In all, I appreciated the W/T part of Willow's arc. I respect that you didn't.
I thought Wilow and Tara were the sweetest, cutest thing I'd seen on TV in a long time. I'd have appreciated it a lot more if we hadn't had "gay now" repeated so often. Kennedy needed dropped down a well because of inherent annoyance factor.
The only thing I regret about this whole thing is that I ever mentioned the word empowerment. I wasn't aware it was still a hot-button word.
Xander became irrelevant, Giles became irrelevant, Spike was relevant only in terms of Buffy. This saddened me.
Let me see if I can say it unequivocally--My utterly subjective, utterly personal reaction was that the last two seasons of the show were, to me, in my personal opinion, damaged by a focus on the female characters to the diminishment of the male characters. The wedding storyline and its, in my utterly subjective, personal opinion, soap opera twist, were not sufficient to justify having Xander around. Him talking Willow down at the end, with purely human, non-superpowered love, redeemed about half of the season, and that's pretty damned good.
The entire Potentials storyline was--again, in my purely personal opinion--disappointing. Caleb was a misogynistic cartoon, Xander was perplexing background filler, Andrew was a tremendously amusing, practically neuter cyper, Giles was merely baffling, and Spike--I'm still not sure what they were trying to do with Spike. The wisewoman there in the crypt was from an organization we've heard absolutely nothing about until we needed some sort of positive spin on the whole Watchers thing, and she apparently existed only so Caleb could kill her in another show of cartoonish hatred.
If I go on, I'll only get more people upset. To summarize: I am only responsible for my own opinion. I am not responsible for anyone's reaction to my opinion, that's up the person reacting. And in a semi-public forum of which I've been a member for quite a while now, I shall continue to express my opinion, hopefully at all times respectfully. My responsibility is to be respectful of others' stands, which I hope it's clear that I am. This does not mean that I have to share those stands. It doesn't mean that you have to share mine. Heaven forbid that the only reason we're here is to nod in agreement with each other, never seeing viewpoints other than our own.
For the first time I see the usefulness of this phrase: namaste.
I thought Wilow and Tara were the sweetest, cutest thing I'd seen on TV in a long time. I'd have appreciated it a lot more if we hadn't had "gay now" repeated so often. Kennedy needed dropped down a well because of inherent annoyance factor.
I'm not going to disagree about Kennedy. I found the actor's performance grating, and couldn't ever make myself care about the character. Let's look at the Gay-Now Tourette's Syndrome. Sometimes these things seem worse in memory, than they really were at the time. I'm curious to see how often it (or an equivalent) was said.
Triangle:
Hello, gay now!
Checkpoint:
We're in love. Lovers. We're gay lesbian-type lovers.
Tabula Rasa:
I think I'm kind of gay (Amnesia!Willow said this)
Hell's Bells:
It's a good thing I realized I was gay. 'Cause otherwise, hey, you, me and formal wear...
Normal Again:
Hi, um... Tara. How are you? I was wondering... do you want to go out sometime? For coffee? Or food? Or kisses and gay love? (Willow actually only says this to herself, while psyching herself up to say this to Tara)
Entropy:
Well... let's put it this way. If I wasn't gay before...(Willow said this to Tara while describing the dickhead monster from i Doublemeat Palace; that one made me chuckle)
To me (your opinion may vary) the lines from
Checkpoint, Hell's Bells, Entropy,
and
Normal Again,
were very cute, Willowy things to say, given the context. The only time she actually said, "Gay now," that I can find, is in Triangle. She did make the, "I'm a breast girl myself. But then
you all know that," comment in Life Serial. That one grated with me and seemed out of character. I thought the
Tabula Rasa
comment was a nice shout-out to Dopplegangland.
The only thing I regret about this whole thing is that I ever mentioned the word empowerment. I wasn't aware it was still a hot-button word.
Why do you say it's a hot-button word?
Why do you say it's a hot-button word?
Because of the number of times it's been brought up in posts reacting to my initial statement--even if those references do not go into the nature of empowerment. It's not a debate I want to have, because empowerment is like religion or politics. It's different for everyone, and no one can rightfully define it for anyone else.
Because of the number of times it's been brought up in posts reacting to my initial statement--even if those references do not go into the nature of empowerment. It's not a debate I want to have, because empowerment is like religion or politics. It's different for everyone, and no one can rightfully define it for anyone else.
Oh, thanks. The word doesn't push my buttons. In this case, what pushed my buttons was your comment, "My empowerment's fine," and only because of what I mentioned before.
I still don't see that the focus was on the female characters to the diminishment of the male characters. ASH wasn't available. Xander's diminishment really started in season 4. Spike got as much focus as any character-who-isn't-Buffy ever got, the last two seasons. I can understand you don't like the treatment the male characters received, but there was still plenty going on with male characters, and even male characters were added. (The only exception is Xander, whose last shining moments as an important and equal Scooby were in S3, imo.)
I can understand you don't like the treatment the male characters received, but there was still plenty going on with male characters, and even male characters were added.
Which pretty much summarizes my disappointment those last two years. There may have been plenty going on, but I didn't find it that interesting. And despite my proven proclivities, I don't think Spike and Xander suddenly declaring their clandestine passion and snogging in the living room in front of the Potentials (pause for moment of thoughtfulness) would have improved matters that much.
I think there were too many new faces that last year. Potentials died, and I went, "Now, who was that again? Did they even bother to give her a name?" Half the number of Potentials would have improved storytelling, because I would have had more time to become invested in their fates, instead of going "Good lord, it's every slumber party/dormitory horror story come true." Instead of worrying about hte First, I was thinking things like "I wonder how long it took all their cycles to synchronize."
It would have been cool if the First Evil's chosen representative had been a woman, maybe someone who had been in line to be a Slayer but who never got called, someone whom the Council had told was a Chosen One maybe, someone who was ready and eager to be a destined warrior but who never got the chance.
Where I think they really fell down was that the First itself could take on Buffy's form, yet only appeared as her to Loopy!Spike and Caleb. Just think about how much sabotage and corruption it could have sown among the potentials, the Scoobies, and the Watchers' Council if it had employed that strategic advantage in secret.
Hell, for that matter they could have had a demoralized Rona or Xander say "please, spare us the zillionth 'inspirational' speech, they're depressing!" and had Buffy reply "speech? What are you talking about?" Hours, days, weeks of agonizing viewing would have been rendered worthwhile and fiendishly clever in one stroke.
Oh, yeah, First!Buffy should have been wandering around that house a lot, inspiring the Scoobies to poke Buffy in the ribs every time they saw her.
And I'm not just saying that because we both think Bayliss is a hottie...
