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shadowkatLivejournal is currently out of operation, so I'm here posting instead.
Curious to see if anyone notices. Hee. I'll probably copy the post to my lj at a later point.
Just finished reading issue 27 of Buffy S8 comic books, written by Jane Espenson and produced by Joss Whedon. Before reading the comic - I had read several reviews by people online regarding it, notably the top three stormwreath, beergoodfoamy, aycheb...haven't seen 2maggie2's yet. So, I went in with rather low expectations - and ended up being rather surprised. This happens a lot with reviews - someone will review a film, book, or tv show - I'll see it and wonder, okay, were we reading or watching the same thing? Because that's not how I saw or read or experienced it at all. One of the most frustrating things and entertaining things about human interaction is how diverse and at times contradictory our perceptions of shared experiences and reality truly are. How many times have you spoken to someone at work or in your family or online and thought - where is the person coming from? I just don't get how they can possibly see it that way? And wander off shaking your head in bewilderment?
There's a little speech at the end of Lessons in S7 of Buffy. It ends with this line:
"It's not about right. It's not about wrong. It's about power."
I think that is the overarcing theme of the series. How people handle power and what power means. Who has it. Who wants it. What they are willing to do to take it. And once they have it - how they handle it.
My guess is to a degree supported by comments made in assorted commentaries and interviews by the writers themselves - stating that they wanted to explore power, and the dark impulses of power.
In Retreat we are reintroduced to OZ. A character who left the series in Season 4 because of his inability to control his own dark impulses, the wolf inside him. In Fear Itself - he warns Willow about her power and says that he knows what it is like to lose control of it, to give into it, and let it take over...he's no longer there, it's the wolf. Later in Wild at Heart - he does give in to the wolf, he does let it take over with Veruca, and it almost causes him to kill Willow. He leaves because of it. Veruca tells him to let it take control - to give into his darker nature, that this is who he is, to be the wolf. The wolf she says is the best part of him.
Veruca's speech in Wild at Heart reminds me of other speechs in the series...the first is Darla's to Angel in the episode Angel, where she tells him that he needs to give in to his true nature, that he is a vampire, to be who he is. In Crush - Drusilla says much the same thing to Spike - wires in the brain, they lie, you are a bad dog. And then there's Willow, who Amy tells to let herself loose, to give in to it - in Smashed and Wrecked. Spike tells Buffy the same thing in Season 6. In Life Serial - he tells her that she is the slayer, dark, like him, that she doesn't belong out there. She's a hunter. His words in Life Serial, Smashed, Wrecked, Dead Things, and Doublemeat Palace echo Dracula's in Buffy vs. Dracula. He says in Dead Things the same line he says in Life Serial - you don't belong with them, you belong in the dark with me. And in Normal Again - he says it - tell your friends about us - if they reject you, join me in the dark, if they accept you join them in the light. His line in Normal Again if you listen closely echoes Veruca's line to OZ, and it also echoes the First Evil's lines to Angel in Amends, and Spike in Showtime and Bring on the Night.
Now, in Retreat Part II - we have the following bits of dialogue:
OZ: Sometimes I wanted to just...just relax and give in.
Buffy (whispers with a sort of wistful look of understanding): Just give in.[Like she did in S6 with Spike and has from time to time since, she struggles with the desire daily.]
OZ: I wanted to lose myself in it. But I didn't.
Instead he meets Bay who introduces him to another spiritual path.
OZ: It turns out the secret isn't in bottling up the wolf. The wolf doesn't like that. But in letting that energy pass through you into the earth, the sky, the living plants. Don't be a lake be a river. Have a life.
When I read this, I was reminded a bit of a scene between Buffy and Willow and Spike in Get it Done. Where Buffy tells Willow and Spike to stop bottling up their power, to use it to help her. To stop being afraid of it.
She says something similar to Kendra in What's My Line - feel, don't bottle, your emotions give you power. But the problem is the power takes over - in Get it Down - Spike gives into his darker impulse, but the demon comes out, or Willow's eyes turn dark and she takes her power from someone else, just as Spike pulls his from a dead slayer's jacket.
Buffy: I'm not a great quite sitter and looker.
OZ: It works when the moon is full. You feel the wolf approach. You let the wolf pass through you. Without taking you. And the wolf is pulled into the earth.
