Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Myth, Metaphor & Morality

by Field, Mark

  “BUFFY: … I'm just ... starting to feel ... uneasy about stuff.

  GILES: Stuff?

  BUFFY: Training. Slaying. All of it. It's just ... I mean ... I can beat up the demons until the cows come home. And then I can beat up the cows ... but I'm not sure I like what it's doing to me.

  GILES: But you've mastered so much. I mean, your strength and resilience alone-

  BUFFY: Yeah. Strength, resilience ... those are all words for hardness. (pause) I'm starting to feel like ... being the Slayer is turning me into stone….

  BUFFY: I don't know. To slay, to kill ... i-it means being hard on the inside. Maybe being the perfect Slayer means being too hard to love at all.”

  The parallel to Glory becomes obvious with her first words after the teaser: “GLORY: (annoyed) He's getting stronger. I'm losing him, I'm losing control of him.”

  In short, Buffy has recognized that, like Ethan Edwards in The Searchers, she risks becoming what she hates. In the words of the Spirit Guide, she’s “afraid that being the Slayer means losing [her] humanity.” We’ve come full circle back to her conversation with Giles in Buffy v. Dracula. To put this in terms of the metaphor of slaying as growing up, I’d say that Buffy feels that the steps she has needed to take to become an adult make her hard, cold, and unfeeling.

  Her concern had to be reinforced by the failure of her friends to recognize that Spike’s sex toy wasn’t actually her. Contrast this to the immediate reaction they had to April in IWMTLY:

  BUFFY: So, what do you guys think she is? I mean, this may sound nuts, but I kinda got the impression that she was a-

  TARA: Robot.

  Everyone nods in complete agreement.

  The Spirit Guide reassures Buffy that she still has the capacity to love and tells her that it’s that love which will lead her to her gift. There’s some doubt that Buffy believes this – even when she returns from the desert she learns that it’s gotten so bad that her friends can’t tell her apart from a robot. And the Delphic nature of the Spirit Guide’s advice still leaves a last challenge for Buffy to solve her dilemma in the finale.

  While I personally have a very Buffy-centric view of the show, I can’t ignore the debates about Spike which were a constant on the internet by this point. Before this episode, Spike’s attempts to ingratiate himself with Buffy were mostly pathetic. You could feel for him, but only because he had no chance. Viewers who were skeptical of Spike regularly accused him of selfishness in his “good deeds” because those came across as fairly transparent attempts to attract Buffy’s attention rather than as internally motivated. I find it very hard to argue for any such motivation in Intervention. If he did hold out from Glory’s torture in an attempt to impress Buffy, he did so at the risk of his own (un)life. That would pretty much defeat the purpose of impressing the girl.

  Still, there were those who did make that argument. Here’s part of a debate I had with another AtPO poster, Random, in 2004:

  Random: “Buffy notes: "What you did, for me, and Dawn ... that was real." Unfortunately, she obviously wasn't paying close enough attention...he never said he did it for Dawn. He didn't. Nor did he do it for the sake of the world at large. There's not really that much confusion here. He was quite clear on his motivations, and they were based on love...but a selfish love nonetheless. It was a dramatic scene, but not essentially different from him risking his unlife battling the forces of darkness by her side or impulsively charging a Hellgod and getting bitchslapped for his troubles. Eros is not just the basic act of sex, after all. Certainly it most often manifests as sexual drive …. But it essentially describes desire [my note: this is a very Nietzschean way of looking at eros] . …. Spike had a clear understanding of exactly what would happen to the object of his eros if he gave up Dawn. He almost certainly knew what would happen to him two seconds after he gave Glory what she wanted. So he acted accordingly and worked to escape. The episode made obvious that the whole "loosened chains/kicked by a Hellgod and sent flying" thing wasn't entirely unplanned. I tend to look at the events of Intervention as a variant of those of Becoming -- Spike being love's bitch and acting accordingly. Certainly, there is a little more overt nobility and less overt pragmatic self-interest in the former, but the basic impulse is the same.”

  Sophist: “I think you need to account for this dialogue from the previous episode (Forever):

  Dawn: You don't have to be all nice to me. I know why you're doing this.

