Buffy Goes Dark: Essays on the Final Two Seasons of Buffy.
This book which covers seasons 6 and 7 will be out sometime towards the end of the year.
And it's available for pre-ordering over at Amazon.com.
Shey | April 15, 11:44 CET
mockingbird | April 15, 11:49 CET
I'll be even more interested when they knock a few bucks off that price. Is this a hardback or something?
ManEnoughToAdmitIt | April 15, 13:47 CET
Saje | April 15, 14:00 CET
minuet | April 15, 14:25 CET
Season 6 is one of my favourites, so count me among the interested.
Furball | April 15, 14:35 CET
miri47 | April 15, 14:41 CET
I am not a fan of S6 or S7 in any way, but I respect these authors a great deal, so I am interested in what they have to say. I'll certainly get this when it is available.
Dana5140 | April 15, 15:04 CET
For the full seasons, it usually takes a while to figure who's the Big Bad, but it took remarkably long to unveil the latest threat to end the world in Season 6, and what a horrific development that was.
And the Spike/Buffy dynamic was just splendid, beautifully presaged in Seasons 4 and 5, brilliantly realized in Season 6.
I know, I know, chacun à son goût, but the Season 6 hatred is utterly mystifying to me.
I love these books, except when some of the writers overthink matters and try to stuff Buffy into their own ideological straightjackets.
Picked up 2 that I didn't have at a used book sale recently. Have no idea how many I have by now. This one will definitely add to the collection.
Chris inVirginia | April 15, 15:19 CET
Regardless, I may just have to buy this book. I haven't ever read any scholarly books about any of my favorite television shows, though they seem like they must be fun combinations of some of my favorite things.
Everyone's speaking highly of these authors. What else have they written and are these other works "must reads" as well?
Lirazel | April 15, 15:26 CET
Haunt | April 15, 15:31 CET
[ edited by Dana5140 on 2008-04-15 15:42 ]
Dana5140 | April 15, 15:41 CET
Haunt | April 15, 15:46 CET
Enisy | April 15, 15:50 CET
On Season 6 (which I like a lot), maybe one reason it makes us uneasy is that Buffy is finally out of school -- and crash and burn seems like a pretty universal experience for the first months or years on our own. Is there life after high school (or college)? Still not sure.
doghouse | April 15, 15:52 CET
mikejer | April 15, 15:55 CET
I may be in an actual minority because I neither love nor hate seasons 6 and 7, they're not my favourites but they're far from my least favourites either (and they have some of my favourite individual episodes). Most opinions i've come across seem to hold fairly extreme views either way (though that could be the polarising effect of it being a contentious issue - embattled perspectives sometimes become extreme ones).
Saje | April 15, 16:05 CET
I love S6 to death - for some of the same reasons that I hate parts of it. It doesn't surprise me at all that it polarised the audience.
I ~hate~ that Tara died. With a passion. I want her back, in canon, with Willow, not evil, eventually. But my hatred of her death is absolutely proportional to how much I love and care about the character.
I ~hate~ that Willow went to the dark place she did when Tara was killed. But I love that their love was powerful and important enough that its loss was gut-wrenching and took Willow there.
As the song says, there's a fine line between pleasure and pain - and Joss pretty much walked that line all the way (laughing maniacally whilst doing so, no doubt). :-)
crystalsinger | April 15, 16:12 CET
Admitedly it's not like that here... hardly ever. ;)
Haunt | April 15, 16:13 CET
Sunfire | April 15, 16:17 CET
Simon | April 15, 16:31 CET
I think after reading all of the posts that I am looking forward to reading this new anthology on S6 and S7!!
jessticedemon | April 15, 16:39 CET
It is a polarizing season, which does not bother me. I only get annoyed when people start saying that "everyone agrees" that blah blah blah. I would rather people recognize that it is a season that people have strong and conflicting opinions about, sometimes within individuals, and that each side as good points that they can make.
newcj | April 15, 16:40 CET
But then I was referring to the minority of being critical of it, as well as being critical of all of Joss' work.
I dunno Haunt, it doesn't really seem to me like folk are reluctant to criticise season 6/7 (on here at least), anytime there's a "favourite/worst episodes" thread there seems to be plenty of healthy dissent (not to mention very widely varying opinions).
The people that seriously mean that "Joss is God and can do no wrong" seem few and far between (as I say, on here. Stuck my head in the door of a few other sites - which shall remain unspecified - and quickly withdrew for the reasons mentioned).
Saje | April 15, 16:44 CET
I just rewatched part of Season 6 a few weekends ago. It's fascinating to me what I forgot, or glossed over, or misremembered a bit. And what never changes. "Smashed" and "Wrecked"? Always shocking and painful, even knowing what will happen. "Doublemeat Palace"? I'd forgotten Willow's heroic moment at the end there, and the funny double "ewwww" with the shot of the ground up demon. "Gone" is still funny-sad when Buffy is pranking people, but this time I was appalled at how she affected the social services worker. But now I know how overworked and underpaid that profession generally is, and I was seeing it more from her perspective and less from Buffy's.
Sunfire | April 15, 16:58 CET
[ edited by Tonya J on 2008-04-15 17:21 ]
Tonya J | April 15, 17:20 CET
ETA: I look forward to the essay collections on S8. :-D
[ edited by UnpluggedCrazy on 2008-04-15 17:35 ]
UnpluggedCrazy | April 15, 17:34 CET
I agree with mikejer. The only board I frequented at the time where opinion was about evenly split was All Things Philosophical. On all of the others, majority opinion turned more and more vocally against the season from Wrecked through Seeing Red. I'd say there were some boards I went to where, for a while, it took guts to defend the season, you were going to be so vehemently disagreed with.
