I wish we had watched “Fear Itself” right before Halloween so I could have gotten some costume ideas. However, the theme of fear can be discussed year-round. We all have fears, a lot of which we hide from other people. By doing this, we actually hurt ourselves more by isolating ourselves from people who care and could help us conquer our sometimes irrational worries. In this episode, everyone’s greatest fear becomes reality. Buffy thinks she is alone in the world and unworthy of love or friendship, which makes her turn inward, away from her friends who want to be there for her. Therefore, she gets separated from those who can help her defeat the Big Bad in this episode. In the frat house turned house of horror, Xander’s worst fear portrays itself in the guise of him being invisible to everyone around him. As all of his friends move on to college and bigger and better things, Xander feels lesser than them and worries that he will simply be left behind and forgotten. This fear is manifested in him being invisible and useless in helping his friends escape the terrifying house. Willow’s greatest fear is that she is not a powerful or successful witch. She also doubts that her friends have faith in her ability and don’t take it seriously. Following the guideline that what one fears is manifested in the frat house, when she attempts a simple spell, Willow is chased by her haywire tracking spell. Finally, Oz is terrified of losing control of the werewolf inside of him and hurting someone he cares about, especially Willow. Therefore, he secludes himself inside a bathroom to try and regain his humanity. Each character, not other characters or external forces, gives power to their own fears and makes them into reality in the frat house. Because we worry so much about something internally, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is ultimately our downfall in which we succumb to our fears. Everyone in this episode is so afraid of how their friends see them that they don’t realize that they are obviously friends for a reason and it is completely normal for everyone to be afraid of something. The only thing that matters is how much power we give to our fears. For example, Catherine in “Northanger Abbey” lets her imagination and fear get away from her and allows her worries to create a much more sinister abbey. In Buffy, the characters’ fears make the fake plastic spiders and skeletons come to life until they are faced with a demon that is mere inches tall. Once faced with a not so scary monster, they can put their fears into perspective, conquer them, and move on.
11.27.2011
"Fear Itself"
Hansel and Gretel Trilogy
One of Brothers Grimm’s famous fairy tales was the gingerbread of the Hansel and Gretel. They were two children, brother and sister, wandering in the forest looking for food. They stumbled on a house made out of gingerbread and started eating it. The owner of the gingerbread house was a wicked witch. She lured the kids in and trapped them inside her house. The little boy and the little girl, Hansel and Gretel, became the victim of the wicked witch.
Buffy episodes used a lot of fairy tales, changing them, twisting them, or even turning them upside down as in the case of the “Gingerbread” episode. The story started with two children, a little boy and a little girl, found dead on the merry-go-around with occult symbol drawn on their hands. The only lead in this case was the occult symbol, which happened to be the symbol that Willow is using in her rituals. Unlike the Gingerbread story told by Brothers Grimm, this time Hansel and Gretel, the little boy and the little girl, were hunting the witch. Willow, the witch, only wanted to perform a protection spell for Buffy’s birthday, now became victimized.
While Hansel and Gretel were victims in Brothers Grimm and predators in Buffy, they could be either the victims or the predators in The Turn of The Screw. The fate of Hansel and Gretel depended on the sanity of the governess. If the governess were sane, then the children were toying with the governess under the influence of the ghosts, Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. If the governess were insane, then the governess was torturing the children based on her hallucinations. So, is the governess insane?
Mommy Issues
In "Gingerbread" we see Mrs. Summers, who, even before the children manipulate her, is trying too hard to get involved in every aspect of Buffy's life. We see her interfere in patrol, and then she shows up at school, and it seems invasive. However, Mrs. Summers only wants to protect her daughter, and so the smothering is with good intention. Mrs. Rosenburg, however, pays no attention to her daughter until Mrs. Summers serves as a model and forces Willow's mother to intervene in her life. Because Mrs. Rosenburg has never taken an interest in Willow before, she jumps right into criticizing and doesn't take the time to try and understand where Willow is coming from. Both girls are, in a not-so-supernatural sense, lashing out by playing with the forces of evil and such in response to this overbearing (and inattentive on Mrs. Rosenburg's part) mothering.
