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Lies My Parents Told Me.
That whole ‘I’m not going to write about S7 episodes’ is obviously not going to work at all. Especially when I get mini-epiphanies... and then go waffling about all-sorts. Why can't I ever be concise?
Anyway, as I was watching the beginning of LMPTM where Giles is complaining about the lack of books in the new library, I suddenly realised something. It was as though David Fury had hit me over the head with his not insubstantial hand and said: “It’s a metaphor! Me-ta-phor! Want me to spell it?”
This scene, which I always used to think of as a rather stupid joke, does as a matter of fact have 3 layers! Like so:
Anyway, as I was watching the beginning of LMPTM where Giles is complaining about the lack of books in the new library, I suddenly realised something. It was as though David Fury had hit me over the head with his not insubstantial hand and said: “It’s a metaphor! Me-ta-phor! Want me to spell it?”
This scene, which I always used to think of as a rather stupid joke, does as a matter of fact have 3 layers! Like so:
1) It’s a rather silly joke which definitely raises a chuckle.
2) Giles’ past life as a Watcher has been pretty much obliterated. But his past as a librarian hasn’t. Here - finally - is something that he can fix!
GILES: I can have my backup library sent from home in the meantime. It’s not much, but--
Contrast with: “...the truth is, Buffy was our plan. There is no back up.”
The backup that matters - the Council - can’t come to Sunnydale. Their knowledge and power is gone and Giles is adrift. So when an opportunity comes along where he can make difference he grasps at it fiercly. Books are what he does - books are his life. But those that matter - are lost.
3) It spells out the conflict between Buffy and Giles, old versus new:
GILES: Knowledge comes from crafted bindings and pages, Buffy, not ones and zeroes.
It’s a huge giant big metaphor, right under our noses. People complain that Giles is out of character in S7 - that he used to be happy to do things Buffy’s way. That is partly true, but he always kept a foot in the Watcher camp. When he was thinking of leaving (post S4 and again in S6) he made sure that his knowledge, his books, would be there for the Scoobies to draw on. Research has always been a huge part of the show, and Giles has always been the one with the knowledge, and the one with the ruthlessness. His job is to save the world at any cost - and he knows that Buffy did not agree to this when Dawn’s life was on the line. He knows that Buffy’s heart made killing Angel difficult, and it lead to Jenny’s murder. It’s a choice between head and heart, between looking back and looking forward, and at this point they’re conflicted.
~~~~~~~~~
The more I think about things, and the more I watch, the more I’m sure that The First’s plan re. Spike was to set him up against Wood. Consider to these bits of dialogue, almost every word of which is loaded with double meanings:
WOOD: A while back it slipped up, told Andrew "it wasn't time yet for Spike."
And the same night it came to visit you, Mr Wood. Funny co-incidence that! Except I think not.
~~~
WOOD: Yeah, if that trigger's still working, then the First must be waiting for just the right time to use it against us.
Oh, like say - now? When Buffy thinks things are quiet enough to send Willow away:
“I guess now is as good a time as we're likely to see for a while.”
~~~
WOOD: He's an instrument of evil.
And how about you? Doing The First's bidding... As Buffy said to Andrew back in ‘Potential’:
ANDREW: It's not fair. Spike just killed people, and he gets to go.
BUFFY: Spike didn't have free will and you did.
~~~
WOOD: Now he's gonna prove to be our undoing in this fight, Buffy's undoing, and she will never—never see it coming.
No, she really doesn’t see it coming, does she? Her new fighter and her watcher - people she trusts - conspiring behind her back. And Spike really does prove to be their undoing - creating a wedge between Buffy and Giles that doesn’t go away, ultimately leading to the major split in ‘Empty Places’. The First must have been laughing its head off.
~~~
The other thing is that both Wood and Giles mis-judge Spike. This might not be just their own fault, since Spike isn’t exactly the sharing type, but they make assumptions without trying to find out if they’re true. This is very bad.
