Various Stuff

[shipperx]

• It rained today. My back yard is so happy. We really, really needed the rain. My hydrangeas have begun to look quite sad. On the other hand, my tomato plant ("Juliet" It's the type. I didn't name my tomato plant) is going gangbusters. I picked 10 tomatoes and counted another 54 on the plant with blooms for still more to come after that. It's been a very prolific plant).



• Went out to Surin and had Thai for dinner. Yum.



• Have begun reading Kim Harrison's Dead Witch Walking



• Watched Friday Night Lights last night and damn I miss Matt Saracen. However, I have to be honest, I've had enough with tragedy for the time being. It hurts knowing that there is more dispiriting stuff to come for these characters. The show is beautifully written, but the hard luck stories in it...God. So many of them!



• Spent time last night making this banner for menomegirl. It feels really odd making a Bangel banner. :)



• Rewatched the Doctor Who ep that aired on BBC America tonight. It's the one where the Doctor became a guy's flatmate and played soccer. It's not really the best of episodes, but darn it's a fun one



• Have continued rewatching Season 1 Farscape but haven't had much to say. I tend to think my watching Season 1 is always influenced by the fact that I didn't actually watch this series in order. I began watching Farscape when Season 4 was airing, so I had to actively seek out the Season 1 episodes, meaning that when I watched them it was always in an "Oh! That's where that came from!" capacity... which is really different than the way that it plays if one starts from scratch.
  
  It's weird because plot-wise and mythology-wise it really doesn't kick in until Scorpius shows up, which is almost at the end of the first season. On the other hand, I appreciate things that are earlier because they did indeed function in capacity of world building. Things like the throw away of Sebacean heat sickness and the way that it will eventually play into Scorpius's construction as a villain. So I do appreciate little throw away things in MOTW episodes because they helped to form the Farscape universe, but a lot of the MOTW themselves are only okay. I don't know that I would have valued them much without the rest of the series to give me a lens to view them through.
  
  Generally, though, I haven't had much to say with the recent episodes that I've watched. I have been fascinated by some of shadowkat67 's meta, especially her discussion of Farscape's central theme. If BtVS's central theme is about the challenges (and demons) of growing up, Farscape explores the emotional and interpersonal repercussions of violence and warfare. I don't know that I ever thought about it as clearly as shadowkat67 discussed it, but once noted it's so clear to see it in the series as a whole. Violence causes damage in Farscape. People are scarred by it, and the scars just pile on more violence. Crichton is a scientist who unintentionally/accidentally/unconsciously comes into possession of the greatest weapon/knowledge in the universe... It was given as a gift, for him to find a way home, but its pandora's box. It is dangerous. He sees that it destroys and it nearly destroys him, because his possession of that knowledge traps him in the cycle of violence. But it isn't just him, Aeryn was raised in a war-obsessed culture and hated by her mother for what she cost her mother in that culture. Chiana is from a positively Orwellian one. Talyn was a warship that was engineered from a peaceful one. D'Argo was robbed of his son's childhood because of prejudice that led to murder that led to his imprisonment that subsequently damaged his son. Crais who was conscripted into the military as a child and who is, at the beginning of the series, blind in his pursuit of vengeance. And Scorpius who driven to find the ultimate weapon by both a desire for revenge and a claim that he intends to use it for peace. Each of them grapple with what violence has cost them. Each of them carry -- and often perpetuate -- those scars. It doesn't happen in a void.
  
  Also a shout-out to shadowkat's summary of Farscape's Season 3's finale Dog With Two Bones which is truly magnificent. It's not my favorite episode of the season (that would be the Aeryn-centric The Choice which kills me each and every time). But Dog With Two Bones always but always seemed brave to me because it's not the climactic battle of the season. That took place earlier. It's what happens after the battle. The fight held them all together. There was urgency. There was need. But once over... what then? What holds them together then? Especially when everything has become so exquisitely painful. What makes Season 3 wonderful to me is its inevitability. That's what's so damn impressive to me, because Season 3 ends on a note that fannish, shippy hearts don't want. Cannot want. And yet... it has to happen that way.
  
  There was a discussion in someone's LJ Friday about tragic endings and I mentioned that I had listened to a writing workshop where the lecturer said that stories need the happiest ending the author can give them. Then he stressed that this does not mean that stories have to have happy endings. Not at all. It means that it can't feel like the author is doing something just to make the audience cry. Audiences don't like to feel manipulated and jerked around. A tragic ending cannot be arbitrary. It must be an organic outcome of the situation that the characters are in. The tragedy needs to be the best outcome those characters (and the audience) could reasonably expect given what has happened in the story and who the characters are. Dog with Two Bones is a wonderful example of this. It's a tragedy... but it's an earned one. Given these characters and the situation they were in, the pain that they were in, and the choices they must make to be true to themselves... it has to end this way. That's what makes it heartbreaking. I can't imagine a happier ending for Season 3 that would feel authentic to what had gone before. So, even as it breaks my heart (and every time that it breaks my heart), I still cannot imagine it happening any other way, not and be true to the journey the characters had taken to reach that point.



