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shadowkatPersonal note:[I should be working on a cover letter at the moment for a job the lovely fresne has found, but well, I need to decompress - get the writer juices flowing. Because mind is a blank and I hate what I've written. Also heartfelt thanks to *everyone* who responded to my last post (it was friend's locked, sorry, don't worry just personal stuff), greatly appreciated. You really helped me get out of a bad place, thank you.]
A few days ago, I read an article in the new Slayage Online Journal - www.slayage.net (I think) dealing with the hierarchy of fandom, spoilers, and how people deal with spoilers and how they have certain expectations. Don't agree with everything the author stated but it was interesting, because she points out how spoilers can be used as power in fandom and also, how people want to be spoiled either to figure out the puzzle based on bits and pieces or to protect themselves from disappointment. Interested me because I used to be a spoiler trollop, but have gone cold turkey now and am reformed. I know nothing outside of writers and episode titles for 21 and 22. Yay me! Also have no overwhelming need to. Want to just see how it all plays out. The other article was about shippers, specifically Buffy/Spike shippers, although some of the comments in that one could be attributed to Buffy/Angel shippers as well - the desire for the female to save the gothic hero and ride off happily with him a la Jane Eyre or numerous other gothic romances.
The reason I bring this two articles up is tonight's episode of Angel reminded me of them. In an odd way the writing staff and show was metanarrating on the fanbase in the episode, coincidentally or intentionally? I'm not sure. In that respect The Girl In Question is Angel's version of BTVS' Storyteller in some respects. I preferred the Angel version, but that's just me.
I was slightly spoiled for this episode - to the extent that I knew the premise, I knew it was an audience tease episode, I knew that most of it was Angel and Spike wandering about Italy like fools with their heads (metaphorically) cut off. I also knew that half the audience would love it to pieces and half would despise it with fiery vengeance. (Sort of like Storyteller actually.)
Why? Ahh...because you are in the point of view of two very frustrated characters and you want closure. You want some nice ending wrapped in a bow. You crave it. You want bloody Buffy to appear and tell her two beaux who she chooses or doesn't choose. But truth is? In life that rarely happens. Usually when you hunt down an ex - you are chasing an illusion through blind alleys. What you are chasing is the memory, not the reality. An idea emphasized by Illyria who appears to pose as Fred - and Wes can't handle it. He wants the old Fred. The one he fell in love with. This new Illyria/Fred hybrid creature is false to his eyes, she's not true to the memory. She's worse, a mockery - like Lilah posing as Fred in one of their many sex-capades, a memory that was contained in the orlon window. Question is, was the memory ever real? Not sure. But I got the feeling that we had three men chasing dreams or girls they'd worshipped, but who in reality didn't exist. Another "play on perspective" game and yet another distraction from an important task at hand.
Tom Stoppard a while back wrote a comedic satire on Hamlet, called Rosencrantz and Guildernstern Are Dead. It's a nice little romp, or so I'm told - I've never actually been able to make it through the play or for that matter the movie Stoppard directed, have tried several times. In Hamlet - Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are minor players with maybe five lines who appear, inadvertently betray Hamlet and are killed by him. In Stoppard's play, R&G emerge from the shadows and take over, with Hamlet in the background. It's the flip - the former lead now is barely seen, completely backstage - and the supporting characters who had been in the shadows are *now* front and center. Wicked by Gregory MacGuire does the same thing - Dorothy, the Tinman, The Lion, the Scarecrow - become bit parts (not even seen I'm told in the musical version), while the two Witches become the leads.
That's what happens in The Girl in Question - the bit players in BTVS, the male romantic/villian characters who served Buffy and lurked in the shadows, betrayed her, helped her, and were only really seen when they had something to do with her (on most occassions), are now front and center and it is Buffy lurking in the background, unseen. Actually Spike and Angel are in an odd way the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's of the Buffyverse. More fully fleshed out than Shakespear's version. They both betray Buffy at some point, are inadvertently killed by Buffy, and inadvertently come back to haunt her. And like in Stoppard's play, Buffy's the Hamlet figure doing her thing on the sidelines - the lead in the former, the reason in fact of the Stoppard spin-off, but now barely seen. She's not in the picture anymore, she's lurking at the edge of the frame - yet if you peer closely, she's gone an illusion. Reminds me a little of when Angel showed up in Pangs in S4 BTVS or in Forever S5 BTVs - brief but gone.
