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thedeadlyhookFeeling grumpy, but write-y. Sort of.
(Some mild spoilers for upcoming chapters of "Bad Trip.")
I'm essentially time-wasting today, taking a break from working on our "Bad Trip" fanfic. I actually wrote a large swath yesterday, but it's a part in which bad things happen - and yes, they are happening for a reason, not just because we're sadists or because the characters are more fun when they're being tortured, hah-hah, look at them squirm. But there's a part of me that's still grappling with the responsibility inherent in putting emotionally disturbing things into a story, or referencing and dealing with the disturbing stuff that was already there. After all, our mandate in beginning this fic was to pay off a lot of the emotional and thematic baggage that the BtVS show itself never got around to doing, so suffice it to say, there's going to be a lot of heavy stuff coming up. Things that... well, aren't so much fun to think about.
The next part I'll be writing is a tough one. I'm going to be trying to deal with light topics such as sin and punishment, and life after death. Just having to put myself into the brain space to tackle these things is enough to drop me into a state of... well, I suppose melancholy is as good a word as any. I'm reminded a bit of Brad Pitt, who, during the filming of Interview With the Vampire, admitted to feeling very, very depressed the entire time, simply as a result of having to exist in that story space, or James Marsters, who named his habit of method acting as the reason for why he got so damned thin during BtVS Season 6, as an expression of having to maintain that state of all-around emotional starvation.
It's probably a terribly, terribly unenlightening thing for me to observe that as a writer - or actor, as those were the examples I just used - your job is to try to walk around in people's heads and try to speak with their voices, so it's no wonder this ends up affecting your own moods. That is, after all, what you're trying to do as an artist - affect other people's moods, put them in the space you're in, make them feel along.
So this thoughtful space is more or less being brought to you because I've been pondering the mysteries of BtVS Seasons 6 and 7, not a very happy place to be in. There's other stuff too, of course - I can also blame some of my mood on the fact that today is the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide (I've read a number of very poignant remembrances in people's LJ posts about that today) and other timely complaints such as the wanton destruction of the historical pedestrian tunnels in my beloved San Francisco's Golden Gate park to make way for a parking garage (so much for the park being for use of the people, not the miserable swollen ticks on the Parks Planning Commission and their stretch limousines, gah), but essentially, it's just me thinking the deep thoughts.
For example...
There's been a lot of talk lately on the LJ about the Buffy S7 DVDs and Joss Whedon's final commentaries on "Chosen," in which (short form) he more or less confirms that Buffy really did mean it when she says she loves Spike at the end. He also has a number of conflicted and confusing other things to say about their relationship, the "fade to black" scene, yadda yadda, all of which in aggregate leaves the viewer still pretty much in the dark - intentionally so. Reactions (that I've seen) have ranged from the simple "hooray, validation!" on the Spuffy love, to those of the "Jeezus, what a mealy-mouthed coward" variety, on the overall 'tude of hemming and hawing and deliberately leaving things up the viewer's imagination. (A criticism with which I'm strongly inclined to agree - writer integrity is hard to defend if you admit that you're being unclear on purpose and avoiding taking a stand on topics because you're more comfortable straddling a moral twilight zone somewhere between pandering and ducking potential backlash.)
But most are saying what I've always thought - that regardless of what Whedon lays out in his DVD commentaries, the final arbiting truth in all this is what we can say we saw with our own eyes, felt for ourselves in reacting to it. It's an old, old adage of comedy that a joke you have to explain is not funny, and likewise, a story that requires extensive fanwanking or director's liner notes to be comprehensible is not a successful exercise in communication. Ultimately, it's the work itself that will have the last word - syndication is a greater power than Joss's commentary track, and viewers who get to experience the questionable joy of stumbling across "Seeing Red" or "Dead Things" on early morning or early evening reruns will have their own opinions about Spike/Buffy, and nothing Joss comes up with to excuse himself, or his storytelling methods, is going to have any bearing on that. The horse has already left the stable. Shutting the barn door now... well, you know how that saying goes. If you meant to say something specific, Joss, then you should have put it in the damn show.
