The End

“Once More With Feeling” is a musical episode steeped in revelations. The singing and self-awareness of the characters allows for each song to contain, beyond the catchy tune, deep and meaningful messages that portray the character’s inner turmoil. The devil, the demon in this episode, is a catalyst that allows all the characters to reveal their innermost secrets and fears. In the end, the demons within each character are worse than the actual Big Bad who peacefully leaves them, luckily without making Xander his new queen. Now everyone must live with what they have shared and deal with the consequences, which we saw in “Tabula Rasa.” All of their problems are man-made and have nothing to do with the supernatural. In this respect, reality is worse than hell. Tara is upset with Willow for being too dependent on her magic, Giles realizes he has to leave Buffy in order for her to grow, Dawn feels neglected and turns to thievery, Buffy is depressed that she was taken out of heaven, and Anya and Xander have serious relationship fears. Through their singing, as Becca said, the characters were able to communicate very serious issues through a happy and colorful median. I found it very effective that you could still see and hear the character’s true nature while they were singing. The truth was finally revealed through sing and dance which was mildly ironic because everyone sang about serious issues, however it was brushed off because of how ridiculous everyone looked while doing it. If life is a song, then you would expect it to be happy, however everyone is just going through the motions of happiness while they are truly hurting deep down.

...

The main reason I think Joss Whedon decided to use music in this episode is because for the most part society accepts music as a way to express oneself without having repercussions. However, not only did Joss make it so that characters had a means through which to tell their secrets, he made it impossible for them to stop themselves. I personally think that Buffy needed a damn good reason to tell her friends what had happened, and Joss didn't have one... so he made a demon that would force her to.

Obviously there are consequences when "life is but a song," but seriously, I think it was high time Buffy told her friends what was up. And I was also extremely sick of Willow taking advantage of Tara... so thank God for tap dancing interpretations of Satan.

Also... just to throw this out there... I LOVED all the references to other musicals. For example "The Music Man" when Spike says "76 bloody trombones" and someone said "the Point of no return," which is from "the Phantom of the Opera." I'm also pretty sure that that street-sweeper dance routine was from some movie or musical along the way. How entertaining.

Thats so meta... Suspension of Disbelief through Self-awareness

One thing I have always loved about Buffy is the extent to which it is a very self-aware show. A blonde high schooler who fights evil might be a difficult concept to get into, if Joss Whedon had not led us towards this suspension of disbelief alongside the characters observations. As Xander and Willow are introduced to the supernatural world, their continuous jokes and questioning voice the doubts of the audience. As they overcome their doubt and accept the vampire world as reality through these jokes, so do we, and we suspend our disbelief. Even in Once More, With Feeling, Buffy refers to the reality of their continuing fight against evil “Apocalypse, we’ve all been there/ the same old trips/ why should we care?” and even the supernatural aspects in the show, that, in the light of day, might seem altogether ridiculous: “It’s do or die/ hey I’ve died twice”.

But as the themes of the show get stranger and stranger, the character’s acknowledgement of them allows the audience to suspend their disbelief even further. Yes, to make an episode in which the characters burst into song is strange, but the fact that the characters too see it as a strange occurrence means that the audience can move past the supernatural and see the very real emotional development that the singing uncovers. A singing episode then, in comparison, is not so different from other episodes in which the characters experience supernatural events that lead them to natural conclusions about their lives.

The vehicle of song changes this element of the show. Normally, Buffy’s fight with the villain du jour mirrors her or the others’ internal battle. In Buffy vs. Dracula, Dracula is the manifestation of her personal acceptance of the dark side of slayerhood and her own ambiguity as a hero who kills. In "Living Conditions", Kathy seems to represent Buffy’s struggle with living in a world that is both normal and supernatural. Yet in Once More, With Feeling, the songs reveal that the characters’ real struggle is against their own personal demons. Xander and Anya’s 50’s sitcom romp “I’ll Never Tell” reveals their trepidations about their upcoming marriage. Yet never so obviously has Joss Whedon revealed personal truths this way, and he can only do so by using the happiness of the songs as a shield. As the two dance their way around their apartment a la Fred and Ginger, it becomes clear that this sitcom-y music is a commentary on their own playacting at happy-coupledom. They voice their fears obviously to each other, but their happiness and the music-sheilds the audience from the outright truths there are revealing. Instead, like their relationship, the dancing and pep covers the real flaws. The songs, not the villain, reveal the problems the Scoobies are facing in one of the most self-aware episode I have ever seen.

