Meta: The Hardest Thing In This World Is To Live In It

[clockwork_hart1]

I promise to stop spamming my f-list after this post, okay?

The Hardest Thing In This World Is To Live In It - Life, Death, and Female Martyrdom in the Buffyverse and Beyond (Or, Chosen vs The Gift; a Retrospective)


(Spoilers for S1 of Orphan Black, S3 of TVD, S4 of Lost Girl and the movie Edge Of Tomorrow in the introduction, and y'know, the whole of BtVS and Ats in the rest)

(because seriously, fuck the comics)

The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and suicide is press coverage

Let's face it, in narrative (and out, unfortunately) the sacrifice of a pretty young maiden for the better of all humanity is a trope old as dirt. Girl lays down life, world is saved, and everyone says how beautiful and brave she was to give her life up so that others may go on. We're talking Mayan sacrifices to the Gods all the way down to Lily Potter - and honestly it's a load of shit. Because nowadays there's this weird idea that a girl's greatest weapon is her life, a woman can't save the day but she can let herself die so the strapping young hero has the chance. Even in more progressive narratives - because what other point does Emily Blunt's character have in Edge of Tomorrow but to look fierce, be brash, and die a bunch of times until Tom Cruise gets his shit together?

But why are we so fascinated by the power of female suicide? Orphan Black, a show just aching with awesome feministy goodness begins with the image of Beth Childs hurling herself in front of a train. Granted, she's not one of our protagonists, but she's still part of Clone Club with a huge impact on the plot. Elena Gilbert mirrors her parent's sacrifice to save Matt in the S3 of finale The Vampire Diaries and allows herself to drown (with no intention in herself of coming back as a vampire despite what the Salvatores/Writers endow her with), because she feels no one should loose their life for hard on she happens to bestow upon the supernatural community. I refuse to even speak of Kenzi's role in the latest series of Lost Girl. The writers can harp on all they like about the need to enforce the ever popular "anyone can die" mentality, but they've all made a conscious decision to include in their narrative women choosing to off themselves for the sake of others in a way that male heroes (or at least, the protagonists) aren't expected to. (See George RR Martin on how to actually do this right.)

And OF COURSE men have had to make similar sacrifices in stories, obviously they have. But how about the fact that four out of the six analogies I've made have taken place in the last three years? The problem isn't so much the gender gap but the sheer fucking frequency that heroines are expected to lie down and take death peacefully so the world gets to keep turning.

And that's why I can never take The Gift as an acceptable substitute to Chosen as the finale of BtVS as many fans are wont to do.

Death Is Your Gift

Let it first be known that I'm not okay with the erasing of S6/7 from canon the way people like to do anyway. I love those seasons - Buffy's depression arc? It gives me strength to deal with my own struggle with the disease. The juxtapositions of healthy vs unhealthy relationships? An important commentary on how it doesn’t matter at all what your relationship entails - commitment, kinky sex, casual relations - as long as you're comfortable with who you are and what you may become within those parameters. Buffy being able to run off into the sunlight? YES, I want SO MUCH MORE OF THIS. But my discomfort with The Gift acting as the grand finale (as I have seen many, many fans propose because of the "lackluster" final seasons) is greater than that.

It's a wonderful episode from a storytelling perspective. Beautifully shot, executed and acted; a tight script and one hell of a battle. The Gift, in a word, rocks. BUT - and here's where I get all subjective and you can feel free to yell your opposing views at me - the beautiful swan dive from the tower to close the rip between worlds sort of antiquates Buffy's resurrection in the first season finale when she literally rises up from the earth to save the day. It's like a distorted view of the same moment, a rise against a fall, each one necessary to make the world a livable place. When Buffy stands up to The Master with the defiant smile ("but at least I'm still pretty"), her white dress of purity flapping around her like every subversion of the little girl lost/slaughtering lamb you could dream of, you've got to feel a little rush. When she turns away from Dawn with the resigned smile, her hair whipping around her like an avenging angel's halo that she's got no choice but to let slip, your heart's in your throat, your stomach lodged somewhere low and plummeting still, you've got to feel your heart break. Because that's your hero, your Buffy, a broken doll on a pile of rubble; the angel fallen to earth so far that her body broke alongside her wings. Biblical, perhaps (Joan of Arc, ladies and gents?), but also scathingly sad. Because forgive me for wanting Buffy to be the girl action hero who lived.

