Back from the dead
While writing about the last few SPN episodes, I was reminded of something I was discussing before the season started, namely that this might be SPN's S6. Mostly I was thinking about Dean's likely resurrection storyline, but I think that's only the first of several parallels. Apologies to anyone sick of Buffy and SPN comparisons, but I've invested a lot of thought in the Buffyverse, and references to it pop out at me all the time when I think about storylines and seasonal arcs. I also know at least one member of my flist thought the same ;>
So onto why I think this comparison is worth some brain time. In every season of BtVS we had two major issues we knew would occur. The first was that there would be some central, major villain that Buffy would have to defeat. And second, there was always some big event going on in Buffy's love life. Less common was starting a season with some big issue to address from the season before. In S3, Buffy had to reclaim her calling, and her life as a whole, after running away. In S6, Buffy had to reclaim her life, period. This ended up being quickly resolved in episode 1 - at least in the practical sense. She spent the rest of the season trying to make sense of what her second chance at life was going to mean to her.
When S5 of Buffy ended, everyone knew Buffy had to somehow come back, the question was how (and to a lesser extent, why). A lot of speculation focused on Buffy not actually being dead. I saw some of this happening with SPN but most of the discussion and fic there assumed that Dean had, in fact, gone to hell, and that Sam was somehow going to get him out. As BtVS S6 started out, the twist that occurred a few episodes in was that Buffy hadn't been in hell at all, which is what her friends had assumed. Instead, she was having a hard time adjusting to life again, because where she had been was so much better and her work had been completed.
As we find out in SPN, what we expected was just what we got - Dean did go to hell. Terrible things were done to him, and he did terrible things as well. As was the case with Buffy being in heaven, the reveal about Dean torturing people was less than a shock. And, at least in MM, he claimed to be pretty happy about being back. So far, not much in common between the two seasons besides a resurrection.
Aside from her adjustment problems, Buffy also lost her mentor's help when she tried to pass off her responsibilities regarding Dawn on him, and she had to try and support herself financially for the first time. The one thing that wasn't unusually awful was her work - her Big Bads that season were mostly small-time compared to what she'd dealt with in previous years. Except, that was the other impending twist. The real Big Bad was her closest friend. Also? Her unwisely-chosen sex partner, who was a demon, was trying to bring her into his world. When this failed, he ended up turning on her in a big way.
In SPN we have an unwisely-chosen demon partner that keeps urging Sam to go darkside, and the Big Bad is being set up as Sam. Of course, Sam has been set up as an eventual threat for several seasons now. But then, so was Willow.
Ever since she got into magic in S2, Willow's efforts seemed a little problematic. First there was the resouling of Angel, which was somewhat alarming and, unknown to her, rather terribly timed. In S3 we see a dark version of Willow - a vampire, not a sorceress - but still a hint of things to come in several ways. In S4 Willow increasingly goes her own way, and her magic starts going quite awry at times. In S5, she's ready to go darkside with Glory to save Tara, and then kicks off S6 doing some very risky stuff to bring Buffy back. This starts to alarm everyone. The person closest to her breaks up with her because, not only is she starting to abuse her abilities, but she's used her abilities to avoid a confrontation with Tara about the very same abuse of her abilities.
Hmm. Sure makes me wonder what 4.15 is going to bring.
From then on, Willow continues to spiral down in S6, even renouncing magic at one point, before Tara's death takes off all the brakes. She's ready to kill Giles, Buffy, and take the whole world down with her in her grief and anger. And it isn't Buffy, in the end, who stops her.
