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You are small and toylike!
Oct. 23rd, 2002 11:02 amSpoilers for Buffy ep 10/21, Selfless, in a big way
Everywhere I am in fandom these days, I’m surrounded by negativity, which is starting to wear me down and make my already pessimistic and cynical self even worse. I didn’t read the spoilers or wildfeeds for this episode, but had read some of the incredibly negative reaction to the B/S scenes that I was surprised by what I actually saw last night. I’m not seeing the bad here.
Do I wish Buffy was less harsh to Spike? Of course I do. But I also thought it was in keeping with the theme of the episode, and with who she is, to come and kick Spike’s ass out of a place she fears is hurting him. To me, it shows that she’s actually thinking of him and concerned, rather than that she hates him and doesn’t care. She still can’t integrate what he’s done into her view of demons and her role with them as the slayer. That’s what a lot of this ep was about — she had to kill someone she’s been friends with and has been part of the Scoobies, she has to come to grips with a vampire willingly doing something so significant it completely destroys the carefully constructed world Giles and the slayer histories have created for her.
I wrote earlier about how I saw Same Time, Same Place as about being a search for identity. I think this ep was completely about a search for identity. Selfless can mean two things — the selfless sacrifice for the greater good (Anya at the end, Buffy in the long run, Spike for Buffy and the others), and a person who has no sense of self, no idea of their worth, and who they are in the world.
This is about missing selves and the search for new ones — for Anya, for Willow, for Buffy especially, and even for Xander. And Spike’s plaintive “I have nowhere else to go” echoes the difficulty he has in integrating his new identity as a vampire with a soul with his past. And finally, finally, Buffy acknowledges what happened in Becoming and how little Xander and the rest cared about what she had to sacrifice in order to be the law in the fight against evil. And she knows — although they didn’t pursue it — that Xander lied to her. After watching Becoming the other day, I was really glad to see them once again tie back to that episode (I’m convinced at this point that everything in the canon ties back to that episode arc) — Buffy’s comments about being alone in the end echo Whistler’s to her, her own comments to her mother, and her running away. She’s always alone in the end, and in the end, she’s all she’s got.
This is vital to explaining how she’s reacting to Spike. He’s completely and utterly thrown off her equilibrium and torn everything she knows from her hands by getting a soul. If a demon can love and not be human, not have a soul, and can sacrifice himself for her love and the love of others, then how does she fulfill her role? Who is she really? It also toys with her knowledge that she really is alone — it changes the balance of power, and this season is supposed to be about power. The contrast between Spike’s wish-fulfillment Buffy (dressed in white, tender and kind, and who’s to say it’s not the morphing evil in the basement rather than a figment of Spike’s imagination?) and the real Buffy, harsh and cold and dressed all in black with dark makeup (she almost never wears black, especially all black) shows that others are having just as much trouble figuring out who she is as Buffy herself.
Willow was also struggling — she had a brief return to the dark side, and was horrified by it, but in the end, it was her embracing magic that saved things, when she called D’Hoffryn (and can I just say how much I love the big ugly guy? He’s funny as hell and also cruel as hell when he means business). I’m hopeful that this is a sign of her starting to understand her own new identity, and to integrate the bad with the good in a way that will help her. Xander indicated a couple things about his identity when he talked about dating — he knows he’s got a great job, he’s successful, but he still hasn’t figured out where he fits or who he is without Anya, without the Scoobies (Spike calling him the slayer’s boy probably hasn’t helped this at all). He doesn’t understand where he fits, and it’s showing in his fight with Buffy.
But of course most of all this was Anya’s search for identity. From the beginning, we see she’s struggling with her picture of herself — we now know that she was always literal and kind of humorless and felt apart and scorned because of it. And we know how easily she embraced her new identity of vengeance demon. But it was painful and heartbreaking to see her final identity, in the song from the musical flashback, because we know it was torn from her cruelly just as she was most excited about becoming someone else (the Mrs.). I didn’t like the song so much, but I loved what it said about who she thought she was, what identity she wanted to embrace, and I love that they cut so sharply on her big note to her tearful face as she hung impaled against the wall. She hasn’t lost her life there, but she’s remembering the life she’s lost, and it was tragic.
