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Post by Drew on Jun 3, 2004 10:01:39 GMT
I have this weird idea about the older woman. Just an idea for a scene where they learn about her: A violent demon enters. Angel, Spike, and Illyria grab weapons (maybe not Illyria) to attack it. The demon charges and suddenly falls dead before they can even fight it. Angel lowers his sword. Spike nudges the ugly thing with his foot. Illyria cocks her head. Spike: What the bloody hell happened to it? Illyria: Perhaps it knew we were too many. Angel: Well, maybe- (from across the room, the older woman - who has been there the entire time and was just tidying something up or something, says, without even looking up at them) Woman: I killed it
So maybe she'd have some weird mental power. I don't want her to be too powerful, but I thought this was a funny idea - maybe just a funny scene. But I'm liking it less now. I just don't want her to become the same old kind of fighter we had with Gunn.
Okay, forget all that. This older woman is human, but she's different. People, demons, even Angel, Spike, and possibly Illyria find themselves fearing her. There's just something about her that spooks them and they can't put their finger on it. She's very knowledgeable, she can fight. But she's quiet, reserved. What if she was a former Power That. . .Is. . .Was. You know what I mean. She was a Power That Bes. But she had a dissagreement with the other Powers and was voted out and into this world. Not like Glory, though. She's not insane. She's sad. And it is the echoes of her former power that scare everyone around her. But she still wants to help. Maybe that is why she teams up with Angel. Maybe she was thrown out because she was the one that gave Angel the last Cordelia vision, thus setting into motion all of the events of the end of last season. The other Powers think this was a bad idea, this taking down of W&H - as evidenced by the chaos in the streets. But this Power knows better. Now, she has to try and remember (as the conversion to human as diminished her fathoming abilities) what needs to be done. She has to figure out how to help Angel with what needs to happen next. She might not even know she was a former Power.
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Post by Doyle on Jun 3, 2004 10:10:43 GMT
Maybe she was chosen as Angel's successor to the PTB which would give her a reason to dislike Angel and Co. not to mention give reason why she would know what the hecks going on and stuff.
I thought we'd have Angel try to reconnect with the PTB and they would basically toss him out on his butt for what he did, screwing up the balance and all. This works great with that as she would be the new replacement, just as unwilling (no one seems to volunteer for the PTB do they?) as the others and quite bitter about it. Her affiliation with the PTB would give good reason to keep the characters stand offish of eachother but it would still make sense to hook up occasionally. This way it doesnt come off as we are completey ignoring the PTB, we just arent allowing them to play a major role really. It makes sense that if we're going to tackle the repercussions of the SP being cut off, we'd need to show what their opposites are up to and how it affected them.
I dunno, just brainstorming too.
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Post by Joss on Jun 3, 2004 12:56:21 GMT
I'm liking this older woman idea more with every post I read. I am interested particularly by former Power that Was idea. First glory, then Jasmine, now her... this show is making a pretty good argument for female Gods.
Only thing I'm not very onboard with is the whole psychic power/killing things with her mind stuff. This just gives her WAY too much of an advantage in my opinion.
EX: Big demon that no one can destroy is running towards her and she just kills it with her brain while theres still 20 meters between them.
But everything else, mystery, the gang getting a bad feeling about her but not being to pin point what it is... ext, all sounds pretty good.
BTW guys, last night I had a very hard time falling asleep. Alan Tudyk kept popping into my mind and screaming, "Who's running this apocalypse!? Oh, right that would be me. I better get back to work."
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Post by Drew on Jun 3, 2004 20:59:56 GMT
"Who's running this apocalypse!? Oh, right that would be me. I better get back to work." That's hilarious, "Joss". Definitely needs to be a line if we go with him as a villain.
Yeah, I don't like the mind power thing anymore either. What I would suggest as a substitute is what I said about everything and everyone fearing her. A demon could approach her and Angel and Co. are undable to stop it. But the demon just stops in front of her and she stares at it and it runs away or something. She doesn't have any powers, she just has this strong residual echo of power that frightens even the most frightening things.
