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Post by Onjel on Jun 17, 2004 9:39:40 GMT -5
Author, Author!! Thank you, Ms. Summers for your latest entry in a long line of insightful and enjoyable analyses! I can't wait for the next one!
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Post by SpringSummers on Jun 17, 2004 13:50:23 GMT -5
Author, Author!! Thank you, Ms. Summers for your latest entry in a long line of insightful and enjoyable analyses! I can't wait for the next one! Hello Onjel! I am delighted to realize I have trapped another n'ubie in my snare provided enjoyment to yet another reader. Seriously - thanks so much for letting me know that you read and enjoyed. This is such a big project, with so many more to go, that it helps a lot to hear from folks. I've slowed down a lot due to various other things in my life tugging at me, but hope to pick up the pace to about one-a-week by the fall (I hope!).
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Post by Nickim on Jul 12, 2004 14:07:00 GMT -5
Great job, Spring. "Let your light shine." I love the thought that our lights can keep shining long after we're gone. Tara's "bathed in light" in OMWF when she feels loved by Willow. Willow turned that light to darkness when Tara died. Buffy's light dimmed when she had to kill Angel and when she realized in Season 7 that she might have to sacrifice some of the Potentials to win the battle.
I know exactly what you mean by having a "thing" for men's hands. I'm very seldom attracted to a guy who doesn't have the "right" kind of hands, strong looking with long, lean fingers.
I'm almost caught up with your analyses now. Yay.
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Post by SpringSummers on Jul 13, 2004 5:27:37 GMT -5
Great job, Spring. "Let your light shine." I love the thought that our lights can keep shining long after we're gone. Tara's "bathed in light" in OMWF when she feels loved by Willow. Willow turned that light to darkness when Tara died. Buffy's light dimmed when she had to kill Angel and when she realized in Season 7 that she might have to sacrifice some of the Potentials to win the battle. I know exactly what you mean by having a "thing" for men's hands. I'm very seldom attracted to a guy who doesn't have the "right" kind of hands, strong looking with long, lean fingers. I'm almost caught up with your analyses now. Yay. Interesting comments on "the light," Nicki. And thanks for joining me in my "hands-thing." Men really get to me in lots of ways (but please don't tell them I said so).
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Post by Linda on Jul 25, 2004 1:38:47 GMT -5
Yay Spring! Thank you for another excellent analysis!
I like all of your observations, but I especially appreciate the connections you make to the events of Season Six and beyond. It really adds depth to the episode and to the series as a whole.
If I recall correctly, you mentioned on the Main Board that there may be something else in this episode that didn't quite make it into your analysis. I've been having this "Work brain! Work!" feeling about this episode. I had an "Aha!" thought that I wanted to share.
The phrase "quell your fear" ties both the demon and the title of the episode together. I think one of the things that the demon represents is what happens when you quell your fears rather than articulate and face them: you are in danger of suffocating yourself.
I think that all of Buffy's deepest fears were on display in this episode: her mom's health, Dawn's true nature being revealed, her relationship-emotional-wreckage. {The last item comes to my mind because of the scene in which Buffy finally kills the demon -- the demon is suggestively on top of her, her struggle bringing to my mind (which may be admittedly too smutty) Angel's Graduation Day feeding & perhaps also foreshadowing Spike's attempted rape. And the fact that Spike at first hinders her and then ultimately helps her with killing it.} Sadly for Buffy, all of her worst fears later come true. Whether or not she was willing to face them.
I think it was also significant that Willow, too, had problems facing up to her fears. For example, when Tara asks if the hospital visit was bad, Willow avoids answering the question. She mentions that she doesn't want to be the one to find the bodies anymore. More than once, she wants to call Buffy to help them with the demon. But to me, the hopeful thing about her was that when she's patrolling with Xander & Giles, she is able to stake two vamps by fighting through her very legitimate fears.
In fact, just about all of the examples of what happened when the characters made an onscreen decision to face their fears and uncertainty rather than avoiding them paid off: Scoobies researching in a new library, their patrolling and researching without Buffy or Riley, Joyce mentioning her new certainty about Dawn to Buffy. I believe that if Buffy had been willing to face the emotional-relationship-wreckage fear, the next episode would not have ended so badly and bewilderingly for her.
There may be more far-reaching implications of this interpretation, but my brain is now doing the circular thoughts thing and won't move forward. For example, I don't know how differently the season would have been if Buffy had not avoided revealing Dawn's nature for so long, or recognizing Spike's crush, etc.
Thanks again for your wonderful analyses. I consider them the online equivalent of chocolate cake for dessert. (Except more nutritious & less fattening. ;D )
Linda, hoping to be able to watch the next two episodes this weekend ...
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Post by Linda on Jul 25, 2004 2:21:05 GMT -5
<snip> I am guessing Ben didn't think about Joyce at all - his decision here isn't rational, and it definitely wasn't sensitive to others. He sees that that Glory's "mess" is overloading the hospital and burdening people in general, - so he decides to call a demon to kill her victims? I haven't spent much time trying to get a bead on him, but we haven't seen all that much of him yet. Maybe I'll get a clearer picture of his character and motives once I spend time analyzing eps farther into the season. If Ben knew that the consequences of summoning the Queller Demon would be the death of innocent people, then I would put the act in the evil column. At this point in the season, we did not yet know that Ben is Glory. But in retrospect, any act he performs to "clean up Glory's mess" could be interpreted as saving his own skin. Even if Ben thought that there was no hope for the recovery of the brain-sucked victims (which Willow later disproved) and knew that Glory could make minion-y use them, there were other people like Joyce who would be harmed as well. Bad decision. Especially for a doctor who would have taken the hippocratic oath. Linda, not a fan of Ben, I guess...
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Post by Onjel on Jul 25, 2004 6:38:40 GMT -5
I agree about Ben. He seems to be all about himself, and this culminates in his actions at the end of the season. Glory promises him life and he turns Dawn over to her for sacrifice. Ben seems nice on the surface, but he has been co-existing in the same body with Glory too long for some of her nastiness not to have rubbed off.
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Post by SpringSummers on Jul 26, 2004 5:35:57 GMT -5
I agree about Ben. He seems to be all about himself, and this culminates in his actions at the end of the season. Glory promises him life and he turns Dawn over to her for sacrifice. Ben seems nice on the surface, but he has been co-existing in the same body with Glory too long for some of her nastiness not to have rubbed off. Hello, Linda & Onjel. I appreciate the comments on Ben, and think they are on target. At some point I'm going to have to spend some more time trying to understand that character, but he never really engaged me much. I remember, the first time through Season 5, when I didn't know what would happen, my biggest thought about Ben was "Oh please don't pair Buffy up with this guy, not even for one date."
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Post by SpringSummers on Jul 26, 2004 6:43:14 GMT -5
Yay Spring! Thank you for another excellent analysis! I like all of your observations, but I especially appreciate the connections you make to the events of Season Six and beyond. It really adds depth to the episode and to the series as a whole. If I recall correctly, you mentioned on the Main Board that there may be something else in this episode that didn't quite make it into your analysis. I've been having this "Work brain! Work!" feeling about this episode. I had an "Aha!" thought that I wanted to share. The phrase "quell your fear" ties both the demon and the title of the episode together. I think one of the things that the demon represents is what happens when you quell your fears rather than articulate and face them: you are in danger of suffocating yourself. Interesting perspective. I like it! I thought the way the demon was on top of Buffy was very suggestive also, so I guess my mind is too smutty as well. Glad you liked the analysis and thanks for adding to it with these insightful comments. A substitute for chocolate cake? That is high praise indeed!
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Jan 26, 2005 19:07:30 GMT -5
I thought the way the demon was on top of Buffy was very suggestive also, so I guess my mind is too smutty as well. There's a similar image in The Prom, with the hellhound lying on top of her after she kills it. There may be similar images in other episodes, but I can't remember them. So I wonder whether it was meant to be suggestive or if that was simply the way they choreographed the fights.
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