From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #95 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Sunday, April 30 2000 Volume 02 : Number 095 Today's Subjects: ----------------- b/The DeJoxerfication of Wesley [Dori ] Re: b/The DeJoxerfication of Wesley [GHighPine@aol.com] comments4/30 ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: b/The DeJoxerfication of Wesley ["David S. Bratman" Subject: b/The DeJoxerfication of Wesley David Bratman said: > The torture of Wesley was >just gratuitous hurting of sympathetic characters, a pathological >phenomenon noted by scholars who've studied fan fiction. I don't think it was gratuitous at all. Ever since Wesley came to LA, we've seen the changes in his character from last season, and I think the torture scene was meant to show just how much Wes has changed from the guy who, in BAD GIRLS, gave up all the info he had at the mere mention of knee-breaking. When we first saw Wesley, he was inept and very squeamish about pain. He was pompous, arrogant, and an Insufferable Watcher Academy Grad who had the theory of Slayage cold but was completely unprepared for the reality of the Slayer's life . He was a very unsympathetic character, judging by the vitriol I saw directed at him in his first few eps. But... I've said since the beginning that Wesley had the potential to be a damned fine Watcher, a -dangerous- Watcher, inside that bumbling, pompous IWAG if he could get past his notion that Watcher School had taught him everything there was to know and realize that Life In the Field was a completely different thing than "controlled situations." He just needed those academic, controlled-situation edges knocked off. Even though he made a -very- bad first impression (and second impression, and third...), he paid attention. He learned from his mistakes. And after a bit, he started to realize that the CoW had been feeding him a load of bull , and that actual Field Slayage was very different from what he'd been taught. He started to question the CoW, I think, in his own heart if not to their faces, or he wouldn't have come back and offered to help at Graduation in defiance of CoW orders. (I think, too, that seeing Giles' interaction with Buffy, and how she trusted Giles, helped Wesley to see how the CoW's information deviated from reality, because I have no doubt that Wesley's opinion of Giles in BAD GIRLS was what the CoW had fed him.) That Wesley has a strong central core seems obvious to me. If he didn't, I think that whole Buffy/Faith fiasco would have broken him. (What I'd like to see is Angel training him. Or, no. =Angelus= training him. Which would actually mean Angel getting in touch with his Inner Angelus to do it, I suppose. ) But his problem is that his insecurities have made him feel that he has to impress people with big talk, and, well, that's what keeps getting him in trouble--if he'd just learn to SHUT UP, things would go so much more smoothly for him. (Though, thank goodness, he seems to be less and less inclined to talk himself into a hole here lately.) I was pretty worried about that, actually, when he appeared on ANGEL, because at first we're presented with this bad-ass, very dangerous Wesley--the first time we see him in PARTING GIFTS, man, that, "Hello, Angel," just left me a puddle of goo on the floor--and then, after the commercial break, here we are, back to the old Wes. Only - -worse-, because now he's such a bumbler that I just knew that TPTB were turning him into a human punchline, just like H:TLJ's Joxer, and I have very strong feelings about how badly Joxer was handled. But as the episodes have progressed, I've changed my mind about the Joxer parallel. I think that clumsiness, that foot-in-mouth problem, were a result of suddenly being thrust back into an old role. Because Barney-the-empathic-demon was =afraid= of Wesley. There was enough evidence in the episode to tell me that Wesley Wyndham-Price, Rogue Demon Hunter, had gotten very good at what he did, and that some of those academic, controlled-situation edges were gone. (For starters, if he hadn't gotten good at it, he'd be dead.) So my theory is that Wes, away from Giles, the Slayerettes and the CoW, discovered that he wasn't completely hopeless at what he'd learned, and that without someone looking over his shoulder, waiting for him to fail, or expecting him to make an ass of himself, or telling him he was doing it wrong, he developed confidence in himself and in his way of handling things. As soon as he runs into Angel and Cordelia again, though, that tough, competent demon hunter (sorry, "rogue demon hunter" <;-)>) goes out the window, and all the old patterns of behavior come flooding back, the way adults who go home after living away sometimes find themselves reverting to childhood behaviors they've left behind years ago. He's trying so hard to impress Angel and Cordelia (especially Cordelia, I think) with how much he's changed that he just gets in his own way, and winds up looking like an ass again. But as the season has progressed, he's become much more comfortable with Angel and Cordy. He's come to realize that Angel trusts him to get things done, and allows him to be competent. This has a lot to do , I think, with their first fight together in PARTING GIFTS. The last time Angel saw Wesley, he was being wheeled to an ambulance and whining about how much pain he was in. But in the fight with the demon, Wesley shook off being slammed across the room, jumped right back into the fight when he got up, and never once even whimpered after the demon took off out the window. He doesn't =need= to Talk Big around them, now. But there are people who, even after that fight, still saw the same old bumbling, inept Wesley. It's going to be kind of hard to see him that way after 5x5, I'm thinking. Faith well