CWDP - How Accurate were Holden Webster's Analyses of Buffy?

N

NoShip

Scooby
Joined
Feb 12, 2023
Messages
1,288
Age
56
I think most of Holden's analyses were purposely wrong. Designed to activate Buffy's innate shame and low self-esteem.

Throughout S1 thru S7 CWDP, when is Buffy shown to feel superior to her family and friends? In The Yoko Factor when she calls them out on not being helpful? In Revelations when she pushes back at Xander's accusations? Throughout S6 when she hides her boinking Spike? In Becoming when she flees Sunnydale after sending Angel to Hell? Or in Anne when she doesn't contact anyone for months?

Personally, I think Webbs' connection to an all encompasing evil gave him the knowledge and motivation to mostly mess with Buffy through his "Psych 101" tricks.

Thoughts?
 
ILLYRIAN
ILLYRIAN
here is a thought for that Holden Webster, when was Buffy shown to feel superior to her dad?
I think there's some merit to Holden's diagnosis, even if it's not completely true. If there wasn't, it likely wouldn't have affected her the way that it did.

I would argue that Buffy does think she's superior, in the same way that someone like Batman does. She knows she has skills and abilities that make her superior, which puts her in a position to take charge of situations and make decisions for others, which I think makes her worry in her less secure moments that this isolation does make her see herself as better than her friends, which she feels guilty about. And sometimes this can be misread on the outside as arrogance, and sometimes it can actually manifest itself as arrogance (for instance, her desire to go back at Caleb with no new plan after what happened to the Potentials, to Xander.)
 
Pretty much everyone is superior to others in some ways, and inferior in other ways. And I think most folk realize that.

Buffy is superior at fighting and she knows it and can sometimes be arrogant about her fighting abilities. And she knows she's pretty, though I think is less arrogant about that. But she knows her flaws. She's not as brainy as say Willow, she has trouble connecting to people. On the whole, considering everything she's been through, I'd say Buffy is fairly mentally balanced.
 
machinewolfhear said:
my brain hurts about this question, who is holden? not to mock you NoShip
Click to expand...

In the season seven episode "Conversations with Dead People," each cast member ostensibly has a conversation with a dead person who, in some way, tests their mettle, attempting to manipulate their weaknesses for the benefit of the First Evil ("Joyce," "Tara," "Cassie Newton" from "Help.") Buffy encounters newly risen vampire Holden Webb (Jonathan Woodward, who also portrayed Tracy on Firefly's "The Message" and Knox on Angel season five), a psychology student who recognizes Buffy. In breaks from fighting, Holden attempts to psychoanalyze her, suggesting she has a superiority complex and an inferiority complex about it.

Hope that helps a bit.
 
Last edited:
machinewolfhear
machinewolfhear
I digged in my memories about buffy episodes but cant remember it, gladly i have all the episodes so i gonna watch it soon.
The thing to remember about vampires is that they're evil predators. Any knowledge they have will be used to exploit weaknesses in their prey.
 
NoShip said:
I think most of Holden's analyses were purposely wrong. Designed to activate Buffy's innate shame and low self-esteem.

Throughout S1 thru S7 CWDP, when is Buffy shown to feel superior to her family and friends? In The Yoko Factor when she calls them out on not being helpful? In Revelations when she pushes back at Xander's accusations? Throughout S6 when she hides her boinking Spike? In Becoming when she flees Sunnydale after sending Angel to Hell? Or in Anne when she doesn't contact anyone for months?

Personally, I think Webbs' connection to an all encompasing evil gave him the knowledge and motivation to mostly mess with Buffy through his "Psych 101" tricks.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Basically the show does a bad job differentiating between feeling superior and being superior. There is a reason even with her friends helping her, Buffy is constantly the one who puts her body on the line in a way they aren't
 
N
NoShip
True.
DeepBlueJoy said:
Not accurate. It was The First's gaslighting. Like all gaslighting, there are shards of truth to make Buffy feel bad
Click to expand...

Was it the First though? The First had never shown an ability to possess people, even vampires, so it certainly seemed like Holden was the one doing the talking. Not saying it wasn't gaslighting, but every time the First was seen, they were doing it as a projection of a dead person (deadogram?). Holden was real.
 
NotASlayer said:
Was it the First though? The First had never shown an ability to possess people, even vampires, so it certainly seemed like Holden was the one doing the talking. Not saying it wasn't gaslighting, but every time the First was seen, they were doing it as a projection of a dead person (deadogram?). Holden was real.
Click to expand...

It's possible that the First gave Holden the information by appearing to him (as she did to Spike, Caleb, and others.) I haven't watched the episode in years, but I don't recall any specific indications of that. It could have been, and I could be failing to remember something, but I just remember it being the fact that Holden knew Buffy when he was alive (though she hardly noticed him) and he was applying what he knew from psychology class to what he knew of her. As I recall, he was surprised to find out that the Slayer was Buffy, wasn't he?
 
Holden is dead and a vampire. At one point he comments about how he feels connected to an all encompasing evil that is going to drag the world into a fiery hell. So he isn't close to being a disinterested therapist trying his best to help his patient. He has an agenda. He wants to impress his new evil pals (even if he hasn't met them yet). He has a skillset that he makes very good use of.
So Holden is advancing The First's agenda even if he doesn't know the plan. Not at all good for Buffy.

Just a thought, when Holden's "therapy session" ended, was Buffy better off, or, worse?
 
NotASlayer said:
.. every time the First was seen, they were doing it as a projection of a dead person (deadogram?). Holden was real.
Click to expand...

Western Tomb-ion? Okay, that was terrible. 😛

NoShip said:
Holden is dead and a vampire. At one point he comments about how he feels connected to an all encompasing evil that is going to drag the world into a fiery hell. So he isn't close to being a disinterested therapist trying his best to help his patient. He has an agenda. He wants to impress his new evil pals (even if he hasn't met them yet). He has a skillset that he makes very good use of.
So Holden is advancing The First's agenda even if he doesn't know the plan. Not at all good for Buffy.
Click to expand...

I certainly wasn't suggesting he was a disinterested therapist or that he was trying to help. I was just suggesting that he was acting of his own accord, not as a puppet of the First Evil. If I recall correctly, he was surprised to find out that Buffy was the Slayer, which would indicate the First hasn't actually been speaking to him.

I had forgotten about his comment about feeling connected to something, but being a demon (a demon's essence puppeteering a human corpse), it would make sense that he could, well, sense such a powerful evil (especially given the First is directly created by and empowered by evil, which vampires would be a part of.) He was serving the First's agenda, but not, in my opinion, because he actually directly knew about or had contact with the First.

That said, maybe it's controversial, but not all vampires seem to have been created equally evil. Spike (whose evil changes depending on the company he keeps), Glasses Guy (from Spike's gang in "What's My Line?"), the boys Dawn goes out with in "All In," etc. Holden, for instance, doesn't seem motivated to do evil because it's evil, because he wants to harm people, but rather because he "should." He just seems to have accepted that he is a vampire and vampires do bad things. He even seems to regret having to fight Buffy, whom he seems to have liked in life. That's not evil in the active sense. And I don't think he was pretending because we have no evidence to suggest that he was. He maintains the same persona the entire time, right up until his death (unlike, say, Darla, whose sweet facade drops and reveals the real her when she takes her victims.)

Now, to be clear, this is not me saying these vampires were good. I'm simply pointing out that some vampires seem to be more amoral than immoral and some seem to be immoral but not actively evil in the sense of desiring evil for evil's sake. Just thinking aloud. Nobody tar and feather me. 😛
 
NotASlayer said:
Was it the First though? The First had never shown an ability to possess people, even vampires, so it certainly seemed like Holden was the one doing the talking. Not saying it wasn't gaslighting, but every time the First was seen, they were doing it as a projection of a dead person (deadogram?). Holden was real.
Click to expand...
It influenced lots. Every time something or someone said 'from beneath you it devours'
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom