Joss Whedon is an emo existentialist

[sqbr]

Dr. Horrible, Sartre, and why I'm not surprised: Interesting post arguing that the major message of Joss's work is "all of our efforts are really doomed because God doesn't exist and the universe doesn't care about us and the best we can do is pretend we don't know that". Spoilers for pretty much everything he's written, including for X-men etc (which I haven't read)

I and Cam were discussing it, and pretty much agreed that deaths in a Joss Whedon work (and there will be deaths) tend to divide not-so-neatly into "making a significant point about the unfairness of life" and "manipulative women-in-fridges". But even if you ignore the death there's still a general message that it is impossible to be 100% a hero, that the world sucks and the reward for a job well done is generally another job, plus quite plausibly the realisation that the job you just did didn't actually make any difference (or it made SOME difference, but the world still basically sucks)

Comments

[infamyanonymous.livejournal.com]

See, I was thinking about this the other night (I couldn't sleep because I had Dr Horrible music stuck in my head.) I came to the conclusion that Joss Whedon does it just to fuck with the audience.
In 20min he gets you to the point of empathy with a character. Like an excercise- You have 20min to get someone to cry. No external sources, references or hair pulling.

[alias_sqbr]

That is also a valid theory which fits the evidence :)