moscow_watcher (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
moscow_watcher) wrote2008-03-14 02:33 pm
moscow_watcher) wrote2008-03-14 02:33 pm
Exploration of demon's humanity
Dark Horse forums became a place of interesting discussion lately and I couldn't keep my big mouth shut. While current debates mostly focus on "OOC or not OOC", this one is a bit different. Was humanizing demons a mistake from Joss' part?
On Dark Horse Forums Inthenameofmbi wrote
Joss made a terrible mistake there. That was the beginning of the end for good casting/character choices for the series. You can't just start "exploring humanity" with a character that was already established as an evil demon just because he had one OOC episode. That was a mistake that cost the show everything in the end. Bad Joss! Be more respectful of your creations next time. [/pretends Joss is listening]
I replied:
I also happen to think that Joss has made an enormous strategical mistake.
But I tend to think he made it a bit earlier - when he conceived and executed the Angelus arc. By introducing Angelus Joss had frozen the show in a simplified "us good them bad" moral attitude. That's why I think that Angelus arc, being brilliant per ce, paradoxically had an overall crippling effect on the show. Joss and Co should have depicted Angelus more controversially, showed him struggling with his emotions, his confusion and desperation at the face of love.
I think that by season 2 it became obvious that BtVS is an epic show with bigger-than-life characters and bigger-than-life situations. In this epic dimension demons are incredibly compelling and fascinating; their scale of personality is bigger; their journeys are more rewarding.
In this situation it would be logical to develop and explore demon characters more closely, experiment with them more creatively, make them interact with humans to make human characters grow. Yet with the introduction of Angelus this option became practically impossible.
During season 3 Joss has been hopelessly stuck with the only "limited" monster - werewolf Oz. (Interesting side note: all the male demons in the regular cast have a creative streak. Angel is an artist, Spike is a poet, Oz is a musician. Self-identificating much?)
Only in s4 of BVS/s1 of AtS Joss has finally broke free from Angelus curse and introduced a new concept: demons, like humans, are different. Doyle on AtS, Spike and Anya on BtVS - they became the elements of the new world Joss needed in order to tell his new stories. More complex. More subtle. And, IMHO, more fascinating and compelling.
Should Joss adhere to black-and-white position he proclaimed in the first episode of the show? I'm not sure. All I'm sure - that in the latter case we woudln't be here, still discussing the show that has ended 5 years ago.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I realise that my post was a bit provocative and I'm curious what my f-list thinks...
On Dark Horse Forums Inthenameofmbi wrote
Joss made a terrible mistake there. That was the beginning of the end for good casting/character choices for the series. You can't just start "exploring humanity" with a character that was already established as an evil demon just because he had one OOC episode. That was a mistake that cost the show everything in the end. Bad Joss! Be more respectful of your creations next time. [/pretends Joss is listening]
I replied:
I also happen to think that Joss has made an enormous strategical mistake.
But I tend to think he made it a bit earlier - when he conceived and executed the Angelus arc. By introducing Angelus Joss had frozen the show in a simplified "us good them bad" moral attitude. That's why I think that Angelus arc, being brilliant per ce, paradoxically had an overall crippling effect on the show. Joss and Co should have depicted Angelus more controversially, showed him struggling with his emotions, his confusion and desperation at the face of love.
I think that by season 2 it became obvious that BtVS is an epic show with bigger-than-life characters and bigger-than-life situations. In this epic dimension demons are incredibly compelling and fascinating; their scale of personality is bigger; their journeys are more rewarding.
In this situation it would be logical to develop and explore demon characters more closely, experiment with them more creatively, make them interact with humans to make human characters grow. Yet with the introduction of Angelus this option became practically impossible.
During season 3 Joss has been hopelessly stuck with the only "limited" monster - werewolf Oz. (Interesting side note: all the male demons in the regular cast have a creative streak. Angel is an artist, Spike is a poet, Oz is a musician. Self-identificating much?)
Only in s4 of BVS/s1 of AtS Joss has finally broke free from Angelus curse and introduced a new concept: demons, like humans, are different. Doyle on AtS, Spike and Anya on BtVS - they became the elements of the new world Joss needed in order to tell his new stories. More complex. More subtle. And, IMHO, more fascinating and compelling.
