Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Myth, Metaphor & Morality Page 11

  At the beginning of the season Dru was weak and controlled, just as Buffy’s desire for Angel was. The basic purpose of the ego in Freudian theory is to find ways to satisfy the id’s desires. Freud expressed it very pithily: "Where the Id was, there shall the Ego be" (h/t executrix). Spike’s goal for the season, announced in School Hard, was to “restore Dru to health”, that is, metaphorically, to bring the id to full strength. That’s what he did in WML. During the “restoration spell” Angel’s essence – that which had created Dru in the first place – poured into her, bringing her to full strength.

  The ego is also supposed to remain in at least partial control of the id. Because Spike was disabled in the fight, Buffy’s id was now unrestrained except by her superego (see below). Bad Eggs demonstrated this in metaphor, with Joyce (superego) harping on Buffy’s “irresponsibility” while hormones were on parade by Buffy/Angel and Xander/Cordy. Buffy herself put her desire in plain English just after the teaser to Surprise when she told Willow she was going to sleep with Angel.

  I promised to talk about Kendra, and I think she fits into the metaphor as well. Kendra I see as Buffy’s virginal conscience. Remember Kendra’s stammering shyness around Xander in WML:

  “Buffy: I'm guessing dating isn't big with your Watcher either.

  Kendra: I'm not permitted to speak with boys.”

  And the fact that her parents gave her to her watcher when she was young, where she was then isolated, almost like being given to a convent:

  “Kendra: De tings you do and have, I was taught, distract from my calling. Friends, school... even family.

  Buffy: Even family?

  Kendra: My parents, dey sent me to my Watcher when I was very young.

  Buffy: How young?

  Kendra: I don't remember dem, actually. I've seen pictures. But, uh, dat's how seriously de calling is taken by my people. My modder and fadder gave me to my Watcher because dey believed dat dey were doing de right ting for me, and for de world.”

  And most important of all, her nagging warning about Angelus, the monster underneath whom Buffy was overlooking in favor of Angel:

  “Kendra: Angel? You mean Angelus? I've read about him. He is a monster.”

  By giving into her desire, Buffy lost herself in Angel similar to the way Giles lost himself in Eyghon. She (unintentionally) unleashed a monster on the world, just as Daryl tried to do in SAR. Like Ted, Angel appeared to be human but was a conscience-less killer underneath, in each case revealed after Buffy killed the human. Buffy even signaled this similarity between Ted and vampires in her rant in the graveyard in Ted by running vampires together with Ted: “I mean, people are perfectly happy getting along, and then vampires come, and they run around and they kill people, and they take over your whole house, they start making these stupid little mini pizzas, and everyone's like, 'I like your mini pizzas,'….”

  In essence, Buffy achieved without intending it the very result which she prevented Ampata from accomplishing deliberately: she sucked the life out of her beloved to satisfy her own desire. The Guardian we now understand was the superego which kept the id (Ampata) under control. Ampata became free only when she destroyed her guardian.

  The way this played out in Innocence was that the Judge metaphorically disabled Buffy’s superego. In the real world, a judge separates the innocent from the guilty. In Freudian theory, the superego acts like a judge because it punishes misbehavior with feelings of guilt. In the twisted demon world, the Judge performs the opposite function: he is “a demon brought forth to... separate the righteous from the wicked... and to burn the righteous down.” The Judge operates by burning the souls – in the Buffyverse, the metaphorical conscience (Joss’s word) or superego (my gloss) – of human beings. When Buffy made contact with the Judge despite Angel’s shouted warning not to touch him, “it was like a sudden fever”. That disabled her superego just enough to allow her id to take control in the emotion of their escape. And one moment of happiness separated the righteous from the wicked.

  With this all as background, let’s consider now the nature of Buffy’s relationship with Angel both in text and in metaphor. How should we evaluate her decision to have sex with Angel? The title of the episode gives us one possible answer: she was (and still is) innocent. Joss says of the title, “Buffy is still an innocent … she hasn’t lost anything of herself.” Giles, being the best dad ever, reinforces this at the end:

  “Buffy: You must be so disappointed in me.

