feminist community in BtVS

[heresluck]

Every now and then I have thoughts about things. Sometimes I post them. This is one of those times.

While I'm on the subject of thoughts: azdak has written an interesting post about morality in the Buffyverse. faith_delivers, check it out! (And join mutant_allies! *g*)

Credits and disclaimers: This post is a version of the Buffy paper I gave recently. It is thus considerably

Comments

[sockkpuppett]

Okay, it's late, and I'm barely coherent, but I wanted to say just one thing, especially coming off of the vid I just finished.

*sigh* Yes.

[heresluck]

I LOVE MY SHOW.

And I'm so glad you liked the post. *g*

[selenak]

I'll have to be boring and just say: well put, elegantly written, and exactly to the point.

[heresluck]

Hey, thanks! I had a lot of fun writing it.

[coffeeandink]

You're being very good to me this week.

One is the dream that Faith and Buffy share while they're both unconscious at the end of Season Three, in which Faith provides Buffy with crucial information about how to defeat the Mayor ("Graduation Day, Part 2" 3.22).

I would argue that you're overreading to claim this as definitely a shared dream: that's one possible interpretation, but it's also possible that it's Buffy's dream alone. Even as Buffy's dream, it indicates a possibility of a sisterhood of Slayers, although in this case it *is* just a possibility--that is, it's Buffy's imagining or desire, rather than the reality it would be if the dream were literally shared.

[heresluck]

Good point -- I'm going to edit the post to point to this correction.

[dualbunny]

I enjoyed reading this. :)

[heresluck]

I'm so glad -- thanks for saying!

[aycheb]

Thank-you! Now I can see what I was reaching for in response to the post by azdak that you mentioned above. But the global version.

[heresluck]

You're welcome! I had fun working all this stuff out.

[azdak]

Heh, I was just thinking, as I read the essay, "This is what aycheb was getting at!"

It's a brilliant argument. I particularly like the use of Buffy's Slayer dreams as a way of indicating the connection she ought to have to all those girls out there and hence an indication of how the feminist Slayer community could look.

And it's lovely to read such a positive take on S7. I've never much liked Chosen, not least because it was so bedevilled with dei ex machinae, but you've made me feel it was a lot more earned as an ending than I'd previously believed. Thank you!

[heresluck]

Yeah, from a plot point of view "Chosen" has significant issues. I think the season's single biggest problem may have been that plot and theme, which are so brilliantly braided together in most of the seasons (especially the latter 2/3 of S2, but really all of 2-6), are much less clearly tied together in S7.

I wonder, now, whether the coherence of (and difficulty of implementing) the theme is *part* of why the plot had so many bobbles: the writers knew where they needed to end up, and they were trusting the themes to hold everything together while they got there. Which, actually, really worked for me when I watched the eps all in a row with the knowledge of where the season was going. But while it aired, I think most of us needed clearer episode structures and more signposts in general.