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Post by VampSlayer on Oct 27, 2008 21:34:30 GMT -5
I don't think Fred is dead. Why would they keep her around, and then just kill her off... AGAIN???!!!
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Post by Wyndam on Oct 27, 2008 21:43:51 GMT -5
I edited the topic title as it is still pretty close to the #13 release and spoilers shouldn't be out on the main board yet.
As for Fred, no I don't think she is dead.
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Post by VampSlayer on Oct 27, 2008 21:58:41 GMT -5
Thanks for changing it.  |
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Enisy
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Post by Enisy on Oct 27, 2008 22:08:47 GMT -5
Well, I doubt she's dead now, but I'm hoping she will be by the time Angel: After the Fall is over -- partly because I think a permanent resurrection would greatly diminish the beautiful A Hole in the World - Shells two-parter, and partly because I don't think there's much more to explore about her character, especially in comparison to newcomers like Nina.
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Post by Emmie on Oct 27, 2008 22:25:29 GMT -5
In a Fred over Nina trade off, Fred wins every time for me. It's not even a contest. I don't think you can really compare the two in that way. Besides having some quiet moments with Angel that were interesting, what have we seen Nina do that is compelling? I mean specifically in action. She hasn't demonstrated she has the warrior pull that Cordy and Fred possessed.
Even Fred in her introductory episodes in Pylea showed a warrior bravery. I'm still waiting for Nina to be shown being a fighter. I know she's supposedly fighting with Connor, but we haven't seen her doing much at all. Frankly, she's not an important part of the fighting team because she's not being treated that way. Kate did more ass-kicking in her first page of panels in First Night.
Why does Fred have to be done growing as a character? After more than 8 years, is Angel done?
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Enisy
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Post by Enisy on Oct 28, 2008 8:44:49 GMT -5
Joss obviously felt he'd taken her as far as he wanted, since he killed her off in a very definitive way in A Hole in the World, and replaced her with another character. (That final montage Shells is the goodbye-scene to end all goodbye-scenes.) As an IDW poster said, it would just be a disservice to her character, and to those beautiful episodes and character moments, to resurrect her permanently now (unless it's in the form of an Illyria-Fred hybrid, or if there's a "catch" involved, I suppose). Besides, it's the truth of the series: no character is safe, and the cast is constantly shifting. Doyle died, but we got Wesley in his place. Lilah died, and was replaced by Eve. Cordelia died, but Spike had joined the cast in the same season. Fred died, to give us an even awesomer character (at the very least in Joss's opinion), Illyria. It's high-time another newcomer is promoted to a regular, and you can bet the depth will be added later. |
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cheryl
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Post by cheryl on Oct 28, 2008 9:24:17 GMT -5
I guess I feel like Joss didn't feel that her story was over because he really didn't kill her off, as we're seeing with this continuation. We don't know what Joss would have done live, since he never got a chance to show us the next live season.
I have come to view Fred and Illyria in the same way that I view Angel/Angelus. Two very different entities sharing the same body. That twist worked brilliantly well the first time Joss did it and it working just as well as Brian does it in the comic.
In any event, her stories obviously aren't over cause she's still a part of this Universe. I can remember not too awful long ago when the big hooplah was all about Buffy's story being over, as far as Joss was concerned. That wasn't true either.
Aside from all that, I'm highly interested to see where Spike and Fred go, if anywhere. I really enjoyed the little Spike dream with Fred. It was pretty sweet.
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trunkstheslayer
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Post by trunkstheslayer on Oct 28, 2008 10:27:11 GMT -5
Um...everyone DOES remember that Joss's original plans for Season Six involved basically the Fred/Illyria dynamic that we're already seeing....don't they?
Makes it pretty clear he wasn't done with Fred.
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Enisy
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Post by Enisy on Oct 28, 2008 10:34:41 GMT -5
I dig the Fred/Illyria dynamic we're seeing, but that's as far as I want her "resurrection" to go. Joss's plans for Season 6 involved the gang having to choose between Fred and Illyria, after having grown much closer to the latter, and I'd bet a lot of money that Fred would be the goner and Illyria would be the keeper, in the end. (On a metatextual level, because Illyria has more unexplored potential, and on a textual level, because of the "betrayal" themes touched upon in Season 5's Wesley/Illyria.)
Having said that, I admit I might be a bit biased, because I've never been huge on Fred's character. I've always thought she's the closest thing to a Mary-Sue the 'verse has ever seen.