Death is Buffy's gift. By the doctrine of the Slayer, more ancient than law, she has dominion over life and death - of demons, of victims, of the next in the Slayer line - but she's also human enough to be able to die. There is never a time when death isn't a major player in the story; from the Jesse's death where the show establishes that no one is safe; to Jenny's when we realise that this Angelus fella really is the villain of the piece; we have Joyce to show that natural order is playing even in a world of fantasy; and we have Tara to show that, well, fuck knows what point that was to make other than "Joss is an asshat who hates anyone being happy ever". Death plays right into the last moments of the series (Ats season 5 notwithstanding) where Spike trades his role for Buffy's as the martyr so she really can go out and live.

But as equally as death, Buffy's gift is life. She gives life to those she saves from the monsters; she gives Willow the outlet to grow as a person beyond the meek, shy little geek with nothing to show for herself into perhaps the most powerful women in the universe; she gives both Angel and Spike the means to better their existence through her love and care and grace; she gives Dawn life, period. Not to mention on the meta level, all the lives she's saved within the fandom; to speak for myself, without this show - without Buffy - it's not presumptuous to say I wouldn't be here today.

So is it permissible for me to say that for all of the trouble of Chosen; the deus ex machina of the Slayer spell and magic amulet curtesy of Mr "I Left This Show Four Years Ago and Have Very Little Plot Relevance Over Here (and my son just tried to kill our comatose girlfriend)", the sudden ability of the Potentials to take down the Uber vamps that had Buffy beaten black and blue, Anya's death and that damn cookie dough analogy; that I am much happier seeing my Buffy smiling out at the sunlight of the new world she has to explore rather than as a big ol' hole in the earth?

The Weight Of The World

We can look at Buffy's sacrifice at the end of The Gift as a mirror to Darla's in Ats, both in the interest of giving their "child" - (as Buffy acts as both sister and mother to Dawn post The Body) the chance to live - except that where Buffy jumps off of the tower to close the portal that wasn't of her own making, Darla lifts up a stake and rams it into her own heart. Darla's death is explicitly a suicide (a heroic one, in a truly brutal/beautiful moment) and whilst that is how many people view Buffy's swan dive (myself included - the depression begin far before Joyce's illness and is only amplified by the guilt of resurrection), it's a more subjective and ambiguous ending for her.

Buffy spends her life being the "Hero", saving the world for other people (unlike Darla who is a villain at worst and morally ambiguous at best - albeit with sparse but spectacular occasions of goodness/heroism) and again I'll emphasize life. Once she quits the Council in season Three she has no obligation to do this, but she chooses to do it anyway, to give up her own chances at a real life to give one to others. But it's not really giving up anything - she was told way way back in Season Two that she was cut out for police work, to help the lives of others. Despite what she may feel sometimes with the world hanging heavy on her shoulders, Buffy lives to give other people the chance to do the same. Therefore, she has to go on living. Through season six when her world hangs at its heaviest and darkest she still goes on, out every night to save the muggles with no idea she's there at all. And we witness in both The Wish and Bargaining, a Sunnydale without her is pretty damn dismal; leaving us with the knowledge that she is all that stands between us and demonic oblivion.

How, then, am I meant to cheer when she makes a supposedly "final" sacrifice for the benefit of human kind when humanity benefits incomparably when she's alive?

