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This is a list strictly limited to BtVS of things that made absolutely no sense to me on the show (so there's no S8 stuff... that would be a whole other longer list).
Things That Just Didn't Make Sense.
1. Why did Joyce not file a missing person's report when Buffy ran away at the end of Season Two? I do not remember this being covered on the show. Speaking of, did Buffy actually complete her Junior year of school? She missed the tail end of it, and her grades were always spoken of to be subpar, so we assume that she does because she graduates on schedule, but it really doesn't make a lot of sense except that Giles threatens Synder to let her back in school and ergo could have forced him to let her move ahead to the correct grade, but still...
2. After Joyce's death in Season Five, why wasn't Buffy receiving child support for Dawn from Hank Summers? He would have been paying child support for both of his daughters up until 1999 when Buffy turned 18, but he would have been still making payments for Dawn. I know there's a theory going about that Hank has no idea who Dawn is, but that would have been suspicious if the monks' spell was never found out and Hank was only sending birthday and Christmas cards to Buffy and not Dawn.
3. The first surgery to remove Spike's chip is just not right. If Polite Dissent has taught me anything, it's that how that Initiative doctor went about it is not right. He didn't shave the hair off where he was going to make his incisions into Spike's skull or anything. I would also think that if you were operating on the back of someone's head (where Spike's chip is show to be) why would you have them lay down to do exploratory surgery on their brain anyway? Don't they normally have people sit up for that kind of surgery, bolted into one of those collars to keep their heads still?
4. Why did the DHS investigation into Buffy's guardianship of Dawn stop? Just because a social worker is taken off a case (if that is what happened to Mrs. Kruegler in "Gone"), the investigation does not stop. They would get someone new on the case and continue the investigation. "Gone" is an episode that really irks my mother, who worked for the Department of Children's Services for over fifteen years. She has a lot of strongly worded things to say about it and why it's very wrong. XD Mrs. Kruegler asked hardly any questions while in Buffy's house. If a social worker has a suspicion that they have come across a huge bag of drugs that the person being investigated calls "magic weed," the police are going to be called. The suspicious looking contents of the bag will be confiscated to be tested, and Buffy would be asked to submit to a drug screening, and Dawn would have been either taken to a relative or put into temporary state custody (whatever California guidelines are for such a situation). No one would leave a child in a situation where they think that there are drugs involved like that. If Buffy tests clean and the "magic weed" isn't found to be a drug, then Dawn would have been returned. Also, Mrs. Kruegler asked no questions about the people living in Buffy's house. The fact that guests are in the home is not an issue, but if someone is living in the home, the social worker should be asking for all their information, want to talk to them herself/himself, and find out if they have any criminal records and such. Also, did Buffy care that by trying to destroy Mrs. Kruegler's career by calling into question her sanity how much money that was going to cost the state to possibly re-investigate all of her cases? That Buffy might be jeopardizing the safety of children in the system? I guess she was too happy whistling her invisible ass into Spike's bed to actually use her brain and think for a moment about her fucking actions. It's one of those moments where I dislike Buffy very, very much. "But, Fender," some people cry out, "you're not supposed to think about those things!" Tough!
5. Going back to the above, why didn't Hank Summers just turn guardianship of Dawn over to Buffy? If they had gone through the courts, he could have signed guardianship over to his adult daughter, and there would have been no reason for DHS to be involved or to investigate. Also, DHS would have done a background check on Buffy before continuing to allow her to keep Dawn. That means that all the 911 calls from the Summers' house, all the police reports where Buffy's name comes up (like in several investigations for MURDER), and possibly even her stay in a mental institution would come up. They would not leave a child in her custody. However, if Hank signed over his guardianship, in most cases, they wouldn't do the background check, and Buffy could keep Dawn without DHS ever having to be involved... yet they were... and yet no one did a background check... *head-desk*
5. Vampires have no breath... yet they talk and smoke cigarettes. We see vampires sighing, taking sharp intakes of breath, yelling, gulping... Either Joss Whedon doesn't understand how respiration works or... Well, that's it... Vampires would be like walking oxygen tanks. They take in oxygen and exhale oxygen unlike us pitiful humans who turn oxygen into CO2 when exhaling. If Angelus can smoke a cigarette, then Angel would have been able to give Buffy CPR in "Prophecy Girl" unless... he wanted the prophecy about a Slayer dying at the Master's hands to be true so he thought that Buffy had to die...
6. The Slayer spell in Chosen as Buffy & Co's only recourse of action. I'm not trying to say that Buffy made the wrong or right choice or that another choice would have been better, BUT the whole show is predicated upon only never being only; there is always, always another way, but I'm not even going to get into this one because it would be its own post.
