Reviews of s8 issue 4.

[elisi]

Realised that for some reason I forgot to put these up. This time I've ordered them in groups:

I've got a theory...
Excellent summary and analysis by moscow_watcher.

Canon-y goodness yay!

Indepth review by stormwreath

Review and meta by aycheb

*shrug* (a mixed bag...)

Review by beer_good_foamy

Review by yourlibrarian

Review by confusedkayt

Review by shapinglight

Review/rant by ruuger

wtf?

Review by sp23


Um... thedeadlyhook? molly_may? Any thoughts at all? Or are you just paralysed with not caring anymore?


But I have a theory of my own... Because lets face it, Buffy looks *nothing* like she did on the show (who is this round-faced, button-nosed young woman people keep addressing as Buffy?). So, I think the real Buffy (and the real Dawn) are in Rome. This Buffy (and Dawn) are from a parallel universe, where incidents not entirely unlike those in 'our verse' took place, but with the odd differences of course [insert ret-cons]. Oh and Willow mindwiped everyone so they *think* this is the real Buffy. :)

*has brainwave*

When they brought the other Buffy and Dawn through, parallel!Amy and parallel!Warren hitched a ride. That, I think, explains everything! My theory is neat! *g*

Comments

[mikeygs.livejournal.com]

has TOLD us far too much and not shown us enough.

Ha! Exactly. The whole vibe of them thus far (and I've seen little to show it'll change) really feels like those horrible fanfics where there are about 3000 words saying which canon they decided to use. "This story takes place in S1 except Buffy wasn't called first, Faith was, and she's on the run not from Kakistos, but from Angelus who turned her family after..."

[elisi]

"This story takes place in S1 except Buffy wasn't called first, Faith was, and she's on the run not from Kakistos, but from Angelus who turned her family after..."
*snickers* This has occurred to me too...

"This story takes place post-Chosen, only Willow and Dawn are really close, and Warren didn't die, but was magicked away by Amy..."

Oh - and you know how the Xander fans were always saying 'This will be the season of Xander!' I think for once they might be right. :) So far, he's the only one who looks and sounds and behaves realistically. My new OTP is Xander/Renee.

[mikeygs.livejournal.com]

Of course. :) If you complained the last few years, your wish could be answered. :)

[elisi]

Hee. It's odd though to have Xander as my favourite character. It'll take some adjustment! *g*

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Ha! My thoughts exactly when the Big Stupid Warren Retcon (BSWR for short) came up. Though to give Joss some credit, at least the characters seem* to act according to the changes in continuity - Willow is unaware of the BSWR, Dawn is as whiny as she would be if she had a mother figure who was absent, etc. The biggest problem with the canon-rewrite stories you mention is usually that they completely miss out on the fact that character development comes partly from the plot they just conveniently threw out; if I read one more "Tara never died but Willow still went evil" or "Wesley never kidnapped Connor but Angel still tried to kill him" fic, I'll scream.

* "seem" since we don't really get enough character moments with most of them to actually see how much in canon they are. That's the bite-size thing, of course.

[mikeygs.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree there. That's a huge theme in many S6 rewrites that usually end with the Scoobs siding with Spike over Buffy.

What I was getting at wasn't really that, though, it's that so far they've spent 4 issues and 4 months basically (poorly) explaining why the characters are the way they are instead of moving forward.

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

if I read one more "Tara never died but Willow still went evil" (SNIP) fic, I'll scream.

It would be easy for me to write one that didn't make you scream; well, not that way, you might still scream in an utterly different way. But utterly convincing because of the character development coming squarely from plot, anyway.

I'd just have Warren's first bullet hit Xander right between the eyes.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely, I'm not saying Willow would never have gone evil/dark for any other reason - part of the reason I love DarkWillow is that she's such a logical (if not the only logical) extreme of Willow's character arc, you can trace it all the way back to... well, "Ted" I suppose. I was just saying that if you take out a specific event in canon and still want to keep the consequences of that event, then you have to come up with something else instead - something a lot of fic writers (present company excluded) never really grasp.

There, I got sidetracked from the topic again. Hmpf.

[liliaeth]

Actually, I could easily see Willow going evil, without Tara dying. The only thing you need to change is to take out Wrecked and let her continue on on the path she was walking before she ran into Rack. Take out Rack and Willow will more and more believe she's just 'helping out', wether the person she's 'helping' agrees with it or not.

She's never learned to be accountable for her actions and was well on her way towards going evil, her arc just got derailed for the magic=drugs bit.