This, that, and the Buffy Character Wars Poll Results

[shadowkat]

1. Hot day. Stayed in during most of it. That time of month, which explains the headaches and crankiness. Although not as hot a day...as summer in the midwest or Kansas. OR for that matter Manhattan. Brooklyn is always about 10 degrees cooler than Manhattan.

2. Still reading Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale - which is the best non-literary/non-classic romance novel that I've read. (Literary/classic romance novels were written over 100 years ago and are still being read today, examples include Wuthering Heights (yes, it is a romance novel), Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Rebecca, and Anna Karina. I don't know if Thomas Hardy's novels count. But I daresay Baroness Orzy's The Scarlette Pimpernell does.

Kinsale can actually do dialect well. If you want to read a romance novel who does it correctly and consistently? Read Kinsale - she demonstrates why Kleypas' sucks at it.
Read enough books and broad enough a variety, you begin to see why some writers are better than others.

3. Buffy fandom character wars poll...

Hmmm, so far 92 people have taken my poll. Of the 92, roughly 50% have friended me (as far as I can tell...after about 92 - you get a headache reading the lj names of all of the participants and just throw up your hands and give up. Will state there are some creative lj names out there...far more creative than mine, where were you when I was coming up with my name people? Most I can't spell. Or pronounce. But that's nothing new, I can't pronounce the last names or first names of half the people I work with, which is probably a bigger problem.).

Anyhow...of the 92 to date?

[Behind the cut is my analysis of the poll results. I explain my choices. I speculate about others...(most likely I'm wrong), and do a hap-hazard and meaningless analysis.
Please don't take anything I write personally. I can't read your minds. And like I told you when you took the poll - you could change your mind tomorrow. The poll is hardly definitive. Polls never are. That's why marketing isn't a science. ]


* Over 80% prefer Buffy and/or Spike to Willow.

This is hardly surprising if you think about the characters arcs. Willow's arc was - shall we say - a wee bit controversial, and that's putting it mildly. Spike and Buffy's arcs on the other hand were a bit clearer, far more straightforward and far more heroic.

I think the writers wrote themselves into a corner with Willow, much like they did with Angel and Cordelia, and took the same lame superhero comic book way out. (They were possessed and not in their right mind at the time so can't be held accountable, wait no they are accountable because we have to redeem them, no wait they aren't. I know we'll write it both ways and let the fans argue themselves sick over it. Fans to writers? Make up your bloody minds!) *Note - if you want proof that Whedon was a shameless pulp action-hero comic book and daytime soap opera fan...there it is. That excuse is used all the time on those shows. Not sure it's used on anything else. I think it's purely a pulp genre phenomenon. Of the three, Angel, Cordy, and Willow - Angel came out of it the best, partly because Angelus always lurked under the surface and it was never quite clear how deeply he lurked. So they kept Angel delightfully dark. Willow also came out a bit better, in that she too had some agency..she chose dark magic to take vengeance and kill a human being, granted a slime-ball human being, but in a show where Andrew, Spike and Angel can be redeemed... Cordy on the other hand - arc made no sense. God made me do it? Alrighty then. I guess that sort of works. More like your own vanity. But what a way to drop-kick an interesting character. And they never really redeem her.

The other reason? Subjective, not that the above isn't, it is. Everything or most everything in fandom tends to be, which is why fandom arguments are frustratingly un-winnable and tend to derail into name-calling shouting matches. Mostly it's just that for some undefinable reason today, you prefer this guy over that one. Or rather this gal over that guy.

* Willow did moderately better against Faith...51% prefer Willow. Okay, that's hardly moderate, more like slightly. They keep getting tied.

Faith's arc is slightly better written, I suppose. But Faith's barely in either series.
Which may be why it's better written? At any rate Faith's plot line is pretty much the "traditional" approach or the one we are taught from the age of 1 to see as the way you get redeemed. Anyone who knows anything about how prisons actually work in this society knows that Faith's arc is pure fantasy, and Angel and Spike's in some respects make more sense. You don't redeem yourself in prison. Prison isn't about redemption or rehabilitation in the US. It's about vengeance, punishment, and protecting society from people who like to commit crimes. I remember a guy in prison for a bank robbery telling me that prison wasn't about rehab it was about punishment, and the punishment wasn't the cage, it was who was put in the cage with you. But that only explains why Faith's arc did little for me. Does not explain why it didn't work for anyone else. See? Subjective.
The only objective point is that it was straight-forward, consistent (well up to the episode Empty Places at any rate, but that wasn't Faith's arc that went off kilter, that was everyone else's - you can hardly blame Faith for that - well you can, but.), and
satisfying. And there it is folks, it was satisfying. I can't say Willow's arc was satisfying...if anything it was bloody unsatisfying. Too many missteps, missed opportunities, rushed writing, and muddled metaphors. So, maybe the Faith fans make more sense? I don't know, from an objective point of few - Faith had the more satisfying and tighter arc. From a subjective point of view? It was boring. Again this is all speculation, for all I know people may have picked Willow over Faith because they like Alyson Hannigan better than Eliza Dusku. OR they just think Willow was hotter.

