#and honestly had giles died in jenny's place i don't think jenny would have ever dated again either

[coraniaid]

🔥Scooby Gang

Unpopular opinion ask game

(Better two months late than never?)

So … my slightly flippant answer is that I think “the Scooby Gang” is honestly not the best of names for the group of Buffy’s friends who know about her being the Slayer and help her out sometimes.  Partly because I think it’s a bit clunky to actually say it, but also because, well, try googling it.  Any group name where you have to specify the name of the source material is just a bit rubbish, I think.  

Also the reference itself doesn’t really work, does it?  The original Scooby Gang travels around the country, proving that supposed supernatural hauntings are actually hoaxes being carried out by mundane criminals and property owners, and they don’t really have an obvious leader.  The Buffyverse Scooby Gang … are all stuck in one place, the monsters they investigate are real, and they do have an obvious leader.

They should’ve stuck with Willow’s original suggestion of the Slayerettes.

A bit less flippantly … uh. I don’t think I have an unpopular take on the Scoobies as a collective, actually.  I mean, I think people who complain about them being bad friends or not really caring about Buffy are wrong – or at least viewing their actions in a deliberately uncharitable light in a way I don’t agree with – but at the same time I don’t think this is actually a majority opinion.  Or at least I curate my dash well enough that I see people arguing against it more often than I actually see the take itself.

So quick fire unpopular opinions about each of them, in no particular order, below the cut:

Jenny: I like Jenny a lot, but I kind of hate the retcon that she was sent to Sunnydale to spy on Angel and make sure he didn’t get his soul back.  Partly because of the jarringly racist way this retcon is presented and handled, partly because it’s so obviously nonsense (Jenny mentions Angel all of … what, once, before this retcon?) and partly because it ruins the much more interesting version of Jenny Calendar the technopagan with a life of her own that the show had implied existed before this.  And for what?  To deliver some exposition that the show could have presented dozens of other ways?  So that Giles and Jenny can break up again and Giles can be sad when she dies? 

Oz: I was genuinely surprised to see how well Oz did in the recent character polls because he is just kind of flat and boring to me.  He’s one of the more laid back people in the show, sure, and if he was a real person I think he would be fun to hang out and exchange terse monosyllables with, but he doesn’t really have any character arc to speak of until … well, whatever off-screen stuff actually happened that ended up with him getting written out in Season 4.

(I think there is a potentially interesting character to be made out of the fragments of Oz we see, but I don't think the show ever puts them together in a way that means anything.  He’s just Willow’s Nice Quirky Boyfriend, then he decides he needs to leave town and he’s gone forever.)

Cordelia: I like Cordelia, both on Buffy and on Angel, but she’s often really genuinely unpleasant in the early seasons of the show and it’s kind of grating when people pretend she isn’t?

I mean, I think I get why people talk about her the way they do (it’s partly that people are instinctively prone to like the character because of what Charisma Carpenter went through because of Joss Whedon; it’s partly because Cordelia gets a lot of character development and emotional growth and does become one of the most well-realized and heroic characters in the setting; and it’s partly because as early as Season 1's Welcome To The Hellmouth we are primed to sympathize with Cordelia because of the way Jesse acts around her).  Cordelia is always somewhat likable.  But she’s not nice.

When Cordelia bullies Willow for dressing badly or not having any friends, or when she brings up Xander’s abusive family or poverty in order to humiliate him in front of his friends, or when she ostracizes and shames Buffy for being different from everyone else (“I have to call everyone I have ever met, right now”), it’s not because she’s just a pure-hearted innocent who isn’t afraid to tell the truth.  It’s because she’s trying her best to be hurtful and being good at it.  It feels like it’s belittling the actual character growth she goes through to pretend that this isn’t what’s happening.

Tara:  Uh.  I don’t think I have any unpopular opinions about Tara.  Honestly I’m not even sure what unpopular opinions about Tara a person could have.  Tara’s great.