That said, there were two things I found enlightening to read: one, Whedon's confession that he had writer's block while writing "Chosen" (I told the hubby even as we were watching it that it felt like a first draft) and two, that neither JM nor SMG knew what to make of his direction for that final "I love you" scene. It actually gave me some of my respect back for SMG to read that, and confirmed the impression I'd had throughout much of S7, that not even the actors could figure out from the scripts they were handed what they were supposed to be feeling. ("Never Leave Me" comes to mind - the extended talking scene in Buffy's bedroom was perhaps the most emotionally puzzling thing in the entire series, which was probably why it came off so damned blank.) That both actors came up with their own roughly similiar interpretation to fit the available facts is, I think, perhaps the strongest condemnation for just how poorly this story was explained. If even the performers couldn't tell what was going on, what hope were we supposed to have?
So screw behind the scenes. Kinda irrelevant now. Spike/Buffy is what it was, and I've got my own impression of it - or rather, what it meant to me. But that's another LJ post.
(Some mild spoilers for upcoming chapters of "Bad Trip.")
I'm essentially time-wasting today, taking a break from working on our "Bad Trip" fanfic. I actually wrote a large swath yesterday, but it's a part in which bad things happen - and yes, they are happening for a reason, not just because we're sadists or because the characters are more fun when they're being tortured, hah-hah, look at them squirm. But there's a part of me that's still grappling with the responsibility inherent in putting emotionally disturbing things into a story, or referencing and dealing with the disturbing stuff that was already there. After all, our mandate in beginning this fic was to pay off a lot of the emotional and thematic baggage that the BtVS show itself never got around to doing, so suffice it to say, there's going to be a lot of heavy stuff coming up. Things that... well, aren't so much fun to think about.
The next part I'll be writing is a tough one. I'm going to be trying to deal with light topics such as sin and punishment, and life after death. Just having to put myself into the brain space to tackle these things is enough to drop me into a state of... well, I suppose melancholy is as good a word as any. I'm reminded a bit of Brad Pitt, who, during the filming of Interview With the Vampire, admitted to feeling very, very depressed the entire time, simply as a result of having to exist in that story space, or James Marsters, who named his habit of method acting as the reason for why he got so damned thin during BtVS Season 6, as an expression of having to maintain that state of all-around emotional starvation.
It's probably a terribly, terribly unenlightening thing for me to observe that as a writer - or actor, as those were the examples I just used - your job is to try to walk around in people's heads and try to speak with their voices, so it's no wonder this ends up affecting your own moods. That is, after all, what you're trying to do as an artist - affect other people's moods, put them in the space you're in, make them feel along.
So this thoughtful space is more or less being brought to you because I've been pondering the mysteries of BtVS Seasons 6 and 7, not a very happy place to be in. There's other stuff too, of course - I can also blame some of my mood on the fact that today is the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide (I've read a number of very poignant remembrances in people's LJ posts about that today) and other timely complaints such as the wanton destruction of the historical pedestrian tunnels in my beloved San Francisco's Golden Gate park to make way for a parking garage (so much for the park being for use of the people, not the miserable swollen ticks on the Parks Planning Commission and their stretch limousines, gah), but essentially, it's just me thinking the deep thoughts.
For example...
There's been a lot of talk lately on the LJ about the Buffy S7 DVDs and Joss Whedon's final commentaries on "Chosen," in which (short form) he more or less confirms that Buffy really did mean it when she says she loves Spike at the end. He also has a number of conflicted and confusing other things to say about their relationship, the "fade to black" scene, yadda yadda, all of which in aggregate leaves the viewer still pretty much in the dark - intentionally so. Reactions (that I've seen) have ranged from the simple "hooray, validation!" on the Spuffy love, to those of the "Jeezus, what a mealy-mouthed coward" variety, on the overall 'tude of hemming and hawing and deliberately leaving things up the viewer's imagination. (A criticism with which I'm strongly inclined to agree - writer integrity is hard to defend if you admit that you're being unclear on purpose and avoiding taking a stand on topics because you're more comfortable straddling a moral twilight zone somewhere between pandering and ducking potential backlash.)
But most are saying what I've always thought - that regardless of what Whedon lays out in his DVD commentaries, the final arbiting truth in all this is what we can say we saw with our own eyes, felt for ourselves in reacting to it. It's an old, old adage of comedy that a joke you have to explain is not funny, and likewise, a story that requires extensive fanwanking or director's liner notes to be comprehensible is not a successful exercise in communication. Ultimately, it's the work itself that will have the last word - syndication is a greater power than Joss's commentary track, and viewers who get to experience the questionable joy of stumbling across "Seeing Red" or "Dead Things" on early morning or early evening reruns will have their own opinions about Spike/Buffy, and nothing Joss comes up with to excuse himself, or his storytelling methods, is going to have any bearing on that. The horse has already left the stable. Shutting the barn door now... well, you know how that saying goes. If you meant to say something specific, Joss, then you should have put it in the damn show.
That said, there were two things I found enlightening to read: one, Whedon's confession that he had writer's block while writing "Chosen" (I told the hubby even as we were watching it that it felt like a first draft) and two, that neither JM nor SMG knew what to make of his direction for that final "I love you" scene. It actually gave me some of my respect back for SMG to read that, and confirmed the impression I'd had throughout much of S7, that not even the actors could figure out from the scripts they were handed what they were supposed to be feeling. ("Never Leave Me" comes to mind - the extended talking scene in Buffy's bedroom was perhaps the most emotionally puzzling thing in the entire series, which was probably why it came off so damned blank.) That both actors came up with their own roughly similiar interpretation to fit the available facts is, I think, perhaps the strongest condemnation for just how poorly this story was explained. If even the performers couldn't tell what was going on, what hope were we supposed to have?
So screw behind the scenes. Kinda irrelevant now. Spike/Buffy is what it was, and I've got my own impression of it - or rather, what it meant to me. But that's another LJ post.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 04:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 04:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 04:41 pm (UTC)for five years that it's over, that it wasn't
meant to be. And then, we got the cookie speech.
The only crumb of comfort I got was, as someone once pointed out, that the last line of dialogue
Buffy said on the show was "Spike." If you interpret that she's relieved at his death, then you can see why the poor guy hasn't gone to her.
Grr.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 05:30 pm (UTC)It's clearly the read he seems to have, or at least fears might be true. So far, Spike avoiding Buffy in this season's AtS has played completely as his insecurity about what her reaction to his return might be. And at this late date, there's absolutely no way to view Spike as confident that Buffy really loves him, or to think that he wasn't being absolutely serious when he told her she didn't.
The cookie thing was pathetic. It just made me feel embarrassed and scared for Angel.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 06:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 08:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 04:50 pm (UTC)But really, any story that depends on a commentary is the ultimate tell not show and a complete failure of storytelling. And acting too - given the flat to sneering line readings of SMG for the minute string along the Spuffy and the coming to life with Wood and Angel.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 05:12 pm (UTC)Absolutely. The Wood thing in particular drove me crazy. Story-wise, there was no reason for her to act so flirtsy, but there it was, and we had to watch it and try to figure out what to make of it. And Angel... sigh. No mixed signals there, right.
To make it worse, the writers can also take it on the chin for this sort of thing in the other direction - staff interviews in S6 drove me nuts because you kept seeing the writing staff emphasize how bad-bad-bad Spike was supposed to be, even if it didn't fit what we saw onscreen - jeezus, up until the AR, I've had worse boyfriends. The general impression I keep getting is that there was no real captain at the wheel - Spuffy was confusing because no one knew where they were going with it, ever, and it just kept changing depending on who was writing it that week.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 11:51 pm (UTC)I read Joss's comment here slightly differently. I got the impression that he meant that, whilst he had written the scene as a farewell, the actors were playing it as a break-up. That is to say, they were playing it with sorrow and regret, and he didn't want that, he wanted affirmation and love and pride. They're still saying goodbye to each other forever, it really is the end of the relationship, but he wanted them to play that goodbye as a kind of hello, as a moment of closeness and love, not of parting. It rather jumped out at me because one of the things my directing professor is always drumming into us is that it's much more dramatically powerful to play a scene as its opposite, and Joss seemed to be providing a textbook example here. It's entirely possible that the actors decided that Buffy loved Angel and was looking forward to a (distant) future with him, and therefore that this scene was a leave-taking from Spike in both senses, but it's much more powerful played Joss's way, where it's a leave-taking one one level and a coming together on another. And that's one reason why we have directors, right? Because they see the bigger picture, not just the perspective of a single character. Bleah, I hate it when I start rambling like that, did I make any sense at all?