Who's your Favorite Buffyverse Villain?

POSTED BY: bobknaptor
UPDATED: Wednesday, August 28, 2002 20:31
VIEWED: 11126
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J

Tuesday, July 23, 2002 1:20 AM

Well, there were stray eps like "When She Was Bad" on to parts of "Normal Again" but neither of those are really about the darker aspects of Slayerpower as such - more about Buffy as a person. They have addressed it, with Buffy's interactions with the First Slayer and Spike - raising the issue of a dark side. But your right that there's been nothing like Faith's arc for Buffy and that it was used as a contrast without having Buffy in a position of having to, uh, repent. They took Faith all the way and sent Angel that way on AtS and... Have Australians seen all of s6 yet? I think everybody has but I'm not sure about them. *sigh* Possible spoilers if you haven't seen s6.

Select to view spoiler:

...and now Willow - which IS a problem because I don't know quite how they're going to swing her return to the fold

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As far as the B&E though, I'm not sure I'd call even that "evil" - I think some things she was doing to people like Xander in "When She Was Bad" were more malicious, whereas that was just juvenile delinquency - but with Slayer-sized potential for trouble. Interesting that Faith also ran numbers on Xander in a similar way. If there was one problem I did have with s3 it was that the season should have been 26 eps long or so - I'd love to have seen them be able to take that arc a little slower and have Buffy flirting on the edge with Faith longer.

J

Tuesday, July 23, 2002 1:22 AM

This was part of the above post but it's another ridiculous ramble on a tangent, so I'm splitting it off, but I have thread-start-o-phobia so I'm posting it in this thread since comments in this thread sparked it. This way people can just skip the post if they want...

I can't help but drift into the "shallow girl" vs. "geeks we love thing" here. This is why I like Buffy so much. In "When She Was Bad" and some of her contests with Cordelia, we see a girl who is smart and sexy and could destroy people like Xander daily with a spoken word. We see that she has it in her to out-bitch Cordelia at her bitchiest. Not to mention that we see what she could be with Faith as an example of the power Buffy has. Yet Buffy is actually a very kind and compassionate person who restrains these powers - both her personal and Slayer-related ones. She was IN the in-group with Cordelia and, being new, was not trying to commit herself too thoroughly one way or the other. But one of the most winning moments early on is when Cordelia destroys Willow for drinking from the fountain. We can see Buffy dismayed by Cordelia's comments and I think she put in a slight defense of Willow, but Willow kind of whimpered and ran off. Buffy loses focus on what Cordelia's rambling about and there's a long shot of Willow looking back down the hall and Buffy looking at her. And later she goes out to talk with Willow and then Xander and Jesse. A lot of people's main reaction might be sympathy for Willow in that long-shot, but I was more impressed by Buffy's sympathy for Willow. My interest went to Buffy. And contrariwise - Willow had no power except illegally hacking (oh, isn't that cute) and equating witchcraft ingredients with stuff in the science lab (oh, how clever) and getting vengeance when she can. Cordelia: Okay, so how do we save it? - Willow: "Hit 'deliver'." So Cordy erases her work with the delete key. Yeah, it was funny as hell but Willow has been about gaining power and challenging Buffy and, when she has power, doing harm with it and stroking her own ego. She's the antithesis of Buffy and I like Buffy.

This isn't the only reason by any means, but it's one important factor. And when people talk about Buffy's self-centeredness... well, she was a Cordelia of her old school and then suddenly she's the Slayer, with the "Weight of the World" on her shoulders and no chance of a normal teenage life - or any other. It IS all about her in the sense that she has to struggle with wanting a boyfriend like most any other teenage girl - but has to reject Owen because her life is about danger and he'd get killed in it. True self-centeredness would be to keep Owen for herself, regardless of her duties, and let him get killed. Faith would say there were more where he came from. And this goes throughout everything in her life. She can't do what she wants, she has to monitor herself and train and struggle with what she wants and what being the Slayer demands and she's not happy about it. She's not some nauseating self-sacrificing saint who likes to do this. But she overcomes it. She does do what she has to, and there's a genuine nobility to that over a very real human frailty. Which is another problem with s6. The responsibilities build and build to the point of having to watch out for the sister/key and fighting a god. And she snaps, finally. And recovers (thanks to the sweet half of Willow - but don't believe for a second Willow didn't love having Buffy owe her a big one) and then dies. And the ambiguity of that is in keeping with the rest. Yes, she "sacrifices herself for Dawn" so she was once again saving the world and putting someone else's needs before her own (in the big picture)... but she was also escaping from this weight once more. It wasn't purely saintly - Buffy might have had enough. Who wouldn't? But s6 doesn't really have anywhere to go after that climactic death. (Another flash - how ironic... and disturbing. I'm pretty well convinced Joss isn't mortal , but there is this: it's almost comparable to Ripley's fate

ZICSOFT

Tuesday, July 23, 2002 1:43 AM

Quote:
...though looking back on previous experiences, some of my best relationships have been with people I would not have expected to like.

Touche! And indeed, the way the relationship between Buffy and Giles evolves over the first three seasons represents exactly that kind of experience.

SHUGGIE

Tuesday, July 23, 2002 12:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by J:
...but there is this: it's almost comparable to Ripley's fate in Aliens III and Aliens IV just did not work... and Joss, while not happy with how the movie came out, was actually partly responsible for that. Yet, contrarwise, he came in to the Aliens franchise for resurrection and began drifting from the Buffy franchise at resurrection.) I mean, c'mon - Buffy's the Slayer. We know she's going to die and we know all evil will never be ultimately defeated. Both Aliens and Buffy are tragedies at bottom and have to end in death and failure after heroic struggle. So does all life. Resurrections are anticlimactic and ring false. (Yeah, Buffy "died" at the end of s1, but "Only a little!")

I hesitate to speak for Joss - especially since he has been known to visit the board - but I will anyway

I doubt that it was specifically the resurrection stuff that drew Joss to Alien 4. I suspect that was largely irrelevant, I suspect that it was the chance to work on a very popular movie franchise and bring something to it. AFAIK it's still his only sole writer credit movie (apart from the Buffy movie of course) - so it would have been a big deal to get the gig.

Also you can bet that resurrection was a non-negotiable when he took the job. They finance was probably dependant on having Siguorney Weaver on board.

I agree Alien 4 doesn't work - but it's not resurrecting Ripley that's the problem - at least not for me.

A good death scene - Alien 3, the Gift (which is a rip-off of Alien 3 in many ways - sorry Joss I meant 'homage to') - is a great ending. But I don't see why a resurrection is a poor beginning.

As for Buffy being a flawed hero - I totally agree. But somehow that doesn't make her the kind of person you'd want to spend time with. Joss's comments on WTTH commentary are basically correct. We identify with Xander and Willow precisely because they are not heroes - not superheroes anyway.

I do think that it's not so much Slayer power as the things you have to do as a Slayer that harden you. Buffy was well on her way to depression before she or even her mom died - it's the job - all that death, all that fighting, all those difficult life or death decisions - and the way the evil keeps on coming. I think over 5 or 6 years it was bound to wear her down.

Shug

ZICSOFT

Tuesday, July 23, 2002 3:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Shuggie:

A good death scene - Alien 3, the Gift (which is a rip-off of Alien 3 in many ways - sorry Joss I meant 'homage to') - is a great ending. But I don't see why a resurrection is a poor beginning.

Well, not as such. It's just very frustrating when you bring a character to some important point in their life -- like the end of it -- and then just negate that whole apotheosis just beause it's convenient. Like the beginning of Alien 3. It's a sequel to a movie where Riply goes through hell and manages to escape with two people she loves. At the end of the movie you're cheering her on, and you're glad that all three of them made it out. Then in A3 the first thing they do is totally negate that by killing off the little girl and the marine. Which is why I never went to see it.

Other example: Hugh the Borg on Star Trek. The good guys set him free from the Borg. Episode ends with warm fuzzy feeling. Then they bring him back in an episode where he harbors a totally abusrd grudge against the good guys. But then, that episode has so many plot holes, what's one more?

That sort of thing has a lot to do with the failure of Season 6. In season 5, they kill off Joyce, and make it very clear that Raising the Dead is very Uncool. Then they kill of Buffy. Naturally everybody assumed they were going to have to do something very very clever to bring her back. But no, Willow just finds a silly loophole in the Osiris Doesn't Give Em Back policy. Very unsatisfying.

Same goes for the changes in Xander and Willow. It wasn't just that their lives got all screwed up. It's that these changes didn't grow organically out of what happened to them before.

BOBKNAPTOR

Tuesday, July 23, 2002 8:08 PM

Yet another reason to watch the Alien series. I am embarressed to say I have *NEVER* seen *ANY* of the Alien movies. I know, I've led a sheltered life.

______________
Why couldn't you be dealing drugs like normal people?

J

Wednesday, July 24, 2002 7:23 AM

Shuggie - yeah, I said that wrong. I didn't mean "for" resurrection like that was why he got involved or that it was his idea. I should have said "at the point of" resurrection. I was just struck by the odd contrast, not really saying that it meant all that much. Just that I'd figure that if he was going to resurrect Buffy he'd want to have more control over the result and it seemed like he left more control over specifics in the hands of other people.

And it's true A4 has a lot of problems. This goes to what Zicsoft said - A3 definitely was extremely abrupt with undoing the resolution of Aliens but I think in a way, Aliens was more the unrealistic ending. The only way to succeed is to stop the story at a high point. The end of any story is going to be death. It's a specific counterstatement to "and they all lived happily ever after" and, though dark, dreary and depressing (and not all that financially successful) I think it was a brilliant piece of bravery and makes the "whole" trilogy a work of art.

I agree, Shuggie, about the hardening aspects. WWII soldiers had a really hard time with it, and Viet Nam even more so, and the military got to rotating people out of action sooner and sooner when possible. Buffy is - kind of the point made with the Initiative stuff - a (nearly) lone soldier in a massive war with no possibility of being rotated out short of death - even if she does wear miniskirts or whatever. And I agree with Zicsoft about the Borg stuff and resurrection stuff on Buffy not quite making as much sense or being as hard-earned as they were supposed to be. And every character was negated in s6 - Australian spoilers?

Select to view spoiler:

- Giles, with not very plausible rationalizations, left; Spike was made to be an attempted rapist; Buffy was made to be oblivious and ineffective; Dawn was a whiny klepto; Tara was killed; Xander left Anya at the altar; Willow was some weird kind of big bad - maybe Anya wasn't too terribly slandered - but all the others were - at once. And I see some logic in Xander being a goof, but not that much. Xander's flaw is more of an arrogance hidden in his dweebishness while he was made to be a coward here: the one thing he isn't. Only the Willow arc makes sense in character development terms and they botched that terribly in actual execution.

Oh, and as to why resurrection should be a poor beginning, it isn't inherently so. You can write the death a certain way and handle the resurrection a certain way and make it work. That much of A4 was actually good. The idea of a Ripley Mark II with a new beginning could have easily been the grounds for a second trilogy as good as the first. But with Buffy all the tension of 1-5 snapped and we got this listless apathetic purgatory of s6 without any new beginning. People complain about s6's "darkness" as though it were bad. Buffy was far darker and more gothic and menacing earlier (as well as funnier). s6 was not dark - it was pale.

bobknaptor - which was the reason to see the Aliens movies? I definitely recommend them, but I wouldn't feel bad about missing them - they're one of the few movies I have seen. I miss almost everything. :)

Sorry about sort of hijacking the thread. I really thought this one was going to be a short post.

SHUGGIE

Wednesday, July 24, 2002 11:25 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:
Like the beginning of Alien 3. It's a sequel to a movie where Riply goes through hell and manages to escape with two people she loves. At the end of the movie you're cheering her on, and you're glad that all three of them made it out. Then in A3 the first thing they do is totally negate that by killing off the little girl and the marine. Which is why I never went to see it.

I agree that killing off Newt and Corporal Hicks was a horrible thing to do - but I was really talking about the end of A3 beginning of A4 not A2 into A3.

Quote:
Other example: Hugh the Borg on Star Trek. The good guys set him free from the Borg. Episode ends with warm fuzzy feeling. Then they bring him back in an episode where he harbors a totally abusrd grudge against the good guys. But then, that episode has so many plot holes, what's one more?

As only a casual Trek fan I haven't seen the later episode but I vaguely remember Hugh the Borg (terrible "Hugh", "you?", "No Hugh" jokes right?). Based on what you say sounds bad.

Quote:
That sort of thing has a lot to do with the failure of Season 6. In season 5, they kill off Joyce, and make it very clear that Raising the Dead is very Uncool. Then they kill of Buffy. Naturally everybody assumed they were going to have to do something very very clever to bring her back. But no, Willow just finds a silly loophole in the Osiris Doesn't Give Em Back policy. Very unsatisfying.

Well for me Season 6 didn't 'fail'. It's my least favourite season so far but I still enjoyed it more than not. I think the resurrection is totally consistent and here's why.

If you look at what happened in Forever you find out that

- resurrection magic is forbidden/frowned on by most Wiccans
- it usually goes wrong in some way, or has consequences
- Dawn's particular spell needed a good candidate ('good DNA'), and someone good at magic, which Dawn isn't

So Forever gives a reason why we don't see them trying resurrection spells every time someone dies, but it doesn't close the door on resurrection all together.

In the case of Buffy they add the 'mystical death' clause. And we do get consequences - pretty much a season full in fact.

Quote:
Same goes for the changes in Xander and Willow. It wasn't just that their lives got all screwed up. It's that these changes didn't grow organically out of what happened to them before.

I an accept that someone might say that Xander's actions were out of character. I think they were set up ok and I accept them. Out of character arguments are always going to be subjective and people do do things which are out of character. Not everything in life is organic growth - some changes are sudden or unexpected - although often they only seem so.

As for Willow - she's always had a dark side and the potential to mis-use power. However if you're talking about the Magic-as-addiction thing - I agree with you. It was too much of a switch from the previous view of magic with no real effort to bridge the gap. It's the one big problem with S6 in my view. If they'd stuck with what they appeared to be doing early on i.e. a 'power corrupts' storyline - then I'd have been happy.

Phew - sorry for the long post.

Shug

SHUGGIE

Wednesday, July 24, 2002 11:42 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:
It's just very frustrating when you bring a character to some important point in their life -- like the end of it -- and then just negate that whole apotheosis just beause it's convenient.

Just had another quick thought on this.

My previous post focussed on why the method of resurrection is not an inconsistency. But this - negating Buffy's apotheosis - is really about the fact of it.

I think that what the writers did here is very clever in that they turned a problem into an advantage. Realizing that raising Buffy cheapens, and in narrative terms, negates the impact of her sacrifice - they make that very negation an in-story theme. The fact that Willow and the Scoobies effectively rob Buffy of her just reward means that we can have this negation and face up to it at the same time.

Shug
who had to look up the word 'apotheosis'

ZICSOFT

Wednesday, July 24, 2002 3:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by bobknaptor:
Yet another reason to watch the Alien series. I am embarressed to say I have *NEVER* seen *ANY* of the Alien movies. I know, I've led a sheltered life.

Not that much worse than me. Never saw the first one because that scene with the alien bursting out of the guys chest was too much for me. But when Alien II came out, I was still a James Cameron fan, and it got good reviews. Haven't seen any of the others.

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