The Monomythology of Buffy
I've been having lots of thoughts lately about the mythology of the Buffyverse, particularly in relation to Joseph Campbell's theory of the "monomyth" - a detectable pattern of the hero's journey that seems to crop up across many cultures and eras. The theory holds that, when deconstructed, most stories about mythological and religious heroes
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I love "competes with the mother for attention" to describe the Glory/Ben vs. Joyce thing. Indeed, it's interesting that Buffy's near-date with Ben in IWMTLY is in Joyce's last episode alive, though I'm not sure if I can make anything of that.
The fact that Glory is "a God" (associated with The Father of Christianity) probably helps with her being the Father to be at-oned with. And if Glory is the "father" of Campbell's writing, Buffy's father figure being the one to kill Glory/Ben is particularly interesting. I know father doesn't necessarily have to mean "father," of course.
Riley was certainly the big temptation, as far as I can tell. Not only sexually and emotionally, but (as you say) structurally . Tangential to Riley's metaphorical role as a "campus radical", I think The Initiative also represented a kind of holistic approach to The Life Problem that is attractive because of its simple pyramidal structure. Riley himself is lost when the structure crumbles, but he still longs to co-exist with Buffy on that equal shelf he thought they were standing on. The temptation for Buffy is to accept that there are shelves to stand on at all, because that would be much easier in a multitude of ways.
Campus radical! I like that. Riley doesn't get enough attention from fandom (except "ways in which Riley sucks"), and when I did a s4 rewatch last year I was thinking about how much the Riley metaphor is structured around being a T.A. whose head gets "spun" by the smart, spiritual student who is able to show him that the utter certainty of his belief system is bogus. Of course, once he becomes an "anarchist" without a strong structure, he can't help but spin out of control for a bunch of episodes until he can go back to the military. When the chips are down, deep down I think emotionally Buffy recognizes that Riley is not her companion in season five when Joyce, Dawn, Ben/Glory, Dracula, Spike, newfound training with Giles etc. present greater challenges that Riley, hard as he tries, just isn't really useful with and can't connect to on the right level.
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As long as by "military", you mean the world of militant, postmodern, radical academia, I think we're on the same page. ;)
I know father doesn't necessarily have to mean "father," of course.
Right. I think for some critics the impulse with this step is to go to various external sources: father figures like Rupert Giles or sociopolitical structures like "the Council" or even to the fraught relationship with a biological father like Hank Summers. But Campbell's "father" was more of a psychological construct. It was the sum total of fears, regrets, longings and self-doubts of the sort that makes Buffy surrender at the close of "Spiral", and repeatedly murder Dawn in "The Weight of the World". It is a sort of ironic icing on the cake (and heavy foreshadowing) that Giles closes the book on Glory forever, but it's not the meat of the story node, in my opinion.
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Haha! Well, while I can see the Initiative as a radical postmodern organization, I have a harder time with the military Riley goes to in s5 -- because most of the signifiers of (radical?) academia that the Initiative had are not to be seen -- I mean specifically the experiments, psych majors/profs, rationality without inquiry, the fundamental assumption that all texts before 2000 have no information of worth. Which, I mean, we don't get a chance to see how the military operates, but there is less academic-coding the few times we catch a glimpse of what Graham is up to in s5 (or Riley and Sam are doing in AYW), or at least none than I can track.
Right. I think for some critics the impulse with this step is to go to various external sources: father figures like Rupert Giles or sociopolitical structures like "the Council" or even to the fraught relationship with a biological father like Hank Summers. But Campbell's "father" was more of a psychological construct. It was the sum total of fears, regrets, longings and self-doubts of the sort that makes Buffy surrender at the close of "Spiral", and repeatedly murder Dawn in "The Weight of the World". It is a sort of ironic icing on the cake (and heavy foreshadowing) that Giles closes the book on Glory forever, but it's not the meat of the story node, in my opinion.
Right -- and it does make sense that Glory is the most physically fearsome opponent Buffy ever faces. I'd be interested in how Ben figures into this -- he is the reason that Glory can't be killed (by Buffy), and he ends up betraying Buffy, lulling her into a false sense of security with the promises of nice looks and modern medicine. (And I guess modern medicine betrays Buffy in s5, in lulling her into a false sense of security about her mother's condition.) But it doesn't all quite fit together in my head. Which is, of course, why it's great to have posts like this to present the argument and then open it for discussion! :)
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It's funny you mention this, because this is something I've grappled with a lot (though mainly in fic; I find it difficult to left-brain). There does seem to be a final, offscreen adjustment to Riley's arc, and maybe to a more traditional (and less militant) form of scholarship. For instance, after he leaves the crucible of Sunnydale, Riley "saves" Spike twice; once through inaction and once through direction of action. There is something to be explored there.
