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#buffy the vampire slayer meta
lunasink · 8 months
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Okay season 4 ep 11 (Doomed) of Buffy
So Spike is down because he can't fight, and that's his essence, the fight, the thrill of it, danger, getting close to the edge, edge of dying. He's obsessed. As long as he can fight something, even demons, he's back and happy.
But since he was sired he loved the fight, that edge of death, flirting with it, doing the dance. And that's a big thing with him and Buffy.
I think he loves playing, toying, dancing on the edge of death. Because that was the first real moment he felt alive, when Dru was on the edge of killing him. Before that he was just William, and he said it was a mediocre existence. That that moment, essentially that's when he woke up for the first time. It was on the edge of dying. It's like he wants to relive that moment over and over. Dying made him feel alive.
And so he finds that feeling in reckless fighting, knowing and not knowing this (I think).
Fighting a slayer (and then killing a slayer). And then again fighting another slayer (and then killing another slayer).
And then seeking out a third slayer (but this one is special obvi) but again, with her it's a flirtation, a dance with death on the edge of a cliff. Death and the maiden but so twisted and unclear. He did have a first love slightly before Drusilla I think.
Death.
Like he's trying to kiss death over and over.
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why don't you like buffy seasons 4 and 7?
The Statement
Anon's actually referring to an offhand comment @therealvinelle made in this post.
And actually not what they said. She noted she has problems with both, but season 4 was still very well written, and season 7 was the one that was less so.
As we tend to agree on these things I can clarify that they're far from bad I've seen shows where any season, their best seasons, are still worse than those seasons of Buffy by far. I was able to watch through all seasons and have done so multiple times, there's many shows I can't and don't finish.
But they're not as good as the rest of the show in my opinion and season 7 especially so. Season 7, unlike the others, actually was hard to finish and kind of just... was there.
Why No Season 4?
Season 4 is very much written like a season that's finding its footing and trying to navigate how to coexist with the spinoff show that had just started, Angel.
And a lot of the problems start and end with Angel.
Angel has a bad habit of taking fan favorite characters from the Buffy cast that they feel Buffy can survive without. We suddenly lose Wesley, Cordelia especially, later Spike and Harmony, and Angel himself. The thing is that Cordelia is a real loss in that she's a very big part of the supporting cast, she gets a lot of the funny lines, a lot of the Scooby but not quite interactions. The show makes up for it for soon introducing Anya as her powerless human self, who takes up a similar role for a while, but it then has to introduce her character and a similar love interest arc with Xander.
We also get the Angel Easter Egg episodes where he either makes silly cameos (showing up for an episode only to never do anything and just be referenced all the time while the B plot rages) or we get episodes where "wow, you should have watched Angel last night, it was super important and things happened, and it was important, but we're not making the show self-contained". The season, because it is well-written, does work with it but it's not great.
Then we have the more major problem in that a lot of the story arcs, settings, and everything else they'd depended on went away the previous season. Cordelia's gone so Xander has no more love interest in her or in Willow who's still dealing with the Oz fallout, there's no Oz (though I should note I do not like Oz) which means that the Willow Oz thing is done, Angel's now gone for realz which means Buffy's will they won't they thing with him is now a won't and they have to offically replace the love interest even though they clearly don't want to, Giles has to be involved somehow but he can't hang around the school all the time when the kids aren't there.
So, we have a season where no one's really sure what to do with themselves. We get Buffy together with Riley, Willow has a very messy grief over Oz and then gets together with Tara entirely off screen, Xander is now with Anya, Giles is around.
Now, all of these are good plot threads, I do actually enjoy the growth of characters in season 4, but the problem is that because of all of the above it's kind of all over the place. Combined with filler of Buffy wanting beer in an episode, it's just a giant mess of Oz coming back, then not coming back, Willow's exciting gay offscreen love interest, and even more Xander relationship problems.
It's watchable because it's all very well written, some of the best lines come from season 4, but it's a mess.
And then we get the Initiative, which as a big mystery of the season is just... bad. It's just bad. Yes, Spike is a gem in the season and the chip is a great plot device, but the Initiative itself is not very interesting, our first big bad of Maggie is eaten almost immediately, then we barely see Adam and when we do... He's really boring.
I will say that there are individual parts of other seasons I like much less than season 4 but it's a mess of a season.
Why No Season 7?
Now this season really didn't know what to do with itself.
Narratively, the show should have ended at season 5. It was a great conclusion, everything was pretty much wrapped up, and we had our death for Buffy. However, it didn't end.
Now, I say this loving season 6. Season 6 is a great season with some of the best writing in the series, horrible and extremely dark, but very good.
But it's hard to go anywhere after it because the big bads of season 6 were the characters themselves. It was Buffy entering this toxic relationship, Willow's road down addiction and power, Tara having to leave, Giles having to leave, Anya and Xander falling apart, it's all about the gang and the villains are just three losers who 2/3 are just misunderstood weebs who don't quite realize what they're doing.
So, we get done with that, learn that we ourselves can be just as bad as any villain, and then we get a lot of lore and a lot of characters I just hate. We get all the Slayers being watched, we get a love interest slammed in Willow's face so that you don't think that her bisexuality was just a season long, and Kennedy is the worst, god she is the worst. We get the First Evil, while admittedly is intangible and has to manipulate others, but to make up for that we have uber vampires and uh Nathan Fillian as an evil priest guy who never really gets explained or dealt with. Angel's crammed back in, once again, in case you started shipping Spuffy too much over the past few seasons in another kind of ridiculous cameo to literally hand Buffy the deus ex machina MacGuffin which will sacrifice Spike so that he can go to his new show.
Spike and Anya just sort of die just so they can kill somebody.
And the whole thing's just messily written in trying to introduce many new characters while wrapping things up with the old cast, new love interests all over the place, and trying to recover from season 6 so that these characters can work with each other again.
I easily put season 7 as my least favorite season.
