"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsmtsm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:dc6858d5-3498-434c-bf5c-20d482f615e4@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On May 8, 9:41 pm, "One Bit Shy" <O...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
>>
messagenews:897ef869-8539-4170-9bbd-a34bc27442f1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
for the length. I just got interested in the subject and kept
going.
>>> A reminder: Cool! Are these threads in hi-def?
>
>> You had to break this thread into three posts. If that's hi-def...
well,
>> maybe Google isn't the ideal posting solution.
>
> Tell me about it. We'll see how things go from here.
There are reasonably inexpensive text group only news services available.
Individual.net seems to have a pretty good reputation, though I can't
personally attest to its performance. 10 EUR per year.
>> I think Holtz's manipulation of Connor in S3 is more interesting and
does
>> the heavy lifting for this season. But yeah, I think the whole season
is
>> in
>> service of developing the Connor we see here. The obsession with
deceit
>> at
>> every turn and in every way ultimately centered onto Connor alone. But
>> just
>> as Connor's hopes are perpetually dashed, so are they perpetually
raised.
>> There's as much confusion as hurt. I don't think it's just not
believing
>> in
>> truth - it's Connor unable to distinguish truth. (Connor's developed
>> inability to recognize truth when it's in front of him I think is much
of
>> what frustrated Angel into the beating of him in the prior episode.)
>
> Don't ask me whether it's intentional or not, but I have much the same
> reaction to the character as he does to the world - as much confusion
> as hurt, hopes perpetually raised for him as often as they're dashed,
> wanting to believe he can become something he's not despite the
> evidence to the contrary, etc.
Oh, I think that's intentional. I think most of all we're supposed to see
him as Angel does. He never stops believing there's a decent kid inside
that keeps popping up here and there no matter how twisted. Eventually he
despairs that the good kid inside can ever be salvaged from the way it has
been twisted and trampled. Not salvaged in any normal way that is. One
of
the things about the concluding spell is that it validates Angel's faith
in
Connor's heart. Without the insanity around him, Connor grows up a good
kid.
>> Still it's a quite a relief to finally find a true center to the season
>> and
>> to recognize that it's pretty much always been there. (Even though
>> Connor's
>> job generally is to be helplessly buffeted about or act out as the
>> ultimate
>> teenage nightmare.) I often find myself comparing this story to Dawn's
>> year
>> as The Key, when she too became the object of everything. This story
>> very
>> much becomes about Connor, however, while the BtVS story was never
really
>> about Dawn. Ultimately that allows for a much stronger concluding
>> characterization for Connor. I'm not so sure it works that well for
the
>> series though. With Dawn, most everybody's hopes, fears and tensions
get
>> focused through Dawn. Not just Buffy vs. Glory. There's Spike's duty
to
>> protect Dawn that will define his nightmares. There's the way that
>> Buffy's
>> devotion to Dawn is used to illuminate for Willow what her devotion to
>> Tara
>> demands. There's the seed planted for a Buffy/Giles split as they
argue
>> over Dawn's very life. There's Joyce's charge to Buffy to protect Dawn
>> that
>> resonates from Joyce's grave. And so on.
>
>> With Connor, the only one who's really invested in him is Angel. The
>> rest
>> of the AI team is left in the dark about Angel's obsession the last two
>> episodes and then have their memories taken away to boot. We're told
>> Jasmine cares, but we never get an explanation of why. She might as
well
>> eat him along with all the others for all that we're really shown.
>> Cordelia
>> hasn't truly been in the picture since she ascended. What's remarkable
>> is
>> how little he actually matters to anybody by the end except Angel. I
>> suppose that perversely makes the memory wipe a kind of truth.
>
> I agree with some of that, in that Angel is really the only character
> to whom Connor is central, personally. I'm not as bothered as you,
> and think the comparison to Dawn in BTVS Season Five is even more apt
> than you suggest. Dawn is artificially tied to everyone else by the
> fact that the fate of the world rests with her (Connor kinda is too),
> but I don't really feel like her connection to anyone other than Buffy
> is that strong in S5. I like her okay, but I've always had a low-
> level annoyance in the fact that the person our hero cares most about
> in S5 is this new character rather than anyone we've watched her
> interact with over the past four years. (Needs more Riley! No, not
> really.)
