Thank you, your reservations about the story are much clearer now. It may well be a comic for people who don’t like comics. I suppose you could say it was written for TV audience and Whedon for his genre-mixing fu may be too attached to the arc format he established in that medium. I think that was a problem with his Serenity movie, a season’s worth of story packed into 2 hours, all highlights and no filler.
Form aside we all have our kinks. S7 is my favourite Buffy season in large part because women and leadership is one of mine. Buffy was commandeered into leadership in S7 and although she started out showing some promise soon got bogged down by the flaws in her approach and in the end was mostly successful by reverting to doing things for herself and inspiring rather than actively leading. Here things start with her appearing to be in much the same place but gradually we see otherwise, that she really has matured as a leader, is connecting with her followers and fighting with them not alongside them. With tactics and everything and without losing her soul or her friends in the process.
I loved the ending for moving on to question the ‘where’ rather than the ‘how’ of her leadership and forcing a genuinely questionable decision. Even I know enough about comics to be aware of the old man vs. superman trope but in this context the stakes look higher. Human vs. demon where demons can be metaphors for genuine evil rather than teenage alienation makes the human side for once truly sympathetic. Against that you have the long-standing demonisation of strong women that underpins the Slayer’s argument, it’s not a straightforward choice.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2007-06-09 08:29 am (UTC)Form aside we all have our kinks. S7 is my favourite Buffy season in large part because women and leadership is one of mine. Buffy was commandeered into leadership in S7 and although she started out showing some promise soon got bogged down by the flaws in her approach and in the end was mostly successful by reverting to doing things for herself and inspiring rather than actively leading. Here things start with her appearing to be in much the same place but gradually we see otherwise, that she really has matured as a leader, is connecting with her followers and fighting with them not alongside them. With tactics and everything and without losing her soul or her friends in the process.
I loved the ending for moving on to question the ‘where’ rather than the ‘how’ of her leadership and forcing a genuinely questionable decision. Even I know enough about comics to be aware of the old man vs. superman trope but in this context the stakes look higher. Human vs. demon where demons can be metaphors for genuine evil rather than teenage alienation makes the human side for once truly sympathetic. Against that you have the long-standing demonisation of strong women that underpins the Slayer’s argument, it’s not a straightforward choice.