Should Joss adhere to black-and-white position he proclaimed in the first episode of the show? I'm not sure. All I'm sure - that in the latter case we woudln't be here, still discussing the show that has ended 5 years ago.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I realise that my post was a bit provocative and I'm curious what my f-list thinks...
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Of course he has demons, who are not vampires, as good guys. Friendly Chem and Lorne mainly. I often thought that Angel (and Spike), should've been human hunters. Maybe Angel could've gone to help Buffy, and Spike could've been a kind of rogue one. Maybe with issues with the Watchers Council. The Vampire Slayer in love with a vampire just didn't crack it for me.....and the idea that they are soulmates, *sudder*
I don't mind that Joss had grey areas, in fact it was one of the things I liked in AtS, but BtVS was younger. It might've been romantic, but it was unimaginative. One of the reasons Bangel does nothing for me, among many.
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Interesting option. But not as tragic and poignant and cheesy and kitschy as "Vampire Slayer in love with a vampire" option. I suppose Joss composed BtVS on opera terms. Great passions, great highs and lows, enormous stakes - the fate of the world, no less...
I don't mind that Joss had grey areas, in fact it was one of the things I liked in AtS, but BtVS was younger. It might've been romantic, but it was unimaginative.
Yes, BtVS has started as a show for teenagers. It grew, it became more adult with time, it's audience changed. Many people who watch it on DVDs seem to be more invested in complexities of AtS.
I thought that Angelus arc was rather imaginative, especially for American culture fixed on happy endings. But the "soulless = 100% evil" set-up was limiting and stifling for BtVD universe.
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Меня, например, всего передергивает, когда я вижу как Баффи общается с Клемом или прочими. Они вредители, от ничего кроме зла.
Вы думаете почему Баффи закрыла землю от демонов (Фрай)? То то.
И посмотрите, к чему привела дружба с демонами Ангела!
Сосуществование людей и демонов невозможно в принципе. Или демоны превратятся в людей (чего никогда не будет) или люди озвереют до уровня демонов.
Это очень напоминает ситацию в которой оказалась Западная Европа (Л.А. Ангела), пустившая к себе турков, пакистанцев, арабов (демонов). Не хотелось б чтоб она закончила так же.
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Но если смотреть с позиций искусства...
Дело в том, что цели тех, кто правит нами в жизни и тех, кто правит бал в повествовательном искусстве - прямо противоположные. Цель политика - стабильность. Цель рассказчика - конфликт. И чем крупнее конфликт, тем лучше. Не обязательно физический. Моральный конфликт - отлично! Искусству противопоказана стабильность. Искусство процветает на страданиях, ошибках героев, их падениях и переживаниях.
И с этой точки зрения взаимодействие людей и демонов - идеальный материал для историй, происходящих во вселенной "Баффи". Но если демоны абсолютно, стопроцентно плохи, никакого взаимодействия быть не может. И, таким образом, много сюжетом с интересным потенциалом отсекается автоматически. И шоу застревает навечно в упрощенном черно-белом мире школьного сериала.
Насчет сравнения демонов с эмигрантами. Вообще-то я избегаю говорить о политике в моем ЖЖ. Но Ваше сравнение - честно! - повергло меня в замечательно веселое настроение. Потому что вот уже много лет англоязычные поклонники Спайка проводят именно эту параллель, обвиняя Джосса в ксенофобии. Мол, в "Баффи" утверждается, что даже если демон совершает хорошие поступки, он все равно плохой, потому что "не наш". У него нет того, что есть у нас - души. Душа работает как метафора гражданства.
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Да, вы в чем то правы. Но "ангеле" было много демонов и это взаимодействие кончилось весьма печально. В Баффи же, чересчур много внимания уделялось вампирам, точнее одному вампиру. Не знаю, может следовало сосредоточится на взаимоотношениях человеческих персонажей...
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Others prefer the moral complexity and ambiguity of the later show, where there were no easy answers. The simplified morality of the early seasons looks naive and childish by comparison.
