S06.E01: Bargaining Part 1/S06.E02: Bargaining Part II

[Joe Hellandback]

The Good; SMG is just wonderful as the Buffybot, credit it to her that she can remember all the dialogue at the end of the teaser. Another nice Anya/Tara scene and Dawn and Buffy reunited is always a joy. Love the way that the Buffybot is such a hit at Dawn's parent/teacher day. Possibly the coolest Spike moment ever when he kicks the Hellion off the bike.

The Bad; The Hellions are deeply stupid. There's only 15 of them and they appear to be killable by conventional methods (some are even human) so why don't the SDPD just shoot them? The fat vamp seems to burn awfully fast, Dru and Darla on Angel take far longer.

Best line; Xander; "House o' chicks relax, I am a man, I have a tool!"

Women good/men bad; Razor is nastily misogynist so Tara let's him have her axe. Good for her!

Jeez!; Will kills Bambi! Even though she's a machine you feel so sorry for the Buffybot. The sight of Buffy's corpse is upsetting but not as much as her crawling out of her grave.

Kinky dinky; The Hellions threaten to rape the Scoobies.

Captain Subtext; Love the Willow/Tara/Dawn house. In the comics Willow talks of the pair being tempted of just taking Dawn and the three moving out of Sunnydale, forming their own little lesbian family. Spike can't be with Buffy so he takes the closest thing he can get, babysitting Dawn. Xander appears to like the Backstreet Boys? Hmmmmm? Dawn and the Buffybot, awwwwww! Xander and Giles hug at the airport. Xander says he needs more male friends.

Kills: 1 vamp for Spike and one for the Buffybot. One fawn and one demon for Will. A demon each for Xander and Anya. Tara's first kill plus 3 demons for Buffy Buffy: 96 vamps, 35 demons, 6 monsters, 3 humans, 1 werewolf, 1 spirit warrior & a robot Giles: 5 vamps, 2 demon, 1 human, 1 god. Cordy: 3 vamps, a demon Will: 6 vamps + 1 demon +1 fawn. Angel: 3 vamps, 1 demon, 1 human Oz: 3 vamps, 1 zombie Faith: 16 vamps, 5 demons, 3 humans Xander: 5 vamps, 2 zombies, 1 a demon, Anya: 1 vamp and 1 a demon Riley; 18 vamps + 7 demons Spike; 3 vamps and 2 demon Buffybot; 2 vamps Tara; 1 demon

Total number of scoobies: goodbye Giles and goodbye Buffybot so 6 Xander, Willow, Buffy, Anya, Tara, Spike

Spike; good or bad? (new column to handle one of the most pressing questions of the series) Spike is fighting alongside the scoobs and taking care of Dawn but also pouring scorn on the schooling system and thinking the chaos and destruction looks fun.

Buffy and Dawn more than sisters? Dawn not only gives Buffy the will to live but she seems to just instinctively be able to sense that she's back and find her amidst the chaos. Once again it's implied that that there's a deeper connection between the 2 sisters.

Questions and observations; Very long 'previously on Buffy', the series now very much rooted in it's own mythology. Love Tara the vamp hunter, note she feels the need to get a leather coat for her warrior princess phase. Note Giles and Spike actually share a joke together. The numbered shirts appear which I actually didn't notice first time around. Buffy looks to have put a little weight on whilst dead and it suits her. The Buffybot remarks 'I don't eat', deliberate joke? Dawn is back in touch with her dad. The Buffybot appears to be breaking her programming and almost becoming a real girl. Check out the scene where the Scoobies are saying goodbye to Giles at the airport, it looks like Spike is sitting behind Giles (JM's stand in?).

One good thing is that they kept Dawn. She wasn't that popular with the fans and it would have been very easy to write her out, she would have simply gone to live with her dad and she and Buffy could have had an offscreen reunion as

Spoiler

Buffy and Angel do.

But they kept her and the show is all the better for it. Surely if Willow can fix a decapitated Buffybot she can fix a limbless one? So what happens to the bot? I remember reading an excellent fanfic called The Sentry where they repair it and leave it hooked up to an electricity supply in a remote cave, programmed to come to the rescue if anything ever happens to the Scoobs (very 'Demon with a glass hand' if you ever watched The Outer Limits). To judge by Buffy's appearance when she comes out of the grave she dyes her hair. You notice that the 'power shot' at the end of the opening titles isn't actually Buffy at all, it's actually the Buffybot.

I almost stopped watching Buffy at this point, I was so disappointed in these opening eps but I'm glad I kept with it.

Marks out of 10; 6/10

[lembergwatcher]

I love Willow the Master Manipulator in the first part of an ep. If you wanna persuade someone to follow your lead, while your rational arguments are next to nothing (I want to free Buffy from hell dimension, though I don't know exactly/I'm not that sure where she is), then you have almost a textbook example how to act on the matter. Do not try to rationalize anything, just play on emotions, on sympathy. Start to cry and any point Xander has will vanish in a heartbeat. Let me stress that I don't think Willow's intention to bring Buffy back was bad or selfish and I never doubted her sincerity. Actually I am neither for nor against Buffy's resurrection. But I'm talkin' about Willow's methods - the ones that involve emotions and feelings overshadowing rational thought. Sometimes I wonder why couldn't my favorite Wicca use the same approach when she found out about Xander and Cordelia in Innocence? Why couldn't Willow chose the same tactics in order to convince Xander Cordy sucked and she herself was the only girl he needed the most?

 

Another thing about the ep I find quite entertaining is Tara chasing vamps with the stake/killing her first and only demon. That girl came a long way from calling her dad "sir" in Family

Spoiler

to telling Anya to go fuck herself in Older and Far Away.

I wish there were more episodes with Tara kicking some demon's ass, honestly.


And what I liked the most about Bargaining is that for the first time in a long while, they let my favorite couple in the 'verse to spend some time together, with no Buffy or Anya/Tara in sight (A/T looked quite cute together too, so... ). Even if it was only an hour and a half in the forest at nighttime. Though I still think it would be much better if they let X & W stay in that forest all night long (thus making the old spark between the two light up again).

