Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Myth, Metaphor & Morality

by Field, Mark

  There are other problems as well: Where’s Darla? Luke? Jesse? What happened to the Annoying One? Was Xander vamped before the SheMantis got him? Before he became a hyena with no one around to transpossess him? Was Willow vamped before Moloch seduced her? Since Xander had no interest in Willow at that time, when and how did he and VampWillow become a couple? Why didn’t Angel die when Spike restored Dru to health? How can Xander refer to Cordy as “an old crush” when he hated her long after Buffy came to Sunnydale?

  I’m not saying that these problems are unsolvable. In any show with magic and an alternate universe, virtually anything is possible. I’m trying to explain the episode without resort to fanwanking on that scale. The way I propose to do that is to consider that the episode was told using the metaphor of a daydream, and the fact that we’re seeing a daydream necessarily means that it’s told from Cordelia’s (internal) point of view.

  Before I explain what this means and how I see it working, I need to give a hat tip to shadowkat, whom I’ve mentioned before as one of the posters at ATPO. She was the one who clued me in to the importance of point of view (POV). I don’t believe she ever used it to analyze The Wish, so anything I say here is not her fault.

  First I need to distinguish a related but different concept. When we watch a show or read a book, we necessarily interpret it through the lens of our own background and experiences. What we see may not be what the author intended. The debate about the extent to which our own interpretations are valid or even preferred over that of the author goes under the heading “authorial intent”. It’s a debate about the interpretations of people outside the confines of the show.

  That’s not the topic I’m going to talk about here, though I’ll get to it later. What I’m going to discuss here is the POV of the characters inside the confines of the show itself, for example Buffy’s POV or Xander’s.

  An important consideration in watching any TV show (or play or movie, or reading anything, for that matter) is deciding whose point of view the audience is supposed to be viewing the events through. BtVS is usually presented as third person, meaning it’s shown as if outside observers were seeing the events as they happen. But that doesn’t mean that what we see is the objective truth. As a general rule, works of literature tend to give us the story from the perspective of the protagonist – here, Buffy – no matter how “objective” the presentation may otherwise appear. We mostly see the events as she sees them, and we almost unthinkingly adopt her perspective on those events. If you have any doubts about this, just consider how the presentation might differ if told from the perspective of a vampire or demon.

  There isn’t any rule that says we have to see the fictional world through the eyes of the protagonist – we could, for example, take Xander’s view of Angel in Becoming rather than Buffy’s. But most of the time, the natural inclination will be to see the world of BtVS through Buffy’s eyes. I myself lean very strongly to this way of watching the show, and I tend to interpret the events through a Buffy-centric lens. That’s consistent with what I called in the Introduction the Central Metaphor of the show: Buffy is us and we are Buffy.

  If you’re like me and generally see the Buffyverse through Buffy’s eyes, it’s important to keep in mind that what we see isn’t necessarily objectively true (though it often is), but that it’s what appears to be true for Buffy. Thus, we may see Giles as occasionally (always?) stuffy because that’s how Buffy sees him. Similarly, we see Xander as loyal but self-righteous and judgmental, Willow as loyal and supportive, Angel as romantic, etc. All of these may be true from an objective viewpoint, but we don’t have to treat them as objectively real within the show, we just have to treat them as true for Buffy.

  Sometimes, whether in a particular scene or in an entire episode, we’ll be shown events through the perspective of another character. This is usually obvious when Buffy isn’t in the scene, but sometimes it happens even when she is. As I see it, there are at least 6 episodes in which most of the events we see are interpreted through the eyes of a supporting character. I think arguments can be made for other episodes as well, but the 6 I have in mind –The Wish, Amends, The Zeppo, Doppelgangland, A New Man, and Storyteller – are the most obvious. Those who’ve seen the show can consider these episodes, particularly The Zeppo, and it’ll be pretty obvious what I mean.

