Rewind it!
Apr. 11th, 2005 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hazelkJust three days back from Edinburgh and e-mail reminders of the need for two more trips arrive. Elder son still hasn’t forgiven me for last week’s excursion. He wants to go to Edinburgh. Not some time in the future, which could be fun, but last Friday. He wants that time back. Every morning he wakes up chanting “Rewind it mummy, rewind it.” Autism is supposed to mean not being able to generalise. He shouldn’t be capable of concluding that what works with TV, works with real life. He shouldn’t. So far all I can do is tell him we’ve lost the remote.
Of the two great tragic finales in BtVS I’ve always found The Gift more affecting. It’s not really justifiable, I simply wasn’t very emotionally invested in the series during S2. To the point that my main reaction to Buffy having to kill re-ensouled Angel was “Cool! Plot twist.” Swiftly followed by “DB looks like he’s trying to hail a taxi with his arse glued to a lamppost.” But I can easily see that an equivalent reaction to the swan dive of self-sacrifice could be “Huh” followed by “SMG has a major wedgie.”
Feeling sophomoric today, I’m going to discuss a less frivolous criticism of The Gift namely, that in this episode Buffy is not prepared to sacrifice Dawn to save the world, whereas in Becoming II she did ultimately kill Angel. Is this a lapse of moral judgement, a regression on her part? It’s hard to argue that a few more minutes of life for one human being outweigh the lives of everyone in all possible universes. The ghost of Kant’s Categorical Imperative could be invoked, but this type of problem might have been expressly designed to attack Kantian ethics and damn it’s effective. But maybe that designed aspect is significant. Do such clearly defined choices ever get presented outside of philosophical debates? In the real world complete certainty about the outcome of deciding to follow option A rather than option B is rarely possible and the possibility of an option C or K appearing can never be ruled out.
I think in moral terms The Gift is more of an invitation to ask the right questions than an argument about the ethical validity of competing answers. I think it’s very significant that when Giles first makes the point about choosing between Dawn and the World there really is another option they hadn’t at that stage considered. I think it’s equally important that when it finally does prove too late to simply delay the blood-letting yet another option presents itself.
Because Dawn is more than Buffy’s sister, more than a symbol of Buffy’s moral rectitude. She’s a person in her own right and the choice is not just between protecting her or killing her. There’s a third option available, which is to allow Dawn to exercise her own choice. Dawn chooses to sacrifice herself:
“Buffy, you have to let me go! Blood starts it, and until the blood stops flowing it'll never stop. You know you have to let me ... It has to have the blood ...”
I believe that hearing her sister make that choice triggers Buffy’s sudden realisation that she and Dawn are one. They both have the blood of heroes in their veins.
Of course at this stage of her development Buffy is unable to allow her sister that hero’s ‘purgative’ while she’s able to sacrifice herself in Dawn’s place. But it’s a progression from telling Angel to close his eyes, without even considering the possibility that he might choose to die willingly, and by the end of the series she’s finally ready to let another be the sacrificial hero.
Because Chosen is the bestest finale of all (ducks).
Of the two great tragic finales in BtVS I’ve always found The Gift more affecting. It’s not really justifiable, I simply wasn’t very emotionally invested in the series during S2. To the point that my main reaction to Buffy having to kill re-ensouled Angel was “Cool! Plot twist.” Swiftly followed by “DB looks like he’s trying to hail a taxi with his arse glued to a lamppost.” But I can easily see that an equivalent reaction to the swan dive of self-sacrifice could be “Huh” followed by “SMG has a major wedgie.”
Feeling sophomoric today, I’m going to discuss a less frivolous criticism of The Gift namely, that in this episode Buffy is not prepared to sacrifice Dawn to save the world, whereas in Becoming II she did ultimately kill Angel. Is this a lapse of moral judgement, a regression on her part? It’s hard to argue that a few more minutes of life for one human being outweigh the lives of everyone in all possible universes. The ghost of Kant’s Categorical Imperative could be invoked, but this type of problem might have been expressly designed to attack Kantian ethics and damn it’s effective. But maybe that designed aspect is significant. Do such clearly defined choices ever get presented outside of philosophical debates? In the real world complete certainty about the outcome of deciding to follow option A rather than option B is rarely possible and the possibility of an option C or K appearing can never be ruled out.
