Buffy : Season 8

Here we are at the turn of the tide. The penultimate issue of Buffy Season 8 has arrived and if you dare to read the interview below, you probably already know by now the events that have changed Whedonverse fiction forever. You may also be asking yourself "Well, how did I get here?" We’re right there with ya, buddy.

So read on fellow Whedonite, as we take a journey with Season 8 editor and Joss’ co-writer of the final arc - Scott Allie - and try to make some sense of our pain.

Major Spoilers ahead! Seriously, don’t read this if you can help it, spoiler fiend.

Buffyfest: Why in the hell did you guys kill Giles?

Scott Allie: You’re gonna spoiler tag this, right?

Buffyfest: Heh. So, how did the conversation between you and Joss go about this major plot point? Was this something you’ve planned from the beginning?

SA: Revealing too much about this pulls the curtain back on the great and terrible Oz a bit too much. It was planned for a while, but not from the very beginning. I will say this. I’ve been involved now in killing two beloved characters—Giles, and Roger from Hellboy. And both times it had everything to do with the arc of the character, and in this case, the arc of the killer.

Buffyfest: Even though Angel and Giles have had a very tumultuous relationship, there was always an underlying camaraderie in the sense that they both cared for Buffy ("Prophecy Girl", "Pangs", etc.) Can you explain why Angel was chosen as Giles’ murderer?

SA: I’m like you, Michelle—I love these two characters perhaps more than others in Buffy. There are qualities about them as fictional characters that make them appeal to me dramatically, as a reader, or a writer, and that’s more about their flaws than their virtues. And I agree that they had a great dynamic. They were equals in a unique sense among Buffy characters. Back in the earliest seasons, they were the adult characters, so to speak. In a sense their dynamic is why it made sense for Angel to kill Giles. They served similar roles in Buffy’s life, except with Angel as the lover who couldn’t really be her lover, and Giles as the father who couldn’t really be her father. But the real reason is that things were building for each character to where it made sense for one to die, and the other to do the killing. If Spike could’ve been Twilight, it could have made sense for him to do the deed, just a different kind of sense. These relationships are so intense that whoever did the deed, it would have been uniquely meaningful. Even if it were Dawn, it would have changed the world of Buffy in a very particular way.

Buffyfest: Season 8 seems to be the adult version of Season 2. Was that the intention?

SA: No, not the intention, but I think I know what you mean. I love Season 2, and what you’re saying wasn’t the intention, never anything we specifically decided upon, but there’s clear similarities. I think what was great about Season 2 appealed to us in the setup of Season 8, and we ran with those things. But the differences are interesting too. In Season 2, it was fairly easy to say that Angel was not Angelus, but there’s more ambiguity here, in terms of how responsible Angel is for Twilight’s actions. I like moral ambiguity. I find that more adult.

Buffyfest: Continuing with that thought, was the decision to have Angel snap Giles neck a shout-out to the murder of Jenny Calendar?

SA: Well, yes, that’s one of the real concrete similarities. When we set that scene up, Joss said we should specifically reference Jenny’s death, visually, distinctly.

Click on the link for more :

http://buffyfest.blogspot.com/2010/12/exclusive-big-scott-allie-interview.html