WOOD: Animal like you... Never cared for anyone but yourself... No one else mattered... Just... all about the hunt...
We know - as does pretty much anyone he could have asked - that Spike has always cared about someone. It was always his defining characteristic, as we see from the flashbacks.
GILES: Angel left here because he knew how harmful your relationship with him was. Spike, on the other hand, lacks such self-awareness.
We know - and Buffy then tells him - that Spike is staying because she wants it. He offered to leave, but, unlike Angel in ‘Lovers Walk’, thought that Buffy knew what she was doing and did as she asked him.
The other point is of course that it is *stupid* to only give Spike 5 minutes to work through his issues, surrounded by people who dislike him. Why not wait a little? Why not see if Spike will co-operate? Maybe get out of his face a little? What’s the point of going to all that trouble of finding the prophylactic stone and then not see what it might do?
Of course this is Wood’s fear - that he’ll have no reason for his vengeance. So he pushes the matter when a solution seems imminent - and yet further away than ever. Exactly the sort of thing Buffy has been trying to fight against - she gives people chances, over and over and over again. The only sin in her book is giving up.
~~~
Everytime I watch the end of the scene in the cemetary, and Buffy’s “You’re stalling me...” I hear Angelus’ triumphant voice in my head: “And you fall for it every single time!”
Oh Giles. She’s not a little girl anymore, don’t treat her like one.
The point is of course Giles’ parting words: “This is how wars are won!”
Which ties in with what the Shadowmen tried to do - to make the Slayer do things their way:
RED HAT SHADOW MAN: This will make you ready for the fight.
BUFFY: By making me less human?
RED HAT SHADOW MAN: This is how it was then. How it must be now.
BLACK HAT SHADOW MAN: This is all there is.
There is a big old/new, male/female, head/heart, chosen/choosing divide in this season. Giles thinks in terms of power - ruthlessness - doing the job at any cost - like the Shadowmen. But Buffy knows that her power lies in her humanity - something the First Slayer told her and something Caleb (of all people) points out in ‘Dirty Girls’:
“The Slayer. The strongest and fastest and most aflame with that most precious invention of all mankind: the notion of goodness. The Slayer must indeed be powerful.”
The Shadowmen/Watchers in many ways echo The First: It’s not about right. It’s not about wrong. It’s about power.
But the Spirit guide told Buffy differently:
PRIMITIVE: You are full of love. You love with all of your soul. It's brighter than the fire, blinding. That's why you pull away from it.
BUFFY: I'm full of love? I'm not losing it?
PRIMITIVE: Only if you reject it. Love is pain and the Slayer forges strength from pain.
It is re-formulated by Buffy in ‘First Date’: “You can’t beat evil by doing evil.” which is especially apt when facing The First - because anything evil is a win for the dark side, as LMPTM shows.
~~~
Finally, there is another thing here - the fact that not only do Giles and Wood misjudge Spike, they also misjudge Buffy. Neither thinks she has the stones, but Spike knows that she has a whole bunch of... stones:
"I know slayers. No matter how many people they've got around them, they fight alone. Life of the chosen one. The rest of us be damned."
He knows that Buffy would kill him in a heartbeat if need be. Knows that the ruthlessness Giles tries to find is there in far greater measure than he thinks. And Buffy pulls away from it as much as she can - but when things become inevitable, she can bring it. From ‘Selfless’:
Xander: You think we haven't seen all this before? The part where you just cut us all out. Just step away from everything human and act like you're the law. If you knew what I felt—
[...]
Buffy: It is always different! It's always complicated. And at some point, someone has to draw the line, and that is always going to be me. You get down on me for cutting myself off, but in the end the slayer is always cut off. There's no mystical guidebook. No all-knowing council. Human rules don't apply. There's only me. I am the law.
But Giles tries to spell it out to her, as though she hasn’t got it yet:
"So, you really do understand the difficult decisions you'll have to make? That anyone of us is expendable in this war? [...] That we cannot allow any threat that would jeopardize our chances at winning?"
