MY THOUGHTS on a article about Season 7.

I saw this article being linked on Whedonesque and thought it had a lot of valid points, but some things I disagree with. It's a article with ten statements about Season 7. It's very interesting, but like I said, I didn't agree with everything.

This is the comment I left on the article(most of it anyway, it was too long to be posted over there);

I agree to a lot in this article, but I have some disagreements. The major ones I will post below.

8."There's one specific point to address, which numerous people have made the subject of fics over the years; that a girl suddenly becoming a Slayer might accidentally use her unaccustomed strength to hurt or even kill someone else... and by extension, Buffy and Willow would be responsible for that. While a clever idea, I've never thought it worked that way: all the girls being empowered seemed to me to know exactly what had happened to them, and be in full control... whether it's Baseball Girl's cheeky smile or the look of determination in Abused Trailer Girl's face. 'The Chain' made that explicit, with the emphasis on how the new Slayer was hit by all the accumulated knowledge and memories and wisdom of the entire preceding Slayer line all at once. Of course, it doesn't mean that a newly Called woman will use her powers for good, but it seems clear to me that she'd use them with understanding. And I've already said I don't believe in toddler Slayers. :-)"

As we saw in the commercial in The Chain with Andrew and Vi(I think it was them), although the girl has strange dreams of being another girl in another time, she doesn't know what she is, or why, so no, it's not explicit that all new slayers are in full control and knowledge of what happened to them . For all they know they've been slipped some steroids in their drink and have weird superstrength and dreams to thank for it.

10. I respect and understand your opinions, but if Buffy had made all those women into slayers without the threat of The First's army, she should have deserved a beating.Giving someone power can be wrong. How easy do you think it is, with information about your slayer origin or not, to make love to a fragile human or to hold a newborn baby without squezzing to hard? Accidents happen, self-control slack. Superstrength and a bunch of predator-senses aren't for everyone. Unless they choose it.

It's not right to hand out power like that. Definitly not since not Buffy, Willow or probably anyone alive or dead, fully understands how the slayer energy changes a person, what it is and what exactly it does. They put demonic energy into unwilling girls. They were made into hunters. That fact is undeniable. Remember Buffy needing to hunt in Buffy vs Dracula, before she went to sleep next to Riley? I don't think Buffy would have felt the urge to hunt before she was Chosen. She has been made more... predator-like.

I understand that Buffy didn't have much choice in Season 7, and after all, most slayers she has known had been well adjusted girls(everyone but the first slayer who tried to kill Buffy and her friends in Restless and of course, Faith). They were unwillingly changed but dealt with it.

"However, my main argument against this charge is to say that really, the question of consent is the wrong question to be asking. Becoming a Slayer wasn't something imposed on these women from outside... it was already there inside them in potential, and it was only "the rules made up by a bunch of men thousands of years ago" that prevented them from all having that power. It was the Shadowmen who violated their consent, and all Buffy and Willow did was ensure that these women could enjoy the benefits of that long-ago action as well as having to suffer its downsides. They were breaking the chains, not adding new ones."

Wheter they were born to become potentials, or if the shadowmens spell "blessed" them when they were newborns, you can't say that just because it was in them, it should be let out. Buffy and Willow violated their consent just as much as the shadowmen. The shadowmen might have created slayers from nothing, while Willow created slayers from potentials, but that still does't give them the right to take away choice. I have the potential to become a martial art fighter, but that doesn't mean that I should(although even comparing the most skilled martial art fighter with a mystical demonic fighter is ridicoulous, but still.)

"On a metaphorical level, just as the story of 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' was that of Buffy growing up and becoming an adult woman with full acceptance of her responsibilities, so Slayerhood is a metaphor for adult agency. You don't choose to become an adult, you don't "consent" to puberty or maturity. It happens regardless of your wishes, but you do get to choose how you respond to the changes in your body and your life."

I think that's not entirely a good metaphor. You can't compare what nature, our bodies have evolved to to survive, to the conscious acts of Buffy & Willow. The act of evolving from girl to women is unconscious and in our DNA, while the potentials becoming slayers was a conscious act. Adulthood, you can't consent to, slayerhood, you can. I might be to picky, but I just wanted to point that out.

That said, I think Buffy made the choice she had to make. Maybe the shadowmen did too, I have no idea of their motives. Weird that they couldn't find a willing girl tough.

Fan-made comics.

Remember that Faith fan-made comic I showed you a couple of months ago? It's been updated since then, so I though I'd link to it and some other fan made Buffy comics.

Faith - Redemption

Head Trip - Once more... (A hero-themed comic with some Buffy thrown in)

Buffy&Spike (this is sort of an experiment for the artist, so we probably don't get to see more of the story than these three pages)
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3

But you can't INHALE (Remember to scroll down to read the artist's comments for this one)

Buffy & I (A anti-Buffy fan's journey)

Nothings ever good enough...(This artist is not a Dawn fan, lol)

Mama's boy(Poor little Adam)

Buffy Randomness

Just-a-nnoying (This reminds me of my conversations with friends...)

