(The following is reprinted in its entirety from when it first appeared on www.aptobtvs.com on 4/5/03)
Before I begin, I ask for your indulgence on what is going to seem like a really odd post from me. It’s neither a review nor for that matter a character comparison and it’s way too disconnected and rambling to fit the definition of academic essay. It’s an exploration of a germ of an idea or rather a theory that’s been bugging me.
This theory may or may not actually be valid. It could be a projection from stuff going on inside me. It could on the other hand be so obvious to everyone else, that I’m an idiot for not getting it before now. In other words, one of those, duh, shadowkat, where have you been moments? I have been feeling a little disconnected lately, very wired – due to too much sugar – my sister-in-law is right sugar is the root of all evil – and well a tad at loose ends, as if I have no control over anything and no will of my own. So perhaps this is the root of my theory. This feeling that everything is connected when I feel I’m really not?
The poet John Donne wrote: “No man is an island, entire of it selfe; every man is a peace of the Continent, a part of the maine; if Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of they friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”
My book club recently discussed the novel Kindred. Now before you all pooh-pah the book club, it’s not your ordinary book club. We don’t meet so much to discuss the book as to well connect. We eat, drink wine, and discuss just about everything. We have no clear rules and often talk over one another. The book is just the means to bring us together. (Not unlike Btvs and Ats is for those of us who visit the Atpo board come to think of it.) Kindred by Octavia Butler is the story of a woman who for no clear reason is drug back through time to save the life of a horrible slave owner, who also happens to be her direct ancestor. Each time she saves his life so that she can exist, she goes through the morale dilemma of whether she should have. Wouldn’t the world, not to mention the slaves have been better off if the slave owner died? Is her life so important that she should hurt others by saving him? One woman in the book club saw this as a major flaw in the book – why was it so important for this character to live? Why did she keep saving this bastard? After all she has no children, she isn’t a genius, she isn’t President nor affects either of those things directly. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for her to kill this evil man or let him die than continue to exist? How selfish is that? But – the woman meets one of the man’s slaves and that slave conveys to her that if it weren’t for her and the slave owner’s continued existence – all the slaves would have been sold and separated from their families or killed. By keeping the slave owner alive, the character saved countless lives.
There is an old science fiction story, The Sound of Thunder –written by Ray Bradbury, about a man who travels back in time and makes the mistake of stepping on a butterfly. Because of this tiny action – when he returns to his own time and the world has completely changed, nothing is as he left it.
We all have a purpose. It may not seem important to us. We may not see ourselves as connected to each other in any way. But each moment we draw breath, type on a computer or walk out the door we are affecting the universe and all that lives within it. The mere act of writing this post and posting it on the internet – does affect lives and attitudes. I don’t control how it does of course, all I can control is whether I write it and whether I decide to post it. I can’t control who reads it and how they react to it or what they think of me or the show because of it. Am I responsible for their reactions? Only to the extent that I am responsible for the post. What I do affects others. What others do affects me. But free will and choice enter into that connection. Even though we often make these decisions alone or feel alone in making them, they affect others around us whether we know it or not.
Now what does all this have to do with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series? Well it has to do with an epiphany I had recently that flipped both shows upside down in my mind and put my finger on what was bugging me about certain character’s actions. It changed my mind about some things I wrote in both the Storyteller review and my authority essay. It may be completely wacked – I don’t know. It could be the result of way too much sugar. Or frustration with the War, my life, etc. Then again, perhaps I’m on to something.
One last request, if I may? I’m going to ask a ton of questions and focus on parts of episodes leaving other parts out. Granted we can read whatever we want into this show and manipulate text to fit our own theories – so it could very well be that’s what I’m unconsciously doing here. I don’t know. That’s why I’m sharing this with you all, so maybe you can tell me? Also I need you to look at it with an open-mind, to let go of all your ships, let go of what you want to see in the shows. Let go of all of it for just a second. Just for a second. (If it’s possible, I’m not sure if it is.) It’s when I did that one thing – that this idea came to me. It could be completely wacked. Who knows.
Comics, Movies and Btvs/Ats
This section is split in three parts: 1. Comics 2. Movies and 3.The season finales of each series all the way up to present. Focusing on the similarities between each.
I. Comics – the connections in the comics
In some recent posts on the board, people have been asking what Btvs has in common with the world of Marvel Comics and science fiction/fantasy adventure movies. So I began to run them through my mind. Then I started comparing Marvel to DC and that’s when something started nag at my brain.
In the Marvel Universe – the same story is often repeated over and over again from different angles. The story usually deals with either a reasonably good person who has been corrupted by power in some way (or an evil entity who just manipulates all the gray characters to do its will). With the best of intentions – they assemble a group of loyal disciples who sort of follow them without question in order to bend the world to their order. They don’t think of themselves as necessarily evil, well sometimes, but generally speaking, in their point of view, they are doing good. Killing a few to save the many. The good guys who also have a lot of power, group together to try and stop this evil villain without killing it. If the villain is pure evil? Yeah they will try to kill it but like Dracula in Buffy vs. Dracula, it always comes back. So they just cut it off from everything. What’s important to remember about Marvel heroes is they seldom are happy with all this power nor in most cases are they considered heroes. They tend to be outcastes. Their power curses them and sets them apart from others. The villain is someone who doesn’t care about being an outcast and considers him or herself to be above everyone else. The group defeats the villain en mass, by combining their talents and abilities. If the villain is a human whose power corrupted it, they strip or drain the villain, if it is something other than human and irredeemable they imprison it or find a way of making it destroy itself. But their connection and love and compassion for each other is more often than not what saves the day. This is the case in all the huge crossover stories. (If you follow the Marvelverse – most notably: the M’Krann Crystal tale, Dark Phoenix, Ages of Apocalypse, Acts of Vengeance, the Goblin Queen, the imprisonment of Cthon in Wundergore Mountain by the Avengers, and the whole Magneto Saga.) I can’t do a thorough analysis of DC comics since I’ve only read a few of them here and there. But from what I have read, DC’s characters seem to embrace power more, seem to be less of social outcastes and seem to view themselves as champions, above it all.
