Thoughts on Issue #3 of BtvS comics Season 9
Firstly, let me just say that even though I’m very critical of the writers, that doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying S9 and looking forward to more. I’m critical because I care, so I hope no one thinks I’m trying to be a buzzkill. Onward to the thinky thoughts…
So I guess Severin/Andrew is not meant to be. Lucky for Andrew! Now if only we could get him a Blaine or a Kurt…
I’m not pleased with the waffling on whether or not Severin is a villain. This issue clearly wants us to think he’s Siphon, but the solicitation for the issue #4 says that Buffy is “drawn more closely to her new friend Severin.” If Severin isn’t a villain, the summaries should be less vague so as to make the fake-out at the end of #3 have more impact. Why give away the game?
That said, I still think Severin is a villain or will become one. Even if the issue hadn’t ended the way it did, I wouldn’t have liked him. He seems extremely wishy-washy, and I don’t trust him. I also have a hard time respecting someone who wanted to be a vampire (especially in this new world where humans have some inkling of what being a vampire means!). Obviously there can be mitigating circumstances that make me feel sympathy for a character, even if I still think he’s a bad person (frex, Ford), but nothing about Severin’s story makes me sympathetic to him. Bored trust fund kid who thinks it would be cool to die? Please excuse while I don’t give a shit.
Like most other people whose reactions I’ve read, I’m less than impressed with the mythology this issue purports. Actually, frankly, I’m downright annoyed by it.
I have no problem with the concept of zompires (I assume that their feral existence will cause some nice complications for the flourishing celeb vampire culture), but the explanation for why they are the way they are is illogical. If a zompire is being “possessed” by a demon in another dimension, that should make the demon’s hold on the human weaker, not stronger. At the most they should be like normal zombies- mindless but not very powerful.
I also don’t like the mythology about vampires period. Willow’s explanation seems to imply that vampires are possessed by sentient demons from another dimension, as though a vampire actually has two wholly separate beings inside it (the human and the demon). IIRC, the show never stated anything of the sort. The one line I can think of that could maybe qualify is Angel saying in “Angel” that “the demon takes your body,” but I don’t think one line, especially from someone like Angel who clearly never put much thought/research into his metaphysical existence, justifies dimension-hopping demons as an explanation for vampirism. The impression I always got was that the demon-ness of a vampire was like a virus, something that infects and changes you but isn’t a separate symbiotic life form.
To extrapolate, I think the human’s personality affects the demon essence because it’s all one being now. For example, let’s say Toth’s Ferrula Gemina hit an unsouled-but-already-in-love-with-Buffy Spike and split him into human!Spike and pure demon!Spike. I don’t think the demon wouldn’t be Spike-like, and moreover, I think it would still have feelings for Buffy (albeit very warped, inhuman feelings). Similarly, I don’t think the puredemon!Angel in the Pylea dimension isn’t still Angel- it’s just the demon essence in him fully taking over; he’s completely on the demonic end of the spectrum, whereas normally he’s in the middle, if not closer to the human end.
If I understand the writers’ proposed mythos about demons, dimensions, etc., correctly, I don’t buy it at all. To me, the idea that a demon from another dimension possesses a human to create a vampire is laughable. I’ve never liked it in fic when Spike or Angel refers to ‘his demon’ like it’s a separate entity, and I certainly don’t like it here.
Aside from the mythology of the zompires, I have a few other complaints about the writers’ world-building:
-Who is siring the zompires? It seems to me that the normal vampires, upon realizing how feral the new vampires are, would stop siring them so as to make sure the humans didn’t turn against them. The zompires are a threat to normal vampires’ new position in the cultural hierarchy, so who’s siring them? Since there are so many of them (as seen on the last page), it has to be either a concentrated effort by a sect of normal vampires with unknown motives or the writers just aren’t thinking things through.