By comparison, Sam's powers have never seemed that useful. It's true that his visions helped them save some people, but in many other cases they were too late to help anyone. He never learned to take control of his mysterious powers, and they often failed him at critical times - such as in helping to save Dean, post-Nightmare, or in helping to save his own life in his confrontation with Jake. Importantly, it's not Sam who succeeds in bringing Dean back - that's done by someone else, for other reasons entirely. Whatever his powers will be good for, they weren't at that level yet. Nevertheless, we know from the first episode of S4, that Sam has finally started that spiral into darkness - like Willow, with good intentions and a certainty that he can control how far he'll go. He also, for an episode or so, renounces his abilities when he's reminded yet again of what he could become if he exploits them. He begins using them again for a few episodes, successfully in one case, not at all in another. And now, he seems committed. He's had enough of people telling him no. In fact his dialogue with Dean in 4.14 is not unlike this exchange between Willow and Giles:
GILES: Do you have any idea what you've done? The forces you've harnessed, the lines you've crossed?
WILLOW: I thought you'd be ... impressed, or, or something.
GILES: Oh, don't worry, you've ... made a very deep impression. Of everyone here ... you were the one I trusted most to respect the forces of nature.
WILLOW: Are you saying you don't trust me?
GILES: Think what you've done to Buffy!
WILLOW: I brought her back!
GILES: At incredible risk!
WILLOW: Risk? Of what? Making her deader?
GILES: Of killing us all. Unleashing hell on Earth, I mean, shall I go on?
WILLOW: No! Giles, I did what I had to do. I did what nobody else could do.
GILES: Oh, there are others in this world who can do what you did. You just don't want to meet them.
WILLOW: No, probably not, but ... well, they're the bad guys. I'm not a bad guy. I brought Buffy back into this world, a-and maybe the word you should be looking for is "congratulations."
…
GILES: (angry) You were lucky.
WILLOW: I wasn't lucky. I was amazing. And how would you know? You weren't even there.
GILES: If I had been, I'd have bloody well stopped you. The magicks you channeled are more ferocious and primal than anything you can hope to understand, (even more angry) and you are lucky to be alive, you rank, arrogant amateur!
WILLOW: You're right. The magicks I used are very powerful. I'm very powerful. And maybe it's not such a good idea for you to piss me off. (beat) Come on, Giles, I-I don't want to fight. I ... Let's not, okay? I'll think about what you said, and you ... try to be happy Buffy's back.
GILES: We still don't know where she was ... or what happened to her. And I'm far from convinced she's come out of all this undamaged.
Well, we know Dean has come back damaged in his own way. And we also know he's right about Sam not being the same Sam he left. And Sam? Rather full of himself, too. Also, just like Willow, very focused on the well being of one person, not the betterment (or safety) of all. At the same time, Sam's nihilism, wanting things to be over, wanting it all to stop, feeling possibly suicidal, seems to echo how Buffy feels throughout the whole season.
Moving on from Sam to Spike Ruby, she's still a big question mark. I feel fairly confident that the writers haven't kept her around for two seasons just so that she can keep popping in and out, being the occasional harbinger of doom. At some point, I expect she's going to have a major effect on the storyline. But what will it be? She certainly seems to be on Sam's side, but she must have her own agenda. Is it simply to protect herself by killing Lilith? Does she have some residual loyalty to Azazel that we don't know about? How deeply will Sam end up getting involved with her? By comparison, Spike's agenda seemed fairly clear cut. He wanted Buffy to himself, and in his world, since he knew he couldn't walk in hers. His world was where they had things in common. But becoming involved with Spike was a risk, only it was one Buffy thought she could handle. Buffy knew she couldn't really trust him, but part of her did. Spike helped her - with her work, and also in controlling the grief and anger she was feeling. He had also, while she was gone, helped her with Dawn, and working with her friends. Ruby too, has been remarkably useful. She's given the Winchesters information, weapons, and muscle, even saving Dean's life in S3 and possibly again in S4. But when she doesn't get what she wants from Sam, will she turn on him? I'm reminded of Buffy's sense of betrayal in As You Were, where Spike reminds her that she knew he was a demon and came to him anyway. She breaks things off with him. I wonder though, if in SPN, it isn't Ruby who's going to find Sam can't be trusted.