7. Vampire physics including but not limited to- various reflections of vampires throughout the show. I know these are gaffs, and sometimes they're not that noticeable, but Spike's clear very obvious reflection in "Him" actually had me wanting him to turn to the window and say, "HOLY SHIT! I can see myself!" You can't use telepathy on vampires... only that's the only way Betta George can communicate so are vampires able to hear telepathic communications but not send them? I'm fairly certain that Spike does talk to George through thought alone on a few occasions (okay, that was a comic-related one, but still). What constitutes a public building where vampires don't need an invitation and what doesn't? Obviously, stores want people to come in, but Ms. Calendar seems surprised that Angelus can get into the school under the guise of "seeking knowledge" per the school's slogan ("Enter all those that seek knowledge" or something like that), and in "Lie to Me" we see two vampires on school grounds and you could argue that they were seeking knowledge (the knowledge in one of Giles's books). However, Spike and his whole crew of vampires attack the school, and I doubt they were seeking the book-larnin'. And some newer crypts would be considered private property as the plots are owned and maintained by a relative or trust. Also, Dracula has magical Dracula-physics that only apply to him... or he's just too superstitious to realize that he doesn't actually need his special dirt to cross open bodies of water.
8. Spike's grave. Does he have one? He tells Buffy that he had to crawl out of his own coffin in S6, but in LMPTM in S7 we learn that Drusilla, unlike Darla did with Liam, did not leave William to be found and buried by his family. Anne still believed her son to still be alive after he'd been missing for several days. So, that leaves the question if Spike was buried at all? There's a few possibilities. Did he just say that he was buried to make Buffy feel less alone in what she had gone through? Or, did Drusilla bury him herself? On A:ts, Drusilla buries Darla after she re-sired her in a shroud in a greenhouse planter. Could she have buried William in a coffin or coffin-like box so that he could rise?
9. Does everyone in the Buffyverse have at least one awful parent or have the perception that their parents are awful? Fred is the exception 'cause her parents are AWESOME and I would totally watch a sitcom about Roger and Trish Burkle. (Weird side note: What's with all the re-namings in these shows? Spike and Angel basically have the same name, William and Liam. Fred and Wesley's fathers are both named Roger. Anne, Spike's mother's name, is also Buffy's middle name and consequently the name Lily/Chantarelle takes are her own (a weird side note within a side note: in the shooting script, Spike's mother's name was Constance, which I think goes nicely with "William" since it means resolute protector) (another weird side note: in the original shooting script for Hell's Bells, Xander and Anya's kids were named Sarah and David XD )).
10. Fluctuating power levels! How strong are everyone's powers? It's hard to tell. Spike can't lift Olaf the Troll God's Enchanted Hammer, and Buffy can, but Spike can stand his own with Illyria one-on-one... I guess that was after she lost some of her powers... Angel has super-duper-superman strength... except, of course, when there's an itsy bitsy padlock on the door like in What's My Line, Part 1. How strong Willow's magicks are exactly is completely up-in-the-air throughout the later seasons as are Giles's. Buffy's healing powers are also all over the map- stab to the gut can still run pretty quickly though she does pass out eventually and is even still conscious after nearly being beaten to death by a TurokHan, but bruise her side/back area and she's completely incapacitated. There are several scenes in which Buffy is seen wearing little bandaids on her fingers and hands in random scenes; these are for SMG's safety and her non-Slayer healing abilities. Slayers should not need bandaids for paper-cut-sized wounds when they can survive massive internal injuries without going to the hospital. Make up your damn minds, writers!
Things That Just Didn't Make Sense.
1. Why did Joyce not file a missing person's report when Buffy ran away at the end of Season Two? I do not remember this being covered on the show. Speaking of, did Buffy actually complete her Junior year of school? She missed the tail end of it, and her grades were always spoken of to be subpar, so we assume that she does because she graduates on schedule, but it really doesn't make a lot of sense except that Giles threatens Synder to let her back in school and ergo could have forced him to let her move ahead to the correct grade, but still...
2. After Joyce's death in Season Five, why wasn't Buffy receiving child support for Dawn from Hank Summers? He would have been paying child support for both of his daughters up until 1999 when Buffy turned 18, but he would have been still making payments for Dawn. I know there's a theory going about that Hank has no idea who Dawn is, but that would have been suspicious if the monks' spell was never found out and Hank was only sending birthday and Christmas cards to Buffy and not Dawn.
3. The first surgery to remove Spike's chip is just not right. If Polite Dissent has taught me anything, it's that how that Initiative doctor went about it is not right. He didn't shave the hair off where he was going to make his incisions into Spike's skull or anything. I would also think that if you were operating on the back of someone's head (where Spike's chip is show to be) why would you have them lay down to do exploratory surgery on their brain anyway? Don't they normally have people sit up for that kind of surgery, bolted into one of those collars to keep their heads still?
