Killing People Off
Jun. 1st, 2008 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deird_ljI was watching Passion the other day, and I realised one of the reasons Joss Whedon is so fantastic: the way people on his shows die.
You see, most tv shows have people dying in one of three ways: incredibly obvious get-it-over-with-already type deaths, fake deaths, and heroic sacrifices. Joss’s shows have those, but they also have some other varieties.
You see, most tv shows have people dying in one of three ways: incredibly obvious get-it-over-with-already type deaths, fake deaths, and heroic sacrifices. Joss’s shows have those, but they also have some other varieties.
To be scientific about this, I have compiled a list of Buffyverse deaths for us to study:
Coded Deaths
Buffy (Prophecy Girl)
Angel (Innocence)
Jenny (Passion)
Kendra (Becoming)
Angel (Becoming)
Cordelia (Lover’s Walk)
Doyle (Hero)
Darla (The Trial)
April (I Was Made To Love You)
Joyce (The Body)
Tara (Tough Love)
Buffy (The Gift)
Buffybot (Bargaining)
Darla (Lullaby)
Tara (Seeing Red)
Wesley (Sleep Tight)
Connor (Sleep Tight)
Lilah (Calvary)
Faith (Orpheus)
Anya (Chosen)
Spike (Chosen)
Wood (Chosen)
Cordelia (You’re Welcome)
Fred (A Hole In The World)
Wesley (Not Fade Away)
You might notice that this list is including several deaths that weren’t technically deaths, and doesn’t include several that were (Larry’s, for instance). This is because it’s a list of all the ‘coded’ deaths: all the deaths that are filmed as though they are death scenes. You know the drill – soft filters, dramatic music, sobbing people… Larry’s death, tragic as it was, was shown for less than a second, and never mourned by anyone or given its own musical theme. So it doesn’t make the list.
Anyway, looking at this list, the deaths can be divided into various categories. Starting with…
Saw It Coming
April dies incredibly slowly, with Buffy sitting beside her for moral support. And then she actually stops talking, and you get the camera going up into the air, and the sweet, tragic music, and it’s all very sad…
It takes so long that by the time she actually dies, we’ve almost finished being sad about it.
The Buffybot’s death scene is similar (funnily enough). She’s all dismembered, with Dawn watching her, and her speech getting slower, and slower… It’s sad, sure. But there’s not much for us to do, apart from sit there and wait for her to finish dying. So as soon as she does, we can move on to other bits of plot.
Then there’s Fred. Who is arguably much more important than the other two. So, fittingly, her death takes a lot longer. An entire episode, in fact.
Yes, that’s right: I’m counting the entire episode of A Hole In The World as one very long death scene. But it is! Really! From the moment they do the flashback at the start, it’s obvious that the episode will be momentous and Fred-focused, and it rapidly becomes clear that she’s going to die. And, just like the other two, there’s not much post-death mourning. The plot moves on to Illyria, and everyone moves on with their lives.
Now, you might disagree with me on this one. After all, Fred is so loved by the Fang Gang that they spend an entire episode mourning her loss. True. But, if you remember, that episode was A Hole In The World – and she dies at the end. The only real bit of mourning that anyone (bar Wesley) does after her death is the nice montage at the end of Shells.
This kind of drawn-out death is pretty common to tv shows. The producers seem to think that a much-loved character deserves a lot of mourning devoted to their memory, but spending entire episodes at funerals would be kind of… boring. So they get all the weeping and wailing over and done with while the character is still alive, and then they move on to new bits of plot.
Personally, I think Joss is better at this kind of death than the average producer. But it’s still a cliché.
Fakeout
The first fake, not-actually-a-death-at-all death is Buffy’s, at the end of season one. Yes, I realise she did actually die. But when you’re dead for less than five minutes, and fine right after that, I don’t think it really counts (except from a new-Slayer-calling perspective).
Secondly, we have Cordelia getting impaled. Not really a death; definitely coded as one. We’ve got tragic music, last words (fading off into nothing in much the same way as the Buffybot), crying friends… AND THEN THEY CUT TO A FUNERAL SCENE! What were we supposed to think?!
Wesley gets his throat cut in Sleep Tight, and the episode ends with him still lying on the grass, bleeding profusely. Dramatic music and all. The writers were clearly trying to make it seem like he’d probably died.
The next one on this list is Faith, in Orpheus. No, she doesn’t die. But she does end up lying on a bed, with someone sitting watch over her, and someone else saying “She was a warrior, and she died in battle”. It counts.
