"...here at the ending of all things..."

7.22: Chosen & excerpt from The Romantic Manifesto by Ayn Rand

Not only was Ayn Rand's writing and approach astonishingly clear, it has also proved helpful in identifying the elements within literature with which I am already familiar. Her calling into question of very specific stylistic devices and drawing constrasts between others addressed suspicions I have long held concerning some works of literature I have come across. I loved the part where she cites an imaginery situation in which a writer describes a hero as "'virtuous,' 'benevolent,' 'sensitive,' 'heroic,'" but he "does nothing except that he loves the heroine, smiles at the neighbors, contemplates the sunset and votes for the Democratic Party" (pg. 67)—it took me back to being a 13-year-old, frustrated all over again after reading The Scarlet Pimpernel because, while the hero is praised for his bravery and brilliant disguises, the reader is not privy to any of the facts, so it would appear that he doesn't really DO anything in the whole novel. Then, on top of that, I saw through his "brilliant disguise" at the end, and I know I personally hate when I guess the ending. I realize this was a very popular style at the time Baroness Orczy was writing, but nevertheless, COME ON! I appreciated having that, and other problematic issues in literature, addressed so clearly in Ayn Rand's book.

Looking at "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer," I can now more easily see the solidity of each of these ingredients, and their unlikely but wonderful compatibility. The show's identity stems naturally from the culture surrounding it (the words diverse and eclectic come to mind), and this aura should be embraced rather than dismissed. Because of its point of origin (aka, America, even California, in the 20th century, extending over the brink of the 21st) I really find the theme, plot, characterizations AND style of BtVS to be well-mixed, exceptionally clever and undeniably cool.

Now, according to AGB:

The theme of BtVS: everyone must take a stand in the neverending, universal battle between good and evil.

The plot-theme of BtVS: the fate of the world lies in the extraordinarily capable hands of a beautiful, fashionable Californian girl.

I watched most of the television-spot feature, "Television With a Bite," and in one of the first cuts from an interview with Joss Whedon, he mentioned that he wanted to create a show with an explicitly feminist mission. After viewing almost the entire show, I am quite clear on the fact that HIS brand of "feminism" is not hand-in-hand with that of the "femi-Nazi" (i.e. Buffy's own wardrobe and emphatically NOT anti-male outlook), and in general, the result is a type of feminism of which most women should approve. Very basically, despite the historical patriarchal view of women, women are strong and should stand alongside men, not behind them—not that I would exactly call Buffy herself an updated suffragette with kung-fu skills.

In "Chosen," when Willow is able to call up the magic of the scythe to empower all the potential Slayers all around the world and we see the inspirational montage of all the girls all over the world who suddenly share in the power of the Slayer, it's as though Whedon had put everything—everything he wanted to say with "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer"—into that one concept and scene. I personally did find it to be quite emotional.

While looking at the facts and not at the actual show itself, the "recently gay" Willow could be viewed as a slight upset to the balance. I saw evidence of Whedon's excellent planning and writing skills there for sure: viewers were eased with the utmost care into her initial relationship with Tara. Whedon mentioned that when they actually came out and said that "Willow is in love with Tara," they started getting hate emails and such—but I didn't view the situation as such an upset. For one thing, we HAD already seen evidence (especially with the vampire Willow in "Doppelgangland"), and for another, I can't help but admire his sense for tact and stopping just immediately before taking something farther than necessary. I am, personally, certainly not interested in seeing two girls making out (in fact, I can't stress how incredibly dull I find it), but the slow buildup of the whole issue and relationship was the perfect approach. Even the initial rather awkward humor about their relationship (aka, Joyce after an unsuccessful date asking Willow and Tara if they ever just thought about "giving up on men" altogether, after which they exchange looks, or Dawn at the beginning of Season 5 writing about the spells Willow and Tara do together) was handled well. I think that Whedon's influence on such a touchy subject was very necessary to the show and was quite obvious.

The second scene, the rewritten one, struck me as weak and sophomoric. (I mean, I could have written it.) There is such a weighty subtext, filled with unspoken words and ambivalent but strong emotions, in the actual book version. We are humans; we must express ourselves through creativity. We write, paint, draw, sculpt; we make movies or TV shows, we act, we make up stories. Rand had written the scene as a dialogue between these two men, and if these characters were as important as they seem to the structure of the novel, they never would have spoken in such basic terms. People with emotional baggage don't usually express themselves with the childlike clarity found in the second version; they say much with their silences, they skirt around the facts. Rand called the the rewritten one "humanization" of a character. That comes into play, I think, on two separate levels. Here, Rourk is so much more straightforward and apparently innocuous, while before, his boredom with Keating's struggles, so palpable is comes across several times as contempt, appeared as a multi-layered threat. He is a completely different person here, and so made the scene a completely different scene. On the other hand I find that to pare a work of art down to its bones, to its merest necessities, is to rob it of its inherent humanity. The beauty of creativity may not be found in excess, but it certainly is not found in scantiness. Although sometimes it is true that "Less is more," I hold more often hold to the phrase that "It is better to have too much than too little."

That phrase is only true, however, if there is something actually there, as Rand goes on to point out. Of these two New York scenes, Spillane's, which was one of nothing but visual and action-based evidence and Wolfe's, which was one of which was atmospheric description, I found them both to be just examples of incredibly different writing styles. I never would have thought of "comparing" them, quality-wise, which is almost what she seemed to do; I presume that she hasn't got the highest opinion of Thomas Wolfe's writing style. However, the different styles just come across in different moods. I would have to read the whole novel in both cases to give an actual opinion. I liked Wolfe's vocabulary, because of my own natural inclination toward longish strings of adjectives and adverbs, but the action and pace of Spillane's was like a breath of fresh air. I understand her argument that Wolfe "has said nothing," but I think reading somebody like Marcel Proust every once in a while is nice for the needed moments of un-focused-ness in life.

"It's All About Soul"

7.19: Empty Places
7.20: Touched
7.21: End of Days


Though overall the title "Touched" infers the sexual pairings that go on in this episode (Robin/Faith, Xander/Anya, and Willow/Kennedy), it's Spike and Buffy's calm, restful night together that is clearly the crucial one. Now devoid of the violence and bestiality of their encounters throughout Season 6 (which, as Roz Kaveney points out, did originate in a battle), the painful vacuum that has been their relationship since Spike was ensouled has at last been filled with something truly remarkable: trust. In spite of his repeated inadvertent activities worthy of any regular vampire at the top of his evil game, Buffy responded every time by repeatedly making every attempt to help him. In the episodes surrounding "Never Leave Me," she spent every effort on trying to determine and remove the source of his lapses into demonic behavior, which, when he was "himself," he appreciated far more than he could express.



Again, as when Angel had killed Jenny Calendar and others then mystically returned to life as a vampire with a soul in Season 3, Giles displayed no faith in either the ensouled vampire or Buffy's judgment. Claiming that her emotions were clouding her ability to make decisions, then with Angel and now with Spike, he deliberately goes headlong against his reasons for ever leaving Sunnydale in the first place. If he was ever really proud of Buffy's ability to "put her heart before everything" near the end of Season 5 and then was confident that he should get out of her way and return to England in Season 6, he clearly foreswore himself and failed her by conspiring with Wood to eliminate Spike.


As for the issue of the soul, it's actually the teenager Dawn who hit the crux of the matter; at the very beginning of the episode "Him," she discusses it with Buffy: "I'm just trying to understand. I mean, none of it makes sense. . . But to get a soul? Like that would make him a better man? Xander had a soul when he stood Anya up at the altar." Here we have, really, the "gray areas," the moral ambiguity that Kaveney spends a lot of time on in the introduction to "Reading the Vampire Slayer." Whether or not someone has a soul does not determine their actions, although it has a voice in the form of a conscience. Every character has, in some way or another, gone against his or her conscience in a big way since the beginning of the show. There is also a huge if subtle constant battle being waged between "wants" and "needs." As vampires, Angel and Spike need to drink blood, the easiest way of doing so to attack the weak humans. However, their wants become redetermined with the unstable re-installation of a soul. Even with the chip and not the soul, Spike's promise to Buffy to protect Dawn overcame his intrinsic desires as a vampire to join the raging demon mob in "Barganing, Pt. 2."


To re-state something that is frequently on the lips of strong figures in literature, it is not one's WISHES but one's CHOICES that define their character. This is a fairly obvious fact distilled from life. Though it may ever be Angel's inclination to bite Buffy's neck instead of kiss her lips—or both, which is perhaps more likely—he does not. Sometimes these choices constitute as a form of sacrifice, sometimes they don't. It is a natural reflection of the way people relate to one another and to their environment. While Buffy toys with sharing in Faith's autonomous behavior in "Bad Girls" from Season 3, Buffy can see that Faith is a living example of what would happen if she were to embrace it completely, and chooses not to—even though she is certainly equally capable. Buffy, Xander, Anya, and ultimately Giles see what has happened to Willow at the end of Season 6: like Glory, she abandoned the approach of the "choice" with the attitude that her power was above them (displaying quite a different personality than the timid high schooler dipping into magick who was spooked by the Anya, the new girl's, spell).

Faithless women (well, not anymore...)

7.12: Potential
7.17: Lies My Parents Told Me
7.18: Dirty Girls

"Lies My Parents Told Me" should actually have been named "Lies My Mother Told Me." And boy, some of this stuff was pretty disturbing, particularly Spike—then, William—and HIS lovely mother after he had turned her into a vampire. I'm no psychologist, but I know about Freudian slips and such ("When you say one thing and mean your mother—whoops, what I meant was 'another'!"); Spike's vampire mom was right up there with the disturbia. The situation with Wood's mom was more of the "what a real Slayer is" idea. She always told him that the mission was the most important thing, although he still may not fully understand all the implications of that statement, although both Spike and Buffy explained it, more or less.