The metaphor here is the wolf represents the primal, the darker impulse, the power. OZ is powerful when he is the wolf. But if he can't control it, the power controls him. He is taken over by it. He is no longer human, he has no compass, no soul, he is wolf. Power. When he denies the power, the aggression, the primal, dark impulses - represses them, pretends they don't exist - he also loses control. They control him not the other way around. It's what happens when we bottle up emotions - we let the emotions control us. Or rage - the rage takes over. Emotions as Buffy tells Kendra are power - but if we can't control them, we become the victim of our own emotions. A real life example - recently on the news a man went into a gym and killed over four people - opened fire and shot them. He was filled with hate. It was bottled up inside him. He did not show his emotions. Instead he ranted and raved on the net and in his head. He bottled them up.
Finally they took control. And he lost himself to the hate and rage. He became the wolf. The wolf took control. In Joss Whedon's horror stories this is a common theme - the film Serenity is about what happens when you either do away with emotion, remove those powerful impusles or bottle them up in such a way that people go insane.
OZ tells Buffy that a man came to him, named Monroe, a great sufferer, who they helped. Monroe was so pleased he left to spread the word and brought back followers. Then suddenly they discovered they had rival competition. They they'd found the only and they were willing to get violent to prove it.
OZ: He went out into the world too soon. We blame ourselves. We got tempted, forgot to focus, to let the power pass through him. Now he heads a group that thinks like..
Willow:Like Veruca [Veruca and like Willow - who gives in herself to the darker impulse in Season 6.]
OZ: Yeah. They think the wolf is the best part of us. [Simone states it in Predators and Prey to Buffy - the slayer is the best part of us. Faith states much the same thing in Bad Girls and Faith, Hope, Trick as does Kendra at the end of What's My Line.]
Dawn: Hey! That's like Slayers. The Demon part is the part that you are and the old human part is the weak, rejected part that gets tossed aside..um that's how some wrong people might see it.
Dawn is making it rather black and white, which OZ has clearly stated above that it's not. He says that both parts are important. What hits me is something I remember from my old women's studies courses in college and myth and meaning lectures - "the demon woman". The woman is two things - the nice, pretty girl, who caters to the male needs, who shops, and has babies, and cooks, and nurtures - then she's the demon, the nag, the evil EVE, the temptress. Whedon in the episode Family - writes about a male patriarch who informs Tara's friends that she is a demon. That upon her 18th birthday - when she becomes a "Woman" - her demon aspect will emerge.
She will become powerful and they should watch out. In Celtic mythology - the goddess mythos was the mother - devourer and nuturer. Often blood was associated with the demon woman. During the full moon she'd bleed...and be unclean. Some cultures in ancient times would put her away from the rest of the tribe, secluded until her period of uncleaniness was over. The menstruation - which took place during the full moon or the hour of the wolf. Fearful that her blood would contaminate and hurt those around her.
In other cultures she was worshipped during this period and placed with her sisters inside a red tent, pampered, and treated like royalty.
In Nightmares - S1, Hank Summers tells Buffy in her nightmare that he wants nothing to do with her, that she is obnoxious, whiny, weak. That she is the reason for their divorce. How could he stand her. The nightmare happens on the day that she is supposed to go to the ice capades that evening with her father, they do it once a year. He is picking her up.
Instead they have this discussion, as they are having it - the boy Billy shows up. The nightmares that follow include failing a test, being buried alive, or having to dig her way out of her own grave, and becoming a vampire because the Master has killed her. Of these nightmares - all but the first have ironically come true in some off-kilter way. (Well the first and not becoming a vampire.) Hank Summers and Buffy's nightmare about becoming a demon are revisted in Restless, where Hank is notably missing from her dream, but Riley is there as is Adam and her fear of being a demon.
OZ relates at this point a story about Monroe's clan attacking them and how Bay, his wife, turns into a wolf and saves his life. Bay states she probably made a mistake making him a matyr.
Monroe believes the wolf is the best part of him. This is similar actually to Simone's group of rogue slayers - who have decided the slayer is the best part. It also fits with Harmony - who sees being a vampire the best thing ever. Contrast with Angel and Spike who struggle with themselves - both want to be men, but enjoy the power of being vampire. Or Willow - who equally struggles with this duality. As she tells Buffy in Wrecked - who was I without the magic? Just some ordinary girl. Tara didn't know that girl, she didn't love that girl. But Oz did. And here Willow is sitting opposite OZ and OZ has everything she wants, the wife, the baby, the home, the life. OZ also has control over his power - something Willow continues to struggle with. But then, OZ, never had Willow's insecurities. Another person to contrast Willow and OZ with is Amy. Amy is in some respects Willow's Monroe. Willow and Buffy attempted at one point to help Amy - way back in Season 1, Witch. But she failed. Amy goes down the same road her mother did. She gives into the power, lets it take her over.
Buffy wants to know if OZ can help her control her power? It's an odd question. Because I don't believe that Buffy's power is controlling her.
It is not the same as OZ's. The difficulty Buffy is having with power is with perception. Or how others perceive her power. She's begun to buy into some of the propaganda that Twilight has been spreading.
This brings me to Twilight...who is still a mystery. It is at the moment unclear who Twilight is supposed to represent in Buffy's life. He could be just about anyone. There are a few characters that I am willing to bet you that he's not, just because it is simply not logical or plausible either thematically, characterwise, or plotwise for Twilight to be these characters. There are others...that yes, there is a way you could plausibly do it.
My guess, however, is Twilight is not who most fans think he is, my guess is that he is a character that showed up literally in the first season of the series and people have not so much forgotten as overlooked because the character is not magical or supernatural in nature. But the character, if you pay close attention, has been mentioned and referred to indirectly throughout, and several of the villians have been metaphorical references to this character or how Buffy is struggling with her relationship with this specific character. The character I'm referring to is one that the writer has neatly skipped around. Yet, this character has, if you think about it, been directly mentioned or appeared in just about every season of the series, with the possible exception of Season 7 and 8.
Going back to OZ...OZ discusses how the power can be controlled if they want it bad enough. But if they don't, if it doesn't take root in their soul - it can be more dangerous than not trying at all...which is when the wolf pops out of the trees and tries to attack them. Tempering power is a difficult thing. OZ is stating that it is not about giving up the power, but choosing to find other ways to fight your battles without relying solely upon that power. In other words - when you fight people - you might want to use other means. This approach reminds me a little of Spike and the chip. How Spike had to find other ways of dealing with people that did not include hitting or hurting them physically. It is also an addiction metaphor - power can be addictive.
Buffy's group is overwhelmingly female, with a few male friends or supporters. Andrew is described as the womanly man by Bay. Twilight's group in contrast is overwhelmingly male. As is the organization - the military.
Riley does not quite appear to be the minion that I originally thought he was. I'm guessing double agent. He says a couple of things to Twilight that lead me to believe he's not quite on board. He says that he believes it is unlikely they are in the mountains, and seems to be attempting to get Twilight to look elsewhere. Granted it's not that helpful to either party, Twilight or Buffy, but Riley was not known for being overly effective. He's, like it or not, cowboy guy. At any rate, I am guessing that Riley will be the one who tells Buffy who Twilight is and if I'm right about who Twilight is - well, the twist will similar in some respects to what they attempted to do in AYW, but instead of being a parallel episode of Into the Woods, it will be a parallel to The I in Team. I'm seeing a huge plot-twist coming up on this one.
The writer's have a lot of fun with punnery. Not a fan of puns. I find them a bit obvious and grating as a result, but Jane Espenson loves them to pieces.
Twilight: Kill the man that found this "spike".
or
"It's a pretty big Spike."
Riley:"Spike?"
"A Spike in Magic Usage."
Which for reasons that escape me lead some people online to think that Spike might be Twilight. You're kidding right? Because if you aren't? That's troll logic.
Personally, I think the writer is just poking fun at the reader and the word is meaningless - it's bit like the sex jokes they did with Kenny and Dawn. Wouldn't read anything more than that into it. The writers did the same thing with numbered t-shirts in the 6th season of Buffy. They like to make fun of their fans and themselves.
Will Spike and Angel factor into the story at some point? Yes. Just not in the way most people seem to think. Twilight is not going to be Spike or Angel. Nor is Giles, Xander, Andrew, or Riley (obviously). I think Twilight is going to be someone far worse than all of these people put together...someone that Buffy has been avoiding dealing with and many of her issues regarding who she is as a slayer and her role in the world revolve around. I think Twilight is Hank Summers. Because Hank Summers knows Buffy better than anyone. And Hank Summers is the ghost that haunts all of her relationships with men. She stops seeing him more or less after I Will Always Remember You. When she returns from the dead - she barely mentions him. And when her mother dies - she mentions him constantly, asks for him, wonders if he called. When he doesn't...she gives up.
