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Sep. 4th, 2005 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solitary_summerI've been incredibly, horribly, embarrassingly, pathetically lethargic last week, so much that it's actually a good thing that I have to back to work tomorrow.
To retiterate, pathetic.
But when indepression self disgust procrastination mode doubt, post fanish stuff...
Finished Buffy S5 and feel kinda meh about it. I remembered not particularly liking it, and apparently I remembered correctly. It just doesn't work for me, the story-telling seem too contrived and chunky and never flows naturally, Glory isn't interesting enough a villain for all the screen-time she gets, and the OMGdrama! factor is way to high. Generally speaking, with literature/films/tv/&c. as well as in real life situations, I dislike it when I'm expected to feel something - there are exceptions, obviously (::cough:: Sleeping in Light::cough::) -, but most of the time something within me just balks and refuses to to cooperate. I spent a good part of Dancer in the Dark furiously biting back tears because I was just so angry at the blatant emotional manipulation. I don't understand the mentality that drives people to deposit flowers and candles at the site of a tragedy. Maybe something in my brain is wired the wrong way, but I can't help it. There are plenty of emotional moments I cherish, but they rarely are the 'popular' ones. And with S5 I'm feeling like like I'm constantly being jerked around with things being pointed out to me - look! isn't that tragic! Buffy's mother is sick! Buffy's mother dies! A whole episode without music! The drama! the angst! The whole conflict between Buffy's duty as a slayer and her fear of losing her humanity. Tara.... and it goes on. I don't dislike Dawn as a character, but I do dislike the way you're effectively forced to chose either to agree that Dawn needs to be protected and that Buffy's humanity and whatnot hangs on her decision to continue to see her as her sister and save her at all cost, or cast yourself in the role of the heartless bitch who dares even think that perhaps this isn't the safest or most reasonable course of action, all things considered. I like Giles quite a lot for having the courage of saying and doing a couple of unpleasant, but necessary things in the end.
Abstractly I can see what they're doing with Buffy's character in this season, but I can't feel it, just as I don't get, on a gut level, that what Wesley does in S3 AtS is so horrible that he deserves death and ostracisation.
And Buffy's death is the same semi-suicidal flawed self-sacrifice as in Not Fade Away, where people who see only very little meaning in their lives any longer chose to at least go down in a blaze of glory. She cannot bear to see Dawn die, but Dawn will have to live with the knowledge that Buffy died for her, which IMO is a mixed blessing, to say the least.
The other major issue I have with S5 is how everyone treats Spike; this already bothered me when I originally watched it, so it's not S6 & S7 hindsight. Certainly in a lot of ways his mind does work in twisted ways (but even the Buffy-bot was at least as sad as it was creepy), but this still does not justify the utter contempt everyone shows him. I had the same problems with Smallville where Lex simply doesn't stand a chance against the impossible high standards of the self-defined good people who comfortably lounge on a moral high ground they never worked for. [And look, this is me having an emotional moment here... ] Same with Spike, who certainly did nothing worse than Angel, and when you get right down to it, is the better person. Angel's tragedy is not so much having to deal with the remorse for what he did as Angelus, but that regret and the hope for redemption are almost everything he has, for his human life as well as his preternatural one - he has simply very little humanity to fall back upon. With Angel you always see the psychopath lurking under the vampire-with-a-soul persona, whereas with Spike the fundamentally decent guy William was emerges pretty fast once he's given the chance and proper motivation in the form of someone he loves.
And the whole concept about the soul being a major distinction seems extremely flawed to me. Both In BtVS and AtS there are vampires who can love without having souls; Spike most certainly loved Drusilla, and if Angelus wasn't able to love Darla, this has probably more to to with the fact that Liam had never loved anyone either, than with the presence or absence of a soul.
What, that chip in your head? That's not change. Tha-that's just ... holding you back. You're like a serial killer in prison!
- He's a killer, Dawn. You cannot have a crush on something that is ... dead, and, and evil, and a vampire.
- Right, that's why you were never with Angel for three years.
- Angel's different. He has a soul.
- Spike has a chip. Same diff.
And Dawn is right there, even if Buffy doesn't want to see it. Angel's soul fulfills exactly the same function as Spike's chip, with the only difference that it is somewhat more efficient because the negative feedback is psychological rather than merely physical. And as for the 'serial killer in prison' - this characterisation is at least equally true for Angel, and the killer inside him, who isn't a hundred percent identical with the demon part, is constantly chafing at the restraint, taking every tiniest chance to escape.
So, on to the good parts... the scene where Buffy finds out that Spike has not betrayed Dawn to Glory was very touching. And Spike bonding with Dawn is just too cute. Fool for Love was a good episode, too.... most Spike moments, really.
But really, other than that... Xander is starting to seriously annoy me, I don't like Anya as much as I used to, Tara is nice, but could use a bit more of a personality, and Willow is somehow beginning to occasionally irritate me, too.
Giles, however, can be very creepy, when he chooses to, the scene when he kills Ben/Glory in the end is extremely chilling. And whatever did he do to Glory's minion that made him change his mind so fast?
To retiterate, pathetic.
