Buffy discussion thread!

[annathepiper]

Everybody say hi to james_nicoll, with whom I was having an amusing discussion about fifth-season Buffy the Vampire Slayer over on kate_nepveu's journal. We've brought it over here, since after a gentle remonstrance from Kate, we figured we probably really shouldn't be running over people with the Spoiler Truck.

Without further ado, we are now resuming the discussion! Y'all feel free to jump in on this if you like. Anybody who has no interest in the latter seasons of Buffy or Angel, though, you might not want to look past the cut.


James wondered whether he was the only one bothered by nobody taking steps to reverse the insertion of Dawn into the memories of everybody in Sunnydale. An intriguing question, I thought, and we have had a fun discussion about whether it would be moral for Buffy to try to go about doing this--even if Dawn + Glory = universe goes boom.

My general take on the matter: even if she was forcibly inserted into the memories of an entire community upon her incarnation as a human, Dawn herself is neither evil nor malicious. (Whiny annoying teenager, sure, but not evil. And in Dawn's defense she did get a lot less annoying in season 7. ;) ) So to eliminate all traces of her fabricated history would only serve to cause her emotional harm. Also, it would require enormous amounts of power to alter the memories of all the affected people in Sunnydale--not only Buffy and her immediate family and friends, but also everyone in the school system who became Dawn's teachers and classmates. Since last I knew the monks who incarnated Dawn in the first place all got wiped out by Glory, there would be the question of who would have the power necessary to reverse that memory engineering and to do it in such a way so as to not torch anything else in people's heads in the process. And there'd be the question of whether it would be enough that Dawn's continued existence is a theoretical threat--or whether it might take another incarnation of Glory in physical form to make Buffy and company motivated to do something.

Discuss!

Comments

[avram]

Well, one major point has to be that as far as Buffy and her pals and relatives are concerned, Dawn is a real person, Buffy’s sister, Joyce’s daughter. They’ve been told that she’s a ret-conned energy being, but so what? Their feelings are based on the memories they have of growing up with her.

If some monk told you that you’re best friend was a ret-conned energy being, and all your memories of that person more than a few months back were faked, would you shrug and say “OK, go unmake my best friend. Sorry, Bill, it was nice imagining that I know you.”?

[kaseido.livejournal.com]

I've got to agree: Buffyverse+Dawn is completely internally self-consistent; it's not an *invalid* universe. If you want to argue whether another one might be better, there's no reason to prefer Buffyverse PreDawn - why not just keep shuffling till you get to one with Dawn and without demons? Or without Hitler, or... :P

[annathepiper]

Yeah, I'm with you on this, I think. I can accept that Dawn + Glory = Bang, and that if Glory were confirmed to be an ongoing threat, something ought to Get Done. But I'm pretty sure that it'd require that confirmation to get Buffy & company to do something about it.

Also, if that storyline were told, I'd like to see it done in such a way so as to not duplicate the same dilemma that came up with the slaying of Ben--i.e., do you justify killing an innocent if it means that a great evil won't get unleashed on the world? Buffy couldn't make that call, but Giles could. And I'm certain that the same problem would arise if they were faced with the possibility of having to wipe Dawn out of her new existence.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Mere sentiment is a terrible guide to action. Lots of parasites are able to change the hosts behavior to benefit themselves. Dawn's insertion into the Summers family is an example of that sort of thing.

Why though...

[kokyu.livejournal.com]

do you characterize her as parasitic instead of symbiotic?

Besides, of course, the fact that she is a whiny teenager. :)

Re: Why though...

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

do you characterize her as parasitic instead of symbiotic?

She consumes food, housing, insurance premiums and a good chunk of the Slayer's attention in return for what, exactly?

You know, in a Dawn-free universe, maybe Buffy's mother's insurance was good enough that her medical problems were caught much earlier....

Re: Why though...

[kokyu.livejournal.com]

I would say that everything you describe is part and parcel of Dawn being a teen.

You'll buy that Glory and Ben share a body with limited awareness of each other, but you worry about that? I think a little suspension of disbelief is in order here.

I also think, that in the grand scheme of things those are pretty minor concerns. Are we really to believe that all those potentials were being fed on Buffy's Dubious Burger Meat Palace salary?