In S6, Willow's final face-off isn't with Buffy, it's with Giles, the person she has learned from and looked up to, as his knowledge and strength represented all that she admired. It seems to me Sam might end up saying something very much like this to Dean:
WILLOW: You're such a hypocrite. Waltzing in here with your borrowed magicks... So you can tell me, what...? Magic's bad? Behave? Be a good girl? Well, I don't think you're in any position to be telling me what to do. (he's stuck to the ceiling) Do you? (she sends him to the floor) I used to think you had all the answers. That I had so much to learn from you.
Technically you'd think he'd be saying it to Bobby, who is the knowledge and magic guru in SPN, much like Giles is in BtVS. And given Bobby's tendency to swoop in and save the day, that would also fit. The difference is that I just don't see Sam and Bobby being close enough for this exchange to be all that meaningful. The one he's setting himself up to be in competition with in 4.14, is Dean.
As You Were also brought in a visit from someone in the past, who still has an optimistic view of the world. In the case of Buffy, it was Riley. Of course his visit wasn't all that uplifting for her, reminding her of how her life wasn't at all what she wanted it to be. Similarly, when Sam talks with his old teacher, Mr. Wyatt, he is painfully reminded of everywhere his life has not gone. These two episodes were placed at almost the same spots in the season, with AYW being episode #15, and ASS being #13. Interestingly, episode #14 for Buffy? Older and Far Away, with a neglected sister unintentionally making a wish that her sister cannot leave her. In the course of things both of them have some rather sharp things to say to one another, but at the end of the episode, they're reconciled. Things don't look quite so optimistic for the Winchesters. While everyone focused on Wyatt's words to Sam at the end of 4.13, I think his words to Sam earlier were just as important. He told Sam that there would be only a few key decisions that would change his life, and he had to be the one making them. I think, more than being happy, that's what Sam has taken to heart.
In other little episode parallels, I mentioned before that Monster Movie was SPN's musical episode, and the two parter of #9 IKWYDLS and #10 HaH was certainly more relationship focused than most SPN episodes. On Buffy, #9 and #10 were the similarly two-parted Smashed and Wrecked, where Willow ends up spending time with the bad influence of Amy, and Buffy's relationship with Spike takes a distinct turn for the sexual. In another interesting turn, Amy returns to her powerful, magical, self after having turned herself into a rat years ago in an effort to escape persecution. In HaH we discover Anna turned herself human in an effort to escape heaven, and the episode's plot turns on restoring her to her powerful angelic self.
We also have at least two episodes dealing with wishes being granted in BtVS S6, Entropy and Older and Far Away. In SPN S4 we have Wishful Thinking. We also have Life Serial, where the villains send Buffy half around the bend by using magic on her to completely disrupt her life. In Yellow Fever Dean is driven nearly to his death by his supernaturally induced fear, which, like Life Serial, ends up being fairly comical in its early stages. In Normal Again, Buffy gets to imagine herself in a world where her parents are alive and together. Even though Kripke spoke about WIaWSNB being SPN"s "Normal Again" episode, I wrote before that it was more like BtVS's "Weight of the World." Rather, Dean spends In the Beginning attempting to rewrite his history by killing the YED and having things turn out happily for their family, only to see his efforts come to nothing. He finds himself returned to his life, knowing sadder truths than ever. Also connecting the episodes, one little piece of dialogue stood out to me in Normal Again?
DAWN: (upset) I'm not even there, am I?
BUFFY: What?
DAWN: You said it a second ago. You don't have a sister. It's your ideal reality, and I'm not even a part of it.
Another little thing that amused me was the Troika in S6, who used magic to carry out nefarious plots (which, at least in the beginning, were largely for fame and fortune). I ended up thinking of our trio of magicians in Criss Angel. However, there's another connection for the Troika in SPN S4. They embodied the Revenge of the Nerds. In Barry, I can see a Jonathan who never had Buffy intervene for him. Like Jonathan, Barry hero-worshipped Sam. Like Barry, Jonathan was going to kill himself, he just lucked out that Buffy discovered him. Like Jonathan, Barry didn't seem to have any evil in him, just weakness, and a desire for friendship and belonging. Andrew, by comparison, was more dangerous. This wasn't so much because he had set flying monkeys on the school, but because he seemed to have little to no moral compass, always looking for someone else to lead him. Andrew was rather like the anti-Sam - also in his brother's shadow, and following in his footsteps, but having no resolve to break away and set his own course. We might see Warren as Dirk, shooting from disturbing to evil and deadly, escalating in his attacks. When Sam and Dean stopped Dirk, he was about to kill a busload of students, any excuse of "justice" long past. Dirk was exorcising his pain by exerting power over others, a pain caused by losing his mother. Dirk, however, remained a more sympathetic figure than Warren, whose tip into evil was precipitated by losing his girlfriend, something he brought about himself.
