hazelk | BtVS S8.15 Wolves at the Gate part IV

I was nervous about opening this final part to the Goddard arc, finding it hard work not to click on the incoming Whedonesque reviews. The issue 3 cliffhanger was obviously aiming for a “Drew/Joss you bastard” response but came closer to “Drew/Joss you idiot.” Would part four restore the dynamic duo’s bastard-fu?

Basically my problem was with the implication that Renee had been created solely to be slaughtered like just another Captain Kirk woman-of-the-week, a redshirt to love. Die she did but the manner of it was most unredshirt-like, her death was her own tragedy not ~~Kirk’s~~ Xander’s. On TV it’s hard to make a death scene about the person actually dying without descending into little Nelldom, so definitely a win for comics. I think the part that made me tear up was Renee’s uncertainty about what was happening to her. Of course she couldn’t see the honking great stake through her heart, just feel the pain, the falling and then silence.

Buffy being afraid to fall has been a motif throughout the season from “I make a wish that I don’t fall,” through Air Willow sickness, to the way she has to steel herself to jump off tall buildings (but still does it). Satsu later makes a leap of faith (or possibly a leap of not looking where she was going) with far less anxiety, the confidence of youth? Falling and death seem to go together for Slayers, traditionally they die standing. With their stylish yet affordable boots on.

Kumiko the silent finally speaks! I think she’ll be back – Buffy stabbed her with a knife not a stake and threw her off without any green dust after effect. Why did she feel the need to give her mother/father’s name? If she’s connected to Saga whosit is Saga whosit connected to Twilight or to the snakey uber demon from Anywhere but Here? The dialogue programmed into mechaDawn suggested that the Vamp gang were in on Twilight’s surveillance ring along with Gigi and Radon.

The Goddard sure got rhythm, the timing on Buffy and Willow’s list conversation while Satsu fell was to die for. If Andrew has had the day his whole life was spent preparing for does that make him next to die?

Buffy’s orders are to kill them all. Back in the day she used to let the ones who ran away run unless it was personal. Which it is this time, for Renee and for Xander, but also the balance of power has shifted. One slayer couldn’t kill them all and probably had more effect by letting the scared ones spread the word while also not provoking an all out war she was bound to lose. Now she might not lose.

Satsu deciding to take Tokyo becomes the first baby Slayer to grow up and gives Buffy the most adult breakup she’s ever had. This l like.

So Dracula has a magic sword (it’s always a sword), which would have been a complete weapon ex machina except for the hint afforded about the true nature of the Scythe leading on to possible future plotlines. Here and now though the bigger question is why Dracula at all?

Although paired with Xander plotwise, thematically he was clearly there for the Buffy of it, power sharing, old Hollywood celebrity, all that. It could be his arc foreshadows an ending in which Buffy has to de-power all the new Slayers and let General Voll’s troops loose on them but I suspect that aspect is intended for contrast not comparison. The comparisons I think are twofold. One is in the declaration that it’s the man not the vampire that matters, a reminder that it was always the woman not the Slayer. The other is in the ability of both to form strange alliances, make unexpected connections and for sentiment/loyalty to be ultimately more important than ideology.

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I loved the whole Renee thing, I have a feeling she isn't actually gone forever.

it's the Buffyverse. People, especially women, often come back in one form or another.

Satsu later makes a leap of faith (or possibly a leap of not looking where she was going)
I suspect the second. But she bounces back from the experience remarkably well (not literally bounces, obviously). Unlike Buffy, she's never died because she leaped off a tall tower.

I assume Saga Vasuki is the 'snakey uber demon from Anywhere But Here'. She has fiery hair in the vision, but when Willow summons her on the last page, her hair is back to its silver-white colour we saw in the previous issue.

But I meant the other ubersnakey demon. Sephrillian? I suppose I was really wondering what the Vasuki woman's take on the Twilight deal was. Sephrillian seemed down with it starting a war but would it be a war of just two sides (human vs demon) or would 'goddesses' form a third front? And tangentially despite all the secrets Willow has learned Dracula still seems to know quite a lot about 'ancient maigicks' she doesn't. It's a big world out there.

Die she did but the manner of it was most unredshirt-like, her death was her own tragedy not ~~Kirk’s~~ Xander’s.

Excellent point - though I still kinda wish they'd given her at least one corresponding scene while she was alive; as it is, unless she comes back somehow, her death will still be her most memorable scene.

Buffy being afraid to fall has been a motif throughout the season from “I make a wish that I don’t fall,” through Air Willow sickness, to the way she has to steel herself to jump off tall buildings (but still does it).