The governess is very overbearing, like Mrs. Summers. In the final scene, we might read the story as Miles is literally smothered to death by her love and affection. Similarly, Mrs. Summers tries to kill Buffy to help free her from the evils that follow her (not ghosts, but vampires are close enough). If we read Turn of the Screw to see the governess as well intentioned but overbearing, it makes sense that Miles would feel like no matter what he said to her, she wouldn't understand, and that she would be brainwashed in her own mothering, positively sure that she was doing what was best for her child. We can also tie her to Mrs. Rosenburg, in that she had so much attention to Flora in the beginning of the story (like Mrs. Rosenburg to her work) and once she became devoted to Miles (or Willow) everything was hyperbolized and she became too protective and loving for her or Miles' own good.
Evil Association
In The Replacement, Xander experienced the extreme version of the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome and immediately labeled the new Xander as evil. In this episode, Xander were split into two people: one carrying his stronger traits, and one carrying his weaker traits. Xander as his friends knows him was immature, quirky, lacks self-confidence. This was how the audience viewed Xander too. So when I saw the confident and mature replacement, I could not tight the two Xanders together. Together with Xander, I thought the new Xander was evil. The new Xander was labeled evil not because of his actions; on the contrary, all the actions the new Xander took were improving his or his friends life. However, because we already labeled him as the evil one, whatever the new Xander did made us speculate what his evil plan was.
This split personality was also showed in Dr. Jekyll who labeled Mr. Hyde as his evil counterpart. Dr. Jekyll had a very good reputation in the community that he lived in as an accomplished scientist. When he created a potion that could deform his body, Dr. Jekyll was thrilled. He didn’t view the person before and after drinking the potion as the same person; he called the deformed self as Mr. Hyde. Due to the extreme deformity, Mr. Hyde looked grotesque. In front of a mirror, Dr. Jekyll looked tall and accomplished, while Mr. Hyde was dwarfish and looked like a criminal. Due to the stark contrast between the two appearances, Dr. Jekyll pronounced that the dwarfish looking one possessed all his dark side. Again, like the new Xander, Mr. Hyde was labeled evil due to things that we relate evil with not of his action.
Evil Twin
Willow has an evil twin? Of course, if anyone were to have an evil twin, it would be Willow. Her character is extremely one dimensional, always the good girl. In Doppelgangland, Willow’s evil twin was brought to us from the alternate universe. The good Willow verses the bad new Willow, though not the evil new Willow. The new Willow is considered as an opposite to Willow due to her radically inverted moralities to that of Willow’s. Willow is the nice girl in school who always gets pushed around. Willow was intimated by the Principal to tutor Percy. Then, she was intimated by Percy to write his paper for him. It is inherited in Willow’s nature that she just does want other people tells her without raising objection. Right after Willow complained about how she’s always getting pushed around, Giles asked Willow to fetch something for him. To this Willow answered gladly, without realizing she was getting pushed around again.
The new Willow was a leader who intimidates people to get what she wants, not the other around. On her first day in the Buffy world, the new Willow was able to intimidate vampires that were sent to kill Willow to work for her. When Percy met the new Willow in the bar and demanded to know why she wasn’t writing his paper for him, she schooled him with a single hand. At the end, Willow was embracing her evil twin because she also realized that the new Willow was not evil.
In a similar fashion, an evil twin of the protagonist was presented in Transformation from seemingly another world, though who was the evil one here? The protagonist, handsome and rich, squandered all his money living a luxury life. After he got broke and his plan to carry off Juliet failed, he wondered along the seashore, imagining a stark future for himself as a beggar. When his life seemed to be slipping away from him, he met a dwarf who had distorted features and deformed body. The sight of the dwarf was so repulsing that our protagonist his blood froze in his heart. The evil twin this time possessed the radically inverted physical appearance to that of the protagonist. After the protagonist switched his body with the dwarf, the dwarf, in protagonist’s body, was able to win Juliet back. After protagonist discovered dwarf’s success, he killed the dwarf to get married with Juliet. In both cases, the evil twin was the stronger character, where they appeared evil at first, but in the end helped their opposite to regain control over their lives. The new Willow tamed Percy for Willow, while the dwarf won Juliet back for the protagonist. Those were things that our original characters can’t do, due to their personalities.