And finally, there’s Robin Wood. With the contented smile, the sudden lack of movement… and Faith actually reaching out to close his eyes… Even though he was faking it himself, the writers are still definitely trying to make us think he’s died. It’s a fakeout.
Fake deaths are incredibly common in standard tv shows, and it’s easy to see why. You get the mourning, the last words, and even the sad music, and you still get to have the character around next week! Perfect!
Sudden Sacrifice
The most clichéd of the lot.
Let’s go through the list:
Doyle realises he has to die to save the world. He suddenly looks wise and contented. He looks deep into the eyes of the woman he loves (Cordelia), has one last kiss, one last sentence (“Too bad we’ll never know if this is a face you could learn to love.”), and then jumps off the platform and dies. Much weeping ensues.
Buffy realises she has to die to save the world (and, for that matter, her sister). She suddenly looks wise and contented. She looks deep into the eyes of the girl she loves (her sister, Dawn), imparts some last words of wisdom (“The hardest thing in the world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.”), and then jumps off the tower and dies. Cue more weeping.
Darla realises she has to die to save her son. She suddenly looks wise and contented. She looks deep into the eyes of the man she loves (Angel), gives him one last message (“This child is the one good thing we ever did together. The only good thing. You make sure to tell him that.”), and then stakes herself through the heart and dies. And THE VERY SKIES ARE WEEPING. LOOK AT ALL THE RAIN.
Spike realises he has to die to save the world. He suddenly looks wise and contented. He looks deep into the eyes of the woman he loves (Buffy), holds her hand one last time, has one final conversation (“I love you.” “No you don’t. But thanks for saying it.”), and then bursts into flames and saves the world. And the entire town is destroyed. Beginnings of a smile, and end of the show.
You could not get a more clichéd way to die on tv if you tried.
So far, we’ve discussed some wonderful, tragic, and extremely epic deaths. They’re brilliantly written, but they’re all fairly normal – by tv standards.
It’s really the rest that show the extent of Joss Whedon’s imagination. Starting with…
Horrible Shock
Angel loses his soul, in Innocence. Not actually a death, but certainly coded as one. Remember, first-time viewers don’t know he’s going to come back. It’s depicted as a permanent, irreversible thing. And Buffy sobs heartbreakingly.
It’s a horrible shock, that has basically no foreshadowing (unless you count the “In Loving Memory” tombstone in Bad Eggs).
Kendra’s death in Becoming happens without warning. One moment she’s fighting vampires, the next moment Drusilla slits her throat.
Darla has just decided to die the way she was supposed to, very nobly. She’s learned that people are willing to make sacrifices for her, that life is worth living, and that death can be okay. It’s all very inspirational.
…and then Drusilla kills her.
Buffy walks through the door, and there’s Joyce, lying on the couch. No warning given.
One moment they’re kissing, and the next Tara has a bullet through her heart, and Willow is swearing vengeance on all of mankind.
Connor is taken to Quortoth. Also not a death; also coded as one. It happens completely without warning (After all, who would be insane enough to jump through that portal? Apart from Holtz, I mean.), and leaves Angel collapsed on the ground, helpless.
You think she just might have escaped from Angelus. At least temporarily. And then Cordelia stabs her through the neck. Poor Lilah…
And then there’s Anya. Who gets a sword through the chest without warning… and the camera cuts back to other parts of the battle. Mourning Anya will have to wait until they’ve defeated The First.
These deaths are not standard tv deaths. Definitely not. They’re so quick.
They happen without warning, and the mourning has to happen after they’re dead – which is very un-tv-like.
You might notice that most of these lead to entire episodes of their loved ones mourning their loss and/or destroying things (notably, Angel locking half of Wolfram & Hart in a wine cellar, The Body, Willow hunting down The Trio, and Angel trying to smother Wesley and then sitting catatonic in a burnt-out bedroom for a few weeks).
They also tend to follow the well-known Buffyverse principle of “pure happiness is evil”. In Angel’s case, obviously, but also with Darla’s wise decisions, Joyce’s nice date, Tara and Willow’s reunion… Happiness is a dangerous thing.
And finally, there are the five deaths that I am just going to entitle…
Clever, Clever Writers
Jenny Calendar runs down a corridor, dangerous music playing. Obviously, what’s going to happen is that Angel will corner her, he’ll menacingly walk closer and closer, and she’ll look more and more trapped, and then Buffy will arrive (just in the nick of time) and her and Angel will have a showdown, while Jenny sighs in relief.