The Immortal is an interesting metaphor as well - he symbolizes what Spike and Angel represented to Buffy, that perfect mysterious man, older, ambiguous, who could sweep her off her feet but remained unchanging, inpermanent, and Buffy, as Andrew states, knows this. She is merely moving on. And she's doing it by finding someone who represents the best of both her two ex-lovers. Two vampires that she loved but could not be with. He also represents what Spike and Angel view themselves as - as vampires. The ideal of the Immortal super-hero. Another illusion. Note Andrew states that the Immortal isn't that great. And we see Andrew changing - he can be cool James Bond guy or nerdy Andrew, he is human, mortal, and changing - not locked in place doing the same thing over and over and over again like Spike, Angel and to a degree the Immortal and he notes that Buffy will move on from this dance too.
Then there is the metaphor of loops. Or circles. Angel and Spike are chasing their own tails in Italy. Going around and around and around again in smaller and smaller loops. Both physically and emotionally and verbally. Having the same conversation, the same arguement, and the same chase. We see the circle chase with the car around the piazza in Rome. The chase of Buffy to Disco to apt, back to disco back to apt again. Until finally, Andrew tells them, after their third arrival, that they are literally running in place. If they don't stop - neither of them will ever get Buffy, because she will be way ahead, having *moved on* and they will still be here, stuck in the loop. They get fed up, go home and find themselves back at the beginning, WR&H, again stuck, saying "we're moving on now".
We also have the bit about the head - losing the head, the exploding head - both metaphors for their own romantic illusions. They've lost their heads over Buffy, dropped everything to go chasing after her. When they finally re-focus on the head, their attention still half on Buffy, half on the past - the bag allegedly containing the head explodes in their face. I this this may be an analogy to obtaining Buffy or how they see her - the prize. That they want to control. But they can't. They get it? And poof! Goes the illusion. As Angel states, she'd break out of any box they attempted to trap her in, she's too smart for a spell - while tempting, it wouldn't work. To ever have the girl - they have to let her go, as she finally let them both go in Chosen. Buffy let Angel and Spike go in Chosen, and now in The Girl in Question - Angel and Spike must let go of Buffy and move on.
But that's hard to do particularly when the Girl in Question was partly responsible for who they became. "I turned out alright", Spike states - "Yeah, after she got done with you," retorts Angel. If it weren't for Buffy, neither of them would have attempted to save the world - she inspired them. As they in turn inspired and shaped her. The metaphor of the leather jacket partly speaks to this - both Spike and Angel lose their leather jackets in the explosion. Spike is devastated. "This was my second-skin," he states - "it's a part of me, it can't be replaced." Well, of course it can - it's just a jacket after all - has no more meaning that what we attribute to it.
Spike needs to move on. Stop holding on to the past. And in a way he compromises - he gets the same jacket, but newer, cleaner, and no longer associated with old crimes or accomplishments. Just as Spike keeps the name Spike, yet isn't still Spike - the jacket looks the same but isn't. Angel who appears to be more than happy to move on - isn't quite as comfortable in the latest style, he looks awkward, uncomfortable, embarrassed. The new skin doesn't quite fit. A metaphor perhaps for his inablity to find a compromise between the two sides of himself? To intergrate Angelus?
Final notes to this ramble - which oddly enough helps me relax.
So thanks for reading it.
The Angel/Spike bickering over who saved the world the most? ROFL!! Honestly, is it just me or do you think the writers have either been spending far too much time on fanboards or perhaps they are bickering over the same thing in their writing dens? I can imagine Fury and Deknight bickering over this as a sequel to the infamous caveman/astronaut debate and in a way the debate is the same - unimportant and unsolvable. Both have saved the world in their own way, both were inspired by the girl in question to do so and to change themselves for the better - what comes next? Is up to them. They can either continue running in circles or break outside the box like Buffy did in Chosen.
Oh regarding Fred/Illyria - ah, it really is Twelth Night, isn't it? We have twins of everyone now. Wes is the two men in the joke (the one in horrid pain chattering and the stoic one who is almost catanonic), Gunn is Gunn with the street smarts and moral views/ and Gunn with the demon legalese, Lorne is the kind man/ with the demon opportunistic shell, Angel/Angelus, Spike/William, and now Fred/Illyria. Question is who is the real one and who is the false. Or are they all both? (I'm really loving Illyria - Amy Acker is blowing me away.)
Liked the episode better than I expected. It made me laugh.