"The big picture" (a phrase that's been quite often repeated of late) is simply too big—too big for personal feelings, preferences, wants, and even some needs. The Slayer's duty, the Slayer's destiny, is to mark the fate of the entire world as top priority. Not simply one, two, sixty or six hundred people, but everyone. Though the phrase "the end justifies the means" is not one that Buffy has always supported in the past, but lately there seems to be a marked change in some of her rules of conduct. Having glimpsed what lies beneath the Seal of Danzalthar, she has come to the conclusion that all the power in her corner (aka, herself, the unpredictable effectiveness of the old Scooby Gang, and a handful of half-baked potential Slayers) will not be sufficient to make even a dent on the gazillions of Turok-Hans below. Buffy has felt powerless before, but this is not the same. She seems to have been overcome by a very specific attitude of "we, the side fighting the evil, WILL survive this, even if I don't personally." In one of the episodes we did NOT watch for class, when speaking of Spike's government chip, she said something that I found really interesting: "You can't fight evil with evil." Although the series has never fully answered the question "What IS good, exactly?", it's the type of solid statement that the Slayer SHOULD utter.


Can I just say that, although I do love Nathan Fillion, I HATE Caleb? "Can I say something stronger than hate—can I reVILE Caleb?" His twisted religiosity and topsy-turvy Bible-like phrasiology is disgusting. Then, far worse than Warren with the sick misogynism; at least HE wasn't ALWAYS so blatantly violent. He needs to die a horrible death very soon. We need to get rid of him as soon as possible. I don't know if I can stand him, and he's only just appeared. Maybe . . . with a little REAL Faith . . .

... with a vengeance

7.5: Selfless
7.6: Him
7.11: Showtime

I know this is a bit out of order, but I wrote about the wrong episodes in my previous blog . . . Oops, my apologies again.

It was really interesting how all the different usages of the word "selfless" from the title of the episode came across in the show. It signified a complete change of heart for Anya herself: the "first" time we see her in old Norway, or wherever she's supposed to be living with Olaf, she takes her revenge on him by turning him into a troll. The act of vengeance in and of itself is notorious for its general self-centered-ness. "Vengeance" is viewed as something undesirable, an actually bad thing, in most circles, really unless you're a Vengeance Demon. Buffy and her circle of friends basically agree on that point. Dictionary.net defines "vengeance" as "Punishment inflicted in return for an injury or an offense; retribution; often, in a bad sense, passionate or unrestrained revenge," as I've pointed out. Anyanka, Halfrick, and D'Hoffryn's forms of vengeance are always of the second type: revenge without consideration for other simultaneous consequences, it's always vengeance WITH a vengeance, if you will.

Since Anya became human again, she had the chance to learn something of many human attributes, such as compassion (or at least to take the edge off of her literal-ness) and the ability to recognize some sort of delineation between right and wrong. Finally, being human changed her most importantly into someone who can give of herself; in spite of all her protestations and even her rehearsed awkward, amusing semi-feminist wedding vows in "Hell's Bells," she has fallen in love, with all its emotional and spiritual intricacies. She is now able to look beyond the absolute present and her own wishes and desires and consider those of other people. Most pointedly, those of her victims. She "turned her back to please the crowd." It is, I think, yet another credit to Xander, in a lot of ways: Anya is over a thousand years old. She has come across many people and tortured and killed many men, but it's chiefly because of Xander and their love (only briefly happy, but ever honest) that this absolute change came about. Now, she is so much less self-centered she is a different person, even if she fears that she is "self-less" in the sense of not having a "self."

I enjoyed the episode "Him" in a lot of ways; like "Restless," it's a sort of outside force that happens to several of the main characters. Each one is affected in different ways, and reacts to the problem with their own specific style. In Dawn's case, she is the classic besotted teenager: "It's NOT . . . a crush. This is true love!!" When she realizes that she will never get him, she lies down on the railroad track. There's a very angsty teen reaction for you: "If I DIE then everyone will be sorry. That'll teach them." Buffy takes charge of the situation by obviously steering their "relationship," then planning to kill the principal to show RJ how much she "loves" him. Willow almost turns him into a girl; Anya reverts to breaking the law to impress him. These are all pretty selfish motivations, I must say; typical of any infatuation that isn't real and solid, unlike Anya and Xander's relationship, which I discussed earlier.

"Showtime" is distinctly awesome. Buffy, Willow, and Xander's plan to lure the uber-vamp to a better battleground was classic, and the fight was terrific. It certainly does seem that we're coming full circle in so many ways, especially in this episode. I know we discussed the repetition of the phrase, "Here endeth the first lesson," and "Welcome to the Hellmouth," but there are other parallels between the first season and seventh here as well.

Although the potentials are not yet Slayers and Buffy WAS the Slayer, she was neither comfortable in nor knowledgeable of her role, which can certainly be said for each of the girls currently lodging at the Summers home (a sort of replacement for the old Sunnydale High Library of yester-season). She had a guide: Giles, her Watcher. For several seasons now, however, Giles has been out of the picture, or at least he has stepped out of his particular previous role in the life of the Slayer and the Scooby Gang. Instead of Giles, the new potentials have Buffy. Her friends, too, but mostly Buffy. She is guiding them, training them, teaching them the history as well as the generic and even harsh facts about BEING the Slayer. She is probably going to be, in many ways, a much better teacher than Giles was, simply because she HAS "been there, done that." Adding this to her new job as the guidance counselor, it's very clear that we see Buffy's clear coming UP the outside of the cycle, emerging as a true crone in all the positive ways; aka, she's still "quite youthful, AND peppy."

I just realized I wrote about the wrong episodes. It should have been "Beneath You," "Help," and "Selfless." Um. I think. Whoops. I'll get it right next time. :-P

I need somebody

7.2: "Beneath You"

7.4: "Help"

7.7: "Conversations with Dead People"

The title of the episode "Beneath You" certainly has many meanings.

Of course, for those of us who have not yet seen the remainder of the season we're still wondering what all that means (and although there WAS the earth-tunneling worm demon thing in "Beneath You," Anya's vengeance spell was clearly not worthy or permanent enough to be a lasting answer). Not only the phrase that is getting repeated throughout the season, "From beneath you, it devours," but it also brings to mind the line that Buffy said to Spike, like a re-echo of his past in "Fool for Love" from Season 5: "You're beneath me." This theme recurs faintly at the end of the episode, where Buffy finally realizes the nature of Spike's apparent transformation. (May I just say that the writers of Spike's lines in that scene are BRILLIANT. Of course, I'm a big fan of Spike's practically no matter what he does, pretty obviously I'm sure, but here, the perfect amount of everything that's barely being concealed under the surface comes across vividly with so few words, like a Tom Stoppard or Terence Rattigan play.)

Now we've even seen in "Conversations with Dead People," from Buffy's heart-to-heart with a former classmate turned vampire, that Buffy has both an "inferiority" AND a "superiority complex," so there again is a use of the phrase "beneath you."

The parts of the episode "Conversations with Dead People" about Dawn and her mom, Joyce, reminded me very strongly of the film Poltergeist (which I just got to see in Janterm—hooray for Film Music class!). But, of course, one big difference is instead of the mother trying to find the daughter and save her from the other spirits in the other dimension, Dawn is trying to save her mother from the evil demon (or whatever it was). Also, Joyce is definitely dead, unlike the little blonde girl. So, anyway, the action in those scenes just struck me as very reminiscent of Poltergeist.

The episode "Help" was, again, a revisitation of the lines between real and the unreal, usual and unusual. "I think you might be seeing PARAnormal where there's just normal," Willow tells Buffy, and this seems to be one of Buffy's many difficult challenges: how do you face that which is natural and inevitable, like her mother's death? When Joyce was experiencing her unexplained headaches and fainting spells in Season 5, Buffy was so convinced that someone was attacking her through her mother she put herself into a magical trance to trace the mysticism. However, when her mother finally died, it was something Buffy had no way of helping, no way of stopping. For an around-the-clock go-getter like a vampire slayer and a naturally compassionate person like Buffy, that particular fact of life will always be very difficult to accept.

Dawn states, "I guess sometimes you can't help," and Buffy asks, "So what then? What do you do when you know that? When you know that maybe . . . you can't help?" This is something that showed particularly strongly throughout Season 5, when not only Joyce died but the battle against Glory seemed to be inevitably one-sided. Buffy stood up for her sister despite all the complex issues surrounding her creation, despite the seeming invulnerability of her enemy and pointlessness of her efforts. The final scene of "Help," in which Buffy calmly returns to her desk at Sunnydale High to await other students, is how people—not only vampire slayers—really ought to respond to this question: you just keep trying. It's like picking back up after a loved one dies: life goes on, as against it as you as the bereaved may be. Buffy was made to care for and protect people, and in spite of all the horror that will doubtless be going down before the end of the season, she will keep going. That is her calling, her destiny.

[She shall be . . . the Energizer-Bunny Slayer! (My apologies to Anya . . .)]

Here we go again

6.21: Two To Go
6.22: Grave
7.1: Lessons

. . . and we're back with Sunnydale High! Unfortunately, the glorious absence of the high school just couldn't last, for several reasons. 1) There was too much of the earlier seasons invested in the "life in high school is hell" motif for it NOT to recur, 2) Dawn had to go to high school SOMEwhere, and 3) as this is the final season as we know it, it is already imparting a certain kind of closure to the series—depressingly, because I am NOT prepared for this show to be over yet [long live Buffy! (To be honest, I never dreamed I would be saying that—but then again, that was back when I was yet in total ignorance of the Buffyverse.)]—but it also makes it very neat, like some kind of diabolical "bookends."


I really like Willow telling Giles he "went all Dumbledore"—THAT was cute. Even in this, the "real" world of demons and magicks, it's the character who has been closest to REAL power who finally makes a reference to the Harry Potter series. ["And now for something comPLETEly different"—minor rabbit trail here: the Buffyverse reminds me of the world of Harry Potter in a lot of ways: not only is the writing strong and witty, complete with steady and quirky characters, but the series as a whole deals with deep concepts such as self-sacrifice (though still not what I would deem the Ayn Rand version, but more like the garden variety type) and the transforming power of love—even of love that lasts beyond death.]


