More thoughts about "Anne": Buffy's depression arc (2/?)

[red_satin_doll]

Note to self: Try rewatch an episode before writing meta about it.  Because I rewatched "Anne" this morning, and it's even better than I remembered.  In fact, I can say that it and "Bargaining" are my favorite season openers (Note to everyone else: I cannot get the lj cut tag to work, in either rich text or html, even after much effort.  So I

Comments

[kikimay]

Love your metas. <3
I think that the show gives a very realistic portrayal of depression. It's believable watching all the seasons and it's believable associated with Buffy. She develops gradually this illness, like it happens in real life, and she has this great tension to give up. Giving up for Buffy means death (She is the Slayer, she needs to fight to survive) and she has this tendency all along (When she kissed Angel she wanted to die)
I often think about her last goodbye with Angel, in S3. She just stands there, she doesn't fight. So, it's very IC for Buffy.

[red_satin_doll]

So much yes. I watched the scene I chose above - Buffy on the bed in that tiny LA apartment, with an open soup can in her hands, unable to summon the will or energy to feed herself - self-care is one of the first things to go in depression - and it hit me very hard because I know that feeling intimately. It's all the more amazing in that according to Joss, Sarah had never experienced depression and had a hard time understanding the utter lack of focus that accompanies it; and yet hers is one of the best portrayals of the illness I've ever seen. (And ironically, it's a subject she returned to in Veronika Decides to Die, and The Grunge 2.)

I read a fan comment on the ATV Club that SMG "Doesn't do glum well." Huh? Honestly, she had me fooled, and I know from "glum." I was also watching Beauty and the Beasts (s.04), the first time we see her seeking a therapist's or counselor's help because Angel has returned; that one scene, in which she is panicked, distraught and terrified deserves it's own meta analysis.

and she has this great

[kikimay]

I have the most biggest crush for Sarah and, like you, I'm impressed by her ability to portray depressed women. She's just so realistic, she's incredibly perfect.
About the death wish thingy I agree with you, but I want to express myself better: if living as Slayer means an endless fight, the secret wish would be to cease to fight, to find peace. Giving up on battling everytime and find some space to rest. Except that this, for a Slayer, means death because a Slayer must be always prepared (Kendra!).
I think that Buffy can embrace fighting and resting only in Season Seven, when she understand how it's done living, basically.
I have also experience with this kind of unpleasant stuff and I can tell that, for me, the hardest thing is trying to be a balanced person, knowing when I need to fight with all my energy and knowing when I need to rest and have faith in the people beside me. It's really the hardest thing and maybe I'm projecting my issues on Buffy, but I feel that she also find it very hard.

[red_satin_doll]

I have a crush on Sarah too (hey, I'm a lesbian - allowed, right? And she is just freaking ADORABLE, and fierce) and I enjoy her forthright qualities, her willingness to speak her mind and not be "nice" in the way girls are supposed to be (hence the "bitch" label); on the other hand I watched her on a recent late night show and saw that she has a fiercely competitive streak. I wouldn't want to be in her sights but I'm glad she exists, if that makes sense? Sharon Stone said "A vagina and a point of view are a dangerous combination" and I think that fits Sarah nicely.

if living as Slayer means an endless fight, the secret wish would be to cease to fight, to find peace. Giving up on battling everytime and find some space to rest. Except that this, for a Slayer, means death because a Slayer must be always prepared (Kendra!).

I understand what you mean now. (Kendra is an excellent point. And the only "rest" Faith got was in a coma - caused by Buffy. ouch.)

I think that Buffy can embrace fighting and resting only in Season Seven,

Random thoughts on depression and Buffy

[livejournal]

User kikimay referenced to your post from Random thoughts on depression and Buffy saying: [...] at More thoughts about "Anne": Buffy's depression arc (2/?) [...]

[rebcake]

Buffy's mental health issues are really fascinating, and, as you say, they're there almost from the beginning. So physically strong, so emotionally fragile, our Slayer.

I try to keep track of BtVS "therapy" fics, which run the gamut from ridiculous to sublime, since it's something that IRL would be a MUCH bigger part of the story.

I never really saw Spike's comforting of Buffy in "Touched" as evidence that women will ultimately betray one another, and a woman's most important connections are with men. Partly because it's her entire support network that rejects her in "Empty Places", including Giles and Xander, so I don't see women as being the sole betrayers. Since Buffy does immediately reconnect with her "girls" it doesn't seem like an idea that lasts, anyway. (Sidebar: Dawn's betrayal is the most shocking to me. I think it's the payoff for the "Buffy won't choose you" planted back in CWDP - it's Dawn that doesn't choose Buffy, which is probably what The First wanted all along.) Spike is important to Buffy certainly, but to me it

[red_satin_doll]

I try to keep track of BtVS "therapy" fics, which run the gamut from ridiculous to sublime, since it's something that IRL would be a MUCH bigger part of the story.