But part of that may have been due to the fact that I was prepared for it. Not sure how I would have reacted if I hadn't been.
Okay off to bed then back to work - productive work!
A few days ago, I read an article in the new Slayage Online Journal - www.slayage.net (I think) dealing with the hierarchy of fandom, spoilers, and how people deal with spoilers and how they have certain expectations. Don't agree with everything the author stated but it was interesting, because she points out how spoilers can be used as power in fandom and also, how people want to be spoiled either to figure out the puzzle based on bits and pieces or to protect themselves from disappointment. Interested me because I used to be a spoiler trollop, but have gone cold turkey now and am reformed. I know nothing outside of writers and episode titles for 21 and 22. Yay me! Also have no overwhelming need to. Want to just see how it all plays out. The other article was about shippers, specifically Buffy/Spike shippers, although some of the comments in that one could be attributed to Buffy/Angel shippers as well - the desire for the female to save the gothic hero and ride off happily with him a la Jane Eyre or numerous other gothic romances.
The reason I bring this two articles up is tonight's episode of Angel reminded me of them. In an odd way the writing staff and show was metanarrating on the fanbase in the episode, coincidentally or intentionally? I'm not sure. In that respect The Girl In Question is Angel's version of BTVS' Storyteller in some respects. I preferred the Angel version, but that's just me.
I was slightly spoiled for this episode - to the extent that I knew the premise, I knew it was an audience tease episode, I knew that most of it was Angel and Spike wandering about Italy like fools with their heads (metaphorically) cut off. I also knew that half the audience would love it to pieces and half would despise it with fiery vengeance. (Sort of like Storyteller actually.)
Why? Ahh...because you are in the point of view of two very frustrated characters and you want closure. You want some nice ending wrapped in a bow. You crave it. You want bloody Buffy to appear and tell her two beaux who she chooses or doesn't choose. But truth is? In life that rarely happens. Usually when you hunt down an ex - you are chasing an illusion through blind alleys. What you are chasing is the memory, not the reality. An idea emphasized by Illyria who appears to pose as Fred - and Wes can't handle it. He wants the old Fred. The one he fell in love with. This new Illyria/Fred hybrid creature is false to his eyes, she's not true to the memory. She's worse, a mockery - like Lilah posing as Fred in one of their many sex-capades, a memory that was contained in the orlon window. Question is, was the memory ever real? Not sure. But I got the feeling that we had three men chasing dreams or girls they'd worshipped, but who in reality didn't exist. Another "play on perspective" game and yet another distraction from an important task at hand.
Tom Stoppard a while back wrote a comedic satire on Hamlet, called Rosencrantz and Guildernstern Are Dead. It's a nice little romp, or so I'm told - I've never actually been able to make it through the play or for that matter the movie Stoppard directed, have tried several times. In Hamlet - Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are minor players with maybe five lines who appear, inadvertently betray Hamlet and are killed by him. In Stoppard's play, R&G emerge from the shadows and take over, with Hamlet in the background. It's the flip - the former lead now is barely seen, completely backstage - and the supporting characters who had been in the shadows are *now* front and center. Wicked by Gregory MacGuire does the same thing - Dorothy, the Tinman, The Lion, the Scarecrow - become bit parts (not even seen I'm told in the musical version), while the two Witches become the leads.
That's what happens in The Girl in Question - the bit players in BTVS, the male romantic/villian characters who served Buffy and lurked in the shadows, betrayed her, helped her, and were only really seen when they had something to do with her (on most occassions), are now front and center and it is Buffy lurking in the background, unseen. Actually Spike and Angel are in an odd way the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's of the Buffyverse. More fully fleshed out than Shakespear's version. They both betray Buffy at some point, are inadvertently killed by Buffy, and inadvertently come back to haunt her. And like in Stoppard's play, Buffy's the Hamlet figure doing her thing on the sidelines - the lead in the former, the reason in fact of the Stoppard spin-off, but now barely seen. She's not in the picture anymore, she's lurking at the edge of the frame - yet if you peer closely, she's gone an illusion. Reminds me a little of when Angel showed up in Pangs in S4 BTVS or in Forever S5 BTVs - brief but gone.