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linkspooky · 6 months
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BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: "HALLOWEEN"
The next episode in my episode by episode analysis of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, showing how individual episodes fit into the themes of the seasons they're a part of and the series as a whole. This is the first of several Halloween episodes that use the holiday to take a deeper look into the fears of the characters, and the costumes they wear not just on Halloween but every day in their normal lives.
1. Janus
The central theme of the episode revolves around the roman god Janus. Giles helpfully explains for us here.
Giles: Janus. Roman mythical god. Willow: What does this mean? Giles: Primarily the division of self. Male and female, light and dark. Ethan: (appears) Chunky and creamy. Oh, no, sorry, that's peanut butter.
Janus is the god of beginnings, transitions, dualities, and oorways. He's a two-faced god as shown in the idol that Ethan Rayne uses to cast his spell. More specifically he is the god of doors, the gates of an ancient building in Rome are named after him. As the god of Doors, he represents the middle ground between concrete and abstract dualities. Male/ Female, Light/Dark and Chunky and Creamy. These things are traditionally thought to be two abstract categories but the closer you look at them the more fuzzy the boundary line between them becomes.
A Binary Opposition is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning, where two opposites are strictly defined against one another. Up is defined as being the opposite of down. These are considered to be strict categories that are mutually exclusive from one another.
However, these sets can be seen as complementary forces, rather than contradictory to one another. You can't understand one without understanding the other. An example is one cannot conceive of 'good' if we do not understand 'evil'. These pairs which are seen as distinct opposites are actually complementary pairs which are needed to define each other.
Dualism, is the key word of this episode every single character in this episode has two faces. They are representing two sides of themselves, one is the face they wear on their everyday lives, the other is their hidden side that they only have the confidence to show on Halloween. Which one is the mask, and which is the real face that's first asked this episode and repeated again later on in the series.
The basic premise of this episode is that on Halloween you have the confidence to dress in a way you wouldn't normally dress for the rest of your life. This quote from a completely different show the Venture Bros does a good job of explaining it.
Orpheus: This is a night of true magic. Halloween is the night we discover who we are. Are wepeople who make zombie armies? Are we those who condemn others, or are we beautiful children in resplendent costumes collecting candy? Are our choices in costumes provocative? Do we dress up as our ideal self? Or are we not ready to decide who we want to be? We use this one enchanted night to perform the greatest feat of magic there is. We become ourselves. Halloween is the true magic it is the night we discover who we really are.
For Buffy this means dressing like a normal girl, for Xander it's dressing up like a more traditionally masculine tough guy soldier, and for Willow it's dressing a little slutty (until she loses confidence to do that).
Not only does each costume choice inform us about the characters, the characters are physically flipped. As a result of the spell making the halloween costumes flesh, the characters insides become their outsides and their outsides become their insides. I'll be breaking them down character by character down blow.
2. Willow: The Ghost Girl
Willow's costume for the night is based on that old joke that girls dress up sluttier on Halloween because it's the one night of the year they're allowed to get away from it without being judged.
Buffy: What'd you get? Willow: A time-honored classic! (holds up a ghost costume) Buffy: Okay, Will, can I give you a little friendly advice? Willow: It's not spooky enough? Buffy: It's just... you're never gonna get noticed if you keep hiding. You're missing the whole point of Halloween. Willow: (smiles) Free candy? Buffy: It's come as you aren't night. The perfect chance for a girl to get sexy and wild with no repercussions. Willow: Oh, I don't get wild. Wild on me equals spaz. Buffy: Don't underestimate yourself. You've got it in you.
Buffy mentions that Willow is hiding, which is an interesting word to use here because you could say that shy, introverted Willow spends most of her life hiding from the spotlight. Just a few episodes ago Willow's choice of outfit to wear for the school dance in Inca Mummy Girl is emblematic of this behavior, on a night she can wear anything she chooses to wear a giant snow parka that hides most of her body. To a dance which she was hoping Xander would ask her to, and got jealous when he noticed another girl (the mummy girl) and asked her to the dance instead.
Willow is made up of these two contradictory desires. She wants to stay out of the spotlight, but she wants to be noticed as well. Unlike most of the pairs we're going to discuss in this post these two things are mutually exclusive. As Buffy points out "You're never going to get noticed if you keep hiding."
Male and female don't contradict each other, you can be both male and female because male and female are just made up categories that are more ambiguous than most people believe them to be. However, you can't get noticed if you're hiding yourself, because well you're hidden. It's a having your cake and eating it too sort of deal.
Perhaps reflecting how contradictory and complicated Willow's core desires are, she's the only one dressed up as two different costumes. She at first dresses in the more revealing costume Buffy suggests, but then hides it with a traditional white bedsheet ghost costume. Willow is dressed up as two different things because she wants to have it both ways. Giles even comments on the confusing nature of her costume.
Giles: (confused) A-and, uh, your, your costume? Willow: I'm a ghost! Giles: Yes. Um... w, uh, uh, uh, the ghost of what, exactly?
Willow wants to be noticed for who she is, and in general be the kind of self-confident person that Buffy seems to be so naturally, but she's constantly sabotaged by her fear of judgement. When people notice you they will judge you whether you want them to or not. It's not a coincidence that Willow dresses up in costumes again and again, in story. Wearing costumes / theatre / performance is a recurring motife for her, you see Willow's got a bad case of stage fright.
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In the first episode where characters deal with their deepest fears, S1E10 Nightmares, Willow's nightmare is being forced to perform the opera Madame Butterfly on stage in front of everyone when she doesn't know the lines.
STAGE MANAGER: Man, I thought you weren't going to show. Aldo's beside himself. M. C.'S VOICE: Ladies and Gentlemen, we are proud to present two of the world's greatest singers… STAGE MANAGER: I hope you're warmed up. It's an ugly crowd. All the reviewers showed up. M.C.'S VOICE …all the way from Firenze, Italy, the one and only Aldo Gianfranco… The stage manager drags Willow to the curtain. She peers out to see: WILLOW'S POV - A RATHER LARGE AUDIENCE is waiting. Willow backs away from the curtain, starting to hyperventilate. M.C.'S VOICE… and all the way from Sunnydale, California, the world's finest soprano, Willow Rosenberg! WILLOW: But… I didn't learn the words…
As I said performance is a recurring motie for her character. The definition of a motif is a distinctive feature or dominant idea in an artistic or literary composition. Willow's character revolves around the idea of theatre and performnace it just keeps coming up with her, later on in the dream symbolism episode of Season 4 "Restless" Willow is once again forced to step up on stage when she doesn't know the lines. Her dream is once again showing up to the first day of drama class only to learn that everyone is putting on a production of Death of Salesman with a cowboy in it, and she doesn't know any of the lines. Giles also has this to say about acting and the word "hiding" is brought up again.
GILES: Acting is not about behaving, it's about hiding. The audience wants to find you, strip you naked, and eat you alive, so hide. GILES: Now, costumes, sets, um, the things that you, uh, you know, uh, you, um... you hold them, you touch them, uh, use them, um... HARMONY: Props? GILES: No. RILEY: Props? GILES: Yes! (Points at Riley) It's all about subterfuge. (To Harmony) That's very annoying. (To everyone) Now go on out there, lie like dogs, and have a wonderful time. Now, if we can stay in focus, keep our heads, and if Willow can stop stepping on everyone's cues, I know this'll be the best production of "Death of a Salesman".
Willow's dream also has this repeating line, said by many different characters.
BUFFY: (to Willow) Your costume is perfect. (Whispers) Nobody's gonna know the truth. You know, about you. WILLOW: (bemused) Costume? BUFFY: (pouting) You're already in character! Oh, I shoulda done that! [...] BUFFY: (straightens up) Play is long over. (Stares at Willow) Why are you still in costume? WILLOW: Okay, still having to explain wherein this is just my outfit. (Gesturing to her clothes) BUFFY: Willow, everybody already knows. Take it off.
People constantly refer to Willow as being "in costume" when she's just wearing her normal everyday clothes. Giles says that acting is just the art of lying and hiding who you are in front of everybody, and Willow's default behavior is to always hide in the shadows. Willow's everyday self is just as much of a costume as the costume she wears on Halloween.
You would be forgiven for thinking Willow is not as layered or interesting a character as Buffy until the midpoint of season 2 because she really doesn't get much focus in Season 1, with I Tarzan You Jane being the only real episode that centers around her. She doesn't seem to be anything other than the standard shy best friend / sidekick to the more self-confident main character girl. However that's yet another role Willow plays, because as someone who fears the spotlight, Willow has a tendency to hide in Buffy's shadow.
Willow is a shy introverted teen girl with low self-esteem who's basically only had one friend her entire life, until Buffy suddenly drops into her life in high school. Willow's life suddenly became "special" because Buffy was there and Buffy is special. She transforms from a geek with a few computer skills to a literal magic witch in later seasons. Buffy is the "chosen one" but Buffy chose Willow as her best friend in the first episode when she could have chosen Cordelia. Willow's compromise for wanting the spotlight for herself but being too afraid of it is to cling to Buffy instead, Willow isn't special but she becomes special by being Buffy's friends.
That's why this is the first episode where Willow starts to become her own character so to speak, because when Buffy is rendered useless by the spell into a typical damsel the role of leadership for the group falls onto Willow. When Willow is forced to take charge she's shown to be perfectly capable of doing so as long as Buffy's not around (she also stands up to Giles in Reptile Lizard Boy, and asserts herself more and more later on this season) so the problem isn't really that Willow's not capable of taking charge but she's not usually confident enough to. This is the first episode where Willow becomes the protagonist and Buffy the supporting character.
It's something that will happen again and again later on, Willow attempting to fill in Buffy's shoes. The season 3 opening she makes a pun and tries to stake a vampire the way Buffy does only to fail miserably. When Buffy is gone in season 6, Willow becomes the default head of the group. Willow is always in Buffy's shadow, but she's also shown to be perfectly capable of stepping out of that shadow on several occasions, it's just Willow herself who chooses to stay there.
Which really goes to show how deep Willow's fears and insecurities run. Willow is a hacker, she's smart enough to get into any college she wants, and yet Willow's opinion of herself is abysmally low, she's cripplingly afraid of what other people think of her.
Except on Halloween, the one special night you can choose to dress up like a slut and get away with it judgement free.
2. Buffy: The Normal Girl
While Willow gets to play the hero for the night, Buffy gets to be the damsel-in-distress being rescued by others instead of doing the rescuing. Buffy's desire to be a normal girl and how being the slayer keeps her from a normal life where all she has to worry about is which boy she's going to the dance with is a long running theme with her character, but there are some interesting themes with gender going on with Buffy and Xander's characters this episode.
The central "idea" of Buffy is that Buffy as a blonde high schooler would usually be the first victim in a horror movie, the girl running away from the slasher but instead she's the thing monsters run away from. Certain episodes play with this idea by changing her back to her more traditional role and show just how weird and out of character that is for Buffy. This episode she's practically helpless for the entire episode. There's an episode in season 3 where she loses her powers as the slayer, and spends the entire episode losing all confidence in herself because she lacks the strength to fight back against monsters and other men and is made to feel like a victim. In Season 5 there's "Superstar" where Jonathan makes himself the main character of Buffy by using magic to turn the world into his self-insert fanfic, and despite still being around Buffy acts more like a sidekick or "The chick" of the group despite the fact she's supposed to be the slayer.
Buffy is a girl in a main character role that's usually given to guys. It's a thing both the writers and audience are aware of. It shouldn't be weird that the chosen one is a girl, and yet because of the gender imbalance in fiction it sort of is. That's why characters sometimes ask questions like "How come there aren't any boy slayers?"
However, Buffy being a female character occupying a role usually reserved for main characters is also commented upon in universe by the males in her life. Xander's season 1 arc is him dealing with the fact that Buffy is not the love interest to his story and doesn't conform to his desires of her and accepting her as a friend. Xander gets a flash of that tendency of his rearing its ugly head again when Xander gets mad at Buffy for standing up to him when a jock was about to beat him up, because it'd apparently be better to be beaten up then saved by a girl.