And the house was plenty big.

I mean of course...

[kokyu.livejournal.com]

Her salary as a public school counselor. I forgot that was her job at the time.

Re: Why though...

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I would say that everything you describe is part and parcel of Dawn being a teen.

You'll buy that Glory and Ben share a body with limited awareness of each other, but you worry about that? I think a little suspension of disbelief is in order here.

Not quite sure what you mean about Glory and Ben.

Dawn is only a teenager because she was made to be one. The monks could have made her anything, from Mrs. Summer's second husband to Mars Polar Observer (which would have put her nicely out of the way of Glory). If I had to guess "why a teen", the reason was to maximize the odds that Buffy would feel the need to protect her.

I wonder if the monks bothered to make Dawn able to have children? If so, since she's apparently based very closely on Buffy (because the blood of one can replace the blood of the other [1]) then like ants, Buffy benefits from preserving Dawn: any kids she has will be as close to Buffy as Buffy's own kids (and since I suspect not a lot of Slayers get to have kids, this is a much bigger benefit for Buffy than for regular humans).


1: If mere sibling levels of similarity are good enough, it's a shame nobody thought of digging up some or all of Mrs Summers and chucking that into the gate at the end.

Re: Why though...

[annathepiper]

Reading over this thread to get caught up, I still quibble a bit with the idea of Dawn-as-parasite... if nothing else just because the resources and such that she consumes are a situation no different that a child born normally into a family. By your description, any child also qualifies as a 'parasite', consuming a family's resources and also getting protection and affection and education, until such time as the child is old enough to live on his or her own.

Therefore I can't really buy that Buffy ought to reverse the process that created Dawn just because she's a 'parasite' on the family. Sure, Dawn was foisted off onto her by the monks--but if Dawn had been a teen born through the normal human processes and dumped on Buffy's doorstep, that same consumption of resources would still be happening.

So I think that what should be motivating Buffy, if she were to choose to do something about the monks' manipulation of the minds of her family and friends (and the community at large), should be more from the standpoint of the questionable morality of having screwed with so many minds to begin with. Not that it ultimately resulted in a young girl she had to protect--but rather that she was never given a choice to protect the Key in the first place. Her position as Dawn's protector was forced on her and not something she did of her own free will.

And I still don't think that's Dawn's fault, either--Dawn certainly was given no choice about her own fate, either. The monks made a brand new sentient being and specifically manipulated her as well, giving her a set of fake memories to enforce her connection to a pack of total strangers. I think Buffy's smart enough to realize that, and I think that'd also influence her decision not to pursue a course of action that would ultimately result in harming Dawn for something she never had a say in in the first place.

[gazerwolf.livejournal.com]

Actually I'd imagine that the memory insertion was more than Sunnydale. To be complete they would have had to have had people who knew her back in Buffy's old hometown for instance. Not to mention social security, IRS, and such...I imagine the IRS woulda come down on Buffy's mom pretty quick that first year she suddenly had an extra teenage daughter on her taxes. She had to have been inserted into not just memories but also paperwork and computer records.

(ok I'm thinking this through too much..it's a TV show...it doesn't HAVE to make sense...)

[annathepiper]

Actually I'd imagine that the memory insertion was more than Sunnydale. To be complete they would have had to have had people who knew her back in Buffy's old hometown for instance. Not to mention social security, IRS, and such...

A very valid point! This only underscores what I've been saying about the monks' very questionable morality of screwing with so many minds at once to accommodate the creation of this brand new sentient being--and the difficulty of trying to find a way to match that level of magic to try to reverse it. Especially since all the monks were toasted by Glory anyway.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Will we be mocking Whedon and company's ideas about interpersonal relationships? Because I could get into that.

[annathepiper]

SURE WHY NOT! ;) HrmmRmRMm. Does Joss even believe in happy relationships? Let's take a survey!

Buffy:
Buffy & Angel - Nope!
Buffy & Riley - Nope!
Buffy & Spike - Nope!
Xander & Cordy - Nope!
Xander & Willow - Nope!
Xander & every demon chick who ever tried to eat him - Well, duh ;)
Xander & Faith - Nah, that was just sex
Xander & Anya - Nope!
Willow & Oz - Nope!
Willow & Tara - Nope!
Willow & Kennedy - Not too bad, but didn't really have time to be doomed
Giles & Jenny - Nope!
Spike & Drusilla - Nope!

