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Totally Random Thought...
Seeing the ComicCon picture of Alexis Denisof made me wonder...
Could the Buffy/Angel comics be far more interesting if they simply used all the characters that Joss has killed and/or ignored? /only half-snark.
Could the Buffy/Angel comics be far more interesting if they simply used all the characters that Joss has killed and/or ignored? /only half-snark.
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If she's explicitly fantasizing sex despite the AR, what's the substantial dif?
And, truthfully, Joss of the 'you know what Dollhouse needs? More prostitution!" And "Inara being gang raped makes Capt. Tightpants nicer..." Not to mention beating Buffy into submission glowhypnol yay!' guy is not particularly concerned about the dignity of his female characters.
I think he's stuck here because he's got a template he never intends to break: Angel will always damage any human who is close to him, Buffy will always be stuck on Angel even though it always destroys her world, Spike will make gestures she wishes that Angel would but it will never accomplish squat for him, he'll always be beneath her, and it only proves Spike is loves bitch. This is the template and it will remain so.
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Oh, I don't think he's concerned about the dignity of the characters at all. He has this dynamic he seems to be obsessed with, the "almost" relationship. Sure, he can have Buffy have glow fantasies and dreams, but outwardly stating it takes down a roadblock because... then what? Then they almost have to get together because there is nothing to stop them.
It's kind of like the absolute insistence that Cordy stay dead. He has this issue that the relationship absolutely has to be stuck in that space.
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This I absolutely agree with.
Now "Luke and Laura" tangent...
As someone who watched the show (off and on since childhood), in context, I'd argue that Luke = Angel, not Spike. Spike is more analogous to Laura's other love, Scott.
Luke, like Angel, eventually destroys everyone.
Luke, who does worse things than most villains, is a lauded as 'hero' for reasons that are damn near impossible to understand (because, as I said, he eventually destroys everyone who sticks by him).
Within the story, Laura was fascinated with Luke, just as Buffy was Angel.
Luke was (for reasons I never understood even though I was actually a sort of fan of the duo in the beginning) uber attractive to her. She wanted to "save" him from his shady life (but she secretly wanted the thrill of his shady lifestyle... because she was a stupid teenager).
She had someone else, who loved her more(younger, blonder, shorter Scott), but Scott somehow could never overcome her starry-eyed obsession with Luke. She dicked over Scott for Luke (despite what Luke did to her), and in some topsey, turvey way, somehow Scott (who had once been a relatively decent guy) got cast in the role of villain. I don't even rememer that he did anything particularly awful at the time that she left him for Luke, other than think Luke was an enormous asshole, saying it loudly and often, and once punching Luke in the face.
Given the generally known things re:Luke (in the mob, paid to stalk Laura, paid to shoot the governor,etc. ) One would think Luke was the 'bad guy' but, nope, HE was the "hero". Go figure. The heretofore mostly-decent (albeit quite snarky and sarcastic) law student? The villain.
Somehow Scott became --in the show-verse -- "worse" than Luke (even though by any objective measure, it's really difficult to see how. Scott -- who no doubt WAS a bad guy often over the years and who did bad things {he was an enormous douche to Lucy after Dom died} -- was still by no rational measure "worse" than Luke.
But Luke was still hero 'just cause'.
This despite...well... Luke is a selfish asshole (not that Scott isn't as well (I mentioned he was a dick to Lucy, right?), but at least Scott's transformation to asshole made sense in light of his CONSTANTLY being dicked over, while Luke -- the even GREATER asshole -- got feted as 'hero', and despite mob-connections out the whazoo became town hero and mayor, beloved by all.
Well, at least at first.
Luke did eventually lose Laura somewhere along the line (what with his refusing to give up the mob in the 90s 'cause you don't tell Luke what to do, woman!", to his just generally being a dick, to his being an even greater dick to her long, lost child by another man (not that he wasn't a dick to his own kids as well).
And, yeah, there's that thing about Luke eventually harming everyone who loves him.
