Meta: Big Dawn Coming
Nov. 26th, 2007 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beer_good_foamyGrowing up in public with your pants on
You know, I miss Dawn Summers.
I know I probably lost a couple of readers right there; Dawn isn’t everyone’s favourite character. But still, I really liked her; she’s bubbly, she’s a bit of a klutz, she’s smarter than people give her credit for, she’s a bit selfish but even at her normal size she’s got a heart as big as a whale. She grew into an extraordinary young woman on the show and it’s a pity that she hasn’t been seen in the comics.
OK, well, obviously she is in the comics – lately, she’s occupying roughly half of Scotland and smashing up castles with her fist. Granted, that was fun at first. But the joke has been told, it’s time to move on and the simple matter is this:
I don’t care why Dawn is a giant. Really. I'll happily joke about her being a giant, it's certainly food for crackfic, but I well and truly don’t give a shit why. I just want her to stop being a silly giant. Nao plz.
Let me try to explain why, because it may sound a bit weird considering that some of my gripes with the comics (the impossibility of Warren aside) have been the lack of explanation for the character development that seems to have taken place between “Chosen” and “The Long Way Home”. But my problem with that isn't that I don't want characters to develop – I'm just enough of a perv to want to watch them doing it, especially since (assuming that this is still a character-driven rather than plot-driven series) the motivations of the characters are of the utmost importance.
Dawn growing to 20 times her size, however, is not character development, merely character magnification. One or two lines aside (“Like a mom to me”? And why the hell wouldn’t she have strength proportional to her size?) I have no huge problem with s8’s characterization of Dawn, at least the little bits of it we get to see; as reasons to mope and feel sorry about oneself go, being 100 feet tall and trapped in Scotland is a pretty good one. And I suppose we’ll eventually find out why Joss wants her to be a giant – ie why it’s important to the story he wants to tell.
But it’s the constant teasing within the story of WHY she’s a giant that really annoys me – as if we're expected to sit around waiting excitedly for some big revelation concerning a subplot that has now gone on for almost a year with no hint of advancement. Because if we’re not given a good reason (or even a hint that one is forthcoming) for why one of the major characters has been turned into a one-joke angst machine, it’s hard to think of her as a major character no matter what her size is.
It's especially annoying since the problem with Dawn goes back a long way, but looked to be fixed. It's the age thing; when Dawn was introduced in s5 she was 14, often written even younger, and the rest of the cast were in their early 20s or older. The show had moved on from childish things and there was no point to repeating the s1-s2 storylines (first love, school is evil, yada yada) just for Dawn's sake. Hence, most of her on-screen interaction in s5 and especially s6 was with her extended family, and all the things the scoobies themselves had gone through at the same age for the most part either took place off-screen or didn't happen at all. We got to see her have friends and even a love interest now and then, but... whenever Buffy or Xander or Willow interact with someone new (whether it be a love interest, a friend, or a boss) it brings that character into the story. Whenever Dawn interacted with someone new, however, it tended to take Dawn out of the story since there was no room for her friends and her interests in BtVS (except for briefly in “All the Way”, “Lessons” and “Him”, neither of which really led anywhere continuity-wise).
DAWN: I'm sleeping over at Janice's.
In other words, Dawn was doomed to be a bit out of phase with the story and we only ever got to see certain sides of her. But as she grew up, she did indeed come to carve out a niche of her own. By s7, Dawn had found a role which she herself – being a bit of a geek – characterized as "Watcher Jr", including the slightly stiff relationship with the younger Slayers. I absolutely love s7 Dawn; she's smart, she's brave, she's... still pretty klutzy, but she's in there. And you’d think that after that, being officially an adult by 2004, she’d be allowed to become a fully-fledged member of the gang; to continue the contributions she did in s7, have arcs of her own, continue growing as a character rather than just as a seismological phenomenon.
So what happens in season 8? For undisclosed reasons, she gets turned into a giant, and once again she's just a case to be solved. Every discussion about her inevitably centres around her size. Every discussion with her includes visual jokes about how people have trouble even talking to her because of her size, let alone interact with her in any normal way (well, unless you want to believe some theories, haha). Forget the last three seasons; now she's just a giant, end of story.
BUFFY: Yeah, I'm also a person. You can't just define me by my Slayer-ness. That's ... something-ism.
Compared to what Joss did with Dawn at the start of season 5 there is, IMO, one important difference. By introducing Dawn the way he did, he made her part of the story right away and forced both the fans and the characters to deal with her existence. There was a very strong feeling of “what the hell is going on here?” running through every scene she was in, which were quite a few since her status as Buffy's kid sister who had to be protected meant that she turned up everywhere, yet we didn't know who or what she really was. Plus, as with most character introductions in early s5, it came with a big dose of character depth. In season 8, I don’t see that; I see a reduction of character depth which is hopefully temporary, and she's once again written out of the normal story (literally, since she doesn't actually fit indoors), as if she were still 14 and didn’t have anything to contribute apart from needing help. (And OK, the occasional witch-stompin'.)
