He almost certainly wasn't a virgin, but part of me wonders at the casting choice.
I can't think of an in-character reason for choosing him specifically, unless the bug really wanted to talk about herself in class. But the casting choice might be for that same 4th wall reason and what you mention about kindly adult men. The age helps with the father figure image. Especially with the tough/looks-like-he'll-lay-into-you-but-he-truly-cares element they gave him, which is probably what Buffy hopes is going on with Hank.
Re: age, I don't think it's that much of a Western bias, since younger woman/older man is still acceptable. There can be some scorn for a twenty+ plus difference, but even then, I don't think we've completely internalized the idea of wrongness in a power imbalance. Though the degree of internalization differs.
I'm never sure how much the age differences should bother me. But yes, there's always something weird when I think about a young inexperienced woman with a much more knowledgeable man, even when I ship them.
Which I always thought was interesting, that so, so many people knew who she was, yet she was still largely shunned.
I'd guess it has to do with her status. Her Slayerness isn't celebrated aside from that Prom moment they chose to give her, and it's a secret, violent thing connected to aspects of the town they don't want to have to think about. From the secretiveness and how much it prevents her from having a normal existence like theirs, they pick up that she's not someone to be publicly recognized as a hero most of the time. But they know they need her, and at least Jonathan in his depression doesn't think the lack of acknowledgment is painful to her. The Prom is maybe like Mother's Day. Buffy does the dirty work they can't or don't want to deal with, and her role is to keep the problems away so they don't have to deal with them.
There can be some scorn for a twenty+ plus difference, but even then, I don't think we've completely internalized the idea of wrongness in a power imbalance.
I think for me it's mostly just the idea that the older person was probably having sex in college before the other was even born. And in Buffy's case (and Xander's), the other party in question was having sex before their parents' parents' parents (etc.) were born. It's just...weird to me. I feel like there should be equalness in the bedroom, but that doesn't seem achievable with that much of an age (hell, a generational) gap. Especially when it came to Buffy and Angel, since she had no prior experience. I don't feel squickyness with Buffy/Spike, but I think that's because they feel equal to me sexually at that point -- she's had enough to experience to have control over what's going on. But clearly that's me, and I'm going to have to figure out what Buffy herself thought without my input before I start dealing with them.
The Prom is maybe like Mother's Day. Buffy does the dirty work they can't or don't want to deal with, and her role is to keep the problems away so they don't have to deal with them.
That's an excellent metaphor. And, yeah, I totally agree with what you said. I'd have to wonder if after awhile all the Bronze staff knew who she was and maybe allowed her to quietly make her sweep, and maybe the cemetery workers and some other people knew too. I always thought it'd be kind of interesting if she was patrolling one of her usual spots on some sort of holiday and a shopkeeper came out to give her a little gift or something. Or maybe like...Raoul the Cemetery Guy sees her sitting on a tombstone twice a week and eventually, occasionally gives her a doughnut.
The verse leaves so much open as to how Buffy and the Scoobies and the vamps interacted with the rest of the Sunnydale community... I think that's part of what's nice about this fic, that I can explore those sorts of questions, not just the big ones.
There's a fic titled "Those Whom Moses Forgot" about a policement - I think even a small group - who was on Buffy's side for the entire show. Can't remember how good it was, but I did love it. He'd teach new cops to pretend Buffy was doing normal things.
I've read the idea before, mostly in fic, that Buffy protects innocence as well as lives. It's to 'catch' them before they 'fall out of Eden.' Willow's innocence catalyzed Buffy at the beginning and end of the first season. First Buffy needed to save her life, and then Buffy needed to make Willow feel secure, like the world was still hers and she wasn't powerless.
The Prom makes that explicit again: Buffy asserts that she will kill everything on the planet in order for her friends and Sunnydale High to have a normal, special Prom; she drags off hellhounds literally right at the gym doors before changing to enter it. She participates in safeguarding the world she still wants to take part in. It's the innocence she's lost and doesn't want to lose any more of.
Thanks for the ficlet recommendation! I really loved it. Short, sweet, interesting, and poignant.
And I think in the beginning Buffy may've been concerned with innocence preservation, but I'd argue after her second resurrection she pretty much gave up on it. She's downright grim s7. But that's hardly surprising, given by then it was just yet another apocalypse only she could prevent. I wonder if to her, it felt like a Slayer really shouldn't have to learn the plural of "apocalypse"...
I agree. I think she doesn't have the energy or interest to keep worrying about something she gets farther and farther from, and is lost by the people close to her anyway. (She can't even rest in peace.) With the last vestiges forming a part - but not all - of why she wanted to keep anyone from knowing how not okay she was in season six.
It's honestly a wonder to me how little everyone seemed to notice. (or maybe they just didn't want to talk to her about it, for fear of what she'd say...)
but I'd argue after her second resurrection she pretty much gave up on it. She's downright grim s7.
During S6 yes, but in early S7 she seems to be finding her footing again as "protector" but her ideas about who she is meant to or can protect has broadened quite a bit to include the vampire she had a mutually abusive relationship with & the best friend who murdered two men and nearly killed her, as well as the Potentials she sees in her nightmares and students like Cassie.
One of my favorite images in all of S7 and maybe the show, is that of Buffy leaning against the windowpane at the beginning of BY, after Dawn wakes her up, worrying that she can't help or save them; and it's matched almost exactly by the image of Spike leaning on the cross at the end of the ep. Those two images sum up the "crosses" they will both have to bear that season: Buffy's, as always, involves looking out for other people (outer-directed, as women are expected to be), while Spike's is about his own personal torment (inner-directed).
I wonder if to her, it felt like a Slayer really shouldn't have to learn the plural of "apocalypse"
to include the vampire she had a mutually abusive relationship with & the best friend who murdered two men and nearly killed her, as well as the Potentials she sees in her nightmares and students like Cassie.
Hot damn, but that's grim.
...that of Buffy leaning against the windowpane at the beginning of BY...it's matched almost exactly by the image of Spike leaning on the cross at the end of the ep.
Huh, that's a really interesting observation. I feel like I should have something equally as deep, but to be frank, you've outdone me. XD
I watched the episode again after you said that, and I definitely agree (and I had forgotten how intense that church scene was).
It's just sort of interesting, because I tend to conceptualize Buffy as a "doer" yet in this episode we see her sort of helplessly waiting and watching as things fall apart. Since I've been almost exclusively rerunning s1 for the fic, I can't help but think of her mindframe back then in contrast to what it was in s7. I feel like s1 Buffy would've strode forth in confrontative wroth, while s7 Buffy seems almost...tired. That probably feeds back to the confidence thing you keep talking about.
That probably feeds back to the confidence thing you keep talking about.
Yes, exactly. (And by "keep talking about" I hope you don't mean "beating a dead horse". I don't always remember what I've said before but you CAN tell me to shut up if need be!)
I feel like s1 Buffy would've strode forth in confrontative wroth, while s7 Buffy seems almost...tired.
Yes, and she's utterly at a loss - she has NO conception for this in her worldview. At all. Spike just turned everything she thought she knew on its head. (And makes Angel's inability to love her after losing his soul that much more damning.) There's nothing anyone can teach her or offer her that covers this and once again Buffy is left to her own devices. She starts the show seeing things in black and white because that's what's drummed into her head, and ends in shades of grey because that's what she's experienced. On one level it was actually a good thing, ironically, that Giles left, although his timing sucked and I think he was rationalizing to a large degree.
I rewatched the episode recently because of something spuffy_luvr said, how in the fight scene in the Bronze she hesitates there as well when Spike and Anya start fighting; I kept waiting for Buffy to step in and in early seasons she would have been in it right away. Then he makes cutting remarks and she hesitates yet again. And the only way she can hit him is in full Slayer mode, as opposed to when she flinched earlier (or in the opening scene in Him.) It's not only as if she's tired but it takes longer for her to steel herself to even enter the fray, to push aside the very personal baggage and trauma. It probably does NOT help that she was horrified by her violence towards him in DT or that the show subtly implies that the AR was partially her fault for "leading him on" months earlier.
But that actually works on a sick, grim level - even if Buffy says "YOU tried to rape me" S7 shows that she takes on a lot of responsibility in trying to repair S6's damages.
I love that turn of phrase "confrontative wroth" btw. Yet another sadly underused word!
(And by "keep talking about" I hope you don't mean "beating a dead horse".
Ha, no. I just know that that's one of the themes you're caught on (just as I'm caught on grief).
Spike just turned everything she thought she knew on its head. (And makes Angel's inability to love her after losing his soul that much more damning.)
Yeah, seriously.
It's not only as if she's tired but it takes longer for her to steel herself to even enter the fray, to push aside the very personal baggage and trauma.
Oh my god, so true. I think this is a big example of why I always see s7 Buffy as being tired. I was struck by that scene when I rewatched it, how long it took her to involve herself. It's like she just can't take it anymore, like she's struggling to even care anymore, because the shit-fest just never ends and the hurts just keep piling up. Her position as a Slayer basically means she has to involve herself eventually -- she doesn't have the luxury of just standing on the sidelines and watching as the trains collide -- but after eight years she must just be so exhausted with it.
Yet another sadly underused word!
It's so hard to find a situation that's appropriate!
(by the by, gonna respond to your other message, but I'm running late for class at this point)
Grief was a HUGE theme I was caught on ten years ago - and I was using the films of Nicole Kidman - and Virginia Woolf's writing - to work through my issues with my dad having died when I was three that had just never been dealt with.
right now I'm dealing with the issue on a different level - not past grief of "what might have been but never was" but current trauma related to something I did, and the immediate losses that come from that.
But the self-esteem thing? I don't think I realize how much I connected to Buffy on that level until I started talking to you and infinitewhale about it.
I think this is a big example of why I always see s7 Buffy as being tired.
and the fact that Sarah gets so thin that year (or thinner than previously) and is sick in a few episodes (her voice is raspy) adds to that tremendously. She's exhausted on every level. Another example of her "hesitating" is in not taking down Anya right away. She puts a big knife on the table and implies Anya will be in trouble in BY, but at that point it's just a threat; when she actually has to do something in Selfless she's so fucking grim. There's no joy in it - it's very similar to when she had to kill Angel with a sword in Becoming. Every year it just gets so much harder. She means it when she tells Xander to find an alternative because she DOES NOT want to do this.
It's like she just can't take it anymore, like she's struggling to even care anymore, because the shit-fest just never ends and the hurts just keep piling up.
Honestly, I don't know how anyone could go through all that and not end up in a permanent fetal position. I just sent you another reply, and mentioned an idea that struck me this morning, Buffy post-Chosen being approached by one of the new Slayers who says "I don't want to be a warrior" and Buffy saying "You don't have to." that's all she really wants half the time; that's what she's saying to Xander in Selfless "it's always going to be me." Not that she feels superior like Holden claims but there is NO ONE else who can do it or will do it. Spike is the one person who ever said "You don't have to do this" in DT, but she couldn't hear him at that point.
I mean the only way she could get any rest was by sacrificing herself in the gift? Christ.
and the fact that Sarah gets so thin that year (or thinner than previously) and is sick in a few episodes (her voice is raspy) adds to that tremendously.
Yeah, really. She almost looks like her life has made her ill, like it's just eating away at her.
There's no joy in it - it's very similar to when she had to kill Angel with a sword in Becoming.
Which is probably why she mentions it. Because she's right... She can't escape her duty, and she's really the only one who's capable of making the hard choices (and it gets harder and harder to live with those choices, even as it gets easier to just retract).
I mean the only way she could get any rest was by sacrificing herself in the gift? Christ.
