Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Buffy Rewatch Week 43: Spoiler Forum

As always, here is the place where you can talk about spoilers and not worry about any new viewer seeing them by accident... unlike the spoiler I got about Tara. Sniff.

And MAN was it difficult to talk about the death of Tara without giving away what's about to happen next. I hope I didn't spoil anything (although it was kind of obvious it was coming...)

7 comments:

Dusk said...

And so begins Joss's bloodstain trend.

OK, so Seeing Red is clearly anti-gun, but don't they admit they have some use re; The Magic Bullet?

This in't th week I want to most give spoilers. See Angel 4.07

Fury's comments are bodly honest, I admire that, but it does add credit to the fan arguement the writers only started Spuffy because of the fans.

The Buffy and Angel world doesn't really do moving on from relationships naturally. Bangel still has threads. Dangel was never healthy, neither was Wesley and Lilah, Spuffy is shaky at best, Cangel never got off the ground, Gunn and Fred were ended by circumstance, Wesley and Fred were cut short, Riley and Buffy imploded. Xander and Anya ended in limbo. Jenny was clearly in the back of Giles head. Nina wasn't much.

The most clean break was Groo and Cordy.

Don't get me started yet on Connor/Cordy or Willow's mistake in the show and... a few mild comic spoilers ahead.

The implications for Willow in the comics are the worse aspect for me. I also don't support Xander's ne pairing, but it's one of the most believable compared to everything above.

On the bright side from what I know of the next bits, they seem to be taking things back to it's roots, but not a restart. Also a lot of people say Gage is doing very well.

TAt said...

It's so weird but I somehow missed "Seeing Red" the first time it aired and then subsequently missed all of season 7 (my new roomates wanted to watch that 70's show instead, whatever. Stoners). A couple years later I watched Angel Season 5 reruns so I never realized that Spike went through a whole thing until I rewatched the show on Netflix a while back.

I have to admit I was totally taken aback when I first saw the bathroom scene. I think I may have been even more angry than a regular viewer because for years I had loved Spike more than any of the other characters. I was mad at myself for loving this guy who commit such a horrifying act of physical and psychological violence on someone they loved.

If you miss this episode and then go on to watch Angel season 5 Spike is pretty much the same old Spike. For a long time I tried to pretend this episode didn't exist because I couldn't come to terms with how much I wanted Spike to win the Astronauts vs. Cavemen argument. Eventually I watched season 7 and understood Spike's arc, but Astronauts vs. Cavemen just wasn't as much fun as it was before.

Tat said...

I was going to leave this on the other post but realized it may be too spoilery.

Dark Willow has always been my favorite big bad. I have to admit I have a thing for the good guys going dark. I loved the Angelus storyline. For our heroes the stakes are higher and the emotions run headlong into the idea of good and evil. But I just couldn't relate to reverting to my former soulless vampire self and ending the world because... Acathla(?) On a metaphorical level I only kinda get half of that.

But Dark Willow? It's because I understand where Willow is coming from that makes her better than all of the others, and Tara's death is key.

It's what makes it work, and makes us want Willow to survive it. People get lost in grief all of time, and I'm pretty sure if we could destroy the world we would have been extinct a long time ago.

With Willow we all know that kind of pain. It tears your soul apart. We get to be as emotionally invested in what's going on because we understand where it's coming from. As viewers we may want to say we're above it, we would never do such a thing, but really?

Consider the backlash you (Niki) got for your response to the death of Tara. People were reacting passionately to what had happened to her. They were grieving a character they loved and could identify with. I don't in any way want to justify what the “Tara Kittens” did, but use it to prove my point. Since they couldn't end the world they were going to make sure somebody, no matter how innocent, had a very bad day.

Quarks said...

Part of me thinks that it was because of the criticism 'Buffy' received for Tara's death that Kennedy was introduced, as though the writers wanted to show that Willow was still a lesbian and the show wasn't homophobic. I'm probably entirely wrong, it just feels as though Willow moved on fairly quickly from Tara's death, when, for example, neither Xander or Anya were really able to move on from just a break-up in the same amount of time.

Dusk said...

I know they wanted it to be clear Willow would stay gay, but I don't know if it was their original plan to give her and Kennedy the only happy couple ending. (Hope not) And that rumoured One Wish plot would say no.

Suzanne said...

I was never fond of the Willow and Kennedy story line. Part of me always feels that Willow fell in love with Tara; in my mind, she did not necessarily become a lesbian. I think of her as being bi-sexual and open to falling in love with a person, not a gender or even a "species" (Oz, werewolf). When I think of it this way, it helps me to balance my strong feeling that she was truly in love with Oz and with Tara. Having her with Kennedy takes something away from those two strong loves she had in my opinion because it seems to be more about sexual attraction. Willow strikes me as being a deep person who will fall in love not simply date. However, maybe it is precisely because she is so hurt after what she went through with both Oz and Tara that she ends up having a fun, dating relationship with someone who attracts her.

UK said...

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