Dawn's Keyness and the Art of Speculation

[maggie2]

My poll about Dawn's keyness has provoked some vigorous discussion, so I just wanted to state my own position about how her keyness might (or might not) relate to season 8.  It is simply this.  That a season named Twilight began with the character named Dawn as a giant has always seemed to me like a strong suggestion that Dawn is going to matter.  We've since had enough references to her latent keyness for that to be available for the story as it unfolds.  #25 describes Dawn's status as a doll in a way that to me is highly resonant with her status as a key.   #25 also contains lines that would foreshadow Dawn's death (possibly even at Buffy's hand) if that's what turns out to happen.

This is not a prediction.  It's just reading the tea leaves to see what possible directions the story could go.  There are literary markers in the text that would make a story about Dawn's keyness seem rich and well-foreshadowed.  What that story would be I have no idea.  I'm not a creative writer.  Maybe it will be cool.  Maybe it'll be lame.  Maybe it won't happen at all.  I don't know.  All I'm doing is pointing to some details available to serve a literary function if the story goes a certain way.  It's just some speculation. 

Over on Buffy forums, King of Cretins replied that we'd need pages of exposition to explain how Dawn is still a key and available to be used in this story.  That was the main impetus for the poll.  Along the way there have been complaints that it would be bad writing if the story went this way.  Since my argument just was that there are literary markers available for use if the story goes that way, I obviously don't think a story going in this direction would necessarily involve lame out of the blue writing.  But it could still turn out to be a craptastic story.  I have no idea what Joss will do in his last arc, much less how well he's going to do it.

End of my part of the mountain made out of a very, very small molehill.

Comments

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Well, in fairness to Joss, he hasn't actually done that yet (ETA: sacrifice Dawn, that is, you know my opionion on the Kafka!Dawn arc and there's no reason to repeat it here), so in this case I'm willing to wait a few months before yelling at him. :)

I'm trying to figure out why the idea of Dawn's keyness being the central phlebotinum of Season 8 bothers me so much, and I think it's the same reason I hate Terminator 3 (and to a lesser extent Angel: After the Fall, with Wesley's explanation of how the shanshu works). If you spend years, or even decades, telling a story about "there's no destiny but what we make ourselves", about everything being a process, about not defining yourself by your [insert role]-hood - and then suddenly at the last second decide "Nah, destiny really is Written, you will become this/do this/live like this/die like this no matter what you do, and that's really the most important thing about you", it feels like someone's been cheated. Certainly the characters, but far too often the readers/viewers too. Dramatic irony is great; using it to negate every serious point you've made, less so.

But so far, this is all hypothetical, of course, so I'm happy to drop it for now.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Haha, makes sense to me. I'm more arguing against the potential idea of it happening and hoping it'll be something else.

Dramatic irony is great; using it to negate every serious point you've made, less so.

And it's starting to feel like there's too much text that Season 8 keeps on undercutting the serious points that have come before. It's the sort of development where you think... yeah, I didn't need this continuation because it's lessening the great moments before this (like Willow being a killer). And the dramatic effect of Warren's death.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

My hope would be that whatever story Joss tells out of the interesting pieces he has set out would prove to be more interesting than that. I've no idea how they all fit together -- though I've never been to keen on sacrifice to open portal theories. I just think something's in the works that involves Dawn and keyness.

[harsens-rob.livejournal.com]

... Something like Dawn opening the portal we saw in flashback during Buffy's trip to Fray's timeline perhaps?

I can't remember at the moment if it is Dark-Willow blah-blah-ing or if it's something told to Fray by the demon sent to "ready her" for being the Slayer. But I do remember a panel describing how Buffy and the Slayers disappeared through a portal and the evil was driven away for several hundred years and that is why there were no Slayers called until Fray herself...

Darn it. Naturally, I'm at work - so I don't have the comics to hand to zip through them and give the chapter and verse of what I'm talking about - but, the first thing I thought of was I wonder if Dawn will have something to do with the Slayer army leaving (and taking the demons with them).