The Later Seasons of BTVS: A Love Declaration

[selenak]

Darth Real Life struck with a vengeance these last days. I could get online only very briefly. After a longer check today, and inspired by anniesj's wonderful list of Buffy life lessons, I decided this might be as good a day as any to write my love declaration for the later seasons of Buffy. No, I don't love every single bit and aspect. I'm sure even the people who consider the first three holy writ and anything later sad decline have problems with at least some episodes and/or storyline decisions. (I know I have, but then I like the first three, immensely so, but have not rewatched them as obsessively as the later four.)

1) Joss (and later more of the ME gang) getting experimental with television as a medium.

This starts with "Hush", the glory of which never fails to strike me. At the risk of repeating what has often been said, to do a two-third-silent episode, in a way which not only makes sense within your universe but moves characters' relationships along or makes a point about them (Buffy/Riley, Giles/Olivia, Xander/Anya, Willow/Tara, and introduces an important new character to boot (Tara) is pure genius. Add to this funny, and scary (those Gentlemen still get my personal award for scariest one-episode-only villains), and Chris Beck delivering a fabulous soundtrack.

Next in the experimental mode was, no, not "Restless", but "Who Are You?". Body-switching episodes are a popular gimmick in the genre. (See also: all the Star Treks, Xena, Farscape.) They're usually fun for the actors, giving them a chance to stretch, compare and contrast, and hence also fun for the audience. But I don't think the gimmick was ever used quite as well as Joss did it in "Who Are You?", because it's such a crucial point for Faith. (For example: love and adore "Out of their Minds" of Farscape fame beyond measure. But it didn't really change anything for the characters, did it? Ditto for the Xena/Callisto switch.) Yes, her later breakdown in L.A. is also important, but this is where Faith rediscovers what being a Slayer can mean, beyond "Want, take, have", and makes her crucial decision - not to run away, for the first time in her life, but to go back and save those people in the Church. And the moment is carefully build up to, by letting Faith experience life-as-Buffy. Since this is Joss writing, it's not only a dramatic but funny journey (trust Faith to be the one who spots not just the nature of Willow's relationship with Tara but Spike's secret attraction to Buffy at this point), and I don't think SMG gets enough credit for utterly selling it to the audience. She had the more difficult task; ED was Buffy-in-Faith's-body, plain and simple, but SMG had to play not just Faith-in-Buffy, but Faith pretending to be Buffy, and Faith going through the most important existential crisis of her life. And she did it beautifully.

"Restless", despite some tough competition, is my all time favourite Buffy episode. An episode entirely set in dreams, a love declaration from Joss to his original four, while not shying away from what the fourth season had revealed to the audience' distress - their friendship was not invulnerable, they each had less then sympathetic traits. And the foreshadowing - both the deliberate stuff ("Be back before Dawn") and the things undoubtedly picked up by the ME team later upon reconsideration - is fabulous. As is our first glimpse at the Slayer backstory. Four years later and we still analyse it. "Restless" rules.

"The Body": still is, to me, the most mature, honest way death has been dealt with on TV ever, no matter the genre. It's so raw and compelling you can't watch it too often. And you know, it wouldn't have been possible during the first three seasons. Not just because Joss and the cast were developing all the time but because the character of Joyce for the first two seasons was stuck in the thankless role of being Lois Lane, to quote a title of Yahtzee's about Joyce. No slight intended against Lois Lane, whom I've always liked. But you know what I mean. The person next to the superhero who somehow completely misses all the obvious signals, the one he/she has to provide all the dumb excuses for. This began to change in season 3 after Joyce had learned the truth. But the best season for Joyce, the one which really developed the mother-daughter bond with Buffy with Buffy as an adult, whom Joyce trusted to handle the burdens of an adult, was 5. And only in 5 would we have felt her loss as keenly as we did.

"Normal Again" in season 6 was a not-Joss-written episode, but experimental all the same. It took another popular genre gimmick - the hero gets sick and has to start wondering whether he/she isn't insane, and the reality he/she and we're accustomed with isn't a hallicunation. But when, say, TNG did this (in "Frame of Mind"), or DS9 ("Far Beyond the Stars", and the follow-up episode in season 7), there was never any doubt about which reality WAS the correct one. "Normal Again" played this far more ambiguously, and I'm not just talking about the ending here, but of that little Spike and Xander chat about alternate realities. One viable interpretation I've seen is that both realities presented in this episode are valid, that both Buffies - the one in the asylum, and the one in Sunnydale - are real. In any case, "Normal Again" is also very meta, commenting on the show as a whole, and allows us a glimpse at "that eternal conundrum which is (Buffy's) Brain", to quote Giles. The rage at her friends which she surpressed or channelled into her relationship with Spike, in order to be still able to love them. Her self loathing and fear that revealing herself would lead to instant rejection, as it had done in her memory of telling her parents. And I can't see an episode like "Normal Again" in any of the earlier seasons. It had to be season 6, with the darkness of Buffy's complete alienation after being brought back to life against her will.

"Conversations with Dead People" in season 7, cited by Joss as one of his top ten favourite episodes of the entire show, is also one of mine. And again, it's in the experimental vein. The only Buffy episode where the storylines we follow never intersect and yet all work together. Tying both backwards to season 6 (notably for Buffy and Willow) and forwards (also notably for Buffy, because her "therapy" with Holden the vampire, while not healing her, enables her to deal with Spike from that point onwards, without avoiding him or regressing into their season 6 pattern; plus it showcases the crux of her dilemma in regards to her friends, the superiority/inferiority complex (and people always annoy me by forgetting the inferiority part), and the simultaneous pride and self-hatred her Slayer status causes, which she won't solve until Faith, the embodiment of many of Buffy's issues, comes to town again, and events come to a climax).


2) Characters, characters, characters

While a lot of viewers, it seems, found the Scoobies unlikable in the later seasons and/or didn't really take to the new characters, I had the reverse experience. Take Willow. Honestly, Willow during the first two seasons, when everybody and their dog was in love with her or identified with her, was my least favourite regular. She just seemed too good to be true, too sweet, too obviously adorable, too nice. With season 3, this began to change, because we got a good glimpse at what proved to be an ongoing and ever more problematical Willow tendency - to fix emotional problems not by working through them, but with a spell (this first shows up in "Lover's Walk") - as well as on her tough-and-not-so-nice- side (in a none-cute-manner, I mean - when dealing with a threatening Faith - as opposed to earlier Willow being tough in an adorable/cute manner). Oh, and her literal dark side, as embodied by VampWillow. But the season where I got really interested in Willow in a character was season 4. The Willow who was possessive about Tara, petty about Anya, increasingly high handed about magic but still ready to beat people who hurt her friends to death with a shovel was real to me in a manner adorable shy geek girl Willow had not been.

And Buffy. I had liked Buffy in the first three seasons, though she had not been my favourite character. But the Buffy for whom everything went to hell in a hand basket from season 5 onwards, the Buffy who got increasingly messed up emotionally but still kept trying night after night after night, the Buffy who gave up her dreams of a normal life for Dawn (most poignantly in "Tough Love") before giving her literal life, the Buffy who loved her friends so much she tried to save them from the knowledge of what they had done to her, worse than any enemy, the Buffy who had an ever more complicated relationship with Spike which went from enemies-and-occasional-reluctant-allies over one sided obsessive love and brief shaky friendship to sex and mutually damaging emotional exploitation to mutually healing faith and trust in each other - this Buffy I loved.

