thinky thoughts about Buffy & CoE

[rm]

Right, so in the great Buffy watchathon, we just watched "Passion," which actually makes me want to talk about Children of Earth.



So in Buffy, a main character's romantic interest dies, and it's fucking awful, and he hares off alone to deal with it, and then his friends come after them and he tries to push them away and they say "No."

Whereas in Torchwood the wounded man gets away.

Of course, there's no real way to stop Jack from getting away and his wounds are more significant (that whole thing with Stephen), but there are similarities:

- romantic loss
- of a romance where chances have been wasted
- sex deferred
- involving a surviving party who arguably had tried not to get involved.

Here's the thing, I think "Passion" works marvelously. And, in the way it resolves, there's this balm -- not of healing, but of this sense of enduring and healing (of course, the graveside moment helps).

In CoE, which I also thinks works marvelously, there is no balm to speak of, and the thought of Jack's endurance is nausea-inducing, because it seems as if this moment will be forever.

It's much easier for me to understand now, having seen "Passion," why and how people are so angry with how CoE was handled (although I also understand that that's about a whole slew of other things too in various combinations, I'm just looking at this one little sliver).

And yet, for me and my interests (narratively and emotionally and academically), the Buffy episode actually speaks to why CoE _also_ works for me.

It is, as Angel says in that voiceover that somehow manages to work by the skin of its teeth (it wouldn't without the death, just the way the slo-mo stuff in Day 4 wouldn't without Ianto's death), about "the ecstasy of grief."

Ecstasy, of course, is the key word. It's exactly right. God, I _hated_ how I fetl in the immediate aftermath of Day 4, but it was also amazing. I remember it, and the thought of watching the episode again (which I must for scholarly reasons) makes me tense with misery, but that crystal, perfect moment of the initial experience of it was so pure and bright and just vivid. It was like, biting into an orange, I guess. At least in recollection, in the sense of the arc of emotional sensation for me. Anyway....

"The ecstasy of grief." That's the key really. We can't fuck these people. But we can mourn them. And when the property doesn't (among other things); we do.

This, mostly written down so it wends its way into my Bristol paper.

Comments

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

Also "Passions" has Anthony Stewart Head with a giant flaming sword. Which is awesome.

I think people also reacted negatively to the feeling that they were being punished for loving Ianto. Jenny was, in the end, a minor character, who served as romantic interest for Giles, with whom the majority of the audience did not identify. It was tragic, but she wasn't mourned not only because the show handled it better (which it did; that scene at the end where Buffy grieves with Giles is incredibly moving), but because of how she fit into the show's cast of characters. She just was not a fan favorite the way Ianto was, and so fans didn't feel that her death was Joss giving them the finger.

Btw, have you seen Behind the Sofa before? I ask because the top post right now is about a book RTD put out that contains email correspondence about CoE. I'm anti-authorial intent in terms of criticism, but I thought it was interesting, and might be useful to you in terms of the work you're doing. People (myself included) make a lot of assumptions about what RTD was and wasn't thinking. Reading the post made me realize that he does think, actually, and he's more self-aware as a writer than I'd previously given him credit for. His brain is just not a place I really care to go.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Btw, have you seen Behind the Sofa before? I ask because the top post right now is about a book RTD put out that contains email correspondence about CoE.

Oh god, I wish I didn't know about that. RTD fascinates me as a writer, and I love reading about his writing process -- I loved The Writers' Tale -- but I just don't know if I have the emotional fortitude to read that.

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

What fascinated me was that he knows a lot of people hate what he writes. But it's a conscious choice for him to carry on writing it that way anyway. I don't know if I find that admirable or just annoying and stubborn. Probably if I liked his work I would find it the former, but as I don't, I mostly find it the latter. And a little sad, too, since it has to be hard for him to know that a huge swathe of Who fans can't stand what he's done to the show.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

I think part of it is simply that some people go on at him about the tiniest little things in his work, like they're determined to hate everything he does. He can't win with those people, so he tunes them out (quite understandably). Unfortunately, this means that he's totally out of touch with the way that his fans respond to his work a lot of the time.

Honestly, with reading his emails from CoE -- I'm just really not sure that I can bear to read about how pleased he is with something that hurt me so much. That's not because he's a bad person, but it does mean that I feel inclined to distance myself from his writing, regardless of how much I admire him too.

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

People are critical of the little things, I think, because they don't like the big things. I'm much less inclined to nitpick Moffat's scripts, for example, because I like what he does overall. I don't like RTD's big picture, so the little things annoy me more, too.

What was interesting to me were the bits about the trouble Day 5 gave him. Honestly, it sounds like he had way too much going on at the time and none of it got his full and proper attention. Would him having more time for the script have saved Ianto? Probably not. But it might've meant a better send off and less craptastic end to the serial.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

People are critical of the little things, I think, because they don't like the big things.

