BTVS/ATS Redux - the mother/son angle

Every once and a while someone out there posts a little gem that explains exactly why something I watched, read, or heard captivated me.

Here's the latest - and it's about a series that one would think after all this time would have lost its allure for me, it hasn't and partly for the reasons discussed in selenak's essay on The Fanged Four.

In an essay regarding the Fanged Four or Angel/Spike/Drusilla/Darla of the Buffy and Angel series, selenak discusses how Whedon and his writers ultimately flipped previous television and book models regarding the vampire/gothic genre on their heads. Normally it's the guy who sired everyone. Hence the word "sire" as in patriach or father-figure. Look up the word in the dictionary - according to the American Heritage Dictionary - the first definition is "a father", the next: "form of address for a male superior esp. a king." Whedon in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series uses the word for men and women. Spike to Angel in School Hard: "You were my sire, my yoda" - possibly meaning "father" "king" and "teacher" all wrapped into one. Yet late in the episode "Fool For Love" it was Dru, a female, who "sired" him. Just as in "Angel" it is revealed that it was Darla that sired Angel.
( Read more... )