* Anya gets 67% of the vote over Cordelia...

This from the comments was a hard one for most people. Odd. I'd have thought Spike vs. Willow or Willow vs. Faith would be the hardest choices. But admittedly I struggled with Anya vs. Cordy.

I can tell you why I picked Anya, for pretty much the same reasons I made my other choices, she had the better arc. Or more satisfying arc - is a better term for it.
Cordy's arc was fine up to the episode Birthday, when it went off the rails. I really hate that episode. That was the second time I stopped watching the show during that season.
I kept leaving Angel and being coaxed back. Because I hated the PTB/Shanshu Prophecy/Champion bit. In retrospect - I think they were trying for satire and we weren't supposed to take it seriously, much like we aren't supposed to take most of the stories on Glee seriously. Anya on the other hand, was used more sparingly in the series, much like Faith was, which may be the reason her story was more satisfying and tighter. The writers got less carried away. Sometimes minor characters get better story arcs on long-running serials because they are minor characters.

I have no idea why others did. For all I know, they just happen to like one actress better than the other, or identify with one more than the other...or any number of reasons.
Most we probably don't want to know about. Some characters just push your buttons. Cordy often pushed mine. So I get that. But so did Buffy. And Willow. And well everyone at one point or another. I'm cranky. It happens.

* 86% preferred Spike over Faith. (men and women answered this poll and both genders voted. How do I know? I looked at the user names. And most of the people responding have told me at different points their sexual orientation and gender.).

I'm guessing the reason is the same as mine. Spike's arc was more entertaining and less predictable. Note - I didn't necessarily state satisfying. He was on the show more.
Spike was all over the place, he was the villain, the comic villain, the nasty neighbor, the opportunistic informant, the hooker with the heart of gold, the tragic hero, the anti-hero, the failed romantic. Also he had a great back story - completely unpredictable.
From an objective perspective - he just had the better arc and the better dialogue.

I can only speculate as to why people did it though. Or why they chose Faith. Some people I already know - why they chose Faith. And would have been shocked if they haven't. I've read their meta on the topic. The main reason seems to be her arc was more satisfying to them from a moral perspective, much the same way many people including myself prefer Mitchell in Being Human's arc to Angel.

* 60% prefer Dawn over Connor...

Again, I'm guessing this has a lot to do with character arcs, and which was a)more satisfying and b) less controversial. Dawn admittedly had the least controversial arc (she didn't sleep with Spike or Xander (well not until the comic books at any rate - which is worth it just for NB's rant about it at a comic-con panel, with a bewildered JM who has never read the comics sitting next to him and slowly sinking below the table blushing.), and she ends up doing pretty well. Not so sure I'd call it the most satisfying. For many people it may have been the lesser than two evils, for all that I know.

I honestly don't know why people chose Dawn, I'm speculating. The choice was hard for me.
I actually like both characters. But I prefer Connor. I know, I know, people think the whole thing with Cordy was creepy. And found him to a whiny teen. But I didn't. He interested me. His arc was unpredictable, he was unpredictable. And Vincent Karthezier did the same thing with Connor, he is doing with Pete Campbell now...making this character complex, this something interesting going on behind the actor's eyes. Karthezier acts with his eyes. He reminds me a little of Jonathan Jackson - who is supposed to be on Nashville next year. I won't say Connor's arc was satisfying - it wasn't. I was as disappointed and frustrated by it as I was by Willow's. The writer's took the easy way out or the short-cut.
Even when he finds out who he is...he's alarmingly okay with it. Lazy writing. Pulp writing. It disappointed me. But everything that came before that...worked. I try to ignore the episode Origin in much the same way I'm lukewarm about Willow's episodes in S7...I felt the writer's wrote themselves into a corner and didn't know how to write themselves out of it. They took both characters too far and couldn't quite figure out how to bring them back again. Which is probably why people chose Dawn. I chose Connor, for the same reasons I chose Willow over Faith - his arc is simply more entertaining and interesting to me than Dawn's. And years later...I find I remember it and appreciate it more.