Each of Buffy's relationships outside of Satsu have been with older men.
Men like Angel (247 years older), Spike (126 years), Robin Wood (10-15 years), and Riley (5-6 years, if that). Angel and the Master enter her life as her father leaves it. So does Giles. In Season 2, Angel takes her skating, her father is barely there. And her father doesn't do anything for her birthday that year, instead she sleeps with Angel. In Season 3, her father stand her up. In Season 4 - she visits him, but is crushed by her visit with Angel in LA. In Season 5 - he doesn't return phone calls.
In Season 6 - they are doing everything possible to avoide the father taking Dawn away from Buffy. And in Normal Again - Buffy's parents are together, she sees both her mother and her father. In Season 7...he isn't mentioned, but Caleb shows up as "Father Caleb" in a priest's outfit and calls Buffy a dirty girl. Caleb shows up again in Always Darkest - and is presiding at Buffy's wedding, as Father Caleb, Hank Summers no where in sight.
Twilight to me, sounds a lot like Ted, a lot like The Mayor, a lot like The MAster, and a lot like Adam, but also a bit like Hank Summers. The father...that lies unmentioned in the tale - yet all of the above in some way or other represent. And it is a horror tale. The sick mother has already made an appearance. Where oh where is the disapproving father? Up until now, we've seen him portrayed by big bads such as Caleb, The Mayor and The Master. Also the Watcher Council and Giles - who are the nicer version.
OZ's discussion about power, about restraining the beast inside is a recurring theme in this tale. But it's not the only one. And the bit about Monroe...is in some respects a statement about many of the people in Buffy's own past including Amy, Jonathan, Warren, Riley, Willow...the list goes on. Spike and Angel are a bit more like OZ, except Angel bottles his up and treats it like MR. Hyde - a separate entity, while Spike like OZ struggles with his. But neither are Monroe. Buffy fears Willow will become a Monroe - one of the many reasons Buffy has come to OZ for help.
But is Buffy right this time? Is OZ's way the only answer? I don't think it is. I think there's different types of power and I don't think Buffy necessarily is struggling with her's as much as she believes. The difference between Buffy and the others, is she never really wanted it.
She always wanted to be the normal girl. She sacrifices the slayer in S5 to save the normal girl. She does the opposite of what he sister states.
In S7, she shares her power instead of taking more. Unlike Oz, Buffy doesn't relish the power. She enjoys it, but I think she pushes against it.
Her difficulty is she is buying what those around her are saying, she's allowing them to define her power and who she is.
Curious to see if anyone notices. Hee. I'll probably copy the post to my lj at a later point.
Just finished reading issue 27 of Buffy S8 comic books, written by Jane Espenson and produced by Joss Whedon. Before reading the comic - I had read several reviews by people online regarding it, notably the top three stormwreath, beergoodfoamy, aycheb...haven't seen 2maggie2's yet. So, I went in with rather low expectations - and ended up being rather surprised. This happens a lot with reviews - someone will review a film, book, or tv show - I'll see it and wonder, okay, were we reading or watching the same thing? Because that's not how I saw or read or experienced it at all. One of the most frustrating things and entertaining things about human interaction is how diverse and at times contradictory our perceptions of shared experiences and reality truly are. How many times have you spoken to someone at work or in your family or online and thought - where is the person coming from? I just don't get how they can possibly see it that way? And wander off shaking your head in bewilderment?
There's a little speech at the end of Lessons in S7 of Buffy. It ends with this line:
"It's not about right. It's not about wrong. It's about power."
I think that is the overarcing theme of the series. How people handle power and what power means. Who has it. Who wants it. What they are willing to do to take it. And once they have it - how they handle it.
My guess is to a degree supported by comments made in assorted commentaries and interviews by the writers themselves - stating that they wanted to explore power, and the dark impulses of power.
In Retreat we are reintroduced to OZ. A character who left the series in Season 4 because of his inability to control his own dark impulses, the wolf inside him. In Fear Itself - he warns Willow about her power and says that he knows what it is like to lose control of it, to give into it, and let it take over...he's no longer there, it's the wolf. Later in Wild at Heart - he does give in to the wolf, he does let it take over with Veruca, and it almost causes him to kill Willow. He leaves because of it. Veruca tells him to let it take control - to give into his darker nature, that this is who he is, to be the wolf. The wolf she says is the best part of him.
