November 2002
posts
First thoughts on Spin the Bottle, Spoilers included
-- Tess, 08:42:58 11/11/02 Mon
Delurking to post for the first time...so be gentle.
It made me laugh so much it took twice as long to watch
because of the constant rewinding to see what I missed.
I loved seeing everyone revist their earlier personalities.
Most of them we already knew. Gunn as the tough street kid.
Wesley as the self-important inept watcher to be. Cordelia
as we remember her. Fred's intelligence didn't really come
through, but her flakiness did. And Liam as a teenager,
teetering on the edge of being 'scared straight' by his
father's hell and damnation upbringing. But we all know he
went the other way.
I expected this episode to be all about how Angel revisiting
his past and ending up learning how to relate to Conner as a
parent. At times it almost seems like the kid is crying out
begging Angel to 'be a father." But at first glance it seems
its Conner that learned things about his father, and that
Angel is going to continue being clueless in the parenting
department.
And while I'm on that subject of Conner/Angel, did anyone
else find it odd that while Wesley didn't remember the
cutthroat fighting techniques he's mastered, Liam still
kicked Conner's butt? Which I enjoy watching any day of the
week.
I'm glad they are finaly vocalizing some of the antaginism
that Gunn has towards Wesley. I knew it had more to do with
him feeling threatened in his relationship with Fred than it
did with Wesley's 'betrayal' of AI. Than again Gunn has
shown turst issues with Lorne also. And an unwillingness to
even consider forgiving Conner. Wander how he's going to
feel when he's the one on the outside wanting
forgiveness?
Next week promo had me drooling wanting more. I can't
wait.
[> Welcome! -- Masq, 09:41:26 11/11/02 Mon
Great first post thoughts.
"I expected this episode to be all about how Angel
revisiting his past and ending up learning how to relate to
Conner as a parent. At times it almost seems like the kid is
crying out begging Angel to 'be a father." But at first
glance it seems its Conner that learned things about his
father, and that Angel is going to continue being clueless
in the parenting department."
I'm beginning to suspect the Angel-Connor father/son
reconciliation is going to play out over an incredibly long
arc. If the spoiler's I've stumbled upon are true, Angel is
going to have other priorities in the near future, and his
relationship with Connor will change again, and not in a
good way.
As for Angel now, I think he loves his son, he'd die for
him, but Connor has issues that Angel doesn't know how to
deal with. Connor wants to find reasons to hate his father,
whether it's the vampire thing, or the Cordy thing.
Ironically, though, Connor's biggest teenaged problem--his
identity--can only really be answered through Angel. And I
agree, deep down, Connor wants a better relationship with
his father. He just doesn't want to want it.
Angel, on the other hand.... He didn't have a great role-
model in the father department. I think Angel wants to
reconcile with Connor, teach him, guide him, be friends with
him, and if he'd been himself last night, he would have had
some fatherly things to say to Connor. As it was, I agree,
hearing Liam talk about his father was enlightening to
Connor. Daddy's been there.
[> [> Oh yeah, and 4.6 spoilers above -- Masq,
10:54:29 11/11/02 Mon
[> Re: First thoughts on Spin the Bottle, Spoilers
included -- Darby, 10:53:18 11/11/02 Mon
I wonder if Fred was one of those bright girls, desperate
enough to fit in (gee, did we see any indication of that?)
that they hide their intellect.
Maybe it wasn't Liam that fought Connor, but the vamp demon
inside him - they all seem to be "born" with the moves.
And welcome!
[> [> Re: First thoughts on Spin the Bottle,
Spoilers included -- J, 11:00:04 11/11/02 Mon
Despite the fact that Liam was in control, it's just a
typical case of those fancy martial-arts they inevitably
seem to pick up!
[> [> Re: First thoughts on Spin the Bottle,
Spoilers included -- Freki, 12:34:05 11/11/02 Mon
Fred didn't really seem that desperate to fit in, to me, but
I could have missed something. Since she's so bright, she
probably wasn't very challenged by high school, and may have
done drugs to relieve the boredom.
[> Re: First thoughts on next week's promo, *spoilers
for same* -- Arethusa, 10:58:22 11/11/02 Mon
"He has to survive the coming darkness, the apocalyptic
battles, a few plagues, and some - uh, several, - not that
many - fiends that will be unleashed." (To Shanshu in
LA)
It looks like the Aberjian prophecies mught be coming true
soon. (How would the vampires of LA react to a river of
blood, like in Moses' prophcies?)
Is the fiend in Cordy's vision slouching towards Bethlehem
as we speak?
Was that Connor in bed with a girl?
Who was Wes ripping the shirt off of? She had braids and
glasses like Fred, but (to put it delicately) her boobs were
too big. Lilah is wearing costumes, now?
Welcome, Tess.
[> [> I slow-mo'd... (AtS promo spoilers) --
Masq, 11:04:39 11/11/02 Mon
They had two bed scenes in the promos. One with a guy on
top, one with a woman on top. In the guy-on-top, it's
definitely Connor, and I think the woman with him is
Cordelia. In the other, it's an unknown blonde woman on top,
but we can't see the guy because we are in his p.o.v.
My theory? Connor hooks up with the hooker (maybe he steals
some of Angel's money), and then fantasizes that he's with
Cordelia.
[> [> [> Re: I slow-mo'd... (AtS promo
spoilers) -- Arethusa, 11:14:23 11/11/02 Mon
"...then fantasizes that he's with Cordelia."
Phew. For a second there you had me worried. ;-)
The blond hair is baffling me. I'm pretty sure the guy was
Wes, although not totally sure. Do he and Connor both
substitute other women for the ones they want?
[> [> [> [> Re: I slow-mo'd... (AtS promo
spoilers) -- alcibiades, 12:44:14 11/11/02 Mon
The blond hair is baffling me. I'm pretty sure the guy
was Wes, although not totally sure. Do he and Connor both
substitute other women for the
ones they want?
I couldn't figure out the first woman at all.
The second guy is definitely Wes.
Someone elsewhere suggested it was Lilah dressing up as
Fred. (Ewww, shades of Spike and Harmony.) Which I checked
and think is right.
[> Re: First thoughts on Spin the Bottle, Spoilers
included -- Jarrod
Harmier, 12:15:07 11/11/02 Mon
I didn't see Wes as "inept" in "Spin the Bottle", even
though season three of "Buffy" appeared to paint that
picture of him. The fact that he was "head boy" at the
academy is just another piece of evidence that suggests that
his bad decisions in season three of "Buffy" were not caused
by any lack of intelligence or knowledge, but were due to
Wes trying to over-compensate and try to gain his father's
approval even after all of the cruelty his father bestowed
on him as he grew up. All of his conclusions about the
situations that happened during "Spin the Bottle" were
understandable based on his educational background.
Jarrod Harmier
Caffeine fuels my body, B/X fuels my soul.
One Question (Spoilers for "Spin the Bottle") --
Purple Tulip, 11:23:23 11/11/02 Mon
As I ahve stated here beore, I am not a regular Angel
watcher, and only catch parts of the show once every couple
of months. But I read the things that are posted here, so
I'm kind of up to speed. Anyway, last night I flipped over
to Angel during commercial breaks on Alias, and they had all
ben reverted back to their younger selves (around 17 I
believe?) But it didn't seem that any of them knew each
other. And wouldn't Cordelia have known who Angel and Wesley
were? She knew them when she was 17, even though they didn't
know her, and that was when she was infatuated with Wesley
and she knew that Angel was a vampire. So were they really
reverted back to themselves at 17, or to just kids at age
17?
OH! Sorry, I have one more small question---I was just
wondering if the actors who played Forest on Buffy during
season 4, and Gunn on Angel are the same person, because boy
do they look an awful lot alike!
[> Re: One Question (Spoilers for "Spin the
Bottle") -- Masq, 11:28:47 11/11/02 Mon
Cordelia explicitly mentions that she thinks this is a
"sophomore" hazing thing. In other words, she was "put back"
to the beginning of her sophomore year, her first year of
high school, before she met Buffy and Angel, which occured
in the second semester.
So I'd say she's 15 or 16 here.
[> [> Re: One Question (Spoilers for "Spin the
Bottle") -- PT, 12:18:44 11/11/02 Mon
OH!!! Ok, that makes perfect sense then! Thanks Masq, I knew
that there was a likely explanation! See, that's what I get
for not watching the whole thing!
[> My guess on that... -- ZachsMind, 12:30:25
11/11/02 Mon
I think they were around about their middle teens but not
necessarily at 17. Actually I guessed Cordelia was de-aged
to the point about season one of Buffy, before she
acknowledged that there were vampires in existence. Had she
de-aged to exactly 17, you're right she should have
recognized Wes & Angel. The fact she didn't means we're
talking season one, which would put Cordy at about 15. Also
she was way self-conscious about her hair, which was
something that she might have done at 17, but definitely
would have been doing at 15.
[> Two different guys... -- Dichotomy, 14:12:09
11/11/02 Mon
Gunn is played by J. August Richards and Forrest was played
by Leonard Roberts. (Thanks to BuffyGuide.com!)
[> [> Have you noticed. . . -- Finn Mac Cool,
14:42:20 11/11/02 Mon
That all black males who've gotten a recurring role on Buffy
or Angel have had the whole shaved head thing (though I'm
not positive about Mr. Trick).
[> [> [> Another question (spoilers for StB)
-- yabyumpan, 15:30:53 11/11/02 Mon
I won't get to see the ep till next year (uk person), but
from reading the Wildfeed etc, Lorne seemed to imply at the
begining that the spell didn't work as it was supposed to
because of the W/G/F situation (and boy have I had enough of
this love triangle, but anyway), is that right and if so,
was any explaination given as to why it would have spoiled
the spell?
Also, I don't think this spells the end for C/A (sorry
Masq). From what I've read, it was JW's idea to go there and
I think he's commited to it. I think we're just getting one
road block after another. I'm personally not into all the
angst, love really doesn't have to be like that but JW/ME
seem to have the same view of love as Buffy.
[> [> [> [> Oh, I agree -- Masq,
16:25:29 11/11/02 Mon
with the thing about Cordy/Angel. My only point was that we
weren't going to see them getting together any time soon.
And that that would lead to angsty goodness.
As for the spell going wrong because of the W/G/F love
triangle, I don't think that's the case. I think it was just
a kooky spell that had the main effect of causing memory
loss for any memories after adolescence. Or, if it was meant
to restore memories normally, it was screwed up by Cordy
stepping on the bottle.
Haven't figured out that little metaphysical detail yet.
The Spin on Spin (Spinthebottle spoilers yeah!) --
neaux, 13:35:49 11/11/02 Mon
The Spin on Spin
It is an interesting title. The obvious relevance of the
game being used to bring back Cordy’s memory. Its a teenage
game and therefore the teenage memories emerge. But the Spin
on this seance/spell is that the main rule of spin the
bottle is still in effect but ultimately challenged.
If I remember spin the bottle correctly, one spins the
bottle and where it lands.. either the spinner kisses the
“pointed” target or the spinner orders the target to do
something like a dare.
Incidentally, didnt Xander play this game at a frat party?
(but I digress)
You can tell where the episode is going because if the
Bottle tells you what to do.. and then the bottle represents
authority, Cordelia steps on and breaks the bottle.
Why Cordy? Probably because she is the one who first
challenged the Powers that Be. You could also argue that all
the entire cast is challenging the PTB as well by trying to
get her memory back.
Then if you remember the first scene that Lorne narrates, he
says this is a story about a boy. Connor who obviously has
authority problems.. but then Lorne scratches that and
starts with Cordy.
but you can see the cycle of questioning authority
from Connor's problem with Angel
to Cordy
to the gang’s arguement over who should be in charge and who
to trust.
Angel/Liam’s gripes about his father.
Gunn’s hassle of “THE MAN”
and We know Wesley has father issues.
anyone have a take on Fred and the government and how this
fits in?
[> Fred's challenge -- neaux, 13:49:22 11/11/02
Mon
Ok.. I just had a thought that maybe Fred really wants to
challenge government and that her desire for weed is a step
in that direction. Breaking a minor law i.e.
What is Stage Lorne's timeframe? (Spoilers for StB) -
- PepTech, 15:28:25 11/11/02 Mon
Something's been bugging me about this ep that I haven't
seen discussed here; maybe it scrolled off to the archives
already. If so, point me there, and never mind. :-)
So there are a couple of refs by Lorne that make me wonder
exactly when it is that he is telling the story. One is the
reference to "starting" with Connor in the beginning; we
never really got back to how the story "started" with him.
We got the nice, tidy "start" where the previous ep had
ended, and the nice, tidy, end where we were back to the
same question at the end of the ep, but what was Lorne
referring to when he said it all started with the boy? We
certainly didn't "end" anything that "started" with Connor,
not in StB.
The other thing nagging me is the re-do on Cordy's getting
her memory back. In Take 1, they showed her kinda freaking,
but then Lorne reset things and it showed a few frames of a
beastie prior to her freaking. So if Lorne knows - as he is
narrating - that the beastie is coming into play, and he has
the time on his hands to tell the story, he must be doing
his narrating *after* the beastie has run its course, or at
least at a time when there's no immediate danger. Unless
Lorne is the Omega Man and just amusing himself... no, there
has to be some reason in the context of the seasonal arc
that they re-shot Cordy's POV to include the beastie.
It was also nigglingly troubling that there were instances
of audience feedback during Lorne's chat - notably the
"Finish it!" near the end - but then we were led to believe
the audience was a null set. Did Lorne imagine up the
feedback? Or did the audience just leave before Lorne's exit
shot?
It just seemed like there is more importance to the
metanarration than I've been able to figure out. Sure, it
was a nice gimmick to wrap the main story in... but beyond
that, figuring out stuff like when (how long after) the StB
events Stage Lorne is speaking seems like it would help us
in the long run.
[> Re: What is Stage Lorne's timeframe? (Spoilers for
StB) -- Apophis, 15:53:39 11/11/02 Mon
I figure Lorne was either reflecting back on events of the
past, meaning he was in our future, or he was completely
outside of continuity. I'm leaning toward the former.
As for Connor, maybe he meant either the whole
Angel/Cordy/Connor triangle or perhaps even the coming
Apocalypse.
