The Belated Blogger: Inca Mummy Girl ...ahhhh Virtue, Vice... Vampires....

Within “Inca Mummy Girl” and “Carmilla” we see marked examples of the dangers (and allure) of the Exotic. However, rather than just presenting the exotic elements as ultimately bad, the texts shows glimpses of the exotic other’s own perspective and moralities. Both also explore the role of the female, with female villains and female protagonists.

Something I’ve been paying attention to in our explorations of “the Gothic” (and in life in general) is the idea of different moralities. What’s moral for a demon and what’s moral for a human are different – and outside of the Gothic we see this idea all the time – morality of the rich versus the poor [this is a really, really big one, even if it isn't discussed as much as, say, the following example], the Christian versus the Islamic—even ancient Greece viewed the world as continuously East (Troy/Persia/Asia) versus West. We see that in “Living Conditions”: Kathy’s demon morality vs. Buffy’s human morality (apparently, the demon culture doesn’t have or value college). We see this in “Inca Mummy Girl” – the whole idea of a human sacrifice is foreign to us – a very different kind of Chosen One. Carmilla makes a big deal of her different morality, such as when the topic of religion is brought up, and she says, “'Besides, how can you tell that your religion and mine are the same; your forms wound me, and I hate funerals.'” (“Carmilla” LeFanu, ch. 4) Yet in all cases, though it is considered wrong by the authors for Kathy, Ampata, and Carmilla to take lives in order to survive, it is considered ok for the demons themselves to get killed.

Carmilla brings up an interesting twist on that. Her former human lover pretends to kill the vampire Carmilla, so that she may go on living (Ampata’s lover, Xander, won’t do that for her – though she is killing his friends). However, when the General and crew kill Carmilla, Laura feel’s no compassion for the girl who had been living with her (and admittedly, killing her slowly). Likewise, when Kathy is sent back to her hellish dimension, no one gives a hoot. But while Ampata is dispatched without qualms, afterwards, Buffy feels for her – just as the reader can connect to the Gothic (in the case of Buffy, anyone who is in or has been in a highschool, which inevitable seems like hell at times), Buffy could relate to Ampata (both of the were “Chosen Ones,” girls serving a greater good without their own choice), prompting Buffy to say “Ampata wasn’t evil—at least, not in the beginning” and “She was gypt.” Even though Buffy recognized the necessity and her duty as Chosen One in ending Ampata’s corporeal existence, she can pity her, knowing what she goes through and feeling as she feels: the real person behind the mummy.

Ampata herself says, “I want to fit in, Buffy—just like you, a normal life.” Different moralities, different viewpoints—what she sees as normal, what she wants, Buffy sees as strange, crazy (though Buffy certainly got the better version of the “Chosen One” deal).  This perhaps helps Buffy to come to better terms with her task as Slayer.

Both sets of characters being female is also integral. It certainly allows the protagonists to relate to the antagonists, especially in the case of Buffy I just outlined. “Carmilla” isn’t much of a feminist text – Laura is mostly helpless, and serves solely as the narrator/point-of-view the story is told from. Carmilla herself, though a powerful woman, isn’t much of a feminist symbol either, considering she’s evil and must be destroyed without any feeling (and while she embraces her sexual aspects, it doesn’t seem empowering). Both Buffy and Ampata can be seen as feminist though – the article we read by Byers outlines ways in which Buffy and the series in general can be viewed as feminist. Ampata, though the “bad guy,” is described as not being intentionally evil. She is, like Buffy, a powerful and important female – as I’ve mentioned, she is a Chosen One for the Greater Good of her people. She’s more powerful and important than the males she ends up destroying, even her manly “bodyguard.” She embodies the destructive force view of feminism, in a way Carmilla cannot. And though she is put down, it is not without acknowledgement of what she went through by the main characters, and how their differences, different moralities, (which can also fit in with feminism) shaped their behaviors. (Curiously, unlike Carmilla, she at first resists the destructive force of her sexuality. I don’t quite feel qualified to make a claim as to weather this is more or less feministic. It certainly brings up more issues of morality. ;] )

*PS. Please don't kill me for anything I said about feminism. There are a lot of different views about feminism, and I am not sufficiently well-versed on any to feel confident in proclaiming a veiw-point.

