From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #240 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Sunday, December 24 2000 Volume 02 : Number 240 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: b/Who's in the wrong, here [allenw ] Re: b/comments12/22 [allenw ] Re: b/comments12/22 [Dori ] Re: b/Who's in the wrong, here [Dawn Friedman ] RE: b/etbest00 ["Karin Rabe" ] Re: b/etbest00 [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/etbest00 [Dori ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 10:49:01 -0600 (CST) From: allenw Subject: Re: b/Who's in the wrong, here On Sat, 23 Dec 2000, meredith wrote: > Hi! > > Dawn replied: > > >What are her mom and Dawn, chopped liver? She's been there for them. > No, they're chopped steak! (As opposed to vampires, who are usually stake-chopped.) So, no thoughts on my Angel-is-still-following-the-W&H-Master- plan scebario? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 10:54:58 -0600 (CST) From: allenw Subject: Re: b/comments12/22 On Sat, 23 Dec 2000, Donald G. Keller wrote: > I never did comment on the previous episode, either. Most of what I want > to say centers on that final scene between Joyce and Buffy. A most > intriguing situation, that people with some kind of brain malfunction can > "see through" Dawn's "masquerade" (is this related to the fact that Adam > was impervious to Jonathan's spell?), and it was really striking that > usually-clueless Joyce, in her poor health and confusion, should have put > two and two together and =figured out= that Dawn wasn't really her > daughter. And good for Buffy not dissembling! The honest answer was what > was necessary. It was further remarkable that Joyce should have been so > accepting of the situation. A tremendously moving scene, I thought, maybe > the best this season (with SMG doing her usual bravura work). > Don, I saw Joyce's "acceptance" of the situation as the spell stil warping her mind for its own purposes; Dawn is important to the world, we have to protect her, etc. Good on Joyce for figuring out what she did, but not-so-good on the spell-casters for being so manipulative. - -Allen W. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 11:23:19 -0500 From: Dori Subject: Re: b/comments12/22 >Something else to throw in here: remember in Buffy's dream in "Hush" where >Riley turned into a Gentleman at the end? I'll be damned. I'd forgotten all about that. You know, I'm beginning to think that Joss gave us the whole fifth seasonn in that one episode. Wouldn't put it past the bugger. > I don't think I'm being =merely= evenhanded when I say that there's some > blame on both sides, Yah. They both needed a clue bat up-side the head, IMO. - -- Dori cleindori@rica.net - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ...perhaps love belonged to Chaos all along. Te - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 19:43:52 -0500 From: Dawn Friedman Subject: Re: b/Who's in the wrong, here At 12:26 AM 12/23/00 -0500, Meredith wrote: >True. I guess what I meant was that Buffy has been getting more and more >of a God complex all year. She feels like she has to be able to fix >EVERYTHING (kind of like what Max was going through in this week's >_Roswell_, for those who pay attention to that show too). She doesn't seem >to want to accept that while she is the Slayer and as such is special, >she's not perfect and can't make everything that's bad Just Go Away. This >attitude led to how she treated Riley -- if there was something that she >felt needed fixing, regardless of whether she could or should fix it that's >what she would concentrate on, at the expense of their relationship. This is certainly true. And I suspect Don is right: I sympathize with Buffy so strongly in this that I can lose my temper when she's blamed for it. I don't have superpowers, but I'm the world's Jewish Mother unless I keep a tight rein on myself -- something I'm still learning how to do, and my college years are two decades ago. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to learn a lesson like, "You can save the world from *some* bad things, but not other bad things. You were chosen to stop vampires from killing people, but the Powers are fine with cancer killing people. Them's the breaks." In fact, I could get into a whole cancer == vampires thing, rogue individuals that multiply and don't die, feeding on blood... but not now. I do think, though, that you don't have to have a God complex (though Buffy and I assuredly do) to get a little crazy that way when someone you love is ill. My craziness took the form of attempting to give someone as much happiness as I possibly could; underneath it was an unexpressed belief that I could make her so happy that it would be *all right* that she had cancer. I knew I couldn't make the cancer go away, but somehow I thought I should be able to make it so she didn't really mind it. It only took me six months to burn out, trying to do it. I've been more reasonable since. But only because I had to be. So I'm probably not objective about people with God complexes. Sometimes I even find them endearing. Dawn ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 21:09:56 -0500 From: "Karin Rabe" Subject: RE: b/etbest00 Gayle, You asked, > So can someone tell me why Riley didn't really kill Spike? > What possible > reason would be have for only =pretending= to kill him and not > actually doing > it? For some reason he must want Spike alive. But what? And > why would he > be going around with a fake plastic-wood spike anyway? I have no explanation for the fake plastic-wood spike, but I thought the answer to your first question was pretty obvious: Riley didn't really kill Spike because Spike's been rendered harmless, and Riley, even in a fit of rage and jealousy as he clearly was, is a humane guy at bottom. Plus the brilliant scene between the two of them made quite clear a real sense of connection between them. I'm convinced the anger Riley expressed in striking out at Spike was as much anger at himself, as anger at his vampire "rival." Of course, the profoundly disturbed express their self-hatred by killing someone else all the time; so Riley's ability to control his projected rage shows he was still quite rational and sane, despite some evidence and his own words to the contrary. :) I share all the mixed and even somewhat contradictory feelings others have expressed here about his interaction with Buffy during "Into the Woods," and thought Dori's comment was especially on target: that Riley needs to be needed even more than he needs Buffy's love. Personally, I'm sorry to see him go. Don, your language suggests you think he's not coming back into Buffy's life, that their relationship is history. That rather surprises me, as I was hoping we had =not= seen the last of him. After all, Xander's pretty authoritative speech to Buffy rejected the idea that Riley was truly just "Rebound Guy," and talked about him in "once in a lifetime" terms instead. Is there a consensus feeling here that his relationship with Buffy is over? > Re Angel, it suddenly occurs to me that he didn't just leave > Drusilla and > Darla alone, he locked them in a bomb shelter. It had seemed to > be in order > to keep the victims from escaping, but it also might be hard for > D&D to get > out. A truly chilling moment. But does it make sense for a bomb shelter to lock =from the outside=? I suppose W & H had previously used it to incarcerate people. But what are we to make of the fact that Angel seems to have no reservations at all about what he did here? - --Karin ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 22:09:31 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/etbest00 In a message dated 12/23/00 6:12:34 PM Pacific Standard Time, rabek@email.uc.edu writes: << Is there a consensus feeling here that his relationship with Buffy is over? >> Heavens no, he's a regular, and his departure was hardly an irrevocable exit. A bomb shelter that locks from the outside seemed weird to me too, although I can come up with a few reasons (it was used to store valuables, or maybe to imprison people where their cries for help couldn't be heard). << But what are we to make of the fact that Angel seems to have no reservations at all about what he did here?>> That this is the biggest, most stunning turning point in the series. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 23:36:36 -0500 From: Dori Subject: Re: b/etbest00 Gayle said, re Riley: > Heavens no, he's a regular, and his departure was hardly an irrevocable >exit. Yes, well, Glenn Quinn was a regular, too. But at least they didn't kill Riley off, as I was afraid they would. - -- Dori cleindori@rica.net - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ...perhaps love belonged to Chaos all along. Te - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #240 *****************************