elisi: Edwin holding a tiny snowman (S8 Buffy by dreamer1104)
elisi ([personal profile] elisi) wrote2007-05-16 08:42 pm
Entry tags:

::eyeroll::

Spoilery preview of S8 issue 4.

Dude! Amy *saved* Warren before Willow killed him? WTF? Apart from all the enormous issues it raises (what about The First? How did Willow not *notice* that she wasn't the one killing him (/making him disappear)? What about Willow's whole S7 arc? What does Amy see in a misogynist pig who kills girls for fun? Etc. etc.), then there is this (which has been bothering me since Amy was first revealed): How come they didn't get out of Sunnydale before the apocalypse? Even ordinary people could feel that something bad was coming and left town, so surely a smart girl like Amy would get the hell out before the whole place collapsed?

It doesn't make sense!!!! Did working on Wonder Woman break something vital in Joss' brain? I know he never cared all that much about 'how things worked', bending the rules so he could get to the emotional part, but this is... *throws hands up*

Thank the powers above that this never made it to the screen!

[identity profile] aycheb.livejournal.com 2007-05-17 06:54 am (UTC)(link)
it's about dying
And Warren was dying until Amy "saved him," a very interesting choice of words. Dru saved Spike, Spike tried to save his mother, Darla saved Angel. I haven't been inhaling (viewing the previews) so I missed the point stormwreath made below about the end of Warren's *human* existence but it comes across very much as if you actually read the comic, the point being made is that Amy saved him by ending his human life and turning him into something he might think less mediocre.

Apart from simply asserting the badness (a common tactic) thedeadlyhook makes two points One (a) that previous canon is being contradicted to which, see above it isn't, if you read the comic instead of just skimming it to find things to be outraged over. Two (b) that it makes Amy appear omniscient, a classic straw man argument very similar to attempts to discredit the plotting in AYW by claiming that Spike can't be the Doctor because the Doctor is an International Arms Dealer :-) The episode never states that and patently *shows* Spike's role to be that of an opportuinistic petty criminal. Amy sneaking Warren away isn't omnicience it's opportunism taking advantage of Willow's arrogance, a weakness that's been pointed out repeatedly. It's like a theme.
ext_15284: a wreath of lightning against a dark, stormy sky (Default)

[identity profile] stormwreath.livejournal.com 2007-05-17 08:34 am (UTC)(link)
Warren's specific words are "'Bored now'. Do you even remember that that's what you said? Last two words of my human life, so I probably remember better." Amy's magic is sustaining his existence, letting him walk around and talk, but he's no more alive than a vampire is.


Amy sneaking Warren away isn't omnicience it's opportunism taking advantage of Willow's arrogance
Exactly! Warren says it himself - Amy was spying on Willow, and took an interest in Warren simply because Willow was after him.

And we already know from 'The Killer In Me' that Amy knew the exact circumstances under which Warren shot Buffy and Tara, because she teleported Kennedy back to the exact spot Buffy was standing... and that she knew about Willow's world-ending attempt, even though only Buffy, Dawn, Anya, Giles and of course Xander (and anyone they subsequently told) ought to have known about it.

[identity profile] aycheb.livejournal.com 2007-05-18 06:33 am (UTC)(link)
Shiny! I hadn't thought that through about what Amy knew but exactly. It was left completely vague in the show and I remember a lot of people complaining that her motivation didn't add up. Now they seem annoyed that it does.

It's all clever plot mechanics at one level but it gives us Amy/Warren as the latest in the series of villanous dysfunctional twosomes that began with Spike'n'Dru and ended with First!Buffy/Caleb. There should be fluffy (for certain values of fluffy) "how they met fic" and really disturbing porn. The possibilities are endless.

[identity profile] aycheb.livejournal.com 2007-05-18 08:48 am (UTC)(link)
the point being made is that Amy saved him by ending his human life and turning him into something he might think less mediocre
Yes but how exactly? Or did Willow kill him after all and Amy revived him?
Why wait until the last minute? It's infuriatingly vague


OK I inhaled. Up to the top of page 3 anyway. And now I’m completely baffled by everyone (not you personally) commenting to the effect that if Warren didn’t die he couldn’t have appeared as the First.

The first thing he says is that “Bored Now” were the “last two words of his human life.” How could he put it any more clearly? His human life ended there just as William’s did when Dru turned him in that alley. I mean I could understand it better if this had been on TV and people hadn’t caught that particular snippet of dialogue but it’s a comic, it’s sitting there on the page with a label saying “read me.”

“Do you know she had maybe a 4-second window after my skin came off before I died of shock alone?”
So in the context of his human life having ended what does Warren mean by this? Amy’s not that powerful but she is smart and a good improviser. It’s rather touching how impressed Warren is by this. Warren the animated corpse has more genuine affection for another person than human Warren ever managed, which makes his relationship with Amy a potential Jossverse classic in the vein of Spike’n’Dru, Faith and the mayor or Caleb/First!Buffy.

Uh topic. Amy wasn’t up to directly confronting Willow, she had to wait until Willow turned away but in the four seconds before shock shut down all its essential functions she managed to snatch Warren’s body away, magically preserve it and eventually (since he was barely walking by KiM) nurse it back to the level of zombie function it currently has.

It’s all there in the text but, as I think TDH said once and I’m slowly learning, comics use an extremely concentrated form of storytelling and every line counts. There’s a James Marsters quote to the effect that with Buffy you need to sit forward on the couch to follow it. That’s something I loved about the show and am loving about the comics too. Sure so far it’s frequently taken the form of an audience wrong-footing exuberance but I think Joss has earned the right to take back his story and I can sense the depths lurking beneath those pyrotechnics. Delusional maybe but happy about it.