Oh my god, I know. And even that she couldn't keep. And it's totally weird that you're almost put into this position where you're in support of her being dead (as Xander pointed out), but sometimes it just seems like life isn't offering her much else.
She almost looks like her life has made her ill, like it's just eating away at her.
rahirah mentioned on kikimay's journal recently, re: kiki's question "Did Buffy have an eating disorder?" (Which is pure speculation) that Sarah was required to lose additional weight for the movie Scooby Doo, which is INSANE. The first time I noticed how thin Sarah had gotten was the long shot of her at the front door in The Body and holy cow her legs were thin then. She had no more weight left to lose. (Amber Benson said in an interview that people have told her she'd get more work if only she'd lose 20 pounds and she replied "What am I supposed to do, cut my head off?" I love that woman.)
But the irony of course is, as we were saying, her being so thin that year aids the performance tremendously. I think of her in EP in that thin white top, looking so isolated and so tremendously fragile. The center cannot hold, as it were. It wouldn't have been the same at all if she still looked like she did in S1. And when I started watching S1 there was the total shock of "OMG she looks like a baby", and that makes the early seasons that much harder to go back to, knowing that she has no idea what's in store and how much she'll get broken down and worn away.
She can't escape her duty, and she's really the only one who's capable of making the hard choices (and it gets harder and harder to live with those choices
I love Selfless so much but I think you already know that; it's as much about Buffy and Xander as Buffy and Anya, and the harm Xander has done to the women he's loved.
It was hard enough in S2 and she hesitated to kill Angel - she wasn't ready in Passions, and Jenny was killed as a consequence. But I think, also that at that point she really didn't know Angel very well; she was attracted to him and there was the romantic fantasy but she hadn't "been with him" very long. She's known Anya far longer; Willow was her best friend; and she's very aware of her part in Spike's soulquest and his pain, and trying not to repeat that. She DOES NOT want to hurt her friends. She doesn't want the additional losses; but I've seen the haters describe her as cold-hearted in going after Anya, as if she wanted to do it. She has to steel herself to do it; it's foreshadowing how she cuts herself off as the season goes on. another "are we watching the same show?" moments of cognitive dissonance when I read that.
And even that she couldn't keep.
The moment she finds herself in her own coffin is one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen in my life. And other than Giles(?) the two people in her life who know what her wishes would have been on that point are excluded from the decision - Dawn and Spike.
that Sarah was required to lose additional weight for the movie Scooby Doo, which is INSANE...But the irony of course is, as we were saying, her being so thin that year aids the performance tremendously. I think of her in EP in that thin white top, looking so isolated and so tremendously fragile.
Jesus. No wonder she looked like such a stick. I mean, I don't like the fact that it DOES aid so much, because it's easy for actors to become nothing more than mannequins to us (I know I struggle with feeling rage toward actresses who get pregnant during the season, and no matter how much I tell myself they're real human beings, I can't help but be like "But what about [CHARACTER]???"), but you're right that it wouldn't have been the same if Buffy didn't look so fragile and wispy. She almost looked half a ghost herself, especially the way her clothes only barely clung to her.
(Amber Benson said in an interview that people have told her she'd get more work if only she'd lose 20 pounds and she replied "What am I supposed to do, cut my head off?" I love that woman.)
Amber Benson is seriously hilarious and I love her. I wish she'd land a lead role in something, or, at the least, a recurring one.
I love Selfless so much but I think you already know that
I actually just watched it again today. I LOVE that episode. And I totally agree with what you're saying about it. I can't understand why anyone would think her cold-hearted for what she did... Even Anya seemed to get it. And there's something profoundly unsettling about how Willow opts to stay in the house, the same way someone might when the rest of the family is taking the dog to be put down. And, while we're on that episode, I just have to mention how amazing that smash cut is between the OMWF call-back song and Anya skewered to the wall. I can't think of too many other editing moments in the history of ever that were half as effective.
The moment she finds herself in her own coffin is one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen in my life.