The DC and Marvelverse characters also differ in how the characters look at power. Marvel characters often see power as a sort of burden or curse. Something they would love to reverse or overcome. The Thing in the Fantastic Four is a human who due to gamma rays has been transformed into a rock like thing. The Incredible Hulk is a scientist who while working on anger management, has been transformed by gamma rays to become a monster every time he gets furious at something. One character in the Marvelverse, Rogue, can’t touch anyone without taking their life force from them, so she wears long gloves. On numerous occasions she contemplates having someone remove her powers completely but this could only happen at great cost to her life. Wolverine is a character who started out a weak, feeble boy who was always sick, and devoted to his parents. When his mutant powers kick in, he is cursed with razor sharp claws and a healing factor, he accidentally kills a man and goes insane. Later he is captured by the government and implants are placed in his head to control him. When he breaks free of these implants, he discovers he also was triggered by the government or Weapon X project to kill. When we first meet him he is wild, unreliable, smokes up a storm, and has a berzeker rage. He is like his codename Wolverine. And he is as close to immortal as a mutant can be. Born literally around the turn of the century. (See Wolverine Series called Origin). Half the time he’s not sure if he’s man or beast. Each of these characters feel like humanity’s rejects, freaks, but they find others and team up with them. They find companionship and love. And they strive to help the humans who degrade them, because they feel connected. Killing taints their souls and makes them feel like beasts, even though all have killed and are haunted by it.
In Silver Surfer Comics – Marvel again, Gaea imbued all life with her essence. (Hence the connections the above characters feel.) Gaea is the Elder God who started with the world. She was accompanied by Set and Cthon. Set and Cthon turned evil. Set got killed. Cthon made it to another dimension but keeps trying to return to Gaea’s. Each time he attempts it, heroes imbued with Gaea’s strength stop him and entrap him in towers and caves – stuck, exiled, disconnected. He is unable to physically affect life on earth. But he can manipulate others to work his will. His purpose to break down Gaea’s connections so he can break back into her world.
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II. Movies: the connections and references in the movies
Both shows have been referencing science fiction and adventure films like crazy this year. Especially Raiders of the Lost Arc, Ghostbusters, Star Wars, Last Crusade, and Wrath of Khan. Outside of the fact that these writers are movie geeks (so am I), I wondered if maybe there was more going on here?
What do all these movies have in common? Well, in each film the hero is faced with a dilemma – whether to destroy or to save something of major importance. Each hero also tends to win the day with a little help from his/her friends. And there is some mystical energy source that is beyond good and evil – it is pure power, raw - the source of all things. Hmmm…this isn’t coming out very clear. I’ll just describe each film and we’ll go from there.
In Raider’s of the Lost Arc (Angel – Souless and Awakenings) – the Arc of the Covenant when opened under the right circumstances is so powerful it will disintegrate anyone who views its treasures. Indy tells his girlfriend to close her eyes, not to look at it, while its raw power literally cleanses everything on the island they are being held captive on. The Arc saves the heroes. Or rather the Arc’s power does. And the power works a little bit like the Judge’s power in Innocence and Surprise – yet instead of destroying all that is good, it destroys all that is evil that arrogantly looks upon it. The Wrath of Gods indeed. When Indy goes after it – he is helped by others – he does not do it alone.
In Indiana Jones & Last Crusade – the Holy Grail provides eternal life. Indy and others search for it. This time Indy is accompanied by his father who is obsessed with finding the Grail. Indy and Dad don’t get along. They are also accompanied by a traitorous blond girl, Elsa, and two old chums of Indy’s. When they find the grail – Indy must go through several obstacles very similar in a way to the obstacles Angel goes through in Awakenings. He does it, not to get the grail for himself, but to save his father’s life. The villain shot his Dad in order to get Indy to locate the Grail. The traitorous blond goes along with the villain until the last possible second when the villain asks her to pick the right cup, she deliberately picks the wrong one so the villain will die and Indy will succeed and get the right one back to his father. When Indy returns the cup to Dad and heals him, his father forces Indy to leave the cup behind – because reaching for the power within it – the immortality leads to certain death. The grail can never leave the citadel they found it in. You can either stay with it forever and be immortal or leave and live your life. Either be connected to humanity or stay immortal disconnected from it forever.
In Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom– the magic stones can bring wealth and water to the village or blood and destruction depending on which Goddess is invoked – Shiva or Kali. (This is in the movie mythologists, not from me so don’t blast me on how off Spielberg and Lucas are.) Blood of Kali drives the men insane, drives them to kill. Fire from Shiva cleanses them of this insanity. Indy goes briefly insane by being forced to drink the blood, his friend Short Round saves him by burning him, cleanses the evil from his system. Again we get the cleansing power of fire.
Star Wars (repeatedly in Btvs)– in Return of The Jedi, Luke manages to redeem his father, by refusing to kill him, refusing to give into the desire for vengeance and hate, instead he loves his father, sees the good in him. Darth seeing the love in his son’s eyes turns against the evil Emperor finally and sacrifices himself in destroying him. The Emperors electrical power goes through Darth and kills him.
In Ghostbusters (Btvs in Killer in Me)– the four heroes must join together and cross their energy streams pointing them into an evil portal in order to destroy the bad guy. Crossing the energy streams could kill them. But they must trust their connection to each other to win the day. (hmmm cleansing power of electronic energy or fire again.)
Wrath of Khan (LMPTM shooting script and briefly in episode) is the second and in my humble opinion one of the best, if not the best, of the Star Trek movies. In this movie, Khan, a superhuman, has been exiled on a horrible planet with his family and cut off from all society. He blames the deaths of his wife and daughter on Captain Kirk – they had been killed by worms that drilled their way into their brains, parasites. Captain Kirk exiled Khan on this planet and his wife chose to join him there. Khan blames Kirk for these deaths. Kirk is also dealing with his own son and an ex-wife who created a powerful entity called Genesis. Project Genesis recreates the big bang, literally creating a universe down to the last microcosm. Khan wants Project Genesis so he can create a new better world for himself and his children and he wants to kill Kirk in the process. To make a long story short – in order to defeat Khan, Kirk must work with his crew and outsmart Khan, he also must find a way of reuniting with his disgruntled adult son. Khan sets off Genesis on the Enterprise, Kirk’s best friend and confidante Spock manages to contain the project long enough to get it off the ship but the resulting radiation kills him. Kirk sends Spock’s body into the Genesis Project that Khan had activated and Spock set out into Space. Spock is reborn by the project and through a mind meld in the third installment of the series Search For Spock – becomes a new man. Kirk realizes at the end of the movie that the power of life is our connections to each other, what makes us human is the attachments we make.
All four films have either been mentioned directly in the shows or shooting scripts. There are others I could describe in detail but this would become a book.
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III. Btvs and Ats. A run down of the season finales – this is shorthand guys. I deliberately have left stuff out. I’m just doing enough of a summary to highlight similar themes between the shows, the movies and comics above. Looking for a pattern.
1. Season 1: The Master is stuck in the hellmouth. Buffy’s blood frees him. Buffy knocks out Giles and goes down to face the Master by herself. She gets bitten. Her blood frees him and kills her. But that’s not the end of it. The guy she rejected, puts his hurt feelings aside and enlists the help of the ensouled vampire he hates to save her. The guy, Xander, brings Buffy back to life. Together along with their other friends, they save the world, kill the Master, and close the hellmouth. What does Buffy do wrong? She initially goes off alone. What does Buffy do right? She made friends who love her enough to put aside their differences to bring her back to life and help save the world.
