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red_satin_doll) wrote2012-08-22 07:40 pm
red_satin_doll) wrote2012-08-22 07:40 pm
Entry tags:
The Joyce Summers Project: A Mother's Dying Request and Buffy's Sacrifice (The Gift)
Screencap and script quotations courtesy of Buffyworld.com
The last few weeks I've been reading a lot of LJ metas about BtVS and playing "catch up" on some fascinating conversations and insights. One of the most talked-about points in fandom is the meaning and motivation behind Buffy's decision to jump from the tower in Dawn's place in The Gift, and it generally comes down to the notion that it was both a heroic sacrifice AND a symbolic suicide, the Slayer death wish that Spike spoke of in Fool For Love writ large. This seems to be reinforced by what Buffy says to Giles at the Magic Box before they go to rescue Dawn from Glory (from the shooting script)
I sacrificed Angel to save the world. I loved him so much... but I knew. What was right. I don't have that any more. I don't understand.I don't know how to live in this world, if these are the choices, if everything's just stripped away then I don't see
the point.
But her monologue ends with this:
I just wish... I wish my mom was here.
Joyce's death earlier in the season was of course a turning point for Buffy, and therefore the entire series: the death of her beloved mother, a genuine, mundane, irreversible death that no Slayer powers could have prevented. The event would have left Buffy bereft in any case, but it also leaves her entirely responsible for her sister Dawn, and informs all of her choices for the remainder of the season.
I think this point is overlooked in the discussions about Buffy's sacrifice, or at least I haven't seen it explicitedly stated in the discussions I've read. (Granted that I'm new to Buffy fandom and make no claim of having made an exhaustive search.) The theme of "family" in season 5 is certainly well-recognized, but I've noticed that after Joyce's death she disappears from the conversations by fans as discussion focuses on Buffy and Dawn for the obvious reasons that that's the focus of the story. But Buffy's mention of her mother in her speech to Giles is a reminder, IMO, that Joyce is "gone but not forgotten".
How this plays into Buffy's motivation in The Gift, I believe, can be explicitly tied back to the episode "Listening to Fear" (5.09) and it's final scene, pictured above: Joyce confirms with Buffy the knowlege she received, a sort of a vision, that Dawn was not really her daughter, which Buffy reluctantly confirms. Joyce then asks Buffy to promise to protect Dawn: (from shooting script)
And she's important. To the world. Precious...Promise me, Buffy - if anything happens to me, if I don't come through this...No matter what she is, she still feels like my daughter, and I have to know you'll keep her safe. You'll love her like I love you.
Joyce's death does not occur for another seven episodes (technically, six) but this scene serves the function of "Joyce's dying wish", the deathbed conversation that she and Buffy never have otherwise; Buffy finds her mother's body unexpectedly at the end of I Was Made to Love You (5.15).
Throughout the series Buffy has proven herself to be someone who takes on responsibility, or has it thrown onto her, oftentimes unfairly - she's the Slayer, after all; she's responsible for saving the world (a lot) - and that is something that increasingly marks her character through the entire series as the burdens pile on one another. With each burden, she takes up a larger amount of responsibility even when she shouldn't until it nearly breaks her in S6 and she makes the opposite, but equally unhealthy choice to behave in ways that can be considered irresponsible. It's part of her arc, and something that the series works towards in it's finale (Chosen).
In S5 this theme is emphasized not only by the need to care for Joyce in her illness and then care for Dawn, both in RL terms and from Glory, in the wake of their mother's death, but earlier on in Into The Woods (5.10), when she and Riley broke off their relationship after Riley blamed her for being "emotionally closed off" and therefore making it necessary for him to seek out vampire suck jobs (to cheat on her) in order to feel "needed"; a reading that Xander agrees with. Unfortunately, the show's writers seem to as well; in any case, Buffy's attitude goes very quickly from "who's fault is that [that you can't feel what I feel for you]?" to "I'm closed off so it's all my fault, I drove him away" (Intervention, 5.18).
I don't want to get into a detailed discussion of the events of ITW here because my point is only that the fallout from her breakup with Riley, her reaction to it, feeds into Buffy's sense of personal responsibility for everyone around her. (Besides which, discussing ITW any further would lead to a gushy, frothy rant and bring forth many "feminists words of rage", to borrow a phrase from gabrielleabelle.)
