Did anyone else notice Giles’ shadow when he stood up after leaning against the wall during the kitchen conversation? It was just a normal shadow extending in front of him (Get it? Fore-shadowing!), but it looked rather sinister. I have to believe it was intentionally planned. If you have it on tape, check it out.
I’m really hoping that Giles is still alive (though things are looking grim). I’d love to see him rescue Spike, so that the two of them (or three, with Clem) could be the ‘help unlooked-for’ to pop up at some crucial point.
IIRC, Evil(as opposed to incoherent)!Dru made a reference to alkali and dolls. If that pool of water did have a lot of limestone dissolved in it, then…well, think of lime. A lime solution is very unpleasent to be submersed in, even if you don’t breathe.
Yeah, the episode when Buffy drowned as per “dead Slayer prophecy”, Xander and Angel dragged her out of the water. Xander looked at Angel to do CPR, but Angel said “I have no breath.”
Dude, you run and you get winded. What the hell?
(Same with the whole “vampires and sex” thing – to get a woody, dontcha need blood circulating through the ahem organ? No heart beat, no blood flow to organ.)
Spike seems to get treated like a Highlander Immortal. You can drown him and them a few minutes later he comes to and spits out the water. Despite the lack of a heart beat and therefore blood flow, he still bleeds.
I reconcile it all by thinking of them in terms of Immortals and then remember Welsey saying of Darla “her body is ot a life giving vessel” when she was pregnant. So Angel could not use CPR, but then air still goes in and out of his lungs.
Not within the Joss canon, but whenever he starts ruining my suspension of disbelief I plug my ears and say “La la la la la la la la! They’re like Immortals with fangs! La la la la la la la!”
If Vampires were incapable of getting erections, Buffy would have only been 12 episodes long.—Joss Whedon.
I always figured that we’re talking about vampires. Things that don’t exist. I don’t really care if tihngs are inconsistent, it’s not like we have anything to compare them against.
Buffy-verse continuity is nowhere near what it used to be. The breath v. no-breath thing. Willow’s sexuality. Spike’s age. The effects of electricity of vampires(*)- all have been changed from episode to episode or season to season to meet the demands of the writers.
It really should bother me- but surprisingly it doesn’t. I mean its a show about vampires, demons and slayers. Just easier to cut them some slack I guess.
I am sure there are more-- those are the ones off the top of my head.
Indeed, they could not talk if they didn’t bring in air and expel it.
Also, because of this, Angel should have been better at mouth to mouth because his breath wouldn’t contain any carbon dioxide and extra oxygen as his body doesn’t take the oxygen out of his blood and use it to expel carbon dioxide.
Demons are living creatures. Vampires have a demonic thing growing in them that animates the body. They can do living like things, digestion for instance (Spike gets nippish and likes onion blossoms). I think that there is a varying degree of life like behavior and abilities among vampires.
As for Willow’s sexuality I think that she is bisexual, probably with more lesbian leanings, but that she’s only admitting to her lesbian desires. I believe that this is because of Tara. In the 4th season right before Tara’s brain gets eaten Willow believes Tara acuses her of being a temporary lesbian. Then Tara dies. I think that this sort of cemented her desire to identify only with her attraction to women. Additionally Willow was very assertive in her lesbian desires. Notice her checking out of girls and the comments, which didn’t happen with guys.
Now keeping her dating girls may have been decided for any of number of reasons but it isn’t out of character as Willow has decided that she is no longer interested in men sexually. So she probably won’t be having another hetero relationship unless another love spell hits and she manages to be convinced not to invoke hecetae to deal with the physical presence mis-match.
Huh? She chased and openly pined after Zander for how long? She was deeply in love and lust with werewolf boy for how long?
Sure she is “Gay Now” but its a reboot. I don’t mind, as it is an interesting character and plot line, but its was a complete character change. Not as much as the completely flip-flopping Xander action figure of a season ago, but still a major change for plot purposes.
By checking out I mean making comments on random women in public (the robot girl and “Check out the fan club.” said to Xander in a clear mutual check out tone).
Like I said Willow has decided she’s completely gay, even she did and still does have strong attraction to males. I agree that having her decide that serves the plot at least as much as the character but given that Willow isn’t the main character of the show it isn’t so bad. And what they did with Xander was insane. He was the plot’s butt monkey.
The addiction was to power and evil mojo, or something. It would have been nice for that to be clear during the insane period of “How does Marti Noxon combine hate of magic and love of very special episodes about drugs? Why with Willow magic addiction of course!”
Not to hijack this, but you don’t seem to understand sexuality much. Did my ex-wife “reboot” now that she is living with another woman? Did I “reboot” now that I identify as gay? There’s a whole lot more going on with sexuality then a simple binary scale of gay vs straight. Sure, before she became aware of her homosexuality, Willow liked a couple of guys. So did my ex. And I deeply loved her.
But once people become more in touch with their sexuality, they find that certain things “click” without the effort that they previously thought was inherent in the system.
The fact that Willow pined for Xander - a childhood idealized romance - and fell for Oz, doesn’t mean that finding a more natural, homosexual orientation as she grows and becomes more self-aware is inconsistent. It is consistent with many gay men and lesbians I know who had heterosexual relationships before they came to terms with, or even became aware of, their homosexual orientation.