I think I've written probably twenty random nightmare sequences stemming from that. It's one of my favorite things about s6 to think about, how it must've felt for her waking up like that, how it must've felt when she pulled herself from her grave. Her hand piercing the dirt always makes my heart stop. I know it's like a cheesy zombie call back, but there's something so profoundly awful about how she punched up so violently that her hand came out of the ground like that. No wonder she thought she was in hell. Can you imagine what it must've felt like for her, being funneled from the warmth and safety and comfort of the Big Nothing into some pitch dark, earthen pit? Ugh...gives me the creeps just thinking about it, especially since being buried alive is one of the most nightmarish death possible to me.
I can't think of an in-character reason for choosing him specifically, unless the bug really wanted to talk about herself in class. But the casting choice might be for that same 4th wall reason and what you mention about kindly adult men. The age helps with the father figure image. Especially with the tough/looks-like-he'll-lay-into-you-but-he-truly-cares element they gave him, which is probably what Buffy hopes is going on with Hank.
Re: age, I don't think it's that much of a Western bias, since younger woman/older man is still acceptable. There can be some scorn for a twenty+ plus difference, but even then, I don't think we've completely internalized the idea of wrongness in a power imbalance. Though the degree of internalization differs.
I'm never sure how much the age differences should bother me. But yes, there's always something weird when I think about a young inexperienced woman with a much more knowledgeable man, even when I ship them.
Which I always thought was interesting, that so, so many people knew who she was, yet she was still largely shunned.
I'd guess it has to do with her status. Her Slayerness isn't celebrated aside from that Prom moment they chose to give her, and it's a secret, violent thing connected to aspects of the town they don't want to have to think about. From the secretiveness and how much it prevents her from having a normal existence like theirs, they pick up that she's not someone to be publicly recognized as a hero most of the time. But they know they need her, and at least Jonathan in his depression doesn't think the lack of acknowledgment is painful to her. The Prom is maybe like Mother's Day. Buffy does the dirty work they can't or don't want to deal with, and her role is to keep the problems away so they don't have to deal with them.
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I think for me it's mostly just the idea that the older person was probably having sex in college before the other was even born. And in Buffy's case (and Xander's), the other party in question was having sex before their parents' parents' parents (etc.) were born. It's just...weird to me. I feel like there should be equalness in the bedroom, but that doesn't seem achievable with that much of an age (hell, a generational) gap. Especially when it came to Buffy and Angel, since she had no prior experience. I don't feel squickyness with Buffy/Spike, but I think that's because they feel equal to me sexually at that point -- she's had enough to experience to have control over what's going on.
But clearly that's me, and I'm going to have to figure out what Buffy herself thought without my input before I start dealing with them.
The Prom is maybe like Mother's Day. Buffy does the dirty work they can't or don't want to deal with, and her role is to keep the problems away so they don't have to deal with them.
That's an excellent metaphor. And, yeah, I totally agree with what you said. I'd have to wonder if after awhile all the Bronze staff knew who she was and maybe allowed her to quietly make her sweep, and maybe the cemetery workers and some other people knew too. I always thought it'd be kind of interesting if she was patrolling one of her usual spots on some sort of holiday and a shopkeeper came out to give her a little gift or something. Or maybe like...Raoul the Cemetery Guy sees her sitting on a tombstone twice a week and eventually, occasionally gives her a doughnut.
The verse leaves so much open as to how Buffy and the Scoobies and the vamps interacted with the rest of the Sunnydale community... I think that's part of what's nice about this fic, that I can explore those sorts of questions, not just the big ones.
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There's a fic titled "Those Whom Moses Forgot" about a policement - I think even a small group - who was on Buffy's side for the entire show. Can't remember how good it was, but I did love it. He'd teach new cops to pretend Buffy was doing normal things.
I've read the idea before, mostly in fic, that Buffy protects innocence as well as lives. It's to 'catch' them before they 'fall out of Eden.' Willow's innocence catalyzed Buffy at the beginning and end of the first season. First Buffy needed to save her life, and then Buffy needed to make Willow feel secure, like the world was still hers and she wasn't powerless.
