#btvs analysis

[littlenastieswewhispered]

i’ve seen a lot of takes along the lines of “spuffy only works when buffy is miserable. even in season seven they only connect when she’s at her lowest.”

i’d say this is poor media literacy from people unable to grasp some of the deeper themes of the story, but it’s really a misread of the plot on a very surface level.

it’s true that in season six buffy is in a dark place, and that’s when she goes to spike. there’s way, way more to it, but breaking down season six isn’t really the point when people are saying there’s no change from that in season seven.

in seven, we see buffy and spike together all season, and for much of it she’s scared of the coming apocalypse but she doesn’t go to him out of depression or self hatred. she doesn’t keep him secret; she moves him into her house, in full view of her friends. she tells him to stay when he offers to leave.

empty places is obviously buffy’s lowest point. it’s in this sad space that she and spike connect in a way they haven’t ever before, and it’s beautiful. it gives her strength and pulls her back out, and the next day she wins her weapon.

after she tells spike that it was him who gave her the strength she needed, she easily kills caleb.

they quickly have it out about angel, moving on because it isn’t important, and buffy once again chooses spike, who accepts. she spends another night with him, and it’s this one where she has her “we’re going to win” revelation.

she forms her plan, tells her friends, and they are all ready to go to war with her because she’s right. they are going to win.

her confidence is well deserved, she’s back in the leadership role she earned by being good at it, and she delivers her incredible “are you ready to be strong?” speech to the potentials, who all decide follow her.

she says, “tomorrow morning, i’m opening the seal. i’m going down into the hellmouth and i’m finishing this once and for all.” with such strong conviction on her face, to the entire group captivated by her.

and that night— in her big house full of everyone she loves, strong heart jittery but sure, empowered by her choice, knowing they’re going to win, at her highest moment all year— she quietly makes her way downstairs, and sleeps in spike’s arms one more time.

spike and buffy only work when buffy is in a bad place? what a disrespectful way to look at our confident hero on the eve of her saving the world.

[holden-norgorov]

Buffy, Aslan and The Apocalypse - The Christian Undertones of Restless

Speaking as an atheist, I've always been fascinated by the Christian parallels which seem to permeate the entire work of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. But while I think such religious links are usually highlighted or explored whenever they come up in the text, I don't think I've ever read an analysis of Restless that even scratched the surface when it comes to its deep-seated interest in drawing comparisons between Buffy and The Christ. So, I decided to give it a try and attempt at verbalizing my thoughts on the episode regarding the specific religious thematic nucleus and imagery.

There have already been numerous instances, before Restless aired, wherein the show has deliberately drawn several parallels between Buffy (The Slayer) and Christ (The Savior). Buffy actively fights against the forces of Evil - vampires and demons which, under strict religious lens, could be interpreted as the embodiments of Sin, conceived as a kind of plague capable of multiplying and corrupting the Earth. She does that by wielding tools and objects whose conceptual implications frequently refer to Christian iconography or tradition (wooden or silver crosses, holy water, etc.). Under this framework of analysis, Buffy is exceptional as The Chosen One whose explicit role lies in eradicating Sin, or preventing it from spreading all over the world and conquering it. This state of affairs puts her above all the other human beings because of a string of specific characteristics which steam from that role (in her case, superpowers) in a not-so-different way than how all of this works for Christ Himself who, according to the Bible, descended on Earth with the specific intent to purify the planet and, as The Chosen One (The Son Of God), can likewise claim a wide range of characteristics other people don't possess - specifically, immunity from the Original Sin.

The religious allegory comes under intense narrative focus particularly during Prophecy Girl (S1E12). The Master, who is confined underground, symbolizes the Original Sin. The Anointed One, who is destined to lead the Slayer (Savior) towards the Original Sin, embodies the Serpent whose corruptive action condemns humanity as a whole to be excluded from Eden. In this circumstance, Buffy is wearing a white dress whose purpose is to suggest both her state of purity (defined as the absence of Sin) and her preparatory phase of pre-baptismal existence. White is also the color of God's Lamb, which is a direct reference to Christ. The moment when the Master bites Buffy and a solitary tear runs down her left cheek explicitly conjures the image of both the specific salvific action aimed at absorbing the Original Sin (the tear as the emblematic representation of the experience of the world's evils) and the potential consequence of Eden being corrupted through the alteration of a condition of untouched purity (picking the apple from the Forbidden Tree). The Master is therefore able to leave his underground prison and invade the outside world ("My world, my beautiful world!"), symbolizing the creation and spread of the Original Sin and the trasformation of Eden, which goes from being a terrestrial Paradise to a corrupted world where men and women are no longer "side by side with God", but have now to deal with Death and Sin.

What truly makes a difference, though, is that Buffy's decision to "pick the apple" doesn't originate from her insubordination against God's will (unlike that of Adam and Eve), but from her acceptance of God's own plan, once we take into account the Prophecy claiming that the Slayer will die while facing the Master as being metaphorically representative of God's Word. Buffy ultimately agrees on being guided to the Master's lair (and therefore, to the Original Sin) because that's what God intended for her, and it's precisely because of her acceptance of her own mortality and of the need to self-sacrifice that she's able to remain uncorrupted by Sin. Unlike Adam and Eve, she doesn't disobey God - she doesn't turn her back from her destiny, but she faces it head-on, knowing full well that her death, aimed at safeguarding the rest of humanity from Sin, is a salvific act on her part. Like Christ, she accepts to sacrifice herself for humanity as decreed by God's Word. She doesn't head towards the Original Sin because she's being seduced by her own curiosity, or because she possesses the kind of hubris or arrogance that can lead her to think that she might overpower the Master. She heads towards the Original Sin because of a deep-seated sense of duty, sacrifice and acceptance of what was prophesized about her. It's therefore not accidental that the Original Sin leads her to fall into a puddle of water. The idea of the puddle of water as a baptismal font is visually suggested by the scene, wherein a still pure and uncorrupted (white-dressed) Buffy undergoes a kind of baptism comparable to the one Christ received from John the Baptist.

While watching Restless we most definitely learn that Xander symbolically represents Buffy's Heart. This newly gained bit of knowledge allows us to retroactively interpret this scene as featuring a "resurrection" process that Buffy is able to go through specifically because of the purity of her Heart - which is not that different from what constitutes the reason behind Christ's own resurrection. At the same time, the scene also suggests the occurrence of a kind of Baptism: Buffy experiences a rebirth from the water and resurfaces stronger than before ("I feel strong. I feel different."). It's the purity of her Heart, which cannot be fazed or touched by the Original Sin, that allows her to re-emerge. The secondary presence of Angel in this scene (in its literal meaning of "angel" as in, God's emissary) implicitly recalls the fall of the Holy Spirit in front of The Christ right after his own baptism.

So, the show openly nurtures an allegorical interpretation that puts Buffy and Christ as comparable, parallel figures, and this same parallelism comes back in Restless, albeit in alternative ways.

In Willow's dream, wherein we definitely discover that she represents Buffy's Spirit (as in Pneuma, or the "vital breath" that animates the Body), this same parallelism is introduced once again by drawing an explicit link to S1. I know it's been talked at length about how Willow's role, specifically during S1, vastly lies in triggering Buffy's emotional catalysis. It's the circumstance of Willow suddenly finding herself in danger that ultimately leads Buffy to discard the idea of turning her back from her Call during Welcome To The Hellmouth (S1E1), and it's Willow's own trauma in Prophecy Girl (S1E12) that ultimately defines Buffy's choice to radically accept her destiny. Willow is the Spirit whose task is to vitalize Buffy-The-Entity and to set a specific course of action in motion for the Body to act and operate from. It's therefore not at all surprising that the first instance of comparison between Buffy and Christ steams from Willow herself in this episode. At first, we are led once again - following S3's footsteps - to view a feline (specifically, a cat) as a personification of The Slayer - Miss Kitty Fantastico, Willow and Tara's own pet, takes the symbolic role of The First Slayer in the first stage of the dream, stalking towards the camera with an explicit predatory vibe that makes the attitude of the cat look more like that of a panther, or a lion cub even. But it's only by the end of Willow's dream sequence that the religious allegory takes explicit form. Willow, wearing a carbon-copy of the dress we were introduced to her with during Welcome To The Hellmouth (S1E1), announces that she spent her summer reading C.S. Lewis's "The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe" (1950), and mentions that the novel deals with a lot of important themes. Of course, the most important theme lies in the Christian interpretation: Aslan - other than being a huge predatory feline (lion), also another representation of The Savior, tying the three characters (Buffy, Christ and Aslan) together in a thematically clear thread - sacrifices himself on a stone table in order to grant Edmund Pevensie atonement for his Sins, and comes back to life one day later, in a not-so-different dynamic than the one Buffy herself went through after confronting the Master. But the Willow we see now, coming right off the pilot of the show, is way too premature in presenting Buffy with this particular role: as proof of that, we see Xander (Buffy's Heart) channeling the same reticence and opposition that Buffy herself had towards her own Call during that same episode ("Who cares?!"), and Buffy herself is shown steadily holding a vacuous, detached expression while her own Spirit gets ferociously assaulted. Buffy is Aslan, but she's not ready to recognize it yet.

