Buffy, Season Six Panel, 2002

I'm watching a Buffy panel from a con in 2002, after the season six finale had premiered. I was planning on making a post about it after watching, but dear lord, too much brilliance for me to miss! First of all, Nick Brendon is, just wow. James Marsters is, just wow. God, everyone, everything. Okay Rachael, we get it, you're amazed. Now quote time!


They were discussing how every season up until season six has had a metaphor for sex, but season six really hits you over the head with it. Which is extraordinarily true. Willow and Tara's "spells", Angel's "one moment of true happiness", etc. Season six is like; KABLAM! Deliciously explicit Spuffy sex. ("Plus, we like the pornies!"- Marti xD) Season six truly is about a loss of innocence, through death, through responsibilities, through mistakes, through sex. Sex is such an incredibly profound thing and I think, though they did not discuss it in the panel, that a huge part of Spike and Buffy's relationship is to show that sex is also used as an escape- and that doesn't have to be a bad thing. It isn't always true love, it isn't always sweet and romantic, it can be passionate and all consuming- but for completely different reasons.

(straying off topic for just a bit, but it all makes sense- I swear.) Today Ella, Kiley, and I were discussing how the concept of virginity is almost an invention, really. I mean, in a heterosexual relationship it is rather clear when sex occurs and when it doesn't. Very concrete, not a whole lot of talking yourself out of not losing your virginity once you've you knowed. But, with lesbians the entire concept of virginity becomes a vague thought that really, almost doesn't exist. When there isn't a penis involved, where does virginity exist and where does it not? Cearly, there are different levels of intimacy two people can share in a relationship, but where is the line drawn? And why does it need to be drawn? As long as we share what we are comfortable with sharing with one another, where is the wrong? What defines a loss of innocence, really? I think the entire idea of virginity will always be vague for me, I prefer not to read too much into it. In some ways, it's unfair that heterosexual's have a concrete border to cross. But, in other ways, I'm very lucky- my intimacy cannot be labeled. I must say, I do prefer remaining unlabeled.

"It wasn't metaphoric, the sex they were having- but what it was doing to them was sort of metaphoric."- Marti Noxon

Sex is an expression of something greater. As I said before, metaphors were used up until season six- where it became blatant. Rather than being "oooh this is about sex" it becomes "oooh, the sex is about this." What was really frustrating for me in season six was the way that Buffy treated Spike, used him as a 'convenience', an outlet. In the episode "Gone" Buffy has her first feeling of wanting to stay alive after having been brought back to life and torn out of heaven. Now, this is also the episode in which she has sex with Spike without walls, without denial, without fear or self-imposed disgust- for the first time. And afterwards she has what she calls a "giddy spell". She becomes ridiculously happy, and experiences fear for the first time since being raised from the dead when she learns that she's at risk. I argue that it's because of teh smex! It made her feel, it made her happy. The expression of love, though it was not with a human being, was showing her how to be human again.

I've become a crazed Spuffy fangirl, so of course Buffy justifying her relationship with Spike the way that she did really pissed me off. It was that she couldn't admit to herself that it was more than just her 'using him'. First off, Spike with Buffy was about love, as he reminded her many times. However, Buffy with Spike was about feeling. It wasn't Buffy expressing love for Spike, but it was about the way Spike made her feel- which, without question, in my view stands as a form of love. Of course, depressive postmortem Buffy has to convince herself that because she's only doing it so that she can feel again, that she's using him as a sexual object. I hate to put some Leonard Cohen is this Joss Whedon but (Who am I kidding? I'm delighted to!):

"Do not say the moment was imagined;
Do not stoop to strategies like this.
As someone long prepared for the occasion;
In full command of every plan you wrecked –
Do not choose a coward’s explanation
that hides behind the cause and the effect."

Buffy likes to pretend the moments were 'imagined', that what she felt was not true feeling- but rather purely lust. She's a bloody coward! She can't handle her feelings, so she denies them. (Sad thing is, these feelings are the first she's able to feel after returning from heaven- and by denying them she's only digger herself into a deeper hole.) I know that I've been there, most people either have or will. Which is another reason the complexity of the Spuffy situation is so amazing. It hits people hard, because it's real. Slayer to a Vampire. Man to a woman. Woman to a woman. Man to a man. Regardless, it's humanity. It's love, it's lust, it's what it does. Joss Whedon and Marti Noxon are incredibly gifted in touching humanity through their characters, it hits the viewers over the head. It isn't real, but it is. On so many levels.


Guess what??? Speaking of connecting with humanity through their characters: Segwaaaaaaay!


