Anybody else not like BtVS anymore?
- Thread starter EJA
- Start date
That it is. The Body didn't do much for me the last time that I watched it. Depends on the mood and frame of mind, I suppose.
I don't think that she really was much of a character; at least not at the beginning. The premise of the original movie was merely a subversion of a familiar horror movie trope; the character who should be easy fodder for the baddie and usually gets killed early on turns out to be the butt-kicker. On the face of it, that suggests a series of ditzy character traits instead of a fully-formed character per se. As in a lot of good TV shows and movies, though, I don't think that there's much focus on the main protagonist's characterisdation; she's there as an enabler, a POV character. Not sure how the self-righteousness evolved, but I suspect that it was a way of adding an appropriate level of depth.
Some dialogue from The Yoko Factor:
"Willow: Look, I'm not the one being judgmental here. I'll leave that territory to you and Buffy.
Buffy: Judgmental? If I was anymore open-minded about the choices you two make my whole brain would fall out!
Xander: (to Willow) Oh! And superior. Don't forget that. (to Buffy) Just because you're better than us doesn't mean that you can be all superior!"
Amen to that. BSG is in a sense The Sopranos in space. One may be entertained or moved by the characters (and the very fact that they can be relied on to do the wrong thing), while accepting that they are, to borrow and possibly misuse a phrase from Red Dwarf, "the human equivalent of a visible panty line". I'd add Deadwood to the list too for Ian McShane's always-watchable and often-likeable monster Al Swearengen.
Having said that, I do sometimes think that the characters in the Buffyverse would be cool to hang out with. Certainly, conversation ought to be stimulating.
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Can't say I've stopped liking it.
Although I haven't actually sat down and really watched some episodes for a few years now. I've watched the odd episode here and there, but not a big Buffy session for at least 3-4 years now. But that's not because I don't like it, just that I've seen the all episodes so many times now its almost irrelevant watching it!
Same for something like DS9. I love it, but haven't properly watched any since about 2005.
I have been buying the Season 8 comics since they started in March 2007 though. It's become very convoluted and a lot of things aren't explained properly, and the overall plot is pretty dodgy really, but it's enjoyable enough. And there's only two issues to go now, so I may as well stick with it
Although I haven't actually sat down and really watched some episodes for a few years now. I've watched the odd episode here and there, but not a big Buffy session for at least 3-4 years now. But that's not because I don't like it, just that I've seen the all episodes so many times now its almost irrelevant watching it!
Same for something like DS9. I love it, but haven't properly watched any since about 2005.
I have been buying the Season 8 comics since they started in March 2007 though. It's become very convoluted and a lot of things aren't explained properly, and the overall plot is pretty dodgy really, but it's enjoyable enough. And there's only two issues to go now, so I may as well stick with it
Why should Robin forgive Spike? Spike hasn't really done anything to deserve forgiveness. Like I said, he wears Robin's mothers' coat as a trophy, and is completely and utterly unrepentant. He will always be the same man that killed Robin's mom, and even if he isn't, he's still a vicious bastard. Robin lost his mother, for crying out loud, and is treated with contempt.
Is desiring revenge against someone who has caused you considerable and deliberate pain always wrong though? Try telling yourself revenge is wrong when you're confronted with the person who slaughtered your family and friends for kicks or to further their own ends. Was Worf wrong when he killed Duras in TNG "Reunion"? It didn't seem that way from where I was standing.
And it isn't just that. It's Buffy's attitude afterwards. She doesn't give a fuck about the pain Robin's endured all his life thanks to Spike, the man who keeps his mom's coat as a trophy and feels zero remorse for what he's done in the past. Spike does not merit forgiveness or tolerance.
What are you implying, AJBryant?
Perhaps he shouldn't forgive Spike but instead should just entertain the possibility that, in any sense that matters, Spike simply didn't do it. The re-ensouled Spike is the "bloody awful" poet William who was killed by Drusilla and whose body and memories were seemingly inherited by a demon. On the return of Spike's soul, the memories of the intervening period were intact and Spike had some kind of breakdown. However, the brash facade that had been developed over 120 years or so enabled him to be frank about those events; either he wasn't in the driving seat of his own body, or a constituent element of the human psyche had been removed. Either way, he knows on an intellectual level that he's blameless. The "I don't give a piss about your mum!" line is partly a retort and partly, it seems, Spike asserting that he's not like Angel (who would have reacted in a completely different manner).