So there are a few central seasonal arc similarities, and various little connections across characters and episodic themes. But the other thing that happened in BtVS S6 had to do with the fandom. There was a lot of unhappiness about the tone of the season, about the direction storylines were taking, and what was being described as the destruction of various characters. Certainly, not one romantic relationship (Buffy, Willow, Xander) survived, and even Dawn's date in All the Way, and Andrew's thing for Warren had hard landings. There's been some of the same griping lately in the SPN fandom. I think there's no question S4 is the darkest of all the seasons yet, and more than one episode has seemed to quash any thought of a more hopeful direction for the show or the characters. Even as late as S2, there was the idea that the death of the YED would somehow release the family from their long quest, and would free both brothers to choose their own paths in life. While the show was never brimming with optimism, there was definitely more of a lightness and humor present.
Dean's deal and the release of the demons pretty much ended that balance. The earlier episodes of S3 were melancholy in spots, but there still seemed to be hope that something might turn things around for the Winchesters -- Ruby's fix of the Colt, Sam's early research efforts, no word yet of Lilith. But slowly it became apparent that Dean was terminal and Sam was increasingly desperate. In 3.16, Dean dies as Sam watches, helpless to intervene, echoing his equally helpless observation of Dean's attack in 1.22. Interestingly, the Body in BtVS S5 was also episode 16.
The start of S4 didn't appear too grim, in part because questions about Heaven and Hell seemed to dominate speculation about what was going on. By 4.11 however, there seemed to be a markedly downbeat tone to the episodes, with Dean guilt ridden about his time in hell, and Sam looking for a way to make sure he never went back. There were also a lot of complaints about fewer positive interactions between Sam and Dean, or lighter brotherly moments.
While the downbeat tone of BtVS S6 bothered a lot of fans, even more so were the storylines being played out. The lack of a Big Bad, the self-destructive behavior of many of the characters, and the big debate over the Buffy/Spike relationship and what that revealed about both characters, resulted in a lot of conflict. Some argued that Spike's role was taking precedence over other storylines, or that Buffy was no longer heroic due to her behavior that season. Similarly, it seems to me, S4 of SPN has brought about a lot of complaints about the way Sam and Dean are, or aren't, reflecting what has happened to them emotionally. There has also been scattered attention to an arc that seems vague and distant. We have demon baddies only in episodes where we've seen angels, and Lilith, supposedly our Big Bad, has yet to appear 14 episodes into the season (unless we count Dean's hallucination in YF). There are concerns about where the show's season finale is headed, complaints that Sam's storyline was being neglected in favor of a focus on Dean, and that Dean was going through character assassination because YF suggested he was a dick, and he had tortured people in hell. And, Ruby has been a controversial character.
Of course, another thing that both seasons have in common is that fans had strong reactions to them. For some, it was the season that they stopped watching, and for others, the season they became invested in it. Also, oddly, national catastrophes occurred during the seasons - in the case of BtVS it was 9/11, and now with SPN we have the economic collapse. With the grim mood following both events, perhaps the downbeat tone of both seasons was poorly timed. But for both shows, the seasons were a type of resurgence. BtVS had just changed networks after a financial dispute with the WB, which threatened to end the show entirely. SPN, of course, went through its network switch early on in S2, but the start of S4 brought a resurgence in the ratings. It was, however, the beginning of the end for both series - with BtVS ending in S7 and SPN set to do the same in S5. Whatever the outcome of S4, we can only hope that the last season of SPN is spent tying up loose ends scattered throughout the series, and not on a slew of new characters that most people don't care about one way or another.