Doyle, didn't the Powers (or my thinking is, just one Power) want Angel to do what he did, though? The idea that Cordelia's final return in "You're Welcome" and all of "Not Fade Away" are soured by the revelation that it was all an evil trick just strikes me as wrong. I feel strongly that what Angel and Co. do at the end of Season Five NEEDS to be the right thing. It may have chaotic consequences but even those consequences need to be the right thing. The point is that Chaos needs to come before the real good. To negate the grandeur, theme, and bravery of that last scene in "Not Fade Away," I feel would be doing a grave injustice to the series.
The idea of a replacement for Angel is intriguing though. I'm just very wary of souring Angel's sacrifice and bravery at the end of S5.
That may not be exactly what you were saying, but the above paragraph was my response to another post in Conflicts and I thought it had some applicability here.
I also kind of like the idea of angel or spike occassionally finding this woman alone and crying but she doesn't know why. She's lost something. But she doesn't know what. Also, I've switched from a Meryl Streep visual to Helen Mirren. Just keeping you updated.
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Post by Doyle on Jun 3, 2004 21:45:12 GMT
The reason I pitched she be a sorceress was because she could retain her humanity but also have great powers. I liken a sorceress to a witch, just the nature of the powers would different but when all is said in done the person is a human. I mean, I still consider Willow human....
I'm against negating anything from S5 and would like to try our best to use the first 3-6 episodes to finish off some of the dangling threads from S5 such as Eve. I know, I know, nobody liked her...but now we have an oppourtunity to do something interesting with her. A lot of people hated Wesley when he first appeared on Buffy but given time look what they did. I think something similar can be done with Eve, especially being that its all in the scripts hands and the actress wont have a chance to screw it up. lol. And to clarify, I never, EVER wanted Eve and Sirk to be the big bads. I just wanted to clean up loose threads and use them for some exposition and almost as quickly dispense with them.
Regardng the final vision...I think the vision is exactly what the powers wanted Angel to know but they likely didnt expect he'd have the big brass ones to take them all out at once and instead assumed he would take them out slowly from within so as not to upset the balance so much as even it back out. Or something.
I said I wanted to make our mysterious woman the replacement champion and I'm still not convinced thats a bad move, but however we handle it, I think the PTB angle needs to be quickly tossed into the background and not turn into the major focus.
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Post by LizaP on Jun 4, 2004 2:08:35 GMT
Helen Mirren works for me, she's got the attitude adn the possible scariness - love the idea of her as a former PTB - the possibilities are almost endless. Especially if she and Angel are kind of pitted against each other for the first part of the season. And the character would be a gold mine for her own stories.
But she's human, right? All the surviors are not human and the gang needs a human.
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Post by Doyle on Jun 4, 2004 2:22:22 GMT
Technically Fred being split would handle the need for another human to be around, but I never thought the Helen Mirren character (great casting there I think) would be anything but human either. I assumed she would be able to invoke powers of some sort, but not because she isnt human, but because she is knowledgeable.
I like her being current PTB, just to reaffirm they are still in the game and giving her a motive for not liking Angel much since she is basically taking his place due to him screwing up before. I would think we would start with uneasy alliances and then work her in to the group. Maybe when we first see her, she has her own fang gang (who later get taken out which is why she is forced to work with Angel...there isnt anyone else around).
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Post by LizaP on Jun 4, 2004 2:29:46 GMT
Yeah - and she knows more about why LA is trashed and why there needs to be another apocolypse - and where to find some direction. That's what I think we need to have Angel really look for is direction - he emasculated Wolfram & Hart, but how does he get to the senior partners before they resurrect another circle of the black thorn? Or whatever the SP are going to do - and we know they are down but certainly not out.
If she has her own team (as opposed to a gang) I think it would be cool to have most of them be "formers" - like a former watcher, and a former mage, and so on. And all human. Humans have so many frailities.
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Post by LizaP on Jun 4, 2004 2:30:45 GMT
One of these days I will remember that apocalypse only has one "o". My spelling sucks.
