"Peacekeeper" by sisabet, commentary by here's luck
Title: Peacekeeper
Vidder:sisabet
Fandom: Buffy
Link to vid: LJ post here
Commentary by: heresluck
N.B.: I fully intended to provide screencaps -- possibly LOTS of screencaps -- but because the vid is only available in .wmv form right now I'm having trouble doing so (I can't load the vid into VirtualDub, and using PrintScreen is yielding weird results in both WMP and VLC). I'm going to attempt to capture representative shots from the DVDs and add them to the commentary later this week, but for now it's text-only.
Context
Two pieces of context I think are important: 1) sisabet made this vid right after "Chosen" aired, and so those of us who watched it when it was first released were watching it less than two weeks after the ending of our beloved show. 2) Although Buffy is the center of the show, and the show has been vidded thousands of times, there have been surprisingly few vids focusing on Buffy herself (as opposed to Buffy in a relationship), and this was particularly (and surprisingly, given the focus on the potentials in S7) true at the time when sisabet made the vid. And so to have a vid focused on Buffy and the Slayer legacy and what it means to be a Slayer... It's hard to explain just how meaningful that was, but wow, it really was.
Compared to many of the vids sisabet has made since, this is quite a simple vid. It's also, in my opinion, one of the most powerful and satisfying Buffy vids ever made.
Song Choice
One of the striking things about the vid is that although it is clearly very much about Buffy, it's not from her point of view; she's the Peacekeeper, the one the song is addressing. The pronouns in the song suggest a POV that is collective and largely external to Buffy, primarily Willow and Xander -- more on this below. It's also a great choice musically because (music theory alert!) the shifts between minor (verses) and major (choruses), which are reflected in the lyrics as well, allow the vidder to work with a remarkably wide range of footage from a show with a lot of different moods and tones.
This vid is also a wonderful example of how to handle repeated lines and phrases, keeping them thematically linked but providing different visual referents, allowing the lines to accumulate meaning throughout the vid rather than remaining static.
Restless
Most of the clips in the vid are taken from seasons 6 and 7, but clips from "Restless" (4x22) provide most of the key images and much of the structure of the vid. This makes perfect sense, since "Restless" is one of the richest and most important and best-known episodes of the show.
Visually, "Restless" provides the series' first instances of the desert imagery (including the big cat) that recurred in key episodes later on. In "Peacekeeper," as in "Restless" itself, the desert shots (Buffy's many quests) are actually introduced by other characters -- Willow looking out the window, Xander seeing Buffy in her huge "sandbox" -- before we get to that gorgeous iconic dolly-up on Buffy herself in the vast desert. I get chills. "Restless" also introduces a constellation of non-desert images, notably Buffy painting her face with mud, that prefigure the other "transfiguration" shots: Willow white-haired and glowing, the Potentials coming into their power.
Thematically, "Restless" introduced much of the thematic material covered in the show's subsequent three seasons, especially the elements on which the vid focuses, including the nature and origins of the Slayer, Buffy's resistance to the traditional isolation of the Slayers, Buffy's loving but conflicted relationships with her friends, and ultimately the distribution of Slayer power to all potential Slayers. The use of "Restless," famously structured around the attempts of the First Slayer to kill Buffy's friends and thus isolate Buffy, helps establish the ensemble nature of the vid early on: Buffy is the Peacekeeper at the center of the vid and the show itself, but she's never been doing that job alone.
Commentary
We make all of our suns the same
Every one will suffer the fire we've made
They all explode just the same
And there's no going back on the plans we've made
The Buffy we see in this vid is in some sense "the fire we've made," the Slayer brought back from the dead by Willow and Xander, and of course "suffer" is a reminder of all the pain of S6, everything that resulted -- for Buffy and the rest of them -- from that choice... including the deaths of Tara and Anya, foregrounded here, and linked to Willow and Xander's original choice as the vid lingers on the look they exchange: "there's no going back on the plans we've made."