The Prom makes that explicit again: Buffy asserts that she will kill everything on the planet in order for her friends and Sunnydale High to have a normal, special Prom; she drags off hellhounds literally right at the gym doors before changing to enter it. She participates in safeguarding the world she still wants to take part in. It's the innocence she's lost and doesn't want to lose any more of.
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And I think in the beginning Buffy may've been concerned with innocence preservation, but I'd argue after her second resurrection she pretty much gave up on it. She's downright grim s7. But that's hardly surprising, given by then it was just yet another apocalypse only she could prevent. I wonder if to her, it felt like a Slayer really shouldn't have to learn the plural of "apocalypse"...
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I agree. I think she doesn't have the energy or interest to keep worrying about something she gets farther and farther from, and is lost by the people close to her anyway. (She can't even rest in peace.) With the last vestiges forming a part - but not all - of why she wanted to keep anyone from knowing how not okay she was in season six.
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During S6 yes, but in early S7 she seems to be finding her footing again as "protector" but her ideas about who she is meant to or can protect has broadened quite a bit to include the vampire she had a mutually abusive relationship with & the best friend who murdered two men and nearly killed her, as well as the Potentials she sees in her nightmares and students like Cassie.
One of my favorite images in all of S7 and maybe the show, is that of Buffy leaning against the windowpane at the beginning of BY, after Dawn wakes her up, worrying that she can't help or save them; and it's matched almost exactly by the image of Spike leaning on the cross at the end of the ep. Those two images sum up the "crosses" they will both have to bear that season: Buffy's, as always, involves looking out for other people (outer-directed, as women are expected to be), while Spike's is about his own personal torment (inner-directed).
I wonder if to her, it felt like a Slayer really shouldn't have to learn the plural of "apocalypse"
Indeed.
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Hot damn, but that's grim.
...that of Buffy leaning against the windowpane at the beginning of BY...it's matched almost exactly by the image of Spike leaning on the cross at the end of the ep.
Huh, that's a really interesting observation. I feel like I should have something equally as deep, but to be frank, you've outdone me. XD
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Right?
but to be frank, you've outdone me.
*blushes* I'd tell you to stop stroking my ego like that but I think I'm starting to like it *lol*
Anyhow, here's Exhibit A (the proof of the pudding is under the crust):
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It's just sort of interesting, because I tend to conceptualize Buffy as a "doer" yet in this episode we see her sort of helplessly waiting and watching as things fall apart. Since I've been almost exclusively rerunning s1 for the fic, I can't help but think of her mindframe back then in contrast to what it was in s7. I feel like s1 Buffy would've strode forth in confrontative wroth, while s7 Buffy seems almost...tired.
That probably feeds back to the confidence thing you keep talking about.
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Yes, exactly. (And by "keep talking about" I hope you don't mean "beating a dead horse". I don't always remember what I've said before but you CAN tell me to shut up if need be!)
I feel like s1 Buffy would've strode forth in confrontative wroth, while s7 Buffy seems almost...tired.
Yes, and she's utterly at a loss - she has NO conception for this in her worldview. At all. Spike just turned everything she thought she knew on its head. (And makes Angel's inability to love her after losing his soul that much more damning.) There's nothing anyone can teach her or offer her that covers this and once again Buffy is left to her own devices. She starts the show seeing things in black and white because that's what's drummed into her head, and ends in shades of grey because that's what she's experienced. On one level it was actually a good thing, ironically, that Giles left, although his timing sucked and I think he was rationalizing to a large degree.
I rewatched the episode recently because of something spuffy_luvr said, how in the fight scene in the Bronze she hesitates there as well when Spike and Anya start fighting; I kept waiting for Buffy to step in and in early seasons she would have been in it right away. Then he makes cutting remarks and she hesitates yet again. And the only way she can hit him is in full Slayer mode, as opposed to when she flinched earlier (or in the opening scene in Him.) It's not only as if she's tired but it takes longer for her to steel herself to even enter the fray, to push aside the very personal baggage and trauma. It probably does NOT help that she was horrified by her violence towards him in DT or that the show subtly implies that the AR was partially her fault for "leading him on" months earlier.