Veruca's speech in Wild at Heart reminds me of other speechs in the series...the first is Darla's to Angel in the episode Angel, where she tells him that he needs to give in to his true nature, that he is a vampire, to be who he is. In Crush - Drusilla says much the same thing to Spike - wires in the brain, they lie, you are a bad dog. And then there's Willow, who Amy tells to let herself loose, to give in to it - in Smashed and Wrecked. Spike tells Buffy the same thing in Season 6. In Life Serial - he tells her that she is the slayer, dark, like him, that she doesn't belong out there. She's a hunter. His words in Life Serial, Smashed, Wrecked, Dead Things, and Doublemeat Palace echo Dracula's in Buffy vs. Dracula. He says in Dead Things the same line he says in Life Serial - you don't belong with them, you belong in the dark with me. And in Normal Again - he says it - tell your friends about us - if they reject you, join me in the dark, if they accept you join them in the light. His line in Normal Again if you listen closely echoes Veruca's line to OZ, and it also echoes the First Evil's lines to Angel in Amends, and Spike in Showtime and Bring on the Night.
Now, in Retreat Part II - we have the following bits of dialogue:
OZ: Sometimes I wanted to just...just relax and give in.
Buffy (whispers with a sort of wistful look of understanding): Just give in.[Like she did in S6 with Spike and has from time to time since, she struggles with the desire daily.]
OZ: I wanted to lose myself in it. But I didn't.
Instead he meets Bay who introduces him to another spiritual path.
OZ: It turns out the secret isn't in bottling up the wolf. The wolf doesn't like that. But in letting that energy pass through you into the earth, the sky, the living plants. Don't be a lake be a river. Have a life.
When I read this, I was reminded a bit of a scene between Buffy and Willow and Spike in Get it Done. Where Buffy tells Willow and Spike to stop bottling up their power, to use it to help her. To stop being afraid of it.
She says something similar to Kendra in What's My Line - feel, don't bottle, your emotions give you power. But the problem is the power takes over - in Get it Down - Spike gives into his darker impulse, but the demon comes out, or Willow's eyes turn dark and she takes her power from someone else, just as Spike pulls his from a dead slayer's jacket.
Buffy: I'm not a great quite sitter and looker.
OZ: It works when the moon is full. You feel the wolf approach. You let the wolf pass through you. Without taking you. And the wolf is pulled into the earth.
The metaphor here is the wolf represents the primal, the darker impulse, the power. OZ is powerful when he is the wolf. But if he can't control it, the power controls him. He is taken over by it. He is no longer human, he has no compass, no soul, he is wolf. Power. When he denies the power, the aggression, the primal, dark impulses - represses them, pretends they don't exist - he also loses control. They control him not the other way around. It's what happens when we bottle up emotions - we let the emotions control us. Or rage - the rage takes over. Emotions as Buffy tells Kendra are power - but if we can't control them, we become the victim of our own emotions. A real life example - recently on the news a man went into a gym and killed over four people - opened fire and shot them. He was filled with hate. It was bottled up inside him. He did not show his emotions. Instead he ranted and raved on the net and in his head. He bottled them up.
Finally they took control. And he lost himself to the hate and rage. He became the wolf. The wolf took control. In Joss Whedon's horror stories this is a common theme - the film Serenity is about what happens when you either do away with emotion, remove those powerful impusles or bottle them up in such a way that people go insane.
OZ tells Buffy that a man came to him, named Monroe, a great sufferer, who they helped. Monroe was so pleased he left to spread the word and brought back followers. Then suddenly they discovered they had rival competition. They they'd found the only and they were willing to get violent to prove it.
OZ: He went out into the world too soon. We blame ourselves. We got tempted, forgot to focus, to let the power pass through him. Now he heads a group that thinks like..
Willow:Like Veruca [Veruca and like Willow - who gives in herself to the darker impulse in Season 6.]
OZ: Yeah. They think the wolf is the best part of us. [Simone states it in Predators and Prey to Buffy - the slayer is the best part of us. Faith states much the same thing in Bad Girls and Faith, Hope, Trick as does Kendra at the end of What's My Line.]