Peacekeeper take your time
Wait for the dark of night
Soon all the suns will rise
Peacekeeper don't tell why
Don't be afraid to fight
Love is a sweet surprise
The introduction of Buffy, sun-lit, and the First Slayer, "the dark of night," powerful and dangerous. We get the first iteration of "Soon all the suns will rise": the Slayer's destructive power, attacking Willow and Xander, but also the first iteration of "Love is a sweet surprise": not the romantic love that's failed Buffy so often, but the sustaining friendship of the other Scoobies (here, Willow), her relationship with Dawn, and even a connection with Spike that transcends romantic love. But it's immediately followed by a scene in which Willow and Xander turn away from Buffy, as the song shifts back from major to minor: no happy ending yet.
Only creatures who are on their way
Ever poison their own well
But we still have time to hate
And there's still something we can sell
This verse introduces the image of the shadow-figures that tell the story of the creation of the First Slayer (and ultimately lead into another set of desert images as Buffy confronts the First Watchers); at the end of the verse it also returns us to "Restless," as Buffy opens her bag and finds within it the mud with which to paint her face like the First Slayer. And it features one of the vid's most powerful and (for me) painful lyric/image combinations, as Buffy closes the door on Giles in cold anger and rejection: "we still have time to hate."
Peacekeeper take your time
Wait for the dark of night
Soon all the suns will rise
Peacekeeper don't tell why
Don't be afraid to fight
Love is a sweet surprise
Buffy's back in the desert, seeking knowledge of her origins, facing down their darkness. And she's still sustained by her friends (now symbolized by Xander).
When the night is cold and still
When you thought you'd had your fill
Take all the time you will
This is not a test, its not a drill
Take no prisoners, only kill
This verse is Buffy's dark night of the soul, threats both internal and external: realizing the horrifying origins of her power, rejected by her friends, feeling small and alone and taking comfort from Spike. But that darkness is also the source of her power, and in this verse she also finds and claims the scythe with which she will fight, the weapon made for her hands.
You know all of our friends are gods
And they all tell us how to paint our face
But there's only one brush we need
It's the one that never leaves a trace
Two stories interlock in this verse: Willow is indeed godlike here, powerful and frightening; Buffy paints her face, taking on that aspect of the First Slayer, the one who walks alone. But Willow is also the goddess, the one with the power to change the course of the Slayers' history, to imbue all the Potentials with the Slayer's power -- and sisabet makes perfect use of the echoing vocals here, showing us the transformation of three key Potentials.
Peacekeeper take your time
Wait for the dark of night
Soon all the suns will rise
Peacekeeper don't tell why
Don't be afraid to fight
Love is a sweet surprise
Buffy falls, but rises again, scythe in hand, finally truly unafraid to fight. And the connection between Buffy and Spike, invoked in so many 'ship vids, is here recontextualized as just one of the relationships on which Buffy relies, parallel to her friendships with Willow and Xander, the friendships that make her unlike any previous Slayer.
Peacekeeper take your time
Wait for the dark of night
Soon all the suns will rise
Peacekeeper don't tell why
Don't be afraid to fight
Love is a sweet surprise
In this chorus, for the first time, the first line shows us not Buffy alone but Buffy with Willow and Xander, walking together, then Willow and Xander dropping away so it's just Buffy: both supported and ultimately alone -- but NOT alone, as the very next shot reveals: joined, instead, to all the Potentials. And here, the suns that will rise are once again Slayer power, but instead of the destructive aspect of that power we see its positive effects, the transformation of all girls everywhere. The exhortation "don't be afraid to fight" shows Buffy taking on not the external threats of the First Evil but the control of the First Watchers, rejecting them even as she claims her power. And the "sweet surprise" is not only her relationship with Dawn but the prospect of an open road, a changed future, the very thing for which she went looking in the desert in S5.
When the night is cold and still
When you thought you'd had your fill
This is not a test, it's not a drill
Take no prisoners, only kill
And the last verse sums up: Buffy alone, Buffy frightened, Buffy determined, Buffy facing the hordes of hell with the help of her friends, Buffy finally triumphant.