There were some annoying continuity errors (the amulet’s ability to destroy her powers, other timing things), but overall I thought this ep rocked. I do think they’re dragging the crazy Spike thing out too long — every time they have Spike in the basement and Buffy being harsh to him, they risk people’s willingness to stick with the storyline, because five-minute glimpses of the hero being bitchy (even if it’s motivated) and the other male lead being pathetic and incompetent are dragging the story down. And since this was Anya’s ep, I wish they’d almost have just cut the scene out altogether. It felt wasted to me, but then, I think they’re also going to move on it next time. This was a total ME thing to do — I’m absolutely certain that the next ep will be Spike-centric and get him moving forward, and Buffy too, with figuring out how he fits. Plus, it’s sweeps, so they’ll save the big guns for that. And what little I know of the spoilers sounds like I’m on target.
The Olaf stuff was the best. Since I’m tall and big-boned, I’ve decided that “You are small and toylike” is my new line for everyone. I adored the old Swedish movie look to the flashback scenes, and frankly, I can never have enough Olaf. (Although, we were promised by early spoilers we’d get the 411 on Anya’s fear of bunnies, but this didn’t seem to happen at all.) Olaf makes me laugh and laugh, and I like Abraham Benrubi from ER days, and the “save your babies and your beadwork” lines were just priceless. Yes, I want like hell to get this B/S stuff moved forward and for them to quit wasting their talent on this “go to the basement see Spike and be mean and leave and pretend he’s not there because he’s disturbing” to stop. But this ep gave me the feeling that it will. Buffy’s kicking his ass to get out and get help, and for me, this is all good. It may be harsh, but this is the only way she’s ever known to relate to him, and it’s the only way she knows how to get him the help he needs. I just don’t see the bad in the long run.
Everywhere I am in fandom these days, I’m surrounded by negativity, which is starting to wear me down and make my already pessimistic and cynical self even worse. I didn’t read the spoilers or wildfeeds for this episode, but had read some of the incredibly negative reaction to the B/S scenes that I was surprised by what I actually saw last night. I’m not seeing the bad here.
Do I wish Buffy was less harsh to Spike? Of course I do. But I also thought it was in keeping with the theme of the episode, and with who she is, to come and kick Spike’s ass out of a place she fears is hurting him. To me, it shows that she’s actually thinking of him and concerned, rather than that she hates him and doesn’t care. She still can’t integrate what he’s done into her view of demons and her role with them as the slayer. That’s what a lot of this ep was about — she had to kill someone she’s been friends with and has been part of the Scoobies, she has to come to grips with a vampire willingly doing something so significant it completely destroys the carefully constructed world Giles and the slayer histories have created for her.
I wrote earlier about how I saw Same Time, Same Place as about being a search for identity. I think this ep was completely about a search for identity. Selfless can mean two things — the selfless sacrifice for the greater good (Anya at the end, Buffy in the long run, Spike for Buffy and the others), and a person who has no sense of self, no idea of their worth, and who they are in the world.
This is about missing selves and the search for new ones — for Anya, for Willow, for Buffy especially, and even for Xander. And Spike’s plaintive “I have nowhere else to go” echoes the difficulty he has in integrating his new identity as a vampire with a soul with his past. And finally, finally, Buffy acknowledges what happened in Becoming and how little Xander and the rest cared about what she had to sacrifice in order to be the law in the fight against evil. And she knows — although they didn’t pursue it — that Xander lied to her. After watching Becoming the other day, I was really glad to see them once again tie back to that episode (I’m convinced at this point that everything in the canon ties back to that episode arc) — Buffy’s comments about being alone in the end echo Whistler’s to her, her own comments to her mother, and her running away. She’s always alone in the end, and in the end, she’s all she’s got.
