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Post by wenxina on Dec 7, 2010 9:51:50 GMT -5
I'm sorry, but that's REALLY a load of bull. And for someone who takes time to read these issues, its sad that I didn't pick up on that at all. Twilight to me just seemed super evil. Dumb, sloppy writing. It's probably sadder that I was able to composite all that seemingly random information in my head in one sitting. Perhaps reread the entire run and see if it makes more sense to you. The clues and motivations for the whole Twilight deal were spread over the course of 4 years, and deets get forgotten during that time. Reading it all through may help put things in perspective a lot easier.
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Post by Tyler Austin "tiewashere" on Dec 7, 2010 11:07:48 GMT -5
I'm sorry, but that's REALLY a load of bull. And for someone who takes time to read these issues, its sad that I didn't pick up on that at all. Twilight to me just seemed super evil. Dumb, sloppy writing. It's probably sadder that I was able to composite all that seemingly random information in my head in one sitting. Perhaps reread the entire run and see if it makes more sense to you. The clues and motivations for the whole Twilight deal were spread over the course of 4 years, and deets get forgotten during that time. Reading it all through may help put things in perspective a lot easier. Apparently I'm not alone judging by the thumbs ups on my posts so Imma keep this going. (P.S. I'm just doing fun debating). Even though Twilight explanation to me, is slim at best and goes against everything Angel is as a character: That still doesn't explain why vampires became famous and why people accepted it like "it was no big deal." Why did Angel preach about no magic and such? I don't know. Such a fail.
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angelsclone
Common Vampire
Live Free || Twi Hard[Mo0:6]
Posts: 54
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Post by angelsclone on Dec 7, 2010 11:30:57 GMT -5
my impression was, Twilight's agenda = lead the bad guys, keep casualties low, kick Buffy as low as she can get to recieve superpowers so she's strong enough to frak with Super-Angel to create the Twilight universe and rule over it molding it to their own desires creating a new world order.. so here's a thought, alot of people are disgusted with Angel's actions as Twilight, but Joss knows what he is doin, he used Angel because he makes the most sense to Joss.. so if u guys aren't happy with Angel being the big bad's bitch, who do u guys think it should have been? knowing we would all dislike them alot more after it was all over...? for me i'd have to say Riley i dislike him already, making him a baddie & Twilight's bitch would have been fine with me, plus no awkward space frakkin' as they've done it all before!
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 7, 2010 11:55:00 GMT -5
That still doesn't explain why vampires became famous and why people accepted it like "it was no big deal." It is hard to swallow. But is it really harder to swallow than what happened to Los Angeles during Angel season 4, or to Sunnydale in Buffy season 7, and the response (or lack of it) by the world at large? The general populace on Buffy and Angel are treated sort of the same way as adults in the "Peanuts" cartoons. They're there in the background, but they don't have anything to do with driving or even much influencing the story. The cluelessness of humanity is something we are expected to accept through suspension of disbelief, in order to keep the stories manageable in scope. It was easier with the TV shows, where we only have to think about it for a week before it's on to the next story... with the comics we have weeks and months to let it drive us crazy.
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Post by Tyler Austin "tiewashere" on Dec 7, 2010 12:00:42 GMT -5
Another thing, what was the point of bringing back Riley at all besides the "ah, it's Riley" factor?
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Dorotea
Potential Slayer
[Mo0:0]
Posts: 145
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Post by Dorotea on Dec 7, 2010 12:27:13 GMT -5
Just a small comment here - Twilight agenda was sold to Angel by two different entities : the Twilight itself (which apparently is an astral outside 'rival' Universe bent on hastening the evolution and consuming 'our' Universe), and our local bound-to-Earth demon Whistler, who has nothing to do with Twilight but has his own perspective on what is happening. This is one discrepancy. Second is that from the text of the comic itself it appears that Angel had little idea that instead of 'saving the world' -according to both of his info sources - he was actually dooming it. Ambiguous, no?
Ah, IMHO , Riley was used to highlight Angel's actions - and to increase the ambiguity factor by virtue being 'another' former boyfriend (still devoted) to Buffy.
