BtVS Rewatch

[dragonyphoenix]

Welcome to the Hellmouth

• When Buffy finds the corpse, her response is “Oh, great.” Self-absorbed much? This guy is dead, and granted she doesn't know him, but still, no human sympathy?




• Notice that Cordelia invites Buffy to the Bronze. Willow doesn't. I picture Willow sitting at the bar feeling unloved because Buffy didn't show, thinking that Buffy acts friendly because she needs help with schoolwork but otherwise isn't interested in hanging with Willow at all. Granted, this says more about me than Willow, but Cordelia knows how to be the center of a crowd. She reaches out to people. Willow remains isolated because she doesn't. Or maybe that's still just me.




• When Luke says, “Hell itself will come to town” does anyone else start singing “Hell itself will come to town, doo-dah, doo-dah. Hell itself will come to town, oh the doo-dah-day.”?

The Harvest

• Buffy kills someone, who's off-screen, with a pool cue. If he was a vamp, he would have dusted standing up and the cue would have fell to the floor. Instead the cue tilts up as if he fell to the floor first. Does anyone else wonder if she just killed a human?

The Witch / Teacher's Pet

• I think it's pretty obvious that Mrs. Madison is a prototype of evil witch Willow, but I think Mrs. Madison, along with Miss French, also foreshadow Jenny Calendar. Granted Jenny isn't evil but all three have dark and similar builds. Jenny is a techno-Pagan rather than a witch but I think that fills a similar role. Giles is attracted to Miss French and then later attracted to Jenny. I'm not sure it means anything but I was musing on the similarity of appearances. And, great, now I want to see Giles / Catherine Madison pairing.

Teacher's Pet

• So people have commented that if Miss French mated with Dr. Gregory, he must be a virgin. The idea of him being a virgin in general seems sort of like high-school student logic. Most teachers, like parents, have never had sex because eww! they're adults and old and I don't want to think on it. I think Dr. Gregory is quite a catch. He's not bad looking, he's fascinated by his work so he'd be interesting to chat with, and he goes out of his way to help his students. I should date someone half as nice.

Season 7 Season 5: I'm not rewatching this yet but I was thinking there's a parallel between Glory wanting to cut Dawn and Dawn cutting herself. I wanted to post about it but I don't have anything to say other than I see a parallel.

Comments

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

Buffy's attitude is a bit callous towards death, but I think it's a deft bit of character building -- it shows us that she's seen dead bodies before, and it shows that she has learned to detach herself from the horror of that. In a way, her attitude might be seen as similar to a homicide detective or a doctor or a coroner; she can't get emotional when she sees anonymous dead bodies, because she sees a lot of them in her line of work.

(There was a really good episode of Homicide: Life on the Street about this phenomenon, with Robin Williams as a guest star. His character's wife was murdered, and he was furious when he overheard detectives making jokes about the murder. The lieutenant in charge of the unit, played by Yaphet Kotto, pointed out that every detective responded with heartbreak and horror -- on his or her first case. But they'd seen a hundred murders by then.)

Early season Buffy definitely is self-centered, all about how her sacred duty has messed up her life. On the other hand, especially with the canon ret-con of her being institutionalized for talking about vampires, the messing up has already included involuntarily being sent to a psych ward, losing all her friends, and then having to move, and perhaps the loss of her first watcher, Merrick, if it happened as it did in the movie. I was pretty self-involved at fifteen, too; I can't be too mad at her for focusing on how the shit-storm that is slaying affects her life.

One could even posit that one of the reason slayers get called is their ability to detach from horror, and to not develop, say, PTSD from all the dangerous situations they're in on a weekly basis.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it had occurred to me after I posted that the callous attitude may have reflected the amount of death she's seen.

That's a good point about all that she's already been through before she was moved to Sunnydale.

One of Lit Gal's stories, I think it's Airman Harris (http://www.litgal.org/Airman%20Harris/Harris.htm), includes the idea that Buffy's friends get PTSD but her Slayerness protects her from it. It would make sense to pick someone who can keep PTSD at bay.

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

Including her parents' divorce. Which she believes she caused. That alone could make a kid angry and stressed, even minus all the death and other losses.

On the other hand, Faith seemed to suffer something like PTSD from the loss of her first watcher; at the very least, she'd clearly been traumatized by it. Maybe accelerated Slayer healing extends to the mind, as well, but doesn't actually stop the injury. Oooh, now I wanna write about that.

Ooh, sounds interesting. I've never seen that explored in fic. I think I have seen a mention or two of how Xander or Giles survived all their being thrown about and knocked unconscious, some kind of protective spell or something.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Oooh, now I wanna write about that. Yeah, that sounds interesting.

