Sorkinitis
I’m trying to pull myself together to do the 30 Days of Awesome Ladies meme, because, WE’VE ALL MET, RIGHT? (I can’t bring myself to start posting it until my ramblings on Tara, Darla, and maybe Dru are actual respectable posts because I haven’t ever actually put together my thoughts on my girls and I want to try to do them justice, so we’ll see)
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You're very right about BSG. I'm not entirely unconvinced Jane doesn't get the problem here, though Moore is almost certainly unaware of it; Deadlock is a mess but is very much in Ellen's headspace and I can very much see the whole thing as being subversive in a way I don't think other episodes are. Joss Whedon (obviously, yes, a flawed flawed flawedy man) has described the show as the most subversive thing I've ever seen, which makes me wonder if he reads it as puncturing the ostensibly egalitarian society deliberately? Well, who knows. (At least he has strongly implied he dislikes the finale. THANK YOU.) I mean, there are men who get mistreated on BSG, too, but the only one who gets fridged, if you don't count Zak who was in a fridge before the show started, is arguably Anders; compare for Ellen, Cally, Dualla, TORY UGH. Zarek possibly could be said to die for Gaeta's story? And you're absolutely right about the inappropriateness of the coed shower under the circumstances many of these women live in and what they have gone through.
And oh yeah, how about those pregnancies on AtS? Grrrr.
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I totally didn't see it but I love that idea, TEL ME MORE, because Ellen makes my heart sing. Or at least she did, until she got a second chance at life just so she could kiss Saul's boo-boos over having killed her.
Joss Whedon (obviously, yes, a flawed flawed flawedy man) has described the show as the most subversive thing I've ever seen, which makes me wonder if he reads it as puncturing the ostensibly egalitarian society deliberately?
....has to be. Because really, Dollhouse is the most subversive show I've ever seen, I think, but it wasn't subtle about it in the least. It yells THE DOLLHOUSE IS REAL, FUCKING LOOK AT IT, and puts one of those Clockwork Orange things on your eyes and makes you deal, and I'll always think that was fascinating and brave.
OH MY GOD THE FRIDGING. I hate how it was all about Bill or Tigh specifically. Like, I thought Gaeta and Lee had very legitimate, understandable grief when Dee bit the dust. It was too fucked up for her to be the one to go at that point, but their reactions to it struck me as reasonable. Bill, though! He was just like BOO HOO THIS MUST BE ABOUT ME SOMEHOW I KNOW IT. I know my hate-on for him is pretty much the stuff of legend, but...this is why.
I mean, really, this is the most shocking thing because LOOK WHO SHE FUCKING IS, but Laura got fridged, since her DYING became all about how she upset Bill ALMOST as much as him losing his home, which EVERYONE ELSE went through in the pilot and they were supposed to suck it up.
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(I guess it's obvious to add here that Six losing her fetus is a thematic bookend to the baby whose neck she snapped in the miniseries, right? But I know you saw the miniseries last or something like that so I should mention it. Which...I dunno, I guess requires us to treat the fetus as a baby and then see its death as a just punishment or something? IDK, I like symmetry so much and there is basically no other effort in season four to acknowledge that Six is responsible for genocide and that this is a bad thing, so.)
I think Joss said that before Dollhouse. But I actually kind of don't get what he means about BSG, which is good but not in ways I'd call subversive...? I have like millions of questions to ask him about his own work, but that'd be my first question to ask him that aren't about his own stuff.
I love Dollhouse so much, btw. I really should find a better way to express my love for it than ignoring it completely. But I also felt heartbroken by some of the last eps (see Emmie's complaints about the Boyd reveal, sort of).
Like, I thought Gaeta and Lee had very legitimate, understandable grief when Dee bit the dust. It was too fucked up for her to be the one to go at that point, but their reactions to it struck me as reasonable. Bill, though! He was just like BOO HOO THIS MUST BE ABOUT ME SOMEHOW I KNOW IT.
HAHAHA yeah I see what you mean. I mean, Kat's death was mostly not really fridging...it generally was about her own arc, which was pretty much over, since her death never affected anyone else.
You know, at some point I should sort out my thoughts on fridging. Because really I am actually pretty much all for killing secondary characters off if it is important enough for primary characters. But it should be actually important--like, this story will not work if they don't die, type important. I don't have problems with Jenny or Tara's deaths, not to mention Joyce's, though I love them; they kinda needed to happen and they both served multiple story purposes at once. Fred/Illyria I think might have been worthwhile if there were a season six, because I believe the arc would be essentially for Fred to be reformed as part of Illyria and as part of a broader exploration of what memories are. But Cordy was just gone. And the deaths on BSG became increasingly, "What should we do with character X? I know, kill them so that BILL FEELS PAIN."
And yeah, Laura. >:(
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yeah. I think I was less impressed with that than everyone on screen was because OH MY GOD, SHE WAS A PRISONER HE COULD HAVE HAD TORTURED, consent in that situation is presumptively suspect; her being a second-generation robot was hardly a blip on the radar. Which is another flawless but horrifying microcosm of the show's complete lack of understanding of what it was dealing with. (Especially given that she was a Six. Not Gina but still, WHAT?) Turning that into SAUL DO YOU LOVE ME played totally straight is basically validating the symptoms of Stockholm syndrome as perfectly reasonable romantic interest. Which actually works much better through Ellen's POV, because she worked so hard to minimize the Cavil situation which was just about exactly the same thing, but there's never textual acknowledgment of that.
there is basically no other effort in season four to acknowledge that Six is responsible for genocide and that this is a bad thing, so.
oh, this. yeah, there had to be a lot of handwaving to make the false equivalence look like actual moral ambiguity.
at some point I should sort out my thoughts on fridging
I can usually...articulate is probably too generous, but at least pinpoint my issues with this kind of thing, but I am still at "I know it when I see it" with fridging and Man Pain, and they're very subjective and contextual. I don't know quite where I put that line between legitimate plot/character development and fridging in any one individual case or set of incidents in a big-picture story.
To go with AtS, without the grotesque AHitW, I could potentially have gotten behind Fred giving way to Illyria, if she had not been the Last Woman Standing. As it were, YOU KNOW HOW THIS IDEA PAINS ME, but the fact that it was Fred and not Wesley looks really fucking bad (especially given just how brilliantly we have since seen Alexis Denisof doing exactly that). For every single human woman and most of the female Cylons on BSG to be disposable, mostly so Bill (or sometimes Tigh or Tyrol) could run around yelling NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WHY MEEEEEEEE for six episodes on end says way more than Cally or Dee or Tory or Boomer the first time or or or on their own.
(Though! I have no idea how I found this post, but Mary McDonnell and Kate Vernon apparently agree! Which is cold comfort but not nothing.)
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OH MAN SHE WAS A SIX THAT'S SO TERRIBLE. But I mean...it's all so screwed up. I think a lot of the Six stuff also comes from the baseline assumption (within the show) that Head Six was a Six and in some ways represented Sixness. Because talk about questionable consent, Baltar goes along with Six and he's a horndog so we're all like, "Yeah, he's into it," but Head Six basically can kill him if he doesn't do what she says. And she reminds him of this constantly. In the miniseries at least she's fondling him while he's trying to maintain his cool. He actually does consent most of the time (ugh, can you believe this is what I'm typing?) and he's even okay with it, but that's because he's already conditioned to know that but for the grace of Six goeth he. Which means basically Baltar is an atheist who gets repeatedly raped by God into believing in Him. (Ten to one that's what Joss sees about the show that is subversive!) All of which is to say: if you accept that Head Six has a connection to the other Sixes, in any way, then there is at least some reason for painting her as also being a perpetual victim. I know I'm using *very* loose moral equivalences here, so I want to specify that I'm sorting my feelings out in real-time, not suggesting that these vague ideas of how the story could have gone would be okay or unproblematic. But they'd at least be more balanced, you know? But once Head Six becomes God, then we're left with Sixes who basically are just different types of victims. And one of them destroyed everyone on Caprica except some pyramid players.
