Season 8 no. n-n-n-n-nineteen

[beer_good_foamy]

You know, I had this half-formed theory that maybe, just maybe, the delay of #19 was due to Joss re-reading the bits in #18 where Buffy repeatedly insists that it's right to sacrifice civilians for "the big picture", realising how she came across, and trying to come up with a way to back-pedal at least a little bit.

So much for that theory. Good to see he knows what he's doing, at least.

Of course, we'd already been spoiled that Future!Willow would get killed, but as she herself pointed out in the previews: it's not so much who dies as who does the killing – so the question still remained, who'd actually finish her off, would she have time to explain what the hell's going on first, and would anyone else die as well?

Turns out the answers are "Buffy" (asssuming that Future!Willow is (will be) really dead, of course), "nope", and "probably not" (assuming that Fray and Erin aren't in some sort of afterlife).

Yes, in this issue Buffy joins the illustrous crowd of Whedon heroes who have murdered humans – and the person she kills is her supposedly best friend. Or, well, her possible future self. Of course, future!Willow didn't seem much of a good guy - she was fine with Harth killing a bunch of innocent people if it fit her plan, after all – and she's even on record as saying she's not quite human anymore, which I suppose makes it a matter of definition. Buffy's tearful reaction is strong stuff, and it's a cunning "Becoming" callback and everything but... is there any particular reason Buffy doesn't just knock Willow out of the way? Or better yet, tackle her through the portal and ask questions in the safety of her own New York hotel? How come her first reaction is "stabbity"? I'm sure we can come up with some explanation, but it doesn't change the fact that my first impression was "Uh... why did she have to do that?"

Which is a pity as it undercuts what should have been an emotional ending to an issue that, while a bit confusing and featuring the occasional wtf moment, still had some pretty great scenes. Despite the weird circumstances, Willow's discussion with Fray, Erin and Buffy are very nice indeed - at least until Harth shows up and it turns into 20 Questions - and a good mirror of Buffy's breakdown in #18. And both Willow and Buffy seem determined to do whatever they have to do to get out of this situation, even if it makes them both come across as villains to the heroes of the Fray!verse. It's to Fray's credit that she still refuses to even consider killing Buffy right up until the very end, and I do like the confrontation between them. When Fray tries to talk to her, Buffy simply says she doesn't care; when Fray more or less begs her to reconsider something that they both think will wipe out Fray's entire world, Buffy not only won't but even finds time to taunt Fray in the process.

MEL: The big picture.
BUFFY: It’s called the fate of the world, short view.
MEL: “Fate of the world.” Made sense… when there was only one.

That's actually a pretty spot-on observation by Fray there; not only are we talking about there being more than one world, but also more than one Slayer. Buffy used to call the shots on account of being Slayer comma The, and despite all her talk about sharing her power, that's what she still does back home and that's at least part of what she's desperate to get back to. Except there isn't only one Slayer anymore, and apart from Faith (who never wanted a leadership position) there's nobody better to remind her than Fray. This isn't some naive potential who owes her power to Buffy; Fray made herself, and she has more than earned her right to defend her world from (in her view) amoral time-travellers who threaten to wipe it from existence. Buffy's big picture, it seems, has become so big that not even an entire world with billions of people makes a blip on her radar.

FRAY: So come on, guys. I'm just one girl. No big hero, no protector of justice, not even a bona fide one-hundred-percent Slayer. So what are you waiting for? Take me on. Hurt my world. I dare you.

BUFFY: I don't care about your world.

Maybe that's a bit unfair. Because at the same time, while Buffy doesn't exactly come across as the most selfless and compromising hero – in fact, much like she has been throughout the comics, she seems determined to defiantly prove her accusers right and kick their asses in the process...

BUFFY: Oh. ...Kay.

