Buffy and the Final Girl

[angearia]

I've been reading a few links today that led to some thinky thoughts.  It started here at elisi's where she proclaimed "Behold!  I have discovered where S8 came from!" and there's some interesting discussion in the comments.

Comments

[aycheb]

But my point was that those horror tropes are more dynamic and evolving than you seem to give them credit for. They come back but they come back in different, older and wiser forms. I'd add that Buffy is also more than just the victim subverted she began as in the movie. In season one the more obvious source of her is the reluctant hero and being a hero is as much if not more the source of her isolationist tendencies than PTSD from all the personal attacks she survived in victim mode.

I don't think we're likely to agree, I don't see Buffy as damaged in the way you do. I see her early emotional openness as, in many ways, a childish trait, as a child she (although not all children) could afford to trust people, expect them to look out for her. Now she looks out for them.

But it's also interesting to me how the horror trope of sexuality = punishment continues on and on in Whedon's work. If Final Girls eventually grow up, then why hasn't this trope been outgrown?
You didn't comment on my interpretation of the space fuck being just one example of sexuality having mixed consequences, which are rather more complicated than simple punishment (unless the reader wants to see it that way). Sex is complicated. Just because it's not as simple as sex=good more sex=more good doesn't mean that sex=punishment.