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shadowkatBefore I leave on Friday morning, dark and early, thought I'd wish those reading this and on my flist a happy holiday where-ever you may be. It's so odd that I choose to share these musings with people who I've never seen.
I realized a few weeks back that I had no clue who reads this journal and who doesn't. I certainly can't use the user info page as much of a guideline, since I don't friend's lock any more (gave up on that ages ago). All that tells me is who probably is reading, not who is. Plus several people have responded, repeatedly to this journal, without ever adding their names to the list - while there are people who did friend me, that never respond to the journal or seldom do. Therefore? I feel often as I write that I'm just randomly sending thoughts out across the miles...no idea who will happen across them.
Tonight, you find me fighting down my own anxiety. It always rises before a trip, like a tidal of wave of nerves that I fight to control. Gritting my teeth. Taking deep breaths. Forcing my mind to other thoughts. The trip will be a short one. Barely time to get there, open gifts, and come back - but as the holiday season washes over me, I realize that I have more in those three days than many folks do. Yes, it's just me, Mom and Dad. Kidbro, sisinlaw and baby Cedar are staying in wintery Beacon this year. And yes, part of me envies Kidbro his little family. Yet...I know that I have more, with just me and my parents than countless people out there do.
And this week my heart goes out to them. The US of A
or The States to those abroad, attempts to be a "non-secular" society, but I think fails miserably in the attempt. Like it or not - it is Judeo-Christian, and I can't help but wonder how those who aren't Judeo-Christian feel each year around this time, inundated with holiday greetings? Then there's the people who have no one. Who are alone in their apartments. Working the late shift in the hospital or the police station or the firehouse or the airport because they don't have children, or lovers, or parents to go home to. Or just because they drew the short straw. Or someone has to be there just in case people get sick or people do something wrong. Or the soliders who are celebrating this season overseas in Iraq, while those who sent them there, sit cozy around their Xmas trees. Did you know that the highest number of suicides is around Xmas? Depressing isn't it? Yet, people still send out those dreaded Xmas letters, or bragging letters (as I like to call them), blithely unaware of where they may land. Received one today, which I scanned and discarded.
I prefer cards - with their pretty pictures and simple messages. In some respects, the card feels more real and personal than that mass produced holiday letter that seemed to arrive along with the computer age. Makes one miss typewriters or the age before typewriters when such things were impossible. (And I'm sure within these three sentences I've probably offended half the people out there who deign to send such things. OR maybe made them think twice before doing so? Dare one hope. ) On the other hand, perhaps I have no right to complain - I have not sent any cards this year. Still on a pretty slim budget. And by the time it occurred to me to buy the things, it was well today. Feel a little guilty about that - having received one from my downstairs neighbor, who has been kind to me this year - loaning me her phone when mine was out of order. She thanks me for being a good neighbor, and I find myself wondering, have I?
Looking back on this year - all I see is a fog. It's been more or less of an endurance race or test for me. Lots happened, but most of it to other people related to me by blood or friendship, while I sat on the sidelines watching, a speechless by-stander, uncertain how to participate. There but not there. Sometimes I think I'm more here, within the pages of this journal, then out there. But that's not true of course. As friends who've met me offline will no doubt attest to. And here like out there, I find myself stumbling over words, saying things I later regret, worrying over the effect, and thinking "no, no, I did not mean to say that!" or "oh god, who was that person - that hateful person who said those things or thought those things?" or " oohh how did I ever come up with that? And can I do it again?" And wondering how many people I've alienated through my words or lack of words or actions or lack of.
Life is hard. Free will - that odd gift that some of us believe god has given us, makes it hard, I think. Although I wonder about the whole concept of "free will." Free will implies we can control our actions, thoughts, reactions, and environment. Yet that control appears to be limited by so many factors - such as the bodies we are born with, the environment we are born into, the people we come into contact with, and the opportunities provided. All we really control is how we react to stuff - and even that is limited by well, our bodies.
In a prior post, I indicated a difficulty in feeling sympathy for those who lash out while under the influence of some sort of mental illness or chemical imbalance or physical disorder. I am sorry for that. Because upon reflection - I realize it really is a matter of "but for the grace of god go I". I have a cousin that has a chemical imbalance. He is bi-polar. Severe. This is coupled with social anxiety. And an inability to stay on meds. He's quite brilliant and kind actually. But he cannot function in our society without assistance.
He graduated from high school at the age of 14. And can understand complex mathematics. Yet, at 45 years of age, he remains single, unemployed, living with Dad - at least that was the last I heard. Last year - I feared for my own health - thinking I might have Wilson's, I don't, it turned out to be just an essential tremor (requires medication which helps with anxiety but at least it's not copper poisoning). Last night's episode of House described the symptoms of Wilson's in detail and that, moved me. In the episode, the woman suffering from an undiagnosed case of Wilson's came across as schizophrenic.
It makes me wonder what it would be like to actually have it. And relieved I don't. Life is hard enough, I think, without it. Hard to decide what to do and what not to. How to decide what are the right choices and the wrong ones.
The choice to take this job. The choice to reach out to certain people.
I admit, I'm not fantastic at the whole initiating contact bit. A weakness, I think. Perhaps one caused by fear or uncertainity?
As I write, I wonder how much of this I want to keep and how much should be deleted as word vomit...random thoughts inadvertently placed upon the page while an old episode of Lost whispers in the background. I'd forgotten to
switch the channel to West Wing, or just jump off the net and delete all of this in one fell swoop - gone, safe, from whomever may decide to read it for good or ill.
Are we responsible for the words we create? I think so. But not for how others choose to recieve them? Or interpret? Words are so limiting. Language is.
Our bodies. I believe we have souls - because my gut tells me there's more to this being that is me than just blood and flesh and random nerve energy. But
I don't know what a soul is. So cannot prove it to the scientifically skeptical. (Hmmm wonder if that is a Miss Malapropism? Sheridan's The Rivals is playing on Broadway right now and NY1 keeps showing clips of it - specifically Miss Malaprop - the crazy character who always uses the wrong words. This is a trait that runs in my family - my brother, me, my mother - all Miss Malaprops... a side-effect of the dyslexia no doubt.)
If I could reach my arms through this screen I think I'd like to give some of the folks or most of the folks on my friends list a hug. Yet in person, it is doubtful I would do much more than nervously smile and babble. Hesistant to hug. Being big and bony and towering over most folks - tends to go against hugging. But in my mind I hug. Repeatedly. As I say, bodies they are so limiting. Grammar too - actually. Hence the short one word sentences. I like to lose myself in the rhythm of my words, my thoughts, letting my emotion unfettered loose upon the page, rippling through the sound of the words if not the meaning. I often wonder what they look like to someone outside my mind. Just as I wonder what I look like outside my mind. To me my eyes are green.
Yet others tell me they are blue, gray, or light green. My hair is flecked with gray. Others say it is light brown with highlights and only I see the silver or gray. There's a song in Cabaret that is whizzing through my brain at the moment..."if you could see Elsa through my eyes, she wouldn't appear..."
and I wonder if that's true, does everyone see each other differently?
Ah...the brain ramble is at it's end, I think. Which is a good thing.
As a coda...I have been re-watching the BTVS DVD's S1 and S2, at Passions.
And am coming slowly to the conclusion, much I'm certain cjlasky's chagrin,
that I prefer the later seasons. I prefer Season 6 and 7 and 5 and 4 to Seasons 1,2 &3. Why?
Why? Ah. Simple. The later seasons resonate for me emotionally.
I identify with the characters in them. The early seasons, as enjoyable and fun as they are - simply do not. Plus High school is a simple story to tell - structured rigidly with clear arcs and themes: 1) First love, 2) Authority, 3) Boyfriend Turns Evil, 4) Prom, 5) Homecoming....and none of those themes fit my high school experience. I didn't date in high school. I didn't go to dances. I didn't try out for cheerleading (well once for drill team, under duress, and my experience was closer to Dawn's actually. Actually my high school experience was much closer to Dawn's and possibly William the Poet's than Buffy's, Willow's or Xander's.) I didn't have close friends that I remember or have kept in touch with. I spent most of my time with theater, books, and studying and getting through it. Once high school was over? I
leapt to college and promptly forgot most of it. It wasn't traumatic. It was just dull and hardly worth writing about. But hey there's a teen audience out there - so we get tons of high school shows, all with the same themes, same
trajectory with small differences here and there. I have yet to see one that does not have an episode focused on The Prom. Or signing yearbooks. Or cheerleading.
