From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #63 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Monday, April 16 2001 Volume 03 : Number 063 Today's Subjects: ----------------- b/&spike2 ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/darkangel ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/comments04/15 ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/faithtrials ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: b/faithtrials [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/&spike2 [Dawn Friedman ] Re: b/&spike2 ["Marta Grabien" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 11:31:11 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/&spike2 I tell you, I'm ready to tear my hair out over this Buffy and Spike thing. I was at a party the other week and ran into several people I haven't seen in a while who I know are =Buffy= fans, and I asked them the vexed question. And in every case I got the same reply: "Buffy must have feelings for Spike, otherwise she would have staked him by now." I can hardly express how much I don't buy this idea; but it seems a firmly-entrenched opinion. Let me have another go at it. Last time we discussed this, I posed the hypothetical parallel that Faith is harboring secret feelings for Xander, and will come looking for him when she's out of jail (which I buy about as much, i.e. not), and Hilary noted quite correctly that we have only negative evidence of Faith's feelings for Xander. And that's exactly my point. =We only have negative evidence of Buffy's feelings for Spike=. I challenge any of you Spike-lovers to cite me an instance where Buffy expressed feelings any warmer than impatience with Spike. ("Something Blue" obviously doesn't count.) As for this not-staking business, let me present two pieces of evidence. 1. In the teaser to =Enemies=, Buffy and Faith encounter the little demon in the bowler hat who tries to sell them the Books of Ascension. Impatient with the negotiation, Faith finally says, "Die, fiend!" and tries to stake him. The demon breaks away and runs; Buffy puts her hand on Faith's arm and says (and I quote): "Oh, let him go--I don't think he falls in the Deadly Threat to Humanity category." (To which Faith replies, "A demon's a demon.") 2. In "Doppelgangland," Buffy is about to stake Vampire Willow, but Willow (being choked at the time) screams "No!" and Buffy refrains. In the next scene, as they're about to send Vampire Willow back where she belongs, the following dialogue ensues: BUFFY: I'm not sure about releasing this thing into the wild, Will--it =is= a demon. WILLOW: I just can't kill her. BUFFY: No. Me neither. This is a more complicated example, of course, because in many ways Vampire Willow =is= Willow; but note the betraying detail that Buffy calls her "it," meaning she's making a clear distinction. The crux of the matter, I think, is that =Buffy doesn't like to kill=. This was the whole argument she was having with Faith in "Bad Girls"/"Consequences": Buffy only kills because it's her job (sacred duty, =dharma=, whatever), and if she can come up with a reason for =not= killing something, she will let it live. And I think that she clearly feels that Spike "doesn't fall into the Deadly Threat to Humanity category" any more, so she lets him live despite her very negative feelings towards him. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 11:32:44 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/darkangel Gayle: Thanks for conveying the missive from Doris Egan! Turned out I wasn't confusing her with anyone else; the confusing factor was that the story she had in the anthology I edited (=The Horns of Elfland=, co-edited with Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman, Roc 1997, good luck finding a copy) was published under a pseudonym. I'll take her word for it that the executive producers may never have considered Eliza Dushku for the role of Max; it also makes sense that playing Faith kind of disqualified her. And there are reasons why Jessica Alba's looks work better for the role. I wouldn't say the Jessica Alba Effect is =supernatural=, quite, though it's plenty strong; and it's not only looks, but attitude as well, a kind of swagger (something she has in common with Eliza Dushku--the Eliza Dushku Effect being every bit as strong). And I doubt very much that Max was based on Faith, any more than Zhang Ziyi's character in =Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon= was based on Faith, or Callisto on =Xena= was based on Faith (Callisto in fact came first). For that matter, Xena herself is a reformed Bad Girl, not to mention her daughter Livia/Eve, who showed up about the time Faith woke up on =Buffy=; their stories showed really spooky parallels. The fact of the matter is that Faith is such an archetype she's practically a cliche, and that Bad Girl idea is likely to show up at the slightest provocation. Which is