elisi: Edwin holding a tiny snowman (it was only TEH SEX by crackers4jenn.)
elisi ([personal profile] elisi) wrote2007-03-19 12:10 pm

*That* line!

So, I’ve read a great number of posts about issue one of the ‘Season 8’ comics. Some like it, some hate it. But no one has done much about looking beneath the surface (and considering how short comics are, that’s not all that surprising). But me being me, I always - sooner or later - bring the meta. Even if it is just about a single line...

Enjoy!

(Cutting for the sake of spoiler phobes, but I think the line in question is rather neatly summed up by my icon! *g*)

“Great muppety Odin, I miss that sex.”

Yes, it made me laugh. I can also see why it makes some people cross, because it seems to mock our beloved Spike, and what he and Buffy had.

And then, yesterday, I suddenly looked at it again and went - hang on! This is Joss. And this is an important line - not to mention seriously weird at the same time. Surely it’s not just there for comic relief? And then - I remembered that Odin is the God of death...

So, I hunted him down on Wikipedia and found out that he’s the god of a lot of other things too:

Odin (Old Norse: Ódinn) is considered the chief god in Norse mythology and Norse paganism.

His name is related to ódr, meaning "mind", "excitation," "fury" or "poetry," and his role, like many of the Norse pantheon, is complex: he is god of wisdom, war, battle, and death. He is also attested as being a god of magic, poetry, prophecy, victory, and the hunt.

Odin is an ambivalent deity. Old Norse (Viking Age) connotations of Odin lie with "poetry, inspiration" as well as with "fury, madness."Odin gives to worthy poets the mead of inspiration, made by the dwarves, from the vessel Ód-rœrir.

Odin is associated with the concept of the Wild Hunt
, a noisy, bellowing movement across the sky, leading a host of slain warriors.

Consistent with this, Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda depicts Odin as welcoming the great dead warriors who have died in battle into his hall, Valhalla, which when literally interpreted, signifies the hall of the slain. These fallen, the einherjar, are assembled and entertained by Odin in order that they in return might fight for and support the gods in the final battle of the end of Earth, Ragnarök.

He is also a god of war, appearing throughout Norse myth as the bringer of victory.
In the Norse sagas, Odin sometimes acts as the instigator of wars, and is said to have been able to start wars by simply throwing down his javelin Gungnir, and/or sending his valkyries, to influence the battle toward the end that he desires.


Ain’t that some interesting info? Most of which spells S-p-i-k-e to me... And you know what - I don’t think it’s coincidence. Not for one tiny little moment. Joss wants the comics to be considered canon, right? Well surely he’s doing his best to add some depth the the darn things!

Now the muppety bit is fairly simple... we have Count Dracula from The Muppets (obviously), as well as Angel turning into a puppet, both signifying the vampire element (not to mention that there'll soon be a comic with Spike as a puppet!) - and of course it also somewhat softens the great big serious warrior thing that Odin brings to the table. (Also - how incredibly cute would a Muppet Odin be? It really is a very funny line!)

So - there are layers, see? Buffy is thinking about her great fallen vampire warrior poet, and - being Buffy and the AR no longer being an issue at all, kthnx! - she misses the sex. ‘Cause you know - she never had it so good as him. Never.

And that is all the meta I can manage for now.

*bows*

ETA: I don't think Buffy knows much - if anything - about Norse mythology. It's pure meta - Joss using her odd turn of phrase to let us into her mind. It's sex with Spike the Champion (whom she loved) that she misses, not Spike the Convenient (whom she used).
ruuger: (Big Damn Hero)

[personal profile] ruuger 2007-03-19 12:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Some days, the way your mind works frightens me. But in a good way :)

(and when I read the comic, I didn't even think that line had anything to do with Spike until I found out that people were annoyed by it - apparently in my head Buffy was having an affair with Faith during S7).
shapinglight: (Counting BtVS style)

[personal profile] shapinglight 2007-03-19 12:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Heh! Works for me. I didn't mind the line in question so much the second time I read it (the two pages with Buffy on her own are my favourites of the whole book) but it's nice to have some explanation of that Muppety Odin thing.