2. Season 2: Angel turns evil and attempts to open a portal to hell. Again blood opens it. This time it’s Angel’s. And it’s on his hand. (Reminds me of Connor using the blood of an innocent victim with his hand to wake up Cordy’s baby in Inside Out). Before he does this – he manages to separate Buffy from her friends. He wants her to be all alone. And he succeeds. She is framed for murder, expelled from school, her mother finds out she’s a slayer, and her friends are injured or being tortured because she was distracted fighting Angel but not killing him in hopes that Willow could return his soul. She is helped in her fight against Angel by a vampire and the guy who liked her – again. This time the vampire, Spike, approaches her and offers to help save the world. He has no soul but he feels connected enough to the human world and human things including his girlfriend (albeit a vampire), dog racing, soccer, cigarettes and well humans themselves that he is motivated to save it. He doesn’t want hell on earth. Granted he also has a bone to pick with Angelus and he wants things to go back to the way they were. So Spike enables Buffy to keep her watcher alive. He helps her defeat Dru and enables her to only fight Angel not five vamps. (Angel is right she could not have taken on two vamps, Dru and Angel by herself.) But Buffy is alone in the end. Cut off. With only herself. Angel asks her what she is going to do now, who does she have left. Me, she states and stops him, sending him to hell just as Willow gives him back his soul. She kills an ensouled being that she loved. Feeling disconnected from everything and everyone, she leaves town. Goes to hell herself. Both Spike and Angel also visit hells. Spike the one where Dru forsakes him and he’s cast off, disconnected. And Angel the hell dimension where he’s disconnected from all humanity. All three pay for their crimes. The gang meanwhile is still connected to each other – fighting side by side. What did Buffy do wrong? She went to fight Angel by herself leaving her friends alone. (You never learn says Angel). What does Buffy do right? She makes a truce with Spike and accepts Xander’s help to stop Angel. She doesn’t do it alone. She also accepts Willow’s help. Giles is saved as a result and Angel is stopped.
3. Season 3 – The Mayor – who lords himself above everyone. He wants to Ascend. (Does this remind you of anyone else? Yep, Cordelia in Angel the Series.) The Mayor has disconnected himself from humans, is afraid of getting germs and obsessed with cleanliness. Yet he hasn’t disconnected himself completely. He makes a connection with Faith, one human. This one connection to his humanity is what eventually undoes him. It is his one weakness. Buffy manages to defeat him by using that against him – she also gets everyone to chip in and help and she uses fire to kill him. What does Buffy do right? She uses the connections both her own and the mayor’s to her advantage. What does she do wrong? She tries to kill Faith in order to save Angel. She gives into the need for vengeance. Her attack on Faith disconnects them. But the connection is not completely severed, Buffy by giving her own blood to Angel in a sense re-connects them and Faith shares the secret to the Mayor’s downfall in a dream.
4. Season 4 – Adam is created by humans yet completely cut off from them. He forms his own cult of disciples, appealing to those beings, who feel as cut off as he does. The vampires who can’t be part of the human world or truly part of the demon one. But as much as he gets the outcasts feelings, he doesn’t grasp what it means to be connected. He only grasps the feeling of being disconnected and pushes for that. He doesn’t grasp how Riley would find the strength to take out his own chip. And he certainly doesn’t get the uberslayer Buffy becomes. He does not understand the source of their power. He can’t. What does Buffy do right? She joins with her friends, allows them to aid her, and connects. She uses her connections. What did Buffy almost do wrong? She tried to do it alone and it almost backfired on her. In the true finale of the Season, Restless, the connection between the four friends is threatened by the First Slayer who enters their nightmares to disconnect them. In this episode – Buffy reasserts what it means to be human and what is the most important to her – living in the world and remaining a part of it and being with her friends. (More on this episode later).
5. Angel Season 1: Meanwhile over on Angel: Angel learns that a vampire with a soul could become human some day. Except the gang learns how far Angel is from becoming human, since Angel is not a part of the human world. He keeps himself separated from it. He wants nothing that is human outside of maybe blood. He neither eats, drinks, smokes, or desires human companionship. He is disconnected. To emphasize this – Darla is brought back human in a box and she couldn’t be more connected to human problems and desires. Wes gets hurt because he’s alone, isolated in the office at AI. The demons summoned by Wolfram and Hart – steal back the scroll revealing the prophecy and blow up AI. They turn Cordelia’s visions against her – so she is overwhelmed by everyone’s pain and suffering – another metaphor for feeling a deep connection. Cordy is overwhelmed by the connection. The oracles – which the Angel gang depend on to guide them are destroyed. They feel cut off from their calling. Angel tries to stop W&H, the bad guys, from raising Darla, by cutting off Lindsey’s hand and taking back the scroll, but he’s too late. (An aside: The cut off hand ironically is sewn on the next season and re-connects Lindsey to the human race – he was cut off before, seeing only his own needs, but getting someone else’s hand makes him feel empathy for others. So that he leaves W&H and possibly rejoins humanity.) At the end of the episode, all three main characters are cut off from their home and their calling.
6. In Season 5 – Btvs, The hell-god Glory is trapped in a human prison. A prison (Ben) that is ironically dedicated to saving lives and works as a resident in a hospital. While Glory sucks the cohesive energy that connects parts of the human brain to maintain her sanity, Ben calls a queller demon to suffocate the traumatized humans she’s damaged. (Note this energy may be what connects humans to their souls, which is the reason she can’t suck Spike’s brain, he has no energy?) Interesting – the energy that Glory takes is what makes us able to connect with each other, when she sucks the energy out, the humans are all connected to her insanity, they have echoes of her in their heads. She reconnects them to her, so they become her brainless yet loyal disciples, and keep her sane. When Dawn’s presence breaks down the barrier Ben and Glory, (possibly because Dawn as the key is this energy in its purest form and it’s the energy that causes Glory to break apart?) Glory becomes connected to humanity in Ben/her human prison, and starts to feel compassion for Dawn. Just as Ben becomes connected to Glory and starts to feel responsible for her acts. Dawn appears in some way to reinforce the humanity in everyone she is around – she seems to act as a power conduit for that humanity. At least she reinforces it in Glory – to the extent that Glory ensures Dawn is kept far away from her. The Knights of Byzantine and later Giles – both wish to kill Dawn, for different reason than Glory, they wish to do it to save the world. The Knights as a preemptive strike. Giles as a last resort. This wish is what separates Buffy from her mentor. Buffy sees Dawn as her connection to humanity, as, in a sense, all of their connection to humanity. Through Dawn, she has viewed a more human side of Spike. Through Dawn, she sees her own humanity reinforced. To kill Dawn in Buffy’s view may very well be akin to killing her own humanity – what connects her to everyone. Giles believes that the majority, the world comes first no matter the cost. Buffy sees these choices as too great. Do we sacrifice our soul, our humanity, for a greater cause? If so? What then? Do we win? She certainly didn’t feel like she won in Becoming. Ironically Ben saves Giles, only to be killed by Giles. And Giles kills Ben in the same way the queller demon Ben summoned kills Glory’s victims, through suffocation. Their means of connecting with life. Giles believes if he kills Ben, Glory will cease to exist. It does not matter to Giles what good Ben could have done, all that matters is what evil Glory may still do. To Giles Ben is expendable. Buffy, on the other hand, chooses to die rather than to kill Dawn who she feels connects her to her own humanity. She closes the mystical portals or connections, Dawn’s blood/life force opened with her own life force. Her death draws the others together, bonds them. Even Spike. Just as Dawn’s predicament drew them all together. Each one with the exception of Giles, risks their life in a small way to save someone else. Anya dashes in front of falling brick to save Xander. Xander uses a ball bearer to save Buffy from Glory. Spike risks his life to save Dawn. Willow risks her life to save Tara. Tara risks her life to save Dawn two episodes earlier. Their human connections to one another help save the world. What did Buffy/group do wrong? Buffy cuts herself off and goes catatonic. Giles kills Ben and suggests killing Dawn. Willow tries to go after Glory alone in Tough Love. What did they do right? They worked together. They became a team. Buffy couldn’t have done it by herself. Buffy gives her life so humanity can live.
7. Meanwhile over in Angel: Season 2. The Pylea arc. Angel and gang have become completely disconnected from their reality and are now in another one. In Pylea Angel thinks he’s normal now and a hero. Except when he vamps out and the monster manifests entirely. He soon discovers he is even more of an outcast here, not connected to the human slaves and not connected to the demons running the place. And he is also quickly separated from his friends. Cordelia is having a similar experience. She is the princess, but completely separated from everyone, from the humans on the planet, her friends, even the demons. The only people she sees are evil monks. (Sort of similar to poor Dawn in the gift, dressed in princess robes, about to be sacrificed, and only seeing evil monks.) Lorne who dreaded returning to his home dimension, Pylea is also completely disconnected. Ironic since prior to this he’d been disconnected from his home, family and own kind. At home, he feels more like an outcaste and more disconnected than he does in Angel’s world. In Pylea he is literally disconnected from his body, his friends, and his art. Wes, like Giles in The Gift, decides to send a few men to their deaths to save the many. He justifies it to Gunn, stating freedom is worth a few deaths. Gunn argues that this is too great a cost. That there’s a better way. We don’t fight evil by doing it ourselves. Fred meanwhile has been hiding from the world in a cave, not unlike the cave-like walls of the books she once hid in, one of which brought her there. She finally comes out of her exile in the caves and helps Cordelia, gets caught, saved by Angel, who she in return helps reunite with his friends and together they all free the humans in that dimension. What did the group do wrong? They disconnected from one another. They did not work together. Some members placed themselves above others. Some hid. What did they do right? They began to work together. They listened to each other and as a result found the way home. Oh, one more ironic point – when they return, they discover Buffy’s dead, they’ve been so disconnected from their own world they had no clue what was happening in it.
8. Season 6 on Btvs: Willow turns evil when Tara is taken from her. All season long, we watch as the characters slowly split off from one another. Hurt each other. Break the bonds and connections they’d built over past seasons. They attempt to reunite, but it is almost too late and things explode in their face. Tara is shot. Spike attempts to rape Buffy and is so overwhelmed by self-loathing for what he tried to do, he leaves town. Xander leaves Anya at the altar and watches as Warren shoots Buffy. Buffy beats up Spike and all her friends and neglects Dawn. Dawn steals from everyone. Willow mind-swipes Tara and attempts to use magic for her own ends regardless of the cost, when things get out of hand she treats it as an addiction and just goes cold turkey, disconnecting herself. The Trioka are so cut off from humanity and so closeted off in their own make-believe worlds that they don’t seem to realize the dire consequences of their own crimes until it is too late. Each act they do, cuts them off further. Until, ironically the one thing Andrew and Jonathan and Warren want most seems to be forever outside their grasp – a connection to others. To be loved and respected.
When Warren severs Willow’s connection to love, Willow loses it and kills Warren. Willow severs Warren’s connection to life and in doing so almost severs her own. If there was ever an anti-vengeance arc on Btvs – this was it. Vengeance severs our connection to life. It connects us to death and the forces that wish to corrupt life. We see this through Willow in Grave and Two-To-Go. Her vengeance and grief has twisted her power to darkness, so that she is no longer in control, the pain is. When Giles returns – he gives Willow a power that reconnects her to humanity, makes it possible for her to feel humanity, but the power overwhelms her just as Cordy’s visions way back in Shanshu in La overwhelmed her. As a result, Willow goes insane. She feels everything and everyone. At the same time, Spike fights to gain the spark, to regain his won connection to life, to humanity. Once he gets it, it overwhelms him, drives him slightly insane. Like Willow and Cordy, he feels everything. But in his case it is limited to everyone he’s killed and everything he’s done. The guilt and pain and suffering overwhelms him, and he screams in pain. Back to Willow, it is Xander who breaks through Willow’s madness with his simple human plea of love, unconditional love, which reminds her of who she is and reconnects her to the human world. By the end of Grave, all the characters have been reconnected in some way to humanity - to the life force that resides in all of us. What did the gang do wrong? They split apart. They stopped confiding in each other or supporting one another. They gave into acts of vengeance and spite. They became disconnected. What does the gang do right? They reunite. They hunt the connections and reaffirm them. They forgive each other and themselves. They re-connect to life and move away from death.
