because you have been nominated (either for a site or a story) in the Winter 2002 Halo Awards. Congratulations!
For more information, to check out your nomination, or to nominate your favorite BtVS or Angel fan fiction stories, please visit http://www.ficgoddess.com/sunlightshadow/halo-info.html You can also pick up a nomination button while you're there if you want one.
Best of luck!
~Cynamin
P.S. If you have previously received this message from me, you have new nominations on the page.
http://www.ficgoddess.com
Okay, so I figure it's a mistake, or a joke. I don't write fanfic and I don't have a fanfic site. Those of you who've been around the board since last summer know my attitude toward fiction--tried for years, failed miserably, can't do it, gave it up.
So I went to the site, to see what was up. Scrolled through the humungous list of nominees. There, under "Humour," I found a nomination for "The Rabbit of Caerbannog" by Wisewoman. Now, that was not a fanfic! That was a little humorous adjunct to my character post on Anya last summer...and it wasn't even actually in the post, there was just a link to it. Continue to scroll, and I find that it has also been nominated for "Best Past" story. Yikes!
Well, flattered as I am by these nominations, what disturbs me is that I can't find one nomination for any of the really outstanding fiction we have in Fictionary Corner, or a nomination for that site. I'm not sure what the rules are for nominations, but we gotta do something to fix this guys!
Bemused, Bothered, and Bewildered,
WW
[> Must be a secret admirer who nominated you... -- Solitude1056, 08:44:28 01/15/02 Tue
And it wasn't me - my admiration for you isn't secret in the least. So yay to whomever nominated you, and a "second" from me - I thought your Anya backstory was hilarious! ;-)
[> [> Re: To whoever that "secret admirer" was... -- WW, 12:44:18 01/15/02 Tue
Thank you...you made my day!!
;o)
[> [> [> WW, it must have been a bunny...........:):):) -- Rufus, 15:31:29 01/15/02 Tue
[> [> Re: (And thank you, Sol, as well) ;o) -- WW, 17:04:11 01/15/02 Tue
[> Congratulations! I hope you win. -- LadyStarlight, 19:41:53 01/15/02 Tue
[> Congrats! It's well deserved! -- Little One, 00:31:57 01/16/02 Wed
'Birthday' reflections (spoilers of course!) -- SingedCat, 08:45:25 01/15/02 Tue
What a mix-- there were parts I thought were as good as anything on the show-- Charisma Carpenter is really coming into her own. Other parts were writing problems again. Accommodating an alternate history requires a lot of troubleshootong, and things seemed a little contrived and underrehearsed-- by which I mean elements in the writing that *could* have made sense with proper delivery by the charactors were not given good delivery-- does that make sense to anybody but me? Anyway, I seem to recall this is often a problem around this time of the year, or was with Buffy-- they're getting ready for sweeps, and the big eps kind of take up a lot of the front seat.... I don't mean to complain--- some things you just have to understand and deal with, and one of those things is that the show is under a schedule. We can fill in the holes here on the list...:)
For instance, in Cordelia's new world, the guys are different-- more deperate, hard-bitten, less human, especially Wesley & Angel, but not so much Gunn. True, he's more used to things being like that, but if the show were consistent with Cordelia being gone-- wouldn't Gunn be dead, or at least a lot darker than he was? He seemed almost unchanged. I got the sense he was there because it would make more sense than Wesley fighting alone. The Angel thing, on the other hand, was beautiful, and made a lot of sense to me. Wesley-- very bad, very bitter, very very well done. I am dying to see more of what they do with him.
And yes, the time thing with Cordy's suffering made no sense. There *are* some things that just annoy me about the writing this season, things that could easily be made sensible & logical with just a little thought, but which are overlooked. I sense here the loss of Joss' overseeing. By the way-- witness the further development of Gunn's growing interest in Fred-- if I wasn't so attached to Wesley I'd totally go for the two of them together! (anybody see a "Mr. Protecting-the-ghost-of-little-sister vein in there...? not to invalidate the affection....)
Let me know what you think--
[> Re: 'Birthday' reflections (spoilers of course!) -- fresne, 09:08:42 01/15/02 Tue
You know on one hand I really liked the episode. On the other, I really had a problem buying the alternate universe.
I mean, Angel starts going nuts in season 4 or 5 and Buffy and Co do nothing. I just can't see it. This was when cross-over was King. I mean it was a nice, see how horrible the world would be without you. It just seemed, off.
I mean huh, so the PTB's visions are incapacitating their champion. Huh. Well, that's poor planning.
I mean, Cordelia the character (not the actress, who of course does a nice job thank you) has always been established as someone who couldn't act.
I much prefer to think of this as the PTB being very subtle. Okay, so the bearer of the visions is about to die. Our champion needs her. Hmmmm… Well, we'll give her the choice. Free will. Set up an attractive alternative. Then give her an option that will let her carry the visions. Well, okay then. If it's literally PTB/God saving the day, it may be deux ex machina, but I don't mind.
[> [> Re: 'Birthday' reflections (major spoilers of course!) -- LoriAnn, 11:18:11 01/15/02 Tue
Cordelia was given the chance to go back to her old vain self, to repent of having made a choice to do good and fight evil. The way the choice was presented was fiction. She was not in an alternate universe, but a "what could have happened if" situation. The choice was clear: do or die. The answer was immediately clear, too: do. After having chosen to do--she took the not-die alternative--Cordelia sees the results of her decision as if things had always been that way, and she can't abide the negative effects her decision had on her friends. As a result, she turns away from vanity and solidifies her original choice. We are clearly shown that Cordy has changed; she isn't simply going along with her friends or on a self-importance trip. She has determined to be a hero. More than that, she's unwilling to accept the PTB's dilema: do or die. She challenges them to come up with an alternative. She's retained at least one of her old Cordelia traits--she's pushy as hell--but has turned this to a positive character trait because of the use to which it's put.
Angel chose to do what he was doing; so did Gunn, Wesley, and Fred. Cordy just fell into good-doing, and even though she confirmed her dedication to work for good when she refused to give her "gift" to Grue, many saw that as an indication of her self-involvement rather than of her dedication. Of course, since this is Cordelia, self-involvement isn't an unwarranted suspicion. However, in "Birthday" she clearly chose to put the benefit to others above the benefit to herself even though doing so required her becoming part demon (and possibly getting a tail). If we remember that in the first season Cordy was so anti-demon that Doyle felt the need to hide his demon side from her, we realize how hard the decision must have been for her and how much growth it really shows.
Of course, Cordy being part-demon will have further ramifications: it will probably give us a laugh or two, it may affect her potential for a serious relationship with Angel, and it will eventually cause unforseen heartbreak or disaster for Cordy since this is JossTV.
[> [> [> Re: 'Birthday' reflections (major spoilers of course!) -- maddog, 07:30:02 01/16/02 Wed
I like what you're saying except I disagree with one point...unless my memory is really bad I'd say Cordy chose her line of work. And it's not like she JUST does the thing with Angel...she still tries to act.
[> [> [> [> Re: 'Birthday' reflections (major spoilers of course!) -- LoriAnn, 13:39:52 01/17/02 Thu
You're right. I may have not quite said what I meant. She had chosen, but she still fell into the whole thing, and we might be able to criticize her for being carried along in the excitement. Skip made that clear. If she'd cut left instead of right around the forty yard line at the coctail party, she would have missed Angel and been a star. The chance she got here was to make a definitive choice of others over self. One that would have immediate detrimental effects on her and those who knew her no matter which she chose. If she chose others, she would lose big time. If she chose self, others would lose to a similar extent. Ultimately, the very clever Skip allowed her a compromise that may have been his objective from the start, a lose/lose-not-quite-so-much proposition. Either she died or because part demon. I tried to get away from the specific "others over self" wording that has dominated my posts lately and apparently lack of clarity was the result.
Spike had a similar chance on the tower with Dawn and, building up to that, in smaller ways with Dawn, too. He risked (not gave as in this case) his life for another with no hope of reward. Buffy has, of course, done this many times (uh oh, I feel a tangent coming on)but think about it: if Buffy has just been going through the motions lately and still killing the monsters and saving Prince Charming, as in OMTwF, she isn't at risk or not much. Will she have to put it all on the line again to reinforce her commitment. She's the vampire slayer, would she be willing to risk, much less sacrifice, her life for a vamipre, a bottle blond vampire perhaps, when she personally has nothing to gain? Hummh? Or is laying it all on the line simply taking responsibility for her entire life and what it entails? That may be the ulitmate sacrifice and the ultimate commitment.
[> [> Re: 'Birthday' reflections (spoilers of course!) -- matching mole, 11:22:13 01/15/02 Tue
I think the main problem with this episode (this is something my wife said as soon as it ended to give credit where it is due) is that it should really have been a two parter. There was a lot happening that could have been expanded upon.
The logic (or lack thereof) in alternative universes of this sort doesn't really bother me because it is essentially impossible to portray them at all realistically and get them to perform their function: to show familiar characters in unfamiliar settings.
Things I enjoyed.
Gunn and Fred becoming a little more filled out as characters. Gunn got to be something other than stoic and noble and Fred got to be a bit more subdued (not that I don't find the more eccentric Fred quite entertaining).
Cordelia continuing to remain utterly herself. Her most constant characteristic through 5 and a half seasons is that there is little difference between the inner and the outer person. Skip's comment about her appearance fit in nicely with that.
The Cordelia-Skip interaction. This could have been overdone given the popularity of Skip after his initial appearance but I thought it was true to both characters without descending into hamminess.
I'd be leary of having Skip become a semi-regular like Lorne for a couple of reasons. First I think that season 3 Lorne is not nearly as interesting as season 2 Lorne. In the beginning he was this somewhat mysterious figure who seemed to be only partially on their side. Later on in the Pylea saga he was a central figure. Now he just seems to pop out to help them and then go away again.
More generally both AtS and BtVS share a common structural difficulty. Each of them clearly has a main character ( each show is named after a character) that has to be prominently featured in the program most of the time. This means there is only a limited amount of time available to deal with the other regulars. The more regulars there are the less time for each one.
[> [> [> Re: 'Birthday' reflections (spoilers of course!) -- yabyumpan, 22:56:07 01/15/02 Tue
"Cordelia continuing to remain utterly herself. Her most constant characteristic through 5 and a half seasons is that there is little difference between the inner and the outer person. Skip's comment about her appearance fit in nicely with that."
It also ties in nicely with the Buffy ep where B hears everyone's thoughts and Cordelia's thoughts are exactly the the same as the words she says out loud
[> [> Re: 'Birthday' reflections (spoilers of course!) -- Amber, 12:11:22 01/15/02 Tue
>I mean, Angel starts going nuts in season 4 or 5 and Buffy
>and Co do nothing. I just can't see it. This was when
>cross-over was King. I mean it was a nice, see how
>horrible the world would be without you. It just seemed,
>off.
I can buy it. Angel did come to L.A. depressed after the events of "Graduation Day". In the Alternate L.A. Doyle originally had the visions and passed them on to Angel in "Hero" instead of Cordy. The "I will Remember You" ep. in which Angel and Buffy get their perfect day happened while Doyle was still alive, so Angel wasn't going insane yet. The crossover with Spike and Oz also happened while Doyle was alive.