But that actually works on a sick, grim level - even if Buffy says "YOU tried to rape me" S7 shows that she takes on a lot of responsibility in trying to repair S6's damages.
I love that turn of phrase "confrontative wroth" btw. Yet another sadly underused word!
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Ha, no. I just know that that's one of the themes you're caught on (just as I'm caught on grief).
Spike just turned everything she thought she knew on its head. (And makes Angel's inability to love her after losing his soul that much more damning.)
Yeah, seriously.
It's not only as if she's tired but it takes longer for her to steel herself to even enter the fray, to push aside the very personal baggage and trauma.
Oh my god, so true. I think this is a big example of why I always see s7 Buffy as being tired. I was struck by that scene when I rewatched it, how long it took her to involve herself. It's like she just can't take it anymore, like she's struggling to even care anymore, because the shit-fest just never ends and the hurts just keep piling up. Her position as a Slayer basically means she has to involve herself eventually -- she doesn't have the luxury of just standing on the sidelines and watching as the trains collide -- but after eight years she must just be so exhausted with it.
Yet another sadly underused word!
It's so hard to find a situation that's appropriate!
(by the by, gonna respond to your other message, but I'm running late for class at this point)
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Grief was a HUGE theme I was caught on ten years ago - and I was using the films of Nicole Kidman - and Virginia Woolf's writing - to work through my issues with my dad having died when I was three that had just never been dealt with.
right now I'm dealing with the issue on a different level - not past grief of "what might have been but never was" but current trauma related to something I did, and the immediate losses that come from that.
But the self-esteem thing? I don't think I realize how much I connected to Buffy on that level until I started talking to you and infinitewhale about it.
I think this is a big example of why I always see s7 Buffy as being tired.
and the fact that Sarah gets so thin that year (or thinner than previously) and is sick in a few episodes (her voice is raspy) adds to that tremendously. She's exhausted on every level. Another example of her "hesitating" is in not taking down Anya right away. She puts a big knife on the table and implies Anya will be in trouble in BY, but at that point it's just a threat; when she actually has to do something in Selfless she's so fucking grim. There's no joy in it - it's very similar to when she had to kill Angel with a sword in Becoming. Every year it just gets so much harder. She means it when she tells Xander to find an alternative because she DOES NOT want to do this.
It's like she just can't take it anymore, like she's struggling to even care anymore, because the shit-fest just never ends and the hurts just keep piling up.
Honestly, I don't know how anyone could go through all that and not end up in a permanent fetal position. I just sent you another reply, and mentioned an idea that struck me this morning, Buffy post-Chosen being approached by one of the new Slayers who says "I don't want to be a warrior" and Buffy saying "You don't have to." that's all she really wants half the time; that's what she's saying to Xander in Selfless "it's always going to be me." Not that she feels superior like Holden claims but there is NO ONE else who can do it or will do it. Spike is the one person who ever said "You don't have to do this" in DT, but she couldn't hear him at that point.
I mean the only way she could get any rest was by sacrificing herself in the gift? Christ.
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Yeah, really. She almost looks like her life has made her ill, like it's just eating away at her.
There's no joy in it - it's very similar to when she had to kill Angel with a sword in Becoming.
Which is probably why she mentions it. Because she's right... She can't escape her duty, and she's really the only one who's capable of making the hard choices (and it gets harder and harder to live with those choices, even as it gets easier to just retract).
I mean the only way she could get any rest was by sacrificing herself in the gift? Christ.
Oh my god, I know. And even that she couldn't keep. And it's totally weird that you're almost put into this position where you're in support of her being dead (as Xander pointed out), but sometimes it just seems like life isn't offering her much else.