The musical episode of Buffy endeared me to the show even more than I thought possible. But it was neither the songs nor the dancing that I loved. It was the fact that all the characters of Buffy acknowledge not only the gimmick, but the absurdities about the show itself. While in the beginning of the series it might have been hard for the audience to move past the vampires and darkness and onto the social and personal commentary Joss Whedon uses the characters to make, by now we have accepted them as normal alongside the characters. In Once More with Feeling, we alongside the characters are introduced to the singing as an oddity in their lives, and we, like the characters recognize that their extreme honesty in their songs is rare. Only through their self-aware comments onto the strangeness of the situation can we accept the musical episode as more than a gimmick, but a vehicle of character development.

"Once More With Feeling" I write my last blog post.

I can’t believe that this my last blog post. In September, I had never seen a single episode, and now I find myself getting excited when I’m reading The Hairpin and they make Buffy references.
The first episode we watched was “Nightmares,” in which the worst dreams of the characters come to life. Anxiety and fear are obviously important to the gothic. In “Nightmares,” the characters’ fears are not based in reality. The spiders, clown and Big Bad are all dispelled by Buffy with relative ease.
In “Once More With Feeling,” however, the fear and anxiety has permeated the Buffy-verse. It’s going to take more than a roundhouse kick and a stake to the heart to get rid of them. This is because the fear has very little to do with the supernatural, and very much to do with personal relationships. Every character is keeping a secret that has the potential to destroy a relationship. Even when they do express their secrets, in song, no one hears them. Thus, while “Once More With Feeling,” appears light-hearted because of its musical nature, it leaves the viewer with an uncomfortable feeling because of the lack of resolution.
I felt similarly unsettled when I finished reading The Nutcracker and the King of Mice. At the end of the story, Marie has gone off to live in the Marzipan Castle and it seems like a happily-ever-after moment. However, once we realize an eight-year old is married, and her parents, who have done nothing but laugh at her, don’t seem to care. Similarly, in “Once More With Feeling,” though the villain goes back to hell, the characters, and us, are left to deal with the emotional fallout that is coming in “Tabula Rasa.”

If Life is a Song...

At the end of the episode, the demon prepares to leave, but before he does, he tells the gang to “say you’re happy now, once more with feeling”. They should be happy: they sang and danced, all their secrets are revealed, the demon has been defeated, and heck, the episode even ends with Spike and Buffy getting together. Why does it feel like they lost? It should be a Shakespearean comedy, but the episode feels like a tragedy.

We said that the demon was the villain in this episode, but I disagree. Compared to other monsters in the series, he does not do anything that despicable. Sure he enjoys watching people burst into flame, but he obeys the rules. He only wants to marry Dawn because he thought she summoned him; when the summoner turns out to be Xander, the demon backs off. He allows all the secrets that the gang has been holding within them to be exposed. The demon is cruel, but he’s not the worst demon we have seen. In all truth, he is pretty reasonable.

Because of all the singing, the gang finally realizes what they have refused to say: that they dragged Buffy from Heaven, Tara realizes Willow is magic-crazy, Giles sees he needs to move on, and Anya and Xander realize they have some serious relationship issues. Although the truth is supposed to be a good thing, even when it hurts at first, we know from “Tabula Rosa”, everything begins to fall apart. Maybe what Joss Whedon is telling us is that our expectations are too high. We expect life to make sense and to end like comedies and most musicals. We want a cheesy Broadway song: simple rhymes, easy to understand lyrics, and music that follows the words. We join together to try to make clear paths out of the chaos, but what if the life is not as easy as that. In the episode, the lyrics do not always match the music and sometimes the feelings are too complicated to fit into a rhyme scheme. If life is a song, then it is not the pop hit that Anya is looking for. It is something deeper and much less definable

Out of Control Fear

I'm a little behind on this one, but here goes:

One of the striking things about “Fear, Itself” was the nature of the fear that each character experienced. While each character had their own specific fears that Gachnar took advantage of, the characters needed to be isolated for this to work. The emotion ran high in this episode, and ultimately the reason the episode was successful as a frightening experience is because none of the members of the Scooby Gang trusted each other enough to work through it together. This is a fairly trite statement, but this is an important transition period in the “Buffy” story arc, as Buffy and Willow have gone to college, and struggle with how to continue their relationships with each other, as well as Xander and Giles.

