My main problem with the division of labour thing is that, whether you call it protagonist privilege or not, Buffy is already all of those things to a large extent. (As are the others, to some extent.) Though on the other hand, that may be the point. Plus, "spirit" is such a vague concept that I'm not sure exactly what we're supposed to think Willow embodies - magic? Belief? Courage and pluck?

It's a Matrix ripoff, but it's a good Matrix ripoff, and as long as Buffy doesn't start flying I'm fine with it.

Barely a 3. Least satisfying Big Bad fight ever.

1. I wish Maggie had returned as The First! To Willow, to make her feel guilty about loving academic work.

2. Buffy as the hand ranks at a 9 for me. Obviously it is her most fundamental role, but slayerness also includes instincts, which are not always channeled physically. Buffy is awesome

3. Willow as spirit ranks at a 10. Perfect.

4. Xander as heart, what is that. 5, because I'm glad they gave him an equal role, I just don't know what it means.

5. Giles as mind ranks at a 7. Giles/books is one of my OTPs, but it's not quite perfect, and that division between mind and spirit doesn't make perfect sense. If there is a category called mind, Willow at least should be part that, too. Making her spirit and him mind seems too easily interpreted as sexist.

6. Not sure, but obvs I'm glad he wasn't.

7. Homage! Pretty!

8. 5 stars, because I just drank a lot of coffee.

Haha, I feel like Spike probably should be staked, but not particularly because of the plan? If anything, the failure of the plan proved how pathetic and ineffectual he is with the chip (poor thing, S4 was not a good season for him), so I can see why Buffy would continue to ignore him. OOMM is a much more stakable offense.

Xander as the heart, I'm his biggest fan but honestly? I think Buffy is the heart of this group.

My favorite part of the episode was:

Xander: You probably just saved us so we wouldn't stake you right here.

Spike: Did it work?

Giles and Willow actually turn to Xander as if he was the one making the decisions, and Xander shrugs and lets Spike be. Awesome!

Maybe Xander is the heart after all. Heh.

I don't really have anything to say except OMG BUFFY IS SO PRETTY IN THIS EPISODE and look at my icon!

Edited at 2011-11-22 09:00 pm (UTC)

1. So, Maggie Walsh, a female mover and shaker, becomes a mindless automaton. Especially since females rarely are shown as having autonomy, and if they are they are usually motivated out of love for a man, seeing her come back as a mindless zombie was disappointing.

2. Xander was the only one that I felt didn't fit. In my mind, someone who is the "heart" should love unconditionally without being judgmental. And Xander is rather judgmental.

6. Sorry, Spike's a wonderful character and all, but he should have been staked.

7. Not remembering the said scenes well, I picked a random answer.

I'm not sure if Xander is the heart at this point, but I like that he adopts that identity... he wants to be the heart, and I think in some ways that belief helps him grow into that role.

I wavered on #6 because Spike did proved that he can still be dangerous, even with the chip. So I think it would have been reasonable to stake him, even though he did save them.

But things were too tense at the time so he got a pass.

This seemed to happen a lot. Which worked to Spike's benefit.

Well, you know on Captain Planet, the one with the heart ring is clearly the most inept of the group, but that's just Captain Planet. Right.

In hindsight it does seem that staking Spike should have been a serious question, but I can understand why at that point it would have felt weird for the scoobies to suddenly leap into Spike with a stake after they had spend most of the season seeing him as helpless chipped comedy vampire, and even in this episode he was still pretty inept and funny at the end with his pathetic attempts to win them over and "good work, team". OOMM was a much more stakeable offense IMO as he actually leaps at Buffy with his game face on in that episode. When it comes down to it both episodes had something similar with Spike trying to get the chip out, but I feel like there should have been more of a seperation between heart and mind in OOMM when Spike is trying to physically attack Buffy which brings back the reminder of his old dangerous self. Whereas Primevil was more like Doomed Spike trying desperately to be his old self again and Willow just feeling sorry for him, so I can understand why none of them really considered the implications of whether this pathetic new Spike really was still a threat to them

And it was a Matrix rip-off, but it looked very cool so eh doesn't bother me

Xander being the heart always felt very random to me, and just a way of making him feel included when he didn't particularly have any other skills to offer... LOL that sounds harsher than I meant it, but I don't think that he was a particularly cuddly guy or anything? He did give Buffy a really nice motivating speech in The Freshman so maybe that's what that came from, but I feel like Giles and Willow were equally the heart of the group in that case and gave Buffy their own supportive pep talks over the years. And Buffy was the same with her friends. I never saw it as Xander's special role in the group or anything like that, so I think it was just the only way they could think of including him

Edited at 2011-11-23 12:37 am (UTC)

#1 Maggie wasn't evil enough for such an ironically cruel ending to be appropriate. (Irony: A mindless zombie under Adam's control being the exact opposite of what she'd planned to happen.)

#2 Buffy's not just the muscle, she's the inspirational leader too.

#3 #5 Willow is extremely intelligent but she's not really intellectual. Giles is the one who stays up all night reading and studying; Willow takes shortcuts and relies more on inspired guesswork and intuition. So, appropriate in my eyes.

#4 Appropriate. He's the supportive one they go to for pep talks and heartwarming speeches. And if he's judgemental sometimes, that's the whole point: he thinks with his heart, not his head.

#6 They don't stake him now because they know him, and it would be ooky.

#7 It's not a homage to 'The Matrix', it's a homage to 'The Flatrix'. Haven't you listend to the commentary? :)

Actually, it's one of my favourite season-finale battle scenes: I love glowy orange-eyed Sumerian-speaking Combo-Buffy.
(Yes I know it's not technically the season finale.)

1. I was going to say "no" at first because I thought the final appearance was kind of awful for the actress. However, considering what Maggie planned with Adam and what she wrought with constructing him, I'd say it's appropriate in that she got what she asked for.

2. Completely agreed. She was the hand, the fist, the round house kick, the warrior who fought for the world. Total manus.

3 & 4 - I voted 5 on both because I thought Willow and Xander's roles as Spirit and Heart were interchangeable.

5. Voted 10. This was self-evident to me.

6. No. He used what already existed to get them to fight and walk away from each other. Considering the things he'd done previously to them, this didn't rate a staking.

7. I don't mind but let's call a cigar a cigar. It's a rip off.

8. Good epsisode but not awesome. That's reserved for Restless.

Yeah, it was too close an airing to the film, I think to be an homage...Then again, nearly everyone and their mother was ripping off "The Matrix."

Staking Spike then wouldn't have made that much sense. I mean if that were the case, why not have done it when he threatened to steer Faith in their direction if he found her first? That, and he was still willing to help for the right dollar amount :p Also, his actions, in comparison to Walsh's, really wasn't that bad. I know she got skewered and zombified and stuff, but she attempted to kill Buffy, and who knows what her whacktastic plan had been with Adam...

For the super being thing, I'd rank the mind as the highest, then the spirit and the heart (because, I figure you have to be fairly strong to sustain that kind of power and channel it into another), and then the hand. The only real physical thing was pulling out Adam's power center, right? It's been awhile since I've seen that ep.

And I cannot tell you how disappointed I was with what they did to Maggie's character...really, she should have been the Big Bad for the season--and not some patchwork demon :/

1-It didn't do anything positive for her character, but it seemed to be the final nail in the coffin that was Riley being 'for' the Initiative and 'with' Forrest.

2-10 Up to this point, she has been the hand in most episodes and each season finale with the instrument that she's wielding being different.

3-9 As I took 'spirit' to mean her magical capabilities, it fits. Though, I didn't give it a 10 'cause at first 'spirit' made me think of a soul which doesn't really fit.

4-6 Out of the four, he is the one who would have this aspect, but it doesn't really fit. It always seemed like they shoe-horned him in just so he wasn't left out and so he too could dream...

5-9 At one time Willow might have surpassed Giles, but with her having shifted her focus to the magicks, he is the knowledgeable one.

6-Not sure 'cause I can see the reason to stake him, but he's still defenseless so there's still that.

7-What? Watching again made me see a few reasons why someone might say that, but if this hadn't mentioned it, I never would have seen it on my own.
Plus, I love when they (but I want to say Willow) turned the shell into the doves.

