Newsgroup: it.fan.tv.buffy
Titolo: Showtime: Hope

http://www.scoopme.com/tv/articles/default.asp?article_id=86786
by Hunter Maxin
1/7/2003
As BtVS ended this evening, I was immediately reminded of a sequence in
Preludes & Nocturnes, wherein Dream travels to hell to claim something that
once belonged to him. His helmet has come into the possession of a demon,
Choronzon, who refuses to give it up without a fight. The challenge will be
a game, like chess, but with words. Ideas.
The arena will be reality. Each side will choose a form of existence, each
in turn, trying to find something that the other cannot overcome with his
own. To Choronzon, it is just a game, but for Dream, alone, surrounded by
enemies, weakened in the recent past, and on unfamiliar territory, there is
much more at stake. If he loses, he will surely not leave hell alive.
The battles begins.
Choronzon moves first.
Choronzon: I am a dire wolf, prey-stalking, lethal prowler.
Dream: My move. I am a hunter, horse-mounted, wolf-stabbing.
Choronzon: I am a horsefly, horse-stinging, hunter-throwing.
Dream: There are many ways to lose the oldest game. Failure of nerve,
hesitation...being unable to shift into a defensive shape. Lack if
imagination. I am a spider, fly-consuming, eight legged.
Choronzon: I am a snake, spider-devouring, poison-toothed.
Dream: I am an ox, snake-crushing, heavy footed.
Choronzon: I am an anthrax, butcher bacterium, warm-life devouring.
Dream: A change in direction, but still an old gambit. I think…I think I
understand how Choronzon plays. How I can turn it against him. I think I
will abandon the offensive. I am a world, space-floating, life nurturing.
Choronzon: I am a Nova, all-exploding, planet cremating.
Dream: I am the Universe – all things encompassing, all life embracing.
Choronzon: I am anti-life, the beast of judgment. I am the dark at the end
of everything. The end of universes, gods, worlds,…of everything. And what
will you be then, Dreamlord?
Dream: I am hope.
My thoughts, for some time now, have been on Buffy’s declaration of war –
the stirring speech she gave when last we left her, rousing her new found
troops, mustering her forces. Her vow to take the fight to TFE was a bold,
refreshing move on her part. Buffy grew some brass ones in a heartbeat, and,
for a few hours there, I could breathe easier.
Sure, The First is the biggest, baddest of them all.
Sure, our uber-Vamp kicked the living sausage out of the slayer when last
they met.
Sure, I spent most of my fitful winter vacation positive – positive – that
Giles, as we see him now, is no less than The First. (While I now have my
doubts on this, I’m also not willing to abandon this notion entirely
either.)
Buffy, and BtVS, have been irrevocably changed forever. In a strange way, so
has television, though few will note it now, and fewer will remember. We
have never really seen a program attempt what BtVS is now doing. All
conventions, all pretense have been dropped. The mythology has completely
overtaken the universe in which it exists.
Gone are the malls, the restaurants, the coffee bars.
Gone are the cops, the politicians, the governments.
They still exist, mind you, somewhere out…there. They exist in a place of
total irrelevancy, now, beyond the scope of the struggle of mankind. All
that is left is the slayer and her merry band, and their troubles.
All that is left is The First.
Nothing else matters. Nothing else should.
(Didn’t this bother all you X-Files fans? Mulder and Scully knew, absolutely
knew, of the alien plans to enslave the world, and still, immediately after
uncovering some huge portion of this nefarious plot, they would head out
into the woods to chase mothmen. This is what I’m talking about people.)
This, we understand, is serious.
Yet, still, I have been concerned. For all of Buffy’s strengths, for all of
her experience and understanding, she has never truly been a great leader.
Her friends, the gang, they stand by her and help her, and she often leads
them. They believe in her, even. But, for all of the brief flashes of
strategic aptitude she has shown through the years, they have usually been
overshadowed by her inexperience as a commander, her rages of selfishness,
her rash, impulsive oneness.
