Fred: a device?

G

goldenboy

Scooby
Joined
Feb 17, 2005
Messages
2,497
Some think of Fred as little more than a device, a plot complicator. Maybe something like Dawn, Connor? I guess you could argue that all the Buffyverse characters besides the protagonists were "devices", something for Buffy, Angel to react against.

That is, until the respective supporting characters themselves get fleshed out, have their own protagonistic moments.

OK, Fred was a victim, a damsel in distress, eventually the scientific expert for Team Angel (for whatever that was worth)"”kind of Willowesque in that science geek respect.

She was sort of like the ornery teenager on the verge of independence at times. Getting angry when folks treated her like a defenseless girl.

And she "gave birth" to yet another plot device, Illyria.

Was Fred something worthwhile to you? More than an annoyance or lovable nerd? Did she contribute something unique to the Buffyverse?
 
goldenboy said:
Some think of Fred as little more than a device, a plot complicator. Maybe something like Dawn, Connor? I guess you could argue that all the Buffyverse characters besides the protagonists were "devices", something for Buffy, Angel to react against.

That is, until the respective supporting characters themselves get fleshed out, have their own protagonistic moments.

OK, Fred was a victim, a damsel in distress, eventually the scientific expert for Team Angel (for whatever that was worth)"”kind of Willowesque in that science geek respect.

She was sort of like the ornery teenager on the verge of independence at times. Getting angry when folks treated her like a defenseless girl.

And she "gave birth" to yet another plot device, Illyria.

Was Fred something worthwhile to you? More than an annoyance or lovable nerd? Did she contribute something unique to the Buffyverse?
Click to expand...


Not to me, she didn't. Fred seemed nothing more than a plot device. Even more so than the other characters. They never could get her character background straightened out.
 
One point, I agree with Fred herself that she wasn't a damsel in distress. She was trapped in a cave for five years and was rescued, yes that's damselish but look at her as a whole. She moved out of the comfort of her home in Texas to LA, she constantly tried to get out of that cave, she helped Angel and co fight during S3, tried to keep strong and look after Connor between S3 and S4,took on Jasmine in her own way in S4 and then tried to fight Illyria taking over in S5. The only time she really acted like a damsel was at the start of S3, but I think she was slightly crazy at the time and saw Angel as a, well a "shining knight".

Anyway back onto the point. Fred had times when she was fleshed out. A few episodes that come to mind:

Fredless
Waiting in the Wings
Loyalty
Double or Nothing
Deep Down
Supersymmetry
(Her helping out with the magic in S4, can't remember which ep but it was with regards to Angelus and his soul)
Shiny Happy People etc
A Hole in the World

So maybe she wasn't as fleshed out as other characters but she had her moments completly independant from just being a device for others to act.
 
Xander said:
One point, I agree with Fred herself that she wasn't a damsel in distress. She was trapped in a cave for five years and was rescued, yes that's damselish but look at her as a whole. She moved out of the comfort of her home in Texas to LA, she constantly tried to get out of that cave, she helped Angel and co fight during S3, tried to keep strong and look after Connor between S3 and S4,took on Jasmine in her own way in S4 and then tried to fight Illyria taking over in S5. The only time she really acted like a damsel was at the start of S3, but I think she was slightly crazy at the time and saw Angel as a, well a "shining knight".

Anyway back onto the point. Fred had times when she was fleshed out. A few episodes that come to mind:

Fredless
Waiting in the Wings
Loyalty
Double or Nothing
Deep Down
Supersymmetry
(Her helping out with the magic in S4, can't remember which ep but it was with regards to Angelus and his soul)
Shiny Happy People etc
A Hole in the World

So maybe she wasn't as fleshed out as other characters but she had her moments completly independant from just being a device for others to act.
Click to expand...


I don't think that having character moments had saved her from being a plot device.
 
I liked Fred. I related to her on a personal level. She helped me to "feel" the story. If that's a plot device it worked.
 
If youre going to look at Fred as just a plot point, then shouldnt you think of Gunn that way? Or spike? or any of the characters.
The point of any of the characters being brought in is usaually for a plot line. then they grow into characters that you get to know. backstory etc. I mean spike was only a plot point when he joined Buffy. he was meant to be killed. as was anya, oz, drusilla, faith and others.
of course fred is a plot point, but so is everyone else.
 
I'm with Nerd4hire on this one. She's not a leading protagonist or fleshed out as well as others. At times, she wasn't the moral center, but the emotional center of Angel for me.

I liked her and empathized with her disorientation with life in Team Angel and with life in the world in general.

And it all kinda reflects reality anyways, right? Seemingly random people can come into your life and affect it very quickly, in unique ways. And we generalize about "types" until we get to know all the layers of a person. Realize how complex every person is.
 
I'd consider Fred a damsel. Not because she's particularly feeble or anything, but simply because she was sort of... the decent one. She balanced the group, because she wasn't stubbly and shady and conflicted. Somestimes it gets a little hard to see why Angel and Co. bother fighting at all, so Fred's sort of there to remind them that not everybody broods all day.
 
I like what you're sayin Jill. She fills the role of the damsel "archetype", maybe that's the wrong term. Focuses the team. Acts almost as a daily reminder to Team Angel: "What are we fighting for? For the decent, average human being". Not that she was average, but relatively speaking...

In the beginning, she's like the civilian suddenly thrown into a battalion of battle hardened veterans. She's disoriented, yes. But she also points out some of the myopic weirdness and bad habits these vets can fall into. Cordi served that purpose too, yes.

She "makes me want to be a better man", as that Spike guy says about Buffy. Something to that effect.
 
LadyLavinia said:
I don't think that having character moments had saved her from being a plot device.
Click to expand...

Well from the previous posts it had seemed that you were arguing she is nothing but a device to affect others, I was just saying she wasn't.
 
LadyLavinia said:
Okay. So, where are we going with this?
Click to expand...

We (although its only me) were basically sayign that previously it seemed that people felt Fred was only a plot device because she was not a developed character. I was just trying to highlight the ways in which shes was a developed character, suggesting she is not completly a plot device.
 
I think by mid season 5 she was as fleshed out, as real as Gunn or certainly Lorne. She had had enough episodes exploring her fears and motivators.
 
goldenboy said:
I think by mid season 5 she was as fleshed out, as real as Gunn or certainly Lorne. She had had enough episodes exploring her fears and motivators.
Click to expand...


I think that she had a chance to be fleshed out by early Season 5 - until the writers decided to hook her up with Wes and turned her into an object of desire/object of worship; and her death, a device to send Wes into insanity and Gunn into a massive guilt trip.
 
I agree that the romantic relationships seemed weird and forced at times. I think her last second "conversion" to Wes was a little contrived"”obviously in retrospect to prepare for the classic Whedon rug pull maneuver. But I think she was doing pretty well, just in general, before that.

The weirdest romantic contrivance to me was Angel/Cordi. Just felt wrong.
 
goldenboy said:
I agree that the romantic relationships seemed weird and forced at times. I think her last second "conversion" to Wes was a little contrived"”obviously in retrospect to prepare for the classic Whedon rug pull maneuver. But I think she was doing pretty well, just in general, before that.

The weirdest romantic contrivance to me was Angel/Cordi. Just felt wrong.
Click to expand...

I enjoyed Angel and Cordy. They seemed like two friends who would have been capable of combining friendship and romance . . . until Season 4 ruined it all.

Wes and Fred as a romantic couple seemed wrong to me from the beginning. They were too similar in personality. And their regard for one another seemed almost narcissist.

And they seemed boring and infantile to me. Sorry, but not a Wes/Fred fan.
 
That's interesting. Do opposites really attract? Or is it more like "birds of a feather"...?

I guess often times a couple complement eachother, compensate for weakinesses, lean on strengths.
 
I see both angles that were presented. It seemed like Fred was only presented with the intention of having her destiny be to host the old one Illyria (and where have we heard that storyline before? Cordelia). So, perhaps she was just a plot device.

But then again, I think of all those episodes that Xander mentioned, where Fred played an integral role in the story. And then top it off with every other episode where it was just typical Fred, being the scientist or the heart of the group, keeping morale. That makes her seem like more of a developed, integral character.

So, who really knows what she wa intended for. Both points have excellent reasons.
 
goldenboy said:
That's interesting. Do opposites really attract? Or is it more like "birds of a feather"...?

I guess often times a couple complement eachother, compensate for weakinesses, lean on strengths.
Click to expand...

I'm only judging from what I saw. And from what I saw, the couples that featured partners with similar personalities - Willow/Oz, Willow/Tara, Wes/Fred, Xander/Cordelia, Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Riley - have never really appealed to me.


I think the series had the chance to raise Fred above the level of a plot device in late S4/early S5. But the writers blew it by "Lineage".
 
And yet every time I see a Fan poll with Fred as an option, she seems to get high marks. In fact the only fan poll I can remember Fred outright losing was "Who do you like better? Fred or Illyria".

Doesn't that mean that far from blowing it, the writers successfully gave us yet another fan favourite?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom