From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #49 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Tuesday, February 29 2000 Volume 02 : Number 049 Today's Subjects: ----------------- b/trying to comment with substance [Kathleen Woodbury ] Re: b/ doug petrie interview [allenw ] Re: b/comments2/28 [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/ doug petrie interview [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/comments2/28 [GHighPine@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 08:19:15 -0700 From: Kathleen Woodbury Subject: b/trying to comment with substance Don and Gayle, I can't speak for the rest of the list, but I want you to know that I don't say much in response to your long and fascinating posts because I am 1) in awe of your research and 2) I want to think about what you've said for a while. (As Gayle says, when does the time ever really come around when you can make the attempt to adequately respond to great stuff like the stuff you're sharing with us?) I know how exciting it is to discover cool stuff about a subject, and to share them with others. I should try harder to come up with something in response, because I also know how it is to get blank looks instead. Please, lack of response here on this list does not equal a blank look. As an attempt to make some kind of response, when Susan said: >There is a tale of Masauwu (a Hopi deity) who, after a protracted >battle, "falls down as if dead" and is able to recover only with >the fertilizing or regenerating power of lightning. I thought of the (almost cliched) mad-scientist lab with all the electrical equipment attached to the Frankensteinian monster lying on the table/gurney/whatever, and how that electricity brings the monster to life. And I think of Adam and Faith both fitting that motif, though I don't recall any attachments or electricity bringing Adam to "life" at just that time. In their ways, both Adam and Faith are innocents and victims, but they are also extremely powerful, and they choose to use their power without regard for others. In fact, others seem to them to be objects as opposed to persons, obstacles in their path to their own personhood, which they will never attain because they are not really able to appreciate or understand anyone else's personhood. Both of their universes are centered entirely on themselves and they are unable to truly understand others and share fellow feeling. When Adam talked to Riley about how they were brothers, did he ever say any of that except in reference to himself? (What I mean here is that I think he only said things on the order of "you are like me, Riley" and never the other way around--never really going (or giving) from himself to Riley, but expecting Riley to come (and give) to him. I think the same thing applies to Faith as Buffy's "sister"--she tells Buffy that Buffy is like Faith, but does she ever talk about Faith being like Buffy?) Adam as little brother, and Faith as little sister. Hmmmm Phaedre/Kathleen workshop@burgoyne.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 11:58:56 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/trying to comment with substance In a message dated 2/28/00 7:21:03 AM Pacific Standard Time, workshop@burgoyne.com writes: << In their ways, both Adam and Faith are innocents and victims, but they are also extremely powerful, and they choose to use their power without regard for others. In fact, others seem to them to be objects as opposed to persons, obstacles in their path to their own personhood, which they will never attain because they are not really able to appreciate or understand anyone else's personhood. Both of their universes are centered entirely on themselves and they are unable to truly understand others and share fellow feeling. When Adam talked to Riley about how they were brothers, did he ever say any of that except in reference to himself? (What I mean here is that I think he only said things on the order of "you are like me, Riley" and never the other way around--never really going (or giving) from himself to Riley, but expecting Riley to come (and give) to him. I think the same thing applies to Faith as Buffy's "sister"--she tells Buffy that Buffy is like Faith, but does she ever talk about Faith being like Buffy?) Adam as little brother, and Faith as little sister. >> Wow, those are excellent points about the similarities between Adam and Faith, Kathleen. This may be another reason why Faith just happened to pop up at this point in the Initiative story arc. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 15:44:55 -0700 From: "Susan J. Kroupa" Subject: Re: b/trying to comment with substance What Kathleen said about the reason you're not getting more feedback, Don. And great points about Adam and Faith, Kathleen! Sue ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 18:05:21 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: os - administration (was Re: b/ thunder) In a message dated 2/27/00 8:52:14 PM Pacific Standard Time, susank@fiber.net writes: << Gayle, I accidently sent this to you instead of the group, so please forgive the double copy. >> Actually, Susan, I got it three times: the copy you sent to me, the copy you sent to the list, and the cc of the copy you sent to the list. If you don't manually delete the name of the individual poster you are replying to, they will get both the list copy and the cc. Of course, if the default was for replies to go to the list, that wouldn't happen, nor would posts sent =only= to individuals by mistake, nor would we any longer have to manually fix the To: field every time we send a post to the list. When a referendum was taken about whether the default should be for replies to go to the list or to the individual poster, did the latter =really= receive more votes? Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 18:05:39 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: b/ doug petrie interview (mild spoilers for Willow / Tara subplot) by Matt Brady webdate: 2/21/00 12:44:26 PM Quick - what do Spider-Man, VH1, Clarissa Explains it All and Harriet the Spy have to do with Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Alright, not much…unless you're Buffy Executive Story Editor Doug Petrie, that is. A native of New York, Petrie started on his path to Buffy's door as a typical kid weaned on comic books and science fiction, but surprisingly, no scary movies. "I was kind of a wimp on the scary movies," Petrie says. "When I was young, my parents [not Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, by the way] used to torture us - well, I thought it was torture, they were just driving somewhere - - by driving by the drive-in theater and I would catch a glimpse of the Planet of the Apes films. I would freak out at the idea of apes walking around and talking - it would just scare the hell out of me. I hated scary movies, but I always loved superheroes. I can't remember a time when I didn't love Batman and Superman, and later on Spider-Man." Growing Up Petrie The the DC heroes may have been idyllic role models and icons for young Petrie, Marvel heroes were ultimately cooler, filled with heroes who had real world concerns such as getting a date, finding money for bills and keeping their identity a secret from prying Aunts and schoolmates. "I guess I've always been drawn to a really emotional, realistic take on superheroes," Petrie says. "That's what was so wonderful about the Marvel Comics - they were so realistic. Peter Parker could never get a date, they took place in New York City, and the characters seemed to have real-life problems. I stayed away from DC Comics, which were at that time were more for kids, and didn't treat there own premises very seriously, whereas the Marvel bullpen of writers seemed to use 'what if this stuff was really happening?' as their main tenet to write on. They were telling much more satisfying stories as a result. The influence and impact Marvel comics had on me as an adolescent was just incalculable." Petrie's office is a shrine to his self-confessed stilted adolescence - movie posters ranging from The Matrix to Forbidden Planet, Goldfinger, Indiana Jones, Star Trek, Star Wars and Shaft line his walls, along with a poster for the first film that scared him silly - Jaws ("I was traumatized by it at first, and then after the trauma wore off, I was obsessed by it and started drawing sharks incessantly"). "All the larger-than-life, good guys versus bad guys stuff of the '70s had a huge impact on me," Petrie says. "all of this ends up in Buffy in some form or another." In college at William and Mary, Petrie studied theater, and was a founding member of the Cornerstone Theater Company in New York after graduation. While there, he wrote, produced and acted in plays. As a way of paying his bills, Petrie wrote for VH1's Entertainment Watch with Katherine Kinley. "I got to be insanely good at writing 'Hi, I'm Katherine Kinley and this is Entertainment Watch, blah blah blah…,'" Petrie says. "The really sad part of it is that we actually got our news by going down into the lobby of the building we worked in and buying three newspapers to see what was in the news" Moving on from VH1, Petrie's next step on his road to Buffy was that of a writer for the Nickelodeon promotions department. Much like a sitcom Einstein in his own patent office, Petrie kept busy in the off hours by writing spec scripts for anyone who would read them, eventually landing a job as a writer on the Nickelodeon Melissa Joan Hart series, Clarissa Explains it All. (Okay, so the Einstein reference was thin). Go