Buffy Season One Episode Two: Suspension Of Disbelief Not Fully Achieved

[koganbot]

(1) Why doesn't Buffy get more scared?
(2) Why do she and her gang need to keep this all a secret? (Still not explained.)
(3) Absence of cops not yet explained either. Obviously Buffy and crew won't call 'em, but kids who are being attacked in dance clubs would. (And hey, this was maybe 12 years ago, but cell phones existed, and so did worried parents.)
(4) Don't, like, any other students use the library?
(5) Angel WTF?

(Please, no spoilers in comments.)

Comments

[cis.livejournal.com]

in my experience of being a teenager, kids who were e.g. mugged in the street on the way back from a dance club would explicitly not tell their parents because it would lead to going-out privileges being taken away for their own protection, which is even worse than being grounded.

[koganbot]

Er, this is not very convincing, even if you phrase your opening sentence "the vast majority of kids who were mugged." It has to be 100 percent, and in this instance it has to be 100 percent of youngsters who watched someone apparently being murdered on stage in a dance club but who don't mention this to any authority figure whatsoever. But anyway, in Episode One a dead body is found in a school locker, and not only is there no cop presence, and no investigation, this leads to no change in the school routine.

My provisional theory is, "No time/room in script to provide explanation, and Whedon et al. are hoping that viewers won't be anal or literal or trivial enough to give a shit about the missing cops."

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

must. not. commit. spoilers.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Fuck it, I think even commenting on the library would be a spoiler. You can't do this to people.

[koganbot]

Yes I can. And wait, you haven't even seen the show (which I'm guessing isn't bound by what happened in the [non-hit, as I recall] movie). My provisional explanation for the library is that Buffy, Willow, and Xander aren't aware yet of the extent to which they don't share the same reality as other students; but this would mean that somehow Xander and Willow were already "chosen" in some way. I also think it's possible that Xander may not altogether be what he seems (to us, to Buffy, perhaps to himself). But maybe not.

[koganbot]

Anyway, isn't it fun watching me struggle with things that you already know? (Or have you become used to that over the last couple of years?)

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

No.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

1) Remember she has faced and killed vampires before. Again, we do get fear now and then, but no spoilers.
2) Never really explained, but we can come up with reasons of various kinds, but I can't think of anything that gives clear support to any of them. Habits of the watchers seems to be most of it.
3-5) No spoilers. Yes, all are covered to one degree or another in due course. In due course means over the next few seasons, I'm afraid. #5 is revealed before too long.

[koganbot]

For 1) what I'm wrestling with is that she seems to believe - and the vampires definitely believe - that she can be killed, and in any event it's been shown that, when she fails, her friends can be killed. (And I've faced and written hundreds of pieces and I'm still afraid of the blank screen. But that may not be relevant here.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Actually, my impression of the movie was that it was a reasonable hit in theatres.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

(was going to be posted to the previous one but my phone didn't want to)

I never saw these: season 3 was the recommended jumping-on point when I was jumping on. Nor the movie, for which I have no real excuse. Something that I realise I never knew is what Buffy does with her social capital: she's not the loner looking in at the start, she's a cheerleader, the top of the high school pile. Does she ever try and use this as a tool to hand, or does it disappear over night?

One of the reason superheroes have secret identities is as a different answer to the problem of Marlowe: they must act, they must make powerful enemies, but they have ties to society that they must protect (though are Buffy's friends endangered because they're her friends?). Also sometimes the other way around: Buffy's mom is probably generically worried about her daughter drinking and having sex, but wouldn't be greatly relieved to hear that she has little time for that, due to spending increasing amounts of her time fighting the undead.

[koganbot]

Well, my primal experience with dual identity is Zorro, which I saw as a grade-school kid (the Tyrone Power talkie, though the Douglas Fairbanks silent version is better), where it isn't so much that he's protecting his social status but where, as Zorro, he's pretty much single-handedly taking on the authorities and trying to inspire the notables to challenge the Governor. So he has to be able to disappear into another identity or the authorities will kill him. But in his other identity, as Don Diego, foppish and filthy rich son of one of the notables, one who's been going along with the government, he can spy on his enemies on behalf of his Zorro self. But the practical reason isn't as good as the dream-logic reason, which is that as Don Diego he's been told by his dad to acquire a wife, so he as Don Diego literally goes about doing this by offering wealth and status to the pretty young woman whose parents are on the outs with the gov't. And her parents pressure her to say yes, as it will rescue them, but she won't, 'cause she's in love with another man who's been secretly wooing her, the romantic, disreputable criminal, the notorious outlaw... Zorro! -I'm not spoiling anything by telling you this. You figure it all out in the first fifteen minutes or so. What makes this work so well isn't that Fairbanks is a great, dashing Zorro, though he is, but that he's totally convincing as the foppish, irresponsible Don Diego, and there's a powerful tension between the two identities. I don't think that this has much to do with Buffy, however, at least not yet. (I've never read or seen Sheridan's The Rivals, but I have a feeling it's a relevant precursor to Zorro.)

[koganbot]

Before going to Episode Three I'll say that there's a moment towards the end of Two where Angel brings to mind Tchéky Karyo in La Femme Nikita (movie version). Secretly, without her knowing it, Angel is grooming Buffy; secretly, he cares about her; secretly, he's proud of her. (Perhaps.) When she successfully sabotages the Hellmouth, Angel's reaction, which only we can see, is as if she'd passed an especially difficult exam. Reminds me of the "graduation" scene in Nikita. (I may be all wrong, but don't tell me, as I will find out soon enough.)