Yeah, I think this is true. I know that with most of RTD's work, I don't give a crap about plot holes, etc, because I enjoy the story anyway. With CoE, however, the plot holes annoy the shit out of me, because I don't like where he went with the story -- in that he was trying to make Torchwood all SRS BZNS, even though it had just as many flaws as S1 and S2.

The thing that gets me about Day 5, along with the comments that I made earlier (and then deleted) about Steven not having enough emotional resonance with the audience, particularly after Ianto's death, is how they basically pull a solution out of their asses, and then, of course, RTD tries to claim that Ianto's death was a necessary part of that solution (an argument that I find wholly unconvincing).

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

Yes, I imagine that he wanted Ianto's death to be part of that solution, but Day 5 was this huge gaping hole (or so it appears from what I read at BtS) and it just didn't come out the way he wanted it to.

*sigh* I think I just like tight scripts that make sense and RTD's are - by his own admission - not that.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

See, if Ianto had actually sacrificed his life to save someone -- even just one person -- I think I could have eventually reconciled myself to it. Especially if it had been something like, if Ianto had been able to save all the other people in Thames house be re-routing the virus to Floor 13, which then went into lockdown -- I'm sure I would have still been really upset, but it would have felt more appropriate for his character.

Or, better yet, if Jack had had to somehow kill Ianto, rather than Steven (or maybe both of them) in order to destroy the 456 -- and Ianto forced him to do it (after some adequate relationship development, which we never got) -- that would have been powerful, and I think that I eventually would have liked it.

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

I like both of those ideas. The latter, in particular, might have ended with Jack in the same place psychologically as we get him at the end of Day 5, but without the sense of nihilism that so many people found so unbearable.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that if Ianto's death had been meaningful and compellingly necessary in a Watsonian sense it wouldn't have seemed so bleak. (Though honestly I think that there would have been ways of getting Jack to that point psychologically without killing Ianto at all -- for instance, if Ianto had HELPED Jack kill Steven. However, if Ianto did have to die for whatever reason, there were been better, more satisfying ways of doing it.)

[miss-jutta.livejournal.com]

Or if the available kid had been one of Ianto's nephews? Can't think of a more extreme way to end that relationship.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

That would have been great.

[dr-is-in.livejournal.com]

At the risk of spoilers for the rest of the season. The final eps of it even further mirror COE. The final ep of the season broke me the first time I saw it.

OH CRAP, READ THIS AND NOT MY ORIGNAL COMMENT

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

So, I'm deleting my original comment because I realised I got my Buffy titles mixed up and my original comment will spoil you for the S2 finale (which was the one I believed you had just watched).

Anyway, the S2 finale resonates even more with CoE than "Passion" does IMO.

Ack, I'm so sorry that I mixed them up.

Re: OH CRAP, READ THIS AND NOT MY ORIGNAL COMMENT

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

Hey, careful with the Buffy spoilers! I know it's been around forever, but my impression is that rm is watching it for the first time and hasn't finished all of S2 yet!

ETA: Ah, I see you beat me to it!

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I got things mixed up-- I thought that "Passion" WAS the S2 finale (I only watched Buffy for the first time myself a couple of months ago, so I don't have all the episode titles memorised). Anyway, I've edited my comment and warned rm in the title not to read my original comment, so hopefully it'll be okay.

Re: OH CRAP, READ THIS AND NOT MY ORIGNAL COMMENT

[rm.livejournal.com]

I was safe, I posted this and went to bed.

Thank you!

As much as I'm not deeply spoiler adverse, I do like to experience emotional content in shows as it was supposed to have been -- i.e., in the moment, or else it's harder for me to really think about the effectiveness of the impact.

[qthelights.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, there's a fair amount of death in Buffy. Main characters and second tier ones. And I have really always loved the respect that those deaths were given. Some of them were absolutely pointless, in the cosmic sense, and horrible and painful. But the reactions, the way that those events were treated, I respected. Even the ones I disagreed with.

What I got from watching the deaths in Buffy was.. I don't know.. a feeling that we aren't all alone, that we all hurt and we all go through things that are pointless and awful and yet we keep going. We mourn, we make mistakes and we have shitloads of trouble trying to get over loss. I find Buffy treats 'love' in almost the same way, breakups also. The thing that's different I guess is that when those people died, it was to showcase those things. To move story or character or audience.

But with none of them did I feel the way I felt after Day 4 of CoE. CoE felt like a betrayal, not a commiseration. And that's what I can't get over. I guess when I enter into a relationship with a tv show I expect it to be a two way street.. for their to be care of me as I care for it. That's probably ridiculously naive, and perhaps unjust.. perhaps one can't ask anything of someone else's creation - that is not how I felt about episodic tv though, certainly not tv that had been cracky and fun for all it was dark and morbid. But I never knew I had to guard myself from that before CoE. Maybe I will from now on, though I kind of hope I don't. I guess it's also that I didn't feel I *learned* anything from Ianto's death.. it was like shock journalism.. not for a point but a bang, and that, to me, was so far beneath the show I had been watching that it wasn't even on my radar. Don't get me wrong, Ianto could have died in CoE and I could still have loved it.. but the way it was done? (on and off-screen, acting and producing) it just didn't work for me in the way in which I know to watch television.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Yes, this. Every single word of it.

