Well put. I still haven't watched Breaking Bad, but I love The Sopranos and The Shield (etc etc etc) enough to know exactly what you mean. I've been trying to put my finger on why I demand a moral responsibility of Whedon's characters that I don't of, say, Tony Soprano, and what you write above is definitely part of it. Everyone holds Tony Soprano responsible for things he does (and even when he denies having done them, you know he knows he's done them); but Whedon's characters have a) such strong protagonists' privilege and are b) so explicitly set up to deal with metaphorical monsters for various moral questions that only they can hold themselves responsible - if someone else does it, it just comes across as petty and selfish. (See Buffy magnanimously forgiving Willow for turning Angel into a frog for 1.4 seconds; she just doesn't understand, the poor dear.) At its best, this is an excellent tool; it's why Faith has to choose to go to prison rather than get arrested and hauled off kicking and screaming, it's why TV!Angel has to realise what it is he's fighting for rather than doing it because someone tells him to, etc.
Yet Season 8 kicks off with Buffy explicitly rejecting that - "not being bad is what separates us from the bad guys". I thought, naively perhaps, that that would be a running theme, the underlying question of the season. But as far as I can tell, everything about the last few issues just underlines it: Buffy was 100% correct when she said that. The good guys are the good guys whatever they do, as long as they feel bad after they do something to others (poor Angel, having to live with killing or ruining the lives of thousands of innocents, why does this always happen to him?) etc. It's reducing other people's suffering to being something for you to learn from, and that bothers me tremendously. Yes, the show did that too, but never on this scale.
At best they show a little self pity. And really I can't even wish for consequences to actions that were pretty much random insanity and mind control in the first place.
Exactly. I've been trying to put my finger on why what I've heard of #40 annoys me, and I think it's this: I don't want Buffy to angelically forgive people for being pissed off with her; I want her to deal with the reasons people are rightly (as far as I can tell from the odd plot) pissed off with her. Because if she doesn't, she's not just "flawed"; she's a Harmony-like sociopath. And at least in The Sopranos, that got acknowledged. In Season 8/9, that would mean having to give the characters agency, explain what exactly they did (let's have a #40 focusing on all the people Angel's and to a slightly lesser extent Buffy's actions hurt, how about that?) explain why they did something, make them responsible for what they do. And we've been told time and time again we're not going to get that; in the comics, shit just happens so that other shit can happen.
...That got long for someone who's not commenting on the comics. Sorry. :)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2011-01-05 10:52 am (UTC)Yet Season 8 kicks off with Buffy explicitly rejecting that - "not being bad is what separates us from the bad guys". I thought, naively perhaps, that that would be a running theme, the underlying question of the season. But as far as I can tell, everything about the last few issues just underlines it: Buffy was 100% correct when she said that. The good guys are the good guys whatever they do, as long as they feel bad after they do something to others (poor Angel, having to live with killing or ruining the lives of thousands of innocents, why does this always happen to him?) etc. It's reducing other people's suffering to being something for you to learn from, and that bothers me tremendously. Yes, the show did that too, but never on this scale.
At best they show a little self pity. And really I can't even wish for consequences to actions that were pretty much random insanity and mind control in the first place.
Exactly. I've been trying to put my finger on why what I've heard of #40 annoys me, and I think it's this: I don't want Buffy to angelically forgive people for being pissed off with her; I want her to deal with the reasons people are rightly (as far as I can tell from the odd plot) pissed off with her. Because if she doesn't, she's not just "flawed"; she's a Harmony-like sociopath. And at least in The Sopranos, that got acknowledged. In Season 8/9, that would mean having to give the characters agency, explain what exactly they did (let's have a #40 focusing on all the people Angel's and to a slightly lesser extent Buffy's actions hurt, how about that?) explain why they did something, make them responsible for what they do. And we've been told time and time again we're not going to get that; in the comics, shit just happens so that other shit can happen.
...That got long for someone who's not commenting on the comics. Sorry. :)