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selenakSomething that has undoubtedly occured to dozens of watchers before me, but bear with me:
Alex' father reading her C.S.Lewis and telling her about them being in Narnia should have been a big, big clue that he was behind the bomb, in retrospect. Because one of the two most controversial things about the Chronicles of Narnia these days surely is that in The Last Battle, every single character we've been following dies and goes to heaven, which is revealed as the ultimate version of Narnia. Except Susan, whose fate would be the other most controversial thing. So Tim Price planning to blow himself, his wife and his daughter up to kingdom come (literally) fits with the Narnia reading in a twisted fashion to absolute perfection.
Of course, thinking of Narnia, the lion picture on the door to Gene Hunt's office would make him an Aslan candidate, which, you know, is just this side of the Jesus imagery used for Gaius Baltar. But it occurs to me that whether or not this is the authorial intention, it's possible to read this whole thing with Alex' father and his Narnia interpretation as a self-critique on the creators' part. Because what does Sam Tyler at the end of s2 if not return to Narnia in a very deliberate choice of Narnia-as-the-perfect-afterlife, in utter dissatisfaction of the 2006/7 non-Narnia reality? Now Sam only kills himself, no one else; Tim Price' idea of not coping with his reality and escaping to Narnia involves not just his own death but his wife's and child's, but isn't the emotional reasoning at least a tad related?
While we're talking about literary references and fantasy realms on both shows, there is a great Ashes to Ashes vid using Elphaba's song from Wicked: The Wizard and I.
I also was motivated to look for fanfic, and found, courtesy of an author I knew from her fabulous Torchwood fanfic: One flash of light but no smoking pistol.
***
I hadn't read Fray when it first came out, but when I came across a trade collection in England, I bought it and read it on the flight back. Fray, for those who don't know, was Joss Whedon's first excursion in the realm of comics, and is the story of a Slayer two centuries into the future, Melaka Fray. He wrote it while BtVS was still being broadcast, and there is a tiny link of sorts in Chosen, but basically you can read it on its own, without any background knowledge. I had stumbled across an individual issue eons ago which I remembered as only so-so, which was why I hadn't read it before, but when I now read the complete story, it bowled me over, and I loved it. Doesn't dethrone Astonishing X-Men as my favourite Whedonian oeuvre post-BTVS/AtS/Firefly, but only barely.
It's an origin story, of course, with Melaka Fray being her own character, neither Buffy nor Faith. The way she hears about her calling is, like the Justine-meets-Holtz scene in AtS, a dark twist on Buffy's first encounter, from yet another angle, and it tells you a lot about the world she lives in; the man in the suit who tells her she is the Chosen one is a nutter who sets himself on fire, and the guy who really fills in the Watcher/Mentor position, Urkonn, is a demon she encounters directly after. Because the environment has gone to hell in the last two centuries, there are so many mutations that vampires don't particularly stand out,and Melaka has another reason for not immediately buying into this whole Slayer thing; she is lacking the visions, the dreams of other Slayers, the spider-sense. She only has the super strength and enhanced healing abilities. There is a reason for that that ties into the main twist of the story, which is the main Whedonian emotional sadism of the plot, the element that makes Melaka's battle with the vampires even more personal than Buffy's versus Angelus in season 2: she's a twin. Her twin brother got the Slayer dreams and visions, and guess what happened to him?
Harth Fray being revealed as the Big Bad, Melaka's main vampire opponent, turned into a vampire a few years earlier when he and Melaka came across one of them by accident, is something you could guess if you know your Joss, but what surprised me was the third member of the family we get presented with here, their older sister Erin. Erin's a cop, and considering Melaka earns her living by being a thief, you can guess they don't get along, but Erin is not made into a villain. If the Buffy-Dawn relationship is a bit more mother and child than sister and sister after Joyce's death because of circumstances, this one definitely is older sister/younger sister without the parental overtones, and I really liked how it was developed througout, and where Erin endd up in the finale. (Back in the day, there was this idea making the rounds that Joss can't/won't write adult women without inflicting dire fates on them, or not at all. I'd say I hope AXM put an end to that, but it probably didn't, since a lot of viewers haven't read it. Anyway. Erin? Adult. Does not suffer dire fate, though is in danger a couple of times.)
If you know your JW vampires and the incestous way the Fanged Four related to each other - between Darla's "darling boy" and Drusilla's "daddy" and "Grandmother" - Vampire!Harth telling Melaka he loves her, kissing her on the mouth and adding things are only just beginning definitely fits the profile, but I think it's the first time the incest wasn't metaphorical in a JW work. Harth himself is an Angelus-style villain, chilling and very effective because of the emotional impact he has on Melaka and the way he knows her, and also interesting because he got half the Slayer package, but without a redeeming feature. If you're looking for bad guys with shades of grey, Melaka's boss (the one she does her stealing for) comes to mind, who sells her out but might or might not have been trying to warn her in advance, and at any rate isn't interested in world ending and mass slaughter. And then there's the fact the non-vampiric demons have their own agenda and aren't too keen on Harth opening the gateway to reintroduce the world to magic again (yet) (there is that vampires = least of all the half breed demons snobbery from AtS striking again), which is where Urkonn comes in. Talk about the "any means for a right end" principle and where it leads to. Melaka figuring out just what Urkonn did to get her into the fight is one of the most devastating and effective scenes, as well as the big coming-of-age passage in the story.
All in all: great comic. Must read it again!
Alex' father reading her C.S.Lewis and telling her about them being in Narnia should have been a big, big clue that he was behind the bomb, in retrospect. Because one of the two most controversial things about the Chronicles of Narnia these days surely is that in The Last Battle, every single character we've been following dies and goes to heaven, which is revealed as the ultimate version of Narnia. Except Susan, whose fate would be the other most controversial thing. So Tim Price planning to blow himself, his wife and his daughter up to kingdom come (literally) fits with the Narnia reading in a twisted fashion to absolute perfection.
Of course, thinking of Narnia, the lion picture on the door to Gene Hunt's office would make him an Aslan candidate, which, you know, is just this side of the Jesus imagery used for Gaius Baltar. But it occurs to me that whether or not this is the authorial intention, it's possible to read this whole thing with Alex' father and his Narnia interpretation as a self-critique on the creators' part. Because what does Sam Tyler at the end of s2 if not return to Narnia in a very deliberate choice of Narnia-as-the-perfect-afterlife, in utter dissatisfaction of the 2006/7 non-Narnia reality? Now Sam only kills himself, no one else; Tim Price' idea of not coping with his reality and escaping to Narnia involves not just his own death but his wife's and child's, but isn't the emotional reasoning at least a tad related?
While we're talking about literary references and fantasy realms on both shows, there is a great Ashes to Ashes vid using Elphaba's song from Wicked: The Wizard and I.
I also was motivated to look for fanfic, and found, courtesy of an author I knew from her fabulous Torchwood fanfic: One flash of light but no smoking pistol.
***
I hadn't read Fray when it first came out, but when I came across a trade collection in England, I bought it and read it on the flight back. Fray, for those who don't know, was Joss Whedon's first excursion in the realm of comics, and is the story of a Slayer two centuries into the future, Melaka Fray. He wrote it while BtVS was still being broadcast, and there is a tiny link of sorts in Chosen, but basically you can read it on its own, without any background knowledge. I had stumbled across an individual issue eons ago which I remembered as only so-so, which was why I hadn't read it before, but when I now read the complete story, it bowled me over, and I loved it. Doesn't dethrone Astonishing X-Men as my favourite Whedonian oeuvre post-BTVS/AtS/Firefly, but only barely.
It's an origin story, of course, with Melaka Fray being her own character, neither Buffy nor Faith. The way she hears about her calling is, like the Justine-meets-Holtz scene in AtS, a dark twist on Buffy's first encounter, from yet another angle, and it tells you a lot about the world she lives in; the man in the suit who tells her she is the Chosen one is a nutter who sets himself on fire, and the guy who really fills in the Watcher/Mentor position, Urkonn, is a demon she encounters directly after. Because the environment has gone to hell in the last two centuries, there are so many mutations that vampires don't particularly stand out,and Melaka has another reason for not immediately buying into this whole Slayer thing; she is lacking the visions, the dreams of other Slayers, the spider-sense. She only has the super strength and enhanced healing abilities. There is a reason for that that ties into the main twist of the story, which is the main Whedonian emotional sadism of the plot, the element that makes Melaka's battle with the vampires even more personal than Buffy's versus Angelus in season 2: she's a twin. Her twin brother got the Slayer dreams and visions, and guess what happened to him?
Harth Fray being revealed as the Big Bad, Melaka's main vampire opponent, turned into a vampire a few years earlier when he and Melaka came across one of them by accident, is something you could guess if you know your Joss, but what surprised me was the third member of the family we get presented with here, their older sister Erin. Erin's a cop, and considering Melaka earns her living by being a thief, you can guess they don't get along, but Erin is not made into a villain. If the Buffy-Dawn relationship is a bit more mother and child than sister and sister after Joyce's death because of circumstances, this one definitely is older sister/younger sister without the parental overtones, and I really liked how it was developed througout, and where Erin endd up in the finale. (Back in the day, there was this idea making the rounds that Joss can't/won't write adult women without inflicting dire fates on them, or not at all. I'd say I hope AXM put an end to that, but it probably didn't, since a lot of viewers haven't read it. Anyway. Erin? Adult. Does not suffer dire fate, though is in danger a couple of times.)
If you know your JW vampires and the incestous way the Fanged Four related to each other - between Darla's "darling boy" and Drusilla's "daddy" and "Grandmother" - Vampire!Harth telling Melaka he loves her, kissing her on the mouth and adding things are only just beginning definitely fits the profile, but I think it's the first time the incest wasn't metaphorical in a JW work. Harth himself is an Angelus-style villain, chilling and very effective because of the emotional impact he has on Melaka and the way he knows her, and also interesting because he got half the Slayer package, but without a redeeming feature. If you're looking for bad guys with shades of grey, Melaka's boss (the one she does her stealing for) comes to mind, who sells her out but might or might not have been trying to warn her in advance, and at any rate isn't interested in world ending and mass slaughter. And then there's the fact the non-vampiric demons have their own agenda and aren't too keen on Harth opening the gateway to reintroduce the world to magic again (yet) (there is that vampires = least of all the half breed demons snobbery from AtS striking again), which is where Urkonn comes in. Talk about the "any means for a right end" principle and where it leads to. Melaka figuring out just what Urkonn did to get her into the fight is one of the most devastating and effective scenes, as well as the big coming-of-age passage in the story.
All in all: great comic. Must read it again!