However, going back to the season 6 finale—yes, it was great, and it was moving, and I wept ever so slightly, as I am wont to do—and the first time I watched the episode, I sort of missed the point of Giles's allowing Willow to take his borrowed powers. He tells Anya that the magick Willow had been using before—that which she had stolen from Rack—"came from a place of rage and power" and that the magick the Coven in Devon lent to him, being magick in its truest form, would appeal to the "spark of humanity that she had left." It enabled her to connect with the rest of the world (as she later discovers the value of in "Lessons") and to sense everyone's emotions.


Giles says that it "allowed her to feel again." Anya said in "Two To Go" that she could no longer sense Willow's presence since whatever Willow was feeling must have gone far beyond mere vengeance—but the simultaneous question seems to be: do enormous feelings somehow double back and negate themselves? True, there is a deadening of the everyday wants and even needs when a loved one dies—often the bereaved go through the day, listless, unable to focus on anything, trying not to focus on the one thing that is the source of their misery. Buffy experienced this after her mother's death: she had to keep doing little things so that she could keep the pain at bay. "I see," Giles tells Willow. "You lose someone you love and the other people in your life—the ones who care about you—become meaningless. I wonder . . . What would Tara say about that?" She immediately veers away from the subject, responding coldly, "You can ask her yourself" and rallies for another attack.


In Willow's case, by this point she has gone so far beyond her initial emotions concerning Tara's death that her responses stopped being RE-actions and turn into just actions. Throughout these ending episodes, everything she does and says takes on a separate entity from her first responses to the event from which they sprang. While, as Giles says, her powerful forces has been "fueled by grief," the foolishness about her use magick that was clear in Willow's character earlier in the season (especially in "Wrecked") have taken charge of her. Her mishandling of the magick changed her, even before: changed her into someone who considers herself impervious and superior. The "scary, veiny Willow" is incredibly condescending and patronizing to everyone—two things just a few seasons ago she would never have considered being. When Buffy first greeted her in Season 1, Willow answered timorously, "Why? I mean—what? Do you want me to move?" She has, as Xander says, "come a long way."


"You've come a long way—ending the world not a terrific notion—but the thing is, yeah. I love you." Not only is destroying the world "not a terrific notion," it is another angle on the idea of suicide. We discussed in class whether or not Buffy's self-sacrifice at the end of Season 5 was just, after all, an escape—a suicide. While I personally do not believe this to be the case (i.e., she did NOT actually commit "suicide," and furthermore if she had allowed Dawn to give HER life it would have bypassed every single person's efforts to protect her throughout the entire season), Willow's plan to channel all life in the world through the satanic effigy smacks of escapism. Like every character, from the high school age Jonathon in "Earshot" to the newly-resurrected Buffy, people have to recognize that, as Spike sings in "Once More, With Feeling,"

"Life's not a song;

Life isn't bliss;

Life is just this: its living.

You'll get along.

The pain that you feel

You only can heal

By living;

You have to go on living.

So one of us is living . . ."

...but worse is more likely.

6.17: Normal Again
6.19: Seeing Red
6.20: Villains


Throughout the sixth season, we have been following the path of what has been called Willow's "selfishness" or her "addiction." In the first two episodes, "Bargaining Part 1" and "Part 2," we saw her taking charge to head up the attempt to bring Buffy back from the dead. Once Giles discovers the success of the spell, he makes it very clear to her that she has stepped beyond the bounds and done something both very foolish and very dangerous, calling her a "stupid girl." While the disgruntled, overconfident Willow promises to think about what he said, the events throughout the earlier episodes show that she didn't give much thought to what she said even then.


Willow has, of course, come a long way since being a nerdy, shrinking schoolgirl. However, since her experimentation with magic began, she seems to have leapt over several critical levels of self-awareness and common sense and jumped right into the ultra-self-confident stage. The relentless fears of being the nerd up at the front of a laughing class we last saw in her dream in "Restless" at the end of Season 3 seem to have dissipated, leaving her appearing far too comfortable in a world of which she's still fairly ignorant, even though she won't admit it.


Willow's relative success at bringing Buffy back from the grave is tested several times, first by Giles, then by Buffy's admittance of the truth in "Once More, With Feeling," and although at the beginning of the episode "Tabula Rasa" she remorsefully tells the Scoobey Gang that she had been "selfish, " she still fails to fully recognize the implications of either confrontation. Her dependency on magic grows, in spite of Tara's doubts and warnings. Then, incredibly selfishly, she uses it to make her girlfriend forget their argument—Tara, the person who was most against it. Also, as seems to be a running theme in both life and the show, "you always hurt the ones you love," and in trying to keep their relationship "artificially" comfortable, she ultimately pushes away the one who was most dear to her. This, like her determination to make everyone surrounding her forget what she had done with yet another spell in "Tabula Rasa," shows her deafness to the voices of others and her misplaced trust in something much larger and infinitely powerful than herself. By "herself," I mean the real Willow—the Willow who used to dream of marrying Xander, who is Buffy's best friend, and whose real strengths lie outside of her connection with magic.


After that, Willow became officially addicted to using magics, and after an accident with Dawn, had to cut herself off to save both herself and everyone around her. The real tragedy when Tara dies is that Willow immediately, without even thinking but letting herself be ruled by dark rage, becomes what Tara has feared she would be for the past couple of seasons: a powerful and dark witch. Although in the past Willow was praised for her power, she just got too much of a good thing, and now is drowning in its darker side. Sometime many episodes and maybe 2 seasons ago, Tara said with her usual uncanny prescient abilities, that Willow was moving through the study of magic so quickly it was "almost scary." It is fortunate for her that she never saw what Willow became the moment she realized Tara was gone: everything about which Tara had warned her and from which she had also tried to rescue her. True, "grief makes people do strange things sometimes," but Willow's reaction is so completely the opposite of what the person she loved and lost stood for, it has the feel of total selfishness—so much so, that it can only be countered by a selfless act.

Wild thing

6.7: Once More, With Feeling

6.13: Dead Things

6.14: Older and Far Away





OK . . . Let me just say that "Once More, With Feeling" is an extremely, extremely special episode and I deeply enjoyed it every time I've watched it. Not only was it laugh-out-loud funny (or, in my case, guffaw in a most un-ladylike fashion) and random, so much happens across the arc of episode that it's an exceptionally pivotal point in the season and in the series as a whole.





A few weeks ago, we were discussing what the writers and directors were doing in "The Body" where there was an obvious lack of music. This episode sort of "makes up" for it by seeming to go a bit overboard on song-and-dance numbers, but they're not all clever lyrics and cute choreography. While some of the numbers are definitely quite reminiscent of Spamalot!, it is through the music and the singing that each character learns a great deal. Not one is left out of the back-to-back epiphanies that form the structure of this show. The music seems to be a kind of "truth serum," under whose influence everyone, from Anya to Giles to Willow, spill their secrets and move the storyline forward at a rather dizzying rate.





Of course, when one thinks of the form of the ACTUAL musical (Broadway or created for the screen), this IS the function of a song. As in its ancestor the opera and singspiel, where recitative is more "everyday" dialogue—where stuff actually happens, as in action—and the arias are chiefly for reflective, emotional, and expressive purposes, the songs in musicals are opportunities for characters to more fully express their feelings in a language that the audience and other characters have come to expect. While it is completely NOT normal for most people to just randomly burst into song (unless they happen to be me), the songs in a musical ARE completely normal and are a type of dialogue higher on the totem pole to the spoken lines.





Operas and musicals are strange animals, because they are art forms that blend the realistic (how people feel) and totally unrealistic (sudden songs happening)—but anyway, that IS yet another angle ON the Buffyverse. As they often do, they're playing with aspects of what is real and what is not. Although the concept of a musical staged by the residents of an entire town is as implausable as it is bizarre, the purpose and aftermath of this show are very real. Anya and Xander describe their insecurities and fears about their future to one another; Giles finally lets himself realize that his Slayer really doesn't need a Watcher anymore; Buffy reveals to her friends and family that she had been in Heaven, and for the rest of their lives, they will remember the moment they discovered the truth in confusion and pain. Even though she had tried with all her might to keep them from knowing, even though she had make Spike vow that he would never tell, she was no match for the power of the music and when the opportunity presented itself, she simply HAD to sing about it. Tara discovered Willow's abuse of magic over her mind . . . Buffy finally recognized that there was something there with Spike, and at last they made out . . . No one had any choice BUT to tell the truth about themselves—with the ironic cheeriness of catchy music, witty rhymes, and interesting choreography.









Oh, and P.S.: "They got the mustard . . . OUT!!!"

The wisdom of the ages is: there's no free lunch

6.1: Bargaining, Pt. 1

6.2: Bargaining, Pt. 2

6.10: Wrecked




Clearly, one can't have a season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer without Buffy, but the full, real resurrection of the deceased Slayer (the initial "big number" to get the season off the ground) is entirely disturbing. As we saw in the finale of season 5, Willow began to take charge of the group while Buffy was in her catatonic state, and it was thanks to her that Buffy ever emerged from that condition. At the end of the fifth season, Willow was a hero, who protected and guided. Here at the beginning of the sixth season, she still continues to lead them, but now it is on a rather roundabout trail that is dark for most of the trusting crowd following her. Anya and Xander are busy being secretive about their engagement, neither Giles, Spike, nor Dawn are in the know, and Tara and Willow's relationship has lately been slightly strained by Willow's obsession with magic.


