Wonderful! I really look forward to reading more of these. I've never spent much time parsing season 1, but there's surely a lot to talk about and you've really got the ball rolling.
1. Someone (I don't remember who--macha at TATF maybe?) pointed out that Darla's appearing before Buffy points out the real chronology of demons & people we've been told: the demons came first, and then the humans and civilization. It goes back both to Joss' non-Christian theology (Giles mentions in "The Harvest" that the world did not start with a paradise) as well as hearkening to Westerns, where there is an untamed frontier that the Lone Ranger Hero must tame. The lone hero part gets subverted, but the Hero part taming the wilderness of demons is more firmly entrenched. The idea of the demonic as the source of power, with humanity on the top and the surface, continues through both shows, as well as Firefly which plays around with the Western hero vs. "savages" (actually humanity's fault).
2. Buffy's a hero. It's the only show where the protagonist is actually a hero; Angel and Mal are anti-heroes and Echo is mostly an empty vessel until season two. Joss doesn't seem all that interested in heroes qua heroes; though Angel and Mal and eventually Ballard get heroic trappings, they are undercut frequently, even if it's not always entirely clear when they are supposed to be. Buffy has a few things going for her that are interesting and a little surprising from Joss the Existentialist: she has unironic Christian symbology (well, mostly unironic, since the cross comes from Angel), and we are told that her instincts are mostly intrinsically reliable. (Buffy's instincts are almost always correct, but it's often extremely difficult for her to follow them, or even understand them--hence her big difficulty.) I think a lot of this comes down to the tension between Joss distrusting traditional heroes, and wanting a traditional hero who is a strong woman, and I think the clash between Buffy's essentialist heroism (she can identify vamps by sight, and later on mostly has good knee-jerk moral judgments while the various evil patriarchy metaphors don't) and Joss' existentialism is very interesting, even if it doesn't always work out entirely in the show's favour. (I'd say it usually does, but then I'm a fan so of course I'd say that.)
WttH does a good job of laying out what Buffy's fundamental sacrifices are in the name of slaying. Giles' scene at the balcony is so very creepy in light of "Dead Things" (and I think Joss jokes on the commentary that no way should a teacher be that close to a student), and so the episode also lays out pretty quickly the threat Giles poses to Buffy-the-person, as hard as he tries (eventually) to be there for her as well as for Buffy-the-slayer.
2. (Two 2's!) So far, the Scoobies are Willow and Xander, and Jesse who is a bit of a blip on the radar and mostly a proof-of-concept that Joss can kill people when he wants to. (Good on you, Joss!) There's another element to talk about with the Scoobies, even as early as this episode, and that's the way Xander and Willow react to Buffy not just for her coolness but for her heroism. Certainly they are amazed that someone cool would hang out with them, but very quickly in this and "The Harvest" they are exposed to her life as the slayer and they decide that they want to help. Buffy has to protect them, and doesn't want them involved, but relents. And here you have the fundamental issue: if Buffy is a representative of what all women could be, and by extension of what all people can be, and do in their own lives, then why is it that Xander and Willow (among others) are excluded from that? Why is Buffy the slayer, the Hero, the icon, and where does that leave people like Xander and Willow who are NOT the icon?
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Date: 2010-08-16 06:59 pm (UTC)1. Someone (I don't remember who--macha at TATF maybe?) pointed out that Darla's appearing before Buffy points out the real chronology of demons & people we've been told: the demons came first, and then the humans and civilization. It goes back both to Joss' non-Christian theology (Giles mentions in "The Harvest" that the world did not start with a paradise) as well as hearkening to Westerns, where there is an untamed frontier that the Lone Ranger Hero must tame. The lone hero part gets subverted, but the Hero part taming the wilderness of demons is more firmly entrenched. The idea of the demonic as the source of power, with humanity on the top and the surface, continues through both shows, as well as Firefly which plays around with the Western hero vs. "savages" (actually humanity's fault).
2. Buffy's a hero. It's the only show where the protagonist is actually a hero; Angel and Mal are anti-heroes and Echo is mostly an empty vessel until season two. Joss doesn't seem all that interested in heroes qua heroes; though Angel and Mal and eventually Ballard get heroic trappings, they are undercut frequently, even if it's not always entirely clear when they are supposed to be. Buffy has a few things going for her that are interesting and a little surprising from Joss the Existentialist: she has unironic Christian symbology (well, mostly unironic, since the cross comes from Angel), and we are told that her instincts are mostly intrinsically reliable. (Buffy's instincts are almost always correct, but it's often extremely difficult for her to follow them, or even understand them--hence her big difficulty.) I think a lot of this comes down to the tension between Joss distrusting traditional heroes, and wanting a traditional hero who is a strong woman, and I think the clash between Buffy's essentialist heroism (she can identify vamps by sight, and later on mostly has good knee-jerk moral judgments while the various evil patriarchy metaphors don't) and Joss' existentialism is very interesting, even if it doesn't always work out entirely in the show's favour. (I'd say it usually does, but then I'm a fan so of course I'd say that.)
WttH does a good job of laying out what Buffy's fundamental sacrifices are in the name of slaying. Giles' scene at the balcony is so very creepy in light of "Dead Things" (and I think Joss jokes on the commentary that no way should a teacher be that close to a student), and so the episode also lays out pretty quickly the threat Giles poses to Buffy-the-person, as hard as he tries (eventually) to be there for her as well as for Buffy-the-slayer.
2. (Two 2's!) So far, the Scoobies are Willow and Xander, and Jesse who is a bit of a blip on the radar and mostly a proof-of-concept that Joss can kill people when he wants to. (Good on you, Joss!) There's another element to talk about with the Scoobies, even as early as this episode, and that's the way Xander and Willow react to Buffy not just for her coolness but for her heroism. Certainly they are amazed that someone cool would hang out with them, but very quickly in this and "The Harvest" they are exposed to her life as the slayer and they decide that they want to help. Buffy has to protect them, and doesn't want them involved, but relents. And here you have the fundamental issue: if Buffy is a representative of what all women could be, and by extension of what all people can be, and do in their own lives, then why is it that Xander and Willow (among others) are excluded from that? Why is Buffy the slayer, the Hero, the icon, and where does that leave people like Xander and Willow who are NOT the icon?
(cont'd)