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-06 12:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-06 12:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-06 09:41 am (UTC)But yeah, I see what you're saying. I'd actually been meaning to reply to your S7 analysis, which I'd quite liked - you'd managed to find meaning in places I'd had a hard time with (although I still would have liked to see a story where Buffy wrestled with the emphemeral problems in her life, such as her own doubts, fears, etc. for which they'd had a great device going in The First, rather than the concrete menace of the UberVamp). But the short version of my reply is that honestly, if reach into my Spuffy, Spuffy heart and ask what it thinks, I'd have to agree with you. I just resent it not being laid out more explicitly, that Buffy's actions were so hard to interpret that I'm forced to rely on my own internal crystal ball for a reading that I can live with.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-06 11:23 am (UTC)Yeah, well, I got Jossed over that in the infamous commentary, didn't I? Damn that Whedon man, couldn't he have kept his big mouth shut instead of admitting that the later uebervamps were indeed much too easy to kill? Yet another beautiful theory killed by a nasty, ugly little fact.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-06 11:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 05:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 05:39 pm (UTC)Heavy sigh. But I'm all for singing the praises of Greenwalt. If wishes were fishes...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 06:04 pm (UTC)Greenwalt on the other hand. We're getting all of Miracles over here. It's all the deep, thought provoking, interesting, complex issues and characters that the Jossverse used to produce. It's more good evidence, if the slayerverse pre and post Greenwalt isn't enough, that he is the missing ingredient.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-06 12:20 am (UTC)Anya was always adorable, though. I'm suddenly envisioning a League of Substitute Champions made up of neglected second-string Buffyverse characters - Anya, Lorne, Gunn, Dawn, et cetera. They'd banter, kibitz, occasionally solve low-grade Scooby Doo mysteries, and every season they'd save an individual continent rather than the world as a whole.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 06:36 pm (UTC)I love the potential, and I'll always mourn what could have been for them (
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 06:53 pm (UTC)Personally, I think Spike could do better. I have this weird fantasy of him getting back together with Harmony.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 07:01 pm (UTC)Exactly. I now dearly want AtS to go out with Angel and Spike hitting the road, saying the heck with Buffy and being their own men...pires.
Spike would have to learn to be a lot nicer to Harmony if they got back together, but I could get behind that. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 07:56 pm (UTC)That's part of the fantasy. He'd be all, "Harm, I was a real shit to you. I still find you kind of annoying, but I wanted you to know that, you know, that I'm sorry." Then she'd be all "It's about time! You were really creepy to me, mister, and don't think just because you apologized I'm gonna have sex with you!" And he'd be all "No, no, of course not. Never think of it." Next thing you know, they're in the sack. Then it would be like Spike and Buffy used to be with the cute banter, and the picking on each other, and the hot chemistry, and I would never have to see SMG make that frowny face ever again. Aaaah...
I also have this fantasy about Lilah coming back to life and her and Wes and Illyria have a threesome. Lilah could wear her schoolgirl outfit. Mmmmm....
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-06 07:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 06:58 pm (UTC)There's been a lot of talk lately on the LJ about the Buffy S7 DVDs and Joss Whedon's final commentaries on "Chosen," in which (short form) he more or less confirms that Buffy really did mean it when she says she loves Spike at the end.
Hmm, I'm of the opinion that while she did mean it, she didn't mean she was in love with him, though that was certainly the implication. I've always felt that Buffy's declaration was necessary so that we could see Spike deny it, and therefore truly make a sacrifice that wasn't about Buffy. I viewed it as the culmination of his character's growth, that after hearing the woman he loves tell him she loves him, he finally accepts that it isn't the truth and is truly redeemed. I always thought that Buffy's silence after Spike's denial and her smile so soon after his death, was proof of that. In that moment, when she realized Spike was going to die to save the world, she probably did feel something very powerful for him, but he realized that it wasn't the real deal.
I don't generally blame the actors for a failure to pull off a scene properly. If Joss wasn't happy with it, then he could've brought her aside and clarified what he wanted from her. I believe that SMG's flat performance in S7 had more to do with the ambiguity that JW employed that resulted in such poor performances. Admittedly, I tend to favor Buffy in the whole Buffy/Spike relationship, though I don't think that Buffy's using Spike was okay. As you mentioned, I don't think the writers knew where they were going with this, and as a result the actors were frustrated and unclear as to how it should be played.
