From Angel to Much Ado: Cross-Textual Catharsis, Kinesthetic Empathy and Whedonverse Fandom

Abstract

“Don’t give people what they want, give them what they need,” media auteur Joss Whedon has famously stated (Whedon in Robinson, 2011: 31). To fans of his many texts — from television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) to web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (2008), from graphic novel Fray (2003) to film Serenity (2005) — his principle of offering them what is necessary rather than what is desired has become a justification for emotionally destroying them by “killing” beloved characters, such as Buff’s Joyce Summers and Serenity’s Hoban “Wash” Washburne, among others. Like real life, these character losses can be profoundly affective for viewers and take months or years for them to recover from. In some cases, gaping emotional wounds remain open for a fan’s lifetime. Unlike real life, the death of a character does not usually mean the death of an actor. As a result, it is striking that some fans have read across two of Whedon’s texts — one an original creation, one an adaptation — to create their own sense of catharsis and narrative resolution in the aftermath of two major characters’ deaths on the Buffy spin-off Angel (1999–2004), characters played by the same actors. To examine this occasion of cross-textual catharsis, I first provide a context for the relationship between Angel characters Winifred Burkle, played by Amy Acker, and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, played by Alexis Denisof.