…or, in this case, Jenny runs down a corridor, and Angel walks up behind her and snaps her neck. The end.
Buffy and Angel are fighting, and Willow is trying to give Angel back his soul. Obviously, she’ll succeed just in the nick of time, and Buffy will realise just before she kills him, and they’ll hug, and cry, and kiss…
…and then she’ll stab him through the heart.
Glory is interrogating a Scoobie about The Key’s identity. Obviously, she won’t give in. And Willow will arrive just in time to see that Glory has killed her. Tara will look over, see that Willow is there holding her hand, smile weakly, impart one last loving message, and then die tragically. What a heroic sacrifice.
…or maybe Willow could get there and discover that Tara has gone completely insane, and will probably never recover. That’d be cool…
Cordelia is taken over by an evil chick called Jasmine, who creates chaos throughout Los Angeles, gives birth to itself, and kills Cordelia. Angel gets there, sees Cordy die (tragic music and all), and swears that he will hunt down Jasmine and make her pay.
…or, just to mix things up, Cordelia won’t die at all. Instead, she can end up in a coma, Angel can move on with his life (or lack thereof), and one day she can wake up again, and they’ll hug, and talk excitedly about what’s happened over the last year, and they’ll finally kiss, and it will all be completely perfect, and THEN she can suddenly die. Without any warning whatsoever.
Wesley has lost so much. And he will never see Fred again. And obviously, if the writers were to kill off a character like Wesley, it would have to be a tragic, dying-in-lover’s-arms type death, with him gazing into Fred’s eyes, saying some meaningful last words, and then slowly slipping away to a beautiful soundtrack. This cannot happen (Fred being dead, and all). So instead, Wesley will live on, and forever have to live without Fred. That is his tragedy.
…except in this case, it’s a different tragedy. Of the getting-to-see-Fred-one-last-time-before-he-dies variety. And it still isn’t really her. Don’t the writers have any idea how to be nice to people?
The thing about these deaths is that they twist the tv clichés. Jenny dying should be a fakeout. So should Buffy killing Angel. Cordelia should be on my “saw it coming” list, and Wesley and Tara should have heroically sacrificial deaths, with final words to their loved ones. But they don’t. We’re calmly sitting there, expecting the old standards, and Joss sneaks in and does something else. It’s brilliant, really.
There is one final category, made up of a bunch of deaths that I sneakily left off the original list. They are:
Murders
Ted, by Buffy (Ted)
Allan Finch, by Faith (Bad Girls)
Faith, by Buffy (Graduation Day)
Holland Manners, by Angel (Reunion)
Ben, by Giles (The Gift)
Trina, by The Trio (Dirty Girls)
Warren, by Willow (Villains)
Angel, by Connor (Tomorrow)
Professor Sidel, by Fred (Supersymmetry)
Anya, by Buffy (Selfless)
Jonathan, by Andrew (Conversations With Dead People)
Roger Wyndham-Pryce, by Wesley (Lineage)
Lindsey, by Lorne (Not Fade Away)
Again, some of these don’t actually result in death. But the people responsible think they’re killing them, the audience thinks they’re killing them, and they are certainly coded as murders, so I’ve kept them on the list.
As a rule, tv shows don’t have murders. Either they’d murder a main character (which would be bad), or they’d have a main character murder someone else (which would also be bad). So instead, nice cast members get near-brushes with death, and nasty characters get killed off through accidental means, so that nice people don’t ever have to deal with killing someone.
One of the wonderful things about Joss Whedon’s writing is that he lets characters murder people, and never lets them get away with it. Killing people changes you – that’s the rule.
It seems kinda weird to say that I love a tv show because all the people keep dying. But really, I love the way they die, and the fact that their deaths aren’t just ‘tv deaths’, but are kind of real.
Coded Deaths
Buffy (Prophecy Girl)
Angel (Innocence)
Jenny (Passion)
Kendra (Becoming)
Angel (Becoming)
Cordelia (Lover’s Walk)
Doyle (Hero)
Darla (The Trial)
April (I Was Made To Love You)
Joyce (The Body)
Tara (Tough Love)
Buffy (The Gift)
Buffybot (Bargaining)
Darla (Lullaby)
Tara (Seeing Red)
Wesley (Sleep Tight)
Connor (Sleep Tight)
Lilah (Calvary)
Faith (Orpheus)
Anya (Chosen)
Spike (Chosen)
Wood (Chosen)
Cordelia (You’re Welcome)
Fred (A Hole In The World)
Wesley (Not Fade Away)
You might notice that this list is including several deaths that weren’t technically deaths, and doesn’t include several that were (Larry’s, for instance). This is because it’s a list of all the ‘coded’ deaths: all the deaths that are filmed as though they are death scenes. You know the drill – soft filters, dramatic music, sobbing people… Larry’s death, tragic as it was, was shown for less than a second, and never mourned by anyone or given its own musical theme. So it doesn’t make the list.