Okay, not an opinion about Tara herself as such, but I get kind of irked when people try to talk up Buffy/Faith by talking down Willow/Tara.  I mean people who complain about the latter being boring or being censored by the network.  (The latter take especially is weird, because however sanitized one thinks Willow and Tara’s relationship is, it’s a lot more textual and explicit than whatever Buffy and Faith have going on.)  

I don’t actually know how common that is outside of my dash, but I’ve seen it a few times and it just feels kind of tacky to me.  Sure, Willow and Tara have a different dynamic than Buffy and Faith, and it’s not quite as compelling from a narrative perspective to many people – including me! –  but they are nice.

Anya: I like Anya; I think she’s often poorly served by the narrative and I think her death is really stupid and unsatisfying but … well, I guess those aren’t unpopular opinions. 

I do think the frequent jokes about Anya being an ardent capitalist are kind of grating and don’t really make sense.  Anya isn’t some time traveler from The World Before Shops: she’s centuries old and clearly spent a lot of her time as a vengeance demon blending in with ordinary humans, as we see in Season 3's The Wish and then again in various flashbacks.  She shouldn’t suddenly be surprised by how the 20th century works, because she lived through it.  If she’s weirdly obsessed by capitalism (or what the Buffy writers think capitalism is), that should be an interest going back centuries.  She can’t possibly just have noticed it after becoming human. Her very first scene in the show, while she's still a demon, establishes she knows things about fashion and buying clothes! Well enough to impress Cordelia!

(Yeah, a lot of this is just that the Anya from Season 4 onwards isn’t really the same character as Anya from Season 3, I know.)

Giles: So it annoys me a little to realize this about myself, but the truth is that Giles is one of two characters in the show I’ve accepted that I like quite a lot less because of how the fandom at large talks about them.  I don’t particularly like being a contrarian, and I do still like Giles as a character, but I don’t like either flavor of Fandom Giles (either Giles the Perfect Dad or the Giles Who Is Compelled To Do Bad Things But Is Just So Sad About Them).

Whenever I see posts that focus exclusively on how tragic it is for Giles that he just had to drug Buffy and lie to her about it and almost get her killed, or how awful he must have felt when he abandoned her in Season 6, or how Jenny’s murder was so sad because of how it made Giles feel  I just think … okay, you’re not exactly wrong, but you wouldn’t talk about a character who does half the things Giles does in this way if they were a middle-aged woman.  And I know that for a fact because I’ve seen the way the fandom talks about Joyce Summers. 

Xander: I think the idea of Xander as a (very) repressed bisexual teenager makes a lot of sense of what we see from the character: things like his constant interest in how attractive Buffy’s boyfriends are and his repeated attempts to prove how “manly” he is.   It is a reading I believe is at least somewhat intentional, it is a reading that I like, and it is one that (combined with the hints we get about what his family are like over the course of the show) makes some of the way he behaves in the early seasons a lot more sympathetic.

However. I simply don’t believe there was ever any chance of the show having Xander actually come out.  I know that the official line is that one of Willow and Xander was always going to be gay, and that the decision as to which of them it was was made very late on, but I think that’s just a (fairly obvious) self-serving lie.

Look at how the show treats Larry – literally the only out gay man on the show in its whole seven seasons (except, maybe, Scott Hope).  Comes out in season 2, dead by the end of season 3, never once seen dating or expressing romantic or sexual attraction to another man, never mourned.  There are several other characters (Ethan Rayne and Andrew Wells being the obvious two) who are strongly implied to be attracted to men, sure, but this is always, aways played for laughs.  (Even Larry coming out is treated like a punchline.)

I think the chance of the writers having Xander ever start seriously dating other men (or even talking about finding them attractive in ways that couldn't be played off as a joke) was always basically zero and honestly it’s a little disingenuous to pretend otherwise.  The show is simply too mired in the period-typical homophobia of late 90s network television for things to be otherwise.

Willow: Sort of an inverse of the Oz take earlier: I was surprised by how badly Willow did in the recent character contests.  I think she’s pretty clearly the second-best written character in the show (just after Buffy herself).

