The gist of the argument is something like this "A characters abilities are whatever the writer deams they are at the time, and are thus unquantifiable."
Yeah. THAT argument.
Here's the stich, I left a review for a fanfic where a Slayer's abilites were about to be stated (let me say the author does a damn good job of dallying around the issue). I offered to share my research observations, I got this in response:
This was my attempt not to totally BDZ his argument.Any sort of effort to definitively quantify Buffy's abilities is futile, because they have always fluctuated from episode to episode, to serve the needs of the story. For example, in several episodes Buffy is shown to be not a particularly fast runner. Oz runs faster than her in "Wild at Heart," but in "Two to Go" the script describes her as "hitting close to forty miles an hour" when she's running. Sometimes she's stymied by locked doors, sometimes she kicks them out of their frames and across a room. She shrugs off blows in some episodes that do serious damage to her in others.
<Snip Exerpt from my review>
There is no evidence that a Slayer's demon sense is limited to just vampires. Why would it be? We know that Buffy's demon sense isn't very good, but we also know that it varies between Slayers. In WttH Giles tells her that she should *know* if there are any vampires in the
Bronze, without looking, but Buffy's vampire sense was clearly not working very well in the early episodes, and never really got any better.
And whatever Buffy's abilities may be, they don't mean that a different Slayer won't have different strengths, and weaknesses.
That's the current situation. Any advice on how to A) deal with this one, B) Squash this argument for future debates?Editors note, it's actually "Approaching 35" but that's besides the point.Any sort of effort to definitively quantify Buffy's abilities is futile, because they have always fluctuated from episode to episode, to serve the needs of the story. For example, in several episodes Buffy is shown to be not a particularly fast runner. Oz runs faster than her in "Wild at Heart," but in "Two to Go" the script describes her as "hitting close to forty miles an hour" when she's running.
See, Don. It's not that easy to dismiss quantification. It starts with Observations--taking in high ends and low ends to figure out a basic number. And having actually done the recordin of the data, I can tell you that such discrepincies are few and far between--at least in the first few seasons.
And even if I humor that assumption, they are still limited to a certain general sphere. I mean, it's pretty logical to assume that Buffy's not going to be punching holes in the space time continuum and defeat
Entropy itsel like Silver-Age Superman. Nor is she going to juggle a tank. She may bend gun barrels or heaft objects under 2 tons (IE: the approximated weight of the Portcullis in "Anne"), but there are defininte limits to her abilities. It's all about science and observation, my friend.
Sometimes she's stymied by locked doors, sometimes she kicks them out of their frames and across a room.This dialogue would seem to indicate that is not fully passive, but must be activated.
Most of those locked doors are metal, my friend. Compare. There's a direct comparison in the 2 part opener of "Welcome to the Hellmouth". Trust me. I've done the work. I'm a Scientist, I'm here to help
And I recorded each one and was able to draw conclusions from them. It's all very facinating, because it's got NUMBERS.
Actually, it's the reverse, we have no evidence of her senses detecting anything OTHER than vampires. Would you like to see the list? Absence of Evidence IS Evidence of Absence from a scientific perspective.
Actually, we don't. You're making an assumption about the nature of the abilities without much of a sitation.
Yes, lets look at that scene, shall we?
[quote="Welcome to the Hellmouth""You should know. Even through this mass and this...din, you should be able to sense them. Well, try! Reach out with your mind. (Buffy looks around) You have to hone your senses, focus until the energy washes over you, until you, you feel every particle
o-of..."
Incidents where Buffy has been blindsided (Season 2's "Lie to me" is the only recorded example in the first 5 seasons) go with the active aspect of the ability, though one could argue that she was being distracted
in that incident.
And I've got plenty of examples for the Combat Sense, if you'd like. But given your reaction, I doubt you would.
Quite. Which is why I have data recorded for 3 Slayers so far, and the seem to fall within the same general areas.And whatever Buffy's abilities may be, they don't mean that a different Slayer won't have different strengths, and weaknesses.
Except for Kendra. She never displayed much in terms of Superhuman abilities aside from going Toe-to-Toe with Buffy.
More humorously, they fall into the lines defined by the Offical RPG--which specifically allows for the type of incongruity you describe.
If you don't want the information, that's perfectly fine. But you don't need to attack the process of scientific observation to do so. That's just disrespectful and, unfortunately, a commonly held view in the United States these days.
he probably has nothing other than "I think that this bad guy hits as hard as the other bad guy and therefore Buffy is a logical paradox", if you keep asking him to prove it and he can't he loses. Fast running is load of shit, the characters could be bulshitting, or wrong and that never seems to occur to him.