...where was I? Oh, right. While Buffy doesn't exactly come across yada yada yada, it's also been made pretty clear that she really doesn't want this reality. She doesn't even want to accept that it is reality. Seeing everything she's fought for for... well, for the one and a half years post-"Chosen" that we'll never be told about, I guess... seeing all that ripped away and cancelled out has got her so spooked that she'll do anything to get out of it – even walk across the corpse of her best friend and sell short the future of Slayerdom in her Miracle Mile-style dash for the supposedly one chance to get back to the world she has saved a lot. Buffy breaks Fray's scythe; Buffy kills Willow with the scythe; can we say "symbolism", boys and girls? It's about power, and as it has been throughout Season 8, the ethics of how to use that power seem secondary; it's about having it, keeping it and getting it back. What sets Fray apart from Buffy, in Buffy's own words:

BUFFY: She's stronger than me. On her home turf. And she knows what she's fighting for.

Hmmm...?

Let's get back to that in a bit. While most of the issue took place in the future, at least it checked in with the "real" timeline, so I might as well too.

Willow really trusts Saga Vasuki and does exactly as she's told with the blindfold (I guess the word is "blind faith"). Still saying it would be nice to know what SV has done to earn that trust, especially considering what happened the last time Willow trusted her. What happened to curious Willow?

We find out who Buffy met in #16. It was Riley. And, he's suddenly evil. But of course he is. (Somewhere, all the writers of Rapist!Riley fics just punched the air in triumphant vindication.) But hey, at least he's not Twilight but just his minion, which feels marginally less wtf-ish. Scott Allie has said we'll eventually find out what made Riley seemingly do a 180 from the slightly too traditional and not overly intelligent but at heart decent guy he was on the show, and I suppose there's always a possibility that he really is Buffy's man on the inside and that he's just playing Twilight, or that he has an agenda all of his own. That would still mean he just stood by and watched, smiling, as Warren killed a bunch of Slayers and almost killed Xander, but hey, big picture right?

As ridiculous as the fight between the woodland critters and the army of green snake demons is, I like Rowena's (nope, still can't read that name without hearing Bernard Black say it) order. "Slayers – fuck 'em up." And Xander's comment on the five stages of grief – heh. It's Tolkien on crack, but at least it's short.

Meanwhile, Dawn is still away at college like she has been since the start of the comic. A pity, as I'm sure Joss could have come up with a half-decent storyline for her if he'd tried, but yay Dawn for getting a life I suppose.

As opposed to Future!Willow, to get back to the main story. This is the second time Willow's rarely-mentioned-on-the-actual-show love for history is mentioned – the first being by Amy in "The Long Way Home." And this time, she takes her history with her to her (supposed) grave. Which is even more the pity as her role in this was really quite promising; she kept speaking in riddles and lies, but she was obviously the only one here who knew what was going on, who was pulling the strings from the beginning... and she was killed before she had time to explain even half of it. We don't know what her plan was about, even if we can make a few wild guesses. We don't know why she needed to involve Harth. We don't know how she got there in the first place. We don't know what her involvement with Saga Vasuki is. We don't know who set up the time portal, though Ms Snake is a good guess, I suppose. We don't know who's in charge of the two; present!Willow certainly isn't. And since we don't know what Future!Willow's plan was, we have no idea if she was successful or failed miserably. If the idea was to have Buffy kill her (and why) or if it really was to keep Buffy in the 23rd century.

Even if it's a nice meta-commentary on Season 8 to have Buffy kill Willow rather than provide much-needed backstory on what the hell is going on, it does mean the issue – and the entire arc – ends up looking more like "just a bunch of stuff that happened" than one where we can at least make an educated guess of what everyone's agenda is. (There's that pesky thing about seeing the characters make the choices that get them into the situation again.) On the surface, nothing much really changed; Buffy is right back where she left off, Willow found out nothing, Kennedy probably found out nothing, nobody anyone cares about got killed, the castle was torn down but nobody really gives a damn, Riley is evil but we still don't know why or who Twilight is, we never found out what happened to Future!Willow, and Fray is right where she always was (if now unarmed and demoralized against a pissed-off Harth). So what was the point of the entire arc, apart from saying "No, we haven't forgotten that we gave away the ending in Fray?"