There’s an irony here, which relates to the very nature of storytelling. In order to care why and how things happen to a character, we have to care about the character. That’s what makes them more than just plot devices. And by taking the girl who loved math, the girl who handed the weapon to Amanda, the girl who bragged about stealing lipstick, the girl who sat watch over Tara for hours, the girl who stood up to Spike without blinking, the girl who couldn’t cheerlead to save her life, the girl who refused to leave her dead mother to a poltergeist or say goodbye to her sister before the big battle... and turning her into the case of theweek year, whose only function is to get us to wonder “Why the hell is Dawn a giant?”, Joss is making me not care about the character anymore – including, of course, why she’s a giant.
Now, whatever the canonical status of the comics, I’m not going to forget that I used to like Dawn a lot. But my point, which you can generalise as you see fit, is that the love I have for the TV character is not something that's automatically transferred to the comic book character (the same can be said about the TV characters from episode to episode and season to season, though that came easier thanks to the visual continuity and, well, just general continuity). Each character has to keep earning that love, and by reintroducing her after several years, looking completely different, having already gone through something unknown that's changed her radically, I don't have the same attachment to the character anymore. Part of the reason I still cared when Willow went overboard in s6 was because I'd seen how she got there, the good and bad choices every step of the way. Same for Faith in s3/s4, Angel/Buffy in s2, Spike in s5/s6, Wesley throughout Angel... same for every major character arc in the 'verse. Remove the how of a character's development and the question why becomes moot; all you're left with is is a giant peeking in on the story from the outisde through the castle windows – what we might call an "out of" character. ;-)
ALYSON HANNIGAN: She’s a giant. I don’t know what’s going on. I have no idea who that is or where he’s going, but awesome!
In short, I would like to see Dawn de-gigantofied and actually take part in the story again ASAP. She’s already been the helpless maiden in distress once; that was six years ago. Whaddyasay we have her grow up again? THAT would be awesome. Ish.
I promise my next meta will be less negative.
You know, I miss Dawn Summers.
I know I probably lost a couple of readers right there; Dawn isn’t everyone’s favourite character. But still, I really liked her; she’s bubbly, she’s a bit of a klutz, she’s smarter than people give her credit for, she’s a bit selfish but even at her normal size she’s got a heart as big as a whale. She grew into an extraordinary young woman on the show and it’s a pity that she hasn’t been seen in the comics.
OK, well, obviously she is in the comics – lately, she’s occupying roughly half of Scotland and smashing up castles with her fist. Granted, that was fun at first. But the joke has been told, it’s time to move on and the simple matter is this:
I don’t care why Dawn is a giant. Really. I'll happily joke about her being a giant, it's certainly food for crackfic, but I well and truly don’t give a shit why. I just want her to stop being a silly giant. Nao plz.
Let me try to explain why, because it may sound a bit weird considering that some of my gripes with the comics (the impossibility of Warren aside) have been the lack of explanation for the character development that seems to have taken place between “Chosen” and “The Long Way Home”. But my problem with that isn't that I don't want characters to develop – I'm just enough of a perv to want to watch them doing it, especially since (assuming that this is still a character-driven rather than plot-driven series) the motivations of the characters are of the utmost importance.
Dawn growing to 20 times her size, however, is not character development, merely character magnification. One or two lines aside (“Like a mom to me”? And why the hell wouldn’t she have strength proportional to her size?) I have no huge problem with s8’s characterization of Dawn, at least the little bits of it we get to see; as reasons to mope and feel sorry about oneself go, being 100 feet tall and trapped in Scotland is a pretty good one. And I suppose we’ll eventually find out why Joss wants her to be a giant – ie why it’s important to the story he wants to tell.
But it’s the constant teasing within the story of WHY she’s a giant that really annoys me – as if we're expected to sit around waiting excitedly for some big revelation concerning a subplot that has now gone on for almost a year with no hint of advancement. Because if we’re not given a good reason (or even a hint that one is forthcoming) for why one of the major characters has been turned into a one-joke angst machine, it’s hard to think of her as a major character no matter what her size is.
It's especially annoying since the problem with Dawn goes back a long way, but looked to be fixed. It's the age thing; when Dawn was introduced in s5 she was 14, often written even younger, and the rest of the cast were in their early 20s or older. The show had moved on from childish things and there was no point to repeating the s1-s2 storylines (first love, school is evil, yada yada) just for Dawn's sake. Hence, most of her on-screen interaction in s5 and especially s6 was with her extended family, and all the things the scoobies themselves had gone through at the same age for the most part either took place off-screen or didn't happen at all. We got to see her have friends and even a love interest now and then, but... whenever Buffy or Xander or Willow interact with someone new (whether it be a love interest, a friend, or a boss) it brings that character into the story. Whenever Dawn interacted with someone new, however, it tended to take Dawn out of the story since there was no room for her friends and her interests in BtVS (except for briefly in “All the Way”, “Lessons” and “Him”, neither of which really led anywhere continuity-wise).
