#buffy the vampire slayer theory

[linkspooky]

Buffy Season 2, Episode 17 Passion Thoughts

Welcome back to my Buffy retrospective where I give my long, rambly thoughts on certain episodes. Passion is another episode that shows how season 2 of Buffy took the show from being a fun, urban fantasy show to a long running story with IDEAS and THEMES and THINGS TO SAY.

Passion is an episode that both has a self-contained theme it explores within the episode, like how lie to me is about lying to yourself, and at the same time contributes to the whole of the season 2 arc involving Angel and Buffy's relationship. It's got some deeply dark things to say about both characters.

1. Angel

It's impossible to talk about this episode without mentioning the spoiler. I made it the banner image of this post. This is the episode were Angel kills Jenny Calendar.

This is more than just a fridging, it's a turning point for Angel's character. It's no coincidence that the season 2 ending episode Becoming pt. 1 focuses on Angel's origins while Becoming pt. 2 focuses on Buffy learning who she is without her friends and family. You could say that Season 2 is just as much about defining who Angel is, as it is who Buffy is.

In season 1, we eventually find out that Angel is a vampire without a soul but besides that twist and his action of staking Darla he doesn't really do anything of importance to the plot. He's not a fully explored character at that point, if anything he's just a trope. A brooding, anti-social vampire trying to redeem himself for his past. At that point Angel is exactly what he says on the can. You know what his role in the story is supposed to be, romantic figure, and Buffy's love interest but there's little you could say about Angel the person. What does he like? What does he dislike? What's his favorite food?

Season 2 could have just continued with having Angel play the love interest, but it decided to go there instead. Over the first half of season 2, the more you learn about Angel's character the more the audience is pulled away from the romantic image of him. Before he even becomes Angelus, Angel often violates boundaries with Buffy. In reptile boy Angel brings up their age difference and then Buffy brushes it off. In Lie to Me he deliberately goes behind Buffy's back to investigate a former friend of hers without telling her. While at the same time he also deliberately conceals his relationship, and every terrible thing he did to Drusilla, because he didn't want her to dislike him for it.

The age difference between Buffy and Angel, Angel's tendency to talk down to her because of that age difference, his lack of respect for her boundaries, even things like watching her sleep, these things happen in the first half of the season and they seem small and easy to dismiss because genre. Angel's a vampire so of course he's older than her, that's just how these stories go. Angel and Buffy have this amazing tragic romance going for them, so of cousre they don't have to do things like communicate. I find it funny that Buffy brings up the idea of just getting coffee with Angel in Lizard Boy and he finds it so difficult. Why? Probably because it'd just be a normal date. Which doesn't fit for the whole tragic gothic aesthetic of their supposed love story.

Which is what makes Buffy and Angel's relationship, and Angel's character in particular fascinating to me, because in a sense it's like both of them are roleplaying in a relationship. Characters in story constantly bring up and talk about Buffy and Angel like they're some tragic, forbidden love. Buffy constantly brings up the difficulty of being in a relationship with someone who's supposed to be her worst enemy, and often very simple arguments in their relationship come off like they have life or death stakes.

Angel: You just wanted coffee or something? Buffy: Coffee? Angel: I knew this was gonna happen. Buffy: What? What do you think is happening? Angel: You're 16 years old, I'm 241. Buffy: I've done the math.... Angel: You don't know what you're doing. You don't know what you want. Buffy: Oh no, I think I do. I want out of this conversation. Angel: Listen, if we date, you and I both know one thing's gonna lead to another. Buffy: One thing already has led to another. You think it's a little late to be reading me a warning label? Angel: I'm just trying to protect you. This could get out of control. Buffy: Isn't that the way it's supposed to be? [Angel pulls her close] Angel: This isn't some fairy tale. When I kiss you...you don't wake up from a deep sleep and live happily ever after. Buffy: No. When you kiss me, I wanna die.

This is another quote from reptile boy, and before this Buffy was jsut trying to ask him out for coffee. Buffy and Angel both dramatize their relationship. Angel says "This isn't a fairy tail", and yet while he was the one who points out their age difference he still acts like he was controlled by an overpowering love at first sight for a sixteen year old girl. He tells Buffy later on in season 3 how he loved her from the first time he saw her.

That above quote mirrors a lot of the early foreshadowing in season 2 in regards to Angel's turn to the bad side, there's the unpleasant reality in Angel reminding them of their age difference, and then Buffy sweeping it under the rug with her romanticism. Which is the big twist of season 2, and of Passions in particular. Angel is the dark, brooding romantic hero until he's not. Until he's the villain.

Jenny's death signals that turning point for Angel, because yes Buffy is traumatized and humiliated in innocence, but it still ends on a slightly triumphant note of her recovering just enough to kick angel in the balls even if she still can't finish him off.

Think of watching Passions as an unspoiled member of the audience as it was airing though. Imagine being deeply invested in Buffy and Angel, and thinking while what happened in Innocence was terrible for Buffy that wasn't Angel's fault it was only because he lost his soul. At this point the audience is still likely rooting for the two of them to get back together. Angel turning into a leather pants wearing, smoking bad boy who's now an enemy to Buffy just adds some delicious angst to the ship, right?

At this point Angel turning evil still sort of adds to the forbidden romance allure of their relationship. That idea is still romantic and appealing to the audience... at least until it starts having a body count.

Passions is the episode that shows us that no, Angel is not coming back. Not only that, but it makes us question whether or not we should want him back in the first place. Every single one of Angel's actions in this episode are things he did earlier in season 2, that got ignored because of the romantic lens both Buffy and the audience were judging Angel's actions by.

The age difference that Angel brings up in reptile boy, and Buffy dismissed, is now a problem. Angelus appears in front of Buffy's mother as a "college boy" who she slept with once, and then broke up with who then resorted to stalking her.

Angelus: Did buffy tell you about us? Joyce: She told me she wants you to leave her alone. Angelus: I can't do that. Joyce: You're scaring her. Angelus: You have to help me. Joyce. I need, I need to be with her. Y-you can convince her. You have to convince her. Joyce: Look, I'm telling you to leave her alone. Angelus: You don't understand, Joyce. I'll die without Buffy. She'll die without me.

Angelus' lie to Joyce isn't even that far from the truth of his actions, because he spends the entire episode tormenting her because he's unable to rid himself of his obsession. Behavior which, even Spike finds a little bit weird.

Spike: Are you insane?! We're supposed to kill the b¡tch, not leave gag gifts in the friends' beds. Drusilla: (cuddles her puppy) But, Spike, the bad teacher was going to restore Angel's soul. Spike: What if she did? If you ask me, I find myself preferring the old Buffy-whipped Angelus. This new, improved one is not playing with a full sack. (gets a look from Angelus) I love a good slaughter as much as the next bloke, but his little pranks will only leave us with one incredibly brassed-off

In Lie to Me, he asks Willow for permission to enter her room. Then te two of them snoop on one of Buffy's old friends who suddenly reappeared in that episode behind her back. That action seemed harmless at the time, but in Passions because Willow gave him permission earlier he's able to enter her room and kill all her fish as a sign he's been there.

In Passions his habit of sneaking into Buffy's room while she's unaware is no longer romantic, when he is leaving drawings of her sleeping in her room to let her know he broke in and could have killed her in her sleep at any time.

The romanticism of Angel's actions are peeled back, and the dangerous reality is shown to the characters.

Angel is the narrator of the beginning and end of this episode, and you could say this episode is all about understand what's going on inside his head. If you take the role of the romantic hero away from Angel, then who is he exactly?

Angelus: Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping, waiting, and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir, open it's jaws and howl. Cut to even later in her room. The camera closes in on a sleeping Buffy. A shadow comes across her bed, and a hand reaches over to stroke her hair with its fingers. The camera pans over to the person, and it's Angelus, sitting on the edge of her bed and looking down at her. He continues his narration as the camera pulls out for a shot of him sitting next to her while she sleeps. Angelus: It speaks to us... guides us... Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have?

The last line "What other choice do we have?" speaks a lot to Angel's nature. Just like he acts like he is swept along by passion, he also acts in general like he's swept along by a bigger story. Angel is no longer buffy-whipped Angel. He's no longer playing the role of the brooding, romantic love interest, and yet he still talks about everything like it's taking place within a story.

Angelus pretends to be Buffy's clingy ex boyfriend in front of Joyce as a joke, saying I need her, I need her, acting the role of a spurned college boy and yet, Angelus is equally as obsessed and deperate about their love as Angel was towards Buffy. He doesn't just kill her, despite Spike telling him to stop messing around and do that.

I asked again and again who Angel is, but watching this episode this question isn't easy to answer. Angel's not trying to be a person, he's trying to play a role. He's just switched from the love interest, to the villain. Angel still sees himself as a character within a love story, he just decided to be the villain now.

However, Angel was always like this. He was never capable of having a relationship where he and Buffy go out for coffee because he wasn't trying to be a person. Angel wants to be someone greater than who he really is... and that's why this episode is about the extremes of love, about being possessed by grand sweeping emotions.

