moscow_watcher (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
moscow_watcher) wrote2008-02-10 01:45 am
moscow_watcher) wrote2008-02-10 01:45 am
BtVS issue 11spoilery specs
I finally read issue 11. Don't have ideas for a review, but here are some spoilery speculations.
1. Twilight's identity.
He's somebody we know. Story-wise, there is no need to hide a face and to change a voice (I was told that "funny" font he uses means he distorts his voice) unless you're afraid to be recognized.
Who is he? So far the prime suspects are Caleb and Riley.
Arguments for Caleb:
-- he's been shown twice in the comics (in this issue and in Buffy's dreamspace in issue 3)
-- he knows "Buffy's move" when she tries to use the technique she used to kill Caleb
-- Caleb is a preacher and Buffy/Twilight fight is heavy with church props and there is even a direct reference (Buffy: "Church me")
Arguments against Caleb:
-- I find it hard to imagine him aknowledging that "one girl was OK"
-- Twilight's cool boots are his trademark feature and Caleb wore shoes in season 7
Arguments for Riley
-- Although he isn't mentioned by name, there is a lot of indirect Riley presence in this issue. Twilight's arrival is forestalled with Buffy recalling her dream in Restless (Buffy to Satsu: "You look like me in a dream I had one time")
RILEY: (offscreen) Thought you were looking for your friends. Okay, killer... if that's the way you want it. I guess you're on your own. (Walks off.)
-- later Buffy mentions Riley among "people who died" - - "they start letting vamps suck on 'em and they leave"
-- Joss has promised Riley's return
Arguments against Riley
-- character-wise, it doesn't make sense (then again does Buffy robbing banks make sense?)
2. Mole identity.
I can't see anybody but Renee as a mole.
Story-wise, it's very Jossian. Renee as a traitor will provide Xander with a heartbreak big enough to satisfy Joss.
Character-wise, it doesn't add up: she sounds very sweet and sincerely in love with Xander. But I can't help remembering Knox on Joss-penned AtS episode A Hole in the World. He also was sweet and sounded sincere in his love for Fred. Joss even included him in a powershot of the characters going with the mission of saving Fred. And several scenes later a slip of tongue betrayed him as a man who killed her. Typical Joss.
So - any ideas?
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Plus, remember how pre-planned her approach is; she's been studying comic books, drywalling, etc, to make herself into the sort of person Xander would be attracted to.
Cute or sinister? You decide.
(Of course, it could be both cute and sinister. In the Buffyverse, that's practically normal...)
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Oh, the leather pants of evilness!!! :)
Actually, I have other reasons to think it's her. With season 9 announced semi-officially, Core Four gets an "opening credits immunization". Among new characters there are only two prominent enough to make sense story-wise: Satsu and Renee. Both are love interests of Core Four members so their unmasking will create a lot of angst for a major character.
Satsu is a lesbian, and after fandom outcry at Tara's death I doubt Joss will ever dare to introduce another gay controversy. This leaves Renee.
Plus, remember how pre-planned her approach is; she's been studying comic books, drywalling, etc, to make herself into the sort of person Xander would be attracted to.
Theoretically, one can object that if making Xander fall in love with her was part of Renee spy mission she wouldn't make it obvious that she's trying to be a person Xander would be attracted to.
I'd rather suggest that she has been sent with a strictly spying mission but fell in love and now she thinks she has to save Xander from Buffy's evil clutches. From her POW he's the only normal person in the castle.
Do you remember Joss' declaration "There is no truth. There is just what you believe" in issue 5? Renee may be a distorted mirror of a Decoy!Buffy who unleashed thw war in the underworld. Or a clone of Knox who thought that by making Fred's body the vessel for Illyria he granted her the ultimate honor.
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You know that makes a lot of sense. And then she could get Xander on her side, leading to the scene where Buffy cries because she's been betrayed.
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But, seriously, I can't figure out if we're supposed to sympathize with this Buffy. She robs banks. She involves young girls into criminal activities. She's emotionally disconnected with everybody. Xander is her last emotional stronghold.
I imagine a dialogue:
Xander to Renee: How could you spy on Buffy?
Renee: No, Xander - how could *you* defend her? She's a criminal! She turns young girls into robbers! You're a decent man, Xander, and I believe in you. Time to make a choice. Either you're with a criminal who corrupts innocent souls or you're with people who try to stop her.
Ah, the angst... :)
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Heh. Well it would be angsty if I actually cared about any of them. It's more like a really good episode of CSI or something.
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I think it depends. If you had sympathized with Angel in AtS S2, then there's no problem in sympathizing with Buffy, especially since each new issue reveals something. We know Buffy hates stealing, thinks she's setting a bad example for her slayers, but she had to do it.
I think I feel more sympathy toward Buffy here than Angel in S2, Angel's crimes are bigger in my eyes. Buffy's, while wrong, are less creepy.
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(Basically Buffy is proactive, whereas Angel in S2 was reactive. That's the difference.)