At any rate, BTVS took off for me in Season 4 -7. I got obsessed with it in the later seasons, because it was about that period in our lives which unlike those three years of high school, happen over and over again, no matter what age you are. The post-adolescent period, where we don't know who we are, or what we want or who we are to become or should become. We don't know what is the right or wrong choice. Or who to love. There's no longer a rigid structure and life does not fall into an easy one two three step by step guide. It is rare for a tv series to deal with that period and to do it well. BTVS not only played with this period, they actually did a decent job of it. Taking huge risks in the process. And handling some tricky themes - such as depression,
addiction, angst, and a sense of being set adrift without a clear purpose.
For that reason, I prefer 4-7 and will own those over the first three seasons and will remember BTVS for the later ones. 1-3 were easy, good, clear TV.
4-7 were tough, difficult, and risky TV with some of the most ground-breaking episodes to grace a screen - among them: Restless, Hush, The Body, Fool for Love, Selfless, Conversations with Dead People, Dead Things, Bargaining, I Was Made To Love You, Doublemeat Palace, Once More With Feeling...
Okay wandering off again...to watch tv and relax before bed. One more day of work before the quick three-day holiday break.
Have a wonderful three days everyone. I hug you with my mind and heart if not my body...through my words both prickly and kind, as always take from them what you will.
I realized a few weeks back that I had no clue who reads this journal and who doesn't. I certainly can't use the user info page as much of a guideline, since I don't friend's lock any more (gave up on that ages ago). All that tells me is who probably is reading, not who is. Plus several people have responded, repeatedly to this journal, without ever adding their names to the list - while there are people who did friend me, that never respond to the journal or seldom do. Therefore? I feel often as I write that I'm just randomly sending thoughts out across the miles...no idea who will happen across them.
Tonight, you find me fighting down my own anxiety. It always rises before a trip, like a tidal of wave of nerves that I fight to control. Gritting my teeth. Taking deep breaths. Forcing my mind to other thoughts. The trip will be a short one. Barely time to get there, open gifts, and come back - but as the holiday season washes over me, I realize that I have more in those three days than many folks do. Yes, it's just me, Mom and Dad. Kidbro, sisinlaw and baby Cedar are staying in wintery Beacon this year. And yes, part of me envies Kidbro his little family. Yet...I know that I have more, with just me and my parents than countless people out there do.
And this week my heart goes out to them. The US of A
or The States to those abroad, attempts to be a "non-secular" society, but I think fails miserably in the attempt. Like it or not - it is Judeo-Christian, and I can't help but wonder how those who aren't Judeo-Christian feel each year around this time, inundated with holiday greetings? Then there's the people who have no one. Who are alone in their apartments. Working the late shift in the hospital or the police station or the firehouse or the airport because they don't have children, or lovers, or parents to go home to. Or just because they drew the short straw. Or someone has to be there just in case people get sick or people do something wrong. Or the soliders who are celebrating this season overseas in Iraq, while those who sent them there, sit cozy around their Xmas trees. Did you know that the highest number of suicides is around Xmas? Depressing isn't it? Yet, people still send out those dreaded Xmas letters, or bragging letters (as I like to call them), blithely unaware of where they may land. Received one today, which I scanned and discarded.
I prefer cards - with their pretty pictures and simple messages. In some respects, the card feels more real and personal than that mass produced holiday letter that seemed to arrive along with the computer age. Makes one miss typewriters or the age before typewriters when such things were impossible. (And I'm sure within these three sentences I've probably offended half the people out there who deign to send such things. OR maybe made them think twice before doing so? Dare one hope. ) On the other hand, perhaps I have no right to complain - I have not sent any cards this year. Still on a pretty slim budget. And by the time it occurred to me to buy the things, it was well today. Feel a little guilty about that - having received one from my downstairs neighbor, who has been kind to me this year - loaning me her phone when mine was out of order. She thanks me for being a good neighbor, and I find myself wondering, have I?
Looking back on this year - all I see is a fog. It's been more or less of an endurance race or test for me. Lots happened, but most of it to other people related to me by blood or friendship, while I sat on the sidelines watching, a speechless by-stander, uncertain how to participate. There but not there. Sometimes I think I'm more here, within the pages of this journal, then out there. But that's not true of course. As friends who've met me offline will no doubt attest to. And here like out there, I find myself stumbling over words, saying things I later regret, worrying over the effect, and thinking "no, no, I did not mean to say that!" or "oh god, who was that person - that hateful person who said those things or thought those things?" or " oohh how did I ever come up with that? And can I do it again?" And wondering how many people I've alienated through my words or lack of words or actions or lack of.