The key, obviously, is Buffy – who is the only person in our timeline (apart from Saga Vasuki, I guess) who knows what happened. And since Fray and Erin still exist, I suppose there are two possibilities here:

1) Future!Willow did this to prevent Fray's world from happening. Her last act, in death, is to transport the Fray!verse into a separate dimension or some such, not unlike the Wishverse (though it seems like a very unselfish act to perform with one's last breath). Hey, maybe Fray is the future of the TV timeline as opposed to the comic one? ;-) Buffy goes back, utterly heartbroken at having killed Willow, opens her eyes and looks at the world – and decides to prove Twilight wrong and stop playing his game.

2) Willow was telling Harth the truth: what happened in his time caused his time to come. Turning Buffy into someone who's prepared to do anything to win, no matter who she has to step on, will cause Twilight to win – by turning everyone against Buffy and her army (hellooo there #21-25 arc) and/or by effectively robbing Buffy of her own conviction. (A line from Nabokov springs to mind: "The one who kills is always his victim's inferior" – then again, the character who said that was quite mad and possibly not even real, so I don't know where I'm going with that. Besides, Joss would probably be more likely to reference some Jedi credo here.) In this case, we'd have a Buffy who, by her own admission, doesn't know what she's fighting for. A Buffy who has stopped asking why – or at least waiting for the answers. A Buffy who is so convinced she's done everything right so far that she'll do anything to preserve her own status quo – even if she hurts those she loves, even if other Slayers are increasingly showing themselves to be perfectly capable of managing without her. A Buffy who has bought into her own myth as a hero so much that she'll knock people out for getting her name wrong. A Buffy whose first instinct in a tight situation is: "Slay."

Now, I've already seen several posts arguing both these alternatives and offer some pretty convincing arguments, but here's my main argument in favour of #2: the fact that Future!Willow doesn't get a backstory. They introduce a future version of a major character, repeatedly stress the importance of history throughout the arc, and then never reveal it. The only way that makes sense – assuming Season 8 cares about making sense – is if it'll get filled in as we go along. And the only way that's going to happen is if, well, that's the way it goes.

At least for a while yet.

Comments

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

This issue has made me so freaking confused it ain't even funny and I'm seriously disliking long comic-book arcs now.

*sighs*

And Riley's so *not* evil. *nods*

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Come on, there's only two years to go! ;-)

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

Two years?

*wilts*

Good God.

[killerweasel.livejournal.com]

I don't think I want to keep buying these for 2 more years unless they vastly improve. I might stick around long enough to see Faith's return (Buffy will more than likely continue to be an ass with her though. *makes face*).

[(Anonymous)]

I've said it before and I’ll say it again. All beware for the day of the giant mutant gorilla/chicken is coming!

Honestly, I have to say this was one of my favorite issues so far but in saying that I felt very under whelmed by the ending. I agree with your point about killing Willow. There’s unexpected twist then there’s sudden 180 give me your details so I can sue for whiplash. There wasn’t enough motivation for the action and it felt like Dark Horse lost several of the pages and had to print what they had.

BUFFY: . . . And she knows what she's fighting for.

This was an interesting observation by Buffy and an experience I think she’s missing. Back in the day’s of the slayer singular the goal was simple (Kill the bad fairy, destroy the bad fairy’s power center). Now with the slayer plural she’s trying to micromanage every facet of the operation and it’s overwhelming her. This could also explain the way she’s been treating Dawn and why an unnamed slayer yields more of a reaction from her then her own sister’s height being measured in floors.

BUFFY: I miss my home . . . I miss my mom . . . I miss the gang . . . and churros

Buffy yearns for the simple days of the library the prevent the rising from his sunken church, closing the acathla rift, killing the giant snake, stopping the secret military cyborg days. She the one everybody looks to and that’s why she feels so distant and disconnected from the rest of them (side note, I think that’s why it stung so much when Faith went with Giles. Faith ended where Buffy started).

As for Riley, surprising but I don’t think it’s entirely unexpected

Let’s be honest here for a second. I loved Riley’s character but he was not one for the independent thought. Deep in his heart he was a patriot (for both queen and country if you get my drift). He might not have like the way Buffy went about doing things but he knew she was doing it for the greater good. Flash forward to the present where the power has spread, slayers are packing heat and the Zurich Banking establishments are not as secure as they used to be I think that would be enough for him to raise questions. And, with twilight, so far though out season eight his targets have never been the general populous they’ve only been the slayers.

Finally Dawn and Xander . . .

There’s one thing that’s been irking me through out this entire arc. A giant walking tree with a flaming sword approaches and not once did either of them ‘God! What the F%#&ing hell’s that?’ Guess they needed the focus for the wildly inappropriate sex jokes though I did like ‘I hope you die first with the most wounds.’ J.R.R. Tolkien on a sugar high definitely

~ Timan ~

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

A giant walking tree with a flaming sword approaches and not once did either of them ‘God! What the F%#&ing hell’s that?’

Er... they didn't use those precise words, but that was pretty much exactly what their reaction was: incredulity fading rapidly into sarcasm.

DAWN: Yeah. Do I look human to you, tree-boy?
XANDER: And more importantly, did you just say "Thus swears"?
DAWN: What's the deal, anyway? With the fire and the branches and the sword - did you get caught in a legend blender?

Or did you mean that Xander and Dawn should be shocked and horrified by the appearance, of, um, a bunch of not-very-scary demons?

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

There’s unexpected twist then there’s sudden 180 give me your details so I can sue for whiplash.

Heh. Yeah. Well put. :-)

This was an interesting observation by Buffy and an experience I think she’s missing. Back in the day’s of the slayer singular the goal was simple (Kill the bad fairy, destroy the bad fairy’s power center). Now with the slayer plural she’s trying to micromanage every facet of the operation and it’s overwhelming her.

Also a very good point. That still doesn't change, though, that Buffy ought to have some sort of goal, some sort of idea of what she's fighting for even if it's getting ever more complicated to know what she's fighting against. Like I said about the last issue, "saving the world" looks a slightly hollow phrase if it doesn't get more specified: saving what people in what world from what? What was Twilight's weapon, again?

TWILIGHT: The trick is to strip her of her greatest armor: her moral certainty.

Let’s be honest here for a second. I loved Riley’s character but he was not one for the independent thought.

True. But my argument is still the same as it was when we were discussing if Riley might be Twilight: Riley wants to do good. Would Riley stand by and nod approvingly as Willow gets tortured, as Xander and Dawn almost get blown and hacked to pieces, as Buffy almost gets a sword through her head...? I could buy him going against a Slayer organisation if it were faceless; but here he keeps coming up against people for whom he's never been shown to have anything less than friendship and admiration. That I have trouble buying. But obviously, the text disagrees with me here.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Riley's a soldier. When there's a war on killing people who could have been your friends under other circumstances is what soldiers do.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Which is why he stuck with the Initiative and helped them stop the scoobies from rescuing Oz, for instance.

And it's hardly "under other circumstances". Unless the events of s4/s5 in the comicsverse went very differently, they were his friends. Maybe he could choose the opposing side if forced to by circumstances, but I have trouble seeing him smiling and wisecracking about it. But again, there's the text.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

The Initiative wasn't the Army in Riley's mind, or that was Graham's successful pitch. The Army was what he returned to and remained connected to throughout seasons 6 and 7. He was after Spike's demon eggs not to protect Sunnydale but to prevent them falling into the hands of foreign (underline foreign) military powers. He's a soldier whose primary loyalty is to American interests as was Voll's.

Having said that both I and (I note) stormwreath perceived Riley's wisecracking as uncharacteristic so I think (and Scott Allie confirmed) that there will be more back story to come on this one.

