Season 9 Diary #2
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 #5: Slayer Interrupted.
First up, you know the big reveal at the end. Buffy is up the duff. I was vehemently against this story line when first theorised (well, guessed would be more accurate I suppose) by fans. But ya know, as it turns out, I’m okay with it. It’s like, you don’t want you’re teenage daughter to come home pregnant but when she does, god damn it, you’re gonna support her!! And that’s how I feel for Buffy and this development in the story.
Firstly, let’s get the minutia out of the way; This issue delves into Buffy’s dreams.
The first dream sees Buffy fighting a horde of zompires with Dawn and Xander. It’s her Sister and (for all intents and purposes) her Bro-in-law/best friend fighting together in a brave, heroic and insane fashion. This is Buffy’s sub-conscious wish that they could get things back on track, back to the way they used to be… But just as they have made it safely into the house; Xander and Dawn turn into vampires and attack her. This is her fear on display - that she’ll lose their support, that she’ll never get the Scooby gang back to a functioning unit, that they won’t love her anymore. Big fears indeed.
The First Slayer makes an appearance, stakes poor old Vamp!Dawn and Vamp!Xander and then tells Buffy she is “not the Slayer”. Dream!Buffy gets angry at the first Slayer for killing her peeps and goes on the attack only to get punched in the guts for her efforts. Buffy wakes up nauseous as a result. Or is it…
Buffy goes to see Willow and tells her all about the dream. Willow suggests having a look at the big old Vampyre book that Giles gave her. Dawn suggested that she give the book a whirl last issue too. I’m guessing that Buffy really should read that book…
Buffy digs it out of a box (the broken scythe is also in the box) and reads. She misses Giles. Really misses him. Which I knew was a given but others have been crying foul over how he never got a mention. Still, nice to see it in print. Buffy falls asleep again and the First Slayer is back and trying to lead Buffy somewhere. The Slayer Scythe is lodged in a rock and surrounded by vampires. Buffy observes that it is broken (so useless, one presumes) but the First Slayer says, “Only the Slayer can pull the blade from the ground. You are not the Slayer.” Buffy attacks the First Slayer but ends up nabbing a fairy.
She wakes up, and again goes to see Willow about it. Willow advises her to go to sleep and go with the dream, see if she can figure out the messages she’s being given. Willow says she’ll sit and watch her sleep and wake her if anything bad happens. Willow and Buffy reaffirm their status as “besties”. I like that - even though they’ve been going through a rough patch, even though they haven’t being seeing eye to eye on the seed situation they are still best friends.
Buffy dreams again and meets the Dream!Fairy, who says, though she originally came to give nightmares to Buffy she discovered that the First Slayer has a more important message - she wants Buffy to undo what she did to the world. Buffy tries to ‘King Arthur’ the scythe from the stone but as she’s been told before, she get’s told again, “It’s not for you.” I like that play on the words from End of Days - in that episode the prophecy on the monastery wall said that the Scythe was not for just anyone to wield. It was for Her alone. In that case it was Buffy. But now it is not. Willow is the designated candidate and it seems that the Scythe might be the key to restoring Magic to the world. Dream!Willow says she needs to go on a long trip to find the answer. Willow and the First Slayer depart leaving Dream!Buffy to nut out what Dream!Fairy wants. The fairy tells her “Like I said, you aren’t the Slayer. The Slayer’s a part of you. But you’re not a girl anymore.” Buffy doesn’t get it and wishes dreams could be more literal.
She wakes up to find that Willow has taken the Scythe and has already left on her magic-restoration-mission. Buffy runs after her, gets that sick feeling again, has a thought, goes back home, pharmacy bag in hand and finds out that she is going to have a baby.
Which, of course, leads us to the burning question; who is the father???
Daddy Candidates
1. Angel:
Pro: He’s Angel - love of her life type guy. Way to make their relationship even more dramatic; she’d be having the baby of the man who killed her father figure and engineered her acquisition of superpowers and who was her arch enemy for a big chunk of time, yet it would offer hope that the obstacles that abound for the good ship Bangel could be transcended and that one day they could be a family. And also, we know they've had sex recently. We’ve seen it in all its graphic, cartoony glory.