* Gunn is beating Xander by a narrow margin...he has 50.6% of the vote to Xander's 44.9%, with Riley far behind.

I know why most people didn't pick Riley.

Not quite sure about Xander and Gunn. I thought this was an easy one. I went for Xander, he had the best character arc and the most satisfying one...but that's possibly subjective.
In the latter seasons, Xander's arc sort of took a nose-dive, which is why Xander fans often don't like S5-7 all that much. After the Replacement, the writers sort of tread water with the character until Hell's Bells. He does have things to do in S5. And I actually really liked the character's arc in S5. Some great moments in there. S6 and S7 however...

Gunn's character arc...wasn't much better. Although it is the opposite of Xander's. Gunn starts out sort of a stereotype then changes and becomes darker and more interesting over time. His best seasons are 4 and 5 in my opinion. The actor was given the most to do in those seasons.

But still doesn't quite explain why. Speculation..leads me to believe people who voted for Gunn, are thinking of the latter seasons and people who voted for Xander are thinking overall or earlier seasons?

* Giles is outdoing Wes by a huge margin...67% of the vote goes to Giles.

While Wes admittedly had the more interesting arc, I voted for Giles. I just enjoyed watching Head more. Didn't matter what he did. I loved Giles. Sometimes it's as easy as that.

* Andrew and Jonathan are tied with 47% of the vote each. Warren lags behind with 5%.
People explained why they picked Warren - they can't stand the other two. So lesser of three evils approach. I picked Jonathan for the same reasons...I can't stand the other two.
I'm guessing this one may be which one you could tolerate the most. Although in retrospect, I actually did enjoy watching Jonathan and Jonathan in my opinion had the most satisfying arc...he goes from unknown outsider/damsel/victim, to wannabe villian, to wannabe redeemed hero who gets killed by his best friend...a victim in the end. A fairly realistic and unpredictable arc. Possibly one of the best of the series now that I think about it.

* Spike vs. Andrew...Spike predictably got 95.6% of the vote.

Spike from a purely objective point of view had the better arc - it was unpredictable, deep and fun. I don't know if it was satisfying for everyone?

I honestly will never in a million years be able to figure out the Andrew love. Andrew for me is like nails on a chalkboard. But I'm guessing some people may feel the same way about Spike? (If so, don't tell me.) I'm guessing people picked Andrew for the same reason they picked Faith over Spike or preferred Mitchell's arc over Angel's...and this has a lot to do with whether or not you bought Storyteller or believed in Andrew's arc in S7 or it worked for you.

* Finally, in regards to who reads Mark Watches, roughly 50% of the people taking the poll do, and 50% don't. Most of the people who read Mark appear to favor Spike over Willow, the ones who don't read Mark, favor Willow, and there's very few in that group.

Which is interesting...considering Mark loves Willow and avoids talking about Spike as much as possible. (Knowing Willow's arc and Spike's arc...I think Mark's in for a world of disappointment. I think Willow fans are less obsessed with the series and less into it now than Spike fans are. I could be wrong about that? Probably am. Never mind.)

Comments

[elisi]

Kept meaning to comment, but just never found the time. Just one thing:

Gunn is beating Xander by a narrow margin...he has 50.6% of the vote to Xander's 44.9%, with Riley far behind.
Funnily enough, this one was by far the easiest for me. I even remember thinking 'WHY would anyone choose Xander or Riley over Gunn?' (unless they were an ardent Xander fan.) And it's not that I dislike Xander or Riley, it's just... well, Gunn. It was a poll on whom you prefer to watch, and Gunn was always a pleasure to watch. Always. Whereas Xander might have a 'better arc', might objectively be a more interesting character, but damn, he can be a jerk. Yeah, still wondering - why would anyone *not* choose Gunn out of those three?

/random morning ramblings

[liliaeth]

ditto, I'd even vote Gunn over Willow, Faith, Anya, Andrew, Jonathan, Wesley, Giles and so on....