Speaking of the Omega Man... we have no idea how long
Lorne's species lives. Maybe he was narrating things long
after everyone else was gone and was imagining the audience.
Or maybe he's just the only one to walk away from what's
coming.
[> [> Re: What is Stage Lorne's timeframe?
(Spoilers for StB) -- PepTech, 16:05:48 11/11/02
Mon
>As for Connor, maybe he meant either the whole
Angel/Cordy/Connor triangle or perhaps even the coming
Apocalypse.
I'll buy the latter. But it still seems discordant; Lorne
walking out at the end would appear to signify some sort of
"end" of the story he was telling, and if he's just
discussing the prologue to the Apocalypse (as "starting"
with Connor) then "Whuh"?... of course this theory neatly
fits in with the wording of the trailer for next week. Which
generally means a massive swerve :-)
The idea of Stage Lorne being way off in the future is
intriguing, as is the issue of his species' longevity. I
thought it was a bit odd that everyone else went back to
approx. 16-yo memory sets, but Lorne appeared to know
everyone and everything. This could be a function of his
role in performing the spell, or perhaps he's only 16 years
old now?
[> [> [> Or... -- Masq, 16:34:16 11/11/02
Mon
Or the spell doesn't effect his species. You know, except to
knock them out stone cold.
[> [> [> [> Re: Or... -- GreatRewards,
22:10:00 11/11/02 Mon
My take on that issue was that the "16-year-old-memory-
thingy" happened to everyone only AFTER Cordy smashed the
bottle. At that time, everyone was in "blast range" (for
lack of a better term) EXCEPT Lorne, who had already passed
out BEHIND the counter (sheltered from the storm, as it
were).
Of course, I also toyed with the thought that it was a
species thang.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Or... -- Darby,
06:53:58 11/12/02 Tue
Everyone was reduced to adolescence (rather than a
particular age). Lorne might be a Pylean adolescent. And
Angel's vamp demon is a perpetual adolescent, so only his
human side changed. Or did it?
There are suggestions (see below) that the soul Angel
carries isn't Liam's - can that be reconciled with Spin
the Bottle? Well, maybe, if the spell regressed the
level of memories and personality accessible to the vamp.
I'd have to say that such an explanation seems too much of a
reach, though.
Has anybody read the Joss-penned Angel comics
miniseries where it was suggested that the soul isn't
Liam's? I haven't been able to track it down, so I'm relying
on second-hand info here.
[> [> [> [> [> [> A couple thoughts
-- Masq, 07:10:57 11/12/02 Tue
1. They weren't so much reduced to adolescence as wiped of
any of their memories after adolescence. Cordelia was back
in the 10th grade, memory-wise, likewise, Angel was back in
the 1740's. If Lorne had been effected by the spell, he
would likely have no memory of Earth (depending on how old
he is now) and be wondering how he got out of Pylea and why
he's stuck in a weird building with a bunch of cow-
slaves.
2. I'm becoming more and more convinced that the Buffyverse
"soul" is merely the conscience. Beyond being stronger or
weaker, souls are pretty interchangeable. The issue of
whether Spike or Angel got their "old" souls back is
relevant only to the extent that they got a stronger or
weaker conscience than they had before. Buffyverse souls,
IMO, have nothing to do with an individual's personal
identity. Perhaps Angel didn't get Liam's conscience, but
it's like saying he didn't get his car's old carburetor, or
spark plugs or something. He got a soul that was a little
stronger than he had before, because that would torment him
more from the gypsy's point of view.
Of course, the spell the gypsy's did was supposed to restore
"his" human soul, and the cave demon said to Spike he was
going to return "his" soul, so I believe they both got the
old parts back.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: A couple
thoughts -- Darby, 07:54:38 11/12/02 Tue
I'm not sure that Buffy's experience in Heaven supports the
interchangeable-souls thing - she specifically said that she
was herself, wherever she was, implying that her soul
retained some aspects of her personality or whatever you
want to define as "self." From a religious standpoint, being
"survived" by something that's really one-size-fits-all,
with no individuality, could be really disturbing too. Add
to the evidence that Spike was supposed to have been
specifically given "his" soul (yeah, the ibfo source was a
demon, but still...) to return him to "what he once was,"
implying a specific rather than a generic souling.
Maybe those spheres used to manipulate souls are attuned to
particular souls (an homage to Babylon 5?), so what
Angel had in S1-2 may have been different than after his
return - maybe it wasn't just his season in Hell that
changed him...
Of course, another alternative is that the entirety of the
Buffyverse mythology is mistaken, and the original soul is
not gone but is trapped in the vamp body, totally
subjugated, and what appears to be a return is just a change
in dominance. Kind of a "What if Alan Moore wrote
Buffy?" Not that far-fetched, since I know that Joss
is a Moore fan...
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: A
couple thoughts -- Masq, 09:26:56 11/12/02 Tue
"I'm not sure that Buffy's experience in Heaven supports the
interchangeable-souls thing - she specifically said that she
was herself, wherever she was, implying that her soul
retained some aspects of her personality or whatever you
want to define as "self." From a religious standpoint, being
"survived" by something that's really one-size-fits-all,
with no individuality, could be really disturbing too. Add
to the evidence that Spike was supposed to have been
specifically given "his" soul (yeah, the ibfo source was a
demon, but still...) to return him to "what he once was,"
implying a specific rather than a generic souling."
Well, part of my theory is that the "soul" in the Buffyverse
is not the personality of the person. I have given that a
separate name based on my analysis of the show, the
"spirit". What went into heaven with Buffy was both her
spirit, or ghost, personalities and memories, and her soul,
conscience.
My support for this has to do with whole vampire/soul
quandary. I think that when a person is vamped, they get a
demonic body and they lose their conscience. Their spirit
remains--their personality, who they are, is still in the
body. They still have all their memories. The things that
mattered to them in life still infect their hearts. Angelus
is Liam sans conscience and with a demonic body. Spike is
Williams sans conscience and with a demonic body.
This theory helps make so much more sense of how the
vampires we know act and speak of themselves. It gives Angel
and Angelus, Spike and SouledSpike some responsibility for
their actions.
And it makes oodles of more sense, and is a simpler theory
to explain the musical chairs of gaining and losing souls
that happened to Angel in Innocence, I Will Remember You,
etc., or with Darla gaining and losing souls rapidly in
Season 2 of AtS. They are the exact same person, the same
spirit (personality + memories), the only thing they are
gaining and losing is their conscience.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re:
A couple thoughts -- tost, 10:04:36 11/12/02 Tue
This makes perfect sense to me. Especially considering
Joss's comments about the soul being a guiding star. It's
tough to imagine everyone being guided to the same place
using a different star.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re:
A couple thoughts -- Darby, 11:28:50 11/12/02 Tue
I guess I don't need it to be an either / or. The brain left
behind retains an image of the person, but there's no reason
that the soul can't, too, to one extent or another. The
persona of the vamp continues to develop from the turning,
which can make a soul return, as in the original gypsy
curse, a jarring experience. Angelus didn't just react like
he'd recovered a moral compass, I think that he gained or
regained a dominant personality appalled at his evil and
very willing to take on the responsibility for the demon's
actions. Something that has not happened as strongly in
Spike, incidentally. Or when Angelus had opened Acathla.
Adding the spirit just seems an unnecessary complication,
not that that particularly means anything.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Spirit/soul dichotomy -- Tchaikovsky, 11:33:51
11/12/02 Tue
Have to agree with Masq here. There has to be a difference
between the spirit and the soul in the Buffyverse. My reason
for this is a 'strangely literal' one.
We all know that Willow is the 'spirit' quadrant of the
super-Buffy. Now if we assume that Buffy is the hand part
because she's the strongest and deftest, Giles is the mind
part because he is the most knowledgable and intelligent,
and Xander is the heart part because he is the most loving
and emotionally honest, then it follows that Willow has, in
some intangible sense, a 'better' spirit than the other
three. A stronger sense of the spiritual. Whatever.
But this really wouldn't concur at all with either
conscience or soul. Souls are crucial things to the show's
mythology. The idea of 'soul' seems a lot more complex now,
with Spike's towel-guilt inducing one, than with Angel's
desoulment, which just made him evil. I think it is not
entirely possible to explain away the lack of consistency
here. But anyway, the difference a soul makes has nothing to
do with Willow. Willow doesn't have a stonger soul than
Buffy, or the others, in any sense. There are numerous
occasions on which she makes more morally ambiguous choices
than Buffy would ever do. Her conscience isn't stronger.
Soul and spirit should be kept well apart in discussions of
this matter.
TCH
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Yes, also in agreement re soul/spirit dichotomy
(Spoilers, Spin the Bottle) -- Rahael, 06:02:53
11/13/02 Wed
Rather than complicating, I think what Masq proposes
actually cuts through the confusion.
Angelus may look like he'd been hit with a personality, but
I'd have to disagree - Spin the Bottle showed that Liam's
father espoused a very strong moral line which Liam both
rebelled and internalised. Angelus rebelled completely by
desecrating all his father held dear. Angel's conscience
tapped into the internalised morality, and this combined
with the deprativities he committed lead to terrible
guilt.
This dichotomy actually solves one of my main attitudes
toward the Angel/Angelus character - that they are really
the same person, not different entities at all. They are the
same spirit, but the souled version has a conscience.
I think this solution, in fact, is really really neat (in
both senses of the word!).
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> Plus it makes sense of some episodes that are
otherwise metaphysically muddled -- Masq, 09:29:18
11/13/02 Wed
Like was human Darla in AtS Season 2 the same person as the
400-year old vampire was the same person as the 1609
prostitute was the same person as Dru sired? In a word,
yes.
Where was Angelus when Marcus took over his body in "Carpe
Noctem"? Simple, he is just Angel, and Angel's spirit was in
Marcus' body.
Was the vampire Buffy was talking to in last night's
"Coversations" episode really her old acquaintance, the same
guy who took the psych classes he was drawing on. Yep.
Is Spike William? You bet. No pesky arguments over "how
much" of William is still in Spike and "how much" of William
went away with the loss of the soul, all of him was still
there in Spike, except the "spark" of William's moral
compass.
When they implied that Angel's demon is a mindless beast
during the "Pylea" arc, it seemed to take away Angel's
responsibility for the things done as Angelus. In fact,
saying that the demon is a mere beast and not a "demon
spirit" gives Angel more responsibility for his actions as
Angelus. Because Angelus is not a demon spirit who took over
Liam's body and did evil in his name. Angelus just is Liam
with a demon physiology and no conscience. So Angel just is
Angelus with a conscience.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> Exactly -- Rahael, 09:47:07 11/13/02
Wed
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> Re: Plus it makes sense of some episodes that
are otherwise metaphysically muddled -- yabyumpan,
11:32:21 11/13/02 Wed
"Angelus just is Liam with a demon physiology and no
conscience. So Angel just is Angelus with a conscience."
Absolutly. I've pretty much always seen Angel like this. I
think to seperate Angel from Angelus is to take away what,
for me, is so fasinating about him and makes him sympathic.
It's that constant battle to keep the demon under control
while tring to do what is right and having to live with the
knowledge of all the bad stuff that he's done.
One of the things I found interesting in S3 was that Angel
was talking about his time as Angelus more, and refering to
'I' and not 'Him'. That was a big step forward from S2 and
'Guise will be Guise' where he says to the fake swami that
he can't let the demon control him (not an exact quote). It
seems that he's intergrating all parts of himself more and
more. I wonder how his time spent as Liam in StB affected
him (I'm presuming they all remember what happened). I doubt
he spends much time thinking of his human self as he was.
Maybe he won't be so hard on himself if he can see that he
wasn't always 'evil'. I wonder also, if the others see him
in a slightly different light as well, that has got to be
the strangest trip for all of them. I'm not sure if I'd like
to meet up with my 17 year old self again. I hope it's in
some way followed through, even just with passing remarks to
each other.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> Hmmmm -- Masq, 12:35:15 11/13/02
Wed
"he says to the fake swami that he can't let the demon
control him"
I don't see that as not taking responsibility or denying his
relationship to Angelus. "Angelus" is not one and the same
as "the demon". The demon is the vampire physiology of
Angel's body (going of Pylea stuff here). When Angel says he
can't let that control him, it's like saying you don't want
your bodily urges to control your decisions. Getting a
vampire physiology wasn't anything Liam asked for. Thinking
of it as something a little alien to who he really is is not
necessarily denial.
"Angelus" is both Angel's spirit (personalities, memory) and
his vampire physiology, together, but without conscience. It
is Angel's conscience that gives him motive not to give into
the desires of the demon physiology, and it is Angel's
conscience that tells him not to give in to the fears and
hatreds that his human personality and memories carry.
As for the gang following up on what they've learned as a
result of the bottle spell, I'm hoping to hear one of them
call Angel "Liam" again. I don't think they ever knew his
original name until now. I'm betting if anyone calls him
"Liam" it will be Cordelia, in a moment of intimacy (meaning
they are alone together, not necessarily a romantic
intimacy)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> [> [> Re: Hmmmm -- yabyumpan,
16:06:45 11/13/02 Wed
I don't think I explained what I meant very well. I don't
think he was denying his relationship to Angelus but I do
think that he wanted/needed to see Angelus as a seperate
part of himself. What I found interesting in GWBG was that
even though he was a 'fake' Swami, he pretty much nailed
him.
Magev: "....- But how do you expect to triumph over the
soldiers of darkness when you're still fighting yourself?"
Angel: "You think I'm fighting myself?"
Angel and Magev are staff fighting on a covered bridge.
Magev: "You're holding back. What are you afraid off?"
Angel: "Nothing."
Magev: "You're whimping. This isn't River Dance. Fight!"
Angel: "I am fighting!"
Magev: "Yourself. You're fighting yourself. Fight me! Why
are you holding back? Why can't you let go?"
Angel: "Because."
Magev: "Why?"
Angel over their locked staffs: "If I let it, it'll kill
you."
Magev: "It?"
Angel disengages and steps back: "The demon."
Magev: "Ha! But the demon is you!"
Angel: "No."
Magev: "Yes! That's the thing you spend so much energy
trying to conceal!"
Angel shakes his head: "No, I just - I can't let it control
me."
