Also it's really unfair and it's very convenient, if you think about it, for the Council: without the previous slayer there's not example nor guide. There's no previous experience. Every slayer is like an only child without mother and has to rebuilt her power starting with nothing. They could easily use the new orphan slayer, because no one will protect her.
Exactly - they practice total control. They "own" the story, until Buffy rewrites it. We hear about Watchers Diaries, what about Slayer Diaries? in Prophecy Girl, Joyce represents "possibilities", telling Buffy a story about how she met Hank at the prom and emphasizing choice, possibility and options; Giles says "Buffy WILL meet the Master and she WILL die." In the Gift he says "Dawn MUST die." He's the WC's rep, and there is only ONE option, one way to do things. And most Slayers live and die by that belief.
And this reflects a truth about real life - much of women's history has been erased, forgotten, buried, or is inaccessible to most of us. Buffy doesn't have access to her own history except through Giles/the WC and Spike - a Slayer of Slayers who doesn't know as much as he thinks he does. He doesn't understand when Xin Rong says "Tell my mother - I am sorry." He doesn't KNOW she had that bond, nor would he care in any case. She's an enemy to be defeated. So FFL actually makes clear that Spike isn't the final word on what Slayers are like, but somehow it ends up being interpreted that way, especially when LMPTM doesn't contradict his opinions. It's not exactly a battle of equals - equal strength perhaps, and yes the girls have training but nothing to compare with a vampire's 100+ years of skill and experience. In WTTH, Luke and the Master want to kill Buffy, they seek out "the Slayer"; she just wants to go to school and hang with her friends and date boys.
It's troubling - or it should be troubling, that the girls themselves are all but forgotten while the men have a pissing contest; that Robin's legitimate grievances are brushed aside; that Buffy is still removed from her own history...and don't even get me started on the awful image of Robin beaten and bloodied, looking like 14 year old Emmet Till in his coffin, or so many black Americans who were brutally murdered in America. It's really seems SO unfair.
Maybe they were going for "Spike hasn't totally learned empathy yet" but that's the last word on it in the series, so it just comes across as yucky. The perpetrator justifying himself, with the backing of the (white) Slayer who loves him against the "angry black man" who needs to get over himself apparently? Oh Season 7, you make it so hard for me to defend you sometimes.
no subject
Exactly - they practice total control. They "own" the story, until Buffy rewrites it. We hear about Watchers Diaries, what about Slayer Diaries? in Prophecy Girl, Joyce represents "possibilities", telling Buffy a story about how she met Hank at the prom and emphasizing choice, possibility and options; Giles says "Buffy WILL meet the Master and she WILL die." In the Gift he says "Dawn MUST die." He's the WC's rep, and there is only ONE option, one way to do things. And most Slayers live and die by that belief.
And this reflects a truth about real life - much of women's history has been erased, forgotten, buried, or is inaccessible to most of us. Buffy doesn't have access to her own history except through Giles/the WC and Spike - a Slayer of Slayers who doesn't know as much as he thinks he does. He doesn't understand when Xin Rong says "Tell my mother - I am sorry." He doesn't KNOW she had that bond, nor would he care in any case. She's an enemy to be defeated. So FFL actually makes clear that Spike isn't the final word on what Slayers are like, but somehow it ends up being interpreted that way, especially when LMPTM doesn't contradict his opinions. It's not exactly a battle of equals - equal strength perhaps, and yes the girls have training but nothing to compare with a vampire's 100+ years of skill and experience. In WTTH, Luke and the Master want to kill Buffy, they seek out "the Slayer"; she just wants to go to school and hang with her friends and date boys.
It's troubling - or it should be troubling, that the girls themselves are all but forgotten while the men have a pissing contest; that Robin's legitimate grievances are brushed aside; that Buffy is still removed from her own history...and don't even get me started on the awful image of Robin beaten and bloodied, looking like 14 year old Emmet Till in his coffin, or so many black Americans who were brutally murdered in America.
It's really seems SO unfair.
Maybe they were going for "Spike hasn't totally learned empathy yet" but that's the last word on it in the series, so it just comes across as yucky. The perpetrator justifying himself, with the backing of the (white) Slayer who loves him against the "angry black man" who needs to get over himself apparently? Oh Season 7, you make it so hard for me to defend you sometimes.