Although, since internet posters are a subset of the actual fandom, it's possible that those who were less passionate about the show also hated S6 less, I don't know.
S6 polarized me, actually. Hated the execution, sometimes, especially, but I've come around to liking it a lot. I think Simon is right that his opinions will change on re-watching. Mine certainly have. I re-watch certain S6 episodes more often than I do those of the sainted first three seasons, where everybody's just acquiring their scars, and seem to me now, and please don't hurt me, a little shallower. I feel more distant from them somehow.
shambleau | April 15, 17:42 CET
So probably if you were looking for entertainment and viewing pleasure you're having trouble with s6, if you liked Buffy for the hidden truths behind the wittiness you revel in s6. Since I assume that every Buffy fan has a bit of both it's only natural that emotions run high, since nothing makes you argue as much as when you don't want to see the other's point (especially if you do).
ETA:for finishing sentences
[ edited by Harpy on 2008-04-15 17:53 ]
Harpy | April 15, 17:49 CET
I have comments on this but would prefer to see people's thoughts before I offer them.
Dana5140 | April 15, 18:00 CET
Sunfire, I know exactly where you're coming from. I frequently work with protective services employees in my current position and they truly are overworked, under-paid, and way under-appreciated. I could not do that job. I remember sympathizing with the worker the very first time I saw that episode. I mean, I laughed, because of the funny, but there was a definite pang of "that sucks-poor lady." Huh. Maybe she left protective services and got herself a better job somewhere.
Re: season 6, I liked it, but then I saw it on DVD, not when it was originally aired. I wonder how much seeing it over a 3-day period, as opposed to a full season, affected me liking it. There are a few episodes I absolutely loathed (especially Double-Meat Palace) but overall, I enjoyed it very much. Seasons two and three are still my favorite, though.
Betsy | April 15, 18:02 CET
Dana5140, I don't look at it as Joss intending to cause viewers pain. I think he was just serving the story. I was uncomfortable with certain aspects of the season, and I absolutely hated Tara's death. But at the same time, I think seeing Buffy in a dark place and then fighting her way out of it was compelling and actually rather inspiring. I'm sure Joss (and to be fair, Marti) knew some of his fanbase would react strongly, but I don't think that's such a bad thing. It's been how many years? And we're still talking about it.
Betsy | April 15, 18:09 CET
shambleau | April 15, 18:12 CET
Dana5140 I don't think Joss intended pain on anyone, and I doubt a TV show could cause anyone actual pain in any case. But I don't think it is his job to just offer comfort. The stories have to challenge or they just become stale. The subject matter will be divisive, because real issues are always divisive, and the issues dealt with in BtVS are very real. But I don't think the intention was ever to hurt the viewers.
Furball | April 15, 18:12 CET
Love the title of this book.
Capt. Logic | April 15, 18:15 CET
In as much as he caused pain to some viewers during every other season of Buffy. I don't see why season 6 should get the bragging rights for the season that caused the most angst for certain groups of fans.
Simon | April 15, 18:15 CET
Tonya J | April 15, 18:17 CET
To me, there is no definitive experiene of Buffy because of our seperate lenses. I sometimes wish I knew exactly what Joss intended but if I did - I would miss out on these fabulous conversations.
Haunt - I hope I never participatd in your public burnings at our old board. I always loved what you had to say there and it was refreshing to see your opinions on the board.
ruthless1 | April 15, 18:25 CET
I love the moment on the Chosen extras dvd Buffy panel when Marti interjects in the middle of a comment something like, "...that was before I ruined everything on Season 6."
It made me like her humor even more, if that were possible...
QuoterGal | April 15, 18:26 CET
gossi | April 15, 18:31 CET
Sunfire | April 15, 18:39 CET
Furball | April 15, 18:43 CET
And therein is a family problem, we are re-watching Buffy with our ten year old son, and we have just watched "Smashed" and he is mortified that Spike is having sex with Buffy - "I thought Spike was cool" he complained (watching it through his fingers). He thinks the Trio are really funny and now we are censoring episodes - I have no desire to explain to him what Willow is doing in "Wrecked" and what Spike is doing in "Gone" and what the Trio are doing to Katrina in "Dead Things".
So on the one hand, dark, dark stuff and on the other hand the Trio being, well, the Trio - often in the same episode. The tone of S6 is uneven, imo, and that is my complaint about it.
moley75 | April 15, 18:54 CET
(I think most of the time the tone is deliberately uneven, jaunty to disarm the viewer then BANG ! 'Dead Things' or 'Seeing Red'. The Trio being such a joke just makes Warren's actions all the more horrific IMO)
Did Joss set out to deliberately cause his loyal viewers that'd stuck with the show for 5+ years across 2 networks intense emotional pain ? Nah. That said, I do think he may have been what, if we were talking about reality, you might call callous in that he put the story first, did what he felt was best for that and didn't necessarily stop to consider if people would be genuinely hurt by it.
Which, to me, is exactly how he should have acted but that's said with a bit of distance that the people utterly ruined by Tara's death don't seem to have.
