"Fear Itself" - Fear Itself

This episode is all about facing one’s fears. Our characters’ fears are each manifested in the haunted house – Buffy is left alone, Xander effectively disappears, Willow’s magic goes awry, and Oz begins to turn into a werewolf. Anya realizes Xander is in danger. Giles doesn’t seem to fear anything, although I may fear him with a chainsaw…that was a little terrifying. Anyway, the point is, the whole first two thirds of the episode is foreshadowing the haunted house, and the part with Buffy and her mother really stuck out to me as the crux of the lesson. Joyce was afraid of new people and a new place, and she faced her fears and is now happily situated in Sunnydale. The haunted house is the effect of the fear demon before he has fully manifested. So really, all of the terrible things happening are like shadows of real fear. It’s the things we can’t see that frighten us, the dark and the scary voices and the heavy footsteps. But when the characters face their fears head-on, in the form of the fear demon, they find that really, their fears only had power over them because they allowed it. There’s something that the Master says in season 1 about fear, I believe we saw this, “Fear is in the mind, like pain, it can be controlled.” (Side note: It’s interesting to see how the things the characters fear have changed since that first episode.) Essentially, the Master is telling us that fear exists only in the mind, and therefore we as humans with advanced mental faculties can quell our fears, thereby removing their power over us. And since fear exists only in the mind, it makes sense that the fear demon is inconsequential. As Xander puts it, “Big overture, little show.” Ironically, the objects that represent / cause fear in Castle of Otranto are the enormous sword, helmet, and this specter that appears to be a giant in armor. But in reality, the things that the characters fear are marriage and prophecies. Anyway, I love the imagery at the end of the episode – fear is so trivial when faced head-on that even Little Red Riding Hood can quash him.