 

Killing Bambi and vomiting snakes were bloody disgusting OTOH.

Spoiler

And whether you like it or not, I dare say Buffybot was shown to be much more intelligent than the "real" Buffy throughout seasons 6 and 7.

 

Suffice to say I like Bargaining much-much more than other eps from season sux

Spoiler

(except for Normal Again and final moments of Grave).

The overall conclusions to be drawn from that episode are clear: 1) don't trust Anya's judgement while tryin' to obtain needed magical artifacts; 2) always check all those frigging urns of Osiris or other such shit for having "Made in China" stickers. 

Edited October 3, 2018 by lembergwatcher

[Melancholy]

I never thought for a second that Willow was being manipulative when she shared her emotions about being terrified on where Buffy landed. Willow is manipulative in how she handles the resurrection spell, but her manipulation comes from her pretending that the spell is easy or not that taxing. Even if one doesn't like Willow, I think her scene with Xander in the forest pretty much disproves a "Willow was just faking her fear of Buffy's soul having a miserable afterlife" theory. 

WILLOW: Buffy! The ritual! We have to go back. (sits up)
XANDER: (pushes her back) Will. I told you.
WILLOW: We have to try again.
XANDER: No, we can't.
WILLOW: We have to, Xander! I - she - she's waiting! She's counting on us, on, on me! I can't leave her there any more, I won't. We have to finish.
XANDER: Shh!. Will .. .the urn of cirrhosis...
WILLOW: Osiris?
XANDER: Yeah. It got kind of...
WILLOW: (remembers) Broken. It's broken. I remember.
XANDER: So we'll find another one. Better made. Anya and I will jump back on the web-
WILLOW: There is no other one. (closes her eyes)
XANDER: Okay, we'll fix this one. A little tape, a dab of Crazy Glue.
WILLOW: No. It's no use. (tearful) The urn's defiled. It's gone. Nothing, it was all for nothing. Buffy's gone. She's really gone.

It's a lot to say that a Willow. who just woke up from unconsciousness, was manipulatively performing "can't leave her there" anxieties. 

I also thought Willow's fear that Buffy was in hell made perfect sense. Buffy jumped in the same portal that was going to take Glory to hell. Everything that came out of the portal seemed horrific and scary. The Scoobies had been engaging in the supernatural for years, and almost they've encountered has been miserable and hellish (with the sole exception of magic for earthly humans to deal with the awful.) 

But what's more, Willow lives in this action-adventure series about HEROES SAVING LIVES. Because BEING ALIVE AND BRUSHING HAIR AND HAVING FRUIT PUNCH is better than BEING DEAD. That's why the Scoobies fight and research and give up Ivy League dreams- because saving lives from being untimely ended in violence is the greatest gift you can give to humanity. You pretty much can't have a action-adventure series following heroes without life being of the ultimate value. 

Spoiler

Little did Willow know, the series had changed to how death was better than life if you land in the right place. And as a result, every act of heroism that the Scoobies do is ultimately pointless, pending a decision on where the in-danger-person would have landed if they perished. Well, that part is never stated on the show and I"m pretty sure that we're supposed to give a fuck about future tragic deaths or heroic exploits on the show. But that's because the writers couldn't conceive of how their story tearing Willow apart for giving Buffy her life back and their story bolstering Buffy moping for two years about being alive fundamentally destroyed the whole point of the show. You can't be an action adventure show and a the equivalent of a emo Reddit subforum glorifying suicide at the same time. 

[lembergwatcher]

2 hours ago, Melancholy said:

I never thought for a second that Willow was being manipulative when she shared her emotions about being terrified on where Buffy landed.

If you want another person to accept your point of view without further questioning you either put forward some valid arguments to make a point or play the emotion card. Bringing someone back from the dead was a very serious (dangerous) thing to do, no matter who the dead person was and how she died. I didn't remember any reasoning from Willow's side apart from "We have to bring her back because: a) she's Buffy; b) I say so". Playing on emotions or sympathy is a manipulation most of the time. Because Willow's tears were the straw that broke camel's (Xander's) back. Emotions can serve as powerful weapon sometimes. And btw I didn't say Willow "was faking" something, she just used her own fear of Buffy's afterlife to stop Xander from asking more questions/raising objections.

 

2 hours ago, Melancholy said:

I also thought Willow's fear that Buffy was in hell made perfect sense. Buffy jumped in the same portal that was going to take Glory to hell. Everything that came out of the portal seemed horrific and scary.

Willow's fear would make sense if that portal swallowed Buffy whole, i.e. both her soul/essence and body. But Slayer's lifeless body ended up on the rubble and was later buried by her friends. And, yeah, the nasties came out of the same portal, but they were physical, I guess. And soul is the non-physical part of a person AFAIK. Therefore I can't see that many reasons for Buffy's soul ending up in some hell dimension, where those creatures came from. Because Buffy sacrificed her life in order to save lives of the others, it would be more logical for her soul to end up anywhere but hell, as some sort of eternal reward.   

 

2 hours ago, Melancholy said:

Willow lives in this action-adventure series about HEROES SAVING LIVES.

I thought saving lives ceased to be the top priority for Buffy (and for Willow and Giles for that matte) since probably the Angelus crisis.  I find it quite hard to believe saving lives was their primary goal after they let Angelus terrorize Sunnydale for months. And I don't remember any of them regretting about all those innocent lives lost due to Buffy's reluctance to finish her murderous boyfriend off. Therefore I have to disagree: the whole Buffy resurrection case had very little to do with saving lives (in the plural), it had everything to do with saving Buffy's life. Because Buffy's life appeared to be 10,000 more important then the life of average Joe or Jill. Me, I think that all human lives are important: the lives of the train's passengers or that poor porter from Sunnydale Station (Crush) mattered no less than Buffy's. Yet not only Buffy and the Scoobs didn't do anything to prevent the tragedies, they even let Drusilla get away with murder easily.