Buffy always wants to be a normal girl, but I think it's important to see in this episode why she wants to dress like a princess from the 1800s this episode. It comes from two of the men in her life making her insecure about her femininity. Xander by complaining about a girl rescuing him, and Angel's lack of attention making her believe she needs to act more like the type of girl that he would be into. Buffy's not just trying to dress up as a normal girl this episode but the kind of girl that would be worthy of angel's attention. What she thinks he wants in a girl.
ANGEL: I don't get it Buffy. Why did you think I'd like you better dressed that way? BUFFY: I - I just wanted to be a real girl, for once. The kind of fancy girl you liked when you were my age.
While Angel says that he likes the kind of exciting girl Buffy is now far better, I think it says something about both Angel and Xander that the kind of girl Buffy thinks they want her to be is someone helpless.
XANDER: You're sure she came this way? ANGEL: No. CORDELIA: She'll be okay. ANGEL: BUFFY would be okay. Whoever she is now, she's helpless. Come on.
Which I think says a lot about Buffy that number one being who she is, disqualifies her from being a "real" girl. There's the fact that she naturally as the slayer sees herself as always existing outside of the crowds watching other people live their lives and protecting them while she can't live hers. However, on top of that she somehow associates the experience of being a "Real" girl with powerlessness and depending on someone else. That being more traditionally feminine somehow goes hand in hand with weakness. Girls are after all traditionally the victims in horror movies, and when Buffy is playing the role of hero she can't be a victim.
Which is you know a whole can of worms, but also effective foreshadowing for the second half of the season. Season 2 is so well-written because there are so many red flags for what is going to happen in the midway twist, and yet the characters drive straight past them. The foreshadowing in this episode being that "normal girl" or "princess Buffy" isn't just scared of vampires and everything that moves, she's also scared of Angel despite Cordelia's insistence he's one of the good guy vampires.
BUFFY: (Re: Angel) He's… he's a vampire! CORDELIA: (to Angel) She's got this thing where she thinks - ah, forget it. (humoring her) It's okay. Angel is… a good vampire. He'd never hurt you. BUFFY: He - really?
Cordelia saying Angel is a good vampire who'd never hurt her sounds awfully ominous knowing that Angel becomes the main antagonist of this season.
It's not a coincidence either that the traditional proper kind of girl that Buffy dresses up as looks almost exactly like Drusilla, even wearing a brown wig to match her hair color. Angel even says at the end of this episode that he hated the kind of girl that Buffy dressed up when he was a teenager, and then details to Buffy in the next episode his obsession with corrupting Drusilla's purity.
Buffy like Willow fails to reconcile these two opposing sides of her. She can't be a normal girl if she's the slayer. She can't be a real girl if she's strong enough to make the men in her life feel insecure. It's almost like being a girl is yet another costume, a performance you make in front of an audience and Buffy feels like she's doing that badly. Not only that but men are continually making her feel that way too, either by being completely emotionally unavailable like Angel, or by getting mad at her like Xander for refusing to conform to her expectations.
Ironically, the only man to show a clear preference for Buffy's normal self in the episode is Spike who films her and praises her at the beginning for her strength as a slayer. Then towards the end, when given the opportunity to kill her as the helpless damsel Spike spends way too long lingering on it instead of just snapping her neck, almost as if waiting for her to return to being her usual self.
ON SPIKE & BUFFY: As he looks around him to see that his MINIONS are all SCARED LITTLE TRICK-ORTREATERS (and two high school students). The realization sinks in - and he looks at his hand. It's still holding Buffy's wig, buther head isn't in it. He looks back at Buffy. She's smiling. BUFFY: Hi Honey. I'm home. And she LETS LOOSE on him. All the pent-up rage and frustration from her last defenseless hours comes pouring out. A series of BRUTAL KICKS and PUNCHES send him to the ground. She lifts him back to his feet BUFFY:You know what? It's good to be me.
As Spike is acting as both Buffy's mortal enemy and shadow self, his reluctance to kill her when she's not herself and respect for her real self goes hand in hand with Buffy's self-acceptance when she changes back. Buffy does like and accept her power, and feels confident in that fact, but often represses that side of herself because women aren't really supposed to be confident in themselves in that way. Buffy's desire to be strong and to accept her strength and make it hers is therefore repressed to please the other people in her life and so she can pass off as normal and that repressed aspect of herself manifests in Spike, her shadow self's admiration for that same power.
Spike is even the one who tears off her costume reverting her back to her real self.
The other men in the episode also learn to appreciate the real Buffy after spending the entire episode dealing with the annoying damsel version of her, but they have to learn that lesson where Spike is the only one praising her for her abilities from the start. Because Spike is the shadow self, he's Buffy's self reflection whereas Xander and Angel represent the judgement of other people on her.
One last thing I would like to say is that both sides of Buffy are real, both the normal girl and the slayer. I think there's something deeply sad about this episode that implies that there's a screaming girl inside of Buffy, who does feel scared and helpless in the face of the monsters in her life but she can never allow herself to feel that fear because she has to be strong. The scared little girl half of Buffy is just as real as the strong, self-confident pun-making slayer.
3. Xander: Soldier Guy
This is going to be the shortest section, because Xander, but I would like to note that as a character Xander works best when you realize he basically has no proper masculine role models in his life. His father is abusive, Giles makes it clear he doesn't like him, there's no one at home or school to demonstrate what a normal and healthy adult man acts like.
Teenage boys like Xander don't grow up in a vaccuum, and Xander acts the way he does towards Buffy not out of malice, but out of a deep seeded insecurity. Xander, like Willow is worried about what other people will think. It's better to be beaten up by a school jock then to be rescued by a girl not because he thinks Buffy should be weak, but because he thinks other people will think he is weak.
When Xander's not worrying about what other people think, he's shown to be perfectly fine with having mostly female friends and not dating any of them. Xander is almost as much of a victim of gendered expectations of the people around him as Buffy is. Xander is insecure about the fact that he's not performing the role of a man correctly, the same way that Buffy thinks she's not being a girl correctly.
If Willow is perfectly capable of being a leader and being self confident like Buffy is but usually hides in the shadow, Xander is perfectly capable of being brave. He doesn't need to be soldier guy or to carry a gun because he will jump right into danger alongside Buffy like it's no big deal. The only person who thinks it's a big deal is Xander, because he's suffering under the societal expectation that he needs to be physically strong.
It's like Xander thinks there is an imaginary checklist of things he needs to have to be a proper man and he feels insecure when he doesn't have them. He needs to date a girlfriend in high school. He needs to be the physically strongest. He has an incorrect expectation informed by the society around him. It's not weird that Buffy is the main character and hero, but people think it's weird because the main character usually would have been Xander. The normal high school boy in any other story would hvae turned out to be the chosen one and the girl he liked would have started like him back, but Buffy is not that story.
Xander doesn't need to be soldier boy because he's always someone who will fight by Bufy's die, but just like BUffy and Willow the only time he feels confident enough to dress up like Solider Boy is Halloween.
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fiapple · 1 year
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i have a theory that whether or not a slayer dies a, as the show puts it, “human death,” impacts the slayer cycle, and that the creature-community is, at least to some extent, aware of this.
see, what got me thinking about this is that each time we see a slayer killed on screen, bar “the gift,” they are not killed by supernatural means. vampires repeatedly try to kill buffy through physical injury such as stabbing her with her own stake, or darla shooting at her. the master leaves her to drown. kendra has her throat slit. it’s implied that if killed by the vampire chasing her in “faith, hope, trick”, faith’s death would have been a result of brutal physical trauma rather than being fed upon. a majority of competitors in “homecoming” are human &/or planning to kill the slayers with human weaponry. faith tries to get angel to shoot, beat, or break body parts as a way to kill her. glory (a literal god) tries to physically beat buffy. the trio go after buffy using either a combination of magic & science so that buffy’s death is still a result of human biology, or through magical self-enhancement of physical strength. spike leaves the first slayer he kills to bleed out on the floor, & snaps nicki’s neck. the potentials die of blood loss &/or blunt force trauma, etc etc.
“the gift” is the only instance of slayer-death by non-human means. &, it’s worth noting, that by that point the slayer-cycle no longer runs through buffy.
in addition, though it may seem unrelated, there’s a very sparse amount of pre-abolition-of-the-slayer-cycle “slaypires”, mentioned in even comic canon- and that’s in spite of the facts that a) vampires are deeply bound to their sires, & b) the ability to do that to a slayer would earn a vamp serious respect…
this, to me, says that there is something different about when a slayer dies an “unnatural” death. i can’t say exactly what, there isn’t enough information, but i can say that it isn’t that they’ll come back on their own, as buffy has to be resurrected by magic, & irregardless i think that fact would be something the watcher’s council would be both aware of & willing to use to control their slayers further.
however, that being said i don’t think that it’s outrageous to subsume that this notable absence means something.
honestly, if i had to guess what that something was, it would probably be the amount of slayers called (ie. magic coalescing with the cycle to call more than one new slayer at once), &/or a heightened amount of power gifted to one with a predecessor or who died by magical means. or, potentially along with one or both of the above, if a slayer is killed & resuscitated both through magic, the slayer cycle still ruins through them, meaning another slayer can be called upon if that one dies yet again.
obviously i can’t say for certain, but pulling on this thread sure is interesting.
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therealvinelle · 2 years
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any heretical opinions on buffy???
Yeah, Bangel is terrible.
Angel was turned in his 20's and is several hundred years old by the time we get to the 90's. As Angelus, he is also a serial rapist, something I'm unable to wholly separate from Angel for a variety of reasons.
He first sees a fifteen-year-old Buffy when she is called to becoming a Slayer, and feels a desire to protect her. This leads to him following her to Sunnydale, hoping that he may be able to help this innocent young girl battle the forces of darkness. So far so good, a fatherly dynamic where he wanted to protect this one girl so as to do one good thing in this world is great stuff.
Buffy gets a crush on him, and it is very much a girl's crush. She's doodling his name in her notebooks, excited that she got to wear his jacket, in every way but for the slayer and vampire bit a girl who's got her first big crush on a cool older guy. It was pretty inevitable, Angel is attractive, dark, and mysterious.
Problem is, Angel returned her feelings.
I... can only recommend (or not recommend, because this will skeeve you out) people go rewatch this show, particularly season 1, and try to watch it as adults, think of how you would feel about the developing Bangel dynamic if Buffy was less the protagonist you're supposed to see yourself in, and more your daughter or little sister. Which is my way of saying that Bangel is painful to watch.
Angel returns Buffy's feelings, lets her escalate the relationship, and by season 2 he's in a relationship with a high schooler. Age gaps like that are bad for many reasons, and a specific one that applies strongly to Bangel is that Buffy has unrealistic expectations of their relationship and is, frankly, too young to be in a serious relationship. She wants a boyfriend, and Angel is the only candidate for this when she's the Slayer.
It must be said, too, that they are in love because they're in love. They fancy each other because Buffy is cute and innocent and Angel is dark and mysterious, and because they are both lonely people. It's a love born of circumstance, as they meet at a junction in their lives where the other looks like all they ever wanted. To put it another way, season 5 Buffy would not have given Angel a second look.
Not to mention, their relationship barely had the chance to happen. They get to date, ish, but Angel soon becomes Angelus and when he returns he's a mess in need of her care. Their relationship consists more of pining for the other and dramatic declarations of love than it does actually being together. Very much a teen girl's idea of romance, not so much mine.
Angel then consummates this relationship, which turns into a traumatizing event for Buffy. Did Angel know he would lose his soul, no. Am I glad the universe clapped back at him immediately for having sex with a child, even if I'm sorry for Buffy and all the other people this wound up hurting- frankly, yes, yes I am.
Just, it's framed positively by the show, but Angel committed statutory rape.
Throughout the series after that, even after Angel returns to himself, we see this relationship leave its mark on Buffy. She remains convinced that this relationship is the greatest she ever had, that she will have no truer love so there's no use even trying. She settles for "okay" in her relationship with Riley, she's not in love but he's decent enough, since she can't be with Angel it's all the same anyway. Spike she actually does come to love, but even then loving Angel is so important to her that she continues to refer to him as the love of her life. Something schmomething cookie dough.