West, Young Man Petrie moved to L.A., where his Nickelodeon experience got him the job of writing Harriet the Spy, and then…..nothing. "I lived in development hell," Petrie says. "You thought it was just a place where scripts end up? Nope - writers are there too. We're the guys with pitchforks poking the other people." While in hell, Petrie wrote spec scripts for both The X-Files and The Simpsons, a move he doesn't advise wannabe television writers to follow. "Every agent on the planet told me that they were useless together, and that I had to use one or the other, not both," Petrie says. "No one was going to read both of them and give me a job." So what happened? "Joss Whedon read both of them and gave me a job. Buffy's a unique show, so the fact that I had action-packed sci-fi adventure combined with very verbal, goofy comedy was perfect for him. Joss liked my X-Files take, we spoke and we hit it off." 'Hit if off' is Petrie-ese for bonded once the two realized that they were both huge comic book fans. "One of the first things I mentioned to Joss after I came onto the show - just after the third episode had gone on the air - I told him I really liked the episode entitled "Witch," and we spoke about one shot in particular where Buffy rises up into the frame," Petrie says. "Her line was 'I feel much better now,' and then you cut to a wall, hear a punch and see the woman Buffy punched go flying into the wall. "I told Joss that it reminded me of Ben Grimm, the Thing punching someone, and that he edited it the way that Marvel Comics were put together, and he understood what I was talking about and I understood what he was talking about, and to this day, we annoy people by veering off into comic book talk and no one knows what the hell we're talking about. We'll just go on and on about it if no one stops us." Getting his Feet Wet Petrie worked for the show during the second season, and was asked to join the Buffy staff a year later by Whedon. Since then, Petrie has written and overseen the major arc storylines of Buffy, helping to push the mayor's ascension last year, turn Faith from a fun roguish Slayer into a psycho villain, and developing Riley and the Initiative this year. "In total, we've got five writers on the series, counting Joss," Petrie says. "They're a great group of people to be working with, and everyone has their own strengths that we play up. One episode that would be a good example of what I do - I wrote Episode 7, 'The Initiative.' We knew we were going to be starting a big, seasonal storyline about who these secret agents are that we saw in the very first episode of the season. We knew all along where we were going with that, and we teased the audience with that for a while, and then with Episode 7, it was time to let the cat out of the bag, basically. "All we knew for sure, and it all came from Joss, was that somewhere in the episode, it would be revealed that Riley was a secret agent, and we knew we wanted to do a big reveal where he was talking to his buddy about girls, and they walk through a retinal scan, and they're still just talking about girls. They go down an elevator, still talking about girls, and they come out in a giant James Bond complex, and they're still talking about girls. "There's nothing in pop culture that we won't steal, and that was our True Lies moment. We wanted to do the moment where Schwarzenegger and Tom Arnold were talking about their family lives, and they walk into a giant secret agent complex. From there, we had to figure out where the soap opera was at that point in the season, and where Buffy was as well in terms of her emotional life and development, which is really the heart of the show. We never do an episode where we don't say, 'Where is Buffy, emotionally?' That's always the big question. Sometimes we'll come up with episodes that have great stuff in them, but they don't answer the question of where Buffy is emotionally, and we'll throw them out. If it doesn't answer that question, it's not a Buffy episode." Essentially, the season's map is locked up in Whedon's head, he spills it to his writers on the show, and together, they come up with the signposts for the season, mixing arc stories with stand-alones, such as the upcoming "Superstar," written by Jane Espinson. Timewise, Petrie says writers have two to three weeks to write an episode at the beginning of the season - something which shrinks to mere days near the middle of the season. "The standard time is about a week and half to two weeks," Petrie says. "But it can get much worse. There was one episode that was written by three people over a weekend. It's just a relentless pace. The deeper you get into the season, the less time you have." Season 4 Ask Petrie what he likes about the current season of Buffy, and he'll almost certainly turn