BtVS S5ep06, Tara's "Family"
Is it possible for the mysterious character's past to not be tragic when their Family shows up out of the blue? Okay, I can think of one example, but let's get to that later.
I remember really liking this episode when it came out, finally, back story! ...and I really liked how supportive Willow was, and this was something she can identify with...something all scoobies share in fact; Bad Parents. The only good parent shown was that of Buffy's mom, Joyce, and Joyce, for all her moments of denial over the fact that she has moved her family to the hellmouth town, is very awesome. Such as, her understanding that Principal Synder's denial was bullshit in "School Hard", standing up to him against his badmouthing of her daughter, and of course, smacking Spike down with an axe when he was going to chomp down on Buffy. Had Spike been human, his skull could have cracked, so, this is a woman who will kill to defend her offspring, impressive. Buffy's Dad pretty much abandoned her, and while that wasn't him to told Buffy that him and her mom divorced because of her vampire-believing-crazy, that it was Buffy's "Nightmare" and that she believed it is pretty telling. Willow's father wasn't brought up, I think, but her mother tried to burn her at the stake at that S3 Hansel and Gretel demon episode, Gingerbread...demon influence or not, ouch. Xander's father was a bullying man, as seen in the S4 dream episode, and then both of Xander's parents were the troll of the party when they got drunk at Xander and Anya's NotWedding, and the fear that he would one day become like his father and kill Anya in a fight was what prompted Xander to cancel.
This episode answers the Unsolved Riddle of why Ms.Magically-Precise, botched the demon finding spell back in S4, "Goodbye Iowa". There are humans with natural affinity for magic that can be passed down from parent to child, as seen earlier with Amy Madison and her mother, Catherine, in S1's The Witch. In Tara's family, it was her mother and her grandmother.
Approaching her 20th birthday, Tara becomes increasingly flighty, and the cause is revealed with the appearance of her bullying father, who demands that Tara returns home with them before her friends finds out what she is. The men of Tara's family control the powerful witches through 'the family myth' that they will become demons when they turn 20 and starts using their powers for evil. While part of Tara does not believe the family myth, she was strong enough to leave for college and join a wicca group there were she was accepted, and she refused to father and brother back into their control, she still fears that she will physically turn into a demon, and thus, cast a spell that will blind the scoobies to that fact. Unfortunately it actually made the sight of demons invisible to the entire scooby gang, and Tara reversed that spell in the middle of the gang's fight against Glory's minions.
The truth reveals itself when Tara's father and brother shows up at The Magic Box and again attempts to take Tara with them, repeating the myth, which Spike then disproved by hitting Tara; Spike, a vampire, had previously been used as a subject in a government experiment where they instilled a chip in his brain that will cause him pain whenever he attempts to harm a human. Spike hurts, Tara is human. Tara's family fucks off.
It makes me wonder though, about the women still with the men in Tara's family...and what really did happen to Tara's mother, who died when she was younger and probably was the trigger for Tara's rebellious stage. Did her father kill her mother? Or was she driven to suicide? It's a small step from 'merely' thinking of women as things to be controlled, to killing them when they become 'troublesome', as Warren did, and feel no remorse for.
Willow was really supportive in this episode...she too, came from an environment where she was previously oppressed and repressive...so there was the more wrong that S5 Willow went ahead with overriding Tara's free will with the forgetting spell. Tara grew up believing that she will turn into a demon, grew up being lied to and mentally harmed by her family, people she should have been able to trust, had her sense of reality meddled with...and now, Willow, does it to her, and that was on top of what Glory did to her head back at the end of S4. Like she had sang in "Once More With Feeling", Tara can't stand that sense of disgust she had at the discovery of what Willow has done.
Now For The Happy
Angel's S3 episode, Fredless, where Fred's parents shows up, looking for their daughter who had been missing for five years; Fred had previously been sucked into the demon dimension Pylea where humans were cattles due to a 'helpful shove' by a professor jealous of her ability that she wouldn't even know about until later. "Fredless" is like "Family" flipped, whereas Tara's family was messed up and she found herself at college, Fred came from a very loving home, child to Texan parents, Roger and Trish Burkle, and she probably was trauma free until the events of Pylea. Fred seemed shy at first, always hiding in a room in the grand hotel, feeling safer in dark places after all the years she hid from the hunters in a cave. ...that behaviour later becomes something that is not really Fred but just PTSD as she recovers. ...and Roger Buckle retains the distinct honour of being a father in Jossverse who was actually good all the way through. See; What Does Joss Have Against Fathers? Seriously, even Giles, Buffy's father figure, ditched her in Season Six. I like to think though, that Mayor Wilkins was a good father figure, he might have been the Big Bad of S3, but to Faith, he was very decent and caring. He even had a contingency plan where Faith would be taken care of shall he died, which he did, he left Faith a video goodbye and an amulet that would allow her to switch body with anyone she choses (S4: Who Are You).
