Trusting Joss
Sep. 24th, 2002 03:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tmcgThe following is part of a blogburst, a simultaneous, cross-linked posting of many blogs on a single theme. This blogburst concerns Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff series, Angel.
The Buffy Blogburst Index
Can you grow a new soul?
Since Spike had the chip put in his head, he showed signs of doing just that. Watching his development fascinated me. At first he'd pretend to anything to get what he wanted in the absence of the power to force it. But then there was his fondness for Dawn. She might have started out as Little Bit, a wee aperitif--but he stuck a football helmet on her noggin because he wouldn't let her ride behind him without headgear, he became a big-brother confidant when there was no get-in-with-Buffy benefit to be had. There were unnecessary kindnesses. Biting insights into other people's penchants and motivations became quietly delivered truths. And there was what seemed to me, under the hunger and twistedness, a genuine connection with Buffy. He became someone new over the past two seasons. Still conniving, id-dominated, demon-ridden Spike, and still, in at least one brief glimpse, partly William, too--but something more than and different from both. And not entirely good; it wasn't Spike's demon that attempted rape, and it wasn't Spike's demon that was in so much pain that the agonies of earning the power to avenge rejection were almost irrelevant.
I wondered if that was what Joss was working toward. What would happen, I wondered, when the chip was removed, and Spike's new soul had to duke it out with the demon in him? Wonderful fireworks. Angst to die for. A sideways inversion of the Angel story--not an old soul returned by vengeful gypsies, but a new soul developed as a bizarre incidental result of scientific tampering.
Meanwhile, it seemed that two of the heroes were losing their souls. Buffy's was either left behind ("You came out wrong"--the most chilling line I'd heard in a while) or driven into hiding by the trauma of death/resurrection. Willow was selling hers for magicks, or losing it through the slow drain of addiction.
What a way, way cool changing of the spiritual guard, I thought.
But then Joss pulled a twist there at the end.
I love when he does that.
But.
Buffy can be some of the most powerful drama on TV, and it can be some of the cleverest, and its characters can be some of the most appealing. It can also be stupendously lame. And what I find lame is not what a lot of other people find lame. Same for what I find moving. Same for what rings true for me--and what rings false. But that in itself says a lot about the show--that it can resonate so differently with different viewers, and in such powerful ways.
I applaud the show for tackling issues of addiction and self-destructiveness, but I think it frequently dropped the ball, especially where Willow was concerned. Buffy's struggle with numbness and her complex stimulation/punishment sexual addiction to Spike were powerful; with Willow the show settled for the cliche instead of grabbing the harsh truth by the throat. And the implication there at the end that it was a demon making Willow really really evil, rather than the monstrosity of her own rage and anguish--well, I could be wrong on that interpretation, but it's there and I don't like it. Evil Willow was only a powerful character for me when she was entirely Willow. A supernatural excuse...feh. Copout.
So, at times the show has reached beyond its own abilities or aspired past the limits of its medium, or--worse--has failed to live up to its own standards. A show that could portray with such wrenching accuracy the emotions in "The Body" should have been capable of better than the caricature of a B-movie villain Willow became. That Xander's fallible, unkillable, human love should be the only weapon that could breach the demon's defenses and touch Willow's humanity is a beautiful thought, but in the event was weakly dramatized: The scene strived so hard for the big payoff that it turned a powerful moment into simplistic melodrama. It became one of those scenes that's only really good when you describe it afterward, not when it's actually viewed. It pales in comparison with the previous season ender, in which Buffy's last exhortation to Dawn can still bring tears to my eyes. And that means that they could have done this one better. They did before. They just dropped the ball this time. And what does that mean? That the overall quality of the series has set my expectations of it very high.
Maybe unreachably high. Like everyone else, I've tried to guess what Joss would do next, after some twist or intense point of climax. (Joss as creator and auteur and embodiment of the show's sentience; that's how I think of it, that's how a lot of us talk about it, and though it's not fair to all the other people who make the show, it's the easiest way to discuss it.) But as the series has developed, I've learned to trust him. He won't do what I would have done, or what I think he should, or what I want him to, but even when he drops the ball I'm gratified by the playing fields he's chosen and the teams he's assembled and the plays he's run. And I like to let him lead me through the game, divulging information and springing shocks and twists on me at his chosen pace, so that I'm as shocked and amazed as I can possibly be while I'm watching, and so that I can come to realizations when he wants me to. I'm more intensely spoilerphobic about Buffy and Angel than about any other shows, and that says a lot, because spoilers really piss me off. (That's like saying, "I'm really ticklish." Bugger.)
So I'm going to trust him on the Spike thing. I hope to hell he doesn't drop the ball. But even as I doubt, I also trust. If he drops it, he'll pick it up and turn it into some other object and the game will become something else and I'll be just as fascinated, and just as willing to follow him into wherever it is.
I'll post a follow-up tonight, after watching the season opener on tape delay because (how appropriate) I'm at martial-arts class when it airs.
