Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! To: Greybird, Re: Buffy and "preventing karmic disaster" on the "SG's Corpse" thread

Hi, Grey! As a Buffy fan, a comment of yours on the "Saturn Girl's Rotting Corpse" thread caught my interest. On that threadI asked you a couple of times to explain what you meant by a comment you made on it.

Here's most of that post you made:

"I admit to having a personal problem with art that dwells on the aftereffects of death. To me it makes the fact of death exceed its proper importance, as the artist weighs reality. What should matter is life, action, achievement.

You might gather from this that I loathe the whole horror-movie genre, and you'd be right. Aside from the brain-chemical rush -- and I can see how that'd be compelling for many people -- I never saw the point. I wanted heroism in my art, either in this century, ten before, or ten after. Not its being ruled out, or someone's merely preventing karmic disaster. (Such as "Buffy.")"


I wasn't offended or anything; I just wasn't sure what point you were trying to make about Buffy and how it relates to the rest of it. Seemed a little vague and open to many interpretations. I hope you don't mind responding here. Thanks!

We do have instant messages here, Lardy -- you could have given me a heads-up sooner. I try to check after a while on all my comments, but I missed that one. (Please do shorten the thread title by editing your first post.)

I saw -- what little I did of that character, only the initial movie and bits of a few episodes (how I missed that the lovely Alyson Hannigan was in it, I'll never know) -- that she wasn't achieving anything worthy of note.

She was dealing with various horror-type metaphysical baddies. Staving off even worse effects that the inherent malevolence of the universe would throw at her -- and I don't see the universe as being that way.

A spiritual firefighter, perhaps, though I see those on the FDNY and other front lines as being far more productive. I don't see what someone like that does (or would, if those horrors existed) as being heroic. Preventing disaster that's inevitably going to come along is more like picking up the metaphysical garbage.

Villains who can choose otherwise make all the difference. Even {ObligatoryLegion} the Fatal Five, by contrast, were capable of second thoughts.

I'll admit I may have missed many nuances, and you certainly are the "Buffy" maven. I just never saw enough to make me want to watch much of it.

I'm a huge "Buffy" fan and I'll admit I didn't get it at first either. It seemed kinda light and flimsy at first, but I came to realise the show was about taking the traumas of adolescence and heightening them with the use of all the magical battles and monsters to bring those issues to light in an hour long weekly drama in a way that was exciting and fun.

The heroism of Buffy follows the archtype that has grown to popularity in the past decade or two -- the unexpected hero: one who has greatness thrust upon them and the heroism comes from not asking for the mantle, but learning to deal with it, owning it and becoming it. In comic book terms, it's Kyle Rayner as opposed to Hal Jordan - the hero whose greatness was self-generated. I don't like Kyle Rayner though, so another comic book reference would be "Mage: the Hero Discovered" (which I LOVED)

One interpretation is that it's all a metaphor for growing up - feeling disconnected from your new life as a burgeoning adult until you finally take responsibility for what you are (what your parents made you) and take responsibility for yourself and decide the person you're going to be.

The show was also great simply because it was funy, the plots were surprising and there was great characterization (for the most part) -- you got to know and care for these folks.