Professor Walsh
Feminist slayerette
What is it you don't like? The persons, or the general idea? Personally, I absolutely loved the the "can stand up, will stand up"-speech and the little girls getting their power.
If you don't like the potentials ..?
- Thread starter Professor Walsh
- Start date
I wasn't a huge fan of the Potentials, but I don't think it was the 'idea' I hated, so much as the characters. The writers chose to dipict the Potentials as whiny little teenage girls, which wasn't something we were used to in this show. We were used to the girls being strong, confident, powerful, sure of their place in the world, and then we got people like Vi and Rona, who were just the very definition of little girls who didn't understand the adult world around them.
Then we got people like Kennedy, who was suddenly part of the inner circle just because she was sort of casually dating Willow. It took Tara months to fit in with the Scoobs, even in S5 she still considered herself an outsider, and for Kennedy to suddenly be the unofficial leader of the Potentials because she was the oldest, and to be in with the gang and giving her opinons just grated with me.
Then there was the whole aspect of none of them trusting Buffy enough with what she was trying to do, which was ultimately keep them safe. That distrust started with Rona, which I can understand, she wasn't a Potential before she came to Sunnydale and she didn't really understand the world enough to know what was really going on around her. But Kennedy, Vi, Molly and Chloe had been Poentials for a long time, Kennedy was at least 8, and Vi had a Watcher, but they all listened to Rona and let her cast that seed of doubt in them when they should have known better and should have known the stress Buffy lived with, and the decisions she had to make, but they didn't and they listened to someone with much less experience.
Yeah, I hate Rona more than the others, lol.
Then we got people like Kennedy, who was suddenly part of the inner circle just because she was sort of casually dating Willow. It took Tara months to fit in with the Scoobs, even in S5 she still considered herself an outsider, and for Kennedy to suddenly be the unofficial leader of the Potentials because she was the oldest, and to be in with the gang and giving her opinons just grated with me.
Then there was the whole aspect of none of them trusting Buffy enough with what she was trying to do, which was ultimately keep them safe. That distrust started with Rona, which I can understand, she wasn't a Potential before she came to Sunnydale and she didn't really understand the world enough to know what was really going on around her. But Kennedy, Vi, Molly and Chloe had been Poentials for a long time, Kennedy was at least 8, and Vi had a Watcher, but they all listened to Rona and let her cast that seed of doubt in them when they should have known better and should have known the stress Buffy lived with, and the decisions she had to make, but they didn't and they listened to someone with much less experience.
Yeah, I hate Rona more than the others, lol.
T
TheGrandmaster
yeah rona got on my nerves too.
Wishing Oceans
[No message]
I really liked the speech too but something just felt wrong for me. To this day I can't put my finger on it, but I think it has to do with I always pictured just the scoobies in the last fight. Apart from that as Lyri said, they seemed like a bunch of whiny teenage girls. I did not like Dawn in the first place and then I was thrown 50 of her.
Washburne
Protector of the key.
I don't think Kenny "became" the leader of the potentials because she was older as such. At that point she was the leader type and the others hadn't gotten to that stage yet. Being older and having more experience probably helped with that though. Her getting into the Scoobies that easily I agree with you.
Looking from the potentials point of view I sure would have questioned a lot of things just as they do. Not sure I would have made them that public though. It all depends on your persona. But I have no trouble seeing why they did it. Seeing it from Byffy's perspective it would be incredibly annoying. So to me it depends on how you look at it. Since the show is about Buffy and we know her a lot better it's easy to see things her way.
BillyidolwannaB
Scooby
I didn't mind the potentials themselves. When you get about 20 of them theres always gonna be a few you dont like, personally i only disliked 1. I found the story of them quite interesting, it played out well.
But i didn't really like the concept of it. I totally prefered the idea of only 1 slayer in the whole world(even though there was 2).
So i liked the execution of it, just not the concept.
---------- Post added at 01:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:55 PM ----------
Oh, and i hated how kennedy just forced herself in there as a Scooby. Its like, OI, KENNEDY, GET BACK IN THE BASEMENT WITH THE REST OF THE POTENTIALS, HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
Yeah, i detested Kennedy. Liked Rona though, lol.
But i didn't really like the concept of it. I totally prefered the idea of only 1 slayer in the whole world(even though there was 2).
So i liked the execution of it, just not the concept.
---------- Post added at 01:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:55 PM ----------
Oh, and i hated how kennedy just forced herself in there as a Scooby. Its like, OI, KENNEDY, GET BACK IN THE BASEMENT WITH THE REST OF THE POTENTIALS, HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
Yeah, i detested Kennedy. Liked Rona though, lol.
T
TheGrandmaster
omg i actually laughed out loud reading that bit about kennedy :D
I like Kennedy, if for nothing else for the fact she didn't give up on Willow in "Never Leave Me". Vi was sweet, so sorry about Amanda, Rona .. I'd like to see her paired with Robin Wood. The lactose intolerant one was funny.
I don't remember others (Chloe, Molly) but yes they were to many.
I don't remember others (Chloe, Molly) but yes they were to many.
T
TheGrandmaster
Yeah the lactose intolerant one was the one that couldn't speak english. pretty comical shiz.
Washburne
Protector of the key.
I have a bad memory so please remind me. How did Kennedy force herself into the Scoobies? Did the others tell her to go away or that she couldn't be with them and she refused so the Scoobies let her be since they didn't have time to try and ditch her? And yes I'm serious. Some of you know how terrible my memory is.
Kennedy is straight forward and Tara was shy and Oz was extremly laid back so the difference is big in personalities. But I often think that Kennedy get treated unfairly. In many ways Kennedy is a lot like Faith and a lot of people love her.
Kennedy is straight forward and Tara was shy and Oz was extremly laid back so the difference is big in personalities. But I often think that Kennedy get treated unfairly. In many ways Kennedy is a lot like Faith and a lot of people love her.
BuffyElevated
Scooby
I completely agree with everything Lyri said. I didn't hate the storyline I just wasn't crazy about the characters. And personally, I felt it was wrong, knowing S7 was gonna be the last, to take screen time away from the core group and give it to these whiny girls whose characters had way too much development needed to do in the few episodes we saw them in.
T
TheGrandmaster
[No message]
InsaneMystic
Ex-Scooby
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2008
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- 2,505
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- 52
Very true. If anything, Kennedy - whom I like as a character, I'm just not fond of her relationship with Willow - seems downright mellow compared to Faith. 🙂
BillyidolwannaB
Scooby
Faith was cool and badass though. Kennedy was a brat. Didn't she always have a moany face on her while calling people maggot!
thevikingsgirl
Scooby
I loved the storyline, saying forget that stupid "there can be only one" rule, screw them! Making all the potentials into slayers. I know some people thought it was a little too heavy on the girl power, but I loved it. But the individual potentials, I couldn't stand. I HATED Rona in particular. Amanda was okay. I didn't like Kennedy. They were all really whiny and annoying and yuck.
GrrArghx
No touching my clipboard!
I disliked the entire storyline. I like the whole 'In every generation there is a chosen ONE' lol They did a loophole with Faith which was cool because of how it turned out. But that was the thing; I think part of the reason they didn't get along, and I'm pretty sure Buffy mentioned this once, was that there was never supposed to be two Slayers. Now, there's hundreds and it made Season 7 (and definitely Season 8) a little too... chaotic for my taste.
B
BillyidolwannaB
Yeah. Two slayers were better. Not a million.
BuffyElevated
Scooby
I totally agree... I loved it when Buffy and Faith had that discussion that they didn't get along because they weren't supposed to coexist. 🙂 And yeah, the Potentials getting called to be Slayers at the end was cool, but it kinda cheapened the "Chosen ONE" thing.
CrystalW187
Townie
For me, the addition of a bunch of new characters without any distinctive personality traits (except whiny and pre-menstrual) just completely threw off the whole vibe of the show that made me love it so much. I loved when there was a small, if not tight-knit then still closely involved, group of characters that we knew intimately. As someone stated above, Season 7 was chaotic because of the addition of the potentials, and they took a lot away from the development of the characters I had come to love.
Wild At Heart
this is how i felt, i still liked s7 but i found most of the potentials to be annoying and immature
BuffyElevated
[No message]
Revolver
Sir Douche
I might go so far as to say it was both the persons and the idea that made me dislike the potentials. Before I start diving into all the negatives, I'll start by saying I don't any episode of season 7 is downright terrible. The ending of "Empty Places" is kind of cringeworthy, but even that episode is mostly entertaining. But I do think that, taken as a whole, season 7 is one of the weakest seasons and I'd point to the potentials as the main reason for it. The season was great up until their arrival. Honestly I'd read season 7 was kind of weak before I bought the DVD a few years back and I couldn't understand what people were talking about at first. "Conversations With Dead People" is a series classic, "Him" is pretty amusing if not the most original idea, and there are tons of other episodes that are as entertaining as any average episode from previous seasons.
Enter the potentials.
Suddenly there are like 25 girls living in the Summer's house. If that's not enough, there's also several other new characters becoming prominent: Andrew, Principal Wood, Caleb, Faith returns (Giles returns too, but come on, he's pretty much main cast even if he wasn't credited as such the last two seasons)....Don't get me wrong. I like most of these characters. Andrew is funny, the Wood/Spike dynamic was great, and it was good to see a reformed Faith fighting side by side with Buffy in the end. But when a show is winding down, that's A LOT of characters for the writers to service when you factor in 800 potentials too. To me, the potentials storyline is the very definition of biting off more than you can chew.
It's the last half of the last season of your long running show. This time shouldn't be about introducing a lot of new characters, it should be about wrapping up loose threads with the characters you'd grown to love over the first six and a half seasons. That's a fairly daunting task by itself when you consider just how much all of these characters have been through, but beyond that, the show needs to have the most badass villain of it's run and end in a way that's both satisfying to fans and represents what Buffy was really all about. A lot of people would argue that the show did just that. I would argue the show attempted to do all that and more and ended up falling short in several areas because they tried to cover even more than they had to.
Even Joss himself admits in the "Chosen" commentary that the ubervamps are too easy to kill in that episode after Buffy struggled so much with one earlier in the season. It was more about the message than anything else, but the thing is, the message in itself seems flawed. A bunch of girls suddenly have physical strength and that means female empowerment? Even if these particular girls did nothing to prove they deserved such powers, and actually demonstrated on several occassions that they really did not?
Buffy had her flaws, of course, but in the end it wasn't necessarily her physical strength that made her a hero. She sacrificed herself two years earlier to save her sister, and her friends. That's heroism. That's empowering. Which is why it's a little grating in season seven to hear Anya try to argue that Buffy hasn't earned her powers. She was simply lucky enough to have them. Sorry, but that doesn't describe Buffy. That describes the potentials, nearly all of them. They come into Buffy's home, complain for weeks, kick her out of her home....and in the end are rewarded with physical strength. I kind of get what Joss was going for, but it just falls a little flat and I feel like he compromised a lot of the latter half of season 7 just to arrive at this mediocre ending.
The whole reason the potentials were there in the first place was to set up this message in the last episode, and it brings every episode in between their arrival and the last episode down a bit just to have this message tacked on. In the meantime, the audience must suffer through every scene in which they have a significant amount of screentime. Let's hear Rhona whine, let's hear Kennedy get in someone's face, etc. Meanwhile, Xander, Anya, Giles, and (to a slightly lesser extent) Willow are pushed to basically background characters. Things get rocky between Buffy and Giles when Giles tries to have Spike killed....and the show doesn't really have time to address this beyond a brief mention of it when Faith arrives. The rift between them is never really repaired, nor is anything interesting done with it later beyond Giles acting like a child in "Empty Places." Xander loses his eye, which has got to be a pretty significant and terrible thing in his life but the show doesn't really have the time to devote to the character at this point. We briefly see him in the hospital....then he gets out....then we get a couple of throwaway eyeball jokes like it's not a big deal already. Anya essentially has no place in the group that we can see by this point, but continues to hang around anyway. These characters should have been the focus of the series as it came to a close, not a bunch of new girls.
Enter the potentials.
Suddenly there are like 25 girls living in the Summer's house. If that's not enough, there's also several other new characters becoming prominent: Andrew, Principal Wood, Caleb, Faith returns (Giles returns too, but come on, he's pretty much main cast even if he wasn't credited as such the last two seasons)....Don't get me wrong. I like most of these characters. Andrew is funny, the Wood/Spike dynamic was great, and it was good to see a reformed Faith fighting side by side with Buffy in the end. But when a show is winding down, that's A LOT of characters for the writers to service when you factor in 800 potentials too. To me, the potentials storyline is the very definition of biting off more than you can chew.
It's the last half of the last season of your long running show. This time shouldn't be about introducing a lot of new characters, it should be about wrapping up loose threads with the characters you'd grown to love over the first six and a half seasons. That's a fairly daunting task by itself when you consider just how much all of these characters have been through, but beyond that, the show needs to have the most badass villain of it's run and end in a way that's both satisfying to fans and represents what Buffy was really all about. A lot of people would argue that the show did just that. I would argue the show attempted to do all that and more and ended up falling short in several areas because they tried to cover even more than they had to.
Even Joss himself admits in the "Chosen" commentary that the ubervamps are too easy to kill in that episode after Buffy struggled so much with one earlier in the season. It was more about the message than anything else, but the thing is, the message in itself seems flawed. A bunch of girls suddenly have physical strength and that means female empowerment? Even if these particular girls did nothing to prove they deserved such powers, and actually demonstrated on several occassions that they really did not?
Buffy had her flaws, of course, but in the end it wasn't necessarily her physical strength that made her a hero. She sacrificed herself two years earlier to save her sister, and her friends. That's heroism. That's empowering. Which is why it's a little grating in season seven to hear Anya try to argue that Buffy hasn't earned her powers. She was simply lucky enough to have them. Sorry, but that doesn't describe Buffy. That describes the potentials, nearly all of them. They come into Buffy's home, complain for weeks, kick her out of her home....and in the end are rewarded with physical strength. I kind of get what Joss was going for, but it just falls a little flat and I feel like he compromised a lot of the latter half of season 7 just to arrive at this mediocre ending.
The whole reason the potentials were there in the first place was to set up this message in the last episode, and it brings every episode in between their arrival and the last episode down a bit just to have this message tacked on. In the meantime, the audience must suffer through every scene in which they have a significant amount of screentime. Let's hear Rhona whine, let's hear Kennedy get in someone's face, etc. Meanwhile, Xander, Anya, Giles, and (to a slightly lesser extent) Willow are pushed to basically background characters. Things get rocky between Buffy and Giles when Giles tries to have Spike killed....and the show doesn't really have time to address this beyond a brief mention of it when Faith arrives. The rift between them is never really repaired, nor is anything interesting done with it later beyond Giles acting like a child in "Empty Places." Xander loses his eye, which has got to be a pretty significant and terrible thing in his life but the show doesn't really have the time to devote to the character at this point. We briefly see him in the hospital....then he gets out....then we get a couple of throwaway eyeball jokes like it's not a big deal already. Anya essentially has no place in the group that we can see by this point, but continues to hang around anyway. These characters should have been the focus of the series as it came to a close, not a bunch of new girls.
Eleftheria
Scooby
I like the idea of the existing Potentials but their attitude sucks!!!Especially Kennedy's and Rona's.The only Potential I like so far is that shy girl Amanda who kicked vampire ass after Dawn gave her the courage in "Potential". (I have wathced s7 episodes up to "Storyteller")
My opinion is that they don't respect Buffy.Ok Buffy isn't the best person in the world. Noone is. But she has been the Slayer for 7 years, she has saved the world more than once, she has sacrificed herself to do it and here they come...a bunch of brats who think they can defy her. When Buffy is protecting them it's fine. When she fails to kill the Ubervamp the first time, it's not.
And I don't think Kennedy is like Faith. Faith was honest about everything but she wasn't a spoiled little brat. Kennedy is also honest and starightforward but she is also rude. And just because she likes Will and dates her, doesn't make her part of the Scoobies. At least Faith was a slayer.In "sanctuary" she said that Buffy was the only person ever to try to be her friend. Kennedy is not there to be friends.
My opinion is that they don't respect Buffy.Ok Buffy isn't the best person in the world. Noone is. But she has been the Slayer for 7 years, she has saved the world more than once, she has sacrificed herself to do it and here they come...a bunch of brats who think they can defy her. When Buffy is protecting them it's fine. When she fails to kill the Ubervamp the first time, it's not.
And I don't think Kennedy is like Faith. Faith was honest about everything but she wasn't a spoiled little brat. Kennedy is also honest and starightforward but she is also rude. And just because she likes Will and dates her, doesn't make her part of the Scoobies. At least Faith was a slayer.In "sanctuary" she said that Buffy was the only person ever to try to be her friend. Kennedy is not there to be friends.
Washburne
Protector of the key.
I guess I have to watch season 7 again since people can't or just ignore to say how Kennedy pushed herself to becoming a scoobie. No one is helping the old man with the lousy memory. 🙁
I never said that Faith and Kennedy was exactly alike. It all comes down to if you concentrate on the differences or the ways they're alike I guess. I'm not saying that people should love Kennedy. She sure got her flaws. I just think she gets treated unfairly.
I think it's safe to say that people dislike the potentials since they know Buffy in a completely different ways than the viewers. Did the potenitals act great? Not even close. But with the situation they got themselves into I'd say most of them handled it pretty well. I wonder how many female teens in the world or on the boards for that matter that would do exactly as they're told and not complain one bit about it if they got treated the military way and had to fight creatures they thought just existed in fantasies and that seemed unbeatable in order to survive.
I never said that Faith and Kennedy was exactly alike. It all comes down to if you concentrate on the differences or the ways they're alike I guess. I'm not saying that people should love Kennedy. She sure got her flaws. I just think she gets treated unfairly.
I think it's safe to say that people dislike the potentials since they know Buffy in a completely different ways than the viewers. Did the potenitals act great? Not even close. But with the situation they got themselves into I'd say most of them handled it pretty well. I wonder how many female teens in the world or on the boards for that matter that would do exactly as they're told and not complain one bit about it if they got treated the military way and had to fight creatures they thought just existed in fantasies and that seemed unbeatable in order to survive.
PrincessBuffy16
Scooby
I never liked them. Season 7 has some awesome episodes, but that episodes had nothing to do with Potentials, only Showtime, I loved Buffy killing that vampire 😀 I never like the plot about them, and I never liked their personalities, also they were rude and not funny. They treated Buffy like that's her fault they are in her house, but it wasn't. She was kind enough and good enough to let them be there. They should show more respect for someone who is going to change and save their life.
E
EveryNiteISaveU
I totally agree. Everytime i get to the "Dirty Girls" epi i get so mad.
Eleftheria
Scooby
Princess Buffy couldn't agree more!
After watching Empty Places I really started hating them!Especially Rona and Kennedy!Come on!Who gives them the right to defy a person who has been a Slayer for 7 years and has died two times. War is War. Everyone makes mistakes and unfortunately the leader is the person who carries that burden, in this case Buffy.
When Faith took over, she encouraged conversation but she saw herself, that a leader is not a friend and I like her yelling at Kennedy telling her to stop talking.
They live in Buffy's house, Buffy protects them and just because they are Potentials(which means no experience compared to Buffy's or Faith's) they think they can kick her out of her house.
That little brat is at fault for that though and personally I will never forget what Dawn did to Buffy.She is her sister and she is 15 years old. She has absolutely no right to kick her sister who has given her life for her, out of that place.
After watching Empty Places I really started hating them!Especially Rona and Kennedy!Come on!Who gives them the right to defy a person who has been a Slayer for 7 years and has died two times. War is War. Everyone makes mistakes and unfortunately the leader is the person who carries that burden, in this case Buffy.
When Faith took over, she encouraged conversation but she saw herself, that a leader is not a friend and I like her yelling at Kennedy telling her to stop talking.
They live in Buffy's house, Buffy protects them and just because they are Potentials(which means no experience compared to Buffy's or Faith's) they think they can kick her out of her house.
That little brat is at fault for that though and personally I will never forget what Dawn did to Buffy.She is her sister and she is 15 years old. She has absolutely no right to kick her sister who has given her life for her, out of that place.
E
EveryNiteISaveU
Ugh! When I get to these episodes, I get so angry!!!! I can't stand the potentials!
JudyLovesBuffy
Townie
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2010
- Messages
- 24