I really don't know what AHitW is supposed to be doing. It's *so explicit* about making Fred's deaths about all the menfolk's narratives. It feels so deliberate, as if it's a commentary on something? It's also actually the first time Joss used a death for this particular angstfest; Jenny and Tara's deaths were clearly story-driven, and Joyce's death was dealt with in a hyperrealistic, emotions-reined in, camera pulled back fashion. Fred's death was a bit of a freak show. Everyone gawking everywhere. (The episode also has some of the best writing in the entire series.) The one thing I've always *loved* is the theory (I can't remember who said it anymore--there's so much I've absorbed over the past few years that has completely escaped my mind) that it's about femininity in the business world, and how in order to succeed and survive women have to transform themselves into men, basically. Which happens with Illyria, and then happens *again* with Whiskey/Clyde. And I mean, I've never worked in business, so I'm not saying this with any place of authority (one of the reasons I should probably never talk about feminism or politics or anything, because I have no idea how the world works except I get the impression sometimes that it's bad, unless it's "how the world works" as in physics and then I'm down). But it somehow makes sense? The only other feminine alternative is to be sycophantic secretary. It's like Cordelia's influence in the show gets split into Fred and Harmony, and Fred is hollowed out and Harmony only survives because she's essentially hollow anyway, and is not expected to have any position of authority and (at best) bounces between different male mentors/lovers (Angel, Spike, Wesley--who responds to her saying "boss", Hamilton). But I mean, this might not be the case at all.
Oh my God Alexis Denisof as Illyria. Wow.
Now I'm also sad we didn't get to see Senator Perrin's rise to the presidency.
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I feel like the show accidentally played with gender roles a lot, but nobody on board besides maybe the actors had the tools to consciously deal with it, which is why most of the worst episodes of the show are the ones that have gender issues at the heart of them, I think. (The more I think/read/talk about this show, the more inclined I am to give the credit for the things I like the best to Mary McDonnell, Jamie Bamber, and James Callis, because there was clearly a lot of thought there on someone's part, but not the people in charge of the plot.)
it's about femininity in the business world, and how in order to succeed and survive women have to transform themselves into men
I love this reading on it, I have never heard it before. (I hope you do not stop opining, SELFISHLY, because I like your thoughts.) But still, I can't get past the episode itself, AHitW is THE WORST. I take your word for it that there was beautiful writing, because I just watched it the once and proceeded to block it out. (I've said that a lot about AtS, I feel like.)
I actually have started thinking lately that even Joyce dying was actually brilliantly story-driven, in that kind of inversion BtVS does so well. It's always the mentor that bites the dust, true, but Buffy is learning to be a person, because she had superness thrust upon her, so Giles can't be the one to go, it has to be Joyce. NOBODY ELSE THINKS SO, THOUGH. (I feel like I say that a lot, in general.)
Right? Right? He could completely have carried off Illyria equally as well as she did. (And how much more shocking and awesome to watch Fred snap instead of Wesley? It was a long time coming with her.) And yeah, the Perrin story itself could have carried a 22-episode season. WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN.
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Thanks re: thoughts. I HAVE A LOT OF THEM but only on certain subjects. The notes with Maggie and Strudel are helpful in getting a lot of them out, though I have no idea what we'll do when we get with season six, because there are definitely episodes I would want to write 5,000 words about easy. (Also, Maggie doesn't see the beauty in the Dark Willow episodes, so I'm already concerned that those notes are going to be a horribly lopsided combination of her going "Eh, so Willow does increasingly bad stuff for three episodes" with me going into Andrew-calibre fanboying.)
AHitW: Gunn's Three Little Maids thing with Wes is perfect (even if he's using Fred to mark out his territory--hell, especially because of that: Charles what are you doing!?). Angel telling Spike, "Just hold my hand" and Spike doing so without question. And then:
Spike: (smiles) St. Petersberg.
Angel: (smiles) I thought you'd forgotten.
I think (I'm not positive) there's some interesting things in there about chaos as well. Joss' taking on Feigenbaum into the episode is a better example than usual of his appropriation of skience. (Giles: Oh, quantum mechanics tell us that when you don't look at people they become invisible! Erm, nice try. Though I give him points for the no-sound-in-space in Firefly being both scientifically correct and a strong aesthetic choice.)