I just really really like Gunn, it's just such a pity that the writers made him a sidekick to Wesley instead of giving him his own story arcs. (esp. since I got bored by Wesley and his manpain pretty quickly)

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Yes. Of course. Gunn is a treat at all times, even when he doesn't have all that much to do.

Plus, ME finally had a main cast member of color, and didn't ruin him. It might not be fair, but I give extra points for that. (I also thought Robin Wood was a fantastic antagonist for Spike. Sue me.)

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

This is exactly why I voted for Gunn in that one...

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

I took the poll, but didn't comment. Well, it is time to do so now. :)

A lot of your choices were between favorite characters of mine, so it was a bit like picking different flavors of cream, so to speak. Faith vs Spike, for example: They both fulfill a similar role on BtVS (as Buffy's shadow selves), just Faith's arc is cut short, and the Spike's arc roars up. So, me choosing Spike over Faith? Yeah, doesn't really tell you a whole lot. ;-)

Re: Willow. I think Willow has the most interesting arc of them all when looking at it from a philosophical POV. She's not your typical pop hero - she's a Nieztschean hero, one of the great questions/observations of philosophy still unanswered. She's the Übermensch, the one without external moral guidelines. She makes the rules up as she goes. That is, to me, the most interesting concept seen on TV in a long time. For Willow, it is not about "becoming good", or "redemption" since those concepts are way too small for the character - it is about living with the power, making your own rules in negotiation with the world.

Willow is not my favorite character (that would be Buffy) but she has the best "arc", or, more precisely, her story asks the most profound questions. Which maybe stands in the way of a satisfying pop cultural "character arc", because we don't know the answers to the concept of the Übermensch. Willow cannot ever be "redeemed" because her character is beyond the puny concept of redemption. She is the one truly godless character on the show, she threw god from (his) throne and is now looking at the world with her own god-like eyes.

On Warren: I don't get the Warren-hate. Really, of the Trio he is the most fleshed out character, deeply human in his failings and horrible deeds. The other two are cardboard characters, Jonathan the most, despite us knowing him best. Andrew is - as you write - nails on chalkboards, but still more interesting than Jonathan, as in he gets more development, and we get to see his inner workings ("Storyteller"). I don't like the inclusion of Andrew to the cast (in season 7), but at least the writers make something out of it. Warren, on the other hand, is just your day-to-day horror, the human gone wrong for foreseeable reasons outside and inside of his character. I think the depiction of Warren is nearly flawless, his human nature is so palpable, his misdeeds and misgivings hit close at home. And that's maybe a reason why he is hated so much: He is too much like us, or people we know.

[local-max.livejournal.com]

Well, you know I agree with this on both Willow and Warren! :) I went with Faith instead of Spike because I've watched s3-4 more recently than s5-7, basically.

I actually like Jonathan and Andrew though....

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, YES to your entire comment about Willow. I just wrote a fic loosely based on pretty much that idea, so clearly you're having an effect on me. :)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Well, I have to say your take on Willow blew my mind. I honestly never looked at the character that way nor has any meta that I've read.

Most meta, including my own, tends to analyze the characters from a psychological angle. And I tend to look at the show from a more psychological pov. Not a philosophical one. Mostly because I think that way. Don't remember much philosophy, and found Nietzche confusing, preferred the existentialists.

As a stated in another post, a while back, if you analyze the mythology from a philosophical perspective as opposed to a psychological one, you'll get a different result. Same with the character arcs.

How you view Willow as a character has a great deal to do with how you think about the series. For example? If you are a literal thinker or have watched a lot of specials on drug abuse, you probably got irritated by the magic as drugs storyline. But if you view it on a more psychological level - you get sidetracked by Willow's hatred of her inner geek and need to be Buffy, to not be the normal girl, to be super (which is echoed by Warren, and Amy) - a sort of revenge of the nerds trope, and if you view it philosophically...well, any number of themes can emerge.

Than of course there's the simpler reactions...did I like this character because she was hot? She's gay? Her experience resonates with my own (that's Mark Watches)? I want to be buds with her? I like the actress?

See? I view things through a psychological lense. Not a philosophical one.
Which explains why your analysis blew my mind and never occurred to me.

