| That's My Take | |||||||||
| My thoughts on the subject of Buffy & Angel |
(All of this is not in chronological order, rather most recent order. Each All CAPS heading is a section. The start of the furthest down is the stuff written right after I viewed the finale) TYING STUFF TOGETHER I don't know if I can write this up in full today, I'll do part. "Restless" makes a hell of a lot more sense now. Everything. & "Intervention" does too. Short version: Buffy thought from her dream experience with the First Slayer that being the slayer meant losing her humanity. But, it didn't. See, the slayer as she is today is human. & Buffy had a strong & good human side. She was full of love, like her guide told her in "Intervention", but what "Restless" was about was what Buffy has become now. The ritual only needed Dawn, who was created as a duplicate of Buffy's human-side, that was absent of the slayer. So, whereas Buffy thought that the natural progression of the slayer was to be a killer, instead, what everything really was about, was now when Buffy's lost her humanity & all that's left is the slayer. That dark, absolute, alone killer. Buffy was full of love. The fighter strong in her, aided by her calling as the slayer. Not everyone could do what Buffy has done as a slayer because no slayer has ever been Buffy. It was her humanity, her love, her strength that made her great. But, in order to save Dawn & to give her human-side the gift of life, she sacrificed her humanity & now she's just the slayer which, just being what it is, does not have those qualities that were Buffy. So, the thing that will have Buffy's body, will not be Buffy. She'll completely be Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. I think Joss wanted to end after 5 seasons. & I think he started planning Buffy's death. & then that brilliant, crazy mind of his started thinking about what happens next. & then he started thinking about the slayer. What it is. & still kept his plans to kill Buffy after 5 seasons. But he had more story to tell. He could do another 2 seasons of what he's already done. The same concepts, which, look back, they were all about who Buffy, the person, was. Or, he could explore something else. Make no mistakes. Buffy is dead. Who we love as Buffy is dead. But, she lives on in Dawn & that's the bright spot. But, Sarah Michelle Gellar as the Buffy we know is dead. In "Beer Bad", cave-Buffy saved people in a fire. She wasn't so far gone into the primordial as to not have that sense of a righteousness. & that's because she was still Buffy. That humanity still in there. It's not going to be like that from sixth season on. Buffy's dead. I know this, but I don't know where Joss is going from this point. Buffy was what kept Buffy alive. Her friends, her ties to the world. We know that. They've been building up to this for a while, the death of Buffy. Just look over 5th season. She was growing very weary. She'd lost too many things. No one should have to... But, people have to. Because that's what life is. No, Joss, I really don't know where you're going with this. I wanted to say something about Ben. Giles actually said that Ben & him weren't heroes. I thought he said they were both killers, but, um, yeah, that was a completely accurate statement. If Ben were a hero, he would have saved Dawn, he wouldn't have made a deal with Glory, he would have killed himself to kill the Beast. It must be said, & I think it's an important concept, that killing Ben wasn't right, but it's what had to be done. & I think this ties into the concept of what Buffy (you will see) has become. Buffy would do the right thing, whereas the new Buffy would do what has to be done. I have to explain this a little more, what I'm thinking Buffy will be like. I'm not exactly sure. I'm sure of what she's lost, but, what I think she will become isn't a grunting, shroad-wearing killer, but what the First Slayer is, that's what Buffy will be at heart, forgive the pun. She'll be alive. She'll talk, she'll wear normal clothes, she'll interact with Giles, Willow, Xander, & everyone, but, all that feeling will be gone. It's like she's there but no one's home. Everyone whose loved her, they loved her humanity. I don't know who would... I don't know what she'll be like exactly. A modernized version of The First Slayer? Cold & hard. The Scoobies, they might not want her back. Maybe it's better for them to remember Buffy as what she was. Better than having her back. But the world needs a slayer. I'm just not so sure she'll do what a slayer should do for the world.... which gives me an interesting thought. Joss could explore what the Watcher's Council is. How they came about. The First Slayer, Giles said, never had a watcher... So perhaps the slayer in its purest form, if it were trained & civilized... but, still, Buffy would be gone from it. It's really over, guys. It's not, but, it is in a lot of ways. & I don't know where Joss is going with this. You cut the ties, she's dead. Like all the other slayers. ADDED STUFF (BELOW STUFF IS STILL IT, & JOSS CONFIRMED "Buffy will be black") Doc's watch kinda looked like it said 6:30, but, it blurry & small & hard to make out. Odds are, it did say 7:30. Dawn is little Miss Muffet, of course. Little Miss Muffet Counting Down from 730. More accurately, little Miss Muffet dripping down starting at 730. Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet (Glory said "someone's gonna sit on their tuffet & make this birthing stop, so it means that's when the key activated) Eating her curds & whey (eating away the barriers between dimensions) Down (or is it along) came a spider (Buffy) & sat down beside her (took her place) & frightened Miss Muffet away (stopped the key from fulfilling what it's for). The other mysteries: Big brother, that has something to do with Buffy's heart. That's what she's lost, that's what has died. That & all the slayer stuff, that's next season material. "Restless"- clock says 7:30 AM. Buffy- "It's so late". Tara- "That clocks completely wrong, here (the hand card)". Buffy- "I'm never gonna use those". She's never gonna use those on Dawn. She won't use the slayer's, the killer's hand on Dawn. Or anyone. Tara- "You think you know, what you are, what's to come, you haven't even begun." You think you're not a killer, but you don't know what's ahead. You don't know how you're going to change, what you will become. Your humanity, that thing that keeps you from being just a killer... you think you know what you are, but, you haven't even begun to realize it. Okay, I do have time to go into the "Restless" stuff. Big brother. Buffy was in the sandbox, looking oddly childish. Then she called Xander big brother. This could be Buffy's humanity, in other words, Dawn. Xander is the only one of them besides Giles who could take care of (Just had a thought, with Buffy gone, Giles would most definitely head for England) Dawn- he has a job & he already told Buffy she could depend on him financially. So Xander, maybe with Anya as his wife, could take in Dawn. So he'd be like her big brother. Giles' dream. Buffy childish again, Giles training her as a child. Clay on face. "I know you". You're Buffy, but where's Buffy gone? Then Olivia crying with the baby carriage- Giles' child dead. Buffy having died, becoming that primordial thing. & of course the "you think you know what you are" thing. The big desert scene makes more sense now. Buffy does walk in this world- & a lot- but, "you're not the source of me". Then, she wasn't, but, she is now. I TOTALLY FIGURED IT OUT: I watched it in slow-mo. Buffy leapt into the portal & it closed up with her in it- nothing fell out. Dawn was Buffy's human side. Buffy grew numb from the slaying & lost some of it, but, still, Dawn was created from Buffy's humanity. I know that Buffy really gave herself the chance to live a normal, non-slayer life in sacrificing herself for Dawn. & I think what happened is, all Buffy really sacrificed were the parts of her that are in Dawn. Everything else lived. But that part of Buffy got sucked into the portal. Where it went, ? Trapped in-between dimensions or in some random dimension or in Glory's hell. Point is, she'll come back, but she won't be the same. She'll have lost everything that's in her that Dawn has. Overall, this episode was beautiful. An absolutely breathtaking & heartbreaking tribute to Buffy herself. It was a fitting ending in every way to Buffy- her love, her light. What's left, I do believe, is the slayer. "You think you know, what you are, what's to come, you haven't even begun." What I'm thinking is, mostly based on "Restless": Giles had to kill Ben cause Buffy couldn't do it, I'm saying, when Buffy gets back, what's left of Buffy now- Giles wouldn't have to. "I thought you were looking for your friends. Okay, killer, I guess you're on your own." That's why it was especially important for Buffy to tell Dawn to "live", because, Buffy totally got it, she said she figured it out & that she'd be okay. Buffy knew that she would be killing the parts of her that were in Dawn- & nothing else. & she wanted Dawn to live, not just because Dawn was the part of Buffy that never became the slayer, what Buffy would have become had she not been called to be the slayer, but, also because Dawn would be the only part of Buffy left with that humanity in it. Buffy's last words were "live for me" & she meant just that. & when she asked Dawn to take care of everyone, that's because she knew that maybe she wouldn't care about those friends in whatever state she would become. Buffy, who we know as Buffy, really did die. But, Buffy's humanity is still alive in Dawn. Buffy giving up her humanity & becoming like the First Slayer to save Dawn is something I have theorized in TMT for a very long time, but, I didn't ever think it would happen like this. I thought she'd have to do it to fight Glory so she could save Dawn. It couldn't have happened in a more dramatic way. Joss, you kicked ass. I think Giles was right about Ben. He was a killer. If Buffy knew that that was in her, she would kill herself. & in that way, even though it's not fair to Ben just as being the slayer & all Buffy has to sacrifice isn't fair, he's