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BTVS S7 Get it Done, Storyteller & BTVS S8 Retreat Part III: Review and Meta
You'll have to excuse the subject heading - because I haven't a clue how to sum up the mumble jumble of thoughts regarding the above.
Picked up the latest Buffy S8 Issue today. Read it twice, or rather three times. I read comics differently than other people do. I first look at all the art work and don't read the captions at all. Then I'll scan the captions and the art. Then I'll read the captions and look at the art. It's odd, I know.
Anyhow, before I read this issue - it's probably worth noting that I had recently rewatched two Season 7 episodes, Get it Done and Storyteller - which I rather loved this time around, and rather hated the first time around. What a difference six years makes. We do change how we feel about stuff. Life does it to us, I think. As one person on my flist once put so well, "I am agnostic about my opinions" - in other words, don't hold me responsible for something I may have thought two weeks ago, there is an outside chance that you can change my mind or I will change my mind. Not on everything of course. So this does not make me wishy-washy, it merely makes me open-minded.
Before I discuss the comic, I'm going to discuss Get it Done and Storyteller. So forgive me if this is rather long and rambling. But as you've no doubt noticed by now when it comes to Buffy meta, I tend to be on the verbose side of the fence, short and pithy only occurs in my business/work related writing, not my metas. I think it's because my metas are spontaneous and stream of consciousness, and the fact that I do not take the time to edit them.
Get it Done.
This is the episode where Buffy scolds Spike and Willow. And rejects getting more power herself. It is also the episode where Wood brings Buffy the embodiment of the slayer power and in a way sort of thrusts it at her, claiming not to know what it is. I'm guessing he really doesn't know. There is no indication he's playing her. Actually, Wood is more concentrated on playing Spike at this point - he has just discovered that Spike is the monster who took his mother away from him, brutally killed her in the subway. Spike is Wood's conception of evil. And Wood states in Storyteller (which I will talk about in depth later), that he wonders how Buffy can trust any of them or they can trust each other, since they have all been evil at some point. Buffy exclaims no not evil, well yes they did evil things, sure.
But they weren't evil. And Willow had merely lost control. That's when Wood touchs the seal and states what he is really thinking - "you are with that vampire, screwing that vampire, you filthy whore". The vampire here is a representation of Buffy's power, her dark side.
Which she sees up close and personal in Get it Done - the slayer comes from the demon - the essence or heart of the demon that is inside every vampire. It goes into the slayer metaphorically in a similar manner - it infects by violation. With the vampire - the violation is a bite, death - much as Angel bites and sucks slayer blood from Buffy in Graduation Day Part II to live, the demon infects and strengthens her. Ever since Buffy learned this in Get it Done, possibly even before it - she has felt dirty. Filthy. She rejects the power, because it makes her feel unclean, less than human.
In Retreat - Buffy is rejecting the power again. OZ, the others, are telling her that her power is wrong. But she admits to missing it to Faith, as they struggle to dig a ditch and move a boulder. Faith says she wasn't strong enough to deal with the power in a positive way, it made her do things, it seemed to control her. While Buffy states, with the power, she felt disconnected, like she was above everyone, standing above them, apart from them. She also expresses to Xander, to Willow - that maybe now they can have lives. Actual, normal lives.
Have children. Have families. Not constantly be slaying demons and fighting. Also, maybe she won't end up killing Willow in the future, maybe Willow won't lose herself to the magic.
This bit is in stark contrast to what Buffy says in Get it Done - where she tells Willow and Spike that they should grab hold of their power. That having power doesn't necessarily mean one will become evil. When Buffy accusses Spike of being a wailing, wimpire, he retorts - I thought this is what you wanted, this aspect of me, and I admit since I got my soul back, I don't relish the kill quite the way I used to. She doesn't let him off the hook - she says she needs the man who tried to kill her when they first met, who was dangerous. He says she has no idea how close she is to bringing him out. Buffy: "I'm no where near him.".
She says the same thing to Willow - that Willow is afraid, wimpy, not willing to use her power. Cowering from it.