In any case, either version of Spike has always been highly emotional. Being obtuse and refusing to accept guilt of any kind is pretty much in-character.
And this is why, in my eyes, Angel will always be better than Spike.
Oh, and if resouled vampires are entirely blameless for what they did in their soulless days, then Angel wouldn't have to seek redemption.
Angel chooses to seek redemption because he's unable to accept that he bares no genuine responsibility for the actions of Angelus. Spike, on the other hand, chose to continue fighting evil even after coming to understand that he was not responsible for the actions of the demon occupying his body. I don't believe either choice is intrinsically better than the other; they are simply different, though both ultimately rooted in the same thing: love for a blonde girl.
(Also, dude: Three posts in a row earlier? Might be time to learn how to use multiquote and edit.)
(Also, dude: Three posts in a row earlier? Might be time to learn how to use multiquote and edit.)
Well, it took him a hundred years to start doing so
. Spike, on the other hand, is helping to save the world within months.Well put.
He doesn't, and nobody asked him to do it. But that doesn't mean that he must go and try to kill Spike out of revenge. And that's the only thing Buffy asked him: to stop trying to kill Spike.
Desiring? No. Trying to do it? Depends on the circumstances. If you live in the Klingon Empire where revenge is a acceptable and desirable and your rival has just killed your mate, then by all means do it. In some other cases, it's not such a good idea.
But that's not the real issue here, since nobody is attacking Robin Wood's morals here.
How about: is it wrong to defend yourself against someone who's trying to kill you out of revenge - or is the only right thing to do to just sit there and take it, to show that you're sorry?
But no, that's not the main question here, since you are only tangentially discussing Spike's morality. Since it's Buffy's morality we're discussing, the real question is:
Tell me, is it wrong to tell someone that they shouldn't kill someone else out of revenge? And that you are not going to help them in carrying out that revenge-killing?
I would try telling myself that I'm not crazy enough to kill that person and go to jail for it. At least I hope that's what I'd do...
It's probably a little difficult feeling a lot of sympathy for someone who's in the process of trying to kill you.
I think they do bear responsibility, or at least a degree of it. It wasn't just a "demon occupying their body", unless you mean it in metaphorical sense. When you say "it's not the same man who did", I'd agree only if you mean it metaphorically, i.e. he is a changed man. They are the same person all along - as William/soulless Spike/souled Spike, or Liam/Angelus/Angel. But they have profoundly changed. The state of being a soulless vampire diminishes responsibility to a degree, in the sense of, say a serious mental illness or personality disorder would, not in the sense of being literally possessed by a demon and unable to make decisions and choices for oneself. They clearly are able to do that, or else Spike never would have decided to get his soul back.
But, as far as I'm concerned, the best way to redeem oneself for past crimes is not to mope around or say "I am so sorry!", but to stop doing evil and start doing good. Which is why I feel exactly the same way about Faith and her redemption.
100 years and Whistler to come and shake his sorry ass out of his pathetic unlife as a useless bum.Well, it took him a hundred years to start doing so
I never really liked it. I heard so many people raving about it so I gave it a shot but I couldn't stand it--the campiness, the silly adversaries, the pretentiousness that oozed from it.
I didn't like Buffy very much. Sarah Michelle Gellar was the biggest problem. She doesn't have the charisma to carry a series. Not a talented enough actress.
100 years and Whistler to come and shake his sorry ass out of his pathetic unlife as a useless bum.
... and no-one's even mentioned the rat-eating yet...... or the criminal-eating, come to think of it. In one of the flashback scenes, Darla mentions to the newly-ensouled Angel that she's heard stories of him feeding off of crims (IIRC).
Buffy had her issues, but I still liked her character because her flaws didn't overshadow her virtues for me (unlike the characters in nuBSG, who I just couldn't stand). She wasn't my favourite character certainly, but I feel Joss Whedon got the virtue/flaw ratio right.
