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beer_good_foamySo I wasn't too happy with #29. Spoilers include the blurb for #31.
"Load up on guns, bring your friends
It's fun to lose and to pretend" – Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
"There is only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil, and that's us." - Buffy Summers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer 7.10
"We agreed to be made weak." - Willow Rosenberg, Season 8 #29
I'm going to start with something that may sound like bashing, but let me get back to it: it's neat the way much of the season's arc - the Slayers isolating themselves in castles, them being unable to explain to the world why they're the good guys, Buffy ordering Fray to let vampires massacre in peace, nobody helping Dawn, Slayers asking how to kill vampires getting fed slogans, etc etc etc - is summed up in this issue, when Buffy meets Oz carrying his critically wounded wife:
OZ: Buffy. Help.
(She doesn't.)
Yes, it's Season 8 #29 "We Have No Magic" AKA "Well, Duh", in which Buffy and Willow discover what was glaringly obvious from the beginning: that Operation Sitting Duck was a needlessly complicated suicide. Their enemy who's spent most of Season 8 making life difficult for them is continuing to do so even though they decided to forget about him and can't fight back in their own particular... idiom anymore. I mean, it's like Twilight didn't even read #28 where they resolve to settle down and have babies and never fight evil again!
Willow's breakdown in the beginning is well done, and would probably be very effective if it wasn't for the overwhelming urge to go "Um, what did you expect? Yes, you're about to die, isn't this exactly according to plan?" (And the same goes for Buffy's (admittedly in-character) refusal to take up a gun herself despite having deliberately robbed herself and her "army" of any other apparent alternatives.) But OK, I can cut them a certain amount of slack since it's also established that Oz and Bay have been less than truthful, both about the mechanics and consequences of the "bury your power" thing and about killing whatshisface the werewolf, thereby putting both themselves and the Slayer army at greater risk. I wonder why they would do that, y'know, apart from the plot not working otherwise, but with Bay possibly DUFN* and Oz understandably upset about this and Buffy's deathbed manner, we may never know. And Willow's admission that she knew it was a crap idea (even if her reasons for knowing it was a crap idea are all wrong) supports my theory that everyone in Season 8 is making decisions based on George Costanza's "do the opposite of what your instincts tell you" technique.
* Dead Until Further Notice
Why is not a single one of the dozens/hundreds/whatever of the Slayers who've been in this longer than Buffy had by "Prophecy Girl" asking any questions or... having any ideas or opinions at all on how they might, y'know, perhaps not die like cattle? Good thing they have an informal organisation where everyone gets a say, or they might all have followed blindly.
It turns out Xander's look of joyous anticipation in the last panels of the previous issue weren't just an art screw-up, so I owe Jeanty an apology: he and Dawn really are giddy with excitement over getting to play with guns. Well, it should make certain Xander fans happy, I guess.
Oh, and Buffy's big Andrew-related idea that people were speculating about when the preview came out turns out to be just a set-up for establishing that Buffy's moping over Dawn/Xander and then never gets mentioned again. It certainly doesn't seem to help them in the battle.
Anyway, then we get a big Michael Bay-style action sequence, yawn, during which they suddenly realise that you can't hold off tanks and planes with kalashnikovs, and eventually Buffy badgers a dying woman into telling her the truth, thinks of Dawn and Xander and gets angry enough to summon up some goddesses to fight the battle for them. (A good thing Tibetans haven't had cause to be angry with their situation before.) Now, of course we know it'll turn out badly, but at least it's a decision that makes more sense under the circumstances than the one that got them into the situation in the first place: since they've supposedly given up their own power in return for protection, let's call in that favour. Of course, the story continues to rather obviously hammer home that giving up your own power is a very bad idea – ooo, poor little women need someone to protect them.
XANDER: We've given our women every lesson that's simple enough to give in the time we have.
How noble to give them that after convincing them to give up the strength they've spent years training for. One might think they could have started a little earlier, but... it's a nice thematic follow-up on the "give up your power by having babies and cooking" imagery of #28.
(Anyone else raise an eyebrow at real religious figures – as in, people actually worship these in real life – turning up in the story, apparently as Chaotic Evil at that? What would have happened if the gang had hid in Israel instead? Of course, Twilight has iron chariots (or tanks, as we call them these days), so... ;-) Oh, and does anyone else see a potential problem with Twilight bringing American soldiers to blow up part of Tibet, a highly contested part of the People's Republic of China? Maybe Chiang Kai-Shek won in the s8!verse? It would explain why there only seems to be one Korea.)
