Buffy issue 9 summary, analysis and spoilery speculations

[moscow_watcher]

Summary:

Brian K Vaughan uses any opportunity to delve into Faith's past and into her head. This issue starts - again! - with a flashback, this time dedicated to Faith's relationship with Mayor. Obviously he wants to draw a parallel to Gigi's relationship with Roden who now orders her to kill Faith. But Gigi, who has already swung her axe, conveniently hits Faith with its helve. She is mad at Faith at lying to her about her name, her goals, but most of all, about her nationality: "You're not even English?"

Is it written as a joke? I'm at loss here.

Gigi's rage is so devastating that she conveniently plunges her axe into a stone statue. Um, mister Vaughan... have you ever had an axe in your hands? I'm a woman, but even I occasionally hack twigs and branches for campfires. And I know that a metallic blade can't go into a stone.

OK, I accept it as a "suspension of disbelief" moment. Statue looks prettier. And it beautifully constrasts with the dynamics of the fight.

Meanwhile, Willow, following Buffy's order, phones Giles who is still trying to penetrate the mystical barrier around Gigi's estate. Buffy, furious, tells Giles that Faith tried to kill her. Giles has no time to explain - he has to save Faith, so he cuts Buffy short and asks her to put Willow on the line. Buffy feels betrayed.

Meanwhile, Faith-Gigi fight goes on, Gigi conveniently flies through the air and runs herself on her own axe. And, before she dies, she conveniently absolves Faith when the latter says she never meant to kill her - "Yeah. But it's like the song goes..."

Roden immediately tries to recruit Faith to kill Buffy, but, naturally, she rejects his offer and hits him with a Twilight's guidebook he offers her. Furious, Roden tries to kill Faith with a stone fist he conjures up from the earth, but cavalry in the person of Giles arrives in time and saves her. The battle between Roden and Giles is short and ridiculous: while Roden is conveniently standing there and posturing, Faith throws Roden's Twilight's guidebook to Giles, he immediately finds the necessary spell, puts the "mystic field" inside his opponent and Roden's head bursts.

Cut to the next morning. Back in Giles' apartment, Faith declares that she has decided not to quit. She has got her Big Moral Lesson and she wants "to play social worker to the slayers. Maybe I could help walk a few bad girls back from the brink". They decide to work together.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the jungle, a military helicopter lands on a tiny stone plateau. A woman in a military uniform with a Twilight sign on her palm requests the audience. A creature whose boots we saw back in issue 1 descends from above.

According to the woman, whose name is Lt. Molter, "their man on the inside" has reported that Buffy Summers was still alive. Flying Boots, who looks like Terminator in an iron mask, tells her that actually, Gigi and Roden were his targets. He plans to manipulate his enemies "into waging this ugly war, a tactic crucial for bringing the age of magic to a close".

"Night falls soon enough", he promises.

Analysis:

The second arc, as well as the first one, works OK as long as the reader doesn't overthink and overanalyse it. Analysis is a tricky thing here: a reviewer may easily turn into a whiner who complains about the lack of Shakespearean depth in a Shreck movie.

Well...

Brian K Vaughan loves Faith and this story is clearly her show. She's the star and everything else exists to showcase her ability to fight, quip and demonstrate the generosity of her spirit. I read comments from people who disliked her on the show but started to like her after this comic, and it's understandable: Faith really shines here.

But, unfortunately, Faith's greatness comes at the expence of everything else. Other characters's dialogs are either bland or sound like badfic snippets, like "Buffy's narrow ass lives to fight another day".

Vaughan's attempts to spice up Buffy's dialogues end up in some weird choices - "Faith and her droogs", for example. Buffy doesn't strike me as a girl who reads Burgess or watches Kubrick. (Well, she could hear that word from Spike - after all, his chip was a Clockwork Orange rip-off) :)

OTOH, Faith's culturological references sound spot-on ("Conan the librarian" - hee!) while Giles' "maybe I could be the Steed to your Peel" works mainly as an opening to Faith's priceless reply "I hope it's not as gross as it sounds". Have I mentioned that Vaughan loves Faith? I hope Joss will give him the spinoff rights.

