A Little Musing on Buffy Season 8
Dec. 7th, 2007 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lady_windermereI'm still waiting for #9, and will not be reading #8 until it arrives. But just been thinking about what I have reflected on from The Long Way Home and The Chain.
A few people are concerned that the organisation in opposition to the Slayers is somehow a slur to the US Military. I don't really think it is the case. I think they are far more like the people who think we are in The Last Days. And even try to take action to bring it about, believing they are doing Gods Will. While waiting to get taken off in The Rapture.
Yes there is Gereral Voll as the spokesman in the comic, but he says that there are more people Involved. I also suspect there are more countries as well. They are a vigilante-y type group, who are set up because of fear. They maybe powerful in their own right, and fear others with power.
Then on that subject, I was worried about a couple of things I have been noticing. The problem of having 500 slayers. With Buffy we had the chosen one, and it was easy to care for her. We were focused on what she did, and were able to engage with Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles. We might not always agree with what they did, and think that sometimes the full consequences of their actions were pushed aside. But we could care for them.
Spike has always seemed to divide the fandom into lovers and haters, Riley is not popular, and Dawn irritated a lot of people. The ones holding the show together was the core group. Angel had gone off to his own show.
Then the potentials arrived in Season 7, many of them nameless. We had to time to care for them, and as a group, they were not particularly, endearing.
We have moved onto 500 mostly nameless, faceless girls. Would we really care about any of them? The group that went into the school basement to fight The First and his followers, at least those that survived, seem to have been given special place in the new Watchers Council. But all of these other girls, they are not engaging. We will never meet them all. So why care.
Which is it. We might care about the people we met in the series, who have a name, a face, a character already. Will we do that in a comic, especially with such a large cast. I would say that the answer to that is no. The "Special" has gone out of being a Slayer now. We have to see Buffy as being the Strongest Slayer and special for that reason.
Which brings me to The Chain. Buffy knew about the two girls who were/are impersonating her, but her comment on knowing about them was quite off-hand. Giles does a group talk, but never meets any of them face to face. Just the prep. So it is left to Rona, if it is her, to assign our nameless girl the task. The core group never meet her, they have no attachment to her, and know nothing about her. Which is much the way we will be with the majority of the new Slayers.
Just my rambling thoughts
A few people are concerned that the organisation in opposition to the Slayers is somehow a slur to the US Military. I don't really think it is the case. I think they are far more like the people who think we are in The Last Days. And even try to take action to bring it about, believing they are doing Gods Will. While waiting to get taken off in The Rapture.
Yes there is Gereral Voll as the spokesman in the comic, but he says that there are more people Involved. I also suspect there are more countries as well. They are a vigilante-y type group, who are set up because of fear. They maybe powerful in their own right, and fear others with power.
Then on that subject, I was worried about a couple of things I have been noticing. The problem of having 500 slayers. With Buffy we had the chosen one, and it was easy to care for her. We were focused on what she did, and were able to engage with Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles. We might not always agree with what they did, and think that sometimes the full consequences of their actions were pushed aside. But we could care for them.
Spike has always seemed to divide the fandom into lovers and haters, Riley is not popular, and Dawn irritated a lot of people. The ones holding the show together was the core group. Angel had gone off to his own show.
Then the potentials arrived in Season 7, many of them nameless. We had to time to care for them, and as a group, they were not particularly, endearing.
We have moved onto 500 mostly nameless, faceless girls. Would we really care about any of them? The group that went into the school basement to fight The First and his followers, at least those that survived, seem to have been given special place in the new Watchers Council. But all of these other girls, they are not engaging. We will never meet them all. So why care.
Which is it. We might care about the people we met in the series, who have a name, a face, a character already. Will we do that in a comic, especially with such a large cast. I would say that the answer to that is no. The "Special" has gone out of being a Slayer now. We have to see Buffy as being the Strongest Slayer and special for that reason.
Which brings me to The Chain. Buffy knew about the two girls who were/are impersonating her, but her comment on knowing about them was quite off-hand. Giles does a group talk, but never meets any of them face to face. Just the prep. So it is left to Rona, if it is her, to assign our nameless girl the task. The core group never meet her, they have no attachment to her, and know nothing about her. Which is much the way we will be with the majority of the new Slayers.
Just my rambling thoughts
