Re: A Second Look: BTVS S7D2

OBS:

> That returns us to "Big Baddy in the Basement." =A0I always liked Caleb,
> leading up to the great battle of armies. =A0I think Malsperanza is
right =
that
> the late season move diminishes somewhat the sense of battle within each
> character, replacing it with the more traditional external foe. =A0But I
> approve of that for a couple of reasons. =A0First is that this is
conclusi=
on
> of the series, and I think it's im****tant that it remain true to its
core
> concept of internal battles manifested as physical monsters that can be
> slain. =A0Secondly, as explained a few ways above, there's an im****tant
> external component to this struggle for empowerment. =A0Those external
for=
ces
> will indeed seek to repress through the brutal exercise of physical
force.=


For me that core concept is satisfied by the gigantic army of orcs in
the basement, the Ubervamps plural, as in the scene in the sewer where
one of the Potentials (Kennedy?) says of the Ubervamp attacking them:
"He's just one guy; we can take him," whereupon a whole bunch more pop
up. Buffy later admonishes them, "There's always more." Mass armies of
monsters in the basement are the  theme of this stage of the
apocalyptic war. Individual Evil Bad Guys in the Adam tradition are
out of date.

While the army of the First thus remains consistent, Caleb is too
transparently a physical manifestation of old-school male chauvinism
to suit me. He only works for me when he is serving as the First's
mouthpiece ("You're in the hearts of little children, you're in the
souls of the rich").

> =A0Season 7 ultimately is less about an introspective kind of liberation
t=
han it is
> about revolutionary triumph.

Not sure I agree. Buffy's liberation is entirely introspective and
indeed private--we never do hear the terms of it. It's represented by
the enigmatic Mona Lisa smile.

The world's liberation is another matter. There's some revolutionary
triumph, a battle one, an apocalypse averted, and the baddies are back
in the basement. But Giles has the last real word on that: There's
another Hellmouth in Cleveland, and the world's liberation is once
more postponed.

~Mal