Cue years of arguments.... ;-)
I've always liked the idea that the moral simplicity of the early seasons reflected the younger age of the characters, and their greater dependence on what adult authority figures told them to believe. As they get older and more mature, they discover the world isn't as simple as they thought. It fits perfectly into the overall metaphor of the show - I just don't know if it was deliberate by the writers!
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Or their prejudices. Upthread there is a post by Russian fan - his opinion is very unusual for English-language fandom but not-so-rare in my country. He likens demons to "immigrants who invade Europe" and sees them as 100% evil. When I read his post I couldn't help but remember similar claims from the opposite camp. Back in 2002-2003 radical Spike fans accused Joss of xenophobia. According to their logic, writers ostracized demons because of what they were, not because of what they did. As long as demons don't have souls, they are bad, even if they help us, babysit our little sister and try to fit in.
I wonder if Joss and Co would have got so much criticism if they would have depicted Angelus more controversially, showed him struggling with his emotions, his confusion and desperation at the face of love.
I just don't know if it was deliberate by the writers!
I don't think it was deliberate. The show has started as an emergency, all the decision were made straight off. Joss confessed later that he had been absolutely sure that the show would be canceled after the first season - that's why he wrapped up all the arcs.
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Exactly. That's what made this show so compelling. The black and white, good vs. bad thing would have gotten old quick. I love that they made the demon characters and their relationships with the humans more complex.
As for the humanizing of demons, I think there is a clear distinction between the "evil" vamps and the "good" vamps. Vampires always evil, unless they have a soul. It's the lack of conscience that enables them to be evil and kill. In Angelus's case, he lost his soul and his conscience. It would have been nice to see some kind of internal struggle since he was in love with Buffy and we know vamps can love. But instead he became cruel and heartless towards her.
As for Spike, the chip didn't stop him from being evil. He still hungered for the kill. He just couldn't harm humans. So he turned to killing other demons instead. He was still a killer, he was just working for the good guys. Then, of course, he fell in love with Buffy. He could have killed her (in S6, anyway), but he didn't because his heart wouldn't let him. So he became more human in our eyes.
I think Buffy falling in love with two vampires makes sense if you keep in mind that she is a creature of darkness herself. She also has an inherent need to kill (or slay). She falls in love with Angel because he seems to be the only one who understands her dark side. Plus, he's really hot - what teenage girl wouldn't fall for him? Her love for Spike was more about just needing to feel something.
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Very, very interesting and and unexpected opinion. My impression is that the theme of Slayer's darkness was introduced only in season 5. I should rewatch earlier seasons more closely Right now Russian TV re-airs BtVS (season 1 has ended this Friday). I watched some episodes, all nostalgic... :) So far I haven't noticed any darkness in earlier Buffy. And I think that Angel regarded her as the embodiment of everything good and pure. He worshipped her.
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(And, unfortunately, it's usually just code to complain about Spike and/or Anya)
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*nods*
(And, unfortunately, it's usually just code to complain about Spike and/or Anya)
You tell me about it! :)
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I guess in game one could explain it with the more black and white view that the watchers propagate. After all a morally diverse demon world makes it pretty hard to explain to the slayer, why she should go out and kill every demon she comes across.
Still I'm happy that he did not work with the diverse concept from the beginning since I loved the unquestionable malice of Angelus and part of me still thinks Angel should have stayed gone after S2, since that ending would have been the perfect tragedy. (But then I love everything that came after too much, to really want that)
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I think the most controversial idea was vampire bordello in Goodbye, Iowa. No matter how dirty and disgusting writers made it look, the very fact of humans and demons could exploit each other was a bomb.
I loved the unquestionable malice of Angelus and part of me still thinks Angel should have stayed gone after S2, since that ending would have been the perfect tragedy.
Oh, yes! Isolated from the rest of the show, the Angelus arc is pure genius.
But then I love everything that came after too much, to really want that
*sigh* Unsolvable dilemma!
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I agree. This was one of the ideas that finally overthrew the concept of moral superiority of the soul having.
I was quite ok with it, since I was never really comfortable with the concept of the soul as a conscience. After all humans commit atrocities too. I liked it that souled Spike was so very different from Angel. It made the soul concept even more diffuse but much more fun to work with.
