Walking Dead, Buffy Shipping Redux

[shadowkat]

1. Watched Walking Dead last night, against my better judgement. Spent the majority of the episode worried they were going to kill off my favorite character, actually make that the only character I like outside of maybe Daryl. They didn't. But it was touch and go for a while there. Actually I think Andrea may be the break out character of the series.



It should be noted that I've never read or seen the comics. I just know what the writers have said about them in interviews and other people online have stated. Such as Shane died at the end of maybe the second or third issue - fairly early on in the series and was killed by Carl to protect his father. A sword barring fighter pops up, a ninja type - who is a fan favorite. And there's a fort controlled by the Governor, who basically throws people in a gladiator style ring to fight off zombies.

In the series, Rick killed Shane, Carl killed Zombie!Shane and for the first time we saw what happens inside the human when the monster takes over. The series keeps underlying how the walking dead or zombies are literally a metaphor for disease. The "on-coming plague" which you can't stop. It moves slowly, but you can't outrun it, you can't hide, and you can't stop it. The human fear of disease is what a zombie exemplifies or is a metaphor for.
Vampires tend to represent addiction and sexual perversity, zombies disease and mindless violence. Both are about hunger - one for sex, for acquiring life, and the other for devoring or consuming life. I prefer vampires - find them to be more interesting, plus less gross. But that's just me. Zombies aren't really my thing. Not a fan of illness or disease. But perverse sex, sexual violence, and sucking life...I can deal with. Weird, considering my fear of spiders. But I don't claim to make sense.

According to interviews - the writers of the series, which includes the creator and writer of the comics, want to do the samuri girl and the governor who does gladiator battles. From the finale of this season - my guess is that will definitely be next season.
We see the samuri girl pop up, saving Andrea's life, with her two chained and armless zombies in tow. She's hooded, so hard to know if it's actually a girl. And we see Fort Bragg loom omniously in the distance. I'm guessing that's the Governor.

Rick actually became interesting. I like Lincoln who portrays him. The acting in this series is better than the writing. He's spiel to the survivors was ...interesting. They surprised me, I didn't expect Rick to reveal that he killed his best friend in self-defense this soon, to everyone (but Andrea who is racing through the woods for her life). I admittedly didn't care about Rick or the survivors through any of this, and just wanted to know if Andrea survived. Outside of maybe Rick and Daryl, the others can be devoured by zombies for all I care. Okay, that's not entirely true...I sort of like Glenn, Maggie, and the black guy (who I kept wishing would just dump whiny Lori and the blond girl by the side of the road and keep on trucking.) Herschel is growing on me - he's a more dangerous and helpful Dale. They've basically replaced Dale with Herschel, and Shane..
I'm not sure who they've replaced Shane with. They did need to get rid of a few - so Jimmy and Maribeth (who I never knew and so didn't care about) got killed pretty brutally.
Was sort of rooting for Carol to buy it too - but no, apparently Daryl and Carol are in the next item. Did love their exchange. Daryl: "What do you want exactly, a hero?"
Carol: "Yes, I want someone with honor." Daryl: "Rick has honor." Carol:"Than why doesn't he do something - show some backbone?" Well, now he has. Happy? (Rick: You can leave and get killed by zombies in the dark, or you can stay here. I don't care. But if you stay this isn't a democracy any longer! (nor should it be...in these situations, you really can't have a democracy, it's do or die. Otherwise you might as well be herding cats across the countryside, actually cats would be easier to herd.)

Best line was Herschel's: I know it says in Revelations that come judgment day, that Christ would raise the dead and dead would walk, but I honestly thought he had something different in mind. (you think? LOL! Don't mind me, irreverent religious lines always make me laugh.)

Finally? Andrea rocks. She managed to get away from the farmhouse on foot, by herself. She's the only one who did. With a ton of weapons. And ran through the woods. I'm really hoping Samuri Girl and Andrea become a Themla and Louise for this series - that I will watch. Wicked cool.



2. Buffy shipping redux. Was reading scanning Mark Watches again and it may be too soon to tell, but I'm going out on a limb to predict that no, Mark, will not be a Spuffy fan. I did want to reply to his post though, but they'd kill me on the spoilers.

* Spike in Giles bathtub, chained up - this had to launch a dozen fanfics. (Yes, it did, but actually it launched even more Spuffy fics.)
* Where's Wesely? Maybe he and Joyce are having babies? (eww, and this guy thought Spuffy was eww...seriously.) ME: No, he's on Angel, making googly eyes at Cordy. (He doesn't know Wes went to Angel? I'm not sure I believe that. Anymore than I'm sure I believe he didn't know Cordy went there...casting spoilers are pretty hard to avoid, particularly when they are "main" cast members.)
* "I know Willow isn't gay, but she's my gay best friend...and we can talk about the woe of boys..." (Hee. Actually...she likes girls better.)
* "Buffy/Spike - eww...I covered my eyes during this.." (sigh, he's not going to like S6. Although hard to know for certain, can't remember what I thought about Something Blue when it first aired or Spuffy. I don't think I was a shipper...at that point I found Spike a bit creepy. So...I will give Whedon credit for building that relationship. Granted, I've been told that Mark knows about the A/R just not when or where - so that may be why he's reacting in this manner.)