 

2 hours ago, Melancholy said:

Because BEING ALIVE AND BRUSHING HAIR AND HAVING FRUIT PUNCH is better than BEING DEAD.

I totally agree. But I think it was much better to be alive than dead for Mr. Bogarty and that young couple on the Bronze's catwalk either. Yet for some reason our heroes and saviors didn't lift a finger to dust Harmony, while Spike, partly responsible for the murder of those two, was de-facto accepted into the Gang shortly afterwards. 

 

2 hours ago, Melancholy said:

You pretty much can't have a action-adventure series following heroes without life being of the ultimate value.

After Anya (ex-demon with 1118 years of mayhem and murder) and Spike (ex-serial killer with 119 years  of mayhem and murder) became the series' new favorite baby seals, that wasn't the case unfortunately.

Edited October 3, 2018 by lembergwatcher

[Melancholy]

1 hour ago, lembergwatcher said:

If you want another person to accept your point of view without further questioning you either put forward some valid arguments to make a point or play the emotion card. Bringing someone back from the dead was a very serious (dangerous) thing to do, no matter who the dead person was and how she died. I didn't remember any reasoning from Willow's side apart from "We have to bring her back because: a) she's Buffy; b) I say so". Playing on emotions or sympathy is a manipulation most of the time. Because Willow's tears were the straw that broke camel's (Xander's) back. Emotions can serve as powerful weapon sometimes. And btw I didn't say Willow "was faking" something, she just used her own fear of Buffy's afterlife to stop Xander from asking more questions/raising objections.

 

Willow's fear would make sense if that portal swallowed Buffy whole, i.e. both her soul/essence and body. But Slayer's lifeless body ended up on the rubble and was later buried by her friends. And, yeah, the nasties came out of the same portal, but they were physical, I guess. And soul is the non-physical part of a person AFAIK. Therefore I can't see that many reasons for Buffy's soul ending up in some hell dimension, where those creatures came from. Because Buffy sacrificed her life in order to save lives of the others, it would be more logical for her soul to end up anywhere but hell, as some sort of eternal reward.   

 

I thought saving lives ceased to be the top priority for Buffy (and for Willow and Giles for that matte) since probably the Angelus crisis.  I find it quite hard to believe saving lives was their primary goal after they let Angelus terrorize Sunnydale for months. And I don't remember any of them regretting about all those innocent lives lost due to Buffy's reluctance to finish her murderous boyfriend off. Therefore I have to disagree: the whole Buffy resurrection case had very little to do with saving lives (in the plural), it had everything to do with saving Buffy's life. Because Buffy's life appeared to be 10,000 more important then the life of average Joe or Jill. Me, I think that all human lives are important: the lives of the train's passengers or that poor porter from Sunnydale Station (Crush) mattered no less than Buffy's. Yet not only Buffy and the Scoobs didn't do anything to prevent the tragedies, they even let Drusilla get away with murder easily.

 

I totally agree. But I think it was much better to be alive than dead for Mr. Bogarty and that young couple on the Bronze's catwalk either. Yet for some reason our heroes and saviors didn't lift a finger to dust Harmony, while Spike, partly responsible for the murder of those two, was de-facto accepted into the Gang shortly afterwards. 

 

After Anya (ex-demon with 1118 years of mayhem and murder) and Spike (ex-serial killer with 119 years  of mayhem and murder) became the series' new favorite baby seals, that wasn't the case unfortunately.

Willow did have other reasoning- Buffy may be in hell. You may be debating that reason on these boards, but it's an incredibly powerful reason to bring back Buffy which Willow articulated. It wasn't just "cause I said so," If Willow was still stuck on "cause I said so", Xander wasn't agreeing. It was the reasoning that Buffy may be in hell which sold Xander. In addition, these reasons were unstated but the Scoobies could observe just as good as anyone that Dawn was left completely orphaned and without family and that the world didn't have a working slayer (previously described as a necessity for the world's survival) and they all deeply missed their friend and it was tragic that Buffy died so young even though she had been fighting against that eventuality since they knew her. Those were unstated reasons to bring Buffy back but clearly observable to the Scoobies. There were a lot of reasons to bring Buffy back, dwarfing how a resurrection spell is "dangerous" when the Scoobies do dangerous stuff every night. 

Moreover, you, with the benefit of hindsight, are fighting back against the reasons that Willow had to suspect that Buffy was in hell. Even with the benefit of hindsight, there's still no valid conjecture to have believed Buffy was in heaven. Meaning even with hindsight, we have no idea that Buffy landed in heaven because she was a hero or because she fell into the right void at the right time. Buffy landed in heaven but there were no clues by the time she died to suggest that she would or that heaven was even a real thing. 

However, the Scoobies did know about hell. They did know that Glory's portal was being used to go to hell. They did see hellish stuff come out of the portal. They did know that Angel went to hell and Buffy went to hell. It's an number of clues that all point to the right direction. Not iron clad clues but then, when do these guys ever work with iron clad clues? In every episode, they just work with possible clues and do some action to avoid/cure a bad. A lot of these clues are far flimsier than the number of clues which indicated Buffy fell into a portal to hell in The Gift.

Anyanka:  You trusting fool! How do you know the other world is any 
better than this?
Giles:  Because it has to be.

What's more, no one even brought up heaven or the idea that they'd be taking Buffy out of a better place. Because that's how foreign the idea of a Heaaaven was to the Scoobies after the lives they led. Hell was conceivable; heaven was not. But even then, no was was conceiving how earth would be a dreadful place because that's where the Scoobies all live. It's where they fight every day to keep their human brethren. 

If Willow was sharing her own deeply felt fears of Buffy's afterlife with Xander, she wasn't manipulative to get emotional about them to Xander. Willow was sharing her actual fears that she truly believed in, whether she was trying to get the gang to agree to the spell or whether she felt all hope was lost for the resurrection so she was mourning in the woods. 