That doesn't bother me because I don't think Buffy's obsession is just
about
Dawn personally. The show does emphasize the sisterhood connection,
giving
their bond an im****tant emotional grounding. But Dawn is more an abstract
symbol - even for Buffy. Buffy is going through a crisis in belief. In
her
Slayer calling - in life itself. Dawn becomes the object of all of that
far
beyond the real personal connection. When Buffy determines to protect
Dawn
at all costs, she's making Dawn representative of everybody Buffy protects
as a kind of test of her whole Slayer identity. If she can't even protect
her own sister, then what's the point? Why is she consuming her life in
such a destructive love killing job? Dawn is also the stand in for the
whole concept of family - found family and blood family combined into one.
She's the vehicle for bringing back Buffy's ability to love - or at least
to
recognize it. (S6 might show that to be incomplete, but we wouldn't know
about that as this point.)
Anyway, I'm sure there are ways to explore such themes in other ways, but
I
think Joss hits on a good way here. He wanted a focal point for both the
personal and abstract, the small story and the big story. I think it
would
have been distorting and unfair to any of the established characters to
lay
all of that upon them. Besides, as a group they actually have a pretty
good
year, coming together well as an effective close knit group - following
through on their S4 decision not to drift apart.
> In contrast to the rather tangled connections you give
> above, I have a hard time seeing how Dawn - the character, not the
> plot device - notably affects the main character arcs of Xander, or
> Willow,
I don't see much connection with Xander and Anya myself. They'll have to
settle for their interest in the world being saved. On a personal level
for
Willow, Dawn is used as a vehicle for teaching Willow about other levels
of
commitment in a relation****p. (Mostly in one episode - Tough Love.)
Willow
wants to sympathize with Buffy's plight raising Dawn, but mostly doesn't
get
Buffy's point of view. Indeed she's stubbornly convinced that Buffy's
dead
wrong. That's what sparks Willow's argument with Tara, who relates to
Buffy. Much heartbreak and mayhem ensue (some involving comparisons
between
Willow's behavior and how Buffy would handle the same with Dawn),
eventually
bringing Willow to responsibility for a broken Tara, and now totally
relating to Buffy's feelings about Dawn, implicitly using Buffy once more
as
a bit of a role model. (Not in the sense of being all strict, but in the
sense of feeling responsibility. Real responsibility doesn't come that
naturally to Willow.) So they all huddle together hiding from Glory, Dawn
beside Tara asking to feed her, parallels to each other.
Obviously that's not as pervasive a connection as it is with Buffy. (It
is
Buffy's story after all. In that the parallel with Angel to Connor is
fairly strong. The series doesn't lose sight of its center.) But it is
im****tant - I believe the season's primary moment of growth for Willow.
That doesn't make Dawn all that personally im****tant to Willow. (Tara is
her object of devotion.) That's not what I was getting at. But Dawn is
im****tant as a catalyst to Willow's growth and also serves as a kind of
mirror onto the Willow/Tara relation****p - further emphasizing Dawn's role
as the symbol for the whole family idea.
> or anyone other than Buffy (and maybe Spike, but that's
> strictly tied to impressing and/or living up to the expectations of
> her sister).
It's more than that. Spike's conversations with Dawn are used to draw out
the changes going on inside Spike. Sometimes more clearly than with Buffy
because, with Dawn, the obsession can be distanced. Look at their
conversation in Tough Love for example. But again, I'm not talking merely
about people's feelings for Dawn directly. Dawn is central to Spike's
character in S5 because protecting her is the catalyst to breaking through
Buffy's defenses, getting her to treat Spike like a man. Spike does care
about Dawn personally, but more im****tantly she is the object by which
Spike's elevation beyond simple vampire can be measured. In the end he
fails to protect Dawn, while Buffy succeeds in an act of ultimate heroism.
That little play (with Buffy as role model and Dawn as measure) is
representative of Spike's upcoming story where he fails to repress his
evil,
changes the paradigm by getting a soul, and ultimately mimics Buffy one
last
time with his own act of ultimate heroism.
(I realized as I wrote that how much I miss the Dawn/Spike connection in
S6
& S7. Not so much for Spike, who isn't lacking for character depth. But
it
sure is an absence for Dawn's character. Spike was Dawn's sounding board
too. One of the few op****tunities she's ever had for character depth
beyond
her relation****p with Buffy alone.)
Dawn is also the focal point for keeping Joyce's presence so strong past
her
death. Buffy's grief alone isn't enough. Dawn is the constant reminder
of
both Joyce's life and death and the charge to protect Dawn that Joyce
placed
on Buffy so absolutely. It's funny, because I'm only so-so about Joyce as
a
character over the years. Oddly, the unseen ghost of her seems more
powerful than her living self.
