The gift

[gwyn]

How do you write a review of a death, of a loss? I feel like that’s what I’m trying to do, and I don’t know how. I feel such a sense of loss now that it’s all over, and I’m not sure how I can even begin to put it in order. So much happened to make me happy, and so much to break my heart (not in a good way; I often love having my heart broken by shows, but not this time) that I don’t know of a way to objectively look at this as entertainment. It doesn’t help that I can’t stop crying. Maybe there are words, probably in German, that can describe this mix of anguished joy and miserable happiness. I wish I knew them.


After seven years, I finally saw Buffy get what I always wanted for her -- a chance at a life. A chance to not bear the weight of the world, and her hopeful smile at the end was everything I could have dreamed of for her. It’s especially rewarding that it came because of her plan and the people she’s gathered to her over the years. Only Buffy could really have come up with that plan; only someone who’s lost so much, seen so much, and sacrificed so much could understand the power waiting out there, and how to harness it. When the First said, in Buffy’s form in Lessons, that it’s about power, that was the fundamental truth -- the power of love and belief and the strength of togetherness, and it would have to be Buffy, for all her closed-offness, her feelings of aloneness, her losses and failures, who would know where the power came from and just what it took to wield it.

Everything about this ep was part of that symmetry. So much hearkened back to Welcome to the Hellmouth, in so many ways: going into the Hellmouth to fight a powerful enemy, the misunderstanding by that power of just what this small, seemingly insignifcant girl can do, the relationships and the understandings. I loved the way Willow, Buffy and Xander walked away, talking about mundane silly things, and Giles remarking that the earth was doomed yet again. The way Buffy overcame her self doubts to reach full understanding of what she was doing. That she opened herself up to her destiny, and by doing so, opened herself up to life.

And precious nods to other episodes and other histories -- Spike yet again knocking down that Sunnydale sign probably my favorite. Setting up the plan that turns out to be a D&D game was probably next . And Angel was the Angel I used to love. His jealousy and poutiness were so true to who he is, alternately stolid and morose, self-absorbed and selfless. I like that now Buffy sees what he is, rather than looking at the mini-god she created in her mind so long ago. He’s just another jealous vampire, he’s got clay feet, he’s still the one she loves deeply, but the strength of their connection is based on a reality that had never been there before. And Spike’s reaction to it was so lovely -- instead of closing up and going away, he let it all out, got his digs in, and in doing so was graced with something more from Buffy than he’d believed he could have.

I thought I’d wanted Andrew to die, that it would make him feel like he’d atoned, but now I have to agree with anniesj that it was appropriate that he live. He never really has lived his life -- even at the end, he was trying to be someone and something he wasn’t, until he was finally confronted with the new reality of his world. So now he can stop living in a false, self-created world and live in this one. And it was good that Anya came full circle and gave her life, in a way atoning for her years of vengeance. It surprised me that Xander didn’t seem more broken up about it, but... the way Andrew painted the picture of her loss was probably more for Xander’s benefit than for Andrew’s. And Xander... Xander started as the everyman character, the one who was most representative of us as teens, and now he’s become almost an avatar of what humans are in all their faults and glories. He represents the best and worst of who we are, how we are, and what we can become. As powerful as others turned out to be in this fight, without Xander, Buffy wouldn’t have had her heart, her center. I wish that there’d been a little less with Wood and Faith, mostly because I felt like I’d rather have seen the missing stuff with Giles and Buffy (see below) rather than anything with Wood, but at least he redeemed himself a tiny bit at the end. But if I could choose someone to die instead of Anya or Spike? Well, who has to ask?

Oddly, as short as her big scene was, one of the most touching scenes for me was Willow’s transformation. It’s been, for me anyway, a really interesting course to see her on this year, trying to get a handle on her power and her weaknesses. After all this time she finally seemed to understand that both good and bad exist inside her and that this was her choice, that she could take the good things and give them back to others, that absorbing power didn’t have to mean cruelty and fear. She absorbed power from the scythe and the slayer, and she gave it back to the world as a gift of light and strength. Seeing her with the white hair and the rapture on her face made me cry more than anything else in the show outside of Spike. She has become powerful not because of magic, but because she can use magic to amplify the best of herself and others. (And I still can’t go into Kennedy because... having her admit she’s annoying doesn’t make her more likable. Sometimes I wonder if Joss gets this, though, it’s a habit he doesn’t seem to break; but making a character admit their faults when the audience despises them doesn’t make it work any better. Maybe worse was the continued kissing; when everything with Buffy and Spike is hinted at and kept away from us, but this is shoved in our faces, it’s hard not to feel a little bitter.)

