Joss Whedon/WMG

Joss comes from a Crapsack World future, hence all the angst.

To him, it's normal since the future is really that depressing. He found a way to come back in time, found that he was a good writer/director and got big but writes like he were still in the future, hence why we find everything depressing.

• • If Joss possessed time travel, he'd go back in time and popularize the idea of God as either Sarah Michelle Geller or Summer Glau.

Joss Whedon is a manifestation of the First.

Watch Season Two of Buffy again. Nobody else could be that evil.

• Also, watch "A Hole In The World" from Angel, Serenity, and the third act of Dr. Horrible to prove the true brutality of Joss.
  • Just watch Dollhouse season two and see what he does to your favourite father figure Boyd to see true Evil . The worst part, as per Joss , the original intent was just to have him killed off to cause angst. But he decided to get real creative.

Joss Whedon sold his soul to become a better writer.

Again, it explains why he is evil and how he manages to be such a good writer.

• The buyer of his soul is also a Jackass Genie. "Sure, I'll make you a great writer. But all your shows will end up Screwed by the Network."
  • He didn't sell his soul to become a great writer. He sold his ability to write happy endings to be 6'4.
• Alternatively, if you are not of the opinion that he is a good writer, he sold his soul and talent in exchange for fame and a rabid fanbase. His soul and talent went to Nasu Kinoko.
  • Nasu doesn't have a rabid fanbase?
• He obviously got ripped off.
  • He got a pizza island and an everlasting bottle of Mountain Dew out of the deal too, it's just that no one knows about it.
  • That genie might finally be easing off on Joss now that he's helming The Avengers.
    • Even the Devil wants to see a good Avengers movie.

Joss Whedon is a former fictional character who broke right through his Fourth Wall and escaped to the other side.

Joss Whedon was the main character in a story created by a mad script-writer who had been rejected by Hollywood one too many times. Whedon was designated as the Fourth Wall Observer; while it was funny for a while, the creator didn't realize that Whedon was slowly gaining sentience because of his creator's crazy-induced belief. When the creator attempted to write an ending, Whedon realized that it would mean that he would hang in limbo forever; he then forced himself out of the script and into the real world, Take On Me-style. In the ensuing struggle, he killed his creator, which created the emotional trauma that causes tragedy to strike so many of his characters. The reason his work is so tropalicious is that, since he was once a trope-aware fictional being, he's now dangerously Genre Savvy... and he takes a sadistic pleasure in inflicting on his characters the writer-induced torments he once suffered.

• Can this be a novel? Like now?
  • OP Troper is seriously pondering it...
  • Yes it can. Go read some of Jasper Fforde's stuff. One fictional character holds his author at gun point, and makes suggestions to improve his plot. And that series is so meta it's mind boggling.
• So Joss is Deadpool, having broken out of the Marvel Universe and into ours. That makes a weird sort of sense, actually...
  • Or is he the Fictional Man from Planetary #9.
    • Nahh, that's Grant Morrison.

Joss Whedon grew up on Marvel comics.

Dark Willow was based on Dark Phoenix. Buffy's characterization was partly drawn from X-Girl Kitty Pride. Season Eight Xander is now a Captain Ersatz of Nick Fury.

• Does that make Spike Wolverine? I really hope not--I love Spike, but I hate Wolverine with a passion.
  • You take that back right now.

It also explains why his characters all suffer high levels of Wangst and have to sacrifice everything happy and meaningful in their lives for the greater good. It explains why Buffy acts more like a superheroine than her alleged Final Girl origins.

Seriously, you might as well rename the Buffyverse Universe 617; with all the dark and cynical undertones between them, the Buffyvere and Earth-616 are practically neighbors. God knows how many times they've had shout outs to Marvel characters - a memorable one, "Steve Rogers IS Captain America (comics), you twit," during Angel's WW 2 flashback.

• Isn't Wild Mass Guessing usually less about facts and more about... you know... guesses and stuff?
  • Yeah. When the writer has actually had one of his characters describe Dark Willow as Dark Phoenix, had Xander explain why he prefers to think of himself as Sergeant Fury rather than Colonel Fury, and then written two dozen Kitty Pryde-centric issues of X-Men, this sort of thing can officially be said to be not a guess.
    • Well whatever Whedon was trying to do between Marvel and his own work paid off in the end, ultimately. This man is directing AVENGERS aka coolest damn thing ever. So yes, that means Buffyverse and Marv-Earth are more or less officially neighbors.

Joss had a really bad breakup at some point.

Every single relationship on his shows ends in death, heartbreak, or someone losing a soul. Any psychiatrist would have a field day.

Joss Whedon feeds on emotional trauma.