Comments at Dreamwidth
.
So onto why I think this comparison is worth some brain time. In every season of BtVS we had two major issues we knew would occur. The first was that there would be some central, major villain that Buffy would have to defeat. And second, there was always some big event going on in Buffy's love life. Less common was starting a season with some big issue to address from the season before. In S3, Buffy had to reclaim her calling, and her life as a whole, after running away. In S6, Buffy had to reclaim her life, period. This ended up being quickly resolved in episode 1 - at least in the practical sense. She spent the rest of the season trying to make sense of what her second chance at life was going to mean to her.
When S5 of Buffy ended, everyone knew Buffy had to somehow come back, the question was how (and to a lesser extent, why). A lot of speculation focused on Buffy not actually being dead. I saw some of this happening with SPN but most of the discussion and fic there assumed that Dean had, in fact, gone to hell, and that Sam was somehow going to get him out. As BtVS S6 started out, the twist that occurred a few episodes in was that Buffy hadn't been in hell at all, which is what her friends had assumed. Instead, she was having a hard time adjusting to life again, because where she had been was so much better and her work had been completed.
As we find out in SPN, what we expected was just what we got - Dean did go to hell. Terrible things were done to him, and he did terrible things as well. As was the case with Buffy being in heaven, the reveal about Dean torturing people was less than a shock. And, at least in MM, he claimed to be pretty happy about being back. So far, not much in common between the two seasons besides a resurrection.
Aside from her adjustment problems, Buffy also lost her mentor's help when she tried to pass off her responsibilities regarding Dawn on him, and she had to try and support herself financially for the first time. The one thing that wasn't unusually awful was her work - her Big Bads that season were mostly small-time compared to what she'd dealt with in previous years. Except, that was the other impending twist. The real Big Bad was her closest friend. Also? Her unwisely-chosen sex partner, who was a demon, was trying to bring her into his world. When this failed, he ended up turning on her in a big way.
In SPN we have an unwisely-chosen demon partner that keeps urging Sam to go darkside, and the Big Bad is being set up as Sam. Of course, Sam has been set up as an eventual threat for several seasons now. But then, so was Willow.
Ever since she got into magic in S2, Willow's efforts seemed a little problematic. First there was the resouling of Angel, which was somewhat alarming and, unknown to her, rather terribly timed. In S3 we see a dark version of Willow - a vampire, not a sorceress - but still a hint of things to come in several ways. In S4 Willow increasingly goes her own way, and her magic starts going quite awry at times. In S5, she's ready to go darkside with Glory to save Tara, and then kicks off S6 doing some very risky stuff to bring Buffy back. This starts to alarm everyone. The person closest to her breaks up with her because, not only is she starting to abuse her abilities, but she's used her abilities to avoid a confrontation with Tara about the very same abuse of her abilities.
Hmm. Sure makes me wonder what 4.15 is going to bring.
From then on, Willow continues to spiral down in S6, even renouncing magic at one point, before Tara's death takes off all the brakes. She's ready to kill Giles, Buffy, and take the whole world down with her in her grief and anger. And it isn't Buffy, in the end, who stops her.
By comparison, Sam's powers have never seemed that useful. It's true that his visions helped them save some people, but in many other cases they were too late to help anyone. He never learned to take control of his mysterious powers, and they often failed him at critical times - such as in helping to save Dean, post-Nightmare, or in helping to save his own life in his confrontation with Jake. Importantly, it's not Sam who succeeds in bringing Dean back - that's done by someone else, for other reasons entirely. Whatever his powers will be good for, they weren't at that level yet. Nevertheless, we know from the first episode of S4, that Sam has finally started that spiral into darkness - like Willow, with good intentions and a certainty that he can control how far he'll go. He also, for an episode or so, renounces his abilities when he's reminded yet again of what he could become if he exploits them. He begins using them again for a few episodes, successfully in one case, not at all in another. And now, he seems committed. He's had enough of people telling him no. In fact his dialogue with Dean in 4.14 is not unlike this exchange between Willow and Giles:
GILES: Do you have any idea what you've done? The forces you've harnessed, the lines you've crossed?
