moscow_watcher | Buffy issue 7 summary and analysis

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Buffy issue 7 summary and analysis

The issue starts with a flashback of Buffy\Faith's fight in Graduation Day 1. This time we see it from Faith's POV: according to her, she wanted to be Buffy's friend but Buffy refused to accept her friendship and tried to kill her. Obviouly the flashback is done to refreshen reader's memory and make the parallel with current situation even more striking.

Faith arrives to the party at Gigi's mansion. She throws off the earphone that connects her to Giles. "I've got enough voices in my head already". She is searched with a radio-metal locator but the guards doesn't notice a small knife in her hairdo, disguised as a pin. When Faith is asked to show an invitation she throws a Paris Hilton fit and is allowed to enter the mansion without an invitation. "You're one of them, all right" says the butler.

Staying in the line of the visitors who present Gigi their cards, Faith gives herself a pep-talk: she doesn't want to kill a slayer, but she has to believe Giles that the girl is dangerous. Gigi's tantrum interferes with Faith's plans and she goes to the balcony to smoke and to calm the nerves. Gigi joins her there and they bond instantly over Amy Winehouse songs. For three panels they discover how much in common they have, then Faith is finally ready to kill Gigi.

She reaches for a knife in her hairdo... and is immediately attacked by Roden's gargoyles who sweep her in the air. She sticks her knife in one of them, and somehow destroys the other (obviously he falls to pieces when she hits him). Then she falls unconscious. Probably it's Roden who sent her to sleep, since he's already staying by Gigi who's shattered. Probably it's just a plot necessity, because in the next scene...

Faith regains consciousness in Gigi's bedroom. "I'm begging you snuff her out now" says Roden to Gigi before Faith opens her eyes. Curiously, he can't do it himself. Either he's bound by some weird spell (like Drogin who couldn't lie) or he's afraid to contradict Gigi who has already found her best friend in Faith.

Faith opens her eyes and Gigi tells her that she's "like her and other girls who have tapped into an ancient force". Gigi plans to become their leader after the coronation "to take our rightful place at the head of this wretched society. Right after I destroy the woman holding us back and take her mantle as queen". She's talking about Buffy. She's clearly obsessed with her the way Faith was obsessed in season 3. Gigi's "locker room" is covered with Buffy's photos. Some of them fresh. Some of them may be made inside Buffy's castle. Buffy with her team. Buffy with her zap gun. Buffy with Twilight sign painted over her face.

Analysis.

Slayership as the metaphor of aristocracy could provide a basis of compelling story a century ago. But today the influence of aristocratic society on politics, economics and culture is next-to-nonexistent, so the metaphor works only as a requisite element of storytelling ("hey, Jossverse is about metaphors so we have to provide you with our metaphor-du-jour!")

Back to storytelling, I noticed that after the first issue of No Future For You many people presumed that Faith wasn't going to kill Gigi and that she agreed to work for Giles only to prevent the murder of a fellow slayer. So her actual behavior in the issue was a shock. I always saw her acceptance to do a "wet-work" for Giles as an honest agreement. Because otherwise she automatically becomes a traitor and a double agent. Not Faith-like. Vaughan provided Faith with enough lines to indicate that she's tortured about her mission. But in real life, when war is raging, people rarely choose between good and evil. People usually choose between bigger and lesser evil.

Obviously Vaughan is planning to make Faith's mission as hard as possible and I like it. I suppose the bonding between two slayers will be continued and Faith will find it more and more hard to see Gigi as an enemy. Right now the resolution is unclear. Either Faith eventually kills Gigi or she converts her to Buffy's side and Gigi becomes the next extra in Buffy's army. Or we'll get another unresolved storyark, like escaped Amy and Warren - an arc to be addressed in a year or two.

Interestingly, Gigi calls Roden "fascist tutor". It's one more mention of fascist ideology in season 8. In issue 5 Joss introduced debates on fascism in a girls' banter right before Fake!Buffy gets activated by Willow's spell. Interesting coincidence. Or maybe not a coincidence.

