Ethan and Eyghon and the Scythe, Oh My!

[red_satin_doll]

dragonyphoenix is writing a "Giles as Big Bad" fic inspired by my post on the subject back in February, when I asked if any such beast existed; since then I still have not come across any such. I still don't understand why, because the bones of the idea are all over the series. Ethan Rayne will be part of it, of course, and the jist of it is at present: Eyghon has been able to influence and corrupt Rupert over the years. Rupert's plan, as he arrives at the Hellmouth and takes over as Buffy's Watcher, is to corrupt the Slayer line by calling Eyghon down into the Scythe.

Oh yes PLEASE. I love to draw parallels and comparisons across the buffyverse seasons so bringing together the early seasons, so that aspect alone is catnip. And Ethan? The Ripper backstory? All of it was so underused in the series. Yes, I know, aimed at a teenage audience blah blah....I want this so bad you have no idea.  No pressure or anything like that.  *shifty eyes*

In terms of bringing the Scythe into the Buffyverse in earlier seasons I'm slightly reminded of leni_ba's  Buffy/Angelus AU Courting Sin 'verse, in which Angelus gives Buffy the Scythe to make her more powerful, to continue to draw her to him and make her his newest "work of art". The Scythe was dropped into S7 to make the Buffyverse match up to Joss' Frayverse, so it's a deus ex machina and it's "myth"? Pure racist crap and totally up for grabs re: rewrites.

Comments

Re: Pt 2 of long-ass reply

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Someone I read recently was discussing how Buffy is the one to figure out the Big Bad in early S1.

2maggie2 said in one of her early season episode reviews (or the comments in one) that she was reminded in her rewatch that Buffy is "remarkably sharp"; it may have been for the episode I Robot, You Jane, where Buffy intuits that Moloch is coming from the internet itself. And I know bone_dry1013 also covers this territory in her fic and meta on the episodes; specifically Teacher's Pet and the math teacher who is one of the few people who expresses confidence in Buffy's intelligence (and then dies immediately thereafter). Bonedry also covers in her Origin fic the downward spiral in Buffy's social status that accompanies the gradual erosion of her self-confidence even early on.

I once saw some comments on a forum for TV Tropes in which several people repeated "Buffy's not that creative" to the point I wondered what show they were watching. Creativity, intuition and native intelligence are some of Buffy's most important tools. She's contrasted against the "learned by rote" Kendra (in ways that are unfair to Kendra, I think), which is why Giles doesn't know what to do with her in the early seasons. Lessons from the book are useless when it comes to her.

In some ways her going back to Giles in S4-5 and saying she needed to learn more from him, she needed him as a Watcher, may have been an expression of how much her confidence had faltered, and perhaps did her more harm than good in the long run. I think he needed to be needed by her more than she needed him as a Watcher. What she really needed was a father-figure but was unable to express that outright.

I've seen studies conducted - how "scientific" I have no idea - that say that girls in the US (I don't race or class) tend to lose confidence as become teenagers and become more aware of the standards of beauty they see every day in the media, and aware of boys and sexuality and trying to please and be pleasing to the opposite sex in order to "win" a boyfriend. I'd like to think things are improving but in fact eating disorders are on the rise, which is extremely telling.

So Buffy's loss of confidence is something that fits very well with RL patterns for American teenagers/young women; including the fact that (as I have) she links self-esteem or lack thereof to her failure to finish college, etc.

But I'm not sure the writers of the show are actually making a point about RL and in fact I suspect the opposite. And the comics only push that to extremes: Buffy is good at NOTHING. have you read superplin's essay series on "Buffy and Expertise"? It's a great essay to show anyone who thinks Buffy is "not that bright", although some of it is a bit over my head esp at the beginning (it's more accessible as it goes on for me):
http://superplin.livejournal.com/205253.html
http://superplin.livejournal.com/205478.html
http://superplin.livejournal.com/205714.html