Con: The timing seems off. It has been five or six months in comic time since the spacefrak. Either Buffy is like a kangaroo that can put her gestation on hold (‘cos kangaroos can do that) or Angel’s got some really slow swimmers there. And of course, the big one; Angel is a vampire and is unable to father children in any conventional sense.
2. Riley:
Pro: He’s human. He was at the party where the conception apparently took place. Buffy flirted with him at said party.
Con: He’s married. Last we saw Riley and Sam they had a really good marriage. They were open and honest and trusting of each other. It would be such a shame if that was destroyed by a bit of infidelity on the side. Plus, would Buffy really have an affair with a married man. I don’t think so.
3. Xander:
Pro: He’s human. He was at the party where the conception apparently took place. Xander and Buffy have a secret that he doesn't want to tell Dawn about. Buffy lived with Xander and Dawn prior to getting her own place. Some have speculated that they have been having an affair.
Con: Xander is going out with Buffy’s sister! Xander and Dawn freaking live together. As if Buffy would be so morally bereft as to have an affair with her sister’s boyfriend. I just don’t see it. I think the secret that Buffy is privy to is something else completely. Buffy sees Xander as her best friend not her secret lover. In this issue we get a look into Buffy’s sub-conscious via her dream and there is nothing lover-like there. She positions Xander and Dawn together as a couple, she refers to Xander first as her sister’s boyfriend and then as her best friend. I can’t help but think that a dream would reveal more if the feelings were more complicated than that.
Andrew:
Pro: He’s human. He was at the party where the conception apparently took place.
Con: He’s Andrew! I just can’t imagine him touching Buffy on the who-ha let alone impregnating her.
Heinrich/other unknown guy:
Pro: He’s human. Probably. He didn't come to the party but Buffy popped by to invite him and stayed for twenty minutes that resulted in a bunch of red roses being sent to say thank-you. Wow. That musta been some twenty minutes ;) The most compelling argument for Heinrich (or some other random) being he father is that then we, as the audience won’t have to worry about him and Buffy won’t have to worry about him and then the story can focus on Buffy, motherhood and how it impacts on her calling rather than relationships, romance and family issues. It also allows other characters to step up and play important roles in the baby’s life.
Con: Who the heck is Heinrich? And would Buffy seriously pop next door for an introduction and a quickie? Would they seriously write Buffy as doing this?
Spike:
Con: He’s a vampire. He doesn’t have the ability to pro-create.
Pro: I’m starting to think that the party in issue one was a bit of a ruse designed to deliberately give us a smorgasbord of potential daddies. And I’m starting to think that the pregnancy is not a conventional one. I think it’s probably mystical in origin. And if it is, then is this the moment of conception? :
And this idea would play very nicely with Spike’s whole insistence that Buffy needs “Normal”. Because the ideal way to explore that would be to turn it on its head by having the two of them involved in a completely non-normal, mystical pregnancy story line. Plus, we know that the next couple of issues have Spuffy-friendly covers and they wouldn't make sense if Spike wasn't somehow involved with the baby. And it doesn't even mean that Buffy and Spike have to be together in a romantic sense. They would just be having a baby together and that's it. Kind of like Ross and Rachel in friends when they had Emma. I will also add that this type of conception avoids any murky consent issues that drunken sex at a party naturally invites.
I agree with those who have expressed the view that they hope the question of who the father is isn't drawn out for a long time. I hope we find out so that we can move on with the story quickly without getting bogged down in an endless merry-go-round of daddy discussion.
Oh, and I gotta say, how weird is it that we get both Buffy and Kitty Pryde finding out they are pregnant on the same day (see Wolverine and the X-Men #4). Kitty’s is certainly a mystical thing because she goes from being svelte to about to pop in the space of about four panels. What Buffy’s pregnancy is remains to be seen. Bring on #6.