In Xander's dream - wherein, as I've already said, we learn that he represents Buffy's Heart - the parallelism between Buffy and Aslan is evoked once again during the scene when Principal Snyder appears. That scene is susceptible to different interpretations depending on how exactly we evaluate Xander in that moment - if we consider Xander as an independent character who's undergoing self-exploration in his own narrative, or if we take him as a symbolic embodiment of a specific role he plays in constituting Buffy-The-Entity. In the latter case, where Xander is the Heart, Principal Snyder represents the First Slayer. The parallelism becomes apparent as soon as Snyder refers to Xander as a "whipping boy, raised by mongrels and set on a sacrificial stone". Historically, a "whipping boy" is a (usually male) slave or individual without choice whose role involves undergoing corporal punishments on behalf of a prince or a nobleman he belongs to. Presently, the term is broadly used to refer to anyone who finds themselves having to pay or suffer consequences for the choices or actions of someone else, or anyone who is stuck in the position of having to sacrifice themselves on behalf of others. The explicit reference is to Buffy's own pre-acceptance phase, wherein her Heart has not yet come to terms with the fact that having to surrender her own life to save all humanity is the kind of sacrifice her role is bound to force on her (one that has already forced on her, and will force on her again). Her resentment at the injustice of her role filters through the use of the term "mongrels" to likely describe the Watchers (who raise the Slayers into accepting this role, in a way), while the explicit mention of the Sacrificial Stone recalls Aslan's own sacrifice in C.S. Lewis's aforementioned novel - which the Lion undergoes after being whipped, mocked and abused.

If in the first dream sequence we see that Buffy's Spirit (Willow) finds itself in complete disconnection with her Heart (Xander) and Body (Buffy), and in the second dream sequence we see that Buffy's Heart feels victimized ("whipping boy"), neglected ("raised by mongrels") and unfairly sacrificed ("set on a sacrificial stone"), then it's within the third dream sequence, Giles's (who represents Buffy's Mind), that we can successfully locate the ultimate acceptance of this self-sacrificial circumstance, and witness how that gets integrated into Buffy-The-Entity. If we go through Giles' entire dream under the presupposition that he's operating as Buffy's Mind, it follows, according to what we are precisely shown, that Buffy is still seeing herself as little more than a child who shouldn't be expected to undergo the same kind of sacrifice that Aslan (The Christ) faces, while simoultaneously being aware, on a purely rational standpoint, of it being a necessary component of the duty that it's her job to fulfill. The entire sequence is about the reconciliation, within Buffy's own Mind, of these two seemingly contradictory aspects. Almost absent-mindedly and with evident disregard, Giles recites the concept that Buffy needs to fully embrace ("The blood of the lamb and all that") suggesting reluctance at first, but he's put in front of the reality of things soon enough: after taking a final glance at a crying Olivia with a stroll turned upside down beside her (which substantially symbolizes Buffy's grief towards the loss of a condition of pre-acceptance and the loss of her own indulgence into the childish desire of having a normal life), Buffy's Mind ultimately focuses on Spike. The ultimate acceptance of the notion of sacrifice and of her role as Savior (Slayer) materializes in the exclamations of relief and bliss that the mass of photographers produce as soon as Spike, in a visibly liberating gesture, ends the shooting by posing in such a way as to recall the Biblical Crucifixion of Christ. This is, of course, all foreshadowing to The Gift (S5E22).

In Buffy's own dream, we witness a last initial attempt at resistance at this newly gained realization ("Buffy, you have to get up right away!" "I'm not really in charge of these things."), which quite rapidly turns into a spasmodic research of her friends. The Body alone isn't enough - it has to be reunited with the Spirit, Heart and Mind. Significant relevance, within this interpretation, lies in Buffy's dress during the dream - while still being fundamentally white (meaning absence of Sin, recalling her Prophecy Girl dress), this time it showcases a motif of cherries - fruit whose symbolic role is to represent the sacrifice of The Warrior, and which is also known as "The Fruit of Paradise". During the confrontation scene between the two Slayers, Sineya (The First) reminds Buffy that "The Slayer does not walk into this world" - what is being demanded of Buffy is that she recognizes her celestial (as in non-terrestrial, otherworldly) destiny and cuts herself off from the humanity she's expected to sacrifice for not only emotionally, but also physically. Buffy replies by underlining the importance of the Body ("I walk. I talk. I shop. I sneeze.") and thereby of the individual, while at the same time showcasing a definite acceptance at her own predestination provided by the cumulative integration of the previous dream sequences the other three elements constituting Buffy-The-Entity already experienced. The phrase "I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back" is an explicit reference to The Bible and to two different apocalyptic scenarios. According to the Scriptures, the first "end of the world" kind of situation manifests itself through Water - Genesis' Flood, which God arranges in order to clean the Earth from corruption. By mentioning a return of the cataclysm, Buffy implicitly identifies herself with Noah's figure and role in building the Ark which granted him the ability to perform the salvific act of safeguarding humanity from total destruction. At the same time, though, she explicitly calls herself a "fireman", thereby also mentioning the second big "purification" - that of The Last Judgment, manifesting itself through Fire.

2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the Earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.​

With a single statement Buffy frames herself as The Savior of humanity in not one, but two apocalyptic circumstances. She is both the Ark that carries the remaining part of humanity to safety through the biblical floods, and the Fireman who is going to quench the fire during the final judgment.

The actual, definitive parallelism with Aslan's character (in itself an alternative, fictional personification of Christ), though, ultimately comes up when we take into consideration the events C.S. Lewis recounts in the final volume of The Chronicles Of Narnia, "The Last Battle" (1956). In that novel, Aslan himself brings about the Apocalypse. Dragons and giant lizards invade the Earth and destroy all vegetation with fire, the stars plummet down from the Sky and Aslan ultimately saves humanity allowing those "pure of heart" to enter the Real Narnia - which is an Eden-like Paradise whose appearance is indistinguishable from that of the Old Narnia (Earth), but that's also devoid of corruptibility and Original Sin. Those "impure of heart" perish in the imperfect copy of the actual world under the weight of the fire, leading Aslan to be accurately described through the very same expression Buffy uses here to identify herself: that of a Fireman - as in, someone who doesn't quench just the literal fire, thereby granting humanity safety and protection, but also the metaphorical representation of Sin itself.

Restless ends by letting us understand that within Buffy herself lies a dormant Aslan capable of doing that very same thing - of bringing forth a change so drastic and fundamental to not only save but also revolutionize humanity; of taking the entirety of Earth to a "higher level" wherein the Original Sin (that is, the very intrinstic nature of a broken, corruptible system) is finally eradicated; and of establishing a new kind of equilibrium in the co-existence of those pure and impure of heart. It's of particular importance, under this lens, to consider the fact that, as long as the Body (Buffy) is alone, she's vulnerable to the attack of that very system - the First Slayer has no problems striking effective blows against her in the middle of the desert, not so differently than how the Master was able to inflict an effective bite on her while she was alone in his lair. But as soon as the Body is reunited with the other parts and they get integrated within a singular, functional Entity, those same attacks cease to have any and all efficacy or effect - the Original Sin becomes insignificant, easily washed away by a baptism. In the desert, like in the sewers, Buffy is fragmented and exposed; within the walls of her home, or in the company of her friends, she's complete and invulnerable.

Because, as Aslan's character exists in this episode to precociously demonstrate, and as Buffy herself will come to finally understand and embrace in Chosen (S7E22), the key to truly save the world lies, ultimately, in changing it.

