Thoughts on #20
Dec. 22nd, 2008 12:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beer_good_foamyLet's talk s1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, shall we? Just briefly, because I think everyone here has seen it; it was fun, it was charming, it was lightweight, it didn't have all that much of a season arc, things didn't change much from one episode to another, and the stakes weren't all that high... and yet, rewatching it after watching the series to the end, you can spot where they snuck in the little things that make it worth rewatching. Little bits of character and theme development, introductions of characters and ideas that would come back to mean something (hell, even the thoroughly forgettable "I Robot... You Jane" set up at least two things that would come to be huge later on; go on, ask me which ones.)
And much like your average s1 episode, Season 8 #20... well, it didn't actually do much for the bigger arc, did it? Or by way of following up the supposedly very emotional ending of #19? Or telling us something we didn't already know? Instead, much like, say, "Teacher's Pet", you could pretty much have skipped it and all that you'd have missed out on would be... well, OK, it wasn't that awful. But for the most part, it was exactly what it says on the tin: a fun, charming, lightweight visit in S1 Land, just a brief shiny trip back home. Silly vampire cults, Snyder, wordplay ("disciples of Morgan Freeman" - hee), Snyder, parties, Buffy/Angel ambiguity and not nearly enough Snyder.
It's nice to see Joyce and Dawn for once, and it's nice to see Buffy actually care about Dawn for five seconds... even if it's probably not insignificant that she's happy about Dawn being back to normal (meaning "a child") without her having to do anything about it; if we go with the popular interpretation that Kafka!Dawn is avery silly metaphor for Dawn growing up, then Buffy's ideal solution to that seems to be to have her... not grow up. (And she really likes that "robot monkey" idea, doesn't she? That joke got told more than the "Xander rides Dawn" one.) That said, the final conversation with Joyce and Buffy being told that she can always come home again is rather moving, in a s1 kind of way.
So what was the point of it, assuming they didn't just throw this out there under the Season 8 banner because they knew people would buy it? Surely putting Buffy's twentywhatever-year-old self in her sixteen-year-old body and timeline would contrast who she is with who she was, and while we can see differences, Buffy only sees the similarities. Apart from the discussion with Angel about the possibility of changing someone's future by telling them about it (which looks like we're talking Angelus, but of course Buffy's talking about Willow, and Loeb may be talking about Buffy who was shown the future in the last issue) – there's precious little here that adds anything new, anything we didn't already know about the plot or the characters. Buffy got to meet Giles and Angel and showed absolutely nothing about what she currently feels and knows about the two or her current role as related to theirs (Giles and Angel being her mentors of a sort back in s1). Though the references to Angelus are well taken as the follow-up to the "Becoming"-style execution of Future!Willow, and Buffy laughing off Giles' warning that something could "shift the balance of good and evil beyond all reckoning" is a nice little nod to the slippery slope of moral greyness she's currently in. She sees differences in her surroundings – the people and places around her - but she fails to see how she herself and her situation has changed. The answer to the unspoken question "can you change somebody's present by showing them their past" seems to be "not really."
To take the example that everyone has been getting upset over: Buffy's comment about Cordelia is rather horrid, but it goes nicely with the s8!Buffy who has pretty much cut herself off from humanity, fires Giles for working with other Slayers, puts her army above everything else, sacrifices innocent bystanders, can't be arsed to help her own sister, gets sarcastic with people when they ask her not to wipe their entire world out of existence, kills her best friend without hesitating more than a few seconds... why would we be surprised at her finding the death of a former friend (whom the writer knows a lot of the readers are invested in) to be little more than a joke? It's unfunny and cringe-inducing because it's not supposed to be funny, any more than Willow telling Giles not to piss her off in s6 was supposed to be a light-hearted ha ha moment.
Then again, Loeb writes for Heroes, doesn't he? Maybe he just genuinely thought it was funny.
ETA: here's an interesting quote from Mr Allie:
we can assume that Buffy knows everything that any characters in her organization, like Andrew, know, or could find out. Cordelia's death would be a known fact, I should think, nothing secret about it.
I guess that should settle whether Buffy knows about Spike, too.
I like the artwork of the dream sequence; the cartoonish look works as a one-time gimmick, and it's nice to see the series using the strengths of the format to serve the story rather than just trying to overcome its weaknesses.