Angelus: Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... and the ecstasy of grief. Angelus: If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace, but we would be hollow. Angelus: Without passion, we'd be truly dead.

In the closing narration Angelus talks about how much is missing without passion in our lives. The same Angelus who was judged by a literal machine able to detect humanity to have 0 humanity whatsoever. The same Angelus who loathes having a human soul. The same Angelus who when possessed by a ghost that forced it to enact its final goodbye to its lover, immediately showered himself afterwards and scrubbed his skin raw because it made him feel too human.

Angelus hates anything to do with love, and feelings and wants to torment Buffy for making his souled self love her. That same Angelus claims that without passion in our lives we'd be truly dead. Which means in Angelus mind, love and passion are not the same thing.

2. Dead Girl Walking

Which is where I loop right back to the start. Buffy and Angel are both characters who speak often about how in love they are, while in the same breath complaining about how miserable it makes them. Why then, do they get involved in this big, epic love of theirs if it seems to hurt them far more than it ever does mend them?

The answer of course is in Angel's monologue: without passion, we'd be truly dead.

Angel and Buffy both use narrative as a coping mechanism for their lives, which is haunted by death. Angel, because he's literally a 200 year old undead man. Buffy because she is the slayer, and so not only does she deal death, but people constantly die around her. Buffy herself who will probably die young.

Buffy and Angel are both staring at a hopelessly bleak reality. So, they romanticize it. They are also both incredibly isolated. Angel, because he is 200, and Buffy because she is a 16 year old with more responsibility than any adult around her. They both have a longing for companionship that would release them from their isolation, along with a fear that no one would truly "Get it."

In such a circumstance it makes sense for both of them to lean into the storybook aspects of their relationship. They both feel like they are completely cut off from the world around them. In the Season 6 episode Gone, spike just describes that as being dead.

SPIKE: Not too put off by it though, are you? (drinking) INVISIBLE BUFFY: No! Maybe because for the first time since ... I'm free. She tosses the sheet aside. Spike looks around, trying to figure out where she's going. INVISIBLE BUFFY: Free of rules and reports ... free of this life. SPIKE: Free of life? Got another name for that. Dead.

To be cut off from the world, to be isolated from your peers, is to be symbolically dead. Which probably makes you feel pretty dead inside. Buffy doesn't want that. She even sings a song about it.

Whatever, I don't wanna be... Going through the motions Loosing all my drive I can't even see if this is really me And I just wanna be... alive

Buffy frequently talks in later seasons about how she being the slayer makes her feel like she's turning to stone, but it really starts here. Giles even make a comment in the episode that Buffy can't allow herself to be ruled by her passions. It's the only time the word 'passion' is mentioned in the episode outside of angel's narration.

Giles: Buffy, I-I understand your concern, but it's imperative that you keep a level head through all this. Buffy: That's easy for you to say. You don't have Angel lurking in your bedroom at night. Giles: I know how hard this is for you. (gets a look from Buffy) All right, I don't. But as the Slayer, you don't have the luxury of being a slave to your, your passions. You mustn't let Angel get to you. No matter how provocative his behavior may become.

It's a scene where Buffy is understandably freaked out by Angel's stalking, but Giles instead of listening to a scared teenage girl tells her she has to calm herself down and act rationally about this. In this scene Buffy's not allowed to just feel fear like any other teenaged girl in her situation would. She's not, because she has to push her feelings down to be the slayer.

In fact this is topic for another day, but you could say a lot of Buffy's inability to process her emotions from later seasons come from the fact that Buffy was never allowed to just sit there and be afraid of the 200 year old man terrorizing her and inflicting psychosexual trauma on her. She wasn't even allowed to think of herself as a victim. In fact, on a couple of occasions, some people (Xander) acted like everything Angel did was Buffy's fault for sleeping with him.

Buffy never gets to be the scared girl that she is, because she's continually called by both the situation and the people around her to be a slayer. In a season where Buffy is the target of the stalking, and the one getting traumatized she still has to be the brave heroine for the sake of everyone around her because she's never allowed to be the victim.

Because, look what happens when Buffy fails to be the hero.

Jenny dies.

Something which is not Buffy's fault, but is a consequence of her decision not to kill Angel when she had him cornered in Innocence.

Which just speaks again of the weight on Buffy's shoulders. It's not just Buffy who's getting stalked this episode, Angel drags everyone around her into it, as a play to get at Buffy. Buffy has to make decisions that will result in people dying if she makes the wrong one, so of course she isn't allowed to be emotional or ruled by passion. She has to shut her emotions down and act as the Slayer.

