Restless Review: Buffy's Dream
Characters:
Buffy Tara Riley Anya
Buffy:
"You're not the source of me."
Buffy's dream is all about her Slayerness. Her attitude towards it. Her acceptance of what it means. And her preparedness for what's to come.
We start with a short scene with Anya, who's desperately trying to get Buffy to wake up. Anya being representative of those who the Slayer protects. Buffy is actively refusing to help, saying, instead, that she needs her beauty sleep. It's at that point that she's faced with the First Slayer. It acts as a threat and as a reminder of Buffy's duty.
The next scene is a directly reference to the Buffy/Faith dream in Graduation Pt. 2. In that dream, Buffy and Faith had made a bed together for "little sister". In this dream, the bed starts out completely messed up, and Buffy can't remember who the bed had been made for.
There's an interesting exchange between Tara and Buffy regarding the other Scoobies:
Tara: You lost them.
This is an almost accusatory statement. Buffy is the active one who had lost her friends. The culpability for the loss is on her shoulders. Buffy's response, though, tries to place the responsibility on her friends:
Buffy: No, I...I think they need me to find them.
With that, Buffy makes her friends the active ones who got lost.
Also, we get another foreshadowing of Buffy's death in The Gift. This time, the clock says 7:30, the number Faith referred to in the Graduation Pt. 2 dream. When Buffy notices the clock, though, Tara tells her that the clock's completely wrong. Of course it is. There's now 365 days until Buffy's death.
Tara then presents Buffy with the Manus card from a tarot deck. This is the hand, the symbol that she'd represented in the enjoining spell in the last episode. It is the representation of her Slayerness. However, Buffy rejects it:
Buffy: I'm never gonna use those.
That's when Tara tells her those lasting words:
Tara: You think you know...what's to come...what you are. You haven't even begun.
After S4, Buffy feels pretty good about how she's handling her life as the Slayer and as Buffy. She thinks she's got it figured out. However, the obstacles she faces in S5 will be more than she's dealt with before, and she'll spend the season figuring out what it means to be the Slayer.
It's after this dialogue that we are shown the bed is made again. This is in preparation for Dawn, who represents the oncoming conflict in S5. When this is shown, Buffy leaves to go find her friends. Tara tells her to be back before dawn...get it?
Buffy is then at school, looking for her friends when she runs across her mom. Specifically, her mom is behind the wall, and her face is peering out of a broken-out hole.
The first conclusion I jumped to when rewatching the episode was that this somehow foreshadowed Joyce's illness in S5. And I do think an argument could be made for that interpretation. I've settled on a different one that I like better, though.
There is a literal division between Buffy and her mother during this scene: the wall. Obviously, being the Slayer makes it hard to balance the family life. And Buffy had rarely visited her mother during S4. She'll have a much closer relationship with her mother in S5, ending with her mother's death.
Again, we have a situation with a person in need of help, like the opening of the dream, and Buffy not quite helping. Buffy thinks about helping, and she even states that she doesn't think Joyce should live in there. While Joyce may be trying to make the most of the situation by learning Mah Jong and making lemonade (When given lemons...), at the end, she does indicate that she wouldn't mind Buffy helping her:
Joyce: Well, you could probably break through the wall...
However, by that point, Buffy has noticed Xander and has wandered off, leaving her mom behind.
The next scene is very interesting. Buffy comes across Riley and an all-human Adam at a glass conference table together. Riley immediately refers to Buffy as "killer".
Then they start to get into the very nature of the Slayer.
Adam: Aggression is a natural human tendency. Though you and me come by it another way.
Buffy: We're not demons.
Adam: Is that a fact?
Is it? This far into the series, little is known about where the Slayer's power comes from. This suggests that it's something darker than expected, possibly demonic in origin. It actually won't be until S7's Get It Done that we actually see the origins of the Slayers.
Adam makes the implication that Buffy is a demon, which Buffy, of course, denies.
Then, as the subject of names comes up, Buffy asks what Adam's name was.
Adam: Before Adam? Not a man among us can remember.
A parallel had already been drawn between Buffy and Adam at that point. Adam's statement suggests that he isn't remembered as a person, but only as the demon that he became. There is the insinuation that the same will happen to Buffy: that she will be known as the Slayer and forgotten as Buffy.
Throughout the dream, Buffy has been dodging her Slayer responsibilities, usually with the excuse that she has to find her friends (Leaving Tara to search for them, leaving her mother to follow Xander). This scene with Adam and Riley, though, show the darker side of being the Slayer and of taking on those responsibilities. In a lot of ways, this can be seen as some lead in to S6, where we do see the more destructive side of Buffy.
When demons escape and the boys leave to go make a pillow fort, Buffy notices that she has a weapons bag. Instead of being full of weapons, though, it's full of mud.
Buffy's soon making herself a mud mask until she rather strongly resembles what she'd looked like in Giles' dream. She's primal, a warrior, and a representation of the Slayer.
