Buffy season 10 no 24
Feb. 17th, 2016 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightJust a quick review, as again, mostly harmless.
Spoilers behind cut. Also, I'll be away when the next two issues come out so will probably do a joint review of them some time towards the end of April.
In short, the gang catches up with the Mistress and the Soul Glutton and defeats them, mainly because during the battle the Soul Glutton gloms onto the fact that Dawn is Buffy's sister and tries to drain her soul so that Buffy will feel the same pain as he felt when the Slayer killed his family. But he can't drain Dawn because she's the Key. Instead, he loses all his energy and he and the Mistress smash the Restless Door to stop it falling into the gang's hands, then run away, leaving them to deal with an open portal to a hell dimension full of ravening demons that they can't close. It ends with Dawn asking why everyone is looking at her.
So far, so facile plotty stuff, I suppose. I did get a slight feeling of disconnect, though. The book starts with Mini!Giles back from Fairyland already and everyone acting like some time has gone by. For one thing, from what Xander says to Ghost!Not!Anya, he's been sat in his room for ages doing nothing and just hanging out with her, etc, etc. Buffy and Spike, meanwhile, have a sort of not-argument, which for once is not full of 'this relationship is doomed' anvils, but comes across as way more like the sort of argument people in a relationship tend to just have.
But it is all a bit like the 'everyone knows about vampires now' plot line in season 8. You're left thinking a lot of things are meant to be going on elsewhere, but because we haven't seen them and they're only referred to in passing, it feels like important stuff is missing. Even with Buffy and Spike, I think we're meant to think they've been arguing a lot, but there's no sense of that when all you see are a couple of not-really-arguments-at-all.
Not that any of it matters, of course. That very spoilery blurb for no 27 has already revealed that the upshot of trying to use Dawn's keyness to close the portal will result in her and Xander being stuck on the other side and that the Magic Council, the army and the fae are going to betray Buffy and the gang. Which duh! really, except that if there was more of a sense of a lot of time passing Buffy would seem like less of an idiot for semi-trusting them in the first place.
Actually, that's a bit unfair, I suppose. She has been more or less steam-rollered into it. But of course, that's part of the problem. She's not acting, just reacting.
Oh well.
ETA: a couple of plotty things I should have mentioned, I suppose. Firstly, Xander tells Not!Ghost!Anya that she's not really Anya, and that Doctor Mike has told him he should ignore her, because she needs to move on and that's the best way to make her do it. Secondly, Mini!Giles has a fae girlfriend. That's not going to end well, is it?
I also think the easy defeat of the Soul Glutton and the Mistress (though unlike the Sculptor they aren't dead) makes it even more likely that the voice in the cave talking to Ghost!Not!Anya was D'Hoffryn's. I'm expecting a grand alliance of the Magic Council, the Soul Glutton and the Mistress, the army, and the new and old vamps (led by Harmony and Vicki), and possibly (though I really hope not, he's such a crap villain)Archaeus to go after Buffy and the gang before the end of the series, and for Angel, Faith, Fred etc to turn up to help them.
If that does happen and Gage manages to juggle all those characters along with their personal relationship stories and bring them to any kind of satisfactory conclusion (even if only plotwise), I think he'll deserve some kudos for it, no matter what the series' failings.
Spoilers behind cut. Also, I'll be away when the next two issues come out so will probably do a joint review of them some time towards the end of April.
In short, the gang catches up with the Mistress and the Soul Glutton and defeats them, mainly because during the battle the Soul Glutton gloms onto the fact that Dawn is Buffy's sister and tries to drain her soul so that Buffy will feel the same pain as he felt when the Slayer killed his family. But he can't drain Dawn because she's the Key. Instead, he loses all his energy and he and the Mistress smash the Restless Door to stop it falling into the gang's hands, then run away, leaving them to deal with an open portal to a hell dimension full of ravening demons that they can't close. It ends with Dawn asking why everyone is looking at her.
So far, so facile plotty stuff, I suppose. I did get a slight feeling of disconnect, though. The book starts with Mini!Giles back from Fairyland already and everyone acting like some time has gone by. For one thing, from what Xander says to Ghost!Not!Anya, he's been sat in his room for ages doing nothing and just hanging out with her, etc, etc. Buffy and Spike, meanwhile, have a sort of not-argument, which for once is not full of 'this relationship is doomed' anvils, but comes across as way more like the sort of argument people in a relationship tend to just have.