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As to Angelus and the concept of souls - yes, that is tricky; it's pretty much a s1 invention, and becomes something of a problem when it turns up later (especially when a soul turns out to have a much less apparent effect on Spike than it does on Angelus). On a whole, though, I thought the show did a pretty good job - especially on Angel - with subtly retconning much of the extreme difference between Angel and Angelus as depending on Angel/us's personality. In other words, they're that different because they want to be different from each other; Angel is deliberately trying to do the opposite of what Angelus would do, and vice versa, and they can do that precisely because they're NOT two different people.
And besides, we see some pretty fucked-up behaviour from people who presumably have souls as well. Warren has one. The employees of W&H are probably still in possession of theirs, at least, even if they don't technically own them.
But yeah, I think more than one Mutant Enemy writer has spent a good deal of time cursing Joss for introducing the Soul concept... :-)
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Hmmmm... If I remember correctly, in season 1 demons had their own demon souls that replaced human ones in the moment of siring. And, interestingly, in Nightmares Vampire!Buffy was a good guy. Even in the beginning of season 2 vampires have souls: "As long as the Slayer is alive, whoever takes his place will be sharing his grave! - Then let the soul who kills her wear his mantle." (School Hard).
I suppose Joss has changed the rules of the game when he has started planning Angelus arc, and he hardly was thinking about remote consequences. I think that if he knew that there are 5 more seasons of BtVS and 5 seasons of AtS ahead, he'd make Angelus more complex.
Then again, absolutely evil Angelus was so effective! Absolutely in synch with overall season 2 attitude.
On a whole, though, I thought the show did a pretty good job - especially on Angel - with subtly retconning much of the extreme difference between Angel and Angelus as depending on Angel/us's personality. In other words, they're that different because they want to be different from each other; Angel is deliberately trying to do the opposite of what Angelus would do, and vice versa, and they can do that precisely because they're NOT two different people.
*nods*
I think more than one Mutant Enemy writer has spent a good deal of time cursing Joss for introducing the Soul concept... :-)
As well as thousands of fans! :)
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So that makes at least four of us!
I think the Angelus arc, as originally defined by Joss, was brilliant, and if he could have ended it there – with Buffy sending him and his big rock to hell – it would have been fine. The vampire slayer in love with a soulless vampire, or at least her first major high school crush, because I just have a real hard time believing that at age 16, one knows who one is going to be ten or even five years from then, so how could you be in forever love?) has a definite poignancy to it, and Joss also got to do the “You sleep with a perfectly nice guy and after he gets what he wants, he turns into a monster”. Joss has admitted that he didn’t really think the soul thing through, and to top it all off, it got tied up in many peoples’ minds with sex-as-perfect-happiness, rather than perfect-happiness-including-sex-as one component, which really screwed the pooch! They were still trying to dance around that one in AtS, S4!
As to Angelus and the concept of souls - yes, that is tricky; it's pretty much a s1 invention, and becomes something of a problem when it turns up later (especially when a soul turns out to have a much less apparent effect on Spike than it does on Angelus). On a whole, though, I thought the show did a pretty good job - especially on Angel - with subtly retconning much of the extreme difference between Angel and Angelus as depending on Angel/us's personality.
And I also thought they did a pretty good retcon, by frequently insisting that Spike fought for his soul – it was something he wanted, while Angel was cursed with his as punishment. Let’s face it, they didn’t have a whole lot of options there, especially with people continuing to believe that vanilla sex with virgin Buffy was the total cause of perfect happiness for the Scourge of Europe, rather than feeling needed, having a mission (even if at the time, it was only being mission’s boyfriend), developing friendships with the Scoobies, and seeing the possibility of doing some good combined with the “plot twist” that Spike was really going to get the chip out, so that he could hurt Buffy – which he apparently could do with the chip so I never understood that particular argument.
But yeah, I think more than one Mutant Enemy writer has spent a good deal of time cursing Joss for introducing the Soul concept... :-)
*nods nods nods*
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*agrees* I suppose by the time Joss was breaking this arc he wasn't planning ahead much and thought that season 2 would be the last one.