This is a suicide, of a depressive girl - whose tendencies to spiral into mental disrepair date back as far as her break down in Prophecy Girl and creep up consistently after (i.e. the Bangel break ups, the whole of Anne, the death of Alan Finch, Joyce's illness and subsequent death - not to mention the revelations of her earlier time in the mental hospital in Normal Again). This is Buffy joining the long line of female martyrs which came before her. This is not the ending - a leap into (assumed) hell which seems a fine alternative to the horrors of every day - that anyone as culturally important as Buffy deserves.

She Saved The World A Lot

Accuse me of over-identification (please, I encourage it), because I'm forever using Buffy as a reference point/coping mechanism for my own problems, which is exactly what media and art are for - reinterpretation through personal lenses. That established, you can probably understand why I, as someone with depression have problems with seeing a girl with mental illness letting herself die as a final act of heroics. I have lost friends to suicide and no, I don't blame them for taking their lives, not for a second. And I don’t blame Buffy, either. But the implications of treating suicide and martyrdom as bedmates when the girl in question is depressive... are unsavoury to say the least.

So contrast me Chosen, where we have a Spike, perhaps at the closest thing to "adjusted" as we've ever seen him and arguably happy with his current life choosing to die in Buffy's place to keep the world turning and keep her living. There is a difference here. Show me Spike dying with a smile that matches Buffy's as she stands on the edge of the crater that holds her former life, not the contradictions of Buffy's pain/struggle/passivity inside the portal or even the wide-eyes and impassive face as she runs to the edge of the tower.

So just think about that, before you write off Chosen for the hodge-podge it is on the surface, before glorifying the beauty of The Gift it passes for. Remember which ending has a "and she lived" to conclude.

And so say I - I'm a sucker for a happy ending.

Comments

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

YES! And the way women's deaths are seen as the MOST heroic contribution they can make to the battle while men's deaths are tragic and full of "oh, but he could have found another way."

Everyone remembers Joan of Arc burning at the stake, but no one talks about the fact that a teenage girl led a victorious army.

(And let us not get started on how rape victims are only free from being questioned as to their complicity (in fiction and life) when they DIE during the attack... and how every female rape/murder victim is described as beautiful in a way that implies that their beauty is both the motive for their attack and its loss the most tragic part of their death... I could go on for days on all the tangents you've spawned in my mind.)

But yes, in short: "She lived" is the better ending.


Gabrielle

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

*g*

I'm SO GLAD this spoke to you because I've been harbouring these feelings for a long time now.

Everyone remembers Joan of Arc burning at the stake, but no one talks about the fact that a teenage girl led a victorious army.

(And let us not get started on how rape victims are only free from being questioned as to their complicity (in fiction and life) when they DIE during the attack... and how every female rape/murder victim is described as beautiful in a way that implies that their beauty is both the motive for their attack and its loss the most tragic part of their death... I could go on for days on all the tangents you've spawned in my mind.)

ALL OF THIS IS VITAL. The rape thing also ties in with the defiled death of innocence - she was so beautiful that it killed her. Uh, no. Some dipshit killed her because he was sick and thinking with his dick.

I could go on for days on all the tangents you've spawned in my mind.)

GOOD, I want to hear them.

But yes, in short: "She lived" is the better ending.

Isn't it just?

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Everyone remembers Joan of Arc burning at the stake, but no one talks about the fact that a teenage girl led a victorious army.

That's a terrific analogy (and very fitting) and I'll throw in another example: I read a biography of Virginia Woolf that pointed out the fact that her depressive episodes took up approximately four years of her life - out of 60+ years, and that she's more known for her suicide than for her books or the fact that she loved life.

And let us not get started on how rape victims are only free from being questioned as to their complicity (in fiction and life) when they DIE during the attack...

Not even then, necessarily - remember Robert Chambers? I'd say that rape is the only crime where the victim is assumed to be at fault even IF they die.

I could go on for days on all the tangents you've spawned in my mind.

Yes, do it! Let it flow through you!

