El Diablo Robotico
Ensouled Vampire
Robo Pimp-Daddy
"Surely you have heard about our great victory over the Devil's Robot."[Mo0:3]
Posts: 1,199
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Post by El Diablo Robotico on Jan 10, 2009 16:04:33 GMT -5
Scott Allie - "I'm trying to remember what issue that baseball girl was in; but was she definitely a little kid?" Yes, definitely. She's in 7.22 "Chosen" and looks about 9 or 10 years old. The montage of potentials elsewhere in the world being activated features her the most prominently - being at both the beginning and the end. Buffy's dialogue when the girl is on-screen is "From now on, every girl in the world who might be a slayer, will be a slayer". But she didn't necessarily mean right that moment. You could just as easily argue that yes, that girl will become a slayer, but 5 or 6 years down the road, once she turns 16. I'd say that it's less a retcon than just clearing up something that was previously left ambiguous. After all, we never saw what happened in that scene after the pitch was delivered. We didn't see her hit a 500-foot home run, so there was nothing to prove that she had become a slayer right then, at the time of the original spell. And I know Emmie and the mods (and Scott) probably want to keep this thread reserved strictly for asking questions, not having these sorts of debates mixed in, so I apologize in advance, and won't do it again. (Wish I could think of a good question this round, but I'm drawin' a blank... )
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Post by NotaViking on Jan 10, 2009 17:44:31 GMT -5
I take your point that we didn't see the young girl doing anything amazing, but you could say the same for others in the montage. She reappears to Buffy saying "Slayers. Every one of us." and then we see the girl (who seemed very nervous before) look up and smile confidently as if something has very clearly changed.
I thought it was pretty clear at the time and I still don't really see much room for ambiguity.
(I'm not fond of being such a pain about this stuff, but this is a really important scene and from the final episode of Buffy. I'd hate to see it being messed about with, particularly accidentally.)
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Post by Scott Allie on Jan 10, 2009 18:58:57 GMT -5
Hey everybody—I will check back one final time tonight, but wanted to clear some stuff out now.
Dane—there will be more of Faith and Giles after #24.
Mad Scientist—The idea of Harmony attaining street cred is horrifying. The way the vampires feel about being outed will be a story point to deal with later, but considering how it's going so far, one would have to assume they're okay with it.
And this brings me to an idea that sort of addresses one or more of the questions down the list. There are things that haven't been addressed in the story either because we haven't had time, or because they're not important yet. That's the sort of ambiguity that serial fiction requires in order to stay fluid and alive. We're not writing a novel here, where the package arrives at your doorstep complete. With serial fiction, you work it out as you go—that's the point, that's the fun. Part of the advantage to that is that you don't work things out before you have to, and then you have the opportunity to adjust the things you once left ambiguous.
For fifteen years I've been working on Hellboy. When Mike wrote the first miniseries, he didn't know that Hellboy was the Beast of the Apocalypse. Hellboy had a big right hand, mostly because Mike liked how it looked. Mike knew there was something to the hand, but he didn't know what it was. In the second series, near the end, he needed something big to come up between Hellboy and a major mythological figure. That's how the notion of the Beast of the Apocalypse was born. And the hand was the key to the Beast—why? Because it was just lying around as something to be built upon. Abe Sapien, another character from Hellboy—his origin, as it were, wasn't revealed for about twelve years after his first appearance. I can tell you, in those twelve years, his origin changed a dozen times. No one but me and Mike knew that, because no one had to know. You leave those things open, ambiguous, so that they can be what the story needs them to be when the story gets to that point. Last year we did something called the Hellboy Companion, the most pointless exercise in the history of our publishing. We worked out details heretofore undetermined. We nailed down dates. We spelled out exact sequences of events that had previously been a bit vague. It was a mistake. Now, rather than being able to adjust past ambiguities to fit the development of the story, we're stuck to certain things ... and we did this so that we could answer questions the story itself had not yet asked.