  Spike: Do you now? Enlighten me.

  Dawn: (frowns, stops walking) Spike, I'm not stupid. You're, like, stalking my sister. (Spike stops, turns to look at her) You'd do anything to get in good with her.

  Spike: (takes a few steps closer; firmly) Buffy never hears about this, okay? (looks around) Found out what I was doing, she'd drive a redwood through my chest.

  Dawn: Then, if you don't want credit, why are you helping me?

  Spike: (looking at the ground, quietly) I just don't like to see Summers women take it so hard on the chin, is all. (looks up, speaks angrily) And I'm dead serious. You breathe a word of this to Buffy, I'll see to it that *you* end up in the ground. Got it?

  Dawn: Yeah. Got it.

  I think Spike's behavior with Glory is more complex than your post makes it out. Sure he knew Glory probably would kill him once he told. But at the same time, she eventually would kill him if he did NOT tell her. His best option, then, was to cooperate with her from the beginning and try to ingratiate himself with Glory like he did with Adam. But he didn't.”

  As for what Spike’s behavior said about him as a moral agent, I’ll let Finn MacCool and manwitch set out the grounds of debate:

  Manwitch: “In Intervention it’s an act of will on Spike's part for basically altruistic reasons. And when he does it, he has no reason to believe anyone will ever know what he did.

  … I think good behavior and its consequences can come from all kinds of motivation and still be good. Just like evil can still be derived from good intentions and just and honest motivations.”

  Finn: “I wouldn't call what Spike did in "Intervention" altruistic. Yes, he never expected to get anywhere with Buffy by not telling Glory about Dawn. However, part of loving someone is a desire for their happiness, and Spike knew that giving Glory the info would lead to Buffy being immensely unhappy or even dead. Now, if Dawn weren't the Key, if some random stranger on the street that Spike happened to know about were the Key, then Spike would be altruistic for keeping hush hush. I guess I just don't see looking out for the welfare of someone you love but no one else's doesn't strike me as altruistic.

  P.S. Yes, good deeds done for selfish reasons are still good deeds, but that doesn't necessarily make the person who does them a good person.”

  Manwitch: “Well this is that whole Kantian/Cartesian idea that the action is separate from the actor. You have the deed and you have the doer. Does the quality of the deed determine the quality of the doer? or does the quality of the doer determine the quality of the deed? or is there no relationship between the qualities of deed and doer?

  Nietzsche says there is only the deed. I lean that way myself. What does it mean to have a "good" person, independent of their action?

  altruism Regard for others as a principle of action; unselfishness

  I suggest that Spike showed regard for others, as in other than himself, in giving his comfort, health and life for Buffy, especially given that supposedly as a soulless fiend, he had no reason for making such a sacrifice. Spike's love, at that moment, was a sacrifice of self, as love should be. That's why it’s a turning point for Buffy. It’s no longer the obsessive stalking predatory love that Spike typically displays. It is, as she says, "real." Spike was ready to die, with no one knowing why, no one knowing that he had done what he did, simply for care of someone else. That seems altruistic to me. I think we're just emphasizing different aspects of the word.”

  As you can tell from my quoted passage above, I’m with Buffy -- what Spike did in Intervention, that was real.

