Due to general fandom burnout I haven't been reading/commenting much on these posts of yours, which is my bad, because it's excellent reading even if I don't agree whole-heartedly.
Willow makes the point that she doesn't understand why Buffy isn't supportive of her--after all, she says, boys don't fall at her feet. There's jealousy there, and also a sense of entitlement--after all this time of being ignored by guys, doesn't Willow deserve one?
I've always said that this scene is the first tiny little glimpse of Dark Willow - or at least the personality traits in Willow that eventually lead her there. Not only the need to have something that's, y'know, hers, and her determination to keep it once she's got it...
WILLOW: Let me tell you something about Willow. She's a loser. And she always has been. People picked on Willow in junior high school, high school, up until college... with her stupid mousy ways and now - Willow's a junkie. The only thing Willow was ever good for... the only thing I had going for me - were the moments - just moments - when Tara would look at me and I was wonderful.
...but also the way she very smoothly (and I guess we can partly blame Sheila Rosenberg's parenting skills for this) flips the argument around and lays the blame with the other person; Buffy brings up one question ("Are you sure you can trust this guy"), and Willow quickly (and probably not even consciously) misconstrues it into a different one, where Buffy's the bad guy and she's the innocent victim ("Buffy doesn't want Willow to have a boyfriend"). She does the same thing in "Something Blue", "Tough Love", "Flooded", etc. It's a common enough defense tactic, but...
I love this point about the abstracted nature of Willow's love here.
Me too.
Moloch's desire to have physical form with which to snap people's necks, in addition to his abilities to seduce through words, prefigures the First Evil as well.
And also, expanding on what Max said, it's what kills him since this is Buffy where practical violence is always the least traumatic option (cf for instance "Lie To Me" or "Shadow"). As Buffy and Giles point out, he could have done a lot more damage if he'd stayed virtual (spiritual/philosophical/psychological). Once he turns himself into a monster, he has an ass, and it is therefore kickable. The Master is only dangerous as long as he's locked up underground; once he gets out, Buffy wipes the floor with him. Monsters are more dangerous as concepts and metaphors than they are as actual physical beings.
I think there’s also a growing hunger for the power because Willow is jealous of Buffy’s powers and all that comes with it
True, though I think you're being a little harsh on Willow. There's definitely jealousy, but she also often puts it in far nobler terms - starting in "The Witch" ("That means hacking illegally into the school's computer system. At last, something I can do!") and continuing throughout seasons 2-5 right up until Willow's the "big gun", she is (or, if you prefer, tells herself she is, though I think it's genuine) looking for a way to help, to be as useful as Buffy. For goodness and puppies and, well, making the world a better place. Again, one of my favourite Willow backstory fanwanks; growing up in a family like that and with a limited social circle, she learned a lot about the importance of being a good person, but less about the how.
While Giles is almost always under-written, he gets a very nice, almost poetic little speech to Jenny about the tangibility of knowledge derived from books, as epitomized by the smell of a book vs. the de-contextualized nature of knowledge stored on the internet.
...thereby also anticipating the e-book vs print book debate, where it's apparently all about the smell and not about the context. /Personal aside
If you're not jacked in, you're not alive
Correct me if I misremember things (like I said, the actual ass-kicking bits aren't the most interesting, especially in s1) but don't they kill Moloch by literally jacking him into the wall?
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Date: 2010-09-16 08:26 am (UTC)Willow makes the point that she doesn't understand why Buffy isn't supportive of her--after all, she says, boys don't fall at her feet. There's jealousy there, and also a sense of entitlement--after all this time of being ignored by guys, doesn't Willow deserve one?
I've always said that this scene is the first tiny little glimpse of Dark Willow - or at least the personality traits in Willow that eventually lead her there. Not only the need to have something that's, y'know, hers, and her determination to keep it once she's got it...
WILLOW: Let me tell you something about Willow. She's a loser. And she always has been. People picked on Willow in junior high school, high school, up until college... with her stupid mousy ways and now - Willow's a junkie. The only thing Willow was ever good for... the only thing I had going for me - were the moments - just moments - when Tara would look at me and I was wonderful.
...but also the way she very smoothly (and I guess we can partly blame Sheila Rosenberg's parenting skills for this) flips the argument around and lays the blame with the other person; Buffy brings up one question ("Are you sure you can trust this guy"), and Willow quickly (and probably not even consciously) misconstrues it into a different one, where Buffy's the bad guy and she's the innocent victim ("Buffy doesn't want Willow to have a boyfriend"). She does the same thing in "Something Blue", "Tough Love", "Flooded", etc. It's a common enough defense tactic, but...
I love this point about the abstracted nature of Willow's love here.
Me too.
Moloch's desire to have physical form with which to snap people's necks, in addition to his abilities to seduce through words, prefigures the First Evil as well.
And also, expanding on what Max said, it's what kills him since this is Buffy where practical violence is always the least traumatic option (cf for instance "Lie To Me" or "Shadow"). As Buffy and Giles point out, he could have done a lot more damage if he'd stayed virtual (spiritual/philosophical/psychological). Once he turns himself into a monster, he has an ass, and it is therefore kickable. The Master is only dangerous as long as he's locked up underground; once he gets out, Buffy wipes the floor with him. Monsters are more dangerous as concepts and metaphors than they are as actual physical beings.
I think there’s also a growing hunger for the power because Willow is jealous of Buffy’s powers and all that comes with it
True, though I think you're being a little harsh on Willow. There's definitely jealousy, but she also often puts it in far nobler terms - starting in "The Witch" ("That means hacking illegally into the school's computer system. At last, something I can do!") and continuing throughout seasons 2-5 right up until Willow's the "big gun", she is (or, if you prefer, tells herself she is, though I think it's genuine) looking for a way to help, to be as useful as Buffy. For goodness and puppies and, well, making the world a better place. Again, one of my favourite Willow backstory fanwanks; growing up in a family like that and with a limited social circle, she learned a lot about the importance of being a good person, but less about the how.
While Giles is almost always under-written, he gets a very nice, almost poetic little speech to Jenny about the tangibility of knowledge derived from books, as epitomized by the smell of a book vs. the de-contextualized nature of knowledge stored on the internet.
...thereby also anticipating the e-book vs print book debate, where it's apparently all about the smell and not about the context. /Personal aside
If you're not jacked in, you're not alive
Correct me if I misremember things (like I said, the actual ass-kicking bits aren't the most interesting, especially in s1) but don't they kill Moloch by literally jacking him into the wall?