Drunkard's Walk Forums

It occured to me while reading some BTVS fics yesterday that Glory is really just Faith writ large - power equal to the Sayer becomes power far greater than the Slayer, "want, take, have" is not only the first impulse but the only thoguht pattern, a dark side from past circumstances becomes a total disregard for anything but her interests and being an exiled hell-goddess, trying to find herself a place in the world (even at the cost of becoming a Minion of Evil) becomes trying to return to her home plane (even at the cost of destroying this and many others).
Not that I'm saying she's not evil, or is even redeemable (thoguh at least one fic did just that, via merging with her host and thereby accuiring a soul to balance her out some and not need to do the brain-sucky-thing, followed by intense Xander therapy, Anya having split in terror out of prior experience when she first showed her hell-goddess face) but there are possibly sympathetic traits to her character.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
Dr. Akagi will recover. Observe, Rei smiled. Shinji-kun, are these your clothes?
Ritsuko shot up like a spring loaded meerkat. What? Shinji-kun is naked?
See, Anata? Dr. Hentai is alive and well. - Innortal's _I Do_
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

You know, I don't know if I've mentioned that Helen and I are likely to be collaborating on the DW13, the Buffy Step, and setting it in season 5 such that Doug is present for the entire Glory arc. One of the ideas that I'm bouncing around in my head is that during the final confrontation, someone -- maybe Doug, maybe Buffy -- would basically say to her something along the lines of, "You know, if you'd come by, rung the doorbell, asked to talk and then calmly explained the problem, maybe we could have come up with some way to help you and not nuke the universe in the process. But noooooo, you had to get all bitchy..."
Honestly, though, I don't think that would have been likely, but it's a good taunt. Glory is exactly what Doug thinks all gods are -- a spoiled child who can destroy entire planets.
I like the comparison to Faith, btw; I'd never thought of that.
Oh, and I'd be interested in looking at that fic, if you have a link or even just a title...

-- Bob
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For Jor-El so loved the Earth, he sent his only begotten son...

Seems like a bit of a stretch. "Want, take, have," applies to a lot of villains, as does a total disregard for anything but their own interests, and most of them could be said to be trying to find a place in the world -- generally at the top of the heap.
However, there is something to it. The big villains are little villains writ large, points further out on the same spectrum. You can often draw lines from good characters, through petty villains, to the big bads - white shading through grey into black.
Self-confidence becomes arrogance become 'I am invincible' levels of hubris. The desire to help others becomes the desire to guide them becomes the desire for absolute control, for their own good. Etc.
I'd say this is because part of the essence of evil is means grossly disproportionate to ends, and ends are half of characterisation (What does this person want?) so keeping the ends same while writing the means large is an effective way of making the character darker.
Mugging people to get money for an operation to save your mom's life is petty villainy. Killing them so you can use their organs when you do the operation yourself is the same motive, but a larger scale. Sacrificing ten thousand people to a demon lord to get your mother ressurected is still the same motive, but big time villainy. The character is the same each time, but writ larger.
Of course, I do have a slightly idiosyncratic view of the Buffyverse.
--
Author of a recent updated Buffy fic, Price of the Wish
Willow sauntered out of the kitchen, gnawing at a lump of raw steak, blood dribbling down her chin.

The fic I mentioned is five shorts with the collective name Glory Be - and note, I didn't say they it was very well done, only that it WAS done. It comes of very much like a sudden outbreak of Porn World horndog-virus, unfortunately, but the repercussions are handled in a relatively thoguhtful manner (those being the third through fifth parts.) Total length is only about 40kb, but as the only example I know of of a Glory-redemption it's still noteworthy I think. - Oh, and beware of pr0n in the second part.
Custos makes a good point as well, but the direct comparison between the two particularly struck me because I wodnered about taking Xander's, er, encounter with Faith in The Zeppo as a divergence point, if he'd resisted the teenage libido and told her that he'd saved her because she's his friend, not out of hope of a shot at her, so that she didn't lump him in as Human Kleenex, Three-legged, Used, either becoming a voice in support of his part in the slayage or thye pair as a second unit as Buffy and Willow continued pushing him out, having tried several (entirely forgettable) fics in a row by the same author who liked breaking from that ep by either sending him to other places when a not-defused bomb went off in such close proximity to the hellmouth or having him injured by the not-defused bomb and awakened as a mutant/turned into a cyborg or super-soldier/re-possed by the Hyena for the healing factor/etc. and wished for a less heavy-handed approach to throwing the wrench in the works, then noticed I had Glory Be sitting around on disk but unread.
Holy crap was that ever a run-on. Oh well, it seems to still make sense when I read it over, so whatever. Faith not being in the slammer for those time frames - espescially Glory! - would surely have been welcome, though.
Also, Yay! New chapter of PotW!
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
Dr. Akagi will recover. Observe, Rei smiled. Shinji-kun, are these your clothes?
Ritsuko shot up like a spring loaded meerkat. What? Shinji-kun is naked?
See, Anata? Dr. Hentai is alive and well. - Innortal's _I Do_
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Oddly enough, I was thinking about something along the same lines a wekk or so back.
Glory turns up, the consequences of the Key being used are made clear to the Scoobies, who discover Dawn's identity - none of which is known to Glory, who's basically decent but thinks it's just some artifact that'll open a momentary portal for her and is too messed up by the environmental difficulties to do anything but take the shortest route through obstacles. (instead of an arrogant cow who doesn't value human life one little bit, IMHO).
And then Dawn, faced with Glory, accuses her of trying to kill her and destroy the universe, only to get a puzzled reaction from Glory. Who now decides that she obviously needs to get more information because these kids definitely have the wrong idea. And grabs Dawn to find out where all this notion of world-obliteration and human sacrifice comes from.
And oddly enough, they bond and conclude that they are equally confused by the whole situation. Naturally no one else (Ben, Buffy, Scoobies, Glory's minions) likes this outcome one little bit...
And Glory is still slowly losing her mind...
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

Drogn, for a pretty good fic that sort of diverges at that point look for Heritage by Sibling on either the Xanderzone archives or on Twisting the Hellmouth

You know, I hate to say it, but I don't even bother pursuing any new _Buffy_ content. After suffering through the whole series, less the last part of the last seaon, and the entirety of Angel.. I just can't hack it.
I just can't pull my pants down for Joss Whedon anymore. In my personal Cosmos, Joss keeps sidling closer and closer to Anno Hideaki's "I hate my fans" throne.
Now the Buffy step, that's a whole nother story.
In any whosit, It's a true shout - If someone, anyone, whatever their origins, showed up at the Magic Box or at Angel Investigations, and asked for help/sanctuary/etc, they'd get it.
Unless Her Bitchiness was feeling particularily anti-everything that day.. (Buffy).
ah well. Such wonderful possibilities brutally pronged by a hateful, hateful man.
--- Kokuten Daysleeper, Retired Epicced Officered DorfWire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

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You know, I hate to say it, but I don't even bother pursuing any new _Buffy_ content. After suffering through the whole series, less the last part of the last seaon, and the entirety of Angel.. I just can't hack it.

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I guess that's the advantage of having watched Buffy only piecemeal except for seasons 5 and 6, and having rarely watched Angel at all -- I know enough to understand fics, but I haven't watched enough to be sick of it.
(Nor, for that matter, enough to decide if I find Allyson Hannigan attractive or not. It varies day to day -- sometimes I find her cute, sometimes I think she's goofy-looking. )

-- Bob
---------
For Jor-El so loved the Earth, he sent his only begotten son...

Kokuten: The thing is, unlike Crapangelion you don't have to break the setting to get away from that aspect, so there's a lot of BtVS fic that isn't so heavy on the plot hammer any time someone starts to be happy.
Kheram: This fic? I'll take a look at least.
Bob: Hah, I scrape by on fanfic, the pilot/TV movie, and a half-dozen scattered episodes. Vampires... not really my thing. The other aspects were what grabbed me once I read some fanfic, but the episodes I did catch never really jumped out at me as spectacular.
- CD
ETA: Having now read the fic, I have to say it's pretty good - even unfinished, it leaves off at a point that feels natural, where you can draw your own conclusions about the various ongoing crises, because the specifically introduced new ones for this fic habve been mostly tied up. I'm going to give this one a 7 out of 10 - highly reccomended unless F/X matches bother you.SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
Dr. Akagi will recover. Observe, Rei smiled. Shinji-kun, are these your clothes?
Ritsuko shot up like a spring loaded meerkat. What? Shinji-kun is naked?
See, Anata? Dr. Hentai is alive and well. - Innortal's _I Do_
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

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Allyson Hannigan

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*drool*
just.. just WOW.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979