Meta-meanderings

[hazelk]

Reading reviews of the last of the Star Wars films is interesting. One of the most common reactions seems to be a certain disappointment with the story of Anakin Skywalker’s fall or at least with it’s execution. I’ve read people talking about how they’d looked forward to seeing this story since the first trilogy made it clear that Luke’s Father hadn’t always been evil and been reminded of a similar experience I had with the prequel to the Lord of the Rings. I must have read the book at least 20 times as a teenager and the thing that kept bringing me back after the first few reads was very much the desire to find out more about the back story, the battles of the First Age, the nature of the Great Enemy, the story of Beren and Luthien. So when The Silmarillion came out I could hardly wait to get hold of it and devour all that information.

I was never so disappointed in my life. The book delivered, I had all the answers but they felt so much better as questions. Perhaps some things are just better viewed through a glass darkly, put a spotlight on them and they shrivel and die, all mystery gone.

Another interesting thing about RoTS was the idea that part of Skywalker’s fall and the Sith’s evil was due to an inability to accept the inevitability of death, their own or other's. The desire for eternal life seems a common root for evil in fantasy. It’s there in Tolkein with the fall of Numenor, integral to U. K .LeGuin’s Earthsea series and present with Voldemort in Harry Potter. Not in Buffy though, there the villains already have immortality. What they seem to lust after is corporeality/mortality. The First, the Mayor even Angel/Spike with the desire to Shanshu. Is that an existentialist’s perspective? To be afraid not of death but of lacking reality?

Staying with Buffy but returning to the problems of prequels it strikes me that some of the issues people have with S7 may have to do with it being a complete failure in the prequel department. I mean chronologically it’s not a prequel but there was all that back to the beginning schtick and what looked like a return to mystical adversaries after S6 and the nerds. Being the last season maybe it wasn’t unreasonable to expect some clarification of the Slayer mythology and yet all we got was a deeply unsettling version of the origin story in GiD and further muddying of the issue with Beljoxa’s eye dropping hints about a weakness in the line and the arrival of the Guardian and the discovery of the Scythe. More new questions than answers, this season wasn’t an clarification of the Slayer myth but a critique.

Comments

[swsa.livejournal.com]

What was striking to me was the similarity in all the complaints about Anakin's fall to Dark Willow. Seriously, I felt like I could do a search and replace with the names. And it's made me wonder, why are there so many who don't buy either downfall even as they admit that the clues and buildup were so prevalent as to render the eventual outcome inevitable? There seems to be a problem in following along with that final leap from "tempted by the darkside" to "totally giving in to it."

As for S7, I have to admit, I have zero problems with the plot. None. There's nothing that doesn't make sense to me. I was rather stunned that people were upset by GiD just because I thought that revelation was obvious from at least Restless on. If anything, I could see being disappointed that it was so unsurprising. But the betrayal people felt over it always confused me. But anyway, I'm not sure if it's just because I'm so unconcerned with plot and generally tend to just look for the most obvious, surface-y answer and then let it be (There's a disturbance in the Slayer line that lead to the First Evil making its move, in Chosen Buffy makes the line irrelevant...good enough for me), but I just don't have the same issues that most people do.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I think those fall stories are very hard sells with any character the audience has been tempted to identify with. No-one wants to believe they’re really that weak or that stupid and it’s not real life, the audience can always see the big picture. It probably worked reasonably well with Gunn in AtS because he’s always been marginal and the story wasn’t actually given that much screen time.

Personally I thought the GiD origin story was very powerfully done. I was trying to put myself in the heads of the people who hate it because, I suppose, of the implication that making a girl a superhero requires a violation of her (girly) nature. But although Buffy initially sees what the Shadowmen are doing as a violation, by the end when she asks them for knowledge she seems to have gained an understanding of why what they did might have been necessary, Which I love because it re-enactes the process she went through herself between WttH and Prophecy Girl.

And the S7 plot works fine if you just relax and don’t try overinterpretate the supernatural elements. Joyce’s warning to dawn isn’t a prophecy it’s a statement of Dawn’s fears. The Eye vist wasn’t providing a clue about how to defeat the First but an illustration of the futility of researching it.

[swsa.livejournal.com]

I *loved* GID. Everything about it worked for me. Buffy's desperation, the growing resentment from everyone else, the shadow puppets, and the scene where she goes after Spike may seriously be one of my favorite Spuffy scenes ever. Which is odd, I know. But there's just so much anger and truth there, and it's like the dozen people watching them just cease to exist for Buffy and Spike. I understand that people found the message disheartening, but I guess, I always found the role of Slayer rather disheartening in and of itself. Kendra and Faith? There wasn't much uplifting about those examples of Slayerhood. What made Buffy amazing was her ability to take something so scary and brutal and make it something inspiring. Which is what she continued to do in Chosen by changing the Slayer rules.

Joyce’s warning to dawn isn’t a prophecy it’s a statement of Dawn’s fears.

Well, and Buffy actually does try to send her away in the end, which also works for me.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I always found the role of Slayer rather disheartening in and of itself.
Exactly and the whole season is a long hard critique of why the whole one hero thing doesn’t ultimately work. You see what it does to Buffy, to Nikki Wood, to that girl whoever she was before she was the first Slayer, to the all the SiTs doomed to unfulfilled potential. It’s amazing that she (they) accept the burden in isolation, it’s bloody brilliant when she sees the way to render that no longer necessary and sets them all free.

And everyone else helped too.

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

As for S7, I have to admit, I have zero problems with the plot. None. Oh thank you! I sometimes wonder if I am the only one who feels like that, so it's nice to hear you say this. I know there are plot holes in season 7, but there are plot holes in all the seasons, if you look for them. I loved the story, and like you, can overlook some flaws in the plot. I remember how many people had huge issues with Lies My Parents Told Me, and how baffled I was by their reactions. I think the First lost when Buffy stood up and said "I want you to get out of my face." I cheered when she stood up!
I never had a problem with Dark Willow either: I felt her fall was pretty well telegraphed over the entire series. I know the "magic crack" bothers some, but I didn't find it implausible.