Literary Literacy in the Buffyverse

There's this mass misconception out there that screenwriting is incapable of encompassing highly literary qualities, or that it doesn't ask us to use our imagination chops in quite the same way as something like a good novel might. "Buffy" and "Angel," however, are filled with the conventions of very literary texts, texts that go beyond what it means to be plot-driven, and give us a deeper psychology of both characters and situations, texts that invite us into a world and ask us to ask more questions about it, that tell us something using beautiful language and then trust us to imagine what we would see, what we would taste and feel and smell and hear.

Wesley Wyndam-Pryce heads up this category, the category of literary literacy within the Buffyverse. He's a character that molds for us the nuance of what's going on beneath the witty quips between Spike and Angel and the clicks and snaps of Slayer Slang. When I say "literary literacy," I mean how Whedon creates a very rife, literary world amid the violent sagacity of the Buffyverse, one filled with many conventions we might find in classic, canonical literature like Shakespeare and Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Bronte. No, I'm not comparing the merits of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" to the merits of great writers of canonized literature of yore, but I am asserting that the writing in the Buffyverse is highly literary, and that the inner-beauty of tragic characters, the underlying psychology of character dynamics, and the high-brow conventions of literary prose (such as rhythm, figurative language, etc.) are present. We live in a new world, one filled with all kinds of literature, the kind in books and in pictures and on screen. It's daft to assume that all great literature lies within the confines of paper and cardboard binding. Some of the best writing right now is given to us via big screen, small screen, and everything in between. I also think it's snotty and pretentious when people make these assumptions. There's great writing everywhere. One imagines that this would excite people, not stir up controversy, and so one often finds oneself to be...disappointed.

One of the best examples of Wesley is in episode 17 of "Angel" season 5, Underneath. In this episode, written by newcomers to Mutant Enemy (great writers) Sarah Fain and Elizabeth Craft, we see one of the most cunningly-handled dream sequences of the the Buffyverse (you know how much Joss loves his dream sequences, see director commentary of "Buffy" season 4 episode Hush). The sequence takes place a few episodes after the tragic death of Fred Burkle, who dies only one or two episodes after finally kindling a long overdue relationship with tragic hero Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. Her body has been commandeered by demon goddess Ilyria. In the dream sequence, we see Fred and Wesley talking. Fred asks Wesley: Tell me a joke. Wesley replies, soft, almost eerie: Two men walk into a bar. The first man orders a scotch and soda. The second man remembers something he'd forgotten, and it doubles him over with pain. He falls to the floor shaking.... and then through the floor and into the Earth. He looks back up at the first man, but he doesn't call out to him. (looks at Fred) They're not that close. Here, Craft and Fain have taken something as cliche as a dream sequence and turned it into an opportunity for a heartbreaking look into the evolution of the Wesley character. They take the template of a joke and create something entirely sad, poetic, beautiful. The language here is pared down but leaden, showing us the fall of a man who, once bumbling and British, is now lost and half-dead from the death of Lilah, Cordelia, now Fred, his betrayal of Angel, the conformity to Wolfram & Hart. If we know anything about the man that Wesley has become, about what happens to Wesley in Not Fade Away, we can see it all taking place quietly within the confines of this tiny moment of dialogue. It is very much genius.The joke in the dream sequence is a way for Craft and Fain to unearth the underbelly of who Wesley has become without having to orchestrate a strained (all too overused) conversation between two characters, in which, conventionally, Wesley would tell Angel or Ilyria or Lorne about how part of him has died inside. This isn't Wesley, however, and this isn't the tendency of a show like "Angel," a show that becomes so dark by the end of its fourth season, that any connection it once had to the bubbly colorful world of the earliest "Buffy" seasons, has been severed clean.

Drusilla: The lamb is caught in the blackberry patch. My mummy ate lemons. Raw. She said she loved the way they made her mouth...tingle. Little Anne. Her favorite was custard...brandied pears.
Angel: Dru...
Drusilla: Shh! And pomegranates. They used to make her face and fingers all red. Remember? Hmm? Little fingers. Little hands. Do you?
Angel: If I could...
Drusilla: Bite your tongue! They used to eat cake and eggs and honey. Until you came and ripped their throats out.
-written by Marti Noxon, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," season 2, What's My Line: Part 2

There's always that weird difference between books and movies, especially when books are made into movies, and then there's always something missing, something in the viscera of the way we react to a story. In the novel Atonement for example, we get a description of a childhood fever, how it's like "searching for the cool corner of the pillow." This is something that the movie, no matter how good it is, simply can't capture. It can't display these tiny pinpricks in reality, moments that poke through the world of the book and into our own, reminding us of something we've forgotten, or giving us a taste or a smell or a fleck of nostalgia. These are things that movies and television can't really do, because we're shown everything, given everything visually, therefore we're not really required to imagine what something tastes like or feels like or smells like. This excerpt from an early episode of "Buffy," however, shows that very literary things, like visceral reactions and sensory description, can be invoked from and instilled into a television audience. This is the type of purpose that Drusilla serves. She's full of movement and song, and she's got this gothic sort of grace, like a black lace cardigan that is somehow both feminine and sadistic. Know what I mean? When the First appears to Spike as Drusilla in the season 7 episode Bring on the Night, and she dances, I know you like a good wriggle, and a giggle, and a squiggle. Then in "Angel," episode Dear Boy written by creator David Greenwalt, we see Drusilla just after Angel sires her, Black sky. It wants a little wormy me, and, Snake in the woodshed. Snake in the woodshed. Snake in the woodshed! These are like hunks of real, literary chops just rearing their ugly little heads into the likes of a fantasy television show. These are words that elicit fear and restlessness, icky little bits of poetry that yank little levers inside our chests and make us gulp, wonder, try to understand the deep, tragic truth about what happened to Drusilla, and about the very nature of vampires. I bring it up, because these are words, not images or masterful bouts of editing and score. They're words, and they keep popping up. Each time we see Drusilla, we wait for her poetic, terrifying ramblings, and she becomes a voice of literature, of metaphor and the written word. She says things that force us to respond, to use our imaginations, to ask ourselves questions. Little fingers. Little hands. We see these things, tiny pictures of innocence, smothered in the red of pomegranate juice, of blood lust, and it's horrifying. The idea of a dead child, a child that used to eat bits of cake and fruit until being eviscerated and drained of her blood by Angelus, a character we know all too well. Drusilla breaches that ridiculous rule that says screenwriting can't really work in a literary, evocative way. Not unrelated is the fact that she has some of the best lines in both "Buffy" and "Angel," and every appearance she makes ramps the complexity of an episode or plot arc to a whole new level.

These are my two bravest examples, although I have many more. I want to talk about Xander as the voice of feminism in "Buffy" and Cordelia as the voice of reason. I want to talk about Fred as the voice of optimism, as that one, tiny glimmer of sunlight amidst a dark and virulent sky. I want to really talk about Spike, how he's one of the most dynamic characters ever written, and about Wesley Wyndam-Pryce the great, tragic hero of the Buffyverse. All in time.

Darla

This blog is a result of my pervasive preoccupation with all things unhumany. I have a zillion theories, annoyances, comments, opinions, true loves, and almost all of them are a part of the Whedonverse. How did it start? Well, technically, I suppose, it started with the First. Or, we could get into the physics of the Master and all that, but I'd prefer to skip over the uber-lumpies. It all started with Darla. Darla created Angelus. Angelus, Drusilla. Drusilla, Spike. And Spike? Well, Spike is one of the most dynamic characters ever written, and that's enough for me.

When we first met Darla, it was "Buffy," season 1, and she was very toothy and bumpy, wrought with all sorts of nasty special effects and yellow eyes and very, very bad hair. She rejoins the Master, the Order of Aurelius, Angel stakes her in the Bronze, etc etc. We thought this was all, but it's not, and this is precisely the reason that Joss Whedon is so brilliant. He has this rare ability to create histories. He gives us a world, preliminary rules of the world, and we meet the important parts and people and places in the world, and then he draws on that world, creates new facets in time and in space, in weirdness and normality, and all of a sudden, we're sucked in.

The most interesting and complex part of all, is the order of vampires that starts with Darla. I think of that infamous scene that shows up in both "Angel" (episode, Darla) and "Buffy" (episode, Fool for Love): Darla, Angelus, Drusilla, and Spike storm forth from the chaos of the Boxer Rebellion, just after Spike kills Slayer 1 of 2. This image is among the most iconic in the "Buffyverse." And these characters? Among the most exciting and original, each crafted with their own peccadilloes and moments of insanity. Unless, of course, we're talking Dru, who is her own little moment of insanity. What's that line? "Do you love my insides? The parts you can't see?" Ah, delicious. Darla is grandmother. She's over 400 years old at the time of her (third) death, a milestone in vampiric martyrdom to save the human child in her womb. I won't be getting to Connor quite yet, because he's mostly an annoyance, and he's not a vampire, not a real part of the order, and despite his androgynous hotness, I don't like him one little bit.

Anyway, this is just the beginning. Just like Darla. How I love Darla, her ruthlessness, those human moments with Lindsey, with Angel, her heroic death. She's the most historic character in the Buffyverse. It started with Darla.