buffy fucks.(spoilers)

I think you've generally right, though, that Whedon likes to head straight to sexuality as a danger -- e.g. the episode where Buffy and Riley's draw out the sexual repression of the Initiative house (although that can be read as sort of the opposite of what you're saying, as well).

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NB if you want to draw a running theme underneath all of these it's that men can't handle sex: Buffy is the one thing that can make Angel evil; Willow was the one thing that could disrupt Oz's anti-werewolf yoga; Riley turned all purposeless and dissipated and bolted back to where he "belonged"; Spike was always on the more desperate end of the Buffy push-and-pull; Tara was killed by a man who only killed women.

My unanswered Jonathan question from the other Buffy thread has been answered: I didn't know he went to high school with them! He said "the class of 1999 has had the lowest mortality rate of any Sunnydale High class in the past decade!"

The thing is Anthony you could make this claim about any serial fiction eg soap operas. Conflict is seen as more interesting than stability and so the life of a fictional relationship is neccessarily limited. Bucking this trend is another reason The Simpsons is so grebt of course.

The implication being that community is a paramount value in Whedon's world? I've never got that impression--all of Whedon's shows tend to be small ensemble-based, and revolve around pseudo-families that operate independently of or in opposition to the broader commubnity.

So I don't think that's it. I think Whedon just likes to torment his characters a lot.

Well. certainly that's one way of looking at Buffy's role. However, I don't think that's true on Firefly, and it's only true to a lesser extent on Angel. Moreover, I'm just not sure that S7 is going to bear out that theory.

Furthermore, friendships are built around "normal" character traits in a largely unproblematic matter (the varying supernatural powers of Buffy, Willow and Xander are tangential to the strength of their friendship) while the relationships tend to emphasise the anti-normal archetypes that co-exist with the characters' personalities: Buffy (human) + Angel (vampire); Willow (human) + Oz (werewolf); Willow (big witch) + Tara (smaller witch); Buffy (big slayer) + Riley (wannabe slayer); Xander (human) + Anya (demon); Buffy (slayer) + Spike (vampire).

The show's only relationship that has been almost exclusively defined by social rather than mythical archetypes has been Xander and Cordelia's, and consequently this was the one which fell apart for the most conventional, prosaic reasons - Xander's infidelity. All other relationships have ultimately broken down (albeit in the case of Willow and Tara only temporarily) due to a fundamental conflict of position, an acknowledgment that a relationship cannot indefinitely function as a single element or even a terribly successful covalent one - the human vs demon conflict of Xander and Anya's relationship is metonymic of their differing goals and desires (and vice versa). More diffuse friendship circles, Joss possibly "argues", are more stable and in the long-term rewarding, because they are more forgiving of difference, of individuality within communality/commonality.

also since nicole says firefly was bad (I think she said that?) I am happy to pretend like I don't have to talk about it!

So Joss is into orgies then?

(ducks)

I like your molecular analogy, but I'm not sure I agree, at least not entirely. Viewed on a metaphoric level, most of the Buffy relationships collapsed because of prosaic reasons. Willow's relationship with Oz collapsed because Oz was unfaithful and unable to control his instincts. Willow's relationship with Tara went south for awhile as a result of Willow's lack of respect for Tara's autonomy and views as to Willow's bad habits. Xander's relationship with Anya fell apart because of Xander's deep-seated fear that commitment would turn him into his father. Buffy's relationship with Riley ended because of her inability to open up to him and his unwillingness to directly confront her about it, etc.

I think your stronger point is that all two-person relationships have a structural inconsistency, and that these "prosaic reasons" are evidence of that tension. I'm just not sure, based on this evidence, that Joss Whedon believes that. Is there other stuff?

Duh, yes. This was my point re: Marcuse and Houllebecque.

I acknowledge that all the relationships broke up for prosaic reasons, but those prosaic reasons were mediated through each character's status-identity as if to emphasise the point that partners in relationships can never totally see eye to eye. I'm not sure Joss consciously distrusts relationships either, but it comes out as a meta-narrative anyway.

I'm not really that up on the social lives of social theorists (exclusive of Foucault), so I guess I missed the meta-joke.

As to your remaining point, I agree that your reading is well-supported in the text, but I think it's debatable whether the reason for that is authorial intent or something else. You began by stating your belief that "Joss Whedon thinks sex and relationships are anti-community," which has less to do with the text of the shows than the philosophy of their author. That was the phrase that most interested me, despite the fact that I've apparently already misinterpeted it once!

"As to your remaining point, I agree that your reading is well-supported in the text, but I think it's debatable whether the reason for that is authorial intent or something else."

Ha ha J you are thinking that I'm trying to be water-tight in my arguments! I guess what I mean is that Joss is telling a story in which sex and relationships are anti-community, but that this may not be his overall reality-assumption. Which is why I later put quotation marks around 'argues' - I don't think he's trying to convince his audience of something he truly believes - any more than "Buffy" should be taken as an argument for the existence of vampires - but I do think that this is one of the show's internal contentions, as it were.