The main trouble for me with it is I'd really have to suspend my disbelief that Buffy would know that stuff (or care to know about it).
ext_15233: (Default)

[identity profile] prophecygirrl.livejournal.com 2007-03-19 12:54 pm (UTC)(link)
*claps*

This line was rattling around in my skull all weekend. It irked me, and then it irked me that it irked me. But my mind kept going back to it, worrying it. I even convinced myself that they were introducing B/X with it, because it sounds more like a Xander line than a Buffy on (at least when you think about it too much). Thanks for metaing it into submission for me. Now it's just a dull, infrequent, throb.
kathyh: (Kathyh Spuffy)

[personal profile] kathyh 2007-03-19 12:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Overall I loved the comic and the line didn't annoy me particularly, but it did strike me as odd. I'm more inclined to think that Buffy's entire mindset in the comic is a little bit to do with Spike. She seems quite dislocated from her surroundings and is definitely mourning her life in Sunnydale and I see no reason why that shouldn't include mourning Spike whether the Odin reference is about him or not (and you make an interesting case for that :)). To be honest she seems far closer to the Buffy of post-NFA fanfics here than the Buffy of TGIQ seemed to be so I'm not sure what the annoyance is about.

[identity profile] adoxerella.livejournal.com 2007-03-19 01:34 pm (UTC)(link)
*bows to your use of wiki-fu*

What a time for me to be too broke to buy comics *busts out the credit card and makes a sacrifice to Joss that the local comic store still has a copy*

I think you're right about the need to dig deeper here, especially since, at least out of context, the Odin line isn't really a Buffy sort of thing to say. I love her, but mythology geek, not so much. It is definitely a call for the meta.

Goodness do I lurve Joss.
herself_nyc: (Default)

[personal profile] herself_nyc 2007-03-19 01:43 pm (UTC)(link)
So are you assuming then that this implies she had sex with him again before the big End It All fight with The First? Because it seems kind of late for her to being missing the s6 sex.
herself_nyc: (Default)

[personal profile] herself_nyc 2007-03-19 01:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Right, I was aware of that, though I do think it's kind of a cop out on Joss's part.

And for my own part I do think they made love--of course they did.
But I know it's not a popular idea in some many parts of BtVS fandom ....

[identity profile] empresspatti.livejournal.com 2007-03-19 01:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank goodness I have you to read or I would have just given up on the whole thing.

Doubt I'll actualy buy the comics - $12-$14 seems a little high if it isn't a book -esp with everyone telling the story as it gets released.

You made me feel much better about the whole B/S thing - because I'd like to think that those two ended up together somehow. It just seems to me to be a good fit, yaknow?
shapinglight: (Default)

[personal profile] shapinglight 2007-03-19 02:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Sorry to butt in.

$12-$14? Really? My copy (which I bought in £ of course, so was way more than this) says £2.99 on it.

[identity profile] swsa.livejournal.com 2007-03-19 03:01 pm (UTC)(link)
I liked the line alot, I think just because after S7 I had no doubts that Buffy cared for Spike deeply. I did think there were lingering doubts about whether she still wanted him the way she did in S6. So, for me? Question answered. Yay! Heee. But seriously, I know we're all reading WAY too much into it, but I also know that Joss knew the SECOND he put in any line about love or sex, it was going to be analyzed. And he knew that that line was going to make most of us immediately think of Spike. So I do take it as a little gift from him. And with as little Spike or Spuffy we're likely to get from this series, I'm grabbing onto every crumb he throws.
rahirah: (Default)

[personal profile] rahirah 2007-03-19 03:06 pm (UTC)(link)
The comic is only $2.95 or thereabouts - though shipping could drive it up if you're getting it by mail, I guess.

[identity profile] fangfaceandrea.livejournal.com 2007-03-19 03:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Awsome! this is the post I had been waiting for!!!

And let me tell ya how really ove how your mind works, since I pretty much went "what's the deal with everyone and the sex line? she's probably been too much around Xander lately and not in an sex way, Thank Joss!" Cause foregt the lack of explicit spuffy (Finest kind there is), Xuffy is what my nightmares are made of.

[identity profile] aycheb.livejournal.com 2007-03-19 03:33 pm (UTC)(link)
All I remember about Odin was the he was top God (which sounds more like Angel than Spike) and had one eye (like Xander). Oh and an affinity with ravens but I think the only crows on the show were the ones Huss turned into when he wasn't being a bear. I think Spike would be more some kind of mutant hybrid of Loki and Thor (but without the hammer).
ext_7885: Photo of Bitch,please Scarlet O'Hara (BTVS - willow geekerjoy - cake ordeath)

[identity profile] scarlettgirl.livejournal.com 2007-03-19 05:44 pm (UTC)(link)
I could go with this. Although I have to admit that the line really didn't bother me.

In a medium like comics where you need to tell your verbal story with absolute brevity, I can't imagine that the word choices were random or not thought out. It's like really, really good poetry - every word has to serve multiple purposes and there's no space for filler.

So, in short, you win at comics.

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