into a fanboy on you, going on about how happy he is with the Initiative's presence in this season's storyline - even though he knows some viewers aren't too thrilled by James Bond Juniors invading Sunnydale. "Some people like the secret agent stuff more than others - it's a big turn for this series, an X-Files-y turn," Petrie says. "But our fans are honest. We've heard from both sides. I think people still miss Angel and the dynamic that the series had when he was around, but that's one of the difficulties of a television show - if you want it to be good and resonate with real life, you have to move things forward. Sometimes the fans come with you, and sometimes they don't." "The secret agent stuff if cool, but what I'm really happy about at the moment is the return of Faith who comes back for a two-parter starting this coming week. I got to write the three Faith episodes last season, and I just love the character. It's great to bring her back." Judging from the fan reaction that both Faith's return and other turns in the storyline have generated, Buffy's fans have again proven their loyalty to the series, something which amazes and inspired Petrie. "I think it's great that we have such passion among our fans," Petrie says. "When I was growing up, TV shows like Star Trek and The Prisoner were just huge to me. They weren't so much shows you would watch as they were places you would visit, and they seemed very real." "Something that science fiction in general, and TV science fiction can do really well is create a world. If people want to visit that world and are interested in that world and want to keep it going through fan fiction and want to explore that world, great. I couldn't possibly be happier about that, because I was like that myself. I was a huge fan of comic books and science fiction myself and still am, so more power to them for keeping the discussion and interest alive." Love - Buffy Style Something that's drawn attention both from fans and the mainstream media, ever eager for the hint of a "controversial topic" to plaster on headlines is Willow's relationship with Tara. While Whedon has already admitted that the relationship will be romantic in nature, Petrie stresses that the storyline is a natural expansion of Willow's character rather than an attempt at a ratings boost by injecting a controversial topic that viewers will find objectionable (like those who would have problems with a Willow-Tara relationship are watching a series with witches, vampires and demons, anyway…) "Everything we've done comes from what we think of is best for the character," Petrie says. "We've never really done anything to get attention. With the Willow stuff, we'd actually like less attention. What I think Joss was naively hoping for was that it would just go without a big brouhaha, but Entertainment Weekly picked up on it immediately. "We've seen other TV shows where they promote a woman kissing a woman and put it in their commercials like that's the biggest things going on in the series - - 'Tune in and watch two chicks make out!' We want to do the opposite. We don't want to draw attention to it. It's just a part of the show, and it's not that she's choosing a lifestyle, it's that Willow is beginning to love Tara. Having seen the actress and the scenes with them in it, it seems perfectly natural. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal to us, but we'll see what the public response is. We're trying not to get attention, and we may have been a little naive about that, unfortunately." Speaking of the series romantic relationships, Petrie has his own take on why, in the words of South Park's Mr. Mackey, "Sex is bad, mmmkay" on Buffy. Face it - Buffy & Angel; Willow & Oz; Willow & Xander; Faith & Xander - anytime the characters sleep with one another on Buffy, bad things happen. "We really try to stay away from the horror movie staple of two kids having sex and then, usually the woman being killed in some horrible way," Petrie says. "Our basic approach isn't so much that sex is bad, but that high school and early college romance is fraught with peril. The odds of having your heart broken in high school and college are very close to 100 per cent, and everyone goes through heartbreak. It's more dramatic to go through heartbreak than to have a perfect relationship." It all comes down to drama, Petrie says, and heartbreak and characters pining for one another makes for good drama, while happy couples don't. Although that maxim will be tested with Willow and Tara. "Willow and Tara are going to have a good, happy, satisfying relationship," Petrie says. "That's something that we're more acutely aware of and we definitely don't want to touch on 'being a lesbian is bad.' We've all seen shows where if you have any kind of gay tendencies, you must be