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

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Agreed to a point. Typically, I'm not too attached to intent, because I love S6 and I think a lot of the brilliance was unintentional.

I think what peeves most fans (including myself) about Xander's speech is that it does act as the final word on the subject. Riley returns in AYW and we get no commentary on ITW at all.

And when the final word is that Buffy is deficient and wrong, it's very annoying. It's especially annoying because Buffy does take it to heart for the rest of the series. And it's extra annoying because it's unquestioned and unchallenged by anybody else.

Certainly, the writers are just laying it out there, and we all come to our own conclusions. But in this case, they're not putting out any alternative viewpoints on the matter, and when Xander's speech in ITW is set up as some ultimate truth reveal, that's what viewers are gonna take it as.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Like I said, I don't think the writers get to comment on whether *anything* any character does is right or wrong. Given Joss's stated philosphical commitments, he shouldn't want to force the audience to conclude with him that something is right or wrong. There just isn't meaning built into the text. Only actions upon which we base all of our judgments.

The writers have obviously given us enough facts to think that Buffy had no business running after Riley. Most of us think that she had no business running after Riley and we only formed that opinion by watching the show they wrote. The writers can think whatever they want. The only gospel they deliver is what the characters say and do.

Even As You Were does not come with any textual claim that Riley was the one who got away. It shows Riley coming back. It shows Buffy reacting to him. Since the show is always POV, the idealization of Riley is how Buffy sees him. And that makes sense because she's in a bad place and as we've already said *she* thinks it was her fault that she lost Riley. Based on the facts that the writers showed, I think Riley is still a the total jerk who said some crappy things to Buffy in order to get an ego boost and who turns out to have had the sort of love for Buffy that would permit him to be married to someone else just one year after leaving. I think Xander is still fanboying Riley because Xander decided to identify with Riley many stations back. I think Willow is getting seduced because Sam and Riley are giving her what she needs and that's pretty much all Willow cares about. I think the episode makes them all look bad. But I believe they'd all behave that way. If Doug Petrie has a jones for Riley bully for him. He was a good enough writer to do a portrait of Riley that includes plenty of facts for me to still think the guy is a douchebag and that Buffy dodged a bullet when he left town.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

You know I'm agreeing with you, right?

I'm just not overly impressed with the execution of whatever the hell the writers were doing as it apparently gives the message to the audience that Xander was right in what he was saying.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I'm clearly having an off day -- my apologies.

You are right that the cues could be read one way by people who are used to having their emotions and reactions cued by the writer. The show actually does that quite a bit. We get the super-dramatic music, visuals of Buffys noble sacrifical death in The Gift. That's where all the cues go. But the actual words and actions are more layered than that. There's just so often a distance between the cues and the text that I'm in the habit of reading the gap as part of the story. I just naturally read the cues as indicating the meaning Buffy attaches to what is going on. The text usually gives me more than enough to see that her POV is as limited as any human's POV is and that she has her own set of distortions and so on. So I just don't read the cues as the writers' commentary on anything. But I agree that it's annoying that there's a good chunk of the audience that would follow those cues into some unfortunate conclusions about what's going on.

But I think I've said elsewhere, I'm a peculiar reader of the text.

I'm not sure that I see Xander's speech as a last word. Triangle undercuts it in a variety of ways. I think it's up to the audience to decide whether to see B/R through Xander's lens or the rather comic lens offered in the next episode.