Buffy season 8-- MAJOR SPOILERS-- Twilight reveal

I wanna buy it. And yet, I'm torn. Because the hook up between

Spoiler: Spoiler

Xander and Dawn and their alleged true-love-ness

squicks me the hell out.

Oh BtVS, why must loving you always be so fraught with difficulty?

 

What should Xawn squick you out? They're both adults and not in any way related. She's always had a thing for him. She's fine as hell. It makes sense that they smoosh penis and vagina together into a nice gooey pagina sandwich.

 

For me, it's not so much that Xawn "squicks me out" it's that I always hoped that Buffy would someday get over her "bad boy" thing, and realize Xander was the best man for her.... I guess with the sheer number of Buffy/Angel shippers out there though I should have known that was a pipe dream.

 

While it might be true that Xander is the best man for Buffy, Buffy is not the best woman for Xander. While I'm usually all for the geek getting the girl, this girl has always had a little unstable and moody (and that's putting it mildly). Let Buffy have her bad boys. Xander deserves better, like Willow. Too bad Willow is gay, that coupling always made more sense to me.

EDIT: Though I guess in hindsight, Willow has also had her problems as well.

 

I'm more squicked by Buffy and Xander. I mean to me their friendship is SACRED ground. To add genitals to the mix just wrong. YECH! Besides would he ever truly be happy with Buffy? The shadow of Bangel and Spuffy will hang over him 'till the day he dies. Dawn is better for Xander. We've been watching him help her grow the hell up all season long. He brings her stability. She brings him somebody to care for. Something he would never have with Buffy.

That said my ideal pairing is Xander/Willow. It's just damned unlikely since Joss seems to want to stick stubbornly to the whole "Willow is gay" confabulation of his. Since that door is shut I'm happy with Xawn or Dander. Whatever you wanna call it.

 

Warren was a slimeball and a rapist, and he got what he deserved - a relative rarity, that last, in the Buffyverse.

 

I dunno about that, Dennis. Warren's still alive so it's not like he got what he really, really deserved.

 

Good issue. I loved Buffy's jab at Twilight (ie the franchise), as she said to Twilight before his reveal, "You listen to me, Twilight-- My god, is that really the name you picked? Twilight? Y'know I lived that idea first, right? And my vampire was so much better."

 

Shouldn't Dark Horse call it season 9 by now?

 

No. season 9 will be coming out after the storyline to season 8 is concluded.

 

Xander: What was that?
Dawn: A sonic boom.
Willow: I think they're fighting.

Later:

Xander: What was that?
Dawn: Another sonic boom.
Willow: I think they're f&$&ing.

 

A really great issue. I wonder if Angel:Aftermath will set up how he decides to become Twilight. I was blown away by this relevation mostly because I loved it. Season Eight has been on and off but the Twilight arc has been excellent.

Just some thoughts on the Xander and Dawn pairing which initially bothered me but I got over it and thought it works out fine. I really loved the next issue I think where Buffy and Xander FINALLY have a heart to heart about their feelings for each other and Xander is like NOW you finally admit you have feelings for me? Then he explains that she really doesn't. One thing I will say about season eight so far is the emotional characterization of our favorite characters IMO has been bang on. I'm looking forward to seeing the final battle between Angel and Buffy. I'm wondering when the last big final battle will be that creates the setting for Fray. We know Fray is canon and the crossover earlier this "season" was interesting (not the way i would have done a sequel though) and Angel says that he wants to end all magic in the world.

 

Won't that also kill him? After all, a vampire exists as a magically created demon/human hybrid.

 

So I've waited, and I've seen, and I continue to wait and see, but I still don't see how this is going to end any other way that with the epitaph for Angel being "he did the wrong thing for the right reasons"--that'll be the final nail (stake?) in the coffin of the character, the theme and point given to the audience.

A couple of theories have been put forth though, that some of the more nasty things that Twilight has done may have legitimate justification--Amy and Warren could be just self-sabotage (the guy who builds a batcave with the government funding to anihilate a supernatural terrorist organization should not be in charge of anything, and Angel would know that), that Angel's reasoning rather than 'hey lets hang around with some crazy rapists', the idea was to put really incompetant screwups in really important places. Which I can see why he'd recrute them, but still...he's killed people. He set up people to die, pointed scary rival forces directly at Buffy...With the whole "evil british Slayer" thing, rereading that hints heavily at the new developments in retrospect--there's all this talk "Queen" of Slayers, one that may be there to end them all, evil Slayer seems stronger than other Slayers. Later Angel states that "this was happening," and he was 'pushing' Buffy towards the Superpower cocktail. Maybe his inviting so much danger and manipulating things like a bastard was needed to make sure Buffy got this power, not just cause 'Yay Buffy gets superpowers' but specifically because SOMEONE was going to get this ability and he needed to make certain it was somebody who could handle it, unlike, Guinevere the psychotic Slayer?

As for what the power means, it could go a lot of different ways. Buffy and Angel's ability resonates with one another, and Giles obviously knows something about it. Something which seems to be cosmically good or bad, but bad for the girl in question. I'm guessing it's like some duality thing. We know that the Slayer powers are demonic in nature and they come from 'the essence of the demon,' I've long since suspected that the Old One that they used to get that essence was whatever one mixed blood with humans to create the first vampire anyhow. Now there's "Ultimate Slayer" and "Ultimate Vampire" and it's going to come down to them having a giant battle (or f^%*&^ing). It's definately going to be a duality thing, avatars or either rivaling, or forces of the same 'unholy power'--maybe it's a huge prophecy about ending all magic(that being a destined event, the end of the Slayer Line as there is no more need, world is safe from the forces of darkness forever) maybe that line is Angel's loophole to get rid of the precariously-placed world of the Buffyverse, maybe it's just that these two superbeings will end up summoning back this original Old One(or Ones--if my above theory is correct about the source of the Slayer powers, maybe this is the final price of the spell that created the Slayer, and the Slayer line turns into the worst monsters of them all--or lets the Old Ones return). But it'll probably be a real confrontation (one that Angel seemed intent on avoiding, eager to take a third option). Slayer wins, yay? Maybe. Vampire wins, destruction forever. - -wait a minute, wasn't there some prophecy about Angel, the apocalypse, him causing the ruination of all that is good?

...A prophecy which I fully expect to be ignored. I thought maybe they might make a point about Shanshu, but now I take that back--it's immaterial to this, and they'll try to sweep it under the rug. If it shows up as part of Angel's reasoning I'll be very pleased, but surprised. Some people say that because he's out in the sunlight and not bursting into flames, he must be human again and already shanshu'd, but I disagree--there's no shanshu anymore. It's not important (plus, invulnerable-all-over and all that). I feel, for all intents and purposes, Angel 'never went to LA', and became a hero in his own right--they've already just glossed over it, and now he's just to be Buffy's vampire boyfriend again.

 

Well, if you think about it if you remove the demon component from an vampire with a soul, you're just left with a human. Sounds like the fulfilment of a certain prophecy to me.

 

Except a vampires body is dead, with the demon component animating it and keeping it from decomposing.

Removing the demon without something else happening at the same thing would be like pulling the battery out of a toy.

 

Which raises the question of how they can have sex if they're dead...

 

Magic!

 

"A wizard did it, or rather a wizard ALLOWS me to do it..."

 

Gypsy wizards, no less!