Dawn: Hey! That's like Slayers. The Demon part is the part that you are and the old human part is the weak, rejected part that gets tossed aside..um that's how some wrong people might see it.
Dawn is making it rather black and white, which OZ has clearly stated above that it's not. He says that both parts are important. What hits me is something I remember from my old women's studies courses in college and myth and meaning lectures - "the demon woman". The woman is two things - the nice, pretty girl, who caters to the male needs, who shops, and has babies, and cooks, and nurtures - then she's the demon, the nag, the evil EVE, the temptress. Whedon in the episode Family - writes about a male patriarch who informs Tara's friends that she is a demon. That upon her 18th birthday - when she becomes a "Woman" - her demon aspect will emerge.
She will become powerful and they should watch out. In Celtic mythology - the goddess mythos was the mother - devourer and nuturer. Often blood was associated with the demon woman. During the full moon she'd bleed...and be unclean. Some cultures in ancient times would put her away from the rest of the tribe, secluded until her period of uncleaniness was over. The menstruation - which took place during the full moon or the hour of the wolf. Fearful that her blood would contaminate and hurt those around her.
In other cultures she was worshipped during this period and placed with her sisters inside a red tent, pampered, and treated like royalty.
In Nightmares - S1, Hank Summers tells Buffy in her nightmare that he wants nothing to do with her, that she is obnoxious, whiny, weak. That she is the reason for their divorce. How could he stand her. The nightmare happens on the day that she is supposed to go to the ice capades that evening with her father, they do it once a year. He is picking her up.
Instead they have this discussion, as they are having it - the boy Billy shows up. The nightmares that follow include failing a test, being buried alive, or having to dig her way out of her own grave, and becoming a vampire because the Master has killed her. Of these nightmares - all but the first have ironically come true in some off-kilter way. (Well the first and not becoming a vampire.) Hank Summers and Buffy's nightmare about becoming a demon are revisted in Restless, where Hank is notably missing from her dream, but Riley is there as is Adam and her fear of being a demon.
OZ relates at this point a story about Monroe's clan attacking them and how Bay, his wife, turns into a wolf and saves his life. Bay states she probably made a mistake making him a matyr.
Monroe believes the wolf is the best part of him. This is similar actually to Simone's group of rogue slayers - who have decided the slayer is the best part. It also fits with Harmony - who sees being a vampire the best thing ever. Contrast with Angel and Spike who struggle with themselves - both want to be men, but enjoy the power of being vampire. Or Willow - who equally struggles with this duality. As she tells Buffy in Wrecked - who was I without the magic? Just some ordinary girl. Tara didn't know that girl, she didn't love that girl. But Oz did. And here Willow is sitting opposite OZ and OZ has everything she wants, the wife, the baby, the home, the life. OZ also has control over his power - something Willow continues to struggle with. But then, OZ, never had Willow's insecurities. Another person to contrast Willow and OZ with is Amy. Amy is in some respects Willow's Monroe. Willow and Buffy attempted at one point to help Amy - way back in Season 1, Witch. But she failed. Amy goes down the same road her mother did. She gives into the power, lets it take her over.
Buffy wants to know if OZ can help her control her power? It's an odd question. Because I don't believe that Buffy's power is controlling her.
It is not the same as OZ's. The difficulty Buffy is having with power is with perception. Or how others perceive her power. She's begun to buy into some of the propaganda that Twilight has been spreading.
This brings me to Twilight...who is still a mystery. It is at the moment unclear who Twilight is supposed to represent in Buffy's life. He could be just about anyone. There are a few characters that I am willing to bet you that he's not, just because it is simply not logical or plausible either thematically, characterwise, or plotwise for Twilight to be these characters. There are others...that yes, there is a way you could plausibly do it.
My guess, however, is Twilight is not who most fans think he is, my guess is that he is a character that showed up literally in the first season of the series and people have not so much forgotten as overlooked because the character is not magical or supernatural in nature. But the character, if you pay close attention, has been mentioned and referred to indirectly throughout, and several of the villians have been metaphorical references to this character or how Buffy is struggling with her relationship with this specific character. The character I'm referring to is one that the writer has neatly skipped around. Yet, this character has, if you think about it, been directly mentioned or appeared in just about every season of the series, with the possible exception of Season 7 and 8.