However, living life without those emotions just isn't living. The end result of all that emotional repression is Buffy feeling like she's dead inside. So, she seeks some kind of escapism.

Feeling SOMETHING is better than feeling nothing. Even if that something is slowly torturing her, she'll take the misery and grief romance brings her over nothing at all.

Which is why Buffy and Angel act out such a fairy-tale like love, because they're both seeking some kind of escapism from the isolation their lives bring them. However the thing about stories is they don't hold up to reality. You date a person, you don't date a prince, or a vampire, or a character from a story.

Having a relationship with a person requires things like communication, rules, boundaries, neither of which Buffy and Angel have any healthy idea of. Buffy because she's a teenager, and Angel because he's a socially awkward vampire who's been eating rats for a hundred years.

They are both completely inexperienced with any kind of healthy relationship, so any relationship they get into they end up being drawn to what they know. For both of them, it's once again the death and tragedy that seems like it's a constant in their lives. Buffy has no idea what a relationship even is, but being with Angel makes her feel a whole bunch of things, and she's familiar with the constant pain and anxiety from watching her parent's disordered marriage so that makes her go "Yeah, this is it!"

The Thanatos and Eros symbolism in this episode is especially heavy too, to the point where I could make a whole other post about it. That being Freud's theory that all of life can be divided into the life instinct Eros (drive for consumption and recreation) , and the death instinct Thanatos (risky behavior, aggression, reliving trauma).

Sex and death are overlaid frequently in this episode, and in past episode too in regards to Buffy and Angel's relationship like Innocence.

Angel: Spike, my boy, you really don't get it. You tried to kill her and you couldn't. Look at you. You're a wreck. She's stronger than any Slayer you've faced. Force won't get it done. You gotta work from the inside. To kill this girl… you have to love her.

When Angel snaps Jenny's neck he says "This is where you get off..." Which is an obvious sexual inuendo, while at the same time being an inuendo for death. While he's holding her to snap her neck, it looks like a lover's embrace. After he does it, he pants and groans.

Angel flits between making suggestive comments and making violent ones the entire episode. His goal is to kill Buffy. He's a predator, being a vampire, and yet not only does he get compared to a sexual predator (a stalker / older man sleeping with a younger girl) but he acts like one in front of Buffy's mom.

When Giles discovers Jenny's body, he's tricked at first to thinking that Jenny has planned a romantic surprise for him and is waiting at the bed because Angel went to the trouble to dress the whole scene up and leave rose petals at the door. Giles thinks his lover is waiting for him in bed only to find a corpse, and the camera cuts to Giles standing still outside the room as the police arrive with the opera music in the background still playing.

Sex and death, sex and death, it's a constant theme in this episode and obviously for Angel they are practically the same thing. Not only does Angel view relationships that way, he also inflicts that kind of love on Buffy.

Which is I think the most important part of the episode, because so much sexual violence has become inflicted on Buffy she sort of starts to mirror the way Angel approaches sex and sexuality too. Buffy too, doesn't really see love, just passion. Buffy too, will later go out of her way to see out the most torturous romance possible because she doesn't know anything else.

Jenny is the victim of this epsode, but Buffy is the greater victim of Angel's passions and it will effect her in the story long after this.

[sharksandsquirrelsandsnakes-ohmy]

Stiles, having been kidnapped again: And, honestly, that's why I'm scared to ship any two Star Wars characters ever again before seeing their family tree. I mean, I don't want the franchise to end up like Game of Thrones— dying of incest-born diseases and poor write—

Kidnapper: DO YOU EVER SHUT UP???

Stiles: No really, no. Maybe if I'm unconscious but I've been told I talk in my sleep too—

Kidnapper: Shut up!

Kidnapper: Fuck this. This isn't worth the money. Get out!

Stiles, having already untied his own restaints: Man, I thought it was going to take you longer to let me go. Didn't even get to all the Percy Jackson characters being cousins.