  Since The Wish is the first of these episodes, let’s talk a bit about what it means to see the world through the eyes of someone other than Buffy. One thing it means is that the episode plot tends to revolve around the supporting character rather than around Buffy. The episode may still tell us something important about Buffy, but it’s the other character who briefly takes center stage. It should be obvious that The Wish focuses very strongly on Cordy; she’s the (apparent) center of the story here.

  Another key aspect of a character POV episode is that we see the world as they do or as they would like to see it. I made this point with respect to Faith’s view of men in BatB and Spike’s view of love in discussing Lovers Walk. His attitude towards love isn’t the only one possible, so we don’t have to treat his “love isn’t brains, children, it’s blood … blood screaming inside you to work its will” speech as expressing Eternal Truth. It just tells us about Spike.

  The case of Spike in Lovers Walk is a good example of my point that there have been particular scenes in previous episodes when the show took us away from Buffy’s view and lets us see the world through the eyes of another character. Since this has been true from the beginning, I should explain why it is that I’ve waited until now to raise this point.

  There are two important reasons. One is that The Wish is the first of what I’m calling POV episodes, in which the entire episode is (or seems to be) dedicated to the POV of another character, so it’s an obvious choice. The other is, as I said above, that I believe I can solve the “message” and “continuity” problems by analyzing The Wish with consideration of POV.

  This brings us back to the point I made above regarding where Cordelia is in life at this moment. She made a courageous decision to date Xander publicly (BB&B), only to have him betray her in a painful way. Because of the social status difference between them, his betrayal is crushingly painful and makes her feel (and look) particularly foolish. She suffers the loss of the social network over which she’d previously reigned, leaving her now in a harsh, brutal social environment with no source of emotional support at a time when she really needs it. Not surprisingly, the world looks pretty bleak to her.

  And that’s what we see in the world Anyanka creates in The Wish. Harmony defers to Cordelia because that’s how Cordelia sees what “should” be true. The Cordettes look up to her again, John Lee asks her out (after rejecting her in real life), but she has the Queen C status and leaves him hanging. Then everything goes wrong. She runs into Willow and Xander, who are bloodsucking fiends and kill her as a couple because she sees their coupling (so to speak) as having sucked the life out of her in reality. Giles is well-meaning but ineffective, almost a pre-Ripper Giles. Buffy is harsh and cold, which is how Cordy sees her. Oz kills Willow because Cordy expects that he’s as angry at Willow as she is at Xander. Xander kills Angel because Cordy knows he hates Angel. In short, the WishVerse is an extended metaphor of a daydream describing Cordy’s life as she imagines it is now, albeit with a moral lesson on her part gained during the course of her reverie:

  Cordelia: Listen to me. We have to find Buffy. She'll figure out a way to save us. She was supposed to be here, and as much as it kills me to admit it... things were better when she was around.

  ***

  Cordelia: No. No! No way! I wish us into Bizarro Land, and you guys are still together?! I cannot win!

  ***

  Cordelia: (frantic) Giles! It's all my fault! I wasn't... I made this

  *stupid* wish...

  Giles: Come on. Please lie...

  Cordelia: No! You have to get Buffy. Buffy changes it. (Giles lets go of her) It wasn't like this. It was better. I mean, the clothes
alone... (Giles takes off his glasses) But people were happy. Mostly.

  If that ain't a moral, Aesop should burn his stories.

  So that’s the internal message. It’s not the only message, because we as viewers can see other ones, but it’s a message available to Cordy within the show.

  Now let me talk about the mechanics of it. I’d describe the events like this. Anyanka created the WishVerse from scratch. We can think of it as either a separately existing world or, as I’d prefer, one existing solely in Cordy’s imagination, consistent with the daydream metaphor.

  In either alternative, this WishVerse never existed before Cordy made the wish; Anyanka even characterizes it as a “brave new world”. In order to create that world, Anyanka needed information to create the inhabitants. She took that information from Cordy's view of them at the moment in time when Cordy made the wish. Thus, Cordy saw Xander and Willow as a predatory and evil couple, so that’s what they became in the WishVerse. Etc. As a result, the characters in the WishVerse do not represent objectively "real" characters in Sunnydale, but rather those characters as filtered through Cordelia's thoughts and impressions at that particular time.