[invisible-pink-toast]

hilarious to me when people try to explain btvs soul lore by looking at angel - like as a vampire without a soul angel was SO EVIL that killing him didn’t seem like enough of a punishment so he got cursed to live with the guilt of what he did 

like the curse exists so it’s obviously been done before, but in all of the supernatural history btvs talks of and all the vampires we meet, angel is the only one to be cursed with a soul (that’s why he’s know as THE vampire with a soul).

when the judge shows up in s2 he says that the other vampires “reek of humanity” like spike and dru because they care about each other and are jealous (what he considers human emotions) and the judge even destroys one vampire because his love of freakin books makes him have too much humanity. none of those vampires have a soul, but they still have humanity in them. 

and yet the judge can’t find any humanity in an unsouled angel! 

he’s the outlier, it’s like that meme where one super weird person throws off the whole statistic and shouldn’t be counted - that’s angel in terms of soul lore

plus there’s the fact that btvs soul lore / vampire lore doesn’t even make sense, was made up as they went along, and was retroactively changed to fit the story jfal;sdkhfl;sakhdf;lsh like the soul lore already makes no sense, don’t complicate it further by adding angel into the analysis 

[diaryofateenageslayer]

I was rewatching my Buffy DVDs and found the JW commentary. Even though his views on women/feminism tainted this show, he does explain his directing decisions.

If you don't believe the Spuffy fans, at least believe the writers and actors who created their story!

It's the "wait...Bangel was a big deal?" for me.

JW actually admits that Angel reappearing in the last episode and the Bangel kiss was, in fact, "fan service."

Emphasis on the VOCAL MINORITY that leads to the fan service. Something iconic enough (The Bangel kiss) to "give people hope( 😂) that Buffy and Angel might one day work out" - purple

I don't know what was going through that brain of his, but Parker was NOT "the most important relationship of her life." Like sir, where did that come from? - green

The chemistry between both David/Sarah and James/Sarah is insane. However, I like how both relationships have their own distinct chemistry. - yellow

Spike is more on Buffy's level. he understands her, both physically and emotionally, something Angel struggles with. - orange

The relationship is more nuanced, we witnessed the development, and we watched it build from the ground up. We can point out pivotal moments in the relationship. Spike has more dynamic, he's not just "the tall, dark and handsome vampire" that seduces Buffy.

Buffy tells Spike things she wouldn't tell anybody else.

"These two" (Sarah/Buffy & James/Spike), yes, I agree 🤗- blue

Angel is described as an object of desire. Buffy falls in love because of his looks. If Angel wasn't attractive, would she have fallen for him? It's his body that "becomes the object of her gaze."

He really has his looks to offer. "He's tall, dark, and handsome" so he must be a love interest. "Otherwise what else would his purpose be?"

The analysis states that Angel functions as Buffy's "homme fatal," (An ultimately seductive and dangerous man; a womanizer) which gives a nod to Liam's character, his human self.

Joss explains the comparisons between souled and soulless Spike and his behavior/change. Soulless Spike didn't recognize boundaries.

JW still highlights that Spike needs development before he and Buffy become "lovers" again.

The writer of the character and the story states that this man can be redeemed.

[joe-spookyy]

nothing makes me more evil than seeing someone misinterpret daniel “oz” osbourne of buffy the vampire slayer fame. this is deeply unfortunate because it seems to be all everyone knows how to do. the amount of people i’ve seen dogging on him for things he did not even have control over is crazy. if you have issues with him read on. he’s the best character and i will die on that hill, so fight me on this one. i dare you. season 4 spoilers under the cut sorry to my friends. also him and tara could have been best friends but this isn’t really about her. just had to say it.

FIRST of all. he did not cheat on willow. veruca took advantage of him. i don’t even get how there’s grey area there - it’s clear that in both situations the wolf has control over oz, but not over veruca. so not only was HE not choosing to have sex with her or even aware that he was doing it, but SHE was aware and was taking advantage of him. this is not in ANY way his fault??? now yeah. he coulda been a little more defensive about himself when he was talking to willow and buffy but it’s oz. he’s already worried about hurting people when he’s a werewolf. if everyone’s telling him he’s bad and wrong for this he’s gonna believe it even if it isn’t true. and he didn’t have to scram and go full no contact after that. but again. he was SCARED! he didn’t wanna hurt willow any more than he already had. he made a snap decision based on what he felt he HAD to do. and if you’re one of the people who says just because he brought veruca into the cage that means he Wanted her to do that to him. i am going to get you. that’s victim blaming. he just wanted to make sure she didn’t KILL anyone. it makes sense that he would pick risking her taking advantage of him again over letting people die. did he handle it perfectly? no. that does not mean he wanted her to do all that. he loves willow and says that so many times explicitly. literally left to make sure he was good enough for her. he did not want veruca. jesus.

and SECOND. even worse is the people who are saying he comes across as homophobic for having a negative reaction to finding out about willow and tara. like. hello. did we watch the same scene. not once does he say anything negative about the fact that they’re both girls. he’s clearly just upset that willow didn’t tell him she was involved with anyone else, and with his whole new controlling the wolf thing, there’s gonna be a lot of pent up emotion and probably anger. so when he got extra upset when tara wouldn’t tell him anything more and eventually ended up wolfing out, it’s clear that it’s because he’s upset that he trusted willow but she didn’t give him all the information about where she was at and whether or not he had a chance with her again. which makes sense from her perspective of course, and tara’s reaction was valid too, but we can’t act like he suddenly hates gay people just cause he got mad that someone he cares about wasn’t totally honest with him. and he warns tara so he doesn’t end up hurting her by accident. and at the end of the episode all he wants to know is whether willow is happy. and she is. and so he’s happy for her and accepts it. i don’t even know how people are getting any other perception of the situation. god. sorry.

big idea is if you think oz is in the wrong for either of these i am going to hunt you down and beat you up evil style and maybe sit you down and have a talk about media literacy.

[pmlrosenberg]

spike and buffys last scene together ties in with “walk through the fire” from “once more with feeling” hear me out.

spike and buffys lines tie in greatly with each others. buffys first line is “i touch the fire and it freezes me” spikes is “the torch i bear it’s scorching me” he feels like he’s giving everything to her but is only getting hurt and buffy doesn’t know how to feel hence the fire is cold to her but it’s burning him.

also spikes conflicting feelings for buffy in the lines “i’m free if that bitch dies” and “i better help her out” he doesn’t want to have these feelings but he physically cannot stop or stay away from her very much like how a fire/flame cannot stay away from what it is around, the fire desires something to keep it burning, in this case, spike desires buffy.

basically, the fire is a metaphor for desire

but we see by their last scene together they both held the fire they both had that desire and they both loved each other so so much and we see how the fire burns buffy which contrasts with the lyric “i touch the fire and it freezes me” because she finally knows how she feels towards him (therefore the fire is no longer cold) which leads to the exchange between buffy and spike: “i love you” / “no you don’t. but thanks for saying it”

[coraniaid]

Literally the whole point of Buffy's arc in Season 6 is that she didn't come back wrong -- her depression, her inability to connect with her friends the way she wants to, her attraction to vampires in general and Spike in particular, the way she focuses on Slaying because it's something simple that she can excel at when she's struggling with the quotidian and unromantic aspects of her normal life, how hard she finds existing in the world now that her mother's gone and she and Dawn are alone -- these are all things that were true of Buffy before she died in The Gift. They are all things that we have seen from Buffy before, some of them going back all the way to the first season.

Spike tells Buffy that she must have "come back wrong" in Smashed because he wants to believe it -- as much as he wants her to believe it -- because it makes her more like him (and like all vampires, who really have come back wrong, "a little less human than you were"). And equally Buffy wants to believe that she "came back wrong" because it means it's not her fault she feels the way she does now. It means the emotions she's been struggling with all season are something that's been done to her by outside forces and not who she "really" is. But the show explicitly tells us (via Tara in Dead Things, who is clearly more informed than Spike here and actually does the research) that they are both incorrect: Buffy did not come back wrong in any way beyond "surfacy physical stuff". The Buffy of Season 6 is the same Buffy we've seen in the previous seasons; just cast in a new light by new circumstances and new experiences.

The Buffy of Season 5 would have struggled to cope with the reality of life after her mother's death just as much as the Buffy of Season 6. In fact, she does struggle just as much -- it's just that there's a whole world-saving Slayer mission to focus on as well, which she can use to distract herself from the sense of purposelessness she now admits to feeling ("I don't know how to live in this world if [...] everything just gets stripped away. I don't see the point") . But S6 Buffy doesn't get to have that sort of grand adventure to distract herself from the mundane. S5 Buffy gets to battle sword-wielding knights in shining armour and to fight a literal god and to make a big heroic sacrficice to save the world; S6 Buffy has to deal with the squalid reality of the Trio and paying bills and working in the Doublemeat Palace. But, underneath, she's the same person she always was. Again, that's the whole point of the story this season's telling.