Just because the Scoobies made some mistakes (in their incredibly, unfathomably difficult) jobs in S2-5, doesn't mean that they didn't value life. Buffy hesitated in Innocence, immediately after she discovered that the love of her life became evil, to kill Angel when he was face to face with her. Weak, but understandable. Then, she really was kept busy with a werewolf threat, a love spell which took her out of commission. Then in Passion, Buffy was ready to take out Angel if she saw him doing bad but she wasn't proactive about preemptively staking him with tragic consequences. Buffy doesn't make a frequent practice of going to every other vampire lair to preemptively stake them. She generally hunts in graveyards when vampires just rise or where she actually sees vampires doing violence. She was treating Angel similarly in Passion. By Killed By Death, Buffy was out hunting Angel but she was incredibly sick and lost that fight with Angel. In I Only Have Eyes For You, Buffy was dealing with a poltergeist hurting students and then, she was out of commission under its spell. In Go Fish, she was dealing with sea monsters destroying students. 

As for Willow and Giles in S2, they're not physically capable to slay a vampire like Angel. Giles tried in Passion and almost died. And they were helping Buffy with the same run of demons who also needed to be dealt with. 

This is even more so with Drusilla and Harmony. Buffy and the gang had no emotional or stated reason for letting Dru and Harmony go in S4-5. They were just slow and ineffective at staking those vampires.  Now, I think plot armor helped Dru/Harm from a Doylist perspective. But there was nothing stated to indicate that Buffy valued Dru's/Harm's life over humans. The plot armor is annoying but on a character level, I have complete patience for the gang making tactical mistakes or dealing with a crisis but then, a vampire getting away. The gang doesn't have to be tactically perfect to be heroes. 

However, this heaven bullshit is different. This isn't a mistake. This is Buffy and then, the authorial voice guiding the season saying that it's better to be dead than alive as long as you end up Heaaaven. That sea-change in how superhero Buffy regards life ruins her as a superhero. Buffy can be a hero even if she makes tactical mistakes or if she had a temporary emotional bar against killing her boyfriend (minus his soul). Buffy can't be a hero if she thinks being dead is better than being alive and she's just "going through the motions" when she fights baddies because she ultimately, doesn't give a shit about extending lives on earth.  

[illdoc]

12 hours ago, nosleepforme said:

If it was so important for everyone to believe that Buffy was still alive, why put her name on her grave?

You know, very few demons/vampires probably know the name of the Slayer. They always say "I just saw the Slayer", "What are you doing here, Slayer?", etc. It doesn't say "Buffy the Slayer" on the tombstone. So it probably is safe to have a "Buffy Summers" tombstone, since the demons won't necessarily make the connection. Sure, the "she saved the world a lot" might be a giveaway, but the "Buffy Anne Summers" part wouldn't be.

[Halting Hex]

8 hours ago, Melancholy said:

a "Willow was just faking her fear of Buffy's soul having a miserable afterlife" theory. 

A what? A who? A how?

*head spins and explodes*

I've been (discussing events that occur on) the Hellmouth too long, apparently.

I mean…HOW????

[Joe Hellandback]

23 hours ago, nosleepforme said:

I always wish they had gone for scarier and less ridiculous demons for this two-hour-premiere. The biker demons are kind of silly, wish they had gone more for the scare rather than for anarchy and destruction there. However, I liked that Buffy's resurrection was not without its consequences and that it takes a while for her to adapt to being back to life. It's scary to think of how she had to crawl out of her own grave, without any help by her friends.

 

The Buffybot filling in for Buffy was a fun idea, but kinda makes it ridiculous that Buffy has a tombstone in the cemetery. If it was so important for everyone to believe that Buffy was still alive, why put her name on her grave? Favorite scene with the Buffybot was the scene in which Dawn crawls into her bed while she's charging, but I also liked her marzipan bingo-line. In the end however, I think it would have been more effective if they had given SMG a week off and had an episode in which Buffy only appears at the end. You can feel the pain of Buffy's absence better by actually having SMG absent.

 

Honestly, I think it would have been weird for Dawn to just disappear after she got to so much focus in season five and after Buffy sacrificed herself for her. By being able to stick around, she becomes more than a plot device, even if the writers didn't always know what to do with her. But I think Buffy's and Dawn's relationship is one of the best things about the last seasons. I think adding a sister and having Buffy have a familial bond with someone was a nice touch.

 

Favorite scene of the entire premiere is probably Giles' farewell with the Scoobie Gang at the airport.

Buffy's gravestone isn't in the cemetery, they hide it in the woods. But yes, the whole idea here is that everyone pays for Buffy's resurrection, it's not just snap and she's back. And I love Dawn in the last 2 seasons, watching her blossom is one of the best things about the series.  

[Joe Hellandback]

18 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

I love Willow the Master Manipulator in the first part of an ep. If you wanna persuade someone to follow your lead, while your rational arguments are next to nothing (I want to free Buffy from hell dimension, though I don't know exactly/I'm not that sure where she is), then you have almost a textbook example how to act on the matter. Do not try to rationalize anything, just play on emotions, on sympathy. Start to cry and any point Xander has will vanish in a heartbeat. Let me stress that I don't think Willow's intention to bring Buffy back was bad or selfish and I never doubted her sincerity. Actually I am neither for nor against Buffy's resurrection. But I'm talkin' about Willow's methods - the ones that involve emotions and feelings overshadowing rational thought. Sometimes I wonder why couldn't my favorite Wicca use the same approach when she found out about Xander and Cordelia in Innocence? Why couldn't Willow chose the same tactics in order to convince Xander Cordy sucked and she herself was the only girl he needed the most?

 

Another thing about the ep I find quite entertaining is Tara chasing vamps with the stake/killing her first and only demon. That girl came a long way from calling her dad "sir" in Family

  Hide contents

to telling Anya to go fuck herself in Older and Far Away.

I wish there were more episodes with Tara kicking some demon's ass, honestly.