• Related thoughts on Doctor Who: The same writing lecture raised an issue which has made me ponder BtVS and Doctor Who. The lecturer's concept is that stories are journeys (for the reader/viewer). They must start in one place and end in another (at least emotionally). The hero drives this journey/change, and thus makes some change over the course of the story. That's the journey. Of course, there are stories where the hero doesn't change. Then the question is whether that character is actually the hero of the story. To clarify, this lecturer's concept of 'hero' isn't talking about heroics (or gender). He's defining 'hero' as the character whose POV the audience sees the story through.
  
  For example in this lecturer's terms I don't know that through most of Doctor Who multi-decade run whether the Doctor is actually the hero. The Doctor is heroic and he's certainly the central character, but he often fuctioned as a character who changes other characters lives. The POV character, the audience's POV character is often the companion. It's possible to see that in the introduction of Rose w/ Nine. She's the human. He's the alien. He's there sweeping her out of her (recognizable) life into a world of adventure. You could see it in episodes such as tonight's rerun with the Doctor's new flat mate and the girl he had a crush on. The flat-mate changes due to his association with the doctor. You can see something similar with Amy/Rory/Eleven. This season was very much Amy's and Rory's stories. I think that's why it could arrive at a happier season end than the last few of 10's run. The thing with 10 is...it actually became 10's story.
  
  See, what the lecturer said is that if a hero cannot change, it usually means it's a tragedy. He used The Remains of the Day as an example. The whole point of the Remains of the Day is that the lead character cannot change. And I think that's how we ended up hitting the same notes several times with 10 in Doctor Who. The story became 10 and the Doctor cannot change. He may get different idiosynchrasies, but the essential character remains the guy who outlives all of his companions and will ultimately lose them be it that they walk away (Martha) or are damaged by association (Donna), or loses them (Rose), or dies (Adelaide Brook, Waters of Mars). He cannot change and thus, inevitably, one way or another he'll leave them all behind. (Well, unless he's his half-clone. Then, he can change and go off with Rose to be happy). So, when the story became 10... it's no wonder they kept reaching variations of a tragic end. I think this largely explains what happened with Donna. Donna's story wasn't actually Donna's story. It was the Doctor's story, how he would feel and react... and end up alone. The follow-up on her fate -- largely ignoring her own wants, needs, and her character's (lost) journey -- further illustrates that it was not her story. It was 10's. And, as long as the story was about 10, about the hero who cannot change (and thus will always end up alone) it will be tragic.


Er... it made sense to me anyway.


• And it brought to mind BtVS and my wondering whether with Season 8 Joss has unintentionally turning Buffy (the character) into a tragedy. It started happening way, way back. I can debate whether it dates back to the emotional damage/stalled development caused by Becoming II or whether it dates to when it became a plot point in Season 5. Either way Joss seems to be mired in a character trap of asking the same question with Buffy over and over again. "What if I become disconnected emotionally?" This explicitly becomes a question in Season 5. Then in Season 6 it's not even a question, she is emotionally disconnected. Then we have the half-year of teflon epiphanies of Season 6 where ever time it looks like she's turned the corner, she hasn't. Over and over and over. She might want to change, but she can't/doesn't, at least not until it's the Finale. Then we get the sudden (by that late date somewhat unconvincing) Oleander Epiphany. Which, great. I would grab at straws. At least it looked like the them was going on to something else when she climbed out of the grave to see the flowers. It was change. Except Season 7 soon went the same route again. Joss went right back to the same well again, tried to literally revisit the 'early years' and quickly veered into Buffy the disconnected General who had no emotional communication to Potentials or her friends (culminating in the place where she's kicked out of her own house). She is at least connected with Spike who (borrowing from OMWF) literally gave her back the fire in Chosen. Season 7 wasn't a tragedy. Buffy didn't have to sacrifice herself and she got a 'happy ending.' She's free to let her cookies bake, free to forge a new life unanchored to Sunnydale, free of the hellmouth and all the series demons (to bad for you Anya and Spike. But, you know... metaphor and all.) So that was change. She could be happy now, right?
  