Vidder:sisabet
Fandom: Buffy
Link to vid: LJ post here
Commentary by: heresluck
N.B.: I fully intended to provide screencaps -- possibly LOTS of screencaps -- but because the vid is only available in .wmv form right now I'm having trouble doing so (I can't load the vid into VirtualDub, and using PrintScreen is yielding weird results in both WMP and VLC). I'm going to attempt to capture representative shots from the DVDs and add them to the commentary later this week, but for now it's text-only.
Context
Two pieces of context I think are important: 1) sisabet made this vid right after "Chosen" aired, and so those of us who watched it when it was first released were watching it less than two weeks after the ending of our beloved show. 2) Although Buffy is the center of the show, and the show has been vidded thousands of times, there have been surprisingly few vids focusing on Buffy herself (as opposed to Buffy in a relationship), and this was particularly (and surprisingly, given the focus on the potentials in S7) true at the time when sisabet made the vid. And so to have a vid focused on Buffy and the Slayer legacy and what it means to be a Slayer... It's hard to explain just how meaningful that was, but wow, it really was.
Compared to many of the vids sisabet has made since, this is quite a simple vid. It's also, in my opinion, one of the most powerful and satisfying Buffy vids ever made.
Song Choice
One of the striking things about the vid is that although it is clearly very much about Buffy, it's not from her point of view; she's the Peacekeeper, the one the song is addressing. The pronouns in the song suggest a POV that is collective and largely external to Buffy, primarily Willow and Xander -- more on this below. It's also a great choice musically because (music theory alert!) the shifts between minor (verses) and major (choruses), which are reflected in the lyrics as well, allow the vidder to work with a remarkably wide range of footage from a show with a lot of different moods and tones.
This vid is also a wonderful example of how to handle repeated lines and phrases, keeping them thematically linked but providing different visual referents, allowing the lines to accumulate meaning throughout the vid rather than remaining static.
Restless
Most of the clips in the vid are taken from seasons 6 and 7, but clips from "Restless" (4x22) provide most of the key images and much of the structure of the vid. This makes perfect sense, since "Restless" is one of the richest and most important and best-known episodes of the show.
Visually, "Restless" provides the series' first instances of the desert imagery (including the big cat) that recurred in key episodes later on. In "Peacekeeper," as in "Restless" itself, the desert shots (Buffy's many quests) are actually introduced by other characters -- Willow looking out the window, Xander seeing Buffy in her huge "sandbox" -- before we get to that gorgeous iconic dolly-up on Buffy herself in the vast desert. I get chills. "Restless" also introduces a constellation of non-desert images, notably Buffy painting her face with mud, that prefigure the other "transfiguration" shots: Willow white-haired and glowing, the Potentials coming into their power.
Thematically, "Restless" introduced much of the thematic material covered in the show's subsequent three seasons, especially the elements on which the vid focuses, including the nature and origins of the Slayer, Buffy's resistance to the traditional isolation of the Slayers, Buffy's loving but conflicted relationships with her friends, and ultimately the distribution of Slayer power to all potential Slayers. The use of "Restless," famously structured around the attempts of the First Slayer to kill Buffy's friends and thus isolate Buffy, helps establish the ensemble nature of the vid early on: Buffy is the Peacekeeper at the center of the vid and the show itself, but she's never been doing that job alone.
Commentary
We make all of our suns the same
Every one will suffer the fire we've made
They all explode just the same
And there's no going back on the plans we've made
The Buffy we see in this vid is in some sense "the fire we've made," the Slayer brought back from the dead by Willow and Xander, and of course "suffer" is a reminder of all the pain of S6, everything that resulted -- for Buffy and the rest of them -- from that choice... including the deaths of Tara and Anya, foregrounded here, and linked to Willow and Xander's original choice as the vid lingers on the look they exchange: "there's no going back on the plans we've made."