Oh yeah, I've been wondering, does Fred being dead made it easier for me to like her again? I really liked her when she was introduced, someone who was both a damsel in distress due to Pylea, and a heroine herself because she had been trying to figure out a way home all those years. It's really too bad that the writers decide to use her as a plot device to incite competition between Wesley and Gunn. One day I need to fanessay something like, 'The Vehiclization Of Female Characters' or something. Especially after Fred was replaced by that demon in S5...female characters get used as a plot device all the time, they get knocked up to bring a new character in...that happened to first Darla and then Cordelia in Angel. It doesn't happen to the male characters though, I'll have no protest if the representation is fair, then it will be just a part of storytelling and not unfair treatment. The whole stupid series of pregnancy plot device thing was also why I stopped watching Gene Roddenberry's conceived (but produced post-mort) series, Earth: Final Conflict. It's also why I don't see Mother Mary of the Christian Bible or Lily in James Potter as being great characters to be, their importance had lied not on who they are, what they did with their lives, but their bringing/preservation of The Man into the world.
Same thing happened to Anya in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so much could have been done with her but wasn't. Anya is a feminist capitalist, and for thousands of years, she was a demon that granted wishes to scorned women...but, like her fellow female co-workers, worked for a male demon! Why wasn't that issue ever addressed? Instead, Anya was reduced to being Xander's fuckbuddy, then girlfriend, with her other defining characteristics being love for money (but she is shown as greedy but not good with it), and fear of bunnies. I would also have love to hear Anya suggest to Buffy something that would have been really feminist and helped during S6: Salary for Slayers! I mean, the Watchers get paid for their work, why can't the slayer when her calling interferes with her pursuing another career? The way things set up were really unfair to women again. All Slayers are women, and yet most Watchers are men, the Slayers are expendable, the Watchers get paid, and the Watchers are self-appointed and decided that they have a right to have a say over the Slayer who was supernaturally called. ...and what's the paragraph of truism that included the saying about a woman's work being never-ending and under-compensated again?
I remember really liking this episode when it came out, finally, back story! ...and I really liked how supportive Willow was, and this was something she can identify with...something all scoobies share in fact; Bad Parents. The only good parent shown was that of Buffy's mom, Joyce, and Joyce, for all her moments of denial over the fact that she has moved her family to the hellmouth town, is very awesome. Such as, her understanding that Principal Synder's denial was bullshit in "School Hard", standing up to him against his badmouthing of her daughter, and of course, smacking Spike down with an axe when he was going to chomp down on Buffy. Had Spike been human, his skull could have cracked, so, this is a woman who will kill to defend her offspring, impressive. Buffy's Dad pretty much abandoned her, and while that wasn't him to told Buffy that him and her mom divorced because of her vampire-believing-crazy, that it was Buffy's "Nightmare" and that she believed it is pretty telling. Willow's father wasn't brought up, I think, but her mother tried to burn her at the stake at that S3 Hansel and Gretel demon episode, Gingerbread...demon influence or not, ouch. Xander's father was a bullying man, as seen in the S4 dream episode, and then both of Xander's parents were the troll of the party when they got drunk at Xander and Anya's NotWedding, and the fear that he would one day become like his father and kill Anya in a fight was what prompted Xander to cancel.
This episode answers the Unsolved Riddle of why Ms.Magically-Precise, botched the demon finding spell back in S4, "Goodbye Iowa". There are humans with natural affinity for magic that can be passed down from parent to child, as seen earlier with Amy Madison and her mother, Catherine, in S1's The Witch. In Tara's family, it was her mother and her grandmother.
Approaching her 20th birthday, Tara becomes increasingly flighty, and the cause is revealed with the appearance of her bullying father, who demands that Tara returns home with them before her friends finds out what she is. The men of Tara's family control the powerful witches through 'the family myth' that they will become demons when they turn 20 and starts using their powers for evil. While part of Tara does not believe the family myth, she was strong enough to leave for college and join a wicca group there were she was accepted, and she refused to father and brother back into their control, she still fears that she will physically turn into a demon, and thus, cast a spell that will blind the scoobies to that fact. Unfortunately it actually made the sight of demons invisible to the entire scooby gang, and Tara reversed that spell in the middle of the gang's fight against Glory's minions.