I think in moral terms The Gift is more of an invitation to ask the right questions than an argument about the ethical validity of competing answers. I think it’s very significant that when Giles first makes the point about choosing between Dawn and the World there really is another option they hadn’t at that stage considered. I think it’s equally important that when it finally does prove too late to simply delay the blood-letting yet another option presents itself.
Because Dawn is more than Buffy’s sister, more than a symbol of Buffy’s moral rectitude. She’s a person in her own right and the choice is not just between protecting her or killing her. There’s a third option available, which is to allow Dawn to exercise her own choice. Dawn chooses to sacrifice herself:
“Buffy, you have to let me go! Blood starts it, and until the blood stops flowing it'll never stop. You know you have to let me ... It has to have the blood ...”
I believe that hearing her sister make that choice triggers Buffy’s sudden realisation that she and Dawn are one. They both have the blood of heroes in their veins.
Of course at this stage of her development Buffy is unable to allow her sister that hero’s ‘purgative’ while she’s able to sacrifice herself in Dawn’s place. But it’s a progression from telling Angel to close his eyes, without even considering the possibility that he might choose to die willingly, and by the end of the series she’s finally ready to let another be the sacrificial hero.
Because Chosen is the bestest finale of all (ducks).
no subject
Date: 2005-04-12 09:08 am (UTC)GILES: She's not your sister.
BUFFY: (pause) No. She's not. She's more than that. She's me. The monks made her out of me. I hold her ... and I feel closer to her than ... (looks down, sighs) It's not just the memories they built. It's physical. Dawn ... is a part of me. The only part that I- (stops)
BUFFY: I sacrificed Angel to save the world. (pause) 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... (tearfully) I just wish my mom was here.
She loved Angel, but since 'Passion' she had been reading herself to kill him. Of course having to kill him as Angel rather than Angelus added to the pain, but she knew what she had to do.
Whereas with Dawn, she sees her very much as a part of herself - the innocent part, that's not been tainted by all the killing and violence. A way to preserve herself somehow. But I think you're spot-on with this:
There’s a third option available, which is to allow Dawn to exercise her own choice. Dawn chooses to sacrifice herself
Of course there is Angel's fantastic line from TGiQ:
ANGEL: I stopped Acathla. That saved the world.
SPIKE: Buffy ran you through with a sword.
ANGEL: Yeah, but I made her do it. I signaled her with my eyes.
Sigh. That'll never stop amusing me! :)
by the end of the series she’s finally ready to let another be the sacrificial hero.
Oh yes! About Chosen (which is so the bestest finale), I'm always reminded of this post by
This is where Spike gets to be the hero – where he gets to be a champion in a way Angel cannot even dream of. And Angel didn’t come back for nothing – Buffy didn’t choose Spike as her champion over Angel for nothing. Because the most deliberate comparison is being drawn here –a comparison with Becoming. Spike knows that Buffy has been haunted for ever by what she did to Angel – knows that Angel’s reaction made what she had to do almost unbearable. But he knows that this time he can save her. And we can see in Buffy’s face that she’s ready to stay with him here – but he knows that he can’t let her. So his does this one, last, amazing thing for her – but it’s not he hides the truth from her to protect her. Because this is their moment of perfect honesty, and he knows that he can’t hide from her, not now. So he acknowledges the truth – acknowledges it in the way he looks at her, looks into her eyes and her heart and her soul - and then he tells her what she has to do. "No, you don’t".
It’s the most wonderful contrast. Angel may have got his soul back at the last minute but Buffy still had to kill him like a monster. But Spike - Spike dies a man.
Read the whole thing if you're not familiar with it - it usually makes me tear up, but there is not a lovelier post on Chosen out there.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-12 01:48 pm (UTC)And thank you for reminding me of