 | | 02-02-2018, 10:34 AM |
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#73
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Fan Forum Star
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 175,552
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Quote:
I think we all tend to remember Joyce as she’s portrayed in seasons 3 through 5, wherein she’s this really supportive, caring, fantastic mom. She has college talks with Buffy, makes hot chocolate for her friends, and calls Dawn her ‘lil punkin belly’ - it’s all adorable. I’d never argue that that Joyce was a bad mother. I’d also never say that Buffy is better off without her mom, under any circumstances, because Buffy obviously loves her a ton.
However, if we take a second and think about the way Joyce acts through seasons 1 and 2… it’s obvious that the writers didn’t like her as much then. The episode Ted (in which Ted smacks Buffy in the face, and then Joyce accuses her of lying about it) is enough to make that obvious. For every great moment she had (for instance, hitting Spike in the head with an axe in School Hard), there were two or three awful ones (kicking Buffy out of her own home, for example, and then later blaming Giles for the fact that Buffy’s left town).
Part of me wonders if this shift in character was just a perspective thing. I mean, in those first two seasons, we’re mostly seeing Joyce from the perspective of a sixteen-year-old girl. And what 16-year-old doesn’t argue with her mom? Maybe the mere fact that Buffy’s aging every season and maturing into an adult means that she sees her mom’s actions in a more positive light (and thus, so do the viewers). Or maybe it really was all dependent on the fact that after season 2 the big slaying secret was out. I don’t know. But I do think it’s silly to deny the fact that Joyce came across kind of badly in the first couple seasons. Not as a bad mother, exactly, or a bad person - just someone who was sort of ignorant and non-sympathetic, even outside of the slaying stuff.
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heartbreak is the national anthem
I found that to be an interesting read. The change in perspective makes since to me, on top of Joyce coming to terms with Buffy’s slaying, because as you get older and more mature your mom stops being this uncaring, unsympathetic villain that she was when you’re in your teens and becomes more of a friend and confidant.
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