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 . . ."
Dr. Rose says:
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think the point of scary veiny Willow is? I mean, I know it can signify a lot of things, but what's your signification of choice?
For me personally, if a tad cliched, it's the dark side that is within all of us coming out in her character. As the show progressed, it has become even more clear (and central to each season) that every person is fully capable of the cruel and heartless-in a word, "inhuman." Humanity, though defined, as you have pointed out, not only by emotion but also by a sense of conscience, has the capability of both good and evil, darkness and light; classic thematic tradition at its finest.
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