Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Myth, Metaphor & Morality

by Field, Mark

  ROBIN No, she loved me.

  SPIKE But not enough to quit, though, was it? Not enough to walk away... for you. I'll tell you a story about a mother and son. See, like you, I loved my mother. So much so I turned her into a vampire... so we could be together forever. She said some nasty bits to me after I did that. Been weighing on me for quite some time. But you helped me figure something out. You see, unlike you, I had a mother who loved me back. When I sired her, I set loose a demon, and it tore into me, but it was the demon talking, not her. I realize that now. My mother loved me with all her heart. I was her world.

  In one of the less plausible arguments I saw at the time, a few viewers took Spike’s comment as a statement being made by the writers themselves about the worth of Nikki Wood as a mother. They then extrapolated that to claiming that the show itself was dismissive of working mothers generally, or as a sign that Spike lacked remorse for his previous actions. To be polite, both of these conclusions require a radical interpretation of the text.

  Take the issue of mothers first. The most significant problem is that the argument about the worth of mothers completely misreads the point of S7 and of LMPTM in particular, for reasons I’ll have to discuss later. I’ll just say that in an episode with this title, we shouldn’t accept at face value everything the two parents say.

  There’s another fundamental problem with this argument as well, one I discussed in my posts on Lover’s Walk and The Wish. It confuses the voice of a character with the voice of the author. It’s implausible, to say the least, that the writers were intentionally insulting mothers. We all have them; loving one’s mother is as close to a universal as there is. Nor would such an insult be likely given the context of Spike’s realization that his mother did love him. I think Spike is telling Wood, through his own experience, that he had placed the wrong interpretation on his mother’s feelings and had now realized his mistake, something Wood should do too.

  Even if we set that aside, the scene tells us more about Spike’s view of love than it does about some objective or ex cathedra view of mothers. Spike has always believed that love is consuming, overwhelming. In Lover’s Walk, he told Angel and Buffy, “You're *not* friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love till it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. (points at his temple) Love isn't brains, children, it's blood... (clasps his chest) blood screaming inside you to work its will.”

  Spike has lived this attitude from the beginning; he’s always been love’s bitch. It’s why he came to Sunnydale to cure Dru in School Hard. It’s why he was willing to kill Dru for Buffy in Crush; why he withstood torture in Intervention; and why he ultimately got his soul in Grave. For Spike, real love – true love – means the willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of the one you love. That’s what he’s done his whole life, first with his mother and then with Dru and Buffy. His epiphany at the end of LMPTM confirmed (to him, at least) that his mother had loved him the same way, the way he believed she had when he was alive, regardless of what she said.

  Spike’s comments to Wood tell us not only how Spike sees love, but also how he sees Slayers. His statements to Wood tell us that he believes that, for Slayers, “the Mission” is the most important thing in their lives. But that very fact means they can’t possibly love the way Spike understands love; no Slayer will ever let love for another interfere with “the Mission”. Spike has now adjusted himself to that world. Wood seems to accept Spike’s view of both love and Slayers, but he hasn’t yet adjusted to it, nor for the possibility that his mother might have loved him completely notwithstanding her loyalty to the Mission. Spike’s view of Slayers may or may not be true, just as his view of love may or may not apply to Slayers (or to anyone – see Buffy’s response to him in Seeing Red). Those are wholly different questions indeed.

  Whether Spike does or should show remorse is somewhat more complicated. It depends in part on how one views the soul in BtVS. As I see it, and as I explained vis-à-vis Angel in my post on Amends, the restoration of Spike’s soul makes him an essentially different person than what he was when he lacked one. Souled Spike bears no responsibility for the actions of unsouled Spike. The new Spike doesn’t need to express remorse for something “he” didn’t do. Buffy also takes this view, as she tells Wood “…you're looking for revenge on a man that doesn't exist anymore.”

  Closely connected to the question of remorse is the issue of Spike’s coat, which first came up in Get it Done. Some have pointed to the fact that Spike took Nikki’s coat back from Wood as evidence of Spike’s lack of remorse or, worse yet, as a sign that the show was validating his murder of Nikki by showing his lack of regret. This interpretation strikes me as wildly implausible for many of the same reasons noted above.

  As I said when discussing this issue in my post on GiD, I saw the coat more as Spike’s reminder to himself of what he had once been. He spent the first part of the season trying to believe that the demon was no longer a part of him, that he could simply return to being William (see, for example, his attire in Beneath You). This not only wasn’t true, it was inhibiting his personal growth. When Buffy called him on it in Get it Done, he retrieved the coat as a reminder to himself that he wasn’t “just” William, but that part of him was Spike too. Spike didn’t affirm Nikki’s death, he tied a metaphorical string around his finger so that he’d never forget his own character.

  Finally, Spike bit Wood, but pulled away without killing him even as “Early One Morning” played. That was necessary to show, beyond any doubt, that Spike himself is now in control, not the demon inside him and not the First. It was the lesson Wood needed to learn if his concerns about Spike’s trigger were anything more than rationalizations, and, more importantly, to remove Wood’s own trigger – contrary to Wood’s belief, Spike is not simply a demon any more.

  Last but hardly least we get to Buffy. What are we to make of her conversation with Giles in the cemetery and of her words to Wood when she finds him lying prostrate, failed in his vengeance plan? In part I think the episode serves as a metaphor for Buffy’s fears of how she will be perceived by Dawn – i.e., her human self – if she devotes everything to “the Mission”. She can’t resolve this yet, so we should consider the story on its face for the time being.

  The image we get of Nikki Wood, and Buffy’s actions since at least Bring On The Night, demonstrate that there’s a core of truth in Spike’s description of the Slayer to Wood. The Slayer is chosen (an object), not choosing (a subject) to fight a Mission. As the Bodyguard told Ampata in Inca Mummy Girl, “You are the Chosen One. You must die. You have no choice.” Nikki, like Buffy – like every Slayer – was forced to play a game she couldn’t win and couldn’t tie. Every slayer takes on the responsibility for the world, sacrificing her own humanity and the ties of friendship and family, in substantial part because she has no choice. We’ve seen Buffy’s life made better by her humanity, her friends, her love, but those all involve her human side. When it comes to her slayer side, in the final analysis (and that’s what we’re getting in S7) she remains alone: “You get down on me for cutting myself off, but in the end the slayer is always cut off. There's no mystical guidebook. No all-knowing council. Human rules don't apply. There's only me.” (Selfless)

  The impact of this on Buffy, over time, is devastating, just as it must have been for Nikki and every other Slayer. We can see this in Buffy’s response to Giles when he tests her resolve in the graveyard:

  GILES …Would you let this vampire live if it meant saving the world?...

  BUFFY … Giles, we had this conversation when I told you that I wouldn't sacrifice Dawn to stop Glory from destroying the world. [deontological ethics: do the right thing even if the world ends]

  GILES Ah, yes, but things are different, aren't they? After what you've been through, faced with the same choice now, (paces) you'd let her die.

  BUFFY If I had to...to save the world. Yes. …

&nb
sp; GILES … So, you really do understand the difficult decisions you'll have to make? That anyone of us is expendable in this war? … That we cannot allow any threat that would jeopardize our chances at winning?

  BUFFY Yes, I get it.”

  Now, does Buffy really mean it in her heart of hearts, or is she just telling Giles what he wants to hear? Some of both, I think. She expressed those concerns to him at the beginning:

  BUFFY

  Have you seen me with those girls? I mean, the way I've treated my friends and my family and... Andrew.

  Giles’s response, which I quoted in my discussion of his actions, was to drive Buffy to become even harder. In addition, Buffy’s sense of isolation is causing her to articulate Giles’s view. There’s also more justification for that view this time. Dawn is no longer a helpless, innocent target. She’s a fully committed participant in the fight against evil. Dying in that struggle would mean something entirely different than what it meant in The Gift.

  And yet there’s a conflict between what Buffy says to Giles now and what she told him in First Date: “you can’t beat evil by doing evil”. There’s also what she does when she realizes the real world consequence of what Giles has said: Buffy races off to save Spike. I think she instinctively knows that the battle against the First is at least partly a battle for souls. Losing Spike, after all he’s been through, would be a huge loss on that front.

  Her words to Wood at the end may seem harsh, but Wood’s in no position to complain. He betrayed Buffy – the Buffy who trusted him, worked for him, went on a date with him, brought him into her home, shared details of her life (and her friends' lives) with him, patrolled alongside him, and otherwise made him a part of the team – as she now realizes. She knows that Wood suborned Giles into his conspiracy. She’s seen how battered Spike is. She can see the nature of Wood’s “sanctuary”. What she tells him reflects both sides of her struggle: the compassion of recognizing the pain of his mother’s death; and the stark choice she offers him as General to give up his vendetta or to suffer the inevitable consequences (which she surely has no duty to protect him from).

  When she returns to the house we see her stroking Dawn’s hair to show that she loves Dawn as much as Nikki Wood loved Robin, and shutting the door in the face of Giles’s arguments. But at the same time Buffy’s statement to Wood rings true to her current mindset when she unknowingly echoes Nikki: “The Mission is what matters.” It’s the burden of the Slayer, and Spike articulated it harshly but accurately in what he said to Wood. Buffy needs to deal with this conflict by recognizing the lies her “parents” have told her; that’s what will enable her to escape the story in which she’s now trapped, and it’s the whole point of Season 7.

  Trivia notes: (1) The opening scene gives us a date of 1977, which we should remember as the year Spike killed his second Slayer as he described to Buffy in Fool For Love. Drew Goddard wrote the flashback scenes, David Fury the present day ones. (2) Giles’s concern that computers have replaced books in the library gives us another back to the beginning reference, in this case to his debate with Ms. Calendar in I Robot, You Jane. (3) Buffy complained that Spike’s trigger song wasn’t “catchy” like Pink’s “Get the Party Started”. (4) Buffy covered her near-insult of Giles by switching to using the name of the actor Yul Brenner. (5) Coughing up blood, as William’s mother did, is a typical symptom of tuberculosis. (6) William asked his mother if he should send for Dr. Gull. Dr. William Gull was a real Victorian physician. He features prominently in theories about Jack the Ripper, including a comic series by Alan Moore. It was Moore whom writer David Fury drew on for Primeval. (7) Though we don’t hear it in the dialogue, William’s mother’s name is Anne, which is Buffy’s middle name. In the DVD commentary, writer David Fury says that Carolyn Lagerfelt was cast for the role because she resembles Sarah Michelle Gellar. Oh yes, Spike has Oedipal issues; you might think back to Seeing Red and reinterpret his reaction to the attempted rape in light of his experience with his mother. (8) Andrew answered a call from Fred, meaning Winifred Burkle (spoilers at link) from AtS, which is why Andrew thought Fred “sounded effeminate”. (9) Willow left to go to Los Angeles to help Angel. See the AtS episode Orpheus. Though I didn’t mention it above in my discussion of Angel’s “trigger”, I think it’s no coincidence that Orpheus aired at the same time as LMPTM. (10) When Spike tells Wood, “I’m not much for self-reflection”, that’s a double joke. It’s true for Spike as an individual, but it’s also the case that vampires have no reflection. (11) William tells his mother, “you’re glowing”. That’s another reference to Fool For Love – “glowing” is the word for which William wanted a synonym and ended up with “effulgent”.

  Dirty Girls

  Dirty Girls re-enacts a standard horror scenario in order to take us back to the original concept of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It seems like a long time ago, but in both my Introduction and in my post on Welcome to the Hellmouth/The Harvest, I quoted Joss on the reason why he created the show. I’ll quote it again here because I think Dirty Girls brings us back to the beginning in a crucial way:

  “Where did the idea [for BtVS] come from? There’s actually an incredibly specific answer to that question. It came from watching a horror movie and seeing the typical ditzy blonde walk into a dark alley and getting killed. I just thought that I would love to see a scene where the ditzy blonde walks into a dark alley, a monster attacks her and she kicks its ass.”

  Joss didn’t mention it in the passage quoted, but the usual rule of horror genre is that the blonde girl had sex. That act made her “dirty”. Joss sets up the basic premise in the teaser to Dirty Girls, which he wrote, by introducing us to Caleb and his view that all women are dirty:

  CALEB

  Well, do you ever think that maybe they were chasing you because you're a whore?

  SHANNON

  (looks at Caleb, stunned) What?

  CALEB

  Now, I know what you're thinking. Crazy preacher man spoutin' off at the mouth about the whore of Babylon or some-such. That ain't me. I'm not here to lecture you. I mean, what's the point? (presses in his dashboard cigarette lighter) My words just curdle in your ears. Wouldn't take in a thing. (Shannon looks around nervously, looks out the window) Head's filled with so much filth there ain't no room for words of truth. Well, you know what you are, Shannon? Dirty.

  SHANNON

  (offended) What? I'm not! What're—

  CALEB

  Now, now, now. There's no blame here. You were born dirty, born without a soul. Born with that gaping maw wants to open up, suck out a man's marrow. Makes me puke to think too hard on it.

  Because in his view all women are “dirty”, Caleb feels himself justified in luring them into traps and killing them.

  Caleb is the stereotype of the crazy preacher of horror films. In fact, a good many viewers saw Caleb as too heavy-handed. While there’s some truth to that, my own view is that Nathan Fillion was excellent in the role, that Caleb’s straight out of the horror genre, and that the evil of the patriarchal subjection of women is part of the season theme (e.g., Get it Done). It’s appropriate that Caleb take this particular form because he’s also a “daddy” figure, and let’s face it – Buffy has some “daddy” issues. She had them with Hank, Angel too, and this season Giles (and Wood also, in some ways). Buffy fears rejection by those she wants to rely upon most, and Caleb is the dark side of that. Caleb’s over the top characterization is essential to drive home the point: that Buffy’s struggle now has and always has had a feminist element deliberately in order to subvert the horror stereotypes.

  We’ve watched Buffy follow Joss’s template so often over the last 7 seasons that we’ve forgotten what it’s like for her to fail. This time, though, the standard horror trope plays out. Our hero walks into a blind alley and she loses. Badly. So why would Joss replay this fundamental point here in S7? As I see it, it’s because Buffy needs to go back to the beginning and to reassess her basic principles in order to figure out just what s
he has been doing wrong. In my view, this is the most important of the several meanings Joss had in mind when he said that the theme of S7 would be “back to the beginning”.

  Why does Buffy attack Caleb? Well, he deserves it, of course. But the more direct motivation is because that’s the natural consequence of what Giles and Wood have been telling her to do all along. They’re the ones pushing for her to be the General. This does NOT mean that I think Giles or Wood is evil. They’re flawed, not evil. They’re pushing Buffy to do what they truly believe is the right thing, because an alternative is inconceivable; the limits of the existing paradigm are completely ingrained in them.

  Buffy has followed that path ever since BotN. She’s uncertain about it, as we’ve seen in her private moments, and she voices that concern here to Wood: “I don't want to lead them into war. It can't be the right thing.” Wood, however, waves away her doubts and pushes down that path just as Giles has been doing. Wood fires Counselor Buffy – her compassionate side – and urges her to “test” the Potentials, the very thing she’s doubting. “The Mission is what matters.” This is the first time she actually undertook the role, as opposed to talking about it, and her doubts could hardly have been more strongly vindicated. That’s why she’s walking the dark streets alone at the end.

  I’m not going to discuss how Buffy can solve her problem for the obvious reason that doing so would spoil the finale. I’ll just make a couple of points. First, it’s important to remember that Caleb isn’t the ultimate target. He has to be defeated before Buffy can deal with the First, just like the Ubervamp had to be defeated. But Caleb is just a stake in the hand of the First, and the stake is not the power.

  Second, most of the internet debate about this episode involved the quality of Buffy’s “Generalship” – meaning in this case her tactics, rather than, as in previous episodes, her harsh treatment of her friends and the Potentials – in the attack on the vineyard. I’ve gone back and forth about whether I should summarize those arguments. I’ve decided not to. They’re interesting in their own way, and I’m on the side which mostly defends Buffy’s tactics, but I now see the whole debate as orthogonal to the main point. I am going to discuss that main point in the next episode, so I’ll leave aside the arguments about whether Buffy is a good or bad tactician. Those debates posed the wrong questions.