Directly causing trauma by hurting people would invite retribution, so he had to do it without actually hurting anyone. The best way to do that was to create TV shows that got people attached to the characters, then horribly torture said characters, while still keeping the fans hooked.

• Hing chong uuu a ley, he must be the most powerful member of House Skavis on Earth!

Summer Glau is Joss' favorite/surrogate daughter.

C'mon now. He always insists he loves all his projects equally, but that can't really be said for his actors...

• Except that's really Eliza Dushku.

Joss had a really strained relationship with his dad.

Buffy's dad rarely ever appeared on the show, Angel's dad had little to no respect for him, Simon and River's dad was extremely apathetic about his kids, and Wesley's dad was estranged from his son. However, Angel and Connor's relationship could be seen to symbolize how Joss wants to mend that relationship.

• Also, it's a little known fact that Joss's dad was the head writer on The Electric Company as well as an acquaintance of Jim Henson. With this in mind, Smile Time is put in a completely different light.
  • Could explain what he did to Boyd in Dollhouse. I mean when killing off a character is not enough but to pretty much take a flame thrower to Echo's and Boyds Father - Daughter dynamic when your at it.
• The lack of father figures could relate to Joss's atheism. God is seen as a father figure in theistic religions and atheism denies the existence of God, so it's only natural that Joss wouldn't include father figures in his works.
  • Bit of Hollywood Atheism labelling there.

Joss Whedon is actually Bad Horse, occasionally crammed into a man-suit.

This explains why the singing cowboys in "Doctor Horrible" deliver any message he puts into the script. It also explains why Captain Hammer does not screw up a paycheck by attacking him directly.

Joss was a nerd in high school and wasn't good around girls

Which explains why Xander, Wesley, and Giles are surprisingly good with women. Giles got to have Olivia, Joyce Summers, and Jenny Calender, Xander got Anya, Cordelia, Faith, that girl who dangled him over the hellmouth (he had a shot with her...), Wesley got to have Cordelia, an unnamed bleached-blonde woman, Lilah, Fred...you get the idea. In his fantasy, girls go for the nerds.

• This might explain why he hates The Big Guy; every character in his shows that fills this role is either a traitor(Gunn), a Butt Monkey (Spike), or both (Jayne). In his mind the physically powerful cocky guy is inherently "less" than the other members of the group. He still gives them their moments due to actually getting along with the actors, the benefit of the overall story, or demands from the network and/or fanbase.
  • Um... Wesley was also a traitor, and Xander was also a Butt Monkey (he flat out declared he was tired of being the Butt Monkey).
    • Wesley's betrayal was for selfless reasons; he was trying to save infant Connor. Gunn's betrayal was selfish; he was trying to keep his mental upgrade so he wouldn't go back to just being "the muscle"; and to intentionally read way too much into this, that could be taken as Joss telling the physically powerful cocky guy that he should never try to be more than what he is. Wesley's betrayal also set up his relationship with Fred; though distanced from the group, with great resentment between him and Gunn, Fred still turned to him for comfort during trying times. Wes also eventually got the girl, which ended horribly as a direct result of Gunn's betrayal.
      • But Wesley selflessly betrayed them in such a stupid way. He went to the revenge driven Holtz for help, instead of... anyone else. If he didn't do that, we probably wouldn't have had Jasmine invade, because it would take over a decade for Connor to mature, and therefore, Gunn wouldn't have been in a position to betray anyone.

Xander's butt monkey status was also somewhat(repeat, somewhat) lessened when Spike became a series regular; Spike was even the butt monkey to Xander thanks to the chip. Buffy's a trickier case, though; less of a Five-Man Band dynamic there than in Angel or Firefly; Buffy was The Hero surrounded by smart guys in various forms. Still, Spike probably fit the trope best, especially in season 7.

The reason Joss made Serenity was so he could give it the downer ending he thought it deserved.

The reason Joss is an Atheist is because there's no religion with a mysterious Waif Fu practitioner as its deity.

• At least to this troper's knowledge there isn't. And if there is, then Joss hasn't heard of it, either. The man is incapable of imagining the most powerful being in the universe as anything else than a petite young woman.
  • Alternately, he's trying to establish his own religion based on the worship of said Waif Fu practitioner. And it's worked. Ask me about the First Church of Summer Glauism.

Joss collects the tears of his fans.

Seriously, think about it.

Joss Whedon and Steven Moffat share a brain.

That explains the amount of Crazy Awesome stuff that they both create. They've both created characters that are Badass Woobies that are broken easily and have a comedic snarky edge to their writing!

• And they both feed on emotions, Moffat on fear and Whedon on sadness.