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Post by Doyle on Jun 4, 2004 2:34:26 GMT
Maybe all human, yeah, I like that. And make them a reflection of what Angel used to have. A mirror of Cordy, Wes, Gunn, and Fred......when things were still good. A reminder of what he used to have....and has lost. Obviously, i'm not saying a completer re-hash of those characrters but enough to drive the point home.
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Post by Joss on Jun 4, 2004 2:34:48 GMT
Hey guys, a while back we were talking about having the writer of the Shanshu prophecies show up and offer some sort of a spiritual guidance. Why don't we have our Helen Mirren character do what the prophecy writer was going to do (not to become the character, just be the one that does the guys actions)
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Post by Doyle on Jun 4, 2004 2:36:10 GMT
One of these days I will remember that apocalypse only has one "o". My spelling sucks. We're trying to be quite sponatneous in our brainstormings.....misspellings, run-on sentences, bad grammer, etc.....its all good for now. We can clean up our act when we actually write the episodes for public consumption.
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Post by Doyle on Jun 4, 2004 2:38:32 GMT
Hey guys, a while back we were talking about having the writer of the Shanshu prophecies show up and offer some sort of a spiritual guidance. Why don't we have our Helen Mirren character do what the prophecy writer was going to do (not to become the character, just be the one that does the guys actions) If you guys continue to veto me on the Sirk idea then that is definitely a doable plan. Especially since -i'm assuming- she would have the heads up from the PTB. I'd say that its pretty unanimous we are going with the older woman character so could we go ahead and name her? "Older woman character", "Helen Mirren character", etc. is getting old fast. lol.
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Post by LizaP on Jun 4, 2004 2:50:59 GMT
I did mention give the Helen Mirren character the name Cassandra or some other Greek character. I think I will go back to my Greek mythology and see what else I can come up with.
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Post by Doyle on Jun 4, 2004 2:53:56 GMT
Yeah do that, LizaP. I don't think Cassandra has the "ring" to it that the character needs. I was hoping to go to Joss's little convention of naming characters after things such as Faith, Hope, Willow, Spike, etc. but whatever we can get to work is cool w/me.
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Post by LizaP on Jun 4, 2004 4:57:39 GMT
How about this - giving the Helen Mirren character the name of an angel, like Gabriel or some other obscure angel? It would point out that she's sort of in the same spot Angel was in, fighting the good fight with a little help from the PTB - but I don't know the bible and I sure don't know any angel names. It's just a thought but it would be more in keeping with the way Joss names his characters.
Or we could name her after a bush. It worked with Jasmine and Willow.
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Post by Drew on Jun 4, 2004 5:18:03 GMT
Name Suggestions:
Mara Clara Clare (from clarion, meaning "not stormy". . .eh? eh? feh.) Chance (is this just a man's name?) Even (crap, so much like Eve) Elle Fay Allie (how do you spell that?) Dorothy Dot Victoria Nicki or Nikki Miranda Mandy Lethe (kinda nice, but kinda weird) Grace Ruth
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Post by LizaP on Jun 5, 2004 6:46:34 GMT
I like Grace - or maybe we could callher Hero (which is also a Shakespeare character) because that's what she is.
The more I thought about it the more I think a "good" name fits the character as developed so far - and as it was pointed out earlier, Joss likes his names to be indicative of the character, sort of.
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Post by Drew on Jun 5, 2004 16:30:19 GMT
Yeah, Grace is nice. And there's that whole line of "Angels and Ministers of Grace defend us" or something like that. I think it might be from some book. . .er. . .the Bible. . .or what not. A few more suggestions: Etta, Aura, Pearl, Crystal, Tif, Vi, Sing, Shade, Aunt (pronounced Ant), Eleanor, and Amber. Names are hard.
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Post by Doyle on Jun 5, 2004 23:32:43 GMT
Yeah, I'm cool with "Grace" but it wouldn't hurt to keep tossing out ideas until the point where we absolutely MUST make a decision. I kind of like the angel name idea, but it may prove to be too difficult and time consuming to find something that would "fit" the character.
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