[ SECRET POST #5173 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5173 ⌋

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


01.
[No Such Thing As a Fish (podcast)]



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02.
[Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy]


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03.
[Luxuria Superbia]


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04.


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05.


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06. [SPOILERS]



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07. [SPOILERS for Torment: Tides of Numenera]



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08. [WARNING for discussion of assault/abuse]



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09. [WARNING for underage]



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10. [WARNING for discussion of assault/abuse]


















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #740.
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.

Comments

[fscom]

08. [WARNING for discussion of assault/abuse]
https://i.imgur.com/9spUA4k.png

[(Anonymous)]

Their complicated characters that have good and horrible traits. Like most people.

[(Anonymous)]

Right? IDK where the concept of protagonists needing to be perfect flawless saints came into being but it can go right back out right the fuck now.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you mean the cast or the characters

Very important distinction.

[(Anonymous)]

I assume they meant characters since I've never heard anything bad about the actor how played Riley. Plus you would not describe an actual human as "man-pain incarnate".

[(Anonymous)]

At first I thought OP meant the ACTORS and was like "Uh, this is not something I've heard before about Allison Hannigan and James Marsters?!?" (Not that I've ever paid much attention to either, but I feel like that's a thing that someone would have mentioned.)

Then I realized OP meant the characters.

[(Anonymous)]

LOL, such an important distinction. I was thrown at first.

[philstar22]

I don't think I've disagreed with a secret this hard in a long time. Just very much no. I disagree with most of the interpretations of the characters if not all of them and with the entire sentiment of the secret.

But you do you, OP. This is what interpretation is about. This is one I honestly can't even imagine where you get it because at least for some of the characters it seems way outside the bounds for me. But I still think we all are going to interpret differently. It seems like Buffy might not be the fandom for you if you dislike all the characters this much?

Only character I agree on is Xander. Xander started out awful and remained awful with no character growth whatsoever.

[(Anonymous)]

I think I've read so much fanfic with alternate (better) character interpretations of Xander that I have a hard time remembering how he actually is in the show. And it makes me a bit hesitant to re-watch, especially episodes that he's heavily featured in.

[(Anonymous)]

This

[(Anonymous)]

Characters, not cast.

[(Anonymous)]

To be fair here several of them are literally demons

[(Anonymous)]

A good portion of those things are what makes them interesting to watch.

[feotakahari]

The show was certainly self-aware about the women’s flaws. The men’s flaws . . . Varied. Sometimes from episode to episode within the same season. (I blame inconsistency between different writers.)

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, honestly, I feel this secret. I watched the first ~3 seasons of Buffy and kind of got tired because there wasn't really a character I could root for. I understand wanting to portray realistically flawed characters but I honestly wouldn't want any of these people in my life, and it's hard to keep watching when I feel like so much of the emotional core of the series relies on friendship / found family vibes. I had the same issue with Firefly too.

[tabaqui]

No, i really don't think so. They had a lot of good in them too (well, maybe not Riley), and they weren't horrible spoiled, narcissistic creepers, for the most part.... If you look at *just* the bad bits of any character, mostly they would suck, but the bad bits are not the only bits (at least, not in a well-written story).

[(Anonymous)]

Woah woah woah, you're going to let Dawn off completely? You went IN on everyone else.

[(Anonymous)]

i'm just glad there's finally someone calling out the fact that anya was unnecessarily cruel. fuck anya.

[(Anonymous)]

No.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, the characters were mostly interesting, though. I don't expect a character to be saintly to be relatable in different ways. Sometimes a person's devil on the shoulder relates to a character being a dickbag, just like it's fun to watch an action movie even though you'd never personally kick someone in the face.

OP, you mention that Tara has no personality AND is harmless, so consider that. She's boring because she's kind of one-dimensional, and so is Dawn. (To me, anyway. I didn't hate Dawn, but I didn't relate to her. Or Tara. Like, ever.)

[(Anonymous)]

Nah, I'll pass on this take, thanks. Some of it is fair, but on the whole it just feels really joyless and biased.

[(Anonymous)]

Their complicated traits were partly the point. The show spent so much time plainly showing what power does to people. It makes you stronger. It makes you more prideful. It makes you spiteful. It makes you manipulative. It makes you dangerous. It makes you arrogant. It makes you lonely.

The whole show is an exploration of those themes. In the last season a character comments "so... are all your friends former Big Bads?" and the answer is yes. That's the point. They're imperfect people who have found themselves in a difficult position, and with immense power. And that effected and changed them. It effected how they dealt with problems. Every character in the show would deal with the same problem completely differently if you were to compare, say, season 3 versions to season 6.

And, personal opinion here, that is what makes them INTERESTING characters. The complexity is what's worth watching. Who wants to watch a bunch of sugar puffs be constantly Right and Good and Uncomplicated Forever?

Not me.

[meadowphoenix]

Notwithstanding your conclusions, there's some genre conventions to these characters that make your last point kinda ???? like how much is your antipathy actually for conventions of the show and need to be considered through that understanding?

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, most of that is true (Buffy is absolutely not a narcissist, WTF) but that's just the negative traits and most of them are balanced by positive traits. I'd hate to see how you'd characterise a long-running series...would everyone just be nice all the time and nothing happens?

[(Anonymous)]

Sometimes we like characters with problems, because problems are interesting.

And. Everybody's fucked up at some point in their life. Sometimes we need to watch fellow fuck-ups on the screen - people who are also trudging through a mire of their own bad choices.

It's not bad to want that.