This chaos is reminiscent of Castle of Otranto, in which most of the action consists of characters running around without any clear sense of the big picture of things. This confusion and sense of mysticism of everyday objects is also present in The Nutcracker. “Fear, Itself” as well as these two texts all have confusion regarding normally inanimate objects that become animated. In “Fear, Itself,” these are the party decorations, in Castle of Otranto, there are walking portraits, and in The Nutcracker, there are toys, but in all these cases, there is a distortion of reality that makes it difficult for the characters to interact with the world around them. This confusion and lack of control provides the eeriness of all three of these works.

Because of this, it is no surprise that the resolution of “Fear, Itself” comes after the characters have seized back their control and reunited. Gachnar is not the least bit frightening once he is out in the open, because the fear is really the fear of the unknown and unseen; it is the horror rather than the terror that is being emphasized here. This dynamic also leads to one of my favorite moments in the episode, when Giles says he will have to make a door, and Anya clearly expects him to create a door magically. Instead, he whips out a chainsaw, which is such a good reminder that we cannot forget to use our resources to get back the control we lack. Just because “Buffy” deals with supernatural monsters, now and then a chainsaw will do just as well as mystical solutions.

All in Your Head

Though “Fear, Itself” is really not one of my favorite episodes, knowing that I would have to write a blog post about it made me watch it a lot closer. I realized a bunch of things I never noticed before. Though the episode was not very subtle in its gothic mechanism – making the characters face all of their worst fears – there were a few interesting things that gave it (for me) some redeeming qualities.

The first thing I noticed was the transformative element that was being employed, turning harmless things into items that were much less fun – grapes into eyeballs, and plastic spiders into actual spiders. However, it was exactly the fears of the people that warped the nature of these innocuous things, which thus revealed another theme of the episode: the only power that fear has is what you give it. If no one had been afraid of bugs, the spiders would have stayed plastic. This theme is further carried over into the representation of the fear demon, Gacnar (spelling?), in the episode.

When I first saw this episode, once upon a time, I thought that the demon’s small stature and the Scoobie’s reaction to it was just Buffy the Vampire Slayer being quirky and cute as usual. But then, I realized the significance of Gacnar’s insignificant size. For all his fanfare, Gacnar is really nothing to behold – and that is because fear is all in our heads. (And just as a nod to Amelia’s post about Hollywood’s height bias: Hollywood is about sound and image, and what that can convey to an audience. It’s simply easiest to portray something that should be seen as “insignificant” as something physically smaller. Simply put, the less we see something, the less important it is.) Once again, we give our fears the power that they have over us. Fear itself is something insubstantial and inconcrete – we build things up in our heads when they aren’t truly that scary.

<3 Lisa

Mutiny

This is one of my favorite episodes because of the ambiguous nature of the ending. The frame of narrative that the “delusion” of the mental hospital creates forms an acceptable (even logical) construct through which the story seems possible. It pokes holes in the suspension of our own disbelief, leading us to doubt even as Buffy doubts herself.

I loved the conflicting themes of reality and fantasy, and the eerie, clinical approach science took to Buffy’s so-called hallucinations (in this case, I mean that the fantasy is the hallucination). At a time when Buffy is down, with her depression over being pulled from heaven, the death of her mother, her crappy job, and her relationship with Spike, an edge of doubt creeps in, and her unhappiness makes her question everything. She begins to find flaws in things with supernatural explanations – like her powers, and Dawn – not through any fault of them, but because, as she says, “It’s ridiculous” to imagine such things could be true. This doubt is exacerbated, becoming the final straw prompting her need for escape.

Buffy then finds herself presented with a choice – be normal and whole, or special and flawed. Tempted by her view into the mental institution, it’s only rational to want to escape a place filled with things that “aren’t as comforting as they once were,” in the doctor’s words. This dissatisfaction is, funnily enough, represented in Buffy’s wardrobe. Even at the worst of times, Buffy goes through a dozen costume changes per episode; but here, she remains in a tight, white sweatshirt that is an obvious nod to the straightjacket-like uniform she wears during her time in her mental institution.And then, of course, is the ultimate question: is Buffy's demon-caused "delusion" true or false?

