No Human is an Island essay circa 2003 - Part I

[shadowkat]

No Human is an Island, entire of itself

(The following is reprinted in its entirety from when it first appeared on www.aptobtvs.com on 4/5/03)

Before I begin, I ask for your indulgence on what is going to seem like a really odd post from me. It’s neither a review nor for that matter a character comparison and it’s way too disconnected and rambling to fit the definition of academic essay. It’s an exploration of a germ of an idea or rather a theory that’s been bugging me.

This theory may or may not actually be valid. It could be a projection from stuff going on inside me. It could on the other hand be so obvious to everyone else, that I’m an idiot for not getting it before now. In other words, one of those, duh, shadowkat, where have you been moments? I have been feeling a little disconnected lately, very wired – due to too much sugar – my sister-in-law is right sugar is the root of all evil – and well a tad at loose ends, as if I have no control over anything and no will of my own. So perhaps this is the root of my theory. This feeling that everything is connected when I feel I’m really not?

The poet John Donne wrote: “No man is an island, entire of it selfe; every man is a peace of the Continent, a part of the maine; if Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of they friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”

My book club recently discussed the novel Kindred. Now before you all pooh-pah the book club, it’s not your ordinary book club. We don’t meet so much to discuss the book as to well connect. We eat, drink wine, and discuss just about everything. We have no clear rules and often talk over one another. The book is just the means to bring us together. (Not unlike Btvs and Ats is for those of us who visit the Atpo board come to think of it.) Kindred by Octavia Butler is the story of a woman who for no clear reason is drug back through time to save the life of a horrible slave owner, who also happens to be her direct ancestor. Each time she saves his life so that she can exist, she goes through the morale dilemma of whether she should have. Wouldn’t the world, not to mention the slaves have been better off if the slave owner died? Is her life so important that she should hurt others by saving him? One woman in the book club saw this as a major flaw in the book – why was it so important for this character to live? Why did she keep saving this bastard? After all she has no children, she isn’t a genius, she isn’t President nor affects either of those things directly. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for her to kill this evil man or let him die than continue to exist? How selfish is that? But – the woman meets one of the man’s slaves and that slave conveys to her that if it weren’t for her and the slave owner’s continued existence – all the slaves would have been sold and separated from their families or killed. By keeping the slave owner alive, the character saved countless lives.

There is an old science fiction story, The Sound of Thunder –written by Ray Bradbury, about a man who travels back in time and makes the mistake of stepping on a butterfly. Because of this tiny action – when he returns to his own time and the world has completely changed, nothing is as he left it.

We all have a purpose. It may not seem important to us. We may not see ourselves as connected to each other in any way. But each moment we draw breath, type on a computer or walk out the door we are affecting the universe and all that lives within it. The mere act of writing this post and posting it on the internet – does affect lives and attitudes. I don’t control how it does of course, all I can control is whether I write it and whether I decide to post it. I can’t control who reads it and how they react to it or what they think of me or the show because of it. Am I responsible for their reactions? Only to the extent that I am responsible for the post. What I do affects others. What others do affects me. But free will and choice enter into that connection. Even though we often make these decisions alone or feel alone in making them, they affect others around us whether we know it or not.

Now what does all this have to do with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series? Well it has to do with an epiphany I had recently that flipped both shows upside down in my mind and put my finger on what was bugging me about certain character’s actions. It changed my mind about some things I wrote in both the Storyteller review and my authority essay. It may be completely wacked – I don’t know. It could be the result of way too much sugar. Or frustration with the War, my life, etc. Then again, perhaps I’m on to something.

One last request, if I may? I’m going to ask a ton of questions and focus on parts of episodes leaving other parts out. Granted we can read whatever we want into this show and manipulate text to fit our own theories – so it could very well be that’s what I’m unconsciously doing here. I don’t know. That’s why I’m sharing this with you all, so maybe you can tell me? Also I need you to look at it with an open-mind, to let go of all your ships, let go of what you want to see in the shows. Let go of all of it for just a second. Just for a second. (If it’s possible, I’m not sure if it is.) It’s when I did that one thing – that this idea came to me. It could be completely wacked. Who knows.


Comics, Movies and Btvs/Ats

This section is split in three parts: 1. Comics 2. Movies and 3.The season finales of each series all the way up to present. Focusing on the similarities between each.

