Some Buffy S6 thoughts

Just rewatched Once More, With Feeling and Tabula Rasa today and they really are so very wonderful. Bright and brilliant. And OMWF is especially bright after watching Angel a lot. Angel really is so much darker, visually. And in tone, really.

But back to S6 - really, everyone hits bottom in S6. S6 is all about becoming your worst fear and then starting to get over it. The more in denial someone is, the stronger their defenses, the longer it takes. But once they've reached their lowest point, gone as far down as their character can go, then they can start rebuilding. But they must tear down the faulty structure before they can rebuild.

Willow took the longest - she of the "I'm very seldom naughty", the one who is all about disclaiming her own dark side. She doesn't hit until near the very end of the season (Two to Go/Grave). Spike hits fairly late in the season as well (Seeing Red), which makes sense. "I may not be a good poet, but I'm a good man." Good men usually don't need to point this out. Buffy hits earlier - though I mark the change later than some might - not at her beating of Spike (Dead Things), though that was horrible, but at the plan to have her loved ones murdered (Normal Again), which was much more so. And Xander hits earliest (Hell's Bells). For all of them, hitting bottom is when they do the thing that would most horrify them in their 'right mind'. "Love's bitch" Spike 'hurt the girl', Xander left Anya and she ended up becoming a demon again (Am I marrying a demon?), Buffy betrayed the people she always tries hardest to protect. And Willow, who 'wanted in the good fight' utterly betrays that.

Hitting bottom is all about betrayal for this group. I'd argue that Giles' is when he leaves in Tabula Rasa - when he abandons the gang to their fate. In Older and Far Away, Dawn speaks carelessly, once again bringing evil to the Summer's home (as in The Real Me), but Anya points out her true betrayal - we took care of you and in return, you stole and lied to us. A less damaging image of what Connor does in the beginning of Angel S4. Much of Dawn is Connor's less hurtful mirror. Or, rather, Connor is Dawn's more broken reflection.

Interestingly, neither Tara nor Anya hit in this season - Tara's happens the season before (Family) and Anya's the season after (Selfless).

And on a different subject, it's nice that Buffy/Xander still gets me giddy. I'm all about the Love of Buffy and Angel nowadays, but just the thought of my favorite two twoing together makes me giggly and happy. I haven't lost the love. It's good to know.

Character flaws

I've been thinking about character flaws - hot spots and triggers and such. For some people, some flaws are unforgivable. I, myself, have a problem with hypocrites (Big ones for me include Willow, Spike, and Lana). That's the character flaw that I have the hardest time getting past. And it's a very specific kind - I dislike people who firmly believe in their own goodness and worth while not actually being very good. People who blind themselves to their bad sides and pretend that they don't exist.

Characters who know that they aren't perfect tend to get more leniance from me, since they're already beating themselves up. And when the characters that I dislike do see their bad sides, as Willow and Spike do in S7, I start to like them. Because finally, they understood that they weren't special. And each of them had - each of them felt morally superior, in their own ways. And they realized that they weren't, that they were just as flawed as everyone else.
( more in-depth on the big four )