(Meta) Thoughts on Buffy's injury

[stormwreath]

I've been thinking about the recent preview showing that Buffy is going to suffer a crippling injury in the April issue of the comics. My initial reaction was on the lines of "Do not want", but I've been considering what sort of story they might be wanting to tell, and I have some thoughts.

(Note that this is an adapted and extended version of

Comments

[ladypeyton]

My own thoughts are basically ew, no, but still I greatly prefer an amputation story over a babyfic.

[stormwreath]

Hmm. I suspect Buffy would prefer the baby herself... ;-)

[ladypeyton]

Quite possibly, though IRL babies are actually *much* more life altering than losing a limb.

[ceciliaj]

I like your thoughts. Especially this one:

Heck, maybe there'll even be a political message in there: about how we send young people off to fight in our wars, but turn our backs on them when they come home crippled.

Heck. That'd be a conversation worth having. I haven't even looked at the BF threads on this yet, because I am afraid of being annoyed...

[stormwreath]

Thanks! Season 8 definitely, IMO, had a contemporary political message (about investing too much trust in our leaders or being carried away by media glorification/demonisation campaigns), so I certainly think there could be scope for something similar here. And as I recall Tony!Victor on Dollhouse was an injured war veteran (though with PTSD, not a physical injury) so it's an issue Joss is conscious of.

BF is being surprisingly sane at the moment, I think. Apart from the usual suspects. :)

[ceciliaj]

The Dollhouse point is a good one. I will conquer my fear and check out BF :).

[coalitiongirl]

Interesting take. I admit that most of my trepidation comes from how DH will handle this, but (much like the pregnancy concept) I'd also be interested in seeing it play out. You're right, this is a Joss move of the best variety, and this post actually made me excited (is that really the word?) for it.

(Of course, I'm equally concerned that Andrew Chambliss's superficial take on the characters will have the whole thing fall flat. :\)

[stormwreath]

What gives me hope is that I think this is something Joss planned out over a year ago, and discussed with all the writers, so it's all planned out. It should be no different to, say, Joyce getting sick and then dying in S5, or Buffy suffering from clinical depression in S6. Painful to watch, but also dramatically effective.

It's already inspired several excellent fanfics. ;-)

Robot Arm

[ext_970649]

Isn't Andrew on the other cover for this issue? Maybe he could give her a robotic arm....

Re: Robot Arm

[stormwreath]

In issue 9.03, we actually see Andrew working on a robotic arm, which is why he doesn't answer the phone.

And its a right arm, looks like a woman's, and is just the right length to replace what Buffy loses in 9.08. Coincidence? Quite possibly not.

Re: Robot Arm

[mikeda]

Of course this whole thing could just be a 'armless little prank...

:-)

[erimthar]

Having considered all that... my reaction is still "do not want."

They're starting to dip way too far into soap opera territory for my tastes.

Not to mention that everything is spoiled so far in advance now that buying the actual comic is virtually pointless.

[stormwreath]

You don't think there's going to be any sort of twist or surprise plot element related to Buffy losing her arm?

[erimthar]

Well... this issue is out in April, right?

It could be some sort of prank on Dark Horse's part. Not necessarily that this event won't happen, but that it "won't be what we think."

Some people have speculated it might be a new Buffybot, since Andrew was building a robot, but 'bots don't bleed as far as I know.

I don't know why they'd spoil such a big development so far in advance. Almost seems like they're concerned that the smaller scale of season 9 has resulted in correspondingly smaller sales, and now they want to go big and splashy (literally) again.

I just don't know. Most likely I'll keep reading, though.