A ramble about Buffy, life, and endings

[butterfly]

So, selenak wrote a love declaration for the later seasons of Buffy.

I couldn't agree more with everything she said.

During a season's run, my favorite episode was always the most recent. Always. Right now, my favorite episode is still Chosen, though I'm guessing this'll change as I rewatch the show and have it all settle in. Then again, it might not. Chosen, I like for many reasons, not the least of which because it's an invitation to continue the story.

Joss is (in)famous for saying that he gives the fans what they need, not what they want. A lot of people have taken exception to this statement, calling it arrogant.

Well, it is. Of course it is. That doesn't make it wrong.

We all watch Buffy through the lens of our experiences and our biases. Some people let outside interviews or opinions affect their viewing of the show, some people just watch and never talk about it online or with friends.

Buffy isn't a show that's about comforting the viewers. It's about challenging perceptions and looking at things differently. It's about taking on the world and not giving up, no matter what the cost or the odds stacked against you.

It's easy to be liked if you never change. In some shows, the characters are static, though the situations change.

Life isn't static. Some people in our lives drop away. We get new friends. We get into new things and stop being as enthused about what we loved as children.

We grow up. We never stop growing. All of us are continually becoming someone new. It never stops. We never become 'who we are meant to be'.

"You think you know... what's to come... what you are... you haven't even begun."

When we leave Buffy, she's finally begun. We don't leave a finished person, because there is no finished person. Finished is dead. Static is dead.

Life is change. If Buffy were still the quippy girl of season one, if she were so unaffected by killing and dying, how realistic would she be?

"The Slayer forges strength from pain."

We all do. Buffy, the Slayer, is a stand-in for all of us. She is us in a fashion far more positive than Connor, who shows the isolated, fearing, and ultimately doomed side of being human. Buffy survives her childhood, wounded but stronger for the wounding. She bends. She falls. She rises again.

The monsters that Buffy faces are the monsters that we all face. As she grows older, those monsters, those fears, become more grounded in reality and humanity. She defeats them, both by skill of weapons (which is, in the end, a metaphor for facing our fears - this is why she is a better fighter when she's emotionally prepared) and by trusting others. Without trust, we are isolated and alone. Each of us is the only Slayer, trapped in the belief that we alone can face the demons that haunt us.

That's not true. That's what Buffy shows us: that by facing our fears and trusting in other people, we can always beat those fears back.

Every day is the first day of the rest of our lives.

And there are no endings, because there is always someone to remember the story and to continue to live it.

Comments

What you said.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

And thanks for the shout-out.

Part of the reason why I'm glad "Chosen", and not "The Gift" is the final episode, is that while wrapping some things up, it also shows that there is a future, with infinite possibilities. "The Gift" would have ended Buffy's life as a tragedy, with the Scoobies as support players. "Chosen" was the end of an epic, and the invitation, as you say, to continue the story to the audience for all the participants.

Re: What you said.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Your post is what got me thinking. And it's a brilliant thing, getting people to think.

I totally agree with you. The Gift was sad. I mean, the only way for Buffy to win is for her to die? Oh, that's a positive message.

Chosen kinda reminded me of the last words of the Children of Dune miniseries - "A chapter has ended, swept away by the whirlwind. [or destroyed by Spike's soul, as the case may be] One door has closed, but another has opened. And on the other side... our future..."

[dadmirald.livejournal.com]

Random disagreement a month after the fact. I just found this through Mutant_allies, so here goes.

While I don't (upon 8th viewing) dislike "Chosen" as series finale, I thought "The Gift" was perfect. It wrapped Buffy's story up completely. It took the girl we met in "Welcome..." and showed that she had become a strong, adult woman. Buffy gave of herself tirelessly throughout the first 5 years of her journey, and "The Gift" is the point where she realizes all the things that she can do for everyone. She discovers that she has true power. Not just for slaying demons (metaphor: her problems), but for helping others as well. I see Buffy's swandive not as the death of the being, but as the emergence of the fully formed adult from the life of the child. Her adolescence was over; it was time to grow up, and she did it beautifully and without looking back.

[notalexis.livejournal.com]

That's a different way of looking at it. I'll try seeing it that way the next time I watch The Gift. Not sure if I'll succeed, but I'll try.

[dadmirald.livejournal.com]

I was just rewatching and I saw another way to view it.

Dawn was made from Buffy. She's Buffy's essence, only without the Slayerdom. When Buffy dives to her death, she'll continue to live in/as Dawn, but her Slayer journey will have been fulfilled. And she's ensured that she/Dawn will grow to be a good and useful person anyway. Dawn's willingness to kill herself is something that the original 14-year-old Buffy wouldn't have dreamed of doing.

And I say 'Amen'!

[superplin.livejournal.com]

Absolutely agree with everything, especially about the hopefulness, the need to share our burdens in order to defeat our fears, and the open-endedness.

I'm always astonished when people say they thought The Gift was the perfect ending, because I also saw it as terribly sad. I mean, yes, it's true, every human story ultimately ends in death, but that's what's so great about Chosen, to me: it's a story that ends in life, a story that ends with a beginning.
Heaps better than leaping off a tower to save the world, IMO.

Re: And I say 'Amen'!

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Definitely. The Gift was important to have and it was a good season finale, but it was too depressing to be a Buffy finale. Because Buffy is about the fight, about life. As a finale, The Gift would have been too final.