Your post also makes me think of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory. There's a Star Trek: TNG episode which depicts thousands of alternate universes, and some fans have pointed out that indicating that there are limitless alternate universes cheapens the "real" one, but of course:
1) that's not necessarily true; and also 2) if the many-worlds interpretation is correct, that *is* our (multi)verse, so it can't be bad to depict it.
Or, at least, in 2, my general policy is that depicting truth isn't a bad thing (though you can depict it badly in some way, of course...). Anyway, the meaning of 1 is, as you said in your post, rather the opposite -- if the universe splits at every probabilistic, random process, then it's not just one world but an unlimited number which are affected by your actions. This is a possible reality. Of course, the meaning of the many-worlds theory is maybe more obscure than that, and the "split" between worlds is likely more to do with random quantum processes than human decisions, but....
But generally, of course, we're also on a planet which has more people on it than is possible for a single human brain to process and handle -- we've evolved for communities of a few dozen, and certainly probably can store information about thousands and thousands (I wonder how many names most people would recognize? a million, maybe?) (I want to look into that), but still, we can't really deal with this large a set of data is on the planet right now. So the planet is necessarily subdivided into worlds that we can deal with -- and then the question is whether we can respect our world without destroying the others, or policing the borders fully.
"This is a good death. There's no shame in it.... A man who's done good works. Making a better world. Making all of them...better worlds." (paraphrasing; I couldn't find a transcript, and the IMDb quotes doesn't include that! what?)
Buffy respects the limits of her jurisdiction, most of the time. Letting VampWillow back into the wild, or sending Olaf to Trollville, bothered me at one time, but now I read it a bit differently. It's a bit like the Trekkian Prime Directive -- it's not so much that morality doesn't exist in other places, but we don't necessarily understand them, and Buffy's not so imperialistic as to mess up entire worlds that she doesn't understand. (VampWillow only left the Wishverse because of Anya, though of course Anya was the one who created it.) "We don't live in each other's worlds anymore," Buffy and Angel agree in "The Yoko Factor," and what does that mean -- does that give Angel carte blanche to tell Buffy to get out of "his" city, you know, the one that Buffy lived in first? The one where the person who seems to be on The Right Track in the finale is Anne, who took her story from Buffy directly in LA? Well, maybe. Maybe it's just that things are complicated, and it takes a hell of a lot of work to understand a world enough to know what constitutes saving it.
The first person to "change the world" in WttH is the unnamed dead meat guy who smashes the window and breaks into frame, which he only did (though he didn't know it) at Darla's behest. Darla's the first one to upend expectations, to really change the world, and we eventually learn that there are monsters in Sunnydale, but the monsters are gathering to *really* make their move. Buffy is the second to change the world -- a creature from another world (LA) who comes and defies the carefully-built (social) order by choosing to be neither a Willow nor a Cordelia. ("Can't I be both?" "Not legally.") Darla, at the Master's behest, is going to change the world for the worse, Buffy is going to change the world for the better. We can maybe point out that the vamp in "Pangs" who views Buffy as an imperialist conquerer is maybe ignoring that Buffy is the one who stopped The Harvest, which would have changed everything from the way he liked it anyway (maybe he'd have liked the Master's version better). I'm not sure where I'm going with this, except that Buffy's decision to save the world (in Sunnydale) has something to do with making a space for herself, and the kind of world she wants to live in.
no subject
1) that's not necessarily true; and also
2) if the many-worlds interpretation is correct, that *is* our (multi)verse, so it can't be bad to depict it.
Or, at least, in 2, my general policy is that depicting truth isn't a bad thing (though you can depict it badly in some way, of course...). Anyway, the meaning of 1 is, as you said in your post, rather the opposite -- if the universe splits at every probabilistic, random process, then it's not just one world but an unlimited number which are affected by your actions. This is a possible reality. Of course, the meaning of the many-worlds theory is maybe more obscure than that, and the "split" between worlds is likely more to do with random quantum processes than human decisions, but....
But generally, of course, we're also on a planet which has more people on it than is possible for a single human brain to process and handle -- we've evolved for communities of a few dozen, and certainly probably can store information about thousands and thousands (I wonder how many names most people would recognize? a million, maybe?) (I want to look into that), but still, we can't really deal with this large a set of data is on the planet right now. So the planet is necessarily subdivided into worlds that we can deal with -- and then the question is whether we can respect our world without destroying the others, or policing the borders fully.
"This is a good death. There's no shame in it.... A man who's done good works. Making a better world. Making all of them...better worlds." (paraphrasing; I couldn't find a transcript, and the IMDb quotes doesn't include that! what?)
Buffy respects the limits of her jurisdiction, most of the time. Letting VampWillow back into the wild, or sending Olaf to Trollville, bothered me at one time, but now I read it a bit differently. It's a bit like the Trekkian Prime Directive -- it's not so much that morality doesn't exist in other places, but we don't necessarily understand them, and Buffy's not so imperialistic as to mess up entire worlds that she doesn't understand. (VampWillow only left the Wishverse because of Anya, though of course Anya was the one who created it.) "We don't live in each other's worlds anymore," Buffy and Angel agree in "The Yoko Factor," and what does that mean -- does that give Angel carte blanche to tell Buffy to get out of "his" city, you know, the one that Buffy lived in first? The one where the person who seems to be on The Right Track in the finale is Anne, who took her story from Buffy directly in LA? Well, maybe. Maybe it's just that things are complicated, and it takes a hell of a lot of work to understand a world enough to know what constitutes saving it.
The first person to "change the world" in WttH is the unnamed dead meat guy who smashes the window and breaks into frame, which he only did (though he didn't know it) at Darla's behest. Darla's the first one to upend expectations, to really change the world, and we eventually learn that there are monsters in Sunnydale, but the monsters are gathering to *really* make their move. Buffy is the second to change the world -- a creature from another world (LA) who comes and defies the carefully-built (social) order by choosing to be neither a Willow nor a Cordelia. ("Can't I be both?" "Not legally.") Darla, at the Master's behest, is going to change the world for the worse, Buffy is going to change the world for the better. We can maybe point out that the vamp in "Pangs" who views Buffy as an imperialist conquerer is maybe ignoring that Buffy is the one who stopped The Harvest, which would have changed everything from the way he liked it anyway (maybe he'd have liked the Master's version better). I'm not sure where I'm going with this, except that Buffy's decision to save the world (in Sunnydale) has something to do with making a space for herself, and the kind of world she wants to live in.