I. Comics – the connections in the comics

In some recent posts on the board, people have been asking what Btvs has in common with the world of Marvel Comics and science fiction/fantasy adventure movies. So I began to run them through my mind. Then I started comparing Marvel to DC and that’s when something started nag at my brain.

In the Marvel Universe – the same story is often repeated over and over again from different angles. The story usually deals with either a reasonably good person who has been corrupted by power in some way (or an evil entity who just manipulates all the gray characters to do its will). With the best of intentions – they assemble a group of loyal disciples who sort of follow them without question in order to bend the world to their order. They don’t think of themselves as necessarily evil, well sometimes, but generally speaking, in their point of view, they are doing good. Killing a few to save the many. The good guys who also have a lot of power, group together to try and stop this evil villain without killing it. If the villain is pure evil? Yeah they will try to kill it but like Dracula in Buffy vs. Dracula, it always comes back. So they just cut it off from everything. What’s important to remember about Marvel heroes is they seldom are happy with all this power nor in most cases are they considered heroes. They tend to be outcastes. Their power curses them and sets them apart from others. The villain is someone who doesn’t care about being an outcast and considers him or herself to be above everyone else. The group defeats the villain en mass, by combining their talents and abilities. If the villain is a human whose power corrupted it, they strip or drain the villain, if it is something other than human and irredeemable they imprison it or find a way of making it destroy itself. But their connection and love and compassion for each other is more often than not what saves the day. This is the case in all the huge crossover stories. (If you follow the Marvelverse – most notably: the M’Krann Crystal tale, Dark Phoenix, Ages of Apocalypse, Acts of Vengeance, the Goblin Queen, the imprisonment of Cthon in Wundergore Mountain by the Avengers, and the whole Magneto Saga.) I can’t do a thorough analysis of DC comics since I’ve only read a few of them here and there. But from what I have read, DC’s characters seem to embrace power more, seem to be less of social outcastes and seem to view themselves as champions, above it all.

The DC and Marvelverse characters also differ in how the characters look at power. Marvel characters often see power as a sort of burden or curse. Something they would love to reverse or overcome. The Thing in the Fantastic Four is a human who due to gamma rays has been transformed into a rock like thing. The Incredible Hulk is a scientist who while working on anger management, has been transformed by gamma rays to become a monster every time he gets furious at something. One character in the Marvelverse, Rogue, can’t touch anyone without taking their life force from them, so she wears long gloves. On numerous occasions she contemplates having someone remove her powers completely but this could only happen at great cost to her life. Wolverine is a character who started out a weak, feeble boy who was always sick, and devoted to his parents. When his mutant powers kick in, he is cursed with razor sharp claws and a healing factor, he accidentally kills a man and goes insane. Later he is captured by the government and implants are placed in his head to control him. When he breaks free of these implants, he discovers he also was triggered by the government or Weapon X project to kill. When we first meet him he is wild, unreliable, smokes up a storm, and has a berzeker rage. He is like his codename Wolverine. And he is as close to immortal as a mutant can be. Born literally around the turn of the century. (See Wolverine Series called Origin). Half the time he’s not sure if he’s man or beast. Each of these characters feel like humanity’s rejects, freaks, but they find others and team up with them. They find companionship and love. And they strive to help the humans who degrade them, because they feel connected. Killing taints their souls and makes them feel like beasts, even though all have killed and are haunted by it.

In Silver Surfer Comics – Marvel again, Gaea imbued all life with her essence. (Hence the connections the above characters feel.) Gaea is the Elder God who started with the world. She was accompanied by Set and Cthon. Set and Cthon turned evil. Set got killed. Cthon made it to another dimension but keeps trying to return to Gaea’s. Each time he attempts it, heroes imbued with Gaea’s strength stop him and entrap him in towers and caves – stuck, exiled, disconnected. He is unable to physically affect life on earth. But he can manipulate others to work his will. His purpose to break down Gaea’s connections so he can break back into her world.

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II. Movies: the connections and references in the movies

Both shows have been referencing science fiction and adventure films like crazy this year. Especially Raiders of the Lost Arc, Ghostbusters, Star Wars, Last Crusade, and Wrath of Khan. Outside of the fact that these writers are movie geeks (so am I), I wondered if maybe there was more going on here?