Anyway, looking at this list, the deaths can be divided into various categories. Starting with…
Saw It Coming
April dies incredibly slowly, with Buffy sitting beside her for moral support. And then she actually stops talking, and you get the camera going up into the air, and the sweet, tragic music, and it’s all very sad…
It takes so long that by the time she actually dies, we’ve almost finished being sad about it.
The Buffybot’s death scene is similar (funnily enough). She’s all dismembered, with Dawn watching her, and her speech getting slower, and slower… It’s sad, sure. But there’s not much for us to do, apart from sit there and wait for her to finish dying. So as soon as she does, we can move on to other bits of plot.
Then there’s Fred. Who is arguably much more important than the other two. So, fittingly, her death takes a lot longer. An entire episode, in fact.
Yes, that’s right: I’m counting the entire episode of A Hole In The World as one very long death scene. But it is! Really! From the moment they do the flashback at the start, it’s obvious that the episode will be momentous and Fred-focused, and it rapidly becomes clear that she’s going to die. And, just like the other two, there’s not much post-death mourning. The plot moves on to Illyria, and everyone moves on with their lives.
Now, you might disagree with me on this one. After all, Fred is so loved by the Fang Gang that they spend an entire episode mourning her loss. True. But, if you remember, that episode was A Hole In The World – and she dies at the end. The only real bit of mourning that anyone (bar Wesley) does after her death is the nice montage at the end of Shells.
This kind of drawn-out death is pretty common to tv shows. The producers seem to think that a much-loved character deserves a lot of mourning devoted to their memory, but spending entire episodes at funerals would be kind of… boring. So they get all the weeping and wailing over and done with while the character is still alive, and then they move on to new bits of plot.
Personally, I think Joss is better at this kind of death than the average producer. But it’s still a cliché.
Fakeout
The first fake, not-actually-a-death-at-all death is Buffy’s, at the end of season one. Yes, I realise she did actually die. But when you’re dead for less than five minutes, and fine right after that, I don’t think it really counts (except from a new-Slayer-calling perspective).
Secondly, we have Cordelia getting impaled. Not really a death; definitely coded as one. We’ve got tragic music, last words (fading off into nothing in much the same way as the Buffybot), crying friends… AND THEN THEY CUT TO A FUNERAL SCENE! What were we supposed to think?!
Wesley gets his throat cut in Sleep Tight, and the episode ends with him still lying on the grass, bleeding profusely. Dramatic music and all. The writers were clearly trying to make it seem like he’d probably died.
The next one on this list is Faith, in Orpheus. No, she doesn’t die. But she does end up lying on a bed, with someone sitting watch over her, and someone else saying “She was a warrior, and she died in battle”. It counts.
And finally, there’s Robin Wood. With the contented smile, the sudden lack of movement… and Faith actually reaching out to close his eyes… Even though he was faking it himself, the writers are still definitely trying to make us think he’s died. It’s a fakeout.
Fake deaths are incredibly common in standard tv shows, and it’s easy to see why. You get the mourning, the last words, and even the sad music, and you still get to have the character around next week! Perfect!
Sudden Sacrifice
The most clichéd of the lot.
Let’s go through the list:
Doyle realises he has to die to save the world. He suddenly looks wise and contented. He looks deep into the eyes of the woman he loves (Cordelia), has one last kiss, one last sentence (“Too bad we’ll never know if this is a face you could learn to love.”), and then jumps off the platform and dies. Much weeping ensues.
Buffy realises she has to die to save the world (and, for that matter, her sister). She suddenly looks wise and contented. She looks deep into the eyes of the girl she loves (her sister, Dawn), imparts some last words of wisdom (“The hardest thing in the world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.”), and then jumps off the tower and dies. Cue more weeping.
Darla realises she has to die to save her son. She suddenly looks wise and contented. She looks deep into the eyes of the man she loves (Angel), gives him one last message (“This child is the one good thing we ever did together. The only good thing. You make sure to tell him that.”), and then stakes herself through the heart and dies. And THE VERY SKIES ARE WEEPING. LOOK AT ALL THE RAIN.