Angel:
Angel & cop chick from early seasons - Nope!
Angel & Cordy - Nope!
Angel & werewolf chick - Not bad, but didn't have time to be doomed
Wesley & Fred - Nope!
Wesley & Lila - Nope!
Fred & Gunn - Nope!

Firefly:
Mal & Inara - Not yet!
Zoe & Wash - OKAY, HERE we have a happy relationship. Possibly because they're married out of the gate, but possibly also because they haven't had time to be doomed yet. ;) Some shaky bumps, but so far not too unbelievable or angsty for a married couple, IMHO.
Simon & Kaylee - Not yet!

Who am I missing?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

For Mal and Inara to have a relationship, wouldn't one of them have to make a move? And wouldn't Mal have to have that stick surgically removed?

River and Jayne?

I suspect if the series had contined, we'd have seen a Jayne/Kaylee/Simon triangle. I bases this on Whedon's track record and on Jayne's reaction when Kaylee got shot.

Mal and his "wife" didn't really work out but he seems to have gotten a long term relationship out of it (admittedly not a good one).

[annathepiper]

(Hi, I'm Extremely Behind On My LJ Comments Girl! This is what I get for having only recently climbed out of the hole into which my Mad Editing Marathon threw me. ;) )

For Mal and Inara to have a relationship, wouldn't one of them have to make a move? And wouldn't Mal have to have that stick surgically removed?

*chortle* Very good point. I'm really anxious to see the Firefly comics this summer, just because of what happened between Mal and Inara in the last few unaired episodes, and I want to see how they're going to explain bringing Inara back into the swing of things if she did in fact do what she claimed she was going to do.

River and Jayne?

Hrmm. Did you see relationship potential there? I didn't... I'm not saying it could never happen, just that I didn't see anything that struck me as a preliminary indicator that they were eventually going to hook up. :) (Jayne does regularly bitch about River being bonkers, sure, but then Jayne regularly bitches about a lot of things!)

I suspect if the series had contined, we'd have seen a Jayne/Kaylee/Simon triangle. I bases this on Whedon's track record and on Jayne's reaction when Kaylee got shot.

Hrmm. HRMRMRmmm. I could buy that.

Mal and his "wife" didn't really work out but he seems to have gotten a long term relationship out of it (admittedly not a good one).

*LAUGHS* Quite. >:)

I probably shouldn't get back into this thread, but....

[kokyu.livejournal.com]

Are you saying that a relationship is successful only if it NEVER ends? That's harsh. Since we're all mortal, then your philsophy has us more doomed than Joss' does.

Or maybe you mean it's successful if it only ends with Death. Then I guess Buffy and Angel first time around, would be considered successful. (great line years later "I signalled her... with my eyes!")

You forgot Giles and Jenny, very nice relationship up until her death.

Also Jayne and his gun.

and understandably you left off the ultimately icky Connor and Cordy.

Re: I probably shouldn't get back into this thread, but....

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Or maybe you mean it's successful if it only ends with Death. Then I guess Buffy and Angel first time around, would be considered successful. (great line years later "I signalled her... with my eyes!")

I missed that line. Context?

Fantastic scene ..

[kokyu.livejournal.com]

from Angel's final season. Angel and Spike are bickering about who has averted more apocalypses. Angel tries to take credit for his blood closing the portal years earlier. Spike says something like, "She stabbed you... and I helped her, so that one was mine." Angel says he signalled her... with his eyes.

Re: I probably shouldn't get back into this thread, but....

[annathepiper]

Are you saying that a relationship is successful only if it NEVER ends? That's harsh. Since we're all mortal, then your philsophy has us more doomed than Joss' does.

Nope, that's not what I'm saying at all. :) When I think of a relationship as "successful", I don't necessarily mean that it has to never end. I more mean that the involved parties are doing what they can to make it work, that they're actually communicating with one another in an intelligent fashion, and not hiding things from each other. Usually for me this goes hand in hand with the relationship being happy, just because it's been my life experience that the happy relationships are the ones in which the involved parties are putting out the necessary effort to make them succeed. Sure, sometimes it doesn't work. It's possible for an otherwise happy relationship to fall apart (and to leave the involved parties still on friendly terms with one another; I've been in that situation myself). And it's sure as hell possible for a relationship that looks successful on the outside to be completely screwed up if you look beneath the surface.