Life is hard. Free will - that odd gift that some of us believe god has given us, makes it hard, I think. Although I wonder about the whole concept of "free will." Free will implies we can control our actions, thoughts, reactions, and environment. Yet that control appears to be limited by so many factors - such as the bodies we are born with, the environment we are born into, the people we come into contact with, and the opportunities provided. All we really control is how we react to stuff - and even that is limited by well, our bodies.
In a prior post, I indicated a difficulty in feeling sympathy for those who lash out while under the influence of some sort of mental illness or chemical imbalance or physical disorder. I am sorry for that. Because upon reflection - I realize it really is a matter of "but for the grace of god go I". I have a cousin that has a chemical imbalance. He is bi-polar. Severe. This is coupled with social anxiety. And an inability to stay on meds. He's quite brilliant and kind actually. But he cannot function in our society without assistance.
He graduated from high school at the age of 14. And can understand complex mathematics. Yet, at 45 years of age, he remains single, unemployed, living with Dad - at least that was the last I heard. Last year - I feared for my own health - thinking I might have Wilson's, I don't, it turned out to be just an essential tremor (requires medication which helps with anxiety but at least it's not copper poisoning). Last night's episode of House described the symptoms of Wilson's in detail and that, moved me. In the episode, the woman suffering from an undiagnosed case of Wilson's came across as schizophrenic.
It makes me wonder what it would be like to actually have it. And relieved I don't. Life is hard enough, I think, without it. Hard to decide what to do and what not to. How to decide what are the right choices and the wrong ones.
The choice to take this job. The choice to reach out to certain people.
I admit, I'm not fantastic at the whole initiating contact bit. A weakness, I think. Perhaps one caused by fear or uncertainity?
As I write, I wonder how much of this I want to keep and how much should be deleted as word vomit...random thoughts inadvertently placed upon the page while an old episode of Lost whispers in the background. I'd forgotten to
switch the channel to West Wing, or just jump off the net and delete all of this in one fell swoop - gone, safe, from whomever may decide to read it for good or ill.
Are we responsible for the words we create? I think so. But not for how others choose to recieve them? Or interpret? Words are so limiting. Language is.
Our bodies. I believe we have souls - because my gut tells me there's more to this being that is me than just blood and flesh and random nerve energy. But
I don't know what a soul is. So cannot prove it to the scientifically skeptical. (Hmmm wonder if that is a Miss Malapropism? Sheridan's The Rivals is playing on Broadway right now and NY1 keeps showing clips of it - specifically Miss Malaprop - the crazy character who always uses the wrong words. This is a trait that runs in my family - my brother, me, my mother - all Miss Malaprops... a side-effect of the dyslexia no doubt.)
If I could reach my arms through this screen I think I'd like to give some of the folks or most of the folks on my friends list a hug. Yet in person, it is doubtful I would do much more than nervously smile and babble. Hesistant to hug. Being big and bony and towering over most folks - tends to go against hugging. But in my mind I hug. Repeatedly. As I say, bodies they are so limiting. Grammar too - actually. Hence the short one word sentences. I like to lose myself in the rhythm of my words, my thoughts, letting my emotion unfettered loose upon the page, rippling through the sound of the words if not the meaning. I often wonder what they look like to someone outside my mind. Just as I wonder what I look like outside my mind. To me my eyes are green.
Yet others tell me they are blue, gray, or light green. My hair is flecked with gray. Others say it is light brown with highlights and only I see the silver or gray. There's a song in Cabaret that is whizzing through my brain at the moment..."if you could see Elsa through my eyes, she wouldn't appear..."
and I wonder if that's true, does everyone see each other differently?
Ah...the brain ramble is at it's end, I think. Which is a good thing.
As a coda...I have been re-watching the BTVS DVD's S1 and S2, at Passions.
And am coming slowly to the conclusion, much I'm certain cjlasky's chagrin,
that I prefer the later seasons. I prefer Season 6 and 7 and 5 and 4 to Seasons 1,2 &3. Why?
Why? Ah. Simple. The later seasons resonate for me emotionally.