. I'd be interested in how Ben figures into this -- he is the reason that Glory can't be killed (by Buffy), and he ends up betraying Buffy, lulling her into a false sense of security with the promises of nice looks and modern medicine.
Yes, great point. While I love all the seasons for various reasons, I think the mysteries of the fifth season draw me back more than any of the others. The duality of Ben/Glory in particular is something I've given a lot of thought to, but that I don't think I've come up with very good language for yet. It's definitely describing something familiar, though...
Bah! It's too late tonight for me to ponder this one. But luckily, it looks like I'll be snowed the hell in this weekend, which will give us plenty of time to ponder, pontificate, babble etc. :D
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Right. Well, for me, in addition to the academic stuff, I read Riley as being the poster child for a Good Boy (as Maggie calls him in the dream in "Hush"), but who, despite being very good and well-meaning, doesn't (initially) question his programming which includes hefty doses of patriarchal thinking ("so men can take care of themselves but women can't?" "that is so teutonic!"), but, more importantly, requires external validation for his belief system. And I think that validation strikes me as, I don't know, "Society at large" or something. So the military itself seems like a top-down organized structure that Riley needs. But at the same time, while he can't "handle" the life in Sunnydale with Buffy, neither willing to stay at Buffy's side as a lover nor willing to do what Xander does and stay by her side as someone who used to love her romantically but now loves and supports her platonically, he does seem to go back to the military and whatever it represents changed by his time with Buffy. Not only does he save Spike twice, but in The Killer in Me he even gives Buffy the option of removing the chip and thus undoing the damage of the Initiative, he does so while presumably not knowing about Spike's soul. That is total trust in Buffy's judgment when it comes to Buffy's particular turf, and is as far as you can get from the Maggie Walsh-era Initiative's total distrust of Buffy as you can get.
ETA: I guess whatever the military represents in s5, Graham tells Riley that it's different than the Initiative, and that seems to be true. Riley recognizes that he no longer wants to be part of Sunnydale and finds another mission, but it is not a pure moral/philosophical/emotional "reset to zero" for him.
Yes, great point. While I love all the seasons for various reasons, I think the mysteries of the fifth season draw me back more than any of the others. The duality of Ben/Glory in particular is something I've given a lot of thought to, but that I don't think I've come up with very good language for yet. It's definitely describing something familiar, though...
Right. I think it's season six that draws me the most (partly because Willlowwwwwww) but season five seems to me to be the most primal and mysterious.
:D re: last point.
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Not only does he save Spike twice, but in The Killer in Me he even gives Buffy the option of removing the chip and thus undoing the damage of the Initiative, he does so while presumably not knowing about Spike's soul.
I saw this as an affirmation of Buffy's treacherous quest to write her own narrative -- which, in some ways, was inspired by Spike's treacherous quest to write his. The fact that an offscreen Riley is the one to restore Spike's agency, when he and his former gang were the ones to strip it via the chip, is something that deserves a lot of attention. As the catalyst for that, Riley maybe has discovered the real purpose of his studies. Rather than deconstructing something to learn how to weaponize its parts for political purposes, he realizes that the real purpose of knowledge is to liberate the individual.
ETA: (Now it really *IS* too late, though I hope to continue this later. I have lots of thoughts about Riley Finn, but often don't find myself in the company to share them).
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Ooh. I do actually agree about Riley as matriarchal -- what I'd say though is that there are also episodes in which he has "men are/should be stronger than women" moments, like the exchange in The Initiative I quoted (that men can take care of themselves and women can't); in season five he admits that it's hard to deal with Buffy being stronger than him ("it's hard sometimes, but that's not it"). He defers very strongly to "mother" rather than to any father figures, but he does want to be as as strong as or stronger than Buffy. Perhaps "patriarchal" is the wrong word to describe that.
There is also something interesting in the way Forrest talks about women in a really objectifying manner, especially in The Initiative, and Riley treats it as something very normal. C.f. after Riley hits Parker --
Riley : I hit him.
Forrest : What the hell for?
Riley : He--he was just being so crude.
Forrest : Please. You've heard me say much grosser things than that.