In the worlds portrayed by Mr. Whedon, the vast majority of relationships he portrays are not successful (at least in terms of "do the involved parties get to stay together"), and a lot of the time they aren't particularly happy either. In the majority of these relationships, I see the involved parties spending a huge amount of time angsting--either at each other, or at others--about how awful it is that they can't have a proper relationship. And comparatively way little time on putting out the effort necessary to make the relationship actually work.

Anya and Xander are a fine example of a relationship that looked happy on the surface but which was screwed up underneath--and it was heavily illustrated by their duet in the musical episode. All those things that they were hiding from one another spelled out doom and gloom for their ultimate chances of getting a happy and successful relationship.

Looking over the list I gave, I think I was more talking about whether those relationships got to continue across the course of the series rather than having a huge tragic, angsty ending. Certainly several of them I think qualify as "happy" relationships, just not "successful" ones. Willow and Oz are an example here. They seemed to have a happy relationship for the majority of their time together, until life circumstances pulled them apart. And while I did have Giles and Jenny in my list, you're very right in that they did actually have a happy and successful relationship before Jenny was killed by Angelus.

And now that I think about it more, I think Buffy and Angel actually got one of the happier endings of a relationship--because they actually ended on a bit of an up note, on good terms with each other, though no longer really having a "relationship". I still grin at Buffy's "warm delicious cookie me" line to him. And that left me with a feeling that perhaps once Buffy had grown up some more and had time to mature, she might choose to re-establish a relationship with Angel.

Re: I probably shouldn't get back into this thread, but....

[annathepiper]

Also Jayne and his gun.

*cackle* Yes. >:) Jayne does have a close and loving relationship with Vera.

and understandably you left off the ultimately icky Connor and Cordy.

Ah yes. I did have Giles and Jenny on my list, but not Connor and Cordy. You're quite right, that was just icky!

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Does Joss even believe in happy relationships? Let's take a survey!

You know, if I were his wife, I'd be worried. :-)

[annathepiper]

*laugh!* Indeed, for all we know Joss is working out all his relationship issues with his characters. He wouldn't be the first writer to do so! ;)

Though I would also not be surprised if he was completely angst-free in real life. :)

I would suggest

[kokyu.livejournal.com]

That Joss believes in the goodness of relationships... but that he doesn't believe in extended periods of happiness as being good television entertainment.

Re: I would suggest

[annathepiper]

Fair enough! And to some degree I do actually agree. It's very, very hard to maintain a long-running relationship and do it in a fashion that's entertaining to your viewers or readers. It's why so many TV shows lose steam once the sexual tension between the principals involved in a relationship is gone.

This is not to say that I don't think it can be done, however. One of my all-time favorite authors has a series she's had running for many years now in which the principal characters got married at the very end of the first book, but she keeps their relationship lively all throughout the series.

In Joss Whedon's case, he's dealing with rather darker material (Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody books are certainly suspenseful, but still overall much lighter in atmosphere than the Buffy universe or even Firefly), and so a lot of his viewers may certainly expect the romantic angst between all the cast members. But me, I'd just like to see him provide an example of a relationship every so often that manages to be both happy and successful--which is one of the many reasons I really dig Zoe and Wash in Firefly. :) They certainly have their challenges in the episodes that got aired, but they come across to me as having a very strong relationship and I hope that that gets to continue in however many more movies or comics or whatever other material gets written. It's a nice balance against all the romantic angst. :)

I mean, I like angst as much as the next girl, but every so often I just need it to STOP, you know? I need there to be some happy endings every so often. I ran into this problem on MUSHes over the years after I'd been playing for some time, and when I got burned out on constant angst in that venue, I started getting less entertained by it in books and TV shows as well. This is why, despite my natural sucker-for-big-romantic-happy-ever-after inclinations, I was happy to see Buffy and Angel go out on at least something of a note of hope. :)