Should Dawn Have Died At The End of Season 5?

Then Janice became Joan and had to move to Arcadia 😛 She was probably dealing with vampire/Sunnydale trauma.
 
Mr. Pole said:
But she wasn't the new kid in town. She had been in town for 5 years. She could have made friends in five years. The monks didn't want her to have friends.
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But I was treating it as if she was new b/c she only became real when she became real... so though she has memories of friends, it's not that unreasonable that the realities in her memories that a while to percolate through her reality.
 
DeepBlueJoy said:
But I was treating it as if she was new b/c she only became real when she became real... so though she has memories of friends, it's not that unreasonable that the realities in her memories that a while to percolate through her reality.
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And that is the issue I had with Dawn and the writing. We knew she was new, but in the world she had existed since day one. Yet she had none of those things that would suggest she was anything but new. The world should have changed when Dawn came into existence yet it stayed the same. That should not have been. Dawn should have changed the entire show. She wasn't meant to be a character as the show was ending so they overlooked all of the 'minor' stuff.
 
Mr. Pole said:
And that is the issue I had with Dawn and the writing. We knew she was new, but in the world she had existed since day one. Yet she had none of those things that would suggest she was anything but new. The world should have changed when Dawn came into existence yet it stayed the same. That should not have been. Dawn should have changed the entire show. She wasn't meant to be a character as the show was ending so they overlooked all of the 'minor' stuff.
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yeah, there is that ending thing... it was supposed to end in season 5. When you look at that season in the light of how it supposed to go, you do notice interesting things.
I am not sure you can change everything... you don't want to make her noticeable and so the world just makes space for her, but it doesn't get radically transformed.

If they'd fitted her in in a way that changed the world, she would have been noticeable to Glory and her hench creatures... if they'd made her Buffy's kid -- that would have heralded her as 'new' and 'remarkable'. If you just stretch reality a little bit and slip her into a pocket, however, she's not that noticeable, not as likely to be found, and that, was part of the goal. Make her hard to find. Let Buffy protect her. Help us know her purpose... because if she didn't have one, there would be no reason to protect her. It would be better for her to die (or never exist as a person) and the monks could have taken care of that without creating a bond between her and the slayer...

There is where I always blame the writers. Dawn had to have a purpose, IMO. After Glory, separate from Glory. This is why I've invented one for her at least a couple of times.
 
DeepBlueJoy said:
you don't want to make her noticeable and so the world just makes space for her, but it doesn't get radically transformed.
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But Buffy herself would have been radically transformed. Joyce would have been radically transformed. These would not be the same people they were in S4. They would not think or behave the same. I can't imagine Joyce being as relentlessly maniacal over Buffy in S2/3 had Dawn been at home needing care. When Faith broke in an imprisoned Joyce, what would she have done to Dawn? By implanting memories of another life, their behavior should have changed, yet they remained the same people.

Of course I am still in the camp that Dawn contributed to Joyce's death, but that's for another thread.
 
Mr. Pole said:
But Buffy herself would have been radically transformed. Joyce would have been radically transformed. These would not be the same people they were in S4. They would not think or behave the same. I can't imagine Joyce being as relentlessly maniacal over Buffy in S2/3 had Dawn been at home needing care. When Faith broke in an imprisoned Joyce, what would she have done to Dawn? By implanting memories of another life, their behavior should have changed, yet they remained the same people.

Of course I am still in the camp that Dawn contributed to Joyce's death, but that's for another thread.
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Sigh. It's a TV show, luv, it can't do everything! besides, what do you want them to do, show all the previous four years over again? We did have flashbacks that included Dawn. Then we saw Joyce act as if Dawn being there was normal... when i first saw that, I was actually confused... b/c I didn't know the show all that well, and I was wracking my brain trying to remember where this girl came from... for about an episode. Truthfully, I'm not sure how much you could have changed -- everyone acted as if Dawn was family. The little sister dynamic was fully in play from the first time mom made Buffy take Dawn with her and cramped her style! Which was pretty much the moment she appeared.
 
DeepBlueJoy said:
Sigh. It's a TV show, luv, it can't do everything! ... what do you want them to do
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If they can't do it right then they shouldn't do it. It wasn't a minor thing. What I wanted them to do was show how it affected the characters. It's no different than people complaining of the instant soul gratification from Spike. They make these sweeping changes but don't bother to show the affect it has. What do I want? That. That's what cheapens the show in my eyes and makes most of the drama inconsequential, as the results and actions don't matter. There are no stakes if you don't show how things are affected. If they wanted to be bold and add this character out of thin air, then be bold and change who the characters are, as they would have been. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. It was cheap, hack story writing, in my opinion. Coupled with the fact that SMG was the reason Trachtenberg was cast as Dawn, in my opinion, doesn't help the matter. It was placating the star versus casting based upon what the story called for.
 
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