still a killer because he could have stopped it. Ya know what? I think we do know what 730 was. It was the time in which Dawn was to be used after all. Cause, it's hard to tell, but I'd say I'm 50% sure that Doc's clock said 7:30 on it, & that would AM, just like in "Restless". Just before sunrise. Of course, I don't know about California, but here in Florida, I missed sunrise about an hour and a half ago & it's 7:04 AM now. I think Anya's crippled. I think Doc is an old evil. He said he killed Spike. We know the line of how Spike became a vampire, who actually killed human Spike. Could this mean that Doc is the source of even the Master? WHAT I THOUGHT BEFORE I TOTALLY FIGURED IT OUT: First, I'm gonna tell you something just to ease your mind before you read what I have to say. I have it on tape. I watched it in slow-mo. Buffy jumped into the portal & it closed up with her in it. & nothing fell out. Her body was found dead on the ground, but, Buffy didn't fall. The portal closed up with her in it & she never fell. I don't know what did. I'll discuss how much I don't know later. Did I ever tell TMT readers about how I came up with the name The Buffy Source? Okay, well, I loved 'Buffy' from the moment I saw it. I instantly knew that it was something special. We're using the word obsessed for what I soon became. I taped every episode. I watched each one like a dozen times. But I was alone in my love for it. I wasn't hooked up to the internet. I didn't know how many people like me there were out there. How many people kept up with the Buffy world. One day I met a girl who loved 'Buffy' just like I did. Only she had the internet. & she was religious about getting Buffy news, spoilers, upcoming episode titles. & every time I would talk to her & then talk to other friends of mine that casually liked the show, I would always say that I had just talked to my Buffy Source. When I got the Internet, I was in heaven. I surfed on hundreds of sites in about a week. Yeah, I mentioned the word obsessed already. & then it hit me that I knew a lot about the show & that I loved it & I wanted others to know of my love for it, of how high I deemed it, & I wanted to somehow, some way give something back to Joss, for what he had given me. There was only one name I could call it. If I haven't said it in so many words, Joss Whedon, if you're out there, thank you. Now on to "The Gift". I know I didn't get it. I know I might not get it on my own. I know that probably 4 months from now when the new season airs, that's when I'll know what it all means. All I can share with you is, perhaps to point out some things. The show's not over. This I know. Not that I couldn't conceive Mastermind Joss putting together a massive UPN/WB/Fox conspiracy to make us think that it wasn't the show's end, so we wouldn't suspect that Buffy would die, but, because the plot isn't over yet. We don't know what 730 is. Not for certain. No one said it. I'm not gonna claim that it was 2 years or the time when the Key could be used. No one said it. Big brother, nothing said about it. & then there's the holes. Spike said it all. I don't get it, but I know it's it. What he said about the blood. He said blood made you warm, made you hard. Made you (it was something like) not dead (He was talking about being a vampire there, but it could have been more. The hard thing was odd). When Buffy leapt she said that she would be okay, that she'd figured it out. I haven't figured it out, but I know it has something to do with the first slayer. & what the slayer is. When Buffy said that Dawn was her. I had like a d�j� vu. I knew it, but, not consciously & what I'm thinking is, well, okay, my first thought was that Dawn was Buffy had she never been called as the slayer. Dawn's the human side of Buffy. But, I think there's more to it. I think that the monks literally took the part of Buffy that loved & made it into Dawn. That's why she wasn't the same after Dawn was 'born'. I don't know if that's true, just something I'm spinning, but, I do know that Buffy dying instead of Dawn was Buffy giving herself life. Buffy wanted Dawn to live the life Buffy never got to live. A thought I originally had before I realized, my theory, that Dawn literally is Buffy, literally the human part of Buffy, was that something of Buffy died, but, something of Buffy, somewhere, didn't. But that something is Dawn. I don't get it yet. I'm probably going to spend all freaking night, okay, crying, for one, but trying to figure it out. Maybe the next months. But it has something to do with the slayer, about being dark. I think, maybe, either the human or the slayer part of Buffy died. But I know I don't get it. Yet. Knowing that Dawn was actually Buffy, Dawn had more of a right to live than Ben, for sure. I don't think I exactly agree that Ben was a killer, like Giles said, but, that, what Giles did, had to be done. The way Giles saw Ben, Glory & him, they weren't so separate & maybe that was right. Maybe Ben was created from some part of Glory. I don't know. | ||||||||
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