[(Anonymous)]

Well let's consider s4 for a second. Here’s Riley working under Maggie Walsh. A woman of strength who he thought was focused on the greater good that ended up betraying his beliefs when she tried to murder the woman he loves then discovers the experiments she did on him.

Now in season eight we almost have the same situation with Buffy. A woman of strength who he thought was focused on the greater good until he discovers she’s using her new slayer army to rob banks and steal guns (okay wasn’t Buffy’s order but the perception rings true).

As for the sarcastic remarks, like I said, he’s not one for the independent thought and it’s wouldn’t be the first time he’d been brainwashed by a higher force then himself.

~ Timan ~

[(Anonymous)]

I figured there'd be more of a reaction then just 'meh'. They'd both barely escaped the glowing snake people into Disney’s fantasia without even flinching. Unless they already knew they were there I would've expected something a little stronger

[killerweasel.livejournal.com]

I had no clue that was supposed to be Riley until you mentioned it in this post because I don't really think the drawing looks much like him. Also don't understand why he'd suddenly be evil either.

Feh.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Also don't understand why he'd suddenly be evil either.

Until further notice, I guess we'll just have to repeat the Season 8 mantra: "he had a good reason, we promise. Just go with it." :-)

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Yes, in this issue Buffy joins the illustrous crowd of Whedon heroes who have murdered humans

Purely technical point but FutureWillow hasn’t been human for some time. Fray sensed it and Willow confirmed the point in the previous issue.


It's to Fray's credit that she still refuses to even consider killing Buffy right up until the very end, and I do like the confrontation between them. When Fray tries to talk to her, Buffy simply says she doesn't care; when Fray more or less begs her to reconsider something that they both think will wipe out Fray's entire world, Buffy not only won't but even finds time to taunt Fray in the process.

I’m not getting this Fray=good Buffy=bad reading when they’re really doing exactly the same things just for different worlds. Melaka gets credit for not going slayercidal until the end but where does Buffy even consider killing Fray as a goal? She defeats her symbolically not literally by breaking the scythe while the force applied to the woman is non-lethal. Buffy is prepared to do whatever it takes to save her world even if it risks the existence of Fray’s particular future. Melaka is prepared to put Buffy’s world through any kind of agony provided it leads to her future and more specifically her family coming to be. I don’t see the conversation you quote as taunting more as laying out the options Slayer to Slayer so both understand where they’re each coming from.


Is there any particular reason Buffy doesn't just knock Willow out of the way? Or better yet, tackle her through the portal and ask questions in the safety of her own New York hotel? How come her first reaction is "stabbity"?

Buffy kills Willow because that’s what Willow tells her she has to do. How else do you interpret:

“You dragged me here and then told me exactly how to get out.”

and her last question:

“Why does it have to be me ?”

Buffy trusts Willow implicity both because she knows her and because she understands all that FDW has done to engineer this including her own ultimate sacrifice.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Purely technical point but FutureWillow hasn’t been human for some time.

True, like I said above. Though the question is if Buffy knows that when she puts a foot of sharp wood through her chest.

Melaka gets credit for not going slayercidal until the end but where does Buffy even consider killing Fray as a goal?

To me, that's almost the scariest part about Buffy here. Killing Fray, by way of wiping her entire world and everyone in it from existence, isn't a goal, true; it's just an acceptable consequence.

Buffy is prepared to do whatever it takes to save her world even if it risks the existence of Fray’s particular future.

Except the way I read it, the stakes (heh) are slightly different. If what Willow told Fray is right, then Buffy going back to her own time will wipe out Fray's world. It's a certainty. Whereas if she doesn't, well... as the issue shows, the 21st century keeps spinning without Buffy. The Slayers manage without her. Buffy's world doesn't immediately go kaboom if she goes missing for 24 hours. Maybe it would eventually lead to Fray's world - though we still don't have it spelled out in so many words, even in Fray's history books, that it happens during Buffy's lifetime. Maybe the 20th 21st century can soldier on without Buffy? Shouldn't that at least give her pause?