Then when she comes back from the portal - after Willow and Spike have both accessed the demon inside, the dark power, to get Buffy back, for Buffy - Buffy tells Willow that she is sorry, perhaps she made a mistake? She had rejected the power herself because she didn't like the loophole.
But at the same time, she recognizes that she needs power to fight, that they can't just let it go.
Storyteller
Storyteller is directly referenced in Retreat and was also written by Jane Espenson. The episode is told from the perspective of Andrew, who takes on the role of a sort of unreliable narrator. It is not the first time that the writers have done this. In S3 - The Zeppo, Xander is our unreliable narrator or perspective. And in Superstar, S4, Jonathan is. In each version, the narrator sees what is going on through their own insecurities and desires. They are the protagonist in the play. It is in a way a bit like Tom Stoppard's play Rosecrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - a fanfic about Hamlet told from the point of view of two supporting players. Not new in fiction - we have many published works by new writers who take a small, supporting character from a well-known popular work of fiction and write a tale from that person's perspective. Here, the writers of Buffy do it themselves - they tell the story from the point of view of someone who feels powerless, who is not the focus of the story. The first time this was done in film or tv or comics - was with Citizen Kane - where the story unfolded not from Kane's perspective but from everyone around him, often those who were not at the center of the story - such as a maid.
It is a disconcerting way to tell a tale - it changes the focal point, and one can feel a bit disoriented afterwards. It is not the same as Tom Stoppard's play or a fanfic, not when the writers of the series do it - stopping the action - and going to one of the members of the chorus or a supporting cast member and stating - okay we are in your point of view as of now.
Espenson does it again in Retreat Part II - the narrator is Andrew. Andrew is an odd character - he appears to be powerless. But he's not. He actually has quite a bit of power.
Both in Storyteller and here. In Storyteller - it is Andrew's tears, his remorse, that reverses the effects of the seal, neuters it. In Retreat- it is Andrew's spying that reveals the spy - a siamese cat magicked by Amy. Andrew who demonstrates that magic doesn't disappear just because you will it.
Through Andrew's eyes, we see the story unfold in a different manner. In Storyteller - we find out that Spike is struggling with the old persona, it doesn't quite fit like a glove. He is playing the bad boy, but when Andrew corrects him about the lighting, he loses character for a moment and says, oh sorry, give me a minute. Even in the school - when Buffy treats him like the old Spike - don't kill them, Spike, they are just students, it is clear from how he is fighting them - he isn't planning on it, he says, they'll live. It is Andrew who catchs the tension between Wood and Spike, not Buffy. Spike in Storyteller and at the end of Get it Done is trying back on the big bad persona. The slayer's jacket - of the slayer he killed, the
smokes, the vamp face, the attitude, the snark. But...it is clumsy at times - as is seen briefly - when Andrew is taping Spike telling him to take the camera out of his face.
Willow and Xander - are also shown in different lights. We see Xander and Anya make-up, even have sex. We see Willow and Kennedy make up and kiss. And it is through Andrew's lense that we see the bristling sexual chemistry that still exists between Buffy and Spike, romanticized in the extreme. But we also see the reality, which is duller and not as crisp as the camera tells it. The camera lies, yet it also reveals the truth. That is the thing about telling stories - stories are lies, but the best lies, the most believable lies are based on a kernal of truth.
Andrew's tales about the death of Jonathan. Wood states in Storyteller, possibly possessed by the First - that evil is as evil does. But it is not that simple. It is never that simple.
As Joyce tells Buffy in one of her dreams - in Bring on the Night - you can't eradicate evil Buffy, it lies in all of us every day, all the time. It is part of us.
Andrew wants to justify his actions. He wants to find a loop-hole. Just as Spike, Anya, Willow and ultimately Buffy does...to rationalize what we have done. To make sense of it.
How could I do something so awful? Am I evil? Am I good? How could I have abused my power in such a way? Is it the power's fault? Or mine?
Buffy tells Andrew in Storyteller, that it is not his blood, not his death that redeems him, but his remorse for what he has done. His tears. And that it is an on-going process.
She tells the others that rejecting the power is not the way to redeem themselves, it doesn't solve anything either.