Jeanty demonstrates some improvement - his Mayor looks great and Giles has several good panels. Faith is drawn better than in the previous issues, but Jeanty's alternate cover is incredibly ugly! Still there are some inspiring visual decisions in the issue, like Faith-Gigi fight taking place at sunset, with the blood-red sky as a backdrop.

About the story. *le sigh*

The story works great as long as you don't search something deep and significant in it. It's good entertainment, well-paced and provided with a requisite Valuable Moral Lesson. But it's a story of convenient situations, easy choices and artificial conflicts.

I already pointed out at multiple convenient situations in the summary. The ultimale convenience is Vaughan's decision to make Gigi's death accidental. He saves Faith from a hard choice - either kill Gigi or let her go knowing that she may strike again. Obviously, writer is too attached to the character to put her in a no-win situation.

Maybe my problem is measuring up comics by TV show standards. Onscreen Faith (as well as all the other characters) had been constantly put in no-win situations and had to make hard and unpleasant choices. Compared to them this watered down resolution is a shameful cop-out that highlights the very nature of comic-vs-TVshow dichotomy.

There are two types of conflicts between characters in fiction - real and artificial. Real ones are based on characters' different worldviews. Artificial ones are based on misunderstandings. This is the latter kind of conflict, when good guys are angry at each other because of unlucky circumstances. Giles doesn't want to cooperate with Buffy or anybody else in the castle either because he suspects there is a mole there or because he's overprotective. So he chooses Faith. Buffy finds out about his undercover operation in the worst possible situation and snaps at him, demanding the explanation. He can't waste time on explanations when Faith's life is in danger, so he snaps at Buffy, etc.

The problem with artificial conflicts is that they produce artificial resolutions. In the person of Gigi Faith killed her own metaphorical dark side and obsession with Buffy. What has changed? Instead of killing baby vampires she will be mentoring girls who kill baby vampires? I'd rather see her actively fighting.

Spoilery speculations.

1. So, there is a spy in Buffy's inner circle. If I were trying to figure him out using logic and common sense, my prime candidate would be Giles, because during his battle with Roden he acted as a person who knows the Twilight guidebook by heart. But logic and common sense are hardly applicable to BtVS (using logic and common sense I can easily prove that the real Doctor in As You Were is Riley). I'm pretty sure that Core Four are immune. Dear Xander fans, don't sweat and relax - this is a story of convenient situations, easy choices and artificial conflicts. The spy is either inadvertent (for example, New!Initiative managed to hide a bug in Xander's eyepatch) or an extra nobody cares about. Or he hasn't been introduced yet. (Just like the kiss of true love from a character who wasn't there in the room?) :)

2. Is Flying Boots the Big Bad of the season? Joss says he is. Anyway, by now the hierarchy of seasonal villains is already quite complicated to add another one. First we saw Amy and Warren; then we discovered New!Initiative; then we met Roden; now it looks like they are just pawns in Flying Boots's game. His official goal - to get rid of the magic - sounds as a trick to lull military's vigilance. After all, he's able to levitate! Could he be somebody we know? Easily. Military subplot and the promise of Riley return make Adam the best candidate.

3. Curiously, the detail that tortures me the most is the red demon on Faith's t-shirt on the last panels. It looks like the last-minute addition because it's obvious that it wasn't drawed but was copy-pasted from somewhere. The picture of demon doesn't follow the folds of the fabric of the t-shirt. I wonder if it was added to make the panels more vivid or the red demon is a foreshadowing of something sinister happening to Faith?

Bottom line: Interesting albeit not completely successful attempt to bring a bit of Avengers cool to Charlie's Angels universe.

Comments

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Or a year-long clinical depression, BtVS bends genres like prepubescent gymnasts.

Good point. But I've got the impression that season 8 is closer to season 1 than to season 6 in spirit.

You mean you wanted her to kill Gigi or let her go?

I wanted a situation on a par with Bad Girls. Ambiguous (in BG it's left unclear if Faith has actually saved Buffy by killing Mayor's deputy), grey and tragic. With Buffy, Faith and Gigi there Vaughan had a lot of possibilities.

I don't intepret what went before as betrayal.

I'm copy-pasting from my reply to Stormwreath down the thread:

It's hard to argue because we don't know if Giles and Buffy work in the same organization and who is the boss. If Giles is Buffy's subordinate and he organized an undercover operation behind her back - that's betrayal. If he's the boss, he doesn't have to report to her about his operations. And if he works solo or in a small reformed Council (Giles as CEO, Trafalgar as his deputy and some witch as coven liaison) then it's just bad planning.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

But I've got the impression that season 8 is closer to season 1 than to season 6 in spirit.
Based on what other than your original determination that it should be so?

in BG it's left unclear if Faith has actually saved Buffy by killing Mayor's deputy
That's a slightly radical interpretation of the text. Saved Buffy from what? The drama comes from Faith having accidently killed an innocent bystander and her refusal to face any consequences for that or admit that anything of any significance had happened.

I think the tragedy of Gigi's death is similar to that of Cassie in HelpBecause, frankly, what I see on the page doesn't convince me that Buffy understands the situation as you describe it. I only see her hurt and feeling betrayed.
So now we agree about the betrayal aspect being completely uncertain?

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Based on what other than your original determination that it should be so?

They look like season 1 characters. They act like season 1 characters. Crucial plot points, like the kiss of true love, are borrowed from fairy tales.

That's a slightly radical interpretation of the text. Saved Buffy from what?

From death, apparently. Buffy herself perceived Finch's gesture as an attack and Faith followed her lead.

Writers never explained why Allan Finch has rushed at Buffy in a vampire-infested alley. But it was previously established that he worked for the seasonal Big Bad, knew that his boss is evil, worked for him at least a year eliminating threats to mayor' life. In his previous scene Finch has got a harsh telling-off from the mayor about the lousy security. Now, his actions look like an attack: he hides in the dark then suddenly grabs Buffy's shoulder. Possibly he was planning a trap for her. Of course, it's also possible that he wanted to switch sides and become her ally. Or he wanted to offer Slayers work as mayor's bodyguards. But in any case Allan Finch was working for a bad guy and his behavior looked suspicious and threatening. When Faith staked him she honestly believed that she's saving Buffy. And maybe she did.

So now we agree about the betrayal aspect being completely uncertain?

Of course. It's just my personal perception of what I see on the page.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

They look like season 1 characters.
I'm not going to argue the finer points of the art, it's a non-photo-realist style. But neither hair nor clothes are anything even approaching their S1 styles.

They act like season 1 characters.
In what way? The only resemblance I can see is the friendship between Buffy, Willow and Xander but that was there at the end of S7 and Giles's role is completely different.

Crucial plot points, like the kiss of true love, are borrowed from fairy tales.
The kiss of true love was a minor distraction not a crucial plot point but there are more varieties of magical creature around. However, S1 involved no more fairy tale elements than the later seasons so rather than a regression I see it as a sign of broadened horizons, they've left the suburbs behind and the wider world is a strange place.

Writers never explained why Allan Finch has rushed at Buffy in a vampire-infested alley.
In Conseqences the Mayor implies Finch was intending to betray him while shredding the paper trail he's accumulated and Buffy voices similar suspiscions.

he hides in the dark then suddenly grabs Buffy's shoulder.
Actually she grabbed him. Faith and her were in the middle of a battle with the Illuminati and just before Finch turned up their tactics were for one to pull out a vamp and the the other to stake him.

When Faith staked him she honestly believed that she's saving Buffy.
As soon as Buffy saw Finch was human she yelled at Faith to stop and as soon as Faith saw that her victim wasn't a vamp she went into shock there was never any indication in the way the scene was shot and acted that Finch was anything other than a hapless victim. Faith never tried to justify what she'd done as self-defence and Doug Petrie's commentary is very clear that the scene is a turning point because they'd killed an innocent human and thus committed murder (albeit accidently).