The important thing here is that Buffy's promise to Joyce tends to be overlooked in any conversations about The Gift, and I think that's a mistake. After Joyce's death, Buffy fulfills her promise to the best of her ability, and not just in saving her from Glory, but literally attempting to become "Mom":
"Who's going to take of us if I don't, Dawn? Have you thought of that?" (Forever, 5.17).
She comes to see Dawn not just as her sister but "part of me" in a way that would not have been necessary had Joyce lived. The show's writers then try to literalize this, unfortunately, with the nonsensical development that Buffy's blood will do just as well as Dawn's to close the portal. (Then again, BtVS has never been really big on the sense-making; and as we all know, Joss will throw logic out the window for the big emotional effect. But the entire premise of the show "one girl in all the world etc etc" is illogical to start with, so there we are.)
I won't argue that her promise to Joyce was Buffy's primary motivation; one of the delights of the characters on BtVS is that their motivations, as in real life, are deliciously and terribly complicated. Rather I would argue that it needs to be added into the pile, so to speak, whenever Buffy's sacrifice is considered by fans.
ETA 9/8/12 "The Joyce Summers Project" added to title and tags in what I hope to be an ongoing "series" of posts looking at the role of Joyce (specifically) and the theme "Motherhood" (generally) in BtVS.
But her monologue ends with this:
I just wish... I wish my mom was here.
Joyce's death earlier in the season was of course a turning point for Buffy, and therefore the entire series: the death of her beloved mother, a genuine, mundane, irreversible death that no Slayer powers could have prevented. The event would have left Buffy bereft in any case, but it also leaves her entirely responsible for her sister Dawn, and informs all of her choices for the remainder of the season.
I think this point is overlooked in the discussions about Buffy's sacrifice, or at least I haven't seen it explicitedly stated in the discussions I've read. (Granted that I'm new to Buffy fandom and make no claim of having made an exhaustive search.) The theme of "family" in season 5 is certainly well-recognized, but I've noticed that after Joyce's death she disappears from the conversations by fans as discussion focuses on Buffy and Dawn for the obvious reasons that that's the focus of the story. But Buffy's mention of her mother in her speech to Giles is a reminder, IMO, that Joyce is "gone but not forgotten".
How this plays into Buffy's motivation in The Gift, I believe, can be explicitly tied back to the episode "Listening to Fear" (5.09) and it's final scene, pictured above: Joyce confirms with Buffy the knowlege she received, a sort of a vision, that Dawn was not really her daughter, which Buffy reluctantly confirms. Joyce then asks Buffy to promise to protect Dawn: (from shooting script)
And she's important. To the world. Precious...Promise me, Buffy - if anything happens to me, if I don't come through this...No matter what she is, she still feels like my daughter, and I have to know you'll keep her safe. You'll love her like I love you.
Joyce's death does not occur for another seven episodes (technically, six) but this scene serves the function of "Joyce's dying wish", the deathbed conversation that she and Buffy never have otherwise; Buffy finds her mother's body unexpectedly at the end of I Was Made to Love You (5.15).
Throughout the series Buffy has proven herself to be someone who takes on responsibility, or has it thrown onto her, oftentimes unfairly - she's the Slayer, after all; she's responsible for saving the world (a lot) - and that is something that increasingly marks her character through the entire series as the burdens pile on one another. With each burden, she takes up a larger amount of responsibility even when she shouldn't until it nearly breaks her in S6 and she makes the opposite, but equally unhealthy choice to behave in ways that can be considered irresponsible. It's part of her arc, and something that the series works towards in it's finale (Chosen).
In S5 this theme is emphasized not only by the need to care for Joyce in her illness and then care for Dawn, both in RL terms and from Glory, in the wake of their mother's death, but earlier on in Into The Woods (5.10), when she and Riley broke off their relationship after Riley blamed her for being "emotionally closed off" and therefore making it necessary for him to seek out vampire suck jobs (to cheat on her) in order to feel "needed"; a reading that Xander agrees with. Unfortunately, the show's writers seem to as well; in any case, Buffy's attitude goes very quickly from "who's fault is that [that you can't feel what I feel for you]?" to "I'm closed off so it's all my fault, I drove him away" (Intervention, 5.18).
I don't want to get into a detailed discussion of the events of ITW here because my point is only that the fallout from her breakup with Riley, her reaction to it, feeds into Buffy's sense of personal responsibility for everyone around her. (Besides which, discussing ITW any further would lead to a gushy, frothy rant and bring forth many "feminists words of rage", to borrow a phrase from gabrielleabelle.)
The important thing here is that Buffy's promise to Joyce tends to be overlooked in any conversations about The Gift, and I think that's a mistake. After Joyce's death, Buffy fulfills her promise to the best of her ability, and not just in saving her from Glory, but literally attempting to become "Mom":
"Who's going to take of us if I don't, Dawn? Have you thought of that?" (Forever, 5.17).
She comes to see Dawn not just as her sister but "part of me" in a way that would not have been necessary had Joyce lived. The show's writers then try to literalize this, unfortunately, with the nonsensical development that Buffy's blood will do just as well as Dawn's to close the portal. (Then again, BtVS has never been really big on the sense-making; and as we all know, Joss will throw logic out the window for the big emotional effect. But the entire premise of the show "one girl in all the world etc etc" is illogical to start with, so there we are.)
I won't argue that her promise to Joyce was Buffy's primary motivation; one of the delights of the characters on BtVS is that their motivations, as in real life, are deliciously and terribly complicated. Rather I would argue that it needs to be added into the pile, so to speak, whenever Buffy's sacrifice is considered by fans.
ETA 9/8/12 "The Joyce Summers Project" added to title and tags in what I hope to be an ongoing "series" of posts looking at the role of Joyce (specifically) and the theme "Motherhood" (generally) in BtVS.
no subject
I rewatched Him the other day (not a popular episode in fandom but very funny, and it has a lot of callbacks to all the previous seasons), and Buffy is EXTREMELY protective of Dawn - as of course she was in all the other seasons - but watching Buffy pull Dawn off the dance floor, I wondered if perhaps Buffy didn't wish that her mother had been stricter?
I don't think stricter, but I believed that Buffy wanted to be protected and cuddled. Her mother's attentions were all about Dawn, while Buffy was the "grown up", the brave one, the indipendent. But Buffy was just a girl and she also needed to be protected and cheerished by her mother.
I'm not particularly interested in Buffy as a literal mother (although the fic I mentioned was very good), as Buffy as metaphorical mother, including mother or sire of all the Slayers (including Kendra and Faith). It's interesting that they explore the issues of single motherhood through Buffy in S6, although I wish they had bothered to deal with some of those realities in earlier seasons with Joyce. So they had a lot of ground to cover in S6 and didn't quite cover it all realistically (did Hank pay child support for Dawn, for instance? Or was he a deadbeat dad by that point? I'd rather doubt it - I think he'd pay the checks and satisfy himself that he was doing his duty.) And also as a daughter of a divorced mom who had to help raise my three younger siblings (including my sister) I can identify with Buffy on that level.
I'm a very maternal person, very Tara-like, that's maybe the reason I'm so focused on the topic. Anyway, in my fic which I had already posted on LJ, *infamous self-spam* Buffy's daughter is born in a peculiar way? Let's just say that, and she's crucial to the story development. And Buffy's also the leader of the Slayers, so.
I have really no clue about Hank.
no subject
I have seen some wonderful fanfics that deal with Hank, usually AU of S6 or the summer after the Gift. It's weird that he went from distant but seemingly loving (When she was bad) to a really bad dad, which may have overplayed the "bad parent" theme of the show although there ARE parents who do that. My sister's father did that to BOTH of his daughters from both of his wives (he divorced twice.) Abandonment happens, although my sisters father was an alcoholic and very messed up. So I don't know. Maybe the writers didn't want to deal with Hank.
And I LOVE Tara in S6 - she's awesome then.
no subject
Yes, it's The Queen. And Buffy already got her daughter. As the story develops you will know her background, but also why she's so important in the general plot-line.
I've read the Barbverse, translated in Italian. It's really an amazing saga. Incredibly well-written.
I really don't know how to deal with Hank, because in the first two season he appears a bit and then total blackout. So my guess is basically: mh?
Funfact: I don't love Tara as I love Buffy or Anya, but I think I'm very similar to her, especially for her maternal side. I don't know! XD