So the feelings of the vampires toward Harmony is unknown right now. We haven't see it; nothing yet requires us to know it yet. Although the end of Season Eight is all worked out, the road to the end is still being determined. If we need a Queen of the Vampires to rise up against Buffy, maybe they'll nominate Harmony, their liberator and the Killer of Slayers. That means they loved that she outed them. But maybe we'll need to get Harmony out of the way, and Buffy won't have time to do it; well, then maybe she gets whacked by a bunch of vamps as revenge for her public displays. In that case, they hated that she outed them. I don't think that's what you call a retcon. That's just how a story develops, within the unique needs of serial fiction.
I'll get back to that—
Sosalola—the issues with Buffy and Giles will be addressed to some degree, yes. In response to the rest of the discussion about this—which, by the way, I think is cool. It's not exactly what the Q&A was intended for, but I think your discussion makes it more interesting. Buffy was mad in part because Giles set up a deal with Faith without telling Buffy, and then, when confronted, Giles still wouldn't spill the beans. I don't think it was a small thing, and I don't think it was petty; however, maybe Buffy overreacted, but I think that's in character for Buffy, and it's also in keeping with her history with Giles. However, it's not like Giles that's gonna make Giles reveal himself as Twilight (unless he is); in keeping with their history, this rift will not be a permanent one, or a crushing one. When they need to deal with each other again, they'll be able to.
Whedon Fan—sorry, no news on Serenity. Joss is real crushed on Dolhouse, and keeping up with that workload, with Season Eight, and his other stuff is all he could manage. He still hasn't given us the full outline for Shepherd's Tale, so we wait.
Notaviking, the note about serial fiction and not revealing things before they need to be revealed—or not even determining before they need to be revealed—was in response to your question about Slayer activation. We don't know. We don't need to know yet. I know fans of this sort of story want that stuff spelled out, but I firmly believe that it's for the best for the story to leave it fluid. And in terms of what we've shown and what we've said, there's PLENTY of room for ambiguity. "From now on, every girl in the world who might be a slayer, WILL BE a slayer." [Emphasis added.] Soledad became a Slayer when she was ready to be activated. Just in the nick of time, from the look of things. El Diablo lists precisely the details which, when and if we do need to determine this for a future plotline, we will look back and say, Well, maybe this is what was really happening.
Giant Michael—Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Skytteflickan—totally within your rights. Tattoos are fine.
Cheung Chueng—see above, re: how new slayers are activated. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Bishopcruz—Whoever that celebrity was, be it Andy Dick or someone else (see above), we left it intentionally ambiguous. It makes more sense that she killed him, but that would open up a huge can of worms, so probably she just bled him. Or maybe she turned him. That would explain a LOT.
Jay—we've talked about audio dramas, but there are no plans. So yes, we would and we have considered it, but readers of this Q&A should not go getting all excited like when I mentioned that we had talked about animation. I talked about marrying my sixth-grade girlfriend, but fortunately that didn't go anywhere.
Emmie, I am not trying to steal your job, and I know you still have quite a job to put this stuff into a more easy to follow format. I'll check back sometime tonight, so please get some more questions in in the next few hours, and then we close this up until the beginning of February. Peace out—
Scott
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Post by hitnrun017 on Jan 10, 2009 19:09:08 GMT -5
I know Jane's probably got her hands full with Dollhouse and the Oz arc, but are there any plans for another episode of Harmony Bites?
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Post by NotaViking on Jan 10, 2009 21:18:40 GMT -5
Well, since you don't have many other questions to answer at the moment. . . ;-)
I really appreciate the effort you went to in addressing my question (you know what's coming), but I don't really agree. I do absolutely agree with the paragraphs you wrote on serial fiction - no problems with any of that at all. Of course it's wise to leave some issues open. If the slayer activation was an isolated incident, then I would agree there too.
However, it's intrinsically linked to Willow's spell in "Chosen", there's no getting away from that. When we're analysing what happened back then, we need to look at everything together and in context. Picking out some bits and ignoring others is a good way to come to incorrect conclusions (and is exactly how conspiracy theories work).
Buffy's line "will be a slayer" is an indication that this will happen at some point in the future. Of course it is, Buffy's speech is in a flashback, she's not talking while Willow is performing the spell. The spell and the activations are in the future at the time of Buffy's speech so "will be" is the only correct phrase to use. It proves neither position by itself.
