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Warren was living with his gf in s5 I doubt he was an incel.
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Mar 25, 2022 15:22
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banned from Starbucks posted:Warren was living with his gf in s5 I doubt he was an incel. Not then, but once he broke up with her and built a robot of her to gently caress, he was pretty clearly incel at that point. Edited to add that one thing about Warren is that for all his super-science abilities the most harm he does is as a hateful rear end in a top hat with a gun. Everyone fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Mar 25, 2022 |
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Mar 25, 2022 15:25
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Everyone posted:Not then, but once he broke up with her and built a robot of her to gently caress, he was pretty clearly incel at that point. I thought it was the other way around. He made the robot then stopped loving the robot when he met an actual girl. I'm not very up to date with some of this terminology. I thought incels were guys that could never get a girlfriend not guys who just weren't currently in a relationship but were able to maintain one in the past?
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Mar 25, 2022 15:49
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The storyline where Willow goes sour is so good early in Season 6, and when it takes an abrupt turn into magic anonymous it's so tedious. It saves itself at the end though. It's a formula that's been copied a few times over the years -- Legends of Tomorrow did a very similar version in Season 6. Gotta respect this show for going there properly though. Watching Older and Farther Away with a friend. He pointed out that Willow and Tara dress like Guinevere. Love that it's a Dawn episode that plays out like a highschool throwback episode, with Dawn's little subplot at the school. It's basically a replay of The Wish, except with different magical mischief. I never thought about it before, but the show plays more into this as the series went on, with Dawn's subplots in Season 7. I forgot that Buffy invites what's basically a literal highschioler to her birthday party. She feels like a late twenty something somehow, by comparison. So much of Season 6, particularly this mid season, is really capturing a different sort of, older twenties energy and anxiety -- Buffy becoming a surrogate mother, Anya and Xander's wedding, etc. They're making Tara very likeable right now, at the expense of sending Willow far into the background. This has a side effect of emphasising how distant Buffy and Willow have become. That relationship feels very damaged right now, and I can't really remember it recovering. They make peace in season 7, but I think the love fizzles out.
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Mar 25, 2022 15:53
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banned from Starbucks posted:I thought it was the other way around. He made the robot then stopped loving the robot when he met an actual girl. I think he met the girl after building the robot, because the robot was murderously jealous of the real girl if I recall correctly. Yeah, "Incel" wasn't really on the radar then and would probably describe Jonathan more than Warren (Andrew always read as closeted, to the extent they do something pretty disappointing with that on Angel), but guys consumed by their hatred for women are as old as balls - it just so happened Buffy decided to deal with those guys rather than painting them as loveable underdogs. By the way, I do think the show does Jonathan slightly dirty. He's clearly struggling and directionless and he probably could have been an asset for the good guys if he wasn't a punchline. Warren clearly doesn't give a gently caress about him or Andrew. Disco Pope fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Mar 25, 2022 |
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Mar 25, 2022 16:13
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Open Source Idiom posted:I forgot that Buffy invites what's basically a literal highschioler to her birthday party. She feels like a late twenty something somehow, by comparison. So much of Season 6, particularly this mid season, is really capturing a different sort of, older twenties energy and anxiety -- Buffy becoming a surrogate mother, Anya and Xander's wedding, etc. Yeah in S5, especially with the new Dawn dynamic, they do seem to just decide everyone is basically pushing 30 regardless of the fact these people are like 20, 21 and barely removed from being kids themselves. Xander goes from an unemployed 19 year old with no skills to a mature construction career in about 12 months. In S4 college was everything and afterwards it's almost non-existent. I think the writers just wanted to shift into doing more adult sort of stories and not deal as much with the limbo that early 20's are because it's less well defined as a time of life than high school vs adulthood. Angel also fudges the ages but it's easier to take because the whole setting is different, and most of the characters actually are older, but they specifically stop mentioning non-supernatural characters ages after s3 on Buffy and they never get specific about Cordelia's age a single time on Angel. roomtone fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Mar 25, 2022 |
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Mar 25, 2022 16:14
