Re: Fic; Return (9/10)

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

Jim,

Damn nice work. So the enjoining spell not only defeats Glory
externally, it reunites Buffy internally, huh? Good concept. And the
chat with Death was well done.

Two small corrections:

1) You forgot Buffy's major childhood encounter with Death--losing
cousin/best friend Celia to die Kinderstod when both girls were eight
(see "Killed By Death"), which scarred her so badly it still manifests
to this day in her aversion to hospitals.

Of course, I'm one to talk about overlooking eps, since I said in a fic
that Watchers don't have kids and then I saw "Never Kill a Boy on the
First Date" and discovered that both Giles's father and grandmother were
Watchers. Oh, damn. Well, do Giles or Wesley SEEM like candidates for
fatherhood to you? And I don't even want to contemplate there being a
Quentin Travers, Jr.

2) Death's comment makes it seem as though you think "take arms against
a sea of troubles" is a life-affirming line, the "to be" portion of "to
be or not to be". Uh, no. Shakespeare keeps them in order. "To be or
not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to
suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune"--put up with all
the crap that life is giving Hamlet (and us)--"or take arms against a
sea of troubles"--"sea of troubles" meaning the melancholy Dane's
current situation--"and by opposing, end them"--i.e., kill yourself
and not have to deal with this any more. By putting the suicidal option
second, Shakespeare not only mirrors the structure of the initial
question, but transitions smoothly into Hamlet's consideration of the
realm of death ("To sleep, perchance to dream", "that undiscover'd
country", etc.).

Maybe your Death, by saying Buffy struck her as a "take-arms" kind of
girl, is actually urging suicide, but in that case it's a bit of a
U-turn for her to be so accepting of Buffy's decision to return to life.
Maybe I just read it wrong, I don't know.

Anyway, good stuff and it's nice to see that Buffy remembers her
Shakespeare, even if she can't remember the word "haiku". She did get
that 1430 on her SATs, after all. (Damn, I was so proud of my own 1430,
and I didn't even kill one lousy vamp. I feel so inadequate, now.)

Keep up the good work,

Dan