We see Buffy struggle to come to terms with this in the second half of the season (including her retreat into fantasy in Normal Again) but it is something she ultimately does accept about herself. It is the entire subtext of her final speech to Dawn in Grave. Buffy admits that things have "really sucked lately" but promises Dawn that that will change; she admits to having gotten things "so wrong" and that instead of trying to protect Dawn (that is, to protect her memory of her pre-S6 self) she should be encouraging her to live and grow (to live in the world, which Buffy described in The Gift as "the hardest thing in the world"). And Dawn is explicitly a part of Buffy (the part of Buffy that exists outside of being a Slayer), so any time Buffy has this sort of conversation with her sister it is really a conversation she is having with herself. It is deliberate choice that the season ends with Buffy and Dawn climbing out of a grave together -- reenacting the events of Bargaining -- with Buffy having come to peace who with she is and her own resurrrection and seeing now how beautiful the world is.

There are a lot of characters in Buffy who come back wrong, but Buffy Summers is simply not one of them. However much she might wish that she were.

[bloomfish]

RESTLESS. The absolute most Analysable episode of a heavily Analysable series. It's perhaps the episode of Buffy that I enjoy watching the most because there are so many things to think about at once, and every time you watch it you see new things. I think the "every small detail is meaningful" approach of Buffy has been extremely influential on me in general, in my own writing I simply cannot help but overthink every single thing that I include. This is why I cannot comprehend the whole "sometimes curtains are just red" thing like that could never be me. I tend to believe good writers DO intend significance behind every single minor detail.

Anyway restless is truly the apotheosis of this. I LOVE dream sequences as a narrative device so an episode that is entirely dream sequences is... well, a dream to me. It's a study in Everything Has Meaning and is such an iconic & bold choice as a series finale (especially bc the season 4 villain is.... notably weak). The foreshadowing, the character work... it's a great conclusion to the overarching themes of S4 about the differences between the core scoobies and indicates that perhaps these weren't and will never be fully solved. Which imo is an interesting point to make in a series so heavily centred on the power of friendship.

All of these things that have been beneath the surface since the very beginning... Willow's impostor syndrome, Buffy's humanity warring against the darkness of her nature as a slayer, Giles's conflict between his own life and his fatherly role towards Buffy, Xander... Xandering (although a minor thing I love about his dream is Giles and Spike on the swings, which alludes to something definitely present but never made explicit- Xander's insecurity towards Giles. He KNOWS Giles sees him as inept, bumbling, annoying. his relationship with Giles is never as close as Willow/Buffy/Anya's are and that mirrors Xander's relationship to his father. Giles is never a father to him like he is to the others. Anyway.) it's just an example of writing that knows its characters SO well and not a single thing is out of place. Even the cheese slice guy simply representing the nonsensicality of dreams lends significance to the rest of it by contrast. Ugh I love restless 🫠

[ausgoth]

doing something only i care about (classpecting btvs characters)

starting with buffy as LECER, sign of the loyalist a bloodbound prospit dreamer, with the class of rogue more characters under the cut

faith very easily slipped in to SCORCER, sign of the champion another bloodbound prospit dreamer, but sporting the thief class

willow is AQUAPIA, sign of the eccentric. derse dreamer and lightbound. witch or seer seems obvious for a class but i am more inclined to assign her the page what is with the light aspect and dangerous lesbians.

xander is CANO, sign of the translucent. a derse dreamer and heartbound. his class is the knight, something im sure he would be very happy to hear.

cordelia is CAPRIUS, sign of the climber. a prospit dreaming breathbound. her class is the maid.

oz is TAURITTANIUS, sign of the utopian. a voidbound prospit dreamer. it was really hard to come up with a class for oz. something something void aspect. i am leaning towards heir but on the off chance anyone else reads this i am welcome to suggestions.

tara is VIRSCES, sign of the roborant. lifebound and a derse dreamer. her class is the witch. not just because shes a witch though i assure you. i suppose she is a witch witch.

anya is SAGIBORN, sign of the rampant. ragebound derse dreamer. shes super chill and normal idk what you mean by rage. her class is the sylph!

giles is TAURPIA, sign of the aesthete. lightbound derse dreamer. his class is the mage.

dawn is LERIES, sign of the tenacious. she is a timebound derse dreamer and her class is the prince. heir could also work however, i just think that a destruction class is appropriate for her.

angel is VIRMINI, sign of the abiding. a doombound derse dreamer. i believe angel would be a witch.

spike is AQUALO, sign of the puppeteer. heartbound and (finally) another prospit dreamer. spike is a tough one. i am tossing up between prince and thief here but i think prince is gonna come out on top.

drusilla is PITTANIUS, sign of the quixotic. a voidbound prospit dreamer. i think the seer class is pretty obvious and thematically appropriate here.

[coldzonkprofessorturtle]

Why Ava Silva is the hero we need

Alright, let’s talk about it. I’ve watched A LOT of television over the years and there’s nothing I love more than genre storytelling. Give me an ass-kicking, self-sacrificing female lead who gives everything and still saves the day. And let’s be honest there’s plenty of shows to choose from: Xena to Buffy to Supergirl to animated girlies like Korra and She-Ra and that trope is available in spades. With great power comes great responsibility and all these characters are constantly trying to serve the greater good despite the cost. 

And then there’s Ava Silva. She’s already dead when we first meet her and what’s most tragic of all is that she was never able to properly live. A most likely orphaned quadriplegic who’s abused and then murdered by the nun who was charged with caring for her - it’s about as devastating a backstory as you can get. She never has agency over her life or even her death in fact. She’s revived by chance when her corpse is used to hide the halo. She has no say in any of it. Her initial life is destroyed by the car accident that kills her mom, she’s murdered and can’t even rest in peace before being resurrected to then live a second life in which she’s told she has to fight for the Catholic Church (an institution that has only ever caused her harm) and then discovers that her newly granted role of Warrior Nun means she’ll most likely soon die again. Despite all this though (and because of it really) Ava appreciates life. Truly and fully. In a way that we’ve never really gotten to see before. In fact, she’s even selfish about it! How dare “the chosen one” run away in pursuit of her own happiness above all. 

In Ava, I’m reminded most of Buffy and the speech she gives to Giles at the end of the first season when she has to come to terms with her imminent death. She’s only sixteen and has to bear the weight of the world on her shoulders. She just wants to be a normal teenager but instead has to become the Slayer. 

Like Ava, Buffy dies (twice!). She cracks jokes like Ava makes puns and is extremely loyal to her friends/found family. The biggest difference between these two heroines though becomes apparent when in season six Buffy is ripped from the afterlife and has to fight again. Buffy wanting to be dead was such an insane twist. Shouldn’t the hero want to live? 

Buffy’s sacrifice is still some of television’s greatest storytelling. The show was originally going to end there before finding life on a different network (say what you will about that) but for the time it was also a powerful choice. 

Fast forward twenty years and along comes Warrior Nun. At this point heroes sacrificing themselves has become the norm. They’re supposed to die. Weighted down by the responsibility of life and “the hardest thing in this world is to live in it” feels like the truest of statements. And let’s be honest, life IS hard. But then there’s Ava. 

She appreciates what life can offer. She runs, she stuffs her face with food, she dances, she drinks, she loves deeply and learns to appreciate every sunrise. She doesn’t offer any pretenses about the fulfillment of death and through Ava as an audience we’re reminded of how precious and fleeting and affirming life can be. It’s such an incredibly important message because Warrior Nun wholly embraces (and shows us) what it means to live in a way that genre storytelling hasn’t always been able to. 

Of course, Ava still has to sacrifice herself. It wouldn’t be a proper end of the world genre show if she didn’t and her journey to making this decision is what makes this show so good (bless Avatrice). Warrior Nun’s cancellation particularly stings because of this. We still need Ava to have her happy ending. At the very least we’re currently left with the semblance of divinium-fueled hope (thank you Simon Barry!). We know Ava comes back - here’s to hoping the show gets to as well. 

[linkspooky]

Buffy Season 2, Episode 17 Passion Thoughts

Welcome back to my Buffy retrospective where I give my long, rambly thoughts on certain episodes. Passion is another episode that shows how season 2 of Buffy took the show from being a fun, urban fantasy show to a long running story with IDEAS and THEMES and THINGS TO SAY.

