What struck me most in “Storyteller” was its illumination of Andrew’s character. For those of you unfamiliar to Andrew’s back-story, he kind of filled the shoes of the lame sidekick in The Trio, a threesome of humans who dabble in science and the black arts to try to achieve unclear goals – perhaps wealth/fame or world domination, but the plans always culminated in trying to get rid of Buffy. As lame sidekick, the others predictably bullied Andrew often. He is also kind of flaky, which meant his heart wasn’t really in it. He just got caught up in a bad crowd.
His role of storyteller in the episode ironically brings him to the forefront, instead of the people whose story he’s trying to tell. We see the world through Andrew’s eyes; he tries to soften it and romanticize, glossing over the fact that many of the people he’s interviewing are likely to die.
It’s also his attempt to simplify the world around him, a la his crude diagramming of the situation on the whiteboard. He breaks the story down into it’s sweeter parts: Buffy kicking butt, the Willow/Kennedy, Xander/Anya, and Spike/Buffy romances, and the simple matter of eating breakfast in a house of so many people. We don’t see the true horrors of the world in his video; just as Whedon avoids BtVS ever getting truly scary (except on occasion – cough Hush cough Normal Again cough), we don’t see any of the true awfulness of an ending world in Andrew’s documentation.
This moment comes only after Andrew is forced to put down his camera; when he can no longer hide behind anyone, or his camera lens, he is forced to acknowledge things that he has been trying to deny to himself: the wrongs he committed in killing Jonathan, his self-delusion in believing The First, and his final admission that he “probably won’t survive,” the coming battle. It’s his tears of remorse that close the Seal, making him a central character at least for that moment, and forcing the audience to realize that Andrew (like everyone) has his own story running through the background of the Scoobies’ lives. It’s just waited until now to be told.
On another note, because the gothic is about how horror and fantasy act with the real world, there is always expected doubt on the part of the readers/viewers/listeners. That’s why it’s often told from “evidence” – like the journals and clippings in Dracula, and the journal in The Turn of the Screw. I think it’s also just the nature of the gothic as a “scary story” for one to tell coming through. Regardless, Xander makes a point in the episode, saying “But it is kind of a shame you keep saving the world and there's not any proof;” this grounds the show, making it something not that Whedon tells us, but something the actual players wish to communicate to posterity. In a way, it’s a request for acknowledgment and validation, as well as a subtle nod to the actual audience.
Yay! All caught up! At least until tomorrow.
<3 Lisa
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