Saje | April 15, 18:59 CET
shambleau | April 15, 19:01 CET
A few comments from me. First, of course my question is loaded. But it is not unfairly loaded. I say this because many interviews with Joss make specific mention of creating pain and killing characters. So I think this is a fair question. Was the response unexpected? I believe that in some ways it was; some people really invested in the characters, not just Tara, and some of them really were hurt in the doing. We kid about the Kittens, but I am in no position to tell them they have no rights to their feelings. They do, and they were quite obviously hurt, hurt to the point they turned their back on the program that gave them their existence, so to say.
I also note that I received a number of different answers, some of which did not directly address my question. Betsy- you feel he did not intend to cause pain. Should he have expected it? In comments he has made he has noted that he was surprised by the response from some of his fans. Did he misread them? Was it all only ever about the story, and viewers be damned?
Shambleau, did I ask if Joss wanted to stick it to anyone? I did not, and do not believe that. My question was very clear: did he mean it to hurt as much as it did? Given what I said above, I think he did not intend to create the response he got. But it occurred nonetheless. My question, really, is why?
Furball- but as I have noted, he really did hurt people and that is why the kittenboard still exists today. Right? So I do think a TV show can cause people pain. It may not cause you pain, but you can only really say that for yourself. Which I mean in no bad way. What hurts people hurts people. Some invest heavily in a show, and when the characters they invest in suffer, so do they, for whatever reasons. I cannot say why, but it happens. We would normally say, this is due to good writing.
Simon, S6 is a polarizing season. Why do you think that is? Why this one more than any other?
Tonya- but Joss has said that this is what he does! He causes pain. He does toy with people's emotion, and I think that is pretty much indisputable. Certainly I agree with you that HOW you experience that pain is directly related to your psychological make-up.
ruthless1- This is the crux of the question- could he have anticipated the response? I am not asking if he would have done anything different, just whether he knew how people would respond. You certainly are correct in noting that we view this through our own lenses- mine are patent and well known. But I mean no disrespect with this question; I constantly try to monitor myself to understand why I feel as I do. I've noted the characters over the years that have drawn me in: Tara, Sara Sidle (CSI) and Sophie (In Treatment) and have tried to see why they did, and why when bad things happen, it hurts. But the truth is, it does hurt.
My own feeling is that Joss did not intend the response that occurred. He intended to cause pain, but he's the writer so he cannot experience the show in the same way those who watch do. He has thought things out in advance, he knows what is coming, and he is telling a story. But he can err as well. It is not just Tara that bothers me in S6. Believe it or not, I have never seen Hell's Bells. It is the only episode I have never seen. I won't watch it. I know what happens and it is wrong, to me. They hurt Anya and Xander, Buffy, Willow, Spike and Tara in S6. They messed with everyone. There was nothing positive that season, really. Yeah, it ended okay for Buffy. But not for Willow, not for Spike, not for Xander, and really, really not for Tara. And in the end, Joss made a conscious decision in S7 to return the program to more of its original roots. That, more than anything, is recognition that S6 went off track.
[ edited by Dana5140 on 2008-04-15 19:06 ]
Dana5140 | April 15, 19:04 CET
Unlike say 1-5 and 7? ;)
zeitgeist | April 15, 19:05 CET
It was strange how it was only 20 minutes long and all about Andrew, though.
Sunfire | April 15, 19:21 CET
I do think more so than any other season but as I can see not every(any)body agrees ;-)
moley75 | April 15, 19:22 CET
The way any given episode can pivot on a dime from humor to heartbreak to creeped-out horror just knocks me out.
Exactly Shambleau. To jump shows, 'Spin the Bottle' is heartbreaking at the end, after being pretty much hilarious all the way through. That kind of "puncturing" of levity with seriousness (and vice versa) is very Joss (it's not unique to him - it's pretty common in British comedy for instance and the best of the US stuff e.g. 'MASH', 'Cheers' etc. - but he does it extremely well).
Saje | April 15, 19:23 CET
:D
zeitgeist | April 15, 19:32 CET
Had the story ended there, I could fully accept the criticism. It would probably have been an unsatisfactory conclusion for all concerned, characters and audience alike. But S6 wasn't the end, it was just a chapter in a much larger story, the darkness before dawn, if you will. Someone else said it better than I can:
"It’s like in the great stories. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why."
Samwise, in "The Two Towers" movie.
S7 would bring redemption for Buffy, Willow, Spike, Anya, even Andrew, made all the more poignant because of the dark places they had journeyed through to get there.
Furball | April 15, 19:37 CET
Different strokes blahblahblah.
shambleau | April 15, 19:45 CET
In all of S7, it is only Spike who I see as redeemed, offering his life to save humanity, Christian allegory notwithstanding. Anya, nope. Andrew, nope. Look at him now, for pete's sake. He is a standing joke, mainly comic relief. And even Buffy is arguable. What is she redeemed for? Being a general? Well, that seems to not have changed much in S8. Heck, she just slept with one of the troops and then proceeded to treat the person she just slept with as one of the troops.
But take S6 on its own merits, though. Not much good really happened in it. Period.
Dana5140 | April 15, 19:47 CET
Period? Are we allowed our own opinions?
gossi | April 15, 19:50 CET
I'd argue that the writer often experiences a character's pain more intimately than the audience. After all, the writer gives birth to the character and the writer is the one who makes them suffer. It isn't easy to torture and kill your own fictional children.
Of course, fictional is the key here. A writer isn't a brutal monster just because he or she uses a character's pain to tell as story or make a point. They just have to maintain a certain emotional distance and objectivity to tell an effective story. And maybe the audience needs to do the same thing to fully enjoy it.
