From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #129 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Wednesday, June 7 2000 Volume 02 : Number 129 Today's Subjects: ----------------- b/restlessay ["Donald G. Keller" ] o/f&j4 ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/comments6/6 ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: b/restlessay ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/restlessay ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: o/f&j4 ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/comments6/6 [Todd Huff ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 16:20:41 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/restlessay TERMINAL ESSAY (--> Burton's =Arabian Nights=) To my mind there are three larger themes in "Restless" that need to be discussed in more detail: 1) Slayer Issues 2) Tara's Role 3) Gender Conflict. 1) Slayer Issues I was rather startled when I came to the conclusion, after several viewings of "Restless," that if the events of the episode were a test, then =Buffy failed=. One of the recurring themes of the series is Buffy's reluctance to be the Slayer, and her attempt on several occasions (--> "Welcome to the Hellmouth," "Prophecy Girl," "Anne" most notably) to give it up completely and live a normal life; not to mention other occasions where she voiced doubts (-->"Bad Girls"/"Consequences," "The Freshman"). This is what Joseph Campbell refers to in his precis of the hero monomyth as "Refusal of the Call," and it's one of the most salient correspondences between "Buffyssaga" and Campbell's "skeleton key." (To take another example: the =Bhagavad-Gita= is a long lecture by Krishna--as God Incarnate--to the reluctant warrior Arjuna, who has just thrown down his weapons and refused to fight in the epoch- making battle that climaxes the =Mahabharata=. There are faint echoes of the =Bhagavad-Gita= in =Buffy= in a number of places, a theme I hope to take up in the near future.) After Xander's "dadaist pep-talk" to Buffy in "The Freshman" (her dilemma in that case being "about fear" rather than reluctance), Refusal of the Call has not been an issue in this 4th season, and it's rather a surprise to see it arise in this last episode. Is it simply old, deep-seated anxiety? After all, Willow's Dream concerns anxiety about being laughed at for being a nerd; Xander's Dream concerns anxiety about sex; Giles' Dream concerns anxiety about parental issues. None of this is new material, and it could be argued that we're in such a deep place in the (Freudian) unconscious that fundamental issues are paramount. But I'm not so sure. Start with slight hints in Willow's Dream (Buffy's lack of concern when 1st Slayer attacks Willow at the end; also Flapper Buffy who represents, I think, Buffy's Cordelia-nature, or how she might have seemed to Willow had she been "Normal Buffy") and Giles' Dream (the comment about "old-fashioned"); Xander, who admittedly hero-worships Buffy (--> "The Freshman"), dreams of her pretty much in confident Slayer-mode. Then pile on evidence from Buffy's Dream. The Cordelia-like (literal) "refusal of the wakeup call" in favor of "beauty sleep"; rejection of the "Manus" "tarot card" ("I'm never going to use those"); Adam's comments about Buffy's discomfort with "natural" human aggression, and her "We're not demons" (--> several comments during the "Faith tetralogy" that Faith is not a demon or a monster); Buffy's discomfort with Riley (who calls her "Killer" much as Faith did); her insistance on politesse with the slayer ("in polite circles") which implies she's privileging "normal life" over Slayerhood; the more explicit "I talk, I shop" speech; the repeated "it's over/we don't do this anymore/enough" and the "go away, I'm ignoring you" and the "you're not the source of me." Add it all up and it spells Wannabe Normal Buffy, Ex-Slayer. Or so her unconscious wishes. The fundamental conflict here is that Buffy has always felt it was possible to be a Thoroughly Modern Slayer, with the option to live a normal life (--> "What's My Line" most notably), =and= the option to retire from the role (--> "Welcome to the Hellmouth" for starters); while the counter-argument by her shadows (Kendra --> "What's My Line," Faith --> "Bad Girls"/"Consequences," 1st Slayer --> "Restless") is that the dharma of the Slayer is to fight, to fight only, and to fight alone; anything else in the Slayer's life (friends, shopping, love) is a damaging distraction. Note that on each previous occasion that Buffy has tried to opt out of Slayerhood, events have occured that led her to take up her dharma again. And Tara's oracular comments seem to hint that that's what will happen on this occasion as well. Which leads us to... 2) Tara's Role It's tempting to regard Tara's role in "Restless" as consistent throughout all four dreams; but I think it's going down the wrong path to regard =any= character's role as being that consistent (except, obviously, the 1st Slayer, who manifests in each dream in a similar way). There is definitely =some= leakage between dreams (Sandbox Buffy in Xander's Dream, Warpaint Buffy in Giles' Dream, Xander's sucking chest wound also in Giles' Dream), but we should beware of assuming too much of it. Least to most significant: Tara does not appear in Giles' dream at all; in Xander's dream she only appears as a "twin" of Willow (also =her= only appearance) as yet another sexual fantasy of Xander's. I commented earlier that, concerning "Willow's Dream," the "melting down" of imagery suggested a series of correspondences [--> "GD II": Faith = cat] cat = Tara = 1st Slayer [--> "Buffy's Dream": 1st Slayer = Tara = Faith]. This is quite possibly stretching things a little. Tara makes three appearances in Willow's Dream: in the first scene, where she casts doubt on Willow's knowledge about Tara herself and fans Willow's anxieties about being "found out" and about drama class; in the play scene where she again prods Willow about being "found out" and confirms that "something" is after her; and in the classroom scene at the end where she's whispering intimately with Oz (which may simply be a projection of what Willow knew to be Oz' feelings about her and Tara). On the whole, though Tara's statements are mysterious to the point of oracular, she's =not= playing the same role towards Willow that she plays towards Buffy: she's more Willow's shadow, manifesting/personifying the several things that Willow is anxious about. Her connection to the 1st Slayer seems a bit circumstantial. Tara's role is most important, obviously, in Buffy's dream, where her statements (particularly "you haven't even begun" near the beginning which is repeated at the end) are every bit as oracular, just as obviously pointing to the future, as Faith (--> "GDII") and the young dream-girl (--> "Hush"), so that I think in this case a symbolic correspondence is justified. There's no ambiguity about her being a stand-in (shadow) for the 1st Slayer in the desert scene; I think it's only slightly less obvious that she is a stand-in (shadow) for Faith in the "bedspread" scene near the beginning (which clearly echoes, to reiterate, --> "GDII" and "This Year's Girl"): the calmness, the quiet disapproval ("you lost them"), the wryness at Buffy rushing off, the hints about "she who is to come." Tara, Advocate for Slayers? What exactly does that mean? I don't think we have any means of figuring that out from current evidence (any more than we can figure out about her sabotaging the demon-spell). But I suspect that both things are going to prove important. I'm afraid we'll have to just wait and see. 3) Gender Conflict This is definitely much less important than what I've discussed already, but there's a curious thread running through the dreams: Flapper Buffy's bitter speech about "men with their worn-out urges" (--> Willow's Dream), directed at Riley, please note; Giles' remark about "the way women and men have behaved since the beginning" which Buffy pronounces "a little old-fashioned" (--> Giles' Dream); the undercurrent of hostility coming from both Riley and Adam (--> Buffy's Dream); Buffy is hostile towards Tara and the 1st Slayer at the end, but her attitude towards Riley and Adam is better described as "plaintive." What's going on here? On Buffy's part it could simply reflect her experience of both gender prejudice and anti-magic prejudice from the Initiative (--> "The Initiative"); but the little hints elsewhere are provoking. File away for future study. 4) A Couple More Things Just to reiterate about structure: the sequence of the dreams outlines a typical episode structure (Something's Lurking/People Are Hurt/Let's Research/Buffy Faces Alone), while at the same time the four dreams are parallel-structured as far as the 1st Slayer is concerned (Covert Stalking/More Obvious Stalking/Attack on the Dreamer). Credit to Hilary for noting that each dreamer's "demise" is according to their "tarot card" (--> "Primeval"): Giles a "Head" wound, Xander removal of his "Heart," Willow the choking off of her "Spirit" (= breath, an old metaphor). And Buffy is attacked by "Hands." This is a typical old mythic strategy: I was just reading today about how each of the sons of the heroes of the =Mahabharata= dies from a wound that corresponds to a quality of his father's. This quaternity of four "elements" is a very strong unit (along the same lines as fire/water/air/earth), and I hope they make some more use of it. Enough! as Buffy would say. That's what I have to say about "Restless" to this point, except to say it's definitely one of the best episodes of the season (along with "Hush."). ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 16:25:21 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: o/f&j4 Jennifer: Much food for thought as usual. One last time. If you observe a human being behaving a certain way in a certain context, and extrapolate her behavior in a different context (say, by portraying it in a work of fiction), to me that means you operate according to an implicit, maybe even unconscious, "psychological theory." But if you refuse to call it a theory, I can't make you. Larger issue. All storytelling (of which literature is a subset), from the most primitive to the most sophisticated, was "Jungian" "fantasy" up to about 1600; at about which time, as Frances Yates and Couliano tell it, Christianity declared war (to put it melodramatically) on the imagination, which caused the worldview to change, leading to the rise of scientific thinking and realistic art. My purpose is simply to make an important distinction, not some kind of authenticity-test or domination game. Certainly scientific thinking has improved the quality of life over the last few centuries, and realistic art has produced many masterpieces of insight into the details and texture of outer experience. But at what cost? Inner experience. To the point where objective/subjective has drifted to the connotation of authentic/inauthentic, and even as far as true/false. Which contradicts many people's experience. What the Modernist fantasists (Morris through Tolkien), and Jung from a different angle, were doing (consciously or unconsciously) was reclaiming inner experience, fantasizing in all senses, as a legitimate "playground" for art, just as it had been prior to 1600. To the dismissal, pretty much, of those whose more "Freudian" worldview seemed to them to tell the whole story. I absolutely agree with you that, as far as the creative process goes, raw experience comes first (but that includes =inner= experience, religious, dreaming, fantasizing, whatever), art comes second, and criticism/theorizing comes third. No argument. And that the unconscious does most of the work as far as creativity is concerned. The unconscious is like the jungle; the conscious part of the creative process is like agriculture. Both are necessary for a completely-realized work of art, but without the unconscious part you've got nothing. (Stray thought. For the audience/critic--to me the same thing!--how far does the experience of the work of art, especially =performed= art, represent a species of "raw experience"? Certainly feels that way standing a foot from a rock band going full blast...) Sure, dreams can be guided; also memories, apparently. This was the problem Frederick Crews has with Freud and the recovered-memory movement, Freud categorically denying that the therapist could influence a patient in this way. Evidence seems to indicate otherwise. Still...you can make such a statement about Jung, and I can reply that Jung (who knew better than Freud) stated as his policy that he would record dreams and take note of the archetypes present =without mentioning them to the patient=. And his most extensive dream- interpretation, the 150+-page "Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy," which is Part II of =Psychology and Alchemy= (also the last essay in the smaller volume =Dreams= and collected in =The Portable Jung=), is based on a long sequence of dreams by someone who wasn't even a patient of Jung's. So we have conflicting evidence here. Postmodernism =is= looser than modernism. What was your point again? Sorry. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 16:31:42 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/comments6/6 David: Some brief comments. For me, encountering the De Camp anthologies =prior to= the mid-60s paperback explosion (both Tolkien and Howard), most of that material, actually, was new. I didn't have the books the stories came from until a few years later. Yes, I'd like to see your Mythopoeic Society piece. The Modernist fantasists (Morris through Tolkien) were, in fact, as you point out, individual artists working on their own without much reference to a =fantasy= tradition (though Morris and Tolkien had medieval literature as a tradition to follow, and Eddison took off from Elizabethan and Jacobean literature). "Undercutting" seems like precisely the word to describe what Cabell was up to. Devalued the very real power of his fantasy worlds. The Scelsi 4th Quartet has a very simple structure: start quiet, maintain the single drone (composed of a bundle of microtonal "strands") which gradually rises in volume and pitch to a reverberating climax, then subsides. Call it "=Bolero= for bees." Works for me, heaven knows. Coming in late on the discussion, "Ghandi" is one of the most prevalent misspellings among speakers of English. Can't say why. Meredith: On re-viewings it was clear that the 1st Slayer was carrying some primitive kind of knife, broader of blade than Adam's spike. And that was what came through the curtain in Willow's dream. Todd: I think Giles' "it's about the journey" was a self-reference to the episode, not to =Apocalypse Now= or =Heart of Darkness=. Or did I miss your point? Olivia going through "demon reproduction" a la Cordelia