Things I've noticed about Buffy

nyarlothothep

1.Xander is an asshat: When not playing over controlling chaperone with Buffy, he's a sh1thead to Spike. In addition he left Anya at the alter=massive fail, over some vision, when he could have talked to the others about it. He should have had some second thoughts anyway, it being Sunnydale, home of demons, that the old guy might be playing a magical trick on him which leads me to my second point

2.OAPs are always evil

The old women who ran the centre for teenagers in the sex party episode was evil. The old dude with the two vampire jocks was presented as evil/creepy. The old Xander impostor was a demon. The old woman at the meat palace was a demon.

3. Anyas a bit annoying. I can sympathize with Gile's exasperation when she interrupts, or says something irrelevant.

4. Dawn is the most annoying Buffy character ever in the history of the universe. All she does is whinge about how nobody pays attention to her, how Buffy doesn't care about her blah blah blah. Even when Buffy does take it in her good grace to be nice to Dawn when she's invisible, Dawn makes it all about herself, annoyingly saying, "how can I talk to you when I can't even see you" before storming off. Eh hello, its your sister thats invisible and shes taking it very well, making light of it, maybe stop thinking about yourself and help your sister return to visibility. Then she imprisons everyone in the house, she continually messes up magic spells getting people nearly killed in the process. Xander says about Dawns stupidity, "shes a teenager, we've all been there." Except Xander, I don't remember you, Buffy, Willow or even Cordelia being so incredibly idiotic and annoying, not even within a million light years.

5. The Trio should have been given a better storyline. They're routinely called nerds in a derogative sense, even though they were incredibly smart. Warren shouldn't have been presented in such an evil light, his planning and technological genius deserved more credit. The only member of the scooby gang on an even keel with them was Willow, she was the only one smart enough to figure out what they were doing. For that reason alone I think the Trio should have suceeded in defeating Buffy, at least temporarily or in their own minds before moving onto the bigger and better things like becoming millionaires or having a james bond secret research project under their control.

nicowa

I'm only going to reply to you once and leave it at that.

nyarlothothep wrote: »

1.Xander is an asshat: When not playing over controlling chaperone with Buffy, he's a sh1thead to Spike. In addition he left Anya at the alter=massive fail, over some vision, when he could have talked to the others about it. He should have had some second thoughts anyway, it being Sunnydale, home of demons, that the old guy might be playing a magical trick on him which leads me to my second point

That was foreshadowed in the earlier episode "Once More with Feeling" in the song that Xander and Anya sung about their insecuirities. They never spoke about the issues that dragged up. And Xanders always had issues about his family, mentioned in the Christmas episode when Cordelia brings up something he obviously told her in private - "Oh I thought you always slept outside because you couldn't deal with the drinking and the fighting" (paraphrasing cos I'm not going looking up the quote right now). And it's always been suggested that neither him nor Willow had great home lives - even outside of the references to drinking and fighting.

The visions that Xander was shown were obviously well aimed at his insecurities and the feelings he would have had even before the demon showed up. It was more the straw that broke the camel's back than anything else.

We've already had a discussion about Spike, but all I'll say is that as a person watching a tv show, we admire and like stuff in characters that we would never put up with in someone we actually know. I would also say that some of the nicest things we see in Spike, Xander never gets to see, which is Spikes fault cos he doesn't want to appear weak.

2.OAPs are always evil

The old women who ran the centre for teenagers in the sex party episode was evil. The old dude with the two vampire jocks was presented as evil/creepy. The old Xander impostor was a demon. The old woman at the meat palace was a demon.

3. Anyas a bit annoying. I can sympathize with Gile's exasperation when she interrupts, or says something irrelevant.

That's two people. You might want to add in Doc - he was old. And the old woman who came into the DoubleMeat Palace was also old. I can't argue with that one, cos I can't think off the top of me head of anyone in the series who wasn't evil.

But then, the Scoobies were dealing with evil things. Most of the people they meet were either young and cool, or old and evil.

And yes, I think most people found her a bit annoying. But I still like her.

