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Has any of the Scoobies ever thought of, oh, you know, getting a job to help Buffy pay the rent? I know from personal experience that surfing the internet takes a lot of time and energy, but could Willow conjure up some cold, hard cash once in awhile? Dawn is certainly old enough to bus tables. Personally I’d want my slayer/protector to be well-rested, and if that means I need to flip a few burgers and wear a polyester uniform…
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Speaking of polyester, for a family in dire straights, Buffy and Dawn sure dress well. Aside from her SonicBurger uniform, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Buffy wear the same outfit twice! K-mart must really have some hip clothes nowadays.
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And their house is sure nice for having no parents around. No dirty dishes piling up, no laundry piles all over the place, no holes in the walls that need patching… Or perhaps we’re supposed to believe that love sick Spike dons a NASA suit during the day and mows Buffy’s lawn?
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My biggest Peeve is that Buffy and Angel are on different networks now, which means we may never get to see Angel’s reaction to Spike bagging Buffy…or Buffy’s reaction to Angel falling in love with Cordelia. RATS!
Actually, didn’t Xander recently have a copy of the D&D Monster Manual during a misguided research session? It seems the writers know their audience all too well, sometimes.
And yeah, the money issues being brought up this season are ignoring some very obvious solutions in order to be a plot point. Like, where’s Willow’s rent money, and didn’t Buffy just secure a big chunk of back pay for the obviously well-off Giles? And why can’t Buffy just go do a dungeon crawl somewhere, and get enough loot to support a luxurious slayer lifestyle for years? I mean, there must be some demons out there with at least type C treasure hordes…
This is wonderful, folks. First, let me state that I agree with everything that has already been stated. And that it will in no way stop me from watching the show every night after work.
That bit about the Watchers Council not paying the slayer is a terribly poignant concept that totally slipped by me for the longest time. That was a very good call.
Now the big thing: Buffy and RPGs.
I am a D&D and Vampire: The Masquerade player, and I always try to think of the characters and situations in the terms of those games.
The facts that none of the characters beyond Buffy and Willow ever advance is the most annoying damn thing ever.
Wait. The most annoying thing ever is Dawn. So I guess its the second most annoying thing.
Aaaaanyway. As far as Vamps and power, I have always thought of the Master as a Methusela. That would make his childer Darla 5th gen, and go on with Angel 6th, Dru 7th and Spike 8th.
Spike being an 8th gen vamp (far as I can tell they are all Bruja antitribue) and being more than 130 years old means he is pretty damn tough.
Other worlds: I brought up the points about the Prime Material Plane and the Demon Dimentions in a thread the other day.
And let me continue with with the probs before I hijack this thread … I’ll start another in a minute!
The Musical. Ugh. Was it just me, or was everyone spilling their guts in song just a musically entertaining way for Joss to cop out with getting everyone to admit their problems?
re: crosses
Here’s my take on the whole vamp/cross thing in Buffy:
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Christianity and its associated paraphernilia are symbols of Good
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Direct contact with such things are BAD for vampires (since they’re evil and all)–holy water burns, holding a cross causes pain, etc.
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The sight of the cross is just startling to a vampire–not actually painful, I think. If you recall, Adam coaxed those vamps into taking over the church, and the leader of the group commented on it, saying something like, “he’s right–I don’t know why I was ever afraid of this.” So a cross is a good shock to distract a vamp, but not much use unless you have a stake to follow it up with. Haven’t there also been a great many situations where people hold up crosses and vamps just laugh? I presume by all of this that it’s a fear they can learn to get over (just as the Scoobies, who are used to seeing hideous demons, can get over the shock of that enough to fight them).
You know, I’m as big a role-player as anybody, but I’ve never been comfortable using terms like “master” and “childer” to discuss the Buffyverse. Apart from The Master himself, I don’t recall any vampires being called a master. So far as I can remember, they’ve never referred to a newly-made vamp as a child (and certainly not a “childe”). I realize that Joss has never made the mechanics of his vampires terribly clear, but I don’t think we’re allowed to just import information from another fictional universe entirely.
