Buffy issue 10 summary and analysis (spoilers)

[moscow_watcher]

Summary:

Buffy and Willow fly to a Sephrillian demon to ask him for help. Willow levitates in the air, Buffy clings to her. To distract herself from her fear of flying, Buffy fantasizes about Daniel Craig and Willow fantasizes about Tina Fey.

The lair of the demon has a Tardis-like effect: it looks like a small dilapidated house on the outside and like an enormous cave with a staircase on the inside. It's an unstable reality where "time and logic and everything's just bendy in the brain".

The lair is guarded by a "minder" Robin (guest star Robin Balzer who won her role in a letter contest). She says to the girls cryptic words "the important thing is that you rescue the prince" and the girls enter the lair.

Once there, Willow says other cryptic words "ah, l'esprit d'escolier". In French "l'esprit" means spirit and "escolier" is a weird hydrid of the words "ecolier" - "pupil" and "escalier" - "staircase". (I wonder if it's a clue to some future plot twist or just a misspelling). They follow the route, Buffy fantasizes about two Christian Bales at once, then asks Willow about Kennedy - and then a Sephrillian demon appears. It looks like a sand worm from Dune, with a square board attached to his tail. The board features pictures of what look like masks of Greek theater.

Demon informs them that The Twilight's goal is to terminate all demons and all magic. He also tells them they can't accept "the horrible beauty of total awareness" and shows them... ta-dam! Buffy and her slayer squad robbing the Swiss bank... ta-dam! Willow cheating on Kennedy with a half-woman, half-snake. Interestingly, Buffy tries to lie to Willow even when they see the robbery in progress, but Willow quickly realises: "so the mysterious benefactor bankrolling the slayer army..." Buffy tries to justify her actions "It's all insured! It's a victimless crime! And we totally found a Watto the Nazis hid and sent it to the Tate".

In the next scene Willow asks Robin the minder "Has this happened yet?" (?)

Robin shows them Buffy - cut, bleeding, crying - and tells about "betrayal. The closest, the most unexpected".

Willow tells Buffy that she is already betraying her by not letting Kennedy participate in the Slayer program. She is afraid that she'll die like Tara.

The Sephrillian demon speechifies about the upcoming war and weak humans. Buffy, angry, kills him. The place becomes unstable, the girls get thrown out of the lair, and it blows up. Buffy and Willow go away in a bad mood.

In a parallel story Dawn tells Xander that she hasn't slept with Kenny - she has slept with his roommate Nick.

Analysis:

I like Cliff Richards art. A lot. Finally the characters look like young adults, not like children.

I'm saying that because I desperately want to sound positive. I'm afraid I can't - but I don't want to whine and complain. I remember back in 2002-2003 people whined about later seasons (which I love dearly) and were telling that Buffy has lost it's spirit. And now I'm ready to repeat these words. Do I turn into a grumpy hag?

Anyway I'll try to formulate what's wrong different with season 8 in my opinion. I know that many people enjoy it; please, don't throw rotten fruits at me.

To me, Buffyverse's most interesting aspects are stories about love and friendship. Buffy\Spike. Willow\Tara. Xander\Anya. These characters went through hell because of love and I was there with them. In seasons 1-7 BtVS was a drama\comedy about relationships with strong metaphorical subtext. Relationships were the stars of the show; conspiracies were supporting players.

I remember back in 2003 I was mostly concerned if Buffy would confess her love for Spike. I also wanted to know if Xander and Anya would make up; if Faith and Buffy would finally overcome their differences.

Right now I'm wondering who's the traitor. I visit DH board and I notice that other fans are also mostly arguing about the identity of the Twilight's source in the castle. It's understandable: his existence is so hyped; it's mentioned in two consecutive issues, we are teased with it again and again. It's interesting and uninvolving at the same time. It's like Lost. I watch the show with interest but all I care about is the conspiracy. Who lives, who dies, who falls for whom - what's the difference?

Long story short, I think that season 8 is made in different genre. It's a political thriller with detective elements. It's a story about a complex conspiracy with a requisite traitor in the middle of supposedly good guys. Conspiracy is the star, characters serve the plot twists. The plot demands Buffy to rob a bank. She robs a bank. Tomorrow the plot will demand Willow to become a movie star. Or a FBI agent. And she will become the next Julia Roberts or a government spy.

