1 from Amazing Spider-man 673

[shadowpsykie]

what ever, i don't care, i STILL think that MJ could and SHOULD be the next Scarlet Spider! in my head, she is... and i will DRAW IT!..... maybe... i don't know.... SOME ONE WILL DRAW IT I INVOKE RULE 32!!!





I would Also LIke to reward you guys who helped me with my paper with this video my professor showed us at the begining of class as we discussed Joss Whedon, Feminism and Astonishing X-Men: Gifted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYaczoJMRhs

http://fanboywatchtower.tumblr.com/post/12310564628/so-in-my-graphic-novel-class-at-cal-state

i may be a little bit in love with this man...
*Note: POsted my blog link which has he video because for some reason i can't get the link to embed here...

Comments

[valtyr]

Well, I feel they should really have told the Burkles their daughter was dead as soon as possible. Rather than forget about them until they turned up. I mean - she told Wesley to tell them things. And he just... didn't.

Ugh that makes no sense, even in the inconsistent Buffyverse. Did they ever clarify he deliberately got his soul? I thought it was left ambiguous - he could have been going to get the chip removed. And I don't even know if it's redemption, really, as he's previously shown himself to do the most outlandish things for love; it's not a sign of redemption but obsession.

[shadowpsykie]

how does that not make sense? the idea that a mother and a child share a connection both physical and beyond is not a new concept. Piper had the power to create forcefields because her son was able to create them.

here its basically stating that the connection between a mother and a child goes beyond mere physical connection, its a connection that goes as far as the soul.

yeah they did, Spike said that he did it for her, to be the man she deserves. he reiterated it with ANgel later saying that he willingly set out to get his soul.

it might have been a sign of obsession it might not be (that is the part that was left ambiguous, we only have his word for it after the fact)

[valtyr]

how does that not make sense? the idea that a mother and a child share a connection both physical and beyond is not a new concept. Piper had the power to create forcefields because her son was able to create them.

Well I don't think anyone's arguing a mother doesn't share a physical connection with the foetus she is gestating. (Although how the fuck Darla is gestating a baby when she is dead...) But the Buffyverse has never addressed a nonphysical link as far as I'm aware. (Piper's from Charmed isn't she?) When Cordelia was pregnant with demons they didn't catch souls from her, did they?

yeah they did, Spike said that he did it for her, to be the man she deserves.

Yeah, that was what I was describing as ambiguous. Still, if he told Angel he went to get it deliberately, that'll do.

Spike previously offered to murder his sire for Buffy; getting a soul can easily be interpreted as another move in that style.

[shadowpsykie]

Yeah, that was what I was describing as ambiguous. Still, if he told Angel he went to get it deliberately, that'll do.

yeah he repeated it after too in buffy when he was hugging the cross (it made me weepy...) but yeah, he mentioned it a couple of time in and too angel


Well I don't think anyone's arguing a mother doesn't share a physical connection with the foetus she is gestating. (Although how the fuck Darla is gestating a baby when she is dead...) But the Buffyverse has never addressed a nonphysical link as far as I'm aware. (Piper's from Charmed isn't she?) When Cordelia was pregnant with demons they didn't catch souls from her, did they?

yeah piper was from charmed but i was using that as an example of expanded thought. There are people here in our world now who beleive that a mother and child share link beyond the physical. Some that know when thier child is in danger. its something i beleive. Mother's have this... connection to thier children. i just think that's what they were trying to build off of... though i agree the discrepencies between cordelia's first pregnancy and Darla's (and yeah, the fact that both Darla and Angel were... you know... DEAD... then again i don't know too much about vampire biology sooo...) i can only think that... wasn't Cordelia's pregnancy like... different? weren't they eggs or something and not so much a fetus? (i see what you mean about discrecpancies...

[valtyr]

Mother's have this... connection to thier children.

Sorry, but if you're setting up a magical connection in fiction, you need to foreshadow it/set it up a little. I'm not a mother, but I do have a mother (as is customary) and we certainly don't have any kind of spiritual connection, and I can assure you she has no particular insight into whether I'm well or not. (Exciting times with severe appendicitis!)

IDK, she's been pregnant with demons twice, haha. They didn't really explore the biology of the situations.

[jlbarnett]

Well I don't think anyone's arguing a mother doesn't share a physical connection with the foetus she is gestating. (Although how the fuck Darla is gestating a baby when she is dead...)

magic. Angel went out and performed a ritual that would allow a life that should end to continue. But it wouldn't work for Darla because she'd been brought back from the dead once. Then dead sperm met live egg and instead of no kid because Angel's dead the spell kicks in and suddenly.. Connor.

When Cordelia was pregnant with demons they didn't catch souls from her, did they?

No, but she did catch demon-ness from them

[valtyr]

Magic: really fucking vague sometimes.

No, but she did catch demon-ness from them

On the one hand, I guess it's nice there was some precedent. On the other, rather than 'souls cross the placental barrier' it appears to be 'foetus trumps gestater'. Which is less than happy-making.

[jlbarnett]

it's just possession. In the Buffyverse they even had a ghost possess a vampire(in season 2 while Angel lost his soul) which I think may be the first time that happened in any fiction.

[valtyr]

Pregnancy is basically possession? This explains so much.

[jlbarnett]

no, the demon-ness

[deepspaceartist]

Wesley definitly sould have gone to the Burkles sooner, of coruse. But considering he just had another in the long line of the universe kicking him in the crotch, I can't really blame him for not being together enough to do that.

Yeah, the whole Spike thing suspect, the only time we hear about him trying for his soul is from him after the fact, and even a souled Spike is not the most trustworth of sources. Fact remains that Spike was redeemed by the end of Buffy, though.

And as for the Darla/babySoul thing, two vamps having a kid was already inpossible, so why does the babySoul thing make no sense? It's not like there were well defined Buffyverse rules about the effect of souled babies in souless mothers.

[valtyr]

You'd think Wolfram and Hart's personnel department would have measures... and you know what, I'm sorry Wesley, but actually Fred's life and death are more important to her parents than to you, and the last fucking thing she ever asked you to do was talk to them. I actually do blame him, and Angel, and everyone else who knew she had parents who loved her very much and didn't bother to inform them their daughter was dead.

He was, but it was much less directly connected to the boning - the boning was presented as actually damaging to Buffy - whereas Angel's evil-banging produced a miracle baby of redemption. (I mean, if we want to compare their redemptions, Spike went out and got a soul. Darla had one injected into her by Angel's penis, I suppose.)

IDK, it's just a step too far. Her getting knocked up was bad, but the idea that having a soul bobbing about inside you magically gives you morals seems loltastic. And, you know, taps into that whole thing where motherhood is magical and special and redeems bad women. And the whole thing where Women Must Die For Their Unborn Children Because I Think We All Know Who's The Important Person Here. Which I'm not saying Whedon was deliberately invoking, but they're some stale old tropes.

[shadowpsykie]

well whedon has always had a thing for mothers. he loved hers and she was a major influence on him. so everynow and then he explored the nature of motherhood. I liked the Darla sacrifice, it was very poigniant. (But i do see the issues it has brought up) i think he did much better with Joyce Summers.

[valtyr]

I'd really like to see a mother deciding she values her own life over her foetus. Never happens. I get very tired of being assured that pure and perfectly motherly love of sacrifice means you're positively elevated by dying. Excuse me while I float gloriously to heaven on a cloud of barf.

I really liked Joyce, though, he did a good job with her I think!

[deepspaceartist]

While I agree that there sould be more of the 'help the living woman, not the unborn baby' thing in ficion and real life, that's not applicable in Darla's case. Darla, with her temorary concience, knows that if the baby dies, she'll just go back to being a mass murdering demon wearing the real Darla's corpse. And vampires who suddenly have guilt for all their crimes aren't known to be that averse to ending their own lives.