Spike realises he has to die to save the world. He suddenly looks wise and contented. He looks deep into the eyes of the woman he loves (Buffy), holds her hand one last time, has one final conversation (“I love you.” “No you don’t. But thanks for saying it.”), and then bursts into flames and saves the world. And the entire town is destroyed. Beginnings of a smile, and end of the show.
You could not get a more clichéd way to die on tv if you tried.
So far, we’ve discussed some wonderful, tragic, and extremely epic deaths. They’re brilliantly written, but they’re all fairly normal – by tv standards.
It’s really the rest that show the extent of Joss Whedon’s imagination. Starting with…
Horrible Shock
Angel loses his soul, in Innocence. Not actually a death, but certainly coded as one. Remember, first-time viewers don’t know he’s going to come back. It’s depicted as a permanent, irreversible thing. And Buffy sobs heartbreakingly.
It’s a horrible shock, that has basically no foreshadowing (unless you count the “In Loving Memory” tombstone in Bad Eggs).
Kendra’s death in Becoming happens without warning. One moment she’s fighting vampires, the next moment Drusilla slits her throat.
Darla has just decided to die the way she was supposed to, very nobly. She’s learned that people are willing to make sacrifices for her, that life is worth living, and that death can be okay. It’s all very inspirational.
…and then Drusilla kills her.
Buffy walks through the door, and there’s Joyce, lying on the couch. No warning given.
One moment they’re kissing, and the next Tara has a bullet through her heart, and Willow is swearing vengeance on all of mankind.
Connor is taken to Quortoth. Also not a death; also coded as one. It happens completely without warning (After all, who would be insane enough to jump through that portal? Apart from Holtz, I mean.), and leaves Angel collapsed on the ground, helpless.
You think she just might have escaped from Angelus. At least temporarily. And then Cordelia stabs her through the neck. Poor Lilah…
And then there’s Anya. Who gets a sword through the chest without warning… and the camera cuts back to other parts of the battle. Mourning Anya will have to wait until they’ve defeated The First.
These deaths are not standard tv deaths. Definitely not. They’re so quick.
They happen without warning, and the mourning has to happen after they’re dead – which is very un-tv-like.
You might notice that most of these lead to entire episodes of their loved ones mourning their loss and/or destroying things (notably, Angel locking half of Wolfram & Hart in a wine cellar, The Body, Willow hunting down The Trio, and Angel trying to smother Wesley and then sitting catatonic in a burnt-out bedroom for a few weeks).
They also tend to follow the well-known Buffyverse principle of “pure happiness is evil”. In Angel’s case, obviously, but also with Darla’s wise decisions, Joyce’s nice date, Tara and Willow’s reunion… Happiness is a dangerous thing.
And finally, there are the five deaths that I am just going to entitle…
Clever, Clever Writers
Jenny Calendar runs down a corridor, dangerous music playing. Obviously, what’s going to happen is that Angel will corner her, he’ll menacingly walk closer and closer, and she’ll look more and more trapped, and then Buffy will arrive (just in the nick of time) and her and Angel will have a showdown, while Jenny sighs in relief.
…or, in this case, Jenny runs down a corridor, and Angel walks up behind her and snaps her neck. The end.
Buffy and Angel are fighting, and Willow is trying to give Angel back his soul. Obviously, she’ll succeed just in the nick of time, and Buffy will realise just before she kills him, and they’ll hug, and cry, and kiss…
…and then she’ll stab him through the heart.
Glory is interrogating a Scoobie about The Key’s identity. Obviously, she won’t give in. And Willow will arrive just in time to see that Glory has killed her. Tara will look over, see that Willow is there holding her hand, smile weakly, impart one last loving message, and then die tragically. What a heroic sacrifice.
…or maybe Willow could get there and discover that Tara has gone completely insane, and will probably never recover. That’d be cool…
Cordelia is taken over by an evil chick called Jasmine, who creates chaos throughout Los Angeles, gives birth to itself, and kills Cordelia. Angel gets there, sees Cordy die (tragic music and all), and swears that he will hunt down Jasmine and make her pay.
…or, just to mix things up, Cordelia won’t die at all. Instead, she can end up in a coma, Angel can move on with his life (or lack thereof), and one day she can wake up again, and they’ll hug, and talk excitedly about what’s happened over the last year, and they’ll finally kiss, and it will all be completely perfect, and THEN she can suddenly die. Without any warning whatsoever.