Passion is an episode that both has a self-contained theme it explores within the episode, like how lie to me is about lying to yourself, and at the same time contributes to the whole of the season 2 arc involving Angel and Buffy's relationship. It's got some deeply dark things to say about both characters.

1. Angel

It's impossible to talk about this episode without mentioning the spoiler. I made it the banner image of this post. This is the episode were Angel kills Jenny Calendar.

This is more than just a fridging, it's a turning point for Angel's character. It's no coincidence that the season 2 ending episode Becoming pt. 1 focuses on Angel's origins while Becoming pt. 2 focuses on Buffy learning who she is without her friends and family. You could say that Season 2 is just as much about defining who Angel is, as it is who Buffy is.

In season 1, we eventually find out that Angel is a vampire without a soul but besides that twist and his action of staking Darla he doesn't really do anything of importance to the plot. He's not a fully explored character at that point, if anything he's just a trope. A brooding, anti-social vampire trying to redeem himself for his past. At that point Angel is exactly what he says on the can. You know what his role in the story is supposed to be, romantic figure, and Buffy's love interest but there's little you could say about Angel the person. What does he like? What does he dislike? What's his favorite food?

Season 2 could have just continued with having Angel play the love interest, but it decided to go there instead. Over the first half of season 2, the more you learn about Angel's character the more the audience is pulled away from the romantic image of him. Before he even becomes Angelus, Angel often violates boundaries with Buffy. In reptile boy Angel brings up their age difference and then Buffy brushes it off. In Lie to Me he deliberately goes behind Buffy's back to investigate a former friend of hers without telling her. While at the same time he also deliberately conceals his relationship, and every terrible thing he did to Drusilla, because he didn't want her to dislike him for it.

The age difference between Buffy and Angel, Angel's tendency to talk down to her because of that age difference, his lack of respect for her boundaries, even things like watching her sleep, these things happen in the first half of the season and they seem small and easy to dismiss because genre. Angel's a vampire so of course he's older than her, that's just how these stories go. Angel and Buffy have this amazing tragic romance going for them, so of cousre they don't have to do things like communicate. I find it funny that Buffy brings up the idea of just getting coffee with Angel in Lizard Boy and he finds it so difficult. Why? Probably because it'd just be a normal date. Which doesn't fit for the whole tragic gothic aesthetic of their supposed love story.

Which is what makes Buffy and Angel's relationship, and Angel's character in particular fascinating to me, because in a sense it's like both of them are roleplaying in a relationship. Characters in story constantly bring up and talk about Buffy and Angel like they're some tragic, forbidden love. Buffy constantly brings up the difficulty of being in a relationship with someone who's supposed to be her worst enemy, and often very simple arguments in their relationship come off like they have life or death stakes.

Angel: You just wanted coffee or something? Buffy: Coffee? Angel: I knew this was gonna happen. Buffy: What? What do you think is happening? Angel: You're 16 years old, I'm 241. Buffy: I've done the math.... Angel: You don't know what you're doing. You don't know what you want. Buffy: Oh no, I think I do. I want out of this conversation. Angel: Listen, if we date, you and I both know one thing's gonna lead to another. Buffy: One thing already has led to another. You think it's a little late to be reading me a warning label? Angel: I'm just trying to protect you. This could get out of control. Buffy: Isn't that the way it's supposed to be? [Angel pulls her close] Angel: This isn't some fairy tale. When I kiss you...you don't wake up from a deep sleep and live happily ever after. Buffy: No. When you kiss me, I wanna die.

This is another quote from reptile boy, and before this Buffy was jsut trying to ask him out for coffee. Buffy and Angel both dramatize their relationship. Angel says "This isn't a fairy tail", and yet while he was the one who points out their age difference he still acts like he was controlled by an overpowering love at first sight for a sixteen year old girl. He tells Buffy later on in season 3 how he loved her from the first time he saw her.

That above quote mirrors a lot of the early foreshadowing in season 2 in regards to Angel's turn to the bad side, there's the unpleasant reality in Angel reminding them of their age difference, and then Buffy sweeping it under the rug with her romanticism. Which is the big twist of season 2, and of Passions in particular. Angel is the dark, brooding romantic hero until he's not. Until he's the villain.

Jenny's death signals that turning point for Angel, because yes Buffy is traumatized and humiliated in innocence, but it still ends on a slightly triumphant note of her recovering just enough to kick angel in the balls even if she still can't finish him off.

Think of watching Passions as an unspoiled member of the audience as it was airing though. Imagine being deeply invested in Buffy and Angel, and thinking while what happened in Innocence was terrible for Buffy that wasn't Angel's fault it was only because he lost his soul. At this point the audience is still likely rooting for the two of them to get back together. Angel turning into a leather pants wearing, smoking bad boy who's now an enemy to Buffy just adds some delicious angst to the ship, right?

At this point Angel turning evil still sort of adds to the forbidden romance allure of their relationship. That idea is still romantic and appealing to the audience... at least until it starts having a body count.

Passions is the episode that shows us that no, Angel is not coming back. Not only that, but it makes us question whether or not we should want him back in the first place. Every single one of Angel's actions in this episode are things he did earlier in season 2, that got ignored because of the romantic lens both Buffy and the audience were judging Angel's actions by.

The age difference that Angel brings up in reptile boy, and Buffy dismissed, is now a problem. Angelus appears in front of Buffy's mother as a "college boy" who she slept with once, and then broke up with who then resorted to stalking her.

Angelus: Did buffy tell you about us? Joyce: She told me she wants you to leave her alone. Angelus: I can't do that. Joyce: You're scaring her. Angelus: You have to help me. Joyce. I need, I need to be with her. Y-you can convince her. You have to convince her. Joyce: Look, I'm telling you to leave her alone. Angelus: You don't understand, Joyce. I'll die without Buffy. She'll die without me.

Angelus' lie to Joyce isn't even that far from the truth of his actions, because he spends the entire episode tormenting her because he's unable to rid himself of his obsession. Behavior which, even Spike finds a little bit weird.

Spike: Are you insane?! We're supposed to kill the b¡tch, not leave gag gifts in the friends' beds. Drusilla: (cuddles her puppy) But, Spike, the bad teacher was going to restore Angel's soul. Spike: What if she did? If you ask me, I find myself preferring the old Buffy-whipped Angelus. This new, improved one is not playing with a full sack. (gets a look from Angelus) I love a good slaughter as much as the next bloke, but his little pranks will only leave us with one incredibly brassed-off

In Lie to Me, he asks Willow for permission to enter her room. Then te two of them snoop on one of Buffy's old friends who suddenly reappeared in that episode behind her back. That action seemed harmless at the time, but in Passions because Willow gave him permission earlier he's able to enter her room and kill all her fish as a sign he's been there.

In Passions his habit of sneaking into Buffy's room while she's unaware is no longer romantic, when he is leaving drawings of her sleeping in her room to let her know he broke in and could have killed her in her sleep at any time.

The romanticism of Angel's actions are peeled back, and the dangerous reality is shown to the characters.

Angel is the narrator of the beginning and end of this episode, and you could say this episode is all about understand what's going on inside his head. If you take the role of the romantic hero away from Angel, then who is he exactly?

Angelus: Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping, waiting, and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir, open it's jaws and howl. Cut to even later in her room. The camera closes in on a sleeping Buffy. A shadow comes across her bed, and a hand reaches over to stroke her hair with its fingers. The camera pans over to the person, and it's Angelus, sitting on the edge of her bed and looking down at her. He continues his narration as the camera pulls out for a shot of him sitting next to her while she sleeps. Angelus: It speaks to us... guides us... Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have?

The last line "What other choice do we have?" speaks a lot to Angel's nature. Just like he acts like he is swept along by passion, he also acts in general like he's swept along by a bigger story. Angel is no longer buffy-whipped Angel. He's no longer playing the role of the brooding, romantic love interest, and yet he still talks about everything like it's taking place within a story.

Angelus pretends to be Buffy's clingy ex boyfriend in front of Joyce as a joke, saying I need her, I need her, acting the role of a spurned college boy and yet, Angelus is equally as obsessed and deperate about their love as Angel was towards Buffy. He doesn't just kill her, despite Spike telling him to stop messing around and do that.

