[OT] Buffy - Spoilers within

[Sollir Furryfoot]

Buffy won't be dreaming, otherwise the show Angel will cease as well, and they wouldn't allow the show to be like a whole dream world if Buffy was one...think about that.

 

[Metallian]

Anyway, if one must take the thing literally (which one shouldn't) the fact that there were scenes in the "vampire world" independent of Buffy's presence where the venom and the demon and her reaction were discussed

I believe that this is the best case for the "standard Buffyverse" being the real world and the asylum being the fantasy. There were plenty of scenes in the Buffyverse that took place independent of Buffy's presence, and there were no scenes in the "asylumverse" independent of Buffy's presence.

I think the convincingly real asylum world was just Buffy's envenomed brain's attempt to make a world that was "more real than real." And, I guess, give viewers a creepy glimmer of doubt. But I don't think the Powers That Be would seriously consider really invalidating the Buffyverse we've all come to know and love.

The Metallian

 

[DM_Matt]

Buffy won't be dreaming, otherwise the show Angel will cease as well, and they wouldn't allow the show to be like a whole dream world if Buffy was one...think about that.

[DEVIL's ADVOCATE] Not necessarily. Buffy choe not to "wake up" to the real world. Thus, the both BtVS can still go on, as can Angel, whether or not the asylum was the real world." Angel will just be stories that exist in the world of Buffy's mind. Its completely convievable that a crazy persion would imagine stuff going on in their internal world that they are not present for [/DEVIL's ADVOCATE]

 

[Metallian]

Again, though, not in the same league as three weird teenagers who, for all intents and purposes to the world outside of Buffy's domain, have done nothing wrong.

Well, Warren was seen (in public) leaving a bar with a woman who died under mysterious circumstances later that night.

And they did rob a museum (freezing a security guard in the process). I don't recall them wearing gloves, either (though they may have been), so they probably left fingerprints.

The Metallian

 

[Cor Azer]

Well, Warren was seen (in public) leaving a bar with a woman who died under mysterious circumstances later that night.

And they did rob a museum (freezing a security guard in the process). I don't recall them wearing gloves, either (though they may have been), so they probably left fingerprints.

As well as hiring someone (well, a demon) to rob a bank for them...

 

[Dr. Confoundo]

I will make one prediction regarding the show, though. I think, at the end of the series or season, Buffy will end up with Jonathon. It makes so much sense. Especially after this season, Buffy is in about the same place in her life as the little guy. Plus, since we know Joss is kind of a geek, it's not a stretch to speculate that he might "get the girl" in the end.

I haven't had a chance to sit down and chat with my buddy Danny Strong lately (he and I went to high school together, and we see each other every now and again for dinner), so I don't know the exact details, but from being an avid Buffy fan, I doubt that this is the case. If anything, Jonathan will get killed by Warren when he tries to stop his former partners from doing something really evil. Buffy will witness this, and proceed to kick serious Warren heiney.

Doc
(Who now works at the agency representing both Willow and Giles... cool, huh?)

 

[Mr. Grimm]

Although this can be argued away as well by saying she dreamed up her HS years as well as everything else, I'll throw this out there:

If Buffy's been in the asylum for 6 years how can her current foes be 3 pathetic friends she went to high school with? I mean most high schools seem like they're made up of the criminally insane but I don't think they actually have the ones in straight jackets attend.

 

[Chun-tzu]

Ultimately, it does not matter which world is "real." Try to think about it from a postmodern perspective: there is no absolute truth. Many truths are found in any given object, in any given person, and in any given story. Neither perspective is more valid than the other, because both are true. We will each choose one perspective over the other, because we find it more compelling, but that does not mean it is the absolute truth.

This episode was great, because it questioned everything that went before it. It didn't invalidate everything that went before, like a retcon, but it made you rethink the entire Buffy saga and consider it from a new light. And it didn't cop out by telling you the "right" answer.

