Good review! The sort that gets people wanting to re-read and re-assess things. :) Yay! What with the thing having eaten my brain for like a month, it's nice to share the infection... ;)
I didn't think 'Asylum' was perfect Nothing's perfect (sadly), but get enough things right and the rest won't matter.
the treatment inflicted on Carol the wiccan secretary; Oh poor Carol. But then her fate helped hammer home how serious the situation was - and how you can never save everyone. Incidentally - whose victim was she? Wiseau's of course. But it was Dr Ray who ordered her into his cell. And she wouldn't be back at Mosaic if it wasn't for Spike being a jackass. And he wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for the Monaghan's... who of course wouldn't have pursued him if it wasn't for Ruby's fate. So... in a very, very roundabout way she was also Spike's victim.
if men could turn invisible in real life, this probably is how many of us would use that power... :) As they say: It's funny because it's true.
It just seemed a faintly bizarre idea to me, whereas someone sticking a scalpel through your eye into your brain is brutally real. This might get long... the reason it worked so well for me, was because it was a threat *specifically* for Spike. (Like Gnarl in STSP for Willow.) Whether it's realistic is beside the point - in this 'verse it is. And the surgery is not just mutilation, but also castration. And Spike *fears* it. That is the main point. There is a moment in TLWH - the "Are you bored now?" where Willow is scared. But then she escapes to some higher plane and apparently not even death appears to bother her - 'cause her BFF is comin' to save her, la la la. Spike is on his own (and Beck setting things on fire when tortured does not exactly help) - there's only him.
Having looked over the relevant pages in TLWH there is a *horrible* picture of Buffy pulling a scalpel or something out of Willow's head, so it's not the ick factor that's lacking... it's the next moment that's the let-down, with Willow's bright happy smile. (Contrast again with STSP, please. I don't want her to be in pain, but I want her to be affected). Compare to Asylum:
Dr Ray: "Wow. He's pretty much dead, huh? And you're fine. And she's fine." Spike: "Do we look fine?" Dr Ray: "Well, no. But your heads are still firmly attached to your bodies, that's pretty surprising."
It's about empathy - about caring about the character.
(And I'll have to finish this later, since husband dearest needs the computer!)
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Yay! What with the thing having eaten my brain for like a month, it's nice to share the infection... ;)
I didn't think 'Asylum' was perfect
Nothing's perfect (sadly), but get enough things right and the rest won't matter.
the treatment inflicted on Carol the wiccan secretary;
Oh poor Carol. But then her fate helped hammer home how serious the situation was - and how you can never save everyone. Incidentally - whose victim was she? Wiseau's of course. But it was Dr Ray who ordered her into his cell. And she wouldn't be back at Mosaic if it wasn't for Spike being a jackass. And he wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for the Monaghan's... who of course wouldn't have pursued him if it wasn't for Ruby's fate. So... in a very, very roundabout way she was also Spike's victim.
if men could turn invisible in real life, this probably is how many of us would use that power... :)
As they say: It's funny because it's true.
It just seemed a faintly bizarre idea to me, whereas someone sticking a scalpel through your eye into your brain is brutally real.
This might get long... the reason it worked so well for me, was because it was a threat *specifically* for Spike. (Like Gnarl in STSP for Willow.) Whether it's realistic is beside the point - in this 'verse it is. And the surgery is not just mutilation, but also castration. And Spike *fears* it. That is the main point. There is a moment in TLWH - the "Are you bored now?" where Willow is scared. But then she escapes to some higher plane and apparently not even death appears to bother her - 'cause her BFF is comin' to save her, la la la. Spike is on his own (and Beck setting things on fire when tortured does not exactly help) - there's only him.
Having looked over the relevant pages in TLWH there is a *horrible* picture of Buffy pulling a scalpel or something out of Willow's head, so it's not the ick factor that's lacking... it's the next moment that's the let-down, with Willow's bright happy smile. (Contrast again with STSP, please. I don't want her to be in pain, but I want her to be affected). Compare to Asylum:
Dr Ray: "Wow. He's pretty much dead, huh? And you're fine. And she's fine."
Spike: "Do we look fine?"
Dr Ray: "Well, no. But your heads are still firmly attached to your bodies, that's pretty surprising."
It's about empathy - about caring about the character.
(And I'll have to finish this later, since husband dearest needs the computer!)