Part II: Whedon's Existentialist Abattoir... -- Biene

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Date Posted: 18:21:14 05/27/03 Tue
Author: 3Strikes/Not a funny section
Subject: Part II: Whedon's Existentialist Abattoir...

What then, shall be the basis for this critique ? The flaws of Process and Execution having been detailed in the preceding paragraphs, an examination of the ends (Plan and Intent) and means (Method) will serve to further the indictment.

At the most basic, primary of levels, Joss Whedon and ME are telling the story of Buffy Summers and friends. Interpretations vary, but according to interviews, the last 2 seasons have been built around 2 central themes.

The first defining theme is the metaphor for the Genius's alienation from the run of common mortals (Interview by Marti Noxon), the Star's alienation from the Ensemble (Joss Whedon in the NY times: "Buffy also became a little bit closed off from the other characters, in the same way that a star is kind of separated from an ensemble, so we dealt with the idea of the isolation of the Slayer, of the person who has to lead"), and more generally a metaphor for the general malaise, lack of direction and travails that surround early adulthood. This thematic is most clearly spelled out in Conversation with Dead People. Buffy feels alienated from her friends because they simply do not understand the burdens she must bear as the result of her calling. Her journey the past 2 years takes place in an essentially absurdist/existentialist universe (senseless/meaningless death of Tara, OAFA= No Exit/Huis Clos) where meaning is almost SOLELY derived from the main protagonist's (Buffy's, ie "it's all about Buffy") point
of view. I will revisit this particular dynamic (absurdist existentialism, alienation as a metaphor for early adulthood) in detail in my Show review, but this succint summary should be sufficient for purposes of analysis.
The second defining theme can simply be summed up as female empowerment.

So how and where did the show fail ?
Was it a failure of depiction ? Surely not. Never have I seen such a collection of purposeless, alienated characters parade before our very eyes. A drab, insipid, shallow, claustrophobic, 2 dimensional universe...causeless, meaningless, absurd happenstances whose tragic dimensions are ruthlessly gutted or minimized to make room for the shallow and egotistical self-examinations of the protagonist...

Was it a failure of ambition ? No indeed. I truly believe that, thematically wise, what was shown was exactly what Joss Whedon intended all along. And he achieved exactly the effect desired. This *artistic success* (pardon the sarcasm) should not be confused with the commercial failure of ME's spin off efforts, which indeed fell very short.

No. For all the post-finale obfuscation ("The show is not perceived as the ensemble show it is by anybody except the die-hard fans," Joss Whedon, MSN Entertainment), the failure is one of Scope and Scale.

The refrain of "It's all about Buffy," which to my shame I heartily embraced not knowing where it would lead, and which has been amply demonstrated for the past 2 seasons, has terrible consequences. Namely, that almost all dramatic and character development, must be routed through the prism of Buffy's perception, and serve HER journey. In Existentialist terms, the Engagement of each and every single one of the characters as part of the larger arc MUST GO and HAS GONE through Buffy. Buffy is no longer the most important part of the Story...she *IS* the Story. I'll revisit this catastrophic shift in my Show Review.

At this point, I know some of you must be scratching your heads in confusion, so I'll deliver the accusation in concrete terms by reviewing succintly what happened to the characters for the past 2 seasons.

Giles. Giles returned to England so that Buffy could grow up. Never mind that this bizarre, and Un-Giles like development deprived the Slayer of her Watcher. A Watcher isn't just a mentor to the young slayer. Beyond this initial relationship, he/she's also an advisor, a sounding board, and typically the only person who knows/understand the truth of his/her charge. This is especially true in Buffy and Giles's case. The Buffy-Giles dynamic was always that of Arthur and Merlin, leader and advisor. But to cast Buffy adrift into the Existential Void, Giles had to go. The Giles arc in Season 6 is terminated (to be fair the roots of this can be laid in S3-4, as we'll see in the Show Review), and he basically ceases to exist as a character (no mention of him whatsoever til 2 to Go) until the end.
His role in S7 consists of reconnecting Willow to Buffy's journey (Lessons, BY), provide fodder for the inane FE-Giles speculation, and as straw man for the Lies Rigmarole. Giles is one of 3 characters whose journey was brought to a complete halt by Buffy Reductionism.

