[spoiler]The thing is, to the best of my recollection, they never showed magic as getting you high. Would it let the power go to your head? Yes. Would it make you feel empowered, maybe better than everyone else? Yes. Would it potentially lead somewhere very dark? Yes.
Would it make you lie there stoned for hours and twirl around like an idiot? Not so much. The magic was psychologically addictive because it empowered Willow; it never seemed escapist in any way. Her biggest abuses of magic weren’t done to get high; they were to fix specific problems in a rash and impulsive manner (an empowerment spell when she and Oz broke up; going after Glory; bringing Buffy back; messing with Tara’s head). Now, while it’s possible that one could lead to another, I don’t think that they justified it enough to have it progress that quickly. Her problem was all with power corrupting, not about the weakness of the flesh. [/spoiler]
[spoiler]Except that it wasn’t just that she was using magic; it’s that she was attempting to mess with Tara’s head. In “Tabula Rasa,” even after Willow promises no more magic, Tara still seems pretty uncertain about staying. It seemed to me to be more the abuse angle. And while I don’t think that the issues with their relationship were insurmountable, I think they rushed the reconciliation in order to get her to the point of being shot.
As for Tara somehow sensing that the First Evil was getting a hold of her. . .well, you’re right; Tara is very intuitive. However, I think that her problems stemmed more from her personal experience. In OMWF, she sings, “You know I’ve been through hell/Willow, don’t you see/there’ll be nothing left of me…” I think that her problems had far more to do with her history of abuse (both in her family and with Glory, though that wasn’t a relationship) as they did with Willow’s overuse of magic.[/spoiler]
See, I disagree; I think it was about learning to use power responsibly. And I think that if you keep it entirely about power corrupting, the season works much better. You can even keep the parallels with Spike and Buffy there, if you do it that way; rough sex can be about power, about feeling powerful or over-powered. But, instead, I think they went with the escapist angle. It worked fine for Buffy, but I think it didn’t work at all for Willow. YMMV.
What, the writers went all Peter Parker with Willow? Not quite buying it. I think they saw too many After-School Specials growing up, and Marti’s “write your psychosis” style of production encouraged them to make crappy decisions.
Well, for some reason every single dad in a Whedon show that I can think of off the top of my head (I have not seen Dollhouse) is a Bad Dad. It got downright ridiculous.
If I remember right, no one’s parents show up on Dollhouse. No fathers on Firefly either except for Simon and River’s, and he wasn’t a Bad Dad. Just one that didn’t believe what he thought were Simon’s drunken ramblings.
As for the other three shows, I think it’s just the big city “My friends are my family” attitude that you see on nearly every TV show (for example, Friends). Making them evil just fits in well with the Buffyverse.
As far as I know, the term “shipping” actually originated in the X-Files fandom.
K/S, however, is the originator of the term slash.
I’m not just a nerd and in fandom, I’m actually a nerd about fandom.
btw, my own fandom has ship wars and they are SO FUCKING STUPID I hate it so much. Especially because both popular ships are…morally and ethically questionable, to say the least, and neither will ever, ever, ever in a million years be canon. (The shippers would be delighted if it was canon. Everyone else would be :eek::eek::eek:) And yet people devote many hours and much bandwidth to argue about which is “better”. :rolleyes:
There were serious daddy!issues present in Dollhouse. A man doesn’t have to be a biological father in order to be the father-figure in Whedon shows. In fact, the father figure who embodies most of the daddy issues is rarely the biological father, which only adds another layer to it all.
I guess Cordelia’s dad was bad in the sense that he got caught cheating on his taxes. However, I don’t think there’s any indication that he was Bad in the sense that he abused or neglected his children.
[spoiler]
What world of “might have been”? Wesley’s father was a very, very shitty father. If there was an avatar of Whedon’s daddy issues, it was Wesley. But it’s silly to try to argue that the Whedonverse characters aren’t rife with parental issues.
Angel had daddy issues. Buffy had daddy issues. Xander had daddy issues. Giles had daddy issues. Connor had daddy issues. Wesley and Buffy’s respective daddy issues actually informed a great deal of their relationship with Angel (I’d argue was the very basis for their relationships with Angel). And the characters who didn’t have serious daddy issues had serious issues with their mothers, at times bordering on Oedipal (Or as Angelus said, “Trying to kill your father and screw your mother? Somebody should write a play.”) Spike and Faith were the ones with the biggest mommy issues. [/spoiler]
pepper - The might-have-been that we actually get an explanation for Daddy Wyndam-Pryce. What organization was he working for? Who else is an android? What is their nefarious scheme? Can Illyria kick their asses? You know, that stuff.
I agree that most of the characters in Whedonverse have some serious parental issues. I’m just trying to counter the assertion earlier that every single dad is a Bad Dad in Whedonverse.
Miller - from Wiki: Petrie claims Faith’s main motivation is to find a family and friends; she sees treacherous Watcher Gwendolyn Post as the mother she never had, the Scooby Gang as the friends she never had, and the Mayor as the father she never had. “So she’s always looking for a family and always coming up short and making these horrible choices, and it drove her insane” says Petrie. “Plus I think she was missing a couple of screws to begin with. ‘If you don’t love me, you will fear me,’ is kind of her m.o. She’s not a stable girl, but a fun one.”
Faith Lehane was one seriously fucked-up girl.
But her father-figure was nothing but loving, caring and supportive of her.
Oh yeah, we never did find out what the robot thing was all about. I just meant that Roger Wyndam-Pryce was clearly a POS and the whole time he was being snide and dismissive of Wesley’s life, Wes never once questioned his behavior. Even when he was put into a position to shoot and kill his own father, he never said “This is strange. My father would never do this.” I also like that, when given the opportunity to kill his father, he emptied the gun into his chest. Wesley doesn’t do shit by halves. [/spoiler]
I’d say Giles betrayed Buffy more than any other father figure in all of Whedon’s show. First by leaving her when he knew of her abandonment issues, and then constantly questioning/undermining her in S7 when she was behaving like the leader and adult he had ostensibly wanted her to be.
