A Meme of Her Own Making

[laeria]

Happy New Year, friends and listers!

I felt like posting about the new Sherlock, but I haven't actually watched it yet - I'm struck in that awkward rut where you REALLY WANT TO WATCH but also don't want to ruin a moderately good thing.

So, instead, I've been making a list of 15 Favourite Characters Ever and let me tell you, it was very harrrrd.

Comments

[laeria]

Leaving aside my grand overidentification with S7 Buffy - so overpressured but utterly, inevitably functional, like, basically, the pillar who mustn't crumble although the crap keeps piling on and on and on - I love her brain, her soul, I just, like, want her to keep living inside me and keeping me warm, and that sounded creepy, oops.

Possibly my favourite thing about Buffy-the-character (apart from the, you know, being an idol to zillions of girls everything thing) is that her major coping mechanism is humor. Not self-destruction like Faith or self-immolation like Kendra - quips, taunts, self-irony, they keep the monsters at bay. This makes her so much more human, but also more hero, because female characters often get to operate within narrow confines of acceptable humor: Sex-and-the-City sarcasm and loopy-Luna-Lovegood-comic-relief - but Buffy is given a full range of humour, - she she Buffy intentionally uses wordplays and silliness, sometimes to bond with people, sometimes to avoid showing herself to them. It's her best mask and best way of connecting, and I loved the way the jokes got muted in S6/7, but they were near the surface anyway, waiting until she got to be herself again. Heroes being funny is The American Way, but I don't think think I know of any other story in which it is so organic, so obviously there for the story's sake as well as the audience's.

My definite favourite thing about Buffy-the-character is her morality, so strongly founded but adaptable, basically a simple system of "thou who hast power shall protect the powerless" that's constantly being fine-tuned as she learns about what power means. Just? <3.