Magev nods: "Ah. I see. (Hits Angel's knee hard then hooks
the staff behind his legs to drop him onto his back) You
*don't* think it controls you?"
He spent so much energy trying to control his 'demon' i.e.
Angelus, the 'bad' part of himself, that it became almost a
compulusion. Like being on a diet and constantly thinking 'I
mustn't eat chocolate' or a recovering smoker constantly
thinking about how long it's been since they had a
cigerette. I think he saw himself as sort of like Jeckle and
Hyde (sp), having to be constantly on his guard in case the
'bad' version got out. I think it was partly because of that
that Darla was able to have such a hold on him. She made
Angelus, molded the angry and resentful young man into a
monster. She was the 'chocolate factory' and because he'd
spent so much energy trying to resist what he was/is, when
she came back on the scene he had to destroy her once and
for all but at the same time, still craving her.
I see him now as being much more intigrated, accepting that
he is Angelus but that he also has a soul which means he can
choose not to let his darker impulses come to the surface. I
think he sees his soul as a blessing now and not just as
something that he was given to make him suffer and have to
atone.
I don't know if I've explained any better and looking back
over your post I think we pretty much see it the same way
any how :-)
quotes complements of Psyche
[> [> [> Re: What is Stage Lorne's timeframe?
(Spoilers for StB) -- KKC, 20:04:37 11/11/02 Mon
>The idea of Stage Lorne being way off in the future
>is intriguing, as is the issue of his species'
longevity.
>I thought it was a bit odd that everyone else went back
>to approx. 16-yo memory sets, but Lorne appeared to know
>everyone and everything. This could be a function of his
>role in performing the spell, or perhaps he's only 16
>years old now?
I have a bit of a radical interpretation here... It seems to
me that Lorne's stage show is in fact set in the far future,
long after the apocalyptic events have occurred. This is
meant to do one of two things; I took it to mean that
everybody is okay, and that we're being shown this framing
device to reassure us that everybody survives to tell the
tale. Of course, the fact that Lorne is performing for the
empty hotel lounge could cause a body to interpret that the
opposite is true, and that nobody survived.
Sorry, rambling. When are they gonna add Halett to the
regular cast list?
-KKC, recovering from nine continuous hours of fishing video
games. :)
[> [> [> Re: What is Stage Lorne's timeframe?
(Spoilers for StB) -- meritaten, 10:55:42 11/12/02
Tue
Lorne seemed to imply that the spell went wonky because of
the angst among the group that he hadn't known about.
Everyone except Lorne was upset about something. Lorne was
the only one unaffected.
I'm honestly not sure that I like this explanation, but it
is how I thought it was explained.
[> [> [> [> Re: What is Stage Lorne's
timeframe? (Spoilers for StB) -- Masq, 11:39:47
11/12/02 Tue
There does seem to be that implication.... Although, then
Joss does something confusing like have Cordelia stomp on
the bottle. Did that cause the spell to go wonky? It seems a
likely candidate, too.
And then we can ask, why did Cordelia step on the
bottle anyway? I guess she thought it was the source of her
dizziness and wanted it to stop and wasn't thinking clearly
about its possible effect on the spell.
[> [> [> [> Re: What is Stage Lorne's
timeframe? (Spoilers for StB) -- PepTech, 12:40:14
11/12/02 Tue
>Lorne seemed to imply that the spell went wonky because
of the angst among the group that he hadn't known about.
Everyone except Lorne was upset about something. Lorne was
the only one unaffected.
Erm. That's not the interpretation that leaps to my mind. I
thought at the time, and still do, that the spell was (for
lack of a better word) imprinting people's memories back on
themselves, starting from birth, I guess. It had restored
everything up until 16 or so when Cordy smashed the bottle
and stopped the process. Why it did it that way, and how
Lorne was able to complete the process, well, Star Trek
writers used to just put "insert tech gobbledygook
here"...
The metanarration about not knowing all that had gone on
between the characters didn't strike me as having an effect
on the spell. Sure, it was exposition for new members of the
audience, but also it lends credence to the theory that
Stage Lorne is talking way, way out in the future, after he
knows the entire backstory of all the participants. Since no
one is talking yet to each other about those things - I
doubt anyone is going to take the time to brief Wes about
Gunn snapping the Prof's neck; not during one of the
periodic Apocalypsi - Lorne's complete knowledge is
telling.
[> [> [> [> [> yeah, I think that is
right -- Masq, 13:10:23 11/12/02 Tue
Lorne's fussing over who-knew-what about Fred's vengeance
thing and the Cordy/Angel/Connor thing, well, he was mostly
feeling guilty for throwing the six people together in the
same room in the first place. It only added to their issues
with each other. Then Connor busts in and it muddles things
up because Angel is unable to deal with him due to his
memory loss.
Lorne felt bad for creating a situation in which that
happened, but I don't think he thought it was responsible
for how the spell went.
[> [> Let's not forget -- Isabel, 21:10:15
11/11/02 Mon
That Lorne's species is especially hard to kill.
Beheading/skewering doesn't do it.
Was I the only one expecting the gang to cut off Lorne's
head and then freak out when Lorne woke up and started
asking what the hell they were doing?
The staging of the empty bar scene reminded me of the scene
in the play "Les Miserables" where Marius, who survived the
uprising, is sitting in the bar where he drank with his
fellow students who were killed. He sings the song "Empty
chairs at empty tables" to their ghosts/memories who stand
silently there watching him. So I'm inclined to lean towards
the 'Lorne being a sole survivor' theory.
[> [> [> Spoilers for Spin the Bottle above
-- Isabel, 05:01:19 11/12/02 Tue
[> [> [> Empty chairs at empty tables --
Tchaikovsky, 11:41:40 11/12/02 Tue
Just in case anyone's interested:
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone
Here they spoke of revolution
Here it was they lit the flame
Here they sang about tomorrow
And tomorrow never came
From the table in the corner
They could see a world re-born
And they rose with voices singing
I can hear them now
The very words that they had sung
Became their last communion
On the lonely barricade at dawn
Oh, my friends, my friends, forgive me
That I live and you are gone
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on
Phantom faces at the window
Phantom shadows at the door
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will speak no more.
(Excuse minor mistakes- it's off the top of my head)
TCH the world's biggest Les Miserables freak
[> Re: What is Stage Lorne's timeframe? (Spoilers for
StB) -- alcibiades, 11:57:58 11/12/02 Tue
So there are a couple of refs by Lorne that make me
wonder exactly when it is that he is telling the story. One
is the reference to "starting" with Connor in the beginning;
we never really got back to how the story "started" with
him. We got the nice, tidy "start" where the previous ep
had
ended, and the nice, tidy, end where we were back to the
same question at the end of the ep, but what was Lorne
referring to when he said it all started with the boy? We
certainly didn't "end" anything that "started" with Connor,
not in StB.
I think it screams two year arc.
The story that started with the boy was last year's story --
although this is purposefully obscured by the "text" by
showing us an enraged Connor wandering streets at the
moment.
Last year was the story of how the birth of Connor started
the dissolution of the six such that by the time this story
comes around Angel is clueless about what the six even
means.
And did you get that symbol that Lorne drew -- an empty
center and six trajectories moving out from it. The empty
middle is Connor. His is the story that happened last year
that changed everything and bifurcated the group. When the
center cannot hold there is axial spinoff in two directions.
Within the story told in Spin the Bottle began, the six were
Angel, Cordy, Lorne, Gunn, Fred, Wes. Yet, both before the
story begins and after it is finished, Lorne is all alone
and Connor makes up a point on one of the two triangles:
Cordy, Angel, Connor and Gunn, Fred and Wes. It makes me
wonder if when Lorne was talking about being alone and how
horrible that was, even though the camera panned to show
Angel -- not alone, but dealing with Cordelia -- what he was
really talking about was himself and what will happen with
his story trajectory this year. He seemed to provide an
awful lot of warnings about the ill effects of magic, more
than seemed warranted by the story told on Sunday to my
suspicious eyes.
Because whereas the story started out with six people, all
of whom had once been close, by the time it was over, it had
broken off into two triangles -- Fred, Wes, Gunn and Cordy,
Angel and Connor. And although Lorne was administering the
drug and framing the storyline, important roles both, he
seemed outside of the framework of the two triangular
relationships which were claiming emotional immediacy from
the people involved in them.
[> [> So Lorne isn't one of the "true six"? --
Masq, 13:51:47 11/12/02 Tue
Which, when you think about it, makes sense. Lorne is
appearing in almost every episode, but is he in the credits?
No, it's Angel, Cordelia, Gunn, Fred, Connor, and
Wesley.
[> [> [> Re: The last cast member of that
ilk -- pr10n, 15:16:39 11/12/02 Tue
That was the case with Tara, of course. And that came to a
fairly bad end. Also Joyce.
Good thing your Connor is in the credits!
Pursuing this thought: Is Lorne getting the screen time that
Oz or Riley used to get? And those guys are gone, but
available for occasional filler eps, apparently.
Or is that my raging message/medium paranoia?
Looking at the pieces... (S7 spoilage &
speculation) -- ZachsMind, 16:01:58 11/11/02 Mon
[Zach opens a large jigsaw box with a picture of characters
from Buffy season seven on the top. He spreads the pieces
out on the large table and tries sorting through them.]
Let's see what we have here..
A schizophrenic Dawnie, who talks about self-resilience and
female empowerment but when push comes to shove falls back
on her old habits of suicidal tendencies and screaming "go
away" at people.
Xander in a construction helmet, sometimes in a suit.
Uberwench Willow with a fallible safety catch. If she were a
gun she'd get recalled to the factory.
Amoral, Ex-demon Anya with no powers and an occasional
conscience that she doesn't know what to do with.
A vampire with a soul with more split personalities than
there are seasons in the series.
A mysterious shapeshifting force which gives the writers an
opportunity to allow anyone from the past episodes of the
series to make a cameo appearance, but can't seem to take
corporeal form and needs to drive Spike (and maybe others?)
crazy enough to kill one another, since it can't kill
anything directly itself.
There's an unspecified number of women who appear to be
potential slayers running all over the planet. They may also
be potential keys, or they could be something completely
new. They're getting killed by dudes in brown robes with
sacrificial daggers.
They introduced Cassie just to kill her off, but she was
just too good a character to not bring back again in some
capacity. There's a reason why that piece of the puzzle was
thrown into the box.
A dead Tara. A dead Joyce. A dead Warren. A lotta dead stuff
in this box making it smell gamey.
The puzzle's missing a lot of pieces. A missing Clem. A
missing Jonathan & Andrew. A missing Amy.
Rack's either dead or missing, or both.
Foreshadowing catch-phrases like "Beneath you it devours"
which sounds reminiscent of "something wicked this way
comes" doesn't it?
Oh. And here's a piece of Buffy. Sometimes a kid trying to
be a grownup. Sometimes a grownup pretending she's still a
kid. This piece has two settings: "kill" or "be killed" and
someone took a ball point pen and scratched out the "be
killed" setting but you can still almost make it out.
Okay. YOU try putting all these pieces together and come up
with something that doesn't look like it's been carved up
with a candle in it and left out on the front porch one week
too long.
[> Re: Looking at the pieces... (S7 spoilage &
speculation) -- Pilgrim, 19:07:31 11/11/02 Mon
Hehehe. Good post.
Here's what I think of the burned-out, squashy jack-o-
lantern:
Under the theory that it's all about Buffy, and that this
will be Buffy's last season (and probably the end of the
series), I think Buffy will end the season all grown up,
moving out of Sunnydale to start her new, grown-up life. As
you say, this young woman can't decide whether she's a kid
or an adult. So, how to get her to cross over that
divide?
First, destroy the hell mouth. As long as it exists, Buffy
is stuck in her hometown doing her duty to defend against
evil. I sorta think the whole town ought to be devoured or
go down in flames, but that might involve an unacceptably
high loss of civilian life. :)
Second, end the series with the mother-of-all-battles over
the hell mouth. Demons and humans alike will be forced to
choose sides and fight. Buffy's heart (Xander), her soul
(Willow), her mind (Giles), and her own strength [thanks to
shadowkat for these] will spend the rest of the year coming
to their full force by acknowledging weaknesses, overcoming
temptations, and practicing their powers. All four of the
core gang will end the season victorious, in reflection of
Buffy's successful growth into adulthood.
I think the shapeshifter probably will be the bigbad only
through the first two-thirds or so of the season. The SS's
power comes from its ability to deceive, manipulate, and
pervert; it can't act directly, as you say. Its
pronouncement in Lessons that right and wrong don't matter,
but only power matters, will be proved deceptive: without
power, right and wrong don't matter, but power always serves
some purpose. The scoobies will discover their power and
their purpose as they battle the SS.
But wait, the SS is only the warmup act. The end will be
cataclysmic, and the real bigbad will show up. The players
will align themselves on either side of the good/evil
divide. The core gang will all be on the side of good and
will prevail. Somewhere in here is where it will become
clear(er) (maybe) what's up with the CofW and the killing of
SITs. One thing that bothers me about this apocalyptic
senario is that it will reify that there is such a thing as
a good/evil divide--shades of grey are always best, imo. But
I can't figure out how to have an apocalypse without such a
division.
Spike, Dawn, and Anya? Principal Wood? Clem? I don't know .
. . I sorta think Anya is going to get killed at the end of
the SS arc and won't be around for the finale. Robin Wood
may get killed too--that guy just has to be a good guy, with
a name like that. I think he's probably connected to the
CofW and will provide some sort of bridge between battling
the SS (which I think won't involve the CofW) and battling
the really big bigbad (which will involve the Cof W). Clem,
the thoroughly decent demon, will of course survive and
flourish.
Dawn I see as representing either Buffy's
childhood/innocence (and therefore a character who needs to
be done away with before Buffy can move on into adulthood)
or Buffy's responsibilities (in which case we're stuck with
Dawn, since Buffy can't shed responsibilities as she grows
up). Maybe Dawn will turn back into the shimmering green
light she really is, frozen for all time as the essence of
childhood.
