Re: Shipping at length, now completely OT

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

Some other points, mostly from CA's post a bit ago.

?On why more vampires don't try to bring forth the apocalypse:

IMO, same reason most vampires don't go in for the big-time killings of
our few Aurelian warriors (the Master/Darla/Angel/Dru/Spike line)--fear
of death, as Adam points out to Boone in "Who Are You". If you knew
you'd live forever unless you got people's attention, you'd try to lie
low, too. (Heck, even Lyle Gorch is a stud by vamp standards...)

Remember, these are the same folks who were so twigged by the Master's
death that they stayed silent for the entire summer after Season 1, even
though Buffy was out of town. Trying to open the Hellmouth gets you a
visit from the Slayer, and, historically, that never ends well for the
vamps.

It makes sense that Buffy would get to go up against the baddest of the
bad, so I'm not surprised that apocalyptic schemes aren't more common.

?On the concept that vamps don't want the demons back because demons
and vamps don't get along.

Remember, the mention of Adam uniting the races in "Where the Wild
Things Are" was just a last-minute addition to try and tie a standalone
ep into the hastily-rejiggered season arc. Just Tracy Forbes hoping to
slip a mention of the new "big bad" into an ep they hadn't hired George
Hertzberg for.

Canonically, it's a retcon that ignores the Mayor's employment of
vampires, the fact that Angel and the Judge practically dated, the bit
where El Eliminati had served Balthazar for **over a century** (and
neither Giles or Wesley found that at all remarkable) and Season 4's own
mention, a mere six eps prior in "A New Man", of how Spike used to hire
Fyarl demons.

Obviously, when Giles says how remarkable it is that the vamps and
demons are working together, he's kidding. Or drunk. Ignore it.

?On the idea that Hell must suck because the demons are fighting to
get out of it.  

That's never stated in canon. I see the willingness of the Hellmouth
Muppet and its kin to attack Earth as a) natural demonic aggressiveness
and lust for conquest, and b) a desire to recapture what was once theirs
and was lost, their native land, according to "The Harvest".

?On how Xander and Anya fit because "he's an emotional coward and
she's afraid of her humanity".

Gee, there's a reason to support that 'ship. Obviously, I'm not going
to be fond of any pairing that reduces Xander to this. Particularly
when it so contradicts the Xander of the first two years, who gathered
the courage to ask Buffy out ("Prophecy Girl"), who bared his heart to a
virtual stranger ("Inca Mummy Girl"), who tried to talk Cordelia into
going public ("Surprise") and into making a deeper commitment
("Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered") and who, at last, after hiding
his affections by diverting them onto Slayers and sassy girls who he
couldn't hurt the way his father has hurt his mother, finally breaks
down and admits he loves Willow ("Becoming, Part 2").  

I'll admit I'm upset that Joss decided to retcon Xander into an immature
joke machine halfway through Season 3 (this is the guy who was willing
to lie to Buffy for her own good in "Becoming, Part 2", with no
expectation that Buffy would leave town, and the probable knowledge that
he was torching his relationships with both Buffy and Willow when they
found out [he didn't know Joss would lose his balls and sweep it all
under the rug]), so I probably would dislike any relationship based on
the weak idiot seen in the Jane Espenson-written XanderSlander we got in
Season 3: "I've eaten a ton of this candy, and I don't feel any
different"; "Oh, man, it's Nazi Germany and I've got Playboys in my
locker"; "Jonathan? Jonathan?...oooh, Jello!"  

But Xanya is what we get, so Xanya is the Xandership I dislike.
Possibly C/X, W/X or B/X would have sucked as much with the damage
they've done to Xander, post-"Amends", but then again, Xanya is a
relationship specifically built on the "Xander's an immature idiot"
concept, whereas the others had roots in the days when the character was
treated seriously.

Dan

ironically, from Season 5 on, Jane has written the best Xander of anyone
(if we blame Petrie for the Xanya scenes in "Flooded"). Don't know what
that means...