DAWN: I'm sleeping over at Janice's.
In other words, Dawn was doomed to be a bit out of phase with the story and we only ever got to see certain sides of her. But as she grew up, she did indeed come to carve out a niche of her own. By s7, Dawn had found a role which she herself – being a bit of a geek – characterized as "Watcher Jr", including the slightly stiff relationship with the younger Slayers. I absolutely love s7 Dawn; she's smart, she's brave, she's... still pretty klutzy, but she's in there. And you’d think that after that, being officially an adult by 2004, she’d be allowed to become a fully-fledged member of the gang; to continue the contributions she did in s7, have arcs of her own, continue growing as a character rather than just as a seismological phenomenon.
So what happens in season 8? For undisclosed reasons, she gets turned into a giant, and once again she's just a case to be solved. Every discussion about her inevitably centres around her size. Every discussion with her includes visual jokes about how people have trouble even talking to her because of her size, let alone interact with her in any normal way (well, unless you want to believe some theories, haha). Forget the last three seasons; now she's just a giant, end of story.
BUFFY: Yeah, I'm also a person. You can't just define me by my Slayer-ness. That's ... something-ism.
Compared to what Joss did with Dawn at the start of season 5 there is, IMO, one important difference. By introducing Dawn the way he did, he made her part of the story right away and forced both the fans and the characters to deal with her existence. There was a very strong feeling of “what the hell is going on here?” running through every scene she was in, which were quite a few since her status as Buffy's kid sister who had to be protected meant that she turned up everywhere, yet we didn't know who or what she really was. Plus, as with most character introductions in early s5, it came with a big dose of character depth. In season 8, I don’t see that; I see a reduction of character depth which is hopefully temporary, and she's once again written out of the normal story (literally, since she doesn't actually fit indoors), as if she were still 14 and didn’t have anything to contribute apart from needing help. (And OK, the occasional witch-stompin'.)
There’s an irony here, which relates to the very nature of storytelling. In order to care why and how things happen to a character, we have to care about the character. That’s what makes them more than just plot devices. And by taking the girl who loved math, the girl who handed the weapon to Amanda, the girl who bragged about stealing lipstick, the girl who sat watch over Tara for hours, the girl who stood up to Spike without blinking, the girl who couldn’t cheerlead to save her life, the girl who refused to leave her dead mother to a poltergeist or say goodbye to her sister before the big battle... and turning her into the case of the
Now, whatever the canonical status of the comics, I’m not going to forget that I used to like Dawn a lot. But my point, which you can generalise as you see fit, is that the love I have for the TV character is not something that's automatically transferred to the comic book character (the same can be said about the TV characters from episode to episode and season to season, though that came easier thanks to the visual continuity and, well, just general continuity). Each character has to keep earning that love, and by reintroducing her after several years, looking completely different, having already gone through something unknown that's changed her radically, I don't have the same attachment to the character anymore. Part of the reason I still cared when Willow went overboard in s6 was because I'd seen how she got there, the good and bad choices every step of the way. Same for Faith in s3/s4, Angel/Buffy in s2, Spike in s5/s6, Wesley throughout Angel... same for every major character arc in the 'verse. Remove the how of a character's development and the question why becomes moot; all you're left with is is a giant peeking in on the story from the outisde through the castle windows – what we might call an "out of" character. ;-)
ALYSON HANNIGAN: She’s a giant. I don’t know what’s going on. I have no idea who that is or where he’s going, but awesome!
In short, I would like to see Dawn de-gigantofied and actually take part in the story again ASAP. She’s already been the helpless maiden in distress once; that was six years ago. Whaddyasay we have her grow up again? THAT would be awesome. Ish.
I promise my next meta will be less negative.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 09:02 am (UTC)For one episode. Before that she had issues with Buffy hiding Spike from her and stealing her 'boyfriend,' after that she had her own research gig with validation from Xander and it rapidly became clear that Buffy/Potentials was over. The balance has shifted.
"In plain sight" usually involves being seen, no?
I can see him with my brain :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 09:45 am (UTC)I'd say it was a bit more than that - not just her jealousy towards the potentials, but her not having a place in Buffy's life, not being a priority when the big Slayer-y things came along. (The never-repeated training from "Lessons", or Buffy not caring that she got hurt in "Lies My Parents Told Me", for instance.) But I agree: she got over it. So why would she be back to that same complaint again?
no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 06:51 pm (UTC)