The Belated Blogger: Living Conditions [It's the Fear]

This has been sitting on my computer for some time now, and, running on three hours of sleep, I've gotten over my trepidation at posting such a scattered thing. However, I do think that if I am to start posting, I should start posting -- and if any of you are in need of commenting on post of the first few episodes we watched in class, I have more to follow.

Two things struck me most about “Living Conditions”: 1) The exploration of fear, and 2) Kathy’s motivation. (Both items, I’d argue, stem from Gothic elements.)

Ok. No surprise that the Gothic and fear have a long history. Some of the fear is that big, epic, cultural fear (we saw a lot of that in Dracula): the “it’s coming, end of time fear, the larger-than-ourselves, inevitable” fear. But what’s particularly great about some Gothic Lit, and this episode in particular, is personal fear. Individual fear. One of the most attractive elements of “the Gothic” is the identification with the reader/audience, and it’s ability to deal with more “me” oriented scenarios – and fears. It’s one of the ways the Gothic can easily relate to its readers: fears shared between the main characters and the readers.

In the case of the Buffy episode, these fears would have to do with going to college and dealing with a roommate. The interesting thing is that Buffy becomes these fears that she has: the personal fear is a bad, crazy roommate (Buffy’s is a demon roommate); Buffy becomes just as bad a roommate as Kathy is. For a while there, she appears to be a worse (read: murderous) roommate, but then we find out Kathy is a demon and is stealing Buffy’s soul (with the end effect being that Buffy would be sent to a demon dimension for Kathy’s personal gain).

Which brings me to part two. Though stealing your roommate’s soul so that she’ll be teleported to another dimension instead of you is certainly immoral (trust me, you soulless demons out there who don’t know wrong from right [and thus can be argued to be innocent, whereas murderous Buffy knows better – though she is losing her soul, so.], stealing souls is bad. Don’t do it. Just say no), the reason Kathy  did so was so she could go to college and get an education like a normal person. (She might even have felt bad about it afterwards when she had a soul!)

That brings me to a third idea: this something special, something human: soul. We know it doesn’t make people good or bad – though I suppose part of the idea is, without a soul, it’s easier to do great badness, because it’s the nature of many a soulless beast, whereas with a soul, it’s worse, because it means something is broken within you that should be stopping you from killing/doing bad.

Anyway, back to college: Isn’t that a good thing, a good motive? She’s trying to escape the tyranny of her people, and Buffy sent her back to them. So there wasn’t much Kathy could do in the way of requesting asylum, and she didn’t even try, but Buffy condemned her (though it was only through an act of self-preservation) to live out her live according to her culture, not according to her own individual path (which is something us American’s *claim* to value).

Kathy wants to become like Buffy (or what Buffy stands for to her: a normal student); Buffy ends up becoming like Kathy (or her perception of Kathy: a bitchy demon). We become our fears, we become what we fight: An example of the ever-present dichotomy in Goth [conveniently tying Fear, Kathy’s motivation, and the Gothic together]. (Hitchcock used that in his movies too, btws. Um. Yeah.)

It's also like the lyrics from the song below (from a Dutch symphonic rock/metal band, often classified as Gothic, though the band members do not consider it to be a Gothic band):

I fear who I am becoming, 
I feel that I am losing the struggle within 
I can no longer restrain it, 
My strength, it is fading 
I have to give in

Though, Buffy did not actually seem to feel or fear what was happening to her (so it's actually the opposite of this song: she became who she feared). I'll leave you contemplating the difference between the two ideas.



[It’s the Fear – Within Temptation] 

(*The sound quality isn't as good I would have liked, but I thought the lyrics would be nice, and the other videos didn't have them.)