As the group performs the resurrection spell (and even before), it is very clear that Willow is definitely the main shaker and mover in the process. She is the only one of the bunch who fully understands all the rather dark ins and outs of the procedure, from killing the innocent fawn (which she keeps a secret from Tara) to the nature of her "trials" during the spell. Everyone is unnerved, amazed, and perturbed by the crazed powers attacking Willow, and it might be just as well that the bikers interrupted before more could happen to her. One really has to agree with Giles in one of the later episodes, once he's heard about the spell: "You're a stupid girl." Of course, Giles was always wary of Willow's study of magic. With his past, he has much more experience with evil and the spirit world than anyone else in the group (except Buffy and, of course, Spike). He had always been afraid that she will get in over her head—which has happened here, even though the resurrection spell was ultimately a "success."



Unfortunately it's a fact of life that, as the colloquial saying goes, "There's no free lunch." Spike says, "There are ALWAYS consequences to magic," and again, I think that at the end of "Bargaining, Pt. 2" the writers have used some "big bad" as a metaphor for recurring themes of the season. Here, when the Scoobies raised her from the dead, they simultaneously conjured a dangerous (and exceedingly creepy) demon and thought of it as the "price" of this particular brand of magic (or, as Anya says, it's their "free gift"). However, little do they know that there is so much more that must be paid for even after Buffy chops off the demon's head. Of course, we find out later that Buffy had been somewhere calm, peaceful, without time, where she felt free and contented—apparently some version of Heaven. That is something that will stick with her for the rest of her life and their lives as well, and something that is an inner—and ultimately more urgent—reflection of the tangible evil that she has already had to face and vanquish.

Hey Buffy...The movement you need is on your shoulder

5.20: Spiral
5.21: The Weight of the World
5.22: The Gift


As Buffy says in "Spiral," "It just keeps coming. Glory . . . Riley . . . Tara . . . Spike." As we discussed in class on Tuesday, Buffy IS staring her own mortality in the face and realizing that her super powers as the Slayer can only go so far. Most of the major elements of this season throw this concept into sharp relief: her feelings of futility against the amoral might of the hell-god Glory and her parallel struggle to protect Dawn both as a sister and as the Key, her mother's death and the ensuing difficulties, and even, eventually, the catatonic state into which she temporarily sinks after Dawn's capture. Each reflects the others and echoes the fact that being the Slayer plus being a human is really too much for even Buffy to bear.


Interestingly, it is Glory that first puts forth the concept that the state of actually being human is wretched and pathetic. "I'm crazy?" she scoffs. "Honey, I am the original one-eyed chicklet in the kingdom of the blind 'cause at least I admit the world makes me nuts." Once the barrier between her own demonic power and Ben's humanity begins to break down and she experiences some of his emotions, she rails at Dawn in her usual derisive way, trying to figure out why emotions (which, as a god, she claims to be above) should be getting in her way.


However, it is emotions that keep the good characters (or at least, the protagonists) on the show going; it's what makes them tick. I kept thinking of Buffy's line from so long ago: "Kendra, my emotions give me power." In "Spiral," Giles tells Buffy that he is very proud of her ability to "put her heart above all else." Clearly, the writers on the show value this part of humanity—and it's not too far to say that emotions define the characters' humanity. In "Spike is for Kicks," Michele Boyette points out that Spike is, quite frankly, not a very good vampire because he is simply too human. He allows emotions to get the better of him (literally), and for this reason (NOT because of any ol' chip in his head) is he ultimately rejected by other creatures of darkness. When he and Drusilla put the Judge back together (whose powers lay in "burning the humanity out of individuals"), it detected human qualities such as their affection for one another. "It stinks of humanity," he grumbled, and again and again we see this theme repeated, usually to contrast with the complete lack of conscience of powerful characters like Glory.


This idea extends to the situations of both Dawn and Ben: as humans, each was created by higher powers to hide something otherworldy from human eyes. In Ben's case, he is the casing for the hell god Glory to prevent her from overpowering her two fellow gods. Dawn is the Key, molded into human form so that the Key will remain protected. However, perhaps completely outside of the plans of their originators, both of these entities—Ben and Dawn—have come into their own, realizing themselves as actual thinking, feeling people, with true emotions and significant lives. Each tries to escape the original purposes of their creation: Ben, by desperately trying everything he can think of to escape eternal disappearance after Glory's return home(even if that means standing by while a human life bleeds away), and Dawn, by simply wanting to live a semi-normal life, with friends and her sister, trying to cope with everything else that has happened in her life.


"Death is your gift," the primal Slayer whispers to Buffy, over and over in her mind. Of course, in the midst of so much confusion and since her life is generally so entwined with death, she kept returning to the wrong conclusion: that she was made only to kill. She thought she had given everything, but what she discovered was the most anyone could ever give: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13. Self-sacrifice for the good of others has always been—and will always be—the ultimate expression of humanity.

Why . . ?

5.15: I Was Made to Love You
5.16: The Body
5.18: Intervention


The episode "The Body" really got to me, since it was such an accurate yet artistic portrayal of what losing a loved one is like. It brought back a lot of my own memories of how the radiating waves of shock and grief wash over everyone the person knew. I was especially touched by Anya's reaction to Joyce's death. In a very childlike way, she says, "I don't understand!" over and over, and for once, it seems that her natural bluntness and unornamented statements of the facts expressed what everyone was feeling better than they were expressing it themselves. It was almost another episode like "Restless" from the end of Season 4: each of the characters respond to the death in his or her own way. Xander tries to find something or someone to blame, so he can DO something about it; an overwhelmed Willow preoccupies herself with little unimportant details; Dawn cannot accept her mother's death and takes out her anger on Buffy.


Buffy herself we see painfully vulnerable once more. She can barely function, and her 911 phone call might have been placed by a 6-year-old. Although she has been surrounded by "death" for year upon year, this is the first time she has lost someone very close to her, and it is extremely different from her general "slayage": devestating and terrifying. The magnitude of her mother's death, compounded by her responsibilities as the Slayer, as the head of the household, and as the protector of the Key, fall simultaneously on her head. Tara tells her, "It's always sudden," and her words are starkly prescient. Later, we see Buffy having to meet with Dawn's principal to work out their problems and their future, and she also has to drop out of college to handle all of the new changes in her life. She tells an accusatory Dawn that she has to keep doing things to keep herself occupied so as not to become overwhelmed with grief, and it's tragically realistic.


I absolutely loved the end of "Intervention," especially Buffy's final words to Spike: "The robot is gone. The robot was gross and obscene. That thing—it wasn't even real. What you did, for me and Dawn . . . that was real. I won't forget it." Her moral advantage over Spike here is palpable, but simultaneously it is balanced out by his actual actions. Even as she speaks, you can tell that Spike has already learned a great deal from his misadventure with the BuffyBot and bout with Glory. He accepts his shame and failure but still has proven himself worthy—and for one brief, shining moment, he steps into the "hero" spotlight, as Michele Boyette's "Spike is for Kicks" article anticipated. He will probably take a few steps backward, as do most of the characters in "Buffy"—and all those who live in the real world, also—but Buffy will keep her word and remember. She'll give him more chances, and I have no doubt he will pull through, eventually, and come out well.

The artificial mind

5.10: "Into the Woods"
5.12: "Checkpoint"
5.13: "Blood Ties"


Throughout the series the Watcher's Counsel has displayed an unwillingness to actually consider the "big picture" of its own purpose. In some of the in-between episodes that we weren't assigned to watch for class, Faith awakens from her coma and, with one final trinket from the Mayor, switches bodies with Buffy. Of course, "Buffy" creates utter havoc, but when the Watcher's Counsel arrives to take "Faith" away, they do not even listen or entertain the possibility that something extraordinary could have occured. This, the overarching group that is supposed to deal in the supernatural and the paranormal—but time and time again, they show a petty preference for the superficial and the human institution rather than concern for what is meant to be their ultimate goal: the destruction of evil. Like the Initiative, their failure to accept or fully understand the otherwordly nature of what they're dealing with has practically destroyed the organization itself: both Faith and Buffy rejected them, each in her own way.

Unfortunately for the reputation of the Counsel, I actually see a lot of parallels between their behavior and that of Glory's. Since Glory is a "hell god" and is of course immortal, she views the lives of others as having no value and doesn't even blink when the Byzantine knights kill most of her recent minions. Her followers have been as innumerable as the years of her existence, and so are all the same to her. The Counsel also never thinks of itself in terms of the "obsolete" or even "mortal," but as a continuing organization that will continue to exist as long as the world does. They fail to recognize that there cannot truly be the Counsel without the Slayer—that the purpose of one is void without the existence and support of the other—and view her as expendable, as Glory sees the status of her minions.

Never has the intervention of the Watcher's Counsel been less welcome. For one thing, their behavior and expectations are both absolutely ludicrous, as Buffy points out in the episode's final "showdown." One of the Cousel's biggest problems is that they focus so much on evil that they forget to preserve the good: clearly, perhaps because of their counter-productive self-focus, they do not attempt to make any special effort to keep the Slayer alive, whoever she may be.

Moving on the the situation with Dawn, I keep coming back to the movie Blade Runner, in which the Harrison Ford character hunts down rebel replicants. He meets a very convincing female replicant who fully believes herself to be human, as she has been programmed with a collection of memories—and the case of Dawn's creation really reminds me of her. In the robot April, as well, is the same question of whether or not what she does is something that has sprung from her own real purpose or from the overruling purpose of those who made her—aka, the "free will" issue. Clearly this notion of a manmade thing that considers itself "human" and has human actions, interactions, and emotions is an idea that has been repeatedly raised in many facets of popular culture: The Sixth Day, Artificial Intelligence, etc., and is one that apparently fascinates Joss Whedon (also in his new series Dollhouse),

Yes; I like "Helter Skelter."