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

In what way (they act like season 1 characters)?

F.ex., Buffy stops talking with Giles because he has sided with Faith. When I look at the situation "from the outside" I realise that it must be a plot necessity for the next story. But - could writers handle it more subtly? Both Buffy and Giles act like 12 years old.

In Consequences the Mayor implies Finch was intending to betray him while shredding the paper trail he's accumulated and Buffy voices similar suspiscions.

Yes, it's one of the possibilities. But it was never made clear and I suppose writers intentionally made it that way. It was very easy to avoid the ambiguity and make the message clear: by providing dying Finch with a line: "Buffy... I have to... warn... you... the mayor is..." or something like that.

Actually she grabbed him. Faith and her were in the middle of a battle with the Illuminati and just before Finch turned up their tactics were for one to pull out a vamp and the the other to stake him.

Um, no. They were walking down the alley, Finch was hiding in the shadows. He grabbed Buffy first. She perceived his action as an attack, threw him against the wall and the next moment Faith staked him.

there was never any indication in the way the scene was shot and acted that Finch was anything other than a hapless victim.

I suppose it's subjective. I see a lot of indications: Finch waiting for Buffy in a suspicious place, hiding, suddenly and unexpectedly grabbing her... I suppose that was Joss' goal - to create a complex psychological situation without obvious heroes and villains.
There are interesting comments on that issue by 2maggie2 and shapinglight down the thread. (http://moscow-watcher.livejournal.com/54172.html?thread=360348#t360348)

Faith never tried to justify what she'd done as self-defence

Because it wasn't self-defence. Faith thought she was defending Buffy. Or, rather, helping her.

Doug Petrie's commentary is very clear that the scene is a turning point because they'd killed an innocent human and thus committed murder (albeit accidently).

I have to re-listen the commentaries. If Petrie insists that Major's deputy is innocent why didn't he made it clear onscreen? And why did he choose a Big Bad's minion as an innocent victim? Why didn't he use a random homeless man?

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

F.ex., Buffy stops talking with Giles because he has sided with Faith.
You've got several threads worth of arguments here about whether that was the case or whether she had other reasons. However, whatever she really feels she still tells Willow to do everything she can for Giles, which is pretty mature of her. That incident aside we have a Buffy who is confidently leading her squad into combat, concerned about their responses to seeing their first victims, inspiring their loyalty, fully in control of the raid on the not!Initiative base (including ensuring that the soldiers are healed) and negotiating on equal terms with Generals. All very adult and a big advance on her S7 attempts at leadership.

It was very easy to avoid the ambiguity and make the message clear: by providing dying Finch with a line: "Buffy... I have to... warn... you... the mayor is..." or something like that. At that stage no-one had any suspiscions of the Mayor, he's only been revealed to the audience so such a statement as well as being a laughably obvious stage device would have provided one reveal too many for the scene. We'd still have only had Finch's word for himself so conspiracy theorists still wouldn't have been convinced. If Finch were attacking Buffy on the Mayor's behalf how was he expecting to do anything other than lose painfully, there's no indication he has superpowers? And the Mayor is the opposite of concerned that any plan of his has failed he seems perfectly happy with Alan's demise.

Um, no. They were walking down the alley, Finch was hiding in the shadows. He grabbed Buffy first. She perceived his action as an attack, threw him against the wall and the next moment Faith staked him.
Um, yes. I just watched the scene. She senses someone hiding in the shadows, pulls them out and throws them against the wall to where Faith can complete the manoever (which is a direct copy of the previous staking but with the players reversed). Faith dives in, Buffy shouts for her to stop from behind her but Faith doesn't pull back until the stake's gone in and she can see the blood and lack of dust and realises that it wasn't a vamp.