Riley : And most of those are about your own mother. (Riley laughes and Forrest jokingly smacks him on the back of the head. Riley stops abruptly.)
Ha, but even there, there's that "mother" again. Hmm....
It's not that I blame Riley for what his friend does, but I think the degree to which Riley casually accepts Forrest's objectification suggests his own comfort with it.
OTOH, given the experiments the Initiative are doing, the bigger problem is probably the "objectification" itself rather than "the objectification of women."
I had thought of Riley's strong need to be emotionally supportive of Buffy in s5, and his crushing emotional disappointment when she doesn't need him to be, as being a patriarchal thing -- him wanting to be the big strong man whom she can rely on. But it makes sense with the matriarchal read too -- since Riley defines himself entirely at this point by how much he is of use to Buffy emotionally, and his disappointment about Buffy not letting him take care of her is probably more accurately Riley's disappointment that Buffy won't "take care" of him (by giving him a purpose and as big a role in her life as Riley wants/needs).
I still get the impression that Riley does see it as being a man's responsibility to be the (physically) strong one. But I guess that still feeds into his dynamic with Maggie (mother) -- she is in charge, and he is a (physical) extension of her will, doing the physical grunt work for her....
I saw this as an affirmation of Buffy's treacherous quest to write her own narrative -- which, in some ways, was inspired by Spike's treacherous quest to write his. The fact that an offscreen Riley is the one to empower Spike's agency, when he and his former gang were the ones to strip it via the chip, is something that deserves a lot of attention. As the catalyst for that, Riley maybe has discovered the real purpose of his studies. Rather than deconstructing something to learn how to weaponize its parts for political purposes, he realizes that the real purpose of knowledge is to liberate the individual.
Ooh, I really like this. I do agree strongly that Riley is affirming Buffy's quest to write her own narrative.
I'd definitely be up for continuing this later. I like Riley and find him interesting. Unlike the other main cast members of the show, Riley's arc ends with his central flaws being worked out (or not -- it's hard to tell 100%) off screen (with The Killer in Me as the true end to his arc), which makes it harder to talk about him than it does with the majority of the cast who remain on screen.
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This seems to me to beg the question a bit. I'd argue the vast majority of Riley dialogue isn't like that at all, but more like this, from a "New Man":
Riley: I told you I'd help.
Buffy: You did. If I'd had gotten here any later and if Giles had killed Ethan, I . . . never would have gotten him back.
Riley: You'd find some other way. (pause) You're really strong. Like Spider-Man strong.
Buffy: Yeah. But I don't stick to stuff. But . . yeah.
Riley: And you're in charge. You're like, make the plan, execute the plan. No one giving you orders.
Buffy: (a beat) I'm the Slayer.
Riley: I like it.
...or like this, when they are on the hunt together in "Doomed"
Riley: “Buffy, I’m thrown by this, I’m confused... - But I can feel my skin humming, my hands, my every inch of me. I’ve never been this excited about anybody before. I’m not trying to scare you, and I’m not going to force myself on you. But I’m, by God, not going to walk away because I think it *might* not work. I don’t know what’s happened in your past...”
Fat from a chavinist, Riley is more or less confirming the argument that non-zero-sum feminists have made in the past: that sex equality has as much to offer men as it does to women. Riley wants to live a "whole" life, meaning he wants to tear down the partition between his private and public identities. What he senses in Buffy (initially, at least) is that her talents and strengths would allow him to bridge the divide in his life. They could work together, play together, share each others' secrets, watch each other's backs. With an equal life partner, he wouldn't have to live two lives, and would be able to add all the boons of his friendship with Forrest to all the boons of romantic love without having to constantly change his identity to accommodate one or the other. This all goes horribly wrong in several ways, but not because he fears Buffy's strength or is jealous of it, IMO. He craves equality, because he craves wholeness.
I think some of this harkens back to the nature of the Initiative itself. Like you said, the point of the Initiative has nothing to do with "female objectification", but with objectification in general. Actually, I don't think objectification is exactly the right word either. "Deconstruction" is closer. The Initiative' central mission is to study "monsters" in order to learn how to better defeat them, which evokes many of the so-called "soft sciences" of Academia (behaviorism, sociology, psychology, ethnography, political science, etc.) Maggie's goals are more disturbing, though; her experiments aren't really about learning how to fight monsters, but how to make them, just as Spike's shock-chip isn't really about learning how to control mice/monsters, but how to control people. She accomplishes this by first breaking "monsters" down to their component parts, then reassembling them in such a way to make them more powerful, and consquentally increase her own power. So, even Maggie's "secret" radicalism is a lie, because beneath the unstated goal of her science is not illumination but control, and not of monsters but of people.
