Wild Theory (part 25)
03/12/2010
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 #39
I’ll start with a quick overview:
Big fight - Slayers getting chopped in half. Willow chants over the seed. Buffy and Angel fight; they seem quite evenly matched now. Spike attacks Angel. Angel takes Spike up into the sunlight and tries to kill him. Buffy flies up and knocks them apart. Spike's ship flies forward to catch their smoking captain. Angel throws a missile to the ground killing a lot of people (army-types and slayers mostly).
Angel and Buffy continue to fight. Buffy gets slammed into the ground. Xander sees what is happening and realises "We're not going to win this"
Giles (ahhh I thought it was Andrew at first but now I see that it is actually Giles. That acctualy makes more sense… *is embarrassed*) Giles teams up with the earth-bound demons against the invading demons. Buffy and Angel continue to fight as Giles sees a big dragon-type demon approaching and warns the slayers to get out of the way but he only succeeds in rescuing the red-head Scottish slayer (Leah?) while the rest get incinerated by the dragon's fire breath.
Willow is really powering up on the seed. She glows red then transfigures out to where the fight is happening. She causes a huge tree to grow up out of the ground, spearing the dragon. Trees sprout up everywhere and Willow uses her magic against the demons making them explode - she's cross because they didn't just attack "little things that crawl on the outside of the earth...[they] attacked Mother."
Willow then begins to fight a big floating demon that looks a bit like female genitalia (I’m sure this is supposed to be symbolic of something...) Angel says, to Buffy "You're friend thinks she can win this fight. She's missing the point" then kicks her down. Buffy flies back up into the sky but seems more concerned about where Giles is.
Giles watches from a distance then goes to get the scythe off Faith. He tells Faith to lead the girls but that he needs the scythe 'for Buffy'. She hands it over. Giles runs off with it and Faith is attacked by an electric demon (what is this, Pokemon?) who causes Faith's troop of slayers (and soldiers) to literally melt. Yup, that's another big group of slayers dead. Faith, however is shown to be stronger than the noobs and she is able to fight the electric demon off.
Meanwhile, Amy and Warren are lunching in Rome (or venice?). Amy wonders if they should have stayed to see how it ends. Warren thinks not.
Xander goes into the seed cave. Willow says magic spells over the vagina demon. Kennedy and Andrew watch from below and Andrew observes that the demons are winning.
Buffy and Angel are still fighting. They crash through to the chamber of the seed. Angel says "you created a world. you can't turn away from it. You were Chosen Buffy." The Master Says "That's original." Angel punches his fist clear through the Master's skull turning him to dust.
Giles arrives and finds Xander watching the action from behind a wall. Giles asks what he is doing there. Xander implies that he was going to try and do something (what, I don't think even he is sure). Giles says there is nothing they can do, "Their power fades in proximity to the seed...but the seed fuels the scythe..."
"So throw it to her!" implores Xander
Giles replies "Xander, It's Angel. At the very least she...she'll hesitate. She wants to stop him...not kill him."
And then Giles takes the scythe into the seed chamber. Xander tries to stop him but Giles can't be dissuaded.
Giles steps in between Buffy and Angel, scythe raised up before the seed . . . Angel rushes forward, says, "You abandoned me for this?!" then snaps Giles neck in classic vampire fashion - quick and brutal (and just like he killed Jenny Calendar). Angel stands over his body and says "When they're all gone you'll understand."
Buffy is shocked (and I mean shocked) momentarily, as is Xander. Then Buffy gets angry. Buffy knocks Angel down with a huge BAM, grabs the scythe and thinks 'No More' and smashes the seed.
Breaking the seed causes a great flash of light that shocks Buffy and Angel and causes Willow to grab her head and fall to earth. The remaining Slayers look on in shock. Amy and Warren feel it too. Acctually, Warren more than feels it - he dissolves into an squishy mess.
Willow is traumatised. She cries out "No! Goddess?! What... Where!?" while all the non-earth-bound demons are sucked back into the portals through which they came. The New York wiccans lose connection with Sunnydale - I think they might have lost their magic. Kennedy runs to Willow who is still desperately calling for Aluwyn. Kitty Twilight is seen walking away (I think it has been sucked back to the 'Twilight' dimension, trapped perhaps?).
Spike order's his ship be put into reverse to avoid being sucked into "hell" with the retreating demons.
Bug One says, "Your friends, your majesty, they did-"
Spike cuts him off, "She. She did it. . . .Slayer, you did it." He is about to land and see who need help when he spies Willow's vagina demon fleeing the scene so he decides he better stop that first and flies off after it.
On the ground, Willow is inconsolable. She says they lost and that this is the end. In the chamber of the seed Buffy is prostrate on the ground, crying and gripping her stomach (just like we saw in Any where but Here). Giles is dead beside her. Angel steps forward - I think he touches Xander's shoulder but Xander shrugs him off and goes to check on Buffy. The Slayer Scythe is broken in the foreground.
End of Issue
My first (and enduring) reaction is that the PTB at Dark Horse really need to shut the fuck up and let the comics speak for themselves. They have done the story no favours by talking up #39 so much. For months we’ve been told that this issue would be dire, tragic, terrible, unbearable etcetera. And while I’m sad to lose Giles I’m not sure the event lived up to all the hype and breast-beating. I think the producers of this comic need to stop telling us how we should feel about the story and concentrate on making us feel it. Easiest way to do this? Simple - don’t talk about them before the event. Be silent. Respect the reader’s prerogative to theorise and discuss without the Higher Powers nudging us and pre-empting our collective heads exploding with the impact of coming events. ‘Cos when you warn people their heads are going to explode, they start thinking of things that are likely to make their heads explode and they come to expect their heads to explode, anticipate it even. And when they just don’t explode you’ve got yourself an anti-climax. In short - if you want to shock your readers, don’t tell them they’re going to be shocked! Just shock ‘em!
Moving on…
Not sure how to really talk about this issue - it has a lot of action and a huge event; I think I’ll just look at each character in turn.
BUFFY
Poor old Buffy, taking the blame for everything on her own shoulders as she usually does, and seeing it as some kind of deserved cosmic vengeance. She’s too hard on herself, as per usual. Personally, I don’t really see her as culpable for any of it. She didn’t know any of this would happen. It was all accidental on her part an nobody ever seems to tell her the full story. Buffy is always hard on herself and I think she’s going to be particularly brutal for being intimately involved in the chain of events that resulted in Giles being murdered. Giles didn’t think she’d be able to kill Angel, he was probably right. But she did what she had to do in the end. She took the only option open to her. Giles, by trying to break the seed, by dying for trying to break the seed shows Buffy what needs to be done (and I’d like to think Spike’s cork analogy helped too ;)) and I admire her for that. ‘No More” she says - no more madness, no more fighting, no more death, no more Twilight and if that means no more magic then so be it. Buffy protects the ‘things that crawl on the surface of the earth” it’s what she was chosen to do. I love her for that.
*I don't mean to imply that Buffy is completely blameless in all this - her actions and decisions contributed to the chain of events that led to Giles dying. But I think she has to wear that on a personal level, rather than a cosmic, universal one. Not sure if that makes sense. I think I've been influenced by reading too many posts in which Buffy is beign pilloried for betraying Willow and breaking the seed. I feel for the girl.
ANGEL:
My sympathy for him is practically non-existent. I don’t actually care that much about what happens to him from now on out. Redemption bores me when it has only flimsy ties to intent. Angel continuously makes dumb decisions and then gets to play the ‘redemption’ card to make it all go away. Yawn. I need to see Angel suffer. I need to see Angel learn a lesson. I need to see Angel resist Destiny’s booty call. I need to see Angel do something more than just say “I’m on a mission of redemption” and then go on with business as usual. I need to see actions rather than just hollow words. Angel killed Giles and did numerous other dreadful things all in the name of Twilight, all of his own free will. I need to see him go away and pay for that. And Buffy can’t idealise him anymore. She just can’t. He killed Giles - that’s got to change things.
GILES:
Giles death didn’t have a huge impact on me; he’s been on the periphery of the story from the beginning of the season and the ‘farewell’ scene between Buffy and Giles in number 38 kinda signposted it as a likely scenario. And then Dark Horse (over) hyped the bejesus out of this issue severely reducing the potential impact. Funny, I’ve seen other people post tribute GIFs to Giles around the internet and they have made me feel sadder for Giles’ death than the actual depiction of his murder did. Weird. According to Scott Allie, Giles didn’t sacrifice himself to jolt Buffy into action, he didn’t even really ever intend to give the scythe to Buffy. He went into the chamber to break the seed himself. My question is that if Giles knew this was a viable option then why didn’t he mention it sooner? And why not get Faith on board to help him?
XANDER:
Xander doesn’t get to do much but I like that he tries. He sees that the fight is looking hopeless and that loss is likely so, almost without knowing what he is doing he goes to the seed chamber to see if he can do anything to help. It is an instinctual act - he goes without a plan but he goes anyway. Xander has always been heroic in this regard. Once in the chamber he is confronted by two super-powered beings fighting - there is not much he can do. Giles arrives, he offers Giles a sensible solution (throw the scythe to Buffy) and tries, unsuccessfully, to stop Giles from doing something foolhardy and rash. Most importantly he’s there for Buffy at the end when she is prostrate with grief and pain; he is there to pick up the pieces.