I suppose that was Joss' goal - to create a complex psychological situation without obvious heroes and villains.
Which he achieves simply by making it clear that it was an accident in the line of duty and that Buffy would have been the perpetrator just one dusting before. It isn't the staking or its specific motivations that shows Faith as morally flawed (but perfectly sympathetic), it's how she acts after it.

Because it wasn't self-defence. Faith thought she was defending Buffy. Or, rather, helping her.
In English the term self defence can apply to a group as well as to an individual. Whatever, Faith never tried to justify what she did as defending or helping Buffy either.

If Petrie insists that Major's deputy is innocent why didn't he made it clear onscreen? And why did he choose a Big Bad's minion as an innocent victim?
It was clear to most people. Using Finch works better than a random stranger because of the possibility that he may have been trying to help. His being linked to the Mayor makes it credible that the body is identified and on the news so quickly and leads Buffy and Faith to investigate the Mayor's office where they finally spot Wilkins and Trick in conversation with one another.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

negotiating on equal terms with Generals.

Obviously I missed that issue. ;) I read the one in which Buffy's squad is able to occupy enemy's headquarters and after the takeover she manages to stay as clueless about enemy's plans as she was before it.

If Finch were attacking Buffy on the Mayor's behalf how was he expecting to do anything other than lose painfully, there's no indication he has superpowers?

But if he were trying to warn her how was he expecting to earn her trust, hiding and then suddenly grabbing her shoulder?

Um, yes. I just watched the scene. She senses someone hiding in the shadows, pulls them out and throws them against the wall to where Faith can complete the manoever (which is a direct copy of the previous staking but with the players reversed). Faith dives in, Buffy shouts for her to stop from behind her but Faith doesn't pull back until the stake's gone in and she can see the blood and lack of dust and realises that it wasn't a vamp.

Um, no. He grabs her shoulder first. Here's the evidence.

(http://photobucket.com)

The problem with this scene is that when you start dissect it Finch's behavior doesn't make sense in none of the above scenarios.

If he wanted to kill Buffy he would use the gun. If he wanted to warn girls, he'd hailed them from a safe distance. He knew that they are slayers - superstrong and dangerous.

We may suppose that Joss had intentionally made Finch's behavior inexplicable to make us argue about the scene almost 10 years after the episode had been aired. :)

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

after the takeover she manages to stay as clueless about enemy's plans as she was before it.
Before the takeover all they had was a beautiful sunset mark on a corpse. After they know it's associated with an organisation which includes a US general who claims to be defending the human race against the demonic Slayer threat and prepared to wipe out every girl of them. That's an increase in knowlege of several hundred percent.

Ok you got me on screen caps. But honestly when you're not watching the scene frame by frame but in real time it's as clear as Lennon singing "Paul is dead" backwards on Sgt Pepper

If he wanted to kill Buffy he would use the gun. If he wanted to warn girls, he'd hailed them from a safe distance. He knew that they are slayers - superstrong and dangerous. We may suppose that Joss had intentionally made Finch's behavior inexplicable
It's not inexplicable at all. Finch went to find Buffy, found her in the middle of a pitched battle with crazy cult vamps, hid from that, then tried to get her attention quietly (so as not to attract the Illuminati) as she walked by.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Ok you got me on screen caps. But honestly when you're not watching the scene frame by frame but in real time it's as clear as Lennon singing "Paul is dead" backwards on Sgt Pepper

I remember the details so distinctly because several years ago I witnessed a very heated discussion of this scene on one of the Russian boards. People were posting screencaps with diagrams and arrows indicating which hand goes which way. :)

Of course, today my perception is colored by countless arguments. I'm trying to remember my initial impression but it's vague. I only remember that I always liked Faith and I rooted for her.

Finch went to find Buffy, found her in the middle of a pitched battle with crazy cult vamps, hid from that, then tried to get her attention quietly (so as not to attract the Illuminati) as she walked by.

Ok, the explanation works as long as you don't start wondering why he had chosen such inconvenient place and time to switch sides. :)