Act Three
12QQ) "...calm may work fine for Locutus of the Borg here..." MAKE IT SO: "The Borg are an alien race that appear in...[Star Trek: The Next Generation]. They're cyborgs who 'assimilate' all other sentient beings into their hive-like entity. "Resistance is futile," is their catchphrase. In...[the famous two-parter, The Best of Both Worlds,] they assimiliate Captain Picard, who takes on the Borg identity of 'Locutus.'...[T]his name indicates that he speaks for the Borg..." The Borgs speak calmly, with no emotion or human feeling, as they make their threats. Xander makes this reference here, commenting on how calm Giles is acting in the face of Buffy's imminent death, implying that the prophecy cannot be subverted. Resistance is futile.--MaeveRigan, Thurs, 10/31/02 at 10:54:05, with some additions by Rob
"Does the Borg mantra, 'Resistance is futile' speak at all to the inevitability of prophecy? Because Picard does end up defeating the Borg, on several occassions, despite overwhelming odds. So perhaps resistence isn't really all that futile, after all, and Buffy can defeat the Master despite whatever prophecies may say."--Scroll, Sat, 11/02/02 at 21:08:26
12RR) "How could you let her go?" ACCUSEY XANDER: Note how Xander instantly blames Giles for Buffy going off to fight the Master. Xander often tries to find the person to blame in situations such as this. He tends to see things in more simplistic terms of black and white, more so than the other characters.
12SS) "How come she's in the club?" SCOOBY TAG-ALONGS: And with this, Jenny becomes the first in a long line of temporary Scoobys, i.e. Scoobys-by-association, friends, girlfriends or boyfriends of the permanent Scoobys. Later ones include Cordy, Oz, Anya, Faith, Tara, Riley, Dawn, and Spike.
12TT) "No. But I can find out." XANDER THE HERO: This is one of those times where due to the necessity and weightiness of the situation, Xander's inner hero comes out (see 10HHH).
12UU) "You're way outta your league, kid." ANGEL VS. XANDER: Angel's dislike for Xander (almost as strong as Xander's for Angel) again comes through in this scene, with his use of the condescending term, kid, implying that someone as young and mortal as Xander could never come up such dark, ancient, mystical powers. Of course, Xander ends up using his humanity to his advantage, in resuscitating Buffy (see 12III); his humanity will also save the day at the end of Grave. Interestingly, again, we realize that despite the fact that Xander is much younger than Angel, Angel is still slightly intimidated by him, because Xander not only also loves Buffy but is, realistically, more capable of having her as a girlfriend (see 5II).
12VV) "I don't like you. At the end of the day, I pretty much think you're a vampire." XANDER THE VAMPIRE HATER: Xander's reasons for so thoroughly hating vampires, and being incapable of seeing the rules as anything other than black and white (i.e. you're a vampire, so you're bad, soul or not) is directly tied into his friend, Jesse's, death, and Giles' original lesson in The Harvest (see 2LL and 2MM).
12WW) "Welcome." SYMBOLIC GOODNESS: "In a universe rife with phallic imagery, at last a return to the mother. As Buffy crosses from childhood to adulthood, she journeys down a long damp tunnel into the depths of the under earth. She is baptized/submerged in birth waters and emerges to a new life (see 12MMM). Question: after this do any prophecies refer to Buffy or is she removed from the line of prophecy?"--fresne, Thurs, 10/31/02 at 11:44:01
CLOTHING SYMBOLISM: "...[N]ote the dichotomy between the dress and the jacket. Buffy is trying to protect herself as she descends. However, the jacket and the dress (the Slayer and the girl) do not match stylistically. Later, the jacket is gone. The cross bow irrelevant (see 12YY). After she revives, her hair is down. Tangled in that, I deliberately spent an hour to get it to look tangled look..."--fresne, Thurs, 10/31/02 at 17:05:11
BODY LANGUAGE: As Buffy descends into the Master's lair, note her downcast eyes. She seems nervous and tentative, compared to her later straight ahead upraised gaze.--fresne, Thurs, 10/31/02 at 11:44:01, paraphrased by Rob
A SECOND OPINION: "Buffy did not approach the Master's lair with downcast eyes. She looked down occasionally, as a woman will wearing heels and descending a wet stone staircase in the dark. But she also looked around constantly, as if trying to spot her adversary. Nervous, unsure, but definitely not the meek sacrifice going to its fate."--Vickie, Sat, 11/02/02 at 12:13:50
12XX) "...you really oughtta talk to your contractor." FORESHADOWY GOODNESS: This line gains even greater meaning when one considers that one day Xander will be a very successful contractor. Xander, in this episode, is the reason Buffy is able to fight and ultimately defeat the Master in the first place. Therefore, when Buffy comments on the lack of sturdiness in the underground church, it can be seen as symbolically challenging the seeming sturdiness of the Master's plans. And when a contractor, Xander, finally is called in, it exposes the flaws in the Master's reliance on prophecy, and makes the Master's defeat possible.
