Should let this go. Haven't.

[quinara]

I've been mulling over shipperx's post and here is where I've ended up.

Having your consent taken away is not the conclusion to a story. It's a pernicious misunderstanding of rape that continually paints it at the end point of a narrative where someone goes out/gets drunk/wears a short skirt, when actually it by definition cannot be something you ask for (even) as a consequence of your actions. (Trying) to rape, on the other hand, is (though just look at the way agency on that side of the equation is so often elided away in reporting of rape). That's why, as much as I hate it, I can accept the AR as being part of Spike's story in S6 - that's where he ends up after a whole season of getting gradually more screwed up (and, yes, it's fair to say that Buffy did have a part in that but this does not mean she's responsible for her own victimisation - because being victimised is a forced removal of responsibility and agency - and that's all I'm going to say about the AR so I apologise if that doesn't make immediate sense to you).

As it is, in S8, with Buffy (and Angel?) we have no agent, apparently. (Distorted base urges =/= an agent.) And so, for the last four(? five? fifteen?) issues we have either been shown a story that belongs to/is about somebody we don't know and can't see (unless it's Angel, but things seem to be saying he was still deceived?), where the plot's cogs (mummy and baby universe etc.) slotting into place and porny sideshows are more important than character arcs, or where, if this is still is 'Buffy's story', having your consent taken away can supposedly be (a consequential/conclusive) part of a narrative. I like none of these options.

[And now I vanish for the day!]

Comments

[hazelk]

I don’t know. If this is in response to the conversation sparked by shipperx’s post it seems more like a criticism of interpretations of the text than the text itself. I’d agree that if Shipperx were right and the only two possible interpretations of the Twilight arc were that Buffy is drugged or Buffy doesn’t care that Angel killed her girls S8 is not much of a story. Even Emmie’s take on the non-consenting option only makes it of interest to those whose main interest in life is the psychopathology of Joss Whedon. However, neither of Shipperx’s alternatives correspond to my reading of the text so I completely disagree that it’s a case of cake (the drug) or death (ethically speaking).

Option three is fairly straightforward. I think Buffy believes Angel when he denies having killed her girls. Angel says he didn’t kill them (which is literally true) but tried to divert those out for their witchy terrorist blood from obliterating from KILLING ALL THE GIRLS. Which may be counter to what she’d thought Twilight was doing when she hoped he was just another Caleb to hit but at least is consistent with Angel’s previous character (and everyone seems to agree that Twilight ordering those girls deaths was not). More than that I think his telling her that changing the world was bound to lead to bloodshed hits home. She’d already been telling Riley and Xander that the war was her fault. I think she kisses him because he begs her to. Not because she believes him that they can only be happy with each other in the sense that she believes he’s right about her, but because she believes he’s right about him. It’s in one sense intended as a pity fuck and in another as a big mindless zipless one. She wasn’t expecting it to createsome band new world of eternal bliss (which she gets the hell out of as soon as she can). She’s failed. Her girls are dead. It’s because of her. She can only brings more destruction to them. Might as well give it up.

[quinara]

Well, it was definitely in some sense supposed to be part of the conversation that shipperx's post was part of, so in some sense it is a discussion of interpretation. (I could of course get into the point that all criticism is criticism of interpretation, since the story itself is only ink on a page and we'd have to be doing scientific analysis of its chemical make-up, but it's probably not the place... ;) )

t’s in one sense intended as a pity fuck and in another as a big mindless zipless one. She wasn’t expecting it to createsome band new world of eternal bliss (which she gets the hell out of as soon as she can).

Even with your interpretation, though, I still think my point has some relevance, because, if I understand you correctly, in kissing Angel and starting shenanigans she was not intending to join the 50 mile high club and break through to Twilight. Maybe she decides to just go with it, but I can't say 'random circumstance spontaneously takes intended actions and makes something else happen' strikes me as a story either, so much as 'things happening in something like a sequence'.

[hazelk]

But isn't there a difference between criticism of one's own interpretation and of someone else's. And when someone else's hangs entirely on the denial that any alternatives to the postulated binary exist? Those post modern types would have it that chemical analysis were only an interpretation of an interpretation too. They never let us have any fun.

I can't say 'random circumstance spontaneously takes intended actions and makes something else happen' strikes me as a story
Wouldn't that mean Innocence was not a story. Buffy didn't intend for Angel to lose his soul. I don't see think shit happens can't be the beginning of a story. Like Whistler says, the big moments will come. It's what you do next that shows who you are.

[quinara]

But isn't there a difference between criticism of one's own interpretation and of someone else's. And when someone else's hangs entirely on the denial that any alternatives to the postulated binary exist?

True, and I can't claim that I was trying to do otherwise (though I see it as more of 'criticism of an interpretation lent authority by coming through quasi-official channels', just because it makes me sound snazzier).

I don't see think shit happens can't be the beginning of a story.

Beginning of a story I can accept - though I think there's a difference between 'shit happens' (a philosophical standpoint) and 'shit, happening' (a story built around consequences unresultant from action), not that it matters for the moment, but it strikes me as worth mentioning - but as a story in itself? Or the (near) conclusion to a story? I'm very eh about it. (There is a reason Innocence sets off the second half of S2.)