Essay: ‘Apocalypses on BtVS’ or ‘Why Buffy smiled’

[elisi]

I was thinking about ‘Chosen’ a while ago, and about Buffy’s smile and her friends’ banter at the end and how sharply it contrasted with everyone’s grief at the end of ‘The Gift’. Did this mean that no-one cared about Spike, Anya and all the dead Potentials? Personally I never thought so, but I began to wonder about the differences between Glory’s

Comments

[skylee]

*happy sigh*

That is all. :)

[elisi]

Wow. I didn't know an essay could elicit responses like that! :)

[bogwitch]

I've never seen that smile in the same way as many people. It's a bitter smile, there's little happiness in it, and Buffy is barely with the other survivors in mind and spirit.

Having said that, The Gift still has tons more heart than Chosen.

[elisi]

Buffy is barely with the other survivors in mind and spirit.
I definitely agree with that. But I always saw the smile as proud and hopeful - I guess we all see what we want to see.

[bogwitch]

Proud and hopeful can still be in there, it's just not the euphoric smile of 'Hurrah! We won! I'm free!'. It contains a lot of mixed feelings.

[elisi]

Oh, loads and loads of mixed feelings. When I spoke of euphoria, I meant the others. Those last moments with Spike were incredibly overwhelming and painful, and I think she's still with him in spirit.

[petzipellepingo]

Spike died because of the amulet. The amulet that no-one knew very much about, except that it was volatile, powerful and could only be worn by a champion. That Buffy took from Angel and gave to Spike, when she must have known that there is always a price for magic. And I think Spike still felt the sting of that broken promise - if he had beaten Doc, Buffy would have lived. She knows that his life is hers. And so, in the Hellmouth, when he’s dying, she knows that he’s made the same choice that she made two years previously. His death is a gift to her:
SPIKE: I mean it! I gotta do this!
It is the work he has to do. And going all the way back to OMWF, there is an early echo of Buffy's words to Dawn, now spoken to Buffy:
SPIKE: You have to go one living. So one of us is living.
So Buffy chooses life. She runs as fast as she can, so she can live for both of them. And of course she smiles. Because she knows what it is to sacrifice yourself for the one you love - for the world. Nods. Yes, that's how I always felt about Spike's dying. There

[elisi]

There was simply no way he wouldn't have died in Buffy's place this time.
That's it. And she knew it. Thanks for commenting.

[paratti]

Becasue quite frankly that smile and those sick jokes and complete disrespect to the dead are obscene.

[elisi]

We'll just have to agree to disagree, I guess. I can see where you're coming from, but I just don't feel the same way.

[aycheb]

So Buffy chooses life. She runs as fast as she can, so she can live for both of them. And of course she smiles. Because she knows what it is to sacrifice yourself for the one you love - for the world.

I think you’re so right about this. And the more you think about Chosen and The Gift the more differences there are. For one thing the Gift ends with everybody seeing Buffy’s broken body for the first time. The grief is a very visceral response and heightened by the fact that at this point none of them know that she died willingly, understanding that this was the work she had to do. Except for Dawn who’s too involved and too young to comprehend fully. Even so, for Dawn, her grief is relatively subdued.

Another comparison that could be made is with Not Fade Away. In the final scenes only Illyria has actually had to witness Wesley’s death. The others acknowledge her grief but there’s hardly time to do more. And we have Spike making jokes about Gunn’s mortal wounds. Is that obscene?

And she leads out her troops with hope, not

[elisi]

These are excellent points. Especially about the response to seeing Buffy's body and the parallel to NFA. I wish I'd thought of all of this and managed to incorporate it in the essay! :)

Instead I'll just opt for admiring your brain.

[speakr2customrs]

Very good, very insightful.

You only miss one thing; and I'm afraid to say that it is a huge thing.

In all the previous apocalypses they came up eventually with good, workable, plans. Even in The Gift, when it was a plan thrown together at the last minute, it was a really good one and would have worked perfectly if not for one circumstance that could not have been anticipated.

In Chosen their plan sucked dead rats through a straw. It was pathetically stupid both in concept and in execution. It only worked because of one circumstance that could not have been anticipated. Buffy's plan was in fact irrelevant to the defeat of the First.

For that matter the First changed its mind several times during the season about what its own plan was, and its eventual plan bore no relation to anything that had gone before. The cancellation of Firefly had an enormous impact upon its intentions and methods!

Despite all that Chosen could have worked. There was one crucial scene missing. If there had been a reconciliation between Spike and

[elisi]

Oh, very good points!

Buffy's plan was in fact irrelevant to the defeat of the First.
Ack, I know! But - and I forget who said this - someone pointed out that although they might all have been killed, there would now have been Slayers all over the world, ready to fight (not sure who'd have gathered them, but I'm really not going into all that right now).

And I get your point about Spike and Dawn - that was probably my biggest problem with the Season. Plotholes I happily overlook since the whole series is full of them. There was a Buffy/Dawn hug though - I think a lot of the silliness came about because they all thought that they were probably going to die - a sort of 'OMG we're actually alive' reaction.

The cancellation of Firefly had an enormous impact upon its intentions and methods!
Bwahahaha!

[speakr2customrs]

If a massive Ubervamp army had got out into the world the newbie Slayers would have been irrelevant. Humanity would have fought the Ubies with high-tech weapons, all the way up to nukes if necessary, and a few teenage girls with powers but no knowledge wouldn't have even got involved.

The Buffy/Dawn hug was at the wrong time. It needed to come as a response to Buffy's "Spike".

[elisi]

It needed to come as a response to Buffy's "Spike".
Ah, I see now.

And re. massive uber-vamp army... I always wondered what would have happened if Jasmine hadn't been defeated. Angel wouldn't have got the amulet and the uber-vamps would have come forth. The result would have been spectacular. A Power (able to control all of humanity) against the First Evil with all demons on it's side. Why has noone ever written a fic about this?