Twilight's on the cover. Twilight's not in the issue. I'm starting to suspect the big reveal will be that there won't be a reveal at all. One day he'll just grow tired of the whole thing and go home, and we'll never find out who he was. Can't say I blame him at this point; we're 30-odd issues into this thing, and so far all we know about him is that he probably has a secret identity... which is really just a fancy way of saying he has no identity at all.
I've liked the past couple of issues; as weird as some of the plot developments have been, the focus has been on the characters and their issues, and Espenson's ear for dialogue is so good that for the most part they've been very enjoyable. There are still some excellent (and some utterly bewildering) character moments and some very funny lines in this issue – I loved Buffy's "It does when I punch someone", no less so since it's undercut by the irony that she currently punches like, well, a girl. But also, the plot makes its inevitable comeback, and under all the dull action sequences the old problems are still there – everyone's actions seem dictated by the need to get them to a certain point, rather than ending up at that point because of actions that make sense. In short, sacrificing characterisation and common sense in order to create a situation that's supposed to have us on the edge of our seats, but at least for me rather makes me go "Well, it's a good thing the real characters would never get in this situation."
But as always, it's about power, and from a thematic viewpoint it's actually coming together nicely. It's not really about having or not having magic, it's that power is a transitive concept: you cannot simply have power, you must have power over something. The Slayer army's big problem with Twilight is that the way they've learned to use the power they have – essentially, doing choreographed moves and slaying lots of vampires if they see them – is useless against him. The "what's good for a werewolf is good for a Slayer" idea doesn't work because turning into a wolf is in itself a loss of power over yourself and your situation, whereas Slayer strength and other abilities should ideally do the opposite. In removing their magic, they've tried to replace the power it gave them with guns, which – however much Dawn always loved guns as of this issue – didn't actually work, since killing is only a small part of the power magic gave them. (I once said that Buffy fights vampires bare-handed because she's fighting the darkness within herself, which is part of the reason guns don't work on demons...)
GILES: We won't be protected by force fields, and there will be injuries.
FAITH: And we won't have magic to heal the injuries.
So getting back to the scene where Buffy is interrogating the dying Bay while nobody else can do anything for her, it seems a world away from the Buffy who, for instance, thought it was perfectly OK for Willow to want to help Tara rather than focus on the world ending in "The Gift" – because, as always in the Jossverse, the people that we love are our world to be saved. But still, it's more complex than my quote at the top of this review makes it seem. Oz and Bay, to some extent, brought it on themselves, whereas Buffy has her reasons, some well-explained and some not, for looking at "the big picture" instead. But the point is that whatever the reasons, whatever the circumstances, whatever blame and judgment you may want to throw around, what it says in plain terms is this: the Slayer that is no longer a Slayer is de facto not providing the help that's asked for.
OZ: Buffy. Help.
(Shewon't can't shan't shouldn't doesn't.)
And that is a situation that obviously won't stand by the end of the story. The question remains how far they will dig before they start to climb out of the hole. In giving up even on guns and instead trusting to a bunch of unknown gods to protect them, they've given up any semblance of power over their situation. When you have no control, there is no power. There is only the fate others decide for you.
Random notes:
- Dawn Summers appears to be played by roughly 7 different actresses in this. Good thing we've been told that Jeanty is a good artist.
- Xander and Dawn are very couply, considering they haven't even spoken to Buffy (or anyone else) about it. You'd think it would at least be commented on by the other major characters if two of them get together. But hey, at least Xander finds time to flirt with Buffy in between making out with her sister.
- Buffy's Xander-crush coming more or less out of nowhere in the last issue makes it a little bit harder to buy her being so incredibly angry over it in this issue. Though I guess the reveal that Buffy is still moping over them in #31 is good news for Dawn... and for everyone else, if that's the worst thing that's happened by then.
- I really liked Faith's (at least I think that's Faith) little moment before putting on the helmet.
- Building trenches literally on your doorstep usually isn't a very good idea. I'm not sure if that's supposed to show that Buffy et al have no idea how to fight a war with conventional weapons or just that Jeanty and Espenson don't.
- Giles (and Xander) both continue to act very conspicuously. Then again, that's what I thought about Willow in the last issue too, and I was obviously wrong there.
- Is the pink goddess holding a stake?
"Load up on guns, bring your friends
It's fun to lose and to pretend" – Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
"There is only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil, and that's us." - Buffy Summers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer 7.10
"We agreed to be made weak." - Willow Rosenberg, Season 8 #29
I'm going to start with something that may sound like bashing, but let me get back to it: it's neat the way much of the season's arc - the Slayers isolating themselves in castles, them being unable to explain to the world why they're the good guys, Buffy ordering Fray to let vampires massacre in peace, nobody helping Dawn, Slayers asking how to kill vampires getting fed slogans, etc etc etc - is summed up in this issue, when Buffy meets Oz carrying his critically wounded wife:
OZ: Buffy. Help.
(She doesn't.)
Yes, it's Season 8 #29 "We Have No Magic" AKA "Well, Duh", in which Buffy and Willow discover what was glaringly obvious from the beginning: that Operation Sitting Duck was a needlessly complicated suicide. Their enemy who's spent most of Season 8 making life difficult for them is continuing to do so even though they decided to forget about him and can't fight back in their own particular... idiom anymore. I mean, it's like Twilight didn't even read #28 where they resolve to settle down and have babies and never fight evil again!
Willow's breakdown in the beginning is well done, and would probably be very effective if it wasn't for the overwhelming urge to go "Um, what did you expect? Yes, you're about to die, isn't this exactly according to plan?" (And the same goes for Buffy's (admittedly in-character) refusal to take up a gun herself despite having deliberately robbed herself and her "army" of any other apparent alternatives.) But OK, I can cut them a certain amount of slack since it's also established that Oz and Bay have been less than truthful, both about the mechanics and consequences of the "bury your power" thing and about killing whatshisface the werewolf, thereby putting both themselves and the Slayer army at greater risk. I wonder why they would do that, y'know, apart from the plot not working otherwise, but with Bay possibly DUFN* and Oz understandably upset about this and Buffy's deathbed manner, we may never know. And Willow's admission that she knew it was a crap idea (even if her reasons for knowing it was a crap idea are all wrong) supports my theory that everyone in Season 8 is making decisions based on George Costanza's "do the opposite of what your instincts tell you" technique.
* Dead Until Further Notice
Why is not a single one of the dozens/hundreds/whatever of the Slayers who've been in this longer than Buffy had by "Prophecy Girl" asking any questions or... having any ideas or opinions at all on how they might, y'know, perhaps not die like cattle? Good thing they have an informal organisation where everyone gets a say, or they might all have followed blindly.
It turns out Xander's look of joyous anticipation in the last panels of the previous issue weren't just an art screw-up, so I owe Jeanty an apology: he and Dawn really are giddy with excitement over getting to play with guns. Well, it should make certain Xander fans happy, I guess.
Oh, and Buffy's big Andrew-related idea that people were speculating about when the preview came out turns out to be just a set-up for establishing that Buffy's moping over Dawn/Xander and then never gets mentioned again. It certainly doesn't seem to help them in the battle.
Anyway, then we get a big Michael Bay-style action sequence, yawn, during which they suddenly realise that you can't hold off tanks and planes with kalashnikovs, and eventually Buffy badgers a dying woman into telling her the truth, thinks of Dawn and Xander and gets angry enough to summon up some goddesses to fight the battle for them. (A good thing Tibetans haven't had cause to be angry with their situation before.) Now, of course we know it'll turn out badly, but at least it's a decision that makes more sense under the circumstances than the one that got them into the situation in the first place: since they've supposedly given up their own power in return for protection, let's call in that favour. Of course, the story continues to rather obviously hammer home that giving up your own power is a very bad idea – ooo, poor little women need someone to protect them.
XANDER: We've given our women every lesson that's simple enough to give in the time we have.
How noble to give them that after convincing them to give up the strength they've spent years training for. One might think they could have started a little earlier, but... it's a nice thematic follow-up on the "give up your power by having babies and cooking" imagery of #28.
(Anyone else raise an eyebrow at real religious figures – as in, people actually worship these in real life – turning up in the story, apparently as Chaotic Evil at that? What would have happened if the gang had hid in Israel instead? Of course, Twilight has iron chariots (or tanks, as we call them these days), so... ;-) Oh, and does anyone else see a potential problem with Twilight bringing American soldiers to blow up part of Tibet, a highly contested part of the People's Republic of China? Maybe Chiang Kai-Shek won in the s8!verse? It would explain why there only seems to be one Korea.)