I believe it's already been stated that this idea has been done before, in Deep Space 9 (too lazy to go back and check right now). I've also heard that George Clooney once suggested a Batman movie that used this same premise: that "Batman" was a fantasy created by a tortured Bruce Wayne, as a way of dealing with his parents' loss. Would have made a good story (although it's already been told, like last night by Joss), but the studios are going in a different direction with Batman.

 

[TBoarder]

I finally got to see Normal Again tonight(Stupid Philadelphia UPN station pre-empted it for hockey... @%#$), and was absolutely blown away.

I've enjoyed this season so far, but I've had some problems with it. Nothing huge, and I completely understand that most of what I don't like has to do with this season's story arc, which I AM enjoying overall.

First, I've been frustrated with the lack of interaction among the cast members. They've been concentrating SO much on Buffy and Spike, on Xander and Anya that we haven't seen much beyond them. Spike and Dawn have a wonderful chemistry together (not THAT way ), but we haven't seen any good scenes between them since the premeir. Same goes for Xander and Spike, Willow and Xander, Giles and Willow, Buffy, Willow, and Xander, etc. The cast works SO well together, but they're not taking advantage of it at all this season.

We haven't seen the Scooby Gang in action nearly enough. When's the last time we saw Xander patrolling with Buffy? When's the last time we saw all of them working together on a problem without being distracted by their respective significant other's? Last season, Buffy decided (wisely) that she doesn't want her life to revolve around who she's with, that she wants to concentrate on being Buffy. It seems she forgot that, and it seems like Xander and Anya fell into the same trap. Bargaining had that amazing intro with the entire gang hunting vamps, and being rather successful. They showed experience, coordination, and skill, but when Buffy returned, they all seemed content to allow Buffy to be the only one to hunt anymore.

The final thing I've been leary of is the growing "commonness" of demons. I like Clem quite a bit, but seeing him and the others in broad daylight (Buffy's birthday party, Xander's wedding, the loan shark from Tabula Rasa) is making the Buffyverse a bit too... cartoonish. It was easier to suspend disbelief when demons and vamps hung out at Willy's and didn't interact with the rest of the populous except to eat them. Now it seems like Demons are just another minority in the world and not something that you should assume at first sight to be evil and kill.

Finally, with Normal Again, I see things returning to normal. We actually had Xander and Spike hunting a demon together. Spike actually TALKED to both Willow and Xander. They're starting to become the tight-knit group they were in the past 5 season (except for Season 4, where they went through a similar period of seperation). I can't wait to see if Willow and Tara get back together now. I can't wait to see Spike become closer with other members of the Scooby Gang (LOVED Tara teasing him at Buffy's birthday party). I can't wait to see how Anya handles Xander leaving her at the alter and I can't wait to see them all get their act together and beat the snot out of Warren and Andrew.

 

[Agnostic Paladin]

I really liked Buffy this week, for the second week in a row. I guess ME wants to have Buffy in a better place emotionally for the end of the season. Which is good, since next year is supposed to be the final season. They needed to hit Buffy with all the traumatic events of the past year's worth of episodes so that they can have her overcome her destiny of dying young like every slayer before her has. (Unless they decide to end the show with an "inevitability of fate" thing and have her still fighting demons as the last episode fades away, maybe with a flash of her eventual violent death.) The way that her fate and her desire to escape it has been brought up every few episodes of the entire series makes it likely that the eventual happy ending is that she'll find some way to cheat fate - perhaps by fundamentaly altering the way the Buffyverse works and removing the need for a secret chosen one. This week's ep was another example of Buffy's wish to be normal, to not live in a world of monsters, and innate heroic nature that keeps her going back for more. It was also the best that I've seen the "what if the protagonist's nifty sci-fi world is simply the elaborate delusion of a schizophrenic in a perfectly normal world?" done. Its a lot more effective when the protagonist might be inclined to prefer the idea that everything they are isn't true and that they're simply a drugged-up straightjacketed loon. When the protagonist never even considers choosing the mundane reality (*cough*Sisko*cough*), then the story has no impact beyond a "neat episode" comment.