Exploration of demon's humanity

[moscow_watcher]

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...

Comments

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

*nods*
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.

[candleanfeather.livejournal.com]

"but... hasn't Joss destroyed a lot of brilliant opportunuties by depicting Angelus as the absolute evil?"
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.

"

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.

". 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.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Good points. But I suppose Joss has created AtS because wanted to avoid the limitations he imposed upon himself on BtVS. But, interestingly, it was after Angel's departure that BtVS has started to become greyer.