>   Trivia notes: (1) For an explanation of the hokey-pokey, see the link. (2) The language Giles spoke during the ritual was Swahili. (3) Buffy’s greeting to the mountain lion – “Hello kitty” – refers to the Japanese Sanrio character. (4) Buffy recognized the desert landscape because it’s the same as that in Buffy’s dream in Restless. (5) When Dawn took Anya’s earrings, a really obsessive viewer (ahem) might remember this scene from Becoming 1: “Buffy: (worried) You're not from Bullock's, are you? 'Cause I-I meant to pay for that lipstick.” Dawn’s seemingly trivial action sets up a plot point for S6. (6) Xander asked RobotBuffy about her “Vision Quest”, referring to the 1985 movie of that name. (7) It’s understandable that Willow would get upset about the Salem Witch Trials. (8) Willow’s “less Satanic than thou” description of the Salem judges plays off the phrase “holier than thou”. (9) The First Slayer told Buffy “Death is your gift.” Compare this to Spike’s statement in Fool For Love: “Death is your art.” (10) Spike’s claim to be as “impure as the driven yellow snow” plays off the phrase “pure as the driven snow”. The latter means something very pure; snow is only yellow when someone pees on it. (11) Glory questions whether Spike is “precious”, perhaps a reference to Gollum in Lord of the Rings. Remember that Joyce referred to Dawn – the actual key – as “precious” in Listening to Fear, and that Quentin told Buffy to protect the dummy “as if it were precious” in Checkpoint. (12) Willow’s and Xander’s discussion of the previous “intervention” with Buffy refers to the S3 episode Revelations. (13) Anya refers to Buffy as being in “denial. That usually comes before anger.” The reference is Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and the Stages of Grief. (14) Buffy killed the “key-sniffing snake” in Shadow. I believe the mention of this fact in Intervention is related to the subtle clue I mentioned in my notes on Forever. (15) The Price is Right was a long-running game show which originally appeared in 1956. Bob Barker was the host of the show for 25 years, and for 25 years before that of the show Truth or Consequences. He’s still alive, which probably means he actually is older than dirt.

  Tough Love

  Who’s the object of Tough Love in this episode? One obvious answer is Dawn, given Buffy’s treatment of her. Or maybe it’s Ben getting the advice to “take responsibility”. Perhaps it refers to the fight between Willow and Tara. It could mean any or all of these, but in my view the title refers to Buffy.

  The teaser usually gives us a clue, and in this case the clue comes from Ben talking to his evil half right after getting that “tough love” advice:

  BEN: This is so unfair. You're taking everything away from me. Everything I worked for, I earned, I care about. These are my choices, this is my life, and you're ruining it!

  Later on we see Buffy make the same complaint right after Giles refuses to help her:

  BUFFY: I can't do it, Will. Don't worry. It's not like I don't have a life. I do. I have Dawn's life.

  The connection appears right in the teaser. Buffy says “when I’m more myself again” and we segue to Ben trying to explain why he’s been gone for 2 weeks and then turning into Glory. I think that’s emphasized when the doctor tells Ben to “take responsibility”. That’s not just a theme of this episode, it’s a theme for the entire show.

  It seems harsh for Giles to tell Buffy that she’s the one who must deal with Dawn given Joyce’s recent death, but it’s just what he should say in light of Dawn’s metaphorical role: “I may be a grownup, but you're her family. Her only real family now. She needs you to do this.”

  It also fits the “growing up” theme – Buffy has to learn to take on an adult’s role: “She needs me. (Giles looks sympathetic) Me, the ... grownup. (more confidently) The authority figure. The, the strong guiding hand and, and stompy foot that is me.” Buffy no longer has Riley or Joyce or Giles to fall back on. The first two are gone and Giles just told her she’s on her own. That’s what it feels like when we become adults – that we’re all on our own. That’s both true and not true, for Buffy and for us, but Giles’s refusal to get in the middle of Buffy’s relationship with Dawn is consistent with the sense of loneliness which accompanies adulthood. Metaphor and storyline fuse together seamlessly here.

  Buffy’s situation should call to mind this dialogue from the S2 episode Bad Eggs:

  “Buffy: I'll just lay that one off on my partner. (looks up, worried) Who'd I get?

  Willow: Well, there were an uneven number of students, and you didn't show, so...

  Buffy: (in shocked disbelief) I'm a single mother?

  Xander: (nods) No man of her own.

  Buffy: Do you know what this says about me? That I am doomed to lead my mother's life! (paces back to them) How deeply scary is that?”

  I think Tara’s behavior in the face of Glory’s threats reflects how Buffy treated her in Family. Before Family, Tara was concerned that she was an outsider, that she didn’t fit in. I think it’s also notable that Glory confuses Tara for Dawn, reinforcing the way the two were equated prior to Family. Tara’s courage now is, IMO, born in part of the love she got from Buffy and Dawn and can now reciprocate. That courage is all the more impressive because Tara made clear her horror of brain sucking in Blood Ties:

  “TARA: She, she, she's a brain-sucker? (Willow and Tara exchange a look)

  GILES: She, um ... (leans over to read from book) "absorbs the energies that bind the human mind into a cohesive whole." Once drained, all that's left behind is, uh-

  BUFFY: Crazy people.