I still can't define the type of logic that should be applied to the story analysis. For example, is Gigi really "special"? I mean - why Roden chose Gigi, an aristocratic girl with influent parents who can raise a lot of fuss about the slayer business? Could he choose a less prominent figure - say, an orphan? Has he chosen Gigi because she has something other girls hasn't or because Joss decided to use slayership-going-wrong as a metaphor of aristocracy?

stormwreath has a very interesting theory about it but I not sure such complex plot twist could be resolved in two remaining issues. It's stuff thick historical romance novels are made of. Then again, such twist could deepen the slayership\aristocracy and leadership\heirship parallels. And in this case weird "filthy whore!" flashback in previous issue could be even relevant to the plot.

Another example of moot logic is Faith's cover not being exposed. She has killed the first gargoyle with her knife and nobody mentions it. Should we draw a conclusion that Roden knows it and is now playing Faith in hope she'll lead him to her boss? Or we should just suspend our disbelief and accept that nobody has checked the knife?

So far, I like the story without caring much about characters. Trying to figure out the puzzle is part of the fun. Hopefully there is something to figure out. But Joss' "true love kiss" explanation made me wonder. If the twist of the first arc is the absence of it and the actual solution is *that* simple, could other twists also be as elementary as this one?

Overall impression: Story-wise, it's solid, professionally done entertainment. Some visuals are cringe-worthy, but that's understandable: no drawing can give dazzling Eliza Dushku her due.

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So far, I like the story without caring much about characters.
Same here! And, since I never had a problem with 'these things happen when you're on a Hellmouth' kinda plots, as long as the characters were interesting and compelling, it's like they turned the show upside down when transferred to comics. It's not that I don't like story-driven shows, but I don't obsess about them.

I think the questions you raise are good ones.

I assume that Roden picked Gigi because her influence and money would be useful in setting up an oppositional force. Also, her spoiled rotten nature would prime her to believe Roden's story.

I tend to agree with stormwreath that Faith will try to convince Gigi not to go after Buffy, but then Faith will end up killing her. I don't think that would take more than two issues, given how quickly (and convincingly, IMO) the girls bonded this time. (I'm not sure that's what you were referring to, though).

Re: the plot: I don't think she killed the first gargoyle with the knife...just got him to stop biting her. She killed them both when she goaded them into crashing into each other ("Rock...meet hard place").

The fight devastated her; she passed out honestly.

Great review as usual :)

One of the reasons I didn't like S7 was because it was plot driven rather than character driven, and it's also one of the reasons I didn't enjoy the first arc of S8. I think the Faith arc is more character driven than plot driven, it actually made me care about Faith more than the actual show did. She's not really a favorite character of mine due to lack of interest, so making me more interested about her now is a big plus.

Interesting review!

She sticks her knife in one of them, and somehow destroys the other (obviously he falls to pieces when she hits him). Then she falls unconscious.

She sticks her knife in one. Then she wriggles free while it's writhing in agony, and jumps (in mid-air) onto the other one's back. She covers its eyes, and since it can't see anything, it crashes into the ground.

She hits the one that just crashed, but only hurts her hand. But then she spots the one she stabbed in the eye has recovered, and is swooping down on her at full speed. She says her witty banter (she's obviously learned more than she'd admit from Buffy) and does a standing jump five metres into the air. The two gargoyles collide with each other in the place she was standing a moment earlier, and both crumble into gravel. Then she lands, says 'ow', and collapses unconscious. She's already covered in blood and bruises, I don't think there's anything supernatural involved with that part.

Curiously, he can't do it himself.

Supposedly, Gigi is the leader and he's just her faithful minion. While we know and he knows who's really in charge, he doesn't want to break her illusions just yet, so he defers to her.

But today the influence of aristocratic society on politics, economics and culture is next-to-nonexistent, so the metaphor works only as a requisite element of storytelling

That could be the point. People like Gigi are an anachronistic relic of older times when we still believed that certain people were born into an elite and deserved to hold power over the rest of us. Now, most of us only hold contempt for such people. But if Slayers=the aristocracy, should we feel the same contempt for Buffy and co? Are they also a relic of the past?

many people presumed that Faith wasn't going to kill Gigi and that she agreed to work for Giles only to prevent the murder of a fellow slayer.

