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Date Posted: 20:58:52 03/09/02 Sat
Author: OnM
Subject: Curses... drat... oh, well... ( Speculations that I was making anyway )

*******

“Accckkk! Damn! Eat sh*t and die, Whedon!”

............ OnM

*******

“Oooooo.... Macbeth on acid, with lesbians. Cool!”

............ Evil Clone

*******

‘K, so I was right.

(~sighs~).

Not happy about it, I extremely much like both Anya and Tara, and I wish they’d both stick around, but if
the spoiler gods are not deceiving us, then we’re in for some very sad times in the months to come.

As most of you (the regulars, that is) know, I don’t go in for obtaining any overly detailed spoiler material,
but I do on occasion read the stuff on AnGeL X’s site, since she tends to only present ‘general’ spoiler
stuff and not blow-by-blow descriptions. (I always avoid the wildfeeds, for example). So now here
we are, and where do we go?

I pretty much accepted from the time I first heard the rumors that if the BSD was the real thing,
and not a misdirection or red herring, then the only logical candidates were either Anya or Tara. I give
great credit to the show’s various creative talents that it was a 55-45 tossup between the two, you could
site several good arguments in favor of predicting the outcome for either character. In the end, I still leaned
towards Tara, if for no other reason than that her demise would hurt the most, and Joss has said before that
if no one genuinely cares about the death of a character, than what’s the point?

That’s so very true, it’s like the ‘red shirt’ in the Trek universe. After a while, it’s almost a joke, bereft of
any genuine emotion. Real death is anything but a joke, and I think that the overall theme of this season is
very likely going to rock our world in a very intense way, and re-establish what I’ve felt all along-- that this
season will be one of the best in the history of the series. Not necessarily an upbeat one, but one that may
still turn out to be full and satisfying from a dramatic/writerly aspect. I am sure if the events detailed in this
recent spoilery come to pass, that it will divide the fan base of the show, but that is nothing new. I am
making no judgements of any kind at this point until the end of episode 22, but I have faith, if not Faith, ya
know? I sympathize very strongly with those fans who ache at this potential loss, but all is surely not lost.
Go rewatch Becoming Pt. II and then Anne, if you have any doubts.

*******

“I give my fans what they need, not what they want.”

............ Joss Whedon

*******

There are, of course several possibilities, which I’ll go over in general order of increasing darkness, with
the likelihood of actual realization (IMO) rated on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 = no way, 10 = certain):

1. Therw won’t be a BSD at all, the whole thing is a plot by ME to track down disloyal staff members who
are leaking script or shooting info to outside entities. There will be ample sorrow and pity, but everyone
will still be alive at season’s end. Likelihood = 2.

2. There will be a death, but the current spoiler info is a misdirection or error. Anya may be the BSD, or it
could even be another character. Likelihood = 3.

3. There will be a death, and it will be Tara, but she’ll be somehow resurrected or reborn, etc.
Likelihood = 1.

4. Tara will die, and won’t come back in any corporeal form. Likelihood = 8.

OK, so I tend to think the worst, but unfortunately there has been ample foreshadowing for possibility #4,
and the sads but true facts of the situation are that this turn of events, should it come to pass, will close
many of the ‘plotholes’ or ‘writing weaknesses’ that some have complained about in Season 6, and further
be entirely consistant with the overall theme of the season.

First, to the foreshadowing. The single biggest red herring that we’ve been presented with this season is the
idea that Willow has somehow already ‘paid for’ her use of dark magicks with the ‘addiction’ arc. Many
people, myself included, have felt that there was more to this apparently simplistic theme than has appeared
to date in the season. The two main elements of foreshadowing were, one, Spike’s sad and angry comment
that ‘The trouble with magic is that there’s always a price’. This line appeared very early on
in the season, in Afterlife, if I recall, and I think many viewers have forgotten it by now, or as
mentioned above, think that the ‘addiction’ was ‘the price’, since it caused Willow to have to renounce the
use of any magic, a great blow to her personally.

The second major piece of foreshadowing was Gile’s extreme anger at Willow for bringing Buffy back to
life, which shocked and then angered Willow in return. Willow saw her work as wresting good from the
forces of darkness, and that if she was successful, then that was the end of it. I think Giles failed to reveal
something to her that he may have had personal or close experience with-- that the penalty for returning a
soul from the realm of the dead means that a life must be sacrified in return. He may have chosen not to
reveal this fact because it may not be a certainty, just a 90% probability, and he felt that whatever destiny
has been set in motion, that it was something that he has no control over-- Willow will either survive or
not, someone else will either die or not, ‘prophesies are tricky things’, etc.

