#she took the ritual willingly so this might genuinely be her first death. probably terrifying

[bacchuschucklefuck]

love thinking kipperlilly spends her afterlife looking for lucy in a familiar forest

[impalementation]

Hi! I always love your analysis of the show, and there are two things I’ve been thinking about that I think it’d be interesting to hear your take on. Do you think there’s any significance to Doc being the one to bleed Dawn, or to any of his other appearances? And what’s your opinion on Willow’s arc in season seven? I always look forward to hearing your answers on things

Hi, I appreciate you wanting to hear my takes! That’s a good question about Doc, and one I hadn’t really thought to answer before. I do suspect that part of the reason they used Doc in The Gift was just them being hyped to have Joel Grey, and wanting to make the most of it. And also them wanting to surprise the audience. So simple story machinery reasons.

But if I were to make a thematic connection, I think it’s probably significant that Doc first appears in Forever. He’s the person that helped Dawn try to bring back her mother. He showed up in the episode that was all about how hard it is to continue on in the aftermath of loss, and told Dawn how to cheat at that. And one of the points of the episode was that things like life and death and grief can’t really be cheated. Doc also tries to cheat death himself, since he comes back even though it seemed like Xander and Spike had killed him. So the fact that Doc, this person associated with cheating death, starts the ritual and then gets tossed aside, brings up those ideas around whether one can avoid the realities of mortal existence. I find it significant that Spike, the other person that helped Dawn with the resurrection spell in Forever (and who happens to be immortal too), also gets tossed from the tower. I think you could say that Doc showing up is meant to give you that same Forever feeling of nope, you’re not getting out of this one. You can’t escape mortality. Someone is coming out of this ritual and episode dead.

So symbolically—and yeah this might be reading too much into things but we’ll go with it—Doc and Spike both falling from the tower means that things like immortality, cheating, and romanticism fall. Illusions of childhood. Which fits, since The Gift is a big old symbolic death of childhood in general. Doc, Spike, and Dawn all took the immature approach to mortality in Forever. But in The Gift, Buffy will take the mature one. Unlike Doc and Spike, she gives her blood willingly instead of giving her sister’s, and she dives from the tower deliberately instead of falling by accident. She takes ownership of her mortality. So to put this another way, the point of Doc bleeding Dawn is to be in contrast to Buffy. The demonic response to mortality versus the heroic one. Similarly, he venerates Glory—read: venerates glory—and Spike also has the word “glory” associated with him in Fool For Love (“there’s death, there’s glory, and sod all else right? I was young”, “his strength, his vision, his glory”). Both of these demonic characters have done things “for glory” whereas Buffy does things for love, especially her most “glorious” things like self-sacrifice. And that’s what makes her the hero.

(Obviously by The Gift Spike has evolved somewhat from his youthful Fool For Love self and is perhaps somewhere between Buffy and Doc on the demonic-heroic axis, but he’s still not the kind of hero that Buffy is. He still has illusions. So he falls.)

Also of note: Doc is one of the only male characters on the show who is coded as genuinely old (if in a spry way), as opposed to the middle-aged authority of the Mayor or Quentin Travers. He’s an old man but also a demon, which informs my read of him as “demonic mortality.” Lastly, in a season with a lot of doctors in it, I can’t help but see his name as a reference to that. Doctors in season five try to prevent Joyce’s death in a legitimate way. Whereas Doc tries to revert it in a supernatural way.

As for Willow in season seven, I’m going to leave that one for now, since I have another post I’m planning to eventually finish on her. But I can share an excerpt from my draft for that post that mentions season seven. Under the cut just to break things up:

one of the things that first stood out to me about willow is the fact that she’s friends with xander at all. maybe the writers thought through the implications of that, and maybe they didn’t. but regardless, i always thought it was interesting that willow would be best friends with someone who is as silly and non-booksmart as xander. and not once does willow seem to look down on him for that. i tend to think more about how cute it is that buffy adopts willow and xander, but it’s actually just as interesting that someone as brilliant as willow is drawn to people like buffy and xander too. between her affection for them and later oz and tara, and in contrast to her frequent antagonism towards anya, cordelia and faith, willow seems to really crave a warmheartedness in people. unlike xander, who is very much drawn to abrasive forthrightness, or the general powerfulness that buffy and faith possess. also unlike buffy, who although she deeply values goodness, finds herself compelled by people like angel, spike, and faith—people who, whether or not they’re evil at any given moment, have morally complicated natures and lack a bubbly scooby personality. as for why willow craves warmheartedness…one could debate about that, and i do think it’s notable that willow sometimes comments on buffy being less smart than her, but for now i’ll just identify the trait.

[…]

the reason that i think people hate willow’s relationship with kennedy in season 7 is not just because kennedy isn’t tara, but because kennedy is a break from the pattern that i noted in the season 1 section. kennedy doesn’t fit the warm-hearted type that willow has been drawn to in the past. but i actually think there’s something that works in that idea, at least in theory if not in execution. by the time season 7 rolls around, willow has confronted her darker nature, articulated her insecurities, and lost the person most important to her. she doesn’t need to hide behind a partner’s sweetness or coolness anymore. i see her feeling distant from sweetness in general. in previous seasons willow is afraid of what people will think of her, but in season 7 she’s afraid of herself. those are two very different fears. the interesting thing about kennedy to me is that, like tara and oz, she thinks willow is cool and fascinating, but this time around, instead of craving that sort of approval, willow is terrified of it. she takes no glee or joy in it, but instead is afraid that kennedy is missing or dismissing the flaws that willow thinks she needs to work on.