The Gift

[butterfly]

This episode always makes me cry. It starts when the look in Buffy's eyes changes, that gorgeous theme starts up, and the sun begins to rise.

There are so many parallels to Prophecy Girl - not in the least because they're both episodes where Buffy dies.

Xander bouncing a ball against a classroom wall vs sending a wrecking ball through a wall. Just an odd visual note that struck me.

And both Glory and the Master are desperately trying to get somewhere and need Summers' blood to break through.

In PG, Giles tries to go face the Master, in The Gift, he kills Ben.

"I've got a way around it. I quit..." "...I'm making it that simple! I quit! I resign, I-I'm fired, you
can find someone else to stop the Master from taking over!"
vs
"I sacrificed Angel to save the world. I loved him so much. But I knew ... what was right. I don't have that any more. I don't understand. I don't know how to live in this world if these are the choices. If everything just gets stripped away. I don't see the point. I just wish that... I just wish my mom was here. The spirit guide told me ... that death is my gift. Guess that means a Slayer really is just a killer after all..." "...It doesn't matter. If Dawn dies, I'm done with it. I'm quitting."

"Giles, I'm sixteen years old. I don't want to die."
vs
"This is the work I have to do."

"When he wakes up tell him... I don't know. Think of something
cool, tell him I said it."
vs
"Tell Giles ... tell Giles I figured it out. And, and I'm okay."

Something that I've been thinking about recently is velvet over iron. Buffy starts out as the iron fist in the velvet glove, but time slowly strips away the velvet, until all that's left is the iron underneath - which isn't soft and isn't pretty, but it's still the same fist as it always was - still the Hand. The core of Buffy doesn't change, but the softness gets stripped away by the battles she faces and the losses she suffers.

On a slightly different note, some quotes from Nietzsche that seem relevant to the Buffyverse.

"The mother of dissipation is not joy but joylessness." - This one makes me think of S5 Angel, actually.

"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."

"Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself."

"If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster."

Comments

[soundingsea.livejournal.com]

I start crying a bit earlier in The Gift. Well, ok, I cry for most of the episode, especially her interactions with Spike. And wow, I never thought about PG in relation to TG. That's an excuse to watch them back-to-back, I'm thinking.

And yes indeed, Buffy is hardened greatly over the course of the series. Doubtless some of SMG's changing look is due to Hollywood fashion, but it works really well for her character to become bone-thin and whipcord-sharp over those seven years.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

There are so many parallels to Becoming as well, but it's closer to Prophecy Girl, because PG and TG are both about sacrifice of self, while Becoming is sacrifice of other/love.

Yeah, it really suits Buffy to change in just that way. Odd how these things work out.

[brooding-soul.livejournal.com]

That was an incredibly astute observation about the velvet and the iron.


Also, the first time I watched The Gift, I sat up horrified when I realized what she was going to do, but I didn't lose it until she turned around and started running. That fucking killed me. I sobbed for the next half hour. Seriously. Twenty minutes after the show ended, I was still bawling. I cried so loud during the death scene that I woke my mother up who was in the other end of the house.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It's just something that came to me, probably because I flipped from watching Season Two episodes to a Season Five episode.

The first time I watched... I think that I was too numb to cry. It was just too incredibly painful - she was at peace with her decision, but it was so, so horribly depressing.