My biggest peeve is also Dawn, but in a different way than most people have expressed so far. It’s not just that she’s kind of an annoying character. My problem is with the massive break in continuity she represents. I’m probably the only one who has a problem with this, but it bugs me to a perhaps unhealthy extent.
I realized as I was watching reruns from the second season, that as far as Buffy and the gang are concerned, those events happened differently. In their memories, Dawn was there. And her presence must have had an effect on the way things happened. I don’t know why, but it bothers me on an almost visceral level that the characters don’t remember my favorite episodes the same way I do.
Not to mention the problems it causes. Not to open up a whole “butterfly effect” debate, but surely Dawn’s being there would have affected the outcome of certain events. Would she have discovered Buffy’s identity as a slayer earlier in the run of the series? Would her presence have limited Buffy’s freedom of action by forcing her to babysit? Wouldn’t Angelus, in trying to torment Buffy, have seen Dawn as a perfect target? The ramifications are endless. All leading to the bottom line that now, everything we remember about the first four seasons is potentially false.
What’s wrong with me?! Why do I obsess about things like this?
MrAtoz, you are quite right about the ramifications of Dawn being there all along, and I too have considered the problem she represents with the older episodes.
And she’s annoying. 
As far at the gaming issues, well, there may have only been THE MASTER, but if I recall, he was called that because nobody could remember his name. He was just so old nobody knew him as anything else.
Also also, ther have been times where vampires have mentioned “sires”:
Spike to Angel: You were my sire! Don’t think I don’t know you that well … whatever blah blah blah.
While not really accurate, as Dru was his sire, it’s obvious the writers did put some thought into it, but I think they didn’t actually want to come out and quote from V:TM.
There is also evidence from their flashbacks to times in Eurpoe and China of the basic concepts behind the Masquerade - keeping their vampiric nature hidden from humans in general for safety - while not actually calling it such.
Eh. Semantics.
A friend of mine came up with the theory as to why most vampires are kind of ennhhh, why some are totally lame (e.g. Harmony) and why some are Bad Ass Mother Feckers:
Repression is the key.
Take a look at their human selves, before they became vampires. Liam (the artist to be called Angel) lived under his tyrant father’s perpetual disapproval. Drusilla was a good, God-fearing girl tormented by psychic powers she didn’t understand and by Angelus’ obsession with her. William (aka Spike) was a diffident poet who longed for the love of a woman who threw it back in his face.
In the ‘Wishverse’ Xander and Willow, freed from years of repression by their families and high-school peers by being turned, became the Master’s lieutenants. (If you don’t think Vamp Willow was particularly BAMF, she made pretty short work of the vampires that the Mayor sent out after our Willow in “Dopplegangland.”)
On the other side of the coin, there’s Harmony, a spoiled brat in life, a joke of a vampire in unlife. A waste of demon, IYAM.
The more repressed the human is before he or she is turned, the more monstrous the vampire will be.
Frankly, I shudder to think about Jonathon being turned. Ewwww.
I don’t have it with me, but for information on vamps and other baddies on Buffy, run to your local library and check out the Monster Book.
If I remember correctly from what I read, older vamps are stronger. Plus, Angel, Dru, Darla, and Spike are part of the Order of Aurelius due to the fact that they’re in the line of the Master. (Master -> Darla -> Angel -> Dru -> Spike) This fact, plus their age, makes them stronger than the average vamp.
I don’t know how clear it was made in The Wish, but one could assume that VampWillow and Xander were vamped by the Master, and that would explain their position in the vampsociety.
No, you get soap fans sitting on internet chat sites discussing how unlikely it would be for Mary-Sue to get that haircut when she said she hated Debbie Harry 14 years ago in a discussion with Janie about how rock and roll was corrupting Billy Bob-and-why-don’t-these-writers-understand-continuity?!?
