VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3], 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 09:32:39 09/10/07 Mon
Author: Age
Subject: Re: Another Look Spoilers Part 5
In reply to: Age 's message, "Re: Another Look Spoilers Part 4" on 09:29:07 09/10/07 Mon

Okay, now I’m going to move on to analyzing issue one from the perspective of the satirical look at the effects on a free society that the desire to reduce the menace of future attacks through might of a top down governing structure would bring.

The title page:

In my posting way back when about 8.1, I mentioned that this page describes metaphorically Buffy’s high at the end of the TV series when the First, which is a metaphor for the spectre of menace of death, was scrunch and she could live as a person. Indeed it does mean this, in fact you could say it represents the moment when she was on top of the world, when the individual in a free society was on top of the world. It also, however, can represent, because Buffy as an American is a stand-in for citizens in a free society, how they felt just before a terrorist attack: feeling good about themselves as persons living in a democracy, the road ahead looks fine, you could even say that it expresses a feeling of safety within that society, that they’re above the dangers of the world below them.

Then the terrorist attack occurs.

Okay, here I have to stop. At the end of the TV series Buffy ushers in a new feminized society of (emotional) em-power-ment sharing, a human society, by destroying the spectre of menace of death from others, the First Evil, a reference to a breakdown in human trust due to trying to be as if gods like Adam and Eve. To do this, Buffy activates all the slayers, an act of trust (because they were too numerous to watch over and because it eliminated whatever greater top down power she possessed over them) to go with the trust she placed in Spike, having destroyed the end result of the opposite strategy, that of mistrust in the powerful uber vamp, proving that such an approach can never succeed because, as the Mayor found out, you can never make yourself so powerful as to be invulnerable, that the human way of emotional contact and equality is better because we are always vulnerable, we always need to express the pain and share the joy of being human . In this new type of society, ideally, no policemen/slayers are needed (and the slayers all activated at once change the metaphor from isolated emotionally marginalized warrior adolescents under the top man watcher (who could represent a top down governing body that looks out from the sidelines for danger while the slayer/individual is sacrificed) having reached their potential based on human trust and emotional bonding) because we all live in self governing anarchistic harmony together as emotionally empowered adults. This moment, this dawn of a new society, is what the dawn over the globe panel is meant to represent.

But, wait!!!!!!

Let’s look at the whole thing again in true Joss Whedon style. Remember Buffy’s swan dive off of Glory’s tower that got changed from heroic sacrifice to adolescent grandiose suicide when she was brought back to adulthood? Well, Joss Whedon’s done a similar thing here.

He’s saying, hold on, yes, the slayers are sisters and can represent a sisterly model of human relations, but they are also slayers, warriors/policemen. What if the dawn over the globe image isn’t the sun, but a depiction of a terrorist attack in the form of a great blast, and what if the activation of all the slayers isn’t about power sharing, but about creating more policemen, more security against future attack, as the first slayer was created to be, and what if that could lend itself to a satiric look at what happens if those measures were put in place! He says as much in the line: the thing about changing the world, once you do it, the world’s all different. And, you’ve lost the kind of free society you had.

Okay, the terrorist attack happens, as depicted by the male (might) sun symbol, a physical act. And there’s a great deal of pain from the loss of human life and from the loss of the feeling of being secure, as symbolized by Buffy’s as she, I speculate, realizes not only the loss of life, but of the lives that were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt elsewhere, including her own after Sunnydale is destroyed. She thus sets about training her new slayers, preparing them to eliminate the threat of future attack, future loss and the pain it brings to the exclusion of everything else, just as security would become important after a major attack. She deals with her pain not in a feminine way by expressing it and getting support, but in a masculine (might) way by making sure this kind of devastation never happens again.

Buffy’s fall then from the sky on the next page isn’t just a chosen jump, but a representation of the realization, following the terrorist attack, that the citizens she symbolizes aren’t above the dangers of the world; and that, like the church Buffy enters that’s been infiltrated by demons, there’s no sanctuary: there could be terrorists amongst them. In fact, the dilapidated state of the church represents how broken down the notion of being secure has become. Being secure is, like the church and the faith in others it could represent, a thing of the past. The fall representing this realization is followed by a symbolically depicted special operation mission against demons (terrorists) holding hostages.

