Guess the difference is that Buffy always saw Harmony as if you'll forgive the pun harmless
Did Harmony ever actually kill anyone as a vampire I don't remember.
True, but then I think if you question that then you also have to admit that Harmony is far from the worse offender in that area. Angel and Spike have done far worse. I think there is a certain kind of acceptence in the Buffyverse than vampires are just going to follow their instincts to survie. Then again actually going into business with one is a different matter.
I think you have a point that it was maybe a missed chance for the show(s) to do something darker and fresh with Harmony's character. The Scoobies and Riley laughing at Harmony as a vamp still doesn't bother me as much as you. So many normal people are killed over the course of both Buffy and Angel. Its impossible within the limits of 42 mins of television when there are other big plots going on to regester the loss of everyone. And I think in Buffy mostly, as a way of dealing with darkness the Scoobies do invoke some humour. I like that side of the show and it does have a logic which is consistent within the universe.
'Buffy' and 'Angel' (the shows) always had an arbitrary approach to what they take seriously and what they treat as comedy material. In 'Welcome to the Hellmout', when Buffy discovers the body of a dead student, she reacts as if she found a trash bag she forgot to throw out, but when she sees that Jesse was turned into a vampire she takes it seriously - probably because he was friends with Xander, who she accepted as a friend recently.
Don't remember Buffy taking any death casually during WTTH. Think you are right on the difference with it being Jesse. But then that is consistent with people in real life. Yes we treat death as a shocking and bad thing, but its always going to be worse for us if its someone we know. As for not taking death to heart I think its more to do with Buffy's role as a slayer meaning she can't take death to heart because if she did she wouldn't be able to perform her duties. Think it matters more to Buffy than you are giving her credit for. That maybe more what I'm getting from SMG's performance than what's in the text of course. As a show I think Buffy deals in the consuqences of death more than Angel does.'Buffy' and 'Angel' (the shows) always had an arbitrary approach to what they take seriously and what they treat as comedy material. In 'Welcome to the Hellmout', when Buffy discovers the body of a dead student, she reacts as if she found a trash bag she forgot to throw out, but when she sees that Jesse was turned into a vampire she takes it seriously - probably because he was friends with Xander, who she accepted as a friend recently.
I think the scoobies (and especially Buffy) just tend to not take things too seriously unless it affects them and/or their friends directly. Which is typical teen behaviour. Buffy still tries to save people she doesn't know, simply because it's the right thing to do, but she doesn't take it to heart unless it affects her or her friends.
That's the entire point of season 7 - the scoobies confront their own hypocrisy. 7x01 begins by showing us a girl we don't know, getting hunted and killed, and Buffy isn't there to save her. Later that same episode, we see Buffy confronted by the ghosts/zombies of the people she DIDN'T save. In 7x20, Buffy said that she knew that some of the potentials will die, so she didn't want to let them get close to her emotionally. She didn't WANT to mourn them like she mourned Jenny and Angel and Joyce and Tara. And she eventually realized that she can't keep treating her family as more important than everyone else. And that's why season 7 ends with Buffy fighting in the hellmouth with the potentials that she barely knows, and not with the scoobies as usual. And when the potentials die in the battle, we see that Buffy mourns for them:
Season 7 makes Buffy realize that her family isn't more important than the rest of humanity.
As for Harmony... Well, I just think she's really funny and adorable. The scoobies don't go out of their way to stake her, because:
a) As vampires go, she's really not that dangerous.
b) They know her pretty well, so at least subconsciously, they don't really want to kill her.
But technically, you're right, they should have killed her ass long ago. And that hypocrisy was dealt with in season 7. In the comics, the scoobies have legitimate reasons for why they're not killing Harmony.
From the script:
So, Buffy doesn't seem to be emotionally disturbed by the death at all. She's just annoyed that her slayer-ness is interfering with her normal life again.
Oh so do I most of the time, Harmony's character treatment is a distinct and separate dislike from all the other occasions for me.
I never took that from S7 at all. I felt that S7 had Buffy trying to harden herself for the fight, trying to develop as a leader and learning and accepting that she couldn't save everyone. Of course that leads into her choice to empower all the potentials with their own inner strength and those themes of self awareness and power, of the 'potential' people have, are front and centre throughout for many of the characters. Trying to not 'know' the potentials was just self-preservation exactly because she cares so much about people, no? :s
Ha, tell that to Brad!
I really don't think there is any reason to think that she isn't average level of dangerous as a vamp tbh. It is just that the show has decided that we shouldn't care about anything that she gets up to so that she can be used as comedy relief and it bugs me. I know I'm in the minority, but there it is.I am sure that knowing someone pre-vamping does greatly affect how people feel and I always reason that that is the root of the Council's false line about the vamp and the human being totally separate. Something the show confirms in every single instance, of course, is simply not true. But you repeat it as the Watcher because your slayer will find it harder to dust someone they loved, and even someone they just knew. But that is a whole step away from just finding them funny regardless of anything they do. And I still think they should dust her now in the comics too as she has yet again, predictably and tediously imo, shown this past season that they can't and shouldn't give her leniency because she will betray them for selfish personal gain and allowing her any easier access to them all is daft. Just because she is foolish doesn't make her harmless. Gah, she really, really, really should be dust in the wind and I was far from pleased, although not at all surprised, by the promise of her popping up in S11. Oh hoorah! Definitely an agree to disagree one, ha.
I think that is one of the biggest themes of season 7 - that the world is bigger than us and our families, and that a person we just met is just as important as our best friend. Or, in other words - humanism. Season 7 really tried to make the story feel BIGGER, and to make it more than just a personal story about Buffy and her friends: instead of being limited to Sunnydale, we started getting scenes from across the world, from England, Istanbul, Japan, Germany, etc. The entire point of the potentials was to force Buffy to work with people who AREN'T her family and friends. They say that the difference between a child and an adult is that an adult realizes that "this isn't about me". Season 7 was about exactly that (among other things, of course) - Buffy realized that she's a part of a bigger world (part of a "chain", as season 8 would call it), and that she and her friends and her family aren't more important than any random stranger. That's why the empowerment spell showed people being empowered throughou the world, and not just Buffy's friends. That's why season 7 broke Buffy's family in 'Empty Places' - because when you have no family, you realize that you're a part of humanity.
Brad bullied Xander in highschool. Off with his head!Ha, tell that to Brad!
Well, yes. The real reason is that the writers loved her as comic relief, so they kept her alive. It's the same reason that Drusilla wasn't killed. I'm cool with it, because Harmony is hilarious and sympathetic to me.
I don't think anyone TRUSTS her, but they can't kill her, because she's the figurehead of the new vampire rules. If they stake her, vampires would become much more dangerous. It's politics.I am sure that knowing someone pre-vamping does greatly affect how people feel and I always reason that that is the root of the Council's false line about the vamp and the human being totally separate. Something the show confirms in every single instance, of course, is simply not true. But you repeat it as the Watcher because your slayer will find it harder to dust someone they loved, and even someone they just knew. But that is a whole step away from just finding them funny regardless of anything they do. And I still think they should dust her now in the comics too as she has yet again, predictably and tediously imo, shown this past season that they can't and shouldn't give her leniency because she will betray them for selfish personal gain and allowing her any easier access to them all is daft. Just because she is foolish doesn't make her harmless. Gah, she really, really, really should be dust in the wind and I was far from pleased, although not at all surprised, by the promise of her popping up in S11. Oh hoorah! Definitely an agree to disagree one, ha.
Yeah, possibly if it suited her like when she wanted the role at W&H, but only until it didn't. Despite the whole vamps in public thing where most play along what the show repeatedly showed us, and Harmony herself has done so more consistently than any other regular vamp, is that soulless vamps are unreliable and can/will eventually make choices with self interest at the fore. It is why the vamps in public aspect is frustrating and her as a figure head is comical, and of course not everyone plays by Harmony's rules. Whilst I take your point that there are politics at play @Guy Harmony is still replaceable for those wanting to play along for whatever benefits they deem it currently worthwhile for themselves and her betrayal over the book could fairly be seen to be breaking the role she has with those she attacked. I don't think vampires would become any more dangerous if she was dusted as you can't/shouldn't be trusting any of them anyway.
Well, maybe she could be replaced, but that could get messy in all sorts of ways, and the scoobies aren't big on risks.Yeah, possibly if it suited her like when she wanted the role at W&H, but only until it didn't. Despite the whole vamps in public thing where most play along what the show repeatedly showed us, and Harmony herself has done so more consistently than any other regular vamp, is that soulless vamps are unreliable and can/will eventually make choices with self interest at the fore. It is why the vamps in public aspect is frustrating and her as a figure head is comical, and of course not everyone plays by Harmony's rules. Whilst I take your point that there are politics at play @Guy Harmony is still replaceable for those wanting to play along for whatever benefits they deem it currently worthwhile for themselves and her betrayal over the book could fairly be seen to be breaking the role she has with those she attacked. I don't think vampires would become any more dangerous if she was dusted as you can't/shouldn't be trusting any of them anyway.
Yes that's sort of the same reason they keep Spike around. They are not harmless. Harmony kidnaps Dawn!Guess the difference is that Buffy always saw Harmony as if you'll forgive the pun harmless
I don't like it either. Why is Riley laughing? Does he even know Harmony?
I don't like it either. It's something that bothers me about the latter seasons. Vampires are treated as either a joke, a romance interest, or just non threatening. Even the Turok Han which started out cool became weak.
I always hated that scene. Riley laughing about a vamp? I kinda understand why Buffy would, but the laughter is so fake.
Yeah. And, in my opinion, Spike insisting with Buffy that she needed some monster in her man made it seem like Buffy could only date vamps - not true at all. Bangel was about forbidden love, it was made clear that Buffy shouldn't date vampires and Xander never warmed up to Angel and Giles later on too. In the later seasons, all the characters get cuddly with Spike and Buffy spends more time in season 6 having sex with a vamp than staking one.
I think Riley was laughing because Buffy was laughing. You know, infectious laughter.
I don't think the show ever implies that Spike is right about that.
1) The characters do NOT get cuddly with Spike (with the exception of Buffy, of course). Spike was never accepted as one of them. Xander always hated him, Giles hated him (or at least disliked him), Dawn hated him after 'Seeing Red', and Willow barely interacted with him in the later seasons.
Well, they were NEAR the scythe during the fight, so maybe that's empowering them too. And I always saw the original Uber-vamp (the one from 7x09) as a special uber-vamp, like a champion of the uber-vamps or something. The rest of the ubervamps always seemed like regular vampires in terms of strength.
That makes sense.
Well, it practically causes the downfall of Buffy/Riley. That and Dawn telling Riley that Buffy used to cry a lot over Angel are a few things that seemingly drive him to the vamp whore house. And to me, the way Chosen and more so Angel season 5 suggest that Buffy will end up with either Angel or Spike sort of makes the point I was getting at earlier. Angel started out to be the guy Buffy couldn't have, because he was a vamp, and now look at her: dating Spike as if he isn't one also.
1) Spike was slowly integrated into the group. Willow didn't think Spike was much of a threat - she even stopped him from committing suicide in season 4; Dawn liked Spike until the rape thing (for pretty much two whole seasons he was a trusted friend); Tara even told Buffy that Spike "did love her"; Giles was indifferent mostly; Anya liked Spike and Xander was the one who didn't. I'd say they grew comfortable with his presence, to the point of entrusting Dawn's care to him after "The Gift" (they didn't need Buffy to be there to trust him). That's pretty "cuddly" imo.
That's doubtful. Faith only felt the scythe power when she held it in her hand. I don't think it works remotely. To me the first uber vamp was just like the others and even if the others were more like normal vamps, those girls slayed them far too easily.
That doesn't mean that Spike was right, just that Riley was insecure and Buffy was preoccupied with her family and her slayer duties. Buffy never broke up with Riley.
1) Angel season 5 never even featured Buffy, just Andrew fooling Angel and Spike and making fun of them. Buffy never dated the immortal according to the comics. And 'Chosen' doesn't imply that she will end up with either Spike or Angel, it says outright that Buffy doesn't feel ready for that choice, and that's it.
Occasionally, she's callous and strange.
Dawn is the Joyce of the later seasons, and Joyce liked Spike in the early seasons too, so it's not any different.
What does that have to do with "accepting Spike into the group"? Tara was still never friendly with Spike.
GILES TRIED TO KILL HIM! And he was never friendly with him even before that.
Well, she was a former demon.
Xander, and Willow, and Giles, and Tara...
They worked with him, because he was useful and willing and because he was physically incapable of hurting them. They were never friendly with him.
Buffy had a romantic relationship with a vampire in seasons 1-3, and she had a romantic relationship with a vampire in seasons 5-7. I don't see the distinction. Angel had a lot of reasons to be mistrusted too.
She killed Angel because she had to, to save the world. She didn't kill Spike in season 7 because she was never in a similiar situation with him.
Well, 'Buffy' was never that good on the plot elements, it was always more character-driven than plot-driven. Remember 'Prophecy Girl', when the master inexplicably lost the ability to mind-control Buffy after she died and was resurrected?
Good point and one I was going to make. That's why for me the Harmony storyline works well in Real Me. And Buffy and co. were joking around before they knew about Dawn being kidnapped lets not forget.
Excately slowly. Spike's full transformation into member of the good team and even into Buffy's heart is a slow burning thing. Its not like he gets the chip and is suddenly a good guy. There are stages to his growth. One reason why Dawn liked him I think was down to her young age and naivety and because Spike had looked out for her at a rough time for her. Also I don't see the problem with the blurring of the lines of good and evil its part of what makes both shows so interesting. Spike's switch to the good side and romance with the Slayer is a bold and subversive story. I don't get why people would rather toss those stories away for more black and white ones. The Willow-Spike scenes are perfect examples the subversive nature of the show and the surreal humour too.
yes, an evil vampire with a group of other evil vampires is hilarious. I get why she laughing, she thinks it's ridiculous that Harmony would have minions, and that she is incompetent. But it's not that far fetched, in high school Harmony had the mean girl click that kicked out Cordy. I just think soulless vampires should have always been treated as a serious threat.Harmony or that it matters. Don't forget their not laughing at the fact she is a vampire, rather that she is attempting to act tough and has so called minions
she still didn't kill her! She just let's Harmony go for the rest of season 5!