[xandersrailcrash]

the concept of Dawn Summers and the person she is is so interesting to me.

i remember seeing her first appearance and thinking, "huh, Buffy has a sister? cool." and i honestly think that's what every character thought upon first meeting her -- counting in the made-up memories featuring Dawn's existence.

the fact that she was created for an actual purpose is something i sit and think about also. like think about it. in another world, could Buffy have been upset about being alive because her sister had a reason for existence but she herself didn't? while Buffy understands that she has a reason -- being the Slayer -- the later seasons show that she is going through extremely patches, particularly after The Body.

back to the topic of Dawn, her character is so perfectly articulated and crafted to fit the image of "Slayer's little sister". early-seasons Buffy, around Dawn's age, we see how she herself acted as a teen-Slayer. strong, independent, but also a smartass. take that, cut out the Slayer part, and double the level of smartass, we get Dawn Summers.

how Dawn's whole life could be created through false memories, false diary entries, false photos is such a cool concept to me. it can be freaky though like, imagine you didn't exist one day and then bam. you're a teen spawned onto the earth to be some "Key".

let's actually look at the "Key" part of her character. the reason why she actually exists. why she was brought to Earth. she hurt herself upon learning that she wasn't real, but that was in fact one of the realest reactions in the show. i think the bond her and Buffy had in that scene, Dawn's emotions and eventual realisation the fact that she's real is actually one of the most realistic things in the entire show -- which is saying a lot, considering it's literally called "Buffy The Vampire Slayer"

anyways rambling time over <3

[the-sparkling-diamond-satine]

Forever thinking about that time in 2x06 Halloween Buffy gives Willow that entire speech about how Halloween is "come as you aren't night" and the entire point of Halloween is to dress up as someone that's "not you," encouraging Willow to dress up in a way that's the opposite of who she is and then Buffy proceeds to dress up as A Girl.

Like, okay Buffy, tell me more about how much of a girl you aren't. Tell me more about how you and an 18th century girl have Absolutely Nothing In Common and you're just So Different that dressing up as her = being Not Yourself. Tell me more about how you are basically the polar opposite of an 18th century girl.

(Non-binary Buffy rights!)

This is even better because it comes in the same episode as Xander getting mad at Buffy for stopping Larry from hitting him and Xander has to explain to her why she shouldn't have done that and Buffy says she "violated the guy code." So we get these scenes where it is made very apparent that Buffy is Not A Guy but also Not A Girl. She's neither.

Non-binary Buffy rights!!!!!!!!

[detectivesoup]

These epistemological spaces between the monster's bones are Derrida's familiar chasm of différance: a genetic uncertainty principle, the essence of the monster's vitality, the reason it always rises from the dissection table as its secrets are about to be revealed and vanishes into the night.

Monster Culture (Seven Theses) - Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

[horsechestnut]

I'm working on a project and wondering if anyone has any good Fandom Conspiracy Theories they'd like to share? I'm looking for things about the fandom or meta of the show, not the plot. Some examples:

Sherlock's secret 4th episode

The Pixar Theory

Eleven from Stranger Things is 3 inches taller than Millie Bobbie Brown

The One Direction boys are all secretly gay

Season 2 of Agent Carter takes place in California because the writers were mad people were shipping Peggy and Dotty

What I'm not looking for is things like: "I think X will happen because of in universe reasons".

[gloryfore]

Will never not find Anya’s fear of bunnies hilarious.

[magis-ghast]

I'm back into Buffy

Started from season 4 this time because the first couple seasons are pretty slow on the... Spike front... and I'm nothing if not a Spike fan

Anyway I think the way vampires work in Buffy is that the demon that possesses a bitten person has their own personality and morals and wants, and then they get the memories and emotions of the body mixed in.

So a vampire is a blend of specific demon and human, and their actions depend on whichever part is stronger.

Angelus is a very strong demon and the human was very weak-willed, so when he gets un-cursed he is mostly demon.

Spike, Harmony, others all have vampiric urges and twisted morals, but are ultimately driven by their human personalities.

So when Spike comes around to the "good" side, it's because he's learned to embrace the human part of him and overcome the base urges of his demon half, but when Angel is "good" it's because he's had the demon part suppressed behind the soul. The little pieces of personality aren't enough for him.

Now, it's been a few years since I watched it all the way through, so I'm proclaiming this all headcanon until I catch up and disprove myself lol

[pzyii]

(for @foolforbuffy || further explanation about this post)

So first things first, Willow ressurected Buffy which ended up leading to Warren trying to kill Buffy, and with that Tara died. This doesn't mean Taras death is Willows fault, it just kinda happened, like Tara would've survived if they had decided to go out for icecream, they were both just really unlucky.

When Buffy was shot things weren't looking that good for her. Like she may have slayer healing but she was shot in the chest. Slayer healing probably only really kept her alive for as long as she did so she didn't die imediatly like Tara.

Because Tara died, Willow absorbed all the books and went dark. Now more powerful than ever, she saved Buffys life, since we've espablished Buffys life was actually in serious danger.