Here's my analysis of Willow:http://shadowkat67.livejournal.com/437253.html

http://shadowkat67.livejournal.com/444538.html#cutid1

http://shadowkat67.livejournal.com/445082.html#cutid1

As a result...not sure how to relate to what you stated above. And I'm not sure that a profound question? That becoming a god, putting yourself above everyone, your views, your ideals...is beyond redemption? Isn't that what Hilter strove to do? Or other dictators...? It reminds me a lot of Ayn Rand in a way... the view that the individual should rise above everyone, seek his art, regardless of the expense or price, people don't matter - only the advancement of the ego and the self does. Is that not evil? I don't know.
Humans like to be worshipped. As does Willow. It was the difference between Willow and Buffy...Buffy never wanted to be worshipped.

[local-max.livejournal.com]

A bit more:

I will tell you my interpretation of what you've said about Willow -- which I'm not positive is what you mean, but it's hard to communicate.

How I understand it is not that Willow wants power in order to be above people, in order to be above those around her. Or, that may be an element of her power seeking at first -- but those concerns are ultimately petty and small and things she SHOULD leave behind. Willow wants to get power in order to fully express who she is. She begins nearly entirely powerless, and has potential that is entirely untapped, and it takes an encounter with Buffy, her Empowered Mentor, to let her see what power she can access. Giles also holds power, which is actually closer to the TYPE of power Willow will acquire -- knowledge! -- but he holds it down closely. Willow's power comes in part from her desires, but her desires are so deeply buried she doesn't even recognize them -- which is why she doesn't realize that she's gay, or that she resents even the people she loves.

Eventually, she accrues power, and she does it both because she likes power -- but also she realizes, step by step, that every rule she's been taught is wrong. Don't be a slut! No, it's okay to kiss a guy. She deserves to be mocked by Cordelia! No, she doesn't -- and her first action against Cordelia is NOT in defense of herself, but in defense of Buffy, whom she KNOWS doesn't deserve it. She hacks because she knows on some level that the rules don't make any sense, or doesn't understand the reasons behind them, but she also can get away with it -- and there are no specific parentally approved rules about NOT hacking, right? Further, hacking is all about repossessing/reappropriating structures that are in place for one real purpose to use for another purpose; bits of computer code designed to do X can be used to do Y instead, the way Willow eventually tries to use her ball of sunlight spell to hurt vampires; she is always using bits and pieces of different philosophies, knowledge, magic, etc., to do something else. She thinks initially that she doesn't have the right to go off campus for lunch, because that's the way the world is set up. But each itme she realizes that the world is set up to keep her down. The rules may have meant something one day, but they don't really mean what they are supposed to mean.

For Angel or Giles, breaking the rules is almost always from a position of already having the power and doing wrong. For Buffy, she already knows intuitively which rules are important and which ones aren't. Willow has no real life experience to know the difference between conventional moral rules that should be kept on, and arbitrary rules created to keep power away from people like her for no reason. In order to be useful to the gang, she HAS to accrue power, to break rules. Her spell in Becoming is accessing dark magic, and also reappropriating a vengeance spell for "good," transforming its original purpose into something else -- something good for the world. But Willow also is not ready to understand the reason the rules exist, the categories in which things apply have meaning. The vengeance spell is a vengeance spell, which means that when she does it, it DOES inflict vengeance -- on Angel and, heartbreakingly, on Buffy. Just as the dark magic she appropriates for the resurrection spell, which she thinks is a fine way to use magic -- but which, because Willow has failed to appreciate how much damage can be done by the spell, leads to, in the interim, disaster.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

Ok, I've been thinking about this since you posted it. Inspired in part by the fact that I'm working on my Restless post, I have a question: can your view of Willow explain her well-established sense of insecurity? IOW, can she be an Uebermadchen if she doesn't believe she is one?

Thanks.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I hope I didn't scare you off? Your comment was quite interesting. But unfortunately...I've only read Nietzche in English and over 20 years ago...

[spikesjojo.livejournal.com]

Some of these I'll comment on - others I can sum up. In any situation between Spike and anyone I will probably chose Spike. There are a few close contests, but overall I like him. Marsters did a superb job, and his arc is incredible.

I prefer Willow to Faith because I find her character fresher and more believable. Hated the magic as drug metaphor - it was clumsy and it was wrong. I also feel Willow was kinda screwed as her powers developed and that it was Giles fault. The man at Willow's age was raising demons - he knows the risk of untrained power, and he pushed her to do magic without ever finding her a good teacher. So I see this as Willow's choices but I regret she was denied access to the tools to make better choices. Faith was just more predictable - and slotted into one character trope that she never really seemed to leave. Not to say I didn't like her - some of her stuff was excellent. Maybe if she had had a bigger part throughout I would have liked her more.