Spike? The vamp could go either way, imo, and I like to
think the writers will figure out a way for him to be both
good and evil, even in the midst of a cataclysm that forces
people to choose sides. I think maybe, in terms of Buffy's
psyche, Spike represents desire. So if she survives, he
survives--and he survives as a potent force in her life,
even if his actions work sometimes to good, sometimes to
evil, and maybe both at once.
[> [> On Moral Greyness. . . -- Finn Mac Cool,
19:57:41 11/11/02 Mon
I think that maybe this season will become is some ways a
statement by ME and Joss that there are limits to moral
ambiguity and the grey zone. The fact that the shapeshifter
(who appears to have Big Bad potential) hails to the line
that there is only power, no good and evil. Joss and Co. may
be saying that if you descend too far into the grey zone,
you risk amorality, which is little better than the evil-for-
evil's sake many demons express.
Also, Clem needs to die! I predict he'll die before episode
17.
[> [> Re: Sacrifice (S7 spoilage &
speculation) -- Just George, 00:16:58 11/12/02
Tue
Pilgrim: "Second, end the series with the mother-of-all-
battles over the hell mouth. Demons and humans alike will be
forced to choose sides and fight. Buffy's heart (Xander),
her soul (Willow), her mind (Giles), and her own strength
[thanks to shadowkat for these] will spend the rest of the
year coming to their full force by acknowledging weaknesses,
overcoming temptations, and practicing their powers. All
four of the core gang will end the season victorious, in
reflection of Buffy's successful growth into adulthood."
While I would like to see something like this happen, I have
a different idea where ME may be going. As shadowcat
mentioned in a previous post, Buffy is a tragic heroine. I
believe that Buffy is at her best when she is sacrificing
something precious to win the day.
Season 1: Sacrificing any chance at a normal life by
embracing her destiny, even though she knows that by
embracing her destiny she will die.
Season 2: Sacrificing Angel to close the portal, even though
she loves Angel more than anything else in her life.
Season 3: Sacrificing her childhood by attacking Faith
("Look who's dressed up in big sister's clothes") and
blowing up the school ("We survived." "It was a hell of a
battle." "Not the battle, high school.")
Season 5: Sacrificing her own life so that Dawn could
live.
Perhaps one of the reasons why Season 4 and 6 feel less than
complete to me was because Buffy didn't have to sacrifice
anything in them. She lost things in those seasons, but the
endings were not based upon her sacrifice.
So what can Buffy sacrifice at the end of Season 7? Not her
life. Been there, done that. Something bigger. Her future. I
have this horrible feeling that Buffy will end up taking the
Master's place, stuck in the Hellmouth like a cork in a
bottle, fighting endlessly and keeping the forces of evil at
bay for an eternity (or at least until Fray several
centuries from now).
I would weep for Buffy to come to such an end. But it would
be in keeping with her heroic capacity to sacrifice herself
for others.
-JG
[> [> [> Yikes, that's really dark. --
Pilgrim, 04:05:27 11/12/02 Tue
I could go there with you, I also like stories with dark
endings, but that seems like terrible punishment for a
person whose "tragic flaw" may be nothing worse than growing
up. A young woman giving up her future to save humankind?
Trapped for eternity as the gate-keeper of hell? No chance
of further growth? And the whole notion of women sacrificing
themselves for others, I don't know--it's noble and all, but
wouldn't you like to see some balance where women find the
power to live for themselves too?
[> [> [> [> Oh, I so agree with that --
Rahael, 04:18:11 11/12/02 Tue
"And the whole notion of women sacrificing themselves for
others, I don't know--it's noble and all, but wouldn't you
like to see some balance where women find the power to live
for themselves too?"
Yes!
I think Joss is aware of the politics of this - he comments
on it in "Innocence". He says he had to be careful, but that
drama was created by having a consequence for every
decision, whether it was a good decision or a bad decision.
He was just careful that it would never be a physical
decision, only emotional.
That said, I still think we need to see strong women who
escape punishment. Emotional or physical.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Oh, I so agree with
Rahael -- pr10n, 08:55:46 11/12/02 Tue
That said, I still think we need to see strong women who
escape punishment. Emotional or physical.
Amen to that, especially needless punishment that serves to
further the plot, or punishment as a response to doing the
right thing. I trust Joss so much more than that. I can't
believe he'll hang Buffy over the Hellmouth like a
sacrificed Queen.
My understanding of Buffyverse storytelling makes me think
that after everything you go through, there is a reward for
valiant service. Buffy died in S5 and went to "heaven," a
hero's reward. I can't imagine Joss's storyline ending
without a powerful and positive resolution for at least
those characters who represent the forces of good.
[Whoa, sap-check. Am I a Pollyanna? check... check...
no.]
I really believe that people can be happy, but I also
realize that life is horrific for most of the people who
live on the same planet as me, probably on the same block as
me.
But the STORY says that a hero wades barefoot through
shattered babyfood jars and plague-bearing snapping turtles
and emerges finally with an eye-patch and no cloak, but
clearly victorious and inspirational. That's not like most
people's lives: it's the STORY. And that's where Joss should
take Buffy.
[> [> [> [> [> [> An option
(**Spoilies'n'Spec**) -- Wisewoman, 09:54:49 11/12/02
Tue
Great thread. I just had a mini-epiphany. How can Joss end
the series with a bang, close the Hellmouth, sacrifice The
Slayer either to close it or to get stuck in it to keep it
closed, stay true to canon, and keep Buffy alive? Simple,
really.
Have Faith return with bleached/highlighted hair.
Buffy keeps saying she's "The Slayer," but she isn't. Faith
is. Buffy is "a slayer" now. Faith is the Chosen One. The
only issue here is that canon (Fray) says the Hellmouth is
closed early in this century when The Slayer (a young
blonde girl) is trapped inside.
Of course, it could be as simple as the hair colour becoming
confused with the passing years. Or Faith could in fact
sport a new 'do. I'm tellin' ya, if I see ED anywhere with
the blondiness (which I'm thinkin', eeeewwww!) I'm gonna be
crowin' for joy!
;o) dub
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> The problem
is... (tragedy turns to farce) -- KdS, 10:01:56
11/12/02 Tue
If the Hellmouth has to be closed from the inside, or
someone has to act as a cork, I can't see any of the Scooby
Gang letting any of the others do it without a fight.
I can see it now - Buffy, Spike, Willow, Faith, Anya and
Xander in an all-out brawl over who gets to sacrifice
themselves while the Legions of Hell quietly sneak past
them...
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
ROFLMAO! -- dub ;o), 10:16:00 11/12/02 Tue
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> A sense
of the absurd being vital no matter the occasion :o) --
Pilgrim, 10:29:51 11/12/02 Tue
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: An option
for dyeing (**Spoilies'n'Spec**) -- pr10n, 10:11:04
11/12/02 Tue
Eew, sneeky!
And there is this Slayer continuum thing going on, where
Faith is the realio-trulio, and Buffy is the past, and
(apparently) their are legions of young women in some limbo
state because their Slayer-ness can't activated.
That's some Cosmic Wonkiness right there, and they're the
good guys! Implying either a Good/Evil imbalance thereby,
giving Evil a chance to strike, or some Impending Balancing
Effect (Mayhaps a certain SoCal Beast?).
Either way, Faith and a Bottle of Miss Clairol sounds like a
decent redemption scheme to me, and I heartily approve.
Dare I? "Slay, flay, or lay: no one rides for free."
Sorry.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Warning:
there/their/they're infraction in above post ^ -- pr10n,
10:12:36 11/12/02 Tue
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
There, there...it's okay... -- dub ;o), 10:24:55
11/12/02 Tue
[> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Oh, I so hope
Rahael and pr10n are right -- Just George, 11:44:12
11/12/02 Tue
pr10n: "But the STORY says that a hero wades barefoot
through shattered babyfood jars and plague-bearing snapping
turtles and emerges finally with an eye-patch and no cloak,
but clearly victorious and inspirational. That's not like
most people's lives: it's the STORY. And that's where Joss
should take Buffy."
I hope you are right. I'd like that ending. That sounds like
the end of an adventure story. But Buffy is seldom a pure
adventure story. Sometimes it is a tragedy.
I guess part of my problem is that I no longer trust Joss /
ME to do "right" by the character of Buffy. There have been
too many instances recently where the show has either missed
or ignored chances to help the audience engage / relate to
her character. The distance that has been created between
the audience and the character makes it easier for the
writers to do something drastic and final and have the
audience accept it.
I think this might be even more likely if SMG decides to
leave the series for good, The temptation to create an
amazingly tragic, touching, emotional, and dramatic end for
Buffy's character might be too much for the writers to
resist. I may be projecting here. When writing, I find the
temptation to do something heroic, tragic, and FINAL to be
very strong.
This debate also relates to the dramatic question of how do
the writers top what has gone before? For instance, how do
you make an enemy that presents a credible threat after your
heroine has defeated a goddess? In ME's case, you create an
enemy that seems to encompass every enemy (including the
goddess) that has gone before.
The mirror question in this case is what sacrifice can Buffy
make to save the day that will be bigger than the sacrifices
she has already been willing to make? Willingly accepting a
life of eternal torment to save the world seems about as big
as I can think of. I don't "want" Buffy to end that way. But
ME may decide that I "need" it to end that way.
-JG
[> [> [> [> [> [> I have grave doubts
about Buffy's future (purely spec) -- KdS, 14:38:41
11/12/02 Tue
But the STORY says that a hero wades barefoot through
shattered babyfood jars and plague-bearing snapping turtles
and emerges finally with an eye-patch and no cloak, but
clearly victorious and inspirational.
Um, depends what stories you're reading...
I understand what you, Pilgrim, and Rah are saying about the
punishment of strong women, but I also think ME have been
very consciously following European myth. And in European
mythic structures (Greek, Nordic, Celtic... don't know much
about non-European myth) the hero *almost always* gets the
shaft (sometimes metaphorically, often literally through the
chest) in the end. The macho man walking victoriously away
into the sunset is a product of a more modern and less
fatalistic age. No sexism involved.
Jason, Sigfrid, Theseus, Agamemnon, Achilles, Odysseus, Cu
Chulainn (sp?), Robin Hood, the entire Nordic pantheon...
None of them ended up retiring to a little farm and raising
kids.
I really don't think ME will go as dark as to consign Buffy
to eternal damnation, but I consider it a safe bet that
Buffy will leave feet first. And not alone. Whether she
makes it to heaven - that depends on precisely how you
interpret end-S5-early-S6.
One word for any educated British viewers. Blake.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: I have
grave doubts about Buffy's future (purely spec) --
Wisewoman, 14:48:25 11/12/02 Tue
Which Blake? This Blake?
O for a voice like thunder, and a tongue
To drown the throat of war!-- When the senses
Are shaken, and the soul is driven to madness,
Who can stand? When the souls of the oppressed
Fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand?
When the whirlwind of fury comes from the
Throne of God, when the frowns of his countenance
Drive the nations together, who can stand?
When Sin claps his broad wings over the battle,
And sails rejoicing in the flood of Death;
When souls are torn to everlasting fire,
And fiends of Hell rejoice upon the slain,
O who can stand? O who hath caused this?
O who can answer at the throne of God?
The Kings and Nobles of the Land have done it!
Hear it not, heaven, thy Ministers have done it!
;o) dub (who is Canadian and so may have got it wrong--
Blake's Seven, maybe?)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> I *was*
thinking of Blake's 7 :-) -- KdS, 05:09:56 11/13/02
Wed
...and the way that series ended.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: I have
grave doubts about Buffy's future (purely spec) -- leslie,
14:55:20 11/12/02 Tue
"I understand what you, Pilgrim, and Rah are saying about
the punishment of strong women, but I also think ME have
been very consciously following European myth. And in
European mythic structures (Greek, Nordic, Celtic... don't
know much about non-European myth) the hero *almost always*
gets the shaft (sometimes metaphorically, often literally
through the chest) in the end. The macho man walking
victoriously away into the sunset is a product of a more
modern and less fatalistic age. No sexism involved."
Yes, but by this argument, if the whole point of BtVS is to
turn paradigms on their heads (starting with the punishment
of sexually active little blonde girls), shouldn't it end by
overturning this paradigm as well? I agree ME know their
mythic structure and play with it mightily, but after all,
in order to overturn a paradigm, you have to know what it is
in the first place. Then you kick its legs out from
underneath it. (Or stake it through the heart.)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> yes!
-- Rahael, 15:38:10 11/12/02 Tue
Joss is always pretty playful with the mythic and cultural
narratives and resonances he uses. Even the self sacrifice
of the Gift was not unambiguous and Season 6 itself added
many major correctives to it.
Even after the big moments, you have to go on living life.
And sometimes, the most meaningful moments of life - the
people we spend it with, ordinary things, love, laughter,
pain, melancholy, boredom - that might become the most
important parts of our lives.
I always am in agreement with Matching Mole in that I love
the eps which don't always contribute to the major arc of
the season - because our lives are composed of more than the
'big' things.
In fact, if you live a life of constant threats, the
knowledge that you might die tomorrow, the adrenaline rush
of danger, the euphoria of still being alive this is all so
painfully intense. So intense that you can't bear feeling
all that emotion all the time.
The things which you treasure are the harmless little
moments. Sipping a cup of tea. A peaceful night's sleep. A
meal. A shared moment of laughter. Something mundane and
ordinary.
That is enough. More than enough. It's what makes life worth
living. I find it difficult to explain how much intense joy
looking up at a sky which does not harbour bombs, missiles
and implements meant to kill you can bring to a person. The
tears of joy you can feel looking up at a harmless, ordinary
cloudy sky.
I really think that BtVS is moving toward showing a really
complex and mature view of life, in all its colours (and not
just black, white and greys).
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Moments of being -- ponygirl, 19:39:40 11/12/02
Tue
Lovely post, Rahael!
I've always believed that OMWF was about burnout, emotional,
creative, and physical, for exactly the reasons you
describe. Both for Buffy and sometimes I suspect for
Joss.
I think we all have these times in our lives, in which,
whether through tragedy or joy, everything seems turned up
to an almost painful level of emotion. Living on a grand
scale can certainly become addictive. The intensity becomes
too much, you pour everything into sustaining a level of
passion... but no one is limitless, no emotion boundless.
The grand gestures end up becoming meaningless.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Moments of being -- Rahael, 09:04:32 11/13/02
Wed
Thanks Ponygirl!