And would you know it, but Buffy was listening and if she hadn’t learned the lesson before, this time she surely did:
“Spike is the strongest warrior we have. We are gonna need him if we're gonna come out of this thing alive. You try anything again, he'll kill you. More importantly - I'll let him. I have a mission to win this war, to save the world. I don't have time for vendettas. The mission is what matters.”
Well done Giles - it seems your final lesson sunk in. You got what you wanted. Happy now?
2) Giles’ past life as a Watcher has been pretty much obliterated. But his past as a librarian hasn’t. Here - finally - is something that he can fix!
GILES: I can have my backup library sent from home in the meantime. It’s not much, but--
Contrast with: “...the truth is, Buffy was our plan. There is no back up.”
The backup that matters - the Council - can’t come to Sunnydale. Their knowledge and power is gone and Giles is adrift. So when an opportunity comes along where he can make difference he grasps at it fiercly. Books are what he does - books are his life. But those that matter - are lost.
3) It spells out the conflict between Buffy and Giles, old versus new:
GILES: Knowledge comes from crafted bindings and pages, Buffy, not ones and zeroes.
It’s a huge giant big metaphor, right under our noses. People complain that Giles is out of character in S7 - that he used to be happy to do things Buffy’s way. That is partly true, but he always kept a foot in the Watcher camp. When he was thinking of leaving (post S4 and again in S6) he made sure that his knowledge, his books, would be there for the Scoobies to draw on. Research has always been a huge part of the show, and Giles has always been the one with the knowledge, and the one with the ruthlessness. His job is to save the world at any cost - and he knows that Buffy did not agree to this when Dawn’s life was on the line. He knows that Buffy’s heart made killing Angel difficult, and it lead to Jenny’s murder. It’s a choice between head and heart, between looking back and looking forward, and at this point they’re conflicted.
~~~~~~~~~
The more I think about things, and the more I watch, the more I’m sure that The First’s plan re. Spike was to set him up against Wood. Consider to these bits of dialogue, almost every word of which is loaded with double meanings:
WOOD: A while back it slipped up, told Andrew "it wasn't time yet for Spike."
And the same night it came to visit you, Mr Wood. Funny co-incidence that! Except I think not.
~~~
WOOD: Yeah, if that trigger's still working, then the First must be waiting for just the right time to use it against us.
Oh, like say - now? When Buffy thinks things are quiet enough to send Willow away:
“I guess now is as good a time as we're likely to see for a while.”
~~~
WOOD: He's an instrument of evil.
And how about you? Doing The First's bidding... As Buffy said to Andrew back in ‘Potential’:
ANDREW: It's not fair. Spike just killed people, and he gets to go.
BUFFY: Spike didn't have free will and you did.
~~~
WOOD: Now he's gonna prove to be our undoing in this fight, Buffy's undoing, and she will never—never see it coming.
No, she really doesn’t see it coming, does she? Her new fighter and her watcher - people she trusts - conspiring behind her back. And Spike really does prove to be their undoing - creating a wedge between Buffy and Giles that doesn’t go away, ultimately leading to the major split in ‘Empty Places’. The First must have been laughing its head off.
~~~
The other thing is that both Wood and Giles mis-judge Spike. This might not be just their own fault, since Spike isn’t exactly the sharing type, but they make assumptions without trying to find out if they’re true. This is very bad.
WOOD: Animal like you... Never cared for anyone but yourself... No one else mattered... Just... all about the hunt...
We know - as does pretty much anyone he could have asked - that Spike has always cared about someone. It was always his defining characteristic, as we see from the flashbacks.
GILES: Angel left here because he knew how harmful your relationship with him was. Spike, on the other hand, lacks such self-awareness.
We know - and Buffy then tells him - that Spike is staying because she wants it. He offered to leave, but, unlike Angel in ‘Lovers Walk’, thought that Buffy knew what she was doing and did as she asked him.