"She lived" is the better ending.

YES.

[kikimay]

First of all YES. Then YES. I'm forever a Chosen girl. I can appreciate The Gift, it's a beautifully made episode but the implications of Buffy ending with The Gift are terrible to me. It really means that women win just when they die. Plus I hate the twisted thinking that it was better for Buffy to end in S5 instead of seeing her depressed in S6. Once again a female character has to live up to impossible standards of purity and heroicness. How about no? I appreciate the story told in the last two seasons. I appreciate the fact that Buffy has and needs to live. Living is the hardest thing in the world and her most heroic act is to try.


(Btw, I love the new look. So shiny!)

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

I want to marry your comment.

YOU UNDERSTAND!

It really means that women win just when they die.

This idea makes me weep so much.

. Plus I hate the twisted thinking that it was better for Buffy to end in S5 instead of seeing her depressed in S6. Once again a female character has to live up to impossible standards of purity and heroicness. How about no?

THANK YOU. Flawed female characters? How scandalous!

I appreciate the fact that Buffy has and needs to live. Living is the hardest thing in the world and her most heroic act is to try.

This is why it's so important. Especially for all the little girls and boys who don't know how to live with all the horror on their shoulders. Buffy is a hero for continuing on.

(also thank you! I like my journal much better now - shiny pretty goodness)

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

If this is what you're giving, please continue spamming!

This was excellent. It goes exactly along with my view that BtVS is a story of recovery - the narrative follows Buffy as she is broken piece by piece, then she dies. That would be a depressing ending, and actually quite a pessimistic view of life and of mental illness.

Instead, in season six we see her brought back wrong and reacting to her pain through ill-advised behavior. I think she remains depressed all the way through Chosen - because Angel is a complete dickweed who preyed on her insecurities, she doesn't let people who arrive after Angel into her heart (except in the case of Dawn, but she is magically supposed to think Dawn was there from the beginning). She never really opened herself up to Anya, and while she does open up for Tara, it's as if Tara is a less toxic appendage of Willow. She keeps the potentials at arm's length because she can't stand to watch them die while under her care.

This reading of BtVS is also why I'm so hardcore Spuffy. We get to the end of season 7. Buffy is at her lowest point at the end of Empty Places (fuck you, everybody in the Summers house at that time), but it's in Touched where Spike is the one there for her - and the process of healing begins. She gets the strength to go after the scythe because of him, and the scythe is the metaphor for sharing power that makes Chosen such a fitting ending because it completely dismantles the patriarchy of the Council.

Of course, because Joss panders to shippers whose ship sailed long ago but are clamoring for an Angel appearance at the end of the series, we get the fuck up that is the kiss in End of Days (seriously, Joss? Well, fuck you and the horse you rode in on!). It comes out of left field - hey thanks for stopping by, Angel, BUT WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU WHEN BUFFY DIED? WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU WHEN SHE WAS SEVERELY DEPRESSED? And dammit, we're not supposed to be agreeing with the First Evil, but when the FE calls Buffy a bitch to Spike, it's like, fuck yes that was cold!

Anyway, forget about Angel's appearance. Let's get back to that narrative of recovery. Spike heals Buffy, and in that moment when he's glowing (EFFULGENT!) and their hands are all flamey and she says she loves Spike - that's when she is healed. She is opening her heart again - the heart that her dad, Angel, Riley and Giles broke when they abandoned her - and she is healed. That's why her last words on the series were "I love you" and "Spike." That is why she smiles - because this time it was Spike sacrificing himself for her. She gets to live this time.

Okay. I think I had a point that related to your post somewhere in there.

Anyway, very excellent observation. The show wouldn't have the same legacy that it does if it ended with The Gift - it would forever be remembered like Lost, as the really good show that had a terrible finale. Instead, we get to see patriarchy dismantled, and in the scene where all the activated slayers (like Little Baseball Girl) are rising up, we can see all the strong female heroes that came after Buffy rising up - from Veronica Mars to Sarah Manning and back again. Buffy wouldn't have had the impact it did without Chosen.