Angel started going mad after he got the visions. A few weeks later Wes shows up and helps him out, in this case, takes care of him. The next crossover would have been with Faith. Faith arrives in L.A. looking to kill Angel, but he's locked in his bedroom with only a mattress, muttering at the walls. Not much challenge there, and Faith likes a challenge. Presumably something goes down between Faith and Wes. Possibly, they fight since Wesley is much stronger in this world. Rather than turning herself in to the police Faith probably runs away. No need for Buffy to come to L.A. and protect Angel from Faith.
It's hard to say whether Wes. would tell the Sunnydale crew what happened to Angel. Even if he did, it's unlikely that Buffy or Giles or anyone else could have helped Angel out of his vision madness. Plus, the "Birthday" ep. really wasn't long enough to explore how all our Sunnydale characters reacted to Angel's madness. Also if Angel went mad midway through season one he wouldn't pose a threat to Wolfram and Hart, so no ressurrection of Darla, no Druscilla, and no baby Conner.
Yes, I thought Gunn should have been a little darker, but at the same time this is an alternate L.A. and there are bound to be other changes. Perhaps Gunn's sister isn't dead. Maybe that's the trade off, she's alive because somehow Slaying Wes managed to save her, when in our version of reality Angel couldn't. I find it unlikely that Wes and Gunn would have ended up friends without Cordy and Angel to steer them in that direction. Something else must have happened to bring them together as a fighting duo. Saving Gunn's sister certainly would have proved Wes's worth to Gunn.
Anyway, I'm sure there are dozens of stories that could be told in this Alternate L.A., but "Birthday" only had time to focus on the ones relevant to Cordy.
[> [> [> Re: 'Birthday' reflections -- SingedCat, 13:57:55 01/15/02 Tue
Good responses, all! Amber, you ransacked my brain, I was about to write all that! :)
Yes, I was arguing with myself about Gunn, and thought perhaps not all was hellish in the Cordyverse. Angel would have received the same vision of Gunn's danger that Cordy did, and maybe that event led Gunn to bond closely with them. His actual situation may or may not be good-- remember that in season 2 he maintained a cheerful demeanor even when things were really bad, and he was in danger of letting his despair & recklessness destroy him.
I love Skip, and enjoyed his second appearance. Wouldn't mind seeing him again. Good guy!
It has been suggested that it was unrealistic for the PTB to slip up, and that, once they did, that they would delay so long in finding a solution for Cordy, who has been suffering terribly. It has also been suggested that it was unrealistic for them to interfere at all. After all, they didn't interfere when Doyle died.
OK, here are my ideas on the subject:
First, I had no problem with the PTB slipping up about Cordy's visions. What Skip said made sense: they didn't know what would happen. Why should they? Good they surely are, but the PTB are obviously a Big Picture entity(ies), who don't count individual suffering or love very highly, **unless it is an individual who is a "major player"--someone destined to tip the balance in a manifest way.** Therefore, they don't do things for the sole purpose of preventing a single person from suffering, and they don't really take notice of that kind of thing. Suffering is part of life, that's that, next question.
Now-- that being said, they don't really take notice of Cordy's suffering because their purposes are being met, and their ethics don't kick in by themselves. Angel still receives the visions; all involved have freedom of choice (NOTE BENE--maybe not *good* choices, but that's *not* a PTB problem). That Cordy's path as a famous actress has been compromised is maybe regrettable, but not something they are moved to correct. Until, that is, the course of events makes it clear that the visions will cease to reach Angel, that Cordy's freeedom of choice--and life-- have all been compromised by her imminent death, and that this is happening because of *their* slip-up. It is at this point-- where events make it necessary for them to correct themselves-- that they act.
So they send in Skip to bear their news-- free choice is given to Cordelia, to die or to rewrite her history as it should have been for her. Angel will have the visions, Gunn & Wesley will fight, maybe Angel too sometimes, perhaps eventually to climb out of this pit as a changed being, or to die fighting at the Apolcalypse. (on which side--we still don't know...) either way their purposes are met-- Cordy has her free choice, and Angel gets the visions.
But Cordy's purposes are *not* met, and thank goodness she is an obstinate bitch and will not be budged until the Powers stir themselves and find another solution to their blunder. I don't think this was some vast manipulation to get her to choose what they wanted-- I think it happened in the natural course of things that the Powers came up with one solution, and were pushed to find a better because, at the right time and place, Cordy stood her ground and would not be pushed around by a seven foot cockroach-man. (sorry, Skip...;))
There, I'm done. Feel good. Anybody else? :D
[> [> Re: 'Birthday' reflections (spoilers of course!) -- maddog, 07:10:53 01/16/02 Wed
"I mean huh, so the PTB's visions are incapacitating their champion. Huh. Well, that's poor planning."
And letting Cordy, a regular human was a smart idea? :) As her guide told her, TPTB screwed up when they didn't count on Doyle's love for Cordy. They make mistakes...what do you know. :)
As for the Cordy can't act comment, many people on tv shows can't act...but if you've got that look they put you in there anyway. It's also possible that the Scoobies and Buffy didn't know anything about Angel's craziness. Half of those crossovers were Angel's doing...if he's not running back to Sunnydale every 8 episodes it's possible that it wouldn't happen the other way around either.
[> [> [> Correct me if I'm wrong, but -- Vickie, 09:59:48 01/16/02 Wed
Didn't Skip say something like "You can have that life, right from this moment"?
I hear that as 'TPTB don't change the whole course of history, they just switch it from one possible timeline to another at this point.'
Hence, Cordy was still the Cordy who had been through the visions and felt the pain of the people in trouble. She's still the "new me" Cordy, rather than the "old me" Cordy.
All the characters were more or less the same people we know, having had the same experiences we've seen, up to the point where Cordelia chooses.
Except for Fred. Where was Fred? Hmmm...looks like this theory doesn't quite work.
[> [> [> [> Re: Correct me if I'm wrong, but -- maddog, 11:24:46 01/16/02 Wed
I don't think so...I'm pretty sure they were making everyone what they would be like if Cordy had never run into Angel at that party. That's why the first thing they talk about is the awkward high school kiss. The "this" probably meant the moment from the party. TPTB must have been giving her the out as they knew they'd screwed up and were now trying to fix it.
[> [> [> [> [> What you say makes sense, but -- Vickie, 12:41:53 01/16/02 Wed
if so, why was there "an actress" who took care of the problem at 171 Oak? It seems like the true timeline was exactly what we saw, all the jumps and everything.
To quote Janeway, I hate time paradoxes. They give me a headache.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: What you say makes sense, but -- maddog, 12:50:45 01/16/02 Wed
maybe that's a glitch in the storyline then because that whole diagram he wrote up was how Cordy didn't run into Angel that fateful day at the party(episode 1) but how she ran into a talent agent instead. That sounds like that universe had her start from that point.
[> [> [> [> Fred was...... -- MysticalMuesli, 11:49:38 01/16/02 Wed
.....still in Pylea. Cordelia never got sucked through the portal, Angel never went to rescue her. So Fred is either still living in her cave or she had her poor head chopped off. What I want to know is - where was Lorne?
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Fred was...... -- maddog, 12:09:46 01/16/02 Wed
Lorne doesn't ALWAYS accompany them on their demon fighting missions...that's still a fairly new concept...I think we can forgive them for not having him around. The question was sorta directed at the, "if Cordy had just gotten her popularity now" theory....but the way the alternate universe worked you're very correct...poor Fred. :(
[> [> [> [> [> Lorne was... -- Vickie, 12:46:58 01/16/02 Wed
By this logic, Lorne was at home in the undestroyed Caritas.
[> Was anyone else bothered by... -- Darby, 12:39:27 01/15/02 Tue
...One of the classic cliches - one character (Cordelia) overhearing only the worst possible part of another conversation (Angel & the PTB), and then missing (but we don't) the continuation that would make it all okay??!!?? Shades of TV hell!
Grrr, Arrgh, and not in a good way! Even saying that it was a "manipulation" doesn't make the scene any less stale.
The Joss Whedon "crew" ought to hold higher standards than this!
[> [> not as much as the first plothole -- Solitude1056, 12:48:00 01/15/02 Tue
When the crew mutters ominously to each other, and then presents Cordy with her birthday cake... why isn't Lorne there? He just appears moments after Cordy's passed out, and doesn't say anything about missing her party. He doesn't even appear to see the presents (which mysteriously got set aside pronto) or the cake on the foyer desk. I would've thought that Lorne would've been right in there singing with the rest of them - hello, singing demon! - but he wasn't. What was up with that? I just rewatched the episode, and that's the only part that really bugs me - it's looking like Mere Smith used Lorne to just show up & say, "it's mystical, folks" and ignored the fact that he's a friend of Cordy's, as well, and would've been there to gift her also. With him just showing up like that, it reads more like he's part & parcel of the deus ex machina plotline...
[> [> [> Re: not as much as the first plothole -- matching mole, 12:55:56 01/15/02 Tue
Good point! I thought of that earlier and then it completely slipped my mind. Just another example of sticking Lorne in when he can serve a plot point and ignoring him otherwise that seems to be the current trend
[> [> [> Re: not as much as the first plothole -- maddog, 09:03:17 01/16/02 Wed
Maybe he didn't want to hear what he normally does when people sing so he decided to skip the singing part? That is 4 other people's situations that would hit him all at once.
[> [> [> [> Re: not as much as the first plothole -- MysticalMuesli, 11:52:27 01/16/02 Wed
I thought he only could read a person if he was trying to.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: not as much as the first plothole -- maddog, 12:13:02 01/16/02 Wed
I suppose that's possible...anyone a Lorne expert around here?
[> [> [> [> okay, but still -- Solitude1056, 13:57:21 01/16/02 Wed
I'd've thought he'd've made some comment about that when coming down the stairs, as if he'd purposefully missed the intro of the birthday party. Instead, he breezes down the stairs as if ignorant of the goings-on, and woken only by the sound of something crashing.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: okay, but still -- MysticalMuesli, 10:40:25 01/17/02 Thu
Maybe this is another example of the FG not veiwing him as part of their little group. They might not have felt the need to wait until he came down.
[> [> Re: Was anyone else bothered by... -- matching mole, 12:51:59 01/15/02 Tue
Yeah, I wasn't crazy about it either. Expecially as they didn't even really follow through. We assume that this is what makes Cordelia decide for a life of fame but we never find out what she's thinking (although we can guess). It also seemed quite unnecessary. Angel really did feel that she wasn't up to the visions because of the revelations about her declining health. Hearing him say that, along with the knowledge that she would die uselessly if she kept them should have been enough to tip the balance.
[> [> [> Angel didn't feel that way about Cordy, wasn't it obvious.. -- Erik, 21:13:29 01/15/02 Tue
he was just trying to convince the Conduits to save her? It was clear to me.
[> [> [> [> Re: Angel didn't feel that way about Cordy, wasn't it obvious.. -- Nova, 00:24:18 01/16/02 Wed
As i said above, I think it was clear to Cordy, too. She was leaning towards being not-dead, so that made his pain harder for her to bear.
What I didn't actually understand,though, was why the visions were driving Angel insane...
[> [> Re: Was anyone else bothered by... -- Nova, 00:22:50 01/16/02 Wed
I brought that up and someone made the good point that, being Cordy, she probably didn't believe Angel had a low opinion of her and was more disturbed at how upset he was.
[> [> Re: Was anyone else bothered by... -- maddog, 08:54:02 01/16/02 Wed
How else were they going to make her choice of the glamour lifestyle that easy? She had to believe that Angel thought poorly of her.