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GoutPatrol posted:Do you need a character that is "teenage witch that is just better at magic than Willow" in the story? If you need someone who knows magical stuff to explain plot, Anya took whatever role Amy could. That makes sense. I forgot how quickly Willow got more immersed in magic and Anya showed up. Also, thinking ahead to what happens with Will's character, looking for warning signs and all that, even though it's presented in a cute way, Giles having to hide a bunch of books from her is notable. I think some might say her trying to hex Oz but losing her nerve at the last second is also a warning sign. And of course her "my will be done" spell is yet another troubling sign Willow simply can't handle things without resorting to magic. I guess it's just easy to overlook or forget because it's all so comical. And....well, it's Willow. I can't even take Vamp Willow serious with that voice. "The Initiative" was honestly the best episode yet in the season. Xander and Giles being self-pityingly useless together is the greatest comedy duo. I could stand for more Giles and Xander comedy just in general but Giles' character so far this season is compelling, comical, and sad. In this way, he and Xander really are on the same level at the moment. Speaking of character relationships, I am really loving Buffy and Willow as roommates. I don't know if Cathy was always supposed to be immediately written off but this works so much better. Open Source Idiom you might be right Buffy and Willow never fully reconnected and that would be so heartbreaking after seeing how close they are for the last two seasons especially. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=takFe6Xf9dI Spike and Willow's "this has never happened to me before" scene is an unforgettable bit of comedy and it might be this whole episode which solidifies Spike as more funny than threatening. Buffy: Spike and I are getting married! Xander: How? What? How? Giles: Three excellent questions. See? This is a later ep but Comedy is his thing. Spike in the mix makes everything funnier. "Hush" of course an unforgettable episode. Also the Gentleman are the only scary things so far in the show apart from the Killed by Death demon who fed on kids. But I'm just here thinking "yay, Tara!" And also "oh god no, Tara..." roomtone posted:Yeah in S5, especially with the new Dawn dynamic, they do seem to just decide everyone is basically pushing 30 regardless of the fact these people are like 20, 21 and barely removed from being kids themselves. Xander goes from an unemployed 19 year old with no skills to a mature construction career in about 12 months. In S4 college was everything and afterwards it's almost non-existent. I think the writers just wanted to shift into doing more adult sort of stories and not deal as much with the limbo that early 20's are because it's less well defined as a time of life than high school vs adulthood. This will be something interesting to observe. I've heard others say this and maybe it will be so much more obvious to me now as a 33-year-old man than it was to me as a early 20-something. It's just something I never really thought about. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Mar 25, 2022 |
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Mar 25, 2022 16:17
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Of course I remember the loving Episode but I did not remember that Buffy and Riley having sex was part of the action sequence with the demon in "The I in Team." It got me thinking about just how sexual Buffy's other two major non-Angel relationships are. I'm never gonna forget her loving Spike outside a McDonald's, much as I wish I could. Of course sex is a normal part of most relationships but it just feels like it's excessive in both these cases. On the bright side, I think I've fallen in love with Anya. it's not like I ever hated her character or anything, she was just never at the forefront of my positive memories of the show. "This Year's Girl" - Faith's line about a "little sister coming" - don't tell me Dawn was actually planned out ahead of time? "Who Are You? is an amazing episode for a lot of reasons but I think SMG playing Faith is why it's unforgettable. She nails it. I guess it's also technically the first complete confirmation of Willow/Tara but holy poo poo is it already obvious from their second appearance together. I wonder if it was as obvious to audiences back during its first airing? But anyway, I'm resolved to wait until i finish Buffy tow watch Angel but some folks switch off, following a guide and watching Bufy then Angel and then back to Buffy. I'm tempted to do that at least with Faith since it would be fitting to jump to Angel now. This episode is also good for Adam. I've always liked Adam. His actor did a great job with the warped Frankenstein's Monster/cult leader thing. Overall I'd say it's one of the best episodes in the series so far.
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Mar 26, 2022 15:10
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If you feel like watching the resolution of Faith's arc for now, going to the Angel two parter with her is a good idea. Buffy's in it, same Watcher hitmen are in it, it finishes Faith's story for now and she doesn't show up again on Buffy for a long time. There are only a few episodes where the shows actually effect each other in an important way. I think the watch guide is sort of overkill and you can totally watch them consecutively. All you really lose doing that is some Buffy and Angel relationship stuff and the second half of Faith's arc in s4. The rest you can pick up on Angel later. 90% of the time after s1 Angel/s4 Buffy, the shows are barely interacting at all. I don't think taking a 4 episode break from Buffy because Angel happened to be airing while Buffy was still on hiatus is necessary. It is kind of cool watching them somewhat in step with each other and catching the references and minor crossovers as they come, but I think it would be just as fun discovering what people were doing meanwhile after finishing Buffy, too. NikkolasKing posted:"This Year's Girl" - Faith's line about a "little sister coming" - don't tell me Dawn was actually planned out ahead of time? Dawn was allegedly planned since season 3. Faith and Buffy's dream conversation makes some references that people have gone back and attributed as foreshadowing Dawn. I'm not sure if the creators ever said that was definitely the plan, and I think Faith's dialogue in that scene is so vague it could retroactively mean anything (i don't think 'counting down from 730' as a reference to the days until Dawn's first appearance is good foreshadowing, even if it is accurate by airdate). Faith's younger than Buffy and a slayer so the little sister line could easily be about herself. But I buy that they did have Dawn planned a couple years in advance, in general. I'm sure they knew she was coming by mid season 4 anyway.
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Mar 26, 2022 15:43
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She had a prophetic dream about Dawn in season 3, when Faith tells her in their shared dream "little sister's coming"
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Mar 26, 2022 16:57
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So I have been conflicted about something in This Year's Girl and I wanna get other peoples' read on it. The Mayor's video tape to Faith is really troubling from the perspective of his character as I understand it. The Mayor is so memorable because he's the most human - really, the only human - major villain in the series. His relationship with Faith is a dark mirror of Giles' with Buffy. His love for Faith is entirely genuine. He is also shown to be perceptive and wise, being essentially the in-universe catalyst for Buffy and Angel breaking up. Keeping all this in mind, read this: "See, the hard pill to swallow is that once I'm gone, your days are just plain numbered. Now, I know, you're a smart and capable young woman in charge of her own life, but the problem, Faith, is that there won't be a place in the world for you anymore. [...] Just because it's over for my Faith, doesn't mean she can't go out with a bang!" I'm just not sure how to interpret this at all. My only guess is that, while he did love Faith as much as he was capable of loving anyone, this scene is intended to shed a greater light on how he was still ultimately self-centered, even when it came to Faith. Of course that was always kind of obvious since if he truly wanted to help her he'd have sent her to therapy instead of having her kill people. But the words here are so frank and plainly wrong that it's harder to ignore.
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Mar 26, 2022 21:29
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Im not sure theres anything too deep about it. Once hes dead he knows Buffy will deal with her if she ever gets out of the coma. The device is just a get out of jail free card so she can ditch the Faith identity and start over however she wants.
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Mar 26, 2022 23:09
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i never bought his love for her was anything other than committed manipulation. I take that message to be normal villain short sightedness, can't imagine if he gets his rear end kicked buffy or whoever won't do the same with Faith, and he wants her to at least do a flaming suicide run on her way out.
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Mar 26, 2022 23:14
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I was convinced it was manipulation too, and I think we were meant to think that, up until we see that he's genuinely distressed when Buffy puts her into a coma. He's also clearly referring to Faith when he talks sadly about loss in the graduation speech, plus Buffy taunts him about Faith ("human weakness never goes away") to lure him into the school. So I can believe he was giving it from about as genuine a place as possible.
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Mar 27, 2022 03:52
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I'm think "going out with a bang" part feels like a misdirect so audience thinks he wants her to go out in a blaze of glory. But even looking from in-universe standpoint that part could just be ironic given he actually gives her a way to swap bodies. Like, "I guess """"Faith"""" is about to get got, WINK." The first part of the quote is just acknowledging she lost her entire emotional and material support network while retaining numerous and powerful enemies which puts her in extremely bad position. He couldn't predict someone would go to bat for her after all the stuff that went on.
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Mar 27, 2022 12:15
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Nah, I reckon he loved her. It's an ambiguity that they play for a bit, but it's there in the grief at the end of Season 3. It's a brilliant performance, you can see why they were so keen to bring him back a few times. Adam didn't get that treatment. I wish Glory had though, I think they could have done something good with her and Dawn in Season 7.
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Mar 27, 2022 13:19
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Going back to Mr. Trick and the presence of guns in Buffy vs. Angel, it seems like it's probably just a conceit of the two shows. I think we all know bullets are fatal to Slayers. Even if Buffy can manhandle Angel in a one-on-one fight, Angel is certainly more bullet resistant than her and so having guns everywhere isn't a big deal. Watching ATS Episode "Five by Five" conveniently reinforced this idea with Faith shooting Angel to no real effect beyond a bit of pain. But beyond that, I did not consider that one reason the two shows feel so different is their locations. Sunnydale is, as far as I can tell, a pleasant suburb. Sure it has demons and robots lurking just out of sight but it's all nice houses and lawns. This Angel episode started with a Latin gang member and then Faith in some seedy part of town. Settings are important in establishing a town and Angel operating in a grungy, dirty city really makes it stand out from Buffy. Eliza's acting as Faith having her breakdown is phenomenal, notably I teared up which has only happened a couple times so far. Also I guess it's Angel Season 2 when the series becomes "recognizable." No Fred or Gunn here and it just feels so....empty. "Sanctuary" - an infamous episode among us Buffy preferers. Honestly in my memory I was most critical of Buffy's treatment of Faith here. But having just watched the Faith episodes in BTVS S4, her feelings of anger and violation are certainly justified. What's not justified is this Buffy: "I have someone in my life now. (Angel looks away from her but otherwise doesn't move) That I love. (Angel swallows hard) It's not what you and I had. - It's very new. (She steps closer) You know what makes it new? - I trust him. - I know him." Angel lets out a sharp breath: "That's great. - It's nice - you moved on. - I can't. You found someone new. - I'm not allowed to, remember? I see you again it cuts me up inside and the person I share that with is me! You don't know me anymore. So don't come down here with your great new life and *expect* me to do things your way. - Go home!" Buffy: "See? - Faith wins again." I myself have always interpreted this episode as the writers going "see how mature Angel is, Buffy is just a stupid little girl." This is Angel's show and he's the adult in the room. Even if Buffy's attitude towards Faith can be defended, this is pure petulance. Also don't think I've forgotten the last time we hear of Buffy in Angel is how she's loving some random vampire. At least that episode was kind of silly in my memory so it's a bit forgivable but still not great. I always felt like Buffy was disrespected on this show whenever she came up. Open Source Idiom posted:I wish Glory had though, I think they could have done something good with her and Dawn in Season 7. I would have loved this to pieces. It would have made S7 so much better. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Mar 27, 2022 |
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Mar 27, 2022 14:42
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NikkolasKing posted:Going back to Mr. Trick and the presence of guns in Buffy vs. Angel, it seems like it's probably just a conceit of the two shows. I think we all know bullets are fatal to Slayers. Even if Buffy can manhandle Angel in a one-on-one fight, Angel is certainly more bullet resistant than her and so having guns everywhere isn't a big deal. Oh, the shot with the recently tortured Wesley taking in the scene and dropping the knife he's holding is one of my favorite moments in either series. RE: The mayor and Faith and love (and I guess also to a lesser degree, Spike and Buffy and Love) I see this thing all the time in analysis of the show (and another show that has a similar dynamic to Mayor Wilkins/Faith), where there's this idea that an evil person can't really love, or, put another way, the only love that is genuine is a love rooted in goodness and selflessness. Which just always strikes me as nonsense. Bad people love all the time. More importantly, love frequently makes people do terrible things. The villains loved their respective people, honestly and truly. Maybe there's manipulation and self gain in there---so what. They're still bad people. But the way they manipulate or use a loved one is going to be shades different than how they do their usual villainy. Toxic, unhealthy love* is still love. If it's something that's causing a problem in someone's life, pretending that it's not love isn't ever going to help them get over it. You ever want to get seriously hurt by whatever random object happens to be lying around, try telling anyone that they don't love someone when it's pretty clear that they do. Most people react poorly. Just because it's not good love doesn't mean it's not love. Love is easy; compassion is hard. *Although, with regards to the Mayor and Faith, the bulk of any toxicity seems to be directed at people that aren't Faith. It's telling that years later, when Faith is more or less fully reformed, she still admits that she thinks of him in her memories as a father figure. And I'll be the guy that says it---he legitimately was good for her, ultimately. Even as his influence solidified her against Buffy, and made her do more evil deeds, her ultimate redemption would have been impossible without him. He is the sole being that gave her the kind of support she needed to not self-destruct when she was most likely to. Literally nothing in 7 seasons of Buffy and how the gang hashes out their problems with one another would lead me to believe they were capable of that kind of unconditional acceptance. They struggle with one another--someone they didn't love, like Faith? Please. Maybe Angel would have still been able to get through to her eventually, but more likely, she'd be taken by the watchers, or the authorities, or killed by Buffy or thrown away any chance of Angel saving her by killing Buffy--it goes on and on--long before any kind of breakthrough would have been possible. Souls are a weird notion. Mayor Wilkins sold his own away and yet still loved Faith. If he didn't take her in, she would have most likely died as damned. And yet, had he won and lived she would have also almost certainly gone to her grave as damned. Both of these statements can be true.
