Writer's Intent: a bit of a rant

[maggie2]

gabrielleabellehas an interesting post up talking about the writers' intent to portray Xanders' speech to Buffy in Into the Woods as being The Take on Buffy's relationship with Riley.  Most people think that the writers want the audience to think it was good that Buffy ran after Riley and tragic that she didn't get there on time.  And if I recall from the script, there are cues in the Buffy/Xander scene (most notably "he's getting through to her") which sure sound like Xander has an important truth that Buffy needs to hear.

The subject of writers' intent comes up a lot in the context of critiques of the show.  I very often here the complaint that the writers tell us they were writing something different from the way it came across -- especially when people are complaining about season 6.  We were supposed to see Spike as just the bad boyfriend dragging Buffy down, but that's at odds with the far more complex relationship that ended up on the screen.

We could debate all day and all night about what the writers intended.   But I keep finding myself puzzled at why.  Joss is an existentialist.  That means there is no meaning "out there".  We are the ones who make meaning.  Insofar as Joss is the creator of the Buffyverse, he gets to tell  us what happened and what the rules are.  But he doesn't get to tell us what it means.  If he really is an existentialist, he shouldn't want to tell us what it means.  The writers can show us Xander making a speech to Buffy about why she should run after Riley.  That's in the text.  What's not in the text is any evaluation about whether he's right.  That's a judgment call that WE get to make. 

Well, does it matter that they comment on Xanders' speech by giving us the big Hollywood running after the helicopter scene with the big music and the dramatic editting?  Is that a way of telling us that it is just TRUE that Buffy should have run after Riley?  I don't think so.  Stuff like that is meant to reflect the characters' POV.  Buffy's tragic inability to catch up to Riley is how BUFFY is constructing that event.  There's no doubt that Buffy ends up concluding that Xander was right.  She constructs the end of B/R as being due to her failure. But that's how Buffy constructs the end of *all* her relationships.  Back in season one we were told that Buffy's deepest fear is that Hank left because of her.  She's going to see every other leaving through that lens.  And that's what the writers are showing us.  In Buffy's mind she just played out a tragic, dramatic scene to end her relationship wth Riley.  That's all the writers get to tell us.

The evaluation?  That's up to the audience.  I think Xander was full of crap, mostly talking about his own issues.  I think it's a bit sad that Buffy's emotional make-up is such that she was going to buy Xander's crap.  I can't work up a hatred of ITW on the grounds that the writers want me to feel something that I don't feel, because I don't think the writers get to tell me how to feel, and I don't think these writers want to dictate to me how I should feel.  Marty Noxon might think it's sad that Buffy let Riley get away, but all she gets to write is *that* Riley got away and how Buffy felt about it.   I quite like the episode.  It gives us a good portrait of the hows and whys of the B/R break-up.  It gives us some interesting insight into Riley's character.  Spike's role in the episode reminds us just how far Spike is from understanding what love is about, while also suggesting something about his character that grounds the subsequent growth in Spike's understanding of what love is. Best of all, ITW gets Riley gone.  And happily the writers don't drag it out in subsequent episodes.  Riley doesn't get moped over nearly as much as Parker got moped over, let alone the major epic endless mopage over Angel.  That's a portrait of where Buffy is emotionally.  We get to make of it what we will.

Comments

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

Sure. Sometimes, when a character says something on the show it's signposted as being self-interested, or All About Them. BtVS does that often enough to be a trademark, in fact. I don't think Xander's was that sort of speech. I think it was the writers saying to us "Here's one interpretation of the Buffy/Riley situation which we think is a valid approach to take; please consider it." The're not saying it's the final and ultimate truth, but it wasn't presented as being wrong either.

Which is where I think that polarisation we were talking about before comes in. Far too many people seem to assume that if you say the blame isn't entirely 100% on one person, you must be saying that it's 100% on the other. (Personally, I tend to think that Riley had a valid point about Buffy's inability to open up and share with him, but the way he went about trying to express himself was wrong, and she had a damn good excuse for behaving that way at that particular time in her life. But nuances like that seem to get lost too easily.)

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I'd actually say everything anybody says is inflected by their self-interest or projections. Which is not to say there aren't truths in there. Just that as in life it can be hard to sort out how the filter impacts the message. And I really don't think the writers were saying that we should take Xander's remarks seriously in some special way. He's got some insight and he's got some blinders. Spike says a lot that's true, but he's also got blinders and it'd be wrong to say that he's an oracle when it comes to naming important truths about Buffy. In all these cases we have to sort -- and what we sort on is not the writers making some meta statement about who's "right" but rather the details and situations they show us. Given everything I know about Buffy and Riley, my task is not to nod my head at Xander's wisdom -- it's to sit back and think about what he's got right and what he's got wrong and then maybe to think about what that says about him and some more thoughts about how that speech impacts Buffy and on and on. Tis what I like about the show. It shows the complexity of everything and it exactly doesn't boil down to packaging take home messages like "Buffy should have run after Riley a bit sooner".

I think I've given the impression I think the break up is all Riley's fault. That's not at all my opinion. I don't like how Riley handled himself in this episode. I don't think Buffy should have run after him. And a lot of Xander's take on it bugged me. But the relationship broke apart because they didn't fit. Buffy's heart has shut down for business (and actually, the death knell isn't Angel -- it's Parker -- though Parker is obviously a proxy for Angel). I think the fact that she's trying to force something (I'm a normal girl) that doesn't fit puts a wedge in their relationship that's very hard for Riley to get around. And, frankly, I think she had a lot on her plate and really didn't have room for a guy. She's got a new sister, a dying Mom, and new urgency about figuring out what it means to be a slayer. It'd have been weird if it had worked out. And one feels for Riley because he's ready for something that she just isn't ready for. It doesn't make sense to me to assign blame. The relationship just didn't work and it was never going to.