This brings me to ships and subjectivity or what triggers folks.

1. Buffy/Angel - I couldn't stand that ship after IWARY and the Faith cross-over. I found what Angel did in IWARY unforgiveable. Worse than the A/R scene. In part because he NEVER realizes he did anything wrong and does the same thing over and over again. He never realizes that he violated Buffy in a horrific way. He raped her of her memories, her bit of life, so he could cling to immortality and be a "champion". And he never realizes it.
Memories make us who we are. Then he does it again - in S4, which did not surprise me in the least, because that's Angel. He rapes his friends of their memories so that Connor can live a normal life. Doesn't give them a choice. Doesn't care. He does it for his own legacy, his own immortality. It's a typical noir hero thing to do, actually, and fit the character and the series. But it made it impossible for me to like or sympathsize with the character. The whole memory thing I found difficult to deal with. Granted Willow does exactly the same thing and deliberately - but she does pay for it, everyone knows, and she shows remorse, she realizes she did something wrong...and she's not self-righteous about it like Angel is. Both characters bugged me. But Angel was worse.

2. The AR felt less deliberate than Angel's actions, Spike was clearly not in his right mind at the time, he didn't have a soul - so no moral compass, and he regretted so deeply that he sought a soul to ensure it wouldn't happen again, not realizing that getting a soul wouldn't be enough to ensure this. I saw no intent from Spike. It didn't feel like an active choice. He didn't plan it. It wasn't malice aforethought - and I'm sorry I've been trained to think about this from a legal perspective. Did the character plan it? What was their motivation? Did they show remorse? Would they have done something different?
And did they gain anything? Spike's character is vastly different than Angel, and which you prefer or despise, etc, has a lot to do with what bugs and turns you on. For me - Spike seemed to be more about the rush, the high, he doesn't really think it through...he jumps in. Angel on the other hand thought about it, worked at it, planned it. Angel always intended to hurt - he got off on creating monsters, Spike...really never thought about it, enjoyed the fight, the blood rush, the seduction. At least that is how I saw them. I know mileage varies on this - I have the kerfuffle wounds to prove it. And once upon a time, I adored Angel, now...I find his character difficult to like. In a way, I preferred how Being Human dealt with the Angel character trope - the guilty guy who never really takes action to deal with his addiction or to show his remorse, just whines about being cursed with the addiction.

3. So for me? I could never understand why people couldn't forgive Spike for the AR, who couldn't see him with Buffy after that. Because I did not see or interpret the scene the way they did. Any more than I interpret or see the episodes IWARY or Home the same way others have. But, I'm not being entirely truthful, when I say this. I do understand in a way and I can see the other point of view, I've always been able to play devil's advocate with myself. I can hear the other side of the argument even now. Spike attacked her physically in a brutal way, Angel just undid time - she never remembered it, so where's the pain? Where's the harm, if you can't remember the pain? If you have no memory of the act? Isn't physical rape worse than mental rape? It's a question Whedon posed in Dollhouse.
Demonstrating that no, mental rape is in some ways worse...because we lose who we are. But then again...I think this is question that can't be generalized. There's no one answer.

At any rate, the only ship that survived that series...was Spuffy, the only character I loved and was obsessed with afterwards was Spike. I don't know why that is. It just is.
Everyone else...I sort of grew away from or out of. In part it is the comics, which I stopped reading after S8. In part...it is my own interactions with fandom, complete with personality conflicts. (I should note, I have a lot of people on my flist who loved Bangle and Angel, and still do...I understand, and I don't, much as I'm certain they understand my love for Spuffy and Spike, and they don't.)

God, I went too late. Damn it.

Okay before stopping...here's the thing about taste [ETA: and interpretation]? You won't understand someone else's taste or interpretation any more than you can walk a mile with their feet. You can't understand how they react to things, except to know it most likely will be different than you do. The reasons for the differences are vast. But the fact they exist, the fact you don't like the same things...see the world very differently - is a good thing. It makes us unique. It means we are less likely to destroy the world. There will always be someone who fights us, when we do something dumb. And...we are never alone, because as much as it may seem that no one is on our side or agrees with us or shares our taste? We are wrong. There's always someone who does.



[ETA: Don't hurt me for my opinions people, Angel and Connor don't exist. I do. Pray, Keep that in mind. Also there are various ways to interpret things. AND time to remind you all: "Your Friends aren't watching the same tv show you are (even if it looks like it) and that's okay!" ]

Comments

[ms-scarletibis.livejournal.com]

Willow's memory wipes of Tara I could handle - because they were temporary. And Tabula Rasa - was just funny and also temporary, nothing changed, except Tara left Willow and Willow was called out on her behavior.