9. Angel Season 3 – While the Buffy gang is reconnecting, the Angel gang is coming apart at the seams. (A quick aside: In case you haven’t been watching Angel, there is a huge difference between the two shows. In Btvs – there really is no higher being who guides Buffy or helps her save the day. The only time the higher being appears is to help Angel and it doesn’t really – it just well, a) gets him involved with Buffy (Whistler in Becoming) or b) keeps him alive by letting it snow on a hot day. Outside of those two times, we never see or experience the higher being on the Buffyverse. In Angel, the Powers that Be are referred to so often, they’ve literally become a regular character on the show. And they seem to give Angel all his direction. Angel’s connection to humanity, to doing good works, seems to come partly from them. If it weren’t for the powers? Well the mind boggles.) But back to the point – in Tomorrow, outside forces successfully break the Angel team apart. Angel ends up at the bottom of the sea courtesy of his son Connor. Cordelia ascends to some mystical realm, believing that she has finally accomplished it – elevated herself above everyone else, ascended. From Out of Sight, Out of Mind onwards, Cordy is the Homecoming Queen. She wants to be elevated. To ascend in white glowly splendor. There’s only one little problem – she has to give up all her connections to humanity to do it. She has to give up her connection to Angel, whom she loves. While Warren severs Willow’s connection to Tara, Cordelia severs her connection to Angel. She chooses the glory over her connections to life. The difference between Cordy’s choice and Buffy’s in Season 5’s the Gift, is Buffy chooses it to save Dawn’s life, having no clue where she’ll end up. Cordelia chooses it to be a higher being. Angel likewise gets cut-off, but ironically for all the wrong reasons. He chooses to reject vengeance, to actually become involved with humanity, to admit his love for Cordelia. He believes he’s finally gotten everything he wants. But his past crimes and foibles prove to be his undoing. His distrust and exile of Wes – makes it impossible for Wes to look into what’s going on with Cordy. His impulsive desire to hurt Holtz leads Connor to suspect him of killing Holtz. If he hadn’t ignored Cordy’s advice, lied to Connor and run off half-cocked to confront Holtz by himself, Holtz’ may not have been able to set him up. Instead he falls right into Holtz’s trap and Connor turns against him. Wes due to a combo of hubris and best intentions (that old the ends justify the means approach to life) – also severs his connections to the team and ends up an outcaste, his only human comfort – the wicked Lilah, with whom he begins a torrid romance. By the end of Angel Season 3, the entire gang is more or less disconnected. They aren’t working together. They don’t trust one another. And the three central members, are gone. What did the Gang do right? Angel didn’t kill Holtz, he went to tell Cordy he loved her. Cordy decided to tell Angel she loved him. What did the gang do wrong? They stopped confiding in and trusting each other. They became disconnected. They let personal grudges and pride get in their way. Angel let Holtz get the better of him and manipulate him. By going after Holtz with vengeance in his heart – he let Holtz’ vengeance take the upper hand in his relationship with his son. Just as Willow allows vengeance to take the upper hand in her relationship with Tara, tainting all her relationships as a result.
Notice an interesting pattern emerging? Btvs – they work together, Ats they seem to work at cross-purposes, with a few exceptions. In Btvs, Buffy wins the day by joining with others. She doesn’t really do it alone. And by acting in concert with others, she honors life and renews her connection to humanity. She always acts out of love. In Ats, the characters often acts out of hubris and the need to prove themselves. Angel often goes it alone. When he does ask for their help – he wins the day. Angel counts on a higher power to help him – provide him with clues and fix things. Buffy depends on herself and her friends and doesn’t really believe there is a higher power. Buffy is part of the world. Angel seems to be somewhat disconnected from it. Oh and vengeance? Very bad thing regardless of whether you are a character in a comic book, a movie or a tv show. What cleanses us tends to be mystical energy or fire, possibly the pure glowing fire of the soul, which connects us to each other?
IV. Why is no man an island? LMPTM compared to Inside Out
Okay this part somewhat rambly and has lots of questions – still looking for the patterns.
Getting back to that poem by John Donne. Which may in a sense by the crux of the whole thing.
“No man is an island, entire of it selfe; every man is a peace of the Continent, a part of the maine; if Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of they friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”
Compare the comic book heroes Batman to Spiderman – both pretty agile guys. Both very bright. But some huge differences. Batman’s alter ego is a multimillionaire who hides out at a huge mansion, spends very little time with people or humans and operates out of a bat-cave. Any romantic involvement he has is short lived, because he can’t connect to others. The closest he comes to connecting is to his ward, Robin, and to his butler Alfred. He remains apart from the world partly due to a deep-seated anger towards the people who killed his parents. Spiderman – gets his powers by accident. He is also an orphan. But has no memory of his parents. His uncle, who is like a father to him, is killed before his eyes and this changes him in a positive way. He realizes he must take responsibility for his powers and help others. At the same time he stays very connected to life. He is a photographer. Befriends and eventually marries model Mary Jane. His main struggle is with the power inside him and how to use it for good. There are times he wishes he never had it. One superhero is connected to the world, even if that world does not respect his alter-ego and considers his alter-ego a freak, the other superhero is not connected to the world, yet his alter-ego is in league with the police and respected.
First an examination of a few episodes from Buffy and Angel that focus on the need to connect to others, to have your own will and to feel important, not an outcast or zeppo.
1. The Zeppo S3 is about Xander’s feeling of not belonging or being weak, not a part of the group, not important. There’s one major point in that episode that fits in with all the others, it’s what it has in common with The Replacement, Go fish, The Pack, and that one element also flows through all the other episodes and is not specific to the character of Xander. What does Xander want most? And how does he try to get it? Does he get it? Also pay attention to the person (Cordelia) who calls Xander a Zeppo – the meaningless party – what if anything does this character contribute to the group? Is Cordy connected to anyone? Who is the true Zeppo in the story? Is what Cordy tells Xander what she really fears about herself?
2. Another key episode is Who Are You S4 – Faith in this episode is in the same place as Xander in a way. She wants something desperately but is lying to herself about it. When it hits her in the face, she gets discombobulated and changes course. What is it? What happens to Faith when Riley makes love to her? Also how does Faith’s feeling of being disconnected reflect on Buffy? In the episode, Faith comments to Joyce how Buffy hasn’t been around much. Giles can’t tell the two have switched. Only Tara sees it, someone Buffy doesn’t know and has never met – in fact Buffy first meets Tara while in Faith’s body. Both Riley and Spike mistake Faith for Buffy. Buffy spends most of the episode outcast, disconnected from her friends, from her life. When she and Faith finally meet in the church – Faith beats up herself – hating herself for becoming so disconnected and Buffy at the end of the show is left with the bitter taste of what it felt like to be cast off from everything. To be nothing.
3. Superstar – what is the most ironic thing about Jonathan’s actions and desires in this episode and how does it reflect Earshot and what Jonathan tells Andrew in CwDP? Why is it so sad? And what does Jonathan ironically have in common with Cordelia? Jonathan wanted to be a Scooby. He mentions this as his dream to Andrew in CwDP. Andrew goes along with it for a time. Until they stand above the seal and Jonathan tells Andrew how connected he now feels to everyone, his high school buds etc. Andrew says, somewhat cruelly, that these people don’t think about Jonathan and don’t care about him. They probably don’t even remember him. But Jonathan doesn’t care – he feels the connection and that is all that’s important, it makes him feel whole. That’s when Andrew kills him and wakes up the seal. In Superstar – Jonathan desperately wants that connection but instead he just elevates himself above everyone and makes them his minions or loyal subjects. He’s not connected. Ironically it’s not until he is standing on the seal giving his speech to Andrew that he finally feels the connection he’s been hunting all along. Andrew doesn’t feel it until Buffy forces him to relive Jonathan’s murder and to participate in the action, not stand separate from it watching – when Andrew is finally in it – he feels connected and cries, his expression of connection and his remorse for taking out a link in that chain is what closes the seal.