What do all these movies have in common? Well, in each film the hero is faced with a dilemma – whether to destroy or to save something of major importance. Each hero also tends to win the day with a little help from his/her friends. And there is some mystical energy source that is beyond good and evil – it is pure power, raw - the source of all things. Hmmm…this isn’t coming out very clear. I’ll just describe each film and we’ll go from there.

In Raider’s of the Lost Arc (Angel – Souless and Awakenings) – the Arc of the Covenant when opened under the right circumstances is so powerful it will disintegrate anyone who views its treasures. Indy tells his girlfriend to close her eyes, not to look at it, while its raw power literally cleanses everything on the island they are being held captive on. The Arc saves the heroes. Or rather the Arc’s power does. And the power works a little bit like the Judge’s power in Innocence and Surprise – yet instead of destroying all that is good, it destroys all that is evil that arrogantly looks upon it. The Wrath of Gods indeed. When Indy goes after it – he is helped by others – he does not do it alone.

In Indiana Jones & Last Crusade – the Holy Grail provides eternal life. Indy and others search for it. This time Indy is accompanied by his father who is obsessed with finding the Grail. Indy and Dad don’t get along. They are also accompanied by a traitorous blond girl, Elsa, and two old chums of Indy’s. When they find the grail – Indy must go through several obstacles very similar in a way to the obstacles Angel goes through in Awakenings. He does it, not to get the grail for himself, but to save his father’s life. The villain shot his Dad in order to get Indy to locate the Grail. The traitorous blond goes along with the villain until the last possible second when the villain asks her to pick the right cup, she deliberately picks the wrong one so the villain will die and Indy will succeed and get the right one back to his father. When Indy returns the cup to Dad and heals him, his father forces Indy to leave the cup behind – because reaching for the power within it – the immortality leads to certain death. The grail can never leave the citadel they found it in. You can either stay with it forever and be immortal or leave and live your life. Either be connected to humanity or stay immortal disconnected from it forever.

In Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom– the magic stones can bring wealth and water to the village or blood and destruction depending on which Goddess is invoked – Shiva or Kali. (This is in the movie mythologists, not from me so don’t blast me on how off Spielberg and Lucas are.) Blood of Kali drives the men insane, drives them to kill. Fire from Shiva cleanses them of this insanity. Indy goes briefly insane by being forced to drink the blood, his friend Short Round saves him by burning him, cleanses the evil from his system. Again we get the cleansing power of fire.

Star Wars (repeatedly in Btvs)– in Return of The Jedi, Luke manages to redeem his father, by refusing to kill him, refusing to give into the desire for vengeance and hate, instead he loves his father, sees the good in him. Darth seeing the love in his son’s eyes turns against the evil Emperor finally and sacrifices himself in destroying him. The Emperors electrical power goes through Darth and kills him.

In Ghostbusters (Btvs in Killer in Me)– the four heroes must join together and cross their energy streams pointing them into an evil portal in order to destroy the bad guy. Crossing the energy streams could kill them. But they must trust their connection to each other to win the day. (hmmm cleansing power of electronic energy or fire again.)

Wrath of Khan (LMPTM shooting script and briefly in episode) is the second and in my humble opinion one of the best, if not the best, of the Star Trek movies. In this movie, Khan, a superhuman, has been exiled on a horrible planet with his family and cut off from all society. He blames the deaths of his wife and daughter on Captain Kirk – they had been killed by worms that drilled their way into their brains, parasites. Captain Kirk exiled Khan on this planet and his wife chose to join him there. Khan blames Kirk for these deaths. Kirk is also dealing with his own son and an ex-wife who created a powerful entity called Genesis. Project Genesis recreates the big bang, literally creating a universe down to the last microcosm. Khan wants Project Genesis so he can create a new better world for himself and his children and he wants to kill Kirk in the process. To make a long story short – in order to defeat Khan, Kirk must work with his crew and outsmart Khan, he also must find a way of reuniting with his disgruntled adult son. Khan sets off Genesis on the Enterprise, Kirk’s best friend and confidante Spock manages to contain the project long enough to get it off the ship but the resulting radiation kills him. Kirk sends Spock’s body into the Genesis Project that Khan had activated and Spock set out into Space. Spock is reborn by the project and through a mind meld in the third installment of the series Search For Spock – becomes a new man. Kirk realizes at the end of the movie that the power of life is our connections to each other, what makes us human is the attachments we make.