Joss has admitted that he didn’t really think the soul thing through, and to top it all off, it got tied up in many peoples’ minds with sex-as-perfect-happiness, rather than perfect-happiness-including-sex-as one component, which really screwed the pooch! They were still trying to dance around that one in AtS, S4!
Also, it's hard to believe that Angel hasn't felt perfect happiness when he became a father. When he has got Connor his soul was in constant danger...
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I don't find it hard to believe at all. Parenthood, even normal vanilla totally human parenthood, comes with a host of worries and that could easily interfere with perfect happiness.
Imagine how many worries mystical vampire parenthood involves.
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were clearly intruduced to demonstrate that Angel is happy. Very happy. But, obviously, not perfectly happy. :))))
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Once they decided that is the direction they wanted to go, they had to find some way to keep DB under contract for the year (BtVS 3rd season) it would take to develop the new show. So they were stuck bringing him back from hell, and attempting to develop an ongoing relationship with Buffy that was meant to have ended in Becoming. With all that going on, I think they did a really good job of making enough sense so that it didn't seem cut and pasted together, even though large parts of it were. I think the BtVS/Angel writers were masters of fly-by-the-seats-of-your-pants writing, and given what all was happening in the real world of producing a TV show, they managed to keep the continuity fairly high for the whole run. That takes skill!
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Oh, I remember Joss' commentary on IOHEFY about watching David and realising that he has to do a separate show with him! It's so obvious Joss was fascinated with his new idea - he wrote Becoming 1 as basically a pilot for "Angel".
they managed to keep the continuity fairly high for the whole run. That takes skill!
Agree. And, funnily, as soon as Angel has departed, demons became visibly less scary. In season 4 Buffy's roommate, demon Kathy wanted to blend in; Xander started dating Anya; Spike became Buffy' ally etc.
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And then there was Clem . . . ;-) Possibly tied with the poor slurpee-sipping demon in AtS for least scary character on either show. Now Caleb? Was terrifying. Demons? Not so much. (Except for The Gentlemen who still give me the creeps and I won't watch Hush alone to this day. Maybe it has to do with stealing your voice before they kill you, but they scare the crap outta me!)
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Because, well, either Spike is special, and his journey isn't really relevant to other vampires, or other vampires also have the choice to be not all that evil.
And that's an issue when your main character and hero has great fun in killing them, many times before they even do anything evil.
Other than the very specific issue of vampires because I don't want to think I've been cheering for a mass murdering psychopath who enjoys killing possible innocents, I don't have a problem thinking of Demons as another word for aliens.
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I think he has got more flak because the was the only vampire in the regular cast. If writers reintroduced Harmony instead of him, the reaction would have been the same. Just imagine the wrath of fans if writers had started pairing her with Xander! :)
But, seriously, none of BtVS vampires is patterned after Angel\Angelus. Vampire!Buffy in Nightmares is basically a bood guy, "until she gets hungry". Spike, Dru, brothers Gorch, Dalton, other season 2 vampires retain part of their humanity. But Angel\Angelus doesn't. He's an artificial construct, a symbol of a good-boyfriend-turned-bad-after-sex. He works terrifically within this storyarc, but his dichotomy contradicts everything else we see on the show.
And that's an issue when your main character and hero has great fun in killing them, many times before they even do anything evil.
Yes, it's a valid point. But Joss loves hard moral choices. In season 3 Buffy tried to kill a slayer to feed a vampire. In season four her and vampires had common enemy. In season 5 she has discovered, thanks to Dracula, the darkness in her. In season 6 she explored the darkness and in season 7 she has conquered it.
I wonder what season 8 has in store. Buffy's alliance with Dracula may open the whole can of worms...
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Mind you, she was never turned; no other vampire mingled its blood with hers and turned her into a demon. She just woke up in a waking nightmare as a vampire. It's not unreasonable to speculate that for the length of that episode, there were two souled vampires in the Buffyverse... Angel got his back, and vamp!Buffy never lost hers.
