Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Myth, Metaphor & Morality

by Field, Mark

  My response:

  “Yes, they do have legitimate grievances against Buffy. I admitted that in my discussion with Shadowkat, though I downplayed it otherwise. BUT, she has pretty serious grievances against them. Mostly Xander, though she doesn't realize that yet. The miscommunication with Willow is something we can see in this dialogue:

  Buffy: Sorry that I had to leave, but you don't know what I was going through.

  Willow: Well, I'd like to.

  Buffy: You wouldn't understand.

  The reason Buffy believes Willow wouldn't understand is, of course, Xander's Lie. From Buffy's perspective, Willow wanted her to kill Angel. How could Buffy then communicate the extent of her emotional devastation at doing that which Willow actively encouraged her to do? And, of course, from Buffy's perspective, if Willow had really wanted to know what Buffy was going through, she wouldn't have stood her up.

  What we have here is a failure to communicate, to coin a phrase, but ultimately (IMO) it comes back to Xander. Buffy and Willow both could have handled it better and undoubtedly would have if he hadn't interfered.

  Reading your comment caused me to realize that I didn't talk about Giles in my post. In a way, he has the biggest grievance against Buffy. He did absolutely nothing wrong and wasn't implicated in Xander's Lie. Her failure to let him know that she was ok is by far her biggest fault in my book.”

  Well, that should be enough for everyone to take a side and let loose their own buriedemotions.

  Let’s get back to the episode itself. The zombies are a metaphor, of course: if you try to bury your feelings, they come back to get you. Because Buffy was the one to confront and kill the zombie master (putting an end to the zombies), I’m inclined to see the zombies here as representing Buffy’s own feelings towards her friends for what she sees as their failure to understand what she had to go through with Angel. An alternative and very possible reading would see them as representing the anger of Xander, Willow, and Joyce. Either reading works perfectly well and gets us to the same place.

  If the message is about the danger of repressed feelings, though, then there’s a real problem. That metaphor could very easily be seen as incoherent in the context of the plot. The message is supposed to be that if you repress thoughts and feelings, they’ll come back in worse form later on. The problem is that the attack of the zombies interrupted the fight in the living room, that is, the very expression of feeling which the metaphor suggests should take place. IOW, perhaps the metaphor got in its own way.

  We can avoid this conclusion if we believe that the interruption was intentional, that the expressions of anger and disappointment haven’t achieved catharsis but are still latent in all the characters. That’s the way I’m inclined to read the episode. By this logic, the real demon was the zombie master who was summoning all these buried emotions, and Buffy prevented that from continuing when she killed it. I’m inclined to see that as Buffy shutting off the summoning of her own buried emotions, but it’s also possible to read it as shutting them off for everyone. Either way, the price is that those feelings remain repressed; the episode didn’t actually resolve the problems.

  Assuming I’ve read that correctly, there’s another message as well: they don’t have to be friendly with each other – or even, in the case of the other students, know her at all – in order to cooperate in the face of something which threatens every one of them.

  Buffy and her friends see the world in different ways because she has to endure things which they never see. Buffy sacrifices herself for the sake of harmony (no pun here) with her friends, something she does repeatedly throughout the show. But while that may leave her friends feeling vindicated, it’s bound to contribute to a sense of isolation on Buffy’s part. The party itself reinforced this sense of isolation – most of her fellow students don’t even know her.

  But she saved them all anyway.

  Trivia notes: (1) The Wikipedia summary of the book Joyce read over the summer, The Deep End of the Ocean, makes its relevance to this episode pretty obvious: “It is about an American middle class, suburban family that is torn apart when the youngest son is kidnapped and raised by a mentally ill woman, until he appears at the front doorstep of his real mother and asks if he can mow the lawn.” The name of the father in the book was Pat, which I suspect gave us the name of Joyce’s friend. Pat was a morally ambiguous character in the book, as Pat is here. (2) The stoned guy on the phone called Giles “Mr. Belvedere”, who was the title character in a 1980s sitcom. He was an English butler. (3) “Weebles wobble but they won’t fall down” was the advertising slogan for a child’s toy. Xander paraphrased it in describing the zombies.

  Faith, Hope & Trick

  The title of Faith, Hope and Trick seems to take its inspiration from Corinthians 13:13: 'But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love'. I think all three virtues play a part in this episode, but I want to discuss them in reverse order.

  We saw 3 tricks in the episode besides the character: (a) Giles tricked Buffy into revealing some of the details of Becoming2. Note, however, that Buffy said nothing to Willow or Giles other than to tell them that the spell worked and that she had to kill Angel rather than Angelus. In particular, she said nothing about Xander’s Lie. Buffy’s still repressing despite the events of Dead Man’s Party because she thinks that’s essential in order to maintain her relationships. (b) Kakistos tricked the Slayers into a trap. (c) Faith tried to trick Buffy into dealing with Kakistos for her. This set up Giles’ trick on Buffy – Buffy’s words to Faith about Kakistos could apply to herself: “Faith: … *I'm* the one that can handle this. Buffy: Yeah. You're a real bad-ass when it comes to packing Buffy: … What was that you said about my problem? Gotta deal and move on? Well, we have the 'moving on' part right here. What about dealing? ... Faith: You don't know me. You don't know what I've been through. I'll take care of this, all right?” Buffy recognized this just before she told Giles and Willow what had happened: “She had a lot to deal with, but she did it. She got it behind her.”

  The name/word Trick got substituted for “love”, which is “the greatest of these” in the original quote. It’s Buffy’s love for Angel which is on display throughout the episode. And just maybe it’s love that brought Angel back. (That’s not a spoiler – we never do find out what brought him back, so I’m speculating.)

  During the episode, Buffy hopes that she can move on from Angel, represented by Scott Hope.

  And that brings us to Faith. The name is ironic given what we see of her in this episode. Faith lacks faith in her own ability to slay Kakistos. Buffy shows her faith in Faith, which enables Faith to slay her personal demon.

  Faith is a new slayer and that means she’ll play a metaphorical role in the season in my interpretation. In fact, it’s the most important metaphor in S3 so think about it as we go through the episodes. There are major clues to that role, and to the season as a whole, in the dialogue.

  Since it’s too early to talk about that yet, let’s move on to the storyline. Buffy seemed to accept Kendra after her initial hesitation, but she’s very reluctant to share her life or her destiny with Faith. She feels crowded by Faith, even “single white femaled”. Now, that’s a very strong statement if you’ve seen the movie Single White Female, and I want to explore Buffy’s reaction. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, therefore, here’s a summary which is partly me but mostly Wikipedia (hence the quotation marks):

  “Allie has recently broken up with her boyfriend and advertises for a new roommate. She eventually settles on Hedra, whom she immediately nicknames "Hedy", and they become friends. Hedy says she had a twin sister who died … After a few weeks, however, Hedy reveals her true nature: secretive, manipulative and deeply disturbed. Fearing she will be kicked out of the apartment in favor of [Allie’s boyfriend, who wants to make up with Allie], Hedy does everything possible to make [the boyfriend] look bad, even killing a puppy and making it look like it was his fault. Hedy then copies All
ie's appearance, right down her hairstyle [i.e., turning herself into Allie’s “twin”]. … [Allie] follows an unaware Hedy that night to an underground sex club, and witnesses her passing herself off as Allie. Hedy, posing as Allie, sneaks into [the boyfriend’s] hotel room and performs oral sex on him. Afterwards Hedy attempts to blackmail [the boyfriend] but he insists in telling Allie the truth. Hedy kills him by gouging his eye with her stiletto heel. As she leaves his apartment complex, the doorman mistakes her for Allie. …Hedy takes Allie captive at gunpoint and threatens to frame Allie for the boyfriend’s death. … She is about to execute Allie, when Allie pleads "don't make me leave you". Hedy is convinced that Allie has come to realize her place as a twin, and plans to run away with her, until she catches Allie making another attempt to escape. A violent fight ensues,…. The struggle ends with Allie stabbing Hedy to death. The film ends with a close-up of a photograph presumably made by Hedy of their faces superimposed into one.”

  Ok, I think we can agree that this summary exposes just how strong Buffy’s reaction actually was. The question is, why such a strong reaction? This may in part reflect Buffy’s sense of duty, but it’s also, I think, tied to the idea that she’s supposed to be “the” slayer, the one girl in all the world. Having Faith around constantly challenges that self-image, as well as reminding Buffy that she died. In addition, Faith’s self-involved, even selfish approach to life makes it hard to consider any shared activity as fair. There may be spoilerish reasons as well related to Faith’s metaphorical role. The point is that this episode raises an issue which will resonate throughout the remainder of the series (literally) in very surprising ways.

  Trivia notes: (1) Willow’s “I’m walkin’ here” when they drag her off the curb comes from the movie Midnight Cowboy. (2) The lyrics in Buffy’s dream right after the teaser match the scene perfectly: “Everything is quiet/ Since you're not around/ And I live in the numbness now/ In the background/I do the things we did before.” (3) Scott Hope asked Buffy to dance to the song “Cure”. The refrain is “you will never be the cure”. (4) “Disco Dave” – Cordy’s description of Faith’s dance partner – is a slang term for a party animal. (5) The phrase “five by five” (and yes, I deliberately made this the fifth trivia note) comes from the communications industry. (6) Faith’s statement that slaying makes her “hungry and horny” should recall Buffy’s lines at the end of Prophecy Girl: “I'm hungry. … Is anybody else hungry? … I'm really, really hungry.” (7) When Faith asked Buffy about her “toughest kill”, Buffy responded with “The Three”. She didn’t kill them, though. (8) Mr. Trick’s description of Sunnydale as the place “Where the humans are jumpin’ and the cotton is high” plays off a line from the song “Summertime”. (9) Joyce’s reference to the “Slayer Pride parade” reinforces the “coming out” associations in Becoming 2. (10) State Street, where the Buster Keaton festival is playing, is the main street in Santa Barbara, the real world Sunnydale. (11) Angel’s return is an homage to the film Terminator.

  Beauty And The Beasts

  Buffy’s shadow self/dark side has been explored in a number of episodes to date. Beauty and the Beasts examines the dark side of 3 men: Pete, Angel, and Oz. Pete’s case is the most obvious, because the story of Jekyll and Hyde – the obvious inspiration for the episode, which Willow mentions at the end – is a metaphor generally for the dark side/shadow self (or “civilized” versus “animalistic” as a specific case of the general idea). The trigger for Pete’s transformation is his potion, a fairly thinly disguised alcohol metaphor. Some literary historians argue that Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, was himself a cocaine user.

  In previous posts I’ve mentioned Jungian theory, under which it’s necessary for every person to undergo a process of “individuation”, which means coming to terms with one’s shadow. Pete obviously failed in this task, to the point where the shadow subsumed the person. Here’s how the Wikipedia article explains it; note that it uses the Jekyll and Hyde example:

  “According to Jung, the shadow sometimes overwhelms a person's actions…. 'A man who is possessed by his shadow is always standing in his own light and falling into his own traps ... living below his own level': hence, in terms of the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 'it must be Jekyll, the conscious personality, who integrates the shadow ... and not vice versa. Otherwise the conscious becomes the slave of the autonomous shadow'.”

  In stark contrast to Pete, the episode portrays Oz as someone who has previously come to terms with his wolf and controls himself voluntarily. As for Angel, at the beginning we’re uncertain because he returned in a feral state. At the end he achieves control of his inner beast through his love of Buffy. One obvious lesson is that we can now accept that it is indeed Angel who returned, not Angelus. It’s an example of the ability to be redeemed because he wants to be (to paraphrase what Giles told Buffy).