  There are some objections to my reading here. One is that I can’t account for the amulet if the WishVerse exists solely in Cordy’s mind. That objection is easier to solve if we see Anyanka as having actually created the alternate universe. However, I don’t think it’s a problem either way. “Smashing the amulet” just becomes a metaphor for Cordy waking from her reverie. Our imaginations are perfectly capable of such images. In comments a number of people preferred the idea that the amulet was real. I have some responses to that, but I can’t discuss them without spoilers for later this season and for S7. I will mention them when I can do so without spoiling.

  Some people object that Cordy can’t die if it’s all in her head. But RealCordy didn’t die, only WishVerseCordy. We all are capable of imagining our own deaths and the consequences of that. One important consequence is that if the whole episode took place within Cordy’s mind, then Cordy could actually learn a lesson from it. That’s not possible if the WishVerse existed separately; once the amulet was destroyed, nobody could “remember” things which happened under its spell. Separate existence would not solve the “message” problem with the episode.

  In addition, the consequences of the amulet’s destruction are consistent with the metaphor of a daydream or fantasy. Giles says that “'In order to defeat Anyanka, one must destroy her power center. This should reverse all the wishes she's granted….” That’s what happens when our daydreams end – the world goes back to what it was before.

  There’s another potential problem which those who’ve seen the rest of S3 will recognize, but it involves spoilers so I’ll come back to it at the appropriate time. What I’d say about my interpretation is that it solves the continuity and “message” problems that are otherwise obvious given the facts we know. We don’t need to worry about what “really” happened in The Harvest or other episodes, because we aren’t seeing that “reality”. All we’re seeing is what Cordy imagines in her daydream; that’s the metaphor.

  One final point. Giles took a great leap of faith when he destroyed Anyanka’s necklace. “Buffy: You're taking an awful lot on faith here…. Giles: I have to believe in a better world.” He had no idea that the other world would be better, but he believed. Keep this in mind for the next two episodes.

  Trivia notes: (1) The episode seems based on the movie It’s A Wonderful Life. Let me just note that I think this reinforces my interpretation of the WishVerse. (2) “Tears of a Clown”, Xander’s somewhat dubious description of Cordelia in the Bronze, is a song by Smokey Robinson. (3) This is the second episode (Halloween was the other) to refer to Jo Jo the Dog-Faced Boy, a P.T. Barnum attraction. Here, Cordy says “Buffy the dog face girl”. (4) The Master asked VampXander “What news on the Rialto?” That’s from the Merchant of Venice, Act III, sc. i. (5) The Master’s question to his demonic duo -- “You killed the girl who sought the Slayer?” – has the same rhythm as the old nursery rhyme “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly”. (6) When Anyanka described the WishVerse as “brave new world” she could be referring to the novel of that title by Aldous Huxley. It’s also a reference to The Tempest, Act V, sc. i, which is where Huxley got the phrase. It’s a little unclear which reference might be meant. (7) local-max pointed out in comments that The Wish reinforces my point in Homecoming that Cordy’s role as Buffy’s shadow self has ended: “The episode also makes Cordelia's status as Buffy shadow fairly clear by having her displaced at the halfway mark within her own nightmare by Buffy. [This indicates] that there just isn't space in this tale for the two of them, and to some extent Cordelia's arc in BtVS is just to learn to get out of Buffy's way, so that Buffy can learn to behave better than Cordelia tends to.”

  Amends

  This is a long chapter. I’m going to deal first with some very important features of Amends before I discuss the issue which I’ve been saving for this episode, namely Angel’s culpability, if any, for the actions of Angelus. I’m covering a lot here and I hope I haven’t tried to do too much.

  Suicide is Painless

  I mentioned in my post on Lie to Me that Joss describes himself as an absurdist in philosophy and talked about the way existentialism influenced the story lines. For purposes of that episode I didn’t need to make any distinction between absurdism and existentialism, but now I do. The reason is that Amends raises a question which absurdists believe is fundamental: why shouldn’t one commit suicide?

