WSWB - OMWF

[butterfly]

It's interesting how in WSWB, Buffy is hurting and decides that she has to go alone, while by OMWF, when she's hurting, Giles is the one who decides she should fight alone.

In Seasons 1-3, Buffy does try to push the gang out of the fight. After that, she pretty much stops, yeah (and transfers that to Dawn)? Hmm. I need to rewatch S4-6. I know that it's stopped in 6&7, but I'm trying to figure the exact turning point. Why did she figure out that she couldn't protect them when they wanted in the fight?

Comments

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

*ponders*

They all dug in to kick the Mayor, and Will did chose UC Sunnydale so she could do the saving the world thing.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think it was the end of S3. Actually, yeah, I think S3 as a whole is what made her decide that Willow and Xander shouldn't be kept out of the fight. And after that, I can't ever remember her trying. Other people tried to keep Xander out, but I don't remember Buffy trying after S3.

[inyron.livejournal.com]

I'm a little hazy on my S4, so I don't really remember if there were any issues at the beginning of it. I'm thinking the change came around mid/end S3, including Willow's decision to stay in Sunnydale to elp with the fight, and culminating in GD pt. 2, with Buffy asking Xander to lead the charge.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Well, in the first episode of S4, Xander totally peps Buffy up and gets her confident enough to defeat the baddy.

But yeah, Willow's decision and then Buffy making Xander 'Key Guy' seem to be the turning point. She realizes that she can't protect them, that they want to be there to watch her back.

Graduation Day?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I think that's the first time when she plans for them to be part of the fight. And yes, it does transfer to Dawn.

Re: Graduation Day?

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm really thinking that that is the turning point.

[starsprinkles.livejournal.com]

I think she eventually realized that even though she's the Slayer, the "strongest one" out of them and the only one truly obligated to fight the fight, she needs them. After however many times of their saving her life as much as she's saved theirs, she came to see their individual value and how they contribute to the fight. Especially after Willow started getting really good with the magick and they both proved they weren't afraid to risk everything to help her -- not only that they weren't afraid, but that they succeeded so many times. There came a point when they all had each other's back, not just Buffy fighting and having to look after them all. She reverted back to it in The Yoko Factor and I think a couple other times, saying they would be in the way if she had to worry about protecting them, but in general she saw how important they were, and she got that the reason she's still around at all is because of them.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

True. Of course, everyone reverts to pettiness in TYF. And they had reason to be - on the run from the military, Spike had been winding them up, and they weren't talking enough.

And Buffy'd just had the conversation with Angel, where she sends him off (partly because she doesn't want him to get hurt), so she's already in a protective frame of mind.

[oyceter]

I think it's around Choices, when Willow decides to stay not necessarily because of Buffy, but because she wants to "fight the good fight." Maybe it kind of hit Buffy that while she sometimes thought of it as a responsibility, others could do it just for the "rightness"? That was awkwardly phrased... but just that it was a mission and a Good Thing. Also, I think it happens when not only does she decide to let Willow and Xander help, but also really when she decides to enlist all her classmates, despite knowing that some of them will die.

Huh. Interesting contrast to S7, where Buffy is not the reluctant general -- instead of asking the potentials to help, like she did with her class, she just tells them to.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Yeah. She stops... it's Kendra who makes Buffy stop calling it a job, yes? "You keep talking about Slaying like it's a job. It's not. It's who you are." And maybe she was realizing that you don't have to be Called for that to be who you are.

And yeah, there are a lot of interesting differences in S7.

[monique-chan.livejournal.com]

As I was looking through other people's memories, I came upon your journal... which I then decided to look through your memories and read some of the interesting things you have to say. ^_^

So now that you know where I came from, I'll share my opinion on this. I think that Buffy cann't NOT have something to protect. She needs to have that 'living thing' to protect and for her it was her friends. But when they continued to fight, she realized that she could not always protect them and let them help her. However, I feel that if Dawn had not arrived when she did there might have been more attempts by Buffy to push her friends out of the fight.

That is why I think that the feeling transfered to Dawn, because Buffy needs something she can see to protect, and if her friends continue to give her a hard time, why not protect the younger sibling. There are perhaps other factors here that make Dawn a perfect choice for those feelings. After all as Buffy's younger sibling it makes sense for Buffy to want/need to protect her, and keep her out of her 'life' whether that be slaying or her social life...

We discover that Buffy has lived longer than most slayers because she has a support network, her friends help her research and sometimes fight the 'thing that go bump in the night'. But I often wonder if it is also because she can see what she is fighting for and protecting that has let her live longer than many of the other slayers (if we don't count the Council in all this mess...)

Now I have a need to watch Buffy again and see what all I have forgotten. ^_^

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

But I often wonder if it is also because she can see what she is fighting for and protecting that has let her live longer than many of the other slayers (if we don't count the Council in all this mess...)

That makes a lot of sense. If you can see what you're fighting for, then you fight all the harder. You have to see the innocence and the bravery and the goodness of people in order to be willing to fight for them.