(no subject)

[butterfly]

Two people recced this article. And wow.

Let me count the ways that I disagree with it.

A) Tara. Whom I have always loved. Chick has always had a personality.

B) Willow. I love Willow's arc. Of course, she'd blame it on the magic. Willow would never admit that it might possibly be her fault.

C) Xander. The article says, "He so feared turning into his bigoted, abusive, alcoholic father that he allowed his fear to turn him into the very thing he loathes." No, he didn't. He saw what was happened. He chose not to get married so that he could confront his problems. He had problems. But he has never been abusive. Ever. He may not have been tactful, but there's a difference. And we have never seen him drunk. We've seen him drink, yes, but not drunk. And he isn't a bigot. Yeah, he doesn't trust Spike. Why the hell should he? He had no problem with the multitude of demons that Anya invited to the wedding, other than being icked about D'Hoffren, the guy who offered demonhood to Willow. But why should Xander trust Spike? Do I really need to mention everything that Spike has done? Maybe I should make a list of Spike Offenses. Seriously.

I do agree with the gist about Anya.

D) Spike is possibly the biggest area of disagreement for me. I see Spike being love's bitch, as always, but he'd still kill someone the second he got the chip out if he was soulless. I don't know, maybe I'm just a bitch when it comes to Spike, but I doubt that I would have acted any differently than Xander when it came to him. I mean, it says, "whether Spike refrains from eating someone out of love or principle, I doubt the potential Happy Meal gives a damn." But he hasn't done that. He couldn't bit people. He has never chosen not to bit out of love, unless you're counting Buffy herself.

Comments

[alexandriabrown.livejournal.com]

Rather than point by point refute, because after all, everyone is entitled to their opinion, let me say this. My ENORMOUS problem with this entire season is that the writers of the show simply did NOT justify what happened onscreen with entire history of the characters. For example (ok so I lied about the point by point thing) my issue with Willow's arc was not that she blamed her actions on magic. That was in keeping with the character. It was the addiction model that they foisted onto her actions which was ridiculous and bluntly insulting to both the intelligence of the audience and the entire psychology of addiction. There were NO indications prior to this season that Willow had an addictive personality. None. You don't just fall into something like that.

And the Buffy thing. Face it, Buffy utterly refused to take any responsibility for nearly all of her decisions and actions this season. While that possibly could possibly be justified due to the depression line the writers were trying to take, again, the writers point blank failed. If the moral of the season was "grow up" Buffy showed no comprehension of what it means to be an adult.

Spike. We will have to agree to disagree about Spike.

Frankly, I expect this level of incompetence in maintaining consistent and well thought out characters from the VAST majority of television. ME can and has done better. So, yes, I am holding them to the standard they set.

It's all well and good to say "oh but the audience can read things into it." Fine. But you have to do SOME of the work. And ME didn't.

Re:

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

But that's the thing. I haven't felt like I've been doing work to understand what happening, or for it to make sense.

Honestly, the only thing that rang false to me was the ending of Once More, With Feeling, when Xander was revealed as the... person who called the guy.

So, for me, it all made sense, as is. I don't generally read spoilers or articles on the show, so it's always possible that what I'm seeing isn't what the creator intended. I still see it. You still see what you see. You see a season where the writers dropped the ball. I don't. Both points of view are valid.

And, to go with the point by point thing, I saw Willow as choosing to make it 'all about the magic'. But, at the same time, they showed Tara using magic.

And I agree that Buffy refused to take responsiblity throughout most of the season. But she did begin to change as time passed. Yeah, she had to learn the lessons several times before they stuck, but that's the way life is. She admitted that she was using Spike and stopped doing it.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I just got the point about the history of the show thing.

And, yeah, to me it felt consistent. Willow is all about avoiding the blame. Yeah, I do wish that someone would just tell her that she's full of crap, but no one doing that is also consistent. Oz and Tara are the only people who have ever forced Willow to stop and think about her actions and both of them relented after a short while. Why would the girl think that there would be consequences? There never are.

[likeahiphopsong.livejournal.com]

See, I think it's not so much that Willow is blaming it on the magic, because yeah, she would. It's that the *writers* are blaming it on the magic. There's no sense that Willow is lying to herself. They really were saying that she's "addicted like addicts get". And they were really blunt and hit-the-audience-over-the-head about it, you know?

Ah opinions. Everyone has them and they're all so interesting. :)

Re:

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, opinions are great things.

Maybe it's 'cause I didn't trust that. If they're saying something and hammering it into our heads, it seems like it's usually wrong.