Retreat
Yet, in Retreat - we get the opposite. That letting go of the power, letting it seep into the earth, doing hard tasks such as farming, tending stock, gardening will balance it out. Let go of everything. Be one with the earth. It is not rejecting the power, so much as letting it be one with the earth, and the earth one with you.
But is this really working - Willow wonders? Can it work? Buffy wonders the same.
So far it is working best for Xander and Dawn - neither have power, neither are magical. They are the sidekicks, and they have predictably fallen into each other's arms. Retreat hints at Buffy having feelings for Xander, but I'm not sure they are or could be sexual. She seems to see him as a brother, love him as such. No I think her reaction to Xander being with her sister is naturally shock - for other reasons. But it is not clear from the text. (On an artistic note - yes the art is getting better - I actually got facial reactions this round, but I had to go back three pages to figure out that it was Dawn Xander was kissing in that scene, for a moment I thought it was a random slayer. I have a feeling we may have the same problem when and if Twilight is unmasked - no one will know who he is supposed to be. At this point, I'm starting to not care.)
Going back to the better episodes, Get it Done and Storyteller...these are less clear cut somehow. Is Buffy doing the right thing? Buffy's not sure. But she discovers her mother is right - good and evil exist in us all. The counter of Joyce to Giles/Wood is interesting - Wood and Giles state that evil is external. It is what we do. That it is something that can be fought and cut down. While Joyce states evil is internal, part of everyone, everything, in our choices, it is something we fight daily. Joyce in Buffy's dreams cautions against demonizing people for their acts, while Giles and Wood condone it.
Also power...is power evil? Or is merely how it is used? When we tell a story - we have power over all the characters, we are the character's god. We can kill them at will. Hurt them.
Torture them. Give them happiness. We control their world. We also have the power to affect how others see the world. We can bend and twist reality through a story. Andrew bends and twists his reality through his tale.
All the characters do this - in the Zeppo - Xander romanticizes his time with Faith, turns Buffy and Angel into a parody of a bad romance novel, and becomes the unsung hero of the moment - saving the world. In Superstar - Jonathan is the hero, the strongest, brightest, most capable - and Buffy is his sidekick, the weaker one. He has literally taken her power and bent reality to see him in another light - he's the superhero, the god. And finally in Storyteller - Andrew bends the tale to show what he wants to see inside it, the beauty and his roll as chronicler. He's not a villian in his story. Or if he is, it is a supervillian.
I had a creative writing instructor once warn me not to write tales in the first person or about myself - he said, when we write in first person or about oursevles, our characters are either pathetic losers or the most heroic/perfect person in the world. Xander starts out a pathetic loser in The Zeppo, then is cool and amazing. Jonathan is cool and amazing, until the story is unraveled. And well Andrew is the storyteller, the lead, the chronicler supreme, until Buffy pulls back the curtain and exposes his tales for the lies they truly are.
Life, Buffy states, is not a story.
But here's the thing, perhaps it is. Her's certainly is. A story told from multiple perspectives. And the person with the power is usually the story-teller...assuming his or her characters don't get away from them.
In fanfiction - we play gods with characters we've fallen in love with. Rescuing them from their errant creators. Giving them better lives. Or punishing them for sins that we feel have gone unpunished. Through the telling of these tales, we tell our own fanatasises or nightmares or realities. And through the doing of it, we obtain control over our own reality. We find a way of handling it. We control how we perceive it. Andrew controls his reality through the camera lense or the weaving of the story. It is another form of power. Another way power can be used for good or ill. But the reader or viewer of the story is not powerless, they can change the tale based on their own perception of it. Fanfic does it, Watsonian or Doylian perceptions change it, as does meta posted on the internet. I am weilding power here by posting this meta.
Whether our power comes to good or ill...is not always known to us. Anymore than Willow could know bringing Buffy back would cause her to take on more power than she could handle.
Or Buffy could know sharing her strength with the slayers across the world could have negative consequences. It's not simple. A writer doesn't know how their tale will be perceived until it is perceived by someone other than them, and even then, it is up to interpretation.