Tabula Rasa: Tara and Catherine Morland

Tara plays a larger role in this episode, and really in this season than previously, and what interested me were the similarities and differences between her character and that of Jane Austen’s Catherine Morland from Northanger Abbey. Tara and Catherine both act as the challenge to the “impolite” friend’s behavior. Tara threatens to leave Willow unless Willow cleans up her act, and Catherine expresses incredulity at Isabella’s behavior, although the culture / society in which she lives prevents her from confronting Isabella as frankly as Tara confronts Willow. Further, Tara is not portrayed as a heroine in Buffy, in fact I might argue that her confrontation with Willow in this episode and her courage of conviction in her decision to leave is when she is strongest. Tara is a little backwards compared to Catherine though, as Catherine is struggling to obey the dictates of society while Tara defies them with her language and actions. Catherine allows Isabella to permeate her opinions for a while, while Tara immediately rebels against Willow’s overuse of magic. It is this juxtaposition that surprisingly throws Tara’s character into a new light: she can be very emotionally strong. But then of course this also highlights Catherine’s emotional weaknesses. Honestly now that I’ve explored these two characters as they compare and contrast to one another I’m more convinced than ever that Catherine is a poor excuse for a heroine. Even the shy stutterer Tara out-shines her, especially in the area of presence of mind and courage to confront. Looks like Austen did an excellent job if she was in fact trying to make Catherine Morland a total parody of a heroine: fearful, clueless, and impressionable, with little sense of self.

The Scream

For my article, I chose Kelly Kromer’s “Silence as a Symptom: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Hush.” I was very intrigued by her view of speech as a conduit that is responsible for establishing “cultural codes of conduct and policing the actions of individuals.” There’s a common phrase that I’m sure everyone has heard: “Actions speak louder than words.” And yet, vocal interaction is so much more common than the physical – that it has the power to for and police something as great as a society shows how the potential for the physical in bringing people together. I don’t mean this in solely a sexual way; the image of the silent students in the lunchroom with the one silent, crying girl, stuck out to me a lot in this episode. Physical representations of emotion are so much stronger than vocal declarations of it, in that they are more genuine, less controlled. It also serves as an equalizer, because words are something particular to a person, while physical emotion (crying, hugging, smiling) is something universal.

The reason that I fin Hush to be so disturbing is that the cause-effect relationship between fear and voice is fear and the scream. And the scream signifies so many things: it is our vocal embodiment of fear, our cry for help, and our warning to others. The little lullaby that the young blonde girl sings really evokes the alarming nature of losing this ability to scream: “You’re gonna die screaming but you won’t be heard,” which evokes the helplessness that is created by this imposed silence.

Another consequence of removing voice from the episode is found in that Whedon forces the viewer to become an active part of the show. The viewer must read the characters’ signs, interpret their motions, and analyze and layer the images and music to and understand actions and moods, because nothing is explained for them. This isn’t an episode that you can turn away from for a moment and not miss a thing – and, consequently, the viewer is more invested in the episode, more invested in the frightening images, and is undeniably drawn to wonder what they would do if they lost their voice.

<3 Lisa

http://slayageonline.com/essays/slayage19/Kromer.htm

Sexy Librarian!

It seems that Giles is as sexualized as any other character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In three of the episodes we have seen, Giles has been romantic with a different lady friend in each of them. It was the three sisters in Buffy vs Dracula, then his "girl friend" in Hush, and in Tabula Rasa, he finds himself married to Anya. Ironically enough, as Decandido points out in her essay, Bibliographic Good vs. Evil in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Giles is the librarian! This is a classic example of role reversal. Buffy is physically the most powerful member of the gang. Her power is by no means feminine however. As we see in Tabula Rasa, Buffy has a "natural" ability to vanquish demons which is rooted deep within her person. Even though she can't remember her name, due to Willow's brain washing spell, Buffy still maintains her physical prowess. This indicates that her powers are more than just ones that people can train and develop. Her ability stems directly from her natural make-up. On the other hand, the guiding force of the group's intelligence operation is Giles, the male. To my knowledge, we have yet to see him exert his physical strength once. More often than not, Giles is either studying inquisitively, brooding in isolation, or entertaining female company. is is a stark contrast from what we have read in class. In Dracula, the men are the ones who go off and slay the vampires while the sole woman is left at home to deal with the paper trail and other odds and ends. So the show makes a commentary on stereotypes not just for females but for males as well. Instead of being a dumb-brute, Giles is a dedicated academic but yet still sexy and still a hero. The same way that Buffy is still sexy despite her masculinity.