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Fair enough. Also it's not unreasonable to speculate that vampires on BtVS are good as long they are in the regular cast... :)
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But Angelus (if we regard him separately of Angel) has never been humanized. As soon as Angel loses his soul there is nothing humanizing in him.
I think his mistake was in getting cold feet later and trying to cram the show back into that black and white box.
*nods* Yes, the soul issue became the major stumbling-block for BtVS. But Joss recouped his losses on AtS. :)
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So, to answer the question, Should Joss adhere to black-and-white position he proclaimed in the first episode of the show? I would say no, because the position was untenable to begin with. Maybe, as others have mentioned, it makes a decent starting point for the characters, given that they are very young and have simplified world views. But it would seem completely false and the characters would appear terribly naive if they'd continued to uphold those simple beliefs. (And, in fact, they come off as rather ignorant when they DO express those beliefs on occasion later in the series [usually related to Spike].)
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Yes - to keep the balance in the world at leastt some demons should be good; othervise, poor humanity doesn't stand a chance...
Maybe, as others have mentioned, it makes a decent starting point for the characters, given that they are very young and have simplified world views. But it would seem completely false and the characters would appear terribly naive if they'd continued to uphold those simple beliefs. (And, in fact, they come off as rather ignorant when they DO express those beliefs on occasion later in the series [usually related to Spike].
*nods*
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One of the premises explaining the choice of "demons" as Buffy's ennemies was that JW didn't want to show a teenage girl killing people. From that point of view, the humanization of demons was an error considering that a) although they seemed to opt in season 5 for a more complex "worldview" they ultimately shied away from the questions it raised, b) it gives really unpleasant (to say the least) racist undertones to certain of the reactions of their characters towards demons (thinks about season 6 for example). So, IMO the problem, was not so much the humanization of the demons as the refusal to let go of the first premise, or at least to adress more clearly the problems it raised.
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I agree with everything you say, but... hasn't Joss destroyed a lot of brilliant opportunuties by depicting Angelus as the absolute evil?
I'm recapping here what I said upthread in Russian. Art thrives on conflicts; human\demon interactions have bigger potential for conflict than human\human interactions. But if all vampires and demons are 100% evil, interaction seems improbable. Writers could rewrite their original set-up as Watcher Council's propaganda; but with the introduction of Angelus it became impossible. Or, at least, very hard.
it gives really unpleasant (to say the least) racist undertones to certain of the reactions of their characters towards demons (thinks about season 6 for example
Recently I read a very interesting discussion on this issue here
http://beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com/72634.html?thread=1204666#t1204666
and I have to admit that I'd cheer if writers dared to go there and question the very paradigm of Buffyverse. Then again, I live in a country where such paradigm happened recently in front of my eyes (and it brought a lot of good and quite a lot of bad). So I can self-identify with characters in a similar situation.
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Certainly, yes, seen from the perspective you propose. But it has also to be evaluated from the perspective of the writers : their focus was on Buffy (and secondary on the other members of the Scoobies), so developping the monsters wasn't probably something they envisionned at this early stage of the series. The choice of a strict division between Angel/Angelus was an astute one in the sense that it served perfectly well the purpose of the story thy wanted to tell and was in coherence with their initial decision to make clear that Buffy wasn't killing persons. JW's position is certainly an honourable one as there are far too many series where killing the "baddies" isn't a problem.
"". I read Beer-good-foamy's essay, which is very good. The problem, as I see it, lays effectively in the very paradigm of BTVS. It uses schemes which are at the roots of racists discourses and thoughts. And they are not uncommun in fictions, especially in the sci-fi genre. Their use wasn't a problem as long as the monsters and especially the vampires were depicted as nothing more than caricatures. At this early stage, the vampires could be seen as nothing more than "things", being conceived as just metaphores. But the very moment, they acquired a real consistency and a human dimension, mostly through Spike, then the racist connotations of the schemes could only appear. In this context, for example,to qualify a vampire of "thing" had resonances with real racist discourses trying to deshumanize minorities. I'm not sure that the writers were at first very conscious of the consequences of their choice, but it certainly raised a problem particularly in a show where problems of ethics contribute to the growth of the characters.
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(And now I'm going to reread the first, undeleted comment and think and then reply).
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