Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Discuss Their Favorite Television Show (Smart Pop series) (22 page)

From one perspective—that of the Watchers’ Council—there is no question whatsoever that the entire meaning of Buffy’s existence is defined by and fulfilled in her partnership with Giles. After all, she is the Slayer, and nothing can be more important than her ongoing quest to successfully save the world from destruction. By that argument, the next most important person in the world has to be her Watcher. First, he is the brains to her brawn, providing the factual information and strategic advice she needs in order to win her battles. Second, he possesses a degree of maturity and wisdom that enable him to guide Buffy when the ethics of a situation are unclear and facts alone aren’t enough to determine the best course of action. Third, Giles provides essential emotional support, reassuring Buffy when she has doubts, encouraging her to face her fears and triumph over despair.

Yet, in spite of all these logical reasons that Buffy’s relationship with Giles should be the philosophical center and emotional heart and soul of the show, it never pretended to hold that position. As mentor, advisor, and friend, Giles played an important role in many of the stories. But the true meaning of
Buffy
cannot be found in the Slayer-Watcher relationship.

There is no doubt that Buffy and Giles feel deep affection for one another, but the instances in which they openly express or share emotional closeness are fleeting. Giles is a father figure, but
only
a figure, not the real thing, which automatically puts him at a disadvantage in his interactions with Buffy. Because he isn’t really Buffy’s father, they cannot achieve
and maintain
the depth of intimacy that is the ideal in family relationships. Because he is not one of her peers,
they can’t share the emotional closeness that is possible in a relationship of equals.

Could Giles and Buffy
become
equals? After all, over the course of the series, Buffy has turned eighteen and met all the criteria that normally identify a fully mature, independent adult—going to college, running a household (after Joyce’s death), becoming part of the staff at Sunnydale High. Some fans love imagining that a mature, romantic relationship could develop between Buffy and Giles (or has already happened, hidden in subtext and “between the lines” of the aired episodes). For most people, though, the possibility is too awkward to contemplate for long. Too many episodes, especially in the first three seasons of the show, emphasized the high-school environment and the recurring theme of Buffy’s childhood innocence in conflict with the demands of her responsibilities as Slayer. To put Giles, with his status as parental stand-in and undeniable authority figure, in a romantic relationship with Buffy smacks uncomfortably of incest.

Whether you find such speculations intriguing, disturbing, or incomprehensible, they’re also outside the scope of the present discussion. Exploring all the “might have beens” in the series opens up far too many variables. If we stay strictly within the boundaries of events and character interactions presented in the episodes as broadcast, it’s clear that Giles and Buffy interacted sometimes as father and daughter, sometimes as mentor and student; no matter their precise roles, their attempts at mutual understanding were often awkward and imperfect.

The shining example of a healthy, successful relationship in the
Buffy
universe has to be sought elsewhere.

Throughout the series, Buffy’s strongest relationships are with her peers. Most are fellow students, including Willow, Xander, Cordelia, Oz, Tara, and Riley. Other characters are not literally Buffy’s peers—they aren’t exactly her age or facing the same social circumstances—but still have to be considered peers in a broader sense. These include her sister, Dawn; her true love, Angel; troubled Faith; sometime-demon Anya; and, in later seasons, the unbelievably confused and confusing Spike.

One word can sum up Buffy’s relationships with each of these people and, just as important, their relationships with one another and Giles: complex. Early in the series, Buffy loved Angel, Xander loved Buffy, Willow loved Xander, and Cordelia loved . . . well, Cordelia. Everybody hated Spike, except for Dru, who loved him—that is, until she was distracted by Angelus, and eventually demonstrated that she was
too self-involved to
really
love anyone. The farther the series progressed, the more complicated and contradictory the relationships among all of the characters became. The ever-changing nature of these relationships makes for utterly fascinating storytelling, but far from satisfying lives for the characters themselves. Whatever they think they know about the person standing next to them one week may be irrelevant, or dead wrong, the next. The ignorant, cruel, completely self-absorbed Cordelia of the early episodes evolves into a helpful member of the Scooby gang and, eventually, Xander’s affectionate girlfriend. Angel changes, quite literally, from romantic hero to despicable monster and back again. Even a despised enemy like Spike becomes a valued ally under the right circumstances and by the climax of the series finale, “Chosen (7-22),” a true champion. Early in the seventh season, relationships among Buffy and her friends are so thoroughly convoluted that Nancy in “Beneath You” (7-2) is justified in asking, “Is there anyone here who hasn’t slept together?”