Another way to tie Dicandido's thesis back to our class readings is through the awareness of story telling. Decandido makes the argument that Buffy is self-aware of her role as the hero. Through Giles' library, Buffy has learned all about the role that heros play. Likewise, in Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland reads all about heroines and lets her imagination get the best of her. Austen even makes a point to say that heroines should be conscious of those who have come before them. Before ever becoming a heroine, Catherine learns the basic skills through her books.

DeCandido G. Bibliographic Good vs. Evil in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. American Libraries [serial online]. September 1, 1999;30(8):44-47. Available from: ERIC, Ipswich, MA. Accessed October 11, 2011.

To Speak, Or Not To Speak: That Is The Question

Let me preface this blog post by saying that “Hush” is my all-time favorite Buffy episode. I love its spookiness, and the beautiful, eerie fairy-tale feel. For me, this episode epitomizes what I love most about the gothic: it’s a little bit familiar, a little bit scary, and a little bit “uncanny” as Alex described. As someone who talks far more than she should, I also appreciate an episode that speaks to the significance of language in our culture. As Kromer states in her article, “language structures reality.” We often use language as our primary method for asserting our opinions and beliefs.

As we see in this episode, interactions between people become less superficial when we are forced to use our bodies instead of our minds. I believe our personal experiences shape our understanding of the world. Kromer suggests that language is essential for understanding our surroundings, and without it we confront “the inability to shape experiences effectively.” I think this episode supports the idea that the body can communicates in ways that are independent and untainted by the mind. Although our minds can perceive our surroundings, shape our internal experiences, and analyze them in ways that the body cannot; the body simply exists, producing sincere communication.

However, silence can also have its drawbacks. In her article Kromer also states that the episode “taps into common childhood fears through its portrayal of The Gentlemen.” In their blog posts, both Lauren and Alex emphasized how The Gentlemen represent distorted adult qualities of refinement with their appearance, grace, and polite manners. Kromer also emphasizes how these qualities “tap into childhood fears of adults and old age, medicine, surgery, and the unwanted penetration of one’s body.” As children, we shy away from sickness, old people, and hospitals because we associate all of these things with pain and vulnerability. When you become sick, you no longer have control over your body, you feel pain, and must rely on adults to take care of you and fix you. You are weak and vulnerable, just as the people of Sunnydale are vulnerable to the cruelty and violation of The Gentlemen.

Since children don’t have the physical strength to resist adult influence, language is of paramount importance. When you are a child without language, you are unable to assert yourself. You, quite literally, have no voice. When Buffy takes back her voice from The Gentleman, she is reclaiming her authority and the right to express her thoughts and desires.

Kromer, Kelly. "Silence as Symptom: A Psychoanalytic Reading of "Hush". Nineteen: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies. 07 Mar. 2007. Web. 03 Oct. 2011.

Is Ignorance Bliss?

In class (and in Grace’s post), we talked about how even through their minds are wiped clean, the character’s basic personalities survive. Buffy does not stop being a hero, Willow doesn’t stop being gay, and Dawn doesn’t stop being a brat. What I found more interesting was not what the Scooby Gang and Spike remembered, but what they didn’t and how they reinvented themselves. The problem begins when Willow attempts to make Buffy and Tara happy again by making them forget their troubles. Yes this makes Willow a bad friend and a terrible girlfriend, although the characters are terrified, they are happy. Like a dream, the spell suspends all the characters problems and allows them to be blissfully unaware of the gaping issues in their lives. Tara falls in love with Willow again, who is not a power-obsessed, magic abuser, but just another person. Buffy has no recollection of her experience in Heaven. She is not depressed at being on Earth, but rather she has found her purpose again. As Joan, Buffy is more like her younger self: brash, energized, and ready to kick vampire butt. Spike reinvents himself as the son of Giles and as Angel: a vampire with a soul who stands with the Slayer to destroy the evil vampires. He believes himself to be the hero, not a sometimes-villain. Spike’s new point of view is supposed to be funny, but it also poignant that Spike is incredibly happy to have a father. In his real life, Spike is woefully alone which is why he keeps returning to Buffy. It is when the spell is broken and real life comes flooding back that the characters feel unhappy. When Buffy’s memory is returned, she stops fighting altogether and gives up being a hero. She curls up on the ground like a terrified child. Tara and Willow break up, leaving Willow a broken shell. Giles leaves Sunnydale and Buffy for, presumably, forever. Whether it is possible or not, the overwhelming unhappiness at the end of the episode begs the question whether the gang would have been happier to remain under the spell.