As to Xander being the “plot’s butt monkey”, remember, as he told “what’s his name” he had his heart ripped out by Anya:
So when you feel dead inside, your life can become a little inconsistent. (Trust me I know from experience.)
Believe it or not, I try to give MN the benefit of the doubt on most things…but then people post things like this and I remember what a raging idiot she’s turned into. I’m just thankful they didn’t run with a “Xander’s addicted to ho-hos!” storyline or “Dawn’s addicted to breathing!” storyline.
(BTW: In an interview a few months ago, she said that Buffy was heroic for beating on Spike becaues she didn’t want to be domesticated by him…I can’t imagine how a vampire living in a crypt could domesticate anybody, and how a woman who is raising a child and paying the bills isn’t already domesticated. But that’s not even the worst part. In an earlier interview, she said that Spike was a Bad Boyfriend because he couldn’t provide what Buffy really needed and wanted–a home and a family. :rolleyes: )
Xander got his heart ripped out by Anya? Please. He left her. For some reason, he’s never seemed to understand that by abandoning her at the alter, it made him the bad guy,not her. If he had just talked to her, tell her why, things may have turned out differently. As it was, Anya was humiliated, depressed, felt ugly, felt unloved, felt worthless, didn’t have any idea who she was…and I’m supposed to feel bad for Xander because she “ripped his heart out”?
Willow once said that Xander never knows what he wants. If he gets one thing, he looks forward to another…I can’t even begin to imagine how he can even blame Anya for the current status of their relationship.
Great point, Homebrew, which I think is excellently borne out in “Tabula Rasa” where there’s that lovely electricity vibing between Willow and Tara in the sewers. Definitely a “clicking” moment between them, and nicely contrasted with the assumption she and Xander were a couple in the beginning of the episode.
I agree that Xander was definately in the wrong when he left Anya at the alter. In fact, I think his telling Andrew that Anya ripped out his heart is his inability to take responsibility for himself. I think he feels guilty about it, but hasn’t taken any steps to apologize or make up for it. If you wallow in guilt too long, it can make you “dead inside”.
By blaming Anya, he again avoids his own responsibility, which is consistent, going back to Season One. I was only trying to make the point that his inconsistency last season is actually consistent with someone who avoids taking control of their own life and facing their own responsibilities.
You know, I actually thought the whole episode was a tad weak.
Plunging Spike into the underground washtub? Puh-lease, we all know vampires don’t breathe. Angel spent the summer at the bottom of the Pacific, or didn’t you notice… I understand you want to torture him, but that was just stupid.
The may-be-Slayerettes. Fine by me (and all their accents were there all the time), but one of them bolting was stupid stupid stupid.
The yanking around with Giles’ survival. Pointless. Either let us know or piss us off.
And Buffy is again not talking to people about important stuff (in this case, her dreams). Enough, grow up woman!
That closing speech was clichéed. I just kept thinking : Go take a nap-- You’re not thinking straight.
The one thing I liked was the principal- -I think he was going back to bury the seal, and he dealt with Johnathon’s body first because a proper burial is more important.
Burying the body first only makes sense if the principal is on the side of badness. Take the victim and bury them somewhere else to throw cops and Buffy off the track. being found with a seal is a lot easier to explain than being found with a corpse. ‘umm… I was talking with a friend of mine, history professor, and he mentioned some interesting things about the school’s location. Remember how they found that buried mission by the university? yadda yadda yadda But, we don’t want any publicity until we’ve done a thorough examination. It could be a hoax. So, don’t tell anyone.’
As far as a proper burial being more important-Remember how the watcher’s council tests every slayer by weakening her with drugs and locking her in with a vampire? Remember how Giles said that if necessary he would kill Dawn to prevent Glory from using the key? If the principal is a watcher, he’d do whatever needed to be done to the seal first.
Wait, if Principal Hottie knew about the seal, and knew about Jonathan’s body…it stands to reason that he knew Spike was hanging out in the basement all summer, right over the seal. If he was a Watcher, I doubt he’d let a vamp live, soul or no. Anyway, he probably wouldn’t know about the soul, but it’s very posible he would have heard of the Slayer of Slayers, seeing as how people wrote dissertations of him.
If he was a Demon Hunter, and he found a vampire, a crazy vampire, hanging out in his school’s basement, he’d probably stake him. If he was just a Demon Hunter and didn’t have ties to the Scoobies, he’d ahve no idea that Spike was a “special” vampire. He probably wouldn’t even know of Spike or Spike’s history, unless he routinely studied the Counsel’s diaries. (Not likely ifhe’s not associated with them.)
Also, if he knew about the seal and the body, and he possibly knew about Spike, then it also stands to reason that he knew of the Manifest Spirits raised for Vegenance by some undisclosed person/demon/entity. But…maybe not.
So that means Principal Hottie is either working for the First Evil or the much speculated by fandom butnever seen on show or in spoilers, First Good. My bet? He’s working for the First Evil. We’ve never had a truly evil principal–Snyder was just a jerk, not so much evil. Also, since he’s a pretty nice guy, gets along well with Buffy, and seems to be a fairly good Principal, we wouldn’t expect him to be an agent of evil. But, as Joyce so nicely pointed out for us, evil is everywhere, in everybody, it’s natural. And you can’t defeat nature.
I think this will be the lesson for Buffy this year—I think she’ll learn that despite declaring war and rallying the troops, you can’t defeat Nature.