And the new (more or less, in Anya's case, since she was introduced in season 3) characters. I had loved season 2 and 3 Cordy, and her relationship with Xander. (And was sorry to see it end.) But by the fifth season, somewhere between "Into the Woods" and "The Body", I analysed myself and realised I loved Anya more. Which didn't stop. Anya the enthusiast for sex and capitalism (I maintain she and Quark would have been made for each other), her increasing love for Xander in his most depressed phase, her prickly friendship with Giles, her adversarial relationship with Willow which turned into understanding each other all too well. Her bluntness. Her strife to find one identity which fit her. Her amused tolerance and at the end even sympathy for Andrew.

Tara's shyness, strangely enough, never struck me as too-obviously-sweet as first and second season Willow's had done. I liked Tara from the start, felt for her when Willow couldn't quite reply to her "I am, you know - yours" declaration and Faith tore her apart verbally, doubly felt for her in "New Moon Rising", and enjoyed seeing her grow more confident over the seasons, into a quiet maturity and caretaking. From her conversation about lost mothers with Buffy to her mothering Dawn in season 6 to her playing mother confessor to Buffy in "Dead Things", I couldn't see anyone but Tara fulfilling this role.

Andrew I talked about at length in an earlier entry, so I'll concentrate on Warren and Jonathan. In my opinion, Adam Busch, Danny Strong and Tom Lenk were the best actors for the arc villains since Harry Groener gave us the Mayor. Jonathan had been an incidental recurring character early on, who got his first large role in "Earshot", followed by "The Prom" and his participation in the good fight in "Graduation Day". "Superstar", besides being a brilliant Jane Espenson satire on the Mary Sue thing, served as a transitional episode, fleshing Jonathan out more. While he ultimately does the right thing in "Superstar", which involves a real sacrifice on his part, it's worth noticing that the episode shows his disconnectedness to the realness of people - rewriting them, and their attitude towards him, as if writing a fanfic and changing the canon characters to his liking. (Is it a wonder people started to identify with Jonathan?) It's this trait which makes his participation in the Trio plausible.

Warren basically is a darker male version of Willow. As she might have been without Xander and Buffy, and with concentrating on high tech only instead of magic. What Warren does to Katrina is simply more literal than what Willow does to Tara, twice. Something which frightened me even more than Katrina's actual death in "Dead Things" was the way Warren could go from an absolutely sincere, desperate "I missed you so… you never should have left me" - to "Go down on your knees" within seconds - and neither emotion was feigned. "There is no us anymore, Warren", says Katrina after the spell is lifted, and shocks the entire Troika into reality by using the accurate word "rape". "You violated me", says Tara to Willow, who one episode later still talks about people leaving for no reason at all to Rat!Amy and can't understand what she did wrong. After all, she loves Tara. No wonder that Willow, when given the means to punish herself in season 7, chooses Warren's form. Willow, looking in the mirror, seeing Warren. The Killer in Me, indeed.

These are only some, but by no means, the only reasons I love the later seasons. Now, where are the season 7 DVDs?

Comments

[kernezelda]

This is a gorgeous analysis.

My viewing of Buffy was fast and compressed. I saw the entire first five seasons over a summer when FX channel was running them two-eps-a-day in preparation for the show to move to UPN network for its sixth season.

Watching the characters grow and change, pull together and push apart, impressed me as much as the witty dialogue and many, many sharp plots and clever twists.

I'm afraid I never felt the Andrew-love that grew in the last two seasons, anymore than I ever felt Crais-love in Farscape. Both of these characters committed murder, and though Crais redeemed himself at last, I never saw that in Andrew. He seemed removed from all the people with whom he interacted, and the big scene that meant his redemption only seemed to me to be about his fear for himself, not any genuine remorse for his actions. (I'm being vague because I don't want to be spoilery.)

At any rate, BTVS was a pleasure to watch. It's equally a pleasure to read analysis and deconstruction such as yours.

I'm glad I found your LJ.

Thank you!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, compressed viewing - which is possible via videos and now DVDs - shows how the season arcs work beautifully, and one doesn't mind the occasional avarage or weak episode (which every show has).

