How's Mark Doing?
So I've been to busy to follow Mark as he watches season 3 of Buffy. To those of you who do follow him, how's he doing? Is the Buffy/Angel stuff grating on him to (it's my biggest complaint about season 3 - there are some flawless episodes there, but the season long arc is ruined by Buffy and Angel's nine-month long breakup. One that will
( Read more... )
Or there's a few people who feel the Buffy/Angel End of Days/Chosen scene deliberately uses soft lighting to romanticize Angel's return to the show, displaying the relationship through an air of nostalgia and decidedly lacking in reality. And then transitioning out into the dark where Buffy sends him away, essentially gives him a kiss-off, and goes back to Spike. (Film 101 of lighting choices ~illuminating~ the narrative.)
The gauzy soft lighting that frames Buffy's eyeline of Angel contrasts with the orange luminescence shown between Buffy and Spike in the climactic "I love you" scene. Both scenes involve the world falling away, but Buffy and Angel's is a skip down memory lane into a past that never really existed but has been constructed as its own fairytale to comfort them (and Buffy acknowledges this aloud when she wonders about the high points of their relationship -- notably after she's left the gauzy light of self-delusion to return to the graveyard shadows with Angel). Where as Buffy and Spike are caught within each other's gazes as the world ~literally~ falls away, stones crashing around them, the world going to kingdom come and they are caught in the moment, and the Spuffy Watchword REAL again dominates their dynamic.
The scenes and the ships are set in opposition of each other: we have the manufactured, self-deluding romanticism of Buffy's POV, how she sees Angel upon his heroic arrival and how there's a part of her that still wants to romanticize her high school romance with him. Buffy and Angel's mutual inability to see each other clearly is set in direct opposition to Spike's seeing "the best and the worst of her" and Buffy believing in him to the point that she can literally see his soul.
For me, the Buffy/Angel scene in End of Days/Chosen is akin to the Angel/Spike satire in Season 8 #36 when Spike's busy working the problem and being a detective while Angel's getting lost in his own ego and image.
So no, I really don't hate that scene and consider it fanservice. I think it speaks to a basic truth of human nature: that people retreat into romanticized notions of the past when facing a dire, uncertain future. Better to live in a softly lit fiction that has no power to hurt you (because you can't be together, just have stolen moments of self-delusion) then to live in a present that can cut your heart from your chest.
Reply
Reply
And the consequences are - horrible. You can only truly grow up when revisiting ("working" through, one could say) the "softly lit fiction that has no power to hurt you" (and it is only consequent that the last remaining parental figure dies right away at this threshold - you're an adult yourself, now).
Back to your main point: I actually agree and i don't think that scene is jarring. Angel comes blazing into town to bring the solution - only to leave in his CEO style limousine humbled.
(And he's knocked out during the climax of the Buffy<->Caleb fight. Angel: Giles much?! ;-)
In between the harsh fight (of all of season 7), this softly lit scene bellows "romanticism" - when the whole narrative hinges on "shed your romanticism!"
Buffy leaving hellmouths, apocalypses, the world bigger than life (and a vampire lover) behind.
Reply
That's an idea that local-max and I have been discussing for quite a while now. That Season 8 delves into the symbolism of "Chosen" in a big way when it comes to exploring Buffy/Angel. The difference between "Chosen" and 8.33 is that Buffy accepts Angel, under far worse circumstances, because she's not at a point where things are starting to make sense (lol cookie dough, but that's what it means for her), where as at 8.33 she's totally lost and despairing. She can reject nostalgia when she's strong, but when she's weak, when she's been beaten and degraded and demoralized the entire season? Boom.
the whole narrative hinges on "shed your romanticism!"
Buffy leaving hellmouths, apocalypses, the world bigger than life (and a vampire lover) behind.
WORD
Reply
Reply
+1
Incredibly fitting considering how Gile and Angel work together both in the series and in Season 8 to keep Buffy in the dark, so to speak.
We also see this tendency in "A Weight of the World" when Buffy's longing for her childhood days when she was just a big sis -- and not both Slayer and ~mother to Dawn.
Reply
Reply
Interestingly enough, i only got the Giles-Angel parallels once the show was over.
Coming to LJ certainly helped my education!
And yes! to Your second paragraph - it is a pattern Buffy/all of us exhibit(s) over and over again.
(WAAAH! Now i want to think and talk about the comics as they're continuing the narrative and the patterns!)
Reply
(ceciliaj and I are talking narrative and patterns below!)
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Yes, I love this idea. And it's funny, because, on the one hand, we keep getting this narrative of "people like it better when Buffy's the underdog," but then people feign shock and disapproval when it comes to the consequences of prolonged underdog status. It's funny how Angel can get back into underdog status simply by telling us we're all ants, but we actually have to see Buffy being beaten and degraded in order to buy it. :(
Reply
Ok, what you say makes a lot of sense even without me making jokes.
And now Buffy is my woobie, again. Surely that's not the right reaction, either?
Reply
Because I think it does seem like Buffy's obviously no longer an underdog -- though maybe it's a disappointing reveal of what the revolution led to?
Reply
Leave a comment