"You're the man. A very short, annoying man."
I just read an excellent post by Angearia, here:
http://angearia.livejournal.com/169785.html#cutid1
This bit sparked a thought. I'll quote it in full cos it's dead good, and it'll help me explain my point:
angearia sez
Look at this cover at full size and let the image sink in.
http://s436.photobucket.com/albums/qq90/Slayalive_Comics/Buffy%20Season%208/Original%20Cover%20Art/08_05_00_b.jpg
(JOE SWEDEN NOTE: sorry, I'm not as clever at linkiness as she is! Just click on it, fingers crossed it will take you to the right piccy)
Whedon is reaching inside and looking at Buffy, at the part of himself that Buffy represents, and saying to her, "I want you to be strong." Not merely in sharing power, not merely in physical strength. He wants her to be strong from WITHIN. He wants the scared little girl that still lives inside Buffy (and maybe the scared part inside himself and inside all of us) to go out and face her fears. To seek them out and kill them dead.
Read this speech again from "Bring on the Night" and then think about what's happening in Season 8:
BUFFY: "I'm beyond tired. I'm beyond scared. I'm standing on the mouth of hell, and it is gonna swallow me whole. And it'll choke on me. We're not ready? They're not ready. They think we're gonna wait for the end to come, like we always do. I'm done waiting. They want an apocalypse? Oh, we'll give 'em one. Anyone else who wants to run, do it now. 'Cause we just became an army. We just declared war. From now on, we won't just face our worst fears, we will seek them out. We will find them, and cut out their hearts one by one, until The First shows itself for what it really is. And I'll kill it myself. There is only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil, and that's us. Any questions?"
I'd like to pick up on a different aspect of both the cover image linked to above, and the part of the quote angearia bolded: "...we just became an army."
"...an army"? Interesting choice of words, Ms Summers. Or should I say, Generalissima Summers? Those words - and her attitude and experiences in season 7 and 8 - coupled with the shoutout to the Lord Kitchener/Uncle Sam war recruitment posters have set my mind ablaze with paradigm-shifty goodness.
But, before we get onto the shift, what paradigm are we starting out with?
Let's just say, in the past, Buffy has frequently fought against or at least complicated the structures of traditional authority. At the Initiative, she refuses uniform (due to fashion reasons, ostensibly, but I think it goes deeper than that - she's not a rank and number, she's Buffy Summers, dammit!) She defies the Watcher's Council. She thinks Kendra's deference to it is misguided. She defies the authority of Prophecy with a capital P by insisting on coming back to life. She laughs in the face of - and later, kicks the intangible ass of - the First, changing the rules of the game and changing the world at the same time.
As Giles said, the Slayer's Handbook is of no use when you come across someone as mould breaky as Buffy.
So, when she whips up an army and becomes its general in season 7... when she co-ordinates an international army (or perhaps paramilitary organization) in season 8, she's taking on a role that in some ways is antithetical to that played by past!Buffy.
By becoming an "Uncle Sam" figure (though obviously a nuanced one), she's becoming the thing that she's fought against in the past - The Man.
Not in the penis-having sense, in the enemy-of-hippies-and-students-everywhere sense.
I see the struggle for Buffy in season 8 as partly a struggle within herself - a wrestling match in which anarchist!Buffy must battle authoritarianmilitaryleader!Buffy. (No, there is no oil of any kind involved, dirty thugs!)
I'm not suggesting this is a conscious battle, but she does deal consciously with the problem that a leader can never be "one of us" in the full sense - she must stand apart to a degree.
However, in terms of Buffy's character arc over seasons 7 & 8, she's confronting a new reality (of her own making), in which she must become "the Law" (interesting how much she looks like Fray's sister eh?). She must step into the role she dreaded at school careers day....a police officer, of sorts.
It's not as simple or anywhere near as literal as that - Buffy-as-leader is not exactly big on the law-abiding. But she is now in a position to "lay down the law" - that is, make decisions for other people, decide what the aim of her loose organisation is, decide what a slayer's job actually is, on the macro scale at least.
Now Buffy is operating on a global scale, it's qualitatively as well as quantitatively different to when it was just the scooby gang. It's not just that she's "in charge" of more people.... before, she could go off and act alone in a way that didn't affect an organisation, it just potentially hurt/helped her friends (and the world, but that's more amorphous). But things Buffy does as a leader now set an example for younger slayers - for "the troops". There are enough slayers to be faceless and nameless to her now (eg her failure in the art of "learning their names" is something she's criticized for by Faith in season 7).
That changes the whole game, and it changes Buffy.
I've missed quite a bit of season 8, and must catch up - got annoyed with all the Angel business, as it felt like a distraction. But I wonder... I want to see how it ends. I want to see how Buffy-the-Law and Buffy-the-makes-it-up-as-she-goes-along-er work together - or less together - and where all this leads her to by next season.