Anya's journey can be reduced to 3 stages: the Wedding period, the Vengeance Demon Period, and Becoming Human. Of all the characters, she's the one whose growth/journey least depended on Buffy...and yet how little she escaped the curse of Buffy Reductionism: The wedding, that shed so much light on her growth as a character, was reduced in the larger sense to the "train at the end of the tunnel," and a prelude to Spankya, itself the prelude to the AR, and hence the soul quest so that "Buffy could get what she deserved." The Vengeance Period, which culminated in Selfless, served as much to highlight Anya's evolution, and resolution to find herself, as it set the stage for Miss Hacks a lot's "I am the Law" problem. And Anya's resolution to find herself (Becoming Human) was completely gutted, her journey for the next few months,
reduced to the telling of inane sex jokes, complaining about double standards, and finally exposing the truth of Buffy's inner psychological dynamics in EP. Gone the arc promised by Joss Whedon. Gone the vengeance promised by D'Hoffryn. Mistake me not! In terms of growth, Anya is the one who evolved most independently from Buffy. But in the end, like all the others, Anya was made to serve Buffy's journey while her own was grossly stunted. (see further comments in Xander section)

Season 6 was Dawn's Acting Out period. What did it say about her, except that she craved the attention of her sole surviving *relative* (Hank Summers having been long since written out). The thievery didn't serve Dawn's journey...it informed Buffy's role as Parent (Gone with Social services, OAFA) and mentor (fake Grave epiphany). In S7, the totality of Dawn's growth can be summarized as a desperate attempt to connect to Buffy through Slayerhood (Lessons through Potential), followed by resignation (Potential), acceptance that she ranks low on the totem of Buffy's priorities, and resolution to keep helping...*Buffy*'s fight (Miss Junior Watcher). Any and all opportunities to develop Dawn as a character (Lessons, Help, Him, importance of her Keyness, Joyce) are quashed.

Xander is the second character whose journey was brought to a stand still by the change in perspective. In Season 6, the wedding brought his issues to the fore...unfortunately these issues remained unexplored. It is deeply telling that in the entire run of the show, these issues were often alluded to (as early as S1, S3 Amends, S4 Restless, S5 The Replacement), but NOT ONCE fully addressed. And while Xander served a pivotal role in stopping Willow in Grave, none of the events that transpired shined any new light on the character (He loves Willow a lot), or challenged his core identity in any measurable way. S7 saw the (temporary) rise of professional Xander, and an initial willingness to challenge Buffy (BY, Help, Selfless, Sleeper), which indeed would have constituted an interesting development. Alas post-Selfless (which should have been a watershed event in his perception of right and wrong), Xander's role is reduced to the meaningless task of fixing windows for months on end, and clear up the
aftermath of his failed wedding to Anya. Even his mutilation in Dirty Girls has no great Story significance...it just serves as the means to destroy his loyalty to Buffy so that the events of Touched can take place. And the dynamic with Anya, which dragged for the entire season, receives the same amount of authorial attention ME dedicated to the death of Tara. Don't believe me ?
From TV Guide (about the death of Anya): "No one seemed to be too broken up about it."
Joss Whedon: "I had a lot to wrap up, so I let Xander (Nicholas Brendon) have a moment of closure about her, just enough to get him to the point where he could rejoin the group for a moment of, well, "We won." You have to get yourself to a good place if you want the show to go out on an uplifting moment, which I did. So I used shorthand."
Shorthand. All you need to know about Xander and Anya.

