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.
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.