Retreat is about a retreat from power, not villians. But power itself. A retreat from being the slayer or the witch. A retreat from the demons they have to slay and more importantly why they slay them.
Off to bed, methinks.
Picked up the latest Buffy S8 Issue today. Read it twice, or rather three times. I read comics differently than other people do. I first look at all the art work and don't read the captions at all. Then I'll scan the captions and the art. Then I'll read the captions and look at the art. It's odd, I know.
Anyhow, before I read this issue - it's probably worth noting that I had recently rewatched two Season 7 episodes, Get it Done and Storyteller - which I rather loved this time around, and rather hated the first time around. What a difference six years makes. We do change how we feel about stuff. Life does it to us, I think. As one person on my flist once put so well, "I am agnostic about my opinions" - in other words, don't hold me responsible for something I may have thought two weeks ago, there is an outside chance that you can change my mind or I will change my mind. Not on everything of course. So this does not make me wishy-washy, it merely makes me open-minded.
Before I discuss the comic, I'm going to discuss Get it Done and Storyteller. So forgive me if this is rather long and rambling. But as you've no doubt noticed by now when it comes to Buffy meta, I tend to be on the verbose side of the fence, short and pithy only occurs in my business/work related writing, not my metas. I think it's because my metas are spontaneous and stream of consciousness, and the fact that I do not take the time to edit them.
Get it Done.
This is the episode where Buffy scolds Spike and Willow. And rejects getting more power herself. It is also the episode where Wood brings Buffy the embodiment of the slayer power and in a way sort of thrusts it at her, claiming not to know what it is. I'm guessing he really doesn't know. There is no indication he's playing her. Actually, Wood is more concentrated on playing Spike at this point - he has just discovered that Spike is the monster who took his mother away from him, brutally killed her in the subway. Spike is Wood's conception of evil. And Wood states in Storyteller (which I will talk about in depth later), that he wonders how Buffy can trust any of them or they can trust each other, since they have all been evil at some point. Buffy exclaims no not evil, well yes they did evil things, sure.
But they weren't evil. And Willow had merely lost control. That's when Wood touchs the seal and states what he is really thinking - "you are with that vampire, screwing that vampire, you filthy whore". The vampire here is a representation of Buffy's power, her dark side.
Which she sees up close and personal in Get it Done - the slayer comes from the demon - the essence or heart of the demon that is inside every vampire. It goes into the slayer metaphorically in a similar manner - it infects by violation. With the vampire - the violation is a bite, death - much as Angel bites and sucks slayer blood from Buffy in Graduation Day Part II to live, the demon infects and strengthens her. Ever since Buffy learned this in Get it Done, possibly even before it - she has felt dirty. Filthy. She rejects the power, because it makes her feel unclean, less than human.
In Retreat - Buffy is rejecting the power again. OZ, the others, are telling her that her power is wrong. But she admits to missing it to Faith, as they struggle to dig a ditch and move a boulder. Faith says she wasn't strong enough to deal with the power in a positive way, it made her do things, it seemed to control her. While Buffy states, with the power, she felt disconnected, like she was above everyone, standing above them, apart from them. She also expresses to Xander, to Willow - that maybe now they can have lives. Actual, normal lives.
Have children. Have families. Not constantly be slaying demons and fighting. Also, maybe she won't end up killing Willow in the future, maybe Willow won't lose herself to the magic.
This bit is in stark contrast to what Buffy says in Get it Done - where she tells Willow and Spike that they should grab hold of their power. That having power doesn't necessarily mean one will become evil. When Buffy accusses Spike of being a wailing, wimpire, he retorts - I thought this is what you wanted, this aspect of me, and I admit since I got my soul back, I don't relish the kill quite the way I used to. She doesn't let him off the hook - she says she needs the man who tried to kill her when they first met, who was dangerous. He says she has no idea how close she is to bringing him out. Buffy: "I'm no where near him.".
She says the same thing to Willow - that Willow is afraid, wimpy, not willing to use her power. Cowering from it.
Then when she comes back from the portal - after Willow and Spike have both accessed the demon inside, the dark power, to get Buffy back, for Buffy - Buffy tells Willow that she is sorry, perhaps she made a mistake? She had rejected the power herself because she didn't like the loophole.
