Your snark was greatly appreciated. I'm still giggling now thinking about it.
Your meta has sparked some thoughts: - first, for me there's no way the depiction of the characters isn't intentional from Whedon's part. Like you say all their not so likeable flaws are underlined and it's an understatement. So the problem is can these characters be saved in regard to the viewers? I'll hazard an answer: for Whedon it's probably yes because the characters are more than their flaws and he is probably counting on the difference between the "real" characters and their caricatures. I'm not sure though if he's right: Buffy might be saved, after all she has been the victim in all this and has not done anything really horrid. Angel, though, not so sure.It wouldn't be he first time Whedon had miscalculated a backlash.
Now, why this story? What is its interest at least for the author? I can see two: one I'd call conjunctural, commenting as you said on female romantic tales that continue to propose archaic, ultraconservative and damaging role models for the gender relationship. The other one could be the desire to confront his characters once and for all to their flaws in order to be able to make them evolve after that. Put them in a situation of extreme crisis, where there's no way to escape some embarassing questions. From this POV, season 8 could be a transitionnal season. Both seem to me legitimate goals (provided of course I'm not totally wrong), especially if Whedon felt his two lead characters had enough stagnated from an emotionnal POV. Now the question to know if it was done well is another one.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-09-05 01:59 pm (UTC)Your meta has sparked some thoughts:
- first, for me there's no way the depiction of the characters isn't intentional from Whedon's part. Like you say all their not so likeable flaws are underlined and it's an understatement. So the problem is can these characters be saved in regard to the viewers? I'll hazard an answer: for Whedon it's probably yes because the characters are more than their flaws and he is probably counting on the difference between the "real" characters and their caricatures. I'm not sure though if he's right: Buffy might be saved, after all she has been the victim in all this and has not done anything really horrid. Angel, though, not so sure.It wouldn't be he first time Whedon had miscalculated a backlash.
Now, why this story? What is its interest at least for the author? I can see two: one I'd call conjunctural, commenting as you said on female romantic tales that continue to propose archaic, ultraconservative and damaging role models for the gender relationship. The other one could be the desire to confront his characters once and for all to their flaws in order to be able to make them evolve after that. Put them in a situation of extreme crisis, where there's no way to escape some embarassing questions. From this POV, season 8 could be a transitionnal season. Both seem to me legitimate goals (provided of course I'm not totally wrong), especially if Whedon felt his two lead characters had enough stagnated from an emotionnal POV. Now the question to know if it was done well is another one.
Sorry for the edit, but there were too much typos