4. Beneath You – what does Anya tell Xander in the Bronze and what does Spike tell Buffy in the Church that is similar? What one thing do they say that tells us why both characters act the way they do? What made them seek each other out in Entropy and why does Anya seek Spike out? What does this have in common with Where The Wild Things Are? Or Selfless? Or Fool For Love? What does it have in common with the Zeppo? Superstar? Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Anya tells Xander that before he dumped her she had friends connections. Now she is just connected to the demons and it’s rather empty. Spike tells Buffy in the church that he sought the “spark” so he would fit. So that everyone could forgive and love. He would be loved. Both Anya and Spike desperately want to feel connected, they always have, even when they were human.
Moving over to Angel the Series and what it means to be connected to be human.
This is all from Angel Season 1:
1. What does the half-demon Doyle tell Angel over and over again in City of ? And how does this echo Whistler’s speech to Angel in Becoming? You have to be a part of the world – to understand and appreciate it. Not hide away from it. Hiding from it only isolates you and leads you to evil.
2. Why is Cordelia a victim in City of? Why does she join AI and stay with AI? What is it about AI that she needs most and had before with SG, but can’t admit to herself? And what does she do wrong? She goes off alone with the nasty vampire, who offers her fame and fortune. Her desire for fame and fortune doesn’t connect her, it continues to set her apart. Just as it sets apart the famous actress in Eternity who seeks out a vampire to maintain her youth. The actress is growing old, is surrounded by people, but feels completely cut off. Her only asset her looks. A reflection of who Cordy may have become.
3. What does Angel do wrong in IWARY? Angel gives up his humanity. Or his chance at it. Letting the oracles turn back time. Once again he goes with a higher power’s words. Believes them. He does not discuss his choice with anyone and as a result is disconnected from Buffy and the world at the end. Each act while seemingly good on the surface, has the price of re-enforcing Angel’s choice to remain above and outside the human world. Its champion.
4. What does the visions do for and against Cordelia? What does she do wrong concerning the visions?? And how does this comment on Cordy’s fatal flaw and what she’s done wrong all along? Cordy’s visions give her purpose and direct the actions of the team, but they also set her apart from others. Every time she tries to make friends or relate to people outside of AI, her visions get in the way. They in a sense isolate her. At the same time they make her feel others pain. Often the visions mislead the team into doing the wrong thing. To Cordy, the visions make her feel important. She hides the pain the visions cause from the others and over time becomes increasingly dependent on what the visions reveal. When given the opportunity to let go of the visions – in Pylea, Cordy refuses, wishing to hold on to them. The visions ironically disconnect her.
5. What did Doyle do that was right and what did he try to convey to Cordy and Angel that both have ignored? Doyle’s final act was to reconnect to the part of himself he despised, to see the humanity in the half-demons that were hiding from an evil exterminator. By seeing that humanity, he is able to sacrifice himself. Prior to this Doyle is struggling with his connection to the world. He keeps hiding from it. Doing the Angel Investigations ad forces him out of hiding. Forces him to reconnect to the world.
What happens in Lies My Parents Told Me and in Inside Out that is similar? In both episodes the characters have a sort of epiphany. In both they are told lies by people they either trust or have no reason to trust.
Skip’s big reveal:
1. What did Lorne do that was wrong in Pylea and at the end of Tomorrow that gets him in trouble in House Always Wins? What is the one thing Lorne wants most? Why does Lorne empathize with Angel?
2. Why did Fred open the book? Why is she alone? Why doesn’t anyone appear to miss her? And why does she stick with AI afterwards? What does she do wrong in Pylea that comments on how she got there?
3. Why does Wesley join AI? What is Wes’ biggest mistake in Loyalty- Sleep Tight? What does Fred accuse him of in Forgiving?
4. Why did Gunn lose Alonna to the vampires? What does Gunn do that’s wrong? What mistake does Gunn keep making? What makes him vulnerable? What does Alonna’s death have in common with what happens in Double or Nothing? How do they resolve it? Why does the problem almost get out of hand?
5. What does Cordy do wrong with the visions? What does she do wrong in Pylea? What happens in Shanshu in LA and how does the demon turn Cordy’s visions against her – what almost drives her mad? What causes Wes to almost die in the explosion? What mistake did Angel make? What mistake has Angel made since he got a soul?
6. What is wrong with being a champion? What does the Champion term have in common with Buffy’s speech to Holden Webs in CwDP? What is it about this one thing that makes our characters vulnerable?
7. What does Connor do wrong in Tommorrow? Deep Down? Inside Out? Spin the Bottle? Orpheus? Apocalypse Nowish?
8. Why is the play Othello mentioned in Soulless? What does Angelus do in Soulless that is similar to what he’s always done?
9. Why is Angel always framed outside of things? What is important about the dinner scene in Deep Down?
Back to Buffy and Lies My Parents Told Me :
1. What does Giles do wrong in Lies? IS Giles connected emotionally to anyone in this episode, outside of maybe Wood? Has Giles felt connected in any way since BoTN? Why did the gang think Giles was the first evil? Why did we? Why do Giles actions serve the FE?
2. What did Anya want in the marriage with Xander in Hell’s Bells, why does she go back to vengeance? What do we learn in Selfless about Anya? What does Anya say in Lies? How do the others react?
3. What does Willow do in Lies and why?
4. Why did Spike go for a soul and not to remove the chip? Was it really just about Buffy ? Why is Spike tormented in Lies? Why does Spike let Wood live? Why doesn’t Spike reveal what happened in his dream to Giles? What did Giles do that makes Spike hold back?
5. What does Spike tell Wood about Slayers that is right and that is wrong? According to the shooting script and the show – he first states Nikki went out every night to fight the fight to protect Wood. He states Slayers fight alone, no matter how many people around them, they are always alone. Wood wasn’t the center of her world. What was the lie in that speech and more to the point it wasn’t a lie to Spike, Spike believes it’s the truth, why is he wrong? Why is Spike wrong about the fact that the Slayer always fights alone? (Think back to School Hard and Fool for Love.)
