BtVS S8.22 Swell

[hazelk]

Gotta love a monster of the month with biology. This one was a neotonous mammal, a potty mouthed slime mould, at least one of the stages of alien and if you cut it, did it not spill guts everywhere. Extra points for sucking out its victims from the inside, turning every last man of them into a dried prune or a scrotum with red eye. No, I don’t want one for Christmas.

I want a Satsu for Christmas, who survived not only the Swell but the curse of DeKnight and was sexy and bratty and frighteningly competent and witty even when possessed. Mmm babies. Mmm backstory. Also at this point the series needs a reminder that demons, at least some demons, are not the last oppressed minority (that would be white SFF writers) but expressions of the unfettered id.

Which would be Twilight’s id and that id has had definite woman issues both from his own mouth and from the company he keeps. Voll’s denial in the TLWH always gets brought up at this point but it came just a few lines after the reference to Buffy’s spawn and if that’s not a gendered insult I don’t know how much more biological you can get.

What lurks below, what would vampires want with a submarine? I have a feeling that that little throwaway may be crucial. The world has changed the Slayers are organizing and so are the vamps, there’s a war brewing and Twilight (as he said he would) is playing both sides against the middle, using their strengths against them. Buffy tells Satsu they have to stop being what they are, hold back, don’t speak up, go shopping not submarine hopping. It’s eminently sensible in the circumstances. If only it didn’t come so soon after Vampy-Cat-Satsu’s call to just be normal girls.

Comments

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

Actually, Buffy tells them to stay underground until they can prove that they're "more than human". And to keep the submarine handy. It's Satsu who decides that the going just got tough, so they'd better go shopping.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I actually think Satsu got the message correctly -you can read it both ways. Buffy never says how they're going to prove 'everyone' wrong. It could be by being more human than human which is how I took what everyone else seems to think has an ubermensch subtext. By the 'less-than' I took her to mean vampires and the more demony demons not other humans and hanging on to the submarine was about having it ready against Twilight's next assault. Of course Twilight has human allies and powerful ones at that, all part of the old order. Thing is my baseline assumption always was that Buffy's world was a little like Sunnydale writ large - the powers that be do know about demons and the public know more than they admit. It's a world where vampires can take over a whole sector of downtown tokyo and nobody seems to care. In a way the latest vamp craze is just a new mutation of the old denial tactics, admitting that vampires exist but not that they're dangerous.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

Oh, I completely agree that when Buffy talked about "less-than" humans she meant vampires and evil demons. It's just that in context, and given what else we know about her, it was a really unfortunate phrase for her to use. Maybe even a Freudian slip. But it does seem, with the submarine and all, that Buffy is thinking in terms of war and victory and black and white.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Of war yes. But in private she seems to be the person most doubtful of her own whiteness so far.

... what a swell party this is.

[par-avion.livejournal.com]

I enjoy your reviews, thanks! I'm really enjoying S8.

Re: ... what a swell party this is.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Yay! And for recognising my cut tag and for all your work on Veni Vidi Vids :-)

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I suspect that this plot arc is going to develop into an attempt to directly engage the "Vampires are an oppressed minority and Buffy is a Nazi" school of Spike fans.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I think it has already although is that just a Spike fan thing? Maybe it's a chicken and egg situation. Vampires/aliens = misunderstood woobie minority predates Spike as a popular storytelling trope, (which I've always hated ever since first being exposed to it on some old Star Trek episode). But I can see how those who it appeals to might gravitate towards Spike in Buffy fandom.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

My impression is that most people who see any inherently- evil species in a fantasy work as a nasty sign of conscious or subconscious racism gave up on Buffy as soon as it started, but that among people who watched Buffy at length the opinion is chiefly found in the kind of Spuffy shippers who have been yelling their hate for Buffy ever since it began to be clear around mid-S6 that ME did not share their reading of the characters.