Wesley has lost so much. And he will never see Fred again. And obviously, if the writers were to kill off a character like Wesley, it would have to be a tragic, dying-in-lover’s-arms type death, with him gazing into Fred’s eyes, saying some meaningful last words, and then slowly slipping away to a beautiful soundtrack. This cannot happen (Fred being dead, and all). So instead, Wesley will live on, and forever have to live without Fred. That is his tragedy.
…except in this case, it’s a different tragedy. Of the getting-to-see-Fred-one-last-time-before-he-dies variety. And it still isn’t really her. Don’t the writers have any idea how to be nice to people?
The thing about these deaths is that they twist the tv clichés. Jenny dying should be a fakeout. So should Buffy killing Angel. Cordelia should be on my “saw it coming” list, and Wesley and Tara should have heroically sacrificial deaths, with final words to their loved ones. But they don’t. We’re calmly sitting there, expecting the old standards, and Joss sneaks in and does something else. It’s brilliant, really.
There is one final category, made up of a bunch of deaths that I sneakily left off the original list. They are:
Murders
Ted, by Buffy (Ted)
Allan Finch, by Faith (Bad Girls)
Faith, by Buffy (Graduation Day)
Holland Manners, by Angel (Reunion)
Ben, by Giles (The Gift)
Trina, by The Trio (Dirty Girls)
Warren, by Willow (Villains)
Angel, by Connor (Tomorrow)
Professor Sidel, by Fred (Supersymmetry)
Anya, by Buffy (Selfless)
Jonathan, by Andrew (Conversations With Dead People)
Roger Wyndham-Pryce, by Wesley (Lineage)
Lindsey, by Lorne (Not Fade Away)
Again, some of these don’t actually result in death. But the people responsible think they’re killing them, the audience thinks they’re killing them, and they are certainly coded as murders, so I’ve kept them on the list.
As a rule, tv shows don’t have murders. Either they’d murder a main character (which would be bad), or they’d have a main character murder someone else (which would also be bad). So instead, nice cast members get near-brushes with death, and nasty characters get killed off through accidental means, so that nice people don’t ever have to deal with killing someone.
One of the wonderful things about Joss Whedon’s writing is that he lets characters murder people, and never lets them get away with it. Killing people changes you – that’s the rule.
It seems kinda weird to say that I love a tv show because all the people keep dying. But really, I love the way they die, and the fact that their deaths aren’t just ‘tv deaths’, but are kind of real.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 03:50 am (UTC)I was thinking about 'coding' scenes the other day, particularly after watching the bit in The Zeppo with Buffy and Angel's musical theme cutting in every time they get melodramatic...
The Mutant Enemy team seem to be very good at coding scenes one way, and then turning the scene into something else while you're not looking.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 03:23 am (UTC)I love it when you get thinky. ;)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 03:48 am (UTC)Thinkiness is fun.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 04:05 am (UTC)Please do watch the show. It starts off slowly, but it's well worth the effort.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 07:10 am (UTC)And even if the deaths are gigantic cliches - they still gut you, because of who these characters are. Even if you're spoiled - I knew Doyle was going to die before I started watching and I cried anyway. (And I think he's a good example of people not forgetting - in the next episode Cordy breaks down, several later Angel calls Wes 'Doyle', a possessed child uses Angel's guilt against him. You can see their grief even if they don't mention it, and they don't again until You're Welcome, where it still makes perfect sense.)
Also, resurrection isn't easy. Angel has to deal with the trauma of being in hell for centuries, Buffy with being ripped from heaven, Darla with suddenly being human again - and a very sick human at that. Spike is a ghost for a while, which is hell for someone as sensual as he is. (No cigs, no sex, no food! All he's left is to be annoying!)
...Sorry. Joss makes me babble. :p (Also, in Supersymmetry, Gunn killed him, too. Thus stealing control from Fred and knocking himself off the pedestal she'd placed him on.)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 07:28 am (UTC)There is indeed. Once you've seen Jenny Calendar die, you suddenly start taking random chases much more seriously...
I knew Doyle was going to die before I started watching and I cried anyway.
Uh-huh. I knew about Tara, Joyce, and Darla, and those three made me cry SO much...
Also, resurrection isn't easy.
Exactly nothing in the Buffyverse comes without a price.
Gunn killed him, too.
You're right, of course. I guess I just forgot about him - I've always associated his death with Fred a lot more, probably because Gunn wouldn't have gotten involved if she hadn't.