I also found a bit of a parallel storyline in Jonathan’s own little mutiny. Just like Buffy, he’s in a situation that is growing increasingly dissatisfactory. He feels left out, and whines about this to the other two members of the Trio. He attempts to go against them, but is coerced back, just like Buffy is. This mutiny against the status quo is representative of the transition period that many of the characters are going through: Xander’s failed wedding, Buffy and Willow’s respective relationships, and Giles’ conspicuous absence. Giles served as both a Watcher and a leader, giving the Scoobies direction. Ultimately, his absence is what I think makes them most unsure. The transition to adulthood is a difficult one, and without their crutch its understandable that they’d be unsure on their feet.

<3 Lisa

Surrogates

What struck me the most in this episode were the parallels between the reaction of Joyce to the murders of the children and the reaction of the governess to the threat the ghosts present to the children. Both figures assume the role of a sort of surrogate mother in response to a menace to the perceived “innocence”; however, while the governess seeks to protect her “children,” Joyce only seeks revenge.

In The Turn of the Screw, the two children, Miles and Flora, almost do seem to represent somewhat of a Hansel and Gretel. Like the unnamed children in “Gingerbread,” they inspire the mothering instinct within the governess as the Hansel and Gretel characters do to Joyce. The peril of the children throws the mothering instinct of each into a twisted sort of overdrive, with each surrogate parent striving desperately to protect, even if that means to kill.

Though the ending of The Turn of the Screw is ambiguous, I’m choosing to interpret it as the governess smothering Miles – perhaps because this ending gives the story its final shock in the most appropriate way, showing how the ghosts finally broke the governess and drove her crazy. In her zeal to protect, the governess kills Miles – perhaps an accident in attempting to protect him, or perhaps intentionally in an attempt to spare him of the horrors she sees, and is convinced that they see. Similarly, Buffy’s mother reacts to Hansel and Gretel in an overzealous way – she kills Buffy, but not out of hatred. Rather, she’s trying to be a good mother: “What kind of a mother would I be if I didn't punish you?” she asks Buffy. And Willow’s mother, too, says “There’s no cure but the fire.” Both want to save their daughters – but the only way they believe they can do this is by killing them. The result is a creepy combination of mothering and murder: Willow’s mother tells her to bring a jacket because it’s chilly, but is taking her to her own burning. The juxtaposition of these two images is horrifyingly comic.

In addition, I just want to elaborate more on my Turn of the Screw theories. During the class discussion where we were forced to defend a specific interpretation of the text, I think Amelia’s and Madeline’s group (can’t remember who else was in it, sorry!) did a really interesting interpretation of the sexual, predatory undertones of the text. I think this is a very interesting angle, especially because of the subtle images I saw in the text that supported it. To me, the ghosts were representative of corruption and sexual deviancy, a threat to the home and a threat to sexuality. The presence of these ghosts forces the governess to assume closer positions to the children she wants to protect. In this way, the ghosts almost force her to assume their position – as is evidenced by her assuming the physical locations of each ghost (Quint at the window, and Jessel at the stairs). In her crusade to protect them, the governess becomes somewhat infatuated with the children, and is tempted to assume the ghosts’ old roles, becoming “too free” with them herself. Just a perspective to think about.

<3 Lisa

Haunted Castle

Unless I missed it, I do not think anyone has mentioned the most obvious connection between "Fear Itself" and our class readings. I think I was absent the day of class when we watched it so it very well may have been brought up but I figured I would mention it anyway...for the Blogs sake at least. But its clear to me that in many ways the haunted house in "Fear itself" is a lot like the castle in Otranto. Both the haunted house and the castle epitomize a stereotypical gothic setting. Because of this, the authors easily manipulate the spaces so that they encompass the most satyrical and obvious gothic tropes. Similar to the pictures on the walls that come to life in the castle of Otranto, the haunted house set up by the frat guys becomes the manifestations of the fears of each of the characters in Buffy. The difference is that Walpole pokes fun at the obviousness of a scary castle while Whedon acknowledges the campiness of the haunted house and still finds a way to make it scary. There is obviously going to be some demon in a haunted house in Sunnydale just like there is going to be gothic elements in a Castle, or a dark hallway, or a locked laboratory. But that is the point that Walpole and Whedon are trying to make; if you go looking for trouble, you will find it, but why waste time pretending it is not going to be there?

FDR and "Fear Itself"

Obviously my post on "Fear Itself" is quite late.  As Dylan observed, we're all really busy and stressed, so that's my explanation ... lots and lots of other homework.  Anyway, on to my actual post ...