This response is mostly inspired by Alcibiades and Age.
I was thinking of Buffy's big moments - the epic, heroic
ones. Becoming - Buffy thrusts a sword into Angel's heart,
as the mouth of Acathla opens behind him. If I'm remembering
correctly, everything around this sacrificial couple shines.
A moment of high tragedy, lost love, and pain.
Then there is the Gift - again, tragedy, pain, love, and the
air around Buffy shines.
Age did a lot of posts about the Diamond - those moments
that are frozen into all their glory. But throughout Season
6, we have the constant image of the shattered Diamond.
Buffy tends to get stuck in those moments because that's
when she tends to have her finest hours. But as you put it,
grand gestures and epics can become meaningless.
I think Season 6 attacked the grand gesture again and again
-
Warren and the trio, with their 'grand' plans to take over
Sunnydale. Their adolescent dreams are both dangerous and
empty.
Willow's pursuit of power, and the her final grand gestures.
She puts aside Tara's body, forgotten as she pursues
veangeance against the whole world. The simple act would
have been to bid farewell to Tara.
Buffy - is stuck, frozen in past moments, like Becoming and
the Gift. The diamond must thaw into the dew drop:
The dew-drop carries in its eye
Mountain and forest, sea and sky,
With every change of weather;
Contrariwise, a diamond splits
The prospect into idle bits
That none can piece together.
(Graves)
Spike - the grand dream of love and self abegnation. But
that too turns to ashes.
In OMWF Buffy talks about the glittering things that she
can't appreciate. Family and Friends. Because there is a
greater, more glittering lure. The lure of the big moment,
the heroic gesture.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
August -- Tchaikovsky, 03:22:31 11/13/02 Wed
Royal like the emperor once pretended
Crimson air is cream-like; cream that sours
Holidays make holes by work-ants mended
Others fill the break with sunshine hours.
Stress inveigles holiday's vacation,
Vaccinate cos heartbreak's on the cards
Cards now full of checkout's machinations
While the husband tans his torso-lard.
Happiness lives on in children's life-dream;
Frantic leisure, laid-back hurrying
Now they're paradoxes- age's strife-theme
Melts to merely abject worrying.
While nostalgia lies in donkey's braying
And the subtler seas's song stroking sand,
It never captures youth's insouciant playing
Echoing through from decades we once manned.
Moments passing joy entrance our senses
Waves slow-breaking swoop into the shore
Sun goes out when dipped in sea's expanses
Twilight just a memory of before.
Dangerously close to frail September
Melancholy month of gathering song
August's carefree castles can't remember
Frost, its Jack-the-lad now lopes along.
Coming like Death's scythe to aged parent,
Winter's warner will its whiteness bring
Till then, let's rejoice in meagre fragmnets,
Truer hidden joy than August's King.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Songs of Spring and Autumn -- Rahael, 05:19:25
11/13/02 Wed
That's lovely - is it your own?
Very nice Keatsian references too!
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too
SEPTEMBER SONG
born 19.6.32 -- deported 24.9.42
Undesirable you may have been, untouchable
you were not. Not forgotten
or passed over at the proper time.
As estimated, you died. Things marched,
sufficient, to that end.
(I have made
an elegy for myself it
is true)
September fattens on vines. Roses
flake from the wall. The smoke
of harmless fires drifts to my eyes.
This is plenty. This is more than enough.
Geoffery Hill
(One of my top ten faves)
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> Re: Thanks Rahael... -- pr10n, 10:19:58
11/13/02 Wed
You made me cry at work. I appreciate that depth of
feeling.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> Awww, pr10n -- Rahael, 10:43:29
11/13/02 Wed
Let me send cyber chocolates your way to make up!
There are three poems, Keats' Ode to Autumn, Hardy's "During
Wind and Rain" and Hill's "September Song" which resonate
and resonate together. Hardy references Keats, and Hill so
subtly and beautifully plays against the two earlier poems
to comment on the tragedy of the 20thC.
Anyway I'm terribly jealous of Tchaikovsky. I have no talent
for the discipline of writing good poetry, which I think of
even more highly than the ability to write prose.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> Magical; and some more Hardy -- Tcahikovsky,
11:31:08 11/13/02 Wed
This thread is getting dreadfully off topic now, but never
mind.
Firstly, that poem was my own. I've never really put one out
in a public forum before, so I posted it here for two
reasons. Firstly because your completely unspecial,
unspectacular moments in everyday life reminded me of my
'meagre fragments'. Secondly because I thought hiding it
away in the middle of a long thread would let it die more
peacefully than if I'd played a big fanfare and posted it
new. I did write it in August- in a stuffy call centre,
thinking about my childhood views of holidays. Then it
occurred to me that Augustus, the big cheese of Rome, had a
month named after him that is fitting- it is very bombastic,
sunny, intense. But the real joy isn't in the apparently
intense happiness of summer. It's in those random moments,
and the moments of memory.
Keats is probably my favourite poet. I can't ever read 'Ode
to a Nightingale' or 'Ode to A Grecian Urn' without being
deeply touched. I suppose it's the combination of beautiful,
melodic sound and a brainy argument that does it.
Thinking about Buffy's sacrifice in 'The Gift' reminds me of
the lines:
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Buffy has found a moment of sadness and beauty where dying
seems somehow right- 'rich' even, because she's doing it for
the person she loves more than anyone- more even than
herself- her sister.
Going in a different direction, (but staying with birds),
the poem which really gets me through the long, dark
evenings of this time of year is Hardy's 'The Darkling
Thrush':
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervorless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
More wonderful than any of my poetry could ever be.
TCH
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
[> [> Love it. -- Rahael, 15:19:20 11/13/02
Wed
I love Darkling Thrush.
I really really love Keats too. I wrote a post about Spike
and Grecian urns - it's in the July archives somewhere - if
you do a google search for Rahael and "Consume my heart
away" you should find it, if you're interested.
But I'm glad my post prompted you to post your poem. I
really enjoyed it.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: I have
grave doubts -- pr10n, 15:42:02 11/12/02 Tue
Ok, good point, with the Hero on the pointy end a lot.
Isn't there a storytelling aspect to the Hero's "failure"
that makes a point to the audience about character flaws or
bad luck or capricious deities? If Buffy's ultimate failure
or ultimate sacrifice or ultimate victory makes the best
sotry, than I hope Joss will tell that.
[Less typing, please, and more thinking.]
I'm trying to de-deconstruct here. The point of this post is
that somewhere behind Buffy is a storyteller. Instead of
tearing the story into symbols and allusions and proto-forms
(even though that's great fun and let's not ever stop) I
want to hear the end of the tale and decide for myself if I
want to hear it again.
That's where a myth comes from -- Does it play in Peoria?
Does it have legs? Will I honor the storyteller with dinner
and my best sleeping mat, next time?
Or does it dwindle and fade, like the Tale of Mouse-Knee
Gorlock, the Slipper Eater of Frowl? You never what?
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> The perfect
finale (IMHO) -- Tyreseus, 16:28:48 11/12/02 Tue
Buffy and the scoobies in the knock-down, fall-out battle to
prevent the hellmouth from opening and devouring the entire
world. It's a battle they're losing.
They lose.
The Hellmouth opens up and the world is blasted apart.
Then they wake up from the aftermath. The Hellmouth has
devoured every demon, vampire, werewolf, portal, magical
object, etc. Buffyverse has died and all the humans are
just... humans. Buffy isn't a slayer, Dawn isn't "the key,"
Willow is just your run-of-the-mill lesbian...
They mourn their dead undead friends. Somewhere we hear
Spike singing "Life isn't bliss, life is just this, it's
living, you have to go on living."
But Spike is gone. So is Anya.
And the scoobies go on to live their mundane lives.
OKAY - so this ending would also kill off any future Angel
episodes, but still, it would be kinda neat. First we think
everyone dies, then they don't (at least, not the human
ones), but the universe is so dramatically changed that
Buffy gets her one wish - to be a normal girl.
[> [> [> Re: Sacrifice (Spoiler for Him, and
future spec) -- Rahael, 04:08:52 11/12/02 Tue
I agree with you Just George, that Buffy is a tragic
heroine.
But, the whole dying for the world thing, isn't that part
and package of the whole experience of adolescence? Isn't
this pointed out to us by the fact that Dawn tries to die
because she feels so distraught in Him?
I think, that BUffy's tragic role has to be different this
year.
Pilgrim, I thought your post was very good - the only thing
is, thinking metaphorically about the Hellmouth, can our
personal hellmouths ever be closed for ever? The journey
into adulthood might mean that life is not filled with
apocalypse after apocalypse. Perhaps it will be transformed
into something less epic - the everyday pain of life. That
is not apocalyptic, not the end of the world but still
entailing emotional sacrifice.
[> [> [> [> Re: Sacrifice (Spoiler for Him,
and future spec) -- Pilgrim, 04:45:34 11/12/02
Tue
That's really well-said, and I agree that our personal
hellmouths never close. What scares and challenges us, what
requires sacrifice, maybe just changes over time--and even
the old teen-age bugaboos are probably still hiding down
there for lots of us. But I would like to see Buffy move
beyond adolescence, her home town, her high school. And
going "back to the beginning" seems to me a set-up for
putting "the beginning" down and laying it to rest (at least
sort of). Perhaps there's a better way of showing that
effort, symbolically, than closing the hellmouth? Hmmm.
[> [> [> [> [> Re: Personal hellmouths
never close -- Just George, 11:59:30 11/12/02 Tue
Pilgrim: " That's really well-said, and I agree that our
personal hellmouths never close."
But if Buffy ended up "taking the Master's place, stuck in
the Hellmouth like a cork in a bottle, fighting endlessly
and keeping the forces of evil at bay for an eternity" then
her personal hellmouth would never close either. It would
close for others, but never for her.
I think I'm getting too maudlin here. Joss and ME have
delivered for me in the past. I can hope that my nightmare
scenario is just a bad dream and ME will deliver for me in
the future as well.
I think I'm going to go read an old Honorificus review or go
over to Television Without Pity and read the Evil Fashion
Nazi board. Those things always cheer me up.
-JG
[> [> [> [> [> [> Aww, cheer up,
JG! -- HonorH, 12:39:58 11/12/02 Tue
I can't imagine them doing quite that to their audience,
Buffy, or the Scoobies. I mean, how would her friends live,
knowing that every moment they walked the earth was
purchased by Buffy, who must spend eternity in a literal
Hell? You saw how bad it was for them in "Bargaining"; if
they knew, truly knew that Buffy was in Hell, it would kill
them. Not to mention that the fans would send letter bombs
en masse.
Honorificus, incidentally, thinks you're adorable and will
dedicate her next review to you. My advice: watch out! You
have no idea what it's like when she takes a shine to
someone.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Aww, cheer
up, JG! -- Just George, 15:50:10 11/12/02 Tue
The EFN didn't help much (too many reminiscences about Tara)
but Honorificus is always a good read.
BTW, I live in fear of the Big H's next review. I am not
worthy.
But then, no one is.
-JG
[> [> [> [> Re: Sacrifice (Spoiler for Him,
and future spec) -- leslie,
12:38:41 11/12/02 Tue
You know, you can only go so big in terms of a bang-up
ending, and aren't apocalypses and sacrifice getting a
little tired? I am starting to think in the opposite terms,
spurred on by Giles's uncontrollable laughter at the end of
last season--it's all suddenly going to become very small,
very absurd, very "oh god, what were we getting so
overwrought about?" Buffy's going to realize that this
slaying stuff is something that she can do without
(literally) killing herself over it, and everyone, or nearly
everyone, is going go on living their lives trying to make a
difference as best they can--I am thinking here of Willow's
decision to go to UC Sunnydale instead of the most
prestigious university in the universe because she wants to
make the best use of her skills that she can, and this is
where she can do it, and I'm also thinking of the fear
demon. (And is this just a coincidence: the word for "true"
in Irish is fir--there's a long accent mark over the "i"
that won't come out here--and it's pronounced "fear." The
"fear" demon is the "true" demon. Yeah, maybe stretching it,
but that caption that said "actual size" was legitimately
understandable Irish, so someone knew what they were
saying.)
[> [> [> [> Dawn's Sacrifice is too late...
(major Speccy SPOILAGE) -- ZachsMind, 13:32:35
11/12/02 Tue
Dawn was supposed to be the one to jump into the dimensional
rift at the end of season five. From a temporal perspective,
it's theoretical that had she done that then, everything
that happened after her magical creation by the monks would
have become null & void. She would have potentially
never existed. Time would have reset to the point at the
beginning of season five, immediately after Dracula's
departure. Without Dawn.
Dawn's a temporal anomaly. Had she done what she was created
to do, close the portal like a good little Key, everything
would have reset. The temporal schism was created when the
monks foolishly hid the green ball of energy by turning it
into a her and then retroactively affecting reality to slip
her into the lives of Buffy & her friends. Dawn's as
much a temporal screw up as was Jonathan's spell in
"Superstar" or Cordelia & Anya's discussion in "The
Wish." Spock Must Die! Y'know whut ah'm sayin'?
Perhaps the real reason Dawn has this macabre tendency
towards attempting suicide every time things get over her
head is because deep down she was designed by the monks to
go harikari at the drop of a hat. She was meant to sacrifice
herself, and her very purpose - her destiny - was stole from
her by her artificial sister. I think by the time we get to
the end of the season, that's gonna have to be brought into
sharp relief. Dawn's not supposed to be there. She never was
supposed to be there. She'll sacrifice herself, and
everything will...
Oh my God! THAT's why Glory comes back! Because if
everything resets... Holy expletitive!
[> [> [> [> [> Whoa doggies! --
Wisewoman, 14:28:08 11/12/02 Tue
I don't think Dawn was created to close the dimensional
portal at all! The monks weren't sure exactly what the Key
was, because it was so old, they just knew they had to
protect it from Glory. All Glory knew was that the Key was
capable of opening dimensional portals. Giles found out it
was also capable of closing them. But because the Key (and
therefore Dawn) is capable of both opening and closing
portals does not mean that that is its purpose. It's
immensely powerful; it could have many uses, many
purposes.