12YY) "Nice shot." A GODDESS' WEAPON: "Interesting weapon...choice. Dainty curving crossbow. A weapon of distance. Very much a hunter's weapon (see 12I and 12AAA). Buffy is both the virgin sacrifice and the sacrificer. Note: The bow is not how she kills the Master. That requires physical contact."--fresne, Thurs, 10/31/02 at 11:44:01 See 7N.
12ZZ) "You were checking out my neck!" SUBTEXTY HUMOR: Joss has always said B.Y.O.S. (Bring-Your-Own-Subtext) in relation to Buffy and Angel, meaning that you can read anything into his stories and his characters that you would like, including the idea of romantically or sexually pairing any of the characters together, regardless of sex or seeming sexual orientation. For example, fan fiction stories have been written that have put every combination of characters together: Buffy and Willow, Spike and Dawn, Xander and Riley, Xander and Spike, Tara and Faith, Faith and Buffy, Anya and Willow, etc etc etc. This line of Xander's is an example of a subtexty joke that Joss intentionally put into the story. The "checking out my neck" thing, while, at surface level means that Xander is nervous about Angel, as a vampire, drinking from him, also has homosexual subtext, since in a real-life situation, a guy "checking out" another guy's neck would not be after blood.
12AAA) "You are not the hunter. You are the lamb." CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM: Besides the number 3 symbolism that appears in this episode (see 12F), Buffy's death and resurrection is another link to Christian belief. In the New Testament, Jesus was referred to as a sacrificial lamb, just as the Master does to Buffy here. Also, as is befitting a character taking the Hero's Journey, Buffy's death and descent into the Underworld transforms and empowers her, making her capable of defeating the evil soon after.--based on a submission by Charles Phipps
12BBB) "Well, the last time the Master tried to rise was the Harvest." CONTINUITY CHECK: This is, of course, a reference to the events of the second episode, The Harvest.
12CCC) "'Cause they're not goin' to the Bronze." OOPS!: This is not the last time Buffy or the Gang will head for the Bronze, assuming the vamps will be there, when in actuality they are converging on the school. It happens both in the next episode, When She Was Bad and Becoming. A similar scene previously occurred in The Pack, only that episode dealt with hyena spirits, not vamps. See 6LL.
12DDD) ...she freezes, caught by his hypnotic powers. SLAYERLY PARALLELS: Buffy's death is later clearly paralleled in Becoming, when the next slayer, Kendra, is killed by Drusilla by being caught by her hypnotic powers. Also, both are clinically killed--Kendra by having her throat slashed, Buffy by drowning.--KdS, Thurs, 10/31/02 at 04:45:30 See 33Ix6.
12EEE) "If you hadn't come, I couldn't go." THE SHIFTINESS OF PROPHECIES: "Notably, in the most prophecy-driven episode of the show, we have a warning about the ambiguities of prophecy. The prophecy that draws Buffy to the Master is what allows him to be freed, yet the Master fails to realise (very ironically for a vampire) that death is not irreversible. We'll see in quite a few future episodes of both...[Buffy and Angel] that you have to be very careful with prophecy. Don't assume you're *the* souled vampire who's going to get the big reward. Think about the better or worse meanings that a phrase might have. Think about the motives of who originally did the foretelling."--KdS, Thurs, 10/31/02 at 04:45:30
FREEING THE MONSTER: Buffy's anguish at having been the reason the monster was freed in the first place is a theme revisited in the second season's Surprise/Innocence, when Buffy's night of passion in Angel ends up bringing out the Angelus in him.--Rahael, Fri, 11/01/02 at 14:48:09, paraphrased by Rob
A SINGLE TEAR FALLS: Note that Buffy's tear does not fall until this line of the Master's. It is not the fact that she is in mortal danger, but the idea that she herself had been the cause of the Master's ascension that causes her the greatest pain.--tost, Thurs, 10/31/02 at 18:37:15, paraphrased by Rob
12FFF) ...bites her at the base of the neck. FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: "He buries his fangs into her neck. She cries out--the Master shakes with the power he is drawing from her. Her cry becomes a mewl, the expression of pain and horror freezing in her eyes."--"Prophecy Girl" by Joss Whedon, available from PocketBooks, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season One, Volume Two
PROPHECY DREAM FULFILLED: Thus, Buffy's prophecy dream from the beginning of Nightmares comes to pass. See 10A.