Andrew: I thought what was crucial in the scene in question was that he felt empathy with Jonathan, not just fear for himself. All the three geeks started out season 6 with feeling removed from what there were doing to others (if you think about it, they might never have been the supervillains they fancied themselves, but they put Buffy through hell several times), like they were playing a video game. Then Katrina's death happened, which woke Jonathan and Warren up in several ways (Jonathan realized what he was doing and from that point on tried to find a way out, then to make it up, Warren realized what he was doing and that actually, he didn't feel that bad about it), but Andrew kept up the denial and fantasy world thing until season 7.
Then, he did wake up, gradually. I think the first sign Andrew was starting to realise what he was done, and that he wasn't in Neverland anymore, came in "The Killer in Me" when he saw Willow-as-Warren and was visibly, genuinenly shocked and disturbed. Then, in "First Date", he was scared as hell yet didn't take the easy way out, or the fantasy bait, as he would have done earlier, but actually defied the First and was genuinenly brave. But the complete realisation didn't hit him until Buffy forced him to face what he did in "Storyteller".

And consider Andrew in his last scene, in "Chosen". Earlier Andrew wouldn't have resisted the chance to make himself the hero, to turn what happened into him as Luke Skywalker/Han Solo/Indiana Jones/Captain Kirk/whomever. But end of season 7 Andrew, despite being stunned at being alive, thinks only about comforting Xander. He uses his storytelling gift for the last time to rewrite Anya's death in a manner which helps Xander cope, and he does it for Anya and Xander, not for himself.

The thing is, in the Jossverse, you don't have to die to get redeemed. Sometimes you do. (Doyle, Anya, Spike.) Sometimes you don't. Life actually can be tougher than getting the martyr death. (Faith, Willow.) And that's the beauty of it. Surely, if we can enjoy Faith's arc, and remember that at one point, she was killing without even a flicker of interest in the reason (the professor in GD II) and was ready to help the Mayor to eat the entire school, that she would have tortured Buffy and Willow and did torture Wesley, we can enjoy Andrew's?

Re: Thank you!

[kernezelda]

I must have missed that in the Andrew arc. I'm afraid he put me off too much because of his early immersion in fantasy. I just couldn't empathize with him very much, and paid him less attention as a result.

Awesome.

[superplin.livejournal.com]

This is excellent stuff! I'm in a hurry right now, so can't comment further, but I agree absolutely with everything you say.

I liked the early seasons fine, but the later ones were what really cemented my love for the show and turned it into an obsession.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I arrived here via plin's journal. Great stuff. Also rushing, off to work, but CWDP makes my top ten list too, amongst stiff competition. Also agree with your view of Warren.

[asta77.livejournal.com]

Excellent observations all. I've never much cared for season 1. It did a good job of setting up the show, and there were a few very good episodes, but, overall, I can see why I did not start watching the show until season 4. Still, it provides an excellent reference to see how far the series has come.

Season 3 is another season in which there are several episodes I greatly enjoy and it gave us a wonderful villian with the Mayor, but I fail to see how this season garners so much praise. There are a great deal of writing inconsistancies both in Faith's character arc and the B/A relationship (which became nauseatingly schmaltzy and melodramatic for me).

So, I'm with you on sharing the seasons 4-7 love. I actually adore season 4. The season viliians may have been weak, but it was a season full of brilliant stand alone episodes, the addition of Spike as a series regular, and the fracturing of the Scooby Gang which would come back into play in seasons 6 and 7.

With you on season 1

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I think the only episodes I watched more than once were "Angel" (because of my darling girl Darla) and "Prophecy Girl". Not to say the others were bad, but compared with the goodness to come, they, to me, weren't just as compelling.

The melodrama of B/A in season 3: I think the writers themselves felt it went over the top at times, hence the clever parody in "The Zeppo". (B/A scene complete with theme music, Xander enters, music stops, B and A have normal dialogue with him, Xander exists, music starts again complete with overwrought dialogue). But I do have a soft spot for "Amends" (don't kill me!) and the Orgasmic Feeding Scene in Graduation Day II. Oh, and the Buffy/Faith/Angel triangle in "Enemies" isn't too bad, either.