I don’t see the conversation you quote as taunting

Calling someone names, playground-style, while they're begging for their right to exist isn't taunting?

Buffy kills Willow because that’s what Willow tells her she has to do.

As far as I can see, what Willow tells Buffy is essentially:
1. The portal is opening again. On the rooftop, at midnight.
2. You will have to "go through" me.
3. The 20th century yada yada.
4. No, I won't tell you what happened, we don't have time.
5. Urgh.

Nobody ever says anything about killing Willow being a necessity. Maybe it took place off-screen, which seems a cheap way to set up such a (supposedly) powerful moment, but nothing in the text says: "Buffy has to kill Willow to get through the portal." Maybe Buffy considers it a mercy killing. Maybe Willow does too. But the portal is already open and all that's standing between super-strong Buffy and it is a slightly built girl who Buffy happens to care a lot about.

she understands all that FDW has done to engineer this including her own ultimate sacrifice

But neither she, nor we, understand why. She has the opportunity to find out in her own time; instead, she kills the messenger.

Though your point about trust is well taken. It seems to be an underlying theme of this entire arc - Future!Willow trusting everyone to play their parts in her Xanatos gambit (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit?from=Main.TheXanatosGambit), Present!Willow trusts Saga Vasuki and Kennedy, Mel and Erin have started working as a team where both trust the other - Erin questions Mel's act at the end of #18, but trusts her. Etc.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

To me, that's almost the scariest part about Buffy here. Killing Fray, by way of wiping her entire world and everyone in it from existence, isn't a goal, true; it's just an acceptable consequence.

It’s a possible consequence depending on whether the Whedonverse tolerates multiple timelines. On a meta level the precedent of the Wishverse still exisiting in Doppelgangland and the Asylumverse not blinking out at the end of Normal Again suggests that it can. Within the story Buffy is no quantum physicist and can’t swear one way or the other. However, if there can only be one true timeline, then were Buffy’s actions on her return to wipe out the Fray future they would do so only in the sense of creating another equally valid alternate future. Fray’s world and everyone in it, by clinging to their own existence, wipe out that alternate future and all the people in that. Would Melaka spare any thought to them? Did Wishverse Giles give a damm about the people in the world Cordelia made?


Calling someone names, playground-style, while they're begging for their right to exist isn't taunting?

Huh? And begging?


As far as I can see, what Willow tells Buffy is essentially:
1. The portal is opening again. On the rooftop, at midnight.
2. You will have to "go through" me. 
3. The 20th century yada yada.
4. No, I won't tell you what happened, we don't have time.
5. Urgh.

You missed out the part about death being the point of it all (To what end?) and who kills being more important than who dies. That’s why Buffy’s question is “Why does it have to be me?”

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Within the story Buffy is no quantum physicist and can’t swear one way or the other.

Of course not. I don't think a quantum physicist could either.

Fray’s world and everyone in it, by clinging to their own existence, wipe out that alternate future and all the people in that.

Except from Fray's perspective, she doesn't live in the future; she lives in the present. She's real. She walks, she talks, she steals, she sneezes. Why would she feel any guilt for an infinite number of possible pasts? Do you ever feel guilty about living in a world where Napoleon changed the world rather than dying young?

OK, "begging" might be overstating it a bit; but still -

MEL: Can you swear my world won’t mist out if you leave? My best bonds? My sister?
BUFFY: It’s called the fate of the world, *short view*.

Telling someone that their entire existence is irrelevant to the fate of the world, and that fighting for it earns them the title of "short view", is pretty cold. I understand Buffy's position here, I really do; she's desperate to get back to her own world and set right what's gone wrong; but it still says a lot about where she's at right now that she doesn't even care about Fray. It's not a pleasant choice Buffy has to make, but she *does* have a choice; Fray hardly does.

That’s why Buffy’s question is “Why does it have to be me?”

And nobody ever says it does. Willow may want Buffy to kill her; nothing says Buffy has to.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Except from Fray's perspective, she doesn't live in the future; she lives in the present.