Meaning if that bullet had missed Tara, Buffy might've died instead. And Willow would've lost one of them either way. But since Buffys ressurection ultimatly caused Taras death, Taras death also then ultimatly caused Buffys survival.

Its a life for a life.

And Willow accidentally ended up chosing Buffys life over Taras that day when she ressurected her.

[linkspooky]

Hmm. Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

I sadly didn’t grow up with cable, so I’ve never watched it. But I do remember watching one episode at one of my friends’ house as a kid.

I forgot what it’s called, but it was were everybody in town became silent due to these two creepy looking guys. I especially remember that one funny scene with the presentation, but also how creepy and scary it was with the creepy men.

But yeah. I suppose I’m asking is… if the show is worth a watch, and if you have any episodes you personally love?

has Buffy the Vampire Slayer is actually one of my top two forever fandoms, that is fandoms that not only I will be forever invested in and rewatch on regular basises, but also fandoms that have had the most impact in not only the stories I read nowadays, but also the stories I want to write.

Not only is the show worth a watch, I think it's an example of the strength of long-form storytelling, and how even a very schlocky show about vampires can be about very powerful themes.

Also, if you like redemption arcs, and are disappointed in MHA because of the slow progress of the redemption arcs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is all about redemption arcs and has some of the most well-written and touching ones in all of fictions. Also it pretty much invented enemies to lovers, and I mean actual enemies to lovers, not like "they sort of dislike each other."

So, without any further ado my top five episodes.

5. Lie to Me - Season 2 Episode 7

Season one has a solid arc for Buffy and the cast as a whole, and even as a standalone is a good commentary on the story of the chosen-one, but I think Season 2 onwards is when Buffy goes from being a neat show about vampire slayers to a work of fiction that has actual things to say, and commentary on not only other stories in the fantasy genre but also real life too.

Lie to me is basically the introduction of that complexity in Buffy's life, that has only ever been hinted at beforehand. Buffy is a pretty morally righteous hero, for the most part with a few exceptions the vampires she faces are souless monsters, demons possessing corpses. Lie to Me is the first time Buffy faces a human antagonist, and not just a human one but someone who shares a lot of flaws with Buffy as well. I think the best way to make a character arc is to start with an incorrect belief they hold about the world and then go out of your way to correct it. Buffy starts from believing she is the hero of the story, and the people she fights on a regular basis are monsters.

Lie to Me turns that on its head, not only is the antagonist Buffy's childhood friend, someone who has sympathetic reasons but is still willing to kill people enmasse to get what he wants the same way that vampires do, he also has flaws in common with Buffy. The same way that Owen wants the world to be more like a movie with simple logic, and he's playing a villain to make things easier for himself, Buffy is playing a hero. Owen isn't the only liar, Angel hides his worst deed from Buffy because he was scared of Buffy disliking him for it. Buffy's very much lying to herself about the kind of person that Angel is, because she wants to believe the more romantic image of him as a repentant vampire boyfriend then the legitimate bad things he has done.

It's a story that criticizes people for lying to themselves, and shows what can happen when you are caught up in irresponsible lies, and yet at the same time it sympathizes with people. It doesn't say people rely on stories because they're selfish or stupid, at least not all the way, the final speech is Buffy asking Giles to lie to her, because her life is genuinely hard and messy and complicated and she wants the simplicity of a story to reassure her everything will be alright.

4. I Only Have Eyes For You - Season 2 Episode 19

I Only Have Eyes For You is amazing because it not only tells a complicated and tragic tale of victimhood, but also it shows one of Buffy’s most major flaws, and also plays with the expectation of the audience as well. This is an episode I watch with friends and talk the entire time through, because I want to know what their initial reactions are and how those reactions are turned on its head by the end of the episode. 

Basically, the whole point of this episode is the twist, we are first presented with what looks to be an unsympathetic and toxic victim. A boy who kills his lover because they no longer want to be with them, someone who is framed as abusive and having done an unforgivable thing. Until you look at the context of the situation, the boy in question was seventeen, and his lover was an adult woman who was dating him. It plays with audience expectations because like, if it had been a teenage girl dating an adult man, then it would be obvious who the victim was and who the perpetrator. 

If it had been a teenage girl dating an adult man... oh. This is also an episode where we explore how Buffy has a hard time seeing herself as a victim, because of her issues of guilt and self blame. Giles tells Buffy they should help the spirit that is suffering in this episode because it is in pain, and it needs forgiveness as a tool for healing and Buffy suggests that some people should never be forgiven and they should just leave it alone. Which is not really a heroic or even kind notion. That has nothing to do with the crime they committed and everything to do with Buffy’s inability to forgive herself. 