I'm not convinced this will play out perfectly, even well... but there's a lot to think about still in season 8.
http://angearia.livejournal.com/169785.html#cutid1
This bit sparked a thought. I'll quote it in full cos it's dead good, and it'll help me explain my point:
angearia sez
Look at this cover at full size and let the image sink in.
http://s436.photobucket.com/albums/qq90/Slayalive_Comics/Buffy%20Season%208/Original%20Cover%20Art/08_05_00_b.jpg
(JOE SWEDEN NOTE: sorry, I'm not as clever at linkiness as she is! Just click on it, fingers crossed it will take you to the right piccy)
Whedon is reaching inside and looking at Buffy, at the part of himself that Buffy represents, and saying to her, "I want you to be strong." Not merely in sharing power, not merely in physical strength. He wants her to be strong from WITHIN. He wants the scared little girl that still lives inside Buffy (and maybe the scared part inside himself and inside all of us) to go out and face her fears. To seek them out and kill them dead.
Read this speech again from "Bring on the Night" and then think about what's happening in Season 8:
BUFFY: "I'm beyond tired. I'm beyond scared. I'm standing on the mouth of hell, and it is gonna swallow me whole. And it'll choke on me. We're not ready? They're not ready. They think we're gonna wait for the end to come, like we always do. I'm done waiting. They want an apocalypse? Oh, we'll give 'em one. Anyone else who wants to run, do it now. 'Cause we just became an army. We just declared war. From now on, we won't just face our worst fears, we will seek them out. We will find them, and cut out their hearts one by one, until The First shows itself for what it really is. And I'll kill it myself. There is only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil, and that's us. Any questions?"
I'd like to pick up on a different aspect of both the cover image linked to above, and the part of the quote angearia bolded: "...we just became an army."
"...an army"? Interesting choice of words, Ms Summers. Or should I say, Generalissima Summers? Those words - and her attitude and experiences in season 7 and 8 - coupled with the shoutout to the Lord Kitchener/Uncle Sam war recruitment posters have set my mind ablaze with paradigm-shifty goodness.
But, before we get onto the shift, what paradigm are we starting out with?
Let's just say, in the past, Buffy has frequently fought against or at least complicated the structures of traditional authority. At the Initiative, she refuses uniform (due to fashion reasons, ostensibly, but I think it goes deeper than that - she's not a rank and number, she's Buffy Summers, dammit!) She defies the Watcher's Council. She thinks Kendra's deference to it is misguided. She defies the authority of Prophecy with a capital P by insisting on coming back to life. She laughs in the face of - and later, kicks the intangible ass of - the First, changing the rules of the game and changing the world at the same time.
As Giles said, the Slayer's Handbook is of no use when you come across someone as mould breaky as Buffy.
So, when she whips up an army and becomes its general in season 7... when she co-ordinates an international army (or perhaps paramilitary organization) in season 8, she's taking on a role that in some ways is antithetical to that played by past!Buffy.
By becoming an "Uncle Sam" figure (though obviously a nuanced one), she's becoming the thing that she's fought against in the past - The Man.
Not in the penis-having sense, in the enemy-of-hippies-and-students-everywhere sense.
I see the struggle for Buffy in season 8 as partly a struggle within herself - a wrestling match in which anarchist!Buffy must battle authoritarianmilitaryleader!Buffy. (No, there is no oil of any kind involved, dirty thugs!)
I'm not suggesting this is a conscious battle, but she does deal consciously with the problem that a leader can never be "one of us" in the full sense - she must stand apart to a degree.
However, in terms of Buffy's character arc over seasons 7 & 8, she's confronting a new reality (of her own making), in which she must become "the Law" (interesting how much she looks like Fray's sister eh?). She must step into the role she dreaded at school careers day....a police officer, of sorts.
It's not as simple or anywhere near as literal as that - Buffy-as-leader is not exactly big on the law-abiding. But she is now in a position to "lay down the law" - that is, make decisions for other people, decide what the aim of her loose organisation is, decide what a slayer's job actually is, on the macro scale at least.
Now Buffy is operating on a global scale, it's qualitatively as well as quantitatively different to when it was just the scooby gang. It's not just that she's "in charge" of more people.... before, she could go off and act alone in a way that didn't affect an organisation, it just potentially hurt/helped her friends (and the world, but that's more amorphous). But things Buffy does as a leader now set an example for younger slayers - for "the troops". There are enough slayers to be faceless and nameless to her now (eg her failure in the art of "learning their names" is something she's criticized for by Faith in season 7).
That changes the whole game, and it changes Buffy.
I've missed quite a bit of season 8, and must catch up - got annoyed with all the Angel business, as it felt like a distraction. But I wonder... I want to see how it ends. I want to see how Buffy-the-Law and Buffy-the-makes-it-up-as-she-goes-along-er work together - or less together - and where all this leads her to by next season.
I'm not convinced this will play out perfectly, even well... but there's a lot to think about still in season 8.