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rahirah mentioned on kikimay's journal recently, re: kiki's question "Did Buffy have an eating disorder?" (Which is pure speculation) that Sarah was required to lose additional weight for the movie Scooby Doo, which is INSANE. The first time I noticed how thin Sarah had gotten was the long shot of her at the front door in The Body and holy cow her legs were thin then. She had no more weight left to lose. (Amber Benson said in an interview that people have told her she'd get more work if only she'd lose 20 pounds and she replied "What am I supposed to do, cut my head off?" I love that woman.)
But the irony of course is, as we were saying, her being so thin that year aids the performance tremendously. I think of her in EP in that thin white top, looking so isolated and so tremendously fragile. The center cannot hold, as it were. It wouldn't have been the same at all if she still looked like she did in S1. And when I started watching S1 there was the total shock of "OMG she looks like a baby", and that makes the early seasons that much harder to go back to, knowing that she has no idea what's in store and how much she'll get broken down and worn away.
She can't escape her duty, and she's really the only one who's capable of making the hard choices (and it gets harder and harder to live with those choices
I love Selfless so much but I think you already know that; it's as much about Buffy and Xander as Buffy and Anya, and the harm Xander has done to the women he's loved.
It was hard enough in S2 and she hesitated to kill Angel - she wasn't ready in Passions, and Jenny was killed as a consequence. But I think, also that at that point she really didn't know Angel very well; she was attracted to him and there was the romantic fantasy but she hadn't "been with him" very long. She's known Anya far longer; Willow was her best friend; and she's very aware of her part in Spike's soulquest and his pain, and trying not to repeat that. She DOES NOT want to hurt her friends. She doesn't want the additional losses; but I've seen the haters describe her as cold-hearted in going after Anya, as if she wanted to do it. She has to steel herself to do it; it's foreshadowing how she cuts herself off as the season goes on. another "are we watching the same show?" moments of cognitive dissonance when I read that.
And even that she couldn't keep.
The moment she finds herself in her own coffin is one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen in my life. And other than Giles(?) the two people in her life who know what her wishes would have been on that point are excluded from the decision - Dawn and Spike.
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Jesus. No wonder she looked like such a stick.
I mean, I don't like the fact that it DOES aid so much, because it's easy for actors to become nothing more than mannequins to us (I know I struggle with feeling rage toward actresses who get pregnant during the season, and no matter how much I tell myself they're real human beings, I can't help but be like "But what about [CHARACTER]???"), but you're right that it wouldn't have been the same if Buffy didn't look so fragile and wispy. She almost looked half a ghost herself, especially the way her clothes only barely clung to her.
(Amber Benson said in an interview that people have told her she'd get more work if only she'd lose 20 pounds and she replied "What am I supposed to do, cut my head off?" I love that woman.)
Amber Benson is seriously hilarious and I love her. I wish she'd land a lead role in something, or, at the least, a recurring one.
I love Selfless so much but I think you already know that
I actually just watched it again today. I LOVE that episode. And I totally agree with what you're saying about it. I can't understand why anyone would think her cold-hearted for what she did... Even Anya seemed to get it. And there's something profoundly unsettling about how Willow opts to stay in the house, the same way someone might when the rest of the family is taking the dog to be put down.
And, while we're on that episode, I just have to mention how amazing that smash cut is between the OMWF call-back song and Anya skewered to the wall. I can't think of too many other editing moments in the history of ever that were half as effective.
The moment she finds herself in her own coffin is one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen in my life.
I think I've written probably twenty random nightmare sequences stemming from that. It's one of my favorite things about s6 to think about, how it must've felt for her waking up like that, how it must've felt when she pulled herself from her grave. Her hand piercing the dirt always makes my heart stop. I know it's like a cheesy zombie call back, but there's something so profoundly awful about how she punched up so violently that her hand came out of the ground like that.
No wonder she thought she was in hell. Can you imagine what it must've felt like for her, being funneled from the warmth and safety and comfort of the Big Nothing into some pitch dark, earthen pit?
Ugh...gives me the creeps just thinking about it, especially since being buried alive is one of the most nightmarish death possible to me.
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