killed or made to suffer for no other reason other than you're gay. We're hyper aware of that, so we're more predisposed to have things work out for Willow and Tara. In fact, if Tara were a guy, I would predict a near 100 per cent chance of a breakup for Willow. The fact that Tara is not a guy may make things work out better, because we can avoid what we feel is this old cliché." Xander, Faith and the End of the Season. While fans may be happy with Willow's development and growth as a character this season, Xanderites have had it rough. Granted, how much growth you can accomplish while you live in your mother's basement? Still, Xander definitely seems to have been relegated to the back burner since Buffy went off to college. It's all according to plan, Petrie reveals. "We're very aware of what's going on, or not going on with Xander," Petrie says. "We're loading the gun for him and letting him spin his wheels for a little while longer. The best thing I can say is stay tuned. He won't stay that way forever. We're having fun with him right now, because for one, its fun to humiliate Xander, and two, we're taking him to another place. There are a couple of options for that - one is the most likely candidate, and then there are some others that are even more radical that I don't think will happen. We've got plans for him." Speaking of plans, Petrie let a few out regarding the return of everyone's favorite rogue slayer, Faith, as well as what's coming for the end of this season. "The return of Faith is a two-part story in episodes 15 and 16, which start this week," Petrie says. "I wrote the first of the two, and Joss wrote and directed the second. We're going to see the ramifications of Faith's actions once she comes out of her coma, before she heads over to Angel for a little while." "After that, things with the Initiative will start to wrap up, and by the end of the season, we'll have a conclusion of sorts to that storyline. Then we'll be doing a little something unusual this year. The season will end with the final two episodes and we'll have a 'coda' episode afterwards. Rest assured, we will be ending the season - there won't be a cliffhanger. We'll end the storyline, and then have an entire episode that will be an emotional dénouement to the season. The climax will have already happened, and this will look at where everyone is after that. It should be pretty unique for a television series. Joss will be writing and directing the final episode of the season." While Petrie wouldn't divulge any details on the season finale on pain of death in many nasty forms by Whedon, he did guarantee that Buffy wouldn't, as with seasons past, run away for the summer. Slayer Futures Okay, so Buffy's a 19 year-old freshman, and, given the real-time approach of the series, she'll be in her early 20s within a couple of years. However, it's a pretty well established fact in Slayer lore that Slayers don't live past 25. Is, ulp, death really in the future for the Buffster? Petrie remains annoyingly vague. "We don't know," Petrie says. "Death will always be looming. Would we kill Buffy? I don't think so. Will she always be really close to death? Yeah - its part of her job. But as we've all seen in the series, the thing about Joss is that you never know. Also, in the reality of network television, it would be insane to kill Buffy. When you've got an actress like Sarah Michelle Gellar, we wouldn't replace her - she is Buffy. She is the show." "Also, talking about if from a character standpoint, her possible death is definitely something we're aware of. Part of what makes the show fun is that for a light pop culture romp, death is a big part of it. We really want to go there as much as possible, so it will always be around. It's a fact of life for a Slayer." While he was loathe to nail down specifics, Petrie also admitted that killing off Buffy, even if the television series ended would close a door that the production company is hoping to keep open. "I personally would be very surprised and if we killed her because then we couldn't move on to the big dream which may or may not happen - the idea of doing a $65 million motion picture version that takes place in life after Sunnydale," Petrie says. "Would we like to keep Buffy around for that? Um…YEAH! We'd all love to do a bigass movie version of Buffy. Will she always be confronted by death? Yes. Will we kill her before we could make a movie? No way." Finally, if you ask Petrie to single out a moment he's most proud of during his tenure on Buffy, he'll give it some thought, mention the episodes starring Faith, but ultimately, his proudest achievement is a little closer to his heart. "I'm just proud to be here and contribute to the show," Petrie says. "I can't really point out a single moment that I can say I'm proudest of. I'm proud to be on this staff and proud to be part of this enterprise. I'm not a big team player, coming from movie world, but this is the one time in my life where I can say that I'm really proud to be a part of this team." - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - -- This site is part of Fandom.com © 1999-2000 Fandom,Inc. All promotional art, characters, logos and other depictions are TM & © their respective owners. All Rights Reserved. back to top http://www.anotheruniverse.com/tv/interviews/dougpetrie022500.