  This may seem like an odd question, so let me explain how they (specifically, Albert Camus) get there. Camus starts with the proposition, which he shares in common with Jean Paul Sartre, that there is no inherent meaning in life. The universe is meaningless, therefore the human search for meaning in the universe is what Camus calls “absurd”. What he means by this is that it’s humanly impossible to find any meaning, such that the search itself is pointless: “it is absurd to continually seek meaning in life when there is none.” (Quote from link.)

  Camus’s discussion of the absurd in his most famous work, The Myth of Sisyphus (see below), begins “with an implicit reference to Sartre's novel, Nausea” (Id.). That was the novel in which Sartre explained the inherent meaninglessness of the uncaring world. In Lover’s Walk we saw Angel reading that novel, the novel Joss described as the most important book he ever read. In my view, this was no accident – it was the implicit reference which began the discussion of the issues raised by Camus. Let’s see how this plays out in the subsequent episodes.

  The next episode after Lovers Walk was The Wish. It presented us with a stark picture of a meaningless, uncaring world. That’s the world the absurdist sees. Recognizing the absurdity of the world triggers the existentialist crisis, which Angel articulated to Giles here in Amends: “I need to know why I'm here.”

  Given this crisis, that is, the recognition that the world is absurd, Camus identified 3 possible ways to react in the face of absurdity (see here). One possible solution was that proposed by the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, who is sometimes called the founder of existentialism. Kierkegaard was a devout Christian who argued that in the face of the absurdity of the world the path to one’s true self required a “leap of faith”.

  “A leap of faith, in its most commonly used meaning, is the act of believing in or accepting something intangible or unprovable, or without empirical evidence.” (Quote from link.) In essence, the idea is that you escape the bleakness of the world as it appears to be by an act of faith, even though such faith appears to be irrational. Faith “imagine[s] and live[s] for a life beyond this life.” (Quote from Camus link, above.) Faith reveals to those who have it that the apparent harshness of the world is merely an illusion. Escape from the WishVerse came when Giles took a leap of faith: “Anyanka: You trusting fool! How do you know the other world is any better than this? Giles: Because it has to be.”

  This “leap of faith” is somethi
ng Kierkegaard described in the phrase “subjectivity is the truth”. What he meant by this is that there is no objective certainty of God’s existence – we can’t prove it by reason or any other reference to the outside world. We can only believe subjectively, that is, in our own minds. I may be reading too much into this, but an additional reason I see The Wish as a reverie or a daydream is because I see it as exploring Kierkegaard’s proposed “subjectivity” solution.

  Camus, however, rejected any “leap of faith” because he was an atheist. I should emphasize that this doesn’t mean that faith can never alleviate the meaningless of the world – those who have faith do (subjectively, at least) believe that the world has meaning. But this won’t work for an atheist like Camus – Camus believed that those who accepted faith were fooling themselves. Similarly, Angel can’t really follow the path of faith because he’s a demon (“vampires aren’t that big on Christmas”). Others might find the leap of faith satisfying, but Angel can’t and neither did Camus. Since Camus couldn’t accept faith, that left two remaining logical possibilities in his mind and Joss explores those other two in Amends and the following episode, Gingerbread.

  The first of those two remaining options is suicide. Logically speaking, one can escape the absurdity of the world by ceasing to exist. Because Camus rejected faith, he had to take seriously the possibility of suicide. “There is only one really serious philosophical problem,” Camus says, “and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that.” (Quote from Camus link, above.) The real debate for Camus, and the one Joss explores here, is between suicide and option 3, which I’ll describe below.

  Camus explained his reasoning in his most famous book The Myth of Sisyphus. For those who don’t remember it, the story of Sisyphus in Greek mythology is that he was condemned by the gods to push a large stone up a hill. Just as he got to the top the stone would escape his grasp and roll back to the bottom. Sisyphus would therefore have to start all over again. For eternity.