Buffy's dream ends with a fall – much like her dream in #3 started with one. Standard dream interpretation (source):
This is a common dream which usually represents underlying fears and feelings of inadequacy and helplessness. Interpret your dream by considering your primary fears, current difficulties, and situations in your life that seem to be on a downward spiral, especially those situations that seem outside of your control (financial, romantic,etc.). (...) Superstition based dream interpretations say that if you fall a long distance in your dream and get hurt, be prepared for really hard times ahead; but if you fall and are not injured your upsets will be minor and temporary.
Then we're back in the "real" world and nothing has changed; Xander is still her loyal lieutenant, Dawn is still a dumb joke for no apparent reason (and Buffy is relieved by this too), Willow is alive and wise and Buffy is still convinced that she's doing the exact right thing in the exact right way. This was the issue which I, for one, thought would at least start to kindle some sort of "look at how far we've come from where we used to be", which looked set up to be some heavy-duty character introspection (by Season 8 standards), especially considering that Buffy, arguably, was the only one to whom anything happened in the previous arc. And it turns out to do nothing but underline and reaffirm Buffy's belief that she's doing exactly what she's always been doing: giving up what she wants to do (partying or sleeping) for what she feels she needs to do (killing a dragon or managing an army). Which bothers me. Because even if her motivations haven't changed, her methods and her challenges certainly have, and unless we're supposed to think she is doing the exact right things in the exact right way (which I seriously doubt – she's been checking every single box on the Whedon list of Things Heroes Don't Do) then apparently, not even executing her best friend and being shown what she used to be will be enough to give her pause and make her reconsider where she's going. Anything that goes wrong is... well, "minor and temporary" seems to sum up more than just the plot of issue #20. But maybe something will show up on rewatches.
I'm starting to wonder what it will take to wake Buffy up. Because the stakes are supposedly higher than they were in s1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and right now I'm not sure that Buffy needs to be telling herself that it's the same situation.
Other things that may or may not be important:
- Andrew seems to be screwing up yet again, to the point where everyone has to barge in and wake Buffy even after repeatedly being asked not to. Remind me again, why is he a watcher?
- Despite all the talk of empowerment of the other Slayers, Buffy is still the one whom everyone calls "Ma'am" and she's still the one who gets woken up when something goes wrong somewhere in the world.
- Buffy has to stop a vampire cult from raising a dragon. Not exactly the most morally complex decision, hmmm? As an analogy of her current situation, Buffy's dream doesn't work nearly as well as she thinks it does.
- Buffy's dream memory of s1 is a bit fuzzy; if this was supposed to take place shortly after "Angel", what's Snyder doing there? But maybe that's the way things happened in comics canon, and I would never complain about too much Snyder. ;-)
As for After the Fall #15, I might have an opinion on that if and when they don't hit the Big Red Reset Button in the last issue, which is looking more and more likely.
And much like your average s1 episode, Season 8 #20... well, it didn't actually do much for the bigger arc, did it? Or by way of following up the supposedly very emotional ending of #19? Or telling us something we didn't already know? Instead, much like, say, "Teacher's Pet", you could pretty much have skipped it and all that you'd have missed out on would be... well, OK, it wasn't that awful. But for the most part, it was exactly what it says on the tin: a fun, charming, lightweight visit in S1 Land, just a brief shiny trip back home. Silly vampire cults, Snyder, wordplay ("disciples of Morgan Freeman" - hee), Snyder, parties, Buffy/Angel ambiguity and not nearly enough Snyder.
It's nice to see Joyce and Dawn for once, and it's nice to see Buffy actually care about Dawn for five seconds... even if it's probably not insignificant that she's happy about Dawn being back to normal (meaning "a child") without her having to do anything about it; if we go with the popular interpretation that Kafka!Dawn is a
So what was the point of it, assuming they didn't just throw this out there under the Season 8 banner because they knew people would buy it? Surely putting Buffy's twentywhatever-year-old self in her sixteen-year-old body and timeline would contrast who she is with who she was, and while we can see differences, Buffy only sees the similarities. Apart from the discussion with Angel about the possibility of changing someone's future by telling them about it (which looks like we're talking Angelus, but of course Buffy's talking about Willow, and Loeb may be talking about Buffy who was shown the future in the last issue) – there's precious little here that adds anything new, anything we didn't already know about the plot or the characters. Buffy got to meet Giles and Angel and showed absolutely nothing about what she currently feels and knows about the two or her current role as related to theirs (Giles and Angel being her mentors of a sort back in s1). Though the references to Angelus are well taken as the follow-up to the "Becoming"-style execution of Future!Willow, and Buffy laughing off Giles' warning that something could "shift the balance of good and evil beyond all reckoning" is a nice little nod to the slippery slope of moral greyness she's currently in. She sees differences in her surroundings – the people and places around her - but she fails to see how she herself and her situation has changed. The answer to the unspoken question "can you change somebody's present by showing them their past" seems to be "not really."