I chose Cordy over Anya. I'm not a huge fan of either.Cordelia did grow - and I like her much more once she went to LA - until the whole HP arc and beyond. Anya annoyed me - but it wasn't her fault. She was capable of great insight but very seldom allowed to express it - and the whole orgasm joke was beaten into the ground and then dug up and beaten some more.

Dawn over Connor - that was a matter of how much I hated the whole dumb AtS series arc rather than disliking Connor. Dawn was great in season 5 - after that they should have dome something with her. She had a few good eps but they sorta turned her into a plot device. In fact, I think both were more plot devices than characters.

I like Gunn - enough conflict and growth there. I resent Xander - not enough growth there. There's the matter of the hyena rape attempt which I would be willing to let go of if he manned up. More than that he fell in love with, dated, got engaged to and walked out during his wedding to a 1,000 year old demon who had probably racked up more kills than Angelus and Spike combined, and yet he closed his eyes to that reality and stayed a total shit to Spike even after he got a soul. I don't like hypocrisy in a character - particularly when it's evident and never dealt with. I like his earlier seasons - and some parts of the later seasons, but overall I have no respect for him.

I adore both Giles and Wes. But Giles devolved and turned into a pod person in season 7. I was amazed that he allowed himself to be played so completely by the first. Wesley, even at his lowest ebb, retained a certain fairness and decency. And I would put his arc second to Spikes in where he came from and who he became.

BTW - don't recall if Tara was in there, but I really also think she was a great character completely wasted. She was on 3 seasons - spent one of them raving - one nearly gone...I would have liked to see more of her, and probably less of Anya's sex jokes.

Okay - I am lost in the Mark Watches comment. Split down the middle - most who watch favor Spike. Those who don't watch favor Willow but that's a small group? How can 50% be a small group? Am I not getting something?

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

BTW - don't recall if Tara was in there, but I really also think she was a great character completely wasted. She was on 3 seasons - spent one of them raving - one nearly gone...I would have liked to see more of her

No, Tara wasn't on the poll. Maybe the next one.

Okay - I am lost in the Mark Watches comment. Split down the middle - most who watch favor Spike. Those who don't watch favor Willow but that's a small group? How can 50% be a small group? Am I not getting something?

Well it's gone down...it's now 48%. But ...it depends on how you analyze the number.

I have about 99 people that have taken the poll to date. Of the 99, only 46 read Mark Watches. That's not that many. Granted it's a lot from 99 or roughly half. But it's still only half. I'm looking at it from a glass half empty perspective.

I honestly don't think that many people from the old or existing fandom are reading him. But there's no way of knowing for certain.

From my sampling? 46% -48% of the people taking the poll read him. Of the people taking the poll, at least 80% or more are Spike fans. I know from just glancing at the names...that most of the non-Spike fans aren't reading Mark Watches, and few of the Willow fans appear to be. Which means..going by my poll alone? He's sort of pissing off roughly 36 people, give or take.
But that's speculation. I've no idea. I'd have to do another poll and ask that question. Which...I'm not sure I want to do, because work is headache inducing enough as it is.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Good points on Anya, it's why I struggled between Anya and Cordy, both characters grated for different reasons. ;-)

[shapinglight]

I'm afraid my reasons for some of my choices are extremely shallow. I chose Anya over Cordy in the end because Anya makes me laugh more. ;)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You did it right. I just wanted a gut response.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

I was surprised by some of the votes. The Willow/Faith choice was easy for me. While I agree that Willow's arc after Wrecked was disappointing, there are 5+ good seasons before that. Faith had only a few episodes, and she went evil and was killing people. Besides, and just to push buttons, ED can't really act.

Had it not been for Storyteller, an episode which I consider top 10, I probably wouldn't have liked Andrew. That one episode really made me re-evaluate his whole character and vote for him.

Re Xander/Gunn. Anybody who remembers my posts from AtPO would be shocked -- shocked, I say -- that I voted for Xander. That's because AtS 4 is unwatchable dreck for me. Since that's probably Gunn's best season, he loses out.

Anya was a fairly easy choice over Cordy. EC is much the better actor and had better opportunities: her speech in The Body; the whole of Selfless, for example.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

From the comments above, I'm guessing you and I are in the minority regarding Gunn. He felt very stereotypical to me. Maybe I just read too many ATPO Board posts deriding how he was being used? I don't know.

