Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Discuss Their Favorite Television Show (Smart Pop series) (21 page)

The clearest embodiment of that is her relationship with Spike. Everything
in their interactions reeks of sex and death, from the moment in “Fool for Love” (5-7) when Spike tells her that he’s waiting for her to get tired of the struggle and come to him to be taken. He looms over her, phallic pool cue in hand, whispering in her ear that all he needs to get her is “One. Good. Day,” and becomes the symbol that eroticizes Buffy’s dark side. This makes it all the more perplexing that the Mutant Enemy writers see their relationship as one-sided and harmful. In what was evidently one of the great botched metaphors in the history of storytelling, Buffy and Spike consummate their relationship and demolish a derelict mansion in their throes. Houses are a common symbol for people in stories (think of Roderick Usher’s mansion in “The Fall of the House of Usher” or Emily’s decaying home in Faulkner’s
Rose for Emily
), and this one seems to clearly represent Buffy’s once rich but now derelict past life. She has died in one life and been resurrected into a new one, but she’s clinging to the past, living in the decaying shell of her former existence, an old life that must be rejected before she can live fully in the new world. When she embraces Spike, she embraces the dark side of her destiny, an adult rejection of the simplistic good/evil universe of her childhood, freeing herself to move into the future and defeat the worst enemy of all, the First Evil. Their consummation takes them to their deepest levels, both symbolically and literally as they fall into the basement, and leaves Buffy standing in a shaft of light in the morning, reborn. As metaphoric scenes go, it’s one of the most powerful in the history of the series.

Except that’s evidently not what the writers had in mind, since they insisted in interviews that the wreck symbolized the relationship as a bad choice. If Spike and Buffy wreck her cheery little bungalow home, that’s bad. If they dismantle a church, that’s bad. If they demolish a deserted, derelict mansion, that’s urban renewal. The continued insistence throughout season six that this relationship is wrong, unhealthy, symbolic of something evil and immoral is not only inexplicable but annoying, which is probably why so many viewers are unhappy with the direction the series takes in the sixth season: they were reading a different metaphor than the writers intended.

But in the seventh season, Whedon brings the story back to its roots by taking it down one more metaphoric layer, to the beginning of his myth. In “Get It Done” (7-15), Buffy travels back to the beginning of the slayers and discovers that the first Slayer was created when a council of men chained a helpless girl to be raped by a demon in order to imbue her with supernatural powers that would protect them. The
concept of the Slayer has always been a violation of free will, from the very first episode in which Buffy is forced back to her role as Slayer against her wishes to the last season populated by bewildered and frightened Potentials who would rather just go home. In “Get It Done” (7-15), the image of a chained Buffy penetrated both orally and vaginally by the creeping black vapor of the demon, symbolizes this violation at the center of the myth, the rape of free will that every Slayer represents. As defined by the council, the creation of the Slayer was a violent sexual sacrifice to death, a sacrifice that is destined to be repeated in every generation.

But the myth of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
has never been the myth of the Slayer; it’s the myth of Buffy Summers, the Slayer who is different. Instead of obeying and dying like her predecessors, season after season, she has rejected the male power hierarchies that have tried to control her. She defies Giles in the first season and makes him treat her as a partner in decision making. She fires the council in season three, and when they come back for season five, she defeats them and forces them to work for her. In season seven, she goes back to the beginning and defies the original council, resetting the power structure at the heart of myth and taking back her story, and refusing the rape and its sexual-submission-as-power ploy, saying “You think I came all this way to get knocked up by some demon dust?” (“Get It Done,” 7-15). She is the Slayer who is different, the lover who embraces death on her own terms, the blonde who goes into the alley and comes back with patriarchy’s head, and she does it not as a virginal, powerless Joan of Arc (even if she wistfully christens herself “Joan” in “Tabula Rasa,” 6-8), but as a fiercely sexual, passionate woman who knows exactly what she’s doing when she opens her arms to darkness.