That said, I guess my most unpopular Willow take is I think it’s kind of sad that she doesn’t go to a better college than Sunnydale U?  I think it is entirely in character that she would go to the same college as Buffy, and even that she would try to convince herself this wasn’t just because she was trying to help Buffy, but I still think it’s a mistake that she comes to regret.  If I were Willow’s friend in Season 3 – or, perhaps more to the point, one of her teachers – I would have tried pretty hard to talk her out of it. 

The show tries to present Willow’s decision to stay in Sunnydale as being an unquestionable positive, at least in Season 3’s Choices – and not just an excuse for Alyson Hannigan to stay on the show – but I’m not really convinced.  Okay, Willow doesn’t just want to help Buffy, but wants to “fight evil, help people” and “what better place?” is there to learn magic.  Let’s pretend to believe this is why she's staying in town.

The thing is though – as Season 4 makes clear – Sunnydale U is actually a terrible place to learn magic.  It’s only by luck that Willow meets even a single other witch, while off in England there are whole covens who would be delighted to teach her.  And the idea that fighting evil means staying in Sunnydale is a bit hard to defend too, given that this is the season of the show that establishes that there are other Hellmouths (in The Wish) and given that the season ends with Angel leaving town for LA to … uh, fight the forces of evil.  Which it turns out you can do pretty much anywhere.  Including, presumably, in places like Harvard or Oxford (where, in reality, there’s quite a lot of evil to be fought).

I don’t think this is an intentional reading of the show, but I do think you can see this choice as a sign of how little positive adult guidance there is in Willow’s life.  (We see just enough of her parents to know how neglectful they are.)   The show tells us that Giles wants Buffy to be able to go to Northwestern and get out of Sunnydale, but he doesn’t bat an eye at Willow turning down the chance to leave?  Other than Buffy, does Willow have anybody to discuss her choice with, even if she wanted to?

Yes, sure, in real life you don’t have to go to the “best” colleges just because you can and academic prestige isn’t the most important thing in the world and blah blah blah.  I agree!  And I know some people think this choice the show makes is empowering or inspiring.  But I think Willow personally would be happier somewhere where she was actually academically challenged, or somewhere she could actually be taught magic properly rather than illicitly teaching herself against the advice and wishes of her girlfriend and her ex-librarian.)

Again, I’m not saying the show should have had Willow leave.  I understand why they didn’t (even though part of me loves the idea of a spin-off Willow series where Willow goes to Oxford and the Bullingdon Club play the role of Wolfram & Hart).  But I’m not really on board with the popular idea that Willow going to the same second-rate college that Buffy is forced to settle for (and that Buffy gets to be sad about having to go to!) is actually a good thing.

#btvs #ask games #thanks!

[jennycalendar]

jenny and giles are genuinely SLEPT ON. there is so much insanely cool stuff going on wrt the way they mirror each other. the whole flexible identity thing is literally Right There; it’s what causes the initial rift between them -- but it’s also really interesting that jenny’s situation with her family is the inverse of giles’s deal with eyghon.

for giles, eyghon is a part of his past that he keeps secret because it represents his attempt to ESCAPE his responsibilities. he actively tried to remove himself from the destiny he was forced into, acting out and making incredibly self destructive choices, and this path led directly to the death of one of his friends. eyghon is kept under wraps in giles’s life because he doesn’t want anybody to know that he isn’t as dedicated to the job as people seem to think. he wants people to think that he is steadfast.

meanwhile, jenny is upset about the situation with her family because she CAN’T escape her responsibility to them; she keeps this a secret because it undercuts the free and easy image she presents to the rest of the world. she is tethered incredibly firmly to her destiny and has found a way to quietly and carefully integrate it into the life that she wants to lead, but this isn’t what she wants. she wants to be free.

