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Giants, Centaurs, Dolls and Dawn: Some Speculation, Spoilers through #25
I'll leave the reviews to others. What I have is some speculation.
I'm really bad at speculation, by the way. Here goes anyway:
I still can't shake the feeling that having a character named DAWN in a season whose big bad is TWILIGHT be a giant at the start of the season is a pretty giant clue that Dawn is going to be central to what goes down. Of course all of that might be so obvious that the joke will turn out to be that having learned her lesson about taking care of herself, Dawn will drift to the sidelines. But I kind of doubt it.
#25 had a lot of panels devoted to Gepetto and the dolls. So I figure there has to be something going on there to merit all that space. We can make the straight-forward observation that like Buffy, Gepetto is all about keeping people safe. Dawn wants to strike out on her own even though it's dangerous, and at the end of the issue that's pretty much where she and Buffy are. Fine.
Notice, though, that the Dawn doll (who is just totally cute, BTW) has a crack in her head. Over her right eye. Gepetto warns her that if she breaks her face, her spirit would explode out in a painful sort of way. At the end of the issue, Buffy says she loves Dawn to death, and the sisters agree that it would be better if the death didn't happen that night. So that all could easily be foreshadowing Dawn's death.
The death Gepetto talks about with the exploding spirit made me think of Dawn's keyness -- that big ball of energy exploding out. Gepetto's next line is about her living in the wooden body as surely as a human lives in flesh. Dawn doll is a spirit in the wrong sort of body, but it fits, and it made me think again of Dawn's keyness -- a spirit living in a wrong sort of body (human), but fitting.
Dawn's keyness was about opening portals between dimensions -- which would be the sort of portal you'd need if you wanted to expel demons and magic into another dimension.
It looks like there might already be some leakage between dimensions. We've got an awful lot of fairy tale folk in the world and that really never was an element in the Buffy 'verse -- not the way it is now.
Dawn's second manifestation was as a centaur -- which is a creature that is also mythological, and which has a hybrid-character half human, half horse. Dawn centaur spent a lot of time in the woods, which are the magical woods full of fairy tale folk.
Finally, Gepetto/Buffy wants to keep Dawn from escaping. We can see why Dawn doll wants to escape. But why would Dawn person want to escape, and what would she be escaping to? If Gepetto is a metaphor for Buffy, the metaphor should run all the way through. For example, Gepetto has a bunch of dolls that he created who do exactly what he tells them, and Buffy has a bunch of slayers that she created who do exactly what she tells them (see Dawn's description of the slayers in this issue). So Dawn wants to or needs to escape and Buffy is preventing it.
Dawn already did try to escape, in season 5. There would have been a rightness to the key, who created the problems, sacrificing herself to eliminate the problem. But Buffy took Dawn's place and died. To keep Dawn safe. The moral of this issue is that Buffy should stop trying to keep Dawn safe.
Those are the elements that are rambling through my brain. I'd say that Dawn's keyness is a part of what's going on in the world. A sort of giant sized part of what is going on here. It's why the magical realm is bleeding over. The magical bleeding might be playing a role in the world's sudden perception of vampires as the good guys and slayers as the bad guys. Allie has said that magic might be involved with all of that. And it would make sense of putting this Dawn story at the end of an arc about the new world order. Dawn is a centaur-like blend: half human and half key. The key part might want to escape, the way Dawn doll wanted to escape. The human part feels at home. Buffy wants to keep Dawn here (at home). But Buffy is going to have to let go. Twilight will be overcome by the breaking Dawn.
Something like that. But 100 times cooler.
I'm really bad at speculation, by the way. Here goes anyway:
I still can't shake the feeling that having a character named DAWN in a season whose big bad is TWILIGHT be a giant at the start of the season is a pretty giant clue that Dawn is going to be central to what goes down. Of course all of that might be so obvious that the joke will turn out to be that having learned her lesson about taking care of herself, Dawn will drift to the sidelines. But I kind of doubt it.
#25 had a lot of panels devoted to Gepetto and the dolls. So I figure there has to be something going on there to merit all that space. We can make the straight-forward observation that like Buffy, Gepetto is all about keeping people safe. Dawn wants to strike out on her own even though it's dangerous, and at the end of the issue that's pretty much where she and Buffy are. Fine.
Notice, though, that the Dawn doll (who is just totally cute, BTW) has a crack in her head. Over her right eye. Gepetto warns her that if she breaks her face, her spirit would explode out in a painful sort of way. At the end of the issue, Buffy says she loves Dawn to death, and the sisters agree that it would be better if the death didn't happen that night. So that all could easily be foreshadowing Dawn's death.