I've watched/read plenty of things that made me uncomfortable or made me cry, Buffy included. It's simply a sign of good writing when an emotional response is elicited from the audience. But for those who are so sucked in that the story causes them actual pain? I don't think the writer is at all to blame for that. And I honestly don't think that needs to be a serious consideration when writing.
Lady Brick | April 15, 19:53 CET
Buffyfantic | April 15, 19:56 CET
Dana5140 | April 15, 20:03 CET
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner | April 15, 20:06 CET
As far as redemption of the characters is concerned, well, I have to disagree there also, strongly, but that is a longer post for which alas at the moment I don't have time. I'm sure that discussion will come up another time, however.
Lady Brick, agree wholeheartedly with all your points.
Furball | April 15, 20:16 CET
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner | April 15, 20:21 CET
Isn't that a matter of degree ? Where's the line between "moving, upsetting, even emotionally distressing" and "genuine, bonafide pain" ? Because it strikes me that it's thin and in a different place for each of us.
(and if you pursue an extreme sport are you feeling actual genuine fear ? How about on a rollercoaster ? Cos last I checked our species were pretty keen on those and a lot of other ostensibly unpleasant experiences to boot ;)
Weirdest thing when Wash died, I had an actual physical sensation, not necessarily pain but like I had a hole in my guts. Before that I also didn't think fiction could do that. You live and learn ;).
[ edited by Saje on 2008-04-15 21:21 ]
Saje | April 15, 20:29 CET
I mean, since when do books about Whedonverse shows show up at used book sales??????????
DaddyCatALSO | April 15, 20:31 CET
As far as redemption, phttt. A story can work fine without anybody being redeemed at all. Anya never truly felt remorse for all the pain she inflicted and then she died. Now THAT's true to life. It's perfectly fine for a character's arc to end with them being works in process, which is all anybody ever is anyway. Or Joss can pick up on Willow's and other characters' supposed lack of true redemption in S9.
[ edited by shambleau on 2008-04-15 20:36 ]
shambleau | April 15, 20:34 CET
I'd like to take a wee exception to this use of the word "toy." Joss may approach his work with a variety of intentions and emotions, but I don't believe "toying" with our feelings is one of them. He has said on numerous occasions that he intends for the viewer to experience the characters' emotions, high and low, but I don't believe he does this lightly or for his own amusement, which is what the use of the word "toy" implies. He does this because he's a writer, and that's what writers do.
Wait, but maybe writers of all stripes are sadists. I hadn't considered that.
*runs trippingly in her mind through her bookcases.*
Well, okay, I'm willing to concede that Marie Corelli, Elinor Glyn and occasionally E. Phillips Oppenheim were possibly sadists that enjoyed inflicting pain and tedium...
But not Joss. I draw the line at Joss.
QuoterGal | April 15, 20:38 CET
Buffy was brought back to life and came to terms with being a slayer and being alive.
Spike won himself a soul.
Willow became connected to a more positive kind of magic.
Xander saved the world.
Anya made a choice to risk herself for her friends.
Admittedly most of those things happened in the last few episodes, but that is how fiction often works...including some of the other seasons of BTVS...the ones that did not end with Buffy dying or killing the man she loved. Often the good comes at the beginning and at the end with a lot of pain in between.
I love S6 because it is so dense and it is dealing with such difficult issues. The characters are in crisis with issues that have been building since they were kids...much like they do in life.
I think Joss meant to cause people to understand and feel some of what the characters were feeling. That included pain. IMO, he wanted us to feel it so we could understand and be invested in the journey of the characters. What I think he may not have expected was how many would feel the emotions so strongly that they would deny the journey and concentrate on the writers instead....though I could certainly be wrong.
newcj | April 15, 20:40 CET
Saje, rollercoasters are simulations too, but they are a nice analogy. Rollercoasters allow us to experience the adrenaline of fear without actual danger. The same is true of drama, it allows us to experience a whole range of emotions without fear of being damaged by them.
Furball | April 15, 20:41 CET
I think it would be easier for me to rewatch all of S6 if in S7 there would have been a big group hug where everyone apologized to everyone. I just felt like some characters didn't really get closure on their previous actions.
luvspike | April 15, 20:42 CET
Yes, I know we all see it a bit differently, but, isn't that the point? I always thought that's what Joss was pressing with his stories. To see things in a different shade light, to feel something else.
Ahh, sorry! I'll hush now:)
Madhatter | April 15, 20:44 CET
shambleau | April 15, 20:46 CET
Yeah, Tara dying was horrible, doubly so after what Glory did to her in S5. However, I can't imagine it not happening any more than Joyce not dying, or Jenny not dying. Buffy did some horrible things, but they contextually made sense and as someone remarked, finally rose from her grave at the end, leading her to be the person she NEEDED to be for S7 (and 8, of course). I can see not liking to watch S6 because so much of it IS uncomfortable to watch. I can see editing it for your children because it was not written for children. I can understand not liking the season, but I don't understand it going against anything that came before it. The show has always been at its most basic, the development and growth of Buffy. Right from the beginning she's had to go through horrible, horrible things to become the person she is. I'd be curious to hear what you found to subvert the previous episodes and why you feel that way.
narse | April 15, 21:05 CET
This is the first time I can probably say this without wanting to grate my teeth, but maybe they weren't supposed to get closure.
For a long time it really bothered me that no one really resolved a lot of the issues that plagued them throughout the series. But in reality, maybe that's just wishful thinking. It would take more years than the show had for everyone to work through their various problems. So expecting them to kiss and makeup might be a tad unfeasible, at least to me. Which is not to say that I still don't get incensed about Buffy's (or Xander's, or Willow's, or everyone's) behavior from time to time, but I suppose that's to be expected. ;)
deepgirl187 | April 15, 21:18 CET
Well, if you're talking an actual kitty, I know a loan shark who would cut you a deal.
barboo | April 15, 21:22 CET
For me, season 6 only faltered when it didn't embrace the darkness ("Gone"). And it gave way to season 7, by far my favourite season of Buffy.
I may have to check out that book.
bigsofty | April 15, 21:29 CET
Furball | April 15, 21:34 CET
BTW, don't think I ever spoken with you before. Welcome, nice to meet you!
Madhatter | April 15, 21:37 CET
I agree with this, and it's pretty much my response to Dana's orginal question as well. Yes, season 6 hurt in a lot of ways, and I believe that most, if not all, of those ways were intentional. But the reason I watch this stuff is for it to inspire some emotion in me, to stir something up. Episodes like Chosen and, in Angel, To Shanshu in LA bring out the nicer emotional responses, yes, but I don't think they could if not for moments like in season 6 and... uh... I guess slightly earlier in To Shanshu in LA.
So I believe whatever pain is caused was intentional, and I'm grateful for it.
I'll also agree that I don't think season 6 was particularly dark in comparison to other dark points in Buffy. The Body, Passion, and Becomings all come to mind immediately.
Jobo | April 15, 21:45 CET
Amen, and vice versa. The backstory of how Angel got to Sunnydale--to make something of his unlife, to help a young girl who'll need a lot of it--and he fell in love with her, she with him, and as a result, the world may come to an end...and he says he wants to learn from Whistler...but not dress like him.
Season 6 ended magnificently...the rush of wind that delivered Willow from evil (Joss knows his theology) after having been defeated by nothing more simple than love...as noted above, the bookend to Buffy's first appearance above ground in Season 6, but not ugly, jagged, and bright, but beautiful, lush, and sunny...and all of it to the gorgeous humility that is the St. Francis Prayer.
Re: Whedon books at a used book sale: first time ever, and we go to every one we can.
Hey, I liked Doublemeat Palace a lot, but I'm referring to OMWF, of course.
Nothing good there? All they did was take the essentially absurd concept of the musical and seamlessly integrate it into the season's arc, makeing it the literary climax of the entire season, the moment from which all the signficant activity--Buffy/Spike, Anya/Xander, Willow/Tara, Dawn's estrangement, Giles' sense of redundancy...a truly remarkable achievement.
And the music was superb, perfectly calibrated to both the characters as well as the cast's relative musical ability (Tara and Giles, tons, Willow and Dawn, not so much, everybody else somewhere in between.)
I also think it was brilliant that Buffy was brought back not from hell but heaven. Why wouldn't she find this ugly old world horrible and be distant and estranged herself, to the point where the only place she can feel the least bit alive is in the arms of a dead man?
Chris inVirginia | April 15, 21:47 CET
I'll go you one better deepgirl187, I don't think most people ever "get right" from certain issues, I reckon that could just be a story we tell ourselves (possibly perpetuated by psychiatrists and the authors of self-help books ;). Cheery thought, eh ?
Furball: Rollercoasters allow us to experience the adrenaline of fear without actual danger.
Of course but the fear is real, right ? Maybe there's some fine distinction between pain due to a simulation of reality and pain due to reality that i'm not getting cos to me they're both pain. If someone says something that makes you laugh and then tells you they didn't mean it to be funny, do you then think "Oh OK, I must not have really found it funny then" ? If you feel something then you feel it, whatever the root cause. Course, YMMV ;).
... and think it's proof to me how great a writer Joss is, that he can affect me that strongly.
Yeah, agreed Shambleau. Shocking as it was though, I didn't see Joss as "punishing" me or that he was somehow "wrong" to kill him, to me the risk of feeling like that comes with investing in great characters and experiencing great stories. Basically, you have to take the rough with the smooth, just like in life ;).
Saje | April 15, 21:48 CET
Maybe the truest sentence in this thread. A group hug would have been so clanky.
Remember what one essayist called "Angel's wet dream" in which he--with the others, as a team--killed the beast, saved the day, and resolved all the estrangement issues with Connor, Gunn, Wesley...and he finally consummated his love for Cordy...and that's when he wakes up, souless again.
A lesser show and lesser writers would have gone with the shaman-induced dream and ended the episode there. Meh.
[ edited by Chris inVirginia on 2008-04-15 21:55 ]
Chris inVirginia | April 15, 21:53 CET
Joss Whedon: I killed Tara. Some of you may have been hurt by that. It's very unlikely it was more painful to you than it was to me. I couldn't even discuss it in story meetings without getting upset, physically. Which is why I knew it was the right thing to do. Because stories, as I have so often said, are not about what we WANT.
Enisy | April 15, 21:58 CET
I think i've lost my point anyway but i hope I got soemthing across. If I go on too far I'll evnetually criticize the entire turn the series took some time before S-6 even started and I don't want to do that.
DaddyCatALSO | April 15, 22:11 CET
Furball | April 15, 22:11 CET
Though I think some season 6 episodes are imperfect, I think many of them are wonderful and chilling. I'd like to check out this book, since the 2 Buffy academic books I've read don't deal with them extensively.
5X5B | April 15, 22:23 CET
I loved it.
spikeylover | April 15, 22:33 CET
Yeah, of course this is true BUT the "cost" you're avoiding is the actual death of a loved one NOT the pain. Just as with a roller-coaster you get to feel real fear but without actual danger (assuming the ride's safe).
... you are suffering on behalf of the characters on screen, not for yourself.
Ah, no, there we differ (and i'd wager so do the people hurt by the death of Tara). I'm suffering because of my attachment to the characters and because I see myself in the "people" onscreen. Dana5140 for instance (if i'm reading him right) was extremely fond of Tara himself, he's upset for what he's lost, what he sees as having been done to him, not (just) on behalf of Willow and the others.
With 'The Body' for instance, I think most people are either reminded of actually losing someone or are imagining, through the characters, what that will be like. When viewers become emotional from film/TV I don't think it's usually because they feel sorry for the character they're watching (or the characters around them) I reckon it's because they connect what they're seeing to themselves or maybe connect to it as a more general property of humanity (of which they are, presumably, a part ;).
Saje | April 15, 22:37 CET
cmbackshane | April 15, 22:45 CET
Madhatter | April 15, 22:55 CET
ETA: I agree with cmbackshane, but I distinguish between musings about trends, and authoritative generalizations.
[ edited by Sunfire on 2008-04-15 23:07 ]
Sunfire | April 15, 23:00 CET
vampy | April 15, 23:05 CET
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
- Gerard Manley Hopkins
QuoterGal | April 15, 23:08 CET
Madhatter | April 15, 23:26 CET
Quotergal: had I used the word "manipulate" rather than "toy" would that change anything. What I mean is that Joss writes to evoke a response- you can call this toy, manipulate, whatever, but I do believe it is clear he wishes to cause you to feel something. In that sense, he "toys" with your emotions. I understand you attach a negative connotation to the term, but I did not mean it that way.
narse, it's a long discussion about why I feel that S6 went off the rails as it did. Yes, we can follow character development from earlier times, but none of the characters come out of S6 well. IN fact, the Willow of S7 is a pale shadow of the Willow that came before, minimized and cast to the side to make room for exchangeable potentials. Though I lurves Felicia Day... :-)
Dana5140 | April 16, 00:43 CET
Then I got to the later seasons and began to see what people were talking about. I was particularly interested that by Season 7 Joss was talking about going back to the beginning in trying to lighten the tone, but that the show refused to go there. The story stayed dark despite authorial intent, and to me it was because ultimately, despite the humor, the story is a dark one. It is the story of a woman who is a warrior in a prolonged, unending war, and eventually that has to corrode the soul.
In one of the commentaries it was pointed out that the structure of individual episodes typically started lighter and then darkened in the second half, and that seasons went that way too. I think that is the case for the series overall. Buffy gets those occasional moments of what playwright Tom Stoppard describes as "the summer lightning of personal happiness", but when those momentary flashes are gone, the central truth of the series is that she lives in a hideously violent world, where she and everyone she cares about is constantly in danger, and statistically, if the story goes on and is faithful to itself, a large number of her friends will die young and in violence.
(Which is why I for one, would like to have the storyline end at some point before it becomes either Battlestar Galactica bleak or succumbs to the Jean Grey phenomenon whereby characters die, come back, die and come back so many times that one can't keep track of what incarnation they're in, and stop caring).
This of course is true of all of Joss' shows, that they are about people living in violent situations, and those who complain that he kills too many of his characters ignore this fact and that what Joss does that is revolutionary for the media he works in, is to make the danger his characters face genuine.
barboo | April 16, 00:54 CET
Dana5140 - but I don't think it's a "whatever" - the different words you list mean different things; they are not synonomous - and your choice of the word "toy" imo expresses something different than "evoke a response" - (which is why all writers write, of course, to evoke a response.) I'm not attaching a negative connotation to the word, or misinterpreting it - it has very specific meaning that in this context is either negative (Joss plays with us, he messes with us willy-nilly for fun) or its use is inaccurate.
TOY: 1. To amuse oneself idly; trifle: a cat toying with a mouse. 2. To treat something casually or without seriousness: toyed with the idea of writing a play. See synonyms at flirt.
I took exception with that word, because I don't think that's what Joss does, and if you weren't trying to convey that either, than "evoke a response" certainly would be a better choice.
QuoterGal | April 16, 01:11 CET
gossi Sunfire Furball; I see the point on the humor but it largely left me cold when I watched that season. It just didn't seem that humorous at the time. Or as gallows humor at the absolute best. Of course the order in which I saw the episodes and the other things going on with me could have affected that. If I ever see it again maybe I'll know.
Tonya J; Hmmm, I'm thinking about the concept of "Bitter Vanilla" now. PRobably work better as a title than as an actual flavor. Maybe I should call my memoirs that.
QuoterGal; Good point. Your take on it, in all honesty, describes how I sometimes feel about Joss. But if Dana5140 didn't mean it that way, perhaps you're right on its being an unfortunate choice. (Voters can misspeak just like candidates can.)
[ edited by DaddyCatALSO on 2008-04-16 01:17 ]
DaddyCatALSO | April 16, 01:14 CET
magnus carnage | April 16, 01:21 CET
For readers who feel that their connection to the story is more important than the writer's, I'd say it's more the reader's responsibility to avoid stories that they will find painful than it is the writer's. After all, said reader is the only one who really knows what they can and can't handle emotionally. And to be honest, Joss and company made it pretty clear in the first five seasons of Buffy that no one was ever truly safe.
Lady Brick | April 16, 01:45 CET
The distinction I was trying to make, and feel free to disagree with me as it is only my opinion, is that when you engage in a drama you are experiencing those emotions at a degree removed from the action. If you feel afraid while watching BtVS, surely it is fear for the characters you are experiencing? The vampire isn't going to leap from the screen and attack you or me, the audience, we are in no real danger. We are experiencing the sensation of fear without actually being at risk, like the rollercoaster.
When Joyce died in "The Body", I experienced all the emotions that the characters were going through, right along with them, as the drama unfolded. But did I feel actual pain? Did that death stay with me for several weeks, months, years, preying on my thoughts? Did I go through a grieving process as I mourned one lost, with all the encumbent heartache that goes hand in hand with that process? Did it affect me the way the death of my own mother did? I have to say, no, it did not.
Drama is a very real experience. But in my opinion, the emotions it creates are vicarious, they exist within the viewer on behalf of the characters onscreen, in that sense they are not "actual" but "virtual" if you will. It may be a very dry, academic kind of point, and it again it is only my opinion, but I think this is an important mechanism which helps us differentiate fact from fiction, and allows us to fine-tune our own emotional responses. It is my own personal take on catharsis.
Personally, I think if we had actual emotional reactions to everything we watched on television, we would be nervous wrecks.
Furball | April 16, 01:47 CET
Capt. Logic | April 16, 01:56 CET
LB- your comments get at the basis of the schism between authorial intent and reader response. That is an argument we have been making for a long time. :-) Well, I have been making for a long time, to be sure. I would never say that my connection is more important to the story than Joss or anyone else's; I will say that it is MY connection to the story, so it matters to me. And a reader cannot know in advance what stories may trigger what responses. This is a risk that both authors and readers take.
furball- I still disagree. Let me see if I can explain. Yesterday I watched the program Dirty Jobs. In it, Mike Rowe was working on top of a skyscraper in New York with a crew building a new wooden water tower. I could not watch; I am terrified of heights. And they were near the edge of a 150-foot drop. I cannot go to am IMAX theater and watch the show. Now, I am not in any danger, right. But my brain cannot stop processing what I see as if I were. I am, frankly, scared. My physiological response is the same as if I were actually there. But I am not. What I feel is what I feel.
But I think my friend, the estimable jet wolf, said this best in her comments about the death of Tara in her top 100 Buffy countdown, where this comes in at #13:
"If you've made it this far into the list, then this shouldn't come as a surprise. Or, actually, perhaps it does, since you're probably expecting nothing but favourite moments, and this isn't really something that I'd say I'm happy about. But then, this is a Top 100, which isn't quite the same in my world. This moment ranks so high on pure, unbridled emotion. Nothing I have ever seen in media -- not books, TV, comics, movies, plays -- nothing has ever upset me as much as Tara's death. I've been sad when characters have died before. I've cried about them and for them. But I mourn Tara. I miss her like I would if she were a personal friend. When I first realized this, I came to know just how effectively Buffy had wriggled into my life and I hadn't even really noticed. I'm not sure if it could be counted as an advantage or disadvantage, but watching the episodes one after the other courtesy of downloads puts you in something of a different place than watching it week after week. For one thing, there's no waiting. Finish an episode, open the next file, simple as that. On the one hand, that's great because there's no torturous week (or weeks) waiting for the next ep to air. On the other hand, though, it means you don't really sit back and analyze where the story is going very much. You don't have to, because you can just open that next file. As a result, much as I probably should have, I never, ever saw this coming. I hadn't heard rumours of a character death, May wasn't approaching so I wasn't dwelling too much on what the season finale would be. I was just watching and enjoying the hell out of the reunion. And then ... Just like that, it was all over. Tara was gone and Willow's world was destroyed. I won't ruin a perfectly good future essay topic by going into my own reactions to her death and the controversy that it spawned. I will instead simply say that I love Tara. Months later, I still mourn for her. Depending on my mood, this scene either makes me sad or makes me cry like a little baby. And I think it speaks volumes for everyone involved, from Amber and Aly to the production and writing staff to Joss himself that I could care so damned much about people who don't exist."
Dana5140 | April 16, 02:22 CET
Yeah, see, this is why I think it's so hard to be an actor - or rather, why only certain kinds of people can really handle the emotional roller-coaster that is acting.
Good actors have to feel everything they convey... it's different, of course, than actually and personally experiencing the emotions of their character - but not that different, and the body can't really tell the difference. Fear and anger and joy and elation and all those other other juicy emotions gotta get channeled through them, body and soul, and then they have to let them go, or get stuck in them.
Add to this the fact that you need to be emotionally available and sensitive to create and express your character, in a profession that for the most part (and certainly in Hollywood) requires you to be tough as nails with nerves of steel, and I don't understand how anyone can hack the profession, I really don't. My admiration for good actors is LARGE.
How much more off-topic can I be? What were we talking about?
Oh, yeah, Clem sucks almost as much as Joss does. Those heartless bastards.
QuoterGal | April 16, 02:25 CET
Then I submit that no author is responsible for any pain you may get from their story - if you construct your own meaning (which "the author cannot know or predict",) how is the author to blame? Nor does any author have any responsibility to consider whether their work may cause someone else emotional pain; I mean, since authorial intent has no bearing on what the reader/viewer gets out of the story, it really doesn't matter what the author does, he's gonna take a dump in somebody's Wheaties - may as well be one person as another, no? I'm sorry, but if a writer is to be censured for writing a story that a reader/viewer is going to interpret to suit themselves anyway, what's the incentive to write at all? Or, for that matter, what is the reader's/viewer's incentive to actually read/view their work and risk exposing themselves to the potential for emotional turmoil - knowing that most writers try to evoke an emotional response of some type from their audience?
