The "Magic" Metaphor

[nerd4hire]

From time to time you hear people criticizing the "Magic as drugs" metaphor of Season 6. I'm not sure this is fair, because magic isn't restricted to pointing at that one area of contemporary society in BTVS.

In Season 4 it's a signpost pointing to sex. In Season 7 I got the sense Joss was starting to get political, and there was the whole "Power and control" thing coming out of Willow's new found uber-power, much as a America was dealing with the question of whether or not to use it's superior military military might in the Middle East, at the time. There's even a hint of equating Magic with technology when Willow says "magic works off physics" in Get it Done.

I think Magic is a much broader series of reference points in BTVS, than a simple drug metaphor.

 

[goldenboy]

You've got a point about the broad, varied "meanings" of magic in the 'verse. And people say "power is like a drug". I just felt that the drug storyline felt clumsy and much too literal in the way it was depicted (for my taste).

This is reminding me of the themes in Watchmen too. Incredible, world-altering power, vigilantism...

Ooh, this sounds interesting, possibly relevant. No time to read it, but...

"I am the Law" "I am the Magics": Speech, Power and the Split Identity of Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Caroline Ruddell, Slayage 20, May '06)

http://slayage.tv/

 

[watcher1006]

I believe that most fans know that the concept of Magic was used in several ways in Buffy, the drug-addiction metaphor being one of the various angles. I wasn't all that comfortable with it, the message was obvious, no subtlety there.

I think the idea of witchcraft representing power that overwhelms a person's self-control was more interesting, and I think that theme is a long-running one in the series, stemming back at least to Season 4 (think "Something Blue"), possibly as far back as Season 3. The idea that the Black Arts are too much for a human to control is suggested outright by Riley's wife Sam in "As You Were".

I once got a Willow fan on another board really upset by saying that late Season 6 Willow was evil and that it was foreshadowed in Season 3 "Doppelgangland" when Joss showed us Willow as a vampire. In my opinion Willow at the core is no more evil than any of her fellow scoobies, but the potential to be evil is part of what makes human beings what they are, and because Willow develops so much power it's that much harder to keep herself from surrendering to that potential.

Also in the end the magic as power thing involves more than Willow. The Scoobies as a whole had used magic to their own ends at key points-to help defeat Adam in S4, to help defeat Glory in S5, to resurrect Buffy at the beginning of S6. The fact that magic blows up at the end of the season to overwhelm them and nearly destroy the world represents the idea that such power is a double-edged sword, it can be used for evil as well as for good.

 

[nerd4hire]

I agree with everything you say watcher1006. I think I put my original post badly. What I was trying to say was the power and control themes of magic used in BTVS were focused in Season 7 to give them real world relevance pertinent to stuff that was happening historically at the time. It's almost similar to how Angel taking over Wolfrman & Hart in Angel Season 5 can be seen as relevant to ME's dealings with the WB at the time. I got the sense ME was getting political in the background during Buffy Season 7. I base this on a lot of stuff I read during that period, but I can't remember the exact quotes, nor do I remember where to find them. I do remember the Kerry fundraiser, but that was after S-7. It does show Joss's political bent, and concerns though.

On S-6, I just find the way people fixate on the Magic as drugs metaphor bit to be a bit of nitpick, because that particular metaphor is just a part of a larger whole.

 

[Angel's vision]

Well seeing the Craft the other night they had the concept that magic is neither good or evil it is the heart of the person with the magic that makes it either way.

 

[zombie.apparatus]

omg that is so weird, I watched the Craft yesterday... and yeah it said that and also the whole 'balance' thing

 

[nerd4hire]

You guys just gave me a thread idea.

Wicca and BTVS

 

[Schillaci]

I liked the magic metaphor in season 6. I don't understand how people think it's any less subtle than the metaphors in the earlier seasons, or for that matter, that subtlety has any relevance with metaphor.

Metaphors are about commenting on issues indirectly, substituting situations with others and using the comparison. What was subtle about Buffy sleeping with Angel and his subsequent emotional detach?

 

[goldenboy]

I guess I felt like I could take the Angel/Buffy situation for what literally happened in those eps (Angel losing his soul)"”and yes, appreciate the painful growing experience metaphor.

For whatever reason, Willow getting behind the wheel, crashing a car...my tolerance for metaphor just completely broke down. It pissed me off. Maybe I actually hate metaphors! lol. Nah, I like em, generally.

(ooh, just got buffy season 7 in the mail this morning!!!. Haven't seen it since it aired...)

 

[watcher1006]

I guess I felt like I could take the Angel/Buffy situation for what literally happened in those eps (Angel losing his soul)"”and yes, appreciate the painful growing experience metaphor.

For whatever reason, Willow getting behind the wheel, crashing a car...my tolerance for metaphor just completely broke down. It pissed me off. Maybe I actually hate metaphors! lol. Nah, I like em, generally.

I don't want to harp on the matter but this was sort of what I was driving at. Overly explicit metaphors (as opposed to literal situations in their own right) can have a way of turning people off, sometimes people don't react well to obvious messages.

Still I'm not going to single out the drug addiction-magic metaphor for bashing-it was okay. I just thought some of the other ways magic came into the Buffyverse were more interesting.

But overall I sort of felt "magic" as opposed to the more vague ideas of "mysticism" became too dominant a theme in Season 6. Did people really like the scene in "Smashed" where Willow and Amy are throwing spells all over the place in the Bronze? At times in this season I was really wondering where the premise of the show had gone.

As a footnote though, I should add that I have no doubt that if it were really possible to use magic in our world the way Willow does in hers it would be powerfully, deadly addictive with the potential to quickly destroy its practitioners and much else along with them!