Dawn is also one of the catalysts for the development of the looming
Buffy/Giles schism. Buffy's growing sense of responsibility for Dawn has
a
lot to do with Buffy questioning anew her calling. This eventually leads
to
what I think may be the critical moment between them when Giles insists
that
Buffy be prepared to kill Dawn. That divide is essentially the same as
their divide over Spike in S7.
(I keep forgetting to fully link S7 with S5. The parallel between the
Buffy/Giles/Dawn triangle and the Buffy/Giles/Spike triangle is very
strong.
For example, in keeping with remarks I recently made on the subject
elsewhere, a really im****tant part of Giles' attitude towards Dawn at the
end of S5 is that he still thinks of her in large part as a magical entity
-
a kind of thing that can be sacrificed. Would he make the same suggestion
if somehow Willow was the Key? That's not really knowable, but surely it
would be far more difficult for him. [I seem to remember him waffling a
bit
on that in S3's Choices, but content to follow Buffy's lead in the end.]
It's the same thinking that informs his attitude towards Spike in S7. And
it's Buffy's determination that each of their hearts and souls negated
whatever magical/demonic elements they may have.)
Glory, of course, had the season long fixation with the Key. However, in
addition to that, the greatest insight she ever offered into her
character,
her madness, her god/human conflict, were in conversations with Dawn.
(Split personalities being a substantial sub-theme of the season.) This
contrasts a bit with Jasmine. Jasmine is allowed more op****tunity for
character depth than Glory, but I never get the sense that Connor's all
that
special as a sounding board for her. (It's really the reverse. Their
conversations exist mainly to mess up Connor.) More im****tantly is that
her
interests align with Connor only up through her birth. After that her
continuing interest is inexplicable. One might fanwank something I'm
sure.
The show doesn't bother.
It's not that Dawn matters personally to everybody. It's more that, one
way
or the other, an awful lot of crucial character elements are fed through
her. And where that doesn't happen, her focus for seasonal themes does.
Most of which builds across the season, centering on her with greatest
force
at the very end, where everybody at the very least sees her fate
determining
their life and death. For a few, considerably more is at stake.
That's very different with Connor. The season does center on him in the
end, but it's presented as somewhat a surprise. And only Angel cares - or
is even aware of it. Jasmine is dead. Cordelia is in a coma, and hasn't
been engaged in Connor for ages anyway. Fred, Gunn & Wesley had been
focused on Jasmine, with Connor only a side concern, probably below
Cordelia
in im****tance. For the real end they don't know anything is going on -
already effectively written out of Connor's story - and then have their
memories of Connor purged. It's quite odd how the climax to a dominating
two plus year story going back to Angel/Darla *** concludes in such
privacy.
I'm sure that's deliberate. Maybe even deliberately a contrast to Dawn.
(Connor is the anti-Dawn.) I think it is a clever approach to writing.
Not
least of all because even though it so private, the repercussions are huge
and global. Angel slashes Connor's throat and bends reality every bit as
much as Dawn's birth bended it.
There's also an extra zing to what's at stake for Connor that's not there
with Dawn. With Dawn it's all about whether she lives or dies. That's
certainly a big deal - especially since Buffy's epiphany about blood
connection gives extra metaphorical meaning to her life. Like Pinocchio,
the magical Key becomes a real girl. But in character development terms,
there's very little. What character development there is with Dawn pretty
much finished in Tough Love. By then it had been narrowed to coming to
terms with magical roots anyway. Just leaving the question of whether
she's
really human or not. Connor's life is at stake too. But with him it's
less
a question of who he is than a question of what kind of man he'll become.
It's very forward looking - even as he lays out in a couple great
performances the essence of what he'd been dragged down to in the
meantime.
So my commentary isn't meant as all critical about AtS. There's good
stuff
to be found in there. Personal tastes certainly have a lot to do with how
it balances out for you.
> Like Dawn, Connor is a focal character without being the
> main character, since he's there in large part to provide pathos for
> the hero.
I agree with that, but again it's a matter of degree. The interests of
Angel and Buffy are comparable in scale, if not quite in content. (Though
Angel as dad and Buffy as substitute mom offers content parallels too.)
The
extent to which Connor's part reaches outwards seems far less to me than
it
does for Dawn. The biggest I think is upon Wesley, though that's still
focused on the S3 abduction. S4 shows us the consequences of that, but it
also shows the distancing of it. Wesley is almost normal again by the
end.