WILLOW: I thought you'd be ... impressed, or, or something.
GILES: Oh, don't worry, you've ... made a very deep impression. Of everyone here ... you were the one I trusted most to respect the forces of nature.
WILLOW: Are you saying you don't trust me?
GILES: Think what you've done to Buffy!
WILLOW: I brought her back!
GILES: At incredible risk!
WILLOW: Risk? Of what? Making her deader?
GILES: Of killing us all. Unleashing hell on Earth, I mean, shall I go on?
WILLOW: No! Giles, I did what I had to do. I did what nobody else could do.
GILES: Oh, there are others in this world who can do what you did. You just don't want to meet them.
WILLOW: No, probably not, but ... well, they're the bad guys. I'm not a bad guy. I brought Buffy back into this world, a-and maybe the word you should be looking for is "congratulations."
…
GILES: (angry) You were lucky.
WILLOW: I wasn't lucky. I was amazing. And how would you know? You weren't even there.
GILES: If I had been, I'd have bloody well stopped you. The magicks you channeled are more ferocious and primal than anything you can hope to understand, (even more angry) and you are lucky to be alive, you rank, arrogant amateur!
WILLOW: You're right. The magicks I used are very powerful. I'm very powerful. And maybe it's not such a good idea for you to piss me off. (beat) Come on, Giles, I-I don't want to fight. I ... Let's not, okay? I'll think about what you said, and you ... try to be happy Buffy's back.
GILES: We still don't know where she was ... or what happened to her. And I'm far from convinced she's come out of all this undamaged.
Well, we know Dean has come back damaged in his own way. And we also know he's right about Sam not being the same Sam he left. And Sam? Rather full of himself, too. Also, just like Willow, very focused on the well being of one person, not the betterment (or safety) of all. At the same time, Sam's nihilism, wanting things to be over, wanting it all to stop, feeling possibly suicidal, seems to echo how Buffy feels throughout the whole season.
Moving on from Sam to Spike Ruby, she's still a big question mark. I feel fairly confident that the writers haven't kept her around for two seasons just so that she can keep popping in and out, being the occasional harbinger of doom. At some point, I expect she's going to have a major effect on the storyline. But what will it be? She certainly seems to be on Sam's side, but she must have her own agenda. Is it simply to protect herself by killing Lilith? Does she have some residual loyalty to Azazel that we don't know about? How deeply will Sam end up getting involved with her? By comparison, Spike's agenda seemed fairly clear cut. He wanted Buffy to himself, and in his world, since he knew he couldn't walk in hers. His world was where they had things in common. But becoming involved with Spike was a risk, only it was one Buffy thought she could handle. Buffy knew she couldn't really trust him, but part of her did. Spike helped her - with her work, and also in controlling the grief and anger she was feeling. He had also, while she was gone, helped her with Dawn, and working with her friends. Ruby too, has been remarkably useful. She's given the Winchesters information, weapons, and muscle, even saving Dean's life in S3 and possibly again in S4. But when she doesn't get what she wants from Sam, will she turn on him? I'm reminded of Buffy's sense of betrayal in As You Were, where Spike reminds her that she knew he was a demon and came to him anyway. She breaks things off with him. I wonder though, if in SPN, it isn't Ruby who's going to find Sam can't be trusted.
In S6, Willow's final face-off isn't with Buffy, it's with Giles, the person she has learned from and looked up to, as his knowledge and strength represented all that she admired. It seems to me Sam might end up saying something very much like this to Dean:
WILLOW: You're such a hypocrite. Waltzing in here with your borrowed magicks... So you can tell me, what...? Magic's bad? Behave? Be a good girl? Well, I don't think you're in any position to be telling me what to do. (he's stuck to the ceiling) Do you? (she sends him to the floor) I used to think you had all the answers. That I had so much to learn from you.