But it is all a bit like the 'everyone knows about vampires now' plot line in season 8. You're left thinking a lot of things are meant to be going on elsewhere, but because we haven't seen them and they're only referred to in passing, it feels like important stuff is missing. Even with Buffy and Spike, I think we're meant to think they've been arguing a lot, but there's no sense of that when all you see are a couple of not-really-arguments-at-all.
Not that any of it matters, of course. That very spoilery blurb for no 27 has already revealed that the upshot of trying to use Dawn's keyness to close the portal will result in her and Xander being stuck on the other side and that the Magic Council, the army and the fae are going to betray Buffy and the gang. Which duh! really, except that if there was more of a sense of a lot of time passing Buffy would seem like less of an idiot for semi-trusting them in the first place.
Actually, that's a bit unfair, I suppose. She has been more or less steam-rollered into it. But of course, that's part of the problem. She's not acting, just reacting.
Oh well.
ETA: a couple of plotty things I should have mentioned, I suppose. Firstly, Xander tells Not!Ghost!Anya that she's not really Anya, and that Doctor Mike has told him he should ignore her, because she needs to move on and that's the best way to make her do it. Secondly, Mini!Giles has a fae girlfriend. That's not going to end well, is it?
I also think the easy defeat of the Soul Glutton and the Mistress (though unlike the Sculptor they aren't dead) makes it even more likely that the voice in the cave talking to Ghost!Not!Anya was D'Hoffryn's. I'm expecting a grand alliance of the Magic Council, the Soul Glutton and the Mistress, the army, and the new and old vamps (led by Harmony and Vicki), and possibly (though I really hope not, he's such a crap villain)Archaeus to go after Buffy and the gang before the end of the series, and for Angel, Faith, Fred etc to turn up to help them.
If that does happen and Gage manages to juggle all those characters along with their personal relationship stories and bring them to any kind of satisfactory conclusion (even if only plotwise), I think he'll deserve some kudos for it, no matter what the series' failings.
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no subject
Date: 2016-02-18 11:38 am (UTC)I also think the easy defeat of the Soul Glutton and the Mistress (though unlike the Sculptor they aren't dead) makes it even more likely that the voice in the cave talking to Ghost!Not!Anya was D'Hoffryn's. I'm expecting a grand alliance of the Magic Council, the Soul Glutton and the Mistress, the army, and the new and old vamps (led by Harmony and Vicki), and possibly (though I really hope not, he's such a crap villain)Archaeus to go after Buffy and the gang before the end of the series, and for Angel, Faith, Fred etc to turn up to help them.
Pretty much has to be at this point. With 6 issues to go, I don't know they'll even remotely be able to close it out, though. Unless 10 ends in a huge cliffhanger. Also I don't see how Dawn and Xander would last 2 minutes in this hell dimension.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-18 12:10 pm (UTC)Maybe Dawn's Keyness gives her some kind of celebrity status so the hell denizens (or whatever) don't kill her?
I wasn't expecting a cliffhanger, more like some kind of closure. But since it seems there's going to be a season 11 a cliffhanger is a lot more likely.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-18 12:29 pm (UTC)The covers aren't always accurate. There was that one with the guys playing video games that had nothing to do with the story.
Who knows. This story would be a lot better if it quit trying to be deep and just told the story.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-18 12:43 pm (UTC)You think it's trying to be deep? In what way?
I guess, now I think about it, it is all overly complicated. The reason why A&F worked so well in season 9 (apart from the blatant whitewashing) was because Angel had a clear goal at the beginning of the series and continued working towards it throughout (meanwhile Faith got sidelined, but that was all part of the whitewashing thing). Buffy season 10 has been pretty much all over the shop. It may be possible at the end of the series to see that everything set up during it fits ingeniously together when you look back in retrospect, but I'm not expecting it.
I'm also very unclear what - if any - Buffy's goals were meant to be this season. 'Growing up' was the 'hook' the season was hung on and I do see elements of that, but it's all so fuzzy.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-18 12:56 pm (UTC)The growing up stuff is what I mean. It's jarring and out of place. Quite usually it's OOC.