I think I'm done now.

Edit: I think this was a devolution in terms of my maturity as a fan. I really am more grown up than this. Just wanted to mention that.

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

This was excellent. It goes exactly along with my view that BtVS is a story of recovery - the narrative follows Buffy as she is broken piece by piece, then she dies. That would be a depressing ending, and actually quite a pessimistic view of life and of mental illness

*g* This is so important though. I was sick of having to explain to people why I like Chosen or why S6&7 are worth it and just... It's Buffy and I love her, is that so wrong that I want her to live and get better and not be dead?

And also S7 Spuffy is something that's beautiful. When I first came across BtVS it was during S5 and I saw.. I think it was FFL? And I just assumed that Spike was THE love interest. I knew OF Angel, but he didn't register. So when I watched the show properly Spuffy was what made sense to me (and I'm not really a shipper, I don't really have any buffyverse ships and I like to mix and match, but i can dig s7 spuffy). In s7 it's so organic and equal. The flames? THEY HAD MOTHERFUCKIN' FLAMES.

She gets to live this time.

THIS IS THE IMPORTANCE OF ALL THE SHOW. THE WHOLE DAMN THING.

Anyway, very excellent observation. The show wouldn't have the same legacy that it does if it ended with The Gift - it would forever be remembered like Lost, as the really good show that had a terrible finale. Instead, we get to see patriarchy dismantled, and in the scene where all the activated slayers (like Little Baseball Girl) are rising up, we can see all the strong female heroes that came after Buffy rising up - from Veronica Mars to Sarah Manning and back again. Buffy wouldn't have had the impact it did without Chosen.

And what would we do without that? What a horrible world it'd be. There would be nothing to watch. There would be no one to cosplay as and pretend to save the world (because the pink power ranger is all well and good but not stylish OR affordable)

Edit: I think this was a devolution in terms of my maturity as a fan. I really am more grown up than this. Just wanted to mention that.

I hope this comment proves that I can devolve with the best of them. And do. Often.

[snogged.livejournal.com]

Hip Hip Hooray!

This was an excellent meta and one that I must agree with. I may not agree with how every story arc was handled in season 6 and season 7 (*cough*Dark!Willow*cough*), but I certainly can agree that they are still important seasons to the storyline as a whole.

I also understand the personal lens that BtVS can be watched from. Willow was the character that saved my life in high school. As she grew up, I grew up too and realized that there was more to me than just a nerdy bookworm/lonely outcast. It made me feel empowered and boosted my self-esteem.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this.

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

We are so in sync on the myriad failings of Willow's arc. *sighs sadly*


Gabrielle

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

*g*

I'm so glad you liked this. The Dark!Willow storyline leaves so very much to be desired, but the season has messages and experiences that are important and don't deserve to be wiped clean.

Just like the personal lenses and how we correlate to the things we experience to fiction. Empowerment. I'm so glad you found Buffy, Willow, and gained the esteem you needed to make it this far.

*hugs*

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

I think what lends to my not classifying it as a suicide is my belief that if presented with another choice that left both she and Dawn alive, I think she'd have taken it. As opposed to Spike, who was presented with an option and chose to die.

In general, though, I agree completely. The idea of the mother sacrificing herself for the child is too often romanticized, particularly by Joss. It seems, since he had this plotted as far back as S3, to be the "point" of the show. The implications of that is one of the things that makes me squint at Joss because it carries over into the rest of the show.

For instance, a big part of S6 is attempting to answer the "now what" of it. I did the thing I was apparently meant to do (give birth, so to speak, that's what women are for, apparently *eyeroll*) and Buffy struggling to find meaning in being alive after that. That's one of the reasons the end of S6 bugs me to no end because that reason turns out to be Dawn. And while I don't hate Dawn, Buffy should be living for Buffy. Again we're stuck with the child > mother trope.