In a world where any attempt to find connection results in pain and death, love is an act of unbelievable courage. That
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
explores that dangerous act in so many forms on so many levels through so many characters is the most compelling aspect of the series. But first among equals, it is Buffy in her passion and in her blazing, defiant sexuality that most defines the myth. Buffy, the great feminist icon as warrior, lover, and finally mature woman. She’s our Ishtar who aced the SATs, our Morrigan with a snarky sense of humor, our Kali with a better fashion sense, and the complexity of her myth, the depth of her metaphor, and the truth of her love stories makes her a great romantic heroine and
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
one of the great romances of our time.

A
NYONE WHO HAS WATCHED
more than a few episodes of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
quickly figures out that this television program isn’t really about a gorgeous young woman who kills blood-sucking monsters. Sure, most of the episodes contain pivotal scenes of vampire staking or demon decapitation—but they’re not what the show is
about.
In fact, at its core,
Buffy
isn’t even about any of the obvious metaphors that the whole mythology (heroic champion of the innocent battling monsters) might suggest, such as high school as a living hell, or the eternal battle of Good and Evil.

From the very first episode of the series to the final story, on the most consistent, fundamental level,
Buffy
has been about relationships—how to create them, and how to sustain them once you have them. Not just any relationship, either, but the kind that is strong enough and deep enough to provide answers to life’s ultimate questions (why am I here? where am I headed? what does it all mean?).

The opening scenes of “Welcome to the Hellmouth” (1-1) establish dramatic themes and plot patterns that reverberate throughout the rest of the series. When Buffy Summers arrives in Sunnydale, the last
thing she’s thinking about is vampire slaying. Buffy has one and only one subject uppermost in her mind: her relationships with the people around her.

The first example we’re shown is the mother-daughter relationship. Although we clearly see their affection for one another, there’s a lot of strain between Buffy and her mother Joyce because of Buffy’s past behavior and because of the fact that she must keep secret a critical area of her life—her activities as the Slayer. Her need to resort to secrets and deceptions underlies another of the recurring themes of the show: the isolation of the individual.

Once the basic parameters of the Buffy-Joyce interaction are established, “Welcome to the Hellmouth” (1-1) moves on to show Buffy exploring another kind of relationship: friendship with her peers. Much of this first episode is devoted to Buffy’s efforts to determine her place in the social structure of Sunnydale High. Who will be her friends and allies, who will be her enemies, and how can she tell the difference?

The creation and development of relationships is not restricted to the first episode of
Buffy,
or the first few episodes, or the first season. In every episode, no matter what else is happening in that specific story, relationship issues are never far from the surface.

This quest for meaningful relationships lies at the core of the phenomenon that is
Buffy.
With that as the heart and soul of this remarkable television series, is there one relationship that stands out from all the rest? One exemplary pairing of characters that represents the ideal to which all the others aspire? One couple who embodies the answer to the question of the meaning of life in the
Buffy
universe?

Let’s examine the likely suspects.

We’ve already touched on the mother-daughter relationship. Buffy and Joyce interact in mostly healthy, supportive ways, but in the vast majority of episodes, Buffy has to deceive her mom about crucially important events in her life. This forms an insurmountable barrier between them, made up of lack of communication, mistrust, and outright lies. Given the circumstances, they have a remarkable relationship, but it remains fundamentally flawed. Even after Joyce eventually learns that her daughter is endowed with supernatural powers and involved in a never-ending battle to protect the world from Evil, the tension between them never completely goes away. Joyce and Buffy each yearn to protect the other from danger and unhappiness, and this clash of priorities cannot be resolved. Their fears and doubts put them at odds with one another for the rest of Joyce’s life. Buffy loves her
mom, but she—and therefore we, the audience—can’t find complete comfort or a fundamental meaning of existence within the context of that relationship.

What about the father-daughter relationship? Buffy seems to feel affection for her father, but he’s completely disconnected from her daily life. For all practical purposes, as far as the series is concerned, they don’t
have
a relationship. Instead, Buffy has Giles. At the beginning, Buffy fights the whole idea of being part of a Slayer-Watcher team, but strong bonds of mutual reliance, trust, and affection soon begin to grow between them. Buffy learns that even when other aspects of her life are a shambles, she can rely on Giles. He is her moral compass, a rock of certainty, a dependable touchstone in the often confusing and conflicting labyrinth of dreams and responsibilities, wishful thinking and harsh reality that Buffy has to negotiate week after week.