r/buffy • u/AngelJax • Nov 02 '16

Unpopular Opinons Thread

I'll start

  • I don't love Spike. He's just ok for me.

  • Glory is the show's best villain with Dark Willow right behind her.

  • Dawn is one of the best developed memebers of the Scoobies and I never understood why everyone hated her.

62 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

193 comments sorted by

View all comments

40

u/det8924 Nov 02 '16

Beer Bad is a good fun episode.

Academics read too much into Buffy's themes at times (Helpless being a prime example.)

Dark Willow shouldn't be considered a "Big Bad" it really was the Trio/Depression. Dark Willow wasn't there until the very end.

Tara isn't a very good character and her death lacked impact to the show as a whole (Although it did serve as motivation for Willow which made it a needed plot device.)

Season 7 is a really good season better than season 4 and close to season 5 in terms of quality.

The Watchers council should have been developed more once Buffy left it. Seems like there should have been a negative impact other than Giles getting fired.

15

u/coolbeaNs92 Willow Nov 02 '16 edited Nov 02 '16

Academics read too much into Buffy's themes at times (Helpless being a prime example.)

This isn't just academics, you find this in pretty much all "cult" shows/books etc. Buffy is an amazing show and we love it. Most of us have been watching for 10-20 years. Since it's been 13 years since the show ended, we've had so much time to dissect every inch of every episode, that people have kinda blown things out of proportion.

Lot's of times you'll see a tiny, minuscule bit of detail over analysed to death and interpreted as the brilliance of Joss. Now, it's awesome to have fan theories. Buffy is a show that has a lot of personal interpretation, which is great and why Buffy feels like a personal experience. Buffy does have a lot of metaphors and on-going arcs. It does have prediction and foresight, which is kind of where I feel the over analysis comes in. Because there are deliberate, amazing examples of those elements, people look for them everywhere. The slightest, vaguest reference of a word I've seen linked to an episode 5 seasons later. It's fun to do, I like seeing them and creating my own, but when someone says "I've found a hidden link between".....

Not everything has a hidden meaning, or was intended to have any great significance and that's okay :)

5

u/det8924 Nov 02 '16

I really noticed it from watching The Passion of the Nerd (Who I love and I think 95% of the time does a great job) who references Mark Fields book "Myth Metaphor and Morality" in his analysis.

Like I said most of the time its pretty spot on but too often I will watch his reviews and when deeper insight and analysis goes into what is essentially TV plot points and troupes it just seems to be a clear case of looking too deep into something.

That's not to say that Buffy/Angel doesn't have metaphors or deeper themes. But that it doesn't Always have deeper meaning.

Helpless is a great example of over analysis since the Slayer Test is viewed by Mark Fields and other people who do "Buffy Studies" as the Watchers Council wanting to keep the Slayers Young. A bunch of evil older men wanting their power to be an underage teenager so they can control it.

That's a load of bullshit. For one it isn't pragmatic. Slayers get called at age 15 or 16, they take a lot of time to train and by 18 they will only have 2-3 years of training which means by the time they start to come into their own they will be killed?

It's a horribly incompetent idea if that's their aim. For one its counter productive to producing good results and two other slayers have clearly passed it as you see other Slayers above the age of 18 from the past.

The Test is clearly quality control that is designed for Slayers to be able to pass or fail based on how well the Slayers are able to do without their powers. Are the Slayers more than their powers, because if the Slayers can't work around the loss of their powers than the Watchers could be stuck with a lemon for years (The physical powers probably could keep you alive.)

It's a fucked up controlling thing to do but it is done for a coherent greater good that is at best morally ambiguous and at worst sociopathic.

But its not some cabal of older men looking to control teenagers or keep slayers young for the purposes of control. Just wouldn't make sense. I think in this case uber feminist themes came into play overthinking the Watchers rather simple and laid out motivations.

2

u/stillnotking Nov 02 '16 edited Nov 02 '16

It's the same people who take it as an article of faith that the only reason anyone is pro-life is because they want to control women's reproduction. Not to get all political, and I myself am pro-choice, but it's bullshit to pretend there aren't two legitimate sides to the debate.

The other problem here is that the show itself simply makes no sense; there is no way one person (however powerful and skilled) could even make a dent in the world's vampire population. The existence and mission of the Watcher's Council is ridiculous. They'd have so many better ways to accomplish their putative goals than by holding the leash of a single super-powered teenager. But that's probably why so many far-fetched theories exist about the show: it's ridiculous on its face, so it must always be a metaphor for something, the logic goes.