  And yet here is Season 8 and we're back on the "Buffy is disconnected from her friends and Dawn" merry-go-round. She cries and cries. She doesn't connect with friends, she barely remembers the world in favor of boffing her 10th grade boyfriend. We're back to the same old emotional quagmire again. What looked changed in "Chosen," isn't changed. She's still mired in all the same old shit. Can Joss's Buffy not change? Is she always going to come back around, every season, to a question of being disconnected? To trying to recapture a starcrossed teenaged romance? If this is the only theme Joss has for Buffy any longer. If every 'change' ending is only going to circle around to the same quandry next 'season', has Joss made Buffy into tragic character? Is Buffy the character incapable of any lasting change at this point? Inquiring minds want to know...



• And, while watching Doctor Who on BBC America, I saw ads for Being Human! It starts July 24th. It was a freaking awesome season of Being Human, enough so that I will have to watch it again. It was a wonderful case of plotting the downfall of characters by having them slip-n-slide there with the best of intentions. The characters take what they think is the right course -- or at least a reasonable one -- most of the way. The audience, however, can readily see that this is going to end badly and that the characters are blinded by their own wants and needs. Beautifully done.

Comments

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

That discussion of tragedy is very interesting and - though I never really thought about it before - exactly right. I don't know if you've read Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief books (if you haven't, do), but in the second one, The Queen of Attolia, something awful happens to Gen (Eugenides, the titular thief), but to paraphrase what she once said, it was actually the best available option based on the characters. In every other storyline she could come up with, he died. Fascinating to think about.

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

Yes, thank you - it DID become 10's story. I read a bit recently about how his regeneration was treated so uber-dramatically and tragically that it was gratuitous. The other Doctors were able to realize that he is still The Docotr, yes, he changes bodies and personalities but inside is the same person. It kind of made 10 look like a big wuss.

Good point about Remains of the Day - I hadn't thought about that!

I am more and more glad that I haven't read any of Season 8 :D

[elisi]

The thing with 10 is...it actually became 10's story.
Yes, very much so. I've seen this talked about before (here f.ex) and I think it accounts for why a lot of people can't warm up to Eleven whilst others are suddenly falling head-over-heels in love.

As for Buffy, then I think the problem with s8 is that (as far as I can tell) it's no longer Buffy's story, and he's only using her to tell a story. Which I wouldn't mind so much if only the story was good...

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Perfectly agreed with your thoughts on 10. I love that comparison to Remains of the Day, and I always thought it made sense that Tennant was cast as Hamlet afterwards...

As for Season 8... well, both the story and some of the comments from the people behind the scenes (Allie's "That girl ain't ever been right", for instance) seem to be pointing that way. It's certainly hard to imagine how the comic could end without Buffy either losing big or winning a very Pyrrhic victory.

[quinara]

Re Buffy - I think S5 worked as a tragedy, with Buffy realising her 'problem', trying to fix it, and that trying to fix it leading her into an even worse situation where she's left it too late (presumably it would have been easier if Buffy had just Got Dawn Out earlier) and leads to her death and rather more permanent disconnection anyway.

S6 and S7? The disconnection's more like the bad guy/situation in the tragedy (the evil thing to be overcome), but otherwise I don't think the stories tally well with a tragic idea (maybe the model fits with Spuffy and her lack-of-love-but-still-wanting-sex being a flaw, but that's a bit of a strange message and I'd rather not have attempted rape as an analogue for death). In S7 I think we're supposed to see her pride as the general problem, but I really don't, and in S8? Who knows - it's Buffy's fault she shut herself away in a castle? I have no idea what's supposed to be important in that story, since it feels like he could have started with the Twilight arc and it still would have made enough sense (and her friends level of anger over Buffy's irresponsibility could have been just as moderate without all the previous Twilight stuff).

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I actually put Season 5 in the category of tragedy done right because it falls into the "best outcome possible given the circumstances". Buffy had impossible choices and, for her, saving Dawn at the price of her own life was the more acceptable choice, so it functions as well done tragedy.

Re: 6 and 7, I'm not saying that either season was a tragedy. I don't think that either season is intended to be a tragedy. They clearly are not intended to be tragedies. What I'm wondering is whether Joss keeps writing 'happy endings' to the seasons but what he's accomplished by his inability to change internal problems with Buffy is an inability for her to actually change. He keeps repeating the same pattern of her ending up on the outside, feeling like she isn't part of the group, worrying about it, crying about it, being destructive about it, then reaching a climax where she supposedly changes... only she deoesn't because in the next season the exact same pattern starts over again. I don't really see a substantial difference in Buffy's situation in 6, 7, and 8. She's still crying about not being able to connect to the people around her.

