Buffy issue 7 summary and analysis

[moscow_watcher]

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.

Comments

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I wonder if Joss has switched from character-driven to story-driven type of storytelling on purpose, because he realised that it's impossible to make fans care about drawed characters as much as we cared about them when they were played by actors. Sometimes I'm afraid that I won't be able to enjoy "Angel" comics because of it. Hopefully it won't happen.

[elisi]

Well Lynch cares about the characters, so I'm trusting that he'll look after them. *crosses fingers*

ETA: Actually, it's perfectly possible to have great characters in a comic and make people care about them deeply - and also juggle a large cast! (I can't tell you how much I adore 'Elfquest'!)

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

My fingers are crossed too. If I could cross my toes, I'd do it. :)

A question unrelated to comics: you can edit your posts?! If it's really possible, is this function available only to people with paid accounts?

[elisi]

A question unrelated to comics: you can edit your posts?!
Nah. Just re-did the comment and deleted the first one, then took liberties with the English language. ;)

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

If I hadn't seen Lynch's Spike comics, I'd agree with you that the medium might have forced the switch from character-driven plot to action-driven plot. But in the Spike comics, we have lots of fun plot, but it's still really about the characters. We immediately recognize Spike as the guy who was dealing with the issues he was dealing with in AtS 5. And we see him grow and change a bit. Presumably we'd have seen even more of that if the Spike comics were a part of the official development of canon. Anyway, it can be done.

Thing is, I don't think Joss means this to be a switch to action-driven plot. The Faith story line is all about the emotions. Whether we agree with how she's being portrayed or not -- it's clear that Vaughn/Whedon mean for us to be thinking about her issues with respect to Buffy, her own dark past, and so on. We'll find out later what Roden is up to, but that's not the main focus here.

The big question is why there's such a difference between this arc and the opening arc. And if I put on my optimistic hat, I'd say it's because we are being set up for big reveals on what's been going on since we last checked in with the gang. The question marks that look like gaps aren't because Joss doesn't care about continuity in character development -- it's because he wants to prime us to wonder. We're supposed to ask the following questions: How did Dawn and Buffy's relationship go to hell again? What has Willow been up to, and (importantly) is she really as in control of her power and her darkness as she appears? Why wasn't Spike in Buffy's dreamspace in any real way? How did Xander get so confident in his role with the slayers? How does Buffy really feel about the fact that her life is only about being a slayer? That's what my optimistic self says. If that's not what's going on, then we have other questions. The big one being: Why did the guy who created the Buffy 'verse decide to trash his own reputation by putting out such lame material?

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

At the beginning I wondered if Joss planned to insert flashbacks to fill the blanks. He often talks about his passion about Battlestar Galactica - a show that has jumped two years forward between 2 and 3th season and has creatively used these two years in season 3 flashbacks.
But, so far, instead of tying loose ends writers create more loose ends. Maybe it's too soon. If it was a TV show we'd be at the end of a season by now. But in this media we're still in the middle of the second episode.

[lusciousxander.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't The Chain be the second episode? Or a plus DVD special ~_^ it wouldn've been cool if we had them in the current DVDs.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

We could classify it as an MTV special. :)
It's a long music clip. Short cuts, several narrative levels intercutting, about 10 min of actual screentime...

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the letters page of this issue? Because Scott addresses this very subject. Somebody asked about why we don't find out what happened between 'Chosen' and 'TLWH' - why Dawn's a giant, why the Slayers have a castle in Scotland, etc. And this was his reply:

A lot of what you were asking for in issue #1 was exposition. Answers will continue to spill out, but only as they serve the story. Story and exposition are two different things. We'll probably be halfway through Season Eight before you understand what happened to Dawn!

In other words (and confirming what I suggested in my recent meta on Dawn :-) ) dropping us into the middle of things without long explanations was a deliberate stylistic device to get the story arc moving quickly.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Thanks for directing me to Allie's reply!

In other words (and confirming what I suggested in my recent meta on Dawn :-) ) dropping us into the middle of things without long explanations was a deliberate stylistic device to get the story arc moving quickly.

... "quickly" being the operative word here. :))))

Yes, I realise that Joss's narrative is similar to a Dickensian novel, with many characters and many plot twists. It's great when you read a finished novel. It's harder when you watch a show. Obviously, Joss realised the danger of audience' frustration over unresolved storylines in the TV show, because he used a brilliant format: one season = one story. So it took about 6-8 months to tell a particular story. It was more or less bearable.

Now, on season 8, seven months have passed since the first issue and we only have got the exposition.

I'm not familiar with comics type of storytelling and I wonder if it's a common thing - to read the exposition today and get the resolution three or five years later.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I agree that BSG handled the jump brilliantly. It worked well because even though we had jumped, we could connect the characters we were seeing to the characters we knew at the end of season 2. The flashbacks could then add depth to our understanding of the choices that ended up being made, but the choices themselves were at least on the horizon when we last saw the characters.

Joss isn't handling the jump nearly so well. He has established very little continuity. Plus, I think he's not factoring in the fact that he's coming back to the story several years after we thought it all ended. So in addition to the fact that there's too much unexplained jumping, he's ignoring the fact that a lot of fans had questions they wanted answered at the end of the series. Failing to even allude to those questions furthers the disconnect problems.

I still think it'll be all about the characters. The issue #10 preview seems to make that clear. And a lot of Joss's comments about the project suggest that he does care about where the characters are now in relationship to where they were. He's just not unfolding his story very well. And he seems to have lost at least a portion of his audience as a result.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Totally agree about BSG and looking forward to the 4th season.

I still think it'll be all about the characters. The issue #10 preview seems to make that clear. And a lot of Joss's comments about the project suggest that he does care about where the characters are now in relationship to where they were. He's just not unfolding his story very well. And he seems to have lost at least a portion of his audience as a result.

I may only conjecture, but I've got the impression that he's trying to attract his initial audience - the teenagers. By the end of the TV show characters were adult persons with adult problems and issues. In comics they are teenagers who live in a fairy tale. (A castle. Zombies, elves and gnomes. Witchcraft, levitation, dreamspace. And - evil global conspiracy. It's basically a teenager's worldview.)

Interestingly, there is a lot of young posters on Dark Horse forums: when somebody used Buffy quote "What are you, twelwe?" people were pissed off because they *are* in this age group. :)