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Mar 27, 2022 16:40
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NikkolasKing posted:"Sanctuary" - an infamous episode among us Buffy preferers. Honestly in my memory I was most critical of Buffy's treatment of Faith here. But having just watched the Faith episodes in BTVS S4, her feelings of anger and violation are certainly justified. That last scene, really just Buffy's final comments about having moved on, are really petty. She's not beyond reproach on Buffy the show, though. Remember 'when she was bad', the premiere of S2? She's horrible to everyone in that episode while repressing her near death experience. Sometimes she doesn't deal with traumatic things that well and what Faith did with the body switch is up there in terms of people actually hurting her. So she lashes out at Angel in that moment, like she was lashing out at her friends when she was freaked out post-Master. She's also got a judgmental streak which comes into play in this episode that makes her feel like she's justified in lashing out, without thinking. Yeah Angel comes out better from the exchange but it is his show. I don't think either are acting out of character or being disrespected, it's just that the priority of Angel is Angel. If this scene was on Buffy, it would be in the middle of an episode and she'd realise that she was wrong to say those things by the end - but they leave that scene for her actual show when she is contrite about it when Angel visits to resolve the fight. It all evens out for me. I like that they give Buffy some moments of being just y'know, wrong. She's 19. She's not going to deal with everything perfectly first time. She sees it later when she's cooled off.
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Mar 27, 2022 17:09
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I felt that both shows had a problem with guest characters acting a bit weird during crossovers. Funnily, Faith is an example of this when she went back from ATS to BTVS later on.
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Mar 27, 2022 17:17
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Someone refresh my memory of Jonathan being on Angel. I have a vague recollection of it happening but completely blank on the context of any of it.
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Mar 27, 2022 17:34
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Veryslightlymad posted:Oh, the shot with the recently tortured Wesley taking in the scene and dropping the knife he's holding is one of my favorite moments in either series. I see your point and I agree. I believe bad people can love and specifically that the Mayor loved Faith and she loved him. But it's precisely because he offered her so much genuine support and help in S3 that what he says here bugged me. I think even Buffy believes that love is selfless, though. This applies to evil love, too. Our prime example of that from his introduction all the way to the end is Spike. Even without a soul he does so much for Dru and later Buffy. I am not sure if the Mayor lacks a soul - he sold it but that might just mean some demon or hell dimension has dibs on it if he dies. Souls are very important in Buffy and Angel and I'm not sure if it's because Love comes from them. I think they mostly instill in us the capacity for empathy. Love, empathy, and selflessness ideally go hand-in-hand but they aren't identical. Spike gave up his life a couple times for the woman he loved but that doesn't mean he could exactly feel their pain or put himself in their position emotionally. In fact, this reminds me of a couple quotes I wanted to post about and they are super relevant. From "Five by Five" Wesley: "He may be a ruffian, but he's already got a soul, and therefore - deep down inside - an urge to do what's right." Also Angel: "We can't just arbitrarily decide whose soul is worth saving and whose isn't." One word: Lindsey. That is several seasons later, admittedly. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Mar 27, 2022 |
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Mar 27, 2022 17:36
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banned from Starbucks posted:Someone refresh my memory of Jonathan being on Angel. I have a vague recollection of it happening but completely blank on the context of any of it. Andrew shows up twice in S5 of Angel, Jonathan never shows up there.
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Mar 27, 2022 18:25
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roomtone posted:Andrew shows up twice in S5 of Angel, Jonathan never shows up there. Bah mixed their names up. yeah meant him
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Mar 27, 2022 18:26
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As for the question, he helps them with some problem of the week and helpfully informs them Scoobies no longer consider Angel's team good guys. edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCYlsFagq_k sad question fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Mar 27, 2022 |
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Mar 27, 2022 18:30
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Since I started reading this thread I am being bombarded with clickbait about the new book about Buffy which interviewed the cast and crew. The Xander actor hates Angel, said he was too boring a character for his own show, and didn't seem fond of the actor either. Also Tara was asked to return. Apparently the LGBT backlash to her death was so much it made Whedon reconsider. But the actress didn't want to come back if she'd just be killed off again. And she didn't trust him because he made the same promise to Cordelia, only to break it.