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I do wonder whether people's rejection of Buffy is related to her being a woman, I'm sure if Spike were to rob a bank he wouldn't provoke quite such a moralising response. Alternatively if Buffy's main/only function in the story is to inspire goodness in the fallen, whether Spike, Faith or Angel, I could see how she might be judged harshly by fans of those characters.
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Possibly, but that is not *my* problem. I just don't think it's in character for her. If it were Willow f.ex. I'd not bat an eyelid. (And I thoroughly enjoyed
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I don't think Buffy did it for the thrill (like when she robbed in S3 with Faith), I think she had all these girls depending on her, and felt it was necessarily that she had to get them a place to hide filled with weapons and armors to protect them. She felt guilty about it, especially when Willow knew and was upset with her. S8 Buffy is really an interesting continuation of S7 Buffy, who felt disconnected from everyone, doing what Voll had accused her of.
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I can't see her as a logical continuation, but I *can* see her as a re-imagined Buffy. S8 so far strikes me as a mixture of fantasy, fairy tale and criminal thriller.
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This Buffy is taking responsibility over the consequences of her actions, she doesn't leave the mess for her friends to clean up, this Buffy, to me, is someone to be proud of, because she stuck around to clean up her mess, despite her faults and questionable decisions. She's still disconnected from everything, trying to feel the connection between her and the others, again reminds me of S7 Buffy.
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Sorry, didn't mean to be cryptic. I was referring to this comment by
This Buffy is taking responsibility over the consequences of her actions, she doesn't leave the mess for her friends to clean up
Hm. Dunno. Buffy was *always* all about responsibility. And often she was the one to clean up after her friends - f.ex. the fact that they resurrected her was what brought The First into play. Anyway, yes she's taking responsibility for all the new slayers, but the way in which she does so (bank robbery) is criminal, amoral and unresponsible (especially so since she implicates her charges).
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It's basically all an act of desperation, Buffy was desperate for money to provide the facilities and clothes and feed the girls and rent/buy the castle. It's obvious they have no other mean for money. They couldn't have a garage sale or a lemonade stand *g* They needed money. Buffy got them the money. Was what she did wrong? Yes. Do we understand why she did it? Yes. Is she living up to the responsibility of why she did it and the consequences of what she's done? We're seeing that.
Everybody looks up to Buffy (even Giles). That's hard. We've seen that in S7. And this time we have a logical reason of how Buffy can support all these girls, unless they used the money Anya robbed from the bank in Him.
Buffy is not a bad person, she's not a perfect one, that's why she's interesting. Who wants another Clark Kent?
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It's not obvious to me, but then clearly that is just a difference of viewpoints or something. Angel f.ex. charged for his services, and I'm sure I could think of plenty of legal ways of making money if I had a whole bunch of superpowered girls handy. Like... construction! Xander could set up a firm (Since he knows the business), and they could make a small fortune building houses etc in record time. I just can't see bankrobbery being the only option. That's all.
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Plus, setting up a firm is not gonna be as easy as it sounds. Angel didn't have 500 teenage slayers to support. And Xander is on board with the robbery thing, maybe he couldn't set up a construction firm. Besides, they have the government after them. There was no time to make a living. Again, Buffy was desperate, the fact she was upset about it in issue 11 shows how she hated that she had to do it, hated that she set a bad example to all her slayers.
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We don't know it. I've got the impression that Buffy and her squad robbed the bank to finance their satellite system. I wish I knew more.
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Interesting question. No, I don't think it's because Buffy is a woman. I think it's mainly because she has never been involved in any criminal activities before. Be it Spike, Angel, Faith and even Dawn, it wouldn't be so unexpected.
Buffy can break the law in a desperate situation. She has burned the gym in her school, and in season 7 she accepted Faith who escaped from prison. But I just can't imagine the situation in which Buffy needs her missile system so desperately that she plans and executes a complex crime to obtain money.
Actually, the aspect that bothers me the most is that she has used the newly-called slayers in her scheme. Maybe it's because I'm a parent and I can't help but ask myself what would these girls' parents do if they discover that their daughters are taught to get away with robbing banks.
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The day she was called she mistook her watcher for a store detective investigating stolen lipstick. She completely endorses Willow’s hacking activities and Xander’s acquisition of a US army rocket launcher. She breaks into countless official buildings on routine information gathering expeditions and robs a sporting goods store with Faith (after ascertaining that the goods are insured). She does take the law on unlawful killings very seriously but property law, especially corporate property she’s consistently flexible on.
As to the need for all this equipment we’ve already been shown one instance where stakes and crosses would have proved inadequate, namely Yammanh's invasion of the upper world. I thought at the time that might be an indication that the world had changed in terms of either the level of demon aggression or Buffy and Co’s awarness of it now that they’re no longed locked down in Sunnydale and Buffy’s line about there seeming to be more demons to fight appears to confirm that.