It’s harder for me to talk about Giles, though. My one big gripe with this season has been the constant maneuvering of everything significant off screen. With Giles, they tried to tease us into fearing he was the First by keeping his reunion with Buffy and the gang off screen; and it wasn’t helped that so much other important stuff was kept in the dark. I’d hoped that we could see the reconciliation between Giles and Buffy, and I think it’s my one true disappointment with this past arc, as so much felt rushed and hurried to get to the end, so much disordered, and it was his character who suffered most for it. All along that was the heart of the show, how he filled in as her father figure, how much he taught her both overtly and subtly, and I would have liked to see that come to fruition on screen as they moved back to a place of love. But at least we did get to see him back her up, knowing that this was the woman he helped create, knowing that misunderstandings aside, he walked beside her to get to this point. Buffy would never have been as smart or strategically adept had it not been for the unusual closeness of their relationship. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

And I guess this leads me to the thing I’m having the hardest time with. I’ll probably have to write more later, because i can’t quite get a grip on myself. Three times I tried to talk about this with a co-worker who watches the show, and I lost it every time. I can’t quite get a handle on Spike dying believing Buffy didn’t love him. It causes me physical pain. At least when Angel was run through with a sword, his confusion and pain over why didn’t include not knowing Buffy loved him. Spike has tried so hard, has changed his life willingly, has remade himself in so many ways, to be worthy of inclusion and love, and still at the end he had to go without that one thing he wanted so much. I’ve seen others say that he knew Buffy meant it, that it was true, but I’m not sure I see that in his face. It’s like a sweet acceptance, what I see -- a guy who realizes that it’s too little too late, and done for his benefit, and he accepts the meaning behind it. I hate thinking of him dying alone and accepting that he isn’t deserving of her love, when he strove so hard to earn it. And that if he comes back in the future, it will be to a world without her in it, and he has to go on alone even longer.

Particularly because he was so very Spike in this ep. First his reactions to Angel, then his reactions to Buffy and how easily he slips between the loving, adoring Spike and the ‘tude Spike. When the amulet started affecting him, he handled it in the most Spike-like way -- where Angel would have accepted what was happening with silence and grim determination, Spike barks “Oh bollocks!” and makes smartass remarks in the face of his doom. He’s happy and afraid and calm and freaked all at once, and it’s all perfectly in keeping with his character. Which makes it all the harder for me to absorb.

I know a lot of this is personal. I never had unconditional love in my life, I never really had anyone close to me who thought I was worthy of much of anything. Most of my friends really... aren’t. The closest I thing I ever came to in a relationship was a kind of tolerant indifference, so I idealize love, I respond to these operatic doomed and thwarted relationships. I love grandiose sacrifice and melodramatic gestures. What Spike did, though, was beyond that. He gave the greatest gift possible to Buffy and to the world, this guy who once helped save it mostly for amusingly selfish reasons; and a second time tried to save it just for love. He has come full circle, too, by saving the world again, only this time because he wanted to for others, to do the right thing. To find grace, to be absolved. To go out fighting. But it breaks my heart that he got no reward for it but to believe that Buffy didn’t love him, and to accept that that’s enough for him. And I don't know that anyone else even understood it outside of Buffy. Did they even think of him? They didn’t acknowledge him at all, or what he did. They gave themselves credit for changing the world, but... did they even understand that his role was most vital of all? Did they see the incredible gift he gave them, willingly?

I also wonder at the meaning behind both he and Anya dying while the humans all lived. Is there a message there that no matter how like a human you live, you are still not worthy to live out the final battle? I don’t know, and it’s hard for me to get a grip on. I want to believe that this was a good thing, that Spike found the part of his soul he so desperately wanted, but I can’t quite get there. His death wasn’t empty, but what was it? Did he really vanquish the First, or just the army? Is the First Evil something that can be vanquished like that? Is his sacrifice, again, in vain? Knowing we will never get these answers tears me up inside. He really did become my Valorous Vampire; he really was the answer and the champion and the savior, after all this time. It was his love that made the difference.

But as so many others have noted, Buffy’s last words we hear her speak are first “I love you” and then “Spike.” Does this mean that she does love him and that he will always be with her? I want to believe that, but I don’t know. Of course we were left with an open-ended scene there in the basement, but did they know or understand things in each other after that? (I keep thinking of a line from a song I love by Kris Delmhorst: “how can I lie beside you/night after night/and pick at the lock on your heart/but never once open my own?”, thinking of Buffy and he together, of her slowly, so slowly opening up to him at last, but was it enough?) Was he trying to protect her by making her leave so she wouldn’t have to watch another lover die yet again? Or simply that he was resigned to his status as just someone in her life, but not someone she loved?I can’t puzzle it out, and it makes me heartsick. I’m just a big old pile of mush and I can’t find any answers. I wanted for just that one moment of happiness, of fulfillment, for him but again, everything significant was off screen, and Spike’s last words to her make me feel like nothing did happen in those moments we didn’t see. Please, if you can convince me otherwise, I need you to.

And I can’t believe I’m this upset over a character. But he was as real to me as anyone I’ve known, they all were. I identify way too much with Spike, not to mention the others.They were my friends for seven years. Xander and Willow were me when I was young, shy and terrified and meek and sarcastic and using humor as a weapon against others. Buffy was the girlfriend I never had. Giles was the wisest, coolest fuddy duddy ever, lovable and a hottie while being a dork and a teacher. Angel was that dreamy guy you never thought you could get; Spike was my perfect boyfriend. Even Dawn won me over eventually as a kid sister I never had. And it’s almost as if, in one fell swoop, every friend or family member I had moved away or died at exactly the same time. We’ve left Sunnydale, they’ve left Sunnydale (and how will Willow get her transcripts forwarded to another school? Did anyone take ID and credit cards? Cash out at the bank? What about Dawn’s guardianship?), the world has left Sunnydale. It’s existed for seven years as a real place in my heart, and now it’s gone. It may be insanity to believe a fake place on a TV show exists and feels like it’s real, but damn, I prefer to be there any day, and I will miss the little Tuesday night bus I took to get there.