Just, Angel messed her up good.
Alas, fandom and even Sarah Michelle Gellar swears by this ship. And I cry.
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boopsterliv · 2 years
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What’s up bitches, it’s essay time.
I rewatched ‘School Hard’ again today because my younger sister and I are obsessed with Spike and wanted to watch it with our mom. I loved the Bronze scene today just as much as I did yesterday. Namely, because of the expressions and body language exercised by Buffy and Spike.
Spike studies Slayers. That much is obvious. It also ties into the fact that William was a dutiful student and total nerd, which, I mean, same. While Spike is shown to be very impulsive and impatient, he knows when to wait and study his future victims before attacking. We’re told many times how being a slayer takes a serious toll on mental stability, not to mention relationships of any kind. When he seeks out Buffy for the first time at the Bronze, he’s most likely expecting some nervous wreck, or a girl drunk out of her mind to cope with being the Slayer.
Instead, he sees a girl having a good time dancing with her friends. But most importantly, she’s in her element. Buffy is a natural in every sense of the word, and her fighting is definitely like a dance. She knows the moves and when to do them. Not to mention she’s confident in them. She doesn’t like being the Slayer, far from it, but she knows if she has to do it then she’s going to be the best one in history. Buffy is also an extravert, which Spike might’ve expected would make her worse for wear. Instead, she improvises and ties her social needs in with her duties as the Slayer, which makes her a better one in the process.
The looks Spike makes in this scene are also very telling. You can try to tell me he’s only hunting, but he looks awed. We later see how genuinely impressed with her he is. Slayers only last one to two years on average. All the preparation in the world couldn’t keep even Kendra from dying, and she was a potential and raised from a young age to be a strong fighter. Spike can instantly see Buffy is on a whole level. Later on, when watching the video of her fighting, he sounds so genuinely excited that Buffy is resourceful.
Spike sets up the whole alley scene, wanting to get a look at Buffy’s abilities more closely, since he knows she’s gotta be skilled. And she is, and the expression on Buffy’s face shows this isn’t one-sided. She looked genuinely stunned, which makes sense since this dude just showed up out of the darkness and slow clapped her killing one of his kind. But it’s that same sort of awe he had towards her, and I think it’s because she didn’t notice him until he wanted her to, even if the vamp she just dusted called out for his help.
The school scene is the final nail in the coffin (pun entirely intended). True, Spike is not a patient person, but to attack before Saturday when every vampire would be more powerful? He just wanted to fight her because there’s that spark of chemistry between them. On the flip side, Buffy has never met another vamp who’ll banter with her. Who’ll give her a strong challenge, one that she can spar with. The dance is more fun because her partner is on the same page as she is. That fight was probably long compared to the last two battles Spike’s had with the Slayers he’s killed. Buffy’s expression says it all. She’s scared but intrigued.
The debut episode also works well with underlying chemistry. They have a lot more in common than I’ve seen people give them credit for. They’re both incredibly compassionate, feeling individuals who hide their own emotions in order not to worry anyone around them. They're people pleasers to the ones they really want to keep around. They both snark and banter to avoid talking about their feelings. They know how serious the fighting is even though they’re trying to have some sort of fun with it.
They’ve both been burned before. While they’re in steady(?) relationships, both Buffy and Spike have felt wronged by their partner in the past. Buffy wants Angel to be honest with her and stop running away. Spike wants Drusilla to love him as he is instead of using him. They’re both scared of love at the end of the day. You have to imagine Spike’s surprise at the fact a woman he was battling to the death seemed to have more respect for him than Drusilla. Buffy treated him as an equal even if he was a threat. They’re always on the same wavelength it seems. 
Did this make sense as it kept going? I don’t know, you be the judge of that. Did I have fun writing it? One hundred percent, absolutely. My babies get done so dirty by canon. Let them be fluffy, emotional, and horny please! I also didn’t get around to mentioning the soulless part, but I’ll save that rant for another time.
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raisedbythetv89 · 2 months
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I genuinely don’t understand how people can watch the body swap episode and enjoy seeing Faith inhabit Buffy’s body and WORSE objectifying (Faith)Buffy being like “omg she’s so hot she slayed so hard I love Buffy in black leather”
Not only is SMG’s FRIGHTENING thinness even more apparent in Faith’s traditional wardrobe showcasing just how much she is practically skin and bone due to her being under immense stress and being so overworked which always just tears at my heart in so many ways but we are witnessing the WORST violation of Buffy’s body and autonomy!!!! I’m genuinely just sick the entire episode.
Bad enough she almost gets Buffy killed and finally gets her wish of (temporarily) stealing Buffy’s life which she has wanted to do since her arrival in season 3 (only to STILL not understand Buffy’s perspective until she does it again in a far less invasive way in season 7 after Buffy allowed her back into her home and she still never properly apologizes she’s like hehe turns our your life is actually pretty miserable and I don’t want it because I can’t handle the stress and constant pressure you’re under…. Oops!🙃) but unlike when Willow takes Buffy’s free will and autonomy away (where she at least still retains all the memories after the fact of everything that happened so she doesn’t have to wonder and can process them when she’s ready) Buffy has ZERO CLUE what all Faith allows to happen to her body while she’s not in it. And Faith isn’t unaware or passive about the power she holds and the things she can do to Buffy’s body in the position she’s in - she literally tells Riley, BEGS HIM - to do all of the nastiest things he’s ever wanted to do “to this body” she WANTS Riley to do things to Buffy’s body Buffy herself WOULD. NOT. ALLOW. it is one of THE MOST insidious lines in the entire series to me because not only is that an absolutely stomach churning, bone-chilling thing to say but then after the fact when angel asks what Faith did to upset Buffy so much she’s like “I slept with her boyfriend” like UMMMM WHAT??? EXCUSE ME???? That is literally the absolute LEAST of your crimes bitch be so fucking for real. This horrific violation is minimized down to oh well Buffy is just insecure about sex and especially sex in comparison to Faith like GROSS GROSSSSSSS. The entire thing is SO DISGUSTING and misogynistic AND it is part of why I genuinely do not give A FUCK about the events of seeing red as far as my love of spuffy goes because while that was absolutely the most traumatizing to watch not only was it so completely out of left field and out of character that it just doesn’t make sense in the narrative and is so obviously joss whedon coming over the loud speaker and going “women who enjoy sex with men I don’t approve of should and always will be punished” but it is the ONLY time someone hurts her in this way and PROPERLY APOLOGIZES AND MAKES THE PROPER AMENDS!!!!