Season 4: What you said.

[oyceter]

Thanks! I love the later seasons, so this was a refreshing contrast to "how Buffy was at its height in season 2 and never went back." I'm still working my way through season 4, and so far, I enjoy it. I love having the gang splintered, I love their identity crises so far, and I love how I can watch season 4 and think about how it leads to the increasing alienation that cumulates in season 6. I have a special fondness for season 5 and the Dawn-arc because that's where I really started watching. And although I didn't realize it the first time, after season 6, watching Buffy's very visible descent into shouldering responsibility for Dawn in Tough Love, watching her fall apart and not being able to deal with everything has an increased significance.

And the Trio post Dead Things frightened me in a way that very few Buffyverse villains did. In fact, Dead Things, despite being unexperimental format-wise, is still one of my favorite episodes of Buffy and other humans reaching deep into their dark sides.

Dead Things...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

...is one of my favourite episodes and one of the best things Steven DeKnight has ever written, AtS glories like "Deep Down" notwithstanding. Both the Buffy and Spike storyline and the Trio storyline were utterly compelling and as you say, fantastic investigations of the human dark side.

And I didn't want to give the impression I only love the experimental episodes. For example, I love the utter unexperimental "Wild at Heart" and "New Moon Rising" in season 4 and of course the flashback heavy "Fool for Love" and "Selfless". Hence the "SOME" in things I love about the later seasons.

Dawn arc: oh yes. The Buffy and Dawn relationship to me became as central to the heart of the show as the Buffy and Giles one earlier, or the one between Buffy, Willow and Xander.

Re: Dead Things...

[oyceter]

And I didn't want to give the impression I only love the experimental episodes.

Oh definitely not. It just seems that sometimes the
"normal" episodes get ignored. But then, I figure many of the experimental ones serve as great points for bringing people in. The Body, for me, is one of the most haunting pieces of television or film ever. I've only seen it twice, but the impression it makes is very, very deep.

Love Dawn and Buffy, which is one of my favorite relationships on the show... I've never been annoyed with Dawn like most people.

Re: Dead Things...

[rozk.livejournal.com]

And the most amazing thing about 'Dead Things'? He wrote it under the sort of real pressure of time that normally produces the show's weakest episodes. Sometimes, things turn out for the best.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I think the remark you made the other day about where we enter into the series was right. I was mulling reactions to the seasons, and things just seemed to click into place after reading that.

I actually came in at the beginning of season 4 when the WB came into Albany and caught up in a huge chuck the following summer through videos. Season 5, I caught regularly... this is my favorite BTW although that can vary some... just depending... Then they went to cable and I didn't start watching season six until January (again caught up in a block with tapes)... I also began the online fandom about January, and that probably changed some of my viewing and reactions. Almost certainly, because there were so many strong reactions.

Anyway, I don't seem be disturbed by season 4 or any of the prior seasons. Really loved two and three, and like others, Welcome and and Angel and Prophecy Girl. Still wondering why the Master's bones didn't dust. I'm not as into season six as the rest of the people I read; but, I think this is the point at which a certain expectation set had come in. Feels a little silly when I stoop to criticize, really, given that fact that I love the show as a whole and don't watch much other television. And I enjoy all the different dialogues on the seasons, especially now that Joss's work is at a pause point.

My dream someday would be to have the time to sit down and watch the whole seven seasons from start to finish, because every time I go back it just seems to deepen the experience. We've been rewatching Angel S2 tapes this week and I'm having a similar reaction. Had we all the world and time...

Re:

[oyceter]

Yeah, as stated previously, I started watching sometime right after Smashed, when I was hooked thanks to a showing of FFL on FX. And I watched most of season five first, then six, and that's what formed my initial impression of the Buffyverse. And there was no disappointment going back and watching old episodes because I was thoroughly spoiled, knew that Joss and ME weren't going to mess up the storylines ahead of time, so I could just watch and enjoy. I find my viewing experience is actually much more enjoyable when I'm thoroughly spoiled...

I'm currently wending my way through all of Buffy, haphazardly. I haven't seen most of one, seen all of two, all of three in order, and am now starting on four. Half of this is to make the boy appreciate the show ;).

Yay for 4-7!

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

*cheers*

Though I'd definitely put Once More, With Feeling into the great 'experimental' episodes category (what I loved about that is that we had, essentially, been trapped into a place where it looked like there was no way to move forward, and the musical forced the characters to take the next step.), though I do have issues. Namely, the Xander thing that makes no sense. Logically, he can't have done it - he sang in I've Got a Theory and suggested that it was something else. Dawn's the only one who didn't suggest something else in song (well, except Spike, but I really doubt it was him).

But yes! Much love.

Re: Yay for 4-7!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I forgot the musical among experimentals, especially since I love it to bits.

I'm afraid that, though clumsily handled, Xander's culpability is beyond doubt. We did see Dawn pick up the amulet in the store AFTER the singing had already started. Also, just to hammer the message in, during Anya's musical flashback in "Selfless" we hear him mutter "just...want a happy ending".

As to why he was able to pretend during "I've got a theory" - your guess is as good as mine... just write it off to the same plot hole demon who caused the infamous "you're my sire" exclamation in "School Hard" when we later find out Spike was sired by Dru, not Angel.

Re: Yay for 4-7!

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Still makes no sense. Dawn doesn't either though, you're right. It's hard to think that Xander could have done it when they tell us that the songs are all truthful. And if they're not, then that brings up a ton of issues. If Xander did it, that means that he could lie in song. Which means that either a) anyone could lie in song or b) the rules are different for the person who summoned the demon. Except we saw him sings truths he didn't want to. The only person who doesn't sing stuff that they don't want to is Willow, but she has no reason to summon Sweet.

That whole bit makes no sense, though it does fit in with one of the themes of Season Six, that the Scoobs are their own worst enemies.

I know! I know!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Due to pre-nuptial stress and general Hellmouth turbulence, Xander, without realizing it, again split in two. This time, though, it was suave Xander who blundered; he did the research and summoned Sweet. Meanwhile, goofy Xander who didn't know anything about Sweet sang with the others "I've got a theory".
While Buffy visited Spike that evening, the two Xanders met again and were hastily reunited into one Xander by Willow, who at that point was powerful enough to do it on her own. The reunited Xander, of course, knew what happened, hence his muttering about it during Anya's "I'll be Missus", but didn't dare to tell anyone until the situation at the Bronze arose.

Re: I know! I know!

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Hee!

Well, that makes more sense than the episode gave us, so I'll adopt that theory.

[scarlettfish.livejournal.com]

I read this last night, but didn't have time to coment till now. I just wanted to say thank you so much for writing this. I've been watching since day one, and whilst I love the high school years, it's Seasons 4-7 that I'm really, really in love with. And you just articulated some of the reasons why.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I love your analysis, especially the points about Buffy and Anya. I came into the show with the season 6 beginning, so when I fell in love with the characters I fell in love with their older counterparts, unlike so many others who loved them during the high school years. I liked Cordelia in reruns, but I never loved her like I loved Anya. I felt bad for reruns of 17-year-old Buffy, but while she was angsting about Angel all I could do was mentally shake my head and think, "Oh honey, if you only knew how much worse it's going to be." The Buffy in my head is not a bouncy Valley Girl with boyfriend problems and a scary future, she's a harsh but beautiful woman who has seen all the darkness in herself, lived that scary future, and come out of it wiser.

I also agree with you on the Trio actors. They really were splendid-- the mix of pity, humor, and scariness was wonderfully carried out in their performances. Warren was to me the mostly psychologically disturbing villain, if only for the common human mysogyny he represented. And your point about how Warren was a foil for Willow's character... isn't is tweaky to think that in The Killer In Me, where that paralell was most prevalent, we saw that Willow didn't feel guilty about killing Warren, she felt guilty about betraying Tara's memory. Oh yeah, that darkness is in her.

Andrew-- I withheld liking Andrew for a long time, because I couldn't understand why they would tolerate a guy they knew murdered his own best friend on behalf of their enemy. But eventually Tom Lenk won me over, and the ignoring of his sins was so much a part of his character.

The Buffy in my head...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

...is the same as yours, though I find it poignant to look at the bouncy girl she used to be, in the same way one looks at Frodo at the start of LOTR, or John Crichton at the start of Farscape.

Re: The Buffy in my head...

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

John Crichton's a good example. Though I noticed the changes in him less when they were happening than I noticed Buffy's changes. But then by season 4 of Farscape, you look back, (especially during the Earth episodes) and you realize that John's practically a different person entirely. A little quieter, and little faster, and a lot more ruthless.

And he knows it, too.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

"What I've done, and what's been done to me", to quote from Terra Firma. (Would fit Buffy, too.) Now my experience with Farscape was something like your Buffy experience, since a friend did lend the first three seasons to me and I caught up with current broadcasting by the fourth. So I did notice while it was happening.
Still, watching season 1 on DVD recently and seeing pre-Ancients, pre-Scorpius John in white and innocence was startling.

Re: And he knows it, too.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Still, watching season 1 on DVD recently and seeing pre-Ancients, pre-Scorpius John in white and innocence was startling.

I got the same startled feelings when SciFi channel began their late-night reruns of the whole series. John was so innocent.

"What I've done, and what's been done to me"

My heart really broke for him in the second to last episode of the series, when he's sitting with Aeryn talking about the bomb he made, and what will he do tomorrow? How many will he kill then? What I liked so much about the show and his character is how he's unwittingly become such a force in this new galaxy, and the way his very alienness has caused the politics of the new environment to wrap around him, and thus change him. And then his belief system causes him to react just a little different than everyone expects (for better or worse), because they don't understand him. And how much did I love his Cowboy Speech about the glory of American Capitalism? IT was hilarious.

[lynnb.livejournal.com]

This is a wonderful list. I have been watching from the beginning, but I have a deep love for seasons 4-7 - it's when the kids I loved grew up, and found the world to be as scary and daunting as the monsters they faced in order to save it. I felt for them as they stumbled and righted themselves as best they could. I love your characters assessments as well, especially Buffy. So many people either get her wrong, or ignore what is good in her and just concentrate on her faults. It's all there, you just have to look. It's a tough gig, being the flawed hero who perseveres.

That is why Buffy...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

...became my favourite character. She's a layered, fascinating individual precisely because she is so scarred emotionally.

It's a lose/lose position, being the hero; if you do things right, it's declared boring and to be expected, if you do things wrong because your creator has written you with flaws, it's more often than not deemed unforgivable.

Ohh, pointy-ness

[cadesama.livejournal.com]

That is a very, very fine analysis of Willow and how her mind works. Unfortunately, I don't believe that ME realized the full consequences of her characterization or made the proper moves in the show to deal with it. I often think that the writers were just as enamored of the character as the early fans were. The first appearance of Willow's darkness makes me shudder because there so few differences in the consequences between it and her killing someone. Willow bakes cookies and everything is better.

I thought this was fittingly summed up in Willow's cross-over meeting with Wes. While I know that Wes was supposed to get the message that a mistake didn't mean an end to your life or personality, I got the message that ME had dropped the ball of Willow's redemption very far and very hard.

The new characters, on the other hand, are the reasons why I didn't give up on the later seasons. So Buffy was depressed all the time (understandable given the circumstances, but I thought the circumstances were contrived) and Xander was ignored, I got Anya and the Geeks of Doom to play with! Oh, and Tara. Beloved Tara who I had to convince a friend was Will's new love interest - it greatly amuses me that slash/unconventional shipping instincts won me a canonical argument.

Oh, and very very good point about Warren as the male version of Willow. I only wish The Killer In Me had dealt with that.

Willow in season 7

[selenak.livejournal.com]

See, I didn't get the "Willow bakes cookies and everything is better" impression for season 7 Willow. On the contrary. Her scenes with Giles at the beginning make it quite clear that she's in a world which DOESN'T give her the martyr's death solution out of what she did. (Remember, she tells Giles she thought he'd kill her or lock her away forever, and she still went with him to England willingly.)
Once she was in Sunnydale, we saw the change most pointedly in her relationship with Anya. The old Willow despised Faith and Anya; this sadder, wiser version understood Anya for the first time. She also understood that Buffy did in fact suspect her, and couldn't afford the unconditional belief Xander provided; and part of Willow's scenes in "Conversation with Dead People" were about living not just with the loss of Tara but with what she did. Incidentally, here and in "The Killer in Me" I think ME is going meta on the fans about this subject. Why don't you kill yourself, "Cassie" suggests. She should be punished, Amy rants. Both were fannish reactions in several quarters. To which the narrative replies: No. She's quite aware of what she did, she never will forget it, she's living with it, and life does go on. We will see it echoed, in a way, with Andrew who doesn't get the atonment-through-heroic-death either.
I found that a relief from the fannish puritanism which sees capital punishment by author as the ONLY solution.

Re: Willow in season 7

[cadesama.livejournal.com]

Initially, I felt that we *weren't* going to get the typical Willow cope out. The scenes with Giles as well as her ordeal upon reaching Sunnydale gave me hope. I thought there were going to be consequences for her actions I thought there were going to be serious discussions of how deeply she had hurt everyone.

I never wanted her to die. I wanted her to have a scene like Andrew's in Storyteller. In fact, rewatching it Tuesday I thought to myself this is exactly what Willow needs. What gets me about Willow in season 7 is not so much that she is basically the same old Willow - which I believe she is - or that she doesn't seem to carry any burden of guilt, but that she never apologized.

I admit, there are a few episodes I've missed and I've only seen most of them once anyway. Maybe I'm forgetting something. But the Willow I saw didn't apologize to Xander or Buffy or Giles or Anya for trying to kill them, for disappointing them, for failing the world and herself and Tara so horrendously. She doesn't apologize to Dawn for letting her find Tara's body. And I know that last point could be contended, but I think her darkness is summed up entirely by that. No one else's pain could possibly be as important as hers is.

But she is accepted back with a hug. No apologies. No "trying to make it right" to her friends. Just jokes and sympathy for Anya (tho' I didn't see that there with Faith) that I find to be a paltry replacement for atonement.

Er, yeah. I kinda don't like Willow in seasons 6/7.

[electrcspacegrl.livejournal.com]

Hi. I found this post through mutant_allies and I really like it. You mentioned that "Conversations With Dead People" is one of Joss Whedon's top 10 favorite episodes of the show. Do you know the rest of his top 10 favorites? I'm just curious to know.

Joss' Top Ten

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Included, out of my memory, in no particular order, Prophecy Girl (because it was his first directing/writing and Buffy's first death, he said), Innocence, Doppelgangerland (because of A.H.'s performance), The Body, Hush, Restless and Once More With Feeling. I don't have the URL for the interview anymore, otherwise I'd look the rest up - sorry!

Re: Joss' Top Ten

[electrcspacegrl.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[rosiew.livejournal.com]

okay you know when you read something and its just perfect? I just got that feeling, this was perfect. The character analysis especially was, in my opinion, spot on. hee! you made me want to break out my season 4 dvds again. thankyou for writing this.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome. And hey, any excuse to watch those episodes again.*g*