Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
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 . . .)]
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
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,"
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 . . ."
Monday, April 20, 2009
...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.
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.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
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!!!"
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!!!"
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, April 6, 2009
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.
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.
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