I’m a parent and can sympathise with parental concerns, I always liked Joyce. But I’d feel much happier that my daughters were making their own choices to help save a world under constant attack by monsters and were part of a well funded organisation that cared about their welfare under the new regime than in the old days of the Watcher’s Council. I’d probably be selfish and turn a blind eye to where that funding came from. Did you think Giles was a corrupter of youth? Or Spike when he taught Dawn to shimmy open the Magic Box door? The show was never big on parental points of view, we never get to ask what Xander or Willow’s parents think of Buffy’s influence. These comics are finally introducing such concerns as an issue - whatever the back story to her bank job, the problems it creates in terms of Buffy being a role model for other Slayers are being made completely textual and something Buffy is taking very much on board.
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Re Giles and Spike: Giles has never sent Buffy to rob banks, and Spike was soulless when he broke into the Magic Box.
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As is Buffy, having seen what it lead to, and as are the comics.
Having said that, however in character Spike was being the question is whether you felt uneasy about Dawn hanging out with and being influenced by his soulessness. The show did but as I recall a section of the audience seemed to think it was cute. Giles never sent Buffy to rob banks but he sanctioned all her other legal activities, admits to his own little job on the council headquarters in Bring on the Night and there are other crimes. Killing people for one. But what would make me as a parent (and Joyce as a parent did express this) uneasy was that Giles was a representative of a system that used young girls as instruments in their war, offering them neither renumeration nor respite and effectively blackmailing them into their duty with the argument that they either did it or let the world go to hell. The new slayer troops are genuinely voluntary, the girls well provided for and there's no reason to believe that they can't take home leave if they have family.
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The new slayer troops are genuinely voluntary, the girls well provided for and there's no reason to believe that they can't take home leave if they have family.
I wonder what are other 1300 slayers up to. :)
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I imagine the other 1300 slayers are doing whatever they would have done otherwise or are underage for Scottish beer drinking.
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I didn't see anybody rejecting Buffy, moreso for being a woman. What was rejected was Buffy's methods, and the examples she set for her slayers. Those methods were rejected by no one other as Willow in #10, who likened Buffy's actions to those of Warren and the Trio - all of whom were men. And all of whom were sufficiently condemned on the show, I daresay. So no, it has nothing to do with Buffy's being a woman.
The Trio's descent into darkness started with robberies too. That's what makes Willow very uncomfortable, and therefore us, the readers. If your get your actions compared to Warren's... whew. You can't get any more condemned in Buffyverse.
Willow warned of the first domino - and we saw a second domino in #11, with Simone. The connection was pretty clear, and made by Buffy herself, of all people. The rejection of Buffy's methods is set up within the story, by authors as well as main characters. The readers, like myself, just follow the story.
As for Spike doing illegal things in #5-#6 - they were there to keep us on the alert, to remind us that he's a soulless vampire, a wolf who's still dangerous rather than a warm and fuzzy lovesick puppy. We saw him stealing from the hospital in WoW, delighting in demon-bikers destruction in Bargaining, and yes, breaking to Magic Box - for that purpose. He wasn't supposed to be a good example for Dawn in there.
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Willow does condemn the bank robbery but not by comparing it to the Trio’s activities. She first points out a practical downside, that it creates new and powerful enemies. That’s not a moral criticism, it’s equivalent to a fear of being caught. Then she makes the 'first domino' point but to me that sounded more like a reference to Willow’s own domino-by-domino fall into darkness than a reference to the Trio. Buffy’s bank robbery is actually very different from Warren’s in two significant ways.
Firstly, as far as we can tell, it wasn’t done for kicks or to buy playthings but to equip her Slayers against the (ever increasing) demon threat and reduce their fatalities. From what we’ve seen of their use, the satellite systems etc allow different Slayer groups to communicate effectively, do reconnaissance, extend their protection to victims in previously inaccessible locations and fight off invading demon armies without relying on randomly acquired amulets. In that sense the bank robbery is more comparable to stealing the rocket launcher than any of the Trio’s activities. It’s not identical being a much larger job and less directly related to a specific world-saveage but that, I believe is exactly where things get interesting, at what point do activities we condone (or even applaud) in individuals become unjustifiable when committed by organizations?
Secondly, is the issue of remorse/self-doubt. Warren showed no concern about the effects of his super-criminality at any point. Not when he made April, not for the bank robbery, not for freezing Rusty and in the end not for killing Katrina. To me it was Katrina’s death that made him a villian, not the first domino but the constant succession of them. I think Adam Busch said once of Warren that he had a whole series of chances to make the right choices but never did. Buffy, on the other hand is only at her first domino and already fully prepared to admit she did something wrong. She not only accepts Willow’s argument about generating enemies but, and without anyone else suggesting it, grasps the link between what she did and Simone’s activities. For that reason I really don’t think this is intended to be a story in the Angel style of turn evil-find redemption. I suspect it’s going to follow more the late BtVS model of being about isolation-reconnection.