This is vital to explaining how she’s reacting to Spike. He’s completely and utterly thrown off her equilibrium and torn everything she knows from her hands by getting a soul. If a demon can love and not be human, not have a soul, and can sacrifice himself for her love and the love of others, then how does she fulfill her role? Who is she really? It also toys with her knowledge that she really is alone — it changes the balance of power, and this season is supposed to be about power. The contrast between Spike’s wish-fulfillment Buffy (dressed in white, tender and kind, and who’s to say it’s not the morphing evil in the basement rather than a figment of Spike’s imagination?) and the real Buffy, harsh and cold and dressed all in black with dark makeup (she almost never wears black, especially all black) shows that others are having just as much trouble figuring out who she is as Buffy herself.
Willow was also struggling — she had a brief return to the dark side, and was horrified by it, but in the end, it was her embracing magic that saved things, when she called D’Hoffryn (and can I just say how much I love the big ugly guy? He’s funny as hell and also cruel as hell when he means business). I’m hopeful that this is a sign of her starting to understand her own new identity, and to integrate the bad with the good in a way that will help her. Xander indicated a couple things about his identity when he talked about dating — he knows he’s got a great job, he’s successful, but he still hasn’t figured out where he fits or who he is without Anya, without the Scoobies (Spike calling him the slayer’s boy probably hasn’t helped this at all). He doesn’t understand where he fits, and it’s showing in his fight with Buffy.
But of course most of all this was Anya’s search for identity. From the beginning, we see she’s struggling with her picture of herself — we now know that she was always literal and kind of humorless and felt apart and scorned because of it. And we know how easily she embraced her new identity of vengeance demon. But it was painful and heartbreaking to see her final identity, in the song from the musical flashback, because we know it was torn from her cruelly just as she was most excited about becoming someone else (the Mrs.). I didn’t like the song so much, but I loved what it said about who she thought she was, what identity she wanted to embrace, and I love that they cut so sharply on her big note to her tearful face as she hung impaled against the wall. She hasn’t lost her life there, but she’s remembering the life she’s lost, and it was tragic.
There were some annoying continuity errors (the amulet’s ability to destroy her powers, other timing things), but overall I thought this ep rocked. I do think they’re dragging the crazy Spike thing out too long — every time they have Spike in the basement and Buffy being harsh to him, they risk people’s willingness to stick with the storyline, because five-minute glimpses of the hero being bitchy (even if it’s motivated) and the other male lead being pathetic and incompetent are dragging the story down. And since this was Anya’s ep, I wish they’d almost have just cut the scene out altogether. It felt wasted to me, but then, I think they’re also going to move on it next time. This was a total ME thing to do — I’m absolutely certain that the next ep will be Spike-centric and get him moving forward, and Buffy too, with figuring out how he fits. Plus, it’s sweeps, so they’ll save the big guns for that. And what little I know of the spoilers sounds like I’m on target.
The Olaf stuff was the best. Since I’m tall and big-boned, I’ve decided that “You are small and toylike” is my new line for everyone. I adored the old Swedish movie look to the flashback scenes, and frankly, I can never have enough Olaf. (Although, we were promised by early spoilers we’d get the 411 on Anya’s fear of bunnies, but this didn’t seem to happen at all.) Olaf makes me laugh and laugh, and I like Abraham Benrubi from ER days, and the “save your babies and your beadwork” lines were just priceless. Yes, I want like hell to get this B/S stuff moved forward and for them to quit wasting their talent on this “go to the basement see Spike and be mean and leave and pretend he’s not there because he’s disturbing” to stop. But this ep gave me the feeling that it will. Buffy’s kicking his ass to get out and get help, and for me, this is all good. It may be harsh, but this is the only way she’s ever known to relate to him, and it’s the only way she knows how to get him the help he needs. I just don’t see the bad in the long run.