And what I liked the most about Bargaining is that for the first time in a long while, they let my favorite couple in the 'verse to spend some time together, with no Buffy or Anya/Tara in sight (A/T looked quite cute together too, so... ). Even if it was only an hour and a half in the forest at nighttime. Though I still think it would be much better if they let X & W stay in that forest all night long (thus making the old spark between the two light up again).

 

Killing Bambi and vomiting snakes were bloody disgusting OTOH.

  Reveal hidden contents

And whether you like it or not, I dare say Buffybot was shown to be much more intelligent than the "real" Buffy throughout seasons 6 and 7.

 

Suffice to say I like Bargaining much-much more than other eps from season sux

  Hide contents

(except for Normal Again and final moments of Grave).

The overall conclusions to be drawn from that episode are clear: 1) don't trust Anya's judgement while tryin' to obtain needed magical artifacts; 2) always check all those frigging urns of Osiris or other such shit for having "Made in China" stickers. 

So very true, we've already had some hints at WIllow's darkside and they really start coming to the fore here. Frankly I trust Anya in that regard if nothing else, she's the Scoobs inside girl in the demon world. What I also like is that this is one of only 2 occasions Xander actually takes charge of the Scoobs according to Buffywiki (anyone name me the other?). Plus Willow does seduce Xander out from under CC's nose and remember the Del gag?  

12 hours ago, Melancholy said:

Willow did have other reasoning- Buffy may be in hell. You may be debating that reason on these boards, but it's an incredibly powerful reason to bring back Buffy which Willow articulated. It wasn't just "cause I said so," If Willow was still stuck on "cause I said so", Xander wasn't agreeing. It was the reasoning that Buffy may be in hell which sold Xander. In addition, these reasons were unstated but the Scoobies could observe just as good as anyone that Dawn was left completely orphaned and without family and that the world didn't have a working slayer (previously described as a necessity for the world's survival) and they all deeply missed their friend and it was tragic that Buffy died so young even though she had been fighting against that eventuality since they knew her. Those were unstated reasons to bring Buffy back but clearly observable to the Scoobies. There were a lot of reasons to bring Buffy back, dwarfing how a resurrection spell is "dangerous" when the Scoobies do dangerous stuff every night. 

Moreover, you, with the benefit of hindsight, are fighting back against the reasons that Willow had to suspect that Buffy was in hell. Even with the benefit of hindsight, there's still no valid conjecture to have believed Buffy was in heaven. Meaning even with hindsight, we have no idea that Buffy landed in heaven because she was a hero or because she fell into the right void at the right time. Buffy landed in heaven but there were no clues by the time she died to suggest that she would or that heaven was even a real thing. 

However, the Scoobies did know about hell. They did know that Glory's portal was being used to go to hell. They did see hellish stuff come out of the portal. They did know that Angel went to hell and Buffy went to hell. It's an number of clues that all point to the right direction. Not iron clad clues but then, when do these guys ever work with iron clad clues? In every episode, they just work with possible clues and do some action to avoid/cure a bad. A lot of these clues are far flimsier than the number of clues which indicated Buffy fell into a portal to hell in The Gift.

Anyanka:  You trusting fool! How do you know the other world is any 
better than this?
Giles:  Because it has to be.

What's more, no one even brought up heaven or the idea that they'd be taking Buffy out of a better place. Because that's how foreign the idea of a Heaaaven was to the Scoobies after the lives they led. Hell was conceivable; heaven was not. But even then, no was was conceiving how earth would be a dreadful place because that's where the Scoobies all live. It's where they fight every day to keep their human brethren. 

If Willow was sharing her own deeply felt fears of Buffy's afterlife with Xander, she wasn't manipulative to get emotional about them to Xander. Willow was sharing her actual fears that she truly believed in, whether she was trying to get the gang to agree to the spell or whether she felt all hope was lost for the resurrection so she was mourning in the woods. 

Just because the Scoobies made some mistakes (in their incredibly, unfathomably difficult) jobs in S2-5, doesn't mean that they didn't value life. Buffy hesitated in Innocence, immediately after she discovered that the love of her life became evil, to kill Angel when he was face to face with her. Weak, but understandable. Then, she really was kept busy with a werewolf threat, a love spell which took her out of commission. Then in Passion, Buffy was ready to take out Angel if she saw him doing bad but she wasn't proactive about preemptively staking him with tragic consequences. Buffy doesn't make a frequent practice of going to every other vampire lair to preemptively stake them. She generally hunts in graveyards when vampires just rise or where she actually sees vampires doing violence. She was treating Angel similarly in Passion. By Killed By Death, Buffy was out hunting Angel but she was incredibly sick and lost that fight with Angel. In I Only Have Eyes For You, Buffy was dealing with a poltergeist hurting students and then, she was out of commission under its spell. In Go Fish, she was dealing with sea monsters destroying students. 

As for Willow and Giles in S2, they're not physically capable to slay a vampire like Angel. Giles tried in Passion and almost died. And they were helping Buffy with the same run of demons who also needed to be dealt with. 

This is even more so with Drusilla and Harmony. Buffy and the gang had no emotional or stated reason for letting Dru and Harmony go in S4-5. They were just slow and ineffective at staking those vampires.  Now, I think plot armor helped Dru/Harm from a Doylist perspective. But there was nothing stated to indicate that Buffy valued Dru's/Harm's life over humans. The plot armor is annoying but on a character level, I have complete patience for the gang making tactical mistakes or dealing with a crisis but then, a vampire getting away. The gang doesn't have to be tactically perfect to be heroes. 

However, this heaven bullshit is different. This isn't a mistake. This is Buffy and then, the authorial voice guiding the season saying that it's better to be dead than alive as long as you end up Heaaaven. That sea-change in how superhero Buffy regards life ruins her as a superhero. Buffy can be a hero even if she makes tactical mistakes or if she had a temporary emotional bar against killing her boyfriend (minus his soul). Buffy can't be a hero if she thinks being dead is better than being alive and she's just "going through the motions" when she fights baddies because she ultimately, doesn't give a shit about extending lives on earth.  

I agree, the Scoobs are human, they do their best but they can't kill every vamp. But what is a 'Doylist perspective?

 I agree with you on the whole heaven perspective but surely the idea is that we are supposed to live out our human lives first? As Buffy later tells Giles

Spoiler

"I was done"

[Joe Hellandback]

10 hours ago, illdoc said:

You know, very few demons/vampires probably know the name of the Slayer. They always say "I just saw the Slayer", "What are you doing here, Slayer?", etc. It doesn't say "Buffy the Slayer" on the tombstone. So it probably is safe to have a "Buffy Summers" tombstone, since the demons won't necessarily make the connection. Sure, the "she saved the world a lot" might be a giveaway, but the "Buffy Anne Summers" part wouldn't be.

Good point, it is a risk but a small one. 

[lembergwatcher]

4 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

So very true, we've already had some hints at WIllow's darkside and they really start coming to the fore here.

Well, I didn't mean to put it that way. To me the whole Buffy's resurrection deal wasn't a sign of Willow's darkside as much as it was the proof of her eagerness to take all measures to do something she thought was right and necessary. Willow wasn't any more dark than the rest of the gang. In fact Anya was 10 times more evil, she just had other priorities than bringing someone back from the dead.

[Melancholy]

@Joe Hellandback see the Doylist v. Watsonian perspective

[Joe Hellandback]

17 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

Well, I didn't mean to put it that way. To me the whole Buffy's resurrection deal wasn't a sign of Willow's darkside as much as it was the proof of her eagerness to take all measures to do something she thought was right and necessary. Willow wasn't any more dark than the rest of the gang. In fact Anya was 10 times more evil, she just had other priorities than bringing someone back from the dead.

Anyanka was evil, Anya isn't, when I say fall to the darkside I don't mean Willow is necessarily evil but ruthless and perhaps power obsessed? The Punisher isn't evil but he is dark.

Edited October 5, 2018 by Joe Hellandback

[lembergwatcher]

Apart from the Scoobs' sadness over losing Buffy and Willow's (irrational) fear for her best friend getting stuck in some hell dimension (and the fact that it's Buffy's show, of course), what were the other reasons for bringing the Slayer back?

By that time Willow was already more powerful, and more deadly than Buffy could ever hope to be (she was the one who hurt the freakin' goddess in the previous season and only with her assistance Buffy managed to get the upper hand in the hand-to-hand combat with Glory several eps earlier). Add Tara who was also a gifted and quite powerful witch (yes, you looked sexy chasing that fat vamp with the stake in your hand in the opening scene, Tara, but how about using some magic, i.e. that ball of sunshine instead?). We may bitch about Xander's lack of supernatural skills as much as we want, but the Zeppo boy proved to be helpful to the cause on far too many occasions. Spike wasn't a wimp when it came to fighting either: as long as it was in his best interests to work with the gang, he would provide additional fists. Add Giles and Anya with their extensive knowledge of the demon world and, finally, the Buffybot who could kick some ass quite well too and you get the Scooby Gang with the largest number of members in years (seven, to be precise).

All of the above-mentioned characters were gifted and useful in one way or another, all of them had years of experience in the field. The Scooby Gang in 2001 was nothing like its 1998 post-Becoming/pre-Dead Man's Party version. I don't think they couldn't have handled the Hellmouth sans the Slayer. Therefore why would they need Buffy so desperately to fight battles for them, anyway? Why would they need to break the laws of nature just to bring her back?

[Halting Hex]

5 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

By that time Willow was already more powerful, and more deadly than Buffy could ever hope to be

Hey, I love me some Willow, but let's be real.

5 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

she was the one who hurt the freakin' goddess in the previous season

Willow did disorient Glory, it's true ("What the frickin' Hell did that bitch do to me?")…but it was Buffy who beat Glorificus to a whimpering pile ("Stop…" "You're a god. Make it stop."), and left Ben easy prey for the ensuing smothering by Giles.  Point to Ms. Summers, IMO.

6 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

only with her assistance Buffy managed to get the upper hand in the hand-to-hand combat with Glory several eps earlier

Willow's moderately helpful in covering her and Buffy's escape from Glory's pad in Tough Love…but it was Buffy who came to Willow's rescue there, not vice versa.  Buffy's carrying Willow from the fray, at the end.

Buffy's useful for her close-combat skills (she's stronger than Spike, she doesn't have vampiric restrictions, and she's not an amoral and easily-distracted psychopathic mass murderer [and the 'Bot's a bad joke, as seen in the first episode here]), not to mention her experience, her willingness to keep fighting despite all odds…and why are we discounting her personal connection to the group, anyways?  Not to mention the moral issue about rescuing her from (possible) Hell.

Finally, although it's not addressed in these episodes, if Buffy's death were made (semi-)public knowledge, it would seem to force the Council to take one of two possible actions wrt Faith.  Either they would release her from prison early (which might backfire spectacularly)…or they would kill her to summon a new Slayer (and I don't think even Willow wants Faith's blood on her hands).  

So all in all, I would say that there were moral and practical AND personal reasons for bringing Buffy back.  Whatever is to come…

[lembergwatcher]

28 minutes ago, Halting Hex said:

and why are we discounting her personal connection to the group, anyways?

What personal connection? Are we talking about I'll-Kill-Anyone-Who-Comes-Near-Dawn-Buffy?
 

I would agree with moral reasons if Buffy wasn't willing to let all her friends die a horrible death just to win a few extra minutes for precious Dawnie.

[Halting Hex]

Buffy's not perfect.  Indeed, many times (and as discussed at length here), she's far from it.

But Willow and Xander and Giles and Dawn would all prefer that she's alive.  (Tara is apparently just mostly going along for Willow's sake.  Anya probably doesn't give a shit.  And I really don't care what Spike thinks.)  They're entitled to their opinions.  And I'm not sure why you think we should discount them.  But JMO.