Peacekeeper take your time
Wait for the dark of night
Soon all the suns will rise
Peacekeeper don't tell why
Don't be afraid to fight
Love is a sweet surprise
The introduction of Buffy, sun-lit, and the First Slayer, "the dark of night," powerful and dangerous. We get the first iteration of "Soon all the suns will rise": the Slayer's destructive power, attacking Willow and Xander, but also the first iteration of "Love is a sweet surprise": not the romantic love that's failed Buffy so often, but the sustaining friendship of the other Scoobies (here, Willow), her relationship with Dawn, and even a connection with Spike that transcends romantic love. But it's immediately followed by a scene in which Willow and Xander turn away from Buffy, as the song shifts back from major to minor: no happy ending yet.
Only creatures who are on their way
Ever poison their own well
But we still have time to hate
And there's still something we can sell
This verse introduces the image of the shadow-figures that tell the story of the creation of the First Slayer (and ultimately lead into another set of desert images as Buffy confronts the First Watchers); at the end of the verse it also returns us to "Restless," as Buffy opens her bag and finds within it the mud with which to paint her face like the First Slayer. And it features one of the vid's most powerful and (for me) painful lyric/image combinations, as Buffy closes the door on Giles in cold anger and rejection: "we still have time to hate."
Peacekeeper take your time
Wait for the dark of night
Soon all the suns will rise
Peacekeeper don't tell why
Don't be afraid to fight
Love is a sweet surprise
Buffy's back in the desert, seeking knowledge of her origins, facing down their darkness. And she's still sustained by her friends (now symbolized by Xander).
When the night is cold and still
When you thought you'd had your fill
Take all the time you will
This is not a test, its not a drill
Take no prisoners, only kill
This verse is Buffy's dark night of the soul, threats both internal and external: realizing the horrifying origins of her power, rejected by her friends, feeling small and alone and taking comfort from Spike. But that darkness is also the source of her power, and in this verse she also finds and claims the scythe with which she will fight, the weapon made for her hands.
You know all of our friends are gods
And they all tell us how to paint our face
But there's only one brush we need
It's the one that never leaves a trace
Two stories interlock in this verse: Willow is indeed godlike here, powerful and frightening; Buffy paints her face, taking on that aspect of the First Slayer, the one who walks alone. But Willow is also the goddess, the one with the power to change the course of the Slayers' history, to imbue all the Potentials with the Slayer's power -- and sisabet makes perfect use of the echoing vocals here, showing us the transformation of three key Potentials.
Peacekeeper take your time
Wait for the dark of night
Soon all the suns will rise
Peacekeeper don't tell why
Don't be afraid to fight
Love is a sweet surprise
Buffy falls, but rises again, scythe in hand, finally truly unafraid to fight. And the connection between Buffy and Spike, invoked in so many 'ship vids, is here recontextualized as just one of the relationships on which Buffy relies, parallel to her friendships with Willow and Xander, the friendships that make her unlike any previous Slayer.
Peacekeeper take your time
Wait for the dark of night
Soon all the suns will rise
Peacekeeper don't tell why
Don't be afraid to fight
Love is a sweet surprise
In this chorus, for the first time, the first line shows us not Buffy alone but Buffy with Willow and Xander, walking together, then Willow and Xander dropping away so it's just Buffy: both supported and ultimately alone -- but NOT alone, as the very next shot reveals: joined, instead, to all the Potentials. And here, the suns that will rise are once again Slayer power, but instead of the destructive aspect of that power we see its positive effects, the transformation of all girls everywhere. The exhortation "don't be afraid to fight" shows Buffy taking on not the external threats of the First Evil but the control of the First Watchers, rejecting them even as she claims her power. And the "sweet surprise" is not only her relationship with Dawn but the prospect of an open road, a changed future, the very thing for which she went looking in the desert in S5.
When the night is cold and still
When you thought you'd had your fill
This is not a test, it's not a drill
Take no prisoners, only kill
And the last verse sums up: Buffy alone, Buffy frightened, Buffy determined, Buffy facing the hordes of hell with the help of her friends, Buffy finally triumphant.