If I were the forces of darkness, the life that I would claim in return would have to be the one that would
have the most impact on the spell-caster. When Willow performed the resurrection spell, it seemed clear to
me that she understood and accepted the possibility that she herself could die as a result of calling on
forces this powerful. (Question-- who was the metaphorical fawn? Was it Willow?). Willow accepted this
risk because she thought she could beat the odds and win. Suppose the metaphorical fawn was Tara?
Would Willow have taken the chance on resurrecting Buffy if she had been told that there was a 90%
chance that the price of ‘success’ would be Tara’s life? 60% chance? 20% chance? 5% chance? Any
chance at all?

So my feeling is that Willow will come to realize the magnitude of her arrogance only when Tara, her
lover, pays the ultimate price for it. The fact that on the surface of things, bringing Buffy back to life was a
positive concept, only adds the typical ME moral ambiguity to the scenario. The road to hell, indeed.

This arc resonates with the Faith arc of a few seasons ago. We all recall that Willow despised Faith, saw
her as out of control, ungrateful for her ‘gifts’ and arrogantly misusing them. Now there is the irony that
Willow’s own ‘arrogant misuse of her gifts’ has resulted in the death of a lover and a powerful force for
good in the Buffyverse. Angel remarked to Faith, ‘You thought that you could just touch the darkness, but
it swallowed you whole’. If Willow had informed Giles in advance about her plan to resurrect Buffy, do
you think he might have had something along those same lines of advice to present to her?

So is Willow like Faith? Yes and no. Will her rage at the cruelty of ‘the fates’ possess her and turn her to
greater darkness? This could certainly be.

The idea that Warren is responsible for Tara’s death brings up numerous possibilies, all of them logical
progressions from what has happened so far this season. In one of my episode reviews a few weeks back, I
commented that, IMO, Warren was unquestionably evil. Will Warren be the ‘big bad’ of the season? Early
on, we would think this unlikely, but it is in perfect sync with the progression of the ‘big bads’ over the
course of the series’ first five years. All of the monsters of seasons one through five were either bereft of
souls, or somehow sold or lost the ones they had. From the simple vampire threats of S1 to the god Glory
of S5, the power of evil has escalated, but it is still soul-less evil. In S6, we meet the next level, one
commensurate with the SG’s entry in young adulthood-- true evil in a souled being, a human, no less.

Another mid-season speculation I fostered was what would happen if Buffy came into the position of
having to kill Warren? The writers may have taken exactly this theme, but twisted it so that it is Willow
who will kill Warren. I now believe that this may be exactly where they are headed with the story.

We have always trusted Buffy’s core moral center, that seemingly unerring inner guide that when ultimate
push comes to shove, she will make the morally correct choice. ( “You are full of love-- it is brighter
than the fire.” ) Will Willow do the same? Certainly, if Warren kills Tara (and after all, he has already
killed Katrina), one could very reasonably argue that the death penalty becomes an applicable option. The
only question is, who will be the judge, jury and executioner? I suspect Buffy might beat the crap out of
Warren and then turn him over to the human authorities. I suspect that Willow will kill him slowly and
painfully, and with a passion on an Angelus scale.

This brings up the vengeance angle, which Anya is now wrestling with. My guess at this point is that it will
finally start to sink in to Anya’s inner awareness of why humans have these pesky little moral issues with
the concept of vengeance vs. justice, which to her are one and the same (as clearly illustrated by her friend
Halfrek). She will return to her former calling, only to be saddled with the newly internalized ethical
restraints gleaned from her years in human, mortal form. In the end, she will be unable to see her ‘mission’
in the simple black and white terms of the previous thousand years, and will eventually willingly abandon
her role as reborn vengeance demon. I do expect that she and Xander will get back together, just as I
suspect that Xander will eventually realize that he has the inner strength to not become like his father.
Xander will realize that he doesn’t have to become a monster, that past isn’t prologue, and Anya will
realize the same thing-- that dispensing justice requires empathy for the frailties of human behavior, and the
possibilities of remorse and redemption.

*******

Getting late here, and so that’s all for now, but I’ll have some specs on what I would do with the
Willow/Tara/Warren arc if I were one of the ME writers in the upcoming Part II of this ramble. Stay tuned!

(Or run like hell... up to you!)

;-)

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