  I’ve seen a fair amount of criticism of Beauty and the Beasts on the ground that this exploration of the dark sides of these specifically male characters meant that the episode is “anti-male”. Part of this is criticism of writer Marti Noxon, and is retrospective based on things which happen in later seasons. I don’t agree with this criticism, but I can’t get into the details now because of spoilers. There’s also some criticism from the text of the episode itself which I think is also unwarranted and I want to explain why I disagree with that.

  Best I can tell, the criticism is based upon (a) Faith’s comments, particularly her statements that “all men are beasts” and that “they’re only in it for the chase”; (b) the fact that Angel and Oz do, in fact, have monsters inside them; and (c) the harsh portrayal of Pete. I’ll take these in turn.

  Whether it’s Buffy or any other literature, we should be very wary of taking the statement of a single character at face value. I can’t imagine, for example, that Shakespeare agreed with everything Iago said and did. You can’t quote Iago and say “as Shakespeare said…”. Shakespeare said no such thing; Iago, a character, did.

  When Faith makes her comment, or indeed any comment, we have to decide whether her character is telling us an intended message from the show or just something about her particular character. It seems to me pretty clear in this case that it’s only the latter. Her statement comes just before the break and immediately after we see Willow and Buffy agreeing that Faith’s statement is an unfair generalization:

  “Willow: I don't think that's true, that every guy is in it only for the chase.

  Buffy: I know. It is an awful generalization.”

  Faith’s attitude towards men is an issue that the series will explore in later episodes so I can’t say much here if I want to avoid spoilers. My point now is that we don’t have to take her word for it.

  Turning to the second point, yes it’s true that Angel and Oz have monsters inside them, but that’s not the case for every man shown on the show. Xander and Giles are obvious exceptions (I don’t count Giles’ past demon, Eyghon, as still present, nor Xander’s hyena). The overgeneralization also misses the point that Angel and Oz demonstrate that some men can control their demons. Mr. Platt makes this explicit:

  “Mr. Platt: … Everybody has demons, right?

  Buffy: (averts her eyes) Gotta say I'm with you on that. (looks down at her hands)

  Mr. Platt: Excellent. So, the hope I bring you is: demons can be fought. (Buffy looks up at him in surprise) People can change.”

  Angel and Oz may have demons inside them, but that’s not the point. The point is that they can control those demons and still be good.

  In addition to the fact that not all men are shown as “beasts”, we need to ask whether the show portrays women as entirely lacking in internal demons. Again I can’t say much about this in the future because of spoilers, but it certainly has not to date – from S1 we have Catherine Madison (Witch) and Natalie French (Teacher’s Pet); from S2 we have Ampata (Inca Mummy Girl) and Drusilla. And as I’ve emphasized several times, Cordelia has served a
metaphorical role as Buffy’s shadow self, putting Buffy in the same situation as the men here. The fact that the show has explored Buffy’s dark side makes it very unlikely that an anti-male theme was intended here.

  That leaves Pete. Yes, he’s portrayed in a very unsympathetic light, but there’s a good reason for that – it’s pretty hard to justify abuse. That’s not the only reason, though. Pete is in the episode for a particular purpose, namely to contrast him with Angel. One major point of the episode was to distinguish between 2 types of monster. Buffy has just learned that Angel has come back and she doesn't know whether he's Angel or Angelus; neither do we. Giles explains how to make the distinction:

  "Giles: ... In my experience, there are... two types of monster. The first, uh, can be redeemed, or more importantly, wants to be redeemed.

  Buffy: And the second type?

  Giles: The second is void of humanity, cannot respond to reason... or love."

  At the end of the episode we're shown exactly these two types. Debbie (unwisely) demonstrated her love for Pete by saving his life and in other ways. Pete doesn’t respond to her attempts to reason with him or to her love; he kills her. Angel is presented in explicit contrast to Pete. He breaks his chains to find Buffy, protects her from Pete, and kneels before her. In those actions he showed both that he responds to love and that he wants to be redeemed.

  I’m inclined to see Beauty and the Beasts as an episode which says redemption is possible even for the worst, if they want it. That's not "anti-male", Pete was just the example used to make the point.