[> [> some...but...and...(spoilers) -- anom, 22:11:06 01/16/02 Wed
Some:
...especially since they've done it before. I'm thinking of the scene on BtVS (Real Me, maybe) when Dawn overhears just the wrong part of Buffy & Joyce's conversation about her, misinterprets it, & reacts accordingly.
But:
I liked the way it came back to zap Angel. Cordy weak? Physically maybe, but she kept her sanity & he didn't. (OK, you could argue it was insane to hold on to the visions when she had medical evidence of what it was doing to her....)
And:
There were a few other problems I had w/this ep.
For 1 thing, as someone else mentioned, why would the visions drive Angel mad? After all, he's part demon, & that's supposed to make someone strong enough to withstand them (according to the Gruselagg, anyway--& no, I don't have time to look up the right spelling; I'm starring in my own version of Flooded, called Swamped).
For another, being part demon didn't keep Doyle from having excruciating pain along w/the visions. Why allasudden do they not hurt Cordelia at all?
For a third, she has a standing offer from the aforementioned Gruselagg to, ahem, pass the visions on to him. She turned it down the 1st time, but wouldn't knowing they were going to kill her--soon--induce her to at least reconsider? They could have an interdimensional commuter marriage so he could pass on info about any visions he had about this world to Cordelia & the rest of AI.
Other than that, hmmm...on the one hand, where was all the way-worse-than-visions pain Skip talked about? & on the other, those open-ended unknown effects he also talked about have all sorts of interesting Jossian possibilities....
[> [> [> Re: some...but...and...(spoilers) -- MysticalMuesli, 10:52:52 01/17/02 Thu
Angel was physically strong enough to handle the visions, but maybe mentally and emotionally he wasn't. He's got a lot of baggage. Plus without Cordy or Doyle, he'd probably spend all his free time hanging out by himself in a darkened room.
I'm guessing that whatever type of part demon that Cordy is now, is physically able to withstand the visions without feeling pain. Like Drusilla - she has a similar gift/ability and it doesn't seem to cause her any significant physical pain.
As for the pain involved in becoming part demon, maybe the process is gradual and she will suffer a little pain at a time. Or maybe Skip was talking about emotional pain.
JMHO
[> [> [> [> Re: some...but...and...(spoilers) -- JBone, 16:24:16 01/17/02 Thu
I think the reason that Angel is rendered helpless by the visions is that Doyle passes on is not by the dehabilitating nature of the vision themselves, but by his own violent history. Since he starts receiving the visions, he cannot stop the visions of his past from appearing to him constantly. Didn't Wesley say something about this? I haven't had a chance to re-watch yet, And I've slept since my first viewing.
[> [> [> [> [> oh, yeah, you're right about that -- Solitude1056, 21:05:11 01/17/02 Thu
I rewatched it - didn't catch it the first time - and you're right. As part of his warning, Wesley tells Cordy that Angel's sent them out several times to rescue people that he killed two hundred years ago. Perhaps the visions, combined with severe brain damage, immortality, and the soul-curse, all created a terrible form of schizophrenia (or whatever the proper name is these days for extreme disassociative disorders).
[> Re: 'Birthday' reflections (spoilers of course!) -- maddog, 06:45:59 01/16/02 Wed
What time thing? You were kinda vague there.
Spike wins - what does this mean? -- abt, 08:54:25 01/15/02 Tue
Spike is in many ways an underdog. He struggles and struggles. When he gets knocked down, he usually picks himself up and tries again. For this reason I would eventually (e.g. end of final season) like to see him somehow 'win'.
The problem is, what does 'win' mean in relation to Spike?
Redemption? Losing the chip and being a Big Bad and killing whoever he wants? Something good or something evil?
Or it might be neither, it might be that 'he grows up', i.e. maturity.
I have no idea.
[> Re: Spike wins - what does this mean? -- maddog, 06:34:26 01/16/02 Wed
I'd say right now it would be for Buffy to acknowledge, not only to him, but to her friends, that she's in love with him. I think that would make him happy...make having that chip livable.
Another list to add to. -- Darby, 11:38:23 01/15/02 Tue
The Buffyverse could be the real world if...
- Cemetery workers believed in giant gophers that dig up and devour corpses. At night. Clothes and all.
- There was no National Enquirer. Or Weekly World News. Or...
- Police departments religiously enforce a "don't ask, don't tell" rule. And ignore most violent crime committed during evening hours.
- No one ever paid enough attention to local news to stay the hell off the streets at night.
- It was just "common knowledge" that various illegal drugs (like PCP) cause dramatic physical changes in the users. And motorcycle gangs are into self-mutilation.
- No network would ever consider running The X Files, because the viewing public would never accept such ideas.
- Everyone accepted that there was a particularly deadly virus carried by a large breed of neck-biting mosquitoes ("tonight on 20/20...").
- Attractive young women could go anywhere and do anything (especially beating the snot out of large men) without being noticed by those around them who are handicapped by a Y chromosome and surging hormones (that's pretty much all males, right?).
Any others?
[> Hee hee..... -- AurraSing, 11:48:59 01/15/02 Tue
If it was routine for the majority of corpses to be drained of blood long before they get to the undertakers......
If every small city had more cemetaries than high schools...
If teenage "runaways" reaching alarming levels was the norm...
If high school yearbooks planned their "In-Memoriam" sections starting on the first day of school....
If every city clean-up crew carried "extra-large"body bags and those really big shovels for cleaning up unknown messes found on a regular basis....(demon slime anyone??)
[> [> Re: *snort* -- MrDave, 22:56:31 01/15/02 Tue
This is starting to sound like a Jeff Foxworthy Routine...
If you've attended a relative's funeral...twice...You might live in Sunnydale
If you know a guy who has a horn...an it ain't on his pickup truck...you might live in Sunnydale
If your family has had to replace the locks on your mauseleum more than once...you might live in Sunnydale
If you have insurance for AFTER you die...you might live in Sunnydale
If your dog never barks at night because it might attract attention...you might live in Sunnydale
If you have EXACTLY 3 and 1/2 kids...you might live in Sunnydale
If you know of an abandoned castle within walking distance of your house...you might live in Sunnydale
If you own more crosses than lamps, and still never attend church (or are Jewish)...you might live in Sunnydale
[> [> [> Oh, I like this variation. -- Darby, 09:19:15 01/16/02 Wed
If you've put your kids through college by selling expired human blood, you might live in Sunnydale.
If your family's black sheep, cousin Enoch, has actual black wool, you might live in Sunnydale.
If you've been bumped on the street by ghosts with perky voices, you might live in Sunnydale.
If the local malls and University seem to move, or fade in and out of existence for unknown reasons, you might live in Sunnydale.
If you overhear a discussion of sires that obviously has nothing to do with horse racing, you might live in Sunnydale.
If none of your out-of-town relatives believes your local news anecdotes, you might live in Sunnydale.
If you need to routinely use "apocalypse" in plural form, you might live in Sunnydale.
(Stolen from one of Riley's lines)
If no municipal sewer worker lasts more than two weeks on the job, and they always collect their last paychecks after the sun goes down, you might live in Sunnydale.
If one of the most broken-into establishments is the local pet store (but no one ever sees the stolen kittens and puppies again), you might live in Sunnydale.
If your reaction is, "Oh, yeah, that's one of the local magic shops," like it's a completely normal thing, you might live in Sunnydale. (We've been shown at least three)
If ten generations of your family are still "living" out under the barn, you might live in Sunnydale.
And if the local video store has the porn title Buffy the Vampire Layer in the documentary section, you might live in Sunnydale.
New Hair -- Apophis, 18:30:00 01/15/02 Tue
I just watched "Gone" for the second time and something disturbing occurred to me: I think Buffy/SMG's new haircut makes her look a little like Ally McBeal. Admittedly, a much more attractive, less wraith-like Ally McBeal, but still. Did anyone else get the same thing, or did I hit my head harder than I thought when I fell out of my loft the other day?
[> Re: New Hair -- Liz, 21:14:08 01/15/02 Tue
No, I thought the same thing. Didn't want to, but I did. Not just you.
[> [> Re: New Hair -- zilla, 06:18:33 01/16/02 Wed
My husband said the same thing about the hair. I think it makes her look awful.
[> Re: New Hair -- isis, 09:21:44 01/16/02 Wed
My 17 year old son pointed out the resemblance to me. He said he was going to start calling it "ally the vampire slayer" -this boy has no respect for what has become near and dear to me!! I agree, I am not thrilled with the look, and have decided it must be the part. In season 2 (i think) SMG had short hair but not parted on the side...also she was blonder then. oh well, we're not talking Samson here, right?
[> Re: New Hair -- skeeve, 12:02:46 01/16/02 Wed
From a Guardian article by Zoe Williams:
This changes frequently. Sometimes it's long and wavy, at others it's shorter and straight, and there are many permutations in-between. The same holds for Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex And The City) and Jennifer Anniston (Friends). Yet no one mentions Buffy's hair except, in days gone by, Cordelia, the apotheosis of the shallow and pointless individual. This is because Buffy's hair is not the point. The point is that she fights huge demons.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4299585,00.html
[> [> Re: New Hair -spoilers- -- Rendyl, 12:32:48 01/16/02 Wed
Actually if there was no point she would not have been shown hacking her own hair off in a fit of anger...desperation?...attempt to regain some control?
Add to that the attention (even when invisible) everyone gave just the thought of her getting it cut. Her hair was a big topic even when it was unseen. :)
Oh, and it does look like Ally...this is soooo not a good thing.
Ren -I can be shallow if I want to -
[> [> [> Re: New Hair -spoilers- -- isis, 13:55:15 01/16/02 Wed
Let me get this straight. In this forum it is permissable to discuss the artwork on Spike's refrigerator, the deeper meaning of the color of a character's clothes, and a myriad of other (sometimes really silly) topics-but to make a comment about hair makes me "shallow and pointless"??? aw, man. that really hurts. I thought you guys were more open than that.
[> [> [> [> Re: New Hair -spoilers- -- skeeve, 08:58:27 01/18/02 Fri
Neither I nor the referenced article stated disapproval of hair related comments. Buffy's hair must be important to someone or it wouldn't keep changing. This one was amused by the fact that he first saw the article less than a week before "Gone". That said, it was amusing to hear comments about how invisible hair looked.
[> [> [> Re: New Hair -spoilers- -- Malandanza, 05:19:51 01/19/02 Sat
"Actually if there was no point she would not have been shown hacking her own hair off in a fit of anger...desperation?...attempt to regain some control?"
Of course, Buffy hacking off her own hair shows how traumatic her "relationship" with Spike is. She seems to have little control over where they are heading, so I agree that it is an attempt (at least a symbolic attempt) to "regain some control."
But I also think that it isn't necessarily all about Spike. I had thought that Buffy was looking more and more like an adult this season, the way she has been dressing and her body language -- part of the "oh, grow up!" theme -- however, her new hairstyle makes her look "cute" -- a return to a younger, more superficial Buffy. In effect, her new haircut is an outward manifestation of her inner desire to flee from the responsibilities of adulthood.
[> FOR THE LOVE OF! -- Shul, 12:25:22 01/16/02 Wed
Its just hair.....its just hair.
Rinse and repeat the mantra.
Its just hair.....its just hair.
[> [> Re: FOR THE LOVE OF! -- Sebastian, 14:43:55 01/16/02 Wed
"Its just hair.....its just hair.
