Character Arcs, Season By Season

[deird_lj]

[Poll #1241429]

Comments

[wehavedental.livejournal.com]

Accidently pressed enter before I could finish the poll. -_-

I think the best character arc overall was Wesley.

[deird1]

Oops!
(If you wanted to finish it, you can click on the poll number, and "fill out poll", and it will let you do it again...)

Wes had such an extraordinary character arc, didn't he? I'm not sure if he was definitely the best, but he's certainly one of my top three.

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

It was very hard choosing just one for each season. :)

[deird1]

Isn't it? I still don't know who I'd pick...

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

It was. I was very torn between Buffy and Angel for S2 of Btvs and between Fred and Wesley in S5 of Ats.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

Willow had the best arc in season 6 but it should have been so much more.

No one had a decent arc in season 4. Maybe Adam. heh.

[deird1]

Adam. Huh. I knew I should have included him...

[faymeadows.livejournal.com]

Picked Lorne for AtS 4, out of sheer exasperation with all the others.

Thanks for a most entertaining poll! :)

[deird1]

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

ETA: I just read your description of Darla. It's hysterical!

[shapinglight]

I can't believe more people haven't picked Gunn for that last one. Also, I can't choose, but I think they all had great character arcs, though Xander's went off a bit towards the end, but there were RL reasons for that.

[deird1]

I know - I'd think of Gunn's final-season arc as being one of the more interesting ones. (I came very close to picking it myself - but Illyria was far too irresistable.)

As far as the best overall? It took me four hours to choose - and I wrote the poll. But I narrowed it down to Wesley, Spike, Faith, Willow, and Andrew (I love Andrew), and then almost picked at random...

[shapinglight]

My choice is almost the same, except swap Andrew for Buffy. Her arc is terribly sad, but I still think it's a good one.

[deird1]

It is, isn't it?

(I am madly in love with your icon, by the way...)

[shapinglight]

awmp made it, if you want to snag.

[mauvedragon.livejournal.com]

I didn't watch any Buffy when it was on TV. It's only after I moved out that I started watching it. I stopped for about a year and have now gone back to it. I'm currently in the middle of season 5

[deird1]

Yeah, I never watched it on tv either. I only started the dvds a couple of years ago. And now it's sort of become an obsession...

[neutralalienist.livejournal.com]

...That was hard. :( There are too many that are awesome. (Except in BtVS' season four, which had the opposite problems. Frell, that season was bland.)

Heh, only I chose Dawn for season seven. I just really liked her growing from distressed little sister to a hero in her own right. Junior watcher indeed.

Overall I picked Angel, but it was tough. Wesley almost won, but didn't, because Angel ended better than he started and, by season five, Wes...did not.

...Can we have a 'worst' poll? Hi, Cordy.

[deird1]

It was tough to choose, wasn't it? It took me ages to figure out my choices...

And you're right: season 4, while having some awesome episodes, didn't really have much brilliance on the 'character arc' front.

[dreamincolor.livejournal.com]

That poll was tough..especially the last one! Though I did laugh quietly for a good portion of it. Your summaries - freakin' hilarious.

Though I do have just one question: for the Angel season 3 poll, why didn’t Darla make the list? She kind of did that staking herself thing, and I probably would have listed her over Holtz..

[deird1]

It was kinda tough, wasn't it? It took me hours to come up with my answers, and I wrote the thing!

Though I do have just one question: for the Angel season 3 poll, why didn’t Darla make the list?

Purely lack of room. I can only have ten answers per question, and once I got all the regulars in, I only had three spaces left. So I decided that Groo and Holtz should get mentioned (because that season was pretty much their only opportunity), and I gave the third spot to Lilah (because, well, Lilah). As much as I'm a Darla nut, I decided that she'd have to make do with BtVS 1 and AtS 2...

[dreamincolor.livejournal.com]

I gotcha. I figured it was a lack of room, n' I suppose it was Holtz's only opportunity.. N’ of course, you know I’m all for Lilah being mentioned!

[botias.livejournal.com]

This was a great poll. :) I found that I agreed very much with the results. Perhaps character arcs really work well or they don't, or perhaps the ones that work completely overshadow arcs that are adequate.

[deird1]

I'm glad you liked it!

I think, normally, they sort of focus on two or three character arcs a season. So, even though the other characters are still doing stuff, their arcs aren't the main focus, and don't tend to be remembered much by people.
Xander, in fact, spends pretty much every season with a supporting arc, rather than a main one. So he gets stuff to do, but his arc definitely isn't a major part of the season...

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Meh. This was difficult. Especially for BtVS S5 and S7 because I wanted to pick both Spike and Buffy. I opted for Spike in both cases cause Buffy got picked for S1-S2, S4, and S6.

Didn't choose the AtS ones, though. I don't feel familiar enough with the show after only one viewing to have much of an opinion on that.