Twilight's on the cover. Twilight's not in the issue. I'm starting to suspect the big reveal will be that there won't be a reveal at all. One day he'll just grow tired of the whole thing and go home, and we'll never find out who he was. Can't say I blame him at this point; we're 30-odd issues into this thing, and so far all we know about him is that he probably has a secret identity... which is really just a fancy way of saying he has no identity at all.
I've liked the past couple of issues; as weird as some of the plot developments have been, the focus has been on the characters and their issues, and Espenson's ear for dialogue is so good that for the most part they've been very enjoyable. There are still some excellent (and some utterly bewildering) character moments and some very funny lines in this issue – I loved Buffy's "It does when I punch someone", no less so since it's undercut by the irony that she currently punches like, well, a girl. But also, the plot makes its inevitable comeback, and under all the dull action sequences the old problems are still there – everyone's actions seem dictated by the need to get them to a certain point, rather than ending up at that point because of actions that make sense. In short, sacrificing characterisation and common sense in order to create a situation that's supposed to have us on the edge of our seats, but at least for me rather makes me go "Well, it's a good thing the real characters would never get in this situation."
But as always, it's about power, and from a thematic viewpoint it's actually coming together nicely. It's not really about having or not having magic, it's that power is a transitive concept: you cannot simply have power, you must have power over something. The Slayer army's big problem with Twilight is that the way they've learned to use the power they have – essentially, doing choreographed moves and slaying lots of vampires if they see them – is useless against him. The "what's good for a werewolf is good for a Slayer" idea doesn't work because turning into a wolf is in itself a loss of power over yourself and your situation, whereas Slayer strength and other abilities should ideally do the opposite. In removing their magic, they've tried to replace the power it gave them with guns, which – however much Dawn always loved guns as of this issue – didn't actually work, since killing is only a small part of the power magic gave them. (I once said that Buffy fights vampires bare-handed because she's fighting the darkness within herself, which is part of the reason guns don't work on demons...)
GILES: We won't be protected by force fields, and there will be injuries.
FAITH: And we won't have magic to heal the injuries.
So getting back to the scene where Buffy is interrogating the dying Bay while nobody else can do anything for her, it seems a world away from the Buffy who, for instance, thought it was perfectly OK for Willow to want to help Tara rather than focus on the world ending in "The Gift" – because, as always in the Jossverse, the people that we love are our world to be saved. But still, it's more complex than my quote at the top of this review makes it seem. Oz and Bay, to some extent, brought it on themselves, whereas Buffy has her reasons, some well-explained and some not, for looking at "the big picture" instead. But the point is that whatever the reasons, whatever the circumstances, whatever blame and judgment you may want to throw around, what it says in plain terms is this: the Slayer that is no longer a Slayer is de facto not providing the help that's asked for.
OZ: Buffy. Help.
(She
And that is a situation that obviously won't stand by the end of the story. The question remains how far they will dig before they start to climb out of the hole. In giving up even on guns and instead trusting to a bunch of unknown gods to protect them, they've given up any semblance of power over their situation. When you have no control, there is no power. There is only the fate others decide for you.
Random notes:
- Dawn Summers appears to be played by roughly 7 different actresses in this. Good thing we've been told that Jeanty is a good artist.
- Xander and Dawn are very couply, considering they haven't even spoken to Buffy (or anyone else) about it. You'd think it would at least be commented on by the other major characters if two of them get together. But hey, at least Xander finds time to flirt with Buffy in between making out with her sister.
- Buffy's Xander-crush coming more or less out of nowhere in the last issue makes it a little bit harder to buy her being so incredibly angry over it in this issue. Though I guess the reveal that Buffy is still moping over them in #31 is good news for Dawn... and for everyone else, if that's the worst thing that's happened by then.
- I really liked Faith's (at least I think that's Faith) little moment before putting on the helmet.
- Building trenches literally on your doorstep usually isn't a very good idea. I'm not sure if that's supposed to show that Buffy et al have no idea how to fight a war with conventional weapons or just that Jeanty and Espenson don't.
- Giles (and Xander) both continue to act very conspicuously. Then again, that's what I thought about Willow in the last issue too, and I was obviously wrong there.
- Is the pink goddess holding a stake?