All four films have either been mentioned directly in the shows or shooting scripts. There are others I could describe in detail but this would become a book.

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III. Btvs and Ats. A run down of the season finales – this is shorthand guys. I deliberately have left stuff out. I’m just doing enough of a summary to highlight similar themes between the shows, the movies and comics above. Looking for a pattern.

1. Season 1: The Master is stuck in the hellmouth. Buffy’s blood frees him. Buffy knocks out Giles and goes down to face the Master by herself. She gets bitten. Her blood frees him and kills her. But that’s not the end of it. The guy she rejected, puts his hurt feelings aside and enlists the help of the ensouled vampire he hates to save her. The guy, Xander, brings Buffy back to life. Together along with their other friends, they save the world, kill the Master, and close the hellmouth. What does Buffy do wrong? She initially goes off alone. What does Buffy do right? She made friends who love her enough to put aside their differences to bring her back to life and help save the world.

2. Season 2: Angel turns evil and attempts to open a portal to hell. Again blood opens it. This time it’s Angel’s. And it’s on his hand. (Reminds me of Connor using the blood of an innocent victim with his hand to wake up Cordy’s baby in Inside Out). Before he does this – he manages to separate Buffy from her friends. He wants her to be all alone. And he succeeds. She is framed for murder, expelled from school, her mother finds out she’s a slayer, and her friends are injured or being tortured because she was distracted fighting Angel but not killing him in hopes that Willow could return his soul. She is helped in her fight against Angel by a vampire and the guy who liked her – again. This time the vampire, Spike, approaches her and offers to help save the world. He has no soul but he feels connected enough to the human world and human things including his girlfriend (albeit a vampire), dog racing, soccer, cigarettes and well humans themselves that he is motivated to save it. He doesn’t want hell on earth. Granted he also has a bone to pick with Angelus and he wants things to go back to the way they were. So Spike enables Buffy to keep her watcher alive. He helps her defeat Dru and enables her to only fight Angel not five vamps. (Angel is right she could not have taken on two vamps, Dru and Angel by herself.) But Buffy is alone in the end. Cut off. With only herself. Angel asks her what she is going to do now, who does she have left. Me, she states and stops him, sending him to hell just as Willow gives him back his soul. She kills an ensouled being that she loved. Feeling disconnected from everything and everyone, she leaves town. Goes to hell herself. Both Spike and Angel also visit hells. Spike the one where Dru forsakes him and he’s cast off, disconnected. And Angel the hell dimension where he’s disconnected from all humanity. All three pay for their crimes. The gang meanwhile is still connected to each other – fighting side by side. What did Buffy do wrong? She went to fight Angel by herself leaving her friends alone. (You never learn says Angel). What does Buffy do right? She makes a truce with Spike and accepts Xander’s help to stop Angel. She doesn’t do it alone. She also accepts Willow’s help. Giles is saved as a result and Angel is stopped.

3. Season 3 – The Mayor – who lords himself above everyone. He wants to Ascend. (Does this remind you of anyone else? Yep, Cordelia in Angel the Series.) The Mayor has disconnected himself from humans, is afraid of getting germs and obsessed with cleanliness. Yet he hasn’t disconnected himself completely. He makes a connection with Faith, one human. This one connection to his humanity is what eventually undoes him. It is his one weakness. Buffy manages to defeat him by using that against him – she also gets everyone to chip in and help and she uses fire to kill him. What does Buffy do right? She uses the connections both her own and the mayor’s to her advantage. What does she do wrong? She tries to kill Faith in order to save Angel. She gives into the need for vengeance. Her attack on Faith disconnects them. But the connection is not completely severed, Buffy by giving her own blood to Angel in a sense re-connects them and Faith shares the secret to the Mayor’s downfall in a dream.

4. Season 4 – Adam is created by humans yet completely cut off from them. He forms his own cult of disciples, appealing to those beings, who feel as cut off as he does. The vampires who can’t be part of the human world or truly part of the demon one. But as much as he gets the outcasts feelings, he doesn’t grasp what it means to be connected. He only grasps the feeling of being disconnected and pushes for that. He doesn’t grasp how Riley would find the strength to take out his own chip. And he certainly doesn’t get the uberslayer Buffy becomes. He does not understand the source of their power. He can’t. What does Buffy do right? She joins with her friends, allows them to aid her, and connects. She uses her connections. What did Buffy almost do wrong? She tried to do it alone and it almost backfired on her. In the true finale of the Season, Restless, the connection between the four friends is threatened by the First Slayer who enters their nightmares to disconnect them. In this episode – Buffy reasserts what it means to be human and what is the most important to her – living in the world and remaining a part of it and being with her friends. (More on this episode later).