Also, it seemed that Dawn's (or Buffy's) death could close
Glory's portal because Dawn's blood was what opened it. We
don't really know what originally opened the Hellmouth, do
we? Dawn's death might have no effect on it whatsoever.
;o) dub
[> S7 speculations and ramblings (spoilers up to
"Him") -- HonorH, 23:13:59 11/11/02 Mon
First of all, Dawn's not "schizophrenic"--she's a teenager.
There is a difference, slight as it might be. Furthermore,
the only suicidal tendencies or screaming she's done this
year were under the influence of a love spell, so I'm going
to give those a pass.
Dawn's real deal, IMHO: she's a girl trying to become a
woman, and it's a dicey process for all concerned. She talks
about empowerment, and also wearing high heels. She wants
Buffy to stay away except when she needs someone to stroke
her hair and say it'll all be all right.
Agree on the Xander and Willow pieces. They're blending
uneasily from their adolescent personas into their adult
personas. You've got this whole smear of their pasts into
their present selves, with something big coming down the
pike at both of them. Willow could go off the deep end.
Xander could end up the Sacred King--the sacrifice.
And Anya? She has the least clue of who she is of anyone,
save perhaps for Spike.
Identity is the theme:
"I want to be Willow."
"Am I flesh?"
"I don't know if there's a me left to save."
Willow, Spike, and Anya have simply voiced it. As for Buffy,
Xander, and Dawn, I think we'll see an equal search for
identity--or a slow revealing of what's underneath the
surface. A new paradigm for the Slayer. A new identity for
the Everyman. A new possibility for the Key.
"You're not the source of me," Buffy told the First
Slayer.
"You think you know who you are . . . what's to come. You
haven't even begun."
Who is the Slayer, and more importantly, who is Buffy?
Unless I'm greatly mistaken, we're going to find out this
year--and the answer will be anything but what we
expect.
[> [> Identity; finale; cross purposes --
Tchaikovsky, 09:13:42 11/12/02 Tue
Sunnydale; May 2003.
Season Seven- the last season of Buffy in its current form,
(this is sweepingly general, I realise) has to end. I'm
trying to remember how some of my favourite television shows
ended. The trouble is, I don't have many, and of those I do
have I can't often remember much about them.
Certainly the end of Blackadder was wonderful. All the
people, regardless of their age, class, pomposity- had to go
over the top, into the no-man'sland of the First World War.
There was the ulitmate sacrifice for nothing. And then the
warfield transmuting into a field of poppies. Beautiful and
moving.
Quite why it was moving has several answers. Considering
death can often be moving, (because it seems so pointless,
because it seems so real). But also, it was a shock because
Blackadder was a comedy series, and this was a completely
serious, unfunny ending. In its death, Blackadder behaved
differently to in its life.
And this is what brings me back to Sunnydale. Because how
does this visionary, this crazy, overworked genius, finish
off his firstborn show?
Whedon is a lot like Shakespeare. Shakespeare was prolific.
He examined themes of life and death, with equal measures of
light and fluffy absurdity, (much of 'A Midsummer Night's
Dream', 'As You Like It', ''Much Ado About Nothing'), and
deep wounding pain and tragedy, ('King Lear', 'Macbeth,
'Hamlet'). In the bard's vocation though, it was already a
given the fate of the characters. In 'The Tragedie of
Macbeth, King of Scotland', it's a given that virtually
everyone will die. In the comedies, there will be a nasty
moment, but no-one will die. Shakespeare, while playing with
so many conventions of writing, and exploring so many facets
of human existence, never had to worry too much about what
to do with his characters once the hurly-burly was done.
Also, Shakespeare wrote in disconnected chunks. It's
interesting to consider how his history plays overlap, but
he already had a model of English history from which to
write, (his plays were often based very loosely on it,
however). Whedon and his team write in episodes.
'Everything's connected.'
So to pull these two thoughts together- how does this
prolific man finish an episodic show satisfactorily. There's
a sense of cross purposes here. Unless he decides to do a
Shakespeare blood bath, (which I doubt), most of his
characters are going to be alive at the end of the series.
Their characters will have been developing organically, as
they always have done. But at the end, Whedon has two
choices. Each have their problems.
1) Leave them living at the point where he's got to at the
end of the Season. This would be true to the series'
original style. No happy endings, no contrived matyrdom.
Just a bunch of people with supernatural powers, struggling
through life. Struggling on towards nothing in particular.
The problem with this is, evidently, the lack of resolution.
Life doesn't come in chapters. It's continuous, not
discrete. You can't just cut it off. But the big, fight,
apocalyptic happenings, ultimate victory that everyone deep
down desperately wants, (we still love those Hollywood
endings), just couldn't happen then. Like 'The Body', it
would be frustrating because of the lack of resolution.
2) Do the resolution. But then feel bad about it. Everyone's
happy, except Anya's dead. Or fiddle with your own
permutations. In this case, life has been artificially made
simple. Hold on long enough, and you'll find the end theme
tune. One day, your life will black out to 'Joss Whedon' and
a short rock instrumental. Life isn't like that. And Buffy
is about life. Metpahors about life, and life about
life.
Will Whedon do the 'Blackadder' thing? End his series with
something incongruous, appease the commoner, and leave us
with a taste of saccharine. Or will he once again make us
compare him with Shakespeare, experimenting with form in the
ending as much as he has experimented with form in the
action.
It's not about the destination; it's about the journey. But
what will lie at journey's end?
TCH- replying in a rather loose way to HonorH's post, for
which apologies.
[> [> [> Perfectly okay. (Oh, and Shakespearean
spec) -- HonorH, 10:38:10 11/12/02 Tue
I was stream-of-consciousness; you were stream-of-
consciousness. There's a connection.
The last play Shakespeare ever wrote was "The Tempest". The
final scene? The sorcerer Prospero gives up his spirit
familiar, his staff, and his book, and goes to live an
ordinary life. Could we be looking at something similar with
Buffy? Perhaps she'll be required to give up her Slayer-ness
for some reason--after, of course, she's truly, once and for
all, come to a full embracing of it. As we've seen with
Kendra and Faith, and also "Helpless", Buffy's already
somewhat proprietary over being "The Slayer". It could end
up being a wrenching choice for her.
Just something to think about.
[> [> [> [> Brilliant link --
Tchaikovsky, 11:11:18 11/12/02 Tue
[> [> [> Re: Identity; finale; cross
purposes -- Pilgrim, 10:50:27 11/12/02 Tue
I vote for this: at journey's end we find the start of
another journey for our heroine. Resolution, yes, but only
of one stage of life, then the resolution dissolves into
further complication. Which we carry on with in our
imaginations.
And the complication we go out on could be as horrible or as
silly as Joss can come up with: After much fuss, trouble,
blood and sacrifice, Buffy discovers that the hellmouth just
opened up again, this time in Tahiti-- Here we go again, but
this time in paradise. . . . Or, Buffy could look at the
camera and say, Holy crap! I can't be pregnant! . . . Or,
oh, I don't know.
[> [> [> [> "Baywatch, the Vampire
Slayer"? -- HonorH, 12:44:58 11/12/02 Tue
Darling, it doesn't even bear thinking upon!
[> [> [> [> [> "Baywatch Nights--the Next
Generation" -- cjl, 13:06:51 11/12/02 Tue
Pamela Anderson as "Buffy"
Yasmine Bleeth as "Willow"
Parker Stephenson as "Xander"
David Hasselhoff as "Mitch"
and
William Daniels as the voice of the GILES2000 Computer
Executive producers: Joss Whedon and David Hasselhoff
[Okay, I'm sorry. Yes, I'm in a lousy mood, but it doesn't
give me the right to make everybody else miserable...]
[> [> [> [> [> [>
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -- HonorH
(crazy as Spike), 13:16:35 11/12/02 Tue
Oh, the mental images! Oh, the pain, the agony, of imagining
Pamela Anderson trying to act . . . or staking vampires in
that overstuffed bikini!
And the GILES2000 computer?!? What's the use if we can't see
the man, or hear ASH's mellifluous voice?
*Smack!* Get out of that bad mood right now, cjl! THE
FLOGGINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES!
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Hmmm. Maybe I
should explain that last post. ("Baywatch Nights"
spoilers) -- cjl, 13:58:48 11/12/02 Tue
Didn't anybody else on this board tune in to "Baywatch
Nights"? At least out of morbid curiosity?
I did.
If you never did, "Baywatch Nights" was easily one of the
freakiest, head-scratching-est, out-of-left-field vanity
productions you could possible imagine. About eight years
ago, David Hasselhoff wanted to expand the Baywatch empire
away from the beach, and decided the template for his new,
night-time, action-oriented series would be...
The X-Files.
Visualize Baywatch's Mitch Buchanan as a low-rent agent
Mulder, and you pretty much have the concept.
But that wasn't the strangest thing about this abomination.
What I found positively unnerving was that some of the
people on this show--in front and behind the camera--
actually had talent. Maurice Hurley, one of best writers on
Star Trek: the Next Generation in its first two seasons, was
the story editor, and contributed a number of really good
scripts. Hasselhoff's co-star and resident "Scully" was
Angie Harmon--pre-Law and Order--who can REALLY act.
In fact, Harmon's acting ability and the occasional quality
script made Hasselhoff's complete lack of talent and the
lunatic absurdity of the premise all the more obvious. I
watched at least two episodes all the way through and bits
of another four, and I kept asking myself: "What the hell is
Angie Harmon doing there? Does Hasselhoff have blackmail
photos of Maurice Hurley with sheep?" And then there would
be an fairly ingenious idea, like the whole pseudo-Freemason
plotline, and I would say: "You know, this could be pretty
good stuff if DAVID FREAKIN' HASSELHOFF weren't the star of
the show!"
But he was. And I watched, mesmerized, as he took his more
talented co-stars and staff on a two-year trip through TV
hell. "Baywatch Nights" gets regurgitated to the tip of my
temporal lobe when I'm under extreme stress or just the
right visual/verbal cues trigger an acid flashback. Both
conditions were present at the time of my last post.
Once again, I apologize to the board.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> LOL!
Fascinating! -- Rahael, 15:58:12 11/12/02 Tue
I speak as one whose first experience of western popular
culture was Knightrider and the Cosby show. (We had a tv for
5 months before the electricity cables supplying our town
were cut).
My grandmother kept trying to persuade me that Hasselhoff's
character actually was intending to marry all the girls he
kissed, a piece of sophistry that grew less convincing with
each ep.
Though since my reading matter at the time including Lady
Chatterly's Lover and Gray's Anatomy, I don't know why she
even tried.
[> [> "Identity is the theme.." -- ZachsMind,
15:27:53 11/12/02 Tue
All the major characters have had identity issues throughout
the series. Agreed that this is a major element -- another
"piece of the puzzle" if you will, in understanding the
themes of the series. Giles in season four was trying to
find a life after being a Watcher. Xander never bothered
trying to figure out what he was gonna be when he grew up
until after he grew up. Buffy's been told she's The Chosen
One, but the actual definition of what that means was
largely left in vagueness. She was given a.
X: "I'm finished being everybody's butt-monkey!"
B: "You're not the source of me."
O: "I'm going through all these changes!"
A: "I don't know if there's a me left to save."
S: "Am I flesh? Am I flesh to you?"
D: "This is blood, isn't it? It can't be me. I'm not a key.
I'm not a thing. What am I? Am I real? Am I anything?"
G: "In the end, we all are who we are, no matter how much we
may appear to have changed."
Well, in that case I won't wear my button that says, 'I'm
a Slayer. Ask me how!'
Faith's entire problem was a matter of identity. That she
was the Slayer and yet because Buffy was still around, Faith
was never THE Slayer which helped perpetuate rebellious
tendencies already within her. Oz knew who and what he was
and seemed to have his head on his shoulders, until the
darkness of lycanthropy crept up on him. Then he had to
leave the safety of his own home to seek a cure, or at least
find some compromise between bedlam and peace. And the Big
Bad? The shapeshifting, First Evil, "from beneath you it
devours" thing? It doesn't even HAVE an identity, and it's
power comes from making its enemies question their own
identity.
One could argue that it's not about right or wrong. It's not
even about power. Without one's identity, one is nothing.
It's about knowing who you are and what you are capable of
doing.
Joss interview from Houston Chronicle -- aliera,
17:22:25 11/11/02 Mon
URL for Joss Interview, today's Houston Chronicle, from
tensai:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/1652888
Hadn't seen this posted yet; also, haven't read it yet so
don't know how good it is or what all is in it.
[> Link to article plus the chat transcript for the
AOL chat with Joss last night... -- Rufus, 17:46:22
11/11/02 Mon
Yup, got that one, it's called TV's Cult Hero
Trollop Group
And for the cleaned up transcript of the AOL chat with Joss
during Angel last night some minor spoilers.....
Trollop Group
[> [> rufus, can you tell the unspoiled masses how
spoilery these are? -- anom, 20:45:53 11/11/02
Mon
Or should we just consider the "Trollop Group" links a big
ol' honkin' hint?
[> [> It depends just how unspoiled you are --
Rufus, 21:09:39 11/11/02 Mon
In Cult Hero...Joss mainly talks about the past and Firefly,
but then a few spoilers for Buffy 7.7 and later Angel eps
are thrown in.
The transcript (took me forever to edit that sucker) was
mainly a Q&A session that had a few minor spoilers about
Buffy and Angel that many of us are already spoiled
for...goes into Firefly a bit.....and some things considered
spoilery are questions that are asked but not really
answered for sure....making me wonder if that is a spoiler
at all.
I didn't find either very spoilery......but that is me and
we know I'm spoiled beyond just about anyone here.
[> [> Here's a juicy, and yet unspoilery quote!
-- Rahael, 03:56:47 11/12/02 Tue
Joss Whedon: I haven't read any scholarly books. I'm very
flattered. I wish I could be there. "Buffy" is made by a
bunch of writers who think very, very hard about what they
are doing in terms of psychology and methodology. We take
the show very seriously. We are perhaps the most pompous
geeks of them all. When somebody says there is a philosophy
behind "Buffy" that is the truth. When they say there is
symbolism and and meaning in what we're doing, that's true
to. On any show sociological patterns we are not in control
of. I think it is absolutely great. I wish I could go there
and be all opinionated.