So until EVERY. SINGLE. violation of Buffy’s body is treated with the same level of outcry seeing red is by all the anti-spuffys I genuinely DO NOT CARE. I DONT CARE because I’m just so done with spuffy girlies having that thrown in our faces by the morality police who are listening to the tiny white male puritanical cop in their head.
ALSO the fact that Riley not only doesn’t think ANYTHING is off about Buffy (when Faith is doing an absolutely HORRIFIC JOB of acting like Buffy) so he not only sleeps with her BUT TELLS HER HE LOVES HER FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!??!?!?!? WHILE SHE IS LITERALLY PINNED BENEATH HIM?!?!?!?!? AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!! RILEY FINN I WILL KILL YOU IF IT IS THE LAST THING THAT I DO.
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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.
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marilyn-not-monroe · 8 months
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The thing I find interesting about Buffy and Spike getting physical in season 6 is that it’s all initiated by Buffy. The only time Spike ever tries anything with her, like kissing her, is Fool for Love, where he gets swept up in emotion and tries to kiss her. In season 6, Buffy starts singing first in Once More with Feeling, in Tabula Rasa it’s clear she chased after him and began the making out, and in Smashed, she’s the one that hits him first, kisses him first, and initiates the sex. Spike does spend a lot of time trying to seduce her and proposition her, particularly in Smashed (“You, me, cozy little tomb with a view”), but he’s waiting for a signal that it’s truly reciprocated.
Even after they start having sex, it’s Buffy that seeks him out. Spike only shows up and initiates things twice, once in Gone and once in As You Were. At Buffy’s birthday party, he tries to start things, but he came to the house for the party, and spends a great deal of time just hanging out, and he’s partly motivated by jealousy over Richard and wants to check that she’s still into him. I find Buffy’s level of control over this relationship fascinating- when was the last time she got to call the shots in a relationship? It’s so necessary for her attachment issues and depression to decide when and where she wants to be intimate.
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herinsectreflection · 4 months
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To Live So Close To The Spotlight (The Zeppo)
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I have, in essays past, referred to Xander Harris as one of the most controversial characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After spending more time in the current fandom landscape, I need to correct that statement. He’s simply one of the most disliked characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A lot of people hate him, and given his appearances up until now, it’s not entirely difficult to see why. Xander is an archetypical example of what I will call the Mild Nerd Guy; a trope born out of the 1980s and its Revenge Of The Nerds-led championing of geek culture. A trope that unfortunately came to dominate genre television throughout the 1990s and 2000s.
This is a character who is defined in opposition to more typical Dashing Action Hero archetypes. Where the Action Hero is strong and muscle-bound, the Mild Nerd Guy is physically weedy. He is often shy and lacking in self-confidence. He will appear creepy when he means to be charming – but in an innocent way that encourages us to feel sympathy with this helplessly befuddled young man. He has interests coded as “nerdy” – comic books, science, maths, Dungeons and Dragons. He will be unsuccessful with women, and more often than not will concentrate all his sexual energy onto a single desired target: a popular and attractive woman. This woman will - at least at the beginning of the story – neglects his silent pining in favour of clearly undeserving Bad Boys and Popular Jocks. This is where you get is your Scott Pilgrims, your Ross Gellers, your Tom Hansens, your Every Character Anthony Michael Hall Ever Played… and yes, your Xander Harrises. 
In essence, the Mild Nerd Guy is an alternate model of masculinity, one that certain types of men (shy, nerdy, physically weak) may relate to more than the Dashing Action Hero archetype. Unfortunately, while the trope often presents these men as more respectful towards women than their counterparts, the reality is that female autonomy is a secondary concern in both cases. These are competing models that men can use to Earn Women. Neither is actually concerned with the desires and goals of the women involved at all. 
The Mild Nerd Guy has obvious parallels to the sociological concept of the Nice Guy, a term that most in feminist circles should be comfortably au fait with by now. The Nice Guy feels deserving of the attentions of women solely because of his lack of overt hostility towards them, and resents them when this “niceness” is not immediately rewarded with sexual favours. While the two concepts should not be conflated – one is a writing trope while the other is a social phenomenon – they are inextricably linked. Media informs the way we interact with the world, and the world informs the way we interact with media. Male entitlement engorges itself with stories of men winning women through inaction - the implication being that men deserve the attentions of women by default, and should be upset when it is not automatically bestowed upon them.
Meanwhile, women who have firsthand experience of this entitlement and the behaviour it encourages will naturally be fed up with it, and will bring that frustration into their consumption of media. They will take one look at a Scott Pilgrim or Xander Harris and be immediately, justifiably repulsed. While the more fantastical crimes of Angel or Spike can be easily forgiven, everyday crimes cannot. Most women have never met a serial killer. We’ve all met a creepy nerd. 
This is not a criticism of viewers who have reacted in that way. The common accusation of Xander being a “Nice Guy” I believe an inaccurate read on his character and a misuse of a term meant for the analysis of reality and not fiction. However, I can’t blame anyone who makes that instinctive leap. In fact I would say that bringing one’s own experiences to the consumption of media is the only correct way to watch television. And yet, I can’t count myself truly among that crowd. Despite my distaste for the simpering entitlement this trope has encouraged in male nerd circles, and despite the times I have been disgusted by a line Nicholas Brendon has been made to deliver thus far, I can’t say that I don’t like Xander. In fact, I would say I like Xander, and this episode is a big reason why.