But from Buffy's perspective she's just one possible future and why should she ransom her present and all the people in it to Fray's future over any less dystopic outcome? Melaka has the same choice Wishverse Giles did. Determinism or hope.


Nothing says Buffy has to.

She has a choice and she chooses to trust Willow. Which given that it's about Willow seems reasonable enough.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

she chooses to trust Willow

I keep thinking about how in mafia movies, they always speak in vague insinuations when ordering a hit; I always expect someone to get it completely wrong.

- Why'd you kill my uncle?
- You told me to! You said our common friend needed to take a long trip!
- I meant "drop my cousin off at the airport on your way to work"! Geez!

:-)

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

:) Willow did say she was no good at tough guy talk. Oops!

[(Anonymous)]

BUFFY: Why does it have to be me?

This brings me back to my point about Buffy micromanaging. Throughout the entire series Buffy has thought and acted like the chosen ONE (underline . . . exclamation point, exclamation point). That’s how she acted with Kendra, with Faith and now with the slayer army. She leads everybody follows there might be hundreds of the super powered ladies around but she’s the slayer. That’s why she’s more hands on as a general then most generals in her position would be.

Which brings us to the rooftop in the future here we have Fray begging for her existence Buffy dismissing it like it was white noise. Because of the ONE complex (I call it Keanuitis) she lives for the present, her present, she can’t think about two hundred years of history when she’s not in the 21 century to save it (the sequence of Buffy going through the old watcher diaries attests to that. She can’t stand failure especially now).

“Now I know why there’s not a prophecy about the chosen one and her friends”

~ Timan ~

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Which brings us to the rooftop in the future here we have Fray begging for her existence Buffy dismissing it like it was white noise. Because of the ONE complex (I call it Keanuitis) she lives for the present, her present, she can’t think about two hundred years of history when she’s not in the 21 century to save it (the sequence of Buffy going through the old watcher diaries attests to that. She can’t stand failure especially now).

But what does 'failure' mean here other than failure to create a better world for the people of Fray's time? What is Buffy apologising for when she knocks Melaka out if she really believes that she's nothing more than white noise?

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, white noise might've been a bit of an extreme response in this case but what I was trying to get at was as much as she'd love to keep both reality's in existence the decision came down to an 'us or them' mentality in which the 'us' win every time.

I think it all comes back to the weight of the world issue with Buffy. Failure for her means something she couldn't defeat (The one syndrome) the fact that there was no mention of the slayer army or her efforts to quell the stem of evil hit her and hit her hard. In a sense Buffy sees Fray as part of that failure. Fray represents the fruit of Buffy’s effort in the present

It’s like doing the best performance of your life and only getting sarcastic applause in return. In saying that Buffy isn't heartless she acknowledges that Fray’s future world is at stake unfortunately the present means more to her.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Yes. *Their* present means more to both slayers than the other's, which is as it should be if even one were to start feeling responsible for the entire multiverse they really would have a God complex :)

I think the thing is I like Buffy best. So while I'm not going to deny she appreciates the applause ( cf The Prom) I still don't see that as her primary motivation. I still think that if she were offered a Chain-like mission where she'd be risking her life and someone else would get all the credit she'd take it in a heartbeat. She also does seem to have some inkling that she's not always going to be all that with the whole one day handing squad leadership over to Satsu thing. But you're right there's a definite source of (dramatic) tension there.

[shapinglight]

I love what you said about Dawn. I knew that wasn't really her.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Hey, even people who love the comics say we get to ignore the bits we don't like (http://stormwreath.livejournal.com/57723.html?thread=1062523#t1062523). ;-) Thanks!

[shapinglight]

Heh! In this case, that means I get to ignore about three quarters of it, including the silly Telly Tubby fight in the forest. Warren and Amy. The Frayspeak. Dawn. Why the hell Buffy didn't just move Future!Willow aside. Etc, etc.

There's a good(ish - by no means that good) story in there somewhere about Buffy losing her way, but all this daft extraneous clutter is spoiling it.