Outside of that - what everyone else has said too…
-amarinth (who has rabid soap opera fandom in her past)
As far as the whole “If Dawn was there back then, wouldn’t it change things?” thing, my understanding was that she wasn’t, that she never really existed until she was introduced to us and that the memories people have of her were created along with her.
It’s even been said a few times, IIRC, that Buffy doesn’t really remember some particular interaction with Dawn because it never really happened.
Am I misunderstanding things?
thinksnow is right: Dawn didn’t exsist until she was introduced in season five. The monks altered everybody’s memories, but not the actual timeline itself. I’m sure that, if Angel ever thinks about it, he wonders why he never went after Dawn when he was evil: “She was such an easy target, always standing around doing nothing, and killing her would have really hurt Buffy, but I never touched her. Weird.”
Also, my theory for why so many vamps are sub-par: vampires are by their nature disloyal and backstabbing. If you’re a vamp, and you’re raising your own vamp army, you don’t want the best and the brightest: those guys will turn on you in a heartbeat. You want the slackers and morons: people who are too dumb or too chicken to betray you. Angel was, I think, a mistake: Darla thought he was some random drunk in an alley. Drucilla was a special case: Angel wanted her psychic powers on his side, so he turned her, but only after making sure she was crazy, so she’d be less of a threat. And who can say what Dru was thinking when she went after Spike.
Nah, I don’t buy it. Liam and William were pitiful. Darla, while dying at teh time, was still unrepentantly nasty. While many of the vamps of the week may be slacker stake fodder, I think there must be some other factor. I like the repression theory, myself. That, or the feature vamps just have a really potent bloodline.
True, but then “sire” is not the same word as “childe.” I’ve never actually played V:TM, so I don’t know if they use the term “sire” or not. But you’ve gotta have some term for the vampire who made you, and sire is as good as any. As far as keeping their vampire nature hidden–surely you don’t think Masquerade invented that? That’s a basic element of nearly all vampire fiction (with a few notable exceptions). After all, you didn’t see Stoker writing “Hi, Count Dracula here. I’m a vampire. And you are–?”
Ehh. It’s not a terribly big deal. It just makes me a little uncomfortable to assume Joss is using a particular system when there’s relatively little evidence of it. Might well be just my own hang-up.
It’s just that “standing around doing nothing” part that gives me trouble. If the spell was to be truly convincing–which it obviously was, since nobody but insane people even suspected Dawn’s true nature–then the false memories have to stand up to scrutiny. When the Scoobies look back on their high school days, it wouldn’t be enough to just remember “Dawn was there too.” They’d have to remember Dawn doing something.
I’m not so concerned with whether reality actually changed (but I could get all metaphysical and argue that reality doesn’t exist except in our minds and memories), but that Buffy and the gang perceive it to have changed. As season five, their perceptions no longer match mine. Again, probably not a problem for anybody but me (and perhaps Gorgon Heap).
Menocchio: Right: they were repressed, so they true potential was hidden. Because they were repressed, they were mistaken to be losers who would make good minions. If they hadn’t been repressed, they’d never have been turned: vampires wouldn’t turn someone stronger than them, because that would just make them even stronger.
Look at it another way: on Angel, Wesley has grown into a serious bad ass. No vampire would turn him now: he’d only become more dangerous. But if a vampire had gotten to him back when he was first on Buffy, he might have turned him, thinking he would be easy to control, and created a very powerful vampire.
Darla is a special case. The Master, being so incredibly old, could afford to make stronger vampires. They couldn’t possibly be powerful enough to be a serious threat to him. The Master specifically sought her ought precisely because she’d make such a good vampire. The same likely applies to Luke (the Master’s lieutenant in the pilot episode) and to Kakistos and Mr. Trick.