Are they telling us how to feel...

So after reading Grace's post, I got to thinking...do we perceive these characters, especially these heroines, in a certain way because we are told to think that way? Sorry, that was confusing and probably not proper English. What I mean is that the narrator in Northanger Abbey and the pre-established character traits and the role of the slayer in the fictional history in Buffy shape our perceptions of these characters.

In "Tabula Rasa" each character is given a blank slate, and we see them find their true selves again, hinting to the fact that you can't escape who you are, and that for Buffy, the hero is always inside her. We also see that Willow is still in love with Tara and that Dawn is still as annoying as ever, and that even Giles is the master spell caster in their delirious state. That is great to take from the episode, that you can't escape your true self, I mean, but what about audience perception? I see a lot of you posting here (especially those of you who don't watch the show and saw Willow's transformation as sudden and appalling) about how upset you are with Willow. Some of you forgive her and some of you are calling her selfish, but why do we form these opinions? Well, some people who got attached to sweet and sensitive high school Willow want to forgive her and say it is just a phase, or that she got swept up in something. By giving us this sweet Willow to begin with, and to have her use magic only to help Buffy (honestly, not like she is "helping" Buffy in season six) Joss Whedon established her in the audiences mind as a good friend who wants to do good things. Others say she is selfish, power hungry, and lying to herself and her friends when she says she only needs magic to help. These people have been led by the writers to believe that Willow was once weak and finds strength in her magics. In doing magic, she is finally strong, she can finally be the heroine and save the day, and that is why we see her as self absorbed in this situation.

The same goes for Isabella. We are told from the beginning through the tone of the narrator that Isabella is tiresome and selfish, that she exaggerates how she misses Catherine when really she is only sociable for personal and selfish gain. The narrator shapes our image of her, and perhaps if the story was being told through Catherine's perspective even, we would have seen this selfishness later on and would not have been so predisposed to dislike Isabella.

Then with our heroines, we are certainly led to think what the writers intended us to think. Catherine is blatantly called our heroine, and the narrator builds her up from her plain beginnings to further beauty as she loses her naivety and grows as a woman. In Buffy, we are told that "In each generation a slayer is born, one girl in all the world, the chosen one, she is the slayer" and we are led to believe that all her actions are good and righteous and for the benefit of humanity. But what if we didn't have this perspective, or what if we weren't introduced to Buffy knowing from the show title that she would be the heroine. The more I read of the Gothic, the more I notice things being laid out for the audience or reader in a way that makes things very predictable. I would attribute that to every thing we have read and seen so far this year.

I like what Grace said about making excuses. What makes us form excuses for a character? Do we make excuses for Willow because we have, in a sense, known her longer, or is it because the narration and writing has set it up that way for us? What room for personal interpretation do we actually have in literature and TV like this?

