Re: Article with spoilers--Spoiler discussion

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

Hmm, still touching on a few spoilers here, so....

off

we

go

again

and

I 

still

need

this

stuff

Just a few quick [late editorial comment: HA!!] notes:

? On not wanting to see Willow with anyone other than a resurrected
Tara/other Amber Benson character:

Sure, I can see that pov if you think W/T are soulmates, etc, but that's
emphatically not my own view. Nor was it ever Jos's apparently; Tara
was just a device to get Willow into the deep end of the magic pool,
they say now.

Hmm, and what other effect did Tara have on Willow's life? Oh, yeah,
got her in touch with her sexuality. But if Tara's not meant to be
Willow's end point, just a device to move her arc forward, then Willow's
awareness of her lesbianism must just be a precursor to hooking up with
the girl she's always loved, right? Say the one she blew off Tara to be
with in "The I in Team"? (And only after that girl ran off with
Backstreet Riley [and his Boy Band Commandos], did Willow go to her
second choice...) As with anything (and everything in this post), Your
Mileage May Vary.

Damn, now I realize that if B/W don't hook up, Willow's relationship arc
makes precious little sense, and I'm depressed. Maybe, just maybe, she
could be put back with Xander and you could ascribe Tara (and also Oz)
to "I went looking for love everywhere, but it was right here all
along." (I'm talking simply in terms of drama, not personal preferences,
although I do also ship W/X.) But a reunion with Oz would be a bad
joke; that'd be "oh, Tara? That was just a two-year timeout in our
eternal wolfy love; let's just forget about her."

?On the concept that seeing Aly and Amber together again (no matter
who Amber was playing) would at least provide warm fuzzies:

Well, I think they'd have to work hard (meaning that I'm sure they
won't) to avoid making it seem six kinds of creepy...I mean, you fall
for someone who's the spitting image of your dead lover? WTF?? (Ever
see "Vertigo"? Or "The Legend of Lylah Claire?")

?On the idea that re-pairing Aly and Amber would avoid chemistry
problems with a new actor:

Well, I don't think it'd be someone totally new; otherwise "you'll
never believe who it is!" doesn't really make sense. (Unless it's stunt
casting, like someone briefly theorized about the Britney Spears rumors;
we don't know the character, but Marti thinks we'll "never believe" the
actress who's playing her.) So no need to fear the Blucas syndrome. Of
possible guesses, Aly already has demonstrated chemistry with Nick
Brendon and Tony Head and Eliza Dushku and Emma Caulfield. Heck, Willow
and Anya have already had "sex" (ie, spellcasting) in "Doppelgangland".
Hands touching, halting breath, body trembling, the whole deal. In the
journey from "Doppelgangland" to "Who Are You" (from 3.16 to 4.16,
coincidentally), Joss may have taken things up a couple of notches, but
the W/Ay scene is clearly the template for the flaming Os to come.

And, as I've written, I've felt that Aly muted her energy to match
Amber's and that hurt the W/T scenes, so I don't fear a new acting
partner at all. (Again, I preferred Amber with Emma or Michelle,
because they just did their normal thing and played the contrast, rather
than the quiet and quieter vibe I would get from W/T). Again, JMO.

?On the concept that B/W would never really work because Buffy's not
gay:

Heck, she's the gayer of the two, she's just not out yet. The whole
slayer thing is just a metaphor for being a gay teenager (Joss himself
called "Becoming" a "lesbian arc" for Buffy) and, unlike Buffy, Willow
has been wholeheartedly in love with at least one man. (I'm only
counting Xander here, because I won't say Willow loved Oz until she says
it, which she never has.) 

What does Buffy have on the resume? Angel, an adolescent attachment to
a "bad boy", the dark attraction of an affair that Buffy herself knew as
far back as "The Pack" would never work. Parker, who was just an
attempt to forget Angel (cut lines from "The Harsh Light of Day" make it
plain that she was even thinking of Angel during the sex). Riley she
didn't love; that's canon ("The Replacement", et sequitur). She just
wanted to have a normal boyfriend so she could convince herself she was
normal (closet much?). And Spike is purely physical; the sex is just
another spur so that she can "feel". (You'll note that she never says
what she's "feeling", nor does she admit to being attracted--she
develops Definitely-Not-Love "feelings" for Spike as a person, but
nothing says she's warm for his unwarm form. Marti may have written it
into the script notes for "Wrecked" that the first time with Spike was
the best sex she ever had--but that doesn't mean it couldn't be a whole
lot better with a woman.)

Heck, pre-"Doppelgangland", Willow was a whole lot not-gayer than Buffy,
so considering where she is now, it's easy to see Buffy getting in touch
with her own sexuality. If the girl who spent the first half of season
3 professing her bliss with her boyfriend while snagging smooches with
another guy can be gay, why can't the girl who spent the same eps trying
to resolve her enforcedly-celibate relationship with a "man" who isn't
really even a man do the same?

After all, it was Joss who set up Buffy as the hero and Willow as the
damsel-in-distress (a classic romantic pairing), It was Joss who, in
"Prophecy Girl", first raised the possibility of B/W dating. It was
co-exec David Greenwalt who, in "Reptile Boy", had Buffy's two closest
friends think she was dating Cordelia (the girl must give off a
vibe--and Willow was jealous!), and it was Greenwalt who started all
that B/F subtext ("hungry and horny", "getting sweaty in the library")
in "Faith, Hope, and Trick" and "Homecoming". The Buffy=gay stuff comes
straight from the top, so I wouldn't write her off as irredeemably het
just yet.

Anyway, what do you think that "Faith and Willow fight for Buffy's
attention" arc in S3 was all about? Willow is, in canon, a bi girl who
likes to call herself gay (a point that, perhaps not coincidentally,
first popped up in the middle of all this) and Faith is, also
canonically, apparently bi (in "Five By Five" she thought Lilah was
trying to pick her up for sex and didn't object at all). So you've got
two bi girls fighting over a third, but Buffy is straight as a pin??
Surrrre.

And again, not that I've seen any evidence of central long-range
planning or competent work of late, but it does seem that the only way
Joss could have justified his horrendous treatment of the gay community,
in re Tara, was if he was always planning to have Buffy come out.  

I know, I'm enough of a cynic to suspect his real feelings are "to hell
with them! They're lucky they got what I gave them; now back to het!"
and that he's decided to marry Buffy off to Spike because the scrawny
cadaver is "hot", but my hopeful brain just does like to occasionally
keep hope alive.  

(not that I'd want Buffy with Willow if she's a murderer who'll always
be just one good push away from going back on the "dark magicks", but
that's another rant.)

Dan