4. Dawn is the most annoying Buffy character ever in the history of the universe. All she does is whinge about how nobody pays attention to her, how Buffy doesn't care about her blah blah blah. Even when Buffy does take it in her good grace to be nice to Dawn when she's invisible, Dawn makes it all about herself, annoyingly saying, "how can I talk to you when I can't even see you" before storming off. Eh hello, its your sister thats invisible and shes taking it very well, making light of it, maybe stop thinking about yourself and help your sister return to visibility. Then she imprisons everyone in the house, she continually messes up magic spells getting people nearly killed in the process. Xander says about Dawns stupidity, "shes a teenager, we've all been there." Except Xander, I don't remember you, Buffy, Willow or even Cordelia being so incredibly idiotic and annoying, not even within a million light years.

Dawn being annoying is one of the more talked about features of the Buffyverse. It's not exactly new. But I will say that when Buffy went invisable, she was happy about it. She was in a really bad place at the time and being invisable meant people didn't have to see her. She was more free with Spike cos he didn't have to/couldn't look at her. She didn't have to deal with what they possibly thought about her.

Dawn lost her sister. I know she was only invisible, but Dawn was in a bad place in that season too. She'd lost her mother, her father didn't show up for her, and her sister died because of her. I'd be a little whiney and attention seeking too.


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5. The Trio should have been given a better storyline. They're routinely called nerds in a derogative sense, even though they were incredibly smart. Warren shouldn't have been presented in such an evil light, his planning and technological genius deserved more credit. The only member of the scooby gang on an even keel with them was Willow, she was the only one smart enough to figure out what they were doing. For that reason alone I think the Trio should have suceeded in defeating Buffy, at least temporarily or in their own minds before moving onto the bigger and better things like becoming millionaires or having a james bond secret research project under their control.[/QUOTE]

Are you saying he shouldn't have been evil or that he shouldn't have been presented as evil? Cos that's two different ideas.

If it's the first - actually, it doesn't really matter which it is. They started out wanting to be evil, that they turned evil - or Warren at least - shouldn't have been too much of a surprise.

They might have been technological genius, but Buffy showed that she had brains too when she actually used them to solve the time puzzle (in the magic shop) rather than trying to use her strength to solve the puzzle.

Don't have anything else to add.
But I'm not getting into an argument like the last time, I just wanted to add my two cents.

nyarlothothep

I guess you're right about Xander and Anya though it was still a cowardly thing to do. Really selfish and cowardly, he could have at least manned up and told her he was breaking up with her in front of everyone.

I know Dawn was in a really bad place but she was throwing a diva tantrum. She could have at least said, lets get willow and xander and see if we can fix this.

As for the Trio, I have a lot of sympathy for them. They all suffered bullying in school. Warrens first reaction upon getting the orbs is to beat up a former high school bully. His tormented past combined with his incredible intellect meant that he was going to harbour resentment towards people in general since it was people who never understood him and ostracized him. This also applied to Andrew and Jonathan. What other reaction could you expect. I think the plot should have turned out differently. Warren's temporary death through flaying was really bad and unnecessary, if anything Willow was extremely evil for doing this as Warren never meant to kill Tara. Ok attempting to kill Buffy wasn't good either but remember his utterly crap past. He hates himself and acts out on this. I think for that the Trio should have been spared from such a dismal fate, they should have continued on but not as the main big bad, just a kind of annoying disturbance every so often.

In any case I found their scenes the most entertaining to watch, the other villains never had such intricate and well devised strategies or banter about science/science fiction, often relying on brute force or deus ex magic.

nyarlothothep

Thats another thing, Willow got a lot more dislikeable with the whole dark willow storyline. Killing Warren and then trying to destroy the whole world was hella lame and a bit diva-ish and in fact I grew to like Tara more as she actually became the voice of reason in the group, stating to Willow that she was being way too controlling and abusive with her power, which she continued to abuse in wiping her memory. Willow drifted away from what she originally was and became very self serving, which is kinda unsurprising.

Faith

I have to wonder why you watch the show if you hate so much of it?

nyarlothothep

On the contrary its one of my favourite shows of all time and the characters despite their minor flaws would be the kind of people I would hang out with if they were real. I just want to stir some debate up.

Sudden Valley

nyarlothothep wrote: »

On the contrary its one of my favourite shows of all time and the characters despite their minor flaws would be the kind of people I would hang out with if they were real. I just want to stir some debate up.

I think I’m much the same. I pay so much attention to programmes that I love that I find myself picking up on the small things that I notice. I think it especially happens due to the large number of writers on American shows that can result in some inconsistent characterisations. It’s just constructive criticism!