I asked again and again who Angel is, but watching this episode this question isn't easy to answer. Angel's not trying to be a person, he's trying to play a role. He's just switched from the love interest, to the villain. Angel still sees himself as a character within a love story, he just decided to be the villain now.

However, Angel was always like this. He was never capable of having a relationship where he and Buffy go out for coffee because he wasn't trying to be a person. Angel wants to be someone greater than who he really is... and that's why this episode is about the extremes of love, about being possessed by grand sweeping emotions.

Angelus: Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... and the ecstasy of grief. Angelus: If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace, but we would be hollow. Angelus: Without passion, we'd be truly dead.

In the closing narration Angelus talks about how much is missing without passion in our lives. The same Angelus who was judged by a literal machine able to detect humanity to have 0 humanity whatsoever. The same Angelus who loathes having a human soul. The same Angelus who when possessed by a ghost that forced it to enact its final goodbye to its lover, immediately showered himself afterwards and scrubbed his skin raw because it made him feel too human.

Angelus hates anything to do with love, and feelings and wants to torment Buffy for making his souled self love her. That same Angelus claims that without passion in our lives we'd be truly dead. Which means in Angelus mind, love and passion are not the same thing.

2. Dead Girl Walking

Which is where I loop right back to the start. Buffy and Angel are both characters who speak often about how in love they are, while in the same breath complaining about how miserable it makes them. Why then, do they get involved in this big, epic love of theirs if it seems to hurt them far more than it ever does mend them?

The answer of course is in Angel's monologue: without passion, we'd be truly dead.

Angel and Buffy both use narrative as a coping mechanism for their lives, which is haunted by death. Angel, because he's literally a 200 year old undead man. Buffy because she is the slayer, and so not only does she deal death, but people constantly die around her. Buffy herself who will probably die young.

Buffy and Angel are both staring at a hopelessly bleak reality. So, they romanticize it. They are also both incredibly isolated. Angel, because he is 200, and Buffy because she is a 16 year old with more responsibility than any adult around her. They both have a longing for companionship that would release them from their isolation, along with a fear that no one would truly "Get it."

In such a circumstance it makes sense for both of them to lean into the storybook aspects of their relationship. They both feel like they are completely cut off from the world around them. In the Season 6 episode Gone, spike just describes that as being dead.

SPIKE: Not too put off by it though, are you? (drinking) INVISIBLE BUFFY: No! Maybe because for the first time since ... I'm free. She tosses the sheet aside. Spike looks around, trying to figure out where she's going. INVISIBLE BUFFY: Free of rules and reports ... free of this life. SPIKE: Free of life? Got another name for that. Dead.

To be cut off from the world, to be isolated from your peers, is to be symbolically dead. Which probably makes you feel pretty dead inside. Buffy doesn't want that. She even sings a song about it.

Whatever, I don't wanna be... Going through the motions Loosing all my drive I can't even see if this is really me And I just wanna be... alive

Buffy frequently talks in later seasons about how she being the slayer makes her feel like she's turning to stone, but it really starts here. Giles even make a comment in the episode that Buffy can't allow herself to be ruled by her passions. It's the only time the word 'passion' is mentioned in the episode outside of angel's narration.

Giles: Buffy, I-I understand your concern, but it's imperative that you keep a level head through all this. Buffy: That's easy for you to say. You don't have Angel lurking in your bedroom at night. Giles: I know how hard this is for you. (gets a look from Buffy) All right, I don't. But as the Slayer, you don't have the luxury of being a slave to your, your passions. You mustn't let Angel get to you. No matter how provocative his behavior may become.

It's a scene where Buffy is understandably freaked out by Angel's stalking, but Giles instead of listening to a scared teenage girl tells her she has to calm herself down and act rationally about this. In this scene Buffy's not allowed to just feel fear like any other teenaged girl in her situation would. She's not, because she has to push her feelings down to be the slayer.

In fact this is topic for another day, but you could say a lot of Buffy's inability to process her emotions from later seasons come from the fact that Buffy was never allowed to just sit there and be afraid of the 200 year old man terrorizing her and inflicting psychosexual trauma on her. She wasn't even allowed to think of herself as a victim. In fact, on a couple of occasions, some people (Xander) acted like everything Angel did was Buffy's fault for sleeping with him.

Buffy never gets to be the scared girl that she is, because she's continually called by both the situation and the people around her to be a slayer. In a season where Buffy is the target of the stalking, and the one getting traumatized she still has to be the brave heroine for the sake of everyone around her because she's never allowed to be the victim.

Because, look what happens when Buffy fails to be the hero.

Jenny dies.

Something which is not Buffy's fault, but is a consequence of her decision not to kill Angel when she had him cornered in Innocence.

Which just speaks again of the weight on Buffy's shoulders. It's not just Buffy who's getting stalked this episode, Angel drags everyone around her into it, as a play to get at Buffy. Buffy has to make decisions that will result in people dying if she makes the wrong one, so of course she isn't allowed to be emotional or ruled by passion. She has to shut her emotions down and act as the Slayer.

However, living life without those emotions just isn't living. The end result of all that emotional repression is Buffy feeling like she's dead inside. So, she seeks some kind of escapism.

Feeling SOMETHING is better than feeling nothing. Even if that something is slowly torturing her, she'll take the misery and grief romance brings her over nothing at all.

Which is why Buffy and Angel act out such a fairy-tale like love, because they're both seeking some kind of escapism from the isolation their lives bring them. However the thing about stories is they don't hold up to reality. You date a person, you don't date a prince, or a vampire, or a character from a story.

Having a relationship with a person requires things like communication, rules, boundaries, neither of which Buffy and Angel have any healthy idea of. Buffy because she's a teenager, and Angel because he's a socially awkward vampire who's been eating rats for a hundred years.

They are both completely inexperienced with any kind of healthy relationship, so any relationship they get into they end up being drawn to what they know. For both of them, it's once again the death and tragedy that seems like it's a constant in their lives. Buffy has no idea what a relationship even is, but being with Angel makes her feel a whole bunch of things, and she's familiar with the constant pain and anxiety from watching her parent's disordered marriage so that makes her go "Yeah, this is it!"

The Thanatos and Eros symbolism in this episode is especially heavy too, to the point where I could make a whole other post about it. That being Freud's theory that all of life can be divided into the life instinct Eros (drive for consumption and recreation) , and the death instinct Thanatos (risky behavior, aggression, reliving trauma).

Sex and death are overlaid frequently in this episode, and in past episode too in regards to Buffy and Angel's relationship like Innocence.

Angel: Spike, my boy, you really don't get it. You tried to kill her and you couldn't. Look at you. You're a wreck. She's stronger than any Slayer you've faced. Force won't get it done. You gotta work from the inside. To kill this girl… you have to love her.

When Angel snaps Jenny's neck he says "This is where you get off..." Which is an obvious sexual inuendo, while at the same time being an inuendo for death. While he's holding her to snap her neck, it looks like a lover's embrace. After he does it, he pants and groans.

Angel flits between making suggestive comments and making violent ones the entire episode. His goal is to kill Buffy. He's a predator, being a vampire, and yet not only does he get compared to a sexual predator (a stalker / older man sleeping with a younger girl) but he acts like one in front of Buffy's mom.

When Giles discovers Jenny's body, he's tricked at first to thinking that Jenny has planned a romantic surprise for him and is waiting at the bed because Angel went to the trouble to dress the whole scene up and leave rose petals at the door. Giles thinks his lover is waiting for him in bed only to find a corpse, and the camera cuts to Giles standing still outside the room as the police arrive with the opera music in the background still playing.

Sex and death, sex and death, it's a constant theme in this episode and obviously for Angel they are practically the same thing. Not only does Angel view relationships that way, he also inflicts that kind of love on Buffy.

Which is I think the most important part of the episode, because so much sexual violence has become inflicted on Buffy she sort of starts to mirror the way Angel approaches sex and sexuality too. Buffy too, doesn't really see love, just passion. Buffy too, will later go out of her way to see out the most torturous romance possible because she doesn't know anything else.

Jenny is the victim of this epsode, but Buffy is the greater victim of Angel's passions and it will effect her in the story long after this.

[witchothewest]

Watching Nightmares and thinking about how one of Buffy’s worst nightmares is being buried alive, digging herself out of her own grave, and finding herself changed. Then thinking about Bargaining, how she has to claw her way out of her own grave. And then how a major theme of season six is about fighting personal demons, and for Buffy that demon takes the form of her fear that she came back different, that she came back wrong.

