Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Buffy Rewatch Week 49: Spoiler Forum

Not much left to say over here, but here's the spoiler forum for anyone who wants to talk about the remainder of Buffy and S5 of Angel without spoiling anyone!
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11 comments:

Dusk said...

I wonder:
How will the nebies react to Inside Out?

If Angel had gotten another season we probably would have seen Alyson sometime?

If the Angel trio of episodes this week was the inspiration for something that comes years later..

6 December 2011 at 21:18
Colleen/redeem147 said...

I guess we're getting near the end - I have less and less spoilery comments.

Xander says, "I'm going in blind." He's having a pretty hacked up season.

Buffy's speech to the girls is the beginning of her being kicked out.

She tells Anya to be useful - and she fights to the death.

Buffy rejects the dark power and embraces the light - and in doing so forces all the Potentials to become Slayers without their free will.

6 December 2011 at 22:44
Efthymia said...

@Colleen/redeem147:
But no Slayer ever became it out of her own free will. If Buffy wanted the forced Slayerdom to end, she might as well have let the First murder all the Potentials. The point of activating all Potentials -thus creating all these Slayers- was to get rid of the rules MEN decided and imposed -only one Slayer at a time, so we can have control over her, a Watcher's Council on her back- and give power to as many women possible.
At least this is how I've always understood it.

7 December 2011 at 06:29
Suzanne said...

Efthymia,

I have always understood it this way, too. I also look at it as her giving the potentials the power to fight the darkness together making it a focus on community rather than top own authority (as in the Initiative, Watcher's Council, Tribal leaders, etc.). All of the women will be equals now, and I suppose that she won't need to be a "drill sergeant" any longer (I haven't read the comics and probably won't ever get around to them so I may be wrong). Her decision to give them power takes me back to "Helpless" in Season 3 when the power was taken away from her. Maybe she didn't want any of those girls to have feel as she did in that episode. She realizes early on and often throughout the series that "it is all about power." She seems to want to share in that power.

7 December 2011 at 06:43
Colleen/redeem147 said...

Then we should ALL have the power. Isn't the feminist message finding the power within yourself and taking it, not imposing superpowers and responsibilities to fight demons on teenage girls.

They'll briefly deal with that on Angel, and even more so in the comics (but we can't talk about that.)

7 December 2011 at 08:36
Dusk said...

Yo make the activating of the Potentials even more confusing, doesn't the whole presence of The Guardian also put blame on other women for doing this to these girls?


That entire plot device made no sense, and the entire purpose of that just to make Buffy's brainless plan work, and seem right ater getting kicked out is shaky at best.


"Damage" does look at the negative side of Buffy/Willow's choice in the finale though, the chances of any Scoooby having to confront the down side are slim.

7 December 2011 at 09:02
Efthymia said...

@Colleen/redeem147:
Yes, of course we should ALL have the power, but it's not Buffy's fault that some people have the potential to become Slayers and some don't; she decided to share the power - this specific type of power, anyway, because let's not forget Slayer-strength is not the only type of power - with as many girls as possible.
And even though the Slayer power was forced upon these women, the responsibility to fight monsters, or whatever, wasn't (not on the TV show, at least, which is what I'm talking about). I don't remember Buffy ever saying "I'm going to share my power with every Potential, and then I'm going to make them fight the dark beings with me", and the way I saw it, it was implied that each person had a choice on how to use her power once having gotten it.
Regarding the Potentials already with Buffy, again they had a choice: not get involved, but possibly get killed because the First didn't really care whether they were interested in fighting or not, or train and fight, and eventually be activated, with the risk of dying still present. As Buffy said in 'Lie To Me', "You have a choice. You don't have a good choice, but you have a choice.".

Maybe I just perceive your point of view incorrectly. I hope you don't think I'm trying to impose my opinion or give you a sermon.

7 December 2011 at 18:34
Colleen/redeem147 said...

Maybe I just perceive your point of view incorrectly. I hope you don't think I'm trying to impose my opinion or give you a sermon.

Not at all. And my thoughts may be coloured by the events of the comics. But I've always been bothered by the girls we didn't see in the finale. What about a girl who disliked her brother - so she easily beat him to death. Or attacked girls in her school. So much power with no supervision or understanding of it. I'm not saying Buffy had a lot of choice - she was trying to save the world - I just don't see it as a good thing or personally empowering thing in the bigger picture.

8 December 2011 at 19:34
Blam said...


Efthymia: Yes, of course we should ALL have the power, but it's not Buffy's fault that some people have the potential to become Slayers and some don't

Yeah... Like dudes.

"Wings? I don't have wings!"
"Of course not. You're a boy."

Efthymia: it was implied that each person had a choice on how to use her power once having gotten it

Good point. The "activated" Potential that always stuck with me (only having watched Season 7 once, as it aired, before now) was/is the girl at bat in a baseball game, suddenly standing up with a knowing smile.

Efthymia:What about a girl who disliked her brother - so she easily beat him to death. Or attacked girls in her school.

Also a good point; in general, one of the things that's stuck in my craw a bit throughout this Rewatch is the lack of ramifications of so many plot points and aspects of the mythology that get glossed over, so there's no reason for a plot point at the very end of the series, when we wouldn't even see the ramifications, to be any different. Isn't there a "rogue" Potential who didn't know what had happened to her in Angel Season 5?

9 December 2011 at 17:24
Dusk said...

Yes, in the episode "Damage" she has no mental capacity to understand what she's done though. It would have been intresting to see what Buffy would have done with her though.

9 December 2011 at 21:21
JavaChick said...

The Potentials were also being hunted down and killed because they were potential slayers and many did not even know what they were. Being activated to full slayer strength would at least give them more ability to fight back in that situation (though certainly not a guarantee of survival).

Buffy couldn't ask every potential in the world what they wanted...but it seems to me the ones who were with her in Sunnydale were all for it.

13 December 2011 at 12:01

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