5. Angel Season 1: Meanwhile over on Angel: Angel learns that a vampire with a soul could become human some day. Except the gang learns how far Angel is from becoming human, since Angel is not a part of the human world. He keeps himself separated from it. He wants nothing that is human outside of maybe blood. He neither eats, drinks, smokes, or desires human companionship. He is disconnected. To emphasize this – Darla is brought back human in a box and she couldn’t be more connected to human problems and desires. Wes gets hurt because he’s alone, isolated in the office at AI. The demons summoned by Wolfram and Hart – steal back the scroll revealing the prophecy and blow up AI. They turn Cordelia’s visions against her – so she is overwhelmed by everyone’s pain and suffering – another metaphor for feeling a deep connection. Cordy is overwhelmed by the connection. The oracles – which the Angel gang depend on to guide them are destroyed. They feel cut off from their calling. Angel tries to stop W&H, the bad guys, from raising Darla, by cutting off Lindsey’s hand and taking back the scroll, but he’s too late. (An aside: The cut off hand ironically is sewn on the next season and re-connects Lindsey to the human race – he was cut off before, seeing only his own needs, but getting someone else’s hand makes him feel empathy for others. So that he leaves W&H and possibly rejoins humanity.) At the end of the episode, all three main characters are cut off from their home and their calling.

6. In Season 5 – Btvs, The hell-god Glory is trapped in a human prison. A prison (Ben) that is ironically dedicated to saving lives and works as a resident in a hospital. While Glory sucks the cohesive energy that connects parts of the human brain to maintain her sanity, Ben calls a queller demon to suffocate the traumatized humans she’s damaged. (Note this energy may be what connects humans to their souls, which is the reason she can’t suck Spike’s brain, he has no energy?) Interesting – the energy that Glory takes is what makes us able to connect with each other, when she sucks the energy out, the humans are all connected to her insanity, they have echoes of her in their heads. She reconnects them to her, so they become her brainless yet loyal disciples, and keep her sane. When Dawn’s presence breaks down the barrier Ben and Glory, (possibly because Dawn as the key is this energy in its purest form and it’s the energy that causes Glory to break apart?) Glory becomes connected to humanity in Ben/her human prison, and starts to feel compassion for Dawn. Just as Ben becomes connected to Glory and starts to feel responsible for her acts. Dawn appears in some way to reinforce the humanity in everyone she is around – she seems to act as a power conduit for that humanity. At least she reinforces it in Glory – to the extent that Glory ensures Dawn is kept far away from her. The Knights of Byzantine and later Giles – both wish to kill Dawn, for different reason than Glory, they wish to do it to save the world. The Knights as a preemptive strike. Giles as a last resort. This wish is what separates Buffy from her mentor. Buffy sees Dawn as her connection to humanity, as, in a sense, all of their connection to humanity. Through Dawn, she has viewed a more human side of Spike. Through Dawn, she sees her own humanity reinforced. To kill Dawn in Buffy’s view may very well be akin to killing her own humanity – what connects her to everyone. Giles believes that the majority, the world comes first no matter the cost. Buffy sees these choices as too great. Do we sacrifice our soul, our humanity, for a greater cause? If so? What then? Do we win? She certainly didn’t feel like she won in Becoming. Ironically Ben saves Giles, only to be killed by Giles. And Giles kills Ben in the same way the queller demon Ben summoned kills Glory’s victims, through suffocation. Their means of connecting with life. Giles believes if he kills Ben, Glory will cease to exist. It does not matter to Giles what good Ben could have done, all that matters is what evil Glory may still do. To Giles Ben is expendable. Buffy, on the other hand, chooses to die rather than to kill Dawn who she feels connects her to her own humanity. She closes the mystical portals or connections, Dawn’s blood/life force opened with her own life force. Her death draws the others together, bonds them. Even Spike. Just as Dawn’s predicament drew them all together. Each one with the exception of Giles, risks their life in a small way to save someone else. Anya dashes in front of falling brick to save Xander. Xander uses a ball bearer to save Buffy from Glory. Spike risks his life to save Dawn. Willow risks her life to save Tara. Tara risks her life to save Dawn two episodes earlier. Their human connections to one another help save the world. What did Buffy/group do wrong? Buffy cuts herself off and goes catatonic. Giles kills Ben and suggests killing Dawn. Willow tries to go after Glory alone in Tough Love. What did they do right? They worked together. They became a team. Buffy couldn’t have done it by herself. Buffy gives her life so humanity can live.

7. Meanwhile over in Angel: Season 2. The Pylea arc. Angel and gang have become completely disconnected from their reality and are now in another one. In Pylea Angel thinks he’s normal now and a hero. Except when he vamps out and the monster manifests entirely. He soon discovers he is even more of an outcast here, not connected to the human slaves and not connected to the demons running the place. And he is also quickly separated from his friends. Cordelia is having a similar experience. She is the princess, but completely separated from everyone, from the humans on the planet, her friends, even the demons. The only people she sees are evil monks. (Sort of similar to poor Dawn in the gift, dressed in princess robes, about to be sacrificed, and only seeing evil monks.) Lorne who dreaded returning to his home dimension, Pylea is also completely disconnected. Ironic since prior to this he’d been disconnected from his home, family and own kind. At home, he feels more like an outcaste and more disconnected than he does in Angel’s world. In Pylea he is literally disconnected from his body, his friends, and his art. Wes, like Giles in The Gift, decides to send a few men to their deaths to save the many. He justifies it to Gunn, stating freedom is worth a few deaths. Gunn argues that this is too great a cost. That there’s a better way. We don’t fight evil by doing it ourselves. Fred meanwhile has been hiding from the world in a cave, not unlike the cave-like walls of the books she once hid in, one of which brought her there. She finally comes out of her exile in the caves and helps Cordelia, gets caught, saved by Angel, who she in return helps reunite with his friends and together they all free the humans in that dimension. What did the group do wrong? They disconnected from one another. They did not work together. Some members placed themselves above others. Some hid. What did they do right? They began to work together. They listened to each other and as a result found the way home. Oh, one more ironic point – when they return, they discover Buffy’s dead, they’ve been so disconnected from their own world they had no clue what was happening in it.

8. Season 6 on Btvs: Willow turns evil when Tara is taken from her. All season long, we watch as the characters slowly split off from one another. Hurt each other. Break the bonds and connections they’d built over past seasons. They attempt to reunite, but it is almost too late and things explode in their face. Tara is shot. Spike attempts to rape Buffy and is so overwhelmed by self-loathing for what he tried to do, he leaves town. Xander leaves Anya at the altar and watches as Warren shoots Buffy. Buffy beats up Spike and all her friends and neglects Dawn. Dawn steals from everyone. Willow mind-swipes Tara and attempts to use magic for her own ends regardless of the cost, when things get out of hand she treats it as an addiction and just goes cold turkey, disconnecting herself. The Trioka are so cut off from humanity and so closeted off in their own make-believe worlds that they don’t seem to realize the dire consequences of their own crimes until it is too late. Each act they do, cuts them off further. Until, ironically the one thing Andrew and Jonathan and Warren want most seems to be forever outside their grasp – a connection to others. To be loved and respected.
When Warren severs Willow’s connection to love, Willow loses it and kills Warren. Willow severs Warren’s connection to life and in doing so almost severs her own. If there was ever an anti-vengeance arc on Btvs – this was it. Vengeance severs our connection to life. It connects us to death and the forces that wish to corrupt life. We see this through Willow in Grave and Two-To-Go. Her vengeance and grief has twisted her power to darkness, so that she is no longer in control, the pain is. When Giles returns – he gives Willow a power that reconnects her to humanity, makes it possible for her to feel humanity, but the power overwhelms her just as Cordy’s visions way back in Shanshu in La overwhelmed her. As a result, Willow goes insane. She feels everything and everyone. At the same time, Spike fights to gain the spark, to regain his won connection to life, to humanity. Once he gets it, it overwhelms him, drives him slightly insane. Like Willow and Cordy, he feels everything. But in his case it is limited to everyone he’s killed and everything he’s done. The guilt and pain and suffering overwhelms him, and he screams in pain. Back to Willow, it is Xander who breaks through Willow’s madness with his simple human plea of love, unconditional love, which reminds her of who she is and reconnects her to the human world. By the end of Grave, all the characters have been reconnected in some way to humanity - to the life force that resides in all of us. What did the gang do wrong? They split apart. They stopped confiding in each other or supporting one another. They gave into acts of vengeance and spite. They became disconnected. What does the gang do right? They reunite. They hunt the connections and reaffirm them. They forgive each other and themselves. They re-connect to life and move away from death.