Connor's a big deal to Jasmine - until her birth. After that... well, I
suppose Connor's story hovers around Lilah's too. It seems kind of
indirect
to me though. Jasmine got her killed - not Connor. All in all, Connor's
outward influence seems to peter out pretty quickly.
I think that's likely in considerable part due to Connor being constructed
as a recipient of everything rather than a reflection. Dawn is in some
fa****on a symbol for everybody and everything. Connor is just beat up on.
Since I'm going through all of this anyway, I might as well stick one toe
into the murky waters of religion. There are a lot of religious
references
in AtS S4. One of them is a very loose parallel between Connor and
Christ.
The miraculous birth (albeit not a conception one would normally describe
as
immaculate) and resurrection are a couple of obvious points of comparison.
The im****tant one I think is dying for people's sins. Connor is like a
black hole sucking in the universe's evil. Ultimately he is slain for it
and reborn.
What should be im****tant about that is not his subsequent resurrection.
Rather it's the impact upon others - most especially Wesley, who is
relieved
of the burden of his great sin.
I say "should" because I don't see the show make any effort to point out
that connection. Indeed, it already had Wesley leaving the past behind as
he's mostly back to normal Wesley in Sacrifice and Peace Out. That's one
of
the reasons I'm not so keen on the religious references this season. They
seem kind of muddled. (I prefer thinking of them as ambiance.) But,
still,
it's hard to deny the simple content. Connor pretty much did die for
other
people's sins. And the effect is at least some absolution for those left
behind.
> So, is it a weakness that Angel's team is outside of this relation****p
> and often kept in the dark about all Angel's going through? Maybe,
> but I'm used to that. I'm always surprised that some people see the
> series as an ensemble show in a way that rivals BTVS.
Well, it is an ensemble show, and BtVS sits obviously available as
comparison. But you're quite right that the balance is different. AtS is
more exclusively centered on Angel than BtVS is centered on Buffy.
> With the
> sometimes exception of Wesley, ATS is never really about anyone but
> Angel, for me. Keeping the other main cast removed from the heart of
> his personal struggle and introducing figures (Kate, Lindsey, Holtz,
> and foremost of all, Darla) who are im****tant and/or central in his
> life but not so much anyone else's are consistent traits of the
> series.
I do think of that as somewhat a weakness for AtS. I think it tends to
over
emphasize the repetition of Angel-centric themes. There's a lot of
repetition in BtVS too, but it feels like there are more themes with the
repetition more spread out, feeling more like different vantage points
than
just hammering the same nail. And I think it diminishes the value of the
side characters in AtS more so than in BtVS, though BtVS struggles at
times
finding a useful place for all its side characters too.
On the other hand, AtS solves part of that problem by frequently defining
it's Angel Investigations crew as reflections of Angel. (AI is just a
leader****p cult. Heh. And, yes, as we discover in Not Fade Away, they
will
drink the Kool-Aid.) The show is also very effective at using external
foils
(as you point out above) with extended personal connections to Angel
beyond
mere Big Bads. (I don't think BtVS is bad that way. It just doesn't
depend
on it the same way. With Angel and Spike perpetually outside the core
gang,
there probably isn't even room for a lot.)
Anyway, choose your poison. This particular distinction isn't all that
big
a deal for me.
>> > Additional comments on S4D6: As Tim comment, ATS quickly became much
>> > more personal than the original idea of doing a metaphor for young
>> > adulthood where _Buffy_ tackled broody melodramatic adolescence and
>> > post-adolescence. But this time they went for it, blunt and
>> > straightforward (which makes me wonder why I didn't pick up on it,
>> > given that it's not subtle). Team Angel, All Growed Up, gets a job
>> > working for the Man, nervous for the state of its soul but determined
>> > to keep its idealism intact while making a mark in the cor****ate
>> > world. Right out of the psyche of a broody melodramatic twenty-
>> > something.
>>
>> That's one of the reasons I never liked the S5 concept. To me it's too
>> late
>> for that metaphor now. The show and these characters have moved past
it.
>> Too many loners. Too jaded.
>
> Obviously you'll never like that particular construct, but it doesn't
> bother me too much, just because I'm used to these shows never getting
> past the attraction of a metaphor. It doesn't feel substantially more
> artificial than the rest of BTVS and ATS.
Remember, I'm not reacting to concept alone. We do get to see how it
plays
out. Do you really think they got good use out of that metaphor for young
adulthood? How does it compare to BtVS's metaphor for high school as
hell?
There are things I like a lot about S5. This isn't among them.
OBS
|