I identify with the characters in them. The early seasons, as enjoyable and fun as they are - simply do not. Plus High school is a simple story to tell - structured rigidly with clear arcs and themes: 1) First love, 2) Authority, 3) Boyfriend Turns Evil, 4) Prom, 5) Homecoming....and none of those themes fit my high school experience. I didn't date in high school. I didn't go to dances. I didn't try out for cheerleading (well once for drill team, under duress, and my experience was closer to Dawn's actually. Actually my high school experience was much closer to Dawn's and possibly William the Poet's than Buffy's, Willow's or Xander's.) I didn't have close friends that I remember or have kept in touch with. I spent most of my time with theater, books, and studying and getting through it. Once high school was over? I
leapt to college and promptly forgot most of it. It wasn't traumatic. It was just dull and hardly worth writing about. But hey there's a teen audience out there - so we get tons of high school shows, all with the same themes, same
trajectory with small differences here and there. I have yet to see one that does not have an episode focused on The Prom. Or signing yearbooks. Or cheerleading.
At any rate, BTVS took off for me in Season 4 -7. I got obsessed with it in the later seasons, because it was about that period in our lives which unlike those three years of high school, happen over and over again, no matter what age you are. The post-adolescent period, where we don't know who we are, or what we want or who we are to become or should become. We don't know what is the right or wrong choice. Or who to love. There's no longer a rigid structure and life does not fall into an easy one two three step by step guide. It is rare for a tv series to deal with that period and to do it well. BTVS not only played with this period, they actually did a decent job of it. Taking huge risks in the process. And handling some tricky themes - such as depression,
addiction, angst, and a sense of being set adrift without a clear purpose.
For that reason, I prefer 4-7 and will own those over the first three seasons and will remember BTVS for the later ones. 1-3 were easy, good, clear TV.
4-7 were tough, difficult, and risky TV with some of the most ground-breaking episodes to grace a screen - among them: Restless, Hush, The Body, Fool for Love, Selfless, Conversations with Dead People, Dead Things, Bargaining, I Was Made To Love You, Doublemeat Palace, Once More With Feeling...
Okay wandering off again...to watch tv and relax before bed. One more day of work before the quick three-day holiday break.
Have a wonderful three days everyone. I hug you with my mind and heart if not my body...through my words both prickly and kind, as always take from them what you will.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-12-22 07:01 pm (UTC)none of those themes fit my high school experience.
*nods* Yep. Same here.
My heart belongs to Season 6.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-23 05:14 pm (UTC)Hee. Well I shouldn't complain, I find myself feeling much the same way about responding to my friends journals.
My heart belongs to Season 6.
Mine too. If it weren't for Season 6, I wouldn't be online and I wouldn't have met anyone. Over 90% of my essays were about Season 6.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-22 07:20 pm (UTC)Merry Christmas! Have a wonderful time with your family.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-23 05:17 pm (UTC)I hope you'll be at the board gathering in New York; I would really like to meet you there.
I should be, for good or ill. I'm not sure cjl will let me say no at this point (grins).
no subject
Date: 2004-12-22 07:59 pm (UTC);o)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-22 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-22 09:30 pm (UTC)(Hmmm. Can one earmark a windfall? Never thought of that before.)
;o)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-23 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-22 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-23 05:19 pm (UTC)I hope you and Darbs and graffiti do as well. My best to you all!
Also congrats on the A's - way to go!
no subject
Date: 2004-12-22 11:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-23 05:34 pm (UTC)That said? My heart belongs to the later seasons. Which may seem weird to those reading this journal - who have read my criticisms of them. I can criticize that which I love. Does not mean I love it any less.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-23 12:34 am (UTC)The high school experience was even more removed for me: I gaze at all the representations of the US high school scene as one observing some weird (and rather distasteful) rite de passage, and wondering why they do it, and mightn't there be some better way, e.g. sending them out into the desert with a knife and water bottle and seeing if they came back. But it seems to be one of those things, like the romance plot, that has a major grip on narratives.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-23 05:43 pm (UTC)probably "Freaks and Geeks", which was short lived.
So why the popularity with a fictional narrative? I think people like the comfort. They like the idea that you will have two close friends you can trust with everything and will stay true to you.
The idea of the mysterious older guy who shows up just in the nick of time to dance with you at the prom. I think anne1962 is right when she states the first three seasons were fantasy - they are our fantasy of high school, the nostaglic fuzzy fantasy that this period is more important, more traumatic, more dramatic than it truly is. I kept a record of my high school years and trust me, it makes dull reading. I learned very little. I did not lose my innocence in adolescence. I did not learn that authority was silly.