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Post by Emmie on Oct 28, 2008 13:44:09 GMT -5
But saying Joss killed her off because there was nowhere else to take her character is like saying Angel died in Becoming because there was nowhere else to take him...or Buffy dying in The Gift. Or Tara in Seeing Red (who he seriously considered bringing back but Amber Benson had backed out of doing Conversations with Dead People). I think Joss killed the characters because it made for amazing drama, not because there was nowhere else to take them. I don't think you can say Joss kills off characters because he's done with them or out of ideas. He does it for the dramatic effect. That is the first end all, be all. Again, he did have plans for Fred/Illyria in AtS season 6 (like other posters have mentioned) as well as a specific plot where Wes would have been forced to choose either Fred or Illyria to restore. I think there's no question that Wesley would choose for Fred to be returned. To bring this back to originally discussing Nina and Fred, why does Fred have to leave the stage for Nina? If Gwen is truly dead from what happened in AtF 13 , then there's even fewer women to count against all the men in the ANGEL franchise. Why do we have to kill off the remaining one of the two? Why isn't Nina worthy enough of taking a bigger role on her own? (I'm not saying Nina isn't necessarily worthy, but by saying Fred must leave in order for Nina to grow it implies that Nina can't grow in Fred's presence.) |
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Post by henzINNIT on Oct 28, 2008 13:59:37 GMT -5
Fred is a symbol of the lingering past in ATF, I'm hoping her story is nicely wrapped up and put to rest by the end of this series.
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Enisy
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Post by Enisy on Oct 28, 2008 15:17:38 GMT -5
What henz said. I don't think you can say Joss kills off characters because he's done with them or out of ideas. Why was Charisma's name removed from next season's cast list? Joss Whedon: Mainly because we felt like we had taken that story ... about as far as it could go. [...] I once said that I finally got to tell the story of Buffy that I tried to tell in the movie, and I did it with Cordelia. Which was the story of someone who was completely ditzy and self-involved becoming kind of heroic. But the way the series was different from the movie was that I didn't know where you go from there. So, I felt like we spent seven years playing that very arc, and it had played. ... It's time to look at something new. |
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Post by Emmie on Oct 28, 2008 15:37:17 GMT -5
Ah, see. Now you're hitting on a topic that will inevitably distract me. The overamped, supersonic character development of Cordelia starting during the latter half of AtS season 3. I think they kicked her character development into overdrive around the time they made her half-demon and after that point she was a transforming wizard. Meaning they were burned out on character development for her at the end of season 4 and frankly, where the hell do you go after making her evil for a season, sleep with Connor and do all kinds of nasties? The fact that they gave up on her was actually a disservice to the character because there were places to take Cordelia for more exploration. How about that redemptive arc, please. Where's the scene where she apologizes to Connor (even though it's not her fault but she still feels guilty). Just because Joss ran out of ideas doesn't mean there weren't good or even great ideas left.
But that still doesn't address why Angel is still around after 8 years or Buffy. Here's a pertinent example - Joss has admitted that he ran out of ideas for Xander around season 5 of Buffy. Why is Xander still alive?
Perhaps most disturbing of all to me is that what's being proposed is that there's something more inherently valuable in a character's death than in their life. Do you really believe Fred's journey is tapped out at this tender age? Do all characters have a story arc expiration date and when they get boring, they get the axe? I don't think a character needs to die because the writer's have run out of ideas, frankly I find that to be lazy writing.
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Enisy
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Post by Enisy on Oct 28, 2008 15:49:25 GMT -5
Some characters have more story in them than others. Joss had originally intended to kill Angel for keeps in Becoming, but the network pushed for a spinoff, and Joss probably conceded that a character with that rich a history still had lots of potential. As for Xander, Joss also had originally wanted to kill him in Dirty Girls, but the other writers talked him out of it, according to Nicholas Brendon. At any rate, you can bet he would have been dead seasons ago, if he had been on Angel -- where the core characters aren't safe, either (see Doyle, see Cordelia, see Wesley) -- instead of Buffy.
And I do strongly get the impression that Fred's death was a case of "Amy's acting skills are wasted on Fred by this point -- let's give the girl something to do".