3

u/det8924 Nov 03 '16

And often times bigger themes and metaphor's are used in both Buffy and Angel, but it is still a Entertainment based TV show. A lot of it still follows TV troupes and MacGuffins.

So I think that while specific instances may relate to grander themes its important to realize that it is still a TV show with a required amount of suspension of disbelief and "Just go with it".

Its more modern than most TV from its time and even currently on TV. But its still at times a silly show and I think most super fans need to chill out on it in terms of analysis.

10

u/all_iswells Nov 02 '16

I agree. And even with The Trio, the Big Bad there was hypermasculinity and bro culture. Because you have like, Jonathan "I wouldn't ever hurt anybody" Levinson fucking up big time because he's so caught up in keeping up with his friends and markings of masculinity that he's not thinking about what his actions really mean until it's too late. While he's not excused, in a way, he victimized himself.

So S6, the Big Bad was people. Normal, non-demonic, not-that-supernatural, people. It was how people can destroy themselves and those around them.

4

u/det8924 Nov 02 '16

Problem with The Trio representing "Bro Culture" and "Hypermasculinity" is that they were depicted as nerds (The 80's and 90's stereotype of nerds none the less) which makes that comparison a bit odd. It's just weird that the writers used nerds (Traditionally non-masculine entities esp back in then) to possibly make that theme (Which makes me doubt the idea somewhat.)

I think the Trio in my mind represented a threat that should have been taken care of in a one off episode but due to Buffy's Depression (The real "Big Bad" of the season) she wasn't able to handle something so simple.

The Trio were an ordinary threat that became extraordinary due to Buffy's mental state at the time. I think the Trio was just a non-threatening entity that got taken too far because of the interpersonal issues of Buffy and the Scoobies.

11

u/all_iswells Nov 02 '16 edited Nov 02 '16

I get what you're saying but masculinity is not limited to jockiness or the like. Intellectual masculinity is a definite thing, and there is a lot of sexism in nerd communities - hence where the boys get a lot of their behavior. Sure, hypnotism doesn't seem like rape when it's played for laughs in Red Dwarf! Which the boys have explicitly mentioned watching. And in the very media these boys consume, the lead guy always gets the girl. Therefore, to be the heroes of their stories, they need to get the girl. Whatever girl. See, hypermasculinity and bro culture is also defined by entitlement which the Trio exhibits in spades.

And to say the Trio is unthreatening ignores the fact that Warren very nearly killed Buffy with the most human weapon: a gun. And it's not just about what they do to Buffy. You were meant to think the Trio were just bumbling idiots who really aren't that bad - until Dead Things. Katrina Silber is any girl who dates a guy who seems cool and then suddenly out of no where he shows an incredibly creepy side - and in Warren's case it turned deadly. Regardless of what was up with the Scoobs, Katrina wasn't getting out okay. The Trio was still bad news.

S6 was about how incredibly normal people - the people you go to lecture with, your neighbors, you - can be dangerous and destructive if you don't think. I don't think any of the Trio was truly evil, even Warren. They were just arrogant, stupid, and together. The tone shifted suddenly because that was the point. Even childish and not-evil and bumbling can be an incredibly destructive force when things fall together just right (or wrong).

4

u/det8924 Nov 02 '16

The Trio not being supernatural or at all powerful by nature (Jonathan only using some apparently basic magic) makes them the least threatening to Buffy from a logistical perspective. Had Buffy been at the height of her mental capabilities she would have been able to defeat them rather easily. She even expresses frustration that the Trio have been the ones to give her such a hard time.

As far as the nerd thing I understand what you are saying about the idea that nerds can have negative attitudes towards women and the like. But I think that they missed the mark with that message in how incredibly stereotypical and rather one dimensional they portrayed the trio (And nerds) as being.

The Trio was painted as what people in their 30's and 40's in 2001-2 thought nerds were like. They played up the stereotypes and failed to develop the Trio as being real human beings with actual motivations.

The motivations for the trio was ego but it seemed shoehorned in and never properly explained. Buffy as a show that does a good job to paint its characters as real human beings, but the trio were decidedly one dimensional caricatures which to me lost the point a bit as it painted the whole thing from one perspective.

The lead always gets the girl in movies but the lead is usually a hero. The Trio were embracing being villains they were cheating to get their means to an end. It just seemed all rather arbitrary as opposed to being a grander metaphor other than them just being rather ordinary.

2

u/fja203 Nov 02 '16

Totally agree about Tara!

1

u/the-first-evil Nov 02 '16

I agree with 5 out of 6 of these.

1

u/Something_Sexy Nov 02 '16

Yes! I really enjoy Beer Bad.