But at the same time, she recognizes that she needs power to fight, that they can't just let it go.
Storyteller
Storyteller is directly referenced in Retreat and was also written by Jane Espenson. The episode is told from the perspective of Andrew, who takes on the role of a sort of unreliable narrator. It is not the first time that the writers have done this. In S3 - The Zeppo, Xander is our unreliable narrator or perspective. And in Superstar, S4, Jonathan is. In each version, the narrator sees what is going on through their own insecurities and desires. They are the protagonist in the play. It is in a way a bit like Tom Stoppard's play Rosecrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - a fanfic about Hamlet told from the point of view of two supporting players. Not new in fiction - we have many published works by new writers who take a small, supporting character from a well-known popular work of fiction and write a tale from that person's perspective. Here, the writers of Buffy do it themselves - they tell the story from the point of view of someone who feels powerless, who is not the focus of the story. The first time this was done in film or tv or comics - was with Citizen Kane - where the story unfolded not from Kane's perspective but from everyone around him, often those who were not at the center of the story - such as a maid.
It is a disconcerting way to tell a tale - it changes the focal point, and one can feel a bit disoriented afterwards. It is not the same as Tom Stoppard's play or a fanfic, not when the writers of the series do it - stopping the action - and going to one of the members of the chorus or a supporting cast member and stating - okay we are in your point of view as of now.
Espenson does it again in Retreat Part II - the narrator is Andrew. Andrew is an odd character - he appears to be powerless. But he's not. He actually has quite a bit of power.
Both in Storyteller and here. In Storyteller - it is Andrew's tears, his remorse, that reverses the effects of the seal, neuters it. In Retreat- it is Andrew's spying that reveals the spy - a siamese cat magicked by Amy. Andrew who demonstrates that magic doesn't disappear just because you will it.
Through Andrew's eyes, we see the story unfold in a different manner. In Storyteller - we find out that Spike is struggling with the old persona, it doesn't quite fit like a glove. He is playing the bad boy, but when Andrew corrects him about the lighting, he loses character for a moment and says, oh sorry, give me a minute. Even in the school - when Buffy treats him like the old Spike - don't kill them, Spike, they are just students, it is clear from how he is fighting them - he isn't planning on it, he says, they'll live. It is Andrew who catchs the tension between Wood and Spike, not Buffy. Spike in Storyteller and at the end of Get it Done is trying back on the big bad persona. The slayer's jacket - of the slayer he killed, the
smokes, the vamp face, the attitude, the snark. But...it is clumsy at times - as is seen briefly - when Andrew is taping Spike telling him to take the camera out of his face.
Willow and Xander - are also shown in different lights. We see Xander and Anya make-up, even have sex. We see Willow and Kennedy make up and kiss. And it is through Andrew's lense that we see the bristling sexual chemistry that still exists between Buffy and Spike, romanticized in the extreme. But we also see the reality, which is duller and not as crisp as the camera tells it. The camera lies, yet it also reveals the truth. That is the thing about telling stories - stories are lies, but the best lies, the most believable lies are based on a kernal of truth.
Andrew's tales about the death of Jonathan. Wood states in Storyteller, possibly possessed by the First - that evil is as evil does. But it is not that simple. It is never that simple.
As Joyce tells Buffy in one of her dreams - in Bring on the Night - you can't eradicate evil Buffy, it lies in all of us every day, all the time. It is part of us.
Andrew wants to justify his actions. He wants to find a loop-hole. Just as Spike, Anya, Willow and ultimately Buffy does...to rationalize what we have done. To make sense of it.
How could I do something so awful? Am I evil? Am I good? How could I have abused my power in such a way? Is it the power's fault? Or mine?
Buffy tells Andrew in Storyteller, that it is not his blood, not his death that redeems him, but his remorse for what he has done. His tears. And that it is an on-going process.
She tells the others that rejecting the power is not the way to redeem themselves, it doesn't solve anything either.
