Circles in "Storyteller"

One aspect of this episode that really stood out to me was the cyclic nature and the confrontation of traditional narrative. This is in the last and seventh season, so the idea of an apocalypse and vampires is kind of passé because Buffy has been there and slayed that before. In this episode, Joss Whedon mocks the fact that he is reusing plot, but he also points out that the cyclic quality seen in Buffy is true for real life. This was particularly relevant when Xander and Anya were talking about getting back together and Anya says she feels like they are on a merry-go-round, just going back over the same arguments again and again. This is very true of almost every relationship that you have with someone, friends, parents, and significant others. You always are having the same argument or are talking about the same topics over and over again, with only minor diversity. Sometimes it is apparent, as in the case with Anya and Xander, because they are unable to find a suitable solution to their problem, there isn’t a compromise that satisfies everyone. Joss Whedon addresses the repetitive nature of life and mocks it by deliberately commenting on it or bringing in issues from previous episodes. The idea of the apocalypse has been repeatedly used throughout the series, but, as Anya says, this is the “actual apocalypse”. In addition, the deliberate return of many past character types, such as the invisible girl, are another way that Joss Whedon directly alludes to the circle of cast and characters that move through the series. He visualizes this by moving the camera in circles around the scene, in order to recreate the sense of a merry-go-round. This is seen again as Buffy and Andrew circle the seal and the camera circles them. Neither Buffy nor Andrew is willing to step outside of the circle, to truly confront the issue before them (until Andrew cries, of course), but instead continue to circle each other. I think that Joss Whedon was very conscious of this cyclic aspect in the production of this episode because it is a way to pay tribute to the past seasons and emphasize the way that Buffy has developed throughout the seasons. The breaking of the seal releases evil upon Sunnydale, which used to only happen one at a time, shows how Buffy is not able to handle greater evil and greater chaos. The invisible girl was the problem from a previous episode in which the girl was the sole focus of Buffy’s attention, whereas now, she is one of many. I also think that the scene in which Buffy and Andrew are circling the seal demonstrates how much she has changed. The fact that she was willing to kill someone in order to save the whole world shows how mature she has become. In the past, Buffy has always drawn the line at killing innocent people, even if those people are bad and ‘evil’, but in this case, I think that it is very obvious that she would have killed Andrew if that were what would have closed the seal. She acknowledges the fact that she has changed because during this exchange, she responds to Andrew’s questions with one of her own: “what kind of hero does that make me?” She has become much more grounded in reality and no longer has a sense of false hope or a skewed sense of heroism anymore. She is fully aware that she must make difficult choices and that nothing else matters except that she must stop this apocalypse by any means possible, even if it means sacrificing an innocent life.