Technically you'd think he'd be saying it to Bobby, who is the knowledge and magic guru in SPN, much like Giles is in BtVS. And given Bobby's tendency to swoop in and save the day, that would also fit. The difference is that I just don't see Sam and Bobby being close enough for this exchange to be all that meaningful. The one he's setting himself up to be in competition with in 4.14, is Dean.
As You Were also brought in a visit from someone in the past, who still has an optimistic view of the world. In the case of Buffy, it was Riley. Of course his visit wasn't all that uplifting for her, reminding her of how her life wasn't at all what she wanted it to be. Similarly, when Sam talks with his old teacher, Mr. Wyatt, he is painfully reminded of everywhere his life has not gone. These two episodes were placed at almost the same spots in the season, with AYW being episode #15, and ASS being #13. Interestingly, episode #14 for Buffy? Older and Far Away, with a neglected sister unintentionally making a wish that her sister cannot leave her. In the course of things both of them have some rather sharp things to say to one another, but at the end of the episode, they're reconciled. Things don't look quite so optimistic for the Winchesters. While everyone focused on Wyatt's words to Sam at the end of 4.13, I think his words to Sam earlier were just as important. He told Sam that there would be only a few key decisions that would change his life, and he had to be the one making them. I think, more than being happy, that's what Sam has taken to heart.
In other little episode parallels, I mentioned before that Monster Movie was SPN's musical episode, and the two parter of #9 IKWYDLS and #10 HaH was certainly more relationship focused than most SPN episodes. On Buffy, #9 and #10 were the similarly two-parted Smashed and Wrecked, where Willow ends up spending time with the bad influence of Amy, and Buffy's relationship with Spike takes a distinct turn for the sexual. In another interesting turn, Amy returns to her powerful, magical, self after having turned herself into a rat years ago in an effort to escape persecution. In HaH we discover Anna turned herself human in an effort to escape heaven, and the episode's plot turns on restoring her to her powerful angelic self.
We also have at least two episodes dealing with wishes being granted in BtVS S6, Entropy and Older and Far Away. In SPN S4 we have Wishful Thinking. We also have Life Serial, where the villains send Buffy half around the bend by using magic on her to completely disrupt her life. In Yellow Fever Dean is driven nearly to his death by his supernaturally induced fear, which, like Life Serial, ends up being fairly comical in its early stages. In Normal Again, Buffy gets to imagine herself in a world where her parents are alive and together. Even though Kripke spoke about WIaWSNB being SPN"s "Normal Again" episode, I wrote before that it was more like BtVS's "Weight of the World." Rather, Dean spends In the Beginning attempting to rewrite his history by killing the YED and having things turn out happily for their family, only to see his efforts come to nothing. He finds himself returned to his life, knowing sadder truths than ever. Also connecting the episodes, one little piece of dialogue stood out to me in Normal Again?
DAWN: (upset) I'm not even there, am I?
BUFFY: What?
DAWN: You said it a second ago. You don't have a sister. It's your ideal reality, and I'm not even a part of it.
Another little thing that amused me was the Troika in S6, who used magic to carry out nefarious plots (which, at least in the beginning, were largely for fame and fortune). I ended up thinking of our trio of magicians in Criss Angel. However, there's another connection for the Troika in SPN S4. They embodied the Revenge of the Nerds. In Barry, I can see a Jonathan who never had Buffy intervene for him. Like Jonathan, Barry hero-worshipped Sam. Like Barry, Jonathan was going to kill himself, he just lucked out that Buffy discovered him. Like Jonathan, Barry didn't seem to have any evil in him, just weakness, and a desire for friendship and belonging. Andrew, by comparison, was more dangerous. This wasn't so much because he had set flying monkeys on the school, but because he seemed to have little to no moral compass, always looking for someone else to lead him. Andrew was rather like the anti-Sam - also in his brother's shadow, and following in his footsteps, but having no resolve to break away and set his own course. We might see Warren as Dirk, shooting from disturbing to evil and deadly, escalating in his attacks. When Sam and Dean stopped Dirk, he was about to kill a busload of students, any excuse of "justice" long past. Dirk was exorcising his pain by exerting power over others, a pain caused by losing his mother. Dirk, however, remained a more sympathetic figure than Warren, whose tip into evil was precipitated by losing his girlfriend, something he brought about himself.
