Look, I had a *thought*!

[elisi]

First though, I must wish the Happiest of Birthdays to earth_vexer! May you continue to vex the earth for many, many years to come! :)

****
But! The Queen of Polls, gabrielleabelle, made a poll about which show is more adult/mature/dark - Buffy or Angel? Now it's tempting to go for Angel, but otoh there's few things as dark as S6 of BtVS... So, instead of doing the poll, I started turning the problem over in my head, because the shows are both dark, but in different way. And then I had a minor epiphany - the main character of each series is a reflection of the show overall:

BtVS is about a good person who's had darkness forced upon her.

AtS is about a bad person who's had goodness forced upon him.

I think everything springs from this.

Comments

[candleanfeather.livejournal.com]

"Mostly I was being extremely literal"I understood that and you're right humanity is a better choice than goodness, having a soul was never the exact equivalent of being good in the verse.

What I was pointing at is that the concept of goodness, which is an interior quality, makes the idea of forcing it onto somebody something impossible: you can force laws, behaviours etc on someone. Litteraly it's what happened to Angel with his curse but from a philosphical POV it's totally flawed. It works in the limits of the show because we're in the domain of myth and because the authors wisely put the focus on the consequences : the fight between good and bad in all of us. The idea works better for Spike because he wanted the soul, you can read it as a metaphor for an interior journey towards goodness and humanity. But still even in his case, there's a little something with this imagery that'll always feel like a cheap deus ex machina. Perhaps it's because the soul quest was treated in such a light manner.

[elisi]

Where did my comment go? Did you get it? I swear it was there and now it's just GONE!

*kicks LJ soundly*

[candleanfeather.livejournal.com]

I got the email for the comment and it made me laugh! LJ is really wonky, it'll probably reappear, but nonetheless kicks LJ with you.

And wanted to add, your shortcut put into light the weakness of the premise of the show on this particular point.

[elisi]

I got the email for the comment and it made me laugh!
Oh good! :)

And wanted to add, your shortcut put into light the weakness of the premise of the show on this particular point.
I seem to remember Joss(?) saying at some point [in reply to a question about souls] that 'the soul means whatever we want it to mean at any particular point' (or, you know, words to that effect) which really is spectacularly unhelpful when trying to get coherent meaning out of the show(s).

Sorry about the convolutedness of this, btw.