Re: OT: Coments on the horribl...I mean, Dawn.

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

Arrggh, Dawn.

I've cut her some slack this year. I mean, "Gone", sure, broken arm,
Willow's fault, no problem.  

--Although you have to love the 'shippyness of Dawn's expecting that
Buffy would be taking care of Willow's problems. I mean, Dawn's not
pissed at TARA for "letting" Willow get in too deep with the magic. She
knows who Willow belongs to, who should have been watching out for her.
Geez, if Buffy would stop hiding in that closet, Willow wouldn't be
doing dangerous stuff to try and impress her--

But come "Dead Things", she just lost me. Unfortunately, I never posted
my review of the ep anywhere but JaaBaW, so I don't have it, but I wrote
something like "Dawn loses all the sympathy I had for her in 'Gone' by
making this all about her and accusing Buffy of wanting to abandon her.
Which is not entirely untrue, but is SO not the point here."

People say, "typical teenager", but I tend to agree with Tanya, the
reviewer at the-buzz.com, who points out that back in the day, Joss
wrote teenagers as real people, but now the staff is writing Dawn as an
adult's stereotypical idea of a teenager.

I mean, she's 15. Cordelia was 15 during Season 1 (Willow may also have
been; Buffy and Xander were 16), and if S1 Cordy was the shallowest
creature ever to walk the planet ("an ambulatory upturned nose", David
Hines once called her), she still had more depth than "Get out, get out,
GET OUT!!" Dawn. (Particularly in "Out of Mind, Out of Sight" and
"Prophecy Girl".) Granted, some of that may have been due to having a
26-year-old Charisma Carpenter playing the part, but a lot of it was the
writing, too.

Plus, Dawn had so much more maturity last year, so this is another false
reversion, like with all the characters. She'll suffer, and she'll
"grow"...right back into what she already was last year.

And about that "I'm not the Key any more" bit--how the Hell do they
KNOW that?? Did they take her to a doctor who said, "nope, can't open
anything anymore"? They just threw that out there in the first ep just
so they wouldn't have to deal with that all year (yeah, otherwise we
might have an interesting plot or two). Lame.

I still want Dawn to take over the spellcasting duties. It'd give her a
role in the group, and thus greater self-esteem and security, and since
she's magic herself, she should be able to handle the forces better than
Willow could. Of course, then you'd actually need for there to be
villains for the gang to fight, but that's another rant.

Dan

>From "All the Way":

Justin: Are you a sophomore?
Dawn: I wish!
Me: Yes, she is, DeKnight, you moron! She was a freshman last year!
Remember "Tough Love"??