WILLOW:
Willow troubles me immensely… She has all season long with her dubious alliance with Aluwyn and her dangerous on-going quest for magical enlightenment and her morally ambiguous future self... Willow get’s told all about the egg and is told to protect it. She was told who was going to come and try and get it. She was told what the consequences were if it was removed or broken and she chooses to keep some of this information secret and leave Buffy with the impression that protecting the seed is their only option. So she becomes the seed’s protector literally. She trips out on the red-egg mojo and feels invincible and sees herself as separate from the ‘little things that crawl on the outside of the earth’ and instead sees herself as the part of ‘mother earth’. She deliberately kept the third option (to destroy the egg) secret because of her own selfish desires to retain her magical abilities. And, once the egg is broken and she heart-brokenly cries “Kennedy…we LOST!” she’s not talking about Buffy or the Slayers - she’s putting herself with the magical ‘we’ not the earth-bound ‘we’. Willow seems to have forgotten that she’s human. I’m intrigued to see where this goes and how Willow copes with the loss of her powers and how she and Buffy will deal with it.
FAITH:
I feel for her more than I’ve ever done before. Faith has never been a favourite of mine but I thought it was pretty crap for her to be asked to give up the scythe, ‘for Buffy’ and that Giles was the one who asked her for it. Faith and Giles have had a nice, trusting relationship this season. They’ve understood one another; they’ve helped one another cope with the job that they’ve been chosen to do. It feels like this trust and understanding has been betrayed and that he wasn’t honest with her in the end. Maybe Giles was protecting her, maybe Giles thought that if he told her that he needed the scythe then she would take it upon herself to break the seed. Maybe he didn’t want her to get hurt. Still, after a season of frankness, this last little lie seems extra unnecessary. I liked that he charged Faith with leading the girls thoguh. I hope Faith steps up and takes command in season nine.
DAWN:
obviously her injury in the previous issue was to get her out of the way for the big fight. If she’d stayed in the hellmouth she would have been a goner.
SPIKE:
I’m proud to see that Spike’s faith in Buffy never wavered. Giles, Xander, Willow, Andrew; they all doubted she could get it done, all got pre-occupied with the fact that they seemed to be losing, but Spike knew categorically that it was Buffy who saved that day. I liked that. A lot. I’m also relieved that Spike kept his distance from all this. I’m glad he was the bearer of information and truth, I’m glad he buoyed Buffy’s confidence and I’m completely relieved that he was in no way involved in Twilight or deceiving Buffy. I’m glad he was just an ornament to this season - He’s set to play a much more significant roll in season nine *fingers crossed*
BETRAYAL:
After a ‘betrayer’ was foreshadowed in “Anywhere but Here” much time and energy has been invested in trying to anticipate who that betrayer would be. Official word from high tells us that Betrayal has been the over-arching theme of the season and that Buffy betrayed herself. (seeBuffyfest ).
Some would argue that this has been a season long thing; Buffy has funded herself by robbing banks (this, I have to admit bothered me much less than it did many others), has a dalliance with a subordinate in her organisation, let her heart (and other demon-shaped body parts) do the thinking when she decided to jump Angel’s bones and then finally, she destroys magic, fulfilling the desires of the people she’s been fighting all season long. The closest, most unexpected indeed. And now, all this has led to the death of Giles and we know that Buffy is not going to be kind to herself - she’s going to beat herself up over this and beat herself up bad…So season nine’s not going to be a barrel of laughs then?
SHIPS:
Bangle might have gotten all the attention this season but my god, it’s listing low in the water now. Not gonna call it as sunk just yet because the power of forgiveness can do amazing things and Buffy is really good at forgiving everyone but herself, but things will get worse before it gets any better. A lot worse. Angel just killed Giles. This is not that same as Jenny and Angelus. Angel just killed Giles. Angel. He did it and I don’t think it’s going to be easy for Buffy to forget and it shouldn’t be easy for Buffy to forget. He hasn’t got his usual get out of jail free card this time. He did it. People might say he isn’t responsible because of Twilight’s possession but that a cop out - Angel signed on to this Twilight deal. He consented to put on the mask. He agreed to do bad things for a particular end - and he agreed to do it under no duress. This, Giles’ murder, is the consequence of his choices and he has to wear it. I just don’t see how Buffy could ever look him in the face again, could ever kiss him, knowing what he did and if she does, then you’ll see a fandom enraged.
Spuffy is looking no worse than when this thing started, or, if anything, perhaps a little better. The immediate danger here is that Spike’s chasing off after the vagina demon makes Buffy feel abandoned by him all over again as she undoubtedly did when he didn’t contact her after coming back from the fiery beyond. God those two really need to talk! At this point in time Spike is the better vampire - that is unequivocal. And my god, I’ve even read posts from people who were once anti-Spuffy saying they’d prefer to see the ship explored over Bangle…now if only we could get Buffy to see it too.
THIS:
“It doesn’t matter who dies; it matters who kills them.”
I’m thinking that these are perhaps the most important words written in the entire season. They carry such resonance now. Giles is dead at Angel’s hand, Magic is dead at Buffy’s. This is where we’re going in season nine. Should be good.
One final observation - what’s with all the anatomically correct demons???