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Post by Techno-bot on Jun 13, 2004 1:48:14 GMT -5
Written by Marti Noxon
Directed by David Solomon
Air date: 5/14/02
Warren, Andrew, and Jonathan discover just how strong Willow's magical powers are when the outraged and grief-stricken witch embraces magic's dark side to avenge Tara's death.
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Post by beccaelizabeth on Sept 2, 2009 7:14:23 GMT -5
being all  for dark!Willow is clearly innapropriate, and yet... No, seriously, Willow goes too far. Warren did a human thing to another human. The law already has Andrew and Jonathan, it could handle Warren too. And walking up to someone in broad daylight in their own home and shooting them isn't an explain it away thing. He'd be going to prison, and then probably getting killed, but with trials and juries and stuff. Willow being judge jury executioner is a very bad thing. She kills a human. Bad. ... detour via comparing fate of Willow and fate of Faith. Or Ethan, for that matter. Buffy's speech about how humans aren't meant to change some things and the proof is what magic does to Willow? I disagree with that speech so much. Humans can change whatever they can change. Cost and consequence, is all. And it's not the magic does stuff to Willow, it's Willow not thinking it through or doing stuff with good consequences. So Willow going to kill Warren seems fair. And Willow doing it by making him be shot seems kind of fair, even if she does slow it down. And all the way along we're right there with Dawn in the 'needs killing' camp... But. Willow tortures Warren to death. There is no way that skinning him is any kind of fair. That's just excessive. And the way she does it? "Bored now". That's vampire Willow, that's Willow gone way over to the monster side. That's a really big problem. And then she burns him up. Detour via the Season Eight comics. I stopped reading them after the first couple of story arcs, mostly because I decided I should probably, you know, pay for them if I was going to read. But, in them? They make Warren be secretly alive and rescued with magic. And I don't think that works at all. He was being shot, he was skinned, he was cremated. Even if the final fire effect was a teleport - and there's no way it should be if teleport is so powerful - he was being shot. He should just be dead. But mostly, if Warren isn't dead? They've retconned away what Willow did. Like being on Team Good wipes out any bad thing for her. That happens for Buffy and Willow, but not for Faith. It's weird and creepy.
... skinned Warren is a really effective bad guy, especially in comics where you don't have to pay for the makeup. I'm not complaining about skinned Warren appearing. It's just, he should just be dead. Walking dead skinned Warren with a grudge is a perfectly good horror story. If he is in fact secretly alive? Bit of a mess. The bits with Anya still being a vengeance demon, and with Spike doing to Africa, mixed together with the Trio and Warren and Willow, and did interesting things... sort of. Yet the Spike bits didn't seem to fit so very well given that everything was so tense and tied together in Sunnydale. It was like 'plot plot plot oh and here's a pretty man for a couple of minutes okay back to plot'. #shrugs# Also, it's very hard to imagine Spike is there for anything other than getting the chip out. All that with 'bitch'. Except for the teensy thing where he doesn't need the chip out to hurt her. So I don't know, maybe he was fooling that demon?  I liked the bits in the demon bar because it showed how stupid and small Warren was compared to his image of himself. Also how destructive stupid small humans can be. Leaving Dawn with Clem doesn't seem to make much sense. I mean, he turned up at the birthday party and didn't eat anyone, but other than that? The kind of sense that's not. The bit where Willow did the 'Reveal' and got Warren to yell 'because you deserved it bitch' was effective. ... Warren and Spike both using the b word gave an impression of shared misogyny that's difficult to match with what Spike is really there for. Except Spike called himself a bitch, so #shrugs# It's all a bit confusing as to who are the Villains. ... which sums up the season then. |
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Post by SpringSummers on Sept 2, 2009 17:50:32 GMT -5
being all for dark!Willow is clearly innapropriate, and yet... No, seriously, Willow goes too far. Warren did a human thing to another human. The law already has Andrew and Jonathan, it could handle Warren too. And walking up to someone in broad daylight in their own home and shooting them isn't an explain it away thing. He'd be going to prison, and then probably getting killed, but with trials and juries and stuff. Willow being judge jury executioner is a very bad thing. She kills a human. Bad. ... detour via comparing fate of Willow and fate of Faith. Or Ethan, for that matter. Buffy's speech about how humans aren't meant to change some things and the proof is what magic does to Willow? I disagree with that speech so much. Humans can change whatever they can change. Cost and consequence, is all. And it's not the magic does stuff to Willow, it's Willow not thinking it through or doing stuff with good consequences. Buffy's seeing it as "what magic does to Willow," but ultimately, I agree, it's not the use of magic that makes Willow evil. It's playing God, that is the problem. And I think that's what's being said, in the "humans aren't meant to change some things." Humans