Re: SPOILERS: Speculation based on "Restless."

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

Actually Jason, you've got a Season 7 rumor in there and you make it
sound like you're just discussing Season 6,

but

I'm 

too

drained

to

do

a

big 

Spoiler 

rant,

so screw it... (and I'm not mentioning that rumor here, btw)


Another reason I'm pissed about the end of the season is that it seems
to kill off any further possibilities for exploring Willow's dream.
Yeah, I liked when Marti played back Oz's line to Tara ("I tried to warn
you") in "Wrecked" with "Tara didn't even know that girl". But I was
hoping that there was something more to the dream than "Willow worries
Tara wouldn't like her without her 'Cool Witch' persona".

But now there can't be anything deeper about B/W in Willow's psyche,
because if Willow was secretly in love with Buffy (you know, Sapphic
poem, "salesman" speech, Buffy saving her when Tara can't, etc.), it
surely would have come out now, right? I'll be overjoyed if they have
Willow admit she loves Buffy at some time in the future, but I really
can't conceive of it, not after she had a total breakdown, tried to
destroy the world and everyone in it, and all she could dredge up from
her heart is "no one but Tara ever made me feel loved".

I mean, shit, if this isn't a catharsis, what is? Seems like we've seen
all the "mysteries of Willow's heart" we're ever going to see, and the
sum total is "gosh, I miss Tara." :p

Oh, and so much for my idea that the dream meant she had to "leave
Tara's room" (i.e., the W/T relationship) to find her true self. She
had her moment of crisis and she's still at the altar of Saint Tara.
W/X in the future? Perhaps. But that'll be something new, not anything
shedding light on the dream.

<B/X Mode>

The "Big Brother" reference by Buffy in Xander's dream brings him up
short and then he and Buffy share an odd silence. Standard B/X
interpretation is that the line represents Xander's FEAR that this is
how Buffy sees him, not her actual emotions. And he is disturbed by the
thought (because he still loves her).

It's also worth noting that Buffy is a child in a sandbox here, which
she obviously is not in actuality. Conception: that Buffy sees him as a
"brother" while she's engaged in her immature relationships with Angel
and Riley (and soon, Spike), but when she "grows up", she'll realize
that Xander is much more than that.

And this is just before the point where PlaygroundXander looks off
across the park and sees IceCreamTruckXander, who is bickering with Anya
and having sexual fantasies about Willow and Tara. Conception: that
IceCreamTruckXander represents Xander's immature present, immersed in
his "sex only" affair with Anya, but PlaygroundXander is the future (the
presence of WatcherSpike may be an omen of this), having realized that
it has always been Buffy for him, and waiting for the moment when she
does, too.

Lastly, "brother" is a reference to B/X's deep emotional similarities
(tendency to hide emotions, desire to solve everything with quips and
violence), which are either a reason why they would work together or a
reason why they wouldn't (I go back and forth on this). In any event,
B/Xers have always seen that scene as very pro-B/X.

</B/X mode>

Oh, you're surprised by that? You've obviously never met a B/Ger who
thinks that "Helpless" proves how much they love each other, and all
Quentin Travers's "you have a father's love for the girl" line proves is
that Quentin has his head very far up his ass. 

(My favorite quote on this is the girl who wrote "if my father looked at
me the way Giles does [Buffy] in that last scene, I would need years of
therapy." And to be fair, all of the "father's love" stuff is basically
undone by "Checkpoint", anyway.)

Well, it's nice to know I can still find 'shippy moments for other
couples, even if Joss and Marti have basically crushed my heart with
Tuesday's double dose of crap. (As TV, pure and simple, I thought
Petrie's ep was better, btw.) And it's nice to know I haven't lost the
old B/X chops, after all.

Dan

who now that this 'ship has been so washed out of canon is fighting off
the urge to go write Angel/Giles fics (on the "if I'm going to 'ship
things you can't see a hint of on the screen, I may as well go
completely nuts" theory)...

Or, in fewer words, yep, still bitter.