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Post by Emmie on Oct 28, 2008 15:59:03 GMT -5
My imagined scene:
INT. ANGEL THE SERIES WRITER'S ROOM
Joss: Crap. Well we've made Cordelia go evil a season after we made Willow go dark. Plus she slept with Angel's son, okay okay. Not really her. Where do we take her next?
Writers are silent, glancing around at each other awkwardly.
Joss: Guys?
Fury: Well, she could try to make amends for the past -
Joss: No, we've already got Angel for that. Plus Spike is on his redemptive arc and coming over to the show. Any other ideas?
Fury: You mean besides the natural progression of what she'd be feeling after her body being used to commit so many evil acts that hurt the ones she loved?
Joss: Yeah, you're right. We can't do that. Let's just kill her.
Fury: Well, hey, wait...can I at least write her a farewell episode that restores her to her heroic Cordy glory?
Joss: Yeah sure.
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I do agree that Amy Acker really got a chance to shine when Illyria was introduced. What an amazing talent.
As for Angel, Joss said that he realized during the filming of I Only Have Eyes For You that David Boreanaz had the kind of talent that could carry a show. In fact, I thought Joss was the impetus for the spinoff and not the network.
As for the other writers talking Joss out of killing Xander, there you go. He had the 'oh please let me kill this character' urge and the other writers talked him off the ledge. If he felt it was the right way to go, he would have overruled them. But killing Xander was going in the wrong direction. I'm remembering Marti Noxon during an interview saying how she'd beg Joss to "please let me kill them". I think Death Scenes are the stuff writers live for because they're so powerful. And finite. You can't come back from them...except when you're Joss and everybody can be resurrected or if you retcon the character's death because you forgot about it (ahem, Warren).
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Enisy
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Post by Enisy on Oct 28, 2008 16:15:33 GMT -5
That was Tim Minear begging Joss to kill more characters, if memory serves. *g*
And, see, that's my other issue. Resurrections. Haven't we had enough of them already? This halfway-resurrection of Fred's is really interesting to me, but like I said, that's as far as I would want it to go. The other alternative is cheapening A Hole in the World and Shells and Illyria's Season 5 storyline, just so we can see... what? More of the same?
However, as I said, I won't rule out that this is just my bias speaking, because I find Fred Mary-Sue-ish and not very inducive to intriguing stories (with the exception of her death and this Frillyria hybrid). It's possible (although not probable ;]) that there's potential there that I'm missing. *shrugs*
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Post by Emmie on Oct 28, 2008 16:57:33 GMT -5
Hee, well if Tim Minear did it too than I think it's safe to say all the writers are jonesing to kill off characters. I know Marti Noxon (with the certainty of being too lazy to find that interview right now) said that near verbatim because I remember her practically bouncing with excitement. It was on a Buffy commentary. Did Minear bounce too? Ah ha! *points at enisy* See I love Fred for the sweet heart she brought to the show and her unexpected bravery and badassery (aren't made-up words fun?). I think many of the pro-Fred's-return supporters versus the let-the-girl-be-gone naysayers has a lot to do with who you like better - Fred or Illyria. *blesses you for the fun conversation* |
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Enisy
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Post by Enisy on Oct 28, 2008 17:06:17 GMT -5
Yeah, that might be part of it. Illyria's my third favourite character in the 'verse. *blesses you back!* |
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cheryl
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Post by cheryl on Oct 28, 2008 21:25:04 GMT -5
That was Tim Minear begging Joss to kill more characters, if memory serves. *g* And, see, that's my other issue. Resurrections. Haven't we had enough of them already? This halfway-resurrection of Fred's is really interesting to me, but like I said, that's as far as I would want it to go. The other alternative is cheapening A Hole in the World and Shells and Illyria's Season 5 storyline, just so we can see... what? More of the same? However, as I said, I won't rule out that this is just my bias speaking, because I find Fred Mary-Sue-ish and not very inducive to intriguing stories (with the exception of her death and this Frillyria hybrid). It's possible (although not probable ;]) that there's potential there that I'm missing. *shrugs* Spike was resurrected, do you also believe he should have stayed dead? I already know the answer to that, I am just showing a double standard. |
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Enisy
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Post by Enisy on Oct 29, 2008 0:37:59 GMT -5
As I said: Some characters have more story in them than others, and I don't think Fred is one of them. Joss practically said that Amy's acting skills were wasted on Fred by that point, and that he felt he should give her something more juicy to sink her teeth into. (See other posts for further reasoning, possible bias, etc. etc.)
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