In short, Buffy has never been a general. She has never once shown the
inclination to be that kind of leader, planning ahead, plotting,
strategizing. A general’s arena is as much the chess board as the battle
field, and I doubted Buffy’s ability to lead in this manner.
We open, in fact, with no semblance of a plan. It is days, if not weeks,
since we last saw our friends (Buffy’s wounds have mostly healed), and,
still, we are stuck on simply gathering the slayers-in-waiting. Packing them
in a tight space where they can more easily be surrounded and killed. If The
First were so inclined, it could easily lay siege to the house and starve
them out. All it would take is a sufficient number of lackeys.
Are the slayer potentials even training?
Not seriously. Even if you accept the fact that Buffy is now extraordinarily
busy, there are others who can adequately fill that function. Most, if not
all, of the other people living in that house has combat experience and
something to offer. Xander has military training and experience. Giles,
obviously, is skilled in the training of slayers. Willow, Anya, even Dawn,
have combat experience.
Is the house secure?
All I see is a piece of plywood over the downstairs window. There should be
a constant stream of improvements and innovations going into that house.
Xander has the know-how, and, let’s be honest, an army of physically capable
young woman who need something to do so they don’t crack under the pressure
(which they were doing nicely for awhile). I’m talking tearing this house up
from the inside and making it strategically safe. I’m talking booby-traps.
I’m talking reinforcing points of entry. I’m talking re-configuring the
house to provide escape routes and strategic advantage should anyone get
inside. Isn’t this a good use of their time and energy?
What is plan B?
Obviously the gang is under the proverbial gun here. Gathering to achieve
safety in numbers and to preserve the slayer line is an admirable, necessary
step, but also only the first step. They know The First knows where they
are. They know it’ll be coming. Probably very soon. They don’t even have a
car, or enough of them, to move everyone, and they certainly don’t seem to
have a safe house ready.
These were the things that were plaguing me these past few weeks, and, I
think, for good reason. If Buffy intends to form an army, and she has said
as much, then it falls to her to be the general. A general needs to think of
these things. I feared Buffy hadn’t, and, more importantly, wouldn’t.
When tonight’s episode began, all of my worst fears had come true. There
were more potential slayers, but none of them were receiving any guidance or
training. They had idle hands, which led to bad thoughts. Too much time and
too little to do. The house was a mess. It had become a potential slaughter
house, with little in the way of supplies, and less in the way of purpose.
Other than a false sense of refuge.
For god’s sake, they even let The First into their midst.
And, the girls fell apart. TFE, via Eve, poisoned their fertile minds, and
they were very nearly lost. Already scared, on their last nerve, in a
strange place with strange people who they had no choice but to trust, Eve
broke their spirits. In that kitchen, that night, they all quit. They gave
up on the last shred of belief they had left.
As the events of that night unfolded. As the uber-Vamp crashed through the
door, as Willow’s barrier fell, as they ran helter-skelter into the night,
all seemed lost.
Who knew that the same kitchen scene contained so much more? I noted
Xander’s strange disconnect in the conversation ("What?!") when it first
happened, but I wasn’t sure what I had seen.
Little could have I guessed just how far Buffy had come.
Little could have I known her depth of understanding what her new role
required.
Little could I have seen that her troops needed one thing, and one thing
only.
So Buffy, with her most capable lieutenants, devised a plan. She used the
potentials as bait, and lured the enemy into a trap. She lined up her
charges to show them what the slayer was capable of. What they were capable
of.
It seemed there, until all was revealed, that this would be the last night.
It seemed there that all was lost.
Then just as darkness fell, Buffy offered the only thing her new soldiers
needed to, ultimately, win this war.
Hope.
Here endeth the lesson.
The Other Side of Tuesday…I know Kennedy can’t live, but it’s a shame. I
like her. No disrespect to Tara, of course, but I like her with Willow, as
well. She’s also the best hope in this current crop of potentials to be of
use.