There's a rather interesting comment above by norwei regarding why people voted for Willow ...that blew my mind. Granted I tended to view Willow's arc more psychologically than philosophically...so may that be why.

I honestly think how people respond to Andrew has a great deal to do with how they responded to Storyteller. Viewers who enjoyed or loved that episode responded better than viewers who didn't. I despised the episode, as you well know, so as a result, Andrew as a character never worked for me.

As for Anya/ Cordy...a wide range on that one. Spikejojo points out why Anya didn't work - too many sex jokes. True. But she did have some better stand alone episodes.

[rahirah]

I approached this differently - I wasn't considering arcs, just trying to compare sort of platonic-ideal versions of the characters and pick which one I like better. if the questions had said "Who has the better story arc?" I probably would have answered differently on some of them.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Hee. Well what I was going for was gut reactions. Which character do you enjoy watching more? Which do you prefer?

People clearly interpret this differently and in ways that never occurred to me when I created the poll. Rosegriffiths asked if I meant to hang out with, be BFF with...and I thought, huh? They are fictional characters.
You can't hang out with them, silly people. But hey, the marry, fuck, and throw off the cliff meme is going around...so I tried to clarify. And stated don't overthink this, just pick the character you enjoyed watching on tv more.

That's how I intended people to take it. And how I answered it. I picked which character I liked or preferred to watch. Then I analyzed why. Reasons vary. Some people prefer to watch characters that resonate with them personally, that make them laugh, that they'd be friends with in real life, others prefer to watch characters that validate some deep philosophical view, while others like a complex character arc or unpredictable one, and still other's want a satisfying arc.

Which makes polls difficult. Because the reasons we prefer one character to another are so...varied. It also makes character wars un-winnable. I mean, how can you argue with someone who is loving the character because they make them laugh, while you hate them because their arc sucked? Your looking at the character through two completely different angles.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

It's about vengeance, punishment, and protecting society from people who like to commit crimes. I remember a guy in prison for a bank robbery telling me that prison wasn't about rehab it was about punishment, and the punishment wasn't the cage, it was who was put in the cage with you. But that only explains why Faith's arc did little for me. Does not explain why it didn't work for anyone else. See? Subjective.


I think what was important in Faith's arc was that she chose the cage and she chose to stay within the cage. She ended up in jail because she surrendered herself to justice. And they made clear that she could break out of jail at any time (and apparently without repercussion because there never has been any... which could be an interesting fanfic topic, come to think of it). So the fact that she stayed in prison said something about the genuineness of her effort to change and that it wasn't just words.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

she could break out of jail at any time (and apparently without repercussion because there never has been any... which could be an interesting fanfic topic

Oh yes. There are some good ones, but they tend to be short. beer_good_foamy is a good place to start. Though I do think that the episode where the police go a little crazy (Bad Girls or the one after?) touched on Faith's fugitive status and made it seem scary, for a certain value of scary. Maybe Willow did a wipe of her records when she and Giles were pretending to be from INTERPOL?

I will always root for Faith. She didn't get much encouragement to be "good" in her life, but her basic decency struggles to get through all the crap heaped on her.

[sockmonkeyhere.livejournal.com]

Dawn didn't sleep with Spike or Xander (well not until the comic books at any rate - which is worth it just for NB's rant about it at a comic-con panel, with a bewildered JM who has never read the comics sitting next to him and slowly sinking below the table blushing.)

Do you have a link to this rant? I'd love to watch it; it sounds hilarious! XD

[spikesjojo.livejournal.com]

Me too? (puppy eyes!) Wanna see - or even read.

[ms-scarletibis.livejournal.com]

Of the three, Angel, Cordy, and Willow - Angel came out of it the best, partly because Angelus always lurked under the surface and it was never quite clear how deeply he lurked. So they kept Angel delightfully dark. Willow also came out a bit better, in that she too had some agency..she chose dark magic to take vengeance and kill a human being, granted a slime-ball human being, but in a show where Andrew, Spike and Angel can be redeemed... Cordy on the other hand - arc made no sense. God made me do it? Alrighty then. I guess that sort of works. More like your own vanity. But what a way to drop-kick an interesting character. And they never really redeem her.</i I'm not sure what instance you're referring to with Angel (though he does make "I" statements in regards to what he's done as Angelus), but with Cordy, she was in fact possessed by Jasmine who wanted to make the world a shiny, happy place. But it was to my understanding that Willow wasn't possessed so much as pissed off, drunk on grief and vengeance (blood vengeance) then roofied by the coven as in to take her down. There was never a "Oh, I was possessed!" sentiment on the show that I saw. Willow makes I statements--"I killed people" and "I tried to end the world" etc. <--is not touching what's happened in the comics.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

It's not so much that Willow herself uses the "she was possessed" excuse (she doesn't), but that Buffy and Xander do. And I expect many in the audience did too; it's a natural response.

