Discussion of 8.14 "Wolves at the Gate Part 3" - Releasesd 5/07/08 (Dark Horse)

[white avenger]

Personally I´m just disapointed that I didn´t see the death of Renee coming so soon. A happy realtionship in Buffy? No way. And althoug the "mam" thing was great the best thing obviously was Dawns arrival. That will keep me going for days.

The Issue #15 variant cover plainly shows Buffy in possession of her Scythe and Renee standing all living-ly in the group behind her, so don't give up yet.

 

[LawgSkrak]

Has a Slayer ever been turned into a vampire? Maybe they'd keep their soul anyway, as a side effect of being a Slayer to begin with. Kind of a kick in the teeth to the vampires.

A vampire with both vampire and Slayer powers. hmmmm....

 

[Washburne]

The Issue #15 variant cover plainly shows Buffy in possession of her Scythe and Renee standing all living-ly in the group behind her, so don't give up yet.

People do have a tendency to come back from the dead. But it was more of a bad choice of words. It was more like "Why the h**l didn´t I see that coming?" not "Oh no, she´s gone forever!"

Since a Slayer is already part demon, it may be impossible to turn one into a vampire.

Are you refering to the "making" of the first slayer or is it something else I´ve missed? I guess I never really saw it that way. Probably because Spike couldn´t hit Buffy, while he had the chip in his brain, until she came back from heaven.

 

[Five]

Has a Slayer ever been turned into a vampire? Maybe they'd keep their soul anyway, as a side effect of being a Slayer to begin with. Kind of a kick in the teeth to the vampires.

A vampire with both vampire and Slayer powers. hmmmm....

I've always wondered when would be introduced a Big bad "Slayer vampire" (not Vampire slayer!). It's a great idea, imo.
I never understood either why Buffy never tried to do magics. A Slayer-witch would be sooo powerful. But magic just isn't her thing, I guess.

 

[Crazy Flakes]

I never understood either why Buffy never tried to do magics. A Slayer-witch would be sooo powerful. But magic just isn't her thing, I guess.

I don't think Buffy was aware of how potent magic was until Willow got into it, and when she finally did see how much power a witch could have, she also knew of the dangers that came with it. Besides, Buffy's always been more of the punchy, kicky type. Also, there's no guarantee that Buffy had much witchy potential, and she probably knew that. Willow was just especially good. Like Amy said, other witches "have to work twice as hard to be half as good."

Also, now that there's a Slayer army, there are squads of Slayer-witches. So now, Buffy doesn't really need to learn.

 

[Primal Slayer]

Being a Slayer was already enough to deal with, having to practice magic wouldnt be on Buffys to do list. Plus all those other languages just isnt her thing. She is a simple kind of gal.

 

[CharmedSlayer85]

I wonder where Dawn is during all this fighting, did Willow teleport her back?

 

[Kanazaka]

Cold-Hearted Buffy

The "This is War" panel--words and image--is one of the handful of moments from Season Eight that has stuck in my mind. I viewed this as Buffy's continuing evolution toward being a pure Slayer (like many or most before her). The "Kill every single one of them" panel (in Part Four) is another example. On the one hand, her "take no prisoners" attitude makes her a stronger Slayer, since fewer vampires means fewer opportunities to be killed by vampires (especially those you should have killed the first time around). On the other hand, seeing things in black and white means you don't see shades of gray. With vampires, this is no problem, because vampires are demons with only some semblance of humanity. With other demons, and with evil humans, that's a problem, since not all demons are evil and Slayers really shouldn't kill people. But Buffy's cold eyes and voice in the aforementioned scenes lead me to believe that there's the possibility that she could cross that line if pushed. She's already proven that she was willing to sacrifice Robin Wood--a human--to Spike if he tried to disrupt her plan to defeat the First Evil. That might have just been a judgment lapse, or she might become ruthless to the point of bloodthirstiness, and Twilight's fears will become justified.

And I agree with you about the "robbing a bank" concern. Several times in earlier seasons, she's proven that she's always willing to disobey human laws when they conflict with her job as a vampire slayer. However, even in Season Six, she respects human laws enough to want to turn herself into the police when she thinks she has killed Warren's ex-girlfriend. Although, that seems to be the limit for Buffy. When tempted or when she deems it necessary, she has no problem stealing from people or destroying public property (which, admittedly, is sometimes unavoidable), but doesn't want to kill people. Let's hope it stays that way, right?

My problem with Buffy burning the vampire is not about the modus operandi. That I'm fine with the burning; my problem is with killing the vampire to begin with.

One of the themes of the season seems to be the different interpretations of good. Buffy has her version, Twilight has his. Buffy thinks it's okay to rob a bank to fund the Slayer army. And appareantly she also thinks that it's okay to kill a prisoner of war after succesfuly questioning him.

What is even more unsettling is that the struggle between Twilight and the Slayers has been called a war time and again. And in war, the Geneva Convetions come into play, especially the third one, about treatment of Prisoners of War. Killing them is not allowed. If you think about it, Buffy's committed a war crime. I don't think that's very heroic.

 

[UnKle]

The "This is War" panel--words and image--is one of the handful of moments from Season Eight that has stuck in my mind. I viewed this as Buffy's continuing evolution toward being a pure Slayer (like many or most before her). The "Kill every single one of them" panel (in Part Four) is another example. On the one hand, her "take no prisoners" attitude makes her a stronger Slayer, since fewer vampires means fewer opportunities to be killed by vampires (especially those you should have killed the first time around). On the other hand, seeing things in black and white means you don't see shades of gray. With vampires, this is no problem, because vampires are demons with only some semblance of humanity. With other demons, and with evil humans, that's a problem, since not all demons are evil and Slayers really shouldn't kill people. But Buffy's cold eyes and voice in the aforementioned scenes lead me to believe that there's the possibility that she could cross that line if pushed. She's already proven that she was willing to sacrifice Robin Wood--a human--to Spike if he tried to disrupt her plan to defeat the First Evil. That might have just been a judgment lapse, or she might become ruthless to the point of bloodthirstiness, and Twilight's fears will become justified.

The "This is war" panel also has stuck with me. It's one of those moments in BtVS that literally grabs you and forces you to stop and rewind, say, wait, did she really say that? It's along the lines of Buffy in the past saying, pretty defiantly, "I am the law" in the faces of her friends who wanted that not to be true.

I was trying to think of when exactly it was that Buffy entered on to this path toward self-awareness, for lack of a better term. Obviously she's struggled with the true nature of her calling since Season 1, when she told Giles she quit because she didn't want to die so young (I think that was the first, real, dramatic scene in the show that actually touched on the subject of Buffy vs. Slayer Calling, also).

But really, I think she started to embrace the calling as early as Season 2, when she was forced to kill Angel. I don't think Buffy could have done that without the knowledge that she did it for the greater good, because it was what she was born to do. She may not have wanted to face The Slayer (obviously - look at the following ep, "Anne"), but she started to reluctantly embrace the idea that she walks in two worlds, not just the one that she wants to and the one she wishes would go away.

And I think the question gets kicked squarely through the goal posts with the Dracula ep. Here, she's facing what she is... and she kinda likes it. It's a trip, she digs the power, she digs the awesome responsibility, and she's starting to see that she IS the one keeping the peace. It's because of her that the town hasn't been sucked into hell. She's maybe starting to think, "The Slayer is what's keeping us all alive. And I'm the slayer, and I'm pretty good at it. My law works: see a demon, kill it. Keep the balance. Good versus evil. We're all happy and breathing, so it's working, right?"

As the years go by, this happy objectivity starts to turn into a hard, indisputable truth: I'm the Sheriff of this town. If you break the law, you will pay. She's embraced more of her Slayer-ness than ever before, albeit at this point, she may not quite be aware of just how cold and distant she's become. The Slayer is keeping everyone alive, and Buffy's taken a backseat by the end of the TV show; and then when Season 8 starts, it's clear she's Slayer almost full time, and barely part-time Buffy, almost a complete juxtaposition of when we first met her in Season 1.

So when I see a panel where Buffy says "This is war" and she intentionally kills a baddie in a gruesome way, or she ignores a group of people who need her help, so she can serve the greater need instead, or she tells her people to cut off the streets, chase all survivors, cut them down as they flee, kill them all? You bet it's attention-grabbing. Over the years, it seems like Buffy has been positioned to start being the opposite of what she was. She's been opposed or left by all the people who were her closest friends, so yeah, she probably at this point feels like she's going to throw herself into her work and embrace it full-on. So far, this hasn't had good consequences, and probably has even worse consequences to come.

Buffy's ultimate battle may actually be with herself.

 

[Buffy Summers]

LOVE the "This is War" panel as well. It really does show how Buffy has changed as she's grown older. I really like this idea of the vampires trying to make the Slayers human again. I think that was a great idea, and I'm liking it much better than the military arc.

Dracula is awesome in this issue - I really wish this is what we'd seen on the show.

Don't like the giant Dawn thing. I really hope this gets resolved soon, cause it's dumb.

That was a really great kiss between Xander and Renee. And I don't normally care about Xander's relationships.

I'm wondering exactly how this whole scythe thing works? How does Buffy getting it back save them, exactly?

GREAT ending, unexpected, sad.

 

[Robb Stark]

The Scooby/Dracula team-up is again the highlight of this issue.

And this is exactly why Buffy never should have slept with Satsu. Hot? Yes. Smart? No. Now she won't listen to Buffy and won't follow orders. Brutal.

The giant Dawn scene, if a little silly, was pretty funny.

Aw, poor Xander. He's been the best character of S8 so far. That's an incredible last page.