  GILES: (pouring more tea) Which is, I'm afraid, why there's been a marked increase in the ranks of the mentally unstable here in Sunnydale.

  TARA: At least vampires just kill you.”

  Note the way the magic/lesbian metaphor plays back and forth in the argument between Tara and Willow. They might seem to be talking about magic, and then Willow says no, this is about being a lesbian, but it’s really all the same – part in metaphor, part in “real” terms.

  Willow’s reaction to Glory’s assault on Tara reminded me of Giles’s in Passion. I can’t say either one is very sensible, but I’m kinda with Spike on this: “I’d do it.” The important thing to take away from Willow’s attempted revenge is somewhat subtle and I missed it the first time: her eyes turned black, like Doc’s did in Forever. That’s a sign, not only of Willow’s anger, but of the nature of the forces she invoked.

  As Buffy’s metaphorical spirit, Willow expresses Buffy’s helpless rage at Glory. Whether the violence was cathartic or whether Willow just recovered, the ending shows that Willow reached a point where she could recognize that others could understand her pain even if they hadn’t personally experienced it. Buffy first told Willow that she couldn’t understand: “Look, Willow, I know that you mean well, but you just don't understand, and there's no way that you could.” Then Tara said it: “I mean, you can't really know what it's like to-“ But at the end, Willow acknowledges Buffy’s ability to understand: “BUFFY: I understand. WILLOW: (nods) I know you do.” That’s a way for Buffy to understand the point too.

  Trivia notes: (1) The phrase “tough love” was apparently coined in 1968. (2) When the senior doctor sarcastically suggests that Ben disappeared as a result of eating Twinkies, that refers to the “Twinkie defense”. (3) Glory’s phrase “pardon my French” is an American idiom meaning “excuse me for swearing”. (4) When Xander tells Anya “a watched customer never buys”, he’s playing off the old saying that “a watched pot never boils”. (5) When Xander refers to Dawn as “Dawn Giovanni”, he’s making a joking reference to Don Giovanni. (6) Buffy’s litany of rules for Dawn includes Ben Franklin’s saying “early to bed, early to rise [makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise]”. (7) “Hospital corners” refers to making one’s bed with the sheets folded perfectly. (8) Willow’s reference to Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary for Girls is a reference to the book The Little Princess. (9) Willow’s spell invokes Kali, Hera, Kronos and Cassiel.

  Spiral

  Spiral makes explicit the full implications of The Replacement. We’ve kno
wn since Blood Ties that Ben and Glory share the same body, but the consequences weren’t spelled out until now. Since Glory and Ben share the same body, they can’t exist apart from each other: “Kill the man and the god dies”. In case it’s not obvious, I’ll state unequivocally the choices Gregor presents to Buffy: kill Ben to destroy Glory (though when he says this the characters themselves don’t know that Ben is Glory); or kill Dawn to save the world from Glory. You should be thinking about these choices and the moral issues they raise as we move towards the finale.

  As long as we’re at it, there’s no reason to limit the moral issues to Buffy. What’s Ben’s ethical obligation? If you were in his shoes, would you feel obligated to commit suicide to prevent Glory from going back home? And if you think Ben has the obligation to save the world by destroying himself, what then would you say of Dawn? If either or both have the obligation to destroy themselves, is it therefore Buffy’s obligation to help them?

  I’m deliberately stalling on Buffy’s choices and on the issues raised by Ben and Dawn because I’ll get to them in the next two episodes. The beliefs of the Knights raise a related point, though, which I do want to explore here.

  The Knights offer essentially two reasons for attempting to kill Dawn: the Key is too dangerous; and “such is the will of God”. It’s the latter justification which raises a deep philosophical problem.

  Any system of morality based on belief in a divine being has two possible ways to explain moral actions:

  1. The act is good in itself and can be justified by moral reasoning such as deontological ethics (as discussed in previous posts on Choices and Listening to Fear). Systems of morality which don’t rely on belief in divinity are limited to moral reasoning in order to explain “good” and “bad”.