The callbacks to Shelley's Frankenstein are vast and many, but particularly to her suspicion of the new breed of scientists that were gaining strength and popularity at the time. Championing the strict application of reason as the singular answer to the Human Question, she saw them as natural enemies of poetry and the soul. The predecessors to Freud and Jung (and Heidegger, Dawkins and Morris, and everyone who came after), these enemies seemed to view human beings as machines that could be broken down into component parts, studied, then reassembled in an improved state. I think that's why Riley's striving to be whole is poetically ironic, given he's in the employ of a Mad Structural Scientist.
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I found this interesting so I hope you don't mind if I jump in =)
I think Riley was able to pass as matriarchal when he held positions of traditional masculine power that balanced out his ~deferment. In essence, the strong huntsman to the queen. However, problems arise once he's stripped of his superstrength, his (primarily male) team sport of killing demons, and the loss of his standing within the militaristic hierarchy where he was the top dog (or well, Maggie's favorite puppy). Riley in Season 5 is overcompensating for the lost social structures, activities, and metaphysical state which reaffirmed his masculinity. Basically, he could bow to a woman because he was confident in how he was a man.
Now, that's not medieval patriarchy, it's not overt misogyny. But it's also not matriarchal. Riley's an enlightened patriarch who's studied feminism and respects women, but he's still living in a patriarchal society.
The deeprooted patriarchal attitudes reveal themselves when he's overcompensating for his feelings of worthlessness in Season 5, evident by how Buffy's continued superiority exacerbates his inferiority.
I think it's important to note how Riley, when he's feeling secure, chooses to follow a matriarch. That's who he wants to be. But he's still a product of a patriarchal society and the traditional ideas of what it means to be a man -- and we see how these ideas have affected him when he experiences an existential crisis.
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I *do* agree that Riley needed a kind of affirmation that the academic structure of the Initiative provided him, but it wasn't affirmation of his manhood -- it was of his placement within the well-defined framework of Academia itself. We learn in season four that Riley (like his mentor Maggie) is a structuralist, and sees the Human Question as something answerable purely by deconstruction, and rigorous (mainly psychological and sociological) study. I think his awakening to what Maggie's true goals were (gaining control over people by changing the terms of the argument with her postmodern "theory", in the form of the monster Adam) caused him to rebel against that *particular* school structure, but not against the standard hierarchy and rewards-system of Academia in general, which he was hoping Buffy and the Scoobies could somehow recreate for him. Unfortunately Maggie's destructive theory not only stripped away her own premises for argument (in the form of her zombiefication/death), but signaled that academics weren't going to provide the answer to the Human Question either. The show keeps dumping non-answers onto a pyre, and I think this was one of them, and part of the show-design reason that Buffy doesn't continue on in college (where she had notably switched her focus from psychology to poetry, anyway). Whatever answers Buffy was looking for, they weren't going to be provided by people like Maggie.
But even though Riley finally saw the Initiative's premise-stripping activities for what they were, he still instinctively craved the formal elements of the "higher learning" system. He wanted to be told he was smart by people he respected, and in turn tell people who respected him that *they* were smart. He wanted to be graded and to grade, to have fun debates in the faculty lounge, to get some or other award for his contributions to some or other thesis. There was no tenure to be earned in the Scooby gang, though, and all his years of training and study didn't make him all that more valuable than Xander, within the new structure he found himself in. I'd relate his situation somewhat to a grad student with a degree in Linguistics who suddenly found himself working on a horse ranch or in a tuna seiner.
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I am going out soon so I will only comment in brief --
We learn in season four that Riley (like his mentor Maggie) is a structuralist, and sees the Human Question as something answerable purely by deconstruction, and rigorous (mainly psychological and sociological) study.
Right, and his attitude toward Buffy pretty constantly affirms this. When he wants to "know" Buffy better, he frequently tries to gather intelligence about her (i.e. talking to Willow) to use for her; and in season five, he tries to "know" Buffy by running his own system of experiments to discover what makes her tick, trying to recreate her internal world in himself by being a solo vampire slayer and getting his own matching neck wound.