The death Gepetto talks about with the exploding spirit made me think of Dawn's keyness -- that big ball of energy exploding out. Gepetto's next line is about her living in the wooden body as surely as a human lives in flesh. Dawn doll is a spirit in the wrong sort of body, but it fits, and it made me think again of Dawn's keyness -- a spirit living in a wrong sort of body (human), but fitting.
Dawn's keyness was about opening portals between dimensions -- which would be the sort of portal you'd need if you wanted to expel demons and magic into another dimension.
It looks like there might already be some leakage between dimensions. We've got an awful lot of fairy tale folk in the world and that really never was an element in the Buffy 'verse -- not the way it is now.
Dawn's second manifestation was as a centaur -- which is a creature that is also mythological, and which has a hybrid-character half human, half horse. Dawn centaur spent a lot of time in the woods, which are the magical woods full of fairy tale folk.
Finally, Gepetto/Buffy wants to keep Dawn from escaping. We can see why Dawn doll wants to escape. But why would Dawn person want to escape, and what would she be escaping to? If Gepetto is a metaphor for Buffy, the metaphor should run all the way through. For example, Gepetto has a bunch of dolls that he created who do exactly what he tells them, and Buffy has a bunch of slayers that she created who do exactly what she tells them (see Dawn's description of the slayers in this issue). So Dawn wants to or needs to escape and Buffy is preventing it.
Dawn already did try to escape, in season 5. There would have been a rightness to the key, who created the problems, sacrificing herself to eliminate the problem. But Buffy took Dawn's place and died. To keep Dawn safe. The moral of this issue is that Buffy should stop trying to keep Dawn safe.
Those are the elements that are rambling through my brain. I'd say that Dawn's keyness is a part of what's going on in the world. A sort of giant sized part of what is going on here. It's why the magical realm is bleeding over. The magical bleeding might be playing a role in the world's sudden perception of vampires as the good guys and slayers as the bad guys. Allie has said that magic might be involved with all of that. And it would make sense of putting this Dawn story at the end of an arc about the new world order. Dawn is a centaur-like blend: half human and half key. The key part might want to escape, the way Dawn doll wanted to escape. The human part feels at home. Buffy wants to keep Dawn here (at home). But Buffy is going to have to let go. Twilight will be overcome by the breaking Dawn.
Something like that. But 100 times cooler.
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We'll see. I'll be interested to see what Allie says in response to the question about the whole 'vampires are wonderful' being all tell and no show so far.
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I look forward to Allie's answer. Assuming you haven't read #25 yet (?), there's one bit that very much raises the question of whether what we've been told is a good reflection of what's actually happening.
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I don't really care whether or not I get spoilered, though. Have gone past caring about that where this comic's concerned.
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Still I think the magic-banishing is a big red herring. We've already been told Fray is a sideline now. So I think something even worse is going to happen. Just can't (or don't want to) imagine what that will be.
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And on an aside, have you seen the info about Btvs n° 27, I particularly like this part : "Buffy learns that suppressing her demon side could be the biggest risk of all ..." Her demon side, yes. It's nice to see it spelt out so clearly, because you know, Btvs is such a clear cut and simple verse with evil black hats on one side and goody good white hats bla bla. By the way I'm waiting for your meta for Lie to me ( You alluded to it I think on Gabrielleabelle's LJ)
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Very interesting ideas, and even if I'm hoping they're not going to bring up the key thing again (s5 was great... once), and killing Dawn after what they've already put her through here would probably be the last straw for me, you make some interesting points and you may certainly have something here.
like Buffy, Gepetto is all about keeping people safe. Dawn wants to strike out on her own even though it's dangerous, and at the end of the issue that's pretty much where she and Buffy are. (...) Gepetto has a bunch of dolls that he created who do exactly what he tells them, and Buffy has a bunch of slayers that she created who do exactly what she tells them (see Dawn's description of the slayers in this issue). So Dawn wants to or needs to escape and Buffy is preventing it.
Which goes nicely with my theory of how this will all end: not with the undoing of the Slayer spell, not with Buffy restored as leader of the Slayer Army, in fact not with a Slayer Army at all - but with an ideological revolution rather than a military one. For seven seasons, there was one (main) Slayer fighting her demons. Now there are thousands, still fighting her demons. Buffy needs not to let them escape or prevent them, but help them escape her; go from minions to heroes in their own right, their own battles, fighting their own demons.
Then again, Buffy saved Dawn like the damsel in distress she was.
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I like your theory about the emancipation of the slayers. It definitely does look like the slayer army is coming in for some critique. This is the first issue that I recall Buffy explicitly talking about herself as a leader of an army -- though I could easily be mistaken about that. In any case, I am looking forward to how they develop this.
And off to watch the finale of Dollhouse...