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Mar 27, 2022 18:37
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NikkolasKing posted:I see your point and I agree. I believe bad people can love and specifically that the Mayor loved Faith and she loved him. But it's precisely because he offered her so much genuine support and help in S3 that what he says here bugged me. I always had this pocket theory that the real thing a soul actually does is allow one the capacity for self-reflection. And empathy or conscience or whatever is sort of a consequence of that.
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Mar 27, 2022 18:42
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Veryslightlymad posted:I always had this pocket theory that the real thing a soul actually does is allow one the capacity for self-reflection. And empathy or conscience or whatever is sort of a consequence of that. Which is interesting because in some ways that means that Spike had a soul before he got a soul. At the end of season six he attempted to rape Buffy. And then he went through the ritual that gave him a soul. So between the attempted rape and then Spike looked at himself and decided "I cannot be the kind of person who would do something like that. I have to change, to become someone else." So he did. That seems like self-reflection and a conscience, even empathy, to me.
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Mar 27, 2022 20:33
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Everyone posted:Which is interesting because in some ways that means that Spike had a soul before he got a soul. At the end of season six he attempted to rape Buffy. And then he went through the ritual that gave him a soul. So between the attempted rape and then Spike looked at himself and decided "I cannot be the kind of person who would do something like that. I have to change, to become someone else." So he did. That seems like self-reflection and a conscience, even empathy, to me. The mechanics of “souls” broke apart pretty quick in Buffy. Turns out it’s hard to have a character who operates outside of pure villainy who’s also consistent with what “losing your soul” meant in S1, e.g. an excuse to kill vampires because don’t worry, they’re basically a different demon consciousness inhabiting the same body. Spike clearly has ethical boundaries and some degree of empathy from S2 on. He wants to stop Angel from destroying the world because he values the world, is hurt by Drusilla’s betrayal because he has feelings and attachments. Then he gets the chip, which Dawn pretty succinctly analogizes to a soul and she isn’t wrong. But absolutely, Spike realizing he needs a soul and undertaking the mission to get one is some Wizard of Oz poo poo…he’d only have the impulse to want a soul if he effectively already had one. S1 vampires would have no hesitation about raping someone, because they’re all sadists with no empathy, incapable of guilt. Spike doesn’t behave that way, even soullessly.
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Mar 27, 2022 23:50
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I'm trying to think if any of the episodes that talk about Vampires and their lack of souls explain where the soul goes. Presumably wherever people go when they die, but another concept I've toyed around with is that it goes to sleep. Like, inside of them. Buffy retains a memory of Heaven; Angel and Spike do not seem to have a memory of any kind of an afterlife--just memories of what they did while they were Vampires. The soul still being present but sleeping is as reasonable explanation as any for why vampires retain or exaggerate their old personalities---The demon subconsciously still wants the same thing that the living person did, it just has very different ideas on how to achieve this. The demon, for whatever its part is, is constantly inhabiting the vampire. Soul or no, it's still inside. This is why Angel can "turn into" Angelus if he's drugged. The soul basically fucks off into crazed drug stupor world and the demon is given the reins. So if the demon is always there, waiting to break free, it makes a certain degree of sense that, in the "natural" order of things, the human soul is still there, hoping for the same chance. It just never happens because a human soul is not as strong as a demon, without some kind of outside help.
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Mar 28, 2022 00:12
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Everyone posted:Which is interesting because in some ways that means that Spike had a soul before he got a soul. At the end of season six he attempted to rape Buffy. And then he went through the ritual that gave him a soul. So between the attempted rape and then Spike looked at himself and decided "I cannot be the kind of person who would do something like that. I have to change, to become someone else." So he did. That seems like self-reflection and a conscience, even empathy, to me. Xealot posted:The mechanics of “souls” broke apart pretty quick in Buffy. Turns out it’s hard to have a character who operates outside of pure villainy who’s also consistent with what “losing your soul” meant in S1, e.g. an excuse to kill vampires because don’t worry, they’re basically a different demon consciousness inhabiting the same body. So this might all be hopelessly contradictory and inconsistent but...so what, fandoms trying to reconcile and think about this stuff harder than the creators is nothing new. Vampires are clearly still animals, that is consistent all series. We can concede Spike is an anomaly or we can say he and Angelus are simply better at rationalizing their innate thirst for violence. Even with a soul, Angel drained Buffy after she beat him enough to make him vamp out. The demon in him took over. I still like my theory of the soul is related to empathy. Both vampires we see get their souls back are flooded with guilt, and whatever Spike felt after That happened, it wasn't anything even close to the catatonic levels of feeling he had in S7. My best guess is that Spike had supreme tunnel vision without a soul. He loves the things he loves and feels absolutely nothing for everything else. That would also explain his desire to save the world, not because it has people who will be tortured horribly, but because it has things he personally likes. Where will he get his hair dye and hairspray in a hell dimension? That would absolutely matter more to him than people suffering. Chipped Spike is an anomaly, though. Like I said earlier, it's essentially behaviorism, which also fits with the idea of soulless vampires as animals. He's been conditioned to care about these cows he would have otherwise just eaten without a second thought. He is made to care as much as he is able to, though. Veryslightlymad posted:I'm trying to think if any of the episodes that talk about Vampires and their lack of souls explain where the soul goes. Presumably wherever people go when they die, but another concept I've toyed around with is that it goes to sleep. Like, inside of them. Buffy retains a memory of Heaven; Angel and Spike do not seem to have a memory of any kind of an afterlife--just memories of what they did while they were Vampires. Spike and Angel not remembering Heaven isn't exactly proof that their soul never went on. Their circumstances are very different from Buffy's as their soul was separated from their body and their body was walked about by a demon. Buffy was only ever just Buffy and so when she died, her body also died. There is no rush of memories of what her body did without her in it or guiding it. But I don't think there is a definitive answer anywhere and your theory makes sense. Marenghi posted:Since I started reading this thread I am being bombarded with clickbait about the new book about Buffy which interviewed the cast and crew. I've heard nothing but bad things about the book, sadly. Also the scuttlebutt I'm seeing on the behind the scenes stuff makes it clear Brendon (Xander) and Boreanaz have disliked each other for a long time. He was never invited onto AtS and there was some 20th anniversary thing they di a few years back when Boreanaz only agreed to do it if Brendon had to sit away from the rest of the cast. Anya's actress sat with him, though. I dunno, I try to avoid gossip stuff. It's like when you read about how actors and actresses in a love story actually hated each other. In any event, the author gets some basic things wrong, like saying Andrew made the Buffybot. Just sounds like an overall amateurish work. I'll probably still try to get it one day but it got seriously bumped down my list from all these negative reviews. Also I either missed it or it never happened but I am positive Tara was randomly part of the group one episode. Obviously she saw the Gentlemen but I don't recall Willow ever saying Buffy is a Slayer and we fight demons like this all the time. Now she's just here in "Where the Wild Things Are" talking about Adam. Maybe this episode isn't so bad... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koI_73OHErw I came to this forum because of a Grand Theft Auto 3 Let's Play from 2008. Even by then "what the gently caress is a pager?" was a joke. Having Buffy presented with one and it being a thing all season is wild. And I haven't even mentioned the payphones. I wonder if new viewers even know what those archaic devices are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyrnsg2b5xw The comments are all about how Riley sucks, poor guy. I thought it was a pretty cool fight. But Riley really was doomed from the start. Season 4 is the season intended to invalidate the entire idea of him. Got this macho military group, all about Hard Science reductionism (which is a very masculine thing if you read some feminist perspectives) and this is all set up in order to fail to the superior feminine and magic as seen in Buffy and Willow respectively. Riley is a good person but he's still from that macho, science world and thus can never be as intriguing as the supernatural, either to Buffy or the audience
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Mar 28, 2022 00:43
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NikkolasKing posted:Vampires are clearly still animals, that is consistent all series. We can concede Spike is an anomaly or we can say he and Angelus are simply better at rationalizing their innate thirst for violence. Even with a soul, Angel drained Buffy after she beat him enough to make him vamp out. The demon in him took over. This is another thing I feel like the show never really clearly defined well enough. What's the difference, ultimately, between a spirit and a soul? And do demons, which may or may not have souls, possess spirits? Is the vampire demon a type of spirit? Animals have a type of spirit, as this was stated in the episode with the hyena possession. Is the soul a refined type of spirit, or is it an additional presence to a spirit? Is it something else? Just how crowded, metaphysically, is Angel at various points during the series? Could vampirism be, essentially, a kind of soul lobotomy of sorts? Reducing a refined human soul into a base animal spirit? The Hyena pack didn't honestly behave that much different than Vampires do.
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Mar 28, 2022 01:03
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Vampires being demons that just like take over the body is such a odd and never really explored concept. There's hundreds of demon..uh..species I guess..in the BtVS universe. Can any of them become vampires or are there specific vampire demons just floating around invisible waiting to take over a body that gets turned?
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Mar 28, 2022 02:05
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Then there’s the aspect Angel explores, where a lot of demons are just…basically people. Ethically complex but not predisposed to evil, often refugees trying to blend in on Earth and live their lives. “Demon” has a resonance that doesn’t really make sense for how they’re characterized in either Buffy show. Which also makes the vampire-as-demon thing more complicated.
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Mar 28, 2022 02:35
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Anya says in Graduation Day 1 that Anya: "All the demons that walk the earth are tainted, are human hybrids like vampires." (How this aligns with Giles' comment a few episodes ago in S4 that demons hate vampires for being abominations due to their human mixture is another story) The first vampire would presumably be a Turok-Han given they are likened to Neanderthals. So the demon essence in vampires has to be an infinitely divided fragment of an Old, Pure Demon like Illyria. I know a lot of fanboys wanna romanticize her but she was a bad, bad person and so were all demons of that time. The Clems and Lornes of the world might be a result of the later introduced human side winning out. How demons like Whistler and the Powers fit into this, I got no idea. Best I can do right now. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Mar 28, 2022 |
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Mar 28, 2022 02:47
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Which makes sense in Angel, a series that follows a Demon working towards bettering himself, prophesy, etc. Buffy's basically "Big scary world, big scary things to hurt you" and Demon is reductive. Angel's more of a case of "sometimes you're be bad guy even when you're trying not to, and sometimes the guy with blue skin and horns just really likes books and wants to be left alone". I took the Buffy Vamps stuff to be blood magic, basically one of the oldest and most stable ways to tap into those withered lines of ancient power that existed.
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Mar 28, 2022 02:55
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banned from Starbucks posted:Vampires being demons that just like take over the body is such a odd and never really explored concept. There's hundreds of demon..uh..species I guess..in the BtVS universe. Can any of them become vampires or are there specific vampire demons just floating around invisible waiting to take over a body that gets turned? I'm pretty sure that it's not "demon" as we typically see in the series, but a full on inhabitance of a true demon, such as Illyria, or whatever the hell the Mayor channeled into himself during his ascension. Really old vampires like the Master or Kakistos started to resemble the demon. Notably, there seem to be different "lineages" of vampires. Whatever created the Master's line seems to be... More successful, given basically every particularly strong vampire we see in either show other than Kakistos seems to be directly in that lineage.
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Mar 28, 2022 03:18
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That's Season 4 down. A reviewer said Season 4 "limped to a close" and I'm tempted to agree. I think the season started off so strong than it just kept going further and further downhill with the last high being Faith's episodes. I feel sorry for Adam. Really interesting concept, good look, fine actor, and the writers had no faith in him at all. Only Big Bad all series who doesn't even get the final episode of the season dedicated to their defeat. He and Riley truly are brothers in how the narrative sabotages them. Beyond Season 4 though I think I'm just reaching a hump or wall. This is it. This is Season 5 coming up and then it's all downhill from there. I know I should be open minded but I am very skeptical I'll come out of the rewatch singing praises for either Season 6 or 7. I might also simply need a break. I've really got an itch to read my first more recent Stephen King novel, specifically Under the Dome. So gonna do that for however long it takes and I hope to be re-energized and focused on Buffy. Also I got Season 5 on Region 2 DVD because Wikipedia told me quote:Scenes from previous episodes But people are saying these are hardly perfect, either. What is "PAL speed up?" Is it really that noticeable?
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Mar 28, 2022 15:50
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It's neglible speed up to make episodes fit a different ad space run time without cutting any scenes. It doesn't really affect anything. Previouslies rock, watch the previouslies cut.
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Mar 28, 2022 15:59
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NikkolasKing posted:But people are saying these are hardly perfect, either. What is "PAL speed up?" Is it really that noticeable? Not really. PAL broadcast signal differs from NTSC (North American) standards in a few ways, including frame rate. Apparently Buffy was shot at 23.98fps, and translating that to the 50i 25fps signal used under PAL just means speeding up the footage a little bit.
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Mar 28, 2022 16:23
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