mouthporn.net
#scooby gang – @charmedslayer on Tumblr
Avatar

from axe to zee other axe

@charmedslayer / charmedslayer.tumblr.com

ellie. 20s. she/her. gifs | ko-fi | links #finish-tagging
Posts
Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
oh-ddddear

I’m on a rewatch of Buffy and I just want to vent a little bit about the way Buffy is treated by her friends. I think her friends are the main source of Buffy’s feelings of loneliness and isolation. In short: Buffy’s friends need her to shoulder all the pain of being the slayer on her own, without complaint. They berate her for her isolation, but don’t show any real interest in helping shoulder her burdens.

In season 2 when Buffy finally faces Angelus, Willow makes a second attempt at the ensouling curse. Willow doesn’t think about Buffy’s feelings, she wants to do magic so she does magic. Willow cured Angel at the worst possible moment and never considers what that would do to Buffy. She sends Xander (world’s biggest Angel hater) to tell Buffy about her idea and Xander lies to Buffy. He doesn’t tell her about the curse, he sends Buffy in to battle with the full assumption that she has to kill Angelus. There’s no hope that Angel could return. This affects the way Buddy fights and the decisions she makes. Xander’s lie is never really addressed in the series, and it caused Buffy so much pain. Xander never takes responsibility for that pain, neither does Willow (beyond one pathetic “I’m sorry”). After Buffy confessed the truth, Willow’s next sentence after learning the consequences of what she’s done to Buffy is to ask to help Giles with the (fake) Acathla binding spell. Willow has learned nothing. This doesn’t even touch the fact that she sent Angel’s (innocent) soul to hell for 100 years to suffer torment and pain. She never expressed any remorse for that or contemplated what she’d done. Buffy agonizes over her role in that. She has nightmares about Angel accusing her of killing him and sending him to hell and she visibly mourns what Angel has obviously been through. But Willow doesn’t. If she’d thought about what she was doing she never would have attempted the curse because Buffy always might have had to kill Angel to save the world. Willow rushes into the decision with no info and wrecks Buffy emotionally and cursed Angel to hell. We know from several episodes how seriously Buffy takes it when humans are hurt or killed. Willow of course eventually progresses to intentionally murdering humans on her season six big bad revenge spree—something unintentionally foreshadowed when she banished an innocent soul to hell, and feels and learns nothing. Her selfish darkness was always there.

When Buffy returns from her self isolation after having to kill Angel to save the world, all of her friends (save Giles) blame her for leaving them and don’t stop to think about why she’d have left or what she’d been through. Willow—whose rash decision caused Buffy’s guilt—first avoids Buffy and stands her up (and throws a party without permission) even says she’s upset Buffy left because Buffy wasn’t there to hear about Willow’s life. The whole gang assumes Buffy left to go somewhere else for fun or to shirk her responsibilities (to them). They don’t really stop to consider that she left because of her pain. Her own mother shows disappointing immaturity by expecting Buffy to handle that impossible situation better than Joyce did. Joyce, the responsible adult in the situation, told a 17 year old child to never come home after a fight. When Buffy obeys that and leaves town, Joyce blames Buffy—noting just that Joyce handled the situation badly before not extending that same grace to Buffy’s choices. Buffy ends this fight by agreeing with them and allowing Willow to gloat in “moral superiority”. The gang never apologizes to Buffy or attempts to understand. Buffy is the only one expected to apologize and understand.

It’s not surprising to me when Buffy doesn’t tell anyone Angel is somehow back from hell and feral. With the small exception of Giles, her friends did not show her an ounce of sympathy or support for the Angel situation—even after they found out she’d had to kill him and send him to hell with his soul.

Basically the same situation repeats after Buffy dies at the end of season 5. Willow and Buffy’s friends bring her back because of their feelings. They don’t try to locate her or research what she went through to find out if she’s really in hell. They assume she is because that fits with what they want to do. They don’t research the price for their spell, because they don’t want to be deterred. They don’t tell Giles because they don’t want to be deterred. And when Buffy resurrects, they all think about their own feelings first and demand happiness from her. They don’t really want to know where she’s been or what she’s going through. When she finally reveals that they ripped her out of heaven, they allow themselves to feel sorry for her for a few minutes before immediately deciding (thanks Xander) that since they’re happy to have her back that’s all that matters. Buffy serves her friends by existing for them and not burdening them with her pain. Their impatience for her to adjust to being back on earth is one of my greatest frustrations in the series. I’m also still mad that they never outwardly took responsibility for Buffy’s financial situation. They all lived in her house and frequently trashed her house, but they didn’t keep her accounts in order or save any money after Buffy’s death and then nobody offered to help Buffy financially get her feet under her after she was resurrected. I don’t remember Willow paying any rent or offering to get a job herself. They bring Buffy back, inform her she’s broke, and then leave Buffy alone to figure everything out herself. I’m sorry but they could have at least planned for Buffy to come back by giving her a savings account or even some happy rebirthday cards with some cash. That’s just as thoughtless as resurrecting her in her closed buried casket. Jeez.

I think Buffy partly resolved to sacrifice herself to save Dawn because Giles made it clear Buffy would have to kill Dawn to save the world. Buffy sacrificed Angel because it was necessary. She stabbed Faith because it was necessary. She had given up her future, her freedom, her prior identity for her destiny as the slayer. When Giles said Dawn would have to be killed to end Glory’s ritual, Giles told Buffy she’d have to pay a price Buffy (finally) wasn’t willing to pay. So she gave her own life instead.

In season 7 when the scoobies and potentials gang up on Buffy to throw her out of her own house, I can’t help but feel like it’s because they’re not used to experiencing the kind of loss Buffy shoulders every day. Xander and some of the potentials were injured. And that’s awful. But Buffy gets injured all the time, and has lost friends and loved ones. The first real time other people are forced to experience the pain and loss of casualties of this battle, they decide Buffy’s leadership is flawed and they push her out. I think this is because they assume Buffy’s role as leader is to do all that suffering for them. To shoulder all the pain and burden and also not complain about it. They get to feel involved, like heroes, and ignore the fact that someone else always pays the price for it.

That’s why I think it’s pretty awesome that Buffy’s solution is making all the potentials into slayers. She finally decides she doesn’t have to bear all the pain by herself. She doesn’t have to be the only one responsible for the weight of the world. Throughout the series the gang repeatedly criticizes Buffy for cutting herself off from the group and not sharing with them—but they expect her to isolate her pain. They expect her to shoulder her burdens on her own, and share with them when it suits them. Share the things that will make the gang feel good or superior and suppress the things that will make the gang feel bad or responsible.

I don’t think this was the intended takeaway of the series because I think we are supposed to love the Scoobies and root for that friendship. But I can’t help but feel on this rewatch that Buffy’s final victory isn’t just over evil…it’s over them too.

#btvs#buffy summers#scooby gang#btvs meta
You are using an unsupported browser and things might not work as intended. Please make sure you're using the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.
mouthporn.net