S7, for all of its faults, does sort of fix that. Buffy at the end lives for Buffy. Not Dawn or the Potentials. That in and of itself is enough for me to be Chosen > The Gift (as far as an ending goes). But add in other facts like the suggestion that she's letting go of a lot of the guilt from her relationships, etc.

But I'm a late season fan.

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

I think what lends to my not classifying it as a suicide is my belief that if presented with another choice that left both she and Dawn alive, I think she'd have taken it. As opposed to Spike, who was presented with an option and chose to die.

Which is a totally understandable viewpoint and I get exactly where you're coming from. It's just that thing in fiction where if a female character makes the decision to ie for a cause it's often "natural - no other option", whereas a in the SAME situation (i.e. NOT like Spike) makes that decision and someone's always like "BUT HE COULD HAVE TRIED SOMETHING ELSE - HE SHOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO DIE". It's also why I respect Spike's decision - his was a suicide to benefit another, so the true HERO could go on living.

Joss's obsession with the motherhood=sacrifice trope is seriously worrying from a feminist standpoint. It leans DANGEROUSLY close to the "pro-life" movement to be comfortable.

That being said, I hadn't thought about the negative connotations of Buffy using Dawn to get back to herself before - I'm going to think a lot about that. As in, I understand why she chooses to do that because in my depression a lot of what keeps me going is the people around me. Once I'm out of that slump I can live for myself, so I understood it from the depressive perspective, not the motherhood one. Hmm. Thoughts.

But I'm a late season fan.

Good. Late Season Love.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

100% agreed. "The Gift" is a brilliant episode IMO, but it can't be the ending for exactly the reasons you say. I can never not imagine the Watcher's Council going "Well, that certainly took her long enough. Back to work as normal then, chaps!" Buffy slowly working her way back to living for the world rather than dying for it, and ending her story (because fuck the comics) by changing the narrative, making it viral, and standing free in the sun, is one of the most powerful things I know.

[lynnenne]

Yes, all of this, exactly.

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

The Gift is awesome. It's beautiful. But it's not an ending.

"Well, that certainly took her long enough. Back to work as normal then, chaps!"

I need crack!fic about this. A brief moment of shock culminating in a slight-of-hand tea accident followed by a "whoopsie daisy" and business as usual.

And the power in the image of Buffy smiling in the sunlight is woefully under appreciated in it's depth.

So seriously, fuck the comics.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I can never not imagine the Watcher's Council going "Well, that certainly took her long enough. Back to work as normal then, chaps!"

I would read that fic you know. And give you cookies to bribe you into writing it.

Buffy slowly working her way back to living for the world rather than dying for it, and ending her story (because fuck the comics) by changing the narrative, making it viral, and standing free in the sun, is one of the most powerful things I know.

THIS.

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

Fuck yeah! Exactly.

On top of that i really like the Spike suicide on a metaphorical level:

The male narrative dies (willingly!), so the female narrative can go on. It makes the "Buffy goes on living" end even better.

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

The male narrative dies (willingly!), so the female narrative can go on. It makes the "Buffy goes on living" end even better.

I want to marry this thought and have it's brilliant children.

[baudown.livejournal.com]

Absolutely yes.

Look, I love The Gift. But I love it because the show doesn't end there. Buffy's leap, as you point out, is prompted by mixed motives -- a desire to save the world, sure, but a simultaneous desire to escape the pain of living in it. Narratively speaking, if she didn't learn "the hardest thing" -- a way to continue living in the world -- her hero's journey would be incomplete. Season six (absolutely my favorite season, though incredibly painful) and season seven (flawed, but with many beautiful, difficult, significant moments) are essential to complete her arc, and to leave her (and us) with hope for the future.

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

Same, I ADORE The Gift - but I'd hate for it to be the ending (which it almost was before the channel switch, if I'm correctly informed), because it's rather hopeless and like you say, her completed arc is ultimately a quest for hope for the future.

She (and us) deserve that much.

I'm glad you liked it!

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

But I love it because the show doesn't end there. Buffy's leap, as you point out, is prompted by mixed motives -- a desire to save the world, sure, but a simultaneous desire to escape the pain of living in it. Narratively speaking, if she didn't learn "the hardest thing" -- a way to continue living in the world -- her hero's journey would be incomplete. Season six (absolutely my favorite season, though incredibly painful) and season seven (flawed, but with many beautiful, difficult, significant moments) are essential to complete her arc, and to leave her (and us) with hope for the future.

I'm copying all of this back to you because YESSSSSS, exactly this.

[waddiwasiwitch.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh lady!! What a fantastic piece of meta.

I have so many thoughts but they are jumbled right now...

The juxtaposition between both Spike's sacrifice in Chosen and Buffy's in the gift is indeed striking. Buffy was barely hanging on by a thread. It was an act of desperation - a last resort. Spike - on the other hand - could have made a mad dash for it to escape BUT he wanted to see how it would end...

I am in agreement with you. I certainly don't hate the last two seasons either. Some of my favorite episodes are in those seasons. I wouldn't be happy for it to have ended with The Gift. Chosen is more fitting ending IMO.

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

♥

(I wrote meta - this is new and odd)

The juxtaposition between both Spike's sacrifice in Chosen and Buffy's in the gift is indeed striking. Buffy was barely hanging on by a thread. It was an act of desperation - a last resort. Spike - on the other hand - could have made a mad dash for it to escape BUT he wanted to see how it would end...

*nods* VERY important point.

I've found my f-list is full of late season love but so many other corners of fandom DO NOT have the same mentality, which is a shame.

[pocochina.livejournal.com]

Yes! This is a fantastic post, thank you for writing it. The Gift is probably better as an episode, but Chosen is the right finale for Buffy.

There's something very weird that goes on with the desire to see Buffy dead at the end of S5, and the closest I can come to pinning it down is this weird fetishization of something close to the virgin sacrifice archetype? Only instead of being specifically about her romantic history, the idea is "her conventional hero cred was unimpeachable, she never made anyone uncomfortable, she didn't come up on the nasty growing pains that are a part of becoming an adult with a sense of self." Like she's more valuable having died and avoided challenging us (and eventually challenging herself on her own terms, rather than being challenged by being Chosen, if that makes sense) than she is in just living. And I find that pretty fundamentally appalling.

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

Oh God, thank YOU for reading it.

I was about to quote the entire paragraph back at you there because of how completely on the nose it is, and there's something frankly terrifying about that exact mindset - you're worth more dead and idealised than alive and human. Girl's cant be real, don'cha know? They have to be mysterious and unattainable and utterly utterly perfect.

Because that's the only way they can be accepted by the masses.

Here from buffyversetop5

[yourlibrarian]

So just think about that, before you write off Chosen for the hodge-podge it is on the surface, before glorifying the beauty of The Gift it passes for. Remember which ending has a "and she lived" to conclude.

Agreed, for the reasons you mention, plus that, as disappointing as I found S7, it still had some strong episodes and some significant developments among the characters.

Actually it's interesting that you talk about Buffy and Spike's inverted roles because I'd say The Gift was full of despair for everyone, since Willow was at least as focused on restoring Tara as defeating Glory. Yet the end of Chosen sees a new life ahead for most of the participants. There's quite a difference in Giles' role in each, for example, and Dawn changes from being a pawn and victim to being an active participant.

Re: Here from buffyversetop5

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

i'm sorry this took me so long to reply to but THANK YOU for stopping by and reading and adding your own perspective on this whole mess of feelings!

And also I am forever in love with anyone seeing Dawn as an active participant, my tiny knight in fractured armour, rather than a burden in chainmail like people often write her off as.