Tabula Rasa

I wanted to look more carefully at the impolite friend in Buffy and Northanger Abbey. Although, we had been focusing completely on Willow during class, I thought looking at Giles’ role would be interesting as well. In this episode, we find out that he has decided to leave Buffy for good and return to England. He has a very difficult time with this decision, but believes that he is doing the right thing in order for Buffy to gain some independence. In many ways, Buffy sees this as betrayal and abandonment and has difficulty understanding why Giles is leaving. From Buffy’s perspective, Giles has become the impolite friend by leaving her at such a time, just as Willow is the ‘bad’ friend for using magic on Tara and Buffy. Both Willow and Giles believe, wholeheartedly, that they are doing the right thing, however, each is seen as the ‘enemy’ for doing it. However, there is a significant difference between them, Giles is actually doing the right thing (because every heroine needs to stand alone), while Willow is not. This distinction, although very clear to the audience, is not necessarily clear to the characters. In fact, Buffy hardly seems concerned with the poor choices that Willow has made and it is only Tara that shows the viewers the extent of Willow’s mistakes. My question, therefore, is what exactly makes an ‘impolite friend’? Based on Northanger Abbey, the distinction is clear: there are friends that follow the rules of society and those that only pretend to. The first set will always help you do what is right, while the others will try and lead you astray. The distinction is very black and white, leaving very little room for misinterpretation, making each character perfectly fit one mold or the other. However, Buffy has a much more complex set of societal rules, which sometimes makes it very difficult to distinguish between the good friend and the bad. Willow is one of Buffy’s best friends and although the viewer acknowledges that what she did was wrong, it is impossible to dismiss her based on her error. This is made extremely clear as the season ends and Willow turns ‘evil’, although, ‘out of control’ might be a more accurate term for her change. We never forget, as viewers, that Willow is a good person and that there is a reason that she is friends with Buffy. She may have been misguided for a time, but Buffy never gives up on her and always remains her true friend. Isabella, however, the reader never likes and never supports in anyway, or at least, I never did. Jane Austen makes it very clear that she is a manipulative social climber who does not value friendship or any other social etiquette. The reader never forgets that she is not Catherine’s true friend, even though Catherine believes that she is and has faith in her. This distinction between Willow and Isabella, however subtly portrayed by the director/author, completely changes how each character fills the role of the ‘impolite friend”. Although Willow does portray an element of ‘evilness’, I don’t think that she is truly the impolite friend because she only ever acts because she believes that she is doing the right thing. I do not think this of Isabelle. I think that she knows exactly what she’s doing and is doing it only for her own personal gain, rather than the benefit of others.

You Could Cut the Tension with a Knife

Many people have discussed the comparable presence of third wave feminism in Buffy and “Carmilla”, but I would like to use my blog space to explore a different shared similarity between the texts: the presence of tension between Ampata and Carmilla’s survival needs and their desire to be young women.

Both Ampata and Carmilla struggle with maintaining their lives as monsters while functioning in society as girls with typical teenage desires. Ampata says at the beginning of the episode, “You must teach me everything about your life. I want to fit in, Buffy. Just like you. A normal life.” This wish for normalcy is in constant opposition with her requirements for survival, which involve sucking the life force out of humans through a kiss. Similarly, Carmilla agonizes between wanting to be Laura’s friend and having to suck her blood to stay alive.

The portrayal of this tension between their supernatural and human qualities enables the audience to feel empathy for them. As Byers says, “they are slayers, demons, and witches after all – and yet they are ‘normal’ too[1].” This normalcy highlights Ampata and Carmilla’s goodness and their mortal humanity. Moreover, because Ampata and Carmilla were changed into monsters against their own will, the audience empathizes with them even more. Their helpless victimization is the source of this internal tension, and because they did not wish to be “chosen,” their human desires seem to resonate more strongly than their supernatural needs (even when their requirements for survival eventually take priority.)

In addition to this important result of creating empathy in the audience, the depiction of tension raises a provocative question: what is a monster made of? In these two texts we are forced to see that monsters are more than just soulless killers. They are creatures who once lived as innocent youthful humans; and this humanity, regardless of the extent to which it is distorted in their monster forms, is still present in them.

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[1] Byers, Michele. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Next Generation of Television." Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century. (2003): 173. Print.

Not Quite "Tabula Rasa," As It Turns Out

We have discussed at some length the “making of heroines” based on “Tabula Rasa” and Northanger Abbey. I would like to believe that heroines are made based on their choices and development rather than born fully formed, but the episode and the novel actually seem to me like they argue for, rather than against, the innateness of heroism (or any other qualities). Although the title “Tabula Rasa” implies that the characters will be blank slates after their memories are erased, we see them slip into the same roles that they have always played, regardless of the memories that accompany their actions. Buffy is a hero even when she calls herself Joan, as we have already discussed. Each character has certain proclivities that come into play even after they are given the opportunity to recreate themselves entirely.