I do agree though, that JW's ambiguous comments are a clear sign of poor storytelling and indicate to me, that he lost interest in the show a long time ago. And while I had problems with Greenwalt's story direction on Ats, I agree that he was sorely missed on Buffy when he moved to the other show.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 08:13 pm (UTC)I'd agree with this; I just wasn't happy with a resolution to the series that left me in a place where I could see his motives in a kind light, but hers still came off so sketchy and unclear. As filmed, it's completely possible to read that scene as if she only ever used him, ever, right from the start (worst case) or that she's capable of saying she loves him only now, that he's actually about to die for her. Or that she's loved him for quite some time and never said so - that one's the best case scenario. Suffice to say that the ending did not make me feel terribly comfortable with Buffy, and the decision to leave her feelings so ambiguous we have to rely on the DVD commentary to tell us what she felt only made it worse.
Sigh. I just would have liked to see her make up her mind, or explain why she never did until exactly that moment. That was just a nowhere note to end the series on.
having absolutely nothing to do with Spuffy
Date: 2004-04-05 07:25 pm (UTC)And its interesting that you mention Brad Pitt in IWTV because I've always found when I've read Anne Rice that I almost always end up extremely emotional if I read too much at once. Especially her middle books of the Vampire Chronicles which are so filled with despair, but she just writes it all so beautifully that I can't resist! So thats my thoughts on the readers' perspective. That one and all, writers, actors, and readers can all get gloomy and such when they live in the space of a story so much. I don't really know if its a bad thing or a good thing?
Re: having absolutely nothing to do with Spuffy
Date: 2004-04-05 08:18 pm (UTC)You know, when I finally post the piece I'm talking about, people will probably tell me it's not angsty at all. It's all undercurrent angst, but I have to think it through before I can have characters talk about it... like world-building. You have to know where all the pieces are.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 09:12 pm (UTC)The hubby will bless you for commenty goodness. He hits the refresh button all the time with that hopeful look in his eyes.
ADDENDUM II: Please don't hurt Lo. Or, if you must hurt her, don't break her. ((big puppydog eyes))
It's not so much Lo I would worry about in the next chappy. You'll see.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 09:37 pm (UTC)Oh, don't feel the guilt. He just looks forward to reading your thoughts - they give him a special squee. But we know you're sick and all, so no rush. And hoo-boy, sorry to hear about your downstairs neighbors. The worst we get is our landlady upstairs who gets visits from her brother's kids, who run up and down like elephants on occasion, which is sort of semi-charming, I guess.
((eyes thedeadlyhook suspiciously))
Me? (gasp!) I'm not mean! Really! I love puppies! Well, actually I'm a cat person, but.... flowers are good! And-and... kittens, that's it. I don't like hurting people. (innocent look)
At least I know you guys aren't operating off the "Buffy in Pain, Show Good" MO....
No, we're more like the "Pain is There for a Reason" MO. So rest assured, whatever we throw at our babies, it's gonna pay off. That's our pledge. All of it means something.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 09:29 pm (UTC)You're right on target, I think, with what the idea might have been with the initial Spuffy!Sex arc - the whole bad-bad-wrong that made Wes/Lilah so scorching... except for some reason, ME felt the need to junk it up with Buffy being oh-so-very elitist about it, which really killed the hotness for me. Not so much fun to watch someone treat their lover like, for all intents and purpose, a rottweiler she won't allow in the house. Wes and Lilah were mean to each other at the outset, but I never got that overseer-visits-the-slave-cabin vibe from it.
Well that was how I read his last moments actually....that she's going back into some kind of love-the-martyr complex saying she loves him, realizing he's going to sacrifice himself for her, and he provides a kind of gallant corrective. It's the resolution of their relationship -- at least that's the way I've always read it, and I don't think the show's ever given me any reason to think otherwise (post-resurrection Spike included). And it's not an "eternal love" resolution.
That's pretty much exactly how it came off to me too. The only variable is Buffy's level of self-awareness or calculation in the whole thing - did she make him her "champion" because he was more expendable, or because she "believes" in him? Did she expect him to do that, die for her, or did it take her by surprise (it actually kind of seemed to, which bothered me - she didn't think he would?).
Yes, what the HELL was up with that? She and Angel parted on, relatively speaking, poor terms (if you're counting that she doesn't remember IWRY)
That bugged me when Riley came back too. I don't remember their parting being the most coziest, given the whole I-went-to-vampire-hookers-and-asked-them-to-suck-me thing. Again, it just came off as elitist - look, Buffy's human boyfriend is back! Let us now reflect on Buffy's lowly status as being forced to slum with a vampire. Ew, the shame. (retch)
"But people eat raw cookie dough....don't they? Fred? Don't girls eat raw cookie dough? Lilah? Anybody?
BWAH! Somebody's gotta write this. Ohpleaseohplease.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-05 11:45 pm (UTC)Maybe Angel will go searching through AI's fridge and find a half-eaten tube of cookie dough with "FRED" written on it in Sharpie.
Ooh, sublimated Fred lust...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-06 12:10 am (UTC)Re: spec, not spoilage
Date: 2004-04-06 09:55 am (UTC)Okay, looking it up now. Shanshu has roots in so many different languages. The most ancient source is the Proto-Bantu and they consider life and death the same thing, part of a cycle, only a thing that's not alive never dies. It's- it's saying - that you get to live until you die. - It's saying - it's saying you become human."
What if Wes is wrong? What if the Shanshu already happened when Spike came back from the dead? All that living and dying being the same thing... it's confusing.
Re: Sisyphus the Vampire vs. Shanshu
Date: 2004-04-06 05:45 pm (UTC)Ha hah, yes, that was lovely. The only reason I wasn't caught was that the poor hubby got smacked with it first. And he almost fell for it, too! (pinches his cheek) So cute.
But it does sort of bother me than the shanshu's always hanging over Angel -- it's like he's doing good Just For The Reward, which the anti-Spike contingency was always accusing Spike of doing (he did good for Buffy! he got the soul for Buffy! he died for Buffy! &c).
Yeah, I'm sitll not clear on the redemption-for-love being a Very Bad Thing concept... esp. when you add in stuff like him hanging around to help the Scoobs when she was dead. Not a lot of trim coming his way from that one. And also, Angel only really got on his redemption trip because of Buffy too - Whistler the demon shows him young Buffster, and Angel's all "I want to help her," then proceeds to stalk her around and be all Deep Throat for awhile in S1 whilst feeding her Tiger Beat teen lust. It's actually scarily familiar how he describes what he did to Drusilla, only for good or something. But Buffy still ends up driven sort of crazy by it, so the overall effect... not that different.
I guess part of what bothers me as a genre grrl is Angel's roots are so firmly in noir, and in noir the hero isn't redeemed, he doesn't get the girl, he's rarely rewarded... They got their shanshu in my noir!
Hah hah hah... so true. So the reward even as a concept seems wrong for Angel. I agree. I really hope that's not how it plays out. He shouldn't be rewarded, if only because this worldview is absolutely not clear enough on its views on sin and punishment to go handing out rewards. Unless the point is supposed to be that the gods are unfair and don't give a crap about consistency, or fairness... eek, now I'm worried that is the way it's going to turn out. (shiver)
Re: Sisyphus the Vampire vs. Shanshu
Date: 2004-04-06 07:28 pm (UTC)What I enjoyed so much about Season 2 is that, once Angel's had the Glorious Reward dangled in front of him, he goes nuts. When we sat down and watched the DVD box set straight through, I really came away with the impression that Angel's whole ends-justifies-the-means phase, where he cuts off all his human connections and devotes himself to taking down the White Whale that is Wolfram & Hart, is largely a reaction to the Shanshu prophecy. Sure, there's the whole Darla thing mixed in there too, but I think a lot of it comes from the belief that if he can pull off This One Last Big Score then he can Get Out Of The Game For Good. Like you said, it's a noir thang.
They got their shanshu in my noir!
Hee!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-06 12:14 am (UTC)Ironic that, from the sound of things, the longsuffering Buffy cast were just as depressed and confused as the viewers in these final seasons. I just hope the writers were having a good time, 'cause otherwise, sheesh.
Anyways, word to the Hook - or, a la Cypress Hill, "H to the motherlovin' K" - for this pithy summation:
If you meant to say something specific, Joss, then you should have put it in the damn show.
What's most disappointing about the apparent revelation of Joss Whedon's Spuffy, Spuffy heart is that, watching "Chosen," I'd assumed that the guy didn't know or care who Buffy really wuvved and just threw in enough vague hints to allow partisans of every stripe to make up whatever imaginary narrative would make them happy. But if he actually considered Spike to be Buffy's Mister Right Now, and didn't have the 'nads to come right out and say it, then I'm gonna have to call shenanigans on his artistic integrity...
Grumble, grumble. But now iTunes is serving up some rousing Sneaker Pimps, so the mood is brightening! Yay!