Re: OT: research help - Detailed Description

["blinviz" <debvii@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- In buffywantswillow@y..., danspector@w... wrote:

> But I did find the post where you were raving
> about "Living Conditions" (IMO, possibly the worst ep of Seasons 1-5),
> so now I don't feel so bad that you don't like **my** taste in Noxon
> eps...

Heh. Touche.


> Bad stuff:
> 
> ? Tara the Dogmatist not letting Willow have an opinion about the
> resurrection spell.

I'm wondering if this was the ep where I started really disliking Tara.  
And, ya know, it's not so much Tara as the way she came to be used as a 
character. At first, like all good supporting characters, Tara was 
there to illuminate Willow -- good, bad, indifferent. In Forever she's 
there to show Willow's FLAWS. Hell, Willow doesn't even get to redeem 
herself in the ep: It's TARA who talks to Buffy on the phone! Once 
Marti took over in S6, Forever became the template.

I look at Willow in Forever and wonder when she became so bloody 
stupid. My mind reels. She has the ethical reasoning of a newt and 
the common sense of an 8-yr-old. There is NO WAY IN HELL that the 
redhaired person I saw in Forever is someone I could ever have liked as 
much as I like Willow.

You know, I think about Willow's development over time, and I sort of 
feel like hers is a case of writer's going off on a tangent and losing 
sight of the base character. It wasn't just a matter of Willow getting 
lost, it was a matter of the writers forgetting all the positive 
qualities that balanced out her foibles and flaws.

 
> Looking back, there's Season 6 for you: Buffy sulks about how tough
> having a job is, shuts everyone else out and blames **them** for it, all
> so Marti can have it be about Buffy and Dawn (and no one else) at the
> end. Had we but known...

Yup. The weird B/D....W thing is there too. How many words did Buffy 
and Willow exchange in the ep? Two? I look at the scenes in which 
both are present (funeral, dinner) and I'm yelling at Willow and 
wondering what her bloody deal is. She doesn't talk to Buffy at the 
funeral; Tara does. Why? Because while Tara is the incarnation of the 
Great Mother, Willow is emotionally retarded and completely out-to-sea 
when it comes to helping Buffy in an emotional crisis. Best she can do 
is allow Dawn to triangulate the family and make stuffed animals dance.


> What dolts we were, thinking they were saying something about how Willow
> loves Buffy; "Bargaining" is just "Willow is stupid, childish and
> evil", nothing more. I couldn't even watch the repeat last week.

Well, I sensed at the beginning of the season that Willow was taking 
the fall for Joss wanting Buffy to Go Christ. I just had no idea they 
were going to be so...yucky about it. Snake in our midst and whatnot.

See, to me, if you've established a character over several years as the 
goto gal and emotional confidante, you MUST keep those factors in mind, 
ESP if you're going to bring the character back after her Fall. To my 
way of thinking, Willow's longstanding conflicts with Giles over the 
ethics of magick use, Will's anxiety-prone & perfectionistic nature, 
and her difficulties dealing with rejection & loss are just as 
important as her concern for doing the right thing, her care for the 
well-being of others (she stopped Spike from committing suicide, for 
gosh sakes!), and her remarkable intelligence & abilities. I truly, 
honestly, and deeply believed that S6 was going to rely more on the 
"reasonable people may differ" MO. Willow might still end up being the 
main antagonist, but in the end they ALL would learn and grow from 
their conflicts. But somewhere, somehow, along the way Willow's 
tweakedness -- and hers alone -- became the main concern.

I read some old newsgroup posts to see what people thought of "Forever" 
at the time it aired. Someone made the point that Noxon tends to have 
long stretches focussing on one character, instead of breaking things 
up with several smaller scenes. I'd go that poster one better and say 
that Marti simply gets stuck in ruts. She got it in her head in S5 
that Willow was going bad and Buffy was going to have to take care of 
Dawn, and it became almost impossible for her to keep the bigger 
picture (i.e., the histories of all the characters) in her head. So, 
for example, she could remember that Willow would be likely to take 
Dawn off Buffy's hands for a bit, but she couldn't work out how to 
manage it so that Willow is shown to be both deeply caring as well as 
headed down a slippery slope. Thus, Willow's act became one which was 
simply reflexive.

Either Joss was heavily rewriting Marti in earlier seasons or Marti had 
an "epiphany" that Willow had actually been not-so-great a person in 
S1-4 (not unlike the fans who say that Willow's latent evilness was 
apparent back in S1) so she (MN) might as well go all out with the 
Willow-thumping.

I get the sense that Rebecca Kirshner is not so well-liked, but IMO she 
does a much better job of incorporating and balancing the past & 
present, strengths & weaknesses of ALL of the characters.

> ? Buffy slapping Dawn. I know, this year we all wanted to do it,
> but I'm not a fan of adults smacking their 14-year-old sisters
> around, and **the Slayer** should really know better.

I agree, but I'll still come clean and admit that the smack gave me a 
visceral thrill. A mild release, even. Dawn is hard to take anyway, 
but the writers' treatment of her as if she has actually been on the 
show since the beginning makes me resent her even more.