In dream interpretation, falling dreams "represent underlying fears and feelings of inadequacy and helplessness." Compare to all the running-water scenes in "Flooded"; quoting from one interpretation manual, "if the dreamer is controlling the faucet ineffectively, the assumption may be made that the dreamer feels out of control or unable to master what should be apparently simple circumstances." Buffy's circumstances now aren't simple in any way, and so she's moved up (or possibly plummeted down). Not to mention that Buffy, of course, has experience in falling off high buildings.

(it’s always a sword)

And the scene where he stands over the emasculated Toru with his giant sword pointing upwards from his crotch region is in no way symbolic. Nope.

her death will still be her most memorable scene
That doesn't bother me particularly, after all one scene has to be the most memorable and this once encapsulated all the ones before it. I think she's more likely to come back than say Aiko and I'd love it if she did. Joss gives good ghost.

Thanks for the dream interpretation, I didn't know that and it makes a lot of sense. In return some previous thoughts on the significance of swords</a. (http://www.teaattheford.net/viewpost.php?id=42375)

I thought there was dust effect around Kumiko in the last frame she appears in where she's falling away in the distance behind Buffy and Willow.

I am really irritated ideologically with the killing off of Renee wbecause she's such a pure and unadulturated Woman in Refrigerator, devoid of any distinctiveness or purpose beyond winning Xander's heart and dying. And it would be one of the comics new non-white characters as well.

There's some angular tan patches but Jeanty's dust effects are usually green and bubbly. Could be the colourist getting it wrong but the weapon Buffy was carrying was very clearly a knife not a stake in the previous panel.

I disagree about Renee. Although the love interest aspect was dominating in the first three issues of this arc her death changed that, it wasn't all about Xander. Her first thoughts were all to do with being a Slayer and recalled her concerns post-injury in the first arc, the first person we see watching her fall was Leah not Xander and the white out effect recalled and contrasted with the death of Not!Buffy in The Chain. Also the effect on Xander isn't to bring out his manly vengeful side , if anything he's reduced to the damsel role although in a realistic not a reducing way. I liked the way that was dealt with a lot.

Renee's race is potentially problematic but things have changed since the show. So far we had two white Slayers killed Gigi and not!Buffy to set against Aiko and Renee. If Rhona and Kennedy are next to die while Vi lives then it changes but not yet, at least not for me.

Thing was Gigi and the Unknown Slayer were close to the centre of their stories. Gigi is maybe a bit to give Faith angst, but given that they're both female it didn't have quite the dodginess, and Faith isn't a regular so there's not such an inequality of plot significance between them. And while there was some sexual innuendo between Gigi and Faith the main point was that she's someone like her who she fails to save, which is a bit more complex and meaningful than just someone she fancied. Renee, on the other hand, is a fairly peripheral character whose sole importance is to have sexual tension with Xander and die horribly.

Renee, on the other hand, is a fairly peripheral character whose sole importance is to have sexual tension with Xander and die horribly.
I'd query her 'sole' importance being the sexual tension with Xander. It's all subjective of course but at this point it feels just as much as if the Xander romance was a device to bring a new everygirl character to the notice of a notoriously resistant readership. Reading the comics from one perspective it's easy to think all Renee's scenes involved Xander, I read people describing her dying thoughts as entirely about him. But they weren't.

Personally I've been getting the sense for a while that the focus is shifting towards the newcomers that The Chain far from being a gimmick might be the shape of things to come. In that light Renee was crucially important as a sane representative of the newly chosen. She was ordinary, not a rising star like Satsu or playing one like Not!Buffy. Moreover, her death hasn't been an excuse for Xander to rise to prominence, on the contrary for most of the comic he completely disappears from the page. Rather her death, following on from Aiko's, has changed the tone of the story as a whole.

Kennedy's not white?

Iyari Limón was born in Mexico, is married to a Mexican and speaks fluent Spanish. I believe that makes her Latina/Hispanic...

(Which to me as a European is pretty much 'white' anyway, but I understand it's considered differently in the US).

That's the actress, not the character.

There's some confusion about whether the character is meant to be, though.

It's interesting and I do wonder if one reason for the invisibility of her rather obviously Latino looks is the way she was explicitly coded as upper class from quite early on (and acted that way from the moment she walked in the door).

That and her name which suggests the kind of upperclass US white background where surnames and personal names are interchangeable.

BtVS S8.15 Wolves at the Gate part IV

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