But Willow has sex with Tara after the mind wipes. TR was a temporary mind wipe because the stone is broken, but I don't believe Tara got back the many other memory wipes that Willow did to her. In OMWF, we see a nice little pile of Lethe's Bramble on their dresser, and I don't think if Tara had all of her memories, she would have gone to bed with a smile on her face. Her consent to sex was gone, so to me, that's why it's a bigger violation. That's all.

Thank you so much for your response. You clearly understood the thrust of my post and I highly appreciate it!

No problem. Thanks for sharing the post :) It's nice to click on a rec'd link and not have it be f-locked.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Ah, see the sex bit doesn't bug me. I can see why it may bug others...it just never bothered me that much. While Angel rewriting people's history to suit himself ...seems to really bug me. Sex is temporary. You get over it. But you don't get over losing your memories and yourself.

I think Tara more or less said this to Willow - it was the tampering with her mental state that made it difficult for her to be with Willow, particularly after what Glory had done.

People shouldn't rec flocked posts...I don't think. It's sort of counter to the whole point of flocking. ;-) I mean if the person wanted the post to be rec'd, why would why they flock it?? People bewilder me. ;-)

[local-max.livejournal.com]

I haven't been around lately, but I actually wanted to say I agree with you here. This is just absolutely personal, obviously. But it always seemed to me that the worst thing Willow did was wiping Tara's memory, and whether she had sex with Tara afterward or not doesn't really change the severity of the act much. There is the roofie metaphor, and I think it is definitely there; but it doesn't seem to be the primary metaphor to me, and so the sex aspect of the mindwipe seems not to be the biggest part of it. I think that the memory erasures are as bad as or worse than rape -- already a violation -- but I don't think that the fact that Tara said "how could you violate my mind like that?/how could you do what Glory did?" rather than "how could you rape me?" is a flaw at all. I do tend to think, too, that Angel's actions in "Home" are worse for me personally because he doesn't just take one night or one argument from Connor -- he takes a whole lifetime. Willow taking the argument from Tara's mind in All the Way vs. Angel taking the day from Buffy (and others) in IWRY is, for me, a toss-up if I go objective; if I talk about my own feelings, Angel's actions still bother me more -- but that is because I think Angel really believes that what he's done is right, whereas while Willow I think somewhat buys into her own myth, I think she is on the verge of cracking up. But some of this really just is that I "get" and like Willow more than I get and like Angel, though I do get and like Angel -- it's all personal, I think.

ETA: I actually think that the fact that the Willow/Tara violation is primarily spiritual fits in with the seasonal themes. The AR is primarily physical, because Buffy and Spike are very physical beings, Buffy is "the hand", etc. Just like the alley beating is a physical action. Willow is "the spirit," so her violation is primarily spiritual. Even when she tortures Warren -- she does it without touching him.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the response.

I think it is personal. For me the spiritual violation and mental one is harder to deal with than the physical, mainly because I live in my mind more than my body and am not a physical being.

Willow was easier to handle - because what she does, while similar to Angel - Willow like Angel often chose short-cuts or called on other powers to aid her - was less permanent. What Angel does to Buffy in IWARY is permanent. He takes a day from her life. If she remembered that day..she may have acted differently towards Riley, she may have understood that a relationship with Riley may not work. Or been more careful about things. She never gets to learn. It's erased. Only Angel gets to learn and enjoy the memory. And with Home, like you stated he steals a lifetime from Connor and various memories of the boy from his friends. He does what Willow does in both Tabula Rasa and All the Way but times three. And unlike Willow - he never regrets it. He would do it again. He sees it as the "only" way or the "best" way. And attempts to stop Wes from breaking the window - which reveals all of memories to everyone.

Willow at least appears to learn from her mistakes.

[local-max.livejournal.com]

Well -- Tara never does get her memories of that All the Way argument back, so in that sense it's "permanent." But she of course finds out about it -- and I don't think there's really any information that she's lost, in the way that Buffy completely loses that day of her life (and spends the next year of her life with Riley, the human version of Angel). With Connor, I think it's even worse. First of all, the new Connor that gets created ("They were supposed to fix that," Angel mentioned about wanting Connor to be rid of his attraction to older women, in Origin) really is a whole new identity -- he's not really "Connor" the guy we've seen in all the previous episodes, but a new person entirely. Second, he wipes crucial experiences from his friends' memories. Third, he completely alters the lives of Connor's new family without their consent. Fourth -- when he refuses to let the Orlon window be smashed, he also is risking his son's life, to preserve the illusion of his healthy life. Now -- I do see the other side to it. I think Angel is genuinely trying to do what he thinks is best; and on some level, he is giving Connor the life that he, Angel, wishes he could have -- it's almost noble in a way. But it's nobility that is all associated with the idea that Angel knows better than anyone else.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much how I read it as well and the reason I struggle with Angel.
Thank you for clarifying my own thoughts on the topic.