  Giles: No. (she looks at him) No, no, I'm not.

  Buffy: But this is all my fault.

  Giles: No. I don't believe it is. Do you want me to wag my finger at you and tell you that you acted rashly? You did. A-and I can. I know that you loved him. And... he... has proven more than once that he loved you. You couldn't have known what would happen. The coming months a-are gonna, are gonna be hard... I, I suspect on all of us, but... if it's guilt you're looking for, Buffy, I'm, I'm not your man. All you will get from me is, is my support. And my respect.”

  The other side of the argument can be found in my reading of the season to this point. Joss says that Angel was designed to be Buffy’s “star-crossed lover” (Shakespeare!) and is “exactly the wrong guy for her”. In my view, every episode has been warning Buffy of the consequences of giving in to her id and telling her, in metaphor, that sex with Angel was a very bad idea. We saw this in SAR, in Inca Mummy Girl, in Reptile Boy, in Ted, and in Bad Eggs. Lie to Me prefigured Buffy’s dilemma now. There she had to kill her former crush because he’d become a vampire, and that’s where she is now with Angel. “Give me time.”

  This reading is reinforced by the parallel Xander/Cordy relationship. It’s wrong, every which way it’s wrong. Their first kiss was in the basement of Buffy’s house, the site of her metaphorical subconscious, home of her id; there had never been a scene in the basement before that, and they built the set for that episode. Every time Xander and Cordy talk about their relationship they say how wrong it is. Bad Eggs could hardly have made it any clearer that they were letting hormones get the better of them. Willow sums it up here in Innocence: “It’s against all laws of God and man.” Note that this perfectly describes a relationship between a Slayer and a vampire.

  I obviously lean strongly to the view that Buffy made the wrong decision, romantic though her relationship with Angel may have seemed. In my read of the show, Buffy’s destiny is to grow up. The whole season has built off the theme briefly explored in Angel, namely that Buffy’s relationship is a diversion from her destiny. She’s not ready, as DreamJoyce suggests in Surprise, and the effect is that her destiny has become secondary:

  Angel: So you don't think about the future?

  Buffy: No.

  Angel: Never?

  Buffy: No.

  Angel: (swallows) You really don't care what happens a year from now? Five years from now?

  Buffy: Angel, when I look into the future, a-a... all I see is you! All I want is you. (Reptile Boy Bad Eggs h/t anonymous.)

  Some people were emotionally attached to the Buffy/Angel relationship and disappointed at the turn of events in Innocence. The psychology of the plot, though, is very well thought out. Adam Smith laid it out 250 years ago in his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which I quoted in my analysis of Angel. Smith notes that we never empathize with lovers entirely because we never have the desire to form the same attachment they do. We form our own attachments, of course, but not with the same person as others do. Though their love will seem perfectly reasonable to them, it can never appear in the same light to us because we aren’t in love with the same person. Smith goes on:

  “But though we feel no proper [empathy] with an attachment of this kind, though we never approach even in imagination towards conceiving a passion for that particular person, yet … we readily enter into those high hopes of happiness which are proposed from its gratification, as well as into that exquisite distress which is feared from its disappointment. It interests us not as a passion, but as a situation
that gives occasion to other passions which interest us: to hope, to fear, and to distress of every kind. …

  Hence it is that, in some modern tragedies and romances, this passion appears so wonderfully interesting. It is not so much the love … which attaches us …, as the distress which that love occasions. The author who should introduce two lovers in a scene of perfect security, expressing their mutual fondness for one another, would excite laughter, and not sympathy. If a scene of this kind is ever admitted into a tragedy, it is always, in some measure, improper, and is endured not from any sympathy with the passion that is expressed in it, but from concern for the dangers and difficulties with which the audience foresee that its gratification is likely to be attended.” [Slightly edited for readability; my emphasis.]

  In short, it’s the anticipation of a relationship, or concern about its ending, which is the proper subject of drama. A quiet, uneventful relationship is of no interest. Joss Whedon understands that: he says in the DVD commentary that he knew Buffy and Angel would get together, and that once they did people would become bored with them unless he did something else. Plus, of course, we should always remember the ending of I Robot, You Jane:

  “Buffy: Let's face it: none of us are ever gonna have a happy, normal relationship.

