She knows about viscera - it makes you proud

[Ravynnia]

Plugging back into S7 after not going through it for almost a year, I'm disturbed by the amount of gore -- "First lesson: it's always real" -- which gets away from almost bloodless (with the except of Tara's shooting & Warren's flawing) approach to S6. Death is a bit crunchier & drippier, and the shadows are more pervasive than at any point after S2. "Vengeance demons aren't big with the sorry, we're more 'oh my god stop hitting me with my rib bones!' "

BUFFY: She knows about viscera. It makes you proud.

It doesn't seem accidental; the potentials in the opening sequences in the first two eps, Spike piercing Sluggoth-Ronnie with the iron fence spike, his own scars from trying to tear his heart out literally, Gnarl's ripping into Willow's skin & swallowing, Buffy gouging out his eyes (foreshadowing the later eye-gouging), Cassie's imagery about being feasted on, and the little link between her reading "Slaughterhouse-Five" and the slaughterhouse-frathouse where Anya is bathed in blood at the start of "Selfless" -- is it just gratuitous grossness or does it have a purpose in the season overall? I have suspicions, but I wonder what others have made of it, if they've made anything at all.

[KingofCretins]

The change actually started with "Bargaining" and Razor, the biker demon, graphically describing their plan to gang-rape Willow, Tara, Anya, and Buffy and the likely problems to arise. Season 6 is every bit as coursely graphic as Season 7, if not more.

I think the two biggest contributing factors are UPN and Marti Noxon.

[vampmogs]

I found that the show got a little more gory every season as it progressed- I never really gave it a great deal of thought and to be honest I actually like it better. I think it is a little more realistic to have it gory but would never sacrifice the humour of the show for the sake of bloody images.

Wether or not it was intended for s7. Well remember Giles' pictures to Chao-Ann that were very graphic. He states he wanted her to understand the severity of the situation, perhaps the writers were trying to do the same?

[ThePoet's<3]

My own guess is the competition with what people were currently seeing in other TV shows. Seems Season 7 was destined to go out with as big a bang as the TV gods would let them budget. And TV Sci-Fi always seems to be under-financed where special effects are concerned. And if you don't have the $$ to do the stunt - hey bloody dialogue works too!

[Dorian's Kitten]

I think I'm with vampmogs here. It was a progression. Season five we saw Buffy get staked, Riley with the vamps, Spike getting tortured by Glory and the flashbacks of Spike killing those slayers. The flashback of the Boxer Rebellion was probably as graphic as anything we ever saw later on.

I would also say it was important for season seven to be particularly graphic-it makes the whole thing seem more real. We really feel like anyone could die at any time, which lends to the gravity of the season. I would also say that it plays in to the lessons learned during season's five and six, life is messy-life is blood.

[LRae12]

I also think that during the high school years they deliberately kept it more cheesy-esque versus gore because it was depicting minors, and thus needed to keep the tv-rating more for minors...but as the cast aged into adult-hood they felt it more permissable to go for the gore, so to speak. You see this in many different shows where they won't do the heavier sex-scenes or topic while in high school years, but as they move into college it seems permissable. (Look at Dawson's Creek for an example of that.)