Really? I always assumed that she took the mission willingly - but without thinking through the implications carefully enough - and strongly suspected she'd have second thoughts when she actually came face-to-face with Gigi. It's not worked out exactly how I imagined, but it's somewhere along those lines...

She has killed the first gargoyle with her knife and nobody mentions it. Should we draw a conclusion that Roden knows it and is now playing Faith in hope she'll lead him to her boss?

Could be. I assume that Gigi, if she noticed the knife at all (maybe it was buried under the rubble of the dead gargoyles?) would just assume that Faith's a Slayer so always goes armed. She certainly doesn't think that Faith planned to use the weapon on *her*. Roden might not be so easily fooled, but he's not going to openly go against Gigi's wishes just yet.

Thanks for sharing your review. I really enjoy reading your thoughts about the issue!

Interesting review and some points there which I haven't thought about. For example the metaphore of slayers as aristocracy - hmm...

What I'm mostly seeing there is watchers at puppeteers pulling slayers' strings - both Roden and Giles. Roden is into a sunset cult, obviously, and I think his goal is to set Slayers against Slayers to eventually get rid of all of them. Giles motives also get more complicated here with the last page as it might not be about preventing apocalypse after all but preventing assasination of Buffy and playing against Sunset. In both cases slayers are not given the full truth and are being played. The endga,e might be for all of them - Buffy, Faith, and Gigi - to break free of those puppet strings and get to heart of the matter.

Now to your questions. Why Roden choose Gigi? Maybe because she was a spoiled brat the most successible to his propaganda? Also she had resources - a castle, a protection system - similar to Buffy's. And she could maintain them without raising suspicisons.
What about the knife? I thnk both knives were broken and lost in the rubble left by Gargoyles. And they probably just scraped off the whole thing with a bulldoser afterwards. :)
Also were Faith going to strike Gigi before Gargoyles took her? It's an open question - she drew the knife in the same way before when standing in line, and couldn't go through with it, put it back. Similar thing might've happened here again - she wouldn't have the nerve - but we'll never know now.
Why Roden didn't kill Faith? I got the impression that Gigi was watching over Faith at her bedside. I don't think Roden would do sonething like that in front of her and without her consent.

I'm also puzzled why characters haven't grabbed you here and only story twists seem interesting. IMHO it's a first really character driven story we got in Buffy-8 and BKV is superb in that. It's all really about Faith inner turmoil, and Giles as complex and coflicted as it comes - and yet sympathetic and understandable for the 1st time since him killing Ben, and now we are going to get Buffy into the mix and up the ante even more. I'm very jazzed up about all of it, hope the story will become more enjoyable for you as well. :)

Interesting analysis but I would disagree on one point. I think that aristocracy itself is being used here as a metaphor for the elitism of powerful groups - like The Slayers (and notice the capitals - I'm referring to the whole collective mass of them rather than individuals) and Twilight.

Perhaps the metaphor is about being part of an powerful elite without having actually done anything to get entitle you to use the power - like the aristocracy, like Slayers where it is in both cases an accident of birth rather than any intelligence or ability in the individual. The quote from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" springs to mind here:

(from imdb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/quotes))
King Arthur: I am your king.
Woman: Well I didn't vote for you.
King Arthur: You don't vote for kings.
Woman: Well how'd you become king then?
[Angelic music plays... ]
King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king.
Dennis: [interrupting] Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

I love your reviews...!!!!

ok..
I think she wont kill gigli but rather leave with her to train/live/adventure together and sometime later on the "season" they will appear just when somebody needs them

tahst so Josss

I WANT To know about the symbol in buffy face!!!!!

ALSO!!

"Boys are into you because of your legs, not those itty-bitty [boobs].’

What?!? Is Willow checking out Buffy’s sister?

Hi, like your anlysis of the comics, and have seen you at various places. Wonder if I can friend you? You seem as interested in the comics as I am. And we seem to hold quite similar opinions on a few things.

That way I can comment on your posts. I do not know any Russian through, so if you post in that language, I will not be able to comment. Best Wishes!

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