[lembergwatcher]

That look on Tara's face. Does she spend so much time with the guys to know all the other probable meanings of the word "tool"? Why interpret Xander's words in some bizarre way, which has nothing to do with the actual meaning? I mean, why would Xander come into the "house of chicks" and announce he has a penis in front of four persons of the opposite sex, of whom two are lesbians, one is an underage girl and the other one is a robot?  Is Tara afraid Xander mentioning a "tool" can send some images into her girlfriend's mind? She's so afraid of the Fluke 2.0 or what?

Edited March 17, 2019 by lembergwatcher

[Halting Hex]

Well, it's not as if "corrective rape" doesn't exist.  One assumes that's why Tara kept certain things secret from her family.  Sure, she thinks "Xander's a sweetie", but I can see this particular malapropism giving her a moment's pause.  But JMO.

[lembergwatcher]

Bargaining aka The Debunking of St. Tara's cult. Well, makes some sense to me...

Quote

https://sunclouds33.livejournal.com/18585.html

I think Tara politically manipulated the whole resurrection spell. She wanted to reap the benefits of getting Buffy back and in fairness, she wanted to save Buffy from hell too.

However, she didn’t want to get charged with any of the ugliness of the resurrection spells and she wanted to keep her bona fides as the Ethical Witch. The resurrection spell was incredibly dangerous and fraught with potential pitfalls. Tara's desire to bash shady resurrections but end up with an alive Buffy leads Tara to such logical dogs of argumentation like, "It is wrong. It's against all the laws of nature, and practically impossible to do, but it's what we agreed to."

If Tara was truly a supportive girlfriend, she would have insisted on working with Willow every step of the way to make sure that they got it right. This was an immense undertaking. Two heads and power sources are better than one.

It's somehow strange and next to impossible that two very skilled Wiccas seem not competent enough to know they need to dig up Buffy's corpse before starting the ritual... But I basically agree that Tara's line ("It is wrong. It's against all the laws of nature, and practically impossible to do, but it's what we agreed to.") proves she definitely wanted to have her cake and eat it too.

Also I'm thankful someone points it out:

Quote

I find it so tragic but correct that Willow thought that telling Tara that Osiris would subject her body to painful, terrifying tests wouldn’t stop Tara’s participation in the spell but telling Tara that she needed to kill a fawn for the spell would put the brakes on the whole shebang. At bottom, Tara was cool with sacrificing Willow for a chance to get Buffy back. However, she’d balk at knowing that the spell was too dirty.

Also, Willow lied to Tara about the mechanics of the spell further hammering home that Willow is dishonest with Tara. Willow was also right on point to expect that Tara would be cool with Osiris torturing Willow’s body as a plaything but Xander would hate it and would never agree to the spell if he knew. I’m torn between saying Willow failed at having faith in Tara’s love for her- if Willow wasn’t so correct on that point. Again, it further begs the question- why are these women in a relationship together?

Answering the last question: because Joss himself was that ship's # 1 fan, that's why. Although he rarely managed to write the said relationship in an adequate way (the disaster that is Family speaks volumes), but that's another topic for discussion.

I do understand why Willow's desire to save Buffy at all costs stopped her from telling Xander the whole truth about the spell. I'm not OK with that (since one has to be honest with the other if one expects the other's help; Willow should know it because she herself looked obviously hurt after Buffy revealed the truth about Dawn's origins in the previous season), but I understand. It's not like Xander is kept in the dark for the first time, you know.

Then again, neither Xander nor Anya are into magic, and therefore I expect more active involvement from Tara as both a fellow Wicca and supposedly loving girlfriend, not just standing there and holding freakin' candle... Even though I'm very far from saying the resurrection was just Willow's thing. It's their collective thing, after all. And Tara happens to be as much responsible as the other three participants even if she on some level tries to prove otherwise...

Edited August 15, 2019 by lembergwatcher

[MagnusHex]

And so it begins, my viewing of the most divisive season of the series.

Gotta say, I feel like Buffy. I never planned to come back after I stopped watching X-Files/Buffy/Simpsons a year ago (due to personal circumstances). It's been so long now since I've caught up with these three series that I probably feel as numb and whiplashed as post-resurrection Buffy.

But what the heck. I was initially excited for this series anyway since I like dark and depressing stories, and I was told that this would be the bleakest of 'em all seasons. But man, after watching Bargaining, I think I understand now why people were divisive over it.

First off, Part 1 was great as the momentum kept up throughout the entire episode. You get a lot of meaningful moments where the characters express their grief, and the episode is focused on how they've moved on and stuff. Not a lot of filler/pointless moments here. Part 2, on the other hand, dragged on way too long. It felt like the writers had only enough material for one and a half episodes and they deliberately dragged out the rest of Part 2 to fill out the screentime.

I know it's an unpopular opinion, and perhaps it's because I'm not a major die-hard Buffy fan, but I still stand by my original opinion: Buffy should've ended at season 5. Season 6 is rarely a good milestone for many series since it's the place where they run out of material and have to improvise. X-Files and Dexter come to mind. I enjoyed X-Files season 6, but Scully playing skeptic again was getting old and tiring. David Duchovny also looked like he was bored as hell, fed up with the series. Dexter S6 was just a mess. Simpsons did better, but only because their first three seasons were not peak Simpsons yet.

So when Tara said "maybe they aren't supposed to bring Buffy back"... yeah, I feel you, Tara. I think the writers did too.

The shift from WB probably also did a number on the tone of the series. You could tell that the once lighthearted atmosphere of season 5 is gone, and the whole lighting and color grading have become gloomier like the first two seasons. I'm also pretty sure the demon implied that they were going to gangrape the girls.. yeah. We're in that kind of territory.

I don't know. A lot of mixed feelings. I might very well fall into the "hatedom" side of things by the end of it too, but I'll have to see how it develops. Buffy's snatched away from heaven and is now forced to play the conventional hero and suffer her lonesome fate as the Slayer again. Yay.

[Joe Hellandback]

2 hours ago, MagnusHex said:

And so it begins, my viewing of the most divisive season of the series.

Gotta say, I feel like Buffy. I never planned to come back after I stopped watching X-Files/Buffy/Simpsons a year ago (due to personal circumstances). It's been so long now since I've caught up with these three series that I probably feel as numb and whiplashed as post-resurrection Buffy.

But what the heck. I was initially excited for this series anyway since I like dark and depressing stories, and I was told that this would be the bleakest of 'em all seasons. But man, after watching Bargaining, I think I understand now why people were divisive over it.

First off, Part 1 was great as the momentum kept up throughout the entire episode. You get a lot of meaningful moments where the characters express their grief, and the episode is focused on how they've moved on and stuff. Not a lot of filler/pointless moments here. Part 2, on the other hand, dragged on way too long. It felt like the writers had only enough material for one and a half episodes and they deliberately dragged out the rest of Part 2 to fill out the screentime.

I know it's an unpopular opinion, and perhaps it's because I'm not a major die-hard Buffy fan, but I still stand by my original opinion: Buffy should've ended at season 5. Season 6 is rarely a good milestone for many series since it's the place where they run out of material and have to improvise. X-Files and Dexter come to mind. I enjoyed X-Files season 6, but Scully playing skeptic again was getting old and tiring. David Duchovny also looked like he was bored as hell, fed up with the series. Dexter S6 was just a mess. Simpsons did better, but only because their first three seasons were not peak Simpsons yet.

So when Tara said "maybe they aren't supposed to bring Buffy back"... yeah, I feel you, Tara. I think the writers did too.

The shift from WB probably also did a number on the tone of the series. You could tell that the once lighthearted atmosphere of season 5 is gone, and the whole lighting and color grading have become gloomier like the first two seasons. I'm also pretty sure the demon implied that they were going to gangrape the girls.. yeah. We're in that kind of territory.

I don't know. A lot of mixed feelings. I might very well fall into the "hatedom" side of things by the end of it too, but I'll have to see how it develops. Buffy's snatched away from heaven and is now forced to play the conventional hero and suffer her lonesome fate as the Slayer again. Yay.

And I say no, Buffy may have peaked in 2/3 but it's still better than 99% of everything else on TV, I love Dawn and it's nice to see her blossom in the last 2 seasons, we have OMWF, Tabula Rusa and some other stunning individual eps and the happy ending of season 7, the Scoobs deserved to go out on a high and so did we, 

[MagnusHex]

22 minutes ago, Joe Hellandback said:

And I say no, Buffy may have peaked in 2/3 but it's still better than 99% of everything else on TV, I love Dawn and it's nice to see her blossom in the last 2 seasons, we have OMWF, Tabula Rusa and some other stunning individual eps and the happy ending of season 7, the Scoobs deserved to go out on a high and so did we, 

Well, I don't have the benefit of hindsight like you, so I can't say. This would be my first time watching Buffy S6 (and Angel S3).

I also don't care much for happy endings like normal people either. It's boring (not to mention quite unrelatable, considering my own life experiences). Each to his own.

Edited March 7, 2021 by MagnusHex

[Joe Hellandback]

19 hours ago, MagnusHex said:

Well, I don't have the benefit of hindsight like you, so I can't say. This would be my first time watching Buffy S6 (and Angel S3).

I also don't care much for happy endings like normal people either. It's boring (not to mention quite unrelatable, considering my own life experiences). Each to his own.

Apologies, didn't realise you were spoilerable? Well, Buffy is not exactly a happy show but I'll let you draw your own conclusions. 

[MagnusHex]

5 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Apologies, didn't realise you were spoilerable?

I never said anything about spoilers? I meant that I can't draw any conclusion whether season 6 episodes like OMWF would be good or not since I don't have the benefit of hindsight, never having seen it. Don't make assumptions?

 

5 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Well, Buffy is not exactly a happy show but I'll let you draw your own conclusions. 

Well, I wasn't referring to Buffy being a happy show, was I? I was talking about not liking happy endings in general. Didn't know I had to be so specific to convey my point, officer. Besides, season 4 was full of happy... and crappy. But I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Edited March 8, 2021 by MagnusHex

[lembergwatcher]

Quote

TARA: What if something does go wrong?

WILLOW: I'm telling you it won't.

Does Miss Rosenberg know where she lives? Does she remember Sunnydale's on top of the Hellmouth and thus all kinds of weird shit happen here all the time?

Besides, it seems kinda strange that while Willow (with a little help from Tara) were researching the "bring Buffy back" spell for quite a while (probably all summer along) and 

Spoiler

yet they somehow managed to miss/neglect the most important moment: digging the Slayer's body from the fucking grave before starting the whole ritual thing!!!

 

[Halting Hex]

Maybe they figured it wouldn't be an issue, since they'd seen Vampire!Buffy pop out of the ground in seconds, back in Nightmares.  And Xander saw Gay Zombie Bob rise almost before O'Toole finished the ritual in The Zeppo.  Not to mention all the other vamps who don't seem to have an issue with it.

(Yes, the vamps don't need to breathe, but Buffy can hold her breath for a good bit.  See Bad Girls.)

I guess Dawn or Giles picked out the coffin and neglected to tell the others they'd opted for the solid steel lining?

[lembergwatcher]

On 5/19/2022 at 7:53 AM, Halting Hex said:

Maybe they figured it wouldn't be an issue, since they'd seen Vampire!Buffy pop out of the ground in seconds, back in Nightmares.  And Xander saw Gay Zombie Bob rise almost before O'Toole finished the ritual in The Zeppo.  Not to mention all the other vamps who don't seem to have an issue with it.

Yes, but IIRC the Scoobs wanted neither Vampire!Buffy nor Zombie!Buffy to rise up as a result of the spell. They expected Buffy to come back from the dead her normal self. And even Slayer strength (as we saw later) was no guarantee from having a deep psychological trauma from waking up buried in the coffin...

 

On 5/19/2022 at 7:53 AM, Halting Hex said:

Yes, the vamps don't need to breathe, but Buffy can hold her breath for a good bit.  See Bad Girls.

I think digging yourself out of the grave takes a little bit longer than just pulling the head out of the water.