The truth reveals itself when Tara's father and brother shows up at The Magic Box and again attempts to take Tara with them, repeating the myth, which Spike then disproved by hitting Tara; Spike, a vampire, had previously been used as a subject in a government experiment where they instilled a chip in his brain that will cause him pain whenever he attempts to harm a human. Spike hurts, Tara is human. Tara's family fucks off.
It makes me wonder though, about the women still with the men in Tara's family...and what really did happen to Tara's mother, who died when she was younger and probably was the trigger for Tara's rebellious stage. Did her father kill her mother? Or was she driven to suicide? It's a small step from 'merely' thinking of women as things to be controlled, to killing them when they become 'troublesome', as Warren did, and feel no remorse for.
Willow was really supportive in this episode...she too, came from an environment where she was previously oppressed and repressive...so there was the more wrong that S5 Willow went ahead with overriding Tara's free will with the forgetting spell. Tara grew up believing that she will turn into a demon, grew up being lied to and mentally harmed by her family, people she should have been able to trust, had her sense of reality meddled with...and now, Willow, does it to her, and that was on top of what Glory did to her head back at the end of S4. Like she had sang in "Once More With Feeling", Tara can't stand that sense of disgust she had at the discovery of what Willow has done.
Now For The Happy
Angel's S3 episode, Fredless, where Fred's parents shows up, looking for their daughter who had been missing for five years; Fred had previously been sucked into the demon dimension Pylea where humans were cattles due to a 'helpful shove' by a professor jealous of her ability that she wouldn't even know about until later. "Fredless" is like "Family" flipped, whereas Tara's family was messed up and she found herself at college, Fred came from a very loving home, child to Texan parents, Roger and Trish Burkle, and she probably was trauma free until the events of Pylea. Fred seemed shy at first, always hiding in a room in the grand hotel, feeling safer in dark places after all the years she hid from the hunters in a cave. ...that behaviour later becomes something that is not really Fred but just PTSD as she recovers. ...and Roger Buckle retains the distinct honour of being a father in Jossverse who was actually good all the way through. See; What Does Joss Have Against Fathers? Seriously, even Giles, Buffy's father figure, ditched her in Season Six. I like to think though, that Mayor Wilkins was a good father figure, he might have been the Big Bad of S3, but to Faith, he was very decent and caring. He even had a contingency plan where Faith would be taken care of shall he died, which he did, he left Faith a video goodbye and an amulet that would allow her to switch body with anyone she choses (S4: Who Are You).
Oh yeah, I've been wondering, does Fred being dead made it easier for me to like her again? I really liked her when she was introduced, someone who was both a damsel in distress due to Pylea, and a heroine herself because she had been trying to figure out a way home all those years. It's really too bad that the writers decide to use her as a plot device to incite competition between Wesley and Gunn. One day I need to fanessay something like, 'The Vehiclization Of Female Characters' or something. Especially after Fred was replaced by that demon in S5...female characters get used as a plot device all the time, they get knocked up to bring a new character in...that happened to first Darla and then Cordelia in Angel. It doesn't happen to the male characters though, I'll have no protest if the representation is fair, then it will be just a part of storytelling and not unfair treatment. The whole stupid series of pregnancy plot device thing was also why I stopped watching Gene Roddenberry's conceived (but produced post-mort) series, Earth: Final Conflict. It's also why I don't see Mother Mary of the Christian Bible or Lily in James Potter as being great characters to be, their importance had lied not on who they are, what they did with their lives, but their bringing/preservation of The Man into the world.
Same thing happened to Anya in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so much could have been done with her but wasn't. Anya is a feminist capitalist, and for thousands of years, she was a demon that granted wishes to scorned women...but, like her fellow female co-workers, worked for a male demon! Why wasn't that issue ever addressed? Instead, Anya was reduced to being Xander's fuckbuddy, then girlfriend, with her other defining characteristics being love for money (but she is shown as greedy but not good with it), and fear of bunnies. I would also have love to hear Anya suggest to Buffy something that would have been really feminist and helped during S6: Salary for Slayers! I mean, the Watchers get paid for their work, why can't the slayer when her calling interferes with her pursuing another career? The way things set up were really unfair to women again. All Slayers are women, and yet most Watchers are men, the Slayers are expendable, the Watchers get paid, and the Watchers are self-appointed and decided that they have a right to have a say over the Slayer who was supernaturally called. ...and what's the paragraph of truism that included the saying about a woman's work being never-ending and under-compensated again?