And I do sometimes wonder why Giles doesn't show any signs of, oh, say Parkinsons given how often he's tossed about. I've never seen any fic reference it.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the Hellmouth
Buffy's attitude is an intro to the gallows humor of the show. Dead bodies mean work for her, not unlike a EMT or coroner or something. My bestie is an MD, and she's had to emotionally separate from the deaths, because they are plentiful and inescapable and can't be allowed to keep her from her work. It's easy for lay people to point fingers at the seeming coldness, but those people aren't dealing with it every day. It becomes clear later on in the episode that Buffy cares pretty deeply about humans.

Willow is definitely part of her own problem...but I give her a little slack, because I'm guessing it comes after 10 years of Cordelia running the social show and slapping her back if she steps out of line. She's been conditioned, and part of the beauty of Buffy's friendship is that she breaks that conditioning. Of course, the other side of the problem is that she continues to feel powerless and effectual even when she really, really shouldn't and does things that are really unforgivable.

I will never again be able to listen to Luke's blather without your addition. *\o/*

The Harvest
Yeah, there are enough vampires that they show keeling over before dusting that I don't really have any doubts that Buffy just staked a vamp with that pool cue. That and the cymbal decapitation are just comedy!violence notes in the narrative. I actually love it when the dusting is low tech/off camera. The commentary says that it cost them $5,000 in special effects every time they show a dusting, so they had to economize at times. My favorite is in "School Hard" when Buffy dusts a vamp, and all we see is some crud flying up, obviously thrown by a stage hand. *good times*

The Witch/Teacher's Pet
Joss definitely has a type...
Your Catherine/Giles idea has merit, except that if she were Amy in Catherine's body, I'd be pretty squicked.

On further thought, I don't think Ms. French mated with Dr. Gregory, for the reasons you state. She killed him to get access to virginal boys, definitely. Those eggs? Could have been put there at any time after she took over.

Dr. Gregory would indeed be a catch for a right-thinking mature woman. I'm betting he's married (or gay), though we never hear anything about his personal life.

S5 is the blood-letting season, although there's plenty of that in S7 also...just not Glory related.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

That's true about me not seeing dead bodies often. It does make sense, now that I've given it more thought, that Buffy would not be squicked. My comment was more about the "Oh great" that the not being upset.

I will never again be able to listen to Luke's blather without your addition. *laughs* I hear it every time.

I do believe it's a vampire that she staked with the cue. It's just he cue falling backward thing to me reads as non-vamp because I think a dusted vamp would have died differently.

I have a couple of issues with the eggs. In the episode she says it takes a few months for the offspring to emerge. I guess demonic offspring can grow more quickly. Ah, but Dr. Gregory's head was bitten off, which is part of the sex act. Granted, she could have bitten it off without sex, but if it was someone else, where is that body? Dr. Gregory was hidden in a freezer. It's not like she's too concerned about doing a great job of hiding the bodies. ... And I am making way, way too much of this! ;-) BtVS has glitches. I should get over it.

And thanks for the season correction. I did know that. I just wasn't paying attention.

[snogged.livejournal.com]

“Hell itself will come to town, doo-dah, doo-dah. Hell itself will come to town, oh the doo-dah-day.”?
I didn't think that before, but I do now! EARWORM! :P

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Huge earworm. Bwah-ha-ha!

[kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com]

Actually it might be interesting to explore why Dr. Gregory might be a virgin at the age he is also whether, if the plot had occured later in, say S3, that might have led the scoobies on the wrong scent as to the true nature of the villain; even more so had Buffy & Angel been estranged at the time, so they would have found it even harder to communicate than they usually did.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

I can see that scene now:

Giles: Uh, he calls her a She-Mantis. This type of creature, the Kleptes-Virgo, or, or virgin-thief, appears in, in many cultures. The Greek sirens, the Celtic sea maidens, who, who tore the living flesh from the bones of, um...

Buffy: Giles, while we're young!

Giles: Uh, well, basically the, uh, the She-Mantis assumes the form of a beautiful woman and then lures innocent virgins back to her nest.

Willow and Buffy glance at each other.

Giles: What?

Willow: Well, Dr. Gregory was sort of old to be a virgin. I mean, he might have been but usually, someone that age, would have to be like a monk or something.

Buffy: Which brings us back to square one. We've got nothing.

[kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com]

That really works.

See Jane Espenson was right about TV being good for your writing :-)

kerk

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Heck, I got into writing because of TV! So it's been very good for mine.

[kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com]

Same here :-)

Books provided the fuel, but it was TV that was the trigger.

kerk

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Actually for me it was my Mom's death that provided the trigger. TV provided the form that road took.

[kerkevik-2014.livejournal.com]

Now that's strange.

It was the apocalyptic deaths of all the heros in the finale of Blake's 7 that started me writing and, after all long period of not wanting to write anything, the death of Tara that kicked it all off again.

Kerk

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Huh.