To be honest, it's an issue that, regardless of the number of times I've watched Buffy and Angel, I still remain conflicted on, although my prior assertion didn't contain any ambiguity. On some occasions, I do believe that an ensouled vampire is not culpable for the actions its body took while sans soul. After all, we are told from the very beginning of Buffy that a vampire is a demon inhabiting the corpse of a human (no "metaphorical sense"), that it is most certainly not the same person as the previous human life. Yet we also know that vampires maintain the memories of the previous human life, and furthermore that they maintain at least some vestiges of that human's personality. However, the vampire is definitely not the same person as the human; Liam was a bumbling buffoon, not the brilliant and sadistic monster that Angelus was, for example.
In the cases of Angel and Spike, I tend to think of each "stage" as separate beings, albeit with at least some shared personality traits: the human as the original person; the vampire as a demon influenced at least somewhat by the original human; and the ensouled vampire as a new person influenced by both the demon and the original human. The demon tends to be the predominant force in a vampire, with the human origins of its vestige personality influencing it in varying ways. In the case of Angelus, the demon seized on Liam's self-awareness that he was a fool and would never amount to anything in order to aspire to greatness through brutality. In the case of Spike, the demon seized on similar feelings, coupled with William's issues with rejection and his love for his mother. In the case of Harmony, arguably the only "weak" vampire we ever met, the vain and shallow nature of the vestige human personality was apparently not much for the demon to work with, since vampire Harmony only intermittently aspired to anything.
I can accept that Angel and Spike bore some responsibility, but ultimately I think Spike had the more healthy attitude in confronting it. The demon was the driving force, not whatever remained of the man. The only reason that Spike was even in a position to decide to seek a soul was the chip implanted in his brain by the Initiative; without a way for the demon to act on its instincts, and forced into situations where he spent extended periods of time with Buffy and the Scooby Gang, the vestige human personality influenced the demon to an extent that would not have occurred sans chip. Angel, of course, had the soul forced into Angelus, which may help to explain the vast time differences between "recovery" periods for Angel and Spike. For Spike, the demon arguably had been "beaten" for a change by the remnants of William's personality, stirred by a love for Buffy. Angel didn't have that luxury of an internal conflict; one moment, he was a soulless beast, and the next he was horrified by all the acts perpetrated by the demon in his body.
As I said before, I'm often conflicted on the issue. Perhaps another Buffyverse rewatch is in order...
There was one episode in which a flashback showed Angel feeding off of a person who was killed while he was nearby.100 years and Whistler to come and shake his sorry ass out of his pathetic unlife as a useless bum.
... or the criminal-eating, come to think of it. In one of the flashback scenes, Darla mentions to the newly-ensouled Angel that she's heard stories of him feeding off of crims (IIRC).
Someone obviously hasn't seen episodes such as "Hush" and "The Body."
I didn't think she was that good in Hush (I was more impressed by the tone of the episode then Gelelr's performance). As for the Body, I do admit that I was really moved by everyone in that episode, but I wouldn't rate an actress or actor good for nailing one out of hundreds of episodes.
Of course I am a little biased I like shows that are far more grounded in reality. And yes I think shows with Supernatural elements can be grounded in reality. Its just the reality of that world.It's the same reason that I find Doctor who Laughable for all the wrong reasons (of course with all things their are exceptions). One of the reasons I was so impressed in the Body is that it was grounded in reality. That was extremely rare for the show.
Rarely was characterization an issue for me (though on occasion) and I liked for the most part the witty dialogue (though the odds of that many characters being witty is highly unusual, though not beyond the possible).
Of course I am a little biased I like shows that are far more grounded in reality. And yes I think shows with Supernatural elements can be grounded in reality. Its just the reality of that world.It's the same reason that I find Doctor who Laughable for all the wrong reasons (of course with all things their are exceptions). One of the reasons I was so impressed in the Body is that it was grounded in reality. That was extremely rare for the show.
Rarely was characterization an issue for me (though on occasion) and I liked for the most part the witty dialogue (though the odds of that many characters being witty is highly unusual, though not beyond the possible).
I only liked the movie, never the series.