-Secondly, since there is such a metric shitton of zompires, why haven’t humans noticed them? They’re feral. They must be killing and eating like crazy, so why haven’t death tolls risen? Feeding the hundred or more dead zompires we saw in the warehouse would entail a massacre, so it doesn’t make sense that no one has caught onto their existence before now.
Moving onto our dear Scoobies: I was really annoyed with Dawn and Xander in the last issue for kicking Buffy out again, and despite the fact that the police showed up at their apartment, I still don’t think it was the right thing to do. Or if it was, they didn’t do it for the right reasons (i.e., they didn’t act particularly afraid of breaking the law; they acted like they couldn’t be bothered), and they certainly didn’t show any willingness to help Buffy in other ways (for example, Xander probably could have fronted the cost of a very cheap motel for the night so that Buffy would have someplace to stay even if she couldn’t stay at his place). I know that Buffy did some awful things in S8, and I can understand if her best friends haven’t forgiven her for them, but if that’s their reason for not helping her, why did they let her camp out on their couch in the first place? Why aren’t we seeing that tension in other areas? Basically, it seemed like an excuse for the writers to get Buffy on the streets again, and I detest the manipulation of character like that. I suspect show!Xander and show!Dawn would be ashamed.
I also don’t know what’s up between Xander and Dawn, but that ‘he forgot her birthday’ argument is the lamest excuse ever and can’t possibly be the reason they’re fighting. If it is, Dawn is a far less mature a character than she was in the show, and I wash my hands of her (the comics version, that is).
As for Willow, she was clearly petty and vindictive when she got all excited about Buffy admitting there was fall-out from the Seed’s destruction, but honestly, I can’t really blame her. I definitely like her more than either Xander or Dawn at the moment.
All that said, I do think Xander and Dawn were in the right to suggest that Buffy go to the police, and I’m glad they confronted her about it, which brings me to…
…Buffy.
While S9!Buffy is thus far more likable than S8!Buffy, she’s still not a character I particularly respect/admire, and IMO she certainly doesn’t hold a candle to show!Buffy. Part of my dislike is due to her choices and part is due to poor writing. As to the former, I think Buffy behaved very recklessly and naively in this issue, and it’s making me lose sympathy for her; I also think her actions are going to come back and bite her in the ass. I understood why she ditched the police in the last issue, even if it’s not what I would have done, but her disregard for Dawn and Xander’s advice is frustrating and, I think, a poor choice. Buffy is ignoring the reality and rules of the human world and acting as though she’s above it all. It reminds me of the Scooby argument in “Selfless” when Buffy says she is the law, and in this case, at least, I think she is behaving irrationally and arrogantly. What bothers me even more, though, is her decision to immediately trust Severin and sleep at his house. Seriously?!? If anyone I knew slept over at a strange man’s house after knowing him for all of five minutes, I would call her ten kinds of idiot. It’s just unbelievably stupid.
As to the latter, what bothers me about the writing for Buffy this season is that the writers don’t appear to be dealing at all with the emotional fallout from S8. I don’t understand why Buffy isn’t clinically depressed again after her monumental fuck-up (literally) with Twangel and Giles’ death; considering everything that happened in S8, I don’t think it would be unrealistic for her to be at the same level of despair as she endured in S6. I obviously don’t like when Buffy is miserable and depressed, but it doesn’t seem realistic that she wouldn’t be. If her reaction is supposed to be that she’s suppressing it all and that’s why she’s making such stupid decisions and eventually it’s all going to culminate in one huge emotional meltdown…well, I can buy that, but if that’s the writers’ intent, I think they’re executing it very poorly. It could just be that Andrew Chambliss is new to writing Buffy (because I do think there was more emotional depth in issue #1, which Joss wrote) and the execution will improve. But for now, Buffy just comes across as arrogant, reckless, and foolish.
As usual, Spike is a BAMF. The end.
Also, I look forward to the inevitable bromance between Spike and Koh. Koh reminds me of a Klingon. Clearly, this makes me his fan.
Despite all my criticisms, I am enjoying the plot (if not the execution), and I think the writers are laudably sticking to their promise of making S9 more self-contained, grounded, and about the Scoobies than S8 was. I hope the Scoobies start acting like the team they once were again and that Buffy uses more common sense. I also hope that she’s not pregnant and that she doesn’t sleep with Severin (because my Spuffy preferences aside, the guy is lame).
* * *
I’m guessing that Joss is going to throw a wrench into the Buffy/Spike relationship at some point (not only because Joss is a sadistic ship-killer, but also because Spike’s the only friend she hasn’t already alienated in some way), and I think Severin’s appearance is a plausible way with which to do it. Here’s my bare-bones scenario:
Severin is Siphon but he acts innocent and downtrodden to Buffy (and doesn’t actually attack her like the end of #3 suggests he will). Spike suspects he’s a big, fat evil liar and warns Buffy not to trust him. Buffy thinks he’s being petty/jealous and doesn’t listen. The disagreement leads to a rift between Buffy and Spike, and maybe she even sleeps with Severin. However, at the end of the arc, Spike is of course proven right when Severin/Siphon tries to kill Buffy, and Spike swoops in to save the day (okay, so that last clause is my self-indulgent fantasy, but I think the rest of it is plausible).
I feel like there’s a fic here, but it would have to be a lot of tiny segments (double-drabbles, etc.) strung together so as to cover a long time period, and I don’t think I’m up for that. Also, I don’t know how to write Spike-saves-Buffy-from-Severin without seeming cheesy.
I’ve started a personal pattern of writing a Spuffying-up fic after every new comic release. I wrote a 21,000-word fic after 8.40 came out, a 3,000-word fic after the preview pages for 9.1 were released, a 4,000-word fic after 9.1 was released, and a 9,500-word fic after 9.2 was released. Almost 40,000 words of fic based on the comics alone! At this point I almost think I should make it a personal goal to see if I can write a fic for every issue that credibly ups the Spuffy. I don’t know what I could do for 9.3. Maybe I could manage a drabble…
So I guess Severin/Andrew is not meant to be. Lucky for Andrew! Now if only we could get him a Blaine or a Kurt…
I’m not pleased with the waffling on whether or not Severin is a villain. This issue clearly wants us to think he’s Siphon, but the solicitation for the issue #4 says that Buffy is “drawn more closely to her new friend Severin.” If Severin isn’t a villain, the summaries should be less vague so as to make the fake-out at the end of #3 have more impact. Why give away the game?
That said, I still think Severin is a villain or will become one. Even if the issue hadn’t ended the way it did, I wouldn’t have liked him. He seems extremely wishy-washy, and I don’t trust him. I also have a hard time respecting someone who wanted to be a vampire (especially in this new world where humans have some inkling of what being a vampire means!). Obviously there can be mitigating circumstances that make me feel sympathy for a character, even if I still think he’s a bad person (frex, Ford), but nothing about Severin’s story makes me sympathetic to him. Bored trust fund kid who thinks it would be cool to die? Please excuse while I don’t give a shit.
Like most other people whose reactions I’ve read, I’m less than impressed with the mythology this issue purports. Actually, frankly, I’m downright annoyed by it.
I have no problem with the concept of zompires (I assume that their feral existence will cause some nice complications for the flourishing celeb vampire culture), but the explanation for why they are the way they are is illogical. If a zompire is being “possessed” by a demon in another dimension, that should make the demon’s hold on the human weaker, not stronger. At the most they should be like normal zombies- mindless but not very powerful.
I also don’t like the mythology about vampires period. Willow’s explanation seems to imply that vampires are possessed by sentient demons from another dimension, as though a vampire actually has two wholly separate beings inside it (the human and the demon). IIRC, the show never stated anything of the sort. The one line I can think of that could maybe qualify is Angel saying in “Angel” that “the demon takes your body,” but I don’t think one line, especially from someone like Angel who clearly never put much thought/research into his metaphysical existence, justifies dimension-hopping demons as an explanation for vampirism. The impression I always got was that the demon-ness of a vampire was like a virus, something that infects and changes you but isn’t a separate symbiotic life form.
