Jolyne and Buffy: Spirit Cousins

[madimpossibledreamer]

You definitely might want to come back to this later if you haven’t read the manga (Stone Ocean), as there are definitely spoilers for the ending, as well as all of Buffy.  I warn around the time I talk about plot similarities where the Spoilers with a capital S come in, but there are smaller ones before that point too.  I think I mentioned some of the rest of this, probably in one of the notes to a chapter of Shadowed Suspicion, but since I don’t plan on going through all 333 or so chapters looking for the single chapter I talked about it, and I didn’t tag Jolyne so it’s not easy to find, so I hope no one minds if I repeat myself at all, and hey, at least I’m putting it in one place, because if I’m having issues finding it, other people probably are too.  I’m also probably repeating myself a little from my Jojo’s tier-list, partly because I have issues shutting up about how Stone Ocean is my least favorite part plot-wise when I start talking about it, and no, it’s not just because of how much I like Jotaro (made obvious by the number of times I’ve tagged him).  I almost titled this 'spirit animal' but then was like, who's who in that scenario?  They're kind of both each other's spirit animal.
...I cannot believe I haven't thought of doing a YAHF with Buffy dressing as Jolyne before.  That might happen, now that it's a plotbunny.

There are a lot of similarities between Buffy and Jolyne, that if Buffy isn’t a reincarnation of her in Shadowed Suspicion she’s definitely reminding Jotaro of her.  (How he remembers a daughter that, in that version of events never got born, is, uh, a mystery for a later date.  I don’t want to spoil my own chapters before they're even out.)  So, they’re both reluctant heroes.  Buffy wanted nothing more than to be the popular, airheaded cheerleader.  Similarly, Jolyne planned out a future with her boyfriend, Romeo, also concealing her intelligence.  Buffy doesn’t end up accepting things until she realizes the vampires really aren’t going to go away, while Jolyne dives headfirst into a hero role to save her father and take revenge on the villain.  Buffy didn’t start out as a ‘delinquent’ like Jolyne, but once she started having to fight for her own life, her attitude toward following the rules took a definite turn.  In both, the police/authorities are not to be trusted, just unreliable or incompetent at best and outright dangers at worst.  Both get framed for killing someone (Kendra for Buffy, the unnamed pedestrian for Jolyne).  Buffy doesn’t actually spend any time in jail, but her time in the mental asylum could be thought of the same way.  (Plotwise, Faith is the one who ended up going to jail for actually killing someone, and is definitely characterized as the rougher one, but she’s sometimes described like Buffy’s Jungian Shadow-self, so take that how you will.)  Both end up with emotionally distant fathers, though Buffy never ends up outright hating Hank the way Jolyne did Jotaro.  This shared trait does end up with them both having abandonment issues.

Both end up betrayed by the one they love—Romeo ends up letting her take the fall, and Angel loses his soul and trying to kill and torment her and her friends.  (And then there's later story stuff with Spike, plus other stuff with, say, Riley, one-off characters, etc.  Jolyne ends up with a slightly overinterested possible yandere-stalker love interest later on, which I'd compared to Angel, but just giving that description, hey, maybe Spike?  Buffy's worse off in the luck department, possibly because of the number of 'people she's been involved with that have betrayed her' is longer.)  Jolyne’s slightly better about teamwork than Buffy, but in the end both have the same urge to deal with problems on their own rather than involving anyone else (a trait Jolyne shares with her father).  (And sure, Buffy might’ve said that she refuses to fight alone, but one of her biggest flaws is the times when she says she’s the Slayer so has to do this herself.)  While possibly outmatched in many cases, both retain an unpredictability, resourcefulness, and viciousness that helps them make it through (and yes, the unpredictability of having friends along for the ride, when they’re not trying to solve things on their own, partially seen whenever Buffy decides to keep secrets).  They use being underestimated to their advantage, and are both more intelligent than they might appear.  They might try to delude themselves that they’re not overly violent, but both definitely are prone to trying to fix problems by punching them first.  They also tend to quip and taunt when fighting.  Jolyne might swear a little more here.

They definitely end up on the outcast side of things, but thrive there.  They’re both rebels and hate being told what to do.  They’re both stubborn, and while they might not have sought out a leadership role, they’re great there, too.  Both absolutely hold grudges, and refuse to give up and lose.  Sometimes this means that neither of them want to take a step back to examine a situation from another angle—they’d rather just bash through by sheer force (or in Jolyne’s case, string), which could be worse if they weren’t so great at improvisation.  They’re both also willing to forgive, though, under the right circumstances.  They both have a temper.  That being said, as much as they might try to do things on their own, they’re both intensely loyal and would do anything for their friends and family, including sacrificing themselves.  Jolyne’s a little more willing to hurt humans, but then, Stand Users are capable of surviving more damage than regular humans and vampires are not quite as common in Jojo’s, and in general if you compare the damage inflicted on their respective opponents, it’s extremely similar.