4. Why did the DHS investigation into Buffy's guardianship of Dawn stop? Just because a social worker is taken off a case (if that is what happened to Mrs. Kruegler in "Gone"), the investigation does not stop. They would get someone new on the case and continue the investigation. "Gone" is an episode that really irks my mother, who worked for the Department of Children's Services for over fifteen years. She has a lot of strongly worded things to say about it and why it's very wrong. XD Mrs. Kruegler asked hardly any questions while in Buffy's house. If a social worker has a suspicion that they have come across a huge bag of drugs that the person being investigated calls "magic weed," the police are going to be called. The suspicious looking contents of the bag will be confiscated to be tested, and Buffy would be asked to submit to a drug screening, and Dawn would have been either taken to a relative or put into temporary state custody (whatever California guidelines are for such a situation). No one would leave a child in a situation where they think that there are drugs involved like that. If Buffy tests clean and the "magic weed" isn't found to be a drug, then Dawn would have been returned. Also, Mrs. Kruegler asked no questions about the people living in Buffy's house. The fact that guests are in the home is not an issue, but if someone is living in the home, the social worker should be asking for all their information, want to talk to them herself/himself, and find out if they have any criminal records and such. Also, did Buffy care that by trying to destroy Mrs. Kruegler's career by calling into question her sanity how much money that was going to cost the state to possibly re-investigate all of her cases? That Buffy might be jeopardizing the safety of children in the system? I guess she was too happy whistling her invisible ass into Spike's bed to actually use her brain and think for a moment about her fucking actions. It's one of those moments where I dislike Buffy very, very much. "But, Fender," some people cry out, "you're not supposed to think about those things!" Tough!
5. Going back to the above, why didn't Hank Summers just turn guardianship of Dawn over to Buffy? If they had gone through the courts, he could have signed guardianship over to his adult daughter, and there would have been no reason for DHS to be involved or to investigate. Also, DHS would have done a background check on Buffy before continuing to allow her to keep Dawn. That means that all the 911 calls from the Summers' house, all the police reports where Buffy's name comes up (like in several investigations for MURDER), and possibly even her stay in a mental institution would come up. They would not leave a child in her custody. However, if Hank signed over his guardianship, in most cases, they wouldn't do the background check, and Buffy could keep Dawn without DHS ever having to be involved... yet they were... and yet no one did a background check... *head-desk*
5. Vampires have no breath... yet they talk and smoke cigarettes. We see vampires sighing, taking sharp intakes of breath, yelling, gulping... Either Joss Whedon doesn't understand how respiration works or... Well, that's it... Vampires would be like walking oxygen tanks. They take in oxygen and exhale oxygen unlike us pitiful humans who turn oxygen into CO2 when exhaling. If Angelus can smoke a cigarette, then Angel would have been able to give Buffy CPR in "Prophecy Girl" unless... he wanted the prophecy about a Slayer dying at the Master's hands to be true so he thought that Buffy had to die...
6. The Slayer spell in Chosen as Buffy & Co's only recourse of action. I'm not trying to say that Buffy made the wrong or right choice or that another choice would have been better, BUT the whole show is predicated upon only never being only; there is always, always another way, but I'm not even going to get into this one because it would be its own post.
7. Vampire physics including but not limited to- various reflections of vampires throughout the show. I know these are gaffs, and sometimes they're not that noticeable, but Spike's clear very obvious reflection in "Him" actually had me wanting him to turn to the window and say, "HOLY SHIT! I can see myself!" You can't use telepathy on vampires... only that's the only way Betta George can communicate so are vampires able to hear telepathic communications but not send them? I'm fairly certain that Spike does talk to George through thought alone on a few occasions (okay, that was a comic-related one, but still). What constitutes a public building where vampires don't need an invitation and what doesn't? Obviously, stores want people to come in, but Ms. Calendar seems surprised that Angelus can get into the school under the guise of "seeking knowledge" per the school's slogan ("Enter all those that seek knowledge" or something like that), and in "Lie to Me" we see two vampires on school grounds and you could argue that they were seeking knowledge (the knowledge in one of Giles's books). However, Spike and his whole crew of vampires attack the school, and I doubt they were seeking the book-larnin'. And some newer crypts would be considered private property as the plots are owned and maintained by a relative or trust. Also, Dracula has magical Dracula-physics that only apply to him... or he's just too superstitious to realize that he doesn't actually need his special dirt to cross open bodies of water.
8. Spike's grave. Does he have one? He tells Buffy that he had to crawl out of his own coffin in S6, but in LMPTM in S7 we learn that Drusilla, unlike Darla did with Liam, did not leave William to be found and buried by his family. Anne still believed her son to still be alive after he'd been missing for several days. So, that leaves the question if Spike was buried at all? There's a few possibilities. Did he just say that he was buried to make Buffy feel less alone in what she had gone through? Or, did Drusilla bury him herself? On A:ts, Drusilla buries Darla after she re-sired her in a shroud in a greenhouse planter. Could she have buried William in a coffin or coffin-like box so that he could rise?