A hammer is an excellent tool for bashing things, but if you deliberately hit yourself in the knee with it, it's not the manufacturer's fault.
Rowan Hawthorn | April 16, 02:26 CET
This year.. threw the show and it's characters into yet another light; it has changed the shape of their shadows, showing us things in them- resources of unusual bravery or cruelty- that we couldn't previously have imagined.
Marti, as showrunner, took Season
SexSix in a new direction and I reacted to that with a fiery hatred at the time.In hindsight and with the knowledge of the entire series arc behind me, it was absolutely a vital part of the 'Buffy' tale.
After all, in order to appreciate the light, you have to know what darkness is.
missb | April 16, 03:05 CET
My response to this, my own view, was that he did not intend to hurt his viewers, and as an aside I added that I did not think a TV show could cause actual pain to its viewers anyway. A few people including yourself challenged me on this point, and I have put forward my opinions on the matter. In my own defense, I studied literature a long time ago at a very stuffy English university, so my opinions on matters relating to drama, catharsis, audience participation and such are perhaps very outdated. This I admit. I am very much in the "learning should be smelly" category, Giles would indeed be proud of me.
All that said, I still hold with the opinion I gave in my last post, and I won't be tiresome and reiterate it again in this one. It is an opinion I have long held, chiefly because I have never seen any rival theory which could displace it, although I am always open to learning something fresh. And I think debating it has distracted this discussion into a side issue away from your original question. I will just re-emphasise, this view is my own and was not intended to cause anyone offense or upset, nor to diminish anyone's emotional reaction to the characters or events of these stories.
Dana5140, you asked if the author of the work intended to cause his viewers pain, but, as Rowan has pointed out, you have also argued that the 'reader is the author'. These two statements seem, to me, to be entirely at odds. If you are the author of your own reading of the work, who was meant to be causing who pain? I admit bafflement.
I think, as I mentioned several posts previously, we will probably have to agree to disagree on these subjects. It has been an interesting discussion, nonetheless.
Furball | April 16, 03:09 CET
Furball, my mother was my high school English teacher many years ago, and I come by my literary analysis by way of her, and she was very good at what she did. How many 10th graders were reading and analyzing Samuel Beckett, like I did? Or Chaucer- interesting classes back then!
Good talk today. Made a tough day go by easier- my father-in-law had surgery today to remove a bladder tumor, using a transurethral method- and you guys all know what that means. :-0 But I just spoke to him and he is in fine fettle and doing well, at 88 as today is also his birthday. Real life stuff. :-)
Dana5140 | April 16, 03:21 CET
jcs | April 16, 03:27 CET
You were talking about Joyce' death above, but I for one can say categorically that when it comes to Tara it ~has~ stayed with me, I ~have~ grieved (and still do when re-watching), and my heart ~still~ aches. As someone else pointed out, the fact that the kitten board (which I only discovered relatively recently) was created and still continues, and that fans still write revisionist fanfic that seeks to explore alternatives, or bring solace, or ease our hearts, demonstrates that it is not an isolated experience of that character arc.
Just as, in some very real way I do 'love' Tara. I see aspects of myself in Tara, and in Willow. I see aspects of women I have loved (in RL) in Tara, and in Willow. I know the difference between RL and fiction, but the emotions I experience are sometimes - in the very best TV, musicals, books, and movies - very real. Perhaps not as intense as if those same events had happened to me in RL, but still very real.
My take on it is that the best fiction resonates incredibly strongly precisely because it speaks to us very personally and deeply. For me, some musicals do this too - Sondheim's Into the Woods is one such, for a range of reasons. When I first came across it many years ago, I was struggling with some of the same sorts of issues in my own life - issues with my mother, finding the path, love and loss, etc. I watched and re-watched ITW countless times. It was terribly cathartic, and assisted me to work through and process things in my own life. Plus, with the funny and the clever. ;-)
You may argue that what I'm experiencing is the reflected emotion from the real events that mirror what I'm seeing on screen. That's a more refined argument, and not one that I necessarily disagree with terribly strongly. I guess what I'm saying is that the reason we have strong reactions to ~anything~ fictional is that it resonates with us, for good or ill. Perhaps Cordy says is best with "Over-identify much?" :-)
If you don't experience these emotions as real, then of course I can't say that you do. It's your experience, not mine. And vice versa. You may say "I don't understand how some people can experience these feelings as if they are real", but I don't accept it's valid to say "other people cannot possibly be feeling 'real' pain or emotion".
And here we are it's 2008 and we all care enough about Buffy and the characters to bother thrashing this out here. What a truly marvellous testament to an amazing show.
crystalsinger | April 16, 05:45 CET
I also came to Buffy on DVDs and have wondered on occasion if I would have reacted differently to some things had I watched a week at a time, with months in between seasons!, rather than the whole show in about three months. Also, I was spoiled for some things because I had friends who watched the show and, in spite of having the DVDs, I was working fulltime and could only watch two or three episodes a night, so I would go online to read the synopsis of upcoming episodes. I already knew about Willow and Tara, about Tara's death and Willow's reaction to it and about Spike getting his soul, but by going online, I knew when they were coming - and sometimes I regret that I had that prior knowledge.
Be that as it may, S6 & 7 remain my favourites, although it took a couple of viewings of S7 for that to happen. When I finished the series the first time, I immediately started on S6 & 7 again and when I finished them, I went back and started a