Well, this is sort of tangential, but I've been puzzling over this dynamic for a while and figure I may as well bring it up: why are Lilah and Lorne so hostile/adversarial? I mean, they're really similar in a lot of ways - neither of them are big on the Good vs Evil thing, neither of them are particularly conflicted over joining Wolfram and Hart, they both are mostly motivated by their own comfort and they both seem the type to watch Joan Rivers' Oscars Pre-Show and snark. All in all, you'd figure they'd be at worst apathetic to each other. But Lorne was the one who objected the loudest when Lilah showed up at the Hyperion in "Calvary," and had the least reaction to her death. And it seemed to me, if I remember correctly, that Lilah was almost gleeful at sucking the info out of Lorne's brain. So, that's just a thing that never made much sense to me
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I think Lorne's response was due to Lilah having his head cracked open and the information sucked out - which is understandable. Lilah, I think treated it in an 'It's only business' sort of way, and showed some softness in admitting to Wes that it was because of him that she didn't dispose of the evidence (kill Lorne).
Maybe Lorne and Lilah didn't get along because they were so similar. The shared qualities you listed aren't necessarily ones they'd be proud of. They might have been uncomfortable being reminded.
...Naaah. Personally, I don't think there's much more to it than we saw: Lorne thought Lilah was an evil blatch, and Lilah didn't take Lorne seriously enough to care.
I agree. Lorne had a very, very good reason to hate Lilah (see what paratti said about brain sucking). Lilah didn't seem to care about Lorne one way or the other, but she was right in STB - she could and should have had him killed, from a job-perspective.
Sex and the sexually comfortable character ties together Lilah, Spike, Anya and Cordy perfectly - both thematically and by their treatment/punishment for it in the Jossverse. All four (Cordy to a lesser extent mainly as she's younger and her life is high-jacked by the visions and Jasmine, but certainly in S1-3 it applies) are comfortable with and own their sexuality
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I also think a good deal of it has to do with outsider status, which is why we're both, um, ignoring Lorne for the Captain Useless Plot Device he was? (Not to say that Lorne wasn't funny. Sometimes. But he stopped being an outsider in 2.22 and never was very useful again
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I can't see an unforgivable sin either. The only one that comes close is the whole remorse/redeemabilty by the Jossverse code for outsiders like Spike and Lilah that Sallyanne and I were talking about in an earlier thread, but which came down to Lilah could go straight (given the right carrot/stick) but would never actually regret what she'd done, there'd always be something in it for Lilah.
But I do agree it's all down to Core Characters of all abilities that get away literally with murder, and those outsideers that get away with nothing and have to pay in blood for what crumbs they do get.
That probably was the last real Cordy moment - and it rocked. A lot of fandom did eventually get swept away by lovely dialogue/images, but a lot of us didn't. It was all a lie, after all.
Part 2 - re-typed since I lost the originalparattiJune 8 2004, 03:32:01 UTC
Wes and Lilah kept and increased both characters popularity, despite some risk of losing it from incidents like keep the glasses on and the sewer dumping of an injured woman, as both characters gave and took. Real believable evil was shown not told, but the wit and pain was present and serving the story and boosting both characters popularity. Hurt was shown and the audience not chided for feeling that. The ice-chips line gets weight as well as laughs from that. The wit heightened the hurt and the power of the story is boosted as it should
( ... )
The fate of the sexually active woman in the Jossverse, man. I mean, there's something there.
Yes, a million times yes. I was aghast when Whedon made a point in The Hole in the World of making sure we knew that Wesley and Fred had not had sex. Not that I wanted to see that sex mind you, but the fact that he felt the need to hold up their relationship as pure - even going as far as having Wes read a children's book to Fred - gave me a very bad feeling. It seemed deliberate to contrast his "good" relationship with Fred to his "wrong" relationship with Lilah. At the time I hoped that maybe we were supposed to see the Wes/Fred thing as being off, not a mature/adult relationship, but then the finale made them into eternal soulmates, together after death (*eye roll*), and I had to accept that not having sex, not enjoying sex, was definitely part of the Whedon makeup of a perfect relationship.