4.20: "The Yoko Factor"
4.21: "Primeval"
4.22: "Restless"


"God has nothing to do with it," mutters the re-animated demonoid who was formerly Riley's best friend, Forrest. Generally I've learned that when this statement is made, very rarely is it really true. I would say that God has an awful lot to do with it—or a "God complex," at least. Not only does Maggie Walsh re-create and re-animate a living being, Dr. Frankenstein-like, from assorted pieces of dead bodies, she calls him "Adam," just as God called the first man in the book of Genesis. I found this to be both rather presumptious and very unwise, and sure enough: parallel to the way that Adam rebelled against and disobeyed his Creator, from the minute that Dr. Walsh's Adam was brought to life he was going against her will. As it transpired, Dr. Walsh did not even have authority over when Adam was re-animated; he simply stood up, killed her, and said, "Mother," when she wasn't expecting him to be even active yet. "The best-laid plans of mice and men . . ." It really reminded me of the amusing exchange from Jurassic Park: Dr. Malcolm says, "God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs..." and the female doctor character interjects, "Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth."


By making the attempt to replace the spirituality of the universe and everything in it—or the "magic," if you will—with pure science and documentation, Dr. Walsh was rejecting whatever the writers of the show would deem the "Powers that be" and asserting her own will and authority over everything that Buffy represents. Buffy comes from a long line of Slayers and bears their ancient destiny and power. Not only did Dr. Walsh jeopardize her purpose in her attempts to take over her job and subjugate her to the Initiative itself, she even tried to kill her—a direct battle between science/reason and destiny/ancient magic. Her ignorance of Buffy's birthright and strength are her ultimate undoing, because if she had pursued her subject less scientifically and been more accepting of the spiritual/magical part of what she was doing, she probably wouldn't have made something like Adam. She should have realized how dangerous—and kind of crazy—it was to combine demon, computer, and human. At its core, the experiment was incompatible: demons and humans rarely—as Buffy testifies—comfortably co-exist. While computers and humans do manage a creator/created relationship, creating a computer that is physically stronger than you, with powers to reason humanly . . . It's just, in every possible way, a terrible idea. As Guy in Galaxy Quest asks in horror, "Didn't you guys ever watch the show?!"


Order vs. chaos is yet another problem in the Adam equation. What, for Adam, is "order"? Apparently, it is getting his own way and going about his own business. But, at the same time, his will, his desires, seem born from his humanity—the "chaos" of having emotions. It reminds me of when Data in one of the Star Trek: the Next Generation movies gets an emotion chip installed in HIS head so that he can be more "human." Of course, it is a disaster, because the emotions are completely simulated and have no real context; they cannot "jive" with the rest of Data's systems. But, since Adam is both computer ("order") and human ("chaos") (unlike Data who is always completely robotic), the way they work together is more terrifying than Maggie Walsh would have anticipated. He has all the reason and strategic planning of an able and resourceful soldier, with the problem-solving and info-downloading capabilities of a computer, as well as the evil strength and sheer autonomy of a powerful demon—but he has no human discernment and certainly no empathy or compassion. I really do not believe that he had too strong of feelings for Dr. Walsh—although he spoke admiringly of her as a great strategist and planner, his killing of her and re-animating her so that he can dominate and keep her as a servant smacks of the most primitive survivialist instinct.

And, as a P.S., I must of course mention how much I love all of references to The Beatles. Naturally. I think also that drawing a parallel between the Charles Manson murders and Adam through his reference of the song "Helter Skelter" was both perfectly and just subtle enough.

And I'm supposed to help you out of the evilness of my heart?

4.12: "A New Man"
4.14: "Goodbye, Iowa"
4.19: "New Moon Rising"


In episode 12, "A New Man," I found several uses of humor common to the show in general to be particularly prevalent. This seems to be a recurring motif: an antagonist stands in the foreground, and ominous music plays as the camera zooms in on his face as he makes some wrathful proclamation—when, lo and behold, something or someone interrupts their monologue and destroys their "cool." It has tended to happen to Spike from his very first appearance. As his situation is undeniably ironic (the big-talking, streetwise vampire who is invariably beaten by the little blonde Slayer), his constant loss of face really helps to hone the humor and define the duality of his character.


In "A New Man," Spike suffers the same fate yet again: while careening around street corners in Giles's ancient sedan to escape the Initiative agents, Spike grins mockingly at the Humvees in the rearview mirror. Immediately after making a particularly insolent boast, he slams the car into a brick wall. (As Buffy herself notes, "That would probably have sounded more convincing if I wasn't wearing my yummy sushi pajamas.") It's the type of laugh-out-loud "surprise" humor that reminds the viewers that the writers like to keep you guessing; it's a fascinating dichotomy. While on the one hand, the show is very detailed in its exploration of emotions, situations, and relationships between characters, on the other hand it acknowledges its own paradoxes, often poking fun at itself, its people, and its plots and conveniences. In "Something Blue" (which was tragic for the class to have skipped), Spike tells Buffy, even in the midst of their accidental engagement, that "Buffy" is an "awful name." I think this is something important to note, in that the very title of the show has actually—to my own personal knowledge—turned many people away from the show. They think that the name is, and I quote, "dumb" and "sounds stupid." However, the title itself is one manifestation of the series' own unusual mixture of humor and seriousness: that a girl with a preppie name like "Buffy" could possibly be the Slayer, the one fighting terrible forces of evil, is both ridiculous and a nice twist.


Another aspect of the show that is becoming much more well-defined (especially since the introduction of Riley) is the fact that, with the monsters, there are "gray areas." This is a constant theme of the blurring of the lines between good and evil: Angel is a vampire—but good, because he has a soul. Now Spike, also a vampire, remains "bad," but thanks to the Initiative has been rendered unable to harm the "good" and so can no longer act on his evil instincts; does this make him, also, like Angel, "good"? Most people agree that "talk is cheap": it is not our words but our actions that define who and what we are, as well as where our hearts lie—but as Spike says, if he could, he would most certainly kill Buffy and the entire "Scooby gang," and judging by his past actions, that is the case. Of course, even if he could attack humans again, Buffy still might stymie him; that seems to be the story of his life, the poor blighter.


But as Riley comes to realize in "New Moon Rising," the lines are less definite than he had previously understood in his "soldierly" way of not asking questions. Once he has been exposed to more one-on-one interaction with the creatures of darkness to which Buffy and her friends have long been accustomed, he comes to his own conclusions and does exactly what Buffy would have done—and actually, what she did when she saved Angel's life and quit the Watcher's Council. Giles also showed behavioral signs similar to these when Wesley showed up to be Buffy's new Watcher; once Riley is completely free of the totalitarian authority of the Initiative, his and Buffy's understanding of one another's character will deepen, and they will certainly come to trust one another more.

You've been . . . initiative-ed?

4.7: "The Initiative"

4.10: "Hush"

4.11: "Doomed"

4.13: "The 'I' in Team"

Many peoples' greatest fear in life is being used. Being taken advantage of is so prevalent in society at large, in everyday dealings with other people, that it is practically inescapable. It always tears down one's pride, only to rebuilds shame in its place. For Buffy, not only did Parker hurt her feelings, he also dealt a major blow to her pride. As Willow points out in "Beer Bad," Buffy shared something very intimate with him—and now that he has shared that with her and thrown her aside, she is not only suffering the pain of rejection but also the shame that everyone experiences after the realization that one has made a mistake. Though she is the Slayer and in many ways superhuman, her weaknesses are "nothing that is not common to man."

Going further into the concept of "being had," as people say, the entire "Initiative" organization is operating with a purpose that is hidden even from Riley, their main team leader. While Riley's refusal to question his orders at first causes Buffy (and everyone else) to admire his loyalty, it is the ignorance underpinning his trust that ultimately betrays him. He had been a member of the Initiative for quite a while without being too curious about its behind-the-scenes goings-on without any good reason to be suspicious about its (or even his own) activities, but he had also by definition had his eyes shut quite tightly.

Buffy has really been able to reflect on her history with Angel, especially in the wan light of the Parker episode. She was hoping for her relationship with Parker to be more similar to her previous one with Angel—and clearly, what became of that was less than what she was expecting. One of the interesting twists that the writers always include in the episodes that I particularly enjoy is wordplay between episodes and their titles. For example, in "Doomed," the word applies not only to the impending apocalypse but also to Buffy's ideas about the future of her relationship with Riley.

Bob Parr (aka Mr. Incredible) says that he "makes it a point to know who he's working for," and perhaps that would have been helpful for everyone involved in The Initiative. Of course, here we have yet another case of adults/authority figures who are, in fact, in error: Professor Walsh is A) a well-respected, published physcology teacher and B) in charge of the Initiative's underground base and operations. However, the trappings of "helping" or "protecting" people by capturing these creatures of darkness are eclipsed by the "314" unknown project she has going simultaneously. Also, her plot to trap and kill Buffy (even though it was a failure) is egregious and complete anathema to the outer shell of the organization. Interestingly, she even seems to have either a mother or, possibly, a romantic complex with Riley: she calls him by his first name on a regular basis and corrects herself, referring to him instead as "Agent Finn." She is convinced that, given time, he will come to see things from her point of view—in very much the same way that Parker is convinced that Buffy is overreacting and ought to come view what they had as plain old "casual sex."

"So are they all, all honorable men . . ."

4.4: Living Conditions
4.5: The Harsh Light of Day
4.6: Fear, Itself


There are several important points throughout the show at which Buffy is portrayed as vulnerable. In the episode "Innocence" of Season 2, after Buffy and Angel consummated their relationship, she confusedly searches for Angel only to find him using careless language about their night together. She stands speechless, her forehead wrinkled in consternation as he mocks her lack of experience and jibes her youth and ignorance. While this is clearly a result of his having lost his soul, she has not yet discovered that fact and is distraught, thinking that it was something specific she did (or did wrong) that has contributed to his change of heart. The insecurities she seems to have always had concerning her relationship with Angel had been fully confirmed—everything she had feared had become real, even more distinctly than happens in the episode "Fear, Itself." How she can ever again trust anyone to that point of a romantic relationship is incredible.