Sometimes an unlikely, transient relationship is played for comic effect, as when Joyce and Giles succumb to their inner teens in “Band Candy” (3-6). In “Tabula Rasa” (6-8), the idea of Giles and Spike as father and son was absurd and perfect at the same time, but other of the humorously scrambled relationships in that story had a poignant undertone, such as Xander assuming he belonged with lifelong friend Willow, or Anya and Giles struggling to understand the nature of their connection. An interesting aspect of this episode is which of the
real
relationships made themselves felt despite the power of Willow’s spell of forgetfulness. Note that Buffy and Dawn quickly realized they were sisters, Spike made an emotional connection with Buffy, and Tara and Willow were inexorably drawn together.

A common thread runs through almost all of the character relationships in the
Buffy
universe: eventually, on one level or another, they fail. All the way back in the first season, at the end of “I Robot, You Jane” (1-8), Buffy and Xander try to make Willow feel better for having fallen in love with the demon Moloch, disguised as cyber pen pal Malcolm. They joke and laugh about Xander having loved the prayingmantis teacher and Buffy loving a vampire. Buffy says, “Face it, none of us are ever going to have a healthy, normal relationship,” and Xander replies, “We’re doomed.” At that, their amusement fades, and the episode ends with all of them looking distinctly worried. With good reason: as future stories prove, one initially promising relationship after another is destined to go down in defeat.

The love between Buffy and Angel is the first of what becomes a depressing pattern of interpersonal relationship failures. Buffy and Angel may be soul mates, deeply, passionately, and sincerely in love with one another, but time and again any hope of meaningful, lasting happiness is sabotaged by their inability to communicate fully with one another. They are weeks into their relationship before Buffy learns that Angel is a vampire, and he continues to keep most of the details of his past secret from her for the rest of their time together. Their favorite method for coping with uncomfortable subjects is to not talk about them. This makes it easier for Buffy to concentrate on her feelings for Angel the man, and avoid thinking about Angelus the demon, but it doesn’t help at all when it comes to building a foundation for a lasting relationship.

Lack of communication damages Angel’s and Buffy’s relationships—as a couple and as individuals—with all of the other characters, too. Buffy hesitates to describe the true depth of her feelings for Angel, or the reasons she trusts him, to Giles or any of her friends, leaving them to conclude that any of her decisions regarding Angel are clouded by adolescent passion and therefore not to be trusted. Jenny Calendar fails to share her suspicions about the gypsy curse and its possible consequences with Giles or Buffy, which leads to the loss of Angel’s soul and the resurrection of Angelus. After Angel’s soul is restored and he survives banishment to Hell to return to Sunnydale once more, his ability to communicate with the Scoobies is even more severely restricted than before. They can’t distinguish between Angel and Angelus, and for the most part don’t even make an effort to try. Without their trust and forgiveness, Angel can’t form meaningful relationships with Buffy’s companions.

Some of the factors that stand in the way of Buffy and Angel finding happiness together are outside their control. Angel can’t stop being a two-centuries-old vampire, and Buffy can’t stop being the Slayer. Ultimately, however, their relationship fails because of the choices they make. Each wants what’s best for the other, but wanting something and being able to imagine a way to achieve it are two very different things. Buffy, with the innocence of youth and the desperation of someone deeply in love, seems willing to try to fit Angel into her life, but Angel sees only the risks involved. The Mayor sums up Angel’s dilemma for him in “Choices” (3-19), when he says, “What kind of a life can you offer her? I don’t see a lot of Sunday picnics in the offing. I see skulking in the shadows, hiding from the sun. She’s a blossoming young
girl and you want to keep her from the life she should have until it has passed her by. My God! I think that’s a little selfish. Is that what you came back from Hell for? Is that your greater purpose?”

The final episode of season seven, “Chosen,” offered the possibility that Buffy and Angel’s relationship could change for the better, someday. As Buffy says, “In the midst of all this insanity, a couple of things are actually starting to make sense . . . I’m not finished becoming whoever the hell it is I’m going to turn out to be . . . Maybe one day I’ll turn around and realize I’m ready. . . That’ll be then. When I’m done.”