I don't say that Buffy can't rob a bank. Or that Willow can't be a movie star. But I need a motivation. If, say, Buffy did it in a desperate situation to save somebody's life, I'd cheer such plot twist. I love moral dilemmas. But this is not the case. Obviously she did it just because "it's only money". Or maybe she did it for a valid reason but we'll find about it in 5 years when emotionally it won't matter anymore.

I wonder why Joss has switched to another genre. Has he decided that the audience won't be able to care about the relationships of comic characters the way they cared when they were played by actors? Did he find the comic format more suitable for the story about global human\demon stand-off rather than for a more intimate story about relationships? Hard to say.

About the issue 10 per se. The word "unnecessary" comes to mind, and, although I try to chase it away, it refuses to go. What happens to season 8 reminds me the situation with Harry Potter saga. Each new volume was thicker and more extensive than the previous one. I couldn't finish it. I only read the spoilers that has leaked online a week before the publication date of the last book and that was enough. I think that right now Joss is in danger of following in Rowling's footsteps and becoming self-indulgent. He writes just because he likes to write. For example, it takes him four pages to tell that Dawn has slept with one character we never met instead of the other character we never met. And - what? Nothing.

At least now we know why Buffy hasn't exposed general Voll's activities to the American goverment. Because she's also a criminal.

Or not. Current issue is so ambiguous it's really baffling. Willow's question to Robin - "Has this happened yet?" - indicates that even Buffy's mentioning the details of the robbery may be a fluke of unstable reality. What Buffy and Willow saw could be truth or lie. It has either happened or will happen or won't happen. Looks like the goal of the issue is to stir up fans and make them paranoid.

Or maybe Joss just drags it out to make more money.

Or maybe he has a big plan for the whole season.

Questions, questions...

-- Is the Sephrillian demon with Greek masks on his tail the metaphor or art? If that's the case there is a definite echo of Once More With Feeling, where demon Sweet was also the metaphor of art (in his case, singing and dancing) that made people say dangerous truths and get burned by them.

-- Is Robin a good or a bad guy? There is the mention that Robin Balzer relates to Drusilla who is her "fantasy icon" in the letter column. Hmmm...

-- Is Buffy with two Christian Bales a parody on her relationship with her vampires? Bale-the-sweet-charmer from Little Women could be the parody on Spike\William and Bale-the-dragonslayer from Reign of Fire could be a parody on Angel.

-- Is it amorphous "now" or very concrete summer of 2007? Casino Royale premiered in November 2006 and it's summer outside...

Bottom line: I'm not sure I'll go on writing reviews on BtVS. Anyway I'll go on reading them. And I'll definitely continue to read and rec fanfiction, though.

Comments

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I think that season 8 is made in different genre. It's a political thriller with detective elements. It's a story about a complex conspiracy with a requisite traitor in the middle of supposedly good guys. Conspiracy is the star, characters serve the plot twists. The plot demands Buffy to rob a bank. She robs a bank. Tomorrow the plot will demand Willow to become a movie star. Or a FBI agent. And she will become the next Julia Roberts or a government spy.

I don't say that Buffy can't rob a bank. Or that Willow can't be a movie star. But I need a motivation. If, say, Buffy did it in a desperate situation to save somebody's life, I'd cheer such plot twist. I love moral dilemmas. But this is not the case. Obviously she did it just because "it's only money". Or maybe she did it for a valid reason but we'll find about it in 5 years when emotionally it won't matter anymore.

*applauds* Nail, meet head. It's the same thing as with the execution of Ethan; a lot of fans wanted to see Giles' reaction to that - we never did, and if we ever do it will be so late we'll have forgotten about it. His death (or temporary blowing-off-of-head until Joss decides he never died after all because he needs him for the plot) was shocking, but with no follow-up, it feels... like we're being cheated. The storytelling version of the black-cat-jumps-out-from-behind-the-door scare in a crappy horror movie; it makes you jump, but once you see there's nothing behind it, you forget it.