[valtyr]

And vampires who suddenly have guilt for all their crimes aren't known to be that averse to ending their own lives.

I can think of three vampires whose remorse caused them to contemplate suicide. Two guys, one girl. Only one successfully did so. The other two were mysteriously magically saved because they were so important.

So yeah, I think it's worth noticing the woman dies.

[deepspaceartist]

Yep, that's true enough. Never said that the show was perfect, Just that it wasn't a clear cut case on these issues.

[valtyr]

Well it seems to me that by 'not a clear-cut case' you mean 'I like it so I'll make excuses til the cows come home about why this story is different'.

[deepspaceartist]

You're right. Angel or Gunn or someone should have told them. I just don't personally blame the guy who watched her die and now has to deal with the demon-god wearing her corpse around every day. And I reeally wouldn't trust W&H's personnel department with any sort of death notification. Especially since like 90% of W&H deaths are murdered by co-worker/client/Demon working for evil god.

The whole 'motherhood redeems' thing, while defitly a tired old trope, is not really the whole story there though. It's one (often questionable) thing to have a woman turn good because of and/or die to save an unborn baby, but it is another to have a vampire woman kill herself because she knows she'll likely become a remorseless killing machine after the baby is born or dies. It's not like any concience or morals the demon in Darla's corpse had would last after the baby is no longer also in the corpse.

I think what we can all take away from this is that, while often entertaining, the Buffyverse in incredibly convoluted and confusing.

[valtyr]

IDK, see, I would trust Wolfram and Hart to do it because it happens so often. They probably have form letters for 'ancient evil consumed body'.

It's one (often questionable) thing to have a woman turn good because of and/or die to save an unborn baby, but it is another to have a vampire woman kill herself because she knows she'll likely become a remorseless killing machine after the baby is born or dies.

Well... you say they're different, but isn't "woman turns good because of, and dies to save, her unborn baby" actually an accurate description of Darla's story? Sure, they've dressed it differently but it's still the same trope under it. Like Star Wars is essentially about a old wizard and a rogue helping the farmboy rescue the princess from the enemy stronghold - you can claim it's totally different because it's in space with lightsabers, but it's still the same story.

It's not like any concience or morals the demon in Darla's corpse had would last after the baby is no longer also in the corpse.

Why not? And when does it stop? When the baby breaches? When it's out? When the placenta's out? When they cut the umbilical? What if she always stays in physical contact with it? What if she carves open her belly and puts it in, will she suddenly be souled again? HOW DOES THIS WORK.

[deepspaceartist]

Well, the main difference between Darla and other instances is that Darla knows for a fact that her continued esxistence if she lets the baby die to save herself is either a quick staking at the hands of Angel Investigations, or a continued lif of killing people before The Slayer or Angel or someone ends up dusting her.

And as for how the babysoul works, I don't know, I just know that she seemd pretty sure that no living baby= no soul. It doesn't really matter if it was tru or not, so much as that she was sure that it was.

[valtyr]

And it's still a story about how a woman turns good because of, and dies to save, her unborn baby. That's still the story.

[deepspaceartist]

The difference is that she, as she is then, dies either way. The Darla that wouldn't kill innocent children is not going to survive the baby either way, or at least that's what she beieves. It's a question of weather or not she want's to die sooner, or die later and take the baby and probably a bunch of other people down with her.

[jlbarnett]

personally I would think, since W&H's contracts extend past death and the fact we've seen soul removal is possible that they'd have steps to pull her soul out so they wouldn't be cheated.

As for the difference between Buffy and Spike and ANgel and Darla, Buffy was just miserable and wasn't looking to or going to get out of it, and Angel was looking for some sort of sign

[valtyr]

Angel was looking for some sort of sign

I mean I'd criticise him for looking for a sign in Darla's vagina, but it might be best to call it genre-savvy, as that's where he found one.