Very insightful-- I've really been enjoying these re-watch essays!
if he had thought but a little deeper, he would see that the cross is the ultimate expression of love! His fear is *not* confounding, but a response to a thing more powerful than himself - as he says: "We are defined by the things we fear".
Wow, that's absolutely perfect, and I never noticed it. Great thought for Holy Week!
I love this episode too, and I've also thought there are a lot of parallels to later seasons: especially 6; but also 4 and 7. Your points are well made!
I've often thought Nightmares is a pivotal episode for all of our main characters. You cover Buffy and Giles well; but I think Willow is particularly important here. As you point out, Willow was unhappy with her quiet, geeky, unassuming early persona, and her dream in Restless show her increasing distancing of herself from that persona, and her fear of returning there. I've always thought that a lot of Willow's character flaws (amply demonstrated in the later seasons!) are related to this fear. I don't remember the episode off-hand (maybe season 4 of ATS/or 7 of BtVS?) but Willow has a line something like "I'm not that little nerd anymore!" Ouch. I never got the impression that Willow quite grasped her problems post Grave; my feeling is that she saw the problem as her using magical power, rather than what she used those powers to do. The real issue was attempting to play God by controllling people/ situations and removing their free will. I'm not a huge fan of later season Willow, but I find her very interesting.
This sort of thing why after 3 years off the air I still love the buffy-verse. So much actual thought clearly went into episodes like this one! Plus, in this world you can still be so flawed and accompolish a lot of good. Makes me hopeful for the world!
I could go on, but I should probably go give the (now late!) 4 am meds to my pt...
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if he had thought but a little deeper, he would see that the cross is the ultimate expression of love! His fear is *not* confounding, but a response to a thing more powerful than himself - as he says: "We are defined by the things we fear".
Wow, that's absolutely perfect, and I never noticed it. Great thought for Holy Week!
I love this episode too, and I've also thought there are a lot of parallels to later seasons: especially 6; but also 4 and 7. Your points are well made!
I've often thought Nightmares is a pivotal episode for all of our main characters. You cover Buffy and Giles well; but I think Willow is particularly important here. As you point out, Willow was unhappy with her quiet, geeky, unassuming early persona, and her dream in Restless show her increasing distancing of herself from that persona, and her fear of returning there. I've always thought that a lot of Willow's character flaws (amply demonstrated in the later seasons!) are related to this fear. I don't remember the episode off-hand (maybe season 4 of ATS/or 7 of BtVS?) but Willow has a line something like "I'm not that little nerd anymore!" Ouch. I never got the impression that Willow quite grasped her problems post Grave; my feeling is that she saw the problem as her using magical power, rather than what she used those powers to do. The real issue was attempting to play God by controllling people/ situations and removing their free will. I'm not a huge fan of later season Willow, but I find her very interesting.
This sort of thing why after 3 years off the air I still love the buffy-verse. So much actual thought clearly went into episodes like this one! Plus, in this world you can still be so flawed and accompolish a lot of good. Makes me hopeful for the world!
I could go on, but I should probably go give the (now late!) 4 am meds to my pt...