The other point is of course that it is *stupid* to only give Spike 5 minutes to work through his issues, surrounded by people who dislike him. Why not wait a little? Why not see if Spike will co-operate? Maybe get out of his face a little? What’s the point of going to all that trouble of finding the prophylactic stone and then not see what it might do?
Of course this is Wood’s fear - that he’ll have no reason for his vengeance. So he pushes the matter when a solution seems imminent - and yet further away than ever. Exactly the sort of thing Buffy has been trying to fight against - she gives people chances, over and over and over again. The only sin in her book is giving up.
~~~
Everytime I watch the end of the scene in the cemetary, and Buffy’s “You’re stalling me...” I hear Angelus’ triumphant voice in my head: “And you fall for it every single time!”
Oh Giles. She’s not a little girl anymore, don’t treat her like one.
The point is of course Giles’ parting words: “This is how wars are won!”
Which ties in with what the Shadowmen tried to do - to make the Slayer do things their way:
RED HAT SHADOW MAN: This will make you ready for the fight.
BUFFY: By making me less human?
RED HAT SHADOW MAN: This is how it was then. How it must be now.
BLACK HAT SHADOW MAN: This is all there is.
There is a big old/new, male/female, head/heart, chosen/choosing divide in this season. Giles thinks in terms of power - ruthlessness - doing the job at any cost - like the Shadowmen. But Buffy knows that her power lies in her humanity - something the First Slayer told her and something Caleb (of all people) points out in ‘Dirty Girls’:
“The Slayer. The strongest and fastest and most aflame with that most precious invention of all mankind: the notion of goodness. The Slayer must indeed be powerful.”
The Shadowmen/Watchers in many ways echo The First: It’s not about right. It’s not about wrong. It’s about power.
But the Spirit guide told Buffy differently:
PRIMITIVE: You are full of love. You love with all of your soul. It's brighter than the fire, blinding. That's why you pull away from it.
BUFFY: I'm full of love? I'm not losing it?
PRIMITIVE: Only if you reject it. Love is pain and the Slayer forges strength from pain.
It is re-formulated by Buffy in ‘First Date’: “You can’t beat evil by doing evil.” which is especially apt when facing The First - because anything evil is a win for the dark side, as LMPTM shows.
~~~
Finally, there is another thing here - the fact that not only do Giles and Wood misjudge Spike, they also misjudge Buffy. Neither thinks she has the stones, but Spike knows that she has a whole bunch of... stones:
"I know slayers. No matter how many people they've got around them, they fight alone. Life of the chosen one. The rest of us be damned."
He knows that Buffy would kill him in a heartbeat if need be. Knows that the ruthlessness Giles tries to find is there in far greater measure than he thinks. And Buffy pulls away from it as much as she can - but when things become inevitable, she can bring it. From ‘Selfless’:
Xander: You think we haven't seen all this before? The part where you just cut us all out. Just step away from everything human and act like you're the law. If you knew what I felt—
[...]
Buffy: It is always different! It's always complicated. And at some point, someone has to draw the line, and that is always going to be me. You get down on me for cutting myself off, but in the end the slayer is always cut off. There's no mystical guidebook. No all-knowing council. Human rules don't apply. There's only me. I am the law.
But Giles tries to spell it out to her, as though she hasn’t got it yet:
"So, you really do understand the difficult decisions you'll have to make? That anyone of us is expendable in this war? [...] That we cannot allow any threat that would jeopardize our chances at winning?"
And would you know it, but Buffy was listening and if she hadn’t learned the lesson before, this time she surely did:
“Spike is the strongest warrior we have. We are gonna need him if we're gonna come out of this thing alive. You try anything again, he'll kill you. More importantly - I'll let him. I have a mission to win this war, to save the world. I don't have time for vendettas. The mission is what matters.”
Well done Giles - it seems your final lesson sunk in. You got what you wanted. Happy now?
~~~~~~
Giles: What do you want me to say?
Buffy: Lie to me.
Giles: Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.
Buffy: Liar.
Buffy: Lie to me.
Giles: Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.
Buffy: Liar.