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Post by wenxina on Dec 7, 2010 12:42:06 GMT -5
Apparently I'm not alone judging by the thumbs ups on my posts so Imma keep this going. (P.S. I'm just doing fun debating). Even though Twilight explanation to me, is slim at best and goes against everything Angel is as a character: That still doesn't explain why vampires became famous and why people accepted it like "it was no big deal." Why did Angel preach about no magic and such? I don't know. Such a fail. I'm not claiming that you're alone. I know you aren't. However, I'm saying that for the most part, answers to your questions are textual, and I've explained them to you, and I see that a few others have tried too. Angel preached the whole "no magic" deal to the government, at least, because that's what they wanted to hear. That's what he needed to say to show them that he was in their corner. Did he know about the Seed? Probably, and most likely not. Did he know that bringing about Twilight would cause an apocalypse? Probably not, given his shocked response in #35. As for his motivation to stay in the Twilight zone, that's partially explained in the Riley one-shot. He had been told that this was the best possible outcome. As for why he was willing to believe that, that much is left unclear. We know that Angel saw something that must have convinced him so. It's alluded to in #36. Vampires becoming famous and accepted is basically a commentary on the popularity of the genre at the moment. In the Buffyverse, the general populace has been shown to be absurdly oblivious to the supernatural, even when faced with it. Skin conditions, gang members on PCP, carnies, random wild animal attacks, etc. It's a world that's largely ignorant, sometimes by choice, about the things that go bump in the night. It's not necessarily the world we live in, where if we see a zombie, we know (based on pop culture) that it'll try to eat you, and that the only way to stop it is to destroy the brain (or in the case of the Walking Dead, the brainstem). As AC pointed out, it's a suspension of disbelief. I had previously (when the Harmony issue came out) stated that it would make no sense for LA (especially after the Hell-A experience) to accept Harmony the way they did in S8. Afterall, demons=bad. But then "Aftermath" came out, in which apparently most people apparently think that vampires are good, solely based on the fact that Angel and Spike were good guys. Hell, they even made a movie out of it, with some glaring errors. As the IDW storyline progressed, we saw that people wanted to become vampires. So, in a way, both the Dark Horse and IDW stories are actually kinda forming a coherent gestalt of the general human acceptance of vampires as cool. The "Tales of the Vampires" oneshot that came out between #25 and #26 of S8 also showed the extent of anti-Slayerism that permeated society at that point. This is further expounded on in Lynch's SPIKE series (see SPIKE #2). Another thing, what was the point of bringing back Riley at all besides the "ah, it's Riley" factor? I think that Riley was mostly brought in for shock factor. But it's not entirely out of the blue, seeing as Riley was, and is, connected to the military, and the military features quite prominently in this story. His loyalty was supposed to be questionable, and for a while, his intentions and his motivations were the subject of heated debate and lively conversation on our boards. So, I'd say that Dark Horse played their cards right on that one. Where they dropped the ball was rushing in the bit where he was always on Buffy's side, and there was the issue of the large gaping hole that was his backstory up to the point of joining Twilight's forces as a double agent for Buffy. That's why the Riley one-shot came about, and Espenson quite skillfully wove Riley's and Angel's stories together, providing not only context for Riley's actions, but Angel's too.
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Post by Emmie on Dec 8, 2010 0:40:32 GMT -5
Shane wins the award for BEST USE OF EMOTICONS IN A REVIEW.
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Post by wenxina on Dec 8, 2010 0:49:49 GMT -5
Is that a new category for the SlayAlive Awards?
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Post by Emmie on Dec 8, 2010 0:56:34 GMT -5
I'M GUNNING FOR THE BEST CAPSLOCKER AWARD.
(It's like poplocking, only grammatical.)
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Post by wenxina on Dec 8, 2010 0:58:50 GMT -5
I think we're generally against caps-locking. Poplocking on the other hand is applauded. I'm a dancing fool (I'm thankful that photographic evidence of that statement is scarce).
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Post by Emmie on Dec 8, 2010 1:01:23 GMT -5
I'm okay with capslock when it's used properly. Someone just writing in all caps doesn't understand how punctuation/grammar is used to proper effect. But I'd also be very happy winning the BEST USE OF A PARENTHETICAL award.
Aaaaaaand this has nothing to do with Season 8.
So I'll throw out there that I'm really interested in what happens to Willow next. I've been speculating that her injuries may lead to her being in a wheelchair and trying to recover magic not only to fix the world, but to fix herself.
Icarus flew too high on stolen wings and fell to Earth. Boom. CRASH.
Willow's story just became even more fascinating to me now with the end of magic. And it doesn't matter that we know where she'll end up as Future Dark Willow. It's about the journey.
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Post by wenxina on Dec 8, 2010 1:18:32 GMT -5
Stupid epic review is taking forever to write itself. I swear I'll get it done by tomorrow, even if it kills me. More for my sake than anyone else's (c'mon, how many people actually read my quasi-intellectual ramblings anyway?).
As for Willow... I predict that there will be tension between her and Kennedy. The end of their relationship has been hinted at before (I think it was Allie who said that Kennedy haters would rejoice, but not because of the obvious option (i.e. her death)), and with Willow suddenly feeling powerless and Kennedy still retaining her Slayer status, I'm seeing some resentment ahead for that partnership.
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Post by Tyler Austin "tiewashere" on Dec 8, 2010 2:53:22 GMT -5
I appreciate the awesome reviews and I guess it makes some sense. It still seems a little ick to me. & I rarely if ever feel ick when I think of certain Buffy events. & I AM a fan of Season 8.
And I always understood that the "vampires becoming famous" was a commentary on current pop culture, but I still think it handled sloppily. My friend who didn't have months between issues to talk and discuss and read up on new issues (for the tiniest details) literally turned to me while reading and said "What the hell was that? Where did that even come from." *shrug*. There's just something about the way it was executed that was off. It could have been handled so much better and even used for a larger tie-in to the Twilight story.
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Shane
Potential Slayer
I saw a baby today.[Mo0:0]
Posts: 135
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Post by Shane on Dec 8, 2010 7:24:23 GMT -5
Thanks for the thumbs up, guys. I was hoping people wouldn't notice. <_< Looking forward to your review, Xi. Will there be a section critiquing Jeanty's art? (Stupid question is stupid.) With Willow, I've always liked seeing her personal battle with magick and trying to juggle that and her relationships. And I'll enjoy her future stories too. (The wheelchair theory would be kinda cool - reminiscent of Professor X, as DorothyFan1 stated upthread.) But this whole "end of magic" thing makes me think her story will progress towards a place where she's at peace with not having magic and I wanted it to be the other way (first). Still, new adventures could be even more interesting and this could be more of a struggle for her.
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Post by wenxina on Dec 8, 2010 8:28:13 GMT -5
Art is always up for critique. I will say that there were a couple of nitpicky things on my part.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 8, 2010 8:39:34 GMT -5
As for Willow... I predict that there will be tension between her and Kennedy. The end of their relationship has been hinted at before (I think it was Allie who said that Kennedy haters would rejoice, but not because of the obvious option (i.e. her death)), and with Willow suddenly feeling powerless and Kennedy still retaining her Slayer status, I'm seeing some resentment ahead for that partnership. Well, when things calm down a bit, I expect the first thing Kennedy will ask is "So... who's Aluwyn?" I wouldn't think Kennedy would abandon Willow if she's paralyzed, and perhaps even if she's not. Theirs is (I think) the longest continuous relationship we've seen in the Buffyverse, so it should be able to withstand quite a lot, especially considering that Kennedy knows by now that Willow is kind of a unique case. If they do break up, it will more likely be because of the sudden change in the balance of power. A lot of marriages go sour when the husband loses his job and has to rely on his wife's income for support. I hope Willow isn't paralyzed... not only because I like her, but because I think it would be an unnecessary and excessive distraction from her real problem... the loss of the magic on which she relied. It would work better if the loss of magic was itself the "paralysis" that she has to learn to live with or overcome. Adding literal paralysis into the mix would over-sell the metaphor, I think. I still suspect Aluwyn has something up her sleeve (or would, if she wore any clothes) regarding Willow. Now that I've said it, though, probably not. My speculations are almost a magical talisman against something happening.
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Post by wenxina on Dec 8, 2010 9:50:24 GMT -5
As for Willow... I predict that there will be tension between her and Kennedy. The end of their relationship has been hinted at before (I think it was Allie who said that Kennedy haters would rejoice, but not because of the obvious option (i.e. her death)), and with Willow suddenly feeling powerless and Kennedy still retaining her Slayer status, I'm seeing some resentment ahead for that partnership. If they do break up, it will more likely be because of the sudden change in the balance of power. A lot of marriages go sour when the husband loses his job and has to rely on his wife's income for support. Are we actually agreeing on something here?
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 8, 2010 10:30:13 GMT -5
Are we actually agreeing on something here? Do we not often agree? I just hope if they break up, they don't finally pull the trigger on hooking Kennedy up with Satsu. (Because there are only three lesbians in the whole world.) I'm still flying my tiny little flag, hoping for more Batsu in season 9.
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Post by wenxina on Dec 8, 2010 10:34:34 GMT -5
Not sure, actually. I know we had a long discussion about the ethics of "sacrifice a few for the good of many," but I can't remember if we had previously disagreed about anything else.
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