From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #134 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Monday, June 12 2000 Volume 02 : Number 134 Today's Subjects: ----------------- b/dharmaupdate ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/dreamlist ["Donald G. Keller" ] re: dharmaupdate [klh@technologist.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 11:18:24 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/dharmaupdate "You can leave if you want to, we're just jamming" --Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock Or, to put it another way, don't mind me, I'm just "thinking out loud." I got to musing, in the middle of the night on a job with lots of downtime, about the desirable contents of a full-length book on =Buffy= such as I could and well may write. I've said a lot of this before, but these are my latest thoughts. It seems important to establish at the outset the fundamental nature of the work as "the hero's journey" (as Joss Whedon has explicitly stated it himself); and so the first large section, which I've called "Buffy as Hero/Buffy as Superhero," would "map" Buffy's career against the skeleton of the monomyth in Joseph Campbell's =The Hero with a Thousand Faces= as well as the list of elements in such other commentators as Lord Raglan and Otto Rank. Where these last two fail to correspond (no divine birth, no upbringing in exile), my contention will be that Buffy is in those ways more in line with the superhero. Here is where my research is weakest and I may need help or collaboration. The next large section would be "Buffy's Shadows," which seems to loom larger every time I think about it. The starting point is the character-chart (Giles, Kendra, Willow in the "light" column; Angel, Faith, and Cordelia in the "dark" column; Buffy in between the two columns) which provides, I believe, a firm infrastructure for the entire show, and illustrates the way =all= the characters on some level are Buffy's shadows or doubles. Further, this section would attempt to demonstrate that it doesn't go =too= far to say that the major strategy of story-construction on the show is various kinds of transactions between Buffy and her various shadows. This is truest and =most= meaningful in the cases of Angel and Faith; in fact Faith could easily be the subject of an entire monograph all by her lonesome. The third large section would be "The Dharma of Buffy" itself, where the mythological parallels I've been researching would be deployed. It might be necessary at this point (if not earlier) to argue for treating the show as a myth and as an epic (these are different things, and both apply). This section seems to have broken into two substantial halves, or rather the original portion has sprouted a whole new first half. This new half, which I realized the other night could be titled "The Scooby Quaternio," god help us all, explores =three= different myth- patterns (the five Pandava brothers from the =Mahabharata=, the Divine Twins and the Sun-Maiden, the war between the Aesir and the Vanir) which map onto the four central Scooby members (Giles, Buffy, Xander, Willow) and help explain why they seem to be such a satisfying and self-sufficient whole. (I'm sure I wouldn't need much encouragement to unpack that rather cryptic paragraph. Be careful what you wish for.) And this is leaving aside the four-elements pattern mapped onto them in "Primeval" (and reiterated in "Restless"). Does the following make sense, by the way? Spirit = Air, Heart = Fire, Head = Water ("squishy frontal lobes"), Hands = Earth? Quite a lot to say just on =that= angle. The central "Dharma of Buffy" unit consists of three sections: "Buffy the Kshatriya" (how she fits the mythological warrior function according to Dumezil), "Indra the Demonslayer" (the correspondences between Buffy and the warrior-god of Hindu mythology), and "The Three Sins of the Slayers" (applying one specific myth-pattern to the [mis]deeds of Buffy and Faith). After that, a last section would be "The Triple Adversary," applying another myth-pattern to structural analyses of 1) "Helpless" and =The Silence of the Lambs= 2) =Heathers= and "The Zeppo." The reason I started musing on this, and the question (which nearly got lost in the shuffle) I put before the assembly, is: how much of this do I need to have a coherent essay? Can I focus on the tripartite(!) "Dharma of Buffy" itself, with its exclusively Dumezilian point of view, and have a coherent essay that stands on its own? That's what I'm hoping; but to my mind there are a lot of assumptions being made, stuff I'd have to merely =assert= (rather than demonstrate) to get to the heart of the mythological matter. This schema also leaves aside such other interesting topics like =Buffy='s debt to the traditions of 1) the Gothic 2) vampire literature 3) horror in general 4) teen slasher movies 5) teen comedies. That's a whole separate multi-part essay. Nor is there room for "The =Coniunctio= of Buffy and Angel," my still-percolating fantasia on alchemical symbolism as applied to the show. Not to mention my =original= piece on the show, "Deconstructing the Segues or, Whiplashes of Affect in =Buffy the Vampire Slayer=," which concerns the (essentially postmodern) juxtapositions of disparate materials and emotions that the show specializes in. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 11:19:40 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/dreamlist Nor does the outline I've just presented deal with the dream- analyses I've embarked upon; to do =that= job thoroughly would (again) take a monograph all on its own. Off the top of my head (again from middle-of-night woolgathering) here's a list of dreams from the show; doubltless I've forgotten a few (and will be glad to be reminded). Per Jung's practice I've included daydreams and visions as well. (All dreams Buffy's unless otherwise noted.) I.01 "Welcome to the Hellmouth" (intro to Buffy) I.04 "Teacher's Pet" (Xander's daydream) I.10 "Nightmares" (the Master)* [see footnote] I.12 "Prophecy Girl" (the Master) II.01 "When She Was Bad" (Giles becomes the Master) II.08 "The Dark Age" (Giles' 2 dreams about Eyghon) II.13 "Surprise" (2 dreams of Angel's death) II.14 "Innocence" (Angel tells "what to see") II.18 "Killed by Death" (2 dreams of childhood) II.19 "I Only Have Eyes for You" (waking vision of 1955) III.01 "Anne" (Angel on beach) III.02 "Dead Man's Party" (Angel at school) III.03 "Faith, Hope, and Trick" (dancing with Angel) III.10 "Amends" (Angel's 3 dreams/Buffy "guest spots") III.15 "Consequences" (drowning with Finch and Faith) III.20 "The Prom" (Angel's wedding dream) III.22 "Graduation Day" II (Faith) IV.02 "Living Conditions" (Cathy the demon) IV.05 "Beer Bad" (daydream about Parker) IV.10 "Hush" (the Gentlemen) IV.15 "This Year's Girl" (Faith's 3 dreams about Buffy) IV.22 "Restless" (Willow, Xander, Giles, and Buffy) *"Nightmares" is a special case that needs some contemplation. What happens in that episode is neither actual dreams nor waking visions; it's stuff that =actually happens= based on dreams. Which to me is not quite the same thing. That's upwards of 30 different dreams (in the course of 78 episodes). Now, quite a few are relatively transparent and unproblematical and won't need more than a paragraph of explication; others clearly seem near-inexhaustible. About two-thirds (a lower percentage than I thought) are Buffy's dreams; about half the episodes were written by Joss Whedon. Lots of material there, obviously. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 13:43:46 -0400 (EDT) From: klh@technologist.com Subject: re: dharmaupdate Don, I think I speak for all of us when I say: Just WRITE the f*ck*ng thing. Matters such as space limitations, assertions that would have to be footnoted, and the like are for your editor and you to hash out. DEADLINES, on the other hand, are NOT. And an essay not written won't make the book any better. - --------------------------------------------------- Get free personalized email at http://iaf.iname.com ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #134 *****************************