Take the Buffy/Spike talk in this. The Scoobies are growing apart, that's life. It's forced and ridiculous. Giles has been out of the group at this point nearly as long as he was in. He left in S6, S7, S8, dead in S9. Dawn was away at school for near a year and Willow off doing whatever. Now the girl is freaking out? It makes no sense. You can't grow up out of traits you never had before Gage stuck them in there.
You saw it previously with the military plot, trying to convince Willow. The retcons about Spike and Buffy's previous relationship problems that never existed.
If you strip away all this supposed profundity, the story isn't that bad. The big bads, the council and the military all want to exploit the book? Works OK. When Gage sticks to the plot, he does a decent enough job.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-18 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-19 01:41 am (UTC)Yup. S7 starts off with Giles and Willow in England and Buffy, Dawn and Xander happily doing the 2 sisters and a brother thing. The gang did grow up.
I blame Gage, but it's not like Joss and Chambliss didn't do the same thing.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-19 08:55 am (UTC)Yeah, they all seem unable to imagine Buffy as anything but emotionally stunted and thus going round and round in circles making the same mistakes over and over.
Something season 10 actually touched on in the issue where Spike and Buffy first got together in Xander's long repetition of the wisdom of Dr Mike.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-19 11:58 am (UTC)The consequence of not actually having a character arc. Only reason she's in it is so it can be called BTVS.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-19 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-19 08:27 pm (UTC)As far as the comics go, I think he doesn't care and DH wants to keep the target audience to 17-18 when the characters are in their mid-20s at least. So they keep telling the same stories. And it works. If you keep saying something over and over fans will believe it. That's how fanon gets its hooks in. I've seen it a couple times claimed that Spike only likes damaged women, which is nonsense. He was into Dru before he knew she was crazy and fell for Buffy long before chronic depression*. She was perfectly happy in S2, S4 and early S5, wherever you believe it happened.
*Not that she was actually depressed. She just wouldn't let herself be happy, of course.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-20 01:36 pm (UTC)I think you're right. Joss probably wanted to write a Willow series for DH, but he knew the book would never fly without Buffy in the title. Or maybe I'm just being cynical.
Anyway, no, I think he had said all he had to say about Buffy as a person. He did have a story he wanted to tell in season 8, but it wasn't really a story about Buffy, more about being disappointed with the Obama presidency. Or that's how it comes across to me. So he gave way to the person who did have a story - Brad Meltzer. But Meltzer's story was complete s**t of course.
Likewise Joss was done with Spike after Chosen. I know that. I argued it over and over thoughout season 8 with the people who insisted that, no, the fact that there was no sign of the character meant he had a Very Important Role to play. Sometimes things really are just what they seem. That's been true of the Buffy comics right from the start, Joss or no Joss.
And it works. If you keep saying something over and over fans will believe it. That's how fanon gets its hooks in. I've seen it a couple times claimed that Spike only likes damaged women, which is nonsense.
Yes, as is he always sabotaging his own relationships, and Buffy doing the same. Not true of either of them. Yet people probably believe it now.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-20 10:49 pm (UTC)I think you're right. Joss probably wanted to write a Willow series for DH, but he knew the book would never fly without Buffy in the title. Or maybe I'm just being cynical.
Not cynical at all. He outright said his continuation ideas were of a Fray comic and I believe maybe a Faith or Willow one. I honestly do believe most of S8 was at DH's urging. I do get the metaphor. Joss = Buffy and the excesses are him betraying his character and mythology. I never had much issue with the meta of it. But as it has been said, stories don't run on meta and themes and metaphors aren't explanations for character behavior.
I'm not seeing the Obama connection. He didn't take office until 2008 and the comics started in 2007.
I'm still amused the jokingly tried to throw BM under the bus saying he turned it into fanfic. No, Joss. It was fanfic with the ridiculous Italy retcon. Right out of about 100 fanfics, really.
He did admit he didn't have any idea what to do with Spike in S7, didn't he? Just that he was gonna die. Which has always made me wonder why he even bothered giving him a soul if it wasn't for development.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-21 06:28 pm (UTC)Ah, okay. I'm remembering that wrong. In fact, I know what I've got it confused with - Joss said something about how the slayer spell was great and all but there was bound to be a backlash, by which I took him to mean that whenever society takes a step forward some people will always dig their heels in and and try to drag things backwards. Or something.