(brief reaction here)
And thanks to Meryl for organizing the blogburst!
The Buffy Blogburst Index
Can you grow a new soul?
Since Spike had the chip put in his head, he showed signs of doing just that. Watching his development fascinated me. At first he'd pretend to anything to get what he wanted in the absence of the power to force it. But then there was his fondness for Dawn. She might have started out as Little Bit, a wee aperitif--but he stuck a football helmet on her noggin because he wouldn't let her ride behind him without headgear, he became a big-brother confidant when there was no get-in-with-Buffy benefit to be had. There were unnecessary kindnesses. Biting insights into other people's penchants and motivations became quietly delivered truths. And there was what seemed to me, under the hunger and twistedness, a genuine connection with Buffy. He became someone new over the past two seasons. Still conniving, id-dominated, demon-ridden Spike, and still, in at least one brief glimpse, partly William, too--but something more than and different from both. And not entirely good; it wasn't Spike's demon that attempted rape, and it wasn't Spike's demon that was in so much pain that the agonies of earning the power to avenge rejection were almost irrelevant.
I wondered if that was what Joss was working toward. What would happen, I wondered, when the chip was removed, and Spike's new soul had to duke it out with the demon in him? Wonderful fireworks. Angst to die for. A sideways inversion of the Angel story--not an old soul returned by vengeful gypsies, but a new soul developed as a bizarre incidental result of scientific tampering.
Meanwhile, it seemed that two of the heroes were losing their souls. Buffy's was either left behind ("You came out wrong"--the most chilling line I'd heard in a while) or driven into hiding by the trauma of death/resurrection. Willow was selling hers for magicks, or losing it through the slow drain of addiction.
What a way, way cool changing of the spiritual guard, I thought.
But then Joss pulled a twist there at the end.
I love when he does that.
But.
Buffy can be some of the most powerful drama on TV, and it can be some of the cleverest, and its characters can be some of the most appealing. It can also be stupendously lame. And what I find lame is not what a lot of other people find lame. Same for what I find moving. Same for what rings true for me--and what rings false. But that in itself says a lot about the show--that it can resonate so differently with different viewers, and in such powerful ways.
I applaud the show for tackling issues of addiction and self-destructiveness, but I think it frequently dropped the ball, especially where Willow was concerned. Buffy's struggle with numbness and her complex stimulation/punishment sexual addiction to Spike were powerful; with Willow the show settled for the cliche instead of grabbing the harsh truth by the throat. And the implication there at the end that it was a demon making Willow really really evil, rather than the monstrosity of her own rage and anguish--well, I could be wrong on that interpretation, but it's there and I don't like it. Evil Willow was only a powerful character for me when she was entirely Willow. A supernatural excuse...feh. Copout.
So, at times the show has reached beyond its own abilities or aspired past the limits of its medium, or--worse--has failed to live up to its own standards. A show that could portray with such wrenching accuracy the emotions in "The Body" should have been capable of better than the caricature of a B-movie villain Willow became. That Xander's fallible, unkillable, human love should be the only weapon that could breach the demon's defenses and touch Willow's humanity is a beautiful thought, but in the event was weakly dramatized: The scene strived so hard for the big payoff that it turned a powerful moment into simplistic melodrama. It became one of those scenes that's only really good when you describe it afterward, not when it's actually viewed. It pales in comparison with the previous season ender, in which Buffy's last exhortation to Dawn can still bring tears to my eyes. And that means that they could have done this one better. They did before. They just dropped the ball this time. And what does that mean? That the overall quality of the series has set my expectations of it very high.
Maybe unreachably high. Like everyone else, I've tried to guess what Joss would do next, after some twist or intense point of climax. (Joss as creator and auteur and embodiment of the show's sentience; that's how I think of it, that's how a lot of us talk about it, and though it's not fair to all the other people who make the show, it's the easiest way to discuss it.) But as the series has developed, I've learned to trust him. He won't do what I would have done, or what I think he should, or what I want him to, but even when he drops the ball I'm gratified by the playing fields he's chosen and the teams he's assembled and the plays he's run. And I like to let him lead me through the game, divulging information and springing shocks and twists on me at his chosen pace, so that I'm as shocked and amazed as I can possibly be while I'm watching, and so that I can come to realizations when he wants me to. I'm more intensely spoilerphobic about Buffy and Angel than about any other shows, and that says a lot, because spoilers really piss me off. (That's like saying, "I'm really ticklish." Bugger.)
So I'm going to trust him on the Spike thing. I hope to hell he doesn't drop the ball. But even as I doubt, I also trust. If he drops it, he'll pick it up and turn it into some other object and the game will become something else and I'll be just as fascinated, and just as willing to follow him into wherever it is.
I'll post a follow-up tonight, after watching the season opener on tape delay because (how appropriate) I'm at martial-arts class when it airs.
(brief reaction here)
And thanks to Meryl for organizing the blogburst!
