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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 4, 2010 13:24:33 GMT -5
It was actually Venice that Amy and Warren were in... St. Mark's Square. Which, considering the environmental disasters we were told were happening (including tsunamis) should be underwater. And should certainly not be thronged with calm tourists eating lunch and snapping pictures.
I'm fairly sure Satsu survived, and hope Rowena did. I wouldn't mind seeing them all graduate to major character status next season.
And I hope Willow can still walk, after that long fall with no magic to heal her.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 3, 2010 21:18:58 GMT -5
Kitty Twilight is still alive, correct? Amy is still alive, right? I can see a scenario assuming Joss takes it there...where Kitty Twilight offers Willow a chance to win back her powers. Kitty Twilight is back in Twilight, cut off from us like all other worlds. I assume we have seen the last of it. Hopefully, it will wither and die without any connection to its creators. The Amy situation is interesting because now she's without any powers...what exactly does she do? Suicide? I think Willow and Amy will team up. And I agree that Willow will not sit down until she gets some kind of compensation for those lost powers. Since Willow is gifted with computer skills...I can see her rummaging through Warren's experiments to find a solution. Amy seemed to be toying with the idea of trying to patch things up with Willow and the others... she might have been starting to have second thoughts about the villain thing, and with Warren not there to goad her anymore, I would say some kind of reconciliation with the others might be possible. Willow might even meet with Kimiko and other witches who have had dealings with Saga Vasuki.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 3, 2010 20:25:16 GMT -5
I don't think for one minute that Willow is going to accept the loss of her powers. I think her story in season 9 will be her quest to get them back somehow, and that should make for an interesting story.
I hope we get to see Aluwyn again.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 3, 2010 19:24:49 GMT -5
That's certainly an interesting take. But I haven't heard anything canonical about where Willow and Kennedy actually live. At the beginning of the Goddesses & Monsters one-shot, they're in San Francisco where Kennedy is training her group of Slayers. So they were based there at that time, at least.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 3, 2010 19:14:24 GMT -5
Buffy will be in San Francisco for issue #40, and that's where Willow and Kennedy live, right? So Buffy might be there in order to try and help Will.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 3, 2010 17:28:57 GMT -5
I don't think the end of magic necessarily means the end of Wolfram and Hart. We really don't know what's going on with them during Season 8. There are plenty of humans that worked for them across the world that are still alive, and still evil. The only branch that disappeared was the Los Angeles branch. It probably does mean that they are cut off from the Senior Partners, however. But now they'd be reduced to just being evil lawyers, like any other evil lawyers. I'm sure several people will try to seize control of the organization, but without the Senior Partners and the rewards they can provide, there's no reason for any of these people to stick around. All W&H employees are in it for themselves, and without the Partners to impose discipline and offer rewards, there's no incentive. Here's a question: "cut off from other realms" means cut off from the Powers as well as from Hell. What happens now to the souls of people who die?
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 3, 2010 17:12:48 GMT -5
I thought it was interesting that Scott (in that TFAW interview earlier in this thread) clarified that destroying the Seed cut us off from all other realms... and that magic that was already here will apparently stay. So that means the Slayers keep their powers, the vampires stay vampires, and the demons stay, but there won't be any new ones of any of those. I assume the demons that got sucked back, did so because their portals were still open and closing them involved taking back everything they'd spat out.
And two very interesting side effects of that will be a) no more Wolfram & Hart in this world, and b) no more Powers That Be.
I can't help but think that Dawn's Keyness will be very important, since she could potentially be our world's only way of connecting to other worlds ever again.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 3, 2010 12:47:31 GMT -5
I like the idea of Willow’s story being about trying to get magic back, but if Season 9 comes to pass like planned as a 24 issue long series over two years, isn’t that going to get boring? Since we know the fray future happens, we know magic does not come back fully, so we already know Willow doesn’t succeed! I asked Scott in one of the Q&A's if the future we saw in Fray and ToYL was set in stone, and he said no. If it were, it would be a straitjacket. We'd know Willow can't die, no matter what, and that she's going to end up as FDW no matter what, so her story would become at best an academic exercise without much excitement. Like reading a good book about World War II... it might be a good read, but you already know how it comes out. My guess is the future we saw in ToYL isn't quite cut and dried. Still, it's something I'd like to ask Scott about someday. I wonder if there's any chance he'd give us another Q&A, maybe after the season is over?
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 3, 2010 11:09:41 GMT -5
After making such a big deal over the last 2 seasons about how magic is now such an integral part of her, it seems like trying to roll her back to her pre-magic days would be moving backward. And it wouldn't work, because that role was essentially as a sidekick, requiring a close friendship with Buffy in order to be relevant, and that's not likely to be the case anymore. The story has moved beyond that now.
I think Willow's story in season 9 will not be about trying to adjust to life without magic, but about trying to get it back. That, and slowly repairing (maybe) her broken friendship with Buffy.
In any case, I doubt Willow is ever going to be the same again.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 2, 2010 23:09:15 GMT -5
I wonder what the deal is with the Slayers and their powers. Aluwyn said before that the Slayers would keep their powers if the Seed was broken, but no new ones would be called.
But when the Seed is broken, there's all those insets of Slayers looking stunned. I'm not sure how to interpret that other than them losing their powers.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 2, 2010 21:18:07 GMT -5
1. I notice that in this issue, the battlefield death scenes... young girls getting ripped in half, burned alive, melted in agony... were a lot more graphic and disturbing than they were in earlier issues. Did Joss or Scott specifically ask you to do it that way, or were you trying to ramp up the horror factor of your own accord?