No, that happened in college after I left home.
The most amusing part of the BTVS commentary is Whedon's honest and somewhat sheepish admission that he has no clue what an American high school experience is like - he went to boarding schools in England.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-23 03:33 am (UTC)Yes, those christmas letters, I tried to mock that very thing in my letter. It is sad, I think, that the only way most of us keep up with so many in our lives, is through these letters. I know that is the case for me with many people partly due to distance but often due to laziness. Other than with lj, I am not a very good long distance friend. I have a few I keep in touch with but I have let so many go. And they me.
I have never heard it voiced before about tall people hugging. Yes, yes. So true isn't it. Hovering over the shorter to hug is awkward all around. I give more virtual hugs than I ever have real life ones.
I think S1-3 is about fantasy, and the later seasons are about reality. Buffy sees her life as it is, rather than how she would like it to be in the later years. High School does that to us because it is so horrible to so many of us. One can only live in the fantasy. I enjoy those early episodes for far different reasons than I do the latter.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-23 05:54 pm (UTC)I agree. The first three seasons are all about fantasy. How we or rather the writers and producers and actors and network execs like to remember high school. How they prefer to see it. It's fascinating that every high school show covers the same themes : first love (something most people don't have in high school actually, but oh did we crave it - we wanted that older teen idol on the wall of our room - we dreamed of an Angel), the prom (and everyone noticing how brave we are), the two friends who will stand by us no matter what and help us (Xander and Willow), that adults can't handle anything and we know more than they do, and of course...that our problems can be solved with a quick quip. What I love about the latter seasons, particularly parts of Season 7, is the subtle depiction of how the characters have falsely remembered or perceived high school. Season 7 pretty much pulls back the curtain on the first three seasons and says, that was not real. The reality is smaller, harsher, not as pretty or comforting, and somewhat mundane, yet - it is also freeing. Buffy's quips aren't as well planted and seem more awkward. Her friendships less certain. I love how the two sets bracket each other and comment on one another - so much so, that one could not exist without the other. That's what so many people forget when criticizing the latter seasons - or the earlier ones - they aren't separate.
Although they can be watched separately. If it weren't for the latter ones - most of us would not have met. If it weren't for the earlier ones, the latter ones would not exist.
(sort of off topic of your post, I think.)
I enjoy the earlier seasons - they are fun, comforting. The latter ones pull and twist at my heart and head. The earlier ones comfort it.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-23 06:04 pm (UTC)Yes. And Whedon once again hits the ball out of the park with a literal rebuilding of the high school because Buffy needs to rebuild from the fantasy. The school is literally rebuilt as she is, as her past is, Xander, the heart, helping to build it. She goes full circle, rebuilding her past to face her future. Oz was right, they survived it. But that was just the beginning. Kill the fantasy to be able to live a real life.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-23 06:49 pm (UTC)Ah yes - Lessons and Chosen are interesting for two things:
the people in the basement she is fighting to save her sister, ghosts of the friends she saved and at times failed. Giles. Xander. Willow. Yet they aren't the true problem, the true problem is Spike, insane, babbling about a soul. It's the Angel story turned upside down. She has to revisit it without the fantasy flourishs, in order to move beyond it.
The Spike story in S6/S7 is the real version, while the Angel story in S2/S3 is the fantasy. It's why Spike dies in the end, and the hellmouth folds in upon him - he takes the fantasy with him and she lets both go, finally.
Merry Christmas, 'kat.
Date: 2004-12-23 07:39 am (UTC)As for early Buffy vs. later Buffy, you know my stand: 2, with 3, 4, and 5 in close proximity.
High school vs. college age has nothing to do with my opinion. For me, it's always been the character interaction and the dynamic of the group. When the Scoobies were ON, when the group was together and clicking on all cylinders, even the mediocre eps in the early seasons were entertaining because you could feel the writers enjoying how these characters played off one another. You can go down the line and you'll see how virtually all my favorite episodes ("Fool for Love" may be the exception) featured the core B/X/W grouping (+ Giles + Buffy's current romantic interest) at its best.
I just think that 2 and 3 were simply written BETTER. The characters seemed to evolve before our eyes rather than sit in stasis for most of the year until the writing staff was ready for the finale. Of course, I have my prejudices. Was I upset that Xander (and NB) was marginalized for most of 5 through 7? Was I unhappy that ASH left midway through 6? Did I think Clare Kramer was a sad excuse for a hellgod? Yes, yes, and god yes.