The word "unnecessary" comes to mind

I don't agree completely with this, though. It's quite possible that this is the issue where we're supposed to get hit by the clue-by-four that says "Buffy is going dark/evil/bad/corrupt/what have you". Which is something that needs to be built up slowly. I just wish it were built up better, that's all. That said, sure, much of it is teaser and he has given himself an easy out with the unstable reality thing should he wish to not follow up on either of the revelations here... I can't help feeling like he's trying to do "Restless" meeting "Conversations With Dead People", but once again: it requires the emotional connect to work, to be more than just four images on a flat screen.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Once there, Willow says other cryptic words "ah, l'esprit d'escolier". In French "l'esprit" means spirit and "escolier" is a weird hydrid of the words "ecolier" - "pupil" and "escalier" - "staircase". (I wonder if it's a clue to some future plot twist or just a misspelling).

It's probably a misspelling beacause "esprit d'escalier" actually means something in French!

That or Willow has studied old French when "écolier" was still "escolier".

Oh Escolier est aussi le nom d'un poisson, c'est le Gempylus serpens !

[quinara]

For example, it takes him four pages to tell that Dawn has slept with one character we never met instead of the other character we never met. And - what? Nothing.

YES.

I really like this review - you've taken all my grievances and expressed them in a much more rational manner than I was managing in my head.

That thing with Buffy robbing the bank annoys me not only because it lacks motivation, but because of the idea that even when she's doing it she's supposedly callous enough to be distracted by the sparkly diamond. If the main justification behind it is Slayerly pragmatism, you'd think she'd be a bit more Slayerly in going about it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/woman_of_/]

I have a bad feeling that Joss is destroying all the other characters, just to idolise Willow, and exonerate her from any bad she did in Season Six. Willow is the God of the Buffyverse, and if Buffy is sacrificed to the alter of her Eminence, so be it!

[elisi]

I love your brain and have been looking forward to your review - and it was certainly worth waiting for.

Long story short, I think that season 8 is made in different genre.
*nods a lot* I watched the show because of Buffy. Lived her pain and her happiness (heck Becoming was so angsty I stopped watching for a whole year!). But with every issue of the comic I've felt that the Buffy I was reading about was more of a stranger, and now I can't recognise her at all. (Seriously - when I first saw the panel with the bank robbery I thought it must be Rome!Buffy...) Right now I'm not even sure I'll keep reading, I'm that fed up. If it was a fic I'd have stopped reading *ages* ago.

[thenyxie.livejournal.com]

ah, l'esprit d'escolier

Well, I thought it meant "spirit of the stairway", and what it is, is a French term for AFTER an important event has occurred, when you think of all the really great things you should have said/done while it was happening. But I see someone says that it is spelled incorrectly, so it can't be that. Huh.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

I think this issue is going to be the dividing line. A lot of people saying they've finally got fed up with it... and a lot of people saying "Oh my God yes, it's all falling into place now and the story line just got ten times deeper and more interesting."

Whuich is a shame; but the fandom survived people deciding they didn't like and wouldn't watch seasons 6 and 7, so it should survive people likewise turning away from season 8. I still think it's a pity, though.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

What about Bale from The Machinist - a brooding, haunted murderer or Bale from Batman a screwed up yet hot superhero?

[shapinglight]

Feel pretty much the same way, Moscow, as you know, especially about the Dawn revelation.

I honestly can't understand why anyone should care why she's a giant by this time and I had trouble caring in the first place (and I like Dawn).

I don't know. I guess I'm just glad that if this is what Joss would have done in the show if he'd had the money, I'm glad he never had the money.

'Course, it is a very different medium, but while that might explain the difference in tone - the changing of BtVS from being like a soap opera (Joss's own words) to being more like a James Bond film with vampires and magic - it doesn't explain the emotional discontinuity.

So far, only Willow's revelations about Kennedy in this issue come across as through-story from the show to me, and I have no idea what's up with Buffy.

We'll see next issue, I suppose. Maybe there'll be some payoff.

