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

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You reminded me of something Whedon said during that recent Cultural Humanist Q&A - when asked about intent and the contradictions in his stories. The person asking the question - wanted to know how an athesist and existentialist reconciled the "magic snow" scene in Amends with say "Objects in Space" or the scene in
Epithany - Angel S2. Whedon responded that he is telling a story and there are multiple voices and perspectives in his head. What you see on the screen are all those voices arguing with each other. I don't
often know. And as a story teller, if I picked just one, it would become didatic not story.

I agree with your take on ITW. I think people forget that it is told through Buffy's pov mainly, then Xanders and finally Riley's. We are getting multiple perspectives.

What I have always found amusing about posts on ITW and Xander/Anya, is the irony that everyone appears to be missing. Xander's speech to Buffy is a huge projection. Every word he says could be applied to his relationship with Anya. And Buffy calls him on it.
Which motivates him to tell Anya she is amazing and further his relationship with her. He even proposes. Yet, look what happens in Hell's Bells - he basically does to Anya what he is accusing Buffy of doing to Riley. He's never honest with her or himself. He doesn't see their relationship clearly until Hell's Bells. Xander has also to a degree romanticized Riley and Buffy. He hasn't heard her side, so much as Riley's and he doesn't know everything regarding Riley.
He thinks he is being a good friend, but he isn't.
His speech is selfishly motivated. As the writer shows later in both AYW and in Hell's Bells. It's great - because what it shows us is that even though our friends may be well-meaning, their advice is not always in our best interest. We have to make our own choices.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

You and I have identical takes on all of this. Brilliant, of course!! I think it's one of those happy "accidents" that Xander's speech here is the point where he and Anya head into much more serious territory, culminating in Hell's Bells. Xander romanticized B/R just as he romanticized A/X. If the latter was a disaster, one could be forgiven for thinking that it was good that Buffy missed the helicopter.

And the Scooby's friendships with one another have always been laden with self-interest, distortions, projections, envy and a host of other less than pleasant things. They inflict a lot of damage on each other. There's plenty of good in their friendships as well. It's just that like all real human relationships we have to take the bad with the good. As Joss explores our objectification of others in Dollhouse it becomes clearer that this has always been a theme in his work -- how we can't fully escape the tendency to use others or see them in our own image and so on. One of the reasons I heart the man.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

As Joss explores our objectification of others in Dollhouse it becomes clearer that this has always been a theme in his work -- how we can't fully escape the tendency to use others or see them in our own image and so on. One of the reasons I heart the man.

Agreed. We are definitely on the same page here. It is one of the reasons I find myself gravitating to Whedon's work and why, regardless of the flaws, I heart his work.
And you are correct it is a definite theme - I saw it in Toy Story - which he won the Oscar for.

And it's what he said so clearly in his speech at the Cultural Humanist society...
that he believes we all objectify each other to some extent. Often without realizing it.

AYW - a difficult episode for me to watch without yelling at the tv set for some reason - is actually quite brilliant, if you read it through that lense. Everyone in that episode is romanticizing Riley and Sam. It is filled with so many misdirections and misleads. From Willow's conviction that her power is merely an addiction (supported by Sam) to Xander/Anya's view of each other.
I bring up AYW because I see it as the mirror to ITW. It like ITW has an unreliable narrator.