The Immortal is an interesting metaphor as well - he symbolizes what Spike and Angel represented to Buffy, that perfect mysterious man, older, ambiguous, who could sweep her off her feet but remained unchanging, inpermanent, and Buffy, as Andrew states, knows this. She is merely moving on. And she's doing it by finding someone who represents the best of both her two ex-lovers. Two vampires that she loved but could not be with. He also represents what Spike and Angel view themselves as - as vampires. The ideal of the Immortal super-hero. Another illusion. Note Andrew states that the Immortal isn't that great. And we see Andrew changing - he can be cool James Bond guy or nerdy Andrew, he is human, mortal, and changing - not locked in place doing the same thing over and over and over again like Spike, Angel and to a degree the Immortal and he notes that Buffy will move on from this dance too.
Then there is the metaphor of loops. Or circles. Angel and Spike are chasing their own tails in Italy. Going around and around and around again in smaller and smaller loops. Both physically and emotionally and verbally. Having the same conversation, the same arguement, and the same chase. We see the circle chase with the car around the piazza in Rome. The chase of Buffy to Disco to apt, back to disco back to apt again. Until finally, Andrew tells them, after their third arrival, that they are literally running in place. If they don't stop - neither of them will ever get Buffy, because she will be way ahead, having *moved on* and they will still be here, stuck in the loop. They get fed up, go home and find themselves back at the beginning, WR&H, again stuck, saying "we're moving on now".
We also have the bit about the head - losing the head, the exploding head - both metaphors for their own romantic illusions. They've lost their heads over Buffy, dropped everything to go chasing after her. When they finally re-focus on the head, their attention still half on Buffy, half on the past - the bag allegedly containing the head explodes in their face. I this this may be an analogy to obtaining Buffy or how they see her - the prize. That they want to control. But they can't. They get it? And poof! Goes the illusion. As Angel states, she'd break out of any box they attempted to trap her in, she's too smart for a spell - while tempting, it wouldn't work. To ever have the girl - they have to let her go, as she finally let them both go in Chosen. Buffy let Angel and Spike go in Chosen, and now in The Girl in Question - Angel and Spike must let go of Buffy and move on.
But that's hard to do particularly when the Girl in Question was partly responsible for who they became. "I turned out alright", Spike states - "Yeah, after she got done with you," retorts Angel. If it weren't for Buffy, neither of them would have attempted to save the world - she inspired them. As they in turn inspired and shaped her. The metaphor of the leather jacket partly speaks to this - both Spike and Angel lose their leather jackets in the explosion. Spike is devastated. "This was my second-skin," he states - "it's a part of me, it can't be replaced." Well, of course it can - it's just a jacket after all - has no more meaning that what we attribute to it.
Spike needs to move on. Stop holding on to the past. And in a way he compromises - he gets the same jacket, but newer, cleaner, and no longer associated with old crimes or accomplishments. Just as Spike keeps the name Spike, yet isn't still Spike - the jacket looks the same but isn't. Angel who appears to be more than happy to move on - isn't quite as comfortable in the latest style, he looks awkward, uncomfortable, embarrassed. The new skin doesn't quite fit. A metaphor perhaps for his inablity to find a compromise between the two sides of himself? To intergrate Angelus?
Final notes to this ramble - which oddly enough helps me relax.
So thanks for reading it.
The Angel/Spike bickering over who saved the world the most? ROFL!! Honestly, is it just me or do you think the writers have either been spending far too much time on fanboards or perhaps they are bickering over the same thing in their writing dens? I can imagine Fury and Deknight bickering over this as a sequel to the infamous caveman/astronaut debate and in a way the debate is the same - unimportant and unsolvable. Both have saved the world in their own way, both were inspired by the girl in question to do so and to change themselves for the better - what comes next? Is up to them. They can either continue running in circles or break outside the box like Buffy did in Chosen.
Oh regarding Fred/Illyria - ah, it really is Twelth Night, isn't it? We have twins of everyone now. Wes is the two men in the joke (the one in horrid pain chattering and the stoic one who is almost catanonic), Gunn is Gunn with the street smarts and moral views/ and Gunn with the demon legalese, Lorne is the kind man/ with the demon opportunistic shell, Angel/Angelus, Spike/William, and now Fred/Illyria. Question is who is the real one and who is the false. Or are they all both? (I'm really loving Illyria - Amy Acker is blowing me away.)
Liked the episode better than I expected. It made me laugh.
But part of that may have been due to the fact that I was prepared for it. Not sure how I would have reacted if I hadn't been.
Okay off to bed then back to work - productive work!
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-05 09:52 pm (UTC)I'm very glad you enjoyed it though, and that you're feeling better.
Agreed completely...