[patches-the-cat.livejournal.com]

Yep,

Agreed 100%.

And real Dawn actually just went back to her home planet.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

Who said that? :-)

My interpretation has always been that when characters say things in-character, we get to interpret their words in the light of their own knowledge, bias and agenda as shown in the rest of the story.

As for Dawn; her size and shape in the comics may be unexpected, but her personality seems pure Dawn to me.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

And again, we also have the timeless adage that fiction, unlike reality, needs to make some sort of sense; stuff doesn't just happen, someone thought it out to tell a certain story. And if Andrew's speech is to be taken as something completely false that we can disregard altogether, it's... well, as pointless as Kafka!Dawn's arc, I suppose. ;-)

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

And if Andrew's speech is to be taken as something completely false that we can disregard altogether

Fallacy of the excluded middle, surely? Andrew doesn't have to be telling the complete unvarnished truth *or* completely making everything up from whole cloth, and nothing in between.

And one thing Dawn's arc seems to be proving is that the shape of the body matters less than the person inside it. :-)

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Well, quite; that's one of the things we agree on, remember? ;-) That you can't just say "Andrew's unreliable" and proceed to declare everything he says null and void and make up your own story about what happened from scratch. If you do, you might as well completely ignore what's explicitly shown in the panels as well.

Especially since the whole thing is being narrated by Andrew anyway. ;-)

[patches-the-cat.livejournal.com]

There are too many girls in the story to be completely narrated by Andrew.

But the whole Xander&Dawn bad trip to Narnia is definetely his work.

"And then, oh gentle viewers, our brave heroes meet an amazing creature. Bark was his skin and aframe were his limbs. He was Lorelahn, the Guardian of the Forest."

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Ha!

Well, I made my points here (http://beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com/75764.html#cutid1) - and so far I see no reason to change it. As washa_way put it in the comments back then:

Also, the crossover with Fray, an alternate-future Slayer? If there's anyone in the Buffyverse other than a member of the Trio who could come up with that, I'll eat my copy of "Days of Future Past (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_future_past)."

Note that that was written four months ago. Note the plot summary in the link, if (like me) you haven't actually read that particular comic.

...Despite her success, the future timeline from which she hailed still exists, but as an alternate timeline rather than as the actual future...

You have a good point about the lack of male eye candy in the comics - the occasional buffness of Xander, Twilight, Riley and Daniel Craig notwithstanding - though I think that could be explained with Andrew over-romanticizing the female empowerment theme of the original series. Which, of course, is canon.

ANDREW: It's like... well, it's almost like this metaphor for womanhood, isn't it? The sort of flowering that happens when a girl realizes that she's part of a fertile heritage stretching back to Eve, and...
XANDER: I'll pay you to talk about Star Wars again.

[patches-the-cat.livejournal.com]

Great read, thanks!
Consider me convinced.

And now that we got Riley in the story...

he is obviously Andrew's stand-in. Dark Mary-Sue. Muscular and manly, seduced by the Dark Side, joining the Evil Mastermind, smart and suave enough to wrap Buffy around his finger.

I bet there will be some Twilight/Riley subtext in the future.

[elisi]

Oh I like how your mind works!

[patches-the-cat.livejournal.com]

Nice review. Bit about Dawn made me laugh out loud.

And this:

"Somewhere, all the writers of Rapist!Riley fics just punched the air in triumphant vindication."

too true.


kudos.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks - and I love that icon. :-D

[patches-the-cat.livejournal.com]

thanks.

that's my first.

[elisi]

Twilight = Edward Cullen.

(Loved the line about Dawn and admire your ability to actually write about it from a more-or-less objective POV.)

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... so far we haven't seen him sparkle, but we haven't seen him in the sunlight either. And he does seem oddly possessive of Buffy and unwilling to actually properly hurt her. Works for me.

Thanks!

[elisi]

I must admit that it wasn't my idea... make haste and read this! :)

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Oh that was brilliant, thanks!