When I watched Buffy, I had this sense that every single death was done with great care for both the characters and the audience (even, as you say, when there were deaths that I disagreed with). With CoE I got none of that. Ianto's death was like being punished for loving the character.

[svollga.livejournal.com]

I'm waiting for when you watch the entire series finale, Chosen, to hear what you can say abou character deaths there (and also in season six) - I think there are great possibilities for comparison with Day Four.

I'm very calm about death in RL, I never mourn much, the main feeling in my grief is the loss of positive possibilities. That's what is painful for me in this two onscreen deaths: the loss of possibilities in a very not-TV, realistic way. Not for some Great Cause, not in a staged way, but in a very real, hit-by-the-bus way, if not factually then emotionally. I would also say that the fan campaign in Ianto's case is (at least for some of its' members) another side of this feeling of possibilities lost: you can't bring back a person in RL, but you can do it in fiction, to fill the gap left.

I wonder, though, how much people cared about Jenny? When I was watching Buffy a few months ago, the death of Jenny was Giles' loss, as well as character death in S6 was also lover's loss, and it were the lovers I cared about, but the death in S7 and Ianto's death were my losses.

[elisi]

the death of Jenny was Giles' loss, as well as character death in S6 was also lover's loss, and it were the lovers I cared about, but the death in S7 and Ianto's death were my losses.
Yes, exactly, this is how I've been describing it too. Now (thanks in large part to Buffy, and learning how these things work) I've learned that as soon as a couple is happy one of them will die. Also, a main character's love-interest is always, always at risk. So ever since Jack hooked up with Ianto properly, I'd been seeing a scythe above Ianto's head.... and yet his death still completely destroyed me.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I remember it, and the thought of watching the episode again (which I must) makes me tense with misery, but that crystal, perfect moment of the initial experience of it, was so pure and bright and just vivid.

Yes, this.

Despite being a Ianto fan, and a Snape fan, and a fan of other people Joss will eventually bump off, the death that still bothers me the most in terms of authorial intent and purposelessness is Wash's. He's the one I'd like to take back if I could. Partly I think because I felt like it really was the actions of a writer who thinks this is the last he'll do with this franchise, so he can afford to do that because he's done with the character anyway, and that's sad on a lot of levels. Or maybe it was because Wash never had that touch of darkness about him that courts death and knows how to face it. I'm still trying to decide whether the way I feel about it meant it was a mistake or that it worked magnificantly.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Wash is a huge part of the paper I'm working on. His death and the fan reaction is anomalous in a bunch of ways that seem to prove my theory.

(also, thank you, because I feel like I'm experiencing this thing which a bunch of people who are experiencing this totally different thing about the thing and that's fine, but sometimes I feel like I must be out of my mind).

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

FWIW pretty much everything you've said about CoE and the whole process resonates hugely with me.

[miep.livejournal.com]

thinking I should break out my raffle-prize S2 bufy and play along at home.

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

You have a ways to go, but I will be curious as to your reaction to The Body in Season 5. By far not just the best ep of that season, but of the entire series.

It is a very hard hard ep to watch. And I don't say that lightly of Buffy. But it is just so perfect in the emotions and the timing and just...everything.

I will be particularly curious as to your take on Spike's reaction to the events that take place in that episode. I can see some parallels to how Captain John reacted at the tail end of Torchwood Season 2.

[rm.livejournal.com]

You know, As much as there's a key Firefly component to my Bristol paper, I never wanted to have to watch EVERYTHING WHEEDON'S EVER DONE for that paper, because I have limited time, but "Passion" became so central to the paper last night, that now I have to. Although so far I content that Wheedon, despite talking about "the ecstasy of grief" actually systematically spares us it in the design of the show, despite ripping our hearts out. Certainly that's the case with Firefly/Serenity.

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

I...whooo...

I think you may revise your opinion when you get to The Body. I suggest NOT skipping ahead, or you will miss out on some of the key character connections who haven't shown up yet for you in Season 2.

It is, in its own curious way (despite featuring the death of a major recurring character) almost the anti-ecstacy.

And I shall say no more until you get to it in its proper time. :>

[dimethirwen.livejournal.com]

"The Body" is my favorite Buffy episode, too.

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to say I'd love to hear more about this paper you're working on. It sounds fascinating.

I think there's a lot to be said about the entire Joss Whedom/Brian K. Vaughn School of Almost Any Characters Can Die, and how they handle death, though the main thrust of your argument appears to be elsewhere.