Buffy Came Back Wrong: Dead Things and Older and Far Away
No clue what this is? Read the first post in the series.
"Depression is a prison where you are both the suffering prisoner and the cruel jailer."
- Dorothy Rowe
Yep, it's been a while since I've tackled this. With good reason, too. We're now approaching Dead Things, one of the central episodes of Buffy's depression arc. It's something that ( Read more... )
"Depression is a prison where you are both the suffering prisoner and the cruel jailer."
- Dorothy Rowe
Yep, it's been a while since I've tackled this. With good reason, too. We're now approaching Dead Things, one of the central episodes of Buffy's depression arc. It's something that ( Read more... )
Comments 55
This is an interesting scene. Buffy's purposely isolating herself physically, reflecting the emotional isolation she's felt all season. She places herself watching over them, much like she often ends up doing in a Slaying capacity. And it's here where Spike approaches.
What's great here is that Buffy actually sees what she's doing now. And Death tells her, "You see", from this bird's eye view. She's beginning to understand how her behavior is isolating her. Wonderful above/below symbolism here.
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However, with this conversation, we see that Buffy's fallen into the sex as a habit. It's now "normal" to her.
There's a really interesting contrast there between the literal viewing and the metaphorical meaning. I think most Spuffy fans appreciate that conversation, because it shows that Buffy's softening toward Spike. They can have a conversation, they can be playful, she even admits she likes him sometimes. It's a tiny glimmer of hope that a happy, functional relationship might be salvaged from this mess. And yet, from the metaphorical point of view, it's a really bad sign. It's an indication that she's succumbing to her depression, that her coping mechanism is "normal," that she's comfortable with Death.
It's like someone pointing at a bleeding cut and saying, "Wow, you're really good at slashing your arm."Gah! I can't help but cringe every time you translate something Spike says into what it means within the metaphor, because it's just so, so horrible to hear someone say ( ... )
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I know. It's so odd how a read of the depression arc often contradicts the Spuffy reading of the episode. Another example is the stuff about "always hurting the one you love", which can be used as evidence that Buffy did love Spike at this point. However, that doesn't quite work when you're looking at it from this point of view.
This sentence tickles me. It feels like a play on "spike" being a sharp thing. I don't know if that was intentional, but I find it amusing.
Ah. Not intentional. :)
Because within the metaphor, Buffy's reaction should be seen as a good thing, right? The fact that she's trying to resist, trying to pull away from Death? But the literal action of what she's doing is beating Spike to a pulp.Yep. The entire episode has seen Buffy trying to pull away from him. First she tried to spend some time with Dawn. Then she tried to hang out with her friends. Then she tried to do some Slaying. Then she (finally) ( ... )
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I can see that, and I didn't expect her to react with disgust, but saying "it's okay" seems like she's giving Buffy tacit permission to keep doing it. And I can see why she'd say it when talking about sex, but if it were a real self-harm situation, I imagine (or at least I would hope) that she'd recognize Buffy's going through a tough time, but also want to get her some help.
It's especially jarring because of the way Tara teases Buffy and Spike in the next episode. It's like catching Buffy playing around with the knife, not sure whether she's going to cut herself or not, and making a joke about it. Much like your examples with Spike, Tara's reaction seems so much worse when put in the context of the metaphor.
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1. Spike's still wearing the bruises from Buffy's beating! Good gosh! True, Tara probably doesn't know this, but we know it. Picture Spike as a woman with a black eye courtesy of her boyfriend. It would be unthinkable to have another character teasing her in the next episode like that.
2. Like you say, it's joking about Buffy's situation. I don't think that that's something that we should try to find the levity in.
But then, I do have issues with how the DT beating is not followed up on sufficiently. It's one of my major grievances with S6 (right after the AR and Wrecked's addiction metaphor).
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...It's interesting that she still bears full responsibility for everything in this description (she *let* him take her over)...
Absolutely. Buffy shoulders all the responsibility. She may not beg on her knees for forgiveness (like some people in fandom seem to want), but she owns up to what she does. And she works to rectify things in S7.
However he loves her is a vampire love (I may get yelled at here) and its obsessive and detrimental and doesn't seek her good- it seeks her *with him.* I don't think he realizes how bad this is for her, and when he does (Seeing Red) that's when he sees his love has to transform to reach her.
I'd agree with that. While I love to read fanfics that have soulless!Spike end up with Buffy, I think that canon did require Spike to have a soul.
This is the lowest point for Buffy, but it is also her turning point, and sets the foundation for her to walk away from Spike and self-destruction and start living again in the coming episodes.
It really is. ( ... )
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It's good to hear this from someone else in my corner of fandom. As much as I love Spike, and believe in soulless redemption in that *he* chose to get the soul while soulless, the way the show works they could not be together in a positive way without the soul. Your observations on Buffy's FU to her slayer-hood by getting involved with Spike only make that even more clear.
Interesting thought. I hadn't considered that. Huh
Heh, I hadn't either until your post.
Never apologize for rambling! It's very welcome. :)
:) Actually I should mention that I really love your posts on Buffy's depression. This series is the main reason I started reading LJ regularly. You address part of what makes me love season 6 so much, as well as bringing up perspectives that I've really never seen before. Thanks for being so open in sharing as well.
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Reading your analysis...and taking it in context with what's going on in the comics, how Joss is being all Bangel-shippy...I wonder if Joss ever even meant the Spuffy thing as more than metaphor. Spike is still soulless at this point; any other soulless vampire would, at the very least, be beaten up and driven away (and that's if they were as harmless and scrubby as a vampire can get). That's Buffy's job. By kicking Spike's--and metaphorically Death's--ass, Buffy is in fact behaving in accordance with her calling as the Slayer. Vampires=death. It's Buffy's job to "slay" Death, at least in the sense that it doesn't get its victims this time. By turning on Spike, Buffy is doubly-fulfilling the metaphor--rejecting Death coming for her, and returning to her "life" of driving Death away from ( ... )
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Hmmm...well, this meta is looking at one episode from one very narrow focus. There's a shippier interpretation of the episode, as well. And the events of S7, obviously, have a shippy interpretation, as well. So I don't know that I'd take this one subtextual interpretation of the episode as Joss' sole intention.
While the metaphor is played very heavily in DT, the characters are still...characters. With independent motivations and desires. This meta doesn't at all look at Spike's side of the story, which is significantly more than "being death" for Buffy's story. He's going through his own arc.
That Spike also happens to be a person...I'm not sure Joss even considered it at the time. After all, according to the text, it ain't true--vampires are "not people". That would certainly explain Tara's non-reaction to Buffy beating her boyfriend ( ... )
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Yeah, you're probably right. I'm sleepy, and it's been a long time since I saw any of the episodes at all. Once I've gotten some rest, that'll all no doubt sound seriously wonky in the morning.
Whether you want to call Spike a "person" or a "being" or whatnot (feels like a semantic distinction to me), I don't think the show would condone using a being with feelings for sex.
Sometimes I wonder....
But I suppose at this point the show has come a long way from Giles' casual comments about the nature of vampires in the first season.
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