It’s an episode that goes really dark places, especially with parallels to real life relationship abuse, and yet it has something to say about the characters and those issues. It’s also ultimately about the healing power of forgiveness over punishment. 

3. Fool for Love - Season 5 episode 7

Season five is really the turning point where the show is about more than just the real life issues teenagers have to deal with growing up, but starts focusing on high concept themes like death, love, the interplay between the two, or even just what it would be like to live a life that’s more than a hundred years and the effect that would have on a person. 

Spike is my favorite character of all time, in anything, ever yet it’s funny that his focus episode is only third on the list, but that’s because also later episodes build on this one and have more to say. Fool for Love is just, very targeted in its messages and what it’s about in relationship to Spile’s character. Spike is sympathetic and engaging as a character not because he has a sympathetic backstory, in fact he’s a frilly victorian poet boy, turned murderer because he thought it would give him love or something more meaningful to live for. He’s not a moral person, he’s a-moral, all of his actions are framed selfishly around what he thinks will get him love, and he’s not even always a good boyfriend he’s godawful to harmony on several occasions. 

Yet Spike is interesting because he’s a monster with human feelings, who wants the things every person wants, which is to be loved and love in return, and yet he feels like as a vampire he can only deal in death and violence and this also relates to Buffy. The episode is about more than Spike’s personal story though,i it’s about Buffy’s relationship to her own mortality, that despite Buffy being a literal superhero she might not die by a big bad, or even die saving the world, she can just slip up in one fight and be stabbed by a random mook. It’s about the life that Buffy leads, where no matter how strong she is, people will just relentlessly come and come for her no matter what, and that’s also relatable because how many people have expressed something like “I always feel like I just have to get through the week and things will get better only for the next week to be harder.” 

It is about a life that is both empty and full of violence for both Buffy and Spike, and yet somehow both of them are still searching for love within that life. The biggest scene of change for Spike at the end of the episode is after a whole episode of peacocking around, after trying to insist to Buffy that his vampire idenitty as a killer is the real him, that Buffy is attracted to him as a killer because she has a death wish, his last real action in the episode is to put the gun down and try to comfort Buffy as Spike the sensitive poet, because no matter how hard he tries to bury that identity it’s who he is inside and people grow close to one another when they can show that vulnerability around each other.

2. Once More With Feeling - Season 6 episode 7

Not only the best musical episode ever, but actually a really good standalone forty five minute musical, but besides being an amazing production in general it's the themes of this episode that make me love it.

It is more or less Season 6's version of Lie to Me, where once again we are demosntrating that the stories people tell each other to comfort themselves can actively be harmful as well. Buffy suffers under having to put on an act and pretend everything is okay when she's not happy her friends brought her back from the dead. Spike suffers from being a much more selfless version of himself than he really is, because he's trying too hard to be the ideal boyfriend and supporting character to Buffy when he's still in love with her and wants a relationship. Tara suffers because Willow quite literally controls her mind to make her forget a fight, so they can both play-act a much happier version of their relationship.

Once More with Feeling is about both the collective desire of how everyone wants life to be more positive, more meaningful like in a musical, how they want life to be more like a song, but also how that very human desire can be harmful because it comes at the cost of denying the reality and not dealing with it. Every single song has a much darker subtext that is revealed over the course of the show.

Also, for an episode that's really dark, and is about not only Buffy's suicidal ideation but how genuinely hard life is to live, and how meaningless it can seem at times, it ends on such a beautiful message that even if say Life is pointless, nihilism is correct, there's nothing greater waiting for us, Spike still tells Buffy to keep living because "Life is just living" the only way you can survive in the world is by trying to live in it, simply because we don't know what comes after this and this life is all we got.

1. Conversations with Dead People Season 7 Episode 7

As a lover of drama, as a lover of Spike, a lover of Spuffy and romance it's funny to me that my favorite episode is an episode Spike is barely in, and nothing really happens except for all of the characters sitting down and talking, but the thing about Buffy is that all the characters are so interesting that you can have an episode like this where everyone finally sits down to talk through their issues.

It's not only an episode where a lot of characters have the conversations they've been putting off for forever, Dawn and her feelings about her dead mother, Buffy and her feelings about both the Slayer and her relationships with Angel and Spike, Willow and her mourning of Tara and her suicidal ideation that hasn't quite gone away.