Rinse and repeat the mantra.
Its just hair.....its just hair."
shu, people are just havin' fun. we have serious topic aplenty on this board *all* the time. frivolty is needed every once in awhile.
give over a little. ;-)
questions? comments?
- S
[> [> [> Re: Hair on the Brain -- Rendyl Moonbeam, 20:45:10 01/16/02 Wed
Great. All this hair talk is giving me a 'Treat Williams dancing on the table' moment. Okay, several moments. Anyone have a fan? A glass of ice water?
Returning you to your regularly scheduled Buffyness.
Ren
[> [> [> [> ewww -- Shul, 15:48:20 01/17/02 Thu
Thanks alot, now i will have little reat williams dancing around in my brain for the next week =(
Attention folks who submitted "meet the posters" profiles -- Masquerade, 22:42:15 01/15/02 Tue
Here are the people who've contacted me
A.C.S. (a/k/a Mazumdar)
Darby
dfrisby
Dichotomy
JCC
NazgulsBane
NEVERMORE
Sophie
VALKYRIE
yabyumpan
In order to expedite getting your profiles up, it'd be a big help to get a vote about what character photo you'd like to have reprenting you. Here's what's unclaimed in my photo collection:
"Checkpoint" Watchers Council
Amy
Andrew (Troika)
April (robot)
Billy (AtS)
Catherine (Amy's Mom)
Chantarelle/Lily/Anne
Baby Connor
Eyghon
Fordham, Billy "Ford"
Forrest
Gavin Park
Gorch
Grace (IOHEFY)
Machida
Marcus ("In the Dark")
Meltzer, Ronald
Merrick
Moloch
Monk (5th season)
Numfar
Nun (I've Got You Under My Skin)
Olivikan
Oracles
Order of Taraka guy
Ovu Mobani
Random rising Vampire
Rondell (Gunn's ex-friend)
Russel Winters
Ryan (I've Got You Under My Skin)
Scourge
Sid the puppet
Sisterhood of jhe demon (The Zeppo)
Skip
Ted
The Furies
The Judge
Tom (Reptile Boy)
Vahrall
VampXander
Vocah
Warren (Troika)
(I may be able to dig up other requested pics, just as long as it's not taken by someone else)
[> Re: Attention folks who submitted "meet the posters" profiles -- Dichotomy, 16:50:43 01/16/02 Wed
Hmmmmm. Not sure. Here are a few choices, though:
Skip (he's just really cool)
Yarbnie demon (It was so cute with its Big Gulp; plus, although I sometimes act like a demon, I'm basically good, like the poor Yarbnie. It wasn't listed, but maybe you could find it.)
The Furies (they float; I'd float if I could--less pressure on the joints and loads of fun)
The Oracles (willing to help, but a bit impatient and arrogant; wise, but not infallible; powerful, but also just conduits--not sure where I'm going with this)
I don't know. If you think someone other than those listed above better suits me based on my name and info, please feel free to use that image instead.
[> [> Having trouble finding a pic of the Yarbnie demon. -- Masq, 09:35:09 01/17/02 Thu
All these sites that claim to have "screen caps" actually have 1,000 pictures of the central actors striking a pose for the cameras. Urgh argh, these are not screen caps, people!
Just thought I'd share that pet peeve with yah.
Working on it!
[> Re: Attention folks who submitted "meet the posters" profiles -- Dichotomy, 16:59:44 01/16/02 Wed
Hmmmmm. Not sure. Here are a few choices, though:
Skip (he's just really cool)
Yarbnie demon (It was so cute with its Big Gulp; plus, although I sometimes act like a demon, I'm basically good, like the poor Yarbnie. It wasn't listed, but maybe you could find it.)
The Furies (they float; I'd float if I could--less pressure on the joints and loads of fun)
The Oracles (willing to help, but a bit impatient and arrogant; wise, but not infallible; powerful, but also just conduits--not sure where I'm going with this)
I don't know. If you think someone other than those listed above better suits me based on my name and info, please feel free to use that image instead.
[> Re: Attention folks who submitted "meet the posters" profiles -- yabyumpan, 23:11:07 01/16/02 Wed
The Furies, Connor, pretty much anyone/thing from Ats, i'm moving further and further away from BtVS now, S6 just started in the UK and i have to say that i don't really care what happens to any of the characters now except for Spike. He probably the only reason I'll keep watching, and it's not a lust thing, I'm interested in his journey and i'm not with the rest of them. Also, it's just too heavy for me right now, i watch it to be entertained and i come away after watching it feeling emotionaly like i've gone 10 rounds with Lennox Lewis, i really don't want to feel battered by "entertainment", life does that well enough.
[> [> Yes, it's intense, but it's also brilliant and inspired. -- OnM, 16:06:45 01/17/02 Thu
*** i watch it to be entertained and i come away after watching it feeling emotionaly like i've gone 10 rounds with Lennox Lewis, i really don't want to feel battered by "entertainment", life does that well enough. ***
I understand how you feel, but stay with it. It does ease up some after the first few episodes. Joss stated that the resurrection arc 'wouldn't be easy', and he kept his word.
I have great admiration for ME taking chances like this with a new season and a new network-- they certainly could have coasted, but no-- they stomp the dramatic pedal to your mettle.
Fasten your seat belt and hang on, is all I can say!
[> [> [> Re: Nomination for Quote of the Week. -- Wisewoman, 06:11:16 01/18/02 Fri
OnM's:
I have great admiration for ME taking chances like this with a new season and a new network-- they certainly could have coasted, but no-- they stomp the dramatic pedal to your mettle.
[> Re: Attention folks who submitted "meet the posters" profiles -- Nevermore, 12:36:15 01/17/02 Thu
Do you reckon you might be able to fish out a good Demon-Giles pic for me? If not maybe a Mr Trick? thanks v much! :-)
Dark Alchemy rocks!! -- Source, 23:21:08 01/15/02 Tue
I just finished reading Dark Alchemy (man is it long!) OMIGOD it is the most amazing BtVS fic I have ever read. I'm going so far to say it's one of the best BOOKS I've ever read. Are there any plans for publishing it? Is this group going to write more? Please? Pretty please with O neg on top?
[> Where can I find Dark ALchemy? -- Kirsten, 23:24:35 01/15/02 Tue
[> [> The Fictionary Corner link at the top of this page -- Source, 23:27:59 01/15/02 Tue
[> [> [> Re: The Fictionary Corner link at the top of this page -- Chris, 03:14:03 01/16/02 Wed
I have no fictionary link at the top of my page. Would you mind posting a url so I can find Dark Alchemy? Thanks.
[> [> [> [> Here ya go! -- Source, 08:38:20 01/16/02 Wed
The Existential Scoobies Just click on the Fictionary Corner link on the homepage. There are lots of great stories there.
Return of Angel Noir -- Skip's Movie Date (Minor "Birthday" Spoilers, 23:33:56 01/15/02 Tue
I think we are about to see the return of a more ruthless Angel. With a baby to protect now he can't afford to let delicate sensitivities get in the way of doing what he must, no matter how unfair or vile it make seem.
I think it was hinted at in his response to Lorne, when Lorne was reluctant about finding a way to get into contact with the Powers that Be. I am not asking you, he told Lorne, with the obvious threat implied.
People do things for the family and love ones that they wouldn't even do to save their own lives. They will lie, steal, torture people if that is what it takes to protect the ones they love. I think that is what makes Angel so powerful and unique as a hero. He will go outside the lines, beyond the conventions of so called “right and wrong” to fight for the larger good. His experience as Angelus has prepared him well for his battle against evil in a way that the truly good will never know. He understands evil at its own level and can respond to evil at its level and beat it at its own game. Even Wolfram and Hart doesn't know evil the way Angel does. He mastered terror long before their granddaddies were in nappies.
Remember evil can never been totally defeated by good. It takes “evil” acts to defeat evil. It has been said that it's better that a lover of the truth to tell a lie, than a liar to tell the truth. It is better for someone who loves principles to abandon principle for the sake of defeating evil, than for evil to prevail as a result of people ignoring the fight for the fear of “getting their hands dirty”.
There is a new book out that explains the philosophy behind a lot of this. Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos. Angel Noir has adopting the Pagan Ethos in order to win this war against evil. It's no accident that the Powers That Be have chosen him for their champion. Not only for what's good in him, but also for the darkness, which when tempered in the cause of protecting the weak and helpless, is his greatest asset.
Angel Noir's ends are just, but his means are ruthless. With a child to protect now the stakes have just increased. He can't afford to lose, so he must do whatever it takes, no matter how evil it may seem taken out of context.
[> Re: Return of Angel Noir -- Rendyl, 05:45:59 01/16/02 Wed
I am sooo not wanting to go here again but I did want to point something out.
**Remember evil can never been totally defeated by good. ***
This is a blanket statement where you have not only made an assumption that is not proven but you have also assumed everyone shares this viewpoint. I don't. I think it is impossible to defeat evil by doing evil yourself. I could sacrifice someone elses child to protect mine (you were talking actions to protect a child) but I would lose myself in the process. That is not to say I (or Angel) would not make that choice, but I would not be so arrogant as to claim hero status afterward.
***It takes “evil” acts to defeat evil. ***
Go back and rewatch last season. Angel found out this just does not work. All matching evil for evil did for him was threaten to destroy him with despair. Using evil against evil led him to a point where he was willing (and maybe even hoping) to risk releasing Angelus just to stop his own pain. I somehow doubt he wants (or would feel it safe for the baby if he did) to go there again.
Ren
[> [> I'm glad I read this first cause I was going to say the exact same thing! -- maddog, 06:28:45 01/16/02 Wed
[> [> [> Re: I'm glad I read this first cause I was going to say the exact same thing! -- Rendyl, 08:27:32 01/16/02 Wed
Rofl...usually that would be my line. I seem to get to the board after everyone posts what I wanted to say. So I read and grumble to myself and end up as lurker-chick. Maybe we need the board fed in a continuous data stream into our minds?
Ren
[> [> [> [> Re: I'm glad I read this first cause I was going to say the exact same thing! -- maddog, 08:59:28 01/16/02 Wed
Well I tend to reply right away and it covers a combination of 4 posts that I hadn't read yet so I feel stupid for reposting arguments already out there.
[> [> Re: Return of Angel Noir -- fresne, 09:56:11 01/16/02 Wed
I have a curious fondness for the whole "Total War", "Dark Angel" "blah, blah, blah, evil, blah, blah, ends justify the blah blah means" argument. After all, my first post was a long argument about why that historically doesn't long term pay off, indirect strategy, tactics, the objectives of war, Sir Basil Liddell Hart's brilliant (no really read this) book "Strategy." I just wish I could remember what it was that I said. Sigh.
Perhaps, I'm nostalgic for November 2000. Perhaps, I really want to discuss T.E. Lawrence or Belisarius (my favorite strategic examples). But let's face it, this just going to devolve to a discussion of WWII/Nazis and Le Femme Nikita (great show, loved it, find it funny to watch contemporaneously with Scarecrow and Mrs. King reruns.).
Then again, the newbies haven't had a chance at this un-resolvable merry-go-round. So, please insert, yes I agree with everything that Rendyl said. Plus, some sort of clever exposition on the necessity of being a good example for your children (it's not just about their physical well being, but their emotional and mental) and a few examples from the last 2000 years of warfare (i.e. when fighting it's important to consider what kind of peace that you want to live in. All the more important when you have children).
