Comical

[aycheb]

BtVS fandom, a large unruly clan famous for constant internecine wars that had just begun to settle down when the Jossfather decided to hold a big drunken re-union in comic form. Fist-fights are already threatening to break out on the lawn.I don’t think I realized quite how prophetic these words would turn out to be when I wrote them. Or that I

Comments

[norwie2010]

Thank You for taking the time to write this down. :) Have to sleep right now but will come back to it later.

[aycheb]

Talk to me.

[norwie2010]

Gee, bossy much? ;-)

[londonkds]

This post doesn't seem to be on DW: have you stopped crossposting?

I have to confess that S8 has made me dislike Buffy as a character for the first time ever, not because of her interactions with any of her ex-boyfriends but for her general refusal over the course of the story to recognise that she isn't up to the job she's taken on and either up her game or find someone who can do it. Of course, I understand that most of it isn't her fault but down to Whedon's storytelling flaws for the story he wants to tell. Firstly, the typical solipsism of Hollywood "all that matters is the protagonist's personal development" storytelling when applied to stories which allegedly have large-scale stakes. And secondly the common tendency nowadays to treat superheroing as somehow analogous to amateur creative artwork rather than, say, piloting or emergency medicine.

[aycheb]

No but most of the people still talking about the S8 comics still seem to be on LJ. I think there was one previous post on the subject I didn't crosspost but everything else I do.

her general refusal over the course of the story to recognise that she isn't up to the job she's taken on and either up her game or find someone who can do it. I don't know - the story begins with her all too aware she has no idea what she's doing and although she's a figurehead for the organisation, until the shit hits the fan when vampires go pubic there seems to be a whole lot of delagation going on with individual squad leaders acting semi-autonomously and people like Giles and Willow mostly doing their own thing. What job in particular do you think she's taken on that she wasn't up to and who else could she have trusted to do it for her? She did call Riley in but what other contacts does she have or could make and trust not to shop them all to W&H/ demonic factions / anti-terrorism authorities? On the Doylian side of things, it's not turned out to be a

[londonkds]

Exactly. She has five hundred Slayers under her, not to mention anyone else who is connected to any of them who they could bring in. The fact that she's been trying to do all of it on her own, even the parts she doesn't have a clue what to do, is the catastrophic mistake that she hasn't come close to realising she's making.

[angearia]

Sometimes I think that I'm the only one who still loves and feels bad for Buffy in S8.

Hey now. :)

[aycheb]

Seconding angearia :)

[norwie2010]

1) The feminism thing. For me, "Chosen" worked allright as a metaphor of empowernment, much in the same vein as Your thoughts. (Most anti"Chosen" resentment seems to come from a place of individualism - the ideology - which seems rather silly to me, since the whole thing is about collectivism in the first place. But then, people desperatly clinging to individualism cannot accept "Chosen" in the first place

[norwie2010]

Also: On stalinism. I'm not sure if the "new universe" is really the failure of the revolution - or it's fulfillment (if it really started with the slayer spell - Twilight could also be a hitchiker of the revolution, twisting the outcome to it's desired effects). The old world has to die/change to make a successful revolution. If the world's really gonna change - it has to change all over. But then, Kitty is depicted as an evil, soulless thing. So who knows. Stalinism saved Europe and China - but was also the end of the revolution.

[aycheb]

I got that idea of Twilight as Buffy's brave new world from #11 where she does talk about the Salyer spell as trying to move forward to something better (and glow is all around in the visuals of Slayers being called). But on reflection Buffy isn't the only one with a revolution in mind. The General Voll version of Twilight, his dream of a world without magic (Imagine there's no heaven) is just as radical an ideology albeit a conservative one, built on nostalgia for the world the human authorities thought they were the real power behind. Before they found out about demons and witches and Slayers. Something about General Not!Voll in #38 makes me suspicious that he and his kind only went along with Angel's charade because they believed it might lead them to the seed so they could destroy it. This would make Angel doubly duped, by Twilight his daughter and by Twilght the organisation. Dumbass.

[norwie2010]

This would make Angel doubly duped, by Twilight his daughter and by Twilght the organisation. Dumbass.

Oh, You have the weirdest, bestest wierd ideas ever. :D

Hm, this gives the counterevolution (as we are calling it now) a whole new agenda. Not only the restoration of the "before" - but moving forward to a new goal, too.

So, we have 2 revolutions - and both are bad?!

[norwie2010]

2) I never was much of an AtS fan. It always seemed too much of a boy’s own fantasy of dark knights and dead damsels...

Oh, i like You! :) Down to the episodes You like. :)

If Angel comes around in the last issue(s) - then what's up with the "counter revolution" story? Or the self empowerment story? We are treading awfully close to "man setting woman straight" (counter revolutionary saving the day) territory. I can imagine certain ways to do this without coming off that way - but the comics don't have a good history in that aspect...

And, even though i'm not a fan of Angel - i do get why people are pissed off at what we are shown. Sure, i can build up my own narrative in my own mind and, like You, i can see Angel ending up as the figurehead of twilight. And, sure, we do get 4 issues of "Angel explains himself" - but it is still full of confusing bullshit backstory, illogical leaps and rather melodramatic follow up