aren't meant to set themselves up as a God, whose "will be done." And Willow does that. She decides to play God. She decides she has a right to do that. She uses magic to do it, but there are other methods. Her method is magic. To tell you the truth, I never once thought Spike was there to get his chip out. I wasn't sure what he was there for, but getting his chip out made zero sense, and I never believed it. Maybe we can assume Buffy knew more than that about Clem - you know, off-screen encounters, talking to Spike about him, whatever. Not too hard to fan-wank that Buffy was convinced he was harmless. Spike is asking for his soul, convinced for various reasons (surely most of them to do with Angel) that this will both please Buffy and "show Buffy." But Spike doesn't begin to really understand what he is asking for, or what it is going to do to him. Well said! |
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Post by leftylady on Sept 3, 2009 18:32:19 GMT -5
being all for dark!Willow is clearly innapropriate, and yet... No, seriously, Willow goes too far. Warren did a human thing to another human. The law already has Andrew and Jonathan, it could handle Warren too. And walking up to someone in broad daylight in their own home and shooting them isn't an explain it away thing. He'd be going to prison, and then probably getting killed, but with trials and juries and stuff. Willow being judge jury executioner is a very bad thing. She kills a human. Bad. ... detour via comparing fate of Willow and fate of Faith. Or Ethan, for that matter. Buffy's speech about how humans aren't meant to change some things and the proof is what magic does to Willow? I disagree with that speech so much. Humans can change whatever they can change. Cost and consequence, is all. And it's not the magic does stuff to Willow, it's Willow not thinking it through or doing stuff with good consequences. Buffy's seeing it as "what magic does to Willow," but ultimately, I agree, it's not the use of magic that makes Willow evil. It's playing God, that is the problem. And I think that's what's being said, in the "humans aren't meant to change some things." Humans aren't meant to set themselves up as a God, whose "will be done." And Willow does that. She decides to play God. She decides she has a right to do that. She uses magic to do it, but there are other methods. Her method is magic. To tell you the truth, I never once thought Spike was there to get his chip out. I wasn't sure what he was there for, but getting his chip out made zero sense, and I never believed it. Maybe we can assume Buffy knew more than that about Clem - you know, off-screen encounters, talking to Spike about him, whatever. Not too hard to fan-wank that Buffy was convinced he was harmless.Spike is asking for his soul, convinced for various reasons (surely most of them to do with Angel) that this will both please Buffy and "show Buffy." But Spike doesn't begin to really understand what he is asking for, or what it is going to do to him. Well said! The way that Clem greeted Buffy in Season 7 in the demon bar gives a lot of room for fanwanking. Besides in Joss's world demons aren;t always bad - case in point Lorne. It's only the Watchers who drummed into Buffy that demon=bad . And for that matter, soulless = bad. |
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Post by beccaelizabeth on Sept 4, 2009 7:38:24 GMT -5
Maybe we can assume Buffy knew more than that about Clem - you know, off-screen encounters, talking to Spike about him, whatever. Not too hard to fan-wank that Buffy was convinced he was harmless.The way that Clem greeted Buffy in Season 7 in the demon bar gives a lot of room for fanwanking. Besides in Joss's world demons aren;t always bad - case in point Lorne. It's only the Watchers who drummed into Buffy that demon=bad . And for that matter, soulless = bad. I wasn't so much thinking 'demon' as thinking 'stranger looking after her little sister'. I mean, how well would you need to know someone to rely on them to look after a minor? |
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Post by SpringSummers on Sept 4, 2009 8:14:39 GMT -5
The way that Clem greeted Buffy in Season 7 in the demon bar gives a lot of room for fanwanking. Besides in Joss's world demons aren;t always bad - case in point Lorne. It's only the Watchers who drummed into Buffy that demon=bad . And for that matter, soulless = bad. I wasn't so much thinking 'demon' as thinking 'stranger looking after her little sister'. I mean, how well would you need to know someone to rely on them to look after a minor? Well, given the age of the minor, and in an emergency situation, I think I would consider leaving the minor with someone that, maybe I didn't know all that well, but I was convinced was harmless. Buffy also has strong faith in her instincts (her Slayer ones, anyhow), and they have served her well (discounting times when she is starry-eyed infatuated, or wildly sexually obsessed). But I think we can also come to the conclusion that Buffy is not thinking straight. Because if she knows Clem well enough to be convinced he's harmless, she might also be able to predict that his will (he's a sweet wimp type) would be no match to Dawn's . . . i.e., that Dawn would be able to manipulate him. And of course, Clem doesn't turn out to be the greatest choice. He's much too mooshy, doesn't know how to say no to Dawn, and she nearly gets herself killed. I'm not sure Buffy really had a better choice, though. |
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