Yeah, you're totally right about Giles vs. Joyce as the person to lose in season five. She gets pushed further into slayer mode because of it. It wouldn't work the other way around at all. I've seen complaints that Tara counts as fridging because Willow is the more "masculine" character of the two, which I guess is because she...is on top in OMWF/SR, and is abusive?...but it is interesting/true that Dark Willow is heavily masculinized (with the deep voice even at one point) as if she only has the ability to express femininity only through Tara. Hm, that ended in a different place than it started (it started with IS THIS FRIDGING? I think). I also think Tara's death is actually a bit of a bookend with Joyce's death--they're two "mother figures" for the gang and mark the approximate start and approximate end of Buffy's depression and relatedly the gang beginning and ending the worst of their growing up process. (Willow and Xander get saved at the same time, in Grave.) Certainly it's hardest on Dawn of any of the living people, for her to have to lose Joyce, Buffy and Tara within a year and a few weeks....
Jenny was obviously not fridging because Giles' pain is pretty secondary to the main arc.
And I don't know what to call Lilah's death. I think the biggest reason to kill her is for a Dramatic Reveal! that Cordy's evil. It wasn't done for Wesley Man Pain because that's not given much time at all. So I'm at a loss. It's possible that Stephanie Romanov didn't want to return though. I've always assumed they brought in Eve, rather than Lilah, because Stephanie was too expensive or some such, but I really have no idea. (I guess they couldn't really have the same reveals later in the season with Eve if it were Lilah, except then we'd have *Lilah sleeping with Lindsey* which, come to think of it, I could kind of see, which might be an unpopular choice.)
Ugh, I don't make any sense. Move on.
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Was Head Gaius ever abusive with Caprica? Obviously he wasn't super forthright with her, and I guess you can argue that a power and knowledge imbalance between an angel and a person is already enough to be automatic abuse, like say a 241-year-old and a 17-year-old BOOM
OH SNAP. Um, I seem to only remember him being contemptuous, and I think that would probably have made an impression, but I can't say for sure. There was a lot of interesting stuff going on with Baltar for sure. GAIUS AND LEE. SUCH GIRLS. I LOVE IT.
DARK WILLOW IS THE BEST. I definitely don't have that much insight into Willow, but there's a lot to unpack in those episodes.
Jenny I've never thought of as fridging because there were reasons she had to go; it didn't strike me as happening so Giles would snap. It made sense that he did, but that didn't strike me as the reason.
Lilah not being the liaison was one of the bigger missed opportunities of the series. (Though, Lilah under the influence of Jasmine would have been incredibly entertaining but maybe it just would have been too unbelievable). And ha, I've kind of always kind of had it in my head that Lilah and Lindsey were sleeping together when they first started at W&H and they did lots of bratty, inept alliance-making and backstabbing, so it would have worked for me too.
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DARK WILLOW IS SO GREAT. So back when I knew that there was season six hate, I always assumed that season six hate was just confined to the middle of the season, because how could anyone not love that finale? And then it turns out there are people who are anti-Dark Willow. And I read some things from people who think the magic addiction thing completely ruined her story forever. Anyway, since then I've always been a little...insecure, I guess?...about the episodes' quality. I'm not a big fan of the addiction midseason stuff, but I was always able to separate it from the final three in my head, even though there are some drug references in the final eps. (Right now, I'm on board with the idea that the addiction thing was a deliberate misdirect, so the midseason stuff isn't bothersome either, except maybe some execution stuff.) Of the Final Three, I'm a fan, they speak to me a great deal and the attempt-to-end-the-world's-pain suicide-genocide attempt is perfect for her character and for the show. And yellow crayon! But they're also pretty messy. To this day I'm still not 100% sure what they were trying to accomplish with the different magical substances, though I have guesses that make perfect sense to me but are a little hard to justify. And somehow people saying that the arc was too rushed, or didn't push far enough, or didn't explore her power issues enough, etc., has made me concerned that that's true. I'm one of those people who wants to be certain that the things I like are *good*, and I feel like there is a dearth of good writing on the Dark Willow trilogy, which makes me wonder if there's not a lot there. Or maybe it just mostly works in an emotional way? Also, recently people were arguing that the Buffy/Willow fight *wasn't* awesome, another blow to the system. ("Was X awesome?" arguments are probably hard ones to win. Or lose, for that matter.) My main goal is to try to learn how to deal with these things in a more healthy way, i.e. THINGS CAN BE GREAT AND ENJOYABLE EVEN IF I CAN'T CONCLUSIVELY PROVE IT. But I also write about it a lot. At some point if you're okay with it I might ask you to read some of it over in a beta-y way?
