Notes on Buffy 1.06: The Pack

Standard disclaimer: I'll often speak of foreshadowing, but that doesn't mean I'm at all committing to the idea that there was some fixed design from the word go -- it's a short hand for talking about the resonances that end up in the text as it unspools.

Standard spoiler warning: The notes are written for folks who have seen all of BtVS and AtS.  I'll be spoiling through the comics as well.  Basically -- if you are a spoiler-phobe and haven't seen or read it all, read further at your own risk.

The Pack, aka Buffy’s love life, Part 2, in Which Xander Becomes a Possessed Hyena in a Pack.

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Off the Fence about Season 8

It's not impossible that the last four issues could push me back over, but I'm now 99% sure that when all is said and done, I'm going to think Season 8 was great.  I think there's a better than even chance that I'll think it's the best season ever.

One of my favorite images, which I use with my students, is from chemistry.  Apparently you can supersaturate a liquid -- pour in so much powder that the substance really, really wants to gel.  But you can keep it in liquid form somehow.  Then if you tap on the container, a crystal will form instantly.

I use that image for my students about how the writing process should go.  (I'm thinking here about academic writing -- when you're trying to make an argument or reach an insight).  You pile in a bunch of thoughts and considerations.  You pour in facts and theories until your head hurts.  You let it all rattle around.  And then you wait for the moment of 'tap' -- when it all crystallizes.

My willingness to stay open to the comics has been because I thought it might be a deliberate effort to supersaturate us with confusion so there'd be this moment of 'tap'.  I love that moment.  The 'tap' is one of my favorite parts of being a human being.  I'm willing to pay a high price in patience to get it. 

I got my 'tap'.  See my piece on the Spuffy reading,angearia 's meta, and aycheb's musings on the Brain Overload thread at BF.   See specially Emmie's latest meta on LWH #1.  Everything that didn't add up was supposed to not add up.  The world is skew.  An effort to read the season as a linear story is bound to be frustrating.   But once you tilt your head to the right angle, it pays out.  At least it does for me.  Spectacularly.

Emmie just reminded me of a short post I made about The Wild Bunch which had a totally not veiled subtext about season 8.  This is 10,000 better.

I totally get that it's not everybody's cuppa.  And I'm surely not saying it ought to be your cuppa.  But I'm getting what I want.  A  text that is layered and complex.  A story that tells a story cogent on its own level while commenting on stories and the role they play for us.  This time we're adding in the extra spin that the commentary on story telling is actually part of the plot.  

So I'm a happy girl!  That doesn't happen too often, so I figured I'd pipe up and say so.