But when in
Finished Buffy S5 and feel kinda meh about it. I remembered not particularly liking it, and apparently I remembered correctly. It just doesn't work for me, the story-telling seem too contrived and chunky and never flows naturally, Glory isn't interesting enough a villain for all the screen-time she gets, and the OMGdrama! factor is way to high. Generally speaking, with literature/films/tv/&c. as well as in real life situations, I dislike it when I'm expected to feel something - there are exceptions, obviously (::cough:: Sleeping in Light::cough::) -, but most of the time something within me just balks and refuses to to cooperate. I spent a good part of Dancer in the Dark furiously biting back tears because I was just so angry at the blatant emotional manipulation. I don't understand the mentality that drives people to deposit flowers and candles at the site of a tragedy. Maybe something in my brain is wired the wrong way, but I can't help it. There are plenty of emotional moments I cherish, but they rarely are the 'popular' ones. And with S5 I'm feeling like like I'm constantly being jerked around with things being pointed out to me - look! isn't that tragic! Buffy's mother is sick! Buffy's mother dies! A whole episode without music! The drama! the angst! The whole conflict between Buffy's duty as a slayer and her fear of losing her humanity. Tara.... and it goes on. I don't dislike Dawn as a character, but I do dislike the way you're effectively forced to chose either to agree that Dawn needs to be protected and that Buffy's humanity and whatnot hangs on her decision to continue to see her as her sister and save her at all cost, or cast yourself in the role of the heartless bitch who dares even think that perhaps this isn't the safest or most reasonable course of action, all things considered. I like Giles quite a lot for having the courage of saying and doing a couple of unpleasant, but necessary things in the end.
Abstractly I can see what they're doing with Buffy's character in this season, but I can't feel it, just as I don't get, on a gut level, that what Wesley does in S3 AtS is so horrible that he deserves death and ostracisation.
And Buffy's death is the same semi-suicidal flawed self-sacrifice as in Not Fade Away, where people who see only very little meaning in their lives any longer chose to at least go down in a blaze of glory. She cannot bear to see Dawn die, but Dawn will have to live with the knowledge that Buffy died for her, which IMO is a mixed blessing, to say the least.
The other major issue I have with S5 is how everyone treats Spike; this already bothered me when I originally watched it, so it's not S6 & S7 hindsight. Certainly in a lot of ways his mind does work in twisted ways (but even the Buffy-bot was at least as sad as it was creepy), but this still does not justify the utter contempt everyone shows him. I had the same problems with Smallville where Lex simply doesn't stand a chance against the impossible high standards of the self-defined good people who comfortably lounge on a moral high ground they never worked for. [And look, this is me having an emotional moment here... ] Same with Spike, who certainly did nothing worse than Angel, and when you get right down to it, is the better person. Angel's tragedy is not so much having to deal with the remorse for what he did as Angelus, but that regret and the hope for redemption are almost everything he has, for his human life as well as his preternatural one - he has simply very little humanity to fall back upon. With Angel you always see the psychopath lurking under the vampire-with-a-soul persona, whereas with Spike the fundamentally decent guy William was emerges pretty fast once he's given the chance and proper motivation in the form of someone he loves.
And the whole concept about the soul being a major distinction seems extremely flawed to me. Both In BtVS and AtS there are vampires who can love without having souls; Spike most certainly loved Drusilla, and if Angelus wasn't able to love Darla, this has probably more to to with the fact that Liam had never loved anyone either, than with the presence or absence of a soul.
What, that chip in your head? That's not change. Tha-that's just ... holding you back. You're like a serial killer in prison!
- He's a killer, Dawn. You cannot have a crush on something that is ... dead, and, and evil, and a vampire.
- Right, that's why you were never with Angel for three years.
- Angel's different. He has a soul.
- Spike has a chip. Same diff.
And Dawn is right there, even if Buffy doesn't want to see it. Angel's soul fulfills exactly the same function as Spike's chip, with the only difference that it is somewhat more efficient because the negative feedback is psychological rather than merely physical. And as for the 'serial killer in prison' - this characterisation is at least equally true for Angel, and the killer inside him, who isn't a hundred percent identical with the demon part, is constantly chafing at the restraint, taking every tiniest chance to escape.
So, on to the good parts... the scene where Buffy finds out that Spike has not betrayed Dawn to Glory was very touching. And Spike bonding with Dawn is just too cute. Fool for Love was a good episode, too.... most Spike moments, really.
But really, other than that... Xander is starting to seriously annoy me, I don't like Anya as much as I used to, Tara is nice, but could use a bit more of a personality, and Willow is somehow beginning to occasionally irritate me, too.
Giles, however, can be very creepy, when he chooses to, the scene when he kills Ben/Glory in the end is extremely chilling. And whatever did he do to Glory's minion that made him change his mind so fast?
no subject
Date: 2005-09-05 04:33 pm (UTC)I spent a good part of Dancer in the Dark furiously biting back tears because I was just so angry at the blatant emotional manipulation
Me too! I hate to be put in that kind of situations, where you're supposed to cry because it's just so sad and OMG. I never do that. But I do burst out in tears because someone nice sent me an e-mail, or JG brought me a cookie.
Ooops, tmi?
no subject
Date: 2005-09-06 06:45 pm (UTC)I like BtVS and it's still better than a lot of stuff on tv, but while there are parts I really love a lot, it was always a tad too moralistic for my taste, and I never loved it the way I love AtS...
Ooops, tmi?
Um, *no*.