12GGG) "Oh, God! The power!" MASTER FUNNY: On a humorous note, "you have to question which God the Master is referring to!"--submitted by Charles Phipps
12HHH) She falls face down into the pool of water. SYMBOLIC DROWNING: Significantly, the water into which the Master drops Buffy is the same pool from which he himself emerged in Welcome to the Hellmouth (see 1UU).--fresne, Thurs, 10/31/02 at 11:44:01, paraphrased by Rob For water and baptism symbolism, see 12MMM.
BUFFY'S DEATH: "Buffy's brief death removes her from the line of Slayers by activating Kendra. When Buffy dies again in The Gift, another Slayer is not activated." In order for another Slayer to be called, Faith, the girl called after Kendra was killed by Drusilla in Becoming, would have to die. Each Slayer can only activate another girl once.--fresne, Thurs, 10/31/02 at 11:44:01, with minor additions by Rob
Act Four
12III) "You have to do it. I have no breath." THE METAPHYSICS OF VAMPIRE BREATHING: See 11DDD.
XANDER AS LINK TO HUMANITY: "...Xander, the average guy, is able to revive Buffy while Angel cannot. Xander as a living being contains within him the breath of life. In...[the first book of the Old Testament,] Genesis, God breathes life into Adam (Genesis 2:7 King James 'And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.') God is also a word. God says and it's so. In...[Lessons, the seventh season premiere], the presumptive Big Bad in the form of the Master promises that we this season we will go back before the Big Bang (Science) and the Word (God)...The other thing that interests me about Xander being the one to revive Buffy is it hints at a necessary connection for Buffy to the 'real' world. Magic, i.e., Angel cannot save her...[S]he requires the community of the normal to survive. Thus Buffy is not wholly supernatural. She is not just the Slayer. She is Buffy (human) the Vampire Slayer. It is akin to saying that the man in Superman is just as important as the Super."--fresne, Thurs, 10/31/02 at 11:44:01
12JJJ) "C'mon." FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: "A small moment, then Xander leans over Buffy. Closing his fingers over her nose, he gives her mouth to mouth. Puts the heels of his hands to her chest (need I mention this will all be terribly chaste and tasteful?) and pumps the heart rhythmically."--"Prophecy Girl" by Joss Whedon, available from PocketBooks, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season One, Volume Two
12LLL) "Welcome back." JOSEPH CAMPBELL AND THE HERO'S JOURNEY: "By the end of Season 1, then, Buffy is ready to set out on her Hero’s Journey, to complete the process of separation and leave the World of Common Day...Buffy makes a willing decision to accept her calling and face the Master, even knowing that it will mean her own death. Buffy’s death, in the larger scope of the series, is not the death and resurrection experience that the Hero must experience. In represents, instead, the crossing of the threshold and the willing acceptance of the Slayer’s calling and all of the risks and consequences contained therein."--Rattletrap, Tues, 12/11/01, 09:21:16 See 1Q, 1S, 1Y, 1JJ, 1TT, 2T, 2RR, 3FF, 11GGG, 27CCC, 35XXX, and Appendix A. .