You mention not having much insight into Willow. One person I'm blanking on a bit is Tara. Because I love her obviously because she's Tara, but I'm not sure I quite get her. I'm like the Scoobies in Family I guess. Or rather, I think I get some of her, but am curious what you have to say.
I figure that makes sense too, re: the LM's. I have no idea why IDW hasn't brought Lilah back in their (admittedly crappy) comic books--standard perpetuity clause, right? Oh well.
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I would completely be up for a SNEAK PEEK of your S6 thoughts! I wonder if people's issue with writing about that last arc is just whiplash? Regardless of the (admittedly less-than-stellar, but not totally destructive of the storyline, IMO) middle part of the season, I do think that final arc did deal with all those issues, and that was part of what made them effective. It had to be layered just to fit, and it should have been chaotic to fit the meta-narrative of the season (when life is the Big Bad, it's not making any kind of grand play that you can derail).
didn't push far enough, or didn't explore her power issues enough
....huh? Trying to end the world didn't do the power issues for them? Those sound to me like eliding taste with structural issues. I admit I avoid standard criticism of the later seasons because I'm just not ever going to be on the same page, but I definitely think there's another way to read the episodes, FWIW.
I love Tara. Tara is STEALTH AWESOME. I feel like the Big Dramatic Story is redemption, which, you know, I love Spike as much as anyone and probably more than most. But with Tara, it's a really interesting question of OH MY GOD, THIS GIRL, how did she not get fucked up? Like, what keeps a person not just together but high-functioning intellectually and socially when she grew up with no options, major emotional abuse (that we know of) on top of whatever awful homophobia her family and community would have, AND then her mom, and she's, you know, a little shy but mostly she's with it. I think "how did Tara stay mostly good" is actually character-wise a much more subtle but equally interesting question about character-building than a trigger, a soul, and a chip or whatever. She's not wanting for power, and therefore the ability to use any one of those things as a reason to cause pain, and really, that's all she's been taught since she lost her mother, that power should be abused. For her to be able to take power should not be abused as a given and commit to live-and-let-live so gracefully? I know it's not as entertaining as the flaying, but. I don't know, I think there actually kind of has to be a lot there.
Ugh. Sorry. rambling. I have to finish that essay. It has been taunting me for weeks.
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I WILL SHARE SOME THOUGHTS THEN. Probably not now, but at some point when I feel like I need to get them out. Partly I just need someone to rant about this to who isn't my best friend/ex-gf, who is getting a little sick of talking about Buffy for several hours at a time, to gab about it before I share it with the viciousness of Fandom At Large.
I agree with your points generally. I think Wrecked/DMP is only That Bad if you take it as the end of her story. I think the writing is generally strong in the final trio. I have, let's say, some issues with them, but all things I can fanwank away; I resent that I have to, but am willing to because LOVE LOVE LOVE.
It had to be layered just to fit, and it should have been chaotic to fit the meta-narrative of the season (when life is the Big Bad, it's not making any kind of grand play that you can derail).
YES. I have a post about parallels between Becoming and TTG/Grave here (http://local-max.livejournal.com/6524.html) that gets at this point, but I don't think I get as closely to the heart of the matter. What's crucial is that what Angel does for metaphor, Willow does for real. Angelus is both an abstraction of Angel's dark side, and he's ending the world because he's unhappy with it but has a carefully detailed plan to carry it out. Willow is play-acting at being "Darth Rosenberg"/Willowus but she's still Willow; she nearly ends the world for basically similar reasons to Angel but does it on a (nearly explicit!) spur of a moment teenage/young adult hissy fit. No grand plans here...it's just *stuff* that happens that's utterly unbearable.
The sense of chaos in the finale, in great contrast to Becoming's absolute, meticulously plotted tragedy, is very thoroughgoing. That *Willow* can snap while still being Willow as *Spike* can get a soul while still being Spike, and *Buffy* is useless in the fight as *Xander* saves the world, is like a skeleton key for the entire series, for me. It's like the episode carefully trashes the central myths of the series and leaving behind the most important thing--which is that life is hard but love makes it better. HAHA, okay, obviously I can't stop myself from writing thoughts. (Said bff/ex-gf indicated that she felt a non-chaotic, finely tuned Willow blowout wouldn't really be right, since Willow really does lose control.)