[> [> [> Re: Return of Angel Noir -- Matrix Max, 22:30:41 01/16/02 Wed
I love La Femme Nikita.
For the last few months I have wished that La Femme Nikita was how it really was. I think it has become perfectly clear that in reality our intelligence agencies are really wimps. Too concerned about silly things like laws and so called "human rights."
As I watch the news each night I keep turning to my wife and say I wish Section One was real. Ops and Madeline would know what to do with al-Qaida, and it wouldn't be sending them to Cuba.
Maybe if we had Section One, we wouldn't have had Nine One One.
[> [> [> [> Re: Return of Angel Noir -- yabyumpan, 23:24:40 01/16/02 Wed
As I watch the news each night I keep turning to my wife and say I wish Section One was real. Ops and Madeline would know what to do with al-Qaida, and it wouldn't be sending them to Cuba.
It's always interesting to note when people fight for freedom and democracy just what they are willing to give up, freedom and democracy....at least for the "others", the people who will never have a chance to prove or disprove whether they are terrerists and what part they played in an open and internationally recognised court of law.
[> [> [> [> [> Life is full of Ironies -- Matrix Max, 23:37:36 01/16/02 Wed
As you grow and mature you find that out. And you learn to live in an imperfect world.
We don't live in a perfect world. It will always be imperfect, and as such these seemingly ironic contradictions will aways develop. Suffice to say to protect a principle as a whole, you might have to violate it in a specific case.
It is better for a lover of the truth to tell a lie than a liar to tell the truth. Sometimes you do have to act in a way that seems hypocritical.
Remember, if we don't exist, there will be no human rights to protect in the first place. For us to live in a civil society, there are times when we must act in a most uncivil of ways.
For it is better to Do evil than Be Evil. It is better to sacrifice the so called rights of some to protect the rights of the rest of us. And after all, they are the ones who threatened us. We didn't come looking for a fight.
Or as my Daddy used to say. Son, never start a fight, but always be prepared to finish one.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Life is full of Ironies -- Fred, 00:11:28 01/17/02 Thu
What happened on 9-11 was outside the bounds of civil society. It was actually an attack on civil society, and as such, the rules of civil society doesn't apply.
Therefore the only rules that apply are the rules of survival. If we don't respond with overwhelming and disporportional retailiation then our society would be destroyed by this infection. All our principles, and institutions would mean nothing.
The greater good depends on the survival of civil society. Without it, we can talk about rights and stuff all we want - it won't mean anything without us to be there to protect it.
In World War Two we did ruthless things. We bombed cities full of civilians. That was Allied policy where by even civilian refugees, who clearly did not contribute to the German war effort, they were considered legitimate targets simply because the chaos caused by attacks on them might obstruct German troop reinforcements to the Eastern Front.
We were ruthless because we were at war, and if we lost and Hitler won, that would be a far greater evil. It was good that we defeated Hitler using any ruthless means possible.
The greater evil would be to let the terrorists destroy us. Whatever we need to do against them to protect the lives of our citizens we have a duty, we have a responsibility to do regardless of how it might offend some people's delicate sensitivities. For the greater evil would be to see more of our people die, knowing that we could have prevented it, had we been more ruthless towards our foes.
As much as people keep wanting to refine it, wanting to dress it up, and make it more palatable, War is Hell, and you can't refine it. The best you can do is fight it decisively and seek victory as soon as possible so we can return to civil society. Return to peace.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Life is full of Ironies -- yabyumpan, 10:40:53 01/17/02 Thu
As you grow and mature you find that out. And you learn to live in an imperfect world.
Don't patronise me please, I am a 42 year old woman who totally realises that we live in an imperfect world, I'm not some innocent idealist. I live in a part of London which has more violent deaths from shootings than anywhere else in the UK, most of them within 1/2 mile from my front door, the last of which was right outside my front door, ever tried trying to stop someones brains from spilling onto the pavement...I also work in the local hospital and am a volunteer in a day centre for the homeless and vunerable. I know the "imperfections" of this world up close and personal. Living in London I also know what it means to live with terrorism for the past 30 years, to wonder EVERY time you hear a loud bang whether it was a bomb or just fire works, to go to work past the twisted remains of buildings, to know the fear of being evacuated in another bomb alert, to look at the people around you on public transport and wonder if that one has a bomb in his bag and wondering what you would do if they left the bag behind.
Life certainly is full of ironies, but treating people as "things", disregarding their basic humanity diminishes us all and is in no way "ironic". To talk about living in a "civil society" and then to deny other people the rights and respect that go with living in such a society certainly has a very twisted irony about it. Dispensing arbatory justice behind closed doors, isn't that what the Taliban did.
As i said, for 30 years the UK has been subject to terrorism from the IRA, for many years the IRA was support by irish/americans, right to the heart of power, it is well known that many millions of pounds was raised at the annual St Patricks day parade in New York to support the IRA; to protect our "civil society", would we have been justified to bomb said parade, to declare war on USA because some people in the country supported and protected people who where intent on killing and maiming people in the UK.
How far does your defence of evil to protect "civil society" go.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Life is full of Ironies -- Matrix Max, 18:50:11 01/17/02 Thu
"Dispensing arbatory justice behind closed doors, isn't that what the Taliban did."
So, our reasons are just. Their's weren't.
"How far does your defence of evil to protect "civil society" go."
We will do whatever it takes to support our way of life.
"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace."
We will do whatever it takes. Whatever it takes.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Life is full of Ironies -- Matrix Max, 18:53:29 01/17/02 Thu
We will do whatever it takes to defend our way of life from those who would attack it. We won't be needlessly ruthless, but we must have the stomach to do what it takes.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Life is full of Ironies -- Skip's Movie Date, 23:54:42 01/17/02 Thu
The war is just which is necessary. - Niccoló Machiavelli
In war there is no substitute for victory. - General Douglas MacArthur
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Life is full of Ironies -- Mourn for April, 20:39:06 01/17/02 Thu
Yabyumpan, if moralty is relative as many have stated on another thread, and we all live in a world of grey, what's the problem then?
It's all relative. Nothing is wrong. You have no right to judge.
Isn't moral relativity fun.
[> [> Re: Return of Angel Noir -- Fred, 21:37:48 01/16/02 Wed
Watch last years Buffy, and you will learn that sometimes one must be ruthless because the cost of not doing so is so high.
Ask Giles. He had to kill an innocent, because if he let that innocent live, evil would rise again. He didn't want to kill Ben, but the only way to kill Glory was to kill Ben. Ben was collateral. Ben didn't deserve to die, but he had to die. There was no other way.
It may not have been "right" but it was necessary. The fact that it was "necessary" made it right.
[> [> [> So now we have "Fred the even more obvious pseudonym"? -- d'Herblay, 22:10:43 01/16/02 Wed
[> [> [> [> So now we have "Fred the even more obvious pseudonym"? -- Fred, the obvious pseudonym, 13:26:15 01/17/02 Thu
"Fred" is, of course, beyond trademarking. The "Fred" who advocates mass destruction is rarely me. Since I am "the obvious pseudonym" we'll assume the other Fred to be the genuine article.
[> [> [> [> [> Troll-naming logic -- d'Herblay, 16:24:52 01/17/02 Thu
Whenever we have outbreaks of trollism, we tend to get several new posters who seem to have remarkably similar writing styles and tendencies to allude to Star Trek, La Femme Nikita, Dietrich Bonhoffer and the Holocaust. These posters, when they do not choose names tangentially related to the Buffyverse such as "Willow's End," "Riley's Ghost" or "Skip's Movie Date," seem to prefer simple common first names: "Ben," "Kristin," "Karen" and now "Fred."
No matter how much variety the trolls show in their names, their writing, concerns and utter indifference to intellectual engagement and discussion remain completely indistinguishible. You may extend "Fred" the benefit of the doubt and assume that "Fred" is his real name. I, on the other hand, will reap the benefit of experience and assume that "Fred" is just another guise for the person behind "Raven Eye," "Matrix Max," "Ben," "Kristin" and all the rest.
[> [> [> [> [> The Real Fred -- Shul, 16:50:18 01/17/02 Thu
I have it on good authority that the real fred is a punctuation mark live in gloucester.
[> [> Re: Return of Angel Noir -- Fred, 21:51:44 01/16/02 Wed
I don't know if anyone watches the show "Alias" but it is the story of a young woman and her father who work for the CIA as double agents against a rouge agency.
Sydney (the young woman) is the nicest most ethical person you would ever meet. She is practically a saint.
There was a episode where she was nearly exposed as a double agent. The only way that her father could save her and spare her from being tortured and killed was to pass that fate onto another agent. To falsify information that would make this innocent agent look like the guity party.
It worked. That agent was tortured and killed instead of Sydney. Even though she really was the double agent, her father made it look like the innocent agent was the double agent.
This upset Sydney at first, but she came to realize that a father would do anything for his child. And she also realized that if it was her child, or her father in that situation, she would have done the exact same thing that her father did for her.
Angel would do anything for his son. That's the way its supposed to be. Would he kill another baby to save his son? He would kill a thousand babies to save his son. Who among us wouldn't.
[> [> Re: Return of Angel Noir -- Skip's Movie Date, 23:09:33 01/16/02 Wed
" I could sacrifice someone elses child to protect mine (you were talking actions to protect a child) but I would lose myself in the process."
One must separate Judeo-Christian (or private) virtue and "pagan" (public) ethics. In everyday life Angel should strive to be as moral as most of us are striving to be, but when it comes to his war against Wolfram and Hart he must adopt a Warrior ethos. It's all in the book Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos. It's a great book. Highly recommended.
By adopting some of their tactics, you don't "Become just like them". What it allows you to do is defeat them so you can strive for a greater good.
You can be a gentleman in everyday life among your family and friends. And still in war be ruthless.
It's why you fight, it's what you fight for that determines if you are "just like them". Not the methods you employ. Why must you be ruthless. Because your enemy is ruthless, and if you aren't more ruthless - they win.
Your ends must be just, but your means needs to be ruthless. Can't make a good society if evil wins. You must survive to do any good.
[> [> [> Re: Return of Angel Noir -- Rendyl, 10:28:34 01/17/02 Thu
Maybe we should clarify a couple of points. We are likely never going to agree on this topic and that is fine, but you and Fred have made some blanket statements and included the world in your assertion that the statements are true and everyone believes them. This is not so.
***Angel would do anything for his son. That's the way its supposed to be. Would he kill another baby to save his son? He would kill a thousand babies to save his son. Who among us wouldn't?***
Maybe I would not. Maybe I would. Either way you do not get to chose what my actions would be in that situation. Until the writers toss it out on the table we can also not say for certain if Angel would kill another child to save his.
***One must separate Judeo-Christian (or private) virtue and "pagan" (public) ethics***
Should I take offense? I am neither Christian nor Jewish. Does this call my personal ethics into question? Does being pagan suddenly put me in the place of someone willing to do evil to further my agenda? Morals may come from a general religious belief of an area but ethics are a little more complicated than that.
***You can be a gentleman in everyday life among your family and friends. And still in war be ruthless***
Morals may change with the seasons and are a function of the society you live in. Maybe this is what you are referring to. Ethics are (in the sense we are discussing) a persons own compass of what is okay and what is not. My ethics are a part of who I am as a person. They are not a suit of clothes I can put on and take off whenever the whim hits me. In many ways they define me as a person. If I commit an act I believe to be wrong what I have done is still wrong. The outcome is irrelevant. Nothing will change that. If I only follow my ethics when it is convenient or easy then why have them at all?