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l0veisntbrains · 1 year
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BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER || 6x22: Grave The sixth is the only example of closing a season with the image of another character. While the choice allowed the season to close with what would have been a surprising moment for many viewers, it also indicates the significance of this character in particular and the motif of the spiritual journey in general. - Rhonda Wilcox ; Why Buffy Matters, The Art of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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lunasink · 8 months
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The French call an orgasm la petite mort, the little death. Buffy being "addicted" to having sex with Spike in season 6, and her having suicidal ideation. Like she's getting a taste of death, she wants it, can't have it after having had the real thing. She's addicted. It's a bad time and it's not coming from a good place obvi. She can't have the big death. So she has a million tiny deaths. She says he's the only one she can talk to, be herself. Ugly, empty, unlovable, as she says. She feels something with him. He is undead. But he is not the only undead. But it is only him, still. He is loving her when she is ugly, empty, unlovable. And she comes back, constantly. And she doesn't want to, but she can't resist, it's like she's compelled. She's flirting with death and she knows she shouldn't, it's wrong by others standards so she's ashamed, these self-imposed thoughts because no one actually knows for a good while.
The first slayer tells Buffy that death is her gift. Hello? "The Danse Macabre, also called the Dance of Death, an artistic genre of allegory of the Late Middle Ages on the universality of death."
Death and the maiden?
Buffy is Death and the maiden.
Spike is Death (and also I believe the maiden).
They're mirrors, they're so intertwined they are both both and the balance the other needs.
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How do you think Spike, Drusilla, and Angel would fare as Twilight vampires? (Or rather, I suppose, the humans who became those vampires in BtVS)
Well, the thing about Twilight vampires is that they're not Buffy the Vampire Slay vampires (yes, I know, bear with me).
A very large difference is that Twilight vampires never lose their souls. Yes, I know this was a huge part of the books but the fact is that it's debated and I never see any proof that they're actually soulless demons. In BtVS, this is the definition of a vampire: something that has kicked out your soul and taken over your corpse while retaining facets of your personality.
So, we're doing as you ask and going with the people they were as humans.
Liam (Angel)
Liam remains the equivalent of a drunk loser. He's smart enough to stick close to Darla rather than try to have fun with all the vampire ladies who might very well kill him but I imagine sooner or later his lack of restraint in feeding get the Volturi knocking on his and Darla's doorstep.
He's not as evil as Angelus, obviously, but he's still a drunken lout and hedonist who isn't quite as cautious as he should be.
William (Spike)
Given I'm not sure what's going on with Spike canonically (as for a being that loses his soul he... doesn't seem to lose it as badly as the other characters) but my guess is he'd act similar to Spike of canon. Becoming a vampire was freeing for him, a way to escape the bonds of society and become a man in a way he felt he couldn't as a vampire.
Spike's living the high life of getting revenge on his tormentors, having a great time with Drusilla, and then having a terrible time when he tries to turn his mother who is likely not appreciative of becoming a man eating demon.
Given Spike's ability to survive in canon despite flirting with danger, I imagine Spike does fairly well for himself if is very bored without a Slayer to torment (baiting the Volturi isn't worth it when they will just kill you, there's no fight to be had).
I imagine he becomes a vampire con man.
Drusilla
Probably gets picked up by the Volturi who do not drive her mad before turning her. There she does quite well for herself as a guard.
However, if she is driven mad by a serial killer vampire (who is not murdered in turn by the Volturi) then I imagine she's not too different from canon as she's been driven, well, utterly mad.
Her survival is in part dependent on who she picks as a caretaker. However, her gift will help her choose a good candidate so she'd probably do as well as canon.
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linkspooky · 10 months
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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.
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disco-tea · 5 days
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No but I actually love William calling himself Spike because yeah, he’s reclaiming slurs. He’s taking the word back. Taking that hurtful and humiliating thing and making it his own. And yet at the same time…he’s not. It’s a two-edged sword. Because yes he’s making it his own, but he’s also carrying it with him. Forever carrying that hurt. Internalizing it so deeply, it becomes a part of himself. And that’s really the genius of it, I think, and FFL in general. William became Spike so he could hide from the pain he felt. He became completely different, but in the end hadn’t changed at all. Calling himself ‘Spike,’ (a word that personified so much of his pain and insecurities and loneliness and rejection) was the most William thing he ever could have done
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therealvinelle · 2 years
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Thoughts on Buffy(the series and the character)
I love both.
The show
Seasons 4 and 7 I have problems with, but season 4 was still well written, season 7 is the only one I feel fell flat.
The show was a trailblazer, and it's a great watch two decades later. It's such a great depiction (There's a Norwegian word I want here that I don't think exists in English. Uh, when a snapshot of a historical era is presented somehow, such as when ITV's Poirot shows England in 1934. Buffy does that for the 90's.) of the era too, it's a show that couldn't be made today because the late 90's feel is so integral to what Buffy is.
I wish I could give you more specific thoughts, but with a question so broad I don't know what more there is to say. Got no spice for you.
Oh- except one thing. I think Bangel is the problematic ship, and Spuffy is the healthy one. There! A hot take for you.
And another one - I love Dawn in season 5, she's great and I wouldn't have the writers do anything different.
The character
I love Buffy, to the point where I just have to stare in amazement when I see people say they don't like her. I genuinely don't understand how such a thing is possible, if I hadn't seen people online say it in seriousness I wouldn't believe such a thing was possible.
She's so incredibly human, and tries so hard, she's torn between what she has to do and the life she wants to live. In the early seasons she's on the outside looking in, trying to be a normal girl in a world that has already taken that from her. As the years go on she becomes more successful in integrating being a slayer into being a woman, but this is only because she has learned all the sacrifices that must be made. She can't get an education, won't ever be able to live comfortably the way she expected to, and there is nothing to do about that but mourn what she can't have and then soldier on. She has to fight so much, on so many levels, all the time. It's heartbreaking to watch, but so intensely human, and it's impossible not to admire her all her strength to put up with so much.
Just, I love Buffy. So much.
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