  Xander: We're doomed!

  Willow: Yeah!

  They all laugh. Their laughter quickly becomes nervous and stops. Only the fountain can be heard as they each consider their plight.”

  Buffy’s emotions still have a strong hold on her at the end when she’s unable to dust Angelus. The consequences of her decision will obviously be an issue going forward, so I’ll talk about that as we go along from here.

  There are lots of other interesting issues as well. Since I’ve mentioned Willow’s criticism of X/C, we should take a look at her reaction in more detail. I obviously think Willow correctly identified the relationship as wrong, and Joss agrees: “The idea that Cordelia would end up falling for Xander … that would be a perfect romance because they are so very wrong for each other.” That doesn’t mean Willow was right to call Xander out on it. Her unrequited love for Xander causes her to overlook the fact that it may be a wrong decision, but it’s his decision to make, not hers. He didn’t owe her anything, and she seems to have forgotten her own statement in Angel that “If you care about somebody you care about them.”

  Attempting to use Oz as a form of revenge was thoughtless on her part, but you gotta love Oz’s reaction. As Joss says in the commentary, you can see Willow fall in love with him in that moment. And AH’s smile … well, it doesn’t get any better than that.

  Buffy’s dream about Jenny at the graveyard showed Angel standing in the sun. I see this as meaning it was Angel’s human side, now separate from the vampire. It was Angel, therefore, who gave her the clue about Jenny.

  What about Jenny? It’s not at all clear that she did any harm in concealing her role – she had no way to know that Angel’s curse could be lifted – but spying on people isn’t the best way to get them to trust you. Buffy’s reaction is probably too harsh, though I excuse her under the circumstances. Giles is more interesting. He’s willing to sacrifice Jenny and his own feelings in order to keep his Slayer focused in an extreme emergency. That was essential under the circumstances, and it’s a character trait Giles will demonstrate repeatedly.

  There’s so much greatness in these two episodes that I can’t really list it all. “Wow.” Angelus exhaling the smoke, post-coital both literally and metaphorically (Vampire bite? Prostitute? I mean, really.). DB’s marvelous portrayal of Angelus. The devastating scene in Angel’s apartment. Willow getting it first: “No, I don't think you can.” “I knew it! Well, not 'knew it' in the sense of having the slightest idea….” “Wear something trashy ... er.” Oz and Willow in the van. Possibly my favorite comedic line in the whole series: “I’m seventeen years old. Looking at linoleum makes me think about having sex.” “That was then. This is now.”

  One reason I rate S2 so highly is that, with all respect to Joss, I’m not at all sure that Innocence is even the best episode of the season.

  Trivia notes: (1) The lyrics we hear as Surprise opens in Buffy’s dream are from the song “Anything”: Take me over, I'm lying down / I'm giving in to you. (2) The monkey next to Willow in Buffy’s dream is speaking French. The words translate as “The hippo stole his pants.”, which references back to Willow’s conversation with Oz in WML in which he told her that all monkeys are French and that the hippo wanted the monkey’s pants. Buffy wasn’t present for this conversation, so it’s a signal to the audience that the dream really is prophetic. (3) The monkey is a visual pun: it’s a capuchin monkey and Willow is drinking a cappuccino. (4) Willow tells Buffy “carpe diem” which means “seize the day”. Buffy told Willow to “seize the moment” in WTTH. That worked out poorly then, just as it does here when Willow quotes it back to her. (5) Giles told the gang, “Discretion is the better part of valor”. That’s a cliché these days, but is from Henry IV Part 1, Act V, sc. iv. (6) Xander said that Buffy ground the Master’s bones to make her bread. “Grind his bones to make my bread” is from “Jack and the Beanstalk”. (7) The song which plays at Dru’s party is called “Transylvanian Concubine”. Well, yes. (8) Cordelia in Some Assembly Required: “Angel saved me from an arm.” Here he saves Buffy from one. (9) The heavy breathing in the scene of Angel and Buffy making love was dubbed later by Joss and the sound editor. (10) The movie Buffy and Joyce watch at the end is called Stowaway and starred Alice Faye and Robert Young. (11) Brian Thompson, who played the Judge, was Luke in WTTH and The Harvest. (12) Surprise was the third episode written by Marti Noxon on her own (she collaborated writing WML 1; h/t anonymous). Marti would go on to become the co-showrunner with Joss.

