#as you can see the summers women are very 🌸 important to me

[atlasshrugd]

hear me out. if dawn symbolises buffy’s “girlhood,” or “innocence” - it makes sense that during s6 dawn feels left out and forgotten. buffy has been dealing with the reconciliation of her Slayer/Girl sides since the beginning of the show, and in season 6 it comes to a head. buffy feels like she left that part of her in the ground, which is why she feels “wrong,” and can no longer feel emotion the way she used to. buffy does not face this disconnect head on, but runs from it and tries to justify it (by asking tara to find out what happened, and realising that there was nothing she could blame it on). she doesn’t speak to her friends about it, and instead runs to spike, who is the symbolic manifestation of her Slayer side, or her “dark” side. he is the only one she can stand to be around, because everyone else (including dawn) only makes her hyper aware of what she “should” be like, or what she used to be. everyone has expectations of buffy to get back to normal, and worries about her when she doesn’t, causing buffy more guilt at their pain, and more frustration at her own inability.

this causes buffy to avoid her friends, and mainly - dawn. she neglects her because dawn symbolises that part of herself she cannot get back. the part of buffy that wasn’t the slayer - that was just the teenage girl. it not only pains buffy to be reminded of this, but deeply saddens her when she cannot be the person dawn needs her to be. naturally, this neglect leads to dawn feeling unloved and uncared for by the people in her life, causing her to lash out for some semblance of control by stealing. “does anybody even notice? does anybody even care?” she sings in omwf. buffy has been avoiding her, because she does not want to face what she has lost.

in contrast, season 5 shows buffy protecting dawn above all else. this is not only buffy protecting her out of love for her sister, but for what her sister symbolises. buffy is giving up everything, including herself (which is: the Slayer), so that this part of her may survive. dawn is the innocence and goodness that buffy strives to protect every day. she is the reason buffy fights; the reason she rids the world of demons. so that good and clean things, like dawn, may live in it. buffy gives her life so that dawn can live, and with dawn, a piece of buffy lives on, too. the part that buffy has felt alienated from; and the part that buffy thinks is most deserving of life. buffy recognises that dawn is part of her; that the monks made her out of buffy. she is more myself than I am.

the s6 finale shows buffy finally accepting dawn as her own person, instead of a piece of buffy she has neglected, or as a symbol of purity (the key). she allows dawn to fight side by side with her, and realises that all this time she has been protecting dawn (the good side of buffy) from the world - when really, she wants to show her the world. but buffy lives and does what she does so that the world is a place where dawn may find her own meaning. buffy wants to protect the girl from the ugliness of the world; but here she is realising that the girl, too - like the Slayer - must find out what it means to live in the world herself. buffy is reconciling the girl she used to be/the girl inside her (dawn) with the Slayer she was born to be. she is no longer avoiding and neglecting one part of herself, but accepting and integrating both parts, which allows her to feel the scope of pure emotion of a whole person - something she has lacked since she came back from the dead.

she is no longer seeking punishment for her wrongness that she cannot face, or hiding that part of herself from the goodness she can no longer relate to. buffy is taking this step to be whole; to not be fragmented, to not be ashamed, to no longer pretend, and to stop being her own martyr. she is allowing dawn the dignity to fight for herself, to stand up for what she believes in, just as buffy does. whereas in the past, buffy treats dawn as if she is fragile and precious to an overbearing degree, because buffy is terrified to lose that part of herself. here, buffy let’s go of fear, and allows the reconciliation of the girl and slayer, while also releasing dawn from the emblematic, non-entity role she has projected onto her.