To extrapolate, I think the human’s personality affects the demon essence because it’s all one being now. For example, let’s say Toth’s Ferrula Gemina hit an unsouled-but-already-in-love-with-Buffy Spike and split him into human!Spike and pure demon!Spike. I don’t think the demon wouldn’t be Spike-like, and moreover, I think it would still have feelings for Buffy (albeit very warped, inhuman feelings). Similarly, I don’t think the puredemon!Angel in the Pylea dimension isn’t still Angel- it’s just the demon essence in him fully taking over; he’s completely on the demonic end of the spectrum, whereas normally he’s in the middle, if not closer to the human end.
If I understand the writers’ proposed mythos about demons, dimensions, etc., correctly, I don’t buy it at all. To me, the idea that a demon from another dimension possesses a human to create a vampire is laughable. I’ve never liked it in fic when Spike or Angel refers to ‘his demon’ like it’s a separate entity, and I certainly don’t like it here.
Aside from the mythology of the zompires, I have a few other complaints about the writers’ world-building:
-Who is siring the zompires? It seems to me that the normal vampires, upon realizing how feral the new vampires are, would stop siring them so as to make sure the humans didn’t turn against them. The zompires are a threat to normal vampires’ new position in the cultural hierarchy, so who’s siring them? Since there are so many of them (as seen on the last page), it has to be either a concentrated effort by a sect of normal vampires with unknown motives or the writers just aren’t thinking things through.
-Secondly, since there is such a metric shitton of zompires, why haven’t humans noticed them? They’re feral. They must be killing and eating like crazy, so why haven’t death tolls risen? Feeding the hundred or more dead zompires we saw in the warehouse would entail a massacre, so it doesn’t make sense that no one has caught onto their existence before now.
Moving onto our dear Scoobies: I was really annoyed with Dawn and Xander in the last issue for kicking Buffy out again, and despite the fact that the police showed up at their apartment, I still don’t think it was the right thing to do. Or if it was, they didn’t do it for the right reasons (i.e., they didn’t act particularly afraid of breaking the law; they acted like they couldn’t be bothered), and they certainly didn’t show any willingness to help Buffy in other ways (for example, Xander probably could have fronted the cost of a very cheap motel for the night so that Buffy would have someplace to stay even if she couldn’t stay at his place). I know that Buffy did some awful things in S8, and I can understand if her best friends haven’t forgiven her for them, but if that’s their reason for not helping her, why did they let her camp out on their couch in the first place? Why aren’t we seeing that tension in other areas? Basically, it seemed like an excuse for the writers to get Buffy on the streets again, and I detest the manipulation of character like that. I suspect show!Xander and show!Dawn would be ashamed.
I also don’t know what’s up between Xander and Dawn, but that ‘he forgot her birthday’ argument is the lamest excuse ever and can’t possibly be the reason they’re fighting. If it is, Dawn is a far less mature a character than she was in the show, and I wash my hands of her (the comics version, that is).
As for Willow, she was clearly petty and vindictive when she got all excited about Buffy admitting there was fall-out from the Seed’s destruction, but honestly, I can’t really blame her. I definitely like her more than either Xander or Dawn at the moment.
All that said, I do think Xander and Dawn were in the right to suggest that Buffy go to the police, and I’m glad they confronted her about it, which brings me to…
…Buffy.