Going back to OZ...OZ discusses how the power can be controlled if they want it bad enough. But if they don't, if it doesn't take root in their soul - it can be more dangerous than not trying at all...which is when the wolf pops out of the trees and tries to attack them. Tempering power is a difficult thing. OZ is stating that it is not about giving up the power, but choosing to find other ways to fight your battles without relying solely upon that power. In other words - when you fight people - you might want to use other means. This approach reminds me a little of Spike and the chip. How Spike had to find other ways of dealing with people that did not include hitting or hurting them physically. It is also an addiction metaphor - power can be addictive.
Buffy's group is overwhelmingly female, with a few male friends or supporters. Andrew is described as the womanly man by Bay. Twilight's group in contrast is overwhelmingly male. As is the organization - the military.
Riley does not quite appear to be the minion that I originally thought he was. I'm guessing double agent. He says a couple of things to Twilight that lead me to believe he's not quite on board. He says that he believes it is unlikely they are in the mountains, and seems to be attempting to get Twilight to look elsewhere. Granted it's not that helpful to either party, Twilight or Buffy, but Riley was not known for being overly effective. He's, like it or not, cowboy guy. At any rate, I am guessing that Riley will be the one who tells Buffy who Twilight is and if I'm right about who Twilight is - well, the twist will similar in some respects to what they attempted to do in AYW, but instead of being a parallel episode of Into the Woods, it will be a parallel to The I in Team. I'm seeing a huge plot-twist coming up on this one.
The writer's have a lot of fun with punnery. Not a fan of puns. I find them a bit obvious and grating as a result, but Jane Espenson loves them to pieces.
Twilight: Kill the man that found this "spike".
or
"It's a pretty big Spike."
Riley:"Spike?"
"A Spike in Magic Usage."
Which for reasons that escape me lead some people online to think that Spike might be Twilight. You're kidding right? Because if you aren't? That's troll logic.
Personally, I think the writer is just poking fun at the reader and the word is meaningless - it's bit like the sex jokes they did with Kenny and Dawn. Wouldn't read anything more than that into it. The writers did the same thing with numbered t-shirts in the 6th season of Buffy. They like to make fun of their fans and themselves.
Will Spike and Angel factor into the story at some point? Yes. Just not in the way most people seem to think. Twilight is not going to be Spike or Angel. Nor is Giles, Xander, Andrew, or Riley (obviously). I think Twilight is going to be someone far worse than all of these people put together...someone that Buffy has been avoiding dealing with and many of her issues regarding who she is as a slayer and her role in the world revolve around. I think Twilight is Hank Summers. Because Hank Summers knows Buffy better than anyone. And Hank Summers is the ghost that haunts all of her relationships with men. She stops seeing him more or less after I Will Always Remember You. When she returns from the dead - she barely mentions him. And when her mother dies - she mentions him constantly, asks for him, wonders if he called. When he doesn't...she gives up.
Each of Buffy's relationships outside of Satsu have been with older men.
Men like Angel (247 years older), Spike (126 years), Robin Wood (10-15 years), and Riley (5-6 years, if that). Angel and the Master enter her life as her father leaves it. So does Giles. In Season 2, Angel takes her skating, her father is barely there. And her father doesn't do anything for her birthday that year, instead she sleeps with Angel. In Season 3, her father stand her up. In Season 4 - she visits him, but is crushed by her visit with Angel in LA. In Season 5 - he doesn't return phone calls.
In Season 6 - they are doing everything possible to avoide the father taking Dawn away from Buffy. And in Normal Again - Buffy's parents are together, she sees both her mother and her father. In Season 7...he isn't mentioned, but Caleb shows up as "Father Caleb" in a priest's outfit and calls Buffy a dirty girl. Caleb shows up again in Always Darkest - and is presiding at Buffy's wedding, as Father Caleb, Hank Summers no where in sight.
Twilight to me, sounds a lot like Ted, a lot like The Mayor, a lot like The MAster, and a lot like Adam, but also a bit like Hank Summers. The father...that lies unmentioned in the tale - yet all of the above in some way or other represent. And it is a horror tale. The sick mother has already made an appearance. Where oh where is the disapproving father? Up until now, we've seen him portrayed by big bads such as Caleb, The Mayor and The Master. Also the Watcher Council and Giles - who are the nicer version.