[> [> [> Re: Here's a juicy, and yet unspoilery
quote! -- MaeveRigan, 06:25:14 11/12/02 Tue
JW: "I wish I could go there and be all opinionated."
He was answering a question about the UEA conference.
Everyone would have loved it if he'd been there, of course.
But also, I suppose, he'd have been mobbed with reverent
questions and no one else would have said a word--maybe!
We're all fairly pompous, too!
[> [> [> Where is this quote from??!! --
Masq, 06:55:19 11/12/02 Tue
I need references. Dates, times, names, people involved.
OK, I just need to know the date and where you got the quote
from so I can copy it in its original if possible.
Thanks Rah!
[> [> [> [> It's from the spoilery AOL chat
that Rufus links to above!! -- Rahael, 07:06:49
11/12/02 Tue
If you wait a little, I'll pull out more non-spoilery stuff
for you.
[> [> [> [> [> Thanks Rah!! -- Masq,
07:16:26 11/12/02 Tue
You saved my purity : )
What's left of it.
[> [> [> [> [> [> Joss Interview -
spoilers for eps up to Spin the Bottle and Him --
Rahael, 08:21:31 11/12/02 Tue
Here are some more quotes - okay, I just took some of the
spoilery stuff out.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: Tell us about tonight's episode,
which you wrote and directed. What inspired the idea of
having the characters revert to the teenage persona?
Joss Whedon: It started with Alexis. We talked about how
cool his character had become. But we said a fond farewell
to the blithering bumpkin he was when he arrived. I got the
idea of doing the show where everybody used to be. We got
the same feeling about Cordelia, she became wonderful and
fascinating, wasn't it fun when she was the biggest in the
universe. Wouldn't it be fun to go back to to old days.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: We have our first question from
where'smydude 8. You are awesome, Joss. Is there any chance
of adding younger cast members?
JossWhedonLIVE: Joss Whedon: Vince is a couple of years
older than Dawn, who plays Angel's son, Corner. --connor. It
is more 20-something than the rite of passage youth of
"Buffy." It is possible. It looks like "Angel" could
continue to run for a while. It is not our focus like on
"Buffy."
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: Joss, you are a gene quas and a
really -- genius and a really sweet guy.I loved the Vegas
episode.
Joss Whedon: That was filmed at the Tropicana. Andy was
actually singing in Vegas. The biggest production values we
have probably had and probably the last.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: We have a question from heyforman
124 who wants to know if you read to web sites about your
show?
Joss Whedon: I do. I look for comments and what people are
liking, not liking, what they are talking about. All of that
stuff. I'm fascinated by it.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: How important has the medium of
the internet been to spreading the word about your
shows?
Joss Whedon: I think it has been essentially. The way
"Buffy" and the internet have interacted has been
unprecedented. I knew I had fans before I got a chance to
see and understand what ratings were because I would go on
sites and meet people. You know, the community that started
out from, you know, the very beginning has just grown and
grown. It is a mob scene now.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: Was it fun being able to write
Cordelia vein and shallow high school character she started
out as?
Joss Whedon: Oh, my god. It was so much fun. It is always
fun to write people who are extreme like that. When you do a
show for a long time, you get to know and love your
characters. They eventually become sort of heroic. The worst
thing that could happen is the last year of "mash" syndrome.
Everybody is lovable and you can't create conflict. We are
not going through that. There is real conflict on "Angel."
It is nice to go back to the raw beginning when everyone is
completely in their own world.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: We have a question from Boxen360.
What is the theme song for "Angel." I love it and it touches
my soul.
Joss Whedon: I was thinking how underrated it was and how
beautiful it is. The name is "the theme from Angel." We went
to a bunch of local bands and said, here is the basic idea
for the theme. The basic idea for "Angel" was cello rock.
Soulful and rocky. Not like "Buffy," but its own medicalo
dram attic space. Darling violetta recorded it. I think it
is really extremely underrated and it does touch me.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: Speaking of theme songs, you wrote
the theme for "Firefly" in addition to writing a musical
episode last season. Have you always wanted to write
songs?
Joss Whedon: Always, always, always. I just started writing
and playing music, more writing than playing. I have all
written lyrics as a kid, but never had music to put
them to. This is kind of a new field for me. The idea of
"Firefly" was to write something that sounded old and
bluesy. I don't know if you have a special font to make it
go foxfall.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: Question from a member, I'm a very
dedicated "Buffy" and "Angel" fan. Which is more complicated
to write, "Buffy" or "Angel"?
Joss Whedon: Everything is equally hard to write. Writing is
hard. They are hard for different reasons. "Buffy" is hard
because it is completely grounded in human
experience. Every episode has to be about what, you know,
what it feels like to go through a certain period in your
life. In the rite of passage that is your life. We can never
do an episode that is purely fan tast -- fantastical and
exciting because the show is about growing up. "Angel" is
not like that. It has become a noirish medical
drama of action. -- melodrama of action. We can tell stories
in itself. We are not slavish to, what does it feel like to
do that like on "Buffy." Although that is a limitation on
"Buffy," it is more grounding. On "Angel" it is more
difficult to find a storyline that is truly compelling and
feels true to the universe. So they are both hard. It is all
hard. It's work. I'm sorry. Do they have a complaining font.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: What were your teenage years like
or where did you fit
in in the high school social hierarchy?
Joss Whedon: I didn't really fit in. I was very much an
outsider and felt myself to be. I was, you know, I wasn't
despised or picked on, I just sort of didn't really matter.
I tended to come in and make jokes and leave before anybody
told me that they wanted me to leave. So I didn't have to
hear it. That was sort of -- I decided when I was 14 that
was my purpose in life, walk into a crowd, say something
funny, and leave while they were laughing.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: The episodes you have directed
have been most memorable.
Joss Whedon: If I could direct every one, I would. I would
be tired and cranky and hateful, but, yeah, I only get to do
four or five a year. That is way more than somebody
running a show should be doing and I'm running three. So
clearly I have lost my head. I love directing. I love
directing all three shows for very different reasons.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: Will you do a musical episode of
"Angel" like "Buffy"?
Joss Whedon: David and Charisma have informed me they know
people who can kill me, so probably not any time soon. I did
a ballet episode. What more can they ask.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: How much time are you able to
spend on "Angel" vs. "Buffy" vs. "Firefly," because you are
doing three shows?
Joss Whedon: It kind of equals out. "Buffy" and "Angel" I
spend an enormous amount of time breaking storys with the
writers. Trying to find the heart of the story. That is the
most important part. I don't have to spend as much time on
the set as "Buffy" and "Angel" because they have been in
play and I have producers I trust who can watch the
directors and make sure the actors are doing what we are
looking for. I have actors on "Firefly" I trust, but it is
the first year so you spend time on rewriting, costumes,
being on set. When you first start out with a show, you have
to be involved with everything. After a while you can let
things take care of themselves.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: A member wants to know what your
favorite "Buffy" episode is, if you can name one.
JossWhedon: It varies, very often. I have to say that
innocence, the episode where Buffy slept with Angel and he
went crazy, will have a huge lace in my heart. That show
more purely showed us what we were going to be able to do
with that series, kind of took it to the next level. Hey,
you never forget your first time.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: This weekend, as you may or may
not know there is an academics conference devoted to
"Buffy."Are you flattered by that? Have you read any
scholarly works written about your show?
Joss Whedon: I haven't read any scholarly books. I'm very
flattered. I wish I could be there. "Buffy" is made by a
bunch of writers who think very, very hard about what they
are doing in terms of psychology and methodology. We take
the show very seriously. We are perhaps the most pomp pouse
geeks of them all. When somebody says there is a philosophy
behind "Buffy" that is the truth. When they say there is
symbolism and and meaning in what we're doing, that's true
to. On any show sociological patterns we are not in control
of. I think it is absolutely great. I wish I could go there
and be all opinionated.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: Are you frustrated that the emmy
awards have acknowledged you or the show with nominations?
Joss Whedon: You know, how much time do I have to devote to
being frustrated to that? Every now and then it tweaks me.
The fact of the matter is it is It doesn't fill my day.
It's not why I got in the business. I have other things to
have rage about.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: Like what?
Joss Whedon: When you are making a show you have rage at
everything that doesn't come out exactly as it should.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: What was the most difficult
episode of "Buffy" to write and/or direct?
Joss Whedon: The hardest to direct was the gift. The 100th
episode, just because it was right in the middle of the
fox/wb wars. My spirit left the building while I still had a
week of filming to go. It was a big action ep with tons and
tons of pieces. I think that was the hardest one for me to
shoot. To write, they're all hard. And, you know, I've
spent, you know, two weeks trying to rewrite half a page of,
you know, somebody else's show and written an episode of my
own in three days. You never know which is going to be. I
have ones that were challenges, like hush and the body and
the musical and whatnot. I can't describe that as hard
because it was so much fun.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: An interesting question from
aimesy who says, is there a point in the writing process
where someone stands up and says, that is going too far or
is the sky the limit?
Joss Whedon: No. I think there are times when we say, I
think Buffy should not have intestines on her head. Some
things are too gross or unsettling or too sexual, even
for us. We don't limit ourselves so much. We are not looking
to shock people. At the same time, we are not looking to
censor ourselves. We will explore something to the limit to
get to the most primal experience.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: You have had main characters die,
main characters commit murder.
Joss Whedon: The networks get hot about teen suicide as well
as expected. I have never approached them something where
they said, that is something you can't do. That is a person
you can't have.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: What episode or development are
you most proud of on "Angel"?
Joss Whedon: Episode? You know, I really -- are you now or
have you ever been, episode two of season two. The 1950's
flashback, where we introduced the hotel. That still stands
out to me as just like innocence. An extraordinary piece of
work. Sort of explaining to me what a truly classic circian
noir the show can be. That and Billy from last year, episode
six of season three, about the fellow who could basically
make men just hate and beat on women. It made a lot of
powerful statements and was extremely creepy. I thought it
hit on all cylinders. I was really proud of those. Oh, yeah.
And the ones I did.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: In your last episode of "Firefly,"
we characterized you as making up language. How did you
create that language and do you have a dictionary you take
that from?
Joss Whedon: We don't have a dictionary, but certain phrases
become common. And used a lot. I try and introduce new ones
to keep it fresh so it is not the same thing all the time.
The language comes from every source. Some from Shakespeare
and Elizabethian times. Some from movies. Some comes from
just how I feel like language might get corrupted in the
future a little bit. Some of it, you know, I read a book
about the Pennsylvania dutch that was written at the turn of
the century. They had some interesting phrasing. Some of
them were Irish. You take everything.
Add a little Chinese and stir.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: Raven wants to know, besides
"Buffy" and "Angel," can characters have you had the most
influence developing of a supporting character?
Joss Whedon: Well, I developed all of them. That is my job.
So I'm not sure I understand the question.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: Question from another member names
--
Joss Whedon: Sorry.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: That's all right. K.r.c. wants to
know, do most shows have a shelf life and if so, how do you
keep the characters alive and interesting?
Joss Whedon: If the writers are still excited when they come
into a story and the actors are still doing their best, the
show is fresh. With "Buffy," it's easy. Easier because the
show kind of recreates itself every year. Every year we have
a different sort of mission statement. At the same time, it
is the same bunch. People do change, but it is the same core
group. But it doesn't feel more difficult now than it did in
the second year or the third year. It is really about the
enthusiasm. When that goes away then the
show goes a way. Also a lot of shows are -- and usually the
more successful shows are formula shows where you know what
is going to happen. Jessica fletcher is going to solve the
murder. There is a shootout in the wear house.Sonny Crocket
is going to be depressed. Scully is not going to believe it
is a monster. Feel like that. That makes for hit shows as
opposed to Cult shows. The problem is that really does get
tiring. Those end up having a shelf life because it is so
difficult to find something new to say about all of that. So
we have that advantage. Although it is also kind of a
disadvantage.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: "Firefly" is part science fiction
and classic western. Would you have liked to make it a
purely western show or the sci-fi more important?
Joss Whedon: I grew up on sci-fi more than any single thing.
I love sci-fi. The reason I chose to combine it with the
western elements as well as many other elements is
because I'm interested in history, the history of this
country and I'm interested in life when it's hard. And, you
know, that sort of feeling, we're barely making it and we're
all in this together as opposed to the distancing shiny,
alien-filled Spandexysci-fi there has been a lot of. I
wanted to do is show that felt like it wasn't so
contemporary it would be dated. So I basically took the past
and the futurened made a very conscious decision to say,
well, they are just about the same thing.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: Do you have any more plans to
write for comic books like Dark Horse called qup fray?
Joss Whedon: I plan to finish Fray. I have hundreds of plans
to write billions of comic books and create an entire comic
book empire. Unfortunately, like an idiot, I
started running three TV shows. So those comic books will
not appear in the near future. I have overextended myself
and I am dying.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: What have influenced you, if any?
Joss Whedon: When I grew up, very much reading the Marvel
universement Spiderman, warlock, devillock. The x-men, of
course. Now a day, you know, pretty much anything Brian
Michael Ben dis, warren ellis, mike Moore put on the page,ly
pick up.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: Looking through some question
right now. All right. A member wants to know if you foresee
"Angel" going for years and years the way "Buffy" has,
seven or eight seasons
Joss Whedon: You can't say. It is hitting its stride
creatively and in terms of ratings this year. We have a
great, great cast and a great staff. As long as they want to
do it and the network wants it, it feels viable. So you can
never say. It works for me.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: Has the complex characters on TV
spoiled you from wanting to write or direct movies
Joss Whedon: No. I'm very anxious to make movies. TV is an
extraordinary medium. I'm wicked fortunate. The fact is I
love movies dearly and TV is also an endless grind. I would
like a grind that is
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: I'm looking for one last
question.
Joss Whedon: Mm-hmm.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: Wesly has evolved as this season
has shone. At what point did you realize that character was
going to be more complex?