Riley returns, this time wearing civilian clothes. This is Riley the Boyfriend.
Riley: Thought you were looking for your friends. Okay, killer, if that's the way you want it, I guess you're on your own.
Even after denying the demonness of the Slayer, Buffy had fully accepting the primal side of it. Upon seeing that, Riley left her. In S5, Riley's reasons for leaving are...very complicated. Among them are the fact that he doesn't understand what the Slayer is. His leaving in the dream is also representative of people in general leaving Buffy because of her Slayerness. His first sentence, that he thought she was looking for her friends, indicates that he prefers buffy!Buffy over slayer!Buffy. In the dream, once he sees Buffy choosing her darker side, he leaves her. It all goes back to the isolation of the Slayer, which is about to be dealt with in a big way.
We are then treated to one of the best scenes in the entire series. In the desert, Buffy meets Tara, who is speaking for the First Slayer.
First Slayer: (Through Tara) I have no speech. No name. I live in the action of death. The blood-cry, the penetrating wound. I am destruction. Absolute. Alone.
The First Slayer, setting the stage for all the Slayers to come. She fought alone, living only for destruction. This is the concept Buffy has been rejecting throughout her dream.
Here's the catch. Buffy will reject this now. She will passionately stand by her friends. But in S5, she will understand the "why" of the First Slayer's attitude. This will be explored in Intervention. Living to kill demons, isolating oneself, isn't done because the First Slayer isn't able to love. It's done because she's full of love for the world. It is because of this that she fights, and it's from this that she draws her strength.
For now, though, Buffy will reject this thought. When told that the Slayer doesn't walk in the world, Buffy responds:
Buffy: I walk. I talk. I shop, I sneeze, I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back. There's trees in the desert since you moved out, and I don't sleep on a bed of bones. Now give me back my friends.
The First Slayer just can't understand how Buffy can fight effectively as a Slayer while still having friends, though. She insists on being alone. Cue the desert fight.
Buffy doesn't play along, though. She stops it. Indeed, she does as she's done throughout the dream: avoided it. She decides to ignore the First Slayer.
Buffy: You're really gonna have to get over the whole primal power thing. You're not the source of me.
It's then that Buffy wakes up.
In the series, in general, Buffy is a unique Slayer in that she does maintain friendships. This has been pointed out many times before. Now, she even has the First Slayer protesting against it. However, this episode is one of the first hints we get of the dangers of Buffy avoiding her duty for her friends, who she spends the entire dream trying to find.
This will act as the turning point for Buffy's attitude towards the Slaying. In S5, she'll start to accept the isolation that comes from being a Slayer. She'll understand better what the First Slayer meant in this episode. And, by the end of the season, she'll accept it and sacrifice herself as a result of it.
There were two false awakenings in Buffy's dream. One at the beginning, after the very first scene. And another at the very end. One could almost say that this is indicative of Buffy's entire attitude. Even at the end, she hasn't woken up. She doesn't understand what's coming or what she is. Like Tara said: She hasn't even begun.
Tara:
Tara acts as the avatar of the First Slayer. It's an easy choice. Tara is representative of the "good witch" figure, and she's a character that's fairly unknown to Buffy. At the end of the dream, Buffy realizes that Tara isn't quite a part of the dream. Instead, she's speaking for the First Slayer, who cannot speak on her own.
Tara: I was borrowed. Someone has to speak for her.
Why? Because the First Slayer is the absolute embodiment of the Slayer, created by men to serve their patriarchy. She has no voice of her own, instead having to rely on the voices of others to get her message across.
By the end of the series, Buffy turns this mythology around, releasing the Slayers from their isolation.
Riley:
Riley first appears all snazzed up in his Sunday best. He's keeping company with Adam, and taunting Buffy by calling her a "killer". He also has some of the most inane (and funniest) interchanges, including dialogue about coffee makers that think.
It's hard for me to pin down exactly what Riley is standing for. Whether it be the Initiative, who was just defeated. Comments about pillow forts proving their incompetence in the demon world. It could be that he represents the rest of the world outside the Slayers, who need to be protected from their own stupidity. Or he could very well represent the patriarchy that set up the Slayers in the first place.
Take your pick. Make an argument. I think there are several options.
His last brief appearance, though, shows him in civilian clothes as he leaves Buffy. This directly leads into the scene in the desert as Buffy rejects the thought of the Slayer being alone. This is even after she had been left by her boyfriend in the dream.
Anya:
Anya has a very brief appearance in Buffy's dream, showing up in the beginning to beg Buffy to wake up.
Why Anya? Honestly, process of elimination. The Scoobies are lost. Tara is representing the First Slayer. Spike is...Spike. Anya represents people. Everyone. She represents the world that Buffy protects from the forces of evil. She begs for Buffy to wake up and help her, and Buffy turns around and tries to go to sleep.