One of my favorite moments in "Doppelgangland" is when Vamp Willow tries to convince Good Willow to become a vampire and join her. Beyond the literal sort of self-eroticism when Vamp Willow licks Good Willow's neck, this shows Vamp Willow recognizing herself in Good Willow and liking what she recognizes. Of course, Good Willow rejects her(self?), and animosity immediately forms. Later on, Vamp Willow gets to the point of attempting to kill Good Willow, but when Buffy goes to kill V.W. in order to save G.W. (I'm using initials from now on, guys), G. W. prevents this. G. W. (with the help of the rest of the Scoobies) goes on to send V.W. back to the world where she belongs, which if you think about it is really nice considering that this is V.W.'s ultimate goal and that she just tried to kill G.W. Before V.W. is sent back, the two Willows hug.
I think this whole love-hate relationship between doppelgangers is a really cool external representation of someone's internal struggles with his or herself. This also happens in Transformation, as Guido hates everything about his doppelganger the misshapen dwarf from his hideous voice to his appearance. In the end, however, the dwarf's actions help Guido get what he wants. I can't linearly compare this to the two Willows' relationship because it's hard to tell in Transformation how truly evil the dwarf is - granted, stealing someone's body doesn't seem particularly rosy-scented, but he acts far better than Guido would have done had his body not been stolen. Regardless, however, Guido's hate for the outward appearance of the dwarf represents his realization of his hatred for the bad qualities in himself, just as Willow's hatred but also acceptance of her vampire doppelganger represents her struggle with her identity.
Struggles with identities manifesting in animosity between characters and their doppelgangers. Astute and interesting. I also have a hard time gauging the dwarf's true intentions in Transformation. It seemed he was pretty nasty since he caused the shipwreck by conjuring a storm and felt no remorse, and he obviously deceived Guido by snatching and not returning his body, but instead of getting Guido into even more trouble by using his body to mess around more, the dwarf fixed up Guido's life. True, he didn't much fancy Guido turning up and wanting his body back, but it seemed that he really just wanted to live Guido's privileged life. Strange. Vamp Willow also just wanted to get back to her life, she had no real interest in messing with Willow's.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this relationship between a person and their doppelganger represents a far more powerful relationship with an individual and how they view themselves. I think that this also manifests itself in the very beginning of the episode when Buffy is comparing herself to Faith. The idea that Buffy and Faith are doppelgangers isn't a new concept, but the discussion that is held about their relationship in this episode is very interesting and relates a lot to what Madeline said. Buffy acknowledges their relationship when she says that in"some circumstances that could have been me" (referring to the 'evil' side of Faith). This demonstrates Buffy's fear of Faith, which really is a fear of herself or at least a fear of her power. Although we haven't watched an episode that directly addresses Buffy and Faith's relationship, it is terrible and demonstrates the true power that a slayer has and how easily that can corrupt them. This fear that Buffy has of her power also came up in "Buffy vs. Dracula", when Dracula is discussing how the slayer's power is simply a different facet of a vampire's power. Buffy's reaction was aggressively negative and is part of what allowed her to escape Dracula, however, it also showed us how thin a line Buffy walks and how scared she is of going to the side of evil.
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