Major Fannish Events

[thefourthvine]

For various reasons, right now I'm thinking about Major Fannish Events I Wish I Could Have Seen. Now, when I say that, I don't mean the actual events, most of which are available on DVD or at least on some fourth-generation cell phone recording somewhere, but the fannish reaction to those events

Comments

[musesfool]

Becoming 2 - Buffy sending Angel to hell and running away from Sunnydale - is what got me to log onto alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer for the first time. It was pretty intense, from what I recall. I wasn't on the newsgroup for the earlier stuff, though I kind of wish I had seen the reactions live.

[thefourthvine]

Wow. Yeah, I can see that that one must have been a biggie. I mean, I watched it on DVD, and I knew she came back, but. Still. It was...memorable.

[musesfool]

I figured she'd be back, but Angel! I wasn't even a B/A shipper, but the fact that he'd got his soul back and went to hell anyway! That she'd known and had to do it! I didn't know he was coming back and I cried like a baby.

That was a great episode.

"That's everything, huh? No weapons. No friends. No hope. Take all that away... and what's left?"

"Me."

I still get shivers from that exchange.

You can still rile up some Buffy fans by talking about Xander's Lie. That was a major topic of conversation on the newsgroup that summer. That, and what was the song at the end of Becoming 2? (Full of Grace by Sarah McLachlan, in case anyone doesn't know. *snerk*)

[thefourthvine]

Wait. What? I thought Xander's Lie happened in season six, not two. Have I been thinking of the wrong thing all this time?

[musesfool]

No, Xander's Lie is from Becoming 2:

Xander: Willow. (stops) Uh, she told me to tell you...

Buffy: Tell me what?

Xander: (pauses to think) Kick his ass.

Because Willow wanted Xander to tell Buffy she (Willow) was trying to re-soul Angel, and Xander didn't. (needless to say, I was in the Xander was right to lie camp.)

What did you think it was in season 6? I admit, I haven't rewatched the latter seasons at all since they aired, so nothing is popping out at me, unless you mean leaving Anya at the altar?

[thefourthvine]

I thought it had something to do with Seeing Red. (I've never seen any of the later seasons, so I wasn't sure what it was, but it seemed to cause similar levels of upset and be mentioned in the same breath as Seeing Red, so...)

I'll be honest, too: I watched the parts of season two of Buffy that I've seen waaaay too early in my understanding-TV project. I never understood why Xander didn't tell Buffy in the scene you've quoted above, although I also didn't think it was a big deal. *shamed ignorance*

[musesfool]

I didn't think it was a big deal either, but once people online started getting really strident about how Xander didn't tell her because he was JUS JELUS OF ANGEL OMG (though sadly we didn't speak in LOLcat then) and wanted him to die, and how it was this HUGE BETRAYAL, I was like, "Um, no, he thought it would be a distraction and give her false hope, so she wouldn't be fighting at 100% while she was waiting for the spell to take effect, so he didn't tell her." Only, you know, with a lot more words and a lot more vehemence.

It's funny how you can be sort of indifferent or at least not crazy-passionate about something until people start getting upset online over it, and then you end up taking a side and digging in, even if you hadn't really had strong feelings one way or the other to start with.

[tieleen]

My feelings on that moment were always pretty much, 'Joss, you #$^@&#, are you seriously going to leave that one with no explanation?' I'm actually glad to know that moment bothered other people, even if they were mad at the character instead of the show. (I could see them giving him either motivation, really, or a mix of them -- his entire interaction with Angel was a mix of those things, after all. And they never explained. @*^&$%&.)

[rivestra]

Just to clear this up: in season 6, Buffy finally found out about Xander's lie from season 2. It exactly didn't help their relationship.

And I second just about everything above - season 2 Buffy had me scurrying, heart in my throat, to find people to talk to commiserate with about Joss' incredible evil. Several times that season I couldn't believe he'd actually done that to us. The only other show that's ever crawled into my skin that badly was Farscape (the John Black/Green arc, in particular).

[kita0610]

Man, yes. I had no idea what fandom WAS at the time she killed him and I just pretty much sat there rocking back and forth all by myself.

Ah, say what you will about Whedon. He set the bar.

[odditycollector]

I remember that Becoming 2 made me so happy! I mean, yes, it tore out my delicate 13 year old soul, but it was also a moment of holy shit! They totally earned this ending! It is awesome!

13 is a confusing time. *nods* (And... I can *imagine* how fandom reacted? But even though I was in an online fandom -about Vampires!- at the time, it was not *BtVS*. Multi-fannishness is an *advanced skill*, okay?)

Although I may have imprinted. Like, I read "End of the Road" recently and could only academically appreciate why people are afraid of it.

[hradzka]

I was there for that one. The newsgroup EXPLODED. We'd been having intense, furious arguments over what the characters should do ever since they found the ritual to restore Angel's soul. All the Buffy/Angel shippers were DYING for him to get his soul back. The love! The tasty angst! And those of us who either didn't give a crap about Buffy/Angel or rather sensibly believed that there are things more important than romance said, "Forget it, he's too goddamn dangerous -- what if he sees a really great movie or something, feels happy, and goes all fanged again? It's too big a risk to take. Stake him now." We had epic flamewars about this, because the shippers thought we were monstrous unfeeling clods and we thought they were dippy pie-in-the-sky starry-eyed lovey-wovey snoogy-muffins. ...you can tell which side I thought and still think was right, can't you