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BUFFY/ANGEL Connection

arewhedonyet:

In the BUFFY Season 1 finale (“Prophecy Girl”), Giles, a watcher, translates an ancient prophecy stating the slayer (Buffy) will DIE.  Although she does briefly die in the episode, she ends up LIVING.

In the ANGEL Season 1 finale (“To Shanshu In L.A.”), Wesley, a former watcher, translates an ancient prophecy stating a vampire with a soul (assumed to be Angel) will one day DIE.  He later realizes the translation actually says a vampire with a soul will LIVE (become human).

Never noticed that connection before now.  In both instances, the prophecies end up being more complicated than they first appear.

I actually did notice this on my last rewatch. This is what got me to realize that Joss has three kinds of season finales.

The first is the “season 1” finale. Season 1 of his shows tend to be almost entirely episodic (with varying degrees of arc-ness). Usually, the second-to-last episode of the season is just an episode, but introduces a minor element that becomes central to the finale. In any case, the finale is pretty much a stand-alone. This is Prophecy Girl (Angel gets the prophecy in Out of Mind, Out of Sight), To Shanshu in L.A. (Angel also finds the prophecy in Blind Date), Omega (Alpha first shows up in Briar Rose), and Objects in Space. And yeah, I know Omega is technically the second to last episode, but bear with me a second. Dollhouse is pretty much the sort-of exception to all of these because the finales kind of combine most of them.

Epitaph One, the actual Dollhouse season 1 finale, is an example of the second kind: the “coda”. This happens after a season-long arc. The main conflict is over, the Big Bad has been defeated or whatever, but this episodes somehow wraps up the themes of the show. This is the rarest kind. Pretty much the only other examples are Epitaph Two, Restless, and Home.

The third kind is, of course, the end of an arc. This is pretty much every other finale I haven’t mentioned. Though, of course, the Dollhouse finales both sort of qualify for this category, too, because Dollhouse is crazy like that. And the ones that come before codas, like Primeval and Peace Out, are of course debatable.

This has been a needlessly precise categorization of the Whedonverse finales.

I get this chip out, you and me are gonna have a confrontation.

I approve of this gifset.

(Source: onegirlinalltheworld, via enterwhedonverse)

I’m reading the Wikipedia entry on “The Body”. It has a long section on themes and production and writing. Some interesting things from the article:

From the start of writing the Buffy series, Joss Whedon asserted that it would never have a “very special episode” as in contemporary series Beverly Hills, 90210, The Wonder Years, or Party of Five, where the core cast of characters addresses a single issue (AIDS, drug abuse, or alcoholism, for example) and resolve all the problems at the end.^[4] Whedon was not interested in finding a life-affirming lesson for “The Body”. Rather, he wanted to capture the isolation and boredom involved in the minutes and hours after finding a loved one has died,^[3] what he termed “the black ashes in your mouth numbness of death”. He did not intend to resolve any religious or existential questions about the end of life, but wanted to examine the process in which a person becomes a mere body.^[5]

Whedon’s rejection of the “very special episode” format impelled him to address the physicality of Willow and Tara’s relationship within “The Body”. Before this episode, they had held hands and danced on screen, but they had not kissed. A genre of television specials dealing with female homosexuality developed as the “lesbian kiss episode” in the 1990s, where a female character kissed another female but no relationship is further explored. Whedon set out to acknowledge Willow’s and Tara’s affection without making it the primary focus of the show. For attempting this, he received resistance from the airing network, the WB. Whedon informed them that the kiss between Willow and Tara was “not negotiable”.^[1] According to Whedon, the conversation about the kiss was approached by the network executives, who were concerned with the number of gay relationships on the network. Whedon countered that the kiss was “true to character” and said he would quit the show if the network forbade it. It was the only time during the series he threatened to do so.^[7]

If I were to make a list of the top Whedonverse characters, I wouldn’t base it on how much I like them, per se, because that’s just subjective and not very interesting. I would base it on how dynamic and deep the characters are (and how well their characterization development is done, of course). So Firefly and Dollhouse characters would be at a distinct disadvantage, especially Firefly characters.

Not to say they wouldn’t make the list, but could you really say any of the Firefly characters could beat out most of the main cast in Buffy and Angel? I just don’t think they ever got a chance to be “better” characters, for the most part.

livingfivebyfive:

softgrungezucchini:

WHO THE HELL SHIPS BUFFY X ANGEL

GUESS WHAT THE ANSWER IS NOBODY

Hi. My name is Nobody. Please to meet you! 

I definitely ship them. But I also kinda ship Buffy and Spike, and Angel and Spike is pretty much my Buffyverse OTP. 

Can I just ship Spike, Angel, and Buffy? (What would be the ship name far that – Spuffel?)

(Source: blimpies, via nostalgiacancer)

Man, I was hoping this would fix the pacing issue of the other Buffy / Avengers video, but it went entirely in the other direction. It almost goes so far that it works. Key word being almost.

(Source: whedonesque)

thbrogan asked: The gods vs. "old ones" thing has always confused me, but the way I've always understood it, it's sort of a question of gods vs. demons. The old ones are just straight up PURE DEMONS (a la the Master in the ascension) while the gods are just gods (which is why Glory was banished from her home dimension and not buried in the deeper well where Illyria was). The Old Ones are all gone and buried, while gods are still hangin around in other dimensions. (I think.)

I think you mean the Mayor in the ascension, right?

I’ve just checked the Buffyverse wiki, and basically, you’re right.

The Illyria article says she is an Old One, and that the Old Ones are “pure-breed demons”, which, now that I think about it, I remember to be true. It is also says “God-King” is one of her titles.

Whereas Glory’s article says she is a goddess, and it lists her as a “higher being”, along with The First, the Powers That Be, and Jasmine.

I guess the difference is that the Old Ones are just from this dimension. The higher beings are more powerful – unless they come to our dimension, where they get weakened to roughly Old One level strength, like Jasmine and Glory.

I never really thought about how much Angel and Oz are foils for each other. They’re both monsters who struggle to remain moral. And they both leave the women they love to protect them, because they think it’s the right thing to do. There’s even an episode that compares them (Beauty and the Beasts).

I’m pretty much going to be watching the Avengers/Buffy mashup video on loop until we get more news about the Marvel show.

Otherwise I might explode with anticipation.

OMG ARE WE GONNA ACTUALLY HAVE THIS SHOW NOW