OZ's discussion about power, about restraining the beast inside is a recurring theme in this tale. But it's not the only one. And the bit about Monroe...is in some respects a statement about many of the people in Buffy's own past including Amy, Jonathan, Warren, Riley, Willow...the list goes on. Spike and Angel are a bit more like OZ, except Angel bottles his up and treats it like MR. Hyde - a separate entity, while Spike like OZ struggles with his. But neither are Monroe. Buffy fears Willow will become a Monroe - one of the many reasons Buffy has come to OZ for help.
But is Buffy right this time? Is OZ's way the only answer? I don't think it is. I think there's different types of power and I don't think Buffy necessarily is struggling with her's as much as she believes. The difference between Buffy and the others, is she never really wanted it.
She always wanted to be the normal girl. She sacrifices the slayer in S5 to save the normal girl. She does the opposite of what he sister states.
In S7, she shares her power instead of taking more. Unlike Oz, Buffy doesn't relish the power. She enjoys it, but I think she pushes against it.
Her difficulty is she is buying what those around her are saying, she's allowing them to define her power and who she is.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-08 09:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-08 04:09 pm (UTC)Let me explain.
1. What has Hank Summers been doing for the last several years? What is his business? We aren't really told. All Buffy says is he went to Europe with his secretary and is busy elsewhere and she can't send Dawn to him. Then in Season 7, she tells Holden Webster that her father cheated on her mother. We are never told by the writers what her father does exactly.
2. What was Hank's reaction to Buffy seeing vampires and fighting? In Normal Again, Buffy tells Willow that her parents put her in a mental health facility when she saw vampires as a small child. And in Becoming, Buffy's parents are fighting partly over her. He blames Joyce for Buffy's behavior. And when Buffy is distant during the summer after S1, Hank just buys her clothes and shoes - we get no more info. We have almost no information.
3. Where is Hank Summers? The fact Hank's been absent from the series for three years. We don't hear from him at all from the second portion of S4 through now. He's referred to, but as the absent father who has not been in touch. In Bargaining - they tell the Buffybot not to answer the phone because they are afraid Hank Summers will discover Buffy is dead and he'd recognize that the Buffbot is not his daughter. But he never calls. She has problems with money and social services, but her father never intervenes or is mentioned. Giles shows up. But not Hank. Giles even asks about Hank once or twice during S5 when Joyce is sick and when she dies.
Hank never appears or calls.
4. Buffy has died twice, but Hank has been nowhere in sight. Granted he probably wasn't told. But what about Joyce? After she died, you'd think?
5. What do we know about Hank Summers as a person? Very little.
Except how Buffy feels about him and her struggle with his absence.
She has to a degree adopted Giles as her father.
How would you do it? The writers could easily with little effort state Hank was working with the government to develop weapons technology and was deep undercover. And that's why he went overseas. The reason he wasn't in touch with his family - may be because he saw Buffy as dangerous? And preferred the second family. Buffy alludes to the fact that he may have a second family with a new girlfriend in Season 5.
It wouldn't be hard to do. And it fits the on-going theme. Fathers in Buffyverse tend to be disapproving and neglectful.
I don't know if that's where they are going. But it is the most logical and easiest answer. Everyone else requires a lot of retconning to make it plausible. Andrew, Xander, Giles - two places at the same time? Harth - from the future? Spike and Angel - again two places at the same time and the fact that they happen to be doing something completely contradictory to Twilight in the IDW books. Adam? He was killed. Granted they could make another one. Forrest? Also dead. Robin Wood? Two places at the same time and it just doesn't fit his character profile, you'd have to do a lot retconning. It's easier to make Twilight someone everyone knows but doesn't. A character we think we know quite a bit about, but when we think about it, hard, we realize we know almost nothing - the only character I can think of that fits that description is Hank Summers. Hank Summers is also the only character from Buffy's past that I can think of that would be able to get Riley to follow him and the military. Ethan Raine? No, again a lot of retconning.
But, considering the fact that the writers retconned the hell out of Warren's arc...it's possible they'll go with someone else. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-08 10:10 am (UTC)The other meta reason I have for distrusting where things might be going is the whole Twilight secret identiy issue. Which got brought up very neatly and humourously but I never cared who the sekret Cylons were on BSG and I can’t see feeling anything but anticlimactic about whoever Twilight turns out to be. There seems to be plenty of motivation for the character to do what he’s doing without making it a personal vendetta. But we’ll see, it will be better once the reveal is revealed and we can get on with the story.