so giles is a rebel trying his best to pretend that his destiny holds him prisoner, and jenny actually IS caught in a web of familial obligations that she refuses to acknowledge -- because she wants to pretend she’s a rebel. they see each other and there is this immediate recognition that they can’t own up to, especially since who they Really Are is supposed to be super secret: giles sees somebody who is unbothered by the way the world is Supposed To Be and determined to upend it (which is exactly the same as the guy he’s trying to hide) and jenny sees somebody who is tied down by a duty that is slowly destroying him (which is exactly her situation). they fall ridiculously hard for this person who they see as completely capable of understanding them, as they are, while also simultaneously having no intention of ever revealing themselves. it is so fucked up.

and then there’s the kind of people that they are, just in general! jenny uses her gritty too cool for school exterior to hide the fact that she is an idealist and a scholar: she believes wholeheartedly in a kinder world. in the potential of angel to be someone good. raised and steeped in blood and hatred, she is looking at the world and saying, “fuck you. no. buffy is going to get her boyfriend back.” she KNOWS it is impossible. she TRIES ANYWAY. she spends a MONTH researching and coding and working and learning until she finds a way to achieve the improbable. she is described within canon as a dedicated teacher, a thorough teacher, someone who leaves lesson plans hefty enough that a high school junior can teach her class without stressing. (yes that is a weird god damn plot point but so is everything relating to jenny. moving on.)

meanwhile, giles PLAYS at being a librarian, but like i always say: man chose that job so that he wouldn’t have to talk to people. jenny’s got drive; she loves her cover story and she throws herself into teaching her classes. she adores what she does. giles abhors the reality of library sciences and regularly closes the library so that he can pursue the weird demonic shit. where jenny’s i-don’t-care veneer hides a warm and passionate heart, giles’s warm-and-stuffy-librarian thing hides this exhaustedly cynical and often very unpleasant dude. he’s of course soft with the kids because he does love them, but there’s twenty years of resentment and repression going on there. he is not happy to be where he’s at. though he’s enchanted by jenny’s determined optimism, he doesn’t harbor it quite as passionately as she does.

so literally giles is what jenny pretends to be (and also kind of is), and jenny is what giles pretends to be (and also kind of is). because of course on so many levels jenny is fiercely rebellious: she breaks free of her destiny when it really counts. she’s strong enough to commit to that. and then giles really is trapped by his role as a watcher, no longer pretending: he is forced to choose between jenny and buffy, and chooses buffy without hesitation. they are what they say they are, and they’re also lying all the fucking time. it’s insane.

and more insane than that is the fact that the people they actually fall in love with are the people underneath all of that. jenny isn’t in love with a bumbling librarian or a sexy dangerous badass, she’s in love with this really sweet guy who works too hard and hates himself too much and is kind of a dick sometimes, but in a hot way. giles isn’t in love with the hot computer science teacher or the quietly dutiful but somewhat clumsy double agent (if she can even be called that) -- he is in love with this weird mean nerd who doesn’t totally know how to whisper sweet nothings and tries to communicate how much she loves him by endlessly making fun of him. they are drawn to each other and they see right fucking through each other to the point where everything else is genuinely just semantics. nothing matters but the fact that rupert and jenny are in love.

of course, they are both pedantic nerds who spend WAY too much time on semantics and not NEARLY as much time on their own feelings. they are also guarded as fuck. so it takes them an impossibly long time to figure shit out, and they really only get a half-second of knowing before it is cut brutally short.

like. they are That Couple. they are so devastatingly romantic and so genuinely messy and fucked up and this is packed into this weird less-than-a-season-long arc that’s really only intended to add some flavor to a story that isn’t theirs. nothing is gonna hit for me as hard as giles and jenny, who found space to fall desperately in soulmate-level love in the margins.

#meta #calendiles #rupert giles #jenny calendar #im just. im just. im j ust #five years on and i am still writing meta for these two #i used to be like ''haha they're just in ordinary person love they're not soulmates'' #but yknow what if buffy and angel get to be soulmates then so do giles and jenny #giles NEVER LOVES AGAIN IN CANON AFTER LOSING HER #and honestly had giles died in jenny's place i don't think jenny would have ever dated again either #they were IT for each other. makes me crazy