12MMM) "No, I feel strong. I feel different." REBIRTH: In most dreams, water is said to be symbolic of "either the unconscious or the emotions. In this case, almost certainly, the unconscious...[This episode clearly contains symbols of baptism:] you go down into the water of unconsciousness, of death--at least to your old life--and come out a new person with a new life and a new consciousness, a new way of understanding the world. Buffy's comment...[here] reflects this. She is reborn stronger and different from what she was...At this momentary death, the mantle of The Slayer drops from Buffy and passes to Kendra. We don't know it at the time, but everything Buffy does after this moment she does from her own sense of duty--her destiny is completed and the responsibility has passed on (see 12HHH). Buffy is different because she is unique in the history of the Slayer (so far as we know): she's a trained and powerful slayer in command of her powers, but a completely free agent. One reason Buffy's acts have had so much power...is that she acts of her own will. Buffy may see herself as stuck. After all, she's a person of great conscience who knows she's the only one...[after Kendra has been killed and Faith incarcerated] capable of carrying on the fight against darkness with slayer power. But she's choosing this duty every time she does it."--Vickie, Fri, 11/01/02 at 10:52:41
The idea of Buffy drowning and reemerging a new person will be echoed again in the the third season's Bad Girls, an episode in which not only is she almost drowned, but she dreams of Faith holding her under water, meant to symbolize Buffy crossing the threshold to becoming more Faithish--seeing slaying as fun, in fact getting off on it, possibly seeing herself as above the law. Douglas Petrie, the author of that episode, had this to say in the DVD commentary:
"This is one of the reasons I love this show, because of the huge juxtapositions you can make between style and tone and this is just a major kick ass action scene. Here’s our water. Buffy is going to be drowned this episode. We chose this deliberately. No actor likes being held underwater for long periods of time. We knew that but we did it anyway. We wanted to do death and resurrection. Buffy drowned at the end of Season 1. We wanted to use the water again, this mythic imagery of 'it’s a baptism', it’s a very Christian image. Rebirth through water and she is now reborn. She’s faced death, and now she’s different. Her attitude is different, she’s been badly scared, and she’s faced death. Now she’s a lot more like Faith. Death and rebirth in one episode. You’ll notice a change in her behaviour from now on. "--Thanks to Rook for pointing out the link between the episodes, and Rahael for the Douglas Petrie quote.
The drowning metaphor will also occur in Anne, (see 35PPP) Consequences, and Touched.
12NNN) "They're coming in through the stacks!" NIGHTMARE MADE FLESH?: In Nightmares, Giles dreamt that he was lost in the library stacks (see 10T). Could this, perhaps, be seen as foreshadowing the fact that the library, seemingly Giles' safe haven, is not so safe after all (see 12H)? That even a place that seems so familiar can become something unrecognizable. This metaphor is taken to an even further level when, in Becoming, Angelus' gang of vampires attack the Scoobies at the library, completely trashing the place, and even trapping and wounding Willow by pushing a bookcase on top of her.
12OOO) "Oh, look, a bad guy." BUFFY'S NEW 'TUDE: The major attitude problem that Buffy exhibits in the second season premiere, When She Was Bad (see 13X), has its roots in these moments. Buffy marches right on, says this line with a devil-may-care, fearless attitude, and stakes the vamp without breaking stride. There is a sexiness, ruthlessness and harshness to Buffy's tone of voice that was not there before. In the seventh season's Conversations with Dead People, Buffy reveals that she has a superiority complex, because no matter how much she loves her friends, they are not the Slayer. No matter how much they help her, she will always be separate and different. She also says that the fact that she feels superior to everybody else makes her feel horrible, and leads her to chastise herself for daring to feel that way. Who is she to feel better than her closest friends? Therefore, she has an inferiority complex about her superiority complex! But focusing on the superiority complex, this moment is the first time we really see Buffy exhibit the signs of it. She died in an attempt to save the world, and was resurrected. She is different than anybody else. No one else could possibly understand her life or the choices she is forced to make, and more than any other previous time, she fully confronts that fact. And the weight of this epiphany has negative side effects on her. It makes her callous, cold, and cruel, traits she will not put in check until the end of the next episode.
MUSICALLY SPEAKING: "Buffy's power walk is the only time the theme song is used" as the background score to a scene.--fresne, Thurs, 10/31/02 at 11:44:01, partly paraphrased by Rob
12PPP) "See how *you* like it." POETIC JUSTICE: Leave it to Cordy to dole out to the vamps exactly the kind of punishment they deserve--being bitten themselves by their intended victims!