8-5 One of my top ten episodes. I love it when Xander can't even begin to defend Spike. "Spike's working for Adam?! After all we've done-- nah, I can't
even act surprised."

1. I like the poetic justice of Maggie Walsh being turned into one of her own zombies, and it works thematically for me. But yeah, it smarts, because she had such Big Bad potential.

I love the spell! They all work for me. Probably another thematic thing, though, my little heart grows three sizes whenever the episode hits another "Buffy's not alone" note. Love it.

6. Not sure. Because he clearly deserved it at that point, but awww. He's all pathetic!

It's one of the episodes that probably sounded great in theory, but actually fell kinda flat. Still, I like it a lot, and it might be purely for this scene:

Colonel: Shut up. You've got some nerve, lady. (unzips the bag) You
think you and your friends can just keep waltzing into a government
installation brandishing weapons like--

He holds up the device.

Colonel: Like--

Willow: It's a gourd.

Giles: Magic gourd.

Colonel: What kind of freaks are you people? (puts the gourd down)

1. A bit anti-climactic.

2. Buffy as the hand makes the most sense, since she's the one who does the physical fighting.

3. I honestly don't know what they mean by "spirit", but Willow's into magic, so it sort of made sense.

4. Hey, this is the guy who will one day save the world by telling someone that he loves them. So yes, I think he is the heart (even if he doesn't always live up to that role to the best of his ability). I also appreciate that it's a male character who is the heart of the team. That usually is not the case in TV shows.

5. Being the mind works for Giles.

6. I said "no", but maybe I should have said "not sure". I just don't want Spike to be staked. He did end up helping them, and his plan was so useless. Staking him would have felt wrong at that point. (OOMM, of course, is a completely different story.)

7. I have never ever seen more than a couple minutes of any Matrix movie, so I have no opinion.

8. I went with three stars, but it's been awhile since I've seen this episode. I thought it was an rather dull series finale, but luckily there is Restless to save S4 from obscurity.

Buffy's way more than just the hand, and Willow's major weakness is in her way of thinking, so spirit is not really appropriate.
About Spike, they were not really expecting anything good from him, so what was different to make them want to actually stake him? Plus they did have that annoying--for Spike--habit of underestimating him.
Surprisingly, they were often very right...
: )

Xander as the heart totally works for me, you just have to use a different definition of heart than the idea of the emotional, loving, super sympathetic *cough*Tara*cough* person that I think most people are thinking when the say Xander=/= Heart. Xander is the heart in that he is core of the Scooby Gang. Which I know sounds ridiculous because "the core," obviously Buffy, right? Just bear with me on this one for a sec.

The composition of the Scooby Gang changes a lot over the seven seasons of the show but the central four have always been Buffy, Giles, Willow, and Xander. It's always been the four of them together... except that time between Seasons 2 and 3 when Buffy ran away to LA. Or that time between Seasons 5 and 6 when she was dead. Or that time in Season 6 when Giles went back to England because he was "standing in the way." Or that time in Seasons 6 and 7 when Willow got addicted to magic, turned evil, and had to go to England to get clean. Xander what, leaves for a day or two right after Hell's Bells?

Xander is their rock, and while most of that stuff admittedly happened after this episode, from an overall narrative perspective I think Xander as the heart works.

1. It was unnecessary. She had what "she deserve" when Adam killed her.

2. Yes, I voted 9. But also, I think Buffy's the heart of the group. She ofter fights with passions and for love (not only romantic love). I don't think it's really appropriate to create drastic roles. Buffy is the hand but always connected with the emotions (the heart) Unless you talk about her depression.

3. Yeah. She's very intelligent, but mostly interested in wicca, magic, afterlife ... so spirit it's kinda fine.

4. Sometimes Xander is such an insensitive (like when he tells Riley about Angel sex with Buffy) but the heart is often blind.

5. Yes.

6. The fact is that, to be honest, Buffy should kill him at first. He's still evil, the chip blocked him, but he's still an vampire killer. I think that Buffy respect a sort of "warrior code": she fight an equal.

Completely off topic, but I found this site and I know you're intense love of all things graph-related. I think you would really really like it. You can see the visualization of trends over time in each country on a huge number of statistics.
http://www.gapminder.org/