After watching "Fear Itself," I couldn't get over the similarities between it's theme and that of "Nightmares."  Both of these episodes were very clearly about the necessity of facing our fears.  Although on the surface our fears, and those of Buffy and the Scooby Gang, appear insurmountable, when we face them head-on, we discover how truly small and powerless they are.  The only difference between "Nightmares" and "Fear Itself" that I could detect was where and how Buffy and the Scooby Gang had to face their fears and who was "responsible" for unleashing those fears.  In "Nightmares," the fears that physically manifested themselves in Sunnydale are those of a young boy in a coma.  To return Sunnydale to normal and free its citizens from their fears, Buffy must convince him to face his very "real" fears; she must show him that his "real world" fears are small and ultimately unimportant.  In the process, she and the Scooby Gang face their own fears and overcome them - or so the audience thinks.

"Fear Itself" reveals to the audience that Buffy and certain members of the Scooby Gang never truly overcame their fears in "Nightmares."  While their fears have certainly evolved, due to the fact that they have grown and matured, they are still ultimately the same fears that the characters had in Season 1.  Buffy still fears being unloved, especially by her father, and ending up alone.  Willow still fears bugs and being seen by Buffy, and the rest of the Scooby Gang, as unimportant and without any powers of her own - she fears being relegated to the role of being Buffy's sidekick.  Finally, Xander fears being seen as an unimportant member of the Scooby Gang and an outsider.  "Fear Itself" again brings these fears to the surface and again forces the characters to confront these fears, though they don't manifest themselves in the "real world" of Sunnydale this time.  Towards the end of the episode, Buffy and the Scooby Gang discover that they are facing these fears solely in their mind.  What they, and the audience, think is physically happening to them is really only a figment of their imagination brought on by the presence of the demon Gachnar.  When they realize that the symbol on the floor of the fraternity's attic is summoning Gachnar, courtesy of Giles, Buffy seeks to prevent him from appearing by destroying the symbol.  However, she only succeeds in making him appear sooner.  Initially, the Scooby Gang is terrified.  Giles has shown them Gachnar's picture, and they know that he will be a formidable foe.  Even Buffy admits that she doesn't want to fight him.  Ultimately, their apprehension is unjustified.  Gachnar's appearance is rather anticlimactic because, as Giles later discovers by reading the inscription, the picture in the book is "to-scale."  Buffy, of course, easily defeats Gachnar by stepping on him and returns everything to normal.

In the end, "Fear Itself," like "Nightmares," is about the importance of facing one's fears head-on.  Our fears can overcome us and make us believe they are large and powerful; however, when we, like Buffy and the Scooby Gang, gain the courage to directly confront our fears, we will always discover that they are like Gachnar: small and insignificant.  In other words, they are the creations of our mind, which exaggerate them.  Although we can never truly defeat our fears, as we saw with the similarities between the Scooby Gang's fears in Season 1 and Season 4, by confronting them, we can successfully overcome their power to fully live our lives.  As FDR said, "All we have to fear is fear itself."

Amending What I Said in Class

This weekend I tried to observe the occurrences of drinking at Hamilton and build an argument of why it is “the darkest that Hamilton College gets” (yes I am quoting myself). In the process of my observations, rather than seeing the darkness of the drunken people unfold in front of my eyes, I saw even more keenly the prevalence of stress. Instead of seeing kids out drinking, I saw them in the library, in KJ, in their rooms, or doing school work. The common question of the weekend was not “where is the party?” but rather “where are you studying?” So then I started to think, is stressing about school work gothic? I am not a doctor nor do I study science but it is it pretty common knowledge that stress can be a contributing factor to many of the ills (physical and mental) that occur on the hill. And while drinking certainly keeps kids up late, in the depth of the night were only evils lurks, studying has historically been at least on par with drinking as a reason to stay up late. In fact, when I think back to the scariest times I have had at Hamilton, moments when Katherine Moreland would yell “LOOK OUT!” I can attribute most of them to school work. Walking from the library to the dark side at 4:00 AM in the snow is among the scariest journey one can endure here. The noises, the buildings, the weather, and the sleep deprivation/caffeine high could make for a mean gothic episode. Yet, no one in our class wrote about the stresses of school work. While Becca and Alison wrote about the stress of their on campus jobs, we all avoided the one thing that has plagued each and every one of us since we have stepped on the hill as freshman. So, this is me amending my statement in class: the darkest Hamilton gets is stressful students!
Yes, I am currently stressed about my work.