But even though Riley finally saw the Initiative's premise-stripping activities for what they were, he still instinctively craved the formal elements of the "higher learning" system. He wanted to be told he was smart by people he respected, and in turn tell people who respected him that *they* were smart. He wanted to be graded and to grade, to have fun debates in the faculty lounge, to get some or other award for his contributions to some or other thesis. There was no tenure to be earned in the Scooby gang, though, and all his years of training and study didn't make him all that more valuable than Xander, within the new structure he found himself in. I'd relate his situation somewhat to a grad student with a degree in Linguistics who suddenly found himself working on a horse ranch or in a tuna seiner.
Oooh, I really like this, I really really do. And that fits in with his constant jealousy in season five of how Spike, who doesn't have any ostensibly privileged, "boyfriend" position within the gang at all, keeps being let in when he isn't (or at least now and again) and his unwillingness to play as "one of the gang" along with the Scoobies in Fool for Love and in Listening to Fear.
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Yes, that's it exactly. He was Maggie's lab rat back in the Initiative days, and after they were gone he tried to turn himself into his *own* lab rat. The puppet kept dancing after the strings were cut, and he just couldn't adapt to life outside of Academia.
And that fits in with his constant jealousy in season five of how Spike, who doesn't have any ostensibly privileged, "boyfriend" position within the gang at all, keeps being let in when he isn't (or at least now and again) and his unwillingness to play as "one of the gang" along with the Scoobies in Fool for Love and in Listening to Fear.
But the other thing I think is important about Riley and Spike is that they were *both* Maggie's lab rats (or brothers of the Chip, as I've become fond of calling them). Spike's chip was a prototype for Riley's, which I think probably fills the latter with a certain kind of disgust and shame when the former is around. Unlike Riley, Spike *is* adaptable -- incredibly, superhumanly so, actually, and I think that this in addition to Spike's essentially anti-authority and self-ruled nature makes them appear almost like mirror opposites at times, with the predictable bristling results when they are together.
I think maybe Riley's most interesting scene might be the one in Spike's crypt in "Into The Woods". He begins it by confronting his hated Lab Rat Brother and stabbing him with a fake stake, but by the end they are sharing a weirdly friendly drink, while they commiserate about one of the many paradoxes of love.
RILEY: You actually think you've got a shot with her?
SPIKE: No, I don't. (removes cork) Fella's gotta try, though. Gotta do what he can. (Drinks)
RILEY: If you touched her... you know I'd kill you for real.
SPIKE: I had this chip outta my head, I'da killed you long ago. (Replaces cork) Ain't love grand?
Spike tosses the bottle to Riley, who catches it and removes the cork again. He sits on a nearby coffin and takes a sip.
SPIKE: (quietly) Sometimes I envy you so much it chokes me. (They exchange a look) And sometimes I think I got the better deal. (sighs) To be that close to her and not have her. To be all alone even when you're holding her. Feeling her, feeling her beneath you. Surrounding you. The scent ... (louder) No, you got the better deal.
Riley looks over at Spike, takes another drink.
RILEY: (bitterly) I'm the lucky guy. (shakes his head) Yeah.
Long shot of the two of them sitting together. Riley tosses the bottle back to Spike.
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As in Spike's later 5th season conversation with the Scoobies ("Ben IS Glory", meaning "authority IS authority, no matter the form"), I think the main point is that the intellectual world of academia is filled with postmodernists who loudly claim anti-authoritarianism while quietly desiring the instant credibility and inherent power of such structures. This is a very subversive commentary on the state of academia, I think, since what it seems to be saying is that many of the same people who decry *certain* kinds of authority (patriarchal, military-industrial, religious, etc) aren't true anti-authoritarians, but are merely trying to replace it with a different pyramidal system, on which throne they would sit. This group includes all kinds of structural theorists - up to and including structural feminists - who, in their attempts to overthrow existing authority systems by attacking the premises of the very system that allows them to do so, simultaneously sow the seeds of their own destruction.
ETA: I forgot to mention how I think this ties into the matriarchal (the Initiative and their "mother") versus patriarchal system (the Council and their "father"). While the metaphorical system indicators are obviously there, I don't see them as a specific commentary on the differences between the two system. Basically, the show seems to be telling us, "they're both bad," because one of the underlying, connecting themes of Buffy seems to be that all authoritarian systems are inherently damaging to the individual pursuit of identity and actualization. The particular form of those systems doesn't seem to matter; it's the external authority itself that's the trouble.
(Ugh, sorry for all the edits... so many typos!)
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