I will say this: when season 4-7 hit high marks, the more mature themes of the later seasons created episodes with a higher emotional impact. Hush, Restless, The Body, OMWF, Normal Again, Selfless are great, great episodes, hitting high points inconceivable in the more melodramatic high school years.
But long with those "higher" high points, the percentage of bad episodes and misguided plotlines increased dramatically, as well. And even though the high school years are a well-traveled road with screenwriters, Joss and his staff did it so well, put such a fascinating spin on that era in our lives, that it seemed new again. Even though our high school selves do not carry over into adulthood, it's the time in our lives when we lose our innocence, we realize that the adults around us and the authorities we trusted are not going to protect us against the evils of the world--and that they sometimes are the evils of the world.
Given the state of the world today, those lessons need to repeated, and the high school format is as good as any.
Re: Merry Christmas, 'kat.
Date: 2004-12-23 06:38 pm (UTC)But for all your criticism and preferance, you keep forgetting a key factor: if it weren't for seasons 4-7, you would not know me and many others on this board. And if it weren't for 1-3, we wouldn't have 4-7.
I can criticize the latter seasons with the best of them - already have. But, I keep circling back to one key factor, until Season 6 I did not feel compelled to do much more than watch the show.
I watched. I forgot. Until Season 6, I did not keep tapes of each episode or rewatch them. Nor did I feel the need to write about any of them or see what others thought. So there must have been something lacking in Seasons 1-3 or perhaps those seasons were just plain good tv, with nothing to analyze or flip over, no gaps, comfort food for the brain - requiring not much more than me turning on the tube once a week? I don't know.
As for the rest, we'll have to agree to disagree I guess. Because I don't find the sentiment that we lose our innocence in high school and learn authority is evil to be necessarily true. I learned it at different times in my life, but not in high school.
High school really has no relevance in my life. My innocence was lost in the fifth and sixth grade. My trust of adults? Dashed in junior high. High school was a period that I got through. Dull. Tedious. And Unmemorable. I look at shows focusing on high school and I've seen quite a few and I find myself thinking - gee, I can't identify with that. So I enjoyed S1-3 of BTVS for the characters and found it fun and quippy but it did not resonate with me emotionally. This is why I did not write about those seasons, except as a means of reflecting on and commenting on the latter ones.
That said - I acknowledge that if it weren't for the early seasons, we wouldn't have the latter ones. If the writers hadn't written an attractive, hot, quippy, somewhat critically acclaimed show - the network wouldn't have renewed. But it is interesting that the show won or was nominated for rewards in the latter seasons not the early ones. Why? Because it wasn't until the latter seasons that the writers took risks and did something innovative - it wasn't until the latter seasons that they could.
Also if you haven't seen the early seasons, you cannot fully appreciate what is happening in the latter ones. And without the latter ones, well you wouldn't know most of the people you've met online would you?
I'd love to see House of Flying Daggers - will be back late Sunday, since have work on Monday. They are nice at my place of work, but unlike evil company - not into giving days around Xmas off, for some reason.
Happy Belated Hannuka.
I'm here, too
Date: 2004-12-23 09:40 am (UTC)And here like out there, I find myself stumbling over words, saying things I later regret, worrying over the effect, and thinking "no, no, I did not mean to say that!"
But seeing your growth and honesty in puzzling out these things is one of the things that has endeared you to me, anyway. You have opinions, you stand by them, and you're willing to admit when you have either changed your mind or failed to communicate them effectively. I have no doubt that regardless of what you actually say, a compassionate heart is behind it.
Happy Holiday to you as well.
Re: I'm here, too
Date: 2004-12-23 06:44 pm (UTC)Thanks.
But seeing your growth and honesty in puzzling out these things is one of the things that has endeared you to me, anyway. You have opinions, you stand by them, and you're willing to admit when you have either changed your mind or failed to communicate them effectively. I have no doubt that regardless of what you actually say, a compassionate heart is behind it.
Thank you. It's hard, as you probably know, to tell how your words come across to others. They sound great to me, but hey - how do I know what someone else thinks? I think that's what drove me online way back in 2002, to find out what others thought of a show that intriqued and gripped me. To see through others eyes. I've enjoyed reading your journal as well and seeing through your eyes - even though I haven't responded that much.