Laura went bonkers so he left her lantuishing in an institution, he left his neglected daughter to be raised by Laura's mom, treated Laura's illegitimate kid like shit, and -- oh yeah -- KILLED HIS OWN GRANDSON!
Douchebag, drank and drove, running over his own four-year-old grandson then left the scene of the accident. Wasn't there for his son (whose child he had just killed), refused to go to rehab, and generally was douchebag from hell and even if his son forgave the asshole (I think. I haven't watched enough to know, but I hope Lucky rightfully hates his father) as a viewer, I sure as shit never will.
Long story short, Laura left Luke in the end.
She saned up (more ways than one) and eventually reunited with (of all people)... Scott. And say what you will about Scott and his ways (he has his douchey parts too), he does love her and, more importantly, he's never killed his own grandchild!
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Oh, I wasn't trying to say Luke=Spike or anything like that. I was just using his words to describe it. I think he did it more than one, though I don't know why.
As a tangent to your tangent, though, I do kinda think Joss does what some fans do and automatically associates characters with other ones even if they're entirely different. Bangel as boring as it was wasn't really Bella-Edward like, but that's what he compared it to and he basically turned Buffy into Bella in the comics.
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Oh, I didn't think you were.
I just get amused by the BtVS/Luke and Laura thing as it is so wholly disconnected from the actual storylines involved.
Bangel as boring as it was wasn't really Bella-Edward like,
I wish Joss would spend less time mocking other franchises and more time taking care of his own. (Though, truthfully, a look around at Firefly and Dollhouse shows than many of Buffy problems are in fact Joss trope problems.)
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The strangest thing about it is do I not remember reading that they thought they could come back from the AR because of that storyline? I can't find the quote but I'm sure Marti or Jane or someone said it at one point.
He compared Spike/Buffy to Beatrice/Benedick and...not so much.
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All of which makes you give him the stink-eye when he then pops out later "We can't do Luke and Laura."
Yet more evidence of "Never listen to Joss. He just says whatever comes to mind in the moment and he could do a 180 when he has a different audience.)
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Yet more evidence of "Never listen to Joss. He just says whatever comes to mind in the moment and he could do a 180 when he has a different audience.)
Yup. I'm sure there will be another apology following S9 followed by more of the same crap writing in S10.
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Ever since I've watched Hell's Bells I've wondered, has this man ever been married? (I don't care or am too lazy to look it up, sadly.) Does he have any idea how much drama marriages can contain, how much sadness, rage, loss, lonliness & dysfunction? Even when a marriage is essentially a "happy" one. Marriage does NOT guarantee happily ever after, it is not an automatic sign of mental health. Buffy's parents are divorced, after all, so it's not as if he doesn't know that.
the mass cultural propaganda regarding marriage is no less fantastic than that surrounding "true love"; I'd think that the subject would be right up Joss' alley in terms of exploration.
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If she's explicitly fantasizing sex despite the AR, what's the substantial dif?
Yeah I really had no idea what to make of that. "Studly"? WTF? How he got from "Love him when you say you love him", from this:
To "studly"? The disconnect here is enormous. I'm definitely with Barb re: shit or get off the pot but it's exactly as you say, he never will. As long as anyone keeps reading and hoping that it (whatever "it" you prefer) will happen, as long as anyone says "I trust Joss", then he has every incentive to keep stringing readers along. And so every character is regressed and kept in stasis. And it's a particularly disappointing contrast to the series; one of the best things about it was, unlike almost every other US nighttime tv drama series I've watched, characters changed over time.
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By not actually giving a rats ass.
Sersiously, there has been absolutely ZERO follow-up (either on AtS or the comics) of that denoument. Joss has no follow-up. He just... didn't.
I think that's part of the stasis of the comics and why Season 9 Buffy turned into Season 6 "Spike you're my dark place that I confide in when everything else is shit but ewwwwwwww! I could never be your girl!" mode.
At best, Joss will repeat "Chosen" of her realizing too late for it to accomplish a damn thing.
At worst he's "Willis, what're you talkin' about...?"
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Oh that "dark place" bullshit ? After S7? Makes the kind of sense that doesn't.