12QQQ) "GILES!" FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: "And then it rises, bursting through the wood of the floor. It's a tentacle--or an arm--or something: grotesque, twisted flesh dripping with slime, dull, glassy eyes and mewling, razor-toothed mouths opening incongruously along its length. There is no reason for it. It's demon."--"Prophecy Girl" by Joss Whedon, available from PocketBooks, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season One, Volume Two
12RRR) "Do you really think you could best me here when you couldn't below?" HUBRIS BAD: The Master's biggest downfall might be his hubris. He assumes that since he has risen and has fully regained his powers, that he has the upperhand now that he is on the surface of Earth. What he fails to acknowledge that, having reached the surface, he is now on Buffy's turf, whereas before she had to go down to his. This is a place he is not as familiar with, having been trapped under the ground for so long. In fact, he always lived under ground, showing disdain for those who live on the surface, like humans (see 7X). Like an army trying to wage war in unfamiliar country, he doesn't stand a chance.
12SSS) "Save the hypnosis crap for the tourists." ONCE BITTEN: "Intriguingly, in the original...[Buffy the Vampire Slayer] film, Buffy is hypnotized by Lothos[, an ancient and powerful vamp] once, but breaks free when he tries to do it a second time. Does this mean that a person can't be hypnotised twice by the same vampire?"--KdS, Thurs, 10/31/02 at 04:45:30
"Reminds me of Marvel's Spiderwoman [ a comic book character], who was immune to any poison if she survived it the first time...Hmmm, hypnosis works on the nervous system, like many poisons..."--anom, Sat, 11/02/02 at 22:42:08
12TTT) He slowly turns to ash until only his skeleton is left." WHY DOES THE MASTER LEAVE A SKELETON WHEN HE'S DUSTED?: While the answer could relate to his extreme age and power, this is unlikely, because Kakistos, an ancient, powerful vamp from the third season's Faith, Hope, & Trick, who, like the Master, had begun to revert to a more demonic state--his hands and feet have become cloven, implying that he is even older than the Master--dusted like any other vamp, and left no skeleton. Another explanation might be that the Master has prepared a spell to preserve his skeleton, should his death occur. Since in the next episode, the second season premiere, When She Was Bad, the Anointed One and his lackeys prepare a ritual to resurrect the Master that involves using his bones, this theory becomes all the more likely. It seems that the Anointed has been well-briefed on what should be done in the event of the Master's death, implying that he knew that the Master's bones would last. On Buffy, resurrection spells are always depicted as incredibly difficult and weighty affairs. Since in this episode we learn that a vamp's bones are needed for this spell, and we also know that vamps don't leave bones, it seems logical that a spell would have to be performed before the vamp's death to perserve the bones. And obviously this spell is either not well-known (perhaps only known to the Order of Aurelius), or is, again, extremely difficult or requires an extremely powerful vampire. Otherwise, it may have been done more often.--partly paraphrased from a submission by Charles Phipps For a more metaphorical answer, see 13AAA.
12UUU) "The Hellmouth is closed." HELLMOUTH OPENAGE & CLOSAGE METAPHYSICS: In this episode, it seems that the opening of the Hellmouth is mystically linked to the Master's breaking free of his mystical prison, since the Master didn't need to do any further spells to get the Hellmouth to open upon exiting the church. Perhaps, however, the Master was not just a cork in the bottle whose release would open the Hellmouth but was also a mystical contingency to the spell. Upon the Master's death, in this theory, the Hellmouth would close. Somehow, it seems, a mystical chain was formed between the Master and the Hellmouth. In the alternate universe of The Wish, however, in which Buffy had never come to Sunnydale and so the Master had risen as a result of the Harvest (see 2AA), the Hellmouth did not open. What gives? The most likely theory seems to be that the difference lies in the Slayer blood, which is much more powerful than human blood, particularly in a mystical sense. We can assume from this that the Slayer blood is strong enough to release the Master and open the Hellmouth, whereas the human blood would free the Master but he would be required to open the Hellmouth by himself later. And why didn't the Master ever open it? See 43YYY for more on this, and a possible reason.
12VVV) "I'm really, really hungry." FORESHADOWY GOODNESS: Buffy's repeated pronouncement that she is hungry foreshadows Faith, in the third season, who, in her first episode, Faith, Hope, & Trick, points out the link between hunger, horniness, and slaying. She says that the emotions brought out by all three of these actions are synonymous.--Sophist, Thurs, 10/31/02 at 09:41:18, paraphrased by Rob