6 & 7 both end on notes indicating to us that in the finale the pattern changes. In 6, she crawls out of the grave -- it's not a tragic ending... until you get to 7 and she's still unable to connect, Dawn still feels distanced from Buffy, the whole gang feels disconnected from her until they kick her out, the Potentials don't connect with her at all, she gives dead slayerettes dead hamster funerals in theback yard. Much of Season 7 nullifies what we're supposed to was her change at the end of Season 6. And, "Chosen" is not a tragedy (not even for Spike because he was supposedly granted heroic victory). She had the chance to go off and change and be happy. Not a tragedy... until you get around to Season 8 and she is still feeling disconnected, everyone has someone to love but her, she searches for meaning in relationship with someone she doesn't love, she cries -- a lot -- about being disconnected. Season 8 nullifies the "happy ending" of Season 7... because Buffy hasn't changed.

Joss's inability to come up with a different pattern to Buffy kind of makes her a tragedy. The changes never stick. She goes right back into the same cycle. She feels the same detatchment, worries yet again that she's on the outside, etc. It renders the 'happy endings' null. She doesn't actually change.

So I'm not really trying to say that Season 6 is a tragedy or Season 7 is a tragedy, and I doubt that Season 8 will be a 'tragedy'... I'm saying that in Joss's repetition compulsion he just may have made Buffy a tragedy because the ending "changes" never actually work. She's back to the same delimma again next 'season'. Maybe it's Joss that can't change. I don't know.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Agreed on Ten, so much of the focus of the show came to be about his tragedy of companions always leaving him. You get season 2 with the weepy departure with Rose (although granted that was the actresses choice to leave), Martha leaving him after just a season, and then Donna being forcibly parted from him after just one season again

I'm definitely warming up a lot more to the 11th Doctor and his more fun and optimistic relationship with Amy (it's a pleasant change even to have a Doctor and companion team go on for longer than one season). Something that the 9th Doctor also had to an extent with Rose's companionship bringing him out of his post Time War funk,and even the friendship with Jack towards the end of that season making it a party of three in the Tardis *points to Boomtown in particular* Whereas the time of the Tenth Doctor practically started from a place of him telling Rose companions will inevitably grow old and leave him, Girl In The Fireplace illustrating that, and even the fun of his relationship with Rose seemed to be more about preparing to pile on the hurt by making it all about wanting forever and the inevitableness of them having to part (awkward should we get a mortgage discussion in TIP etc)

[paratti.livejournal.com]

I think in the case of Buffy (and Spike to a bog extent) he's only had one ending and keeps hitting the same beat (sacrifice and being okay with her not loving him) over and over and over again. And by now, its lost the poetry and power it had in The Gift. Joss needs to put the characters down until he can come up with an ending which hasn't been drained dry.

[ms-scarletibis.livejournal.com]

Can Joss's Buffy not change? Is she always going to come back around, every season, to a question of being disconnected? And if this is the only theme he has for her any longer, if she cannot change... has he made Buffy a tragedy?

Or an emotional cripple, who can seemingly never be healed...Or rather, emotionally challenged.

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

I think you hit the nail on the head with Ten, and why I got so disillusioned by the final two seasons of Ten's run (well, season and 5 specials). While I have always admitted to being a Ten fangirl, I'm still a Doctor Who fan, and it shouldn't have been the Doctor's story, it's the story about how the Doctor affects those around him (companions and guests). And not always tragically, either (although one need only see "Horror at Fang Rock" to understand why the Doctor was so happy when "everyone gets to live!" at the end of "The Doctor Dances").

[jerrymcl89.livejournal.com]

I think that's a good point about Tennant's Doctor. Brings to mind Gaiman's Sandman, which he's repeatedly said was the tragedy of a character unable to change.

[sourisvho.livejournal.com]

Yay for Juliet grape tomatoes! I always grow these, and they always go gangbusters.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the shout-outs. I wonder sometimes if it makes sense to write meta on a series no one appears to be into but two to three people.

I agree with what you state about Farscape, Doctor Who and Buffy regarding endings and change. Was thinking about it recently and what is so great about Farscape is all the characters, especially the lead characters, change. John and Aeryn actually have full character arcs. While Angel never changes, he has no arc. That character stays the same. Which is why his story is a tragedy and so dark - this is a character that can't be redeemed because he can't change or grow. Hadn't occurred to me that this was happening with Buffy as well - but it is. She really stops growing at S5. The story keeps repeating itself, never progresses. Unlike Farscape which progresses forward. It may also be why Farscape's ending is more satisfying - the characters have progressed, changed, and resolved their issues - while with Buffy, you get the feeling would never resolve her issues or grow. She changes from girl to woman in the first six seasons, and then stops.
You're correct it is tragic.