Notes on Buffy 3.13: The Zeppo

[2maggie2]

Standard disclaimer: I'll often speak of foreshadowing, but that doesn't mean I'm at all committing to the idea that there was some fixed design from the word go -- it's a short hand for talking about the resonances that end up in the text as it unspools.

Standard spoiler warning: The notes are written for folks who have seen all of BtVS and AtS.

Comments

[local_max]

It's a good point that this is a step on the right path for Xander, if still a temporary one (he's back to sniping back and forth in Bad Girls). I think there's a fine line between accepting the right of someone else to have their feelings without letting it bother you, and simply ignoring their feelings entirely, and I'd like to think that Xander is closer to the former than the latter. There is just a hint of meanness though, in the way he takes just a tiny bit of pleasure in letting Cordelia dangle with his ambiguous smile. Which, you know, I think is its own revenge fantasy which in its own way continues the cycle. It's ultimately very good that Xander doesn't take Cordelia's bait, and that he doesn't let her define him, so it is a step forward in that sense.

It might just be me, but the way he smiles at the end reminds me just a tinnnny bit of the way he smiles at her in The Wish as a vampire. There's a light and a dark take on everything! :)

It's a good point that Xander also pushes Cordelia out of the back-and-forth that she's trapped in by walking away. They are still, of course, trapped in it in reality (again, they snipe again and again, and in The Prom Xander even seems to start seeking her out). But he is the one who calls it off and allows her to move on from the bullying life.

Cordelia putting on a smile, in a way, is part of her same coping strategy from before; as Queen C she relies both on being both the perfect, delightful May Queen image that people should want to vote for (Marcie tells Cordelia that she will make her smile more brightly than ever before, or some such), and on being the bully who keeps all the undesirables (and her own underlings) in their place. She loses the bullying, but she keeps the smile--and indeed, she never loses that smile, does she? She continues hiding her pain from the world in season two and three. I'm thinking about that scene in The Shroud of Rahmon where a shroud-drugged Cordelia smiles at herself in a reflective surface and says "I am pleasant!" She is usually not pleasant in personality, but on some level she does maintain an image of herself always, and one that can eventually be exploited.

[angearia]

Cordelia putting on a smile, in a way, is part of her same coping strategy from before;

True, but a smile to save someone pain appears so different from a smile that relishes someone's pain. The outward appearance of her method remains the same on the surface, but it's fundamentally shifted to the point where she's smiling out of compassion and self-preservation.

[local_max]

I'm not sure the distinction is so far apart. I don't think May Queen Cordelia's smile is about relishing others' pain. I'm thinking of the same Cordelia fake smile that is associated with, say, her campaigning in Homecoming, or when she's talking about going out with college boys in Reptile Boy--one that isn't about malice but is simply about getting ahead. I'm not so convinced that she's doing anything all that different in City Of. That's not a criticism of her in City Of at all; I'm just not sure whose pain she's saving by smiling, besides her own. Further, I'm not so convinced that there is anyone who would be in pain if she stopped smiling; I don't think it's self-centred of Cordelia to be out for herself at those Hollywood parties, because it's pretty clear that (nearly) everyone there is, and if she showed how upset she was she would lose what slight chance of success she had.

Definitely later on in the series she is smiling to avoid causing pain to those around her--like That Vision-Thing/Birthday etc. There's still an element there of self-protection though (again, not a criticism per se): if she stops smiling they'll make her give up the visions that give her meaning in life.

[local_max]

I think they are significantly different since action isn't solely defined by the primary internal motivation (self-preservation), but also method and the result.

For the people Cordelia emotionally abuses, it's VERY different.

[angearia]

I still think they're significantly different as an action isn't solely defined by the primary internal motivation, but also method and result.

To the people Cordy emotionally abused, they're VERY different.

[local_max]

Why don’t I try again.

When Cordelia is smiling at frat boys, she is not abusing anyone. When Cordelia is smiling at people whose votes she’s trying to attract, she may be a little bit false to them-but she’s not abusing them. When Cordelia smiles as she accepts the May Queen trophy and thanks the people who love her, she’s not abusing them.

When she tells Willow about the softer side of Sears, she is abusing her. When she tells Xander he has no career prospects, she’s abusing him. When she makes fun of Harmony for trying to follow her, she’s abusing her. When she puts down Marcie, she’s abusing her. She may smile when she’s doing those, but that is not the smile I’m talking about. It’s the smile that she gives off when she’s not being abusive that I'm talking about.

[angearia]

The comparison I originally made in my comment above was about the disappearance of the Smile of Abuse, so you can see why I was still focusing on that, yes? Her smiles staying the same in terms of self-preservation that's not abusive is the constant; I'm focusing on the variable.

[eta] Let's drop this, k?

[local_max]

That makes sense. I think we were on different paths. The original point you made was that Cordy traded abuse for protective smile. Then my 'original' point was that she maintained the protective smile somewhat throughout her story, independent of any sort of abuse. That smile is a different behaviour from the smile-of-abuse, and so I wanted to try to explain why I felt you were conflating the two in *my* argument above. Hence my focus on trying to explain my POV there. Definitely, Cordelia becomes less abusive over time; I think my issue is that I am not so convinced her smile while she's abusing, and the one she wears while appealing to those with greater power (the Reptile Boy frat boys, those who could potentially elect her--who for a brief moment have greater power than her) are part of the same behaviour pattern.

Anyway--sorry if I seemed like I was ignoring your point in trying to state mine more clearly!

[local_max]

Sorry--I wrote my reply before your eta! Hope you're okay.

[angearia]

I'm good now, thanks. :)