Why are terrorists depicted as demons? Well, it does reinforce the idea of the destruction of sanctuary given that church is the last place one would traditionally expect to find demons; and adds the sense of violation that a terrorist attack would engender. It could also point to the perception on the part of the victims that now there are human beings among them whose sole purpose, it seems, is to kill or maim for whatever purpose, whether for simple personal gain or to alter the behaviour of those targeted in order to achieve a goal. It also points to how easily these people could be demonized given their horrendous act and the pain they’ve caused when they themselves may, misguidedly, think they’re doing the right thing. Bringing them to justice is not the same as demonizing them. It could also highlight the intransigence of the perpetrators, having adopted violence as a method of getting what they want. The act is one of coercion. It’s the flip side of authoritarian governing, of the male (might) approach. One could even speculate, depending on the motivation of the terrorists, that the attack is an attempt to get such a government going by eliciting a defensive response. It’s an attempt to marginalize the feminizing culture by pessimists who believe it’s the only way to make permanent adolescents act as though they are adults. It’s about submission to a top down form of governing by people that cannot equate a free society with adult human beings, but only with allowing adolescents free reign. (So, citizens need to realize that the attack may have ended in one blast, but, if the citizens are not careful, their fearful defensive response may perpetuate the attack against them as a free society of trusted individuals. In other words, citizens who allow a terrorist attack to make them desire protection above all else become their own attackers. Hence Voll as the unseen, unforeseen consequence; Buffy as the individual and feminizing icon attacked.)

Demons have been used in part in the series to represent demonizing. You only police as represented by the demon enhanced slayer, if you feel that the person is beyond getting through to emotionally; in that case you have to stop the behaviour because the person is no longer responding; it’s as if the person had died and was replaced by a demon. In the above example of the terrorist, the people are represented by demons because they are beyond getting through to as humans. But why? Perhaps it’s because they have demonized the people they are trying to police through the terrorist attack. This is a complete breakdown in trust between people who, on the one hand, think they need to control others through violence, hence the terrorist attack; and on the other hand, have to respond as if the others were demons because they can’t stop the immediate threat any other way. The point here is that neither side really is a demon, even though both are portrayed as such, demon and demon enhanced slayer; it’s just the metaphor is used to show the total breakdown in human relations. Quite clearly from Giles’ conversation with the demon leader in comic book three, the encounter in the church is a set up, presumably to either kill Buffy or sour relations between the slayers and this type of demon to keep both occupied. However, symbolically, the demons are portraying terrorists.

Note that the phallic gravestone marker in the cemetery represents how Buffy’s more male (might) approach will lead to the resurrection of the equivalent of a male (might) dominated society which will find its symbol further in Voll. The cemetery, as I mentioned above, is humanity’s graveyard under this type of society. Note her more male (might) approach is symbolized by her seeming to use a gun to break down the barrier, the invisible barrier that in my other posting could be the one women broke to gain acceptance, but is more likely the invisible mythical barrier that the citizens thought was keeping them naively safe from attack; and then the male (might) approach is symbolized by the gun-looking harpoon launchers used by the slayers; finally Buffy even picks up a gun to examine it. There’s a movement here from harmless ray gun to demon killing harpoon to gun that kills human beings. The movement creates meaning: this is where Buffy, the citizens, are headed in their use of might alone.

Buffy’s meticulous planning of the mission to the church lets us know that she’s very focused on not losing anyone in the future, making it clear that the people in power she represents are attempting to be prepared for any terrorist attack. Which moves us to Voll who is the consequence of Buffy’s more male (might) approach; as a male his focus is on eliminating physical threat to eliminate the possibility of attack in the first place; his masculine (might) approach focuses on prevention and not on the emotion of the person; he’s a man who must eliminate the threat that could bring attack in the first place, not cry about it afterwards. As far as Voll’s masculine (might) approach is concerned the human as personal emotional being is completely out of the picture as depicted by there being none visible in the helicopter panel on the page where we see him first talking to the Suit.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.