He did admit he didn't have any idea what to do with Spike in S7, didn't he? Just that he was gonna die. Which has always made me wonder why he even bothered giving him a soul if it wasn't for development.
Well, I think he always meant for Spike to die saving the world, hence all the heavy martyrdom stuff early in the season. He probably just didn't really envisage how it was going to happen, which is why Spike spins his wheels so much in the first part of the season.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-22 03:59 am (UTC)Yeah, that wouldn't have a lot to do with Obama. Also there's a difference between suspect of Slayers and fully embracing vampires. Seems like one of the many times he and DH just made up things after the fact to explain their stupid storytelling.
Well, I think he always meant for Spike to die saving the world, hence all the heavy martyrdom stuff early in the season. He probably just didn't really envisage how it was going to happen, which is why Spike spins his wheels so much in the first part of the season.
If you believe him. At this point he's made so many contradictory statements I don't anymore. He dies to send him to Angel, okay. But if I remember right, he was also going to be a part of the Faith spin-off in some way, wasn't he?
no subject
Date: 2016-02-23 07:35 pm (UTC)Spike was going to be part of the putative Faith the Vampire Slayer show. As I recall, he was going to be a ghost - and the fact that he turns up as a ghost in AtS suggests to me that it was the only thing Joss could think of to do with him after Chosen. A ghost making sarcastic comments off to the side.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-20 04:10 pm (UTC)Seems to me like you have a problem with Buffy having agency.
Buffy made her own choices. She chose to align herself with the council, the military, the vampires. You know what she could have done? Simple. "No D'hoffryn, I won't work with you or your council, I don't trust you, fuck off!" or "No, Satsu, I don't trust the military, tell them to fuck off!" or "Fuck off Harmony/Vicki, we're still enemies!" But she didn't so it's on her.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-25 03:35 am (UTC)I am starting to feel the gloom about the Spuffy, though, with not!Anya's comments about them not really being where they should be in their relationship and him backpedaling when he's probably right. I've been handwaving away everybody's worries up until now, but it doesn't look good for those two, for supremely mundane reasons. Urgh.
Giles is headed for something terrible, though, I'm sure. He's being a brat, and so very far from his old caution-preaching self. Is he going to make all the same Ripper-ish mistakes this go-round?
no subject
Date: 2016-02-25 09:48 am (UTC)Yes, the writing is on the wall, especially going by Gage's Twitter comment about how this would be the issue where 'everyone' (by which I interpret him to mean Spuffy 'shippers) starts hating him, and when challenged about how nothing terribly bad happens in this issue said it must be in the next one then.
It's a shame, if only because their relationship as written so far was almost 'realistic,' if you can put it that way. Their disagreements were just the small disagreements you have in daily life. In fact, I have trouble squaring what not!Anya says with what happens on the page. I didn't feel that Spike was being especially unsupportive. Oh well. Does make me wonder, given there's going to be a season 11, what they're going to do with Spike in it. I know season 10 started with him sticking around near Buffy as a 'friend' but we all could see he wanted more, and if he's had more and it hasn't worked, I don't see him sticking around near Buffy afterwards, or at least not nearly so closely. So where will he go?
Maybe they really are planning a Spike/Angel book?
no subject
Date: 2016-02-27 07:23 pm (UTC)I have to admit, not!Anya in that section came off to me as a parody of shippers (and maybe certain segments of fandom in general. (And not just one segment, because the comments I see from Bangel fans on various forums are just as insane as Spuffy comments can sometimes be. Yeah, I said it. We can be CRAZY in support of our ships, every one of us.)
I mean, it's not particularly far-fetched. Read the comments here or at one of the comics forums, then look again at Anya's "interpretation" of the scene - and notice she's interpreting every single gesture, like a "pout" as if it had some deeper meaning. If this is truly NOT Anya, as we've been told, she doesn't know Buffy and Spike, and we haven't seen her observing them or interacting with them. What gives her analysis any more weight than Vicki's a few issues back? (Other than the fact that Gage has various characters repeating said analysis over and over....)
*And then something stupid will happen and I will end up contradicting myself. I know. S10 is so weirdly frustrating to me - good enough that I want to follow it, bad enough that I bitch about it afterwards, and then wait for the next issue.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-02 04:36 pm (UTC)Yeah, I'm in pretty much the same situation.;)