(no subject)
Last day tomorrow. Thank fucking god. One co-worker has decided to quit, and I'm already half way there, which, all things considered, probably hasn't been the purpose of the whole thing.
So, for something different. Fragmented ramblings, because I'm really not up to a coherent discussion.
I like Buffy S6. I understand quite a lot of people don't, but it might even be my favourite season. I like the introspective, vaguely existentialist quality, and - this may sound strange coming from the person who extensively bitched about relationship based and driven shows - it appeals to - I was going to say the deeply closeted romantic within me, but that's not quite right. 'Romantic' is perhaps too light and fluffy an expression in this context: What I enjoy is how, apart from Buffy's existentialist arc, the season's leitmotif is a discussion of the various permutations of love, romantic and otherwise. Buffy and Spike, Willow and Tara, Xander and Willow, Anya and Xander, Buffy and Giles, Buffy and Dawn...
This even extends to the season's villains, mainly Warren, who loves, or at least believes he loves, Katrina in his immature and twisted way, and ends up killing her when he not only can't make her love him, but can't even force her to pretend to love him. It's creepy, chilling and extremely sad at the same time.
It's this perversion of love that makes the trio cross the line from their nerdy delusions of super villaindom to a very real lack of morality when the initial shock changes to 'We really got away with murder. That's ... kinda cool.'. And yet it is Willow who with erasing Tara's memory comes uncomfortably close to what Warren does to Katrina, and it is Buffy who two episodes later (As You Were) echoes Warren's 'Tell me you love me.'
And later on in Seeing Red, Andrew's desperate 'He never really loved- (emphatic pause, the unspoken 'me' hovering very obviously) ...hanging out with us.
And what is love, in the end.
Losing Tara drove Willow into the dark, Xander's love brought her back.
Perhaps clicheed, but it also makes a nice change from the villain of the season who tries to open a portal, stage an apocalypse, &c. for no good reason.
And I'm still very fond of Buffy's arc; maybe it's too angsty, a thinly veiled, but IMO still rather effective metaphor for depression, but her struggle to accept herself and her life strikes a chord with me.
But I realized ... I'm not saying that I'm doing back-flips about my life, but... I didn't ... I don't ... wanna die. That's something, right?
This is part of what I like about the Buffy/Spike relationship, too - they're fucked up (::sigh:: unavoidable pun) in so many ways, but they do connect and bring each other to a certain level of self-knowledge, even if it's not always pleasant. Ironically even with the sex and the fighting and the barely talking at all it's perhaps the most introspective relationship either of them had, because in the course of it they are both forced to acknowledge sides of themselves that they'd rather not see. (Buffy having to realise that it's not having come back 'wrong' that makes her want Spike, and, conversely, Spike ultimately going on his quest to get his soul back, rather than the chip out.)
It's a Know Thyself season, really. Willow's arc, too, is about not being able to accept who she is.
Tara's death makes me sad - necessary for Willow's arc and the season finale, obviously, but sometimes it irritates me a little that in Jossverse happy couples just aren't meant to be and must be broken up at all cost, and at least one of the parties involved must end up dead, cursed, or transformed into a blue-haired goddess. Tara was perhaps the character I could most identify with, because she was so normal, not super-witch like Willow, shy, quiet, but also (quietly) snarky. Straightforward. Kind. Reasonable. Not one of the complicated, deeply intriguing characters, but I liked her.
Minor quibbles. Dawn's arc. I don't dislike her, but I'm just too old for that much teenage angst, shouting. sulking, storming up of stairs and slamming of doors. The last episode was lovely, though.
Spike. If we're supposed to believe that Spike set out with the purpose to get his soul back, JW should have made it a little clearer, even at the risk of being somewhat less purposely misleading and slightly diminishing the shock value. I didn't see it the first time and still didn't see it re-watching it now, knowing what's going to happen.
Also, meme, because I'm such a sheep.
You fit in with:
Humanism
Your ideals mostly resemble that of a Humanist. Although you do not have a lot of faith, you are devoted to making this world better, in the short time that you have to live. Humanists do not generally believe in an afterlife, and therefore, are committed to making the world a better place for themselves and future generations.
0% scientific.
40% reason-oriented.
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