If we move on to plot similarities, which is where things get really spoilery, they’ve both been shot, Buffy getting through it with Slayer willpower and healing, Jolyne by creating something like Kevlar with her Stand (well, sorta, bringing us to the next point).  They both had a surreal ‘was it actually all a dream’ arcs, Buffy in Normal Again, Jolyne in the fight against Whitesnake.  (Incidentally, from what I’ve read, both arcs are, uh…controversial.) 

So their final opponents are villainous serial killer priests (Caleb and Pucci).  Both help organize various attacks, trying to systematically use puppets to wipe out anyone who might oppose them.  They both have some charm and the ability to act perfectly normal to put others at ease, but it’s definitely an act.  Both were empowered by the evil they go on to serve fanatically (the First Evil and DIO respectively) and try to bring about the world both had envisioned.  They don’t care about collateral damage, and in fact take some satisfaction taking another step toward their goals.  They’re both a little condescending and misogynistic (though Caleb is definitely worse on that front and Pucci definitely comes off a little more as just despising or seeing himself as better than humanity).  Both get killed, satisfyingly, but there are definitely differences here, too.

Pucci did get off his ability restarting the world before he died, even if it didn’t exactly turn out the way he wanted due to the fact he was kinda dying at the time.  Caleb’s more hands-on, which makes him more interesting—Pucci’s also willing to get his hands dirty, but the plot railroading (“gravity”) means he doesn’t really have to do it much.  Both do have a bit of Plot Armor making them that extra bit of annoying, though.  (Unrelated, but this railroading doesn’t become clear until after the point we’ve gotten in the anime so far, which is why I actually liked the prison arcs.  And Bohemian Rhapsody is great, but I lost my mind somewhere between the railroading and the stupidity of snails.  The snail thing still hurts my brain, because while Jojo's explanations don’t always make sense, that one broke my suspension of disbelief and offended me as a reader.  While I’m in my unrelated rant phase, I absolutely despise that Netflix snatched up exclusive rights and hope there’s a DVD release.  It’s my least favorite part, but Jolyne is great.  To give some rare praise, though: it is absolutely perfect that Araki set it in Florida.  Like, maybe he chose it because of Cape Canaveral, but given how Florida Man is now a meme, he could not have chosen a better setting and that is absolute genius.  I have relatives in Florida and can attest it is a bizarre state.  California is pretty good for Buffy but in some aspects, like properly depicting population makeup, the show kinda failed--actually, with Hermes, Stone Ocean did better in that regard.  I'd love to count Aura or Kendra, but Kendra was killed off too quickly and there was a lot of stereotyping there, and Aura barely showed up.)  Funnily enough, Season 7 kind of uses ‘railroading’ as a red herring—they spin it as a ‘this is inevitable, you can’t fight this’ and then Buffy takes an axe of destiny and takes a swing and does several impossible things anyway.  Part of the reason this is kind of offensive and not just annoying, too, is the parallels to real-world stuff.  It’s called systemic sexism.  Too often women in the real world are trapped in by this ‘gravity’ of the way the real world works, so while a ‘actually they fail’ ending is probably kind of realistic, it’s just that much less satisfying and more hurtful because it happened with the part with the female Jojo.

Buffy survives season 7, while Jolyne, the only female Jojo, doesn’t survive her part, though her alternate universe counterpart does, through absolutely no control of her own.  Buffy’s the one who kills Caleb, while Jolyne dies before Pucci dies.  (There’s also some dissatisfaction that the villain’s beliefs about predestination are proven correct, in that he is fated to ‘win’ by killing the main character and restart the universe and nothing the protagonists do can stop this from happening.)  I think I mentioned in the previous brief musing on this that I was a little mixed on the Buffy ending, but compared to the ending of Stone Ocean, it definitely feels like a Girl Power (and just general) improvement.  Buffy actually gets to influence things and has agency.  The series as a whole has its issues with actually being feminist and giving Buffy agency, rather than just have her react to situations or have the plot or Voice of Author Through Various Characters judge her for the times she actually gets to make a decision rather than just doing the Right and Necessary Thing.  The final season of Buffy might be better in idea than execution.  But Chosen is so much of an improvement here.