However, watch it in context and it's obvious that the potentials are being activated at the time of Willow's spell. Including the young girl - there's a clear change in her.
So, again I don't see the ambiguity in the spell (plus it was the last ever episode and this was a key message - there's no reason to have it be ambiguous). The new slayer activation doesn't fit in with what was previously shown (there shouldn't even be any potentials, except perhaps babies born since S7), so now we do have ambiguity. The problem is that it's been achieved by retconning "Chosen", IMO of course.
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Post by wenxina on Jan 11, 2009 0:13:52 GMT -5
NotaViking: Your posts would actually make a rather interesting thread, especially for discussion about the Slayer heritage. It may even be useful later down the line, as it would give us a record of what we knew back when. I hope you'll consider starting the topic, as you raise many pertinent points here.
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bishopcruz
Common Vampire
There might be hope for them yet.[Mo0:0]
Posts: 50
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Post by bishopcruz on Jan 11, 2009 1:24:12 GMT -5
Thanks for answering again.
Ok, talking about the way that the story flows when writing serial fiction and stuff like that, have there been any big changes in the plot or back story that you can tell us about? Or perhaps better said any plot points or story lines that have changed from their original conception?
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sla
Potential Slayer
live fast, die never[Mo0:16]
Posts: 147
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Post by sla on Jan 11, 2009 3:33:43 GMT -5
Wow, this Q&A is awsome, you're great, Mr. Allie!
Another question, you said: "but readers of this Q&A should not go getting all excited like when I mentioned that we had talked about animation."
I'm excited, I know that maybe this animation it's nothing like Buffy, the animated series, but still, I'm very curious about it. soooo...there are some news about the animation...like a "Yes, we're going to do it and this gonna blew up your minds..." or "of course, we're doing an animated movie of it" lol that would be great! There're a lot of people in south America that would like to watch season 8 in an animated way. actually, we would like to watch Buffy the animated series too...but that is a too big dream, right?
Thanks! Sla, from Chile
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Post by Scott Allie on Jan 11, 2009 5:19:44 GMT -5
Hey everybody, this is it for this issue— HitnRun—No plans for more episodes of Harmony bites, but her blog will continue on her Myspace page, and possibly on MTV.com. Bishopcruz—No big changes. Lots of times where we've had to clarify things, and some of the plotting for Jane's upcoming arc came about from our feeling that we needed to more clearly establish some themes and situations before heading into the climax. Things evolve, but I can't think of a plan that we significantly changed from the initial plan. Sla—sorry, my point is that like me marrying my sixth-grade girlfriend, animation for Season Eight is something that's been talked about, but no more than that. We spend all day, every day, talking about stuff we could do, and only a small fraction of that ever happens. It's the tip of a creative iceberg. Animation of Season Eight might never rise above the waterline. Thanks, everybody, for a great Q&A. Vote in the Wizard fan awards— www.innovativenethelp.com/wizard/wfa_2009/—where Buffy and Joss are well represented. Don't forget he did Astonishing X-Men. And don't forget your very forthcoming editor ... See you in four weeks— Scott
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2009 10:10:55 GMT -5
39. Skytteflickan88: I also have legal question. Say that I were wanted to get a tattoo that's buffy-comic related, is that illegal? I heard that as long as you don't make any money out of it or the company that owns the picture doesn't lose money, it's legal. Scott Allie: Totally within your rights. Tattoos are fine. Sweet! I was wondering about this. And thanks, Scott, for doing this.
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Post by wenxina on Jan 11, 2009 10:57:28 GMT -5
That's a wrap all! Thanks for playing... you guys asked some great questions and got some pretty interesting answers back. Mull over it, (re)enjoy #21... we'll play again after the release of #22! I'm sure a Kennedy/Satsu-centric issue will shed some new light on what's going on in the Buffyverse, but questions breed questions (and hopefully answers), so check back then! A HUGE thanks to Scott for continuing these Q&A sessions. We truly appreciate it! AND... everyone should definitely karma Emmie for her hard work on these Q&As. It's just nice to feel appreciated! Okay, locking this thread up for now, to prevent any confusion about its status. PS: For easy reference, all the questions and responses have been updated on the first post.
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