Troubling Buffy essay...found on pop matters site

[shadowkat]

Interesting perspective on Buffy's choice or according to Pop Matters avoidance of it in the Gift. Not sure I agree with any of it, but it is an interesting perspective all the same.

The writer seems to think that Buffy should have chosen to either kill Dawn or allow Dawn to make the final sacrifice in Chosen, and by not permitting Buffy to make that choice, the writers failed the viewers. That the viewers "deserved" to see Buffy choose to kill Dawn, and the writers copped out?

But, that's assuming the following:

1) That the choice to sacrifice oneself for the greater good isn't a choice but avoiding the situation, that it was indecisive or a cop out (I don't think that's true.)
2) That the correct choice is sacrificing someone else or the person responsible (I don't think this is true.)
3.) That the audience deserves a decisive choice? That sacrificing oneself isn't a decisive choice?? Or even noble? That it would have been more noble and decisive to kill Dawn? How very Machiavellian.
4.) Our choices define who we are absolutely? I don't know about that.

I don't know.

It's a more literal view of the episode than I perceived. There are no comments. So...

But what I found troubling about the writer's essay on the episode -- was the end comment:

Insofar as a story places the hero in a predicament, we deserve to witness her, or him, not only pushed to the boundaries, but also acting on those boundaries. Should the hero refuse to act on those boundaries, frozen with indecisiveness, he, or she, must afterwards contemplate their failure to act; they must confront self-doubt in realizing that, when it counted, their principles did not render one course of action superior to another.

This perspective, regardless of the story it is about, troubles me. I'm not sure the audience deserves anything. We, the listener or viewer or audience, makes a choice when we decide to watch/read/listen to another's story. But it is their story. It's a story that came from them. We make the choice to listen. And the story is not being written or shown to reinforce or validate our worldview or perspective, it's another person's perspective and world-view in which they are sharing with us. I think that by stating that we "deserve" something specific from the story - means we have stopped listening to it. We are instead listening to our own ego, our mind, our mental noise, and projecting that onto the story?

I'm also not sure you can accuse Buffy of being indecisive or not confronting her self-doubts afterwards - what was S6 about, if not confrontation of self-doubt? Also, it's pretty decisive to choose to sacrifice oneself. Taking one's own life is a decisive action with serious consequences.

Troubling essay. But then we do live in troubling times. (shrugs)

Comments

[spikesjojo.livejournal.com]

And yet if Buffy had gutted Dawn like a fish and tossed her into the portal, there would still be those who complained....
Dying to save the world is avoiding a choice if you can kill your sister, or let the world be destroyed...I have to say that logic does not work for me! I also assume that if the portal had not disappeared then Dawn would have jumped as she was prepared to do. This wasn't just Buffy's choice.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You bring up two very good points. Thank you.

The author of the Pop Matters post seems to forget that Dawn is a human being, and has a choice as well. And unlike Angel in Becoming - wasn't the initiator of the problem, but an innocent who got caught up in it through no direct fault of her own. (A lot of fans including the Pop Matters author, compares this to Becoming and GD, forgetting that in both those scenarios, Faith and Angel acted and wanted to bring about the horrible events, no matter what Buffy tried to do to change their mind or stop them. And in both cases, she tries to avoid killing them and succeeds in a way, since neither die, and both come back as heroes.) Dawn, unlike Angel and Faith, is also the whole point of the slayer, which is to protect powerless and innocent human life from demonic forces. Buffy had no obligation to protect Angel or Faith, but she does have an obligation to save and protect Dawn, who has no powers, is blameless, and is helpless. Killing the damsel to save the world is a bit counter-productive because as Buffy herself points out, what's the point of saving the world -- if you have to kill an innocent child to do it? The logic of the Pop Matters post seems to overlook this theme completely.

And yep, people in fandoms, regardless of the fandoms, complain whenever the story doesn't go the way that they personally wanted it to or thought it should go according to their world-view or thought process. Notice this a lot in long-running television and book serial fandoms (such as GoT, Doctor Who, Marvel comics, Daytime Soap Operas...).

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I wasn't in fandom at the time but I can just imagine the reaction then and now, if Buffy had "let" Dawn die or, as you say, tossed her into the portal....it's bad enough that Buffy is "bitchy" to Spike. Letting a child die? Isn't that the exact opposite of what Slayers - and women in general - are supposed to do?

If people think Buffy is a bitch as it is.....