I think one of the issues people have with Willow is that she never explicitly acknowledges the depths of her depravity in wiping Tara's memory twice. I mean, she does gesture to it in Wrecked, but she blames the magic. And I'm sympathetic to it to a degree. But, I dunno, I know she knows she did wrong? I think she is still in denial in Seeing Red, but she is way too angry at herself not to be holding some guilt in the final trilogy, you know. And then after the blowout, it's like, well, she could talk about how bad her memory violation was or she could talk about attempted genocide.
Oh man I love those thoughts on Tara. And I think that actually places Tara in an interesting position midway between Buffy and the Scoobies. Because Buffy's dysfunctions are primarily the result of recent trauma, like her calling and her mom's death; Tara has that (especially with her mom). And Willow and Xander's are from childhood issues, mostly, parental neglect/abuse respectively, which Tara also has--I mean, more the latter than the former, I think. And so it's like she's been through the entire wringer of the Scooby gang and still has her wits about her. That's pretty huge. I'm really interested in seeing how she deals with it, you know? There are a few things that strike me as obvious survival mechanisms--the stuttering, for example, the nonconfrontational attitude through four and five--but she seems to be working on improving herself so constantly and consistently, to the point where she can stand up to Willow in season six without arrogance. I feel like I don't get how that happens entirely, but I can see it as an amazing story.
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agreed. But, I don't know, I thought S7 actually did a fair amount to show that the magic abuse was a harmful symptom, not the disease itself, unless we were actually going to have Giles sit her down and say YOU MUST STOP MASKING PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS WITH MIND-ALTERING SUBSTANCES, WILLOW; in that way the drug metaphor isn't actually so bad. (As contrasted with responsible earth-magic-user and obvious marijuana enthusiast Tara. LOOK AT THAT DORM ROOM.)
but does it on a (nearly explicit!) spur of a moment teenage/young adult hissy fit
WHICH ANGEL WITH A SOUL WOULD NEVER DO. God, at least Willow learns her lesson about that.
Willow and Xander's are from childhood issues, mostly, parental neglect/abuse respectively, which Tara also has--I mean, more the latter than the former
Yeah. Tara and Xander seem to get along pretty easily without, you know, Bonding or anything; there's a lot they seem to recognize in each other.
the stuttering, for example, the nonconfrontational attitude through four and five
THANK you. I honestly cringe a little when I see those things specifically cited as evidence that she "has no personality," which is the exact wording that I see a lot. Because those things show she is a goddamn survivor and are exactly what she needed to do to get through her awful family actually trying to strip away her personality. I mean, aside from the different reading I have of it, which of course there are different ways to see the story always, it starts to become this apathetic lukewarm victim-blaming.
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agreed. But, I don't know, I thought S7 actually did a fair amount to show that the magic abuse was a harmful symptom, not the disease itself, unless we were actually going to have Giles sit her down and say YOU MUST STOP MASKING PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS WITH MIND-ALTERING SUBSTANCES, WILLOW
I would love a scene of Giles telling Willow that; it'd just be awesome. And also one of Giles telling Buffy, YOU MUST STOP BLAMING YOUR FRIENDS' AND LOVERS' TRANSFORMATIONS INTO EVIL ON EXTERNAL PROBLEMS, YOU ARE CONFUSING YOURSELF (AND THE AUDIENCE). And Anya, YOU ARE ADORABLE AND CURRENTLY SINGLE, LET'S GET IT ON AND START A NEW BUSINESS TOGETHER. Wait, the last one isn't as on-topic, is it? Oh well.
in that way the drug metaphor isn't actually so bad. (As contrasted with responsible earth-magic-user and obvious marijuana enthusiast Tara. LOOK AT THAT DORM ROOM.)
Hahaha. You know, it's actually too bad that the drugs metaphor is such an overwhelming problem for people (and I include myself in this--I've only gotten okay with it recently). Because addiction isn't her big problem, yes yes, but it does have some parallels as you point out. The other problem is that the earth magic vs. dark magic thing was never really established very concretely, but worldbuilding was never a big thing in the show. But yeah, Earth magic = that which grows from the Earth. Dorm room indeed.