The devolution of Willow's journey is in many ways the most infuriating of all because it had by far the most potential. It too fell prey to both Buffy reductionism, and to the Existentialist tarring perpetrated in S6-7. The Dark Magic Willow arc should serve as a cautionary tale to what happens when Dogma replaces Story. Prior to Season 6, Insecurity and Perfectionism had always been portrayed as the wellsprings of Willow's magical ascendency. Willow craved magic to do good. She stayed with Buffy in Sunnydale with Buffy to do Good. She basked in the approbation that fighting the good fight garnered her, and felt intense shame when she abused those powers (Doppelgangland, Something Blue). And the more power she gathered, the more she justified them in terms of the good she was doing (Flooded). Comes Wrecked and the destruction of a 5 years build up (all the way back to Ted). Instead of the Affirmative Quest for Power set down from the very beginning of the show, Willow's Journey becomes the Passive
Journey of the Addict, and Magics devolves from the currency of Power to Crack. The Actor becomes the Victim. Why ?
Two reasons. The first is that the writers proved utterly gutless, believing that the logical continuation of Willow's rightful arc would take her to a place they couldn't retrieve her from. Guess they didn't watch Beige Angel and what happened in the Cellar. The second is that, in the Existentialist Universe Whedon created for Season 6 and 7, the kind of Affirmative action (ie Engagement) required by Willow's Power corruption Arc is impossible. Errors of Existentialism are not judged in terms of morality, of Right or Wrong, but in terms of Engagement ..ie Actions ARE, and action is the sole basis for evaluation)...Non-Engagement/passivity (paralysis brought on by inner psychological turmoil/flaws) and the failure of self-examination are the cardinal sins.
Willow on a quest for Power automatically dictates Engagement...she would have had to make an affirmative statement (ie "I am a better Slayer than The Slayer" would have been the cause, not the result of the arc) which is a huge No-No in Whedon's vision of early adulthood as a time of PASSIVE confusion and aimless morass. Whedon wants a victim...strike that...VICTIMS (all of them)...with the result that Willow became a spectator in the play of her own life. Of course, once this course was set, Tara was dead meat. Willow could not go bad on her own. She had to be pushed. And she had to be pushed to further Buffy's journey, to give her the fake Villains (Justice) and Grave ("Show you the world") epiphanies. Willow's victimhood then continued right into S7, with her unwillingness to use magic (whose nature was switched back again) and guilt becoming the basis for her season long inner struggle. But again, this existentialist struggle was made to serve *Buffy*'s journey. As shown in Bring on the Night,
Willow became one of Buffy's charges, and Willow's demons, one more Cross for Buffy to bear. And the final resolution to Willow's journey comes because of Buffy's decision to *share* the Power, which forces Willow to overcome all her (fake and contrived) inner demons. She is now a fully Engaged Empowered Goddess. *Snicker*. Even her relationship with Platypus is directly tied into Buffy (Kennedy is a mirror for Buffy, the slayer substitute in the Buffy-Willow relationship). Willow's journey wasn't as much gutted, as it was twisted and mutated into a parody wholly incompatible with Seasons 1 to 5.

In many ways, Faith's arc was completed over on Angel. Her return to BTVS and forced pairing with Wood, right on the heels of the attempted pairing with Spike with the spin off in mind, her new Jive talking (which she did NOT exhibit on ATS), almost negated the growth she experienced in LA. Faith wasn't brought back for her own sake, but to set up the leadership struggle with Buffy.

Tara is the third character whose journey was brought to a complete halt. This time literally. Tara's role can be boiled down to being the trigger needed to push Willow over the edge...in order to set up the Willow-Buffy smack down. Of all the regulars (save Riley), she's the one who received the least characterization.

And finally Spike. Even Spike, who received the most characterization after Buffy and Willow, is not immune to the travesty that took place in S6-7. Every single one of the steps the character took was tied directly to Buffy or Buffy's journey. Spankya, The AR, the Soul Quest, Resisting the FE, even his actions in Get It Done, Lies and Touched in the end served Buffy and Buffy's journey alone.
Don't believe me ?
From the Horse's ass...er I mean, the horse's mouth itself:
Joss Whedon in TVGuide, about Spike: " I think he feels that he was ready to sacrifice himself for her, and it was a beautiful thing, but... it wasn't like he's cured of loving Buffy any more than Angel is."
And how exactly is this different from what Spike was ready to do in Season 5 ? The answer: it's not. Spike doesn't sacrifice himself for the greater good. He sacrifices himself for Buffy, and Buffy alone. That is the extent of his development/growth for Season 6-7. It certainly isn't compassion (see Lies), altruism or empathy beyond Buffy (Touched). Gone is his interaction with Dawn, or for that matter with any of the other characters. Not that I really care, but like the others, Spike was made a Slave to Buffy's story and the Existentialist rewriting of the Buffyverse. And for what ?

AND FOR WHAT ? The question that makes or breaks the last 2 seasons.

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