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 18:36:06 -0800 From: "Berni Phillips" Subject: Re: b/trying to comment with substance - ---------- >From: Kathleen Woodbury >I can't speak for the rest of the list, but I want you to know that >I don't say much in response to your long and fascinating posts >because I am 1) in awe of your research and 2) I want to think about >what you've said for a while. (As Gayle says, when does the time >ever really come around when you can make the attempt to adequately >respond to great stuff like the stuff you're sharing with us?) Not to mention that some of us have very limited online time due to other things in life. And David and I were just in Seattle for 4 days so we weren't reading any posts. >I thought of the (almost cliched) mad-scientist lab with all the >electrical equipment attached to the Frankensteinian monster >lying on the table/gurney/whatever, and how that electricity >brings the monster to life. And, like Frankenstein's monster, the first being Adam encounters in the outside world is a small child. >Both of their universes are centered entirely on themselves and >they are unable to truly understand others and share fellow feeling. This is so true. Adam is a monster on the outside, and decided to be one on the inside -- or so it appears from his encounter with the child. He's a monster and monsters kill. Faith may not look like a monster, as Adam does, but she is as pieced together on the inside as Adam is on the outside. Berni ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 22:24:30 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/comments2/28 Gayle: Well, you've talked me around to thinking about this idea seriously, i.e. I approve of your agenda to entice/recruit people from this other list. Which post of mine were you thinking of using? Whichever, I'd like to take the opportunity to give it one more look, spruce it up just a little (edit out "I-must-be-talking-to-my- friends" type stuff), and re-email it to you. Unless you think that's a bad idea? Your reply to my "thunder" post works fine. Short but to the point, agreeing where I'm on the right track (encouraging me to continue), demurring where you think I've strayed (encouraging me to refine and elaborate and justify--or maybe retract). I do understand the mythical (as opposed to mythic) concept of "when I have more time." And while it may be true that I might be doing all this stuff anyway, it certainly does help to have an audience, however small (workshop participants, as it were). And for sure if there's a book names will be mentioned... Yes, of course, "rain at the picnic" has a transparent or surface- level meaning =too=. (But they had a snake instead of ants.) Symbols lie over and under one another in layers, and one meaning/interpretation doesn't cancel out others. If you think about the equation as thunder = dew, yes, it seems a bit of a stretch; but you've knocked out all the connectors. There are two different ways of clustering symbols, two axes of association, if you will: symbols that equal one another and/or have the same signified (serpent = dragon = vampire, for example); and symbols where one goes naturally with the other while having different signifieds. Let's arbitrarily posit a symbol-system of A >> B, which we'll read "Symbol A implies the presence of Symbol B," so that, for example unicorn >> virgin or dragon >> hero (or vampire >> Slayer in =Buffy= mythology). And in Faith's dreams we can say that thunder >> lightning >> rain ("When shall we three meet again..."), or to expand and elaborate it to a ridiculous degree, thunder [= change of state] >> lightning [= snake = stake = knife] >> rain [= renewal = dew = raising the dead]. The other thing to be noted here is that in mythological thinking, most fluids are symbolically interchangeable: Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (one of the best scholars of myth, especially Hindu myth) has an entire section of her book =Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts= about sexual fluids and their symbolic relationship to other fluids, implying a series like blood = milk = semen = sweat = dew = rain, etc. To turn the tables: I sat bolt upright and said "Right!" when I read your bit about Faith-as-Buffy confirming Forrest's opinion of Buffy. Wow, what a lot of trouble that would cause... Susan: Thanks for that useful and appropos paragraph; I wrote it off to a file for future use. Tod: Oh, there's Christ-imagery all over this damn show. To the wound-in-the-side club we can add Riley (of course)(and Walsh, and the doctor) and Angel (in "Teacher's Pet," "Angel," "Becoming," "Graduation Day," and the recent =Angel= episode where Kate kills the vampire behind him); plus how many crucifixions have we had? Angel twice in "What's My Line" as well as the =Angel= episode about the ring; Buffy and her two "thieves" in "Gingerbread"; Buffy again in "Enemies." Something I left out of my discussion of thunder was that Eliot's poem is called =The Waste Land= referring to the Grail portion of the Arthurian legends, which in fact has to do with the Fisher King whose unhealable wound (sexual, but parallel to Christ's wound) was responsible for the sickness of the land. So, yes, all that's part of the complex too. You wanna know how scary this Jung stuff is?? This evening, in less than =fifteen= minutes, in =one= book (=Alchemical Studies=), I found the following apropos quotes (by following "dismemberment" in the index)(and by the way, these are all from footnotes): "Christ's tearing of the breast, the wound in his side, and his martyr's death are the parallels of the alchemical =mortificatio=, dismemberment, flaying, etc." (p. 87) "These amputations [the lion with the cut-off paws, a frequent alchemical symbol] have nothing to do with a so-called[!] castration complex, but refer to the motif of dismemberment [my brackets--DGK]." (p. 304) "...the angel had to deal Adam several bloody wounds with his sword because he refused to move out of Paradise." (p. 83) So let's talk about the theme of dismemberment for a minute (and this is a =very= preliminary discussion). For one thing, every time Buffy kills a vampire she "dismembers" him into his constituent dust. (In alchemy dismemberment is also a symbol/parallel for dissolving, or being reduced to powder, etc.) At the end of the 1st season, not only did she dust the Master, but when she foiled the threat to bring him back, she pulverized his bones. In the 2nd season, she blew the Judge to bits. And wounded Angel and sent him to hell. In the 3rd season she inflicted multiple wounds on Faith and sent her to "hell," and blew the Mayor to bits. See a pattern here? What it means, well, I've got more research to do. Until tomorrow... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 21:45:05 -0600 (EST) From: allenw Subject: Re: b/ doug petrie interview Gayle, I had run across that Doug Petrie interview last week, and pointed to it in one of my posts; however, I had assumed that the Tara/Willow spoilers (fairly major, I thought, if true) were beyond the scope of what the list in general, and you in particular, wanted to know. Was I mistaken? Personally, I try to avoid serious plot spoilers, but I don't mind knowing some stuff (particularly W/T stuff) ahead of time. In fact, in my web and USENET cruisings I frequently run across various bits of info (such as how and why Jonathan is showing up in "Superstar") that I'd like to share with the list, but I've assumed it would be inappropriate. What do you (and everyone else) think? More spoilers? Fewer? More specific? Less so? -Allen W. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 23:59:47 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/comments2/28 In a message dated 2/28/00 7:27:40 PM Pacific Standard Time, dgk@panix.com writes: << Gayle: Well, you've talked me around to thinking about this idea seriously, i.e. I approve of your agenda to entice/recruit people from this other list. Which post of mine were you thinking of using? Whichever, I'd like to take the opportunity to give it one more look, spruce it up just a little (edit out "I-must-be-talking-to-my- friends" type stuff), and re-email it to you. Unless you think that's a bad idea? >> It's a fine idea. I was thinking of the Faith dreams post, since the meaning of the Faith dreams is something people would already be naturally thinking about and speculating on. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 23:59:38 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/ doug petrie interview In a message dated 2/28/00 7:48:29 PM Pacific Standard Time, allenw@io.com writes: << I had run across that Doug Petrie interview last week, and pointed to it in one of my posts; however, I had assumed that the Tara/Willow spoilers (fairly major, I thought, if true) were beyond the scope of what the list in general, and you in particular, wanted to know. Was I mistaken? Personally, I try to avoid serious plot spoilers, but I don't mind knowing some stuff (particularly W/T stuff) ahead of time. In fact, in my web and USENET cruisings I frequently run across various bits of info (such as how and why Jonathan is showing up in "Superstar") that I'd like to share with the list, but I've assumed it would be inappropriate. What do you (and everyone else) think? More spoilers? Fewer? More specific? Less so? >> Well, I can only speak about my personal feelings here. And they are full of contradictions and probably won't make any sense ... I'm glad I didn't know these spoilers before I made my speculations and had the chance to be flat wrong. However, AFTER I have made wrong speculations, I like finding out I'm wrong so that I can start speculating in another direction. I trust that Joss and co are saving the big surprises, so whatever spoilers they think okay to let out are only springboard for more speculation. Hm. Okay, I can say that I develop a speculation, and you know from spoilers it is wrong, you can go ahead and tell me I'm wrong without telling me why and how -- ideally AFTER I have developed the speculation as far as I can. Because by that time, I will be just idling the motor waiting for confirmation or not. Or when I've run out of speculations along a certain line, if you can throw me a few strategic crumbs. I need clues to work with when I run out of clues to work with. IOW, spoiler crumbs that can stimulate speculation, rather than giving so much away that there isn't anything important left to speculate about, if that makes any sense? Personally, I don't think the Willow / Tara spoilers in the interview were very major; other than the fact that there is a romance developing, which is no secret any more, they were all about what's NOT going to happen rather than what is. It seems ironic to me that =for no other reason than that they are a same sex couple= they are going to get a smoother relationship than any of the opposite sex couples. I can't really think of anything that can develop from that other than that Tara simply becomes a regular character. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 23:59:50 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/comments2/28 In a message dated 2/28/00 7:27:40 PM Pacific Standard Time, dgk@panix.com writes: << Your reply to my "thunder" post works fine. Short but to the point, agreeing where I'm on the right track (encouraging me to continue), demurring where you think I've strayed (encouraging me to refine and elaborate and justify--or maybe retract). >> I didn't mean that I thought you had "strayed," because the significances of the dew seemed so remarkably apropos they were definitely worth following. I think I said that thunder --> dew WOULD have been stretching too far if the dew significances were not so startlingly on-target. I don't think that things like the mythological significance of dew are likely to be consciously in Joss's (or, who was it, Doug Petrie's) mind, but a lot of this falls into the category of synchronicity -- correspondences that are just too remarkable to ignore. They don't have to be intentional or conscious to be significant. As one would suspect, BTW, comic books (specifically Marvels) have a major influence on BUFFY (as Doug Petrie discusses). My sister and I discovered Marvels when they were just starting in the early and mid-sixties, and we fell in love with them instantly for precisely the reason that Doug Petrie described: they really did work from the premise "What if this were really happening" -- what if real flesh-and-blood people with real feelings and weaknesses and problems were given these powers and responsibilities and regularly had to save the world. Those comics were so =alive=! Just as BUFFY seems so alive -- it stands out on TV for its sheer aliveness. (And certain other series that I have loved, such as the ALIEN NATION series, have had a similar feeling of aliveness.) Around 1967 or so my mother burned my sister's and my comic book collection, and we were so crushed that we stopped following the Marvel stories. And when I peeked at comic books in the years following, I saw that DC was becoming very influenced by the Marvel style and there was less difference between them. But when the Marvels first came out, they were a revelation in the comic world; a bit like what a review comment quoted on Dr. Seuss books says, that "The Cat In The Hat" was a "karate chop in the weary little world of Dick and Jane." Or perhaps like what I have been reading lately about the influence of "Peanuts," which seems bland and dated now but evidently was revolutionary when it appeared. But comic books draw from mythology and archetypal symbolism too, so there is no contradiction between BUFFY's being influenced by Marvel and it's having its ultimate roots in mythology. Gayle ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #49 ****************************