Joss Whedon: Well, you know on "Buffy" we had a great time
just having him be as dorky as possible. possible. There
comes a point with every character where you say -- where
they say, can I be cool now? Alexis was like, how can I be
dorkier. What can I do to be sillier. How can I fall down
more? Let's think this through. When we brought him on
"Angel" we knew we would want to find what made that
character tick. It really is fun, particularly with
tonight's episode to see exactly how he has evolved. When
somebody becomes a regular on a show, you know they can't be
a caricature. on a show, you know they can't be a
caricature. You have to find out what makes them behave in
such a silly fashion. You know, in Wesly's case it had a lot
to do with the way people perceived him and a lack of self-
confidence and a lot of naivete, a lot of which he has lost.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: A member named stargirl wnts to
know if you knew spike was going to develop into the complex
enigematic character?
Joss Whedon: You never know. They can be the great remember
or be killed quickly because they are dull. It is impossible
to tell. We thought we had lightning in a
bottle with James and Juliet. But, no, we never knew -- with
James and juliet. You keep throwing the things at actors.
James can handle everything. In the genre you work in, if
you kill a character and want to bring them back, you can.
That is a nice feeling.
JossWhedonLIVE: AOL Host: "Angel" airs 9:00 eastern on the
wb. "Buffy" on Tuesday 8:00 on upn. Is "Firefly" Changes
time slots?Joss Whedon: We should be Fridays at 8:00 for the
foreseeable future, at least up until Christmas.
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> What's the date
of this interview? -- Masq, 09:00:10 11/12/02 Tue
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Rufus
said last night, so I presume 11 November? -- Rahael,
09:22:29 11/12/02 Tue
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Sunday,
November 10/02 AOL chat -- Rufus, 16:15:56 11/12/02
Tue
It started in the second half hour of Angel.
one minor question about "Spin the Bottle" (mild
spoilers, of course) -- Wolfhowl3, 20:10:39 11/11/02
Mon
Was Lorne's audiance a bunch of ghosts, or memories of an
audiance, or did they just leave before Lorne did?
I know it seems stupid, but it's kind of buging me.
I would say that they were still there, and Ghosts, since we
heard them talking while Lorne was walking away.
Wolfie
[> Re: one minor question about "Spin the Bottle"
(mild spoilers, of course) -- Chris, 22:06:48
11/11/02 Mon
I really didn't give Lorne's "audience" much thought. Maybe
there was no audience. Although I did like Lorne's narration
as a nice way to frame the story
Here's a thought I had, though. Didn't StB seem very similar
to "Tabla Rasa" on BtVS last season?
[> Re: one minor question about "Spin the Bottle"
(mild spoilers, of course) -- Darby, 06:39:28
11/12/02 Tue
It was shown at the end that the room Lorne was "playing"
opened onto a busy street, and the doors were open. I'm
assuming that the noise we assumed to be audience feedback
was just street noise, but I'd have to go back and listen to
be sure. It would definitely be a Jossian touch.
Jealousy and Tragedy, Gunn as Othello -- Rufus,
22:55:31 11/11/02 Mon
In watching the relationship of Fred and Gunn it has become
clear to me that there is more than just syrupy kisses at
work here. In Supersymmetry we get to see how physical the
relationship has become, and the first clear evidence of how
insecure Gunn is when it comes to Fred. I'll quote some
dialogue between Gunn and Wesley in "Spin the Bottle"
Gunn: So, I guess I'm the muscle...huh?
Wes: Sorry?
Gunn: Angel's the man on the card, it's his world....I'm not
a leader no more. Don't got that champions heart like Cordy.
And the brains.....well that was you..That leaves
muscle.
Wes: What about Fred?
Gunn: That's the question isn't it. She's pretty brainy
too.
Maybe you two are kindred souls. Maybe that's why she went
to you for help getting revenge on that professor. Killin
takes brains.
Wes: I did what you weren't prepared to do.
Gunn: You go NO idea what I've....what I would do for
her.
Wes: Is there some reason I should need to know?
Gunn: You think I don't smell this a mile off? You think I
don't know why you keep coming back here?
Wes: Because you keep needing my help.
Gunn: I say this once....you move on Fred ....I will put you
down hard.
Wes: I'm glad to see you have such faith in your
relationship.
Gunn: Keep pushin English.
Wes: Do you think you could get out of my way? (a blade
comes out of Wesley's sleeve, pointed at Gunns throat)
Wes: Not all of us have muscle to fall back on.
Gunn: What happened to you man?
Wes: I had my throat cut, and all my friends abandoned
me.
Waiting in the Wings, the Joss penned episode from last year
established that both Wesley and Gunn were in love with
Fred......Fred could only see Gunn. Wesley backed off out of
friendship, his heart broken. It was the start of Wesley's
alienation from the gang that led him to take Connor. His
fears and distrust made it impossible to confide in those
who could have helped him the most....they then abandoned
him when he needed them and forgiveness the most.
Now to Gunn. Gunn has been a leader.....he had his own
people on the streets, they looked up to him as a brave
protector, a leader.......and he walked away from it feeling
his talents better served working for Angel. But I doubt he
realized how much emotional investment he had in his past
leadership and how insecure being a second fiddle would make
him. In Spin the Bottle, the regression to the teenage state
exposed what all the gang once were. Gunn a leader, a
vampire killer from the age of 12, confident as a leader and
one to look up to. Wesley was head boy, insecure, not at all
in control of his instruments....weapons. Fred was well,
Fred...more worried about scoring some weed than getting the
attentions of either man....but she did gravitate towards
Wesley......
Gunn: I ain't a civillian I been killing vamps since I
was 12.
Wes: Which only supports my theory...you must be here in an
advisory capacity.
Gunn: I think I'm here in a chop-that-green-bitches-head-off
capacity. And I don't give a damn about no test.
Fred: Are you always this grouchy?
Gunn: Only when I wake up with a bunch of insane white folks
tryin to tell me what to do. The day I take orders from guys
like you.....Is the day...not going to happen.
I see Gunn and his situation as being similar to the tragic
character of Othello. Both men were outsiders and of a
different race than those they keep company with. Both fell
hard for women they feared couldn't possiblt love them. Both
were willing to kill to keep that love. Gunn started his
life in a different way than the others. He was poor, he was
seemingly without parents for a good part of his life, he
became a leader. Working for Angel, Gunn can only see how
different from the others he is....his life experience
something the white people could never comprehend. Now,
under orders of another man, Gunn feels he has no place that
makes him feel valuable. Yet he was able to connect with
English/Wesley, become friends despite their differences.
Othello was a Moore/black man living in a world where he may
be a leader but because of his race his leadership is always
under threat. He has to be the muscle to keep what he has.
His tragic end was a result of jealousy, and lack of trust.
He was too willing to listen to words that reflected his
fears but were untrue. In the end he is destroyed by
himself, his own selfdoubt.....all taken advantage of by a
man who wanted the mighty to fall.
I don't say that the whole Wesley/Gunn/Fred triangle will go
exactly as the play, but there are similarities that exist.
Fred does love Gunn, but Gunn can't understand how Fred can
truly love him back. Now with the knowledge that Fred went
to Wesley, Gunn is becoming paranoid. Wesley is taking a
certain amount of advantage of Gunns self doubt by saying a
few things to fuel Gunns discomfort. After talking to
Wesley, Gunn feels more and more worried that Fred will be
taken from him. Jealousy in very small doses is not that bad
a thing, but when it takes over your life, it becomes
impossible to be objective in your dealings with others.
Gunn has lost his leadership of the past and recent summer,
he fears the loss of Fred to Wesley (who he secretly
believes is the better partner for Fred)....now after
killing for Fred, Gunn has guilt to add to his already
festering jealousy. One comment Angel made caught my
ear.....when Gunn and Wes were arguing while under the spell
Angel says he's on the side of the slave......I
wonder.........nah maybe I'm getting paranoid.
[> Othello -- Rahael, 05:12:15 11/12/02 Tue
This is very interesting! Argh! dH, where are those Angel
tapes already? lol.
Now Othello and Angel has been commented on before here,
only with different characters.
Okay, I have to go do some reading before I can do a proper
reply to this post!
But until I do, I'm just going to requote dH, because we
have discussed this before:
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Othello and
"Sleep Tight" -- d'Herblay, 00:37:00 07/21/02 Sun
Back in February, I went through a couple of sleepless
nights (bah! all my nights are sleepless) working up a
comparison of Othello to the "Sleep Tight" arc on Angel. I
was pretty certain that Sahjhan was Iago, and Holtz
Roderigo, Wesley the Moor, and Angel Desdemona. Wait, I
said, Wesley is Cassio, and the translation the napkin,
making Angel the Moor and Desdemona . . . no, no, no -- Gunn
is Lodovico and Fred is Emilia and Wesley is, um, Iago? The
faithless lieutenant? But then who's Sahjhan? The Duke of
Venice, using the Moor but secretly resenting and sabotaging
him? Can't be. Wesley is 70% Othello, 20% Cassio, 10%
Roderigo; Angel is 60% Desdemona and 40% Othello; and Iago
is 80% all of Sahjhan and 20% 40% of Holtz (the remainder
the remaining 90% of Roderigo); and I am 100% buggered if I
can make heads or tails of this and what's so great about
iambs anyway? This is why my posting is generally limited to
snarky no-texters and links to my apocryphal scenes, which I
wrote back in November and December when I still had 50% a
brain.
------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------
[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [>
Come to think of it, Angel smothering Wesley with the pillow
was important to this train of thought -- d'Herblay,
00:59:44 07/21/02 Sun
Making Wes Desdemona and Angel Othello and me absolutely
bonkers.
[> [> LOL Rahael and d'Herblay. Thanks for
reposting that. -- alcibiades, 05:34:33 11/12/02
Tue
[> [> [> ditto the thanks & the lol! how'd i
miss that 1st time around? -- anom, 23:44:41 11/12/02
Tue
[> [> Actually Angel did kinda resemble Desdamona
when he was going on about.... -- Rufus, 16:22:20
11/12/02 Tue
"I'm a vampire they're gonna kill me"......snerk....;)
[> Re: Jealousy and Tragedy, Gunn as Othello --
Isabel, 05:25:37 11/12/02 Tue
You know, Othello did occur to me watching this episode.
Unlike the play, where Desdemona was blameless and in love
with Othello to the end, Gunn may have already planted the
seeds of the destruction of their relationship last week
with the murder of the professor. That is what may destroy
them, not anything that Wes may do.
[> [> Re: Jealousy and Tragedy, Gunn as Othello
-- Rufus, 16:26:05 11/12/02 Tue
In some way when Wes was being all sarcastic he was being a
bit of an Iago....he was finding the thing that made Gunn
feel the most insecure sticking it in and giving the blade
of truth a little twist. You'd think he would have learned
when he was in the same sort of position last year not to
push someone on the edge...but as Gunn pissed him off he
did. Gunn ended up more jealous after their little
confrontation that if he had just kept his mouth shut.
[> Re: Jealousy and Tragedy, Gunn as Othello --
Cactus Watcher, 05:27:02 11/12/02 Tue
Very interesting. 'Odd man out' is always excruciatingly
painful in affairs of the heart. I think it's fair to say
that losing Fred last year was one of the factors that
isolated Wesley and led him to the bad judgement which
resulted in kidnapping Connor. Now it looks like Gunn feels
things are swinging the other way. All I can say about that
now is get ready to duck.
This also brings up a slightly different, but related
question. Gunn feared that if Fred killed the professor
things would change, that Fred would change. He didn't want
to lose the person she was. But, now something has changed.
Gunn saved Fred from being a murderer, but at a price. We
don't know yet what that price is. Perhaps, what we are
beginning to see is another aspect of Othello, and Fred no
longer feels that Gunn trusts her, even concerning him.
[> Change partners and dance. -- Darby,
06:36:14 11/12/02 Tue
Sorry, out of my league with Othello, so I'm picking up on
something else here...
Wesley is now running some sort of street crew, presumably
fighting the fight, doing what Gunn used to do.
Gunn, for the summer, more-or-less ran AI, until Angel
returned and supplanted him, as happened to Wes back in the
day.
Same situations, played out very differently because the
characters are quite different, but now they have
more in common than they did back when they were
friends. I'd love to see a comparing-feelings scene like the
Connor-Angel "Daddies" scene. It would also be interesting
to see Gunn have to run Wes' crew...
[> [> Good point.. but maybe its just exchanging
hats -- neaux, 07:02:02 11/12/02 Tue
could it be that Gunn is just trying to wear one too many
hats? or is he just trying each one out?
I think when Gunn snapped the neck of the professor, that
was indeed his attempt at being Angel/Angellus. I dont think
he muched like that role, so it will be interesting to see
what hat he puts on next.
[> [> Bringing us back to Spirals and Yeats --
Rufus, 16:36:43 11/12/02 Tue
Cause we know that the writers never stick to just one story
to take themes from. Othello rings true for me because of
Gunns always simmering distrust of the white people he is
forced to work with. He is a kind loving man, but he has
that tendancy to be unforgiving when people make
mistakes...and that is part of the reason he couldn't let
Fred become a murderer, he could never have seen her the
same unblemished way again....of course Fred got involved in
murder up to the point of Gunn taking on the chore himself.
So, now Gunn has seen that Fred is imperfect, and that she
went to another for help. So being insecure about love in
the first place his fear of losing a loved one has kicked
into high gear.....all it needs is the right person or
happening to push him into acting similar to Wes in
Billy.
As for Spirals and Yeats, both shows have characters
reliving moments from their past, now from an adult or more
experienced perspective. This also means that they also
experience things that another person has, or gets to walk a
mile or two in their shoes. I'm glad that Spin the Bottle
happened, we get to see parents through Connor and Angels
eyes....Cordy gets to revisit the bitch....Fred, well Fred
just wants to score some weed.....but Gunn and Wesley have
changed positions....Gunn getting to feel like the isolated
one...his fears compounded by his feeling that the white
people he works with can never be fully trusted, his love
may stray to someone that was his friend, and he just may do
something that will make him the man on the outside looking
in with longing for what he has lost. So, all we need is an
event to make Gunn act like Wesley did after consulting the
Loa. Jealousy and tragedy walk hand in hand...but only if
you allow them to. I wonder if having had experienced this
type of pain before can Wesley take the chip off his
shoulder about being abandoned and not let Gunn make the
same mistakes?
[> Thanks for posting this Ruf! -- Masq,
06:47:54 11/12/02 Tue
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