6. How do Giles and Xander save the world in Grave? Why use the song of St. Francis at the end? And how do Giles actions in Grave contrast with his actions in S7 and in S5? What does he do right in Grave and Lessons and wrong in Lies and The Gift?
7. Why are vengeance demons evil in these shows– what do they do that is wrong and causes problems? Why was it important for Anya to give up being a vengeance demon and why is her statement in Lies so interesting?
8. What happens in Weight of The World? Why did it happen? And how does this reflect what is happening in Lies with Buffy?
9. What does the key do? Why didn’t Buffy kill Dawn in The Gift? And why is it mentioned in Lies?
10. In Restless – what does Buffy tell the First Slayer? I sleep, I sneeze, I eat, I do not sleep on a bed of bones? Where are my friends?? The dreams are all connected by the cheeseman and the First Slayer. The cheeseman is harmless, asking questions relating to each character’s role, the First Slayer attempts to disrupt each characters connection to the other characters.
V. What is the whole soul thing about? Restless vs. Shanshu in LA
Both series have stated that souls provide us with three key things: 1. Moral compass or free choice (this is reiterated by both Darla in Inside Out and Buffy in Potential to Andrew) 2. Connect us to each other and the source of life (mentioned by Spike in Beneath You, Darla in Lullaby, Giles in Grave, and the FE in Lessons – regarding Sparky which Warren calls Jonathan when he attempts to stop Warren from hurting Buffy in Seeing Red.) 3. Gives us the ability to feel remorse and empathy for others outside of those we love.
But a soul is useless – if you separate yourself off from the world and operate in a cave or bubble, disconnected from life. The soul’s purpose is to grant us the connection but by the same token, we have the choice whether or not to acknowledge the connection, the spark, that resides in us.
Restless and Shanshu in La aired at the same time. What do both episodes talk about?
Buffy in Restless
TARA: The Slayer does not walk in this world.
BUFFY: I walk.
(Side shot of the three of them.)
BUFFY: I talk. I shop, I sneeze. I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods
roll back.
(Shot of the First Slayer lifting her chin in anger.)
BUFFY: (offscreen) There's trees in the desert since you moved out. (The
First Slayer shakes her head) And I don't sleep on a bed of bones.
(Shot of Buffy's face.)
BUFFY: (firmly) Now give me back my friends.
While over in Angel on Shanshu in LA: Wes is discussing what is revealed in the Shanshu prophecy and why it may not work with Angel. The Shanshu Prophecy comes from a region in Africa and is about a vampire with a soul who after many trials and tribulations eventually becomes human. (The gang interprets human = redemption, but the prophecy doesn’t state that exactly.)
Wesley: "Angel's cut off. Death doesn't bother him because - there is nothing in life he wants! It's our desires that make us human."
Cordy eating her doughnut: "Angel is kind of human. - He's got a soul."
Cordy goes for another doughnut.
Wesley: "He's got a soul - but he's not a part of the world. (Gets up) He-he can never be part of the world."
Cordy: "Because he doesn't want stuff? - That's ridiculous. (Wesley takes her doughnut away from her) Hey! I want that!"
Wesley: "What connects us to life?"
Cordy: "Right now? I'm going with doughnuts."
Wesley: "What connects us to life is the simple truth that we are part of it. - We live, we grow, we change. - But Angel..."
Cordy: "Can't do any of those things. - Well, what are you saying, Wesley? - That Angel has nothing to look forward to? That he's going to go on forever, the same, in the world, but always cut off from it?"
Wesley: "Yes."
Cordy: "Well, that sucks! We've got to do something. We've got to help him."
Wesley: "I'm not sure we can."
Cordy: "What is your deal? You go around boring everyone with your musty scrolls and then you say there is nothing we can do?"
Wesley: "He is what he is."
Cordy: "He's Angel. He's good. And he helps the helpless and now - he's one of them. - Well, he's gonna have to start wanting things from life, whether he wants to or not!"
Angel comes up the elevator and Cordy and Wesley go into his office to greet him.
Angel: "Morning."
Cordy: "Morning. - Want some coffee?"
Angel: "No, thanks."
Cordy: "How about a doughnut? Chocolate..."
Angel looking through a book: "No."
The odd thing about both Restless and Shanshu – is Buffy is reaffirming her connection to humanity and Angel appears to be dismissing it. The writers in both episodes ask the question: what makes us human? Why do we live? What connects us to others and how does that connection make life worthwhile? It is a question that reverberates through both series.
What does it mean to be human?
What does Whistler tell Angel in Becoming, Btvs Season2? What does Gunn tell Fred in Inside Out, Ats S4? What does Darla tell Connor? Why oh why did Spike get a soul in Btvs S6?
The contrast between Spike and Angel’s vampire behaviors has always struck me as odd. Spike throughout the series is portrayed as enjoying food and human companionship, heck he seeks them out even before he falls for Buffy. Angel in contrast does the opposite. He’s called on it by Faith, Whistler and Doyle. Why?
Here’s what Whistler tells Angel in Becoming Part I:
Whistler: Look, you're skin and bones
here! Butcher shops are throwing away more blood in a day than you could stand. Good blood. (they reach the far side) You lived in the world a little bit, you'd know that.
Whistler: Nobody understands me. That's my curse. (chuckles)
Whistler: Dog me. Mustard. (He watches the vendor get out the hotdog and squirt on some mustard. Angel realizes at this moment he’s not a vampire because he eats.)
Angel: I just wanna be left alone. (starts away)
Whistler: Well, yeah, you've been left alone for, what, ninety years already.</b> This isn't gonna be easy. The more you live
in this world, the more you see how apart from it you really are.</b>
Back to Spike – what does Spike say in Becoming Part II and how does this contrast with Whistler and Angel in Part I?
Becoming part II – Spike is explaining to Buffy why he has decided to help her save the world. Whistler has made a point up to now of telling us Angel was the one prophesied to make the difference.
Spike: We like to talk big. (indicates himself) Vampires do. 'I'm going to destroy the world.' (looks at the officer) That's just tough guy talk. (steps over to the car) Strutting around with your friends over a pint of blood. (sits on the hood) The truth is, I like this world. (pulls the cigarette pack from the officer's shirt pocket) You've got... dog racing, Manchester United. (pulls one out and drops the pack on the officer) And you've got people. (exhales) Billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. It's all right here. (lights the cigarette and takes a drag) But then someone comes along with a vision. With a real... (exhales) passion for destruction. (takes another drag and looks at Buffy) Angel could pull it off. Goodbye, Picadilly. Farewell, Leicester Bloody Square. You know what I'm saying?
