Since this issue can be discussed without having read the entire season - I decided to start a new discussion thread. I have added the entire issue with Full Pages after the panels
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Posted over at Buffytube - what are your thoughts?
Stoney:I appreciate the recent viciousness was reactive to the stress of the situation on her part and he has been feeling uncertain how to have a healthy relationship and deal with his own insecurities etc. But an equal functioning relationship is one where he isn't waiting for the shoe to drop for her all the time and fears triggering it.
It was Spike who was, IMO, being the more mature in the latest issues when Buffy would get angry or feel vulnerable and stressed from all the hard choices that were having to be made. The foreshadow for this new pattern of not lashing back on auto mode was a good indication for both taking new ways of dealing with their lives. It’s not just their relationship that needed change but their own lives - what good would it be if they break up but continue with their same patterns of “pushing away” as a defense mechanism?
I sure hope, that this will continue in the series - It would be great to have the franchise break the long standing rule of breaking up couples for the sake of drama. What has become boring is taking this same plot device over and over.
Stoney: But as D'Hoffryn made clear and Clive backed up, avoidance doesn't work.
And this same theme is connected right back to Buffy’s comments on how it was easier to let D’Hoffryn take on the responsibility and hand over all those powers to the council. Dracula’s arc set this up from the start with his warning. Drac’s warning and foreshadow was that circumstances with use of the new magics rules were heavily in favor of demons (paraphrase)
Stoney: The influence of Dr Mike has drifted through dimensions with Xander as the proactive approach and appears to still have been about positive personal development. Where everything with Anya and Jonathan is going to go still feels more unknown but this repeated aspect of having presence and body, essentially mattering and using people's fears, wants and insecurities to use them remains with both. This aspect was raised in the dimension shifts for Dawn too, about mattering and being 'real'. Again the context of interactions with, and responses to, others feels key around all of these
Agree - and I continue to think that this will also somehow connect back to the I Wish issue - this was the pivotal issue where they had to distinguish what was real and fantasy and their individual I Wish reality came from their own minds and memories. The panel showing Dawn’s and Xander’s worst nightmares is another connection - the characters were of the monks, Joyce, the father and Anya. With Dawn they connect with her new perceptions of seeing all of herself as The Key and this also brings in that peculiar issue with Buffy, Dawn and Hank and his No Invite for Buffy. For Xander - his dad and Anya represent his fears from his childhood and younger age that has to be healed before he can find peace and move on to a more mature and healthier life.
I’m hoping that CG will give more story support for the premise he introduced regarding D’Hoffryn and vengeance demons taking having their powers to alter realities as directly linked to the third party life form. It’s does make logical sense since the vengeance demons MUST have the seeker make the wish or be manipulated into making a wish.
Somehow breaking the Vengeance Demons and especially D’Hoffryn down to having this power to alter realities dependent on the third party has diminished them for me. However, I have to admit that D’Hoffryn is absolutely right for he would become a Supreme Being able to create and manipulate lives and worlds as he wanted.
Stoney:I appreciate the recent viciousness was reactive to the stress of the situation on her part and he has been feeling uncertain how to have a healthy relationship and deal with his own insecurities etc. But an equal functioning relationship is one where he isn't waiting for the shoe to drop for her all the time and fears triggering it.
It was Spike who was, IMO, being the more mature in the latest issues when Buffy would get angry or feel vulnerable and stressed from all the hard choices that were having to be made. The foreshadow for this new pattern of not lashing back on auto mode was a good indication for both taking new ways of dealing with their lives. It’s not just their relationship that needed change but their own lives - what good would it be if they break up but continue with their same patterns of “pushing away” as a defense mechanism?
I sure hope, that this will continue in the series - It would be great to have the franchise break the long standing rule of breaking up couples for the sake of drama. What has become boring is taking this same plot device over and over.
Stoney: But as D'Hoffryn made clear and Clive backed up, avoidance doesn't work.
And this same theme is connected right back to Buffy’s comments on how it was easier to let D’Hoffryn take on the responsibility and hand over all those powers to the council. Dracula’s arc set this up from the start with his warning. Drac’s warning and foreshadow was that circumstances with use of the new magics rules were heavily in favor of demons (paraphrase)
Stoney: The influence of Dr Mike has drifted through dimensions with Xander as the proactive approach and appears to still have been about positive personal development. Where everything with Anya and Jonathan is going to go still feels more unknown but this repeated aspect of having presence and body, essentially mattering and using people's fears, wants and insecurities to use them remains with both. This aspect was raised in the dimension shifts for Dawn too, about mattering and being 'real'. Again the context of interactions with, and responses to, others feels key around all of these
Agree - and I continue to think that this will also somehow connect back to the I Wish issue - this was the pivotal issue where they had to distinguish what was real and fantasy and their individual I Wish reality came from their own minds and memories. The panel showing Dawn’s and Xander’s worst nightmares is another connection - the characters were of the monks, Joyce, the father and Anya. With Dawn they connect with her new perceptions of seeing all of herself as The Key and this also brings in that peculiar issue with Buffy, Dawn and Hank and his No Invite for Buffy. For Xander - his dad and Anya represent his fears from his childhood and younger age that has to be healed before he can find peace and move on to a more mature and healthier life.
I’m hoping that CG will give more story support for the premise he introduced regarding D’Hoffryn and vengeance demons taking having their powers to alter realities as directly linked to the third party life form. It’s does make logical sense since the vengeance demons MUST have the seeker make the wish or be manipulated into making a wish.
Somehow breaking the Vengeance Demons and especially D’Hoffryn down to having this power to alter realities dependent on the third party has diminished them for me. However, I have to admit that D’Hoffryn is absolutely right for he would become a Supreme Being able to create and manipulate lives and worlds as he wanted.
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