I know I found the children's book quite frankly creepy. The woman survived for five years in Pylea on her own. She wasn't a child, and that love in the Jossverse is only good if its assexual is just ewwwwww. Especially on top of turning Spike into Buffy's teddy bear.
Sex is good, sex is natural, it's part of being a grown-up. It's not Evil. I wish Joss would embrace this.
The woman survived for five years in Pylea on her own. She wasn't a child
Oh yeah. My comment had focused on the Lilah side of it cause Lilah Month and all, but forcing Fred into the mold of Perfect Woman whom Every Man Loves and whose Love is Pure does such a disservice to a potentially very interesting character. She and Saint Cordy both were drained of their moral complexity - grey areas are only for men I guess - their only use in S5 was as the means to highlight the men's grief. Illyria for all that she could have been interesting basically amounted to nothing but a walking reminder of Wes' pain. Fred should have been worth more than that.
And IllyriaasFred's last words to Wes were a lie he wanted in extremis, which didn't do that character justice either, I think. Fred's soul was gone, they weren't going to be together, no matter the 'purity' of their love.
And the concept of 'purity' and 'dirtiness' of love based on what the being feeling and showing it is not who they are, is something I find profoundly disturbing, and not something I'm ever going to embrace - no matter how much it permeates the underlying message of the Jossverse. Love is love, and the most powerful thing in the universe. It's not something that's automatically wrong when it comes from someone without the Jossverse seal of approval like Lilah or Spike, simply because of who they are. Pfft! I spit on the notion.
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Lilah, I think treated it in an 'It's only business' sort of way, and showed some softness in admitting to Wes that it was because of him that she didn't dispose of the evidence (kill Lorne).
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...Naaah. Personally, I don't think there's much more to it than we saw: Lorne thought Lilah was an evil blatch, and Lilah didn't take Lorne seriously enough to care.
- Z
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But I do agree it's all down to Core Characters of all abilities that get away literally with murder, and those outsideers that get away with nothing and have to pay in blood for what crumbs they do get.
That probably was the last real Cordy moment - and it rocked. A lot of fandom did eventually get swept away by lovely dialogue/images, but a lot of us didn't. It was all a lie, after all.
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Yes, a million times yes. I was aghast when Whedon made a point in The Hole in the World of making sure we knew that Wesley and Fred had not had sex. Not that I wanted to see that sex mind you, but the fact that he felt the need to hold up their relationship as pure - even going as far as having Wes read a children's book to Fred - gave me a very bad feeling. It seemed deliberate to contrast his "good" relationship with Fred to his "wrong" relationship with Lilah. At the time I hoped that maybe we were supposed to see the Wes/Fred thing as being off, not a mature/adult relationship, but then the finale made them into eternal soulmates, together after death (*eye roll*), and I had to accept that not having sex, not enjoying sex, was definitely part of the Whedon makeup of a perfect relationship.
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Sex is good, sex is natural, it's part of being a grown-up. It's not Evil.
I wish Joss would embrace this.
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Oh yeah. My comment had focused on the Lilah side of it cause Lilah Month and all, but forcing Fred into the mold of Perfect Woman whom Every Man Loves and whose Love is Pure does such a disservice to a potentially very interesting character. She and Saint Cordy both were drained of their moral complexity - grey areas are only for men I guess - their only use in S5 was as the means to highlight the men's grief. Illyria for all that she could have been interesting basically amounted to nothing but a walking reminder of Wes' pain. Fred should have been worth more than that.
And now I'm getting all annoyed all over again.
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And the concept of 'purity' and 'dirtiness' of love based on what the being feeling and showing it is not who they are, is something I find profoundly disturbing, and not something I'm ever going to embrace - no matter how much it permeates the underlying message of the Jossverse. Love is love, and the most powerful thing in the universe. It's not something that's automatically wrong when it comes from someone without the Jossverse seal of approval like Lilah or Spike, simply because of who they are. Pfft! I spit on the notion.
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