I'm glad you enjoyed reading this!
no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 10:57 pm (UTC)One of the wonderful things about Joss Whedon’s writing is that he lets characters murder people, and never lets them get away with it.
That's not quite accurate. I think you need an additional category, one just for Angel, titled "Deaths Angel Was Responsible For (Without Suffering Consequences)". (And I mean Angel, not Angelus)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 11:21 pm (UTC)"Deaths Angel Was Responsible For (Without Suffering Consequences)"
Assuming we're talking humans that Angel deliberately killed, I can think of nine that might possibly qualify:
1) I Fall To Pieces: Ronald Meltzer, who is in the process of trying to kill a woman using random body parts.
2) Blind Date: the blind woman, who is an assassin, currently trying to kill off some children.
3) Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been: the Hyperion residents. Although Angel technically just leaves them to die.
4) That Vision Thing: the vision-creating guy, who has been horribly maiming Cordelia any time Lilah feels like it.
5) Conviction: head of the special ops team. Who has just tried to kill an entire classroom of kids, kill Angel, and pretty much says he'll never stop trying to eliminate Angel and his friends.
6) Just Rewards: the necromancer. Who's just been trying to kill Angel.
7) Unleashed: the werewolf, who's currently attacking Nina.
8) Why We Fight: Lawson. Who was actually killed by the nazi - Angel just vamped him.
9) Drogyn: casualty in a war with The Circle of the Black Thorn. (No, not an excuse. But Angel's right - they would have killed him AND Drogyn if he hadn't killed Drogyn himself.)
As a general rule, he doesn't actually kill people unless they're a) superpowered, and b) actively trying to kill someone else.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 12:29 am (UTC)I said deaths he was responsible for (by his action, to clarify). Most of those are nameless but it's quite an untold number.
1.In Btvs, season 2, he meets with Drusilla and instead of staking her, he lets her go. So, he is, therefore responsible for all the deaths she caused after that, including Darla's in The Trial and Kendra's in Becoming Pt 1.
2.Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been: the Hyperion residents. Angel leaves them to die, so he *is* responsible for their deaths.
3.The boy in the malt shop that Angel let die then fed from.
4. The lawyers from Wolfram & Hart, their spouses/dates and any employees caught within the wine cellar when Angel locked the doors.
5.Lawson's death was imminent, so Angel has no responsibility in that. However, he let both Lawson and Spike free. All the people they killed are, therefore, because Angel released them instead of killing them.
6.Drogyn:that was outright murder. If it wasn't for Angel's actions, Drogyn would never have been in jeopardy.
7.Lindsey, by Lorne's hand, sure but Angel gave the order, so he is just as culpable in the murder and even worse was turning Lorne into the hand that delivered the fatal bullets.
8.Gunn. Again, Angel planned. Gunn died.
9.Wesley. See above.
10.Fred indirectly. I don't think Fred would have agreed to join W&H on her own. She was pretty much the only one who wasn't ready to at the end of "Home'. He made an executive decision that kept her there. She died.
Honorable mentions:
1.Merle. Again, not Angel's fault but he could, perhaps, have prevented it.
2.Darla, Drusilla and Spike's victims in China and whoever they killed afterward.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 06:05 am (UTC)1.In Btvs, season 2, he meets with Drusilla and instead of staking her, he lets her go.
5.Lawson's death was imminent, so Angel has no responsibility in that. However, he let both Lawson and Spike free.
I don't really disagree, but why only lay this on Angel? Buffy lets Drusilla go free twice ("Lie To Me" and "Crush")... in fact, if you apply that argument fully, then Buffy's responsible for every death-by-vampire that happens on one of those nights when she's trying to have a normal life rather than go slaying. As are the scoobies once they decide to start helping her slay. And let's not even mention the ones Xander caused to die in "Once More With Feeling" by summoning Sweet.
8.Gunn. Again, Angel planned. Gunn died.
Gunn volunteered knowing the risks. Also, people die in battles. Buffy's responsible for everyone who died in "Chosen" including Anya and Spike.
1.Merle.
Love the guy, and I was really sad to see him go. But Merl was a demon, and as difficult it is to justify some times, different rules apply to demons in the Buffyverse... And I must say holding Angel responsible for his death is going a little far. Basically, Angel's crime here is knowing (and not particularly liking) a guy who gets murdered. If anything, I'd say Merl's blood is on Gunn's hands; he's the one who taught his crew to hunt demons.
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Date: 2008-06-03 08:40 am (UTC)...which would be the reason I didn't include deaths-by-proxy on my list of murders. There's just far too many of them.
different rules apply to demons in the Buffyverse
True. Although, should someone kill Lorne (or Clem, for that matter), I'd probably still want to count it as murder.
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Date: 2008-06-03 09:34 am (UTC)The most obvious one that I forgot in my previous post would be one that Buffy herself acknowledges: she didn't kill Angelus in "Innocence", and lots of people (including Jenny) ended up dead because of it. But of course, the original qualification was that they didn't end up suffering any consequences for it...
Although, should someone kill Lorne (or Clem, for that matter), I'd probably still want to count it as murder.
And Merl's death was pretty much treated as a murder, but the responsible party was first and foremost Gio, and if you really stretch it Gunn. Angel is a long way down on the blame list for Merl, IMO.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 10:06 am (UTC)Also, that's true about battles.
Merle...meh. I suppose the reason I put him as an 'honorable' was because I didn't care for the callous way Angel treated him or his death.
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Date: 2008-06-03 06:15 am (UTC)Wesley and Tara should have heroically sacrificial deaths, with final words to their loved ones.
Exactly. Of course, part of the reason for Tara dying that way is plot-related - she needs to die quickly both to add to the shock and to make sure she doesn't have time to tell Willow not to go on an insane murdering rampage for her sake - but still, it goes against the way a hero is supposed to die and it's all the more effective for it. There are a few other TV series that do something similar - The Wire and The Sopranos spring to mind - but those are shows that go for as much realism as possible. Buffy being a genre show, we probably subconsciously expect it to follow the old tropes much closer - but of course, the whole idea behind it is to subvert clichés.
Don’t the writers have any idea how to be nice to people?
Nope. And I for one am very grateful for that. :-)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 08:36 am (UTC)Thanks!
it goes against the way a hero is supposed to die and it's all the more effective for it.
Exactly. If you look at all the most memorable deaths (or, at least, the ones that caused the most fuss), they're all ones which twist the cliché of how people are supposed to die on television. (Angel's and Tara's being the most obvious examples.)
I for one am very grateful for that.
Definitely. Three cheers for cruel and vindictive writers! They rock!
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Date: 2008-06-03 10:29 am (UTC)This Don’t the writers have any idea how to be nice to people? made me laugh. So true, and though I think Joss sometimes goes too far down that road, in general, I'm glad for it.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 10:54 pm (UTC)He does indeed. I think, in a lot of ways, the sign of a really good writer is when they can take a complete and utter cliche, and make it not seem cliched, even though it is. And Joss is brilliant at that.
But I think one of the best things about Buffy is the way it subverts cliches, and turns them into something else. Which can be even better than writing cliches-in-disguise.
(...I think that made sense. Kinda.)
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Date: 2008-06-06 02:19 am (UTC)(Cordy)..AND THEN THEY CUT TO A FUNERAL SCENE!
That was evil.
(Darla)THE VERY SKIES ARE WEEPING. LOOK AT ALL THE RAIN.
Hey..they were, weren't they?
You think she just might have escaped from Angelus. At least temporarily. And then Cordelia stabs her through the neck. Poor Lilah…
-Whimpers-
Happiness is a dangerous thing.
What a Jossy theme.
You always get me looking at things in such a different way. I'd never really given much thought to the way characters die, beyond how it advances the plot or the emotional development of the other characters, but not at how it effects the audience. (Beyond the fact that there are SAD deaths (Doyle, Tara, Joyce), and there are Eh.. deaths (Holland, Ben, Professor Sidel).) You sorted out the whole thing very nicely, and in a way that is really thought-provoking. The next time I decide to kill someone off in one of my fics, I'll be sure to swing back through this post first..
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Date: 2008-06-06 08:44 pm (UTC)Uh-huh. That's one of the few deaths I wasn't spoiled for AT ALL. And it came right at the height of my Lilah-adoration. I was horribly upset.
The next time I decide to kill someone off in one of my fics
What? But... your fics are usually about characters who should never-ever-ever be allowed to die, for any reason! They're just too lovely!
no subject
Date: 2008-06-08 11:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-08 10:21 pm (UTC)Jenny's death was one of the ones I was spoiled for (starting shows after they've already finished will do that) but it still managed to shock me. I watched the whole run through the school, and then when Angel killed her I just ended up sitting there going "What? What? That's it? No long tearful goodbye?"
Joss really is brilliant at that sort of thing.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-07 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-07 02:21 am (UTC)