You all keep talking as though scrapping your ethics and crawling around in the mud is a brave and strong thing we must endure to overcome a foe. And you seem to think you can just wash your hands off after you get them dirty. (metaphorically speaking)
The true test of strength is not to compromise them in the first place. You can give in and make that choice and but you do not get to make it and still stay clean.
Ren
[> [> [> [> Re: Return of Angel Noir -- Skip's Movie Date, 19:52:23 01/17/02 Thu
***One must separate Judeo-Christian (or private) virtue and "pagan" (public) ethics***
Should I take offense? I am neither Christian nor Jewish. Does this call my personal ethics into question? Does being pagan suddenly put me in the place of someone willing to do evil to further my agenda? Morals may come from a general religious belief of an area but ethics are a little more complicated than that.
Sorry. I was using the terms as Robert D. Kaplan used them in his book Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos
All he meant by using the word "pagan ethics" are ethics in the philosophical traditions of Thucydides and Sun-Tzu as opposed to what we commonly refer to as Christian ethics. He was talking about philosophical history of these ethics, but perhaps he could have choosen better terms.
You all keep talking as though scrapping your ethics and crawling around in the mud is a brave and strong thing we must endure to overcome a foe
Yes, I truly believe that when faced with true evil scrapping your ethics and crawling around in the mud is a brave and strong thing we must endure. I have much more respect for that than for those who, when faced with true evil, choose to do nothing for fear of "getting their hands dirty", or for those who fail to defeat evil as a result of not having the stomach to do what needs to be done to achieve victory.
Two examples. One from real life history. And one from Star Trek Deep Space Nine.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a famous German religious scholar in his time, noted as a pacifist who believed that killing anyone was morally wrong. But when faced with the absolute evil of Adoph Hitler, he realized that although killing anyone, including Hitler was morally wrong and would be a sin, the greater sin was not to do anything."To escape sin may be the ultimate guilt" he said.
His participation in the murder plot obviously conflicts with Bonhoeffer's position as a pacifist. His sister-in-law, Emmi Bonhoeffer, cited his reasoning. He told her: "If I see a madman driving a car into a group of innocent bystanders, then I can't, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe and then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver."
So he got his hands dirty and in that way abandoned his "everyday" principles. As way to further explain his actions he said "better for a lover of truth to tell a lie than for a liar to tell the truth." "Being evil is worse than doing evil."
Ok now Deep Space Nine. The war against the Dominion and their alpha quadrant allies the Cardassian was going bad for the Federation.
The Romulans were staying on the sidelines. They had a non-agression agreement with the Dominion. Sisko knew however that the only way the Federation had even a chance of winning and saving the Alpha quadrant was to get the Romulans fighting against the Dominion.
So what does Sisko do?
Sisko asks Garak to see whether he can obtain any classified Cardassian documents about a potential Dominion invasion of Romulan space, but everyone Garak contacts ends up dead. The Dominion invades Betazed in a surprise invasion, giving them a base from which they could attack Vulcan, Alpha Centauri, and many other vital systems. Sisko decides stronger measures are needed, and when Garak hatches a plan to forge a Dominion plot against the Romulans to convince them, Sisko goes along with it. He gets the Klingons to release a forger friend of Garak's and agrees to negotiate for a Cardassian optic data rod, even though that requires giving biometric gel - which can be used for biogenic weapons or genetic experiments - to a criminal trader.
Garak tells Sisko that they need to convince V'reemak, a Tal'Shiar member who helped negotiate the pact between the Romulans and the Dominion. Garak knows that V'reemak is returning home from a mission and could be persuaded to stop at DS9, which Sisko arranges. While Garak searches the Romulan ship for information about the Dominion, Sisko shows V'reemak a holorecording forged on a Cardassian data rod by Garak's friend Tolar (who has since been arrested for stabbing Quark over a Dabo girl).
Sisko is forced to bribe Quark so he won't press charges against Tolar. Quark can't help but be tickled pink at the powerful Starfleet captain being lowered to bribing his bartender so a criminal can get off the hook.
In the recording, Damar and Weyoun discuss the most likely means of invading Romulus. The Romulan can tell at once that Sisko's Romulan ale is fake and realizes quickly that the information on the data rod is as well. He leaves in a rage, but his ship blows up before it reaches Romulus. Sisko knows that Garak must have planted a bomb on the shuttle, but the Romulans think the Dominion blew it up - and that the data rod is the genuine article, with inconsistencies caused by the explosion rather than a forged recording - and declare war against the Dominion.
Sisko punches Garak, but the tailor points out that a dead criminal, a dead Romulan agent, and a guilty conscience are a very small price to pay for Romulan allies in a war that has killed thousands of Federation citizens. Sisko deplores his recent lying, bribing, accessory-to-murder behavior but says the worst part is that he agrees: it's a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant. He says he can live with it, and erases his log.
Garek- "That's why you came to see me--isn't it, Captain? Because you knew I could do those things you weren't capable of doing. Well, it worked! And you'll get what you want--a war between the Romulans and the Dominion. And if your conscience is bothering you, you should soothe it with the knowledge that you may have just saved the entire Alpha Quadrant, and all it cost was the life of one Romulan senator, one criminal, and the self-respect of one Starfleet officer. I don't know about you, but I'd call that a bargain."
Sisko "So: I lied... I cheated... I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But the most damning thing of all: I think I can live with it, and if I had to do it all over again, I would."
[> [> [> [> [> The troll-watcher's checklist -- d'Herblay, 22:57:55 01/17/02 Thu
There's Bonhoffer. Check.
Keep your eyes open. I think that next up will be The Untouchables. Look for this quote: "You wanna get Capone? Here's how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way. And that's how you get Capone!"
These guys need to get out more. Their references are getting kind of stale.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Heard Another one -- Skip's Movie Date, 23:21:58 01/17/02 Thu
If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons
-Winston Churchill
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> I got one for you -- d'Herblay, 08:15:30 01/18/02 Fri
"I know Darth Vader's really got you annoyed,
But remember if you kill him then you'll be unemployed."
-- Yoda (by way of "Weird Al" Yankovic)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: I got one for you -- Skip's Movie Date, 21:01:58 01/18/02 Fri
How about that quote from the Untouchables when Ness was talking to the judge. I dont remember it exactly something like I have broken laws that I have sworn to protect and still I know I have done right.
Then he got the judge to exchange the bought off jury for a new one. The way he did it was that he told the judge that the judge's name was in Capone's ledger. It wasn't. Ness lied. But it worked.
(It wouldn't have worked except that the judge must have had a reason to think that his name could have been in in that ledger. )
[> Silly Arguments =) -- Shul, 12:22:21 01/16/02 Wed
A few points from the fuzzy bunny archives of Sunshine
1. Killing is not inherently evil or an act of hate.
2. The only difference between an enemy that tries to kill u quickly and one who takes there time is...... no real difference at all (morally/ethically anyway)
3. Good can and quite frequently does defeat evil, WWII would be a good example, i am taking into account the Nukes.
4. Violence in defending one's own just claim is not evil but BIG GOOD.
5. (OT a bit)Good is as patient as Evil is impatient.
The previous have been my observations and my beliefs. I dont mean to sound preachy, I just wish to spread the good news.
You can't last much longer.
We can.
We are forever.
[> [> Re: Silly Arguments =) -- Skip's Movie Date, 18:57:52 01/16/02 Wed
Good people can defeat evil. And they often do. But to do so they must employ tactics that out of context seems evil. Just because you commit a ruthless act, it doesn't make you evil. Some like to say it makes you "just like them". But it doesn't. The means might be similar, but the ends are just. And yes that makes all the differences.
Good people can do "evil" acts for good reasons. In fact they must, in order to defeat the evil out there. It really is better do Do evil than be evil, for the greater evil is to do nothing, and let evil win.
By the way peaceful means have rarely stopped true evil. That's known as "appeasement".
I think you and I agree, Shul. We are just getting hung up on the semantics. For example, if Wolfram and Hart kidnaps Conner, and Angel has to torture Lilah to find out where they are holding him, that would be a good act though torture itself is usually considered evil. It's the act that would lead to the greatest good in the end.
It is better to do evil than to be evil. If we aren't more ruthless than our foes, they win.
[> [> [> peaceful means *have* stopped evil - ask ghandi, or king. -- Solitude1056, 22:25:46 01/16/02 Wed
[> [> [> [> Ask FDR. Ask Churchhill. Ask Lincoln -- Skip's Movie Date, 22:34:04 01/16/02 Wed
[> [> [> [> [> Ask not for whom the bell trolls -- d'Herblay, 22:53:32 01/16/02 Wed
[> [> [> [> [> [> Did I walk into that one, or what, d'H? ;-P ...... ;-) -- Solitude1056, 22:58:04 01/16/02 Wed
[> [> [> [> [> [> Ooh! Can we bell the trolls? Then we could hear them coming! -- Just another P.E.P., 22:58:58 01/16/02 Wed
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Now you're just getting catty . . . -- The Eighth or Ninth Evil, 23:02:06 01/16/02 Wed
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> wich evil are you? -- Shul, 16:47:53 01/17/02 Thu
If my memory serves me correctly, the eighth evil is a sturgeon (a giant one) and the ninth is a catholic girls school built next to all boy military academy (or built anywhere in france).
So wich are you?
[> [> [> [> [> Private Versus Public Ethics -- Fred, 23:26:28 01/16/02 Wed
Lincoln was a true gentleman when you met him in person, but he could be ruthless when need be.
One matter further gentlemen."" continues Lincoln. ""We fight on their level -- with trickery brutality -- finality. We match their evil."" (The screen flashes to a view of the rock being absorbing the unfolding drama) Kirk looks at the figure of Lincoln questioningly. ""I know James. I was reputed to be a gentle man. But I was commander-in-chief during the four bloodiest years of my country's history. I gave orders that sent --- a hundred thousand men to their death -- at the hands of their brothers."" Lincoln pauses for a moment lost in thought - then continues. ""*sigh* There's no honorable way to kill - no gentle way to destroy. There's nothing good in war except its ending. And *sigh again* you're fighting for the lives of your crew.""
[> [> [> [> [> [> Evil retreats when forcibly confronted. -- Fred, 23:41:00 01/16/02 Wed
"You are the survivors." it states flatly. "The others have run off. It would seem that evil retreats when forcibly confronted. However. You have failed to demonstrate to me any other difference between your philosophies. Your good and your evil use the same methods. Achieve the same results. Do you have an explanation?"
"You established the methods and the goals!" Kirk exclaims pointing at the being.
"For you to use as you chose." answers the creature.
Kirk demands "What did you offer the others if they won?"
"What they wanted most. Power."
Kirk lowers his head and explains "You offered me -- the lives of my crew."
"I perceive." comprehends the being "You have won their lives."
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Evil retreats when forcibly confronted. -- yabyumpan, 10:49:40 01/17/02 Thu
.....and back in the real world....Evil doesn't retreat it just jumps to the nearest warm body which will have it.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Nothing pisses me off more then... (intense rant OT) -- Shul, 16:39:11 01/17/02 Thu
Nothing pisses me off more then stupid ass god-like aliens who go around doing one or more of the following things.
