fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2793 ]

[ SECRET POST #2793 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2793 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 036 secrets from Secret Submission Post #399.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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I wonder if some of the Dawn hate comes from people who watched the show while it ran, versus newcomers? I'm just acting on a hunch. I never minded her, but then, I watched the show years after the series finale, and I was pretty spoiled for Dawn's appearance. I can see it annoying fans who were unprepared and confused for half a season, though. Especially if you factor in the implication that Joyce's brain tumor was caused by her modified memories of Dawn...

I don't understand blaming the actors, though. But then, the one thing I've never understood about TV fandom is why so much emphasis is placed on them. I don't see actors, I see characters being played by actors.

Wait, where did it imply that Joyce's brain tumor was caused by the modified memories? I never got that from any scene. I honestly have no idea what you are referring to.

Yeah, that sounds like fanon to me. A LOT of people's memories were modified.

Whew. I thought I was going crazy there because I didn't remember that at all!

AYRT - With the AU of Dawn's existence, basically. It's not really official canon, just speculation.

It isn't speculation I've heard before. From anyone. Is this just your personal speculation, or is this a popular fan theory?

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-08-27 01:25 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-08-27 05:57 (UTC) - Expand

It was an implication, a theory floating around some circles after s5. Not confirmed in canon.

My own theory is that it just happened, like these things do.

Me either. And Buffy was my entry fandom.

On the one hand, that doesn't make sense as a theory because it should mean that everyone whose memories were modified would eventually become sick in some way.

On the other, I like the idea as a fic possibility; very angsty.

Watching it at the time, with the reveal that Dawn wasn't human and that everyone's memories of her were fake, I thought there was a very strong implication that Joyce's tumor was a result of the false memories. Willow, Xander, and Giles only would have had 4 years' worth of fake memories; Tara, Anya, and Spike, even fewer (Spike was around in S1, but disappeared frequently). Buffy would have had the same 14 years of implanted memories of Dawn as Joyce did, but kids' memories are different from adults' memories, plus Joyce would have spent more time with Dawn than Buffy did, and oh yeah, Buffy's the Slayer with super-healing.

Even my husband, who'd never seen the show before, as we're watching it now, asked if the fake memories of Dawn had caused Joyce's tumor.

... yeah, not seeing it.

What bothered me about Dawn is that she was very much forced in unnaturally as a character. I mean, it was literally a retcon. She sort of grew on me over time, but I still do not like the way she was introduced, or that she needed to be Buffy's sister.

I actually didn't mind it precisely because she was literally a retcon and they really went for it full on rather than, say, a long-lost sister or something else like that.

Same here.

Ditto. But I had only started watching BtVS about halfway through the previous season, and I figured that Dad had custody of Dawn, and that's why we'd never heard about her. I actually would've been okay with that being part of the storyline, and was kind of hoping for it.

Yep

Me too. I loved the out of the blue appearance of her character and the mystery to figure out. Pretty excellent story-telling for me.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-08-27 04:10 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

fauxkaren - 2014-08-27 23:33 (UTC) - Expand

That was the point of her, though. She was SUPPOSED to be forced unnaturally into it.

(no subject)

kallanda_lee - 2014-08-27 01:31 (UTC) - Expand

But that was the whole point of the way she was introduced? She was unnatural and retconned by definition because she did not exist before then. And she needed to be Buffy's sister, because they needed someone strong to protect the key. I think it's pretty clever, actually. If she wasn't Buffy's sister, her sudden induction into everyone's lives wouldn't have been so huge. She's not just someone they went to school with, or townsperson. She's Buffy's sister, who has apparently been there ALL along!

I'm having a hard time explaining my issue here- I get that you don't like how it was done. But it's like.. that's the story line? That is Dawn. She was shoehorned in, very awkwardly and abruptly, because.. that is.. what happened. I don't know. To me this reads like 'what bothers me about Buffy is that she is a vampire slayer. She grew on me over time, but I still don't like that she's a vampire slayer, that she needed to be a vampire slayer'

(no subject)

kallanda_lee - 2014-08-27 01:34 (UTC) - Expand

SA

(Anonymous) - 2014-08-27 01:49 (UTC) - Expand

It wasn't a retcon. There was an entire storyline that took up all of s5 that explained Dawn's existence and it was. not. a retcon.

(no subject)

kallanda_lee - 2014-08-27 01:49 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-08-27 02:00 (UTC) - Expand

Wow, same here! I hated Dawn at first because I watched the show in real time and she was so annoying and I was a high schooler who felt burdened when I had to take my younger sister places... Then I grew up, my sister and I are BFFs, and I LOVE Dawn.

Still hate Connor so much.

I think the difference in experience that comes with watching something as it airs versus marathoning it later on is pretty huge, even if it's rarely acknowledged. Like, say if (general) you were to marathon Buffy without knowing Dawn was coming, you would still have to watch in confusion for a much shorter time compared to the people who watched the season unfold over weeks and months on tv. And you might have only been watching the show as a whole for a couple of weeks, rather than five years, and so your expectations of the show, feelings about the characters, and general sense of the world are way less firmly entrenched.

I feel like this happens a lot in various ways. Like, I quite enjoyed the last few seasons of The Office when I saw the show as a whole a few months ago, but people who had been watching the show for years hated them. And people who are newer to Supernatural enjoy the later seasons more than a lot of people who have been watching from the start.

I think this is very true about marathon watching. I know I marathon watched season two of Grimm over a weekend. On one hand I know that all the people who had to suffer through Juliette's arc over a whole season were probably pretty frustrated, but for me it was just a thing that happened. And was over. While marathon watching doesn't totally keep me from seeing the problems, it gives me less time to think about it and get worked up about it than if I was watching week to week. On the other hand, you also miss experiencing it with other people, so....*shrugs*

I remember the cliffhanger that introduced Dawn the first time the episode ever aired and how it blew my entire mind. But what made me so sour wasn't that she existed at all or the explanation behind her (which I found really cool) but that Dawn was such a grating, insufferable pain in the ass as a character. From her first scene with lines to her last, I never stopped wanting to punch her in the mouth. And I was one of the three people who liked Riley, so it's not like I was unforgiving critic. So that's where my hate comes from. If she'd been a less realistic teenager like the rest of the cast, I probably would have loved her.

I LOVE Dawn. And I didn't watch the show while it ran.

so yeah

Maybe when you watched it does have something to do with it?

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