Which is why I was a little shocked when, after a mere couple of dates, Buffy made her choice to spend the night with Parker. I thought one possible explanation, however slight, was that she saw a reflection of her former (younger) self in his attitude—after all, in the very first episode of the very first season, she flippantly told Willow that she believed in "seizing the moment." Even so, she doesn't ever really seem to embrace this philosophy in any area of her life, school, social life, or "work." She was shown vividly to be separate from this mindset especially when she ran into Faith, whose nonchalance and diregard for real responsibility upset and annoy Buffy rather than cause her to identify with her. Besides, Parker seemed like a good bet—steady, considerate, and cautious—even nervous about moving forward in their relationship (example: when he pretended like he was "too scared" to ask her to the frat party the next night). His pretences are only kept up until after they have slept together, and—just like Angel—he demeans her expectations and laughs off her expression of emotions. Buffy shudders under the weight of the déja-vu, practically breaking: she takes her time recovering because she simply does not want to "cope." Vulnerablility #3—as, when Buffy first comes to the University of California at Sunnydale, her sense of being out of her element was Vulnerability #2.


Of course, Parker's behavior is not because he has lost his soul, which makes him fully responsible for his actions—and also a pathetic excuse for a human being and should be thrown into the river with a millstone around his miserable neck. Parker is a plain and simple scoundrel, a blackguard, a varlet, and all of those wonderful words that people use but rarely in today's society. Willow's nomination of him as a "poophead" also covers the bases (though I always thought that "The Poophead Principle" was the inexplicable sense of satisfaction that a more mature person invariably derives from the expressing of grown-up feelings with a childish vocabulary).


From the onset, of course, Parker certainly did seem like a nice guy—but as Shakespeare said, "one may smile and smile and be a villain." As we discussed in class, Buffy's being hoodwinked into believing every word that Parker said is not that surprising: his deportment, choice of words, and body language would not have led anyone to the conclusion that he was the "love 'em and leave 'em" type. Of course, Buffy DID "make the choice," which makes her responsible, but it doesn't make Parker any less of a scoundrel.


Clearly, Buffy's relationship with Riley is going to become more important as the season progresses. I know this both by my sense of foresight . . . and by my accidentally reading a summary of some later episode. But it is interesting to see Buffy's progression in relationships: from Angel, an "older" man, someone with maturity who can look out not only for himself but for Buffy as well—to Parker, much more of a peer, not that far ahead in school or age with something of the vulnerable (and deceitful) about him—to Riley, from whom intelligence and experience seem to emenate. The good thing about Riley (thus far) is that, rather than pursuing or being actively pursued, they are allowing their relationship to develop normally, outside of any established boundaries of the "romantic." Whether they were to actually become involved or not (even though they do), it will surely be a much healthier development for Buffy—her relationship with Parker was, overall, romantic and, unfortunately for Buffy, wound up being merely sexual.

I want you so bad . . .

3.21: Graduation Day, Pt. 1
3.22: Graduation Day, Pt. 2
4.1: The Freshman


Irony does seem to haunt Sunnydale, not only within the show's context in modern culture, but also within the overall arc of the story—the "Buffyverse." In the middle of Season 1, Principal Snyder sneered at former Principal Flutie's views: "'Kids need understanding. Kids are human beings.' That's the kind of wooly-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten." Amusingly, Snyder suffered the same fate—not at the jaws of a pack of hyena-students, but at those of an ascending snake demon. (At least, it was amusing for everyone else. And, since he WAS such an officious rodent who hated both fun and young people—though not as much as the two combined—no one will miss him terribly.) Things like this within the show make Giles's comments about the "certain dramatic irony" and "synchronicity that borders on predestination" doubly ironic, since even the characters take note of and comment on the underlying forces at work. I heard somewhere that, in film writing, that's called "hanging a lantern" on a character or a concept, but perhaps more subtly.


In response to some of the questions from Dr. Rose:

"Do other characters [besides Faith] blur the boundaries between sex and violence?" It is impossible not to realize that the blurring of that particular border is practically the definition of the vampire itself. I think it was Katie Moore who was pointing out how the concept of "the vampire" has its origins in the most sexually-active stereotype imaginable. I have read essays on how being infected by a vampire is analogous to a venereal disease (in a recent movie version of Dracula they pushed this idea to its limit, adding to the story by giving Lucy's husband Arthur hereditary syphilis—an interesting facet, but one that didn't really work). Since the change from "3 bites, you're out" slower routine and the "new, American vampire" mere blood exchange between Dracula and the Buffyverse, the analogy should perhaps change from venereal disease to flat-out rape.

Everything about the vampire (particularly the "European" model) is suggestive of sexual intercourse: their inextricable correlation with blood, their predation of the weak and often opposite in gender (especially historically), even their physical position in relation to their victims. This came across very strongly at the beginning of "Graduation Day, Pt. 2" when Buffy had to force Angel to drink her blood to survive: she provoked him to a frenzy by punching him in the face so that his violent soulless nature would take precedence over even his feelings for her, and when she had succeeded, he fell on her with what seemed to be an uncontrollable and unstoppable hunger. While their earlier physical relations were born of their love for one another and were represented as tender and unhurried, with something of the sacred about them, the mixture of demonic bloodlust and actual human desire had not been so vividly displayed before this point.


Completely outside of the show and its inner workings, I really appreciated Willow and Buffy's discussion of classes at the beginning of "The Freshman":

Willow: 'Images of Pop Culture.' This is good. They watch movies, TV shows, even commercials!
Buffy: For credit?
Willow: Isn't college cool?

I just found this also perfectly ironic and charming, given our class's particular persuasion, and I must agree with Willow: college is all the more cool for taking an academic angle on pop culture.

"Du Doppelgänger! Du bleicher Geselle!" (and the internet and power are back!)

3.16: "Doppelgangland"

3.17: "Enemies"

3.18: "Earshot"

According to dictionary.com, a Doppelgänger is "a ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its fleshly counterpart." The episode "Doppelgangland" refers back to the events and alternate reality of episode 9, "The Wish": the plot revolves around demon Anyanka, the "patron saint of scorned women" known to those at Sunnydale High as Anya.


In "The Wish," she hears Cordelia (recent victim of a painful break-up with Xander) exclaim, "I wish Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale!" Naturally, Vengeance Demon Anya grants the angry desire, and immediately Cordelia is transported into an alternate reality in which Buffy moved to Cleveland rather than Sunnydale. At first, Cordelia relishes her near-celebrity status at the gloomy high school, but quickly learns that something is very wrong, and that not all of the changes are for her or anyone else's good. All the things that were really important to her have been lost or destroyed. Everyone dresses in blacks, browns, and grays, avoiding the brighter hues that were so trendy in her former life, and no one has fun anymore; the Bronze is off-limits, and half her classmates are dead (or worse). The reasons become clear: the vampires succeeded in take over the Bronze and releasing the Master, as they attempted to do in Season 1, and it is clear that Sunnydale will never recover. Since Buffy never came, Angel has been imprisoned by the Master, and only Giles and a small band of students (including Oz), the "White Hats," have managed to gain any ground against the forces of evil. Xander and Willow have both been turned, and not only are they now at the Master's beck and call, they are two of his most destructive and cruel accomplices. The vampire Willow is particularly disturbing, because her demeanor as she heartlessly tortures Angel or complains that killing helpless humans isn't "fun" is just as calm and straightforward as the old, normal Willow who was Buffy's best friend.


Back in normal Sunnydale, this image of Willow becomes twice as disturbing. When Anya deceitfully enlists Willow's help to return to the other dimension, Willow (unused to such dark and powerful magic) accidentally alters the spell so that HER alternate self comes through to their world. Willow's Doppelgänger wanders the streets, lost and perturbed, before she begins to wreak havoc. While there is the plus side that while the human Willow would have been killed by the Mayor's vampires, the vampire Willow has nothing to worry about—though then, of course, she rapidly presses them into her service and organizes an attack on everyone hanging out at the Bronze.


The episode begins with Willow being basically commanded by Principal Snyder to keep Sunnydale High's main basketball star from flunking history. This is closely followed by Buffy greeting her as "Old Reliable," and Xander's insensitivity to her feelings of having been reduced to the role of beleaguered, one-dimensional scholar. Throughout the episode, her resentment at being treated as a mere academic instrument increases before she gains a sense of closure on the subject—thanks to her evil "twin." While the vampire Willow does threaten the security of Sunnydale and its inhabitants, she attacks Percy West (the basketball player) at the Bronze, unwittingly giving the real Willow a major head start in the tutoring department by scaring him into actually doing his assignments. The "good" and "evil" Willows finally meet, and while one is appalled and the other bored, they do manage a sort of unspoken connection by the time Giles sends the vampire and Anyanka back to the alternate reality. The real Willow must briefly pretend to be her evil "twin" (and, dangerously, vice versa) and while she does not dive completely into character, she does use the opportunity to get the "Old Reliable" image out of her head and off her chest. The vampire Willow also projects a twisted sort of childlikeness that is reflective of the human Willow's demeanor. Her coolness and deceptively bemused behavior are unnerving, in that they are both reminiscent of the human Willow and yet, at the same time she is completely lacking in the optimistic innocence and candor that define her real counterpart.



Further on down the line, Buffy's life gets more difficult. (Both "Enemies" and "Earshot" are really fantastic episodes, not only because of the great stories but because they are both so perfectly, almost classically, self-contained. These three episodes have been my favorites this entire season—perhaps even every season thus far.) "Enemies" deals, once again, with Faith, this time focusing on her double agency with the eccentric and loathsome Mayor. Faith's character's femininity is highly emphasized in this episode: the Mayor sicks Faith on Angel, intent on enleashing the monster again by seducing him into that "moment of true happiness" by which he would once again lose his soul. Of course, the plan fails—not because Faith's attempt is particularly lacking, but because of Angel's undying loyalty to Buffy. Even in the episode "Wishes," when the "tougher, meaner" Buffy finally appears in the alternate Sunnydale, Angel was even then aware of Buffy and says her name as he dies. As he tells her in "Helpless," he loved her from the first moment he laid eyes on her, because he could see her heart so clearly. Of course, Faith knows nothing about any of this, and she does her best—only to be completely "owned" (as runs the vernacular).


Buffy's naturally feminine insecurities about her relationship with Angel aren't aided by the sting she, Giles, and Angel set up to bring Faith's duplicity into the light, and are not to be set at a more comfortable rest until the end of "Earshot." While Angel does occasionally take advantage of his charade as the "evil Angelus" (for example, slugging a truly irritating Xander), even his assurance that his acting opposite Faith is not enough. Buffy needs "a break," while still promising him that she'll always be his girl. At the end of "Earshot," Angel explains to Buffy that he had been with bad girls before and is done with that sort of woman; it's a "good girl" who fights on the side of the daylight that he wants; Buffy, to be precise. As he says, "In 243 years, I have loved exactly 1 person."

"I'm setting my laser from stun . . . to kill."

(Above quote is from Toy Story,

and may actually have been written by Joss Whedon,

because he helped with the screenplay!

Amazing.)

3.7: Revelations

3.12: Helpless

3.14: Bad Girls

3.15: Consequences

To state the obvious, Faith is a very interesting person. First of all is the question of her name: "Faith." For such a rebellious, irresponsible individual, having a name that would be more in line with a choir girl or Eleanor Rigby-type church lady is surely yet another display of irony. She certainly has her beliefs, but they seem founded only on herself. She displays a tremendous trust in her own abilities—not only in her physical strength as a Slayer, but also in her "femme fatale" power over others due to sexual attraction and prowess (see her words and dangerous behavior toward Xander in "Consequences").

The gap between Faith and Buffy's separate attitudes toward being the Slayer, being chosen, and being imbued with the qualities as such continues to widen episode to episode before becoming a veritable Grand Canyon by "Consequences." Faith skirts responsibility, rejects most kinds of authority, and fulfills her calling's obligations only to satisfy skewed and extravagant appetites. Initially, she deferred to Buffy as the "senior Slayer" and kept her taste for domination on a shorter leash as far as the actual slayage went. However, once she became more familiar with Buffy, her history, and her environment, she up-ended their volatile relationship and reversed the roles. "Bad Girls" is probably the best example of this: Buffy, Willow, and Xander sit down to take a Chemistry test in class, and when Faith comes to the window to lure Buffy away to do some daylight hunting, she goes without a fuss, though her friends worry and object, completely allowing Faith to lead her. Though part of this is a rebellion against her new Watcher, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, she is still in complete control over her own actions and is still proving a follower to Faith.

Later in the episode, Faith breaks into a store and convinces Buffy to help her steal weapons. Buffy slowly accepts and acts upon Faith's real belief system: pure autonomy for the Slayer. Faith has told her that generally, she "thinks too much"—but Buffy's brief abandonment of thought, however fully she has accepted it, is brought to an abrupt close when they are confronted by the reality of two policemen. Faith's next "brain wave" shows even more clearly her belief that Slayer has the freedom to do whatever she wants—aka, wrecking the policemen's car and escaping from their custody.

Faith's personal philosophy is not a new presence on the show; however, it has not yet been seen on the side of "good"—it is more usually seen on the other side. In an earlier post, I said that "vampires have no conscience—and in fact, they have no need for one: since they have no eternal soul, their physical actions will never be judged, and thus the consequences are immaterial." Most of Faith's actions show her to have no more moral compass than a vampire, whether it be Drusilla or the "evil" Angelus. When arguing about the true calling of the Slayer, Buffy insists, "We help people!" and though Faith vaguely agrees, she still snubs all of her exhortations, proclaiming the Slayers' superiority with an almost Hitler-like zeal.

Angel's attempt to help Faith and bring her to acknowledge her emotions and need for closure in the matter of the man she killed opens up a whole separate side of the matter: there is a very real connection there. Angel describes the difference between the true autonomy of a regular vampire differs from having your heart and soul restored. Although these words do seem to resonate with Faith, the new, bungling Watcher puts in an unwanted appearance and destroys Buffy and Angel's plans to reclaim Faith's self-awareness. If that had not taken place, it is probable that Faith would come to an understanding of how frighteningly close she is to actually fraternizing with the enemy—much more so than Buffy ever was, even in her entire relationship with Angel. Faith flounces along the wall separating the two encampments—and she ultimately sells out to join the nefarious mayor, who was until so recently a compatriot of vampire Mr. Trick.

One other thought: when Buffy goes to visit Faith at the end of "Bad Girls" to discuss what happened, she finds Faith washing the blood out of her clothes—an almost Lady Macbeth "Out, out, damned spot" motif that Faith intentionally drowns with her later words and actions. (I wouldn't be surprised if she takes up sleepwalking.)

From bad to worse

2.22: Becoming, Pt. 2

3.1: Anne

3.3: Faith, Hope, and Trick

It certainly seems that no matter where Buffy goes, trouble does seem to follow her. Whenever she tries to escape, she ends up running toward rather than away from the things she fears. This is a very well-established classical motif: a prophesy is made that people bring to pass by the very steps they have taken to avoid it (ye olde "abandon-the-helpless-babe-upon-a-hill-outside-of-the-city" routine, as in Oedipus Rex). Of course, there is not a precise prophesy made about Buffy's future at this exact point in her life, but she does have an undeniable destiny cut out for her as the Slayer. She should already have figured out that she can't fully escape who and what she is, although one can't blame her for making the attempt at the end of Season 2 in "Becoming, Pt. 2" and 3.1: "Anne". So much for William Ernest Henley's "I am the master of my fate" (though she is still, as yet, "the captain of [her] soul").

The way that Buffy and her mother relate to one another is very interesting, especially as regards Buffy's "calling." At the beginning of the episode "Faith, Hope, and Trick," Buffy and her mom have one last meeting with Sunnydale High's Principal Snyder. When it becomes apparent that Buffy will be able to re-enroll at the school, it is—amusingly—Buffy who takes the more level-headed and mature response rather than her mother, whose rejoicing is extremely juvenile. One has to wonder how much of this is Joyce's way of trying to "relate" to a teenaged daughter on some level—even further, a teenaged daughter who was, until very recently, estranged from her in almost every way imaginable. While Buffy's biological parents have long since broken up, there is a very similar relationship between her mother and Giles, her Watcher.
Joyce has not yet taken back her statement that she blamed Buffy's disappearance and estrangement on Giles, thus she must still believe it implicitly.

An issue that was raised in the second season when Kendra appeared was the importance of being with family. Kendra herself was not allowed to be with her family; Buffy was shocked and saddened at the thought of being raised apart from one's family—even moreso than she seemed to be at the idea of being forbidden to have friends. This is rather surprising for someone who has seen all the episodes in which Buffy and her mother fight: of all the Slayer's occupational hazards, the need for secrecy is not the least painful. In "Becoming, Pt. 2," Buffy must finally reveal her calling to her mother, and her mother's reception of the news is not pretty. The event's unforeseeably awful timing leads to a complete and wrenching misunderstanding betweent the two of them.

The recurring theme of the "aloneness" of the Slayer really comes full circle at the end of Season 2 leading into Season 3. When Kendra first appeared in Sunnydale, Buffy was initially appalled by her testimony of the "correct"—monastic, really—way of life for a Slayer. However, as the second season drew to a close it became apparent that Buffy herself was being—unwillingly and dangerously—dragged into a semblance of that lifestyle. First, she lost Angel; then, Whistler pointed out to her that she would always be by herself; this is abruptly followed by Angelus speaking the same words, adding that not only is she alone, but also that she has no friends. Upon Kendra's death at the hands—or rather, fingernails—of Drusilla in "Becoming, Pt. 1," the mantle of her secluded way of life—of being separate from relationships, from distractions, from her family, of being a vampire slayer—is transferred from her shoulders onto Buffy's in a bizarre and violent way. Of course, Buffy feels responsible for Kendra's death for many reasons, though there was not truly enough information for her to have gathered what was actually going on from the facts with which she was represented. She may feel at first in part that she must go away to be alone, to separate herself from her friends and family in order to better fulfill her calling in the fashion of Kendra herself. Of course, we see Buffy, as "Anne," mainly trying to escape the recent tragic past and figure out her life rather than pay homage to a deceased associate. Interestingly, though, by the end of the episode, the name "Anne" itself becomes a sort of identity to "pass along," as she passes it along to Lily.

Remembering Kendra's sudden appearance and recent death, when Faith appears in "Faith, Hope, and Trick," it must be a stunning sort of deja-vu not only for Buffy but for the rest of her group of family and friends. Buffy is still the most directly affected by her showing up not only because of her "sharing the slayage," but also by witnessing the contrast of the reactions between how everyone reacts to Faith and how they reacted to Kendra. All of this must cut fairly deep, but Buffy handles the unexpected arrival of yet another fellow slayer with a grace she certainly did not possess when Kendra entered the scene. Certainly no one could fault the few, understated complaints, which originate from personality and relationships rather than feelings of inferiority or "professional jealousy." This time, Buffy has both experiential and moral superiority over Faith—but still, she does not abuse either. Instead, she makes the attempt to include and help Faith (albeit with a natural reluctance), and thus learns that there is something more important at work behind Faith's debonaire, tough-girl appearance. She even gains a certain level of respect for the newest Slayer. Drawing from these experiences, she also gains a new level of respect for and understanding of herself and her own actions—which leads to her finally revealing all the facts about the night of Angel's descent into Hell to Giles and her best friend Willow. Again, it takes a few episodes of the new season for Buffy to reach a sense of closure from the final events of the last.

Goodbye, my love . . .

2.13: Surprise

2:14: Innocence

2:21: Becoming, Part 1

Drawing from Angel's case, vampires have no conscience—and in fact, they have no need for one: since they have no eternal soul, their physical actions will never be judged, and thus the consequences are immaterial. The vampires all share a very spiritual vocabulary, often full of religious terms whose general meanings and connotations have been reversed. For example, the "bad" Angel addresses the demon as he is about to pull out the sword, saying that he had been "lost" and is now about to be "redeemed." They often chat about events like the crucifixion and, oddly enough, wind up at different times in churches—though they still shy away from crosses, crucifixes, and holy water. Even "Angelus" or "Angel" is a reference no doubt to a "fallen angel"—or the head fallen angel, Satan himself. The fact that the "bad" Angel is one of the worst vampires—the most like a "monster" of them all—is constantly being reiterated by different characters.

I've been into Dracula-lore for many years but I'd never given the battle between actual darkness and light that much thought. First, vampires avoid sunlight: it burns them, destroys them, they are creatures only of the night. (The Apostle John was a master at this kind of subtle symbolism, which features everywhere in his gospel: example, "Judas went out, and it was night," before he sold his Master for 30 pieces of silver. Later Judas betrayed Him with a kiss. It is a painfully familiar idea.)

Nightmares in Buffy's world are also thousands of times more frightening because of their staggering plausibilty. While Buffy is visited by rashes or dreams whenever something momentous is on the way, being almost like a sort of her own "Watcher," on the other side of the mirror is Drusilla and her bizarre and erratic visions of the future. We discover in "Becoming, Pt. 1" that Dru was actually plagued by this disturbing foresight before Angel turned her. For her, it was actually instrumental in Angel's warping of her mind before he recreated her as a vampire: he apparently used and abused the notion through impersonating someone she trusted implicitly: a priest, her confessor.

There is a clear contrast between the relationships shared by Buffy and Angel (before he re-loses his soul, of course) and Drusilla and Spike. Angel and Buffy are honest and straightforward with one another. I half-expect Angel to say, "This is true love. Do you think this sort of thing happens every day?", Westley-style. (Incidentally, it's the first time I noticed their love theme: piano or flute.) They really share information: their thoughts, ideas, and feelings, while the vampire couple never tell one another the whole truth; their conversations are ambiguous, enigmatic and obscure. Alongside the "affection" that the Judge sensed between them, their relationship is extremely physical–it’s not just because they’re both evil vampires. There is physical attraction, and also the attraction each feels of finding a kindred spirit–two of a kind, as it were. It brings to minds the characters in the Eagles song "Life in the Fast Lane": "They had one thing in common:/They were good in bed."

For Buffy and Angel, there is obviously desire there–but rather than being the shaky, lustful foundation of a short-lived affair, it is a natural extension of their depth of feeling for the other. When they kiss, the reason is (not only) for personal satisfaction, but is instead chiefly an expression of their love for each other. They move carefully through the stages of their relationship, weighing the odds for each individual’s needs and best interest, while fully considering all factors, reasons and possibilities. These two deal with sacrifice and "good of the whole rather than of the part," while Spike and Dru's actions are driven by personal gain. Since they ARE evil vampires, their sick and twisted wishes usually mesh. There is yet so much that Drusilla doesn’t reveal to Spike about the way her mind works, since—well, she IS just a little crazy.

I dub thee . . . Rebekah

(The following comments were posted at 11:05 a.m. Monday morning.)

Although I have never actually sat down and read Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, I have seen every film version in existence (even the one with the comatose Robert Taylor) and I have a pretty clear understanding of the 2 main female characters. From the start, Rowena sounds as though she would be fascinating: a fair-haired Saxon woman who has won the heart of the great Ivanhoe and waits for him as he battles fierce Normans on his perilous journey back to her. At first, the imagination creates the strong picture of J.R.R. Tolkien's shield-maiden Éowyn of Rohan, with her fair cold beauty and a warrior's heart.

Unfortunately, quite HOW Rowena came to be viewed as Ivanhoe's "one true love" is revealed to be an utter mystery. The importance of her alleged beauty falls by the wayside as it becomes clear that she can't really do anything BUT sit and wait for Ivanhoe. While he languishes from terrible wounds, she gazes out of the window and complains about life. At least she can weave or do embroidery (I hope, anyway), though it doesn't really help out her boyfriend.

This is what the idea of the 1775 "princess" brought to mind from the "Halloween" episode: from the drawing in Giles's book, Buffy gets one initial image (which is, for Rowena, the Éowyn-like one) stuck in her mind and becomes convinced that Angel would like her that way. Of course, here it takes a completely different course: the woman is under the misconception that the man would prefer some other ideal, some other image, to the one she has to offer. She feels, down somewhere fairly deep in her constitution, that she is inferior and doesn't, in her present state, even DESERVE the man she has won with her own natural gifts. Cordelia is always dealing damage (often unwittingly), and here we see that the comments of another woman–even those of a vain and vapid one–have a tremendous effect on the strong but still-developing female character. Her self-professed immaturity is, in a way, her own undoing. Of course, she never could have foreseen what would take place that night, but already her "plan" was doomed to failure: Angel, to quote Billy Joel, "wants her just the way she is." It is a big step for Buffy herself, as well as for her relationship with Angel, for them to have the discussion about "interesting girls." Angel comments that he "hated the girls back then" and called them "dull, simpering morons." Rowena, zero. Buffy–AND Rebekah–3!

Here I come to Rowena's contrast character in Ivanhoe: Rebekah. A Jewess with dark, quiet beauty and powerful convictions, Rebekah and her father rescue Ivanhoe from the Normans and she then saves his life by nursing him back to health. Naturally, she falls in love with the noble Saxon warrior in the process, but wisely keeps her own counsel, as he is always yammering on about his "true love," Rowena (and unfortunately not only while he's delerious). Eventually, Rebekah is captured and imprisoned by a Norman Knight Templar who has become infatuated with her, and she spends her days fighting him off. Finally Ivanhoe has to settle the score and rescue HER. They seem destined to be together! [Even children's book writer Edward Eager points this out in Knight's Castle–a glorious and hysterically funny story based on the old movie–and ultimately has Ivanhoe marry the courageous Rebekah rather than the tiresome Rowena. Everyone should watch the old Robert Taylor film and then read this book. It is much more satisfactory.]

But alas, Ivanhoe is NOT Angel, even if Rowena is represented by the noblewoman from 1775 and Rebekah is the real Buffy: he still ends up with "dull, simpering" Rowena in the end. Sir Walter Scott should have jumped a few centuries of style and at least left the conclusion of his novel "open-ended," so that all the readers can just imagine him riding off into the sunset with Rebekah instead.

All the viewers/readers have come to the same conclusion as Angel about the Rowena/18th century noblewoman and Rebekah/Buffy: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is MUCH stronger, MUCH more interesting, MUCH more useful, and frankly much COOLER than any upper-class ingenue from 1775. The following quotes are the best explanation:

Willow (as a ghost): "Buffy! What do we do?!"
Buffy (as 1775 girl): *faints* . . . . . . "It's not our place to fight! Surely the men will protect us!"

Of course, there are still remnants of this idea in people's minds, even in a town like Sunnydale, even for one of Buffy's best friends, Xander. Her "violation of the guy code" when she prevented his taking "manly" action against the guy who almost pummeled him by the drink machine created yet another contrast with the characters of Buffy and Angel. It was even expounded upon later in "What's My Line" when he shrieks to Cordelia that they'll wait for Buffy to come rescue them and Cordelia calls Buffy a "superchick or whatever" and Xander a "coward."

Still, the balance between strong characters (strong in the sense of being able to fight or protect themselves) is a good one: Angel, Buffy, the mysterious "new slayer" Kendra who appears in "What's My Line"–even Giles is revealed as being more than capable of beating someone down (I adore that twist, but WHAT?!! I want to know!). Generally, everyone does his or her best when there's a big free-for-all (like at the end of Part 2), but there are clear differences between, say, Buffy's and Willow's abilities. Kendra is an excellent twist; Giles really should have thought of the possibility of another slayer showing up before, since Buffy really DID die (albeit briefly) at the end of season 1.

To further the semblance between Ivanhoe characters, Buffy and Angel do take turns saving one another's lives. It's actually rather romantic–maybe even better than going to an 18th-century ball.

A Day in the Life . . . of a Vampire Slayer

(Actual time: Thursday, 12:05 a.m.)

Episode 1-5: "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date";

Episode 1-7: "Angel";

Episode 1-12: "Prophecy Girl";

Episode 2-1: "When She Was Bad"

One of the things that jumped out to me is a major theme of that plays in Episode 1-5 ("Never Kill a Boy on the First Date") which seems directly related to the second "mother" phase of female development. At the end of the show, Buffy and Giles have a nice little conversation about self-sacrifice and things one has to give up. Like many heroes, from the Scarlet Pimpernel to Spiderman, the theme of "I can't have a relationship with anyone because my enemies always hunt down and hurt the people I care about" has re-emerged. It definitely seems to have "brought the hero out of self-absorption and self development and into a more social realm of community." Clearly, Buffy is still developing as a person and as a hero (see her behavior in "When She Was Bad"!), but I would argue that, for female characters, the phases should intermingle more often than not. Female sensibilities as a rule mature faster than male sensibilities.

Going back to my reference to other heroes (including Spiderman), Buffy tries to "dodge" her destiny in Episode 1-12 as she attempted to do when we first met her. However, to move forward she must accept her fate: women must always be mindful of the future, and especially of future generations. She even wonders fleetingly about who the next Slayer will be

and what will happen to her: looking out for the survival of the future generations, as the author would say.

When Buffy goes to what she knows will be her own death, the dress she wears is white–a direct association with purity, or the "virgin phase." Even her descent into the ordeal of the Master's return seems symbolic, reflecting a hieros gamos or at least some level of her "education" as a hero and as a woman.

Throughout the development of the show, Buffy "quests after psychic wholeness and purpose." These words certainly sum up Buffy's apparent need for closure in "When She Was Bad," after the interim between her experiences in the finale of season one. She has undergone trials she could never have imagined before–which does seem to happen to most women, especially when one considers childbirth. In so many of these senses, Buffy is a very solid version of a female hero, referencing back to the goddess archetypes of ancient mythological cultures. The evil beings which threaten to destroy her world–her friends, her family, her social life and even passing high school–must be stopped, and as the Slayer and true female hero,

she is the only one who really holds that power.

–AGB