1. Make a device that is really powerful and or dangerous (while your at it make it addicting too) and bury it on the planet earth no more then 100 feet below the ground next to a valuable resource deposit. Ohh and remember to forget to leave any sort of guard or warning system.
2. When transporting a incredibily dangerous intergalactic super villian to his prison, make sure plot a course through the galaxy that takes you withing escape pod distance from earth. And when the time is right make a rookie mistake that only seems plausible coming from an 8 year old human earth girl after she has just taken 2 doses of adult cold medicine.
3. At least once every hour explain in detail how humans are violent, stupid, self-centered, self-destructive, and that we have bad grammar. But under no circumstances are you to give any information or technology that could be interpreted as useful to the problem inherent in the human condition.
4. When judging whether the human race should live (as we know you love doing), base your decision on the actions of at least 1 of the following people. An insane military commander, a alcholic bum with a infectious rash, or a nerdy science kid who has no experience with humanity outside a computer screen (gulp, that one hit close to home for me).
Note: When judging the human race it is best to just watch them run around for a bit then tell them that you will decide there fate later, like say in a 100 years.
[> [> [> [> Re: peaceful means *have* stopped evil - ask ghandi, or king. -- Vickie, 13:55:50 01/17/02 Thu
You're right, of course, Sol. But one can make a case that the opponent must possess a certain level of civilization (perhaps be not completely evil) in order to be shamed by pacifist tactics. Otherwise, while your peaceful approach may win you a moral victory, you are just as dead. A Pyrric victory, at best.
Gandhi was dealing with the British Empire. A society that, while misguided in MANY of its policies, was quite attached to viewing itself as benevolent, liberal, kindly in a patriarchal way.
King was dealing with, well, a younger version of USns. Which society, while just as (or perhaps more) misguided, and with many human failings (such as bigotry) still likes to think of itself as the most free, most enfranchising nation on Earth.
Both men were lucky as well as brave and visionary. And we are all indebted to them. But their struggles could easily have gone another way if their opponents hadn't tried to hold themselves to certain minimal standards.
Back to shades of gray, I'm afraid.
(Just IMHO, YMMV)
[> [> [> [> [> ooops, make that -- Vickie, 14:04:34 01/17/02 Thu
at least some of their opponents.
[> [> [> [> [> What is a Pyrric Victory? -- Shul, 16:42:40 01/17/02 Thu
and does (NT) mean that the message is completely contained in the header?
[> [> [> [> [> [> It's a Pyrrhic victory, if you're me and can't remember how to spell it -- Vickie, 17:07:32 01/17/02 Thu
" A ruinous victory. Pyrrhus, after his victory over the Romans, near the river Siris, said to those sent to congratulate him, ?One more such victory and Pyrrhus is undone.?"
(Thanks to google, and http://www.bartleby.com/81/13817.html)
And yes, NT signals no text in the body of the message.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> thanks to vickie (NT) -- Shul, 17:22:15 01/17/02 Thu
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Why never Thermopylaen Victory? -- fresne, 11:16:38 01/18/02 Fri
On one hand, everyone's dead, but on the other, the Spartans went on campaign with a couple hundred hair dressers. So, everyone looked simply marvelous.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> LOL! -- The Second Evil, 12:14:16 01/18/02 Fri
[> [> [> [> No true pacifist -- Shul, 16:08:16 01/17/02 Thu
I must assert that ghandi was not a "true pacifist".
He indirectly used force and coerced violence to bring freedom to his people (yay).
Note: I'm condensing a 10 year discusion into 2 ideas so bare with me.
1st idea: Ghandi used britains own laws to aid his cause. Laws = Use of violent force to coerce or prohibit certain behavior. If you disagree, try breaking a Law (like say the laws against political assasination) and see how pacifist the police are.
2nd Idea: Ghandi organized public opinion in India and Britain also to achieve his just ends. The public exerts force in the form of violence (though usually indirect). Like in the forming of Laws (see 1st Idea) or in the removal and disciplining of indiviuals in government who dont go along with the public. Democracies (my favorite) like all governments operate by using various forms and degrees of violence. And thank god they do, as i have no desire to speak german or join the nazi party, to name a few benefits of violence.
BIG NOTE: this post was about Pacifism and Violence, not about ghandi. Please bare that in mind.
[> [> [> [> [> Maybe a diff in definitions? -- Vickie, 18:08:32 01/17/02 Thu
I don't consider enforcement of the law violence (though some policemen certainly use the latter in their pursuit of the former).
Seems like you do.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Maybe a diff in definitions? -- Skip's Movie Date, 20:18:54 01/17/02 Thu
Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Not saying it's right or wrong. It's just a fact.
It's how the power is used after it's obtained. That's the important thing. That's the difference.
[> [> [> [> [> Pacifists are not Anarchists -- Maxwell, 08:23:14 01/19/02 Sat
Pacifists are not Anarchists, in fact just the opposite. You can not have any kind of peace without a coherent system of laws. Government (and the police by extension) can be defined as the legitimate use of force. In choosing not to defend yourself violently you must transfer that power to a responsible authority and you must accept that authority. You still have the right and the obligation to reject unjust laws, but you must do so peacefully.
You also suggest that organizing public opinion can be a form of violence. Granted there can be violent demonstrations but both Ghandi and King advocated and organized very effective peaceful demonstrations. A large peaceful march can exert a very powerful “force” on a governing body, but that is not violence. Clearly I disagree with both your points. I confront your logic. We are in conflict. Yet there is no violence.
[> [> [> tidbit thought -- Shul, 15:52:26 01/17/02 Thu
Torture is dangerous, not recomended.
just a note.
[> [> [> [> Re: tidbit thought -- Skip's Movie Date, 20:23:09 01/17/02 Thu
It should be only done by professionals under extreme circumstances.
Like the experts they have in Section One's "white room".
I think, though, Angel could be considered an expert. His years as Angelus has made him a pro at this type of stuff.
Now Angel can use those skills for the cause of good.
[> [> Re: Silly Arguments =) (or how Rahael is a fool for replying) -- Rahael, 06:04:30 01/18/02 Fri
Far be it for me to help contribute to keeping this thread alive for one minute longer. I'm a fool for bothering to do this when I could actually be doing my job or composing a reply to Age and matching mole.
But, really, I can't tolerate such a load ummm...rubbish without saying anything
All this stuff about violence and politics and the barrels of guns. I'm willing to state that I'm young, and I haven't experienced that much of life. Perhaps you are older and wiser than me. But I have lived in a truly violent society, where there was no rule of law; and I am living in a society now where there is a rule of law. There is a big difference. To pretend otherwise is - I would say intellectual posturing but there is nothing intellectual about it - just posturing.
Killing isn't inherently evil? If that is true than you are the moral relativist not me. If you believe that the ends justifies the means, than I am the moral absolutist, not you. If an action is 'good' in one context, and 'bad' in another, that seems to me to be moral relativism.
I am really at the end of my tether about this because these trolls and some of the others who are posting re violence being good are reawakening old wounds in me. Have you been interrogated by soldiers with a gun to your head at the age of six? or seen dead bodies strewn on the road as you walked to school? or listened to the people you love being murdered? This may be some fun rhetorical game for whoever is doing this, but please, please stop.
Violence is a reality, people dying and sacrificing their lives for democracy is a reality, torture and imprisonment is a reality. We should be respectful of the people around the world who are suffering the consequences of this. You are right. This *isn't* a game.
Re Shul's comment about Ghandi: he did not use violence. That is such a grotesquerie. And please explain how Ghandi used British laws to achieve his ends? Whatever Ghandi's faults and shortcomings, he was a man of courage, moral leadership and worthy of enough respect for people to bother understanding what he stood for and what he did.
Many apologies to the board for this - I'm just letting these people get to me.
(A too emotional) Rahael
[> [> [> Re: Silly Arguments =) (or how Rahael is a fool for replying) -- Skip's Movie Date, 06:19:58 01/18/02 Fri
Please understand that the only way we can maintain a civil society and prevent it from becoming like the society you came from is to not allow evil to win.
There are those out there who would try to destroy what we are. Those out there who really would throw us into choas.
You remind us that the stakes are high and we can't afford to lose.
No, this isn't a game. In war, there is no substitute for victory, as the cost of failure is way too great. Thanks for reminding us how important it is to protect our way of life.
[> [> [> Re: Silly Arguments =) (or how Rahael is a fool for replying) -- Skip's Movie Date, 06:32:43 01/18/02 Fri
"Have you been interrogated by soldiers with a gun to your head at the age of six? or seen dead bodies strewn on the road as you walked to school? or listened to the people you love being murdered? "
No, I have been quite fortunate. I have been quite fortunate not to have to witness this evil first hand I have been quite fortunate because there has been people willing to make great sacrifices to protect our way of life from evil. I have been quite fortunate because there has been people with guns willing to man their posts. Winning to stand the line. Guard that wall.
They put themselves directly in the thin line between choas and civilization and say to us - no one will harm you tonight.
No, I recognize that what stands between our society, and a society you grew up in is the American military (and on a civilian level our police forces) and I thank God that they have the guns and the will to do what it takes to protect this so precious and rare way of life.
[> [> [> [> Re: Silly Arguments =) (or how Rahael is a fool for replying) -- dream of the consortium, 10:42:49 01/18/02 Fri
Do other people find this sort of thing as draining as I do?
It's like listening to certain talk-radio shows. I know I shouldn't let it get to me, but I find myself yelling at the airwaves anyway. And here I am posting, though I shouldn't. But I can't help it.
What is this way of life these people keep talking about? I've been following the polls every day since Sept. 11th(work-related). Here's the thing that amazed me most. When asked what they would be willing to do to combat terrorism, Americans were overwhelmingly willing not only to give up the lives of their young men in military action and to cut government funding to virtually every domestic program (including cutting into the Social Security fund), but also to waive their rights to freedom from random search and seizure, wire-taps and government surveillance of mail and email. (Oh, and half indicated that they did not believe people who opposed the war should be allowed to express their views on television). But there was one item that people could not get behind. The majority were not willing to accept government rationing of gasoline and oil to reduce American dependence on Middle Eastern oil reserves. This shocked me, as presumable many of these were the same people who would bring up WWII in any discussion of, say, civilian casualities in Afghanistan. Regular people made sacrifices in that war. These people don't care about their freedoms, but apparently they do care passionately about their luxury. Now every time I hear someone say we are "defending our way of life", particularly when used to excuse the trampling of our freedoms and civil liberties, I cringe, because I believe I understand what they really mean.
I know I am going to get some one-line response to this, or at best a long description of Star Trek episode (which I will not have seen, and will tell me nothing, but that someone on the writing staff of Star Trek shares some of our trolls' beliefs). But I had to let that out.
Oh, and Rahael is clearly no fool.
By the way, is mundismundi still around? I miss his posts.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Silly Arguments =) (or how Rahael is a fool for replying) -- Skip's Movie Date, 13:51:03 01/18/02 Fri
Ok, I will spare you the one liners. I will spare you the Star Trek episodes, and even that great quote from La Femmé Nikita, where Operations explained why Section One helped Saddam Hussein.
I will tell you, though, that it's a terrible world out there. I am assuming, you like I come from a lifestyle of relative peace. That your daily lives, that your normal state of being, is that without fear. We come from a society where we don't spend our lives worrying about being harmed by oppressive forces. We go to the malls, we go to the movie theaters, we go to our jobs expecting that we would be safe and free from violence. Or we used to.
Many would say that isn't the natural state of being. After all for thousands of years the average human lived a life that was harsh, brutish, and short. Violence was the way we interacted. The strong over the weak. In most of the world, it's still is like that. Terror reigns. Fear and violence rules the day.
But over two hundred years ago some people got together and said that it didn't have to be that way. That humans could live together under a structured set of principles. That the individual had rights, rights that didn't come from any other source but the fact that they exist. Rights that no person, or groups of people, no matter how strong, even if they are a majority, would be allowed to take from them. These rights were inalienable, and must respected, and only revoked under due process, when an individual threatens the inalienable rights of others.
So this society developed and flourished. And individual rights expanded through the years and we, though imperfect as humans are, perfected these ideals and created a civilization that protected the individual in a way unique and precious in the history of humans.
But as inalienable as these rights are, they can only be claimed if a society is strong enough to claim it for us. So in an irony that results from living in a imperfect world, the only way the weak can be protected is for institutions to exist strong enough to ruthlessly repel those who would use strength to harm us. So still the strong is over the weak, but in this case it's the strong operating on the behalf of the weak.
For a society to be able to protect our ideals, that society has to exist. And there are times, desperate times, when to protect the society that defends our ideals, we must in limited cases, and for limited times, violate these same principles for our survival. This may seem hypocritical, but again, the world is imperfect. And it's more important to protect the society at large and in that way protect our ideals, in general (in most cases) than to adhere to our principles in a specific case, a specific instance, that would risk sacrificing the society. For if our society falls, so do those ideals.
Abraham Lincoln suspended the wit of habeas corpus. Franklin Delano Roosevelt interned Japanese Americans. The Allies bombed German civilians. Even fleeing refugees. We look back now and many of us criticize their actions. We have that luxury. We have that very luxury exactly because their actions preserved our society. They were good men acting under desperate times. There were no good choices for them. There was only the necessary choices that they had to make to preserve our country so that when it was all over, we were able to return and even improve upon protecting individual rights again.
Twenty years from now people might look back and criticize what we are going to have to do to preserve our country. I hope they will be able to. With terrorists perhaps only a few years away from obtaining weapons of mass destruction we are threatened like we have never been before. All of us, regardless of who we are. Our friends, family, and children too.
To state the obvious, violence is not good. We can't imagine a society where chaos and violence rules the day. Where oppression is the status quo. We have the luxury to live in such a society where such things are unimaginable because there are people who do us violence in a way to keep those who would harm us from achieving domination over us.
We must not allow our society to fall into chaos. Evil has never been repelled by anything but force. Good intentions don't win wars. There is no substitute for victory. If something is so important, so necessary, that we are willing to go to war to fight for it, then it would be irresponsible, it would be evil, not to use any means necessary to win. Otherwise it wasn't worth going to war for in the first place.
It's one of those "lie to me" facts of life. One of those dark realities that one must learn when growing up. To live in a society that respects individual rights, to maintain that society, there are times when we must do ruthless acts to preserve that society. After all it would be worst to do nothing and to allow evil to win.
You have the luxury to curse a society when reality doesn't allow it to live up to its ideals. But please consider this. Is it better for a society to not live up to its high ideals, or a society not to have any ideals to begin with? In an imperfect world, you don't have perfect choices, and sometimes the best choice you have is the lesser of the evils presented. And, in the face of evil, the greater evil is to do nothing and let the evil destroy your society. Evil must be stopped.
Ok, I can't help it. One story from the movie "Untouchables". Ness, Malone, and the rest of the Untouchables heard about a shipment of Capone's that was coming over the border. They got in touch with the Mounties, and together they staked out where Capone's men were going to cross. There was a shootout, and at the end of it, several of Capone's men were dead, but one was captured. That man refused to talk, so Malone, in the ultimate goodcop/badcop tactic started questioning one of the dead men. And when that man refused to talk, he took out a gun and blew his brains out. The alive man, seeing how crazy Malone was acting, immediately started talking.
A Mountie who witnessed all of this turned to Ness and said "I don't approve of your methods". Ness responded "you don't live in Chicago".
Earlier in that movie a young girl died as a result of Capone's violence. Ness promised the mother of that girl that he would end the violence that claimed her. So that's what he meant by "you don't live in Chicago". For had the Mountie had to face that girl's mother, then he would have understood why extreme means were necessary. It had to end. Ness had to make it end, and he would violate every law he was sworn to protect to do it, but still he would know that he did what was right.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Silly Arguments =) (or how Rahael is a fool for replying) -- Skip's Movie Date, 13:53:17 01/18/02 Fri
Ok, I will spare you the one liners. I will spare you the Star Trek episodes, and even that great quote from La Femmé Nikita, where Operations explained why Section One helped Saddam Hussein.
I will tell you, though, that it's a terrible world out there. I am assuming, you like I come from a lifestyle of relative peace. That your daily lives, that your normal state of being, is that without fear. We come from a society where we don't spend our lives worrying about being harmed by oppressive forces. We go to the malls, we go to the movie theaters, we go to our jobs expecting that we would be safe and free from violence. Or we used to.
Many would say that isn't the natural state of being. After all for thousands of years the average human lived a life that was harsh, brutish, and short. Violence was the way we interacted. The strong over the weak. In most of the world, it's still is like that. Terror reigns. Fear and violence rules the day.
But over two hundred years ago some people got together and said that it didn't have to be that way. That humans could live together under a structured set of principles. That the individual had rights, rights that didn't come from any other source but the fact that they exist. Rights that no person, or groups of people, no matter how strong, even if they are a majority, would be allowed to take from them. These rights were inalienable, and must respected, and only revoked under due process, when an individual threatens the inalienable rights of others.
So this society developed and flourished. And individual rights expanded through the years and we, though imperfect as humans are, perfected these ideals and created a civilization that protected the individual in a way unique and precious in the history of humans.
But as inalienable as these rights are, they can only be claimed if a society is strong enough to claim it for us. So in an irony that results from living in a imperfect world, the only way the weak can be protected is for institutions to exist strong enough to ruthlessly repel those who would use strength to harm us. So still the strong is over the weak, but in this case it's the strong operating on the behalf of the weak.
For a society to be able to protect our ideals, that society has to exist. And there are times, desperate times, when to protect the society that defends our ideals, we must in limited cases, and for limited times, violate these same principles for our survival. This may seem hypocritical, but again, the world is imperfect. And it's more important to protect the society at large and in that way protect our ideals, in general (in most cases) than to adhere to our principles in a specific case, a specific instance, that would risk sacrificing the society. For if our society falls, so do those ideals.
Abraham Lincoln suspended the wit of habeas corpus. Franklin Delano Roosevelt interned Japanese Americans. The Allies bombed German civilians. Even fleeing refugees. We look back now and many of us criticize their actions. We have that luxury. We have that very luxury exactly because their actions preserved our society. They were good men acting under desperate times. There were no good choices for them. There was only the necessary choices that they had to make to preserve our country so that when it was all over, we were able to return and even improve upon protecting individual rights again.
Twenty years from now people might look back and criticize what we are going to have to do to preserve our country. I hope they will be able to. With terrorists perhaps only a few years away from obtaining weapons of mass destruction we are threatened like we have never been before. All of us, regardless of who we are. Our friends, family, and children too.
To state the obvious, violence is not good. We can't imagine a society where chaos and violence rules the day. Where oppression is the status quo. We have the luxury to live in such a society where such things are unimaginable because there are people who do use violence in a way to keep those who would harm us from achieving domination over us.
We must not allow our society to fall into chaos. Evil has never been repelled by anything but force. Good intentions don't win wars. There is no substitute for victory. If something is so important, so necessary, that we are willing to go to war to fight for it, then it would be irresponsible, it would be evil, not to use any means necessary to win. Otherwise it wasn't worth going to war for in the first place.
It's one of those "lie to me" facts of life. One of those dark realities that one must learn when growing up. To live in a society that respects individual rights, to maintain that society, there are times when we must do ruthless acts to preserve that society. After all it would be worst to do nothing and to allow evil to win.
You have the luxury to curse a society when reality doesn't allow it to live up to its ideals. But please consider this. Is it better for a society to not live up to its high ideals, or a society not to have any ideals to begin with? In an imperfect world, you don't have perfect choices, and sometimes the best choice you have is the lesser of the evils presented. And, in the face of evil, the greater evil is to do nothing and let the evil destroy your society. Evil must be stopped.
Ok, I can't help it. One story from the movie "Untouchables". Ness, Malone, and the rest of the Untouchables heard about a shipment of Capone's that was coming over the border. They got in touch with the Mounties, and together they staked out where Capone's men were going to cross. There was a shootout, and at the end of it, several of Capone's men were dead, but one was captured. That man refused to talk, so Malone, in the ultimate goodcop/badcop tactic started questioning one of the dead men. And when that man refused to talk, he took out a gun and blew his brains out. The alive man, seeing how crazy Malone was acting, immediately started talking.
A Mountie who witnessed all of this turned to Ness and said "I don't approve of your methods". Ness responded "you don't live in Chicago".
Earlier in that movie a young girl died as a result of Capone's violence. Ness promised the mother of that girl that he would end the violence that claimed her. So that's what he meant by "you don't live in Chicago". For had the Mountie had to face that girl's mother, then he would have understood why extreme means were necessary. It had to end. Ness had to make it end, and he would violate every law he was sworn to protect to do it, but still he would know that he did what was right.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Still here, dream, hiding in the deep faraway ;) -- mundusmundi, 06:57:59 01/19/02 Sat
[> [> [> Re: Silly Arguments =) (or how Rahael is a fool for replying) -- Fred, 08:30:09 01/18/02 Fri
"Have you been interrogated by soldiers with a gun to your head at the age of six? or seen dead bodies strewn on the road as you walked to school? or listened to the people you love being murdered? "
No, I haven't.
And I can promise you that I will do whatever it takes to ensure that my six year old daughter won't have to either.
Whatever it takes to protect my children from such horror. I would sanction any means necessary to ensure that the ones I love don't have to live like that.
[> [> [> Re: Silly Arguments =) (or how Rahael is a fool for replying) -- fresne, 11:55:22 01/18/02 Fri
No, you're just someone who feels very passionately about these ideas. The problem is this isn't a suasive argument.
So, if you are feeling nervy from this particular discussion, I'll make my book recommendation again.
Sir Basil Liddell Hart's book Strategy (or Indirect Strategy). It has been used by military schools for years to teach concepts of flexibility, tactics and strategy since the 1930's. (Romme1l and Patton both owned well worn copies.) The most amazing thing about it (from my perspective) is that he presents one of the stunning arguments for why having a moral context is not a luxury when fighting a war, but a necessity. How it has paid off in the past. How ignoring this has bitten people in the butt.
And far from being based on quotes from fiction, it is an argument that comes after a lengthy analysis of every major conflict in the West in the last 2000 years.
Read it. Reflect that he's been required reading since WWI (Basil fought in the trenches, until gassed. Thus the genesis of some of his thoughts.) Feel much better.
[> [> [> Rahael, us non-trolls are right there with you. Chin up, and ignore them. ;-) -- The Second Evil, 11:57:21 01/18/02 Fri
[> Blah, blah. Woof, woof. Who says the Internet's just a colossal waste of time? -- Nod and a Wink, 21:01:53 01/18/02 Fri
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