However, with the end of the series, such speculation is mere wishful thinking. During the seven seasons of the show, without the ability to conceive any hope for the future, Angel’s relationship with Buffy is doomed.

All of these elements—failure to communicate, lack of trust, inability to envision or create a viable future—disrupt the course of true love for couple after couple. Buffy and Riley are constantly hiding from one another, first literally, then emotionally. Oz can’t maintain his relationship with Willow because he can’t trust himself. Anya has no trouble at all expressing her true feelings, but Xander does, to the point that he doesn’t even admit them to himself until the day of their wedding, when it’s far too late. Giles and Buffy, for all their ties of duty and affection, and for all of their good intentions (Giles only wants what’s best for Buffy), reach a point of such fundamental disagreement on how (or whether) their relationship needs to change that they can’t even live on the same continent any more. Even after Giles returns to Sunnydale in “Bring on the Night” (7-10), he remains a mostly peripheral figure in Buffy’s life. He and Buffy barely connect or communicate, a major factor in his decision to have Spike killed in “Lies My Parents Told Me” (7-17). Although they take the first steps toward reconciliation during “Chosen” (7-22), the details and stability of their new understanding are unclear.

There is only one exception to this pattern of relationships that fail: Willow and Tara.

On the surface, Willow and Tara face many of the same obstacles that we’ve seen before. But there are strong indications, from the earliest phases of their friendship, that Willow and Tara’s relationship is different from any other explored in the show.

For the other characters, secrets and deceptions tend to take on a life of their own, with one lie leading to another until dishonesty becomes a habit and misunderstandings inevitable. When the truth is
finally, reluctantly revealed, resentment and anger block attempts to repair the damage that’s been done and move on to a new stage in the relationship. Buffy and Riley, for example, never fully come to terms with one another’s mission in life. Even when their relationship is at its most mutually supportive, they don’t seem to completely understand one another. Riley can’t seem to come to grips with the reality of magic; Buffy can’t understand how he can be so focused on “killing monsters” and miss the larger, more complex issues that are often at stake. As for Buffy and Spike, she’s so ashamed of their relationship that she spends most of the sixth season unwilling to admit to her friends, Spike, or herself that it even exists. Xander and Anya keep whole lists of secrets from one another, as revealed in their song-and-dance number in the sixth season’s “Once More, With Feeling” (6-7). When Xander commits what Anya perceives as the ultimate betrayal—abandoning her at the altar in “Hell’s Bells” (6-16) —she can’t forgive him, and the relationship, like so many before it, fails.

Not so for Willow and Tara. Their relationship breaks all the previously established rules. From their first encounter, at the Wiccan meeting in “Hush” (4-10), Tara offers unqualified, unselfish support to Willow. In that episode, Tara takes the risk of sharing her true self—her magical skills—with Willow without any sign of hesitation or doubt. And Willow accepts her offer to combine their power and work together with similar, unquestioning trust. The early stage of secret-keeping and deception, a guarantee of lasting trauma as far as all the other characters are concerned, barely happens between Willow and Tara. Although Willow demonstrates a measure of circumspection during her earliest conversations with Tara—admitting that she has some other friends she hangs out with, but not going into detail—Tara accepts her discretion as perfectly normal. What matters most to her is that Willow be comfortable in their friendship.

By the time of “Who Are You?” (4-16, six episodes after “Hush”), it’s clear that Willow shares everything with Tara, and has told her all about Buffy and the Scooby gang. She hasn’t told them about Tara yet, but not out of shame or fear or uncertainty: she’s just so happy to be Tara’s friend that she wants to savor the feeling in privacy for a while. When Willow finally does get a chance to introduce Tara to Buffy later in the same episode, it’s a completely relaxed, positive experience (even though, early in the story, Faith disguised as Buffy was horrible to Tara). When Willow and Tara’s friendship deepens and they become lovers, Buffy initially is a little freaked (“New Moon Rising,” 4-19),
but she quickly gets over the surprise. As she reassures Riley later, speaking as much about herself as about his reaction to Willow having dated Oz: “You found out that Willow was in kind of an unconventional relationship, and it gave you a momentary wiggins. It happens.” From that point on, Tara gradually becomes a respected part of the Scooby gang.