9. Does everyone in the Buffyverse have at least one awful parent or have the perception that their parents are awful? Fred is the exception 'cause her parents are AWESOME and I would totally watch a sitcom about Roger and Trish Burkle. (Weird side note: What's with all the re-namings in these shows? Spike and Angel basically have the same name, William and Liam. Fred and Wesley's fathers are both named Roger. Anne, Spike's mother's name, is also Buffy's middle name and consequently the name Lily/Chantarelle takes are her own (a weird side note within a side note: in the shooting script, Spike's mother's name was Constance, which I think goes nicely with "William" since it means resolute protector) (another weird side note: in the original shooting script for Hell's Bells, Xander and Anya's kids were named Sarah and David XD )).
10. Fluctuating power levels! How strong are everyone's powers? It's hard to tell. Spike can't lift Olaf the Troll God's Enchanted Hammer, and Buffy can, but Spike can stand his own with Illyria one-on-one... I guess that was after she lost some of her powers... Angel has super-duper-superman strength... except, of course, when there's an itsy bitsy padlock on the door like in What's My Line, Part 1. How strong Willow's magicks are exactly is completely up-in-the-air throughout the later seasons as are Giles's. Buffy's healing powers are also all over the map- stab to the gut can still run pretty quickly though she does pass out eventually and is even still conscious after nearly being beaten to death by a TurokHan, but bruise her side/back area and she's completely incapacitated. There are several scenes in which Buffy is seen wearing little bandaids on her fingers and hands in random scenes; these are for SMG's safety and her non-Slayer healing abilities. Slayers should not need bandaids for paper-cut-sized wounds when they can survive massive internal injuries without going to the hospital. Make up your damn minds, writers!
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Buffy and Dawn: Loving yet extremely flaky mother (she got better over time... though there was like two episodes where you go the impression that Joyce was sorta boozy) and absentee father straight out of an Everclear song. Don't forget that Hank reenforces Buffy's fears that ALL MEN WILL HURT AND LEAVE YOU.
Willow: Mother too absorbed in her own career to have any idea what her child is doing or what her interests are. Father is still around but has the same level of or less involvement in his daughter's life that his wife has, not to mention that he's so strict about his religious beliefs that he won't let his daughter watch a Christmas cartoon.
Xander: All relatives are presented as drunks, thieves, cheats, scoundrels, and all combinations of the above. Father is physically abusive and an alcoholic as is the mother (though she seems to only be abusive back towards her husband). His mother at least tries to act like a "normal" mother towards her son.
Angel: Probably actually has the most normal set of parents (for the time period) out of all the characters. His father just wants him to make something out of himself, make a real life in the world, and unfortunately does seem to be a bit harsh about it. We also get the feeling that Angel's mother might be a bit overindulgent to both her children.
Spike: Father is just not in the picture. I get the feeling that he's been deceased for a while (his mother's not wearing black crepe, but she seems to be wearing a wedding ring). His mother is loving yet overindulgent (who probably had hopes that her son had a little more confidence). She doesn't seem to mind that her son has not gotten out of a child mindset around her- she asks him to sit next to her on the sofa, and he in turn sits at her feet instead even though it looks a bit difficult for him to do (blame Marsters's bad knee).
Tara: Father is INSANE and a misogynist, and her mother is dead but we are told she was a loving person before she died who obviously was an encouraging force in Tara's life.
Giles and Wesley both had parents that forced them into being Watchers (and Wes's father is especially cruel, and Giles's Watcher ties lie through his paternal grandmother, I believe). Lorne's family hates him because they can't understand him. We learn nothing about Oz (except that no one told him that Jordie was a werewolf) or Anya's families. Drusilla lived with her mother, her uncle, and her two sisters, and they seemed to have a good relationship (though her mother was obviously very religious and didn't view her daughter's "gift" favorably). Cordelia's parents are the stereotypical rich uninvolved type who commit tax evasion so she's not able to go to college (probably even with the whole Federal lien being put on her parents' assets she wouldn't qualify for Federal aid). Gunn's parents are dead (he and his sister were raised by a strict but loving grandmother, I believe). Connor's parents are Angel and Darla. What else can you really say? XD In the end, Fred is the only character that has a living set of parents who are completely and totally loving and supportive... only now Fred's dead... and that really sucks.
Play devil's advocate only allows me to build steel girders around my mental notes... steel girders that Buffy can magically pick up without bracing or any leverage or without picking it up at the fulcrum. :D