The Buffy Thread

[Oriphiel]

I might be getting regular internet soon. If you guys are gonna watch it on rabb.it, etc., then get started without me, and I'll join in later.

[Chiomara]

Oh my goddddd



Can someone please tell me what day of the week we are doing this

[Oriphiel]

How 'bout Sunday?

[Chiomara]

That works for me. (I'll be in New Orleans this Saturday so it'd have to be either tonight, Friday or Sunday)

[Chiomara]

*skulks in*

I'm back now, sorry. I see this thread is as popular as ever.

[Oriphiel]

I've already started rewatching Buffy on my own.

[The Batlord]

Alright so the morality of Xander is bothering me. Clearly in the seasons with Angel Xander's hatred of him isn't because he's a vampire but because Xander is jealous of him. And yet I don't remember this being an issue that is ever truly addressed and Xander's black/white morality persists the entire show regarding male vampires courting Buffy, even while he himself dates demons without confronting this issue in any way whatsoever.

This is extra weird since he seems to be a self-insert character for Joss Whedon and when you learn about behind the scenes stuff you hear that Joss didn't want morally grey vampire characters. Angel as a romantic interest was a studio decision and he actually was openly hostile to Spike's actor because he wanted Spike dead within a few episodes but fan reaction dictated his entire arc of surviving, becoming a main character, and eventually a love interest for Buffy.

And yet Xander, Joss' self insert, never morally dealt with the idea of vampires as moral beings, seemingly as Joss never dealt with the issue seemingly out of protest. So is Xander a ****tier character than he could have been simply due to Joss having a boring sense of morality and also just kind of being an unrepentant incel?

[Marie Monday]

definitely. In general I feel like of all the characters in the show, Xander's moral flaws are relatively unexamined, and to a lesser extent, those of Giles too. Buffy is consistently given a very hard time throughout the series and has to pay severely for her mistakes while others get off much more easily, to a point that episodes like Death Man's Party, Empty Places, and the abusive elements of Spike+Buffy are hard to watch. And other female characters (Willow, Faith, Cordelia, Anya) all have to go through serious redemption arcs.

The faults of not just Xander but all the male characters are examined to a much lesser extent, I think; some of their biggest obvious misdeeds do require redemption (because you can't get around Angel's past or Wesley keeping a slave woman in his closet, for instance), but many of their smaller but still significant misdeeds are almost ignored in the long run. Xander's toxic treatment of his love interests, his slut shaming, his lie about Angel being re-ensouled in Becoming, and Giles' initial participation in the horrible Watcher's council practices, his assasination attempt on Spike, Riley's stupid vampire whoring: there is (sometimes) some reaction against it by other characters, but no serious redemption, and often the show doesn't even take a moral stand against it (when Buffy leaves Riley for his ****ty behaviour he actually gets told off by Xander, and by the show by proxy .). And I think it's no surprise that these are all flaws that seem to align with the character of Joss Whedon (although it's also my bias that picks out these particular issues).

Also, how did I not know this thread existed <3

[Marie Monday]

Also after my rewatch I am DEEP into the metaphorical and subtextual layers of Buffy+Faith and it's glorious

@Charles, top 10 favourite episodes?

[The Batlord]

10. I
9. Am
8. Drunk
7. As
6. ****