More thoughts about "Anne": Buffy's depression arc (2/?)

[red_satin_doll]

Note to self: Try rewatch an episode before writing meta about it.  Because I rewatched "Anne" this morning, and it's even better than I remembered.  In fact, I can say that it and "Bargaining" are my favorite season openers. 

(Note to everyone else: I cannot get the lj cut tag to work, in either rich text or html, even after much effort.  So I apologize for this all showing up on the Friends page. I assume you still love me anyway, gentle reader.)

I mentioned yesterday that "Anne" is an encapsulation of S6's theme of Buffy's depression in a single episode. Watching it again this morning, for the first time since I finished the series, I realized that it's an encapsulation of pretty much the entire seven seasons, (And it captures pretty much everything that makes it my favorite TV show ever: humor and drama in perfect balance, wonderful character work, and a kick-ass fight scene.) 

First off, there's a lot going on in this episode, such as economic class issues, personified later in the season by Faith; and Xander and Cordy's difficult relationship, characterized by avoidance, dislike, insults and sex that masks genuine affection (shades of Buffy and Spike, anyone?) I'll talk about those in other meta posts, but for this one I want to focus on Buffy's depression arc as reflected in "Anne" and portrayed over the entire series. We tend to think of S6 (and late S5) as the "depression arc" but the show has been very careful to build that aspect of Buffy's character from the beginning of S2.

The opening scene with the Scoobies (Xander, Willow, Oz) trying to fight vampires in Buffy's absence, and botching it up (although I think they need to cut themselves some slack - half the vamps dusted is better than none, right?) will be repeated in "Bargaining": "We need Buffy".  And their reaction to her return in the next episode, Dead Man's Party, will be called back in After Life: Taking her presence for granted once she returns, failing to ask her what's going on in her head, what she's been through, or what she might really need. 

The reversal here of course is that in "Anne" she descends to a "Hell" from which she fights her way out; in the Gift she "ascends" to Heaven, only to be torn from it in "Bargaining" without her consent: 

"Anne":
(Buffy) "This isn't hell." 
(Ken) "What is Hell?  The total absence of hope."

After Life:
"Where ever I was, I think I was happy....I was finished. Complete....I think I was in Heaven. And now I'm not. I was torn out of there, pulled out by my friends....Everything here is hard, and bright, and violen. Everything I feel, everything I touch - this is hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that, knowing what I've lost. They [the Scoobies] can never know.  Never."

Buffy's monologue in AL, poignant as it may be (all praise to SMG's delivery), is summed in the single shot in "Anne" at the top of this post: despair, depression, PTSD, the sense of having lost everything: family, friends, lover, childhood innocence; exiling herself to an urban setting (L.A.) that is "hard...and violent." Even the reference to her friends' actions in Bargaining, and "They can never know [where I've been, what I've gone through]" is relevant to Becoming/Anne: Buffy never mentions Xander's lie  ("Willow said 'Kick his ass' ") and her perception that her friends abandoned her until S7's "Selfless". 

The dark, fiery setting of the underground factory is a place she returns to both physically and emotionally throughout the series.
She descends to that hell, the utter absence of hope in S5: TWOTW and The Gift; most of S6 up to Normal Again; EP and Touched in S7, finally vanquishing it physically and emotionally in Chosen.



In each instance Buffy must fight to break through her depressive state by renewing connections to her Slayer instincts and to her friends and family on her own terms. The personal (Buffy) becomes the political (the Slayer). In both "The Gift" and "Chosen" her solutions to saving the world are also motivated by a desire to protect loved ones (Dawn in The Gift) or banishing her own fears (of dying alone, in "Chosen".) It's not coincidental that in most instances, with the exception of "Touched", this is facilitated primarily by other women, especially friends and family: Lily and Joyce in "Anne", Willow in TWOTW, Dawn in "Grave", Joyce again in "Normal Again". One of BtVS's strength is that it continually affirms and values relationships between women in a way that was (and is) still relatively uncommon in US movies and tv shows. (See gabrielleabelle's meta "Women, Connecting".)  

"Touched" twists the pattern around a bit: Spike, arguably the most "androgynous" of the male characters (he and Buffy have shifted male/female role expectations fluidly, if not easily, throughout their relationship) reestablishes the emotional connection that allows her to break through and reclaim her identity and purpose. That can be interpreted positively: the male and female halves of Buffy (as well as Spike), the anima and animus, joined together in strength rather than weakness; or negatively: women will ultimately betray one another, and a woman's most important connections are with men. I'm not wanting to engage in a "Spuffy-centric" conversation here, btw; I'm just trying to parse out the writers' intended and unintended messages in the gender twist to the pattern.

Buffy then reconnects with Willow and Faith ("Good thing we're such hot chicks" / "Takes the edge off") to create the Slayer spell and connect through and with them with all the Potentials all over the world. That the spell has a some very unpleasant implications - violation of personal agency, the creation of a master race, etc - is something that has been thoroughly discussed and I'm going to put aside in-depth consideration of it for the moment - again, I'm trying to look at it only in the context of Buffy's depression arc. In this regard, however, I think local_max made an excellent point the other day that in the context of Chosen Buffy is less trangressive than Willow, and I'd argue that Buffy's affirmation of the WC's mission, spreading it outward, continuing the "war" rather than questioning, subverting or rejecting it entirely, supports his observation. In "Anne" the positive negative implications of the Slayer spell are foreshadowed in Buffy's command to a scared and reluctant Lily (a sort of proto-Potential, if you will) that she lead the other workers out of the factory: "You can handle this - because I say so". She acts as "General Buffy", commanding the troops, delegating tasks, and empowering another girl, or more precisely permission (via a verbal kick in the ass) to claim her own power; but she has also makes an assumption about the other girl's ability or willingness to do the task out of immediate practical need without prior proof that Lily can step up to the plate, and is proven only by happenstance.  (What if Lily hadn't pushed Ken off the scaffold?)

That her depressive episodes reoccur over the run of the series (and I am purposefully excluding the comics as I do not consider them head-canon, at least) indicate that simply "getting over herself" is not sufficient to solve her underlying issues.  The show's attitude towards professional therapeutic help ("Beauty and the Beasts", and "Normal Again") is a bit of a mixed bag, and I want to on more in-depth on the subject in another meta.  Suffice it to say, Buffy never receives real help, except of the bootstrap variety; no therapy - or rest - for the Slayer.

(I've got a lot more to say about "Anne": about Joyce's anger toward Giles and the WC, about Xander and Cordy's relationship, class issues, etc. To be continued....)

Comments

[kikimay]

Love your metas. <3
I think that the show gives a very realistic portrayal of depression. It's believable watching all the seasons and it's believable associated with Buffy. She develops gradually this illness, like it happens in real life, and she has this great tension to give up. Giving up for Buffy means death (She is the Slayer, she needs to fight to survive) and she has this tendency all along (When she kissed Angel she wanted to die)
I often think about her last goodbye with Angel, in S3. She just stands there, she doesn't fight. So, it's very IC for Buffy.

Random thoughts on depression and Buffy

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

User kikimay referenced to your post from Random thoughts on depression and Buffy (http://kikimay.livejournal.com/27357.html) saying: [...] at More thoughts about "Anne": Buffy's depression arc (2/?) [...]

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Buffy's mental health issues are really fascinating, and, as you say, they're there almost from the beginning. So physically strong, so emotionally fragile, our Slayer.

I try to keep track of BtVS "therapy" fics, which run the gamut from ridiculous to sublime, since it's something that IRL would be a MUCH bigger part of the story.

I never really saw Spike's comforting of Buffy in "Touched" as evidence that women will ultimately betray one another, and a woman's most important connections are with men. Partly because it's her entire support network that rejects her in "Empty Places", including Giles and Xander, so I don't see women as being the sole betrayers. Since Buffy does immediately reconnect with her "girls" it doesn't seem like an idea that lasts, anyway. (Sidebar: Dawn's betrayal is the most shocking to me. I think it's the payoff for the "Buffy won't choose you" planted back in CWDP — it's Dawn that doesn't choose Buffy, which is probably what The First wanted all along.) Spike is important to Buffy certainly, but to me it reads more as "your lover/mate/romantic partner is your most important connection". This breaks down somewhat more obviously in "Grave", when it's Xander that saves Willow after the death of her lover almost destroys her.

I know people have trouble with the "violation of personal agency" in the "Chosen" spell, but I think that was very much an unintended consequence. In "Bring On the Night" Giles says:

Potential Slayers. Waiting for one to be called. There were many more like them, all over the world. Now there's only a handful - and they're all on their way to Sunnydale.

To me, this implies that the Scoobies' good faith assumption was that they had ALL the potentials on site, and that those WERE consulted and had given informed consent to the activation spell. They were wrong, of course...but isn't that the way of all good intentions?

I've wandered far from your main points about Buffy's depression, however. And they are good ones.

[ever-neutral.livejournal.com]

Wow, I haven't seen this episode in years and years and to be totally honest, I don't think it made a huge impression on me the first time? But you're making me think I should have a good rewatch.

Of course, I appreciate all your insights into Buffy's depression arc. Reasons why favourite arc possibly ever.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

We tend to think of S6 (and late S5) as the "depression arc" but the show has been very careful to build that aspect of Buffy's character from the beginning of S2.

Great catch. There's definitely shades of it from the very beginning, but yeah, "Anne" is where it's allowed to come to the fore for the first time. That soup scene is just heartbreaking.

The juxtaposition of "Anne" and "After Life" is interesting. Quick thought - depending on your definition of "hope", the Buffyverse heaven doesn't seem to offer that anymore than hell does. It offers escape, not having to think about things you're no longer a part of, but strictly speaking it doesn't offer hope that things might get better - just acceptance.

Lily (a sort of proto-Potential, if you will)

I will, and I will add that the very last episode of Angel

lets Lily/Anne reappear to specifically take on the (positive side of the) "Buffy" role; training and inspiring others, continuing the war even in the face of overwhelming odds, snarking at anyone who tells her she should just give up already.

BUFFY: I'm Buffy. The Vampire Slayer. And you are...? (...) Anyone who's not having fun here, follow me.

ANNE: I'd get this truck packed before the new stuff gets here. Wanna give me a hand?

(Of course, Anne also ends up basically dedicating her life to the struggle - all we know about her life is that her office has a mattress.)

[readerjane]

(simply "getting over herself" is not sufficient to solve her underlying issues)

Yes. One of the things I like best about the way Buffy (the character) is written is that her depression is not just a temporary plot device: Buffy has the blues, Buffy pulls up her bootstraps and gets over it.

Instead, it's an integral part of her personality that she has to deal with long-term. And sometimes she doesn't deal with it very well, while sometimes she does. And even though she has a LOT to be depressed about, the dreadful events of her life are not the sole cause of her depression: it's a part of her, and something to be handled along with and simultaneously with the annual apocalypse.

I also like the way Buffy's family: biological, chosen and mystically created, makes her unique among Slayers. Isn't there a moment on AtS where someone points out to Angel that if he stops caring about particular humans he'll lose his reasons for saving humanity in general? We see what would happen to a Buffy divorced from family in The Wish. Even when one is called to general heroism, it's the particular bonds that provide the reasons.

Have you seen Mark Fields' meta? I think of him as the Other Mark - he doesn't seem to be as well-known as MarkWatches. I think you'd enjoy MF.

Looking forward to your next meta!

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

So, all of my thoughts have been well and truly covered by all the really eloquent minds up thread - damn that's some good analysis, but I just want to say YES.

I think Buffy's depression is only really taken note of during the issue-ridden arc in S6, but we're told constantly that Buffy has a problem. "Anne" is just one example.

And the thing is, it's a very honest way of doing things. Depression never really leaves, it takes respite, it can seem to disappear from time to time, but unless you get help it'll keep snapping at your toes until you let it swallow you. And it'll do it, again and again.

Plus, SMG portrays the desolation so well, whether it's the broken loneliness (my God can that woman cry), the hardened warrior, the self-hatred (WAY, as Faith, springs to mind).

I think I have a soft-spot for Anne, because I felt much the same when I got ill, around Buffy's age, and all but had to drop out of school. I spent so much time at home, away from everything I knew (and everyone), I felt myself sink further and further into a kind of shell and just kind of hoped I could disappear. I was waiting for the world to forget me and leave me alone to wallow. For someone with chronic, constant pain, I don't think I'd ever felt so numb.

So I relate to Buffy in "Anne" more than I think I have anyone else, fictional or otherwise. Then, in S6, I completely understand her using Spike to feel something, anything. Because I think depression is that destructive. That's a lie, I KNOW it's that destructive, and it made me do things I can barely understand, or conceive of now, just to break through the fog of nothingness.

A wonderful meta - what do you mean you wish you'd done it better? This is pretty succinct and well-informed, well written. It's pretty great as is, Honey!