The Killer In Me.

[elisi]

I had a few thoughts... lets see if I can remember them.

1) I was going to write something about how I really don't mind Kennedy. I think her attitude probably has a lot to do with her upbringing - coming from a seriously rich background I've no doubt that she had a pro-active mindset drilled into her from early on. (stormwreath wrote a lot of good stuff about her in the AOQ thread. He should bring it over to LJ! *pokes gently*) Heh. He beat me to it. Post defending Kennedy here! :)

2) Re. the whole 'is-Giles-The-First', then I don't mind all that much, since it shows very well is how detached Giles is, and how paranoid they're all getting. The First might not be around just at the moment, but that doesn't mean that the fight has gone away. Because its strongest card is to make people doubt themselves and each other.

And I also discovered that there was a bit cut from that scene:

GILES: Well, I... I really don't know what to...
(realization dawns)
Wait, let me understand. You thought I was evil because I took a group of young girls on a camping trip and didn't touch them??

A beat. They take in the irony.

ANDREW: I don't get it.

3) Because it'd been so long since I last watched, I had forgotten a lot of the Willow parts. So this line stood out especially:

WILLOW/WARREN: It's not a trick, it's not a glamour. I'm becoming him. A murderous, misogynist man. I mean, do you understand what he did? What I could do? I killed him for a reason.

"I killed him for a reason." Oh Willow, that was quite an admission - because what she's implying here is that it wasn't just about revenge. She still thinks of Warren as more dangerous than herself, as the greater evil. And from someone who tried to destroy the world? That's quite something. (All of which is dealt with in this vid and accompanying essay, so I'm not going to delve any deeper. But - what a line. One day there might be an essay.)

Comments

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Re Willow’s attitude to Warren, I suspect what we’re supposed to take from that line is that Willow doesn’t feel guilty about killing Warren for the same reasons Xander and Dawn gave in their debate with Buffy back in Villians. She might feel guilty about wanting to end the world, attacking her friends and possibly Jonathan and Andrew but to Willow Warren is just the man who killed Tara and Katrina and enjoyed it. With hindsight that speech is the first real indication that she knows why she’s turning into him and it’s all to do with betraying Tara’s memory by even being able to contemplate moving on. I think Willow may reasonably believe that what she did to Warren was justice in a situation when human law had no ability to ensure it and it’s arguable but not a viewpoint that can be dismissed out of hand. Buffy wins the debate in Villians by bringing in the argument that Willow will destroy herself not by establishing conclusively that Warren can be stopped by the agencies of human justice.

[elisi]

Willow doesn't feel guilty about killing Warren for the same reasons Xander and Dawn gave in their debate with Buffy back in Villians.
Yes, that's what I'm getting out of it as well. He was a creep, but still it wasn't *her* job to be judge, jury and executioner. Which was what Buffy was trying to explain...

Which was what you said, so I'll just shut up and go away now. V. tired...