  Phases

  After the sturm und drang of Innocence, we need some comic relief and Phases provides it. Humor is very much a matter of individual taste, and I think it’s the second funniest comedic episode in the series, after Pangs. Even the funniest Buffy episodes, though, have a serious point, and I think Phases does.

  Let’s start with the title. It obviously refers to the phases of the moon which affect werewolves, but it has other meanings as well. For example, the werewolf himself has alternating phases of demon and human, which is why Buffy won’t kill it. Willow’s “three days out of the month” can be seen as a phase. Most significant, in my view, is this dialogue from Innocence:

  “Spike: Is it really true?

  Angelus: It's really true. (laughs and walks around the table)

  Drusilla: (follows him with her gaze) You've come home.

  Spike: No more of this 'I've got a soul' crap? (follows him)

  Angelus: What can I say, hmm? (strikes a match on the table) I was going through a phase.”

  Needless to say, I don’t think this word choice is accidental. The ending of Innocence left no doubt that Buffy was going to have to deal with the consequences of her relationship with Angel, including her inability to stake him. One thing Phases does, in my view, is add a layer of complexity to her dilemma. Thus far, we’ve had the example of Xander suffering from temporary possession by a hyena, and Buffy rightly doesn’t slay him. Vampires (other than Angel) are permanently controlled by the demon, so Buffy slays them on sight. Now we get Oz, who’s a demon sometimes but not others. Oz needs to be given the opportunity to recognize his problem and control it himself; once he takes that responsibility, Buffy won’t slay him. The name of the werewolf hunter – Cain – hangs a lantern on this point.

  So how should Buffy think of Angelus? Is he now just a vampire again, something to be slain on sight? Or is he unique among vampires such that she should treat him as merely going through a demon “phase”? Complicating her task further is the fact that, in stark contrast to Oz, Angel doesn’t control himself during this “phase”. Oz never harmed anyone, but Angelus has killed the prostitute, Enyos, and Theresa (at least). Buffy accepts responsibility for Theresa’s death, adding to her sense of
guilt over the events of Surprise/Innocence. But what if Oz had been the killer, not knowing that he was the wolf and unable to control himself? Should Buffy then have slayed Oz?

  I’m not going to answer these questions, though I intend to discuss them later when we have more story as background. I’m not sure they have definitive answers anyway. My point is only that Buffy’s situation can’t necessarily be resolved simply by reciting her duty to slay vampires. I can only say that the show is going to explore these issues going forward and that the show is consistent in recognizing Buffy’s responsibility for the consequences of her actions.

  Now I want to return to the werewolf. The wolf needs to be controlled; on that everyone agrees. What we need to analyze is what it is about the wolf which makes this so important. Let’s see how Giles describes it:

  “Giles: … Y-you see, uh, the-the werewolf, uh, is such a, a potent e-e-extreme representation of our inborn animalistic traits … And it, uh, acts on-on pure instinct. No conscience, uh, uh, predatory and, and aggressive.”

  That’s kind of how I see the id. Here are some descriptions of the id taken from the Wikipedia article, and I think they fit pretty well with what Giles said: “The id comprises the unorganized part of the personality structure that contains the basic drives. … It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle…. The id is responsible for our basic drives, "knows no judgments of value: no good and evil, no morality... It is regarded as "the great reservoir of libido"….”

  Libido. Now, I think, we can understand what the episode is telling us. The wolf, as I noted, never actually kills anyone. Instead, what we see is lots of references to sex, consistent with the season to date. The wolf is attracted to places where there’s sexual heat: lover’s lane, the Bronze. “They're suckers for that whole sexual heat thing. Sense it miles away.”