The Ominous Silence
Hush presented to the viewer that intensity does not have to come from non-stop actions or naked sex scenes it can come from silence. Besides the introduction, the rest of the Hush episode was all filmed in silence, where people’s ability to speak was taken away. When the silence falls, the intensity of the film started to build up. The characters in the episode got tensed. If it was a badass Vampire, Buffy could find a way to stake the Vampire and be done with it. However, this was something that Buffy never experienced before. Unlike the usual, the goal of the bad guys in this episode, the Gentlemen, was not targeted at Buffy. Buffy was confused and worried. The audience was confused and anxious to find out what’s going on. Because all the characters were muted, audience could only hear the background music, which makes the audience to pay extra attention to the scenes to figure out what the sound cues meant, intensify the atmosphere. Silence gave the show an uneasy feeling. We don’t know when something might pop out like when Gile’s girlfriend lift up the blind and saw the face of the Gentlemen turning towards her. Or we can’t hear sounds of torture but forced to fill the gap with our worst imagination like when the Gentlemen were cutting open a student’s chest to take his heart.
In Dracula, silence was again causing uncomfortable feeling that intensified the atmosphere. At the beginning of the novel, when Jonathan was traveling towards the Count’s castle, he was muted due to his lack of knowledge of the local language. The audience, too, suffered with him. Since Jonathan couldn’t understand what the locals were quarreling about, he, like the audience watching Hush, must pay extra attention to people’s body language and speculate what they meant. Jonathan noticed people looked at him with sympathy and fright, which brought an ominous feeling, heightening the atmosphere. Although there wasn’t much talking between Jonathan and Dracula during his stay at Count’s castle, those were the most frightening times that Jonathan experienced due to the lack of communication. Dracula revealed very little about him and gave Jonathan strict and strange rules for his stay at the castle without giving any reason. After finding out the horrid truth about the Count, Jonathan was forbidden to write letters about his experience at the castle, silencing him from the outside world. The silence sentenced Jonathans ominous fate.
Storyteller must face the reality
Both Andrew and Catherine perceive the world in their own innocent eyes, then they were able to confront with the reality with the help from their friends. Andrew is the storyteller in his Buffy world. While the world is revolving and shenanigans are happening, Andrew is filming in real-time appending his rosy views on the footage. While Buffy is on her patrol, Andrew would tag along and film Buffy’s adventures. Doing so, he wants people to know what Buffy and her allies did to protect the humans from the demons. We get a taste of how Andrew perceives and manipulates the world of Buffy when he interviews various members of the household. While other slayers were given brief moments on the camera for their perspective on the issue, Andrew immediately turned the camera to Buffy when she enters the room. Rather than filling been rushed like interviews with the other slayers, Andrew slowed down the time and did a close up filming Buffy eating her cereal. This reveals Andrew’s idealistic and dependence in Buffy indicating that he does not want to face the demons and wishes to hide behind Buffy for safety. Andrew deals with the death of his friend Jonathan in a similar faction. In Andrew’s mind, he was possessed by a demon that made him kill Jonathan, rather than admitting that he himself chooses to kill Jonathan. Buffy knew that Andrew murdered Jonathan and didn’t want to face the truth. It was not until Buffy threatens to take Andrew’s life that Andrew admitted his crime. By acknowledging his mistake, Andrew not only gained a better understanding of himself, he also sealed the seal that is causing chaos in the school.
Similar to Andrew, Catherine was interpreting the world in her naïve eyes before Henry came to rescue. From the very start, Jane Austen hinted to the reader that there’s something fishy about Isabella. At the party, Catherine was unacquainted and Isabella was surrounded by people. Isabella was a stark contrast to Catherine and someone whom Catherine wishes to be. Usually people like Isabella would not make any contact with a loner like Catherine; however, Isabella strongly insists that they become friends, which makes the reader ponder on Isabella’s intention. To Catherine, Isabella’s unusual behavior was a windfall and gladly accepted her friendship without second thought. Catherine’s naivety romanticized her relationship with Isabella, like Andrew romanticizing the Buffy world. When Henry hinted at Isabella’s true nature, Catherine refused to accepted the reality, similar to Andrew refusing to admit that he committed a crime, because in their mind they have already conjured their own truth. Under Henry’s mentorship, Catherine slowly picked up the social cues and was confronted with Isabella’s true nature. Once Catherine adjusted her perspective, she was not only able to see Isabella’s fake friendship, she was also able to give support to her brother about his marriage.