Do you have any recs? I've come across two or three (and I'm not counting snowpuppies sublime "Fractured" which is AU from the start of S6/Bargaining - what if the spell had gone awry and Buffy really had come back wrong - REALLY wrong? Brilliant story.) beer_good_foamy wrote the first scenes of a script for an imagined new Buffy movie that takes Normal Again rather than the show's Sunnydale as it's setting. There are a handful more - really about 2-4 - that mostly take NA as their starting point (I'll have to search to come up with links), but I don't see it really dealt with a lot outside of that? But I guess a lot of the fanfiction I've ended up reading is really "Spuffy" and thus centered around that ship, whereas I really want to expand the horizons of my reading a bit.

I never really saw Spike's comforting of Buffy in "Touched" as evidence that women will

[rebcake]

Feel free to quote me on the "informed consent" of the empowerment spell.

I think you're on to something with the underhandedness of Buffy in "Him". I've never been thrilled with that episode, though like all episodes it has some choice moments. I've put it down to not enjoying the humor of humiliation, but it could also be taht it is the least in character of all bespelled Buffy incarnations that she would undermine Dawn that way. Even under the BBB love spell, when she fights with Amy over Xander, it's a head-on confrontation.

[red_satin_doll]

I've put it down to not enjoying the humor of humiliation, but it could also be taht it is the least in character of all bespelled Buffy incarnations that she would undermine Dawn that way.That really is an excellent point. There is also at the same time however a certain familiarity,in that beyond the deviousness, she behaves a bit like Buffybot (happy, flirty, mounting Spike) and even a little like S1 Buffy (without the sex.) It seems as though Buffy is only allowed to be "happy" (lighthearted, silly, etc) when she's bespelled

[ever_neutral]

Wow, I haven't seen this episode in years and years and to be totally honest, I don't think it made a huge impression on me the first time? But you're making me think I should have a good rewatch.

Of course, I appreciate all your insights into Buffy's depression arc. Reasons why favourite arc possibly ever.

[red_satin_doll]

Thank you! Of course, the fact that I have/am/fight against blah blah depression is what makes me understand it better (I don't think I could have if I'd watched it "back in the day");although honestly, I wish I didn't. I wouldn't wish that on anyone - but since it exists, I'm still sort of in awe of the fact that JW, MN & ME chose to go there, and didn't make into something that exists for a few episodes and is "ok all better now". It's a part of the fabric of her personality -and as I mentioned, there's never a possibility (in show) of treatment. Its telling that she makes a visit to a school counselor in a few eps from this (Beauty and the Beasts) but he's already dead while she's spilling her guts about Angel; the only other person she is able to open up to that deeply is Holden in CWDP.

I hadn't seen this ep since I first watched because I'm drawn to the later seasons just as you are and the return of Angel? Bored now (or bored then.) I think I might be able to appreciate it more now?

[beer_good_foamy]

We tend to think of S6 (and late S5) as the "depression arc" but the show has been very careful to build that aspect of Buffy's character from the beginning of S2.

Great catch. There's definitely shades of it from the very beginning, but yeah, "Anne" is where it's allowed to come to the fore for the first time. That soup scene is just heartbreaking.

The juxtaposition of "Anne" and "After Life" is interesting. Quick thought - depending on your definition of "hope", the Buffyverse heaven doesn't seem to offer that anymore than hell does. It offers escape, not having to think about things you're no longer a part of, but strictly speaking it doesn't offer hope that things might get better - just acceptance.

Lily (a sort of proto-Potential, if you will)

I will, and I will add that the very last episode of Angel
[Spoiler (click to open)]lets Lily/Anne reappear to specifically take on the (positive side of the) "Buffy" role; training and inspiring others, continuing the war even in the face of overwhelming odds, snarking at anyone who tells her she should just

[red_satin_doll]

That soup scene is just heartbreaking.

YES. So much so - and part of the impact for me comes from the fact that I KNOW that feeling, of barely being able to care for oneself because you're so depressed you don't care, you don't deserve to take care of yourself, and can't even summon the energy for the simplest tasks. It's one of the best, most realistic portrayals of depression I think I've seen in TV or movies.

It offers escape, not having to think about things you're no longer a part of, but strictly speaking it doesn't offer hope that things might get better - just acceptance.I'm not sure that "hope" is the function of "heaven", though, at least as we define it culturally (beyond "gee I hope I get to Heaven when I die?") The Judeo-Christian idea is eternal reward for goodness (which seems to center less around good deeds and more worshipping the right god (although the NT version that Jesus - not to get religious on you, I pretty sure I'm an atheist at the moment - complicated that quite a bit, re: Mary and Martha (actions vs