I say this as one of Willow's biggest fans.

[local-max.livejournal.com]

Aw. I love Willow and I love Willow's arc up to Chosen -- so I'm a little bit sad at the prospect that I'm in the minority, or perhaps that I'm entirely wrong. I know there are no "right" or "wrong" -- but somehow seeing many intelligent people feeling that the writers copped out on her story often makes me feel like I am deluding myself into thinking it works. That said, I've always loved the "Dark Willow" episodes very much -- maybe because I relate to Willow's sense of ... repressing her dark side, and get vicarious thrills out of seeing it explode. I do think that she feels very terrible about it in season seven, and disagree that either she or the writers take the "magic made her do it" excuse, though I understand why people feel that way. I tried to articulate some of how I feel about this in my reply to Norwie's comment above.

I picked Xander over Gunn and Riley, which I found very easy. Riley I actually think is well written and fairly well performed except for As You Were, though I don't hate AYW the way many fans do -- I just don't take it seriously for the most part. He'd probably be my second choice. But I do love Xander, and I feel that while his arc was subtle in the later seasons especially, he did show real growth -- taking Spike into his house after Selfless, for example, speaking up to help Spike about his trigger, supporting the gang from a position of powerlessness and accepting that role. I love J. August Richards but besides season five I don't think Gunn had much interesting story at all.

I went for Wes ahead of Giles -- I like both, but Wes has the better arc I think, and has more heartbreaking moments.

I do love Spike and think he has a great arc. But I think that I love him less than many people on my flist. For one thing, I do actually find his season seven arc quite messy, with the trigger plotline (not to mention the being-captured by the First plotline) providing, I'd argue, a distraction from more pressing issues related to Spike -- though it does provide us with some very good conversations between Spike and Buffy in Sleeper and Never Leave Me and some good moments in LMPTM.

Truth be told, I like all the characters -- though definitely some more than others. As you know, I do like the comics (insert self-depracating joke here) but the only character they may have ruined for me is Angel. I used to love Angel in Sanctuary, for example, and found myself dead-set against him on my last viewing -- somehow the comics have made me much more hyperaware of his flaws, and made it harder to see his strengths.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Aw. I love Willow and I love Willow's arc up to Chosen -- so I'm a little bit sad at the prospect that I'm in the minority, or perhaps that I'm entirely wrong. I know there are no "right" or "wrong" -- but somehow seeing many intelligent people feeling that the writers copped out on her story often makes me feel like I am deluding myself into thinking it works. That said, I've always loved the "Dark Willow" episodes very much -- maybe because I relate to Willow's sense of ... repressing her dark side, and get vicarious thrills out of seeing it explode. I do think that she feels very terrible about it in season seven, and disagree that either she or the writers take the "magic made her do it" excuse, though I understand why people feel that way. I tried to articulate some of how I feel about this in my reply to Norwie's comment above.

I doubt it. I've seen a lot of responses. Don't go by my poll. That's my flist. They are all over the place and most are Spike fans, because hello? I'm a Spike fan. People tend to follow blogs that fit their fandom. If Gabs, you or beergood or stormwatch did the same poll you might get different results.

I love Willow. But I like Spike more. I'm also a hetersexual female and find Alyson Hannigan annoying. But hey, heterosexual female! What do you expect? Thin whiny pretty red heads who talk about sex all the time in their comedies aren't going to turn on heterosexual females.
Well they might, but rarely.

When I state don't take this personally? I mean it. It's not personal.
People are funky. Some people hated the magic as drugs metaphor that was hardly Willow's fault, that was Whedon and Marti's fault. Whedon screwed up in that arc - he's not that great writer. It's more a commentary on Whedon than Willow.

I love Whedon but I admit he sucks at plot structure. He does. He's lazy and copies comic book and daytime serial devices.

It is what it is. ;-)