"What's really cool though is that we're sitting here talking about all the main characters that have been with us the whole time and what's going on with them. We're not talking about the super monster this year, you know this is not a show that's devolved into a 'new cool monster' every year, this is a show that's used the monsters as kind of window dressing a metaphor to explore the people. And I think that that's why it's sustained and become interesting to the point of being dangerous last year." -James

OH. MY. GOD. Thank you James for summing up my life and all of my obsessions in a few simple sentences. It's never about the monsters for me. Sure, they're cool. Fine, whatever. But as I've always told people (before I was into actually listening to what the writers and producers had to say, reading and watching interviews and such) every season's monster alludes to some part of humanity. This becomes much more blatant as the show goes on, but it's there, every year, it's there. I could never enjoy a show, or a book, if it were not character driven. I'm a 100% character driven person. Write me a book about four strangers trapped in a room with no outside interference whatsoever, only one another's emotions- and I'll love it. For me it's never about the external conflicts, the apocalypse, the situations characters are forced into. It's how the characters, the people, respond and how they develop. That's where we find humanity. That's where we find ourselves.

"Yes, that's right, it wasn't too depressing- it was too interesting! And maybe it was a little bit above everybody's heads! Maybe I'm a great artist! No, but, I agree with you, I just want to talk about me!"- Joss (in response to the James quote from above, and yes, there was quite blatant sarcasm in there.)

1st off- Joss is such a narcissist, it makes me love him that much more. Good God, how I adore narcissists. (Earlier: "I watched that episode a thousand times....because I'm an incredible narcissist."-Joss)
2nd off- Yes, season six was depressing as fuck. But, as they said in the panel, they had never planned to go in that direction. They wanted to touch on loss of innocence, on going out into the world unprotected. But things became complex- for each of the characters, not just one or a few. This lead to sad and dark things, but also incredibly interesting things. Joss and Marti received quite a bit of bitching mail and there was a huge outcry on the internet regarding how dark the series had gotten. People weren't willing to look past the dark twists that the season had taken in order to see the levels of the complexity of the human condition that were revealed to the audience. All they saw was "Everyone sad. Me no like." (Yes, I am calling those people idiots- I feel no guilt in doing so, having been there myself two years ago.)


(Regarding Willow's fillet o' Warren)"I was eating Chinese food when I watched it....now I don't eat Chinese food anymore."
-Nick Brendan, being amazing.

(After a joke which no one laughed at) "That was funny, by the way."
-Nick Brendan, being AMAZING.


Also, I find it rather ironically hilarious that Michelle Trachtenberg asks Joss that Dawn be done with whining after two seasons of it- and is actually realistically hopeful for it. Little does she know that the whining will only worsen, hohoho. I must say, I was in the same boat as her though, thought she could whine no more, thought that song had been sung. Sadness that the whining reaches it's peek in the season 8 comics >_> (Joss's rather appropriate response was, "She will move from whining to moping...!")

"Amber Benson...Couldn't she of just been wounded?"- Panel Host Lady
"Oh she was, just mortally!"- Nick! ♥
"No, she's dead. It's sad... I hope. Cause if people were laughing we failed big time!"-Joss

Let me say, I love that Tara dies. Now, let me also say, Tara was one of my favorite characters, really, truly. Awkward, funny, developed into an incredibly strong person, and gay. But, one of my hugest ticks in shows is when nobody actually dies. I hate it. When people come close to death through battles or what have you, but oh my goodness some how manage to escape it but just barely! : o

No, I hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. It's the reason I stopped watching the Bleach anime and stopped reading the manga. No one ever actually dies! There's always the close encounter with death, but it never effing happens! Joss Whedon is that real everyone, he's that amazing- he actually killed a wounded character. (And again proves his amazing sense of reality in the season seven finale)

Plus, that death scene and the scenes following, we so unbelievably incredible. Alyson Hannigan is, in my opinion, the most talented actress on the show. I cry, you cry, we all cry. I hate Warren, you hate Warren, we all hate Warren.

I'll let Nick explain this one to ya:
"My wife and I watched that, and it was really amazing for us 'cause I've been watching the show for six years now, ya know, and I get blown away each year. But when she got shot, and Willow got sprayed and Amber said "There's something on your shirt." No joke, bro, I mean like, we were balling. And-and not only were you balling because that person just died, but just the way that it was dealt with was so oh, you have something on your shirt and then...just, Aly did a fantastic job in that scene, and yes- you can applaud. But, with the amazing acting in that scene and just with how it was orchestrated with the writing, it blew me away."

(Nick was shaking as he said all of that.)

Again, that's what this does to you. This show makes you feel. Joss, and the entire cast and crew, are that incredible. The death of the one character we didn't quite understand at first, we didn't quite accept, hits the hardest.


Alright, I seem to be done with this rather casual and personally involved Buffy discussion,
Rachael.