to produce Little Sister? Curious idea; I'd characterize it as unlikely. The =Rocky Horror= reference to the lighters makes sense. It occurred to me later that one way to interpret Tara's "back before dawn" was "[go] back before [the] dawn [of time]," which would echo Giles' "since the beginning, before time," and is in fact what Buffy did to meet the 1st Slayer. But this new rumor about a new character called Dawn puts a whole new possible meaning on the table... Hilary: Vapid Buffy = Sandbox Buffy = Fairground Buffy as "childish" images of Buffy in each of the others' dreams? Interesting thought. Though Sandbox Buffy doesn't =act= childish. The stuff on Buffy's face does seem to be a "melting down" of images, because obviously its "surface" and "deep" meanings in Giles' dream are, respectively, childish making a mess and a connection to the 1st Slayer's "warpaint" (which Giles recognizes on some deep level). I hadn't thought of the superhero mask idea (though that seems dead on in retrospect); also the idea of Buffy as "fashion victim" who has talked about facials on several occasions. Definite multivalent image. The Slayer's power coming from demon possession is a weird and rather icky idea, but it has a certain compelling resonance; it would make sense as a parallel with a vampire's possessing demon. It also reverberates with the old mythological idea that the warrior has as much in common with the demons he fights as he does with those he protects; and with Indra, the warrior-god in Hindu mythology, becoming a demon in Iranian mythology. And there are all the debates with Faith and others about the Slayer's proper behavior; and it certainly would follow up on the hint in that exchange with Adam. Good point at the parallel between Willow calling Giles "Rupert" and Xander calling Mrs. Summers "Joyce." And about this being a case of the "kids" being on the point of adulthood now. And I think this actually ties in with Giles and his midlife crisis, now that he is (seemingly) less necessary as an authority figure to this group, and he and they are both trying to re-configure their relationship (which they all affirm is important) in view of how they have all changed. And continue to change. Which will likely be a theme of the new season. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 17:32:58 -0400 (EDT) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/restlessay > Buffy failed. That definitely depends on one's definition of failure. The "I talk. I walk." speech is of course Buffy's defense of her long-held position that she can be a Slayer and a normal person at the same time, against the First Slayer's declaration that she can't. And Buffy may fail at that balance: she's failed at it before. And, as you suggest, one of the most strongly repeated points in the episode is that her unconscious would love to give the whole thing up. But, in the end, she fights: she tackles the menace both in the dream-world and the waking one. I would not call that failure. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 17:48:19 -0400 (EDT) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/restlessay Tara. > I commented earlier that, concerning "Willow's Dream," the "melting > down" of imagery suggested a series of correspondences [--> "GD II": Faith > = cat] cat = Tara = 1st Slayer [--> "Buffy's Dream": 1st > Slayer = Tara = Faith]. This is quite possibly stretching things a > little. Possibly not, considering the additional material you note later (especially the bedmaking: Faith = Tara). More below. > where she's whispering intimately with Oz (which may simply be a > projection of what Willow knew to be Oz' feelings about her and Tara). I see it, as I think I said before, as a projection of Willow's general anxiety about being liked: it borders on paranoia. To have your two successive lovers, who you know don't get along (yet another thing to add to your general guilt feelings about the whole business) virtually giggling at you together is almost the ultimate degradation. Buffy wouldn't have a dream like that about Riley and Angel, because Buffy doesn't have Willow's personal insecurities. (Her problems are on quite a different level.) > she's =not= playing the same role towards Willow that she plays > towards Buffy: she's more Willow's shadow, manifesting/personifying the > several things that Willow is anxious about. Absolutely. I don't believe there is any "leakage" between the dreams in this aspect. > Her connection to the 1st Slayer seems a bit circumstantial. Of this I am much less sure. We don't know her connection, but there seems to be something. > Tara, Advocate for Slayers? What exactly does that mean? I don't think we > have any means of figuring that out from current evidence (any more than > we can figure out about her sabotaging the demon-spell). But I suspect > that both things are going to prove important. I'm afraid we'll have to > just wait and see. Yes, Tara's future is a real point to wait over, just as Faith's was last summer. > Just to reiterate about structure: the sequence of the dreams outlines a > typical episode structure (Something's Lurking/People Are Hurt/Let's > Research/Buffy Faces Alone), while at the same time the four dreams are > parallel-structured as far as the 1st Slayer is concerned (Covert > Stalking/More Obvious Stalking/Attack on the Dreamer). Thought experiment: imagine the dreams in a different order. Superficially it'd be easy to switch around any or all of the first three. But I don't think it would actually work. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 18:15:03 -0400 (EDT) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: o/f&j4 On Tue, 6 Jun 2000, Donald G. Keller wrote: > Larger issue. All storytelling (of which literature is a subset), > from the most primitive to the most sophisticated, was "Jungian" > "fantasy" up to about 1600; at about which time, as Frances Yates > and Couliano tell it, Christianity declared war (to put it > melodramatically) on the imagination, which caused the worldview to > change, leading to the rise of scientific thinking and realistic > art. Whether it was Christianity per se, or the general culture (which was Christian inter alia), I have certainly noticed this before. Nor was it just the imagination. Somewhere around the same time, _originality_ became a necessary quality of great art, and retellings became considered to be a substandard form of literature. (Meanwhile they went on praising Shakespeare, despite the fact that only two or so of his plays have original plots.) What I have no idea of, perhaps as I haven't read the critics you cite, is _why_ these changes occurred. I'd love to learn more. > Certainly scientific > thinking has improved the quality of life over the last few > centuries, and realistic art has produced many masterpieces of > insight into the details and texture of outer experience. > > But at what cost? Inner experience. To the point where > objective/subjective has drifted to the connotation of > authentic/inauthentic, and even as far as true/false. Which > contradicts many people's experience. As a person with a very scientific-mechanistic view of the material universe, but a preference for subjective/spiritual art extending to the point where I consider most people with my material-universe views to be incapable of creating art I would want to read/hear/see, I have a heavy reconciliation job to perform. I think I've done it, but it would be self-indulgent (not to mention I haven't the time) to try to explain how. (I won't deny that the subjective can be true. What burns up us scientific/materialist types is claims that subjective reasoning can generate truths about objective things. Yes, it can guide you to ideas about objective things, but then you have to use objective reasoning to determine if they're correct.) > To the dismissal, pretty much, of those whose more "Freudian" > worldview seemed to them to tell the whole story. My rule of thumb - and I use this to decide whether I accept various _Buffy_ theories being passed around, and whether I like them if they prove to be true - is an instinctive sense of whether the idea feels like it's opening out new perspectives, or narrowing and flattering them out. Generally, Jungian ideas feel like they open things out, and Freudian ideas like they flatten. There are exceptions, though, both ways. "It's just another Warrior archetype, ho hum, end of story," would be a flattening Jungian reaction, and there are works of great Freudian literature, in which a Freudian interpretation really opens them out. > (Stray thought. For the audience/critic--to me the same thing!--how > far does the experience of the work of art, especially =performed= > art, represent a species of "raw experience"? Certainly feels that > way standing a foot from a rock band going full blast...) One thing Jennifer said that I agree with, despite her fear that it was critical doubletalk, is that art is an attempt to get the reader/viewer to reproduce the experience that the artist is trying to convey. What you're describing above is a successful attempt. And, of course, it's almost infinitely easier to do this with performing arts. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 18:28:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Todd Huff Subject: Re: b/comments6/6 "Hush" next week! > Todd: I think Giles' "it's about the journey" was a > self-reference > to the episode, not to =Apocalypse Now= or =Heart of > Darkness=. Or > did I miss your point? I'm saying it could be both. The first is obvious, the second another in-joke. > Olivia going through "demon reproduction" a la > Cordelia to produce > Little Sister? Curious idea; I'd characterize it as > unlikely. So do I. Just spittin' out words to see where they splatter. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! 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