While S9!Buffy is thus far more likable than S8!Buffy, she’s still not a character I particularly respect/admire, and IMO she certainly doesn’t hold a candle to show!Buffy. Part of my dislike is due to her choices and part is due to poor writing. As to the former, I think Buffy behaved very recklessly and naively in this issue, and it’s making me lose sympathy for her; I also think her actions are going to come back and bite her in the ass. I understood why she ditched the police in the last issue, even if it’s not what I would have done, but her disregard for Dawn and Xander’s advice is frustrating and, I think, a poor choice. Buffy is ignoring the reality and rules of the human world and acting as though she’s above it all. It reminds me of the Scooby argument in “Selfless” when Buffy says she is the law, and in this case, at least, I think she is behaving irrationally and arrogantly. What bothers me even more, though, is her decision to immediately trust Severin and sleep at his house. Seriously?!? If anyone I knew slept over at a strange man’s house after knowing him for all of five minutes, I would call her ten kinds of idiot. It’s just unbelievably stupid.
As to the latter, what bothers me about the writing for Buffy this season is that the writers don’t appear to be dealing at all with the emotional fallout from S8. I don’t understand why Buffy isn’t clinically depressed again after her monumental fuck-up (literally) with Twangel and Giles’ death; considering everything that happened in S8, I don’t think it would be unrealistic for her to be at the same level of despair as she endured in S6. I obviously don’t like when Buffy is miserable and depressed, but it doesn’t seem realistic that she wouldn’t be. If her reaction is supposed to be that she’s suppressing it all and that’s why she’s making such stupid decisions and eventually it’s all going to culminate in one huge emotional meltdown…well, I can buy that, but if that’s the writers’ intent, I think they’re executing it very poorly. It could just be that Andrew Chambliss is new to writing Buffy (because I do think there was more emotional depth in issue #1, which Joss wrote) and the execution will improve. But for now, Buffy just comes across as arrogant, reckless, and foolish.
As usual, Spike is a BAMF. The end.
Also, I look forward to the inevitable bromance between Spike and Koh. Koh reminds me of a Klingon. Clearly, this makes me his fan.
Despite all my criticisms, I am enjoying the plot (if not the execution), and I think the writers are laudably sticking to their promise of making S9 more self-contained, grounded, and about the Scoobies than S8 was. I hope the Scoobies start acting like the team they once were again and that Buffy uses more common sense. I also hope that she’s not pregnant and that she doesn’t sleep with Severin (because my Spuffy preferences aside, the guy is lame).
* * *
I’m guessing that Joss is going to throw a wrench into the Buffy/Spike relationship at some point (not only because Joss is a sadistic ship-killer, but also because Spike’s the only friend she hasn’t already alienated in some way), and I think Severin’s appearance is a plausible way with which to do it. Here’s my bare-bones scenario:
Severin is Siphon but he acts innocent and downtrodden to Buffy (and doesn’t actually attack her like the end of #3 suggests he will). Spike suspects he’s a big, fat evil liar and warns Buffy not to trust him. Buffy thinks he’s being petty/jealous and doesn’t listen. The disagreement leads to a rift between Buffy and Spike, and maybe she even sleeps with Severin. However, at the end of the arc, Spike is of course proven right when Severin/Siphon tries to kill Buffy, and Spike swoops in to save the day (okay, so that last clause is my self-indulgent fantasy, but I think the rest of it is plausible).
I feel like there’s a fic here, but it would have to be a lot of tiny segments (double-drabbles, etc.) strung together so as to cover a long time period, and I don’t think I’m up for that. Also, I don’t know how to write Spike-saves-Buffy-from-Severin without seeming cheesy.
I’ve started a personal pattern of writing a Spuffying-up fic after every new comic release. I wrote a 21,000-word fic after 8.40 came out, a 3,000-word fic after the preview pages for 9.1 were released, a 4,000-word fic after 9.1 was released, and a 9,500-word fic after 9.2 was released. Almost 40,000 words of fic based on the comics alone! At this point I almost think I should make it a personal goal to see if I can write a fic for every issue that credibly ups the Spuffy. I don’t know what I could do for 9.3. Maybe I could manage a drabble…