Whose line

Here's a fun game show vid.

"Video from show Whose Line Is It Anyway? (Season VII Episode 04)

Scene - Moments before sunrise, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Colin, has come to kill Count Dracula, Ryan, as he is draining the last drops of blood from his latest victim."

And the funniest thing is, Buffy's comebacks are sometimes just as silly as Colin's version.

Wedding cover on ebay.

A very rare variant(200 ever made I think, google to be sure) of issue one of Angel After the fall.

Here's Lynch's blog post about the issue and here is the auction. There's no COA mentioned but since it's from the writer himself, who needs one?

Here's a better picture of the wedding cover.

Spike in a suit/tuxedo. Priceless. And look there's Beck and... and... that invisible currently name-less dude(stupid memory) and other characters from Spike:Asylum & Shadow Puppets.

If I believed I had a chance, I would probably bid. But even tough I just got a bunch of money transfered into my account, that's a student loan, so...

Sappho "love" poem from Restless.

I'm reading Sappho right now, for my literature class. She's a famous ancient Greek, known for her poems, many about nature and also love. But she doesn't seem to be that much into free will...

Let me tell you why I bring this up here, and not on a poem-forum or ancient Greek blog;

In Restless(Buffy, season 4), the dream episode, Willow writes something on Tara's back, that I think might have been a sign from Joss to us viewers of the future mind-violation in season 6.

It's the lines in blue that creeps me out the most;

Deathless Aphrodite on your lavish throne,
Enchantress, daughter of Zeus: I beg you, queen,
Do not overpower my soul with heartaches ,
and hard troubles,
But come here, if ever at another time
Having heard my voice you paid me attention
And leaving the golden house of your father
you came to me,
Yoking your horse and chariot: gorgeous swift
Sparrows carried you over the coal-black earth,
Thickly whirling their feathers through the midst of
heaven's ether.
Swiftly they arrived, and you, O blessed one,
Smiling with your immortal face, you asked for
What I suffered, and why again I call you
And what in my maddened soul I desire most
To happen to me: what dearest one shall I now
Persuade to lead you back to her — who, O Sappho,
wronged you this time?
For even if she flees, swiftly she will pursue;
And if she does not receive my gifts, she will give;
And if she does not love me, swiftly she will love,
Even against her will. So come to my aid now,
Release me from my grievous cares, fulfill as much
As my heart yearns to be fulfilled: come, be my
fellow-fighter.

It was usual, back "in the day", to invoke the Gods for your... needs(like harvest, safe journeys and such). And you might be familiar with the stories of gods & goddesses taking what they want, women turning into trees to flee their pursuers and the concept of Aphrodite "helping" with your love life.

I do not looking forwards to reading more of Sappho's work. But it was a good way of showing us of Willow's future abuse(although it was years after the show ended that I read the translation of the poem). I'm not saying that Willow did a love spell on Tara, but who knows how many memory spells Willow had to perform to keep Tara. I definitly think this poem hit home.

This translation is just one of many tough, it must be, since the ancient greek is a very old and different language, and this poem has ben studied and probably translated by many.

I found this translation it here. But I also found this site with this translation;

Many colored throned immortal Aphrodite,
daughter of Zeus, wile-weaver,
I beg you with reproaches and harms do not beat down O Lady, my soul.

But come here, if ever at another time
My voice hearing, from afar
You have ear, and your father's home leaving
-- golden -- you came.

This translation is a bit different, and doesn't seem to have the whole poem. I'll e-mail the site owner and ask about this. Maybe, the first site was wrong and added to much and Willow's subconscious isn't so creepy. Maybe.

Weekly feature: Excerpt from original script

The following scene from Redefinition(Angel, Season 2) was cut, due to length:

Cordelia moans at length to Phantom Dennis about her personal distress after Angel’s decision to fire her, Wes and Gunn. After a bit of monologue, Dennis opens TV Guide, then turns on the television:

Cordy: "Oh, I’m sorry Dennis. Is my pain boring you? You dead guys are so insensitive".

Super-cool comic trivia site.

I was just told about this site. Did you know that "The final cut", a stand alone in the original Buffy 63 issues run was re-done and is a part of the merchandise; Supernatural defense kit?(The expanded version is in one of the Omnibuses, the third) Or that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Rogues Gallery, a story by Andi Watson and Hector Gomez, was broken down into two page installments in the pages of Diamond Previews (1999-2000). According to Buffy editor Scott Allie, the story was not archived and therefore could not be collected in the Buffy Omnibuses making it the only Buffy story to not be reprinted."

I'm all giddy! I had no idea about the supernatural kit-stuff, I thought there was only one version of The Final Cut. I wonder which issue of Diamond Previews had the Pike & Buffy panel.

Ebay, here I come!