So there are a few central seasonal arc similarities, and various little connections across characters and episodic themes. But the other thing that happened in BtVS S6 had to do with the fandom. There was a lot of unhappiness about the tone of the season, about the direction storylines were taking, and what was being described as the destruction of various characters. Certainly, not one romantic relationship (Buffy, Willow, Xander) survived, and even Dawn's date in All the Way, and Andrew's thing for Warren had hard landings. There's been some of the same griping lately in the SPN fandom. I think there's no question S4 is the darkest of all the seasons yet, and more than one episode has seemed to quash any thought of a more hopeful direction for the show or the characters. Even as late as S2, there was the idea that the death of the YED would somehow release the family from their long quest, and would free both brothers to choose their own paths in life. While the show was never brimming with optimism, there was definitely more of a lightness and humor present.
Dean's deal and the release of the demons pretty much ended that balance. The earlier episodes of S3 were melancholy in spots, but there still seemed to be hope that something might turn things around for the Winchesters -- Ruby's fix of the Colt, Sam's early research efforts, no word yet of Lilith. But slowly it became apparent that Dean was terminal and Sam was increasingly desperate. In 3.16, Dean dies as Sam watches, helpless to intervene, echoing his equally helpless observation of Dean's attack in 1.22. Interestingly, the Body in BtVS S5 was also episode 16.
The start of S4 didn't appear too grim, in part because questions about Heaven and Hell seemed to dominate speculation about what was going on. By 4.11 however, there seemed to be a markedly downbeat tone to the episodes, with Dean guilt ridden about his time in hell, and Sam looking for a way to make sure he never went back. There were also a lot of complaints about fewer positive interactions between Sam and Dean, or lighter brotherly moments.
While the downbeat tone of BtVS S6 bothered a lot of fans, even more so were the storylines being played out. The lack of a Big Bad, the self-destructive behavior of many of the characters, and the big debate over the Buffy/Spike relationship and what that revealed about both characters, resulted in a lot of conflict. Some argued that Spike's role was taking precedence over other storylines, or that Buffy was no longer heroic due to her behavior that season. Similarly, it seems to me, S4 of SPN has brought about a lot of complaints about the way Sam and Dean are, or aren't, reflecting what has happened to them emotionally. There has also been scattered attention to an arc that seems vague and distant. We have demon baddies only in episodes where we've seen angels, and Lilith, supposedly our Big Bad, has yet to appear 14 episodes into the season (unless we count Dean's hallucination in YF). There are concerns about where the show's season finale is headed, complaints that Sam's storyline was being neglected in favor of a focus on Dean, and that Dean was going through character assassination because YF suggested he was a dick, and he had tortured people in hell. And, Ruby has been a controversial character.
Of course, another thing that both seasons have in common is that fans had strong reactions to them. For some, it was the season that they stopped watching, and for others, the season they became invested in it. Also, oddly, national catastrophes occurred during the seasons - in the case of BtVS it was 9/11, and now with SPN we have the economic collapse. With the grim mood following both events, perhaps the downbeat tone of both seasons was poorly timed. But for both shows, the seasons were a type of resurgence. BtVS had just changed networks after a financial dispute with the WB, which threatened to end the show entirely. SPN, of course, went through its network switch early on in S2, but the start of S4 brought a resurgence in the ratings. It was, however, the beginning of the end for both series - with BtVS ending in S7 and SPN set to do the same in S5. Whatever the outcome of S4, we can only hope that the last season of SPN is spent tying up loose ends scattered throughout the series, and not on a slew of new characters that most people don't care about one way or another.
Comments at Dreamwidth
.