Normal Again- What is normal?

I thought that Normal Again was a very powerful episode, partially because I am very interested in psychology, but also because it demonstrates the incredibly thin line that separates reality and imagination. What it really comes down to is belief. Buffy decided that she believed in herself and that meant that she chose to live in the world as the Slayer. I’m not even really sure which of those realities Joss Whedon believes is real, because the ending is so ambiguous. Perhaps all that he was saying is that there is no true ‘reality’, it is simply about what we choose to see and believe. The moment that Buffy chooses to believe in herself and therefore chooses the reality of being a slayer, her ‘insane’ self essentially dies. That doesn’t mean that either of those two worlds is real, it only shows us that Buffy chooses to live in the world of Sunnydale, which is an important choice for her at this moment in the series, but it still doesn’t make it real. Buffy is not given any kind of tangible evidence for either world to be real. There is absolutely nothing that happens in either world that makes it appear to be the true reality, only the opinions of the people in each world. Buffy can only choose between the two because she has to pick which one feels more like her or feels more like reality. We will never know if Buffy as the Vampire Slayer is an escape from her reality or if putting herself in an institution was a way of escaping from the reality and pressure of being the slayer.
This choice is essentially what we all must live with and confront in our daily lives, but particularly in our ability to read Gothic novels. We’ve discussed a lot in class the concept of suspension of belief and the idea that we must accept the abnormal and impossible in order to fully immerse ourselves in these stories. For the most part that has been easy, except for Castle of Otranto, where some people had trouble putting our reality aside in order to accept the oddness of tale. A lot of this has to do with the absurdity of what happens in Castle of Otranto and the fact that things seem to happen for no apparent reason, whereas the other books always have a reason and explanation for such supernatural occurrences. The way to read this book is to go into it with an open mind and an acceptance of the strange and unnatural. In this way, Normal Again teaches us the perfect lesson: belief is a choice, no more. There are multiple realities, multiple ways of looking at the same time, and many ways in which we can each exist. That doesn’t mean that we each have our own fantasy world where we are Slayers or something similar, but it does mean that there isn’t a single way of understanding the world around us and there isn’t a single definition for ‘normal’.

Gingerbread... a little late. Oops.

The question that we are faced with at the end of Turn of the Screw is whether it was real or not. Henry James set the reader up to question the events of the plot because it is told in such a one-sided way that the reader almost has to question the reality of it. The lack of support on the part of all of the other characters and the fact that none of them ever saw the ghosts doesn’t give the reader any supporting evidence or reason to suspend their disbelief. The governess, however, is incredibly persistent and does not question herself or what she has seen, but continues to gather evidence to support her cause. The same is true in Gingerbread. Joyce Summers becomes so attached to these two children that she is blinded by their true nature. She refuses to listen to the possibility that she may be wrong and continues to such an extreme that she comes very close to killing her own daughter. It is interesting that both Joss Whedon and Henry James picked up on this parental love that is so strong that it is blinding. The obsessive nature of the Governess and Joyce in relation to the children causes them to go to such extremes that they lose sight of reality. Even though it is unclear whether or not the Governess is hallucinating, it is safe to say that she took her attachment to the two children to an unhealthy extreme. Miles was suffocated by her presence because she prevented him from going to school and making friends, even if she didn’t physically suffocate him. Joyce was prepared to kill three innocent girls, one of whom was her own daughter, because she felt so strongly about protecting the two children, even though she knew nothing about them. The unwavering focus and persistence that both Joyce and the Governess demonstrate seem to the audience, in many ways, a bad quality, a kind of idiotic stubbornness. We know, at least in Gingerbread, that the children are demons, so it is even more frustrating to watch Joyce fight so hard for something that isn’t real. In many ways, it makes the viewer question the importance of persistence. It is a quality in Buffy that is admirable since she is fighting for the ‘right’ cause, but Joyce continues to fight because she believes that she is supporting the ‘right’ cause. So how can we truly say when one should be persistent and when one shouldn’t be? When is it the right cause and when is it a worthy cause? There are times when you may even be fighting for the right cause, but it isn’t worth the fight or perhaps there is no chance in winning, so what happens then?

I think that the summation of both these works is that love blinds, but we should also stand up for our beliefs and the ones that we love.