(no subject)

[oyceter]

Sparked by superplin's old post:

I loved Buffy through the earlier seasons and admired her and thought she was great, but I never loved her more than in late season 5 and season 6, when she was depressed and downtrodden and angry. I loved her most when she was overwhelmed by the world, when she was thisclose to the breaking point, and when she sometimes crossed over.

Spoilery through Buffy S6

I saw her on the screen beating up Spike with so much self-hatred, and I saw myself in her.

Well, obviously not beating up Spike.

But I understood her then, felt like I had lived under her skin, felt that horrible pressure when nothing works, when everything is just one more thing that wears you down. And while I love Buffy in the earlier seasons, she's not me then. She's ten times better than me, smarter and faster and braver, and I admire her for that. But I've never had real moments of righteous anger, or of kicking villain butt, or of facing death and going on anyway.

So while I adore Buffy before her mother died, I understand Buffy afterwards.

Comments

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

Also, I get confused by Lies, and without re-hashing my qualms about Lies thing, the defence which is offered, that Nikki died an honourable death, the death of the good warrior - if that isn't accepting the military mindset, I don't know what is!

This defence was offered by Spike, who has some valid points, but he is not necessarily a voice of The Only Truth. Buffy herself feels sorry for Wood – having to grow up without a mother, but not because of her military mindset, I think, but because Nikki was the Slayer – as Buffy is, the Slayer life expectancy is quite short, and Buffy already died twice, she knows the stakes better than anybody else; so it is not a military mindset, it is an acceptance of what comes from being the Slayer. Of course, Buffy at the moment is not in the best emotional place, either.

And Get it Done really disturbs me because I used to think Slayer Power was a positive. A metaphor for Buffy's imaginative, emotional and intellectual power. And now we learn it is the ultimate act of victimisation, a metaphor for an attempted rape of Buffy, an echo of a successful one.

But slayer power has never been portrayed only positive, or only negative. It was a complicated knot of freedom, limits, fun, and responsibilities, and the fact they were given against the will, added complications, not coloured everything black for me.