[holden-norgorov]

Some more small details from "Restless" I really like

I know I've already talked at length about this episode in the analysis linked above, but there's just so much about Restless that's worth exploring and pointing out, and upon my latest rewatch of it I couldn't refrain myself from highlighting all the small details about it that I find most amusing and interesting, and that somehow I don't remotely see talked about enough.

So here it is:

1) Harmony trying to bite Giles while he uncaringly and deliberately ignores her, in Willow's dream. It foreshadows Giles's staunch and glaring inability to recognize the kind of path Willow is gradually embarking on and her (somewhat latent) capability for evil until it's already too late to prevent or properly tackle. It also recalls Something Blue, when Willow's misuse of magic literally renders Giles blind. I think there's a leitmotif spread through S4 to S6 about Giles failing to meet what can be properly framed as his responsibility, as the only expert and adult member of the group and the one who has already experienced first-hand the addictive component of dark magic usage in his youth ("It was an extraordinary high!", The Dark Age), when it comes to making sure Willow doesn't develop an unhealthy relationship with her reliance on magic that in turn might make her vulnerable to the idea of abusing it for morally questionable ends. Giles completely underestimating Harmony's evil nature and its potentiality of killing him here, to the point of framing the moment as comical, is a reflection of his underestimation of the way magic abuse is substantially molding Willow's nature into something potentially lethal for herself and others.

2) Another detail that I find amusing in Willow's dream is the subtle parallelism between the Harmony/Giles scene I just mentioned, and the moment of the play shown here in the picture.

In both occasions, Giles and Buffy blatantly ignore Harmony and focus on Riley. Giles explicitly tells Harmony to cut her annoyance off and disregards Harmony's "props?" in favour of Riley's "props?". As already said, I think that's a commentary on Giles' lack of involvement in Willow's growing practice of magic and the possibly dangerous consequences such negligence might entail. On the other hand, though, Buffy also has her back turned on Harmony and completely ignores her crying next to the corpse of an unidentified man a couple of scenes later. She's too busy ranting to Riley against men's behavior, possibly foreshadowing their future break-up, whose first signals can be seen right from the following episode. But if we take Harmony as a stand-in for undetected Dark Willow in the rise also in this moment, then this scene aptly foreshadows S6's finale by having Willow, filled with nihilistic dread and pain, melting down after killing Warren (the result of her unchecked immersion in dark magic). As a consequence, Buffy being too distracted by an ossessive and unhealthy focus on a man while Willow gradually loses herself inside the dark magic to the point of committing murder can be framed as a parallelism to her Spike addiction in S6, and the role that addiction plays in making Buffy unable to prevent Willow from becoming Dark Willow. In a way, the scene seems to imply that Buffy's partly at fault, along with Giles, for ignoring Willow.

3) The final scene of Willow's dream, when Welcome To The Hellmouth is directly referenced. The multiple levels of interpretation of that moment fascinate me. I've already talked about this in my aforementioned analysis, but basically you can draw a specific meaning of that scene depending on whether you consider current Willow, S1!Willow or Willow as the Spirit of Buffy The Entity. It's beautifully complex. From S4!Willow's perspective, she is afraid her newly gained confidence, stemming from her improved experience, social connections and emotional maturity acquired in U.C. Sunnydale compared to her high school days, is actually a facade she is wearing to hide what she really is and feels she will always be: "just some girl" (Wrecked), "a loser" (Two To Go) or a life-long victim of bullying and domestic neglect that will never be anything else. I think this greatly foreshadows basically the core issues that will be at the center of her unhealthy dependance on Tara as a source of an inflated self-perception of amazingness, and of her resulting unhealthy dependance on magic as a compensatory source of that same self-perception as soon as Tara is no longer available to her. It's indeed worthwhile to note, and very telling, that the two occasions where Willow most vehemently dives into unhealthy magic abuse in S6 (respectively, Smashed/Wrecked and Villains/Two To Go/Grave) come right after Tara abandones her (respectively, Tabula Rasa and Seeing Red). On the other hand, from S1!Willow's perspective, she is afraid that the people she loves (Oz and Tara) are actually conspiring against her behind her back, thus reinforcing the idea that all she really deserves to be is bullied; that her life-long best friend and fellow bullying victim (Xander) doesn't actually like her and is as tired of her as everyone else ("Who cares?!"), and that Buffy, the new girl, is going to leave her to die a gruesome death (at the hands of the Order of Aurelius in Welcome To The Hellmouth and of the First Slayer here) instead of embracing back her Call and coming to her rescue. In fact, as opposed to what actually happened in the pilot, the Buffy we see here is uninterested in saving S1!Willow, reinforcing the idea in S1!Willow that she is not worth saving. From the Spirit's perspective, instead, S1!Willow is trying to present an analysis of a book, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis), centered around a Christ-like figure whose role is to sacrifice himself on behalf of others (comparable to the Slayer) in order to motivate Buffy The Entity to embrace her destiny, but Buffy's Heart is still reluctant to accept that destiny (Xander makes his annoyance loudly known) and Buffy's Body is completely uninterested and just stares motionless back at her Spirit's vitalizing call, leading to its demise. Overall, a fantastic, deeply-layered scene.

4) Xander's "I'm a comfortador, also", directly followed by his performance of masculinity being analyzed by the Initiative. A great moment that summarizes his character's function and arc perfectly; his constant strive towards a kind of heroic, traditional masculinity that is capable of providing him with a sense of purpose and nobility, that he intimately craves as a result of the feeling of shame he attaches to his parents, his background and himself; and his comparably strong strive towards the acceptance of a double nature fighting inside him (Assertive Xander and Fearful Xander, The Replacement) and the need to integrate both of these sides of himself in his own identity, thereby coming to terms with not only his narrative place as The Hero's Nerd Pal as opposed to The Hero Full Stop (something S1 and S2 spent a lot of time on with relation to his character's function), but also with the existence of some kind of willingless inside him to be at ease with that role, and to own it. He's both looking for a conquest and for comfort. That's one of my absolute favourite character moments for him, in that it highlights his contradictions so well in such a simple way.

5) Xander calling his parents "vampires". I can't even begin to unravel what this says about him, and how with one very simple line the viewers are forced to basically rewind Xander's character altogether and put into question where the true motivations of a huge part of his choices, actions and behaviors in S1-3 actually come from, right from the get-go with Jesse's double-death (first as a human, and then as a vampire at the hands of Xander himself). This creates an incredibly interesting conundrum as well: does Xander call his parents "vampires" simply because he hates vampires and thinks of his parents as subhuman like them as a consequence of their toxic parenting, or does he call them "vampires" because his deep hatred of vampires actually originates from a correlation he made between them and their parents, based on how they both intimately victimized him (even physically, not just psychologically) and made him feel ashamed, worthless and without purpose for his entire life? "I'm inadequate. It's fine. I'm less than man" he says in The Harvest as if he's accostumed to hear such a thing about himself, right before following Buffy anyway to rescue Jesse from those vampires, in an attempt to prove to himself that he can stand up against his father them, if needed be. What if Xander viscerally hates vampires because they remind him of his father's violence and monstrous behavior towards both him and his mother for years? What if his deep-seated mistrust and callousness towards Soulful Angel and Spike, especially when they find themselves having direct influence on Buffy (or Willow), actually originates from his traumatic response to his domestically violent childhood that cemented in him the idea that real-life monsters can have a soul and still be evil and never change, and from his desire to protect his female friends from experiencing the same kind of abuse he was subjected to from those very monsters? What if part of his judgmental tendencies towards Buffy's emotional attachment to vampires (knowing full well they are vampires) is a defence mechanism he activates to protect himself from the idea that this might mean that his father (whom he sees as a vampire as well) could be also worthy of love and redemption, in spite of what he did to him? Or even worse, that his father may deserve to be loved more than him, despite being an abuser? ("Nah, forget it. I'm not him. I mean, I guess a guy's gotta be undead to make time with you", Prohecy Girl). I mean, I'm not exaggerating when I say that that simple line where he compares his parents to vampires completely redefined my understanding of Xander's character from head to toe. It gives him an additional astounding level of complexity that in my opinion is incredibly undervalued.