[cindergal.livejournal.com]

So Buffy is a bank robber now? Wow, I'm really glad I'm not reading this thing. :-)

[goodbyebird]

Nothing clever to offer, just wanted to say great review :)

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

The last issue I think the only thing we agreed on was that there was something off about Buffy. I love this issue because it gives me a reason for that offness that recasts ever so slightly every thing that had gone before. Like I said elsewhere (http://aycheb.livejournal.com/66004.html#cutid1) it answers one question and a dozen more spring up to replace it:

Was it a one-off to enable a world saveage operation such as was shown in The Chain or a regular source of petty cash? Did Buffy plan and order the whole thing or was it agreed on by a larger group? Who knows about it, Xander? Giles? When Buffy said "the guys thought I might be a target," did they mean of Interpol? Who or what is giving them high tech equipment in exchange for gold bars?

It gives me back my Buffy who is complicated and conflicted. Voll called her a monster, Sephrelian mocks her for being human.

You praised Lynch for basic wordplay. Check out the advanced version. Espirit d’escalier means wit of the staircase and they’re on a staircase. It’s hilarious except that it doesn’t mean it literally it means the witicism you only think of on the staircase. Which Buffy was thinking of! Willow speaks twice truths that Buffy can follow neither one of, it flashbacks to French homework in the Bronze and forward to dark betrayals and the whole issue is riddled with the same.

[ntshpp.livejournal.com]

Привет.

Ха, теперь понятно, что Джосс никакого отношения к успеху BtVS не имел! Он просто присвоил себе чужую славу – настоящими создателями являются Ноксон, Гринвальт, Фьюри и проч. А мы то считали эту посредственность «гением».

В войне Твайлайта и людей против демонов и магии, Баффи выберет сторону… демонов.

И продолжайте писать ревьюшки! Вы делаете это лучше всех – без глупых восторгов и в тоже время, без откровенного неприятия всего, что связано с S8.

[mrs-underhill.livejournal.com]

Hmm, it's the first time I didn't even have the energy to comment on the issue in the reviews of others. Because it has so many strange things happening to our heroes and provides so little explanation that I can't find the substance to talk about, and fanwank seems less and less entertaining.
I'll wait for a couple of more issues to see where Joss is taking it, then comment. Right now I just don't want to guess - I want more substance from the authors, more basis for our guesses and fanwank.

I can't say it feels like a detective story/thriller for me. We had a great character study of Faith. We had a lot of philosophical exploration in Chain. We had Twilight plot developing but that also leans towards idea-based storytelling rather than plot-based storytelling. It seems to continue the exploration of "it's all about power" ideas from Buffy-7. Yes, it has much less focus on our heroes and their relationships that B7, but B7 also had a very strong ideology aspect (even though it wasn't a favorite with fans), and that's what I see continuing. Power which corrupts, power and resonsibility which is changing a person. Trying to affect the world, and what are the consequences of that.

It's just - it's so slow, and the things which are revealed are about the characters/ships I have the least investment on the show: Willow, Willow/Kennedy, Dawn. Yes, it looks like it might go into an interesting and unsafe place for everyone. But until it gets there - I'll just wait and see.

I only wanted to note that Willow doesn't come out of it looking any way better than Buffy. She seems to be stunningly delusional about her and Kennedy life and the way she can protect Kennedy from that horrible karma of Buffy. But the irony here is that Willow herself made Kenendy into a slayer, made her like Buffy in every aspect - and even alreday managed to put her through the mystical death similar to Buffy's. And coupling with demons, going further and further from humanity and turning into a powerful magical creature - I can't see how that way of life is safer and more "white picked fense" that being around Buffy (which again was already pointed out by Kennedy being through death and being left for a "magical walk-about"). I'm sorry, but that whole tearful explanation to Buffy and Kennedy was full of BS and self-delusion, and I hope we'll see it at such at some point.

Also I'm absolutely sure that we are meant to be shocked and horrified by Buffy's robbing a bank because a clear parallel was made both by Willow and by the visual clue between Buffy and the Trio/Warren. They too started with just the money, with stealing sparkly things, with robbing banks. And we remember how it ended.

Also - a great point about "terrible awareness" brought on by Sweet in OMWF and by Sephrilian.