We see the same thing, I would argue, in Northanger Abbey. The first thing we are told about Catherine Morland is that she is a very unlikely heroine, as she has no heroic or outstanding qualities. While Catherine does learn a few things over the course of the novel, I don’t think that she ever actually becomes a heroine. This is one of the reasons that Northanger Abbey is an effective parody of the gothic novel. Austen uses Catherine to show her readers that protagonists need not be heroes or heroines, and novels can be just as interesting (and much truer to human nature and experience) when they provide glimpses into the lives of characters with ordinary, everyday conflicts rather than supernatural or horrific obstacles. At the end of the day, Catherine is just not heroic. When the novel ends, she has learned to reject her mean friend and not to make crazy assumptions, and she gets the guy—these lessons and events don’t make her a different, heroic person, they just show us that she is maybe a little more grown up and a little less dramatic.

This lack of complete personality overhaul is what makes us sorry for Willow and not so sorry for Isabella Thorpe. For five and a half seasons now, we’ve seen Willow be loyal and sweet. She might be the bad-mannered friend for now, but it’s only a brief interlude based on very specific circumstances, and this is why we can make excuses for her. Isabella, on the other hand, has been introduced to us as a vain, rash, and incredibly self-centered character, and she continues to behave in the same ways throughout Northanger Abbey. I don’t think that she is a sympathetic character, because we don’t get any glimpses into her character besides her negative, false attributes.

Buffy shows us that we are what we are, and Northanger Abbey tells us that it’s ok to be normal. We don’t have to fulfill heroic expectations that are instilled in us by whatever forms of media surround us. It is enough to live realistically, and we should really do our best to be good people. But, that having been said, if you happen to be dealt the ass-kicking card in life (as Buffy was), good for you.

"Tabula Rasa," Northanger Abbey and "Women Warriors"

“Tabula Rasa” and Northanger Abbey both deal with the construction of female heroines. Both Buffy and Catherine are “blank slates” who must be filled with knowledge before they can truly be called heroines. In order to explain Buffy’s “blankness,” the show employs a supernatural force: Willow’s spell. In Northanger Abbey, however, there is no such explanation for how Catherine has reached her seventeenth birthday with nary an opinion of her own, except on the subject of gothic novels. Catherine’s “blankness” is a plot device that serves the narrator’s purpose in creating a comedy of manners.
In “Tabula Rasa,” Buffy is the first to move towards the role she held before the loss of her memory. When the vampires attack the magic shop, Buffy’s body remembers how to fight them, and thus she believes she is a super hero. By being the first character to step up against the vampires, Buffy disrupts, as she often does, the “new war culture” that often “ignored or denigrated women or presented them in conventionally feminine roles (Early 11). Even when she thinks she is “Joan,” Buffy will not inhabit a more “traditional” passive feminine role.
However, as important as defeating the vampires is in “Tabula Rasa,” violence plays a much lesser role in this episode than in earlier episodes. Much more troubling for Buffy is dealing with her personal relationships and feelings: her return to earth, the loss of Giles, her friendship with Willow, and her relationship with Spike. Buffy blends “masculine” and “feminine” roles, therefore becoming an “open-image hero” (Early 24), or a hero who avoids stereotypes. Buffy “beckons us forward, urging viewers to contemplate a refashioned humanitarian and partly androgynous citizen ideal for the twenty first century” (Early 24). Buffy’s “blankness” in the episode allows her to re-inhabit that role after the trauma of her death.
Northanger Abbey cannot be called a “rebel warrior narrative,” which is what Early calls Buffy the Vampire Slayer in her article “Staking Her Claim: Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Transgressive Woman Warrior.” As it is a comedy, the novel must end with a marriage, presumably the marriage of its protagonist. Thus, Catherine cannot be molded into a “rebel warrior,” as Buffy is, because it is her destiny within the novel to fit into the established social order. The reader spends most of the first part of the novel being frustrated at Isabella’s influence over the incredibly naïve Catherine. However, her initial naiveté makes the eventual union of Catherine and Henry all the more satisfying for the reader.

Early, Frances H. "Staking Her Claim: Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Transgressive Woman Warrior." Journal of Popular Culture 35.3 (2001): 11-28. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Oct. 2011.