red_satin_doll: (Come What May outtake)
red_satin_doll ([personal profile] red_satin_doll) wrote2012-12-31 08:13 pm

Canon-related questions for Buffyologists

There's a couple of items about Buffy Summers that I've seen in several fanfics and wondered if they were "canon" or "fanon" information. I don't trust my memory, especially when I've probably spent more hours at this point reading fanfiction than actually watching the show. (What that says about me I shudder to imagine.)



By "canon", I am of course referring to BtVS, seasons 1-7 only, not the comics (aka Get behind me, Satan!)
Buffy_5x22_The_Gift_409

1) Is Buffy's given name "Buffy" or "Elizabeth"?  I've read "Elizabeth Anne Summers" used in several fanfics and it feels like it might have been mentioned somewhere in S1-3 on the show, if at all?
Buffy_6x05_Life_Serial_527_LMTW
Actually, I just wanted an excuse to post this screencap. But while you're here:
2) Does Buffy refer to herself in third person at any other point on the show except for Life Serial: "stupid Buffy" "freak Buffy"?  A lot of stories have her refer to herself in this way, usually when she's berating herself, although generally not while drunk. (For someone who can't hold her liquor she seems to drink quite a lot of it in LS. Slayer metabolism, apparently.) 

Also, she generally does so whilst kicking herself mentally over something regarding Spike, so do early season/Bangel 'ship writers have her referring to herself in this manner as well?
Buffy_6x05_Life_Serial_688

No, no further questions; I just love SMG in this episode so damn much I can hardly stand it. I mean - come on, Giles, how can you resist that face? Buttons and puppies are weeping in envy.  Now do your duty to your Slayer and hand her the check without making her feel like it's an act of charity on your part. 


I love Giles, I do. But damn it, he can be an ass sometimes.

[identity profile] red-satin-doll.livejournal.com 2013-01-04 02:15 am (UTC)(link)
but in real life, if I were in Buffy's situation in S6, of course I would be talking to Giles about his watcher's salary and why don't I get a cut, how messed up is that, etc. so forth.

And I can just hear Buffy saying that in exactly those words - with arms crossed and that little tilt of the head thing she does. Or Dawn, even: "Why don't they pay you? That is just SOOO messed up!"

You're right about it being story/theme over plot logic. I also think it gets back to that aspect of worldbuilding, which is not Joss' forte. We really don't learn much about how the Watcher/potential relationship has functioned, because Buffy is someone who "slipped through the cracks"; so I was surprised all over again when some of the potentials mentioned in S7 that their Watchers had been killed. And even at that we don't know the exact nature of the relationship (in terms of how the girls were cared for, did they go to their Watchers the way one would go to a self-defense class once a week, etc etc?)

[livejournal.com profile] gabrielleabelle did a meta on the subject of Buffy and compensation (and women's unpaid labor) esp in comparison to Angel; but I'd still love to know what the writers were thinking of, because this is one instance I can't parse it out either way; and I usually prefer to go by what I see than by what the writers say later when at all possible. (Believe the tale and not the teller.)
http://gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com/280698.html

I suspect that in S7, if the council hadn't gotten blown up, there would have come a point where Buffy confronted them about all that

I'd like to think so - but then again in my fantasy world, Willow hacked into the WC's assets via her computer after they went ka-blooey (and I can just see her tucking a little on the side into Buffy's bank account, because what are friends for?)