2. We saw Leah getting rescued, but I have to ask... are my other two favorite Nu-Slayers, Satsu and Rowena, OK?
3. I have some suspicions about that "vagina demon" that Spike is chasing. It didn't get pulled back into Hell with the other demons. We know that the female sex organs symbolize a passage from one world to another, and there is a certain snaky goddess who tends to have very sexual themes associated with passage into her world. So, is everyone maybe misunderstanding what that demon is and what it's trying to do?
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 2, 2010 20:40:19 GMT -5
Finally got the issue (thanks for nothing, Diamond). Not really much to add.
I was surprised at how gruesome the Slayer deaths were drawn in this issue, compared to other issues that seemed to have "Hollywood sanitized" versions of the battlefield deaths. I have to say that, seeing how the empowerment spell turned out, I'll never be able to enjoy "Chosen" again.
Count me now in the camp that firmly believes that spell should never have been cast.
The look on Angel's face in the second-to-last panel kind of makes it impossible for me to hate Angel now. I've never seen him look so devastated, so good job Georges.
But if he ever touches Buffy again, love or no love, he needs to be staked.
I'm wondering why things seem to be so calm and peaceful in New York and in Rome, or Venice, or wherever that was Amy and Warren were. Wasn't there a global environmental and demonic cataclysm happening?
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 2, 2010 15:45:56 GMT -5
But this seems at odds with what you said before. You said "I've also lost any ability to see Angel as a protagonist or any sort of heroic character. He is a hapless schmuck. Full stop." If you're not blaming Angel exclusively, then... do you feel the same way about Buffy? Buffy doesn't have a long history of this sort of thing. Angel does. Whether I will consider Buffy a hapless schmuck depends on whether she learns from this, or goes running back to Angel so whatever is possessing him next time can smack her and her friends and the world around some more.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 2, 2010 14:21:04 GMT -5
Can I also say that I really hope this won't be the second season in a row where the Big Bad gets to wreak murder and mayhem on the good guys, and then just walk away with no personal consequences whatsoever?
I want to see that damned lion's skin hanging on a wall.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 2, 2010 14:09:50 GMT -5
I expect I'll feel better about this issue once I finally get to the comic shop and read it, in a few hours. Given the unreasonable amount of hype over this issue, it could never have lived up to my expectations. I already knew that.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 2, 2010 13:50:34 GMT -5
Here's an interview with Scott Allie about this issue, on Buffyfest. Interesting point: the "betrayal" was indeed Buffy betraying herself, which some of us had figured out (or theorized, at least).
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 2, 2010 13:30:40 GMT -5
I think we both Know if Buffy really wanted Angel dead she'd have dusted him in the multitude of chances she's had over the years. But on the only other occasion when the survival of the world was at stake, she calmly shoved a sword in him and pushed him into Hell. Which she herself defined as "killing" him. I suppose, considering her recent behavior, Giles assumed she is no longer as strong or decisive as she was then. And he may be right. I'd hesitate to trust Buffy with any decision regarding Angel anymore... and I'm sure that same thought is going to weight very heavily on Buffy's mind now. Giles died because she couldn't be trusted to do what needed to be done. I just think it's a pity that despite all the good deeds Angel has done, all the countless lives he has saved - he is going to be remembered by the majority of the fandom as "the guy who killed Giles" Don't worry... the majority of the fandom doesn't pay any attention to the comics at all.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 2, 2010 13:13:21 GMT -5
I don't understand this viewpoint. Buffy is at much at fault as Angel is. He was fully possessed when he killed Giles. He helped created the monster, yes, but so did Buffy. They made Twilight together under the thrall of the universe and their own infatuation. I think the reason Giles' death is so poignant is because it's as much Buffy's fault as it is Angel. He was just the unfortunate dude who got possessed. Same could've happened to Buffy. I'm not blaming Angel exclusively for what happened... I'm blaming the love between them. It's poison. It's a natural disaster. And they have no right to continue it in any active form. I never understood what was so "special" about their love... they were just two people who came together and fell in love, same as any other couple. Why is their love so OMG important that it's worth continuing right over the warm corpses of Giles, the entire Slayer army (almost), and God knows how many other innocents around the world? I believe that for them to continue their relationship at this point would be an act of villainy and profound selfishness, and one that should rightly cost Buffy every one of her surviving friends... out of sheer self-preservation, if not contempt. Sorry, but season 8 has made me a full-on Anti-Bangel. I never really cared one way or the other before.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 2, 2010 12:43:01 GMT -5
- He knew Buffy didnt have the stones to kill Angel in her current state or even any state ( which Harth pointed out) which is why he walked in. He forgot all about "Becoming," eh? Gosh, I can see why he would, since that was such a small and insignificant part of her character's history, easily forgotten. She tried to stake Angel with a tree trunk when he first unmasked himself, and that was when he wasn't immediately trying to kill her and all her friends.
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Post by AndrewCrossett on Dec 2, 2010 9:57:20 GMT -5
And giving us an ending like that, after nearly 5 years of story, is the reason why season 9 is going to have a far smaller readership than season 8 did.
That's not a criticism... it's Joss's story to tell as he sees fit. That's just the way it is.
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