Fantasy redux

So then I watched the end of Buffy Season 6 where Willow goes all out of character.  Well, she’d gone out of character from the beginning of that season.  We’re supposed to believe that the highly moral Willow is not going to know that casually using magic on her girlfriend is wrong.  And that she is going to give in to rage, rather than despair when her girlfriend is murdered.  But when in the past has she shown anger like that?  It’s not a response that fits the character, except the apparent desire to make her into a superbeing.  Which she already was anyway before the magic.  It’s a highly irritating story arc on a lot of levels, if only because it’s saying that you can’t succeed in life unless you have superpowers.

And why?  Because Willow represents the good nerd to Warren, Jonathan and Andrew’s bad nerds, and therefore is the character that the writers probably feel a connection to.  They were no doubt mousy individuals at school with their book learning.  But I’m expected to believe that she does a bit of magic and she can fight as well as a slayer?  That she has the wisdom and perspective of Giles?

The other problem is that I doubt very much that Alyson Hannigan is smart.  Well, not as smart as the character she’s portraying.  So it never comes across properly, anyway.

It is, of course, a tribute to the Dark Phoenix saga, but lacks the driving force of that story, that Jean is seduced and manipulated into slipping down the wrong path.

Aside from that, I liked most of it.  But it did shore up the fact that you’ve got to play your characters true to form, and don’t twist them out of shape.

And this is kind of the inside of my brain, watching things and taking them apart and figuring out what’s wrong.

It’s an exquisite piece of work that you can’t see where they’ve gone wrong.  And everyone goes a bit wrong.