Date: 2004-05-05 10:17 pm (UTC)Also on a separate note, but related to the episode...I wonder whether Illyria, who claims to have been dressing up as Fred as an experiment, might also have been exhibiting some kindness here, in allowing Fred's parents to believe that she is still alive, although she would never admit it. In this respect, is Illyria trying to grasp at the elusive "girl in question," too, in this case Fred?
Yes
Date: 2004-05-06 06:37 am (UTC)Re: Agreed completely...
Date: 2004-05-06 03:12 pm (UTC)wonder whether Illyria, who claims to have been dressing up as Fred as an experiment, might also have been exhibiting some kindness here, in allowing Fred's parents to believe that she is still alive, although she would never admit it. In this respect, is Illyria trying to grasp at the elusive "girl in question," too, in this case Fred?
The question I keep coming back to is how much of Illyria is Fred now? They've made a point of telling us that Illyria has two sets of Fred's memories inbedded in her consciousness - one from when she took over Fred's body and one from the orlon window. So where does Illyria stop and Fred begin and how much of that act was really an act? Why do the act of kindness, which if you think about it is not in "Illyria's" character but very much in Fred's.
Interesting episode. I can't help but wonder if maybe the reason I liked it and other's didn't, is I don't romanticize those two vamps.
I found their behavior completely in character under the circumstances. Nor do I have a need for the writers to give me a certain version of them any more. I used to. Don't now. Helps in a way, makes watching far more enjoyable. I can't help but wonder if there is a danger in getting too emotionally invested in a tv show or dramatic work? We can't control what happens or change it. Our role like it or not is a passive one - that as viewer, and that in of itself can be frustrating. Can writing fanfic and analysis cause us to form pre-conceived notions and desires for what happens on-screen? Do we in effect forget what we are watching is "just" a 43 minute television show that has a small budget and a fast schedule? I can't help but wonder what if any the criticisms were during Shakespear's time - when he put on his plays. I do know, that they often had a pit in front of the stage between the audience and actors - to protect the actors from rotten fruit/veggies thrown by a disgruntled audience.
Here, we have a screen doing precisely the same thing.
Then again - it's a tricky business analyzing why people like or dislike things. There's no way of knowing. Which makes art and the creation of entertainment incredibly risky - you have no idea how people will respond to what you put out there. We can make guesses,
do research like the people on slayage do, even make people answer questionnaires - but it won't give us definite answers. Because when you get down to it - you just like what you like for reasons known only to yourself.
Thanks!
Date: 2004-05-06 08:53 am (UTC)And like you - I *hated* Storyteller. Also not a fan of Andrews, he grates on my nerves. But for some reason this one made me laugh. (shrug).
Thank you for the bratqueen link - I've enjoyed her essays in the past and have been considering adding her to my FL.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 06:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 06:41 am (UTC)That is what I kept thinking while watching. Kaboom references and others were hysterical.
I was not spoiled for this episode, don't think it was the worst. But I certainly can see its weakness'. I try not to judge and try to just enjoy. Which I did last night.
Good review. Maybe this farcical episode was just what you needed.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 07:05 am (UTC)I'm working at home today btw, and hope to take a break and catch it later.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 07:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 10:34 am (UTC)The one point I got out of Angel and Spike's romp through Rome was that Buffy is irrelevant and they need to work together, the two of them. But we already knew this as well. The two of them have started working together and bonding in their own neurotic way in the past few episodes.
So other than the Gunn stuff and the Illyria stuff, I didn't see the point. Well, the big laugh before the big cry, but there are all sorts of ways of making the fans laugh.
In the meantime, a goofy pointless tease for the Darangel(us) 'shippers. *Sob* no more Darangel(us)! I am getting so close to committing fan fic it's scary.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 11:34 am (UTC)Exactly right. Great observation.
And Angel and Spike as Rosencrantz and Guildernstern? Brilliant.
To ever have the girl - they have to let her go, as she finally let them both go in Chosen.
She did, didn't she? Freeing them and herself, and now they need to let go too.
A metaphor perhaps for his inablity to find a compromise between the two sides of himself? To intergrate Angelus?
What a good point. I think so, yes. Spike has changed but accepts his past as part of him. Angel has yet to do so.
Wes is the two men in the joke (the one in horrid pain chattering and the stoic one who is almost catanonic)
Oh, wow. I read that originally as Wes and Angel - but both as Wes makes so much sense. Lots of mirrors and doubling. Very cool.
Great review!