Essay: Metaphors in S6.

[elisi]

It occurred to me that I really ought to post this here - I hope you enjoy! :)

S6 metaphors

There are some lessons that can’t be taught.

rahirah is forever coming up with interesting posts. I don’t always agree with them, but they never fail in making me think. The latest one that really caught my attention was this one, about perceived truth - and how we all see the show. And - in passing - she also said this:

In season six the writers abandoned metaphor. Or tried to. Buffy and Spike were supposed to be just Buffy and Spike; naughty wrong sex was just supposed to be naughty wrong sex.[...] In the end, the writers were forced to scramble back and embrace metaphor (Spike getting a soul) in order to regain control of their story. Whether the attempt was entirely successful is still debated.

And that made me think. Did the show really abandon metaphor? Did we just get a few 'rubbish' ones (magic=crack) and then a couple tacked on at the end - Buffy crawling of of another ‘grave’ into happiness, Spike getting his soul? (I don’t think Spike’s soul was ‘a metaphor for becoming good’ btw - but I’ll explain later.)

As I see it, the show didn’t abandon metaphors, but changed them greatly. In the early seasons (including 4 and 5), the monster of the week would often be a physical manifestation of the character’s struggles. To pick two examples: Buffy and Angel getting possessed by the ghosts in ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’ (2.19) and Buffy fighting April the GirlfriendBot in ‘I Was Made To Love You’ (5.15). Both experiences teach Buffy something and help her deal with her life.

But in S6 the nature of the metaphors changed. We didn’t get MOTW metaphors, instead we got something else:

1) Other characters as metaphors.
2) The characters themselves became their own metaphor! (As in: internal battles shown externally)
3) Restless (4.22) showed the characters struggles in S6 through metaphor.

I guess I’d better explain all that... ( Read more... )