To take the example that everyone has been getting upset over: Buffy's comment about Cordelia is rather horrid, but it goes nicely with the s8!Buffy who has pretty much cut herself off from humanity, fires Giles for working with other Slayers, puts her army above everything else, sacrifices innocent bystanders, can't be arsed to help her own sister, gets sarcastic with people when they ask her not to wipe their entire world out of existence, kills her best friend without hesitating more than a few seconds... why would we be surprised at her finding the death of a former friend (whom the writer knows a lot of the readers are invested in) to be little more than a joke? It's unfunny and cringe-inducing because it's not supposed to be funny, any more than Willow telling Giles not to piss her off in s6 was supposed to be a light-hearted ha ha moment.
Then again, Loeb writes for Heroes, doesn't he? Maybe he just genuinely thought it was funny.
ETA: here's an interesting quote from Mr Allie:
we can assume that Buffy knows everything that any characters in her organization, like Andrew, know, or could find out. Cordelia's death would be a known fact, I should think, nothing secret about it.
I guess that should settle whether Buffy knows about Spike, too.
I like the artwork of the dream sequence; the cartoonish look works as a one-time gimmick, and it's nice to see the series using the strengths of the format to serve the story rather than just trying to overcome its weaknesses.
Buffy's dream ends with a fall – much like her dream in #3 started with one. Standard dream interpretation (source):
This is a common dream which usually represents underlying fears and feelings of inadequacy and helplessness. Interpret your dream by considering your primary fears, current difficulties, and situations in your life that seem to be on a downward spiral, especially those situations that seem outside of your control (financial, romantic,etc.). (...) Superstition based dream interpretations say that if you fall a long distance in your dream and get hurt, be prepared for really hard times ahead; but if you fall and are not injured your upsets will be minor and temporary.
Then we're back in the "real" world and nothing has changed; Xander is still her loyal lieutenant, Dawn is still a dumb joke for no apparent reason (and Buffy is relieved by this too), Willow is alive and wise and Buffy is still convinced that she's doing the exact right thing in the exact right way. This was the issue which I, for one, thought would at least start to kindle some sort of "look at how far we've come from where we used to be", which looked set up to be some heavy-duty character introspection (by Season 8 standards), especially considering that Buffy, arguably, was the only one to whom anything happened in the previous arc. And it turns out to do nothing but underline and reaffirm Buffy's belief that she's doing exactly what she's always been doing: giving up what she wants to do (partying or sleeping) for what she feels she needs to do (killing a dragon or managing an army). Which bothers me. Because even if her motivations haven't changed, her methods and her challenges certainly have, and unless we're supposed to think she is doing the exact right things in the exact right way (which I seriously doubt – she's been checking every single box on the Whedon list of Things Heroes Don't Do) then apparently, not even executing her best friend and being shown what she used to be will be enough to give her pause and make her reconsider where she's going. Anything that goes wrong is... well, "minor and temporary" seems to sum up more than just the plot of issue #20. But maybe something will show up on rewatches.
I'm starting to wonder what it will take to wake Buffy up. Because the stakes are supposedly higher than they were in s1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and right now I'm not sure that Buffy needs to be telling herself that it's the same situation.
Other things that may or may not be important:
- Andrew seems to be screwing up yet again, to the point where everyone has to barge in and wake Buffy even after repeatedly being asked not to. Remind me again, why is he a watcher?
- Despite all the talk of empowerment of the other Slayers, Buffy is still the one whom everyone calls "Ma'am" and she's still the one who gets woken up when something goes wrong somewhere in the world.
- Buffy has to stop a vampire cult from raising a dragon. Not exactly the most morally complex decision, hmmm? As an analogy of her current situation, Buffy's dream doesn't work nearly as well as she thinks it does.
- Buffy's dream memory of s1 is a bit fuzzy; if this was supposed to take place shortly after "Angel", what's Snyder doing there? But maybe that's the way things happened in comics canon, and I would never complain about too much Snyder. ;-)
As for After the Fall #15, I might have an opinion on that if and when they don't hit the Big Red Reset Button in the last issue, which is looking more and more likely.