What else do we see Spike do in future episodes? In Where The Wild Things Are – he considers helping them but talks himself out of it. Throughout Season 4 we see Spike fighting with himself – if you watch closely. He gets thrown out of the demon bar and set apart from demon society because he kills them now. He tries to be part of human society via the gang but isn’t. He, Spike, denies that he wants to be any of part of them. Yet he keeps interacting with the gang and stays in town. What does Adam say to the vampires and to Spike? Vampires aren’t part of demon world or human world. They are cut off? Why is that important? What did the chip do? Poor Spikey? Can’t be a vampire or a human, where do you fit in??
The on-going joke on Btvs regarding Spike has been how he likes to eat, drink, play poker, and do all these human like activities. Spike wants coffee. He steals Xander’s money to buy a beer. He not only likes these things, he’s picky about them. In Hush, we even catch him eating carrots and peanut butter at Giles apartment. In Where the Wild Things Are – he’s grooving to the frat party, sipping beer. He can’t eat a soul. Just likes the interaction. Enough that he’s willing to risk the fact that the Initiative might catch him.
Hush
Spike: "No.We're out of Weetabix."
Giles: "We are out of Weetabix because you ate it all - again."
Spike: "Get some more."
Giles: "I thought vampires were supposed to eat blood."
Spike: "Yep. Well sometimes I like to
crumble up the Weetabix in the blood -
give it a little texture."
Pangs
Buffy : About half a stick and a quarter cup of brandy. (To Giles.) You do have brandy, don't you?
Giles : What? Oh, yes. Um, on the bookcase.
Spike : I wouldn't say no to a brandy.
Fool For Love
SPIKE
You know, there quite a few American beers that are highly underrated. This unfortunately is not one of them.
SPIKE
since I agreed to your little proposition, we can do this my way. Wings.
BUFFY
What?
SPIKE
Spicy buffalo wings. Order me up a plate. I'm feelin' peckish.
Up until now, I thought they were just being inconsistent making Spike have human wants and Angel apparently having none. Angel seems more vampirish with his blood cravings and super-strength and photographic memory and super-hearing and senses. Spike seems just super-human. Why? I thought it was bad writing. Now I'm wondering if I just missed something that was there all along.
What is the most ironic thing about Spike’s situation right now? Why did Spike get the soul? And what has Spike wanted that he still doesn’t have? And why is that? Why did Angel leave Buffy? Why does Giles leave?What is the one thing these characters want? Yet keep slipping up on and how does this one thing make a huge difference in each apocalyptic battle they fight? How is the FE using Spike against himself and the others? What for that matter has the FE been doing with all the characters? Why did the FE tell Andrew it’s not time for Spike yet – it tells the girls taping him that it only says what it wants them to hear? So why reveal that? How did revealing it possibly help the FE and hurt Buffy? Why did the FE tell Wood who Spike is? And why did it pick that precise moment to do it? And why didn’t it send more harbringers after Giles? How is Buffy playing along with it? How are the others? What one thing have they all done wrong? What was Giles biggest mistake in BoTN – LMPTM? How has he played directly into the FE’s hands? What did he do wrong here that fits what he did wrong in The Gift and in Bargaining and in Tabula Rasa?
Spike in Beneath You: “And she will forgive him. And everyone will love and everyone will forgive.”
Anya in Lies My Parents Told Me: “And forgiveness makes us human, otherwise it’s just blahblahbhla…”
What happened in HIM, which was positive, what happened that was negative? In Him, the jacket splits the gang apart, they all go off on their own, except for two people: Spike and Xander, who work to bring the girls back together again, stop them from hurting others, and destroy the thing that is controlling them. What RJ’s jacket does to the SG isn’t all that different from what the FE is doing to them now. They just don’t see it.
Whistler: bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.
Now in Inside Out:
Darla: You have a choice Connor. That is something more precious than you'll ever know.......It has to be your choice
The soul gives us the choice. Does Connor feel empathy for the innocent girl he saved from a vampire, only to sacrifice her to his own child? Can he spare her life? Which mother will he listen to, Cordelia who he obeys almost without thought or Darla who asks him to choose. Who is lying to him? And does his choice really matter? Is he nothing but a puppet?
Fred: Will it make a difference? If we are really are just pieces being moved around a board.
Gunn: Then we kick it over and start a new game......Look, monochrome can yap all he wants about no-names cosmic plan. ......The final score can't be rigged. I don't care how many players you greased. That last shot always comes up a question mark. But here's the thing......You never know when you're taking it. It could be when you're duking it out with the Legion of Doom. Or just crossing the street deciding where to have brunch. So you just treat it all like it was up to you. The World in the Balance...cause you never know when it is
The play Othello and the novel by Agathe Christie called Curtain have one thing in common, a villain that can’t quite be caught. Iago. What does this villain have in common with the big bad on both shows? It works for dissension. It isolates people. It turns their strengths into weaknesses. What do the potentials, Giles and Wood state in LMPTM that contrasts with Anya, the former vengeance demon’s speech and Willow’s actions in Orpheus? The potentials see Spike as a threat and this causes dissension, reasons to second guess Buffy. Spike desperately wants the spark so he can fit in with everyone, become a part of them, be connected. The first isolates him through driving him insane, then with the trigger, the first uses his desires against him and twists it, so that instead of being connected to the gang, humanity, the soul separates him. Instead of helping Buffy, he inadvertently causes the gang to pull back from her. Same with Angel, instead of being brought closer to humanity, he feels more separated from it. The soul connects both vampires to humanity, but it also makes them feel how separate they are from it. Giles believes the solution is to kill Spike or have him leave. Why did Buffy ask him to stay? Why does Buffy bring Anya and Andrew in? Why does Buffy give strength to Willow? Why did Willow stop the Angel Gang from killing Angel?
The soul is what connects us to each other. The connection is the important thing. Choice comes with it. Our choices can either renew our connections or severe them.
As John Donne states: no [hu]man is an island entire of itself. When we kill or destroy life we suffer the consequences. It’s like cutting off a piece of ourselves. When we rejoin life and forgive, it’s like coming home again, reasserting our life force. In the song, I’ve Got a Theory – from Once More With Feeling – the gang asks the question: What can’t we face if we’re together, what’s in this place that we can’t weather?
It’s the connections we have with one another, the desires we share that make us human, that make us part of the world. When we severe those connections, we are alone. It’s by reaffirming those connections through love and forgiveness that Buffy saves the day time and again. The ability to connect to the world – to desire what is within it – may be what turns a vampire human. My theory for what it’s worth is that the story isn’t about redemption in the moral Judeo/Christian sense of the word, its more about being human, living in this world and somehow making it work by accepting the things we can’t change, changing the things we can, and having the wherewithal to know the difference. But most of all? I think it’s about love and forgiveness and trust: trusting those things that connect us to each other and the world around us.
Thanks for taking the time to read.
SK
