So, about that Buffyverse worldbuilding
Mar. 17th, 2011 03:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupI've been complaining about Buffyverse worldbuilding since my first viewing of Prophecy Girl, if not earlier. Recently ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
angearia called me on it and asked me just what I meant, and my response was so long I'm reposting it here for general edification. Or something.
First, to me "worldbuilding" means a couple of different things. It might be as small as setting details or as big as your central speculative premise. In settings with magic, it means that even if the source of your magic hasn't been defined or fully explained, any specific instance of magic will either A) make sense when put in the context of the larger magic use in the show, or B) have some internal mythlogic that "just makes sense."
The Buffyverse doesn't suggest any real structure to how its magic works. Or rather, magic seems to work in about a dozen different ways. (stormwreath has a really nice summary of magic in the Buffyverse, although he sees a lot more consistency in it than I do.) Tara and, in early S7, Giles say a little bit about the natural order and connecting with the earth, but clearly that's not always necessary. Sometimes the magic user calls on deities. Sometimes ingredients are used. Sometimes special phrasing is needed. Intent apparently isn't needed, or else we wouldn't have nearly so many spells go awry, and also Oz wouldn't have been able to participate in Angel's re-ensouling. And sometimes, like with Willow, you don't need anything but will.
So: no magical organizing principle in the Buffyverse. No consistent larger context in which to place any specific thing and make sense of it. No defined source of magic nor any explanation given for why some people would have more of a talent for it than others. No rules governing how it works nor - and this is the kicker for me - how it doesn't work. Without specific boundaries on what magic can do, it can do whatever the writers want it to do, which IMO strips it of most of storytelling power. To take any given magical scenario seriously, I pretty much have to ignore everything else I've ever seen on the show and accept whatever premises the story is working from at just that moment.
So much for option A: the magic in a specific instance makes sense in a larger context. On to option B: the magic in a specific instance, ah, "just makes sense."
Now, what "just makes sense" is going to vary a lot depending on the mythical currency of the culture you come from. In Western European culture, this currency includes the principle of three (wishes, guesses, whatever), the binding power of a contract, sympathetic magic (both "the part affects the whole" and "this thing is affected by this other somewhat like thing"; I gather that this principle is fairly universal, but I haven't read enough non-Western myth and fairy tales and such to say anything else), the significance of names, and other things that aren't coming to mind.
This is something Neil Gaiman is an absolutely master at, especially in Neverwhere. It's also something SPN generally does pretty well, since the writers are working directly from my culture's cultural currency: American urban legends and local mythology. I already half-know a lot of the stories SPN tells, even though I don't know the specifics. (OTOH, this makes it harder for the stories to feel fresh and puts even more of the load on long-term arcs and character work, especially between the leads, but that's a separate problem.)
For me, though, the very best kind of worldbuilding is one where the creator starts with a specific premise and works those implications out across the board. It's kind of like a really solid AU fic where some specific event is different and the author then explores the huge reach of the ripples of that one event. All the consequences are taken into account. (I said something toquinara once about wanting things to make sense, and she teasingly called me a monotheist. Which, yanno, I am. I expect the world to make sense on some level, even if it's not on one I understand. Fair warning. *g*)
All I've talked about here is magic in the Buffyverse, which is one of my major complaints, but evil and demons are two other topics I tend to grumble about a lot. The chip is another thing, not because its exact workings are not explained, but because they contradict themselves. (rahirah summarizes the contradictions here.) There's also the truly bizarre historical stuff (the Knights of Byzantium; the fact that every major mystical artifact in the world, of any culture, seems to be located in Sunnydale), the ret-conning (the origins of demons, Olaf's troll hammer suddenly becoming the hammer of a troll god, the surprise appearance of the Guardian), and the just plain sloppy phrasing (in particular the explanation for Glory's portal: Giles says it will be open "until the blood stops flowing," but that doesn't explain why some good bandages and a coagulant aid couldn't fix the problem, nor, more seriously, why Buffy's death could fix it, since Dawn is still bleeding after Buffy takes the swan dive).
Several folks have pointed out to me recently that BtVS isn't about monsters, but about the girl defeating them, and that the ironic dismissal of the monsters is part of the power of the story. I'm okay with that as long as the writers let ironic dismissal win the day, as in Prophecy Girl or Restless or The Zeppo. But often, as in Innocence or Becoming or The Gift, the monsters and the damage they do is real, and I can't take that seriously unless those monsters and their origins make sense to me. If they come across as fabrications so that the writers can artificially push the story where they want it go, that just feels like manipulation, and I resent my feelings being manipulated.
All that said, I do not always hate Buffyverse worldbuilding; one thing I really enjoyed early on was all the different uses the writers had for Angel's vampirism. The moment where he kisses Buffy in "Angel" and her cross burns his chest? That was a perfect confluence of worldbuilding and theme. Angel being unable to resuscitate Buffy after she's drowned would have been another such moment, except that David Boreanaz is not exactly subtle about his breathing and anyway breathing is a semi-voluntary action. It was a nice thought, though. I also liked the bit in "The Dark Age" where Angel destroys Eyghon and in "I Only Have Eyes For You" when his being a vampire breaks the cycle of the haunting. Those are all places where the plot and the theme were direct outgrowths of worldbuilding that was already in place; the three worked in tandem, and nothing had to be invented on the spur of the moment. In non-Angel examples, the idea of Buffy and Dawn's blood being enough alike to allow a substitute was a very nice idea, although I wish they'd been a bit more explicit about how that worked.
One more extra-Buffyverse example of worldbuilding that works, and I'll call it quits. According to the Battlestar Galactica rules, the consciousness of a Cylon who dies in one body is downloaded into a new identical body. In an episode I watched recently, the Cylon half of a Cylon-human couple has deep personal reasons for wanting to get onto a Cylon ship. So, in a beautifully acted and truly affecting scene, she convinces her human spouse to shoot her dead. And he does.
If there is any such thing as a perfect scene, this was it. Long-term plot and three and a half seasons of character development led to this moment in which the human's - and our - whole intuition about how the world works comes smack against a bit of worldbuilding that has been hanging about since S1. The writers worked with the worldbuilding instead of against it. No manipulation. Just, yeah, perfect.
angearia called me on it and asked me just what I meant, and my response was so long I'm reposting it here for general edification. Or something.First, to me "worldbuilding" means a couple of different things. It might be as small as setting details or as big as your central speculative premise. In settings with magic, it means that even if the source of your magic hasn't been defined or fully explained, any specific instance of magic will either A) make sense when put in the context of the larger magic use in the show, or B) have some internal mythlogic that "just makes sense."
The Buffyverse doesn't suggest any real structure to how its magic works. Or rather, magic seems to work in about a dozen different ways. (
stormwreath has a really nice summary of magic in the Buffyverse, although he sees a lot more consistency in it than I do.) Tara and, in early S7, Giles say a little bit about the natural order and connecting with the earth, but clearly that's not always necessary. Sometimes the magic user calls on deities. Sometimes ingredients are used. Sometimes special phrasing is needed. Intent apparently isn't needed, or else we wouldn't have nearly so many spells go awry, and also Oz wouldn't have been able to participate in Angel's re-ensouling. And sometimes, like with Willow, you don't need anything but will.So: no magical organizing principle in the Buffyverse. No consistent larger context in which to place any specific thing and make sense of it. No defined source of magic nor any explanation given for why some people would have more of a talent for it than others. No rules governing how it works nor - and this is the kicker for me - how it doesn't work. Without specific boundaries on what magic can do, it can do whatever the writers want it to do, which IMO strips it of most of storytelling power. To take any given magical scenario seriously, I pretty much have to ignore everything else I've ever seen on the show and accept whatever premises the story is working from at just that moment.
So much for option A: the magic in a specific instance makes sense in a larger context. On to option B: the magic in a specific instance, ah, "just makes sense."
Now, what "just makes sense" is going to vary a lot depending on the mythical currency of the culture you come from. In Western European culture, this currency includes the principle of three (wishes, guesses, whatever), the binding power of a contract, sympathetic magic (both "the part affects the whole" and "this thing is affected by this other somewhat like thing"; I gather that this principle is fairly universal, but I haven't read enough non-Western myth and fairy tales and such to say anything else), the significance of names, and other things that aren't coming to mind.
This is something Neil Gaiman is an absolutely master at, especially in Neverwhere. It's also something SPN generally does pretty well, since the writers are working directly from my culture's cultural currency: American urban legends and local mythology. I already half-know a lot of the stories SPN tells, even though I don't know the specifics. (OTOH, this makes it harder for the stories to feel fresh and puts even more of the load on long-term arcs and character work, especially between the leads, but that's a separate problem.)
For me, though, the very best kind of worldbuilding is one where the creator starts with a specific premise and works those implications out across the board. It's kind of like a really solid AU fic where some specific event is different and the author then explores the huge reach of the ripples of that one event. All the consequences are taken into account. (I said something to
quinara once about wanting things to make sense, and she teasingly called me a monotheist. Which, yanno, I am. I expect the world to make sense on some level, even if it's not on one I understand. Fair warning. *g*)All I've talked about here is magic in the Buffyverse, which is one of my major complaints, but evil and demons are two other topics I tend to grumble about a lot. The chip is another thing, not because its exact workings are not explained, but because they contradict themselves. (
rahirah summarizes the contradictions here.) There's also the truly bizarre historical stuff (the Knights of Byzantium; the fact that every major mystical artifact in the world, of any culture, seems to be located in Sunnydale), the ret-conning (the origins of demons, Olaf's troll hammer suddenly becoming the hammer of a troll god, the surprise appearance of the Guardian), and the just plain sloppy phrasing (in particular the explanation for Glory's portal: Giles says it will be open "until the blood stops flowing," but that doesn't explain why some good bandages and a coagulant aid couldn't fix the problem, nor, more seriously, why Buffy's death could fix it, since Dawn is still bleeding after Buffy takes the swan dive).Several folks have pointed out to me recently that BtVS isn't about monsters, but about the girl defeating them, and that the ironic dismissal of the monsters is part of the power of the story. I'm okay with that as long as the writers let ironic dismissal win the day, as in Prophecy Girl or Restless or The Zeppo. But often, as in Innocence or Becoming or The Gift, the monsters and the damage they do is real, and I can't take that seriously unless those monsters and their origins make sense to me. If they come across as fabrications so that the writers can artificially push the story where they want it go, that just feels like manipulation, and I resent my feelings being manipulated.
All that said, I do not always hate Buffyverse worldbuilding; one thing I really enjoyed early on was all the different uses the writers had for Angel's vampirism. The moment where he kisses Buffy in "Angel" and her cross burns his chest? That was a perfect confluence of worldbuilding and theme. Angel being unable to resuscitate Buffy after she's drowned would have been another such moment, except that David Boreanaz is not exactly subtle about his breathing and anyway breathing is a semi-voluntary action. It was a nice thought, though. I also liked the bit in "The Dark Age" where Angel destroys Eyghon and in "I Only Have Eyes For You" when his being a vampire breaks the cycle of the haunting. Those are all places where the plot and the theme were direct outgrowths of worldbuilding that was already in place; the three worked in tandem, and nothing had to be invented on the spur of the moment. In non-Angel examples, the idea of Buffy and Dawn's blood being enough alike to allow a substitute was a very nice idea, although I wish they'd been a bit more explicit about how that worked.
One more extra-Buffyverse example of worldbuilding that works, and I'll call it quits. According to the Battlestar Galactica rules, the consciousness of a Cylon who dies in one body is downloaded into a new identical body. In an episode I watched recently, the Cylon half of a Cylon-human couple has deep personal reasons for wanting to get onto a Cylon ship. So, in a beautifully acted and truly affecting scene, she convinces her human spouse to shoot her dead. And he does.
If there is any such thing as a perfect scene, this was it. Long-term plot and three and a half seasons of character development led to this moment in which the human's - and our - whole intuition about how the world works comes smack against a bit of worldbuilding that has been hanging about since S1. The writers worked with the worldbuilding instead of against it. No manipulation. Just, yeah, perfect.
