I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

Sometimes loving Buffy Summers is a catch-22. 

The only metaphorical support I can give to this claim is that loving Buffy Summers is like leaving the best movie you've ever seen or hearing the most beautiful song you've ever heard.  When the show was on it was fantastic - and sure you can watch the DVDs, read the blogs, attend the sing-a-longs.  But Buffy isn't a pop-culture phenomenon anymore.  She has her place in history as a pop-culture icon to be sure.  But there are no longer Entertainment Weekly articles offering commentary on her plot arcs.  Her cut-out has disappeared from the glassy store front of FYE and can be found only through internet searches. 

People aren't updating their Buffy/Angel fanfics anymore. 

There's a certain nostalgic undertaking that comes with being a present day Buffy fan.  When you turn on the T.V. and are inundated with the mindless and casual copulation of "college students" on Gossip Girl, as a Buffy fan, you can't help but feel cheated.  Don't even get started on Twilight. 

And then Katniss came to us, as Gandalf once did, at the turn of the tide. 

Katniss Everdeen is the protagonist of The Hunger Games trilogy written by Suzanne Collins.  Like Buffy, Katniss was called to something greater and more sinister than she deserved.  And like Buffy this calling represents for Katniss an, at times, insurmountable amount of sacrifice and servitude.  

I don't want to give too many spoilers for the trilogy because it's my hope that Buffyphiles the world over will read it.  What I will say is that Suzanne Collins has managed to do what Joss Whedon did in the late nineties.  She has presented a heroine who's legacy and heroism is both inspiring and tragic.  A heroine who's life is full of love and fulfillment but not without great hurt and loss.  

The nuance of Buffy Summers is that she is a hero but does not take delight in the trappings of her heroics. There is no stylized glamour to the violence and depravity that Buffy must confront in her role as the Slayer.  Nor does Katniss take joy in the callings of being the Mockingjay.  Each ascends to the role because they know that not to do so could mean the harm of those they love.  And while this sounds in print a whole like martyrdom the reality is that both Buffy and Katniss are resentful of their respective callings.  This doesn't negate their willingness to bear their respective mantles but it does make them more relatable. 

I'm not saying I won't force my future female offspring to be Buffy for Halloween every year. 

But if she wanted to dress up as Katniss I wouldn't mind. 

An Inconvenient Truth

I like Spike.

I don't mean like. I mean love. And I don't mean love the way all those other fools do who say, "Oh, Spike is so hot!" "He and Buffy belong together!" "Spike is hilarious!" To them I say, "NO." Convinced of my own superiority, I submit that my love for Spike is love in its purest form. From the moment his white-haired dome drove into Sunnydale in "School Hard," I was intrigued. Even at his most evil I am a fan. During Season 2 I wasn't pulling for him to beat Buffy, but I was pulling for him to take down Angel. When Spike made that tenuous alliance with the Buffster in "Becoming, Part 1," I understood this to be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Some of you may protest that this isn't fair. After all, we all know that Angel was Buffy's first and true love, and that during the end of Season 2 he couldn't help his supreme villainy. That's true. And I get that Spike was set up beginning in Season 4 to be the only character who doesn't frustrate the daylights out of the audience and who doesn't require loud outbursts of shouting at the TV screen to make them behave (I'm talking to you, Willow).

What I'm trying to say is that Spike was on a journey. All of the characters were; that's one of the reasons Buffy was such a great show. But, at least to me, Spike's journey was the most fulfilling and satisfying. To me, Spike is the only man who could be with Buffy.

I know, I know. Angel, right? We could go back and forth all day about this (and in a future post, I probably will). But let's observe the facts, shall we? Angel was tortured (man vs. himself and all) by the crimes he perpetrated as a vampire. For decades. Buffy saved him. And he loved her with a fierce passion. BUT THEN HE LEFT, and consequently got his own--and ultimately disappointing--show. All this was necessary because of that durn curse.

Spike was also tortured when he (SPOILER alert [Question: can it really be a spoiler 8 years after the show went off the air? Answer: YES.]) got back his soul. But he pulled it together after only a couple months. He also willingly fought for his soul so that he could be the man Buffy needed him to be. And in the end, he gave the ultimate sacrifice, fulfilling his destiny and thereby saving the woman he had grown to love.

Really, the main similarity between Spike and Angel (besides being the only two vampires with souls) is that Buffy saved both of them from themselves.

Maybe I should have prefaced this post with the fact that I never prefer the normal, hot guy you are supposed to like in movies and TV shows. Growing up, my sister was in love with Christian Bale in Newsies, but I always liked that nerdy David kid better. And I liked Robert Sean Leonard in Swing Kids, while my sister, again, preferred the bold and virile Christian Bale. (Maybe I just didn't like Christian Bale.) I know that we are meant to love Angel so much that no one can ever take the place of him, but that just isn't so. Spike may not have that intense, soul-searching stare that Angel does, but he's so FIESTY. Whatever.

In a perfect world, i.e., there was no Angel TV show and no Season 8 comic (I'm a Buffy purist), at the end of it all, Buffy would walk away from Sunnydale forever, never see Angel again (what's the point?), and Spike would be dead. The sadness of that is very satisfying because it's just the way things are.

This post kinda got away from me. But now that I've opened this portal, many, MANY more Spike posts will surely come forth.

But seriously SPUFFY 4EVA!!

Friends 4EVER: Buffy & Me

Come closer, dear friends, as I tell you the story of how I came to love Buffy: Slayer of the Vampyrs (and the subsequent social-life altering obsession that followed).

To my memory, my first "experience" with Buffy went a little something like this:

We are in a middle school in suburban Boulder, Colorado.  ANGLE Two girls, approx. 13 years old, sit at desks in an advanced language arts classroom.  They're clothed in the latest trends: tube socks with slip-on sandals, super-short jorts, and tight shirts that read "Abercrombie & Fitch."  Both, unfortunately, have braces.  Neither has learned to manage their hair appropriately.  Enter Ms. B, eighth grade teacher, who overhears the following conversation.


Girl 1:  OMG did you watch Friends last night?
Girl 2:  Is that a sick joke?  Um...duh!
Girl 1:  It was like...I'm still shocked that Rachel and Ross got back together and now, you know-
Girl 2:  HE HAS A TAPE OF IT!  I KNOW.  omgomgomgomgomg.
Girl 1:  Ms. B, do you watch Friends?
Ms. B:  No, I do not.
Girl 2:  Why?  You're missing out!
Ms. B:  I think it's a little shallow...
Girl 1/Girl 2: (gasp)
Girl 1:  So what do you watch then?  What's your favorite show?
Ms. B: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Girl 2: (stunned silence)
Girl 1:  You have GOT to be kidding.


CUT TO: a month later--I'm at my grandparents house in Salt Lake City, bored out of my mind, and I discover that there's a Thanksgiving Day Buffy marathon.  I think about how ridiculous a show must be to have such a shameful name, and then I flip the channel to FX and kick back.  After all, the alternative was playing another infuriating card game upstairs around the kitchen table.

And then it happened.  The first episode I saw was Becoming Part 2.  I cried.  And then I cried some more.  And then I heard "Full of Grace" by Sarah Mclachlan and I at once knew that I loved this show and that I wanted to have her babies.

And thus, an obsession was born.  I watched all 10 hours of available eps that day, and the rest is history.

At times, I had a handle on my addiction--watching only when others weren't around to taunt or berate me.  Pretending I was a member of the Scooby gang and solving difficult moral quandaries in my mind while imagining that I was Willow or Anya.  Normal stuff.  But then, I ordered not one but TWO ginormous Buffy posters for my bedroom, and refused to answer friends' calls on Tuesday nights between 7-8 pm.  I may have received a 'condolences' card in the mail from someone who knew the depth of my mourning the night 'Chosen' aired.  This is just the tip of the iceberg, but I'd rather not further incriminate myself.

There you have it friends--the reason I find it not only acceptable but also the most awesome thing ever to be contributing to a Buffy blog.

In short, BtVS is my one great and true love (not pathetic).  Buffy and Willow and Xander are my friends.  Glory and Adam and the Master and the Mayor and the First are my enemies.  And Giles is my lover.

(What?  Fine.)