why I think it's absolutely crucial that =Dark Angel= has big =Buffy= fans among its writers (as Doris reports), which keeps the close parallels from being =too= close. As it is, for example, there was a dream sequence in one =Dark Angel= episode (which worked really well, mind you) that was so familiar it gave me the giggles. For another example, Max isn't even Jessica Alba's first Faith-like role; check her out in =Idle Hands= (which isn't a very good movie, and quite gory, but had me laughing most of the way through; it has Seth Green in it, too). Anyway, =Dark Angel= is a good show, and it's going to be hard to wait until the season is all over (my brother is taping them for me due to the scheduling conflict) to see the last half-dozen episodes. (I agree entirely with Joss Whedon's diatribe, incidentally. Why =is= it called =Dark Angel=, anyway? Maybe the title came first and stuck, despite no =intrinsic= reason for it.) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 11:40:03 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/comments04/15 As a footnote to Meredith's news about the new comic written by Joss Whedon, the new issue of the official =Buffy= magazine has a piece on it, illustrated with some panels from the comic. Could be interesting. The issue also has a nice interview with Emma Caulfield and other items of interest. David: Re the Divine Twins, yes, there was that one parameter (Willow is more "divine"/supernatural than Xander) where the correspondence is flipped, but otherwise the correspondence follows true. Characteristics do get redistributed in these sorts of things sometimes (as you note with Pooh and Piglet). You took my Pooh/Buffy game more seriously than I meant it, but that's OK: keeps me on my toes. Point taken about Anya being a better match for Tigger than Faith. (She "bounced" Xander as well, as Xander noted: "The amazing thing? Still more romantic than Faith.") Faith in her malevolent aspect has no equivalent in =Pooh=, of course. And I see your point about Owl and Giles. Still, Giles is =perceived= by the younger characters as stuffy and irrelevant and a bit bumbling, so I'll grimace and stick to it as a tenuous correspondence. (As a defender of Wesley, you probably wouldn't even agree that he might be closer to Owl.) There is also something to what you say about Giles and Christopher Robin. In the end, though, I have to admit that the correspondences are more suggestive than convincing. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 11:38:41 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/faithtrials Speaking of Faith... The latest official paperback from Pocket Books is a novelization of episodes entitled =The Faith Trials, Vol. 1=. The book seems somewhat confused as to what episodes it covers: the title page says "Faith, Hope, and Trick," "Bad Girls," and "Consequences"; the front cover adds "Enemies"; when you actually page through the book you discover that the fourth episode is not "Enemies" but "Revelations." The episode novelizations have mostly been mediocre, and this one (by one James Laurence, whose bio lists no other publications) is no exception. I mean, it's reasonably entertaining (in a potato chip kind of way) simply because it transcribes the dialogue from the episodes (and occasionally makes clear a line that was mumbled or swallowed on the broadcast). In order to make a 50-odd-page "story" the writer has to add "padding" of various kinds (internal thoughts, descriptions of action, etc.), which in this case as in others is a mixed bag. Also, there's a prelude (Faith riding the bus into Sunnydale) and interludes (Faith walking around thinking) which summarize other episodes not covered (as though anybody reading these things wouldn't have seen them all!). This one ends quite properly, however, with the closing scene of "Consequences" where Faith joins up with the mayor (some of these volumes have epilogues too). A couple of misses kind of annoyed me in this one. The dream Buffy has about dancing with Angel in the Bronze in "Faith, Hope, and Trick" ends with Angel says "Go to Hell!" and then he is suddenly corpselike, adding the curtain line of the dream, "I did." For some reason this prose version omits that last line. And then there's this, from "Bad Girls": "As if summoned, Faith knocked at the window, grinning as she looked inside. She hauled the window open and stuck her head in. "'Hey, girlfriend,' Faith said. 