9. Angel Season 3 – While the Buffy gang is reconnecting, the Angel gang is coming apart at the seams. (A quick aside: In case you haven’t been watching Angel, there is a huge difference between the two shows. In Btvs – there really is no higher being who guides Buffy or helps her save the day. The only time the higher being appears is to help Angel and it doesn’t really – it just well, a) gets him involved with Buffy (Whistler in Becoming) or b) keeps him alive by letting it snow on a hot day. Outside of those two times, we never see or experience the higher being on the Buffyverse. In Angel, the Powers that Be are referred to so often, they’ve literally become a regular character on the show. And they seem to give Angel all his direction. Angel’s connection to humanity, to doing good works, seems to come partly from them. If it weren’t for the powers? Well the mind boggles.) But back to the point – in Tomorrow, outside forces successfully break the Angel team apart. Angel ends up at the bottom of the sea courtesy of his son Connor. Cordelia ascends to some mystical realm, believing that she has finally accomplished it – elevated herself above everyone else, ascended. From Out of Sight, Out of Mind onwards, Cordy is the Homecoming Queen. She wants to be elevated. To ascend in white glowly splendor. There’s only one little problem – she has to give up all her connections to humanity to do it. She has to give up her connection to Angel, whom she loves. While Warren severs Willow’s connection to Tara, Cordelia severs her connection to Angel. She chooses the glory over her connections to life. The difference between Cordy’s choice and Buffy’s in Season 5’s the Gift, is Buffy chooses it to save Dawn’s life, having no clue where she’ll end up. Cordelia chooses it to be a higher being. Angel likewise gets cut-off, but ironically for all the wrong reasons. He chooses to reject vengeance, to actually become involved with humanity, to admit his love for Cordelia. He believes he’s finally gotten everything he wants. But his past crimes and foibles prove to be his undoing. His distrust and exile of Wes – makes it impossible for Wes to look into what’s going on with Cordy. His impulsive desire to hurt Holtz leads Connor to suspect him of killing Holtz. If he hadn’t ignored Cordy’s advice, lied to Connor and run off half-cocked to confront Holtz by himself, Holtz’ may not have been able to set him up. Instead he falls right into Holtz’s trap and Connor turns against him. Wes due to a combo of hubris and best intentions (that old the ends justify the means approach to life) – also severs his connections to the team and ends up an outcaste, his only human comfort – the wicked Lilah, with whom he begins a torrid romance. By the end of Angel Season 3, the entire gang is more or less disconnected. They aren’t working together. They don’t trust one another. And the three central members, are gone. What did the Gang do right? Angel didn’t kill Holtz, he went to tell Cordy he loved her. Cordy decided to tell Angel she loved him. What did the gang do wrong? They stopped confiding in and trusting each other. They became disconnected. They let personal grudges and pride get in their way. Angel let Holtz get the better of him and manipulate him. By going after Holtz with vengeance in his heart – he let Holtz’ vengeance take the upper hand in his relationship with his son. Just as Willow allows vengeance to take the upper hand in her relationship with Tara, tainting all her relationships as a result.

Notice an interesting pattern emerging? Btvs – they work together, Ats they seem to work at cross-purposes, with a few exceptions. In Btvs, Buffy wins the day by joining with others. She doesn’t really do it alone. And by acting in concert with others, she honors life and renews her connection to humanity. She always acts out of love. In Ats, the characters often acts out of hubris and the need to prove themselves. Angel often goes it alone. When he does ask for their help – he wins the day. Angel counts on a higher power to help him – provide him with clues and fix things. Buffy depends on herself and her friends and doesn’t really believe there is a higher power. Buffy is part of the world. Angel seems to be somewhat disconnected from it. Oh and vengeance? Very bad thing regardless of whether you are a character in a comic book, a movie or a tv show. What cleanses us tends to be mystical energy or fire, possibly the pure glowing fire of the soul, which connects us to each other?