I like your analysis, even though I think you see more that what the writer put there. :)
Thank you. And yep, I'd agree. To be honest I think we all see more in both the series and comics than the writers put there.
What I think the writer was actually trying for - and why we have this little excursion - is to reiterate a recurring theme that has been going on pretty much as far back as Helpless and Prophecy Girl. (It's also possibly a theme in Dollhouse). Which is - that the authority figures or people in "power", in this instance the "adults", in the case with the slayer - "the watchers" - are sending out a young girl or child or innocent to save them from the monsters. The monsters kill the girl/child, they replace it with another one.
Textually - we see this theme fairly didactly stated in "Get it Done", S7 - where Buffy learns that the original "watchers" or tribal shamans who ruled their tribes - took an adolescent girl and inserted a demon inside her with rough magic, so she could go out and kill their monsters (vampires). Earlier - the same theme was addressed in Prophecy Girl - except Giles tried to stop Buffy and not let her go through with it. In Helpless - he does the opposite, removes her power, and sets her up to go after the monster, urged by his bosses - The Watcher Council to do so.
In the comic - Fillworth is angry at the slayers for abandoning the watchers, for no longer following them. Just as Buffy ignored the tribal chiefs and chose to share her power as opposed to getting more and being their sacrifice.
It's a bit of the old - we sacrifice the virginal or innocent child/woman to appease the nasty god motif. (Another on-going theme in the series.)
Here - we are focusing on Giles' complicity in that, how he has personally pushed the Watcher agenda, and how he regrets it. His mixed feeling regarding it. The focus here is on Giles and the Watchers - and how the old power structure failed. The adults in the german town are meant, I think, as stand-in's for the old Watcher council in their ivory tower, removed from the fray, while the children or slayers are fed to the monsters. At the end of the story...the adults or townspeople join forces with Faith and the other slayers to save the town from the vampires. Together they fight the war, as opposed to just sacrificing people.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-04-08 04:24 pm (UTC)Thank you. And yep, I'd agree. To be honest I think we all see more in both the series and comics than the writers put there.
What I think the writer was actually trying for - and why we have this little excursion - is to reiterate a recurring theme that has been going on pretty much as far back as Helpless and Prophecy Girl. (It's also possibly a theme in Dollhouse). Which is - that the authority figures or people in "power", in this instance the "adults", in the case with the slayer - "the watchers" - are sending out a young girl or child or innocent to save them from the monsters. The monsters kill the girl/child, they replace it with another one.
Textually - we see this theme fairly didactly stated in "Get it Done", S7 - where Buffy learns that the original "watchers" or tribal shamans who ruled their tribes - took an adolescent girl and inserted a demon inside her with rough magic, so she could go out and kill their monsters (vampires). Earlier - the same theme was addressed in Prophecy Girl - except Giles tried to stop Buffy and not let her go through with it.
In Helpless - he does the opposite, removes her power,
and sets her up to go after the monster, urged by his bosses - The Watcher Council to do so.
In the comic - Fillworth is angry at the slayers for abandoning the watchers, for no longer following them.
Just as Buffy ignored the tribal chiefs and chose to share her power as opposed to getting more and being their sacrifice.
It's a bit of the old - we sacrifice the virginal or innocent child/woman to appease the nasty god motif.
(Another on-going theme in the series.)
Here - we are focusing on Giles' complicity in that, how he has personally pushed the Watcher agenda, and how he regrets it. His mixed feeling regarding it.
The focus here is on Giles and the Watchers - and how the old power structure failed. The adults in the german town are meant, I think, as stand-in's for the old Watcher council in their ivory tower, removed from the fray, while the children or slayers are fed to the monsters. At the end of the story...the adults or townspeople join forces with Faith and the other slayers to save the town from the vampires. Together they fight the war, as opposed to just sacrificing people.