6) Xander subconsciously harboring the idea that Giles failed him as a father figure as well, by having Giles express paternal affection to Spike in his dream. This always makes me think about Giles never even showing up at the hospital in Empty Places, after Xander has lost an eye in the first battle against Caleb. As opposed to the deeply layered father-daughter dynamic he shares with Buffy, and the reciprocally fruitful relationship based on mutual respect, common expertise and a similarity in temperament and experience he has with Willow, Giles’s attitude towards Xander has always been one of obligated tolerance at best, straight-up annoyance at worst. Despite Xander’s relationship with his father being arguably the most problematic and traumatizing among the group, and despite Xander being the one who would have arguably benefited the most from gaining a surrogate father figure that could offer him guidance and set up a strong example, we’ve never seen anything other than irritation, dismissiveness or mockery coming from Giles towards him – and here we are being shown that Xander knows it to an extent, and suffers from it. It's a sad realization nonetheless, but I have to say that it particularly punches me because it comes right after the parents-as-vampires bit. I incredibly feel for Xander through this episode, ad through the entire show because of this episode. The way Xander averts his eyes from his father when he finally opens the basement door, full of fear and shame, his body responsive through traumatic signs... it really gets me.

7) Giles hypnotizing Buffy. A very evocative scene about the nature of relationships between Watchers and Slayers and, to an extent, men and women in the past, with Buffy's laugh and disregard foreshadowing her subversion of that system in Chosen.

8) Olivia crying in heavy make-up with a stroller turned upside down while Giles turns his attention on Spike. Another instance where multiple layers of interpretation are provided. On one hand, this qualifies as foreshadowing for Giles, who's definitely going to come to terms with his middle-life crisis by reinstating his position as Buffy's Watcher and turning his back from the opportunity to build a personal life in England, in the final scene of Buffy vs. Dracula. On the other hand, this is also Buffy's Mind coming to terms with the fact that her supernatural destiny is bound to force her to prematurely cut ties with her innocence (stroller turned upside down), and that she has to quickly take her mind out of mourning it (Olivia crying) and focus on the purpose of sacrificing herself for others (Spike's crucifix pose as the crowd ecstatically sighs with praise and relief). The closing moment of Giles's dream is also incredibly haunting, with his blood covering his eyes as he stares right towards the camera, and the viewers are finally able to connect the dots on what's happening.

9) I don't know exactly why, but there's something about the section of Buffy's dream where she's talking to Riley and Adam that particularly fascinates me. Buffy seems to react to Riley's stereotypical masculine presentation (he's at a corporate boardroom, dressed as a CEO, has just got a promotion, has a Freudian phallic-like gun pointed right at her, exudes confidence, etc.) with an uncharacteristically remissive feminine role (she's basically barefoot, in a cute dress, with a highly-pitched tone and an overtly agreeable demeanor towards him, is welcoming and smiling to him almost dutifully, proposes they celebrate together his promotion, etc.). The scene also makes a point to portray Buffy as unusually dumb, almost bimbo-like ("It-it's that a good?" she asks about the coffee-makers that think). Riley and Adam are also portrayed as basically engaging in "mansplaining" (a term I don't really like as I often think it gets misused, but that I think perfectly applies here). Riley paternalistically says "Baby, we're the government. It's what we do" and Adam adds "She's uncomfortable with certain concepts" talking about Buffy's ignorance of the true nature of her own powers. It seems to me that there's a specific tone about this whole interaction that I can't quite wrap my head around to this day, but at the same time it can be nothing but deliberate and purposeful, as I don't think it's something that I'm imagining. I'm sure part of the commentary is about the facadeness and ineffectuality of military structures as soon as real threats are to be handled with (as shown by Riley's suggestion to create a fort with pillows when the demons escape), but I have a sense that something else is being said here. Maybe a commentary on the Watcher's Council? On how they are as much institutionally powerful as they are only ornamentally useful in the fight against Evil? And maybe about how Slayers are asked to remissively accept that contradiction and never put it into question, resigning themselves to their instrument status? I don't know. But there's definitely something going on there.

10) Obviously the entire sequence between Sineya and Buffy is noteworthy, but I already tackled that in my analysis as well.

[invisible-pink-toast]

That line in ‘I Was Made To Love You’ where Buffy is so confused about where Spike’s feelings have come from got me thinking about moments where the “that’s the one for me!” feelings might have started or developed. 

Spike’s obviously attracted to Buffy, and obsessed with Slayers, but between when he realised his feelings in ‘Out Of My Mind’ and when he tried to confess in ‘Crush’ I figure he would have been thinking over their past interactions and seeing Buffy in a new light. There’s two lines later in the show where he talks about his feelings for Buffy:

I know you never loved me. I know that I’m a monster. But you treat me like a man.

I love who you are. What you do. How you try.

So instead of moments where they have great chemistry or banter or are fighting, I think the real moments where the “that’s the one for me!” feelings pre-’Crush’ come from Spike seeing Buffy just as she is. A slayer, but a modern one, a person, who’s flawed and who doesn’t always have good choices, but who always keeps going and would do anything for the people she loves. 

And for me all this shows that by ‘Crush’ Spike is genuinely in love with Buffy. But being an awkward and overdramatic little twit - he confesses terribly, and being a vampire without a soul - he doesn’t always feel or express these feelings in a healthy or appropriate way. And this and his feelings escalates through late s5 and s6, but shifts in s7 once he has his soul. So by the time he’s saying his speech in ‘Touched’ all the moments of him seeing Buffy for who she is change from just “that’s the one for me” to also ‘that’s the one’.

[gimblestank-the-goblin]

Why did the Mayor die so easily?

One of the questions that get asked in the Buffy fandom is why the Mayor died so easily. Its clear that the writers expected the C4 thing to come across as much more deadly and just as clear that the fandom isn’t satisfied with this answer. The way I see it there are two broad possible answers:

The first is that the Mayor had a brief moment of vulnerability - after he lost his immortality but before he had fully ascended - where something as minor as C4 could kill him.

The more interesting (to me) answer is that True Demons just... aren’t that scary anymore. That modern technology has rendered the monsters in the dark... not powerless exactly, but less scary. That as society has advanced the balance of power has shifted and now it is the monsters which must hide from humanity. This is not the first time that Buffy has played around with this theming. Judge defeated whole armies but could be undone by a man portable rocket, Mr. Trick was scarier than Kakitos because the later was a relic of the past while the former had adapted to modern society, the premise of season 4 is that the U.S govt is a bigger threat to Buffy than any monster.

Its a core theme of Buffy that building a community is what allows humanity to defeat the monsters and drive back the darkness (see Buffy being the most successful slayer because she builds a support network, the symbolism of houses being proof against vampires), and what made the Mayor so terrifying a villain was how he inverted this relationship. His control over the town and the school took what had made Buffy (and humanity) safe and turned it into a threat. It is fitting, then, that his fatal mistake is in casting aside his humanity - his real power - for the raw might of a demon.

[variousqueerthings]

I'm genuinely shocked you are a Bangel fan and not a Spuffy fan.

I'm not actually 😂 I am waaay more into their growth when they're apart, but that's because when they were together they were like cellophane -- nothing getting through, very wrapped up, constantly having The Most Intense Conversation (to the point that the show itself made a joke about it)... ok cellophane doesn't talk, but you get the idea...

it minimized especially buffy for me - but not in a bad way. s1-3 buffy is still figuring a lot of herself out, and sometimes character-writing is about the goldfish pond being too small and eventually breaking out of it - but also angel, who is commonly considered - and I agree - more interesting on the show angel. buffy expands after angel is out of the picture, which is interesting from both a holmesian and doylist perspective -- does she grow because the writing no longer relies as much on angel as anchor (sure), does she grow because she was in a relationship that involved her not being as sure of herself as a person yet and then (due to some horrible things) having to step out of that relationship (yeah)

does buffy also get into some wildly complicated and unhealthy relationships subsequently, interestingly enough not being in love with riley despite the potential that he might have been the only person who was good for her (he's not and he's also annoying, but the point is when she first starts dating him she's fascinated by the appeal of a relationship where the world isn't ending all the time) (but buffy is also a traumatised person and there's a whole other analysis on her relationships and abuse and toxicity and trauma)

I faaaaar prefer buffy and faith, buffy and kendra, and buffy and spike (and angel and spike and drusilla and darla) in the fanfictiony sense. in the show-sense, buffy and angel are fulfilling some tropes very well and then breaking out of them as the show goes on, but canonically buffy is in love with angel in some way from near the beginning until the end of the show -- what this should make us start thinking about is polyamorous!buffy........

but I also prefer reading with show text: why is buffy with angel? why does she fall in love with him, and vice versa? why does he have such a hold on her throughout the story and vice versa? interesting questions, whether or not one "ships" it or not