India the Vampire Slayer is not a Whedonverse Character

nerd4hire

nerd4hire

Certified Uncloneable
Joined
Nov 13, 2002
Messages
9,102
Apparently there's a writer named Nancy Holder. As I understand it she writes stories based on Joss Whedon's Buffy/Angelverse.

OK if I get any of this wrong be sure to straighten me out, because I'm a Buffy/Angelverse fanatic, but I don't know a lot about Nancy Holder.

I believe one of the continuing characters from her stories is called India Cohen, and in the Holderverse this Slayer preceded Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the Whedonverse, is that correct?

That's all fine, I guess, here's the thing though. Nancy Holder's stories have no affect on Whedonverse Buffy. Don't be telling me Slayer's and watchers have been romantically involved, because India had a relationship with her watcher. It's like trying to convince me such and such is the case, because you read a story in a fanfic that says so.

India was not the slayer who preceded Buffy. Well, maybe in a Nancy Holder forum she was, but not in a Joss Whedon one. If you're talking about BTVS, Nancy Holder stories and characters do not apply. They have nothing to do with Buffology, Angelogy, or Whedonology.

Joss Whedon says who the slayer was before Buffy. I'm not sure Joss Whedon even knows who Nancy Holder is. I know he hasn't read her stories, because he says so.

Whedon doesn't generally have input on most of the merchandising. "There is so much product, you have to give up control. I don't read the books. Not because I don't want to, I just don't have the time. In the very beginning we set down some guidelines [for the books and comics]. Things like 'no cheesecake.' That was about the extent of it."

http://www.ugo.com/channels/filmtv/features/firefly/josswhedon.asp

So what about Tales of the Slayer then? If you go to Amazon, you'll see Tales of the Slayer with stories by Nancy Holder and they say in the blurb Tales of the Slayer by Joss Whedon right?

Actually, not exactly. There's a Tales of the Slayers by Joss Whedon. It's kind of an anthologized Graphic novel written by whedonverse writers like, I believe Petrie, Fury, Espenson, and even Joss himself.

The four Tales of the Slayer volumes however, have no whedonverse connection, other than a couple of Espenson, and Kirshner contributed stories. The large bulk of the stories though are contributed by writers with no Whedon connection whatsoever.

So why do they say Tales of the Slayer by Joss Whedon then? Well, actually they don't. If you read the fine print they say "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales of the Slayer, Vol. 2
by Joss Whedon (Creator)". It's presented in such a way that if it came down to a legal question they could say "We're only saying Joss Whedon is the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

They'd like you to believe Joss is connected to the book, but if you look at the cover here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/im...31866-3183036?_encoding=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

you'll see Joss Whedon's name is not listed as having offered any kind of editorial contribution. It only says:

A collection of original short stories based on the hit TV series created by Joss Whedon

In fact Joss describes how his name is used on the books here:

If my name's going to be on it, it should be mine. Now, the books I have nothing to do with, and I've never read them. They could be, "Buffy realized that abortion was wrong!" and I would have no idea. So, after my big, heartfelt, teary speech, I realize that I was once again lying. But I sort of drew the line. I was like, "I can't possibly read these books!" But my name just goes on them as the person who created Buffy.

http://www.theonionavclub.com/feature/index.php?issue=3731&f=1

So I just thought I'd tell you guys that. Think of it as a little heads up, so you'll know what happened when your "India is So-o-o-o Cool" thread gets moved from the Whedonverse forum to the Inside Out forum.
 
Good point N4H - as much as I have enjoyed Nancy Holder's (and others') Buffy/Angel books, they are not canonical unless Joss says so. Shame, because the books have introduced a couple of interesting ideas...plus the ones I've read have been very good🙂
 
From Joss's point of view, I think I can see at least one reason he might want to separate himself from the books.

If the books were ever seen as having an influence on Buffy/Angel canon it might interfere with stuff he himself wanted to do in the future.

Here's an example. I was reading in the Hellmouth Guardian thread where SlayerThe was pointing out there has been a couple of mentions in BTVS suggesting the Slayer preceding Buffy was not attractive.

Now I don't know if it's the case, but suppose Nancy Holder told us India is gorgeous. In the Holderverse, India precedes Buffy. Couldn't this interfere with some possible future plan Joss might have had of introducing a homely slayer?

Question: Are there any examples of stuff happening in the books that contradicts Buffy/Angel canon?
 
Mr. Pointy
Mr. Pointy
Ah, but, onr person's "gorgeous" is another's "homely" :)
No the pictures they showed of India were not very attractive. I haven't read what they say about her in Tales of the Slayer V.3, but In the Book of Fours, the picture is no where near Buffy/Kendra/Faith caliber.
 
nerd4hire said:
Question: Are there any examples of stuff happening in the books that contradicts Buffy/Angel canon?
Click to expand...
I can't think of anything that actually contradicts off the top off my head but there are certainly things that happen (for example) in books set during Buffy season 5 that would've been worthy of a mention on-screen😉

I think that "The Lost Slayer" series by Christopher Golden, where much of the action was set in the future, may have been made to look silly by the endings of both shows but, then again, future stories are always explainable as possible alternate futures (multiverses, trousers of time and all that 🙂)
 
Sorry about that. I didn't mean to suggest there was a contradiction there with the attractive/unattractive preceding slayer thing. I only meant it as an example that said, if there was a contradiction between what the books say about the Buffyverse, and what Joss says about it, it becomes a problem if both are canon. That's why there can only be one, and for now it's the one overseen by Joss.
 
Cordelia said:
Found this website which I thought was cool and on topic, not to mention something which I think Comma had requested....a slayer time line...

http://members.aol.com/apostmodernsleaz/slayers.html
Click to expand...

That's pretty interesting, but I think it's important to point out it's fan opinion, just as much of this thread is.

I would disagree with what the writer says here:

Entries in yellow are from original novels, and are the least likely to be canon. This doesn't mean they should be completely discounted, especially in the case of the Tales of the Slayers novel since I suspect Joss may have paid more attention to that one then the rest of the novels, but it's still worth noting.

In my opinion the original novels, Tales of the Slayer included, are not canonical at all until Joss Whedon makes a concrete statement claiming he supervised, and approved all facts included.

I also disagree with him when he groups all comics into one category claiming they all contain Joss-endorsed facts. Something like Fray would definitely be Buffyverse canon, because Joss wrote it. As I understand it though, Joss had nothing to do with the Dark Horse Buffy comics (Am I wrong about that?). Then there's stuff that was written by Whedon writers like Jane Espenson. She would have insight into the mind of Joss, so you'd have to give her a few points for credibility, but you'd have to stop short of calling anything she wrote not under Joss's supervision as Buffyverse canon.

Also a couple of minor niggles on the way that information is presented on that site. He promises to colour code for credibility, but I didn't see it in my browser. And he doesn't make the distinction between Tales of the Slayer, and Tales of the Slayer(s). He calls them both Tales of the Slayers.
 
Yeah I wondered why they didn't get a bit more creative in differentiating them. It would be easier.

I've been searching around and found an article about a Dark Horse Comic called "Tales of the Vampires" in which Joss actually wrote a story along with Jane Espenson and I think Drew Goddard.
 
Yeah, in fact isn't that one a series? I'm not an expert on that one. You'd have to ask someone like WatcherWes, but I'd think that one would qualify as Jossverse, just as the graphic novel anthology Tales of the Slayer(s) would.

On the BBCcult site in the Ecomics section, there are some comics from different places, written by Joss writers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom