BtVS issue 11spoilery specs

[moscow_watcher]

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?

Comments

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

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.

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.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I think it's mainly because she has never been involved in any criminal activities before.

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.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

I've forgotten about the stolen lipstick, thanks for reminding. But I'm still very uneasy about Buffy involving other persons, young girls who see her as a role model, into bank robbery.

Re Giles and Spike: Giles has never sent Buffy to rob banks, and Spike was soulless when he broke into the Magic Box.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I'm still very uneasy about Buffy involving other persons
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.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Watcher Council and Slayers upbringing are the fantastiс elements and we were suspending our disbelief when we were accepting very possibility of the existence of such an organization. OTOH, banks and robberies are realistic elements, they are part of RL and it's harder to dismiss it as a necessary means to achieve utterly fantastic goals.

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. :)

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

OK that just makes no sense to me given the way BtVS has always mixed the realistic and fantasy elements. Rocket launchers are real, humanity zapping smurf demons not so much. YMMV

I imagine the other 1300 slayers are doing whatever they would have done otherwise or are underage for Scottish beer drinking.