MrAtoz: What was Dawn doing? My guess would be “standing in one place screaming her fool head off.” That’s all she ever does.
Actually, that might explain her behavior. The monks made her useless so she’d be easier to insert into everyone’s memories. Now it’s just habit.
Here’s a question: Joss was working on an animated Buffy show, which was supposed to take place when they were in high school. Was Dawn going to be in it?
'Course, Wesley is in kinda bad shape right now, if not dead, so that might be a moot point. 
Believe it or not, that almost solves my problem! The simplest solutions are often the best, aren’t they?
My understanding (which is VERY limited) is that yes, Dawn would have been in the animated series. We may never know, as it seems to be on hold for the time being.
OMG, tonights show pretty much wrapped up every damn thing in this list!
toadspittle wrote:
What qualifies symbols of Christianity as symbols of good, and not those of other religions? I mean, if the symbol represents goodness independent of its meaning in Christianity, why don’t other religions use it? Other religions use circles, and stars and other symbols that have become closely associated with Christianity.
Furthermore, in order for it to be true that the cross has its power because it is a symbol of goodness independent of its use as a symbol of Christ, it seems to me that one or more of the following would have to be true: the symbol would have to have the power by virtue of its form prior to any particular associations people place on it or the association of a particular symbol with goodness was in itself sufficient to have this effect on vampires.
The former seems untrue, unless we suppose that accidental crosses harm vampire – like the lines of mortar in brickwork I mentioned earlier. Even still, we wouldn’t suppose that certain symbols that are in form but not in use identical to variations of the cross – Xes, + signs, t’s – if they should fall off of a marquee and hit a vampire on the head would actually have the effect that an object intended to be a holy cross would have.
The latter doesn’t seem likely either, given that there are all kinds of symbols we do invest goodness in, including other holy symbols, that don’t have this effect, except in particular variations of the vampire mythos.
Basically, the idea of a vampire as we know it was born in a Christian world, and is fundamentally about Christianity. You can secularize it, but to do so, things like crosses and holy water have to go. The Buffyverse in particular is committed to Christianity.
The reason why vampires shrink away from the cross is because if it touches them they will experience a painful burn. A red hot poker may not damage a human just to look at it, but that human will not gladly put themselves in danger of getting burned with it, so a person brandishing one can keep a person at bay. The same prinicple works with crosses. It’s an actual weapon, because it does actual and particularly painful damage to vampires.
I recall very well that this episode was a comment on how people had lost faith in their religion, and thus the cross was not empowered to ward off evil by the investment of the believer. As I mentioned earlier, the people in the church are subsequently rescued by “Faith” – symbolism so heavy-handed that it made me laugh out loud, and invited comparison to the same coarse pun as used by Nathaniel Hawthorne in Young Goodman Brown.
Including Buffy’s patented See-lover-being-less-than-hostile-with-someone-else-assume-the-worst-and-run-away response that I mentioned in the OP only this time it was Willow.
Grrr.
(POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING)
I love the way that people are saying “It sucks that they built up this threat of Willow being dangerous, and then turned it into a stupid addiction storyline.” Heh heh heh.
Anyone remember Star Trek 2? There was all this uproar that they were going to kill Spock. It was all people were talking about… then they go see the movie – and OH MY GOD, Spock is killed in the first give minutes… wait, no, he’s alive. Wow, they sure got us, they never really intended to ki – oh no, look, he’s really dead now!
Willow and her magic problem are not gone yet. In fact, all spoilers are pointing to what you could call a relapse in the worst way. The rumors of Willow being the Big Bad are clearly not strictly true (everyone is the “big bad” this year, the big bad is maturity and dealing with the consequences of what you’ve done, and growing up – thats why its so depressing, these kids are now really dealing with life for the first time on their own, and not doing a bang up job at it). But Willow’s role in the rest of the season looks to be particularly rough, and driven at core by her problems with magic.
Kirk