Running it up the flag-pole -- dissertation proposal roughage : comments [Confessions of a Liberal Puritan]

I don't think I had ideas so much as random floaty thoughts that have been drifting in my head. Whenever I try to lock them down and get specific about them, they slip away and float off. So you get random thought bubbles instead of complete ideas. If you want them. And I can't imagine that you haven't already thought about these and come up with way more insightful things about them than I could ever do.

Nakedness = Vulnerability (duh, squared) and note that the characters are all going through a really insecure or unstable time when they're naked a lot. (Angel in BtVS S3, Oz in S4, Buffy in S6, etc.)

Magic as a metaphor for sex and what happens when you deal with it casually.

Buffy is allowed to make mistakes, unlike conventional superheroes.

Repression is bad and there's a demon in all of us.

Isolation is bad, whether voluntary or involuntary, it leads to manifest changes in BtVS.

Learning to live in the grey - Riley in S4

Don't judge a book by its cover -- monsters aren't always evil or scary, look at Clem.

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Thanks! These are really helpful, and some of them are things I hadn't thought about much before -- like the nakedness thing (I don't usually pick up on the visual symbolism as much as some others -- I get caught up in plot and dialogue and don't look for the visual patterns, even when they're really blatant).

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Magic as a metaphor for sex and what happens when you deal with it casually.

I humbly beg to differ. It's about power and its abuse. Unfortunately, ME dropped the ball on following through with this, by taking shortcuts with Willow's journey. Her insecurities and her overwhelming desire to avoid personal emotional suffering, for example, has repeatedly led her to manipulate the memories and emotions of herself and her loved ones. She didn't end up casting the delusting spell for herself and Xander in Lovers Walk, but her efforts to get over the pain of her breakup with Oz created the fine mess of Something Blue, and she twice wiped out Tara's memories. Willow went to Rack, because she couldn't bear the pain of having Tara walk out on her, but ironically, this is exactly the kind of behavior that caused her lover to leave in the first place.

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Oh, feel free to differ! Discussion is the whole point! I think magic is a metaphor for a lot of things on the show. And I'm trying to remember what I was specifically thinking about when I wrote that. If I remember, I'll post. Right now personal things are so bizarre that my brain is stuck on "Huh?" Sorry, when I can think clearly, I'll try and get back to this.

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Absolutely, I'd love to hear your thoughts! The Jossverse is a complex world, with many layers of meaning and interpretation, so a cigar is rarely just a cigar.

Sorry to hear life is currently knocking you sideways; hopefully it's in a good way, rather than bad.

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At this point, I'm not sure if it's a good knock or a bad knock, but it's definitely sideways and upside down. My brain is still "Huh?"-ing, but a few conscious thoughts are filtering through.

Okay, discussing my Magic=Sex comment: Even Joss has been quoted as saying the spell performed between Willow and Tara in "Who Are You?" was a metaphor for a sexual relationship between the two of them. And later, in S6, Willow magically "rapes" Tara by performing spells to keep her docile. In S3, Xander uses magic to try to win Cordy back, which could, when squinted at, be seen as sexual magic because he was trying to take what he wanted without her consent. I don't think that ALL magic in the show is sexual in nature, but I think some of it is.

Okay, brain is returning to dazed and confused, so that's all I have for now.

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At this point, I'm not sure if it's a good knock or a bad knock, but it's definitely sideways and upside down. My brain is still "Huh?"-ing, but a few conscious thoughts are filtering through.

Unfortunately, I've had a rough week and can relate all too well; hence the delay in responding.

I don't think that ALL magic in the show is sexual in nature, but I think some of it is.

Absolutely, I totally agree. The Jossverse is so complex, that magic is used as a metaphor for many different things, including sex, but I feel it was most used to represent the misuse of power.

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I think I quite agree with you about Willow (especially in season 6, where ME chose to talk about her problem as "an addictive personality" or "magic addiction", rather than calling it abuse of power and dealing with it as such). However, I think the casual treatment of sex IS one of the more talked-about interpretations of what happened after Angel and Buffy's first (and, as far as she remembers, only) sexual encounter in season 2 (Angel magically lost his soul and became a b*****d, literally the ex-boyfriend from Hell, rather than just turning on her through non-magical causes, because he'd gotten what he wanted and had no further need of her, as was the case with thrice-damned Parker in "Harsh Light of Day").

But for TARA, at least, I think we could say that magic was (or was ideally meant to be) like LOVE-MAKING (as so beautifully filmed in the climax of "I'm Under Your Spell" in OMWF) -- full of mutuality and responsibility, not coercing the natural world but working with it. That's why (even before she became aware that Willow had used that power to violate HER integrity, to invade her mind) Tara was so appalled at Willow's casual use of at times and her mechanistic interpretation of it (as if the magic they two had shared was no more sacred than decrypting a computer program). Does that make any sense?

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Sorry for the delay in responding; I haven't been online much this past week.

Although she had her own fair share of insecurities, unlike Willow, Tara was not one to abuse trust or power. When she and Willow cast spells together, it was cooperative and mutual, and that made the resulting magic/feelings all the more meaningful. Is that what you mean? If yes, I certainly agree. That said, I don't think that Tara only saw magic in terms of lovemaking. She also knew its usefulness as a weapon in fighting evil; it's just that she never expected her own lover to wield it as such against her, even though Willow never thought of herself as hurting Tara with her manipulations.

Willow and Tara had some fundamentally different values, and those differences spilled over onto their use of magic. What fascinates me most about their story is how Willow's betrayal was foretold back in Restless when the former wrote a poem (http://bothsidesnow.co.uk/bothsides2001/somesweets/willowpoem.html) on the latter's back.

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Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

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