Retreat
Yet, in Retreat - we get the opposite. That letting go of the power, letting it seep into the earth, doing hard tasks such as farming, tending stock, gardening will balance it out. Let go of everything. Be one with the earth. It is not rejecting the power, so much as letting it be one with the earth, and the earth one with you.
But is this really working - Willow wonders? Can it work? Buffy wonders the same.
So far it is working best for Xander and Dawn - neither have power, neither are magical. They are the sidekicks, and they have predictably fallen into each other's arms. Retreat hints at Buffy having feelings for Xander, but I'm not sure they are or could be sexual. She seems to see him as a brother, love him as such. No I think her reaction to Xander being with her sister is naturally shock - for other reasons. But it is not clear from the text. (On an artistic note - yes the art is getting better - I actually got facial reactions this round, but I had to go back three pages to figure out that it was Dawn Xander was kissing in that scene, for a moment I thought it was a random slayer. I have a feeling we may have the same problem when and if Twilight is unmasked - no one will know who he is supposed to be. At this point, I'm starting to not care.)
Going back to the better episodes, Get it Done and Storyteller...these are less clear cut somehow. Is Buffy doing the right thing? Buffy's not sure. But she discovers her mother is right - good and evil exist in us all. The counter of Joyce to Giles/Wood is interesting - Wood and Giles state that evil is external. It is what we do. That it is something that can be fought and cut down. While Joyce states evil is internal, part of everyone, everything, in our choices, it is something we fight daily. Joyce in Buffy's dreams cautions against demonizing people for their acts, while Giles and Wood condone it.
Also power...is power evil? Or is merely how it is used? When we tell a story - we have power over all the characters, we are the character's god. We can kill them at will. Hurt them.
Torture them. Give them happiness. We control their world. We also have the power to affect how others see the world. We can bend and twist reality through a story. Andrew bends and twists his reality through his tale.
All the characters do this - in the Zeppo - Xander romanticizes his time with Faith, turns Buffy and Angel into a parody of a bad romance novel, and becomes the unsung hero of the moment - saving the world. In Superstar - Jonathan is the hero, the strongest, brightest, most capable - and Buffy is his sidekick, the weaker one. He has literally taken her power and bent reality to see him in another light - he's the superhero, the god. And finally in Storyteller - Andrew bends the tale to show what he wants to see inside it, the beauty and his roll as chronicler. He's not a villian in his story. Or if he is, it is a supervillian.
I had a creative writing instructor once warn me not to write tales in the first person or about myself - he said, when we write in first person or about oursevles, our characters are either pathetic losers or the most heroic/perfect person in the world. Xander starts out a pathetic loser in The Zeppo, then is cool and amazing. Jonathan is cool and amazing, until the story is unraveled. And well Andrew is the storyteller, the lead, the chronicler supreme, until Buffy pulls back the curtain and exposes his tales for the lies they truly are.
Life, Buffy states, is not a story.
But here's the thing, perhaps it is. Her's certainly is. A story told from multiple perspectives. And the person with the power is usually the story-teller...assuming his or her characters don't get away from them.
In fanfiction - we play gods with characters we've fallen in love with. Rescuing them from their errant creators. Giving them better lives. Or punishing them for sins that we feel have gone unpunished. Through the telling of these tales, we tell our own fanatasises or nightmares or realities. And through the doing of it, we obtain control over our own reality. We find a way of handling it. We control how we perceive it. Andrew controls his reality through the camera lense or the weaving of the story. It is another form of power. Another way power can be used for good or ill. But the reader or viewer of the story is not powerless, they can change the tale based on their own perception of it. Fanfic does it, Watsonian or Doylian perceptions change it, as does meta posted on the internet. I am weilding power here by posting this meta.
Whether our power comes to good or ill...is not always known to us. Anymore than Willow could know bringing Buffy back would cause her to take on more power than she could handle.
Or Buffy could know sharing her strength with the slayers across the world could have negative consequences. It's not simple. A writer doesn't know how their tale will be perceived until it is perceived by someone other than them, and even then, it is up to interpretation.
Retreat is about a retreat from power, not villians. But power itself. A retreat from being the slayer or the witch. A retreat from the demons they have to slay and more importantly why they slay them.
Off to bed, methinks.