WHICH ANGEL WITH A SOUL WOULD NEVER DO. God, at least Willow learns her lesson about that.
I thought you would like that one. You could even argue that the good magic connecting her to feeling others' pain maps well onto the polterGrace making Angel feel love again. But Angel deals with his inability to handle emotions by methodical means, which Willow normally tries to do but just goes "screw it" this time.
Yeah. Tara and Xander seem to get along pretty easily without, you know, Bonding or anything; there's a lot they seem to recognize in each other.
Oh man, remember that scene in The Body after he punched through a wall? "It hurts."
THANK you. I honestly cringe a little when I see those things specifically cited as evidence that she "has no personality," which is the exact wording that I see a lot. Because those things show she is a goddamn survivor and are exactly what she needed to do to get through her awful family actually trying to strip away her personality. I mean, aside from the different reading I have of it, which of course there are different ways to see the story always, it starts to become this apathetic lukewarm victim-blaming.
I think there is definitely some victim-blaming there, and it's pretty annoying. But if someone says that Tara is poorly written and is not interesting as a result, it isn't necessarily malicious; she's not a real person and there *are* characters out there who have no personality because they are uninteresting and not well written. That said, sometimes it really is malicious, and people are outright refusing to acknowledge that the character might work, which is ridiculous.
Ugh, her family trying to eliminate her personality. Absolutely.
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As for the drug metaphor, I do think it's a tricky one because addiction is obviously an illness and nobody wants to conflate that with personal flaws, for obvious reasons; that said, she does seem to have chosen the over-reliance that led up to it for a very long time, and those decisions I do think are related to the overall arc, enough that I don't have a hard time seeing a connection.
I've honestly always considered the grief and immediate trauma of losing Tara and nearly losing Buffy as more of an immediate cause and to some extent mitigating factor than some vague JUST SAY NO thing. Not excusing, obviously, but less within her control. She hopped off the wagon because of that in a way that felt consistent with her character to me.
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Yeah. I mean, my reading is that the drug thing is a mislead that Willow seizes on to explain away all her problems. But then that does raise issues of potentially minimizing drug addictions IRL, by suggesting that addiction isn't a "real" problem. Anyway, Giles comes out and says that it's not an addiction in s7, so what we're left with is Willow going on one (well, two) really bad trips as a part of a broader non-addiction related spiral out of control. But it's consistent that she'd want to go on those trips. It's any way out of emotional pain, and since changing the external didn't work she finally considers changing the internal.
I've honestly always considered the grief and immediate trauma of losing Tara and nearly losing Buffy as more of an immediate cause and to some extent mitigating factor than some vague JUST SAY NO thing. Not excusing, obviously, but less within her control. She hopped off the wagon because of that in a way that felt consistent with her character to me.
Definitely the grief and immediate trauma is an immediate cause and mitigating factor. I do worry that "hopping off the wagon" is seen as too central to her story, because I don't think the mind-altering effects of the magic are particularly important here; pretty much everything comes from within Willow, it's just that it requires more fury to run the dark magic, Rack's magic loosens her up and (more importantly) Giles' magic connects her to the Earth and other people, so kind of forces empathy on her. But really I guess it's just one angle on her story among lots of others.
One observation I read that I like is that the metaphors got reversed in the later seasons--so that instead of Willow's story being a metaphor for drug abuse, drug abuse gets trotted out as one of several metaphors for Willow's story. Which is kind of cool, insofar as it ties in with the way we all have stories that we impose on our lives.
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Totally late to the party, but yeah, me too! I can't help it, I just... like to kill people, I dunno.
I think it becomes problematic when (1) the killing is frivolous, because we don't know what else to do with this character or we just don't care, but also (2) ALL the secondary characters who get killed off are women - or in AtS' case, all the women, period. They're like, "Hey, why stop with secondary characters?" And it's especially problematic when it's all women dying to cause MAN PAIN. (Like, I have zero problem with Angel dying to cause Buffy pain. Buuuut there may be other reasons for that, lol.
Joyce, Tara, Jenny, even Fred wouldn't be that bad taken in isolation. It's when you PUT THEM ALL TOGETHER (with the corresponding lack of male deaths) that it gets kind of horrifying.
(Now I kinda want to do a poll about how many of Joss' character deaths are about MAIN PAIN and how many are important.)
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