and truly put him through the refining fire, and Wes is going to be a lot stronger for that torture when he heals. Which is another reason I think the torture was necessary--it put Wesley firmly on the same footing as the Big Boys, Angel and Giles, in terms of how sympathetic the character is. - -This- is the guy I've been waiting for, the one I've always known was in there somewhere. He's come a long way from, "Please don't break my knees and I'll tell you everything." This Wesley can be =dangerous=. My kinda guy. [SIDEBAR: I love the whole process of watching a young, idealistic fellow becoming a Dark, Dangerous & Damaged character--breaking himself on the world again and again and again. I just never get tired of that... ] - -- Dori cleindor@cfw.com - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Torture first. It's better that way. Troll maxim - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 20:24:43 EDT From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/The DeJoxerfication of Wesley Very good points, Cleindori. I hadn't thought of it that way at all, and what you say makes sense. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 21:19:35 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: comments4/30 Bought a T-160 tape the other day. That way I can fit the last =four= remaining episodes each of =Buffy= and =Angel= (rather than having one episode of each left over for a final tape). Lots to comment on. Hilary: Your "weird ideas" all seem to me to be right on the beam, and food for thought. I =had= noticed a certain degree of congruence in the overall arc of the four seasons, though more in the latter part of the season than the earlier part (for example, the way that Faith in the 3rd season occupies the same "ecological niche" as Angel in the 2nd season, down to little details like derisively kissing Buffy before fleeing). But your brief sketch shows that the resemblance goes deeper, for the whole seasons: you're absolutely right, for example, about the similar way something happens during each of the season premieres to shake Buffy out of an "am-I-really-the-Slayer" funk (a slightly different mood with different causes each time, to be sure). When you say "the first person Buffy met" 1st season, are you referring to Jessie? That's an interesting parallel with Eddie in 4th season, but (just to be pedantic) Buffy didn't meet Jessie until after Xander, Cordelia, and Willow. And a =really= good point about the similarities between Kate and Riley: the loss of a parent-figure and their "official" warrior status, and additionally the way they function as a kind of grounding "ordinary joe" for each show's title character. To add one additional thought: we can also see Kate as a =possible= future for Buffy, ten years or so down the road (just as Dana Scully is a possible future for Clarice Starling--=Hannibal= providing a different one). Remember all the "career in law enforcement" jokes in "What's My Line" 2nd season? (Though Buffy's "rap sheet" of =two= assaulting-an-officer charges remain mysteriously undealt-with.) Anytime you want to talk about juvenile lit in general or its relevance to =Buffy= you have a willing listener here. I meant to comment to you some time ago that while I read a lot of juvenile fantasy when I was an adolescent, I've lost touch in recent years (with the exception of Pinkwater--Jill as well as Daniel--and part of the first Harry Potter book), and would be glad to learn more. What you said there (about absent parents) is an interesting start. (Remember what Faith said to Mrs. Poste in "Revelations"? About her authority figures tending to end up dead? How many can we name, now?) Keep me posted on this Hellcat/Patsy Walker story. I might want to have a look at it when it shows up. Berni: Treading tentatively on a touchy topic (which sounds like a line from =Beowulf=), it seems to me that dismissing the old Christian woman in "Where the Wild Things Are" as (almost) insane evades the issue. I certainly recognize in her attitude an (admittedly extreme) expression of the kind of atmosphere I grew up in (as a Catholic), particularly the ideas that 1) any sexual thought outside the context of marriage is a sin and 2) any action, even what we would now recognize as physical or emotional abuse, is justified if it ensures physical and spiritual purity. Another dramatization of a similar kind is the recent film =The Virgin Suicides=, about the five teenage daughters of very religious parents and their fate. I found it very uncomfortable to watch. Perhaps it's another extreme case, but I would argue that both this and the =Buffy= example are grounded in reality, and that it's a case of exaggeration, not aberration. Still...I was surprised that the =Buffy= episode made such a strong statement on the subject, which (given that I agreed with it) probably meant it was =too= strong. I'm with Todd in thinking that the Who song "Behind Blue Eyes" was a very good choice for Giles (though his performance made me think it was a David Bowie song for a moment). It's an outstanding song (which turns into a hard rocker later, in the original version) from one of the Who's best albums, =Who's Next= (also one of the great album =titles=). I had an e-mail from Ken Houghton (who for some reason can't post to the list from his e-mail address) who thought that the reaction of Anya and Tara and Willow to Giles' performance showed the aftereffects of "satyriasis" (as he put it), i.e. the spell from the frat house. Judging from the general reaction of the female viewership (on another e-mail list I'm on), no spell was necessary. Did we notice that the reaction of everyone but Xander was similar to the way everyone including Xander reacted to Jonathan's swing number? (That =was= a spell, admittedly.) Or that the