'Bad time?' She breathed on the window and drew a tiny heart in the condensation, and an arrow through it." No, no. She drew the heart and stuck her index finger in the center of it. (There's even a still of that moment in the photo section.) But I do like that "As if summoned." And most of all: the scene near the end of "Consequences" where Mr. Trick and his minions (giggle--never will be able to encounter that word straightfaced again) ambush Buffy and Faith, and Trick nearly bites Buffy, ends like this in the prose version: "Faith stood behind him, stake in hand." [end chapter. begin next chapter] "So she saved you?" [Giles' line which starts the next scene] This is a serious missed opportunity. As I was discussing the other night with Deirdre, and as I've probably said before, there is a really long moment there after Faith dusts Trick where she and Buffy regard one another; it lasts some =fifteen= seconds (yes, I just stopped to check), cutting back and forth between the two Slayers. I've always thought we were supposed to understand that some kind of unspoken communication happened during that moment which was really crucial (just for one issue: why did Faith decide--and did she decide in that moment, plausibly--to play along with Buffy while going to join the Mayor?). If I had been writing it, I don't know what I would have put in there, but it certainly would have been =something= rather than nothing. (There are a number of moments earlier where Laurence added some ruminations of Faith's were she admits remorse for killing Finch, something that is not crystal-clear in the dramatic version, so it's not like he was adverse to speculating.) Anyway. I'm presuming that Vol. 2 of this set will cover "Enemies" and the two parts of "Graduation Day" ("Choices," another possibility, having been covered in one of the Willow volumes), and then Vol. 3 will likely cover the Faith Tetralogy from last year ("This Year's Girl"/"Who Are You" on =Buffy= and "5x5"/"Sanctuary" on =Angel=). Hm. I'm no fiction writer, but I'd love to take a crack at the latter. Wonder how I could arrange it... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 16:06:28 EDT From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/faithtrials Oftentimes when a novelization omits some great lines from an ep or movie, or neglects to describe some wordless moment, it is because the novelizer is working from a copy of the script, not from a tape or transcription of the show, and those lines or moments are not in his draft of the script, having been last-minute inspirations. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 17:30:34 -0400 From: Dawn Friedman Subject: Re: b/&spike2 At 11:31 AM 4/15/01 -0400, DKG wrote: >I tell you, I'm ready to tear my hair out over this Buffy and >Spike thing. The funny thing is that people on all sides of it feel the same way -- how can everyone else be so blind? >"Buffy must have feelings for Spike, otherwise she would have >staked him by now." I agree with you that she doesn't need to have any feelings for him in order to have not staked him. >Last time we discussed this, I posed the hypothetical >parallel that Faith is harboring secret feelings for Xander, >and will come looking for him when she's out of jail (which I >buy about as much, i.e. not), and Hilary noted quite >correctly that we have only negative evidence of Faith's >feelings for Xander. Faith may be utterly indifferent to Xander as a romantic partner, but she wasn't indifferent to his attempt to help her. She was so angry she set about raping and killing him to demonstrate how wrong he was. That puts him in the same category as Buffy or Angel -- a threat. Pretty impressive for a guy with no superpowers and a long way to go before reaching his own self-knowledge. So the analogy suggests that emotion of some sort may be involved. >I challenge any of you Spike-lovers to cite me an instance >where Buffy expressed feelings any warmer than impatience >with Spike. ("Something Blue" obviously doesn't count.) Feelings? No. Respect for his psychological intuition? At least twice, probably more. She knew he was right about her and Angel in Lovers' Walk, and admitted it aloud; she told him he was right about Dawn in the ep where she ran away. And what seemed to upset her most, when she was confronted with his feelings, was the fear that he had *seen* something in her that made her Spike-mate material. If she thought he was nothing more than what she called him, a perverted pig, why would she imagine he needed to see anything in her besides a gorgeous girl who could kill him? >And I think that she clearly feels that >Spike "doesn't fall into the Deadly Threat to Humanity >category" any more, so she lets him live despite her very >negative feelings towards him. I have to add: she may have tons of negative feelings towards him, but a lot of them are along the lines of, "That disgusting pest," which is ample justification for killing a bug, but not so great for killing something that's talking to you. Dawn ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 16:48:58 -0700 From: "Marta Grabien" Subject: Re: b/&spike2 > >"Buffy must have feelings for Spike, otherwise she would have > >staked him by now." Doesn't anyone remember that she entrusted him with her most precious things. Her mother and sister. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #63 ****************************