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

[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.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

It's also why I respect Spike's decision - his was a suicide to benefit another, so the true HERO could go on living.

I thought his decision was external from Buffy and he was doing it for himself. Much like Angel, Spike was about the numbers (always casualties, etc.) They were drawing Andrew parallels all season with him and I saw him as attempting to 'buy it all back'. Of course AtS S5 says not so fast to that. I guess I just don't see how him dying benefits Buffy. Ubervamps were dead, Hellmouth closed, you know?

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.

I think S6 and S7 were more or less 1 long season. I'd have loathed it if Grave was The End, but it wasn't. So, yeah, I can look at it as a step in the right direction. I do think in Chosen, Buffy is living for Buffy and it's carried on over into AtS (cause fuck the comics, indeed) where she's not living for Spike or Angel, either.

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.

At the time I didn't read it that way. But after everything else with Darla, Cordy, Fred, I can't unsee it. They stopped just short of calling Dawn her daughter.

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

I always saw Spike's death as the "final act" in the battle, something that had to be done to keep whatever else would climb out of the hellmouth before it got the chance. It wasn't until the cave started falling that everyone stopped fighting. That being said, it's been a few months since I watched the episode properly so I could be wrong.

I think S6 and S7 were more or less 1 long season. I'd have loathed it if Grave was The End, but it wasn't. So, yeah, I can look at it as a step in the right direction. I do think in Chosen, Buffy is living for Buffy and it's carried on over into AtS (cause fuck the comics, indeed) where she's not living for Spike or Angel, either.

^^^^^^This this this, this shit right here.

(Hoo boy would Grave have been a depressing ending to the series. Willow having a mental breakdown, Buffy and Dawn clinging to one another, a literal NO ENDING for Anya or Xander or Giles... that would have sucked.)

The combining of both 6 & 7 makes a lot of sense to me journey-wise. Though I'd take it further and use [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]'s system of grouping 1-3, 4, 5-7 as their own arcs with 4 acting as a bridge between the stages of childhood and adulthood.

But after everything else with Darla, Cordy, Fred, I can't unsee it.

And how ridiculously mad do all of those deaths make me? (I'm ESPECIALLY disgusted by the mess of Cordy's arc at the end. It makes me literally foam at the mouth how fucked over she got - though I do actually like "You're Welcome" as an episode/ode to her)

Joss brings out the violence in me sometimes.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

It started to fall and everyone took off. Then B/S had their little moment, she tells him to get out with her, he says he has to stay and she barely makes it out. The work was pretty much done. Probably reading too much into it. They had to get him to AtS somehow. :P

1-3, 4, 5-7 as their own arcs with 4 acting as a bridge between the stages of childhood and adulthood.

I go with that as well, but I just think S6 + S7 more than any other seasons were conceived as a combined arc.

And how ridiculously mad do all of those deaths make me? (I'm ESPECIALLY disgusted by the mess of Cordy's arc at the end. It makes me literally foam at the mouth how fucked over she got - though I do actually like "You're Welcome" as an episode/ode to her)

Indeed. He more or less did the same thing in the (fuck the) comics, too. Over and over again.

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

I totally agree about the combining of S6 and S7 because they read together as a single journey.

And if my name becomes synonymous with the phrase "fuck the comics" then I'm totally okay with that.