Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 5: Family Responsibility
The moral case for connecting to your family and taking on the responsibility that comes from it.
Author’s Note: It just sorta happened that I had two back to back pieces about family. This one goes a little deeper into it and how this works.
We all need our family sometimes.
There's an incredible power in the bonds of family that does a lot of good, but also a lot of bad that can come out of it if you're not careful. More than anything though, it's important to have someone to rely on when you need them. People who can help you in your darkest moments. The problem though is this takes a lot of work. You have to be able to count on them and in return, they have to be able to count on you. They have to know that when they turn to you, that you will be there. That you will have their back in their own darkest moments. For that to happen, you have to actually show up and be a part of the family.
Previously in this space, we looked at the importance of accepting responsibility for the effect you have on the world around you, as well as living with the consequences of those responsibilities put on you and the actions you take because of it. More recently we've looked at what it takes to choose a future and how you need people who will stand up for you, and finally what happens when you're no longer supported by those people and the structures they provide. However, there's an important aspect of this whole process that we haven't examined more deeply. Namely, where you learn these ideas of responsibility and find that power within you.
Once you embrace these aspects of yourself fully, when you know the power of the responsibility that you have, it's only natural to wonder where it came from. To wonder who or what gave you this power in the first place. After all, as we've looked at before it's an incredibly powerful thing that requires so much work. It's a burden most people don't want to take on. Yet so many people do. So why give it to people when they might be a lot happier simply going along with whatever other people say. Like with a lot of things, it has to do with how you grew up.
Buffy is very much going through this struggle at the beginning of season 5. She's come to terms with the idea that the responsibilities she's taken on are no longer being imposed from above. There's no longer anyone looking over her shoulder to scold her if she does the wrong thing with the power she's been given. Her morals and ethics are her own, and she can shape it however she wants. Unfortunately, it has left her without any serious path forward. She no longer knows where to direct her energy and the power it gives her. So she seeks out those who could give her the best understanding of why she was given it in the first place. Not only her Watcher, but the deep tradition of being a slayer and those who held the power before her.
“You think you know, what you are, what's to come. You haven't even begun.”
She looks to them to understand what they did with this power. She wants to understand what impact they had on the world that allowed her to be who she is. In learning who they were, she can better understand how to direct her own power and where she can have the most impact on the world around her. After all, where they failed she might be be able to succeed. Buffy does have a habit of succeeding where previous slayers couldn't and were ultimately killed in the attempt. She hopes to do better and hopefully live a long and happy life. However, in order to do so she needs to understand what a long and happy life actually looks like. Or at least something that might appear that way.
Which is part of where Dawn comes in. Dawn gives Buffy a glimpse of who she could've been, whereas their mother gives her a sense of who she could be, if she wanted to have these things. Dawn's youthful mistakes reflect the way in which Buffy herself used to make mistakes. She used to be impulsive and only focused on herself, much in the way Dawn is when she enters Buffy's life. This is part of why Buffy and Dawn come into conflict, at least initially. Once you move beyond the stage in your life where you think only about yourself, it becomes a lot harder to identify with those who still think that way. Dawn is still developing as a person and hasn't learned the lessons Buffy has in her life. She doesn't understand the importance of responsibility and the consequences of actions. Dawn hasn't had to choose her own future yet. As a result, Buffy struggles to come to terms with that aspect of her sister.
“Nobody knows who I am. Not the real me. It's like, nobody cares enough to find out. It's like, does anyone care to ask me what I want to do with my life? Or what my opinion is on stuff? Or what restaurant to order in from? No... underline, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point... no one understands.”
Somewhat ironically, Buffy takes on the role in Dawