hobgoblinn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hobgoblinn) wrote2007-04-20 06:48 pm
hobgoblinn) wrote2007-04-20 06:48 pm
Entry tags:
Giles and Jenny Musings
So, I signed up for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
summerofgiles. I know it's a ways away, and also that if I Really can't come up with a fic, I can always drop back and punt with some meta. One needs only peruse my journal and comments to see that self expression, of the analytical kind, is not one of my problems. But I'm trying to continue writing fiction, and that leads me to the reason for this post.
I'm trying to come up with an idea. What about Giles do I want to explore? Why?
I started going over in my mind the various relationships he has-- not sexual, because I can't write that. Too busy giggling, for one thing. I've read lots of it, and I applaud those who can do it. But for a variety of reasons that have no bearing on this discussion, that's not somewhere I'm able or willing to go. And really, it seems to me the fandom is if anything over-represented in the romance/ sexual relationship department. Real life has lots of other moments, and other kinds of relationships. What do they tell us about Giles, and about things in our lives that matter?
As I reflect on Giles and his relationships, I keep coming back to the realization that Jenny is the first and last time we see him interacting with another adult in a meaningful, connected kind of way. And I'm struck with how she really is unusual as a character in the Jossverse. I Like Jenny. She's in some ways the antithesis of the rest of the group-- a straight shooter who tells you what she's feeling and thinking. She has her secrets, of course, and she suffers a heavy price for keeping them. But she doesn't spend inordinate amounts of time avoiding reality, as the kids and Giles tend to. I get the feeling that Buffy and the Scoobies often don't know what they're really feeling. Jenny, for all her secrets, does. She even knows she's doing wrong, keeping her secrets. But she consciously chooses her actions, and when confronted, she doesn't flinch away from the magnitude of what she's done. I hear her explaining, but not excusing, her actions. And I really respect that. It certainly sets her apart from everyone else in that regard. How would the events of the next 5 years have been shaped, if she'd continued in their midst as a colleague, a fellow fighter, even a lover?
By the time I discovered internet fandom, Jenny was long dead, so I didn't read many fics including her as a character. Oddly, though, one of the first fics I read was Et in Arcadia Ego, by Tweed Empress. Beautifully done, and I highly recommend it, though I blush to admit the, er, adult content put me off a bit at first. I don't have a huge track record to go on, but so far, it seems that my muse leans toward filling in the blanks-- the liminal moments we didn't see, but might have. My Nano novel is future fic, but even that is in my mind filling in and extrapolating a situation I see logically following from the end of the show, and that I've seen in other future fic. But Jenny hasn't called out to me, mostly because , well, she's dead. (Yeah, so was Snyder, but that's a special case.) We Know what happens to her in canon, and frankly, it's depressing at best, and wrenchingly painful at worst. All of which makes it ever Less likely someone's going to write something filling in the blanks, staying true to the achingly beautiful potential of her life.
And that's a shame because I think the Giles/ Jenny dynamic might have things to say. Unfortunately, when they are characters paired in fic, there's a tendency for a good bit of it to not be about anything but getting them together. In every sense. And there's plenty of canon support for this. And plenty of impetus to erase the frustration and sadness of what might have been.
In addition to all this baggage, I think one of the things that makes Jenny hard to write is that the show itself didn't give us much in the way of healthy adult relationships/ examples. It's hard, for me, anyway, to find an angle that somehow reflects canon. That keeps you enough in canon that you're not just hijacking bodies of the actors to play out what would otherwise be original fic. For me, at this stage, fan fiction is about exploring an idea prompted by canon, whether that be the consequences of some known action, or explaining some event intelligibly (always fun in the Jossverse), or taking a closer look at a character or relationship. And if we try to do a what if Jenny had lived story, the temptation I see all too often is to make some kind of happily ever after alternate reality that doesn't seem to capture, for me, the essential unpredictable wild energy of the woman, much less Giles' attraction to it.
Forgive me for rambling on here. I was hoping some of this might kindle some idea I could run with. Not so much. But maybe the comments will be more help. What do you folks think? About anything?
summerofgiles. I know it's a ways away, and also that if I Really can't come up with a fic, I can always drop back and punt with some meta. One needs only peruse my journal and comments to see that self expression, of the analytical kind, is not one of my problems. But I'm trying to continue writing fiction, and that leads me to the reason for this post.I'm trying to come up with an idea. What about Giles do I want to explore? Why?
I started going over in my mind the various relationships he has-- not sexual, because I can't write that. Too busy giggling, for one thing. I've read lots of it, and I applaud those who can do it. But for a variety of reasons that have no bearing on this discussion, that's not somewhere I'm able or willing to go. And really, it seems to me the fandom is if anything over-represented in the romance/ sexual relationship department. Real life has lots of other moments, and other kinds of relationships. What do they tell us about Giles, and about things in our lives that matter?
As I reflect on Giles and his relationships, I keep coming back to the realization that Jenny is the first and last time we see him interacting with another adult in a meaningful, connected kind of way. And I'm struck with how she really is unusual as a character in the Jossverse. I Like Jenny. She's in some ways the antithesis of the rest of the group-- a straight shooter who tells you what she's feeling and thinking. She has her secrets, of course, and she suffers a heavy price for keeping them. But she doesn't spend inordinate amounts of time avoiding reality, as the kids and Giles tend to. I get the feeling that Buffy and the Scoobies often don't know what they're really feeling. Jenny, for all her secrets, does. She even knows she's doing wrong, keeping her secrets. But she consciously chooses her actions, and when confronted, she doesn't flinch away from the magnitude of what she's done. I hear her explaining, but not excusing, her actions. And I really respect that. It certainly sets her apart from everyone else in that regard. How would the events of the next 5 years have been shaped, if she'd continued in their midst as a colleague, a fellow fighter, even a lover?
By the time I discovered internet fandom, Jenny was long dead, so I didn't read many fics including her as a character. Oddly, though, one of the first fics I read was Et in Arcadia Ego, by Tweed Empress. Beautifully done, and I highly recommend it, though I blush to admit the, er, adult content put me off a bit at first. I don't have a huge track record to go on, but so far, it seems that my muse leans toward filling in the blanks-- the liminal moments we didn't see, but might have. My Nano novel is future fic, but even that is in my mind filling in and extrapolating a situation I see logically following from the end of the show, and that I've seen in other future fic. But Jenny hasn't called out to me, mostly because , well, she's dead. (Yeah, so was Snyder, but that's a special case.) We Know what happens to her in canon, and frankly, it's depressing at best, and wrenchingly painful at worst. All of which makes it ever Less likely someone's going to write something filling in the blanks, staying true to the achingly beautiful potential of her life.
And that's a shame because I think the Giles/ Jenny dynamic might have things to say. Unfortunately, when they are characters paired in fic, there's a tendency for a good bit of it to not be about anything but getting them together. In every sense. And there's plenty of canon support for this. And plenty of impetus to erase the frustration and sadness of what might have been.
In addition to all this baggage, I think one of the things that makes Jenny hard to write is that the show itself didn't give us much in the way of healthy adult relationships/ examples. It's hard, for me, anyway, to find an angle that somehow reflects canon. That keeps you enough in canon that you're not just hijacking bodies of the actors to play out what would otherwise be original fic. For me, at this stage, fan fiction is about exploring an idea prompted by canon, whether that be the consequences of some known action, or explaining some event intelligibly (always fun in the Jossverse), or taking a closer look at a character or relationship. And if we try to do a what if Jenny had lived story, the temptation I see all too often is to make some kind of happily ever after alternate reality that doesn't seem to capture, for me, the essential unpredictable wild energy of the woman, much less Giles' attraction to it.
Forgive me for rambling on here. I was hoping some of this might kindle some idea I could run with. Not so much. But maybe the comments will be more help. What do you folks think? About anything?