Re: [The Incomplete Pass]

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

General round-up on this:  

Mad, I can't find the dang fic. I looked all over Between the Sheets
and the closest I can find are Rite Raith's "One Day at A Time" (Buffy
announces she's gay, everyone takes it badly, except Spike, who's bi and
makes B/W work it out) and Gillian Shearer's "Rain" (after sending Angel
to hell, Buffy finds Willow in the rain and passion overwhelms her, but
in the morning she feels she just used Willow and runs off to LA--but
in the sequel, "Summer Sun", Buffy comes back and after Will yells at
her, A Lot, it's all good). I don't want to write the stuff watcher Dan
was talking about, but if anyone knows what it is, I might take a read.

Rod, your English is fine and I loved the essay.

Dan, not sure with the LOL saying that my suicide remark is "reading
between the lines." Isn't this the Season 5 through-line? In "Fool For
Love", Buffy wants to know why Slayers die and Spike says it's because
they give up, they give up because they have nothing to live for, and
the only thing that keeps Buffy alive is the people she's connected to.
And then:

1) Joyce has a brain tumor ("Shadow")
2) Riley feels so alienated he's letting vamps suck on him ("Listening
to Fear").
3) Rather than accept Buffy's reconciliation attempt, Riley leaves
("Into the Woods")
4) Buffy gives up on the idea of dating ("I Was Made to Love You")
5) Joyce dies (same)
6) Buffy feels she's incapable of love ("Intervention")
7) Buffy quests to be more connected to the world; that stupid primal
slayer tells her "Death is your gift" (same)
8) Buffy discovers her friends can't tell her from a robot--how
disconnected can you get? (same)
9) Buffy has to give up her academic career ("Tough Love")
10) Buffy says "It's not like I don't have a life?I have Dawn's life"
(same)
11) Willow tells Buffy, apologetically, that Tara's "her girl"--okay,
this is mostly subtexty and I certainly don't mean that Buffy has to
take this the way that I had her be all heartbroken in "I Understand",
but even if Buffy couldn't return Willow's love and was glad Will had
Tara, there must have been a certain psychological comfort in Willow's
devotion to her and losing that has to factor into her feeling she's
losing everything. (same)
12) Buffy laments that "It just?keeps coming" and cites the loss of
Riley and her Mom [script reads "Buffy sags, on the verge of total
collapse"] ("Spiral")
13) Dawn is kidnapped; Buffy goes catatonic (same)
14) Willow discovers the catatonia is caused by Buffy having given up
even the hope of victory ("The Weight of the World")
15) Buffy says "I just don't see the point in going on if everything
gets stripped away"--a direct reference to all the connections Spike
mentioned way back when, most of which are gone now ("The Gift")
16) Buffy says "the hardest thing to do in this world is to live in
it"--which, by implication, she can't do any more. (same)
17) Buffy makes her "heroic sacrifice".

If the point of the season is not that all of Buffy's losses move her to
her final act, where all she has left to give is her life, then why the
foreshadowing, why all the events I mentioned?

This is why I really hope there's an attempt at a Buffy romance this
year, be it Willow or Xander or even Spike (despite my feeling this
would be a sad rip-off of the Angel affair, Buffy revisiting territory
that, knowing what she does now, she probably wouldn't have even done
the first time). Heck, I'll take a new guy, despite the fact that Riley
was such a colossal failure. After a year of "Loneliness kills,
literally" we need to see Buffy healed through love. (Discussion of
"Bargaining" could follow here, but I don't want to get into
spoiler-ville.)

Oh, and let's not forget Buffy watching April-bot slowly die of
abandonment, waiting for the love that never comes to save her, in "I
Was Made to Love You". More foreshadowing, but not included in the list
above since it's not a specific loss for Buffy, although it's
significant that it's just Buffy and April, alone together. You could
also include Buffy's brief flirtation with and the abandonment of the
idea of reconciling with Angel ("Forever") and her statement to him in
that ep that she now fears the future.

So I don't see myself as doing a radical reinterpretation by saying
"Loneliness kills" is the Season 5 theme, any more than "Sometimes you
have to move on" is Season 3's or "In the midst of change, hold on to
what matters most" is Season 4's. Wonder what Season 6 will be.

Excuse the longwindedness,

Dan

PS-since the point of S5 is that Buffy needs other people to go on
living, it's notable that the Big Bad is the most selfish bitch we've
ever seen. The Master loved his flock, Angelus had his passions, the
Mayor loved Faith, and even Adam had a certain affection for Maggie and
Riley, but Glory needs no one, indeed hates the concept that people need
people ("The Weight of the World"). The contrast is plain.