It's also demonstrative of the kind of people all three of these characters that get focus are, it informs you a lot about their characters, and takes the time to do the kind of character work that Buffy is known for. It's also not just about mortality, but also about the people you are in the privacy of your own head, or when no one else is around. Like, the conversations that they all have are literally with dead people. Willow is talking with someone she believes to be a ghost, Buffy is going to stake the vampire at the end of her conversation, Dawn is dealing with what she thinks is the ghost of Joyce. These conversations are revealing specifically because all three women are pretty much alone, and so they can be their true unfiltered selves.

It's almost the exact opposite of lie to me, because dead men tell no tales, so all three of them are allowed to be much more honest than they usually are, and that makes their emotional responses so much more visceral and telling of what they really think. It drags up the subtext and makes it text. It acknowledges what we have known was already there about the characters, but also after dragging those issues up to the surface it helps them move on in a much more conciliatory way. Buffy after admitting for the first time her issues is comforted by the vampire trying to murder her, "I'm not here to Judge you, just kill you." Willow ignores the first's taunts that she should just kill herself to be with Tara. Dawn chooses not to believe in what is maybe ghost JOyce's warning that Buffy will abandon her. THe characters are confronted with their most negative thoughts and their worst flaws, but they also choose to think more positively about things in the aftermath of these confrontations and so that healthy and honest conversation becomes a starting point in healing for all three of them.

[sweetingseva]

Did you see Stephanie's last stories? Not the quote, the ones she posted after. I have a few thoughts:

I hate Apollo now more than ever. I don't think I've ever hated a fictional character as much as I hate this abomination of a man.

The only true thing about the scandal sheets is that Jacks probably did tell Kristof that he would cut off his fingers and feed them to him.

Have you seen Buffy?? Cause I haven't so I have no clue what she means. I only saw "heart-breaking kind of love" and "doomed" and now I'm worried. The chances of Jacks and Eva ending up together seem very slim.

I also have a theory. I think Lala saw what Kristof wrote, told Jacks and that's how he found out about Evangeline's memories. I think that's what happens because he doesn't read the scandal sheets.

Hello! Yes, I saw them! 🤩

Ah, yes, Apollo had no right to do this to them. I'll be cheering for his end! I would agree with that, too! Jacks takes his reputation seriously haha

About Buffy The Vampire Slayer, I have not watched a single episode, but I did some digging and I'll be adding my thoughts to it in my Jacks post that will be coming out very very soon 😉

Oh, I'm hoping LaLa or Chaos does bring it up to Jacks. If nothing can calm him down, they might be Jacks's last options 😭

[nugge-is-my-duckie]

Angel has feminine hands you guys

[xandersrailcrash]

Faith switching bodies with Buffy has ultimately changed how i see her

like, i used to see her as a total bitch, but when Faith saw Buffy in her body, she freaked out and started calling 'herself' a "monster". and at the end of the episode, she looked like she was seriously reflecting.

maybe Faith knows what she's doing wrong, and thinks she likes being that way because she's afraid of intimacy or getting hurt (eg. when Riley said 'i love you' Faith freaked out) because of her mother

idk, just a little rant

[thegayhimbo]

Stranger Things Season 5 Theory: The ending will be similar to the series finale from Buffy the Vampire Slayer in that Hawkins will get sucked into the Upside Down (just like Sunnydale was sucked into the Hellmouth cavern) and permanently destroyed. And the remaining heroes will be staring at the wreckage from a distance while recovering from their battle with Vecna.

[sunnydaleslayer]

I have this theory that Buffy realized she loved Spike the same episode she broke it off with him. It makes sense with Buffy's character. I know she said she can't love him. But it's obvious she cares about him. He's the only one she feels anything around, and they are connected on some other level. Like Spike said, she's addicted to misery. Just the idea that something serious can happen between them is enough for her to go the opposite direction. Because it means she might be able to be happy. She lies. She says she doesn't want him but ends up very much wanting him a matter of seconds later. Their whole season six relationship is a push and pull. Yes and no. And Buffy confirms in season seven that she did love Spike. ("Why does everyone think I'm STILL in love with Spike?"). Which shows that she was in love with him. And it makes sense if that happened in season six. I'm not saying when she fell in love with him. But I think that episode is when she knew. But she doesn't have the courage to say it until he's about to die to save the world.

[buffy-targaryen]

Say what you like about J*** W***** but he left the end of Buffy wide open for a really good spin off featuring brand new slayers and watchers etc etc etc. So why is there a goddamn au with every character except Buffy coming out instead 😒