female reaction to Giles was similar to the male reaction to Veruca? Todd: I've got a note here to give you a "Bullseye!" but I forget the context; but it was your bringing up the line from "The Wish" where Buffy points out that there's a lot of things a stake will kill. Phaedre: So to you something like =Psycho=, or a Jack the Ripper story, is =not= horror? That strikes me as an odd attitude. I'm with David on the genre "boxes": there =is= something called "psychological horror" with no supernatural element, and I second his pointing out certain fantasies like =Gormenghast= and =Swordspoint= that have no supernatural element, either, but are clearly fantasies. Your question about dismemberment got me into such a fugue state that I've tabled the question temporarily, but I =will= answer it; it touched off some interesting lines of thinking. It's been long-established in the series that vampires can be videotaped, at least as far back as "Halloween" in 2nd season, where one of Spike's henchmen videotapes Buffy fighting another henchman so Spike can study her fighting techniques. Another note I've got here, from re-watching "Superstar" recently. When Buffy is talking to Jonathan about Faith and Riley, she describes Faith as 1) poison, 2) acid (which eats into everything), 3) a bomb. All good metaphors, of course. At another part of the episode, Adam points out that magic spells are corrosive, and lead to chaos (which he's interested in). We also find out that he's a "bomb" (in the sense that he's radioactively-powered). I'm not =quite= sure what to make of this mirroring imagery; perhaps a subliminal comparison between Faith and Adam is being made. David objects to the poor writing of "Five by Five," which I seem to have been enjoying Faith's presence too much to notice; but I did notice that the scriptwriter (Jim Kouf) is not one whose name I remember seeing before; not a good idea to give such an important episode to a rookie. (I still say that that is why "Revelations" didn't come off as strongly as I expected: it was Douglas Petrie's first script for the show. Later he wrote "Bad Girls" and "Enemies," both of them topnotch.) Meredith: Thanks for passing along that review of "Where the Wild Things Are." Once again I'm astonished to note that the general populace of the viewership tends to think the funniest episodes are the best, while for me they're the weakest. (For example, most people think "Doppelgangland" is a far better episode than "Helpless," while I think the opposite.) Takes all kinds. Gayle: Thanks for the additional comments on Marvel; I accept the revision of "real" life to "ordinary" life being the important point of Marvel's influence on =Buffy=. I'm not actively working on "Buffy as Hero/Buffy as Superhero" right now (though ideas about it occur to me from stuff I'm reading); in fact I don't think I suggested it among the ideas I sent the academic-book editors. I feel farther away from grasping it than I do some of my other ideas. (For example, I'm beginning to think that "Buffy's Shadows" may be a major piece as long as "The Dharma of Buffy," because more angles of a Jungian analysis of how all the characters reflect Buffy's inner state keep occurring to me; there are many pages to be written just about Faith, for example.) Which brings me to Jennifer: right, to restate your point, the "true lie" of =Buffy= is that her real conflict is with external supernatural threats which her training and her superpowers make conquerable. But we are well aware that her real conflict is within herself, and with people who are (or have been) close to her who directly mirror those inner conflicts. (Are we talking about the same musical piece? =The Lark Ascending= by Vaughan Williams? The version I know is a short violin concerto; no vocals.) I believe I understand what you're talking about with the "magical" practice: mentally weighing/holding two images that are opposites or distinctly different, but are simultaneously "the same" in some way; I'd restate "grasp the distinction without making it" as "notice the pattern of similarity without insisting on it." This is exactly what Jung describes as the alchemical mental operation. It's true that Jung was no alchemist, nor magician in the sense you mean (nor am I), but I think he grasped what you're saying--and I think I grasp what he =and= you are saying; it's the kind of mental operation I've been doing all this time with the comparative-mythological approach to =Buffy=. The only reason I use "=" so much is that the character-set I'm working with is so small. When I say something like Buffy = Riley = Angel = Faith, or Buffy = Thor = Indra = Hercules, I certainly do =not= mean "is mathematically exactly the same as," but more like "bears a symbolic similarity to," or "is something like, on one level," or some other inexact/hedging sort of statement. I'm well aware that each of those characters is a distinct personality with a distinct nature and set of characteristics (or else they wouldn't =be= different characters); but as you say I am definitely a "lumper," and am more interested in what makes them similar than in what makes them different. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 01:44:07 -0400 (EDT) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/The DeJoxerfication of Wesley Dori: This is a splendid analysis of the evolution of Wesley's character. But for the very reason that he was _such_ a Joxer (even more than the original, from what little _Xena_ I've seen), _anything_ is a vast improvement. Even taking the knife with the intent of defending Angel in the last scene is more than the Wesley we've usually known would do. So the long torture scenes still seem to me gratuitous. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #95 ****************************