Andrew, too, for all of his pathetic evilness, is also turning into one of
the most amusing parts of the new gang. It certainly be ironic if he fulfils
his potential and becomes the most memorable and important member of the
trio.
Emma Caufield. Darkness Falls. I’m sold.
Spike. She will come for me. She will come for me. And she did. When he
realized it was her, truly her, the look on his face broke my heart.
-- 
Jolan Tru
Filippo "Hytok" Simone
Vice Oracolo Ufficiale di Sunnydale
http://www.ussexcalibur.it/
http://www.startrekitaliamagazine.it/
http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/hyterdeflok/

http://www.scoopme.com/tv/articles/default.asp?article_id=86786
by Hunter Maxin
1/7/2003
-spoiler-
As BtVS ended this evening, I was immediately reminded of a sequence in
Preludes & Nocturnes, wherein Dream travels to hell to claim something that
once belonged to him. His helmet has come into the possession of a demon,
Choronzon, who refuses to give it up without a fight. The challenge will be
a game, like chess, but with words. Ideas.
The arena will be reality. Each side will choose a form of existence, each
in turn, trying to find something that the other cannot overcome with his
own. To Choronzon, it is just a game, but for Dream, alone, surrounded by
enemies, weakened in the recent past, and on unfamiliar territory, there is
much more at stake. If he loses, he will surely not leave hell alive.
The battles begins.
Choronzon moves first.
Choronzon: I am a dire wolf, prey-stalking, lethal prowler.
Dream: My move. I am a hunter, horse-mounted, wolf-stabbing.
Choronzon: I am a horsefly, horse-stinging, hunter-throwing.
Dream: There are many ways to lose the oldest game. Failure of nerve,
hesitation...being unable to shift into a defensive shape. Lack if
imagination. I am a spider, fly-consuming, eight legged.
Choronzon: I am a snake, spider-devouring, poison-toothed.
Dream: I am an ox, snake-crushing, heavy footed.
Choronzon: I am an anthrax, butcher bacterium, warm-life devouring.
Dream: A change in direction, but still an old gambit. I think.I think I
understand how Choronzon plays. How I can turn it against him. I think I
will abandon the offensive. I am a world, space-floating, life nurturing.
Choronzon: I am a Nova, all-exploding, planet cremating.
Dream: I am the Universe - all things encompassing, all life embracing.
Choronzon: I am anti-life, the beast of judgment. I am the dark at the end
of everything. The end of universes, gods, worlds,.of everything. And what
will you be then, Dreamlord?
Dream: I am hope.
My thoughts, for some time now, have been on Buffy's declaration of war -
the stirring speech she gave when last we left her, rousing her new found
troops, mustering her forces. Her vow to take the fight to TFE was a bold,
refreshing move on her part. Buffy grew some brass ones in a heartbeat, and,
for a few hours there, I could breathe easier.
Sure, The First is the biggest, baddest of them all.
Sure, our uber-Vamp kicked the living sausage out of the slayer when last
they met.
Sure, I spent most of my fitful winter vacation positive - positive - that
Giles, as we see him now, is no less than The First. (While I now have my
doubts on this, I'm also not willing to abandon this notion entirely
either.)
Buffy, and BtVS, have been irrevocably changed forever. In a strange way, so
has television, though few will note it now, and fewer will remember. We
have never really seen a program attempt what BtVS is now doing. All
conventions, all pretense have been dropped. The mythology has completely
overtaken the universe in which it exists.
Gone are the malls, the restaurants, the coffee bars.
Gone are the cops, the politicians, the governments.
They still exist, mind you, somewhere out.there. They exist in a place of
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Is the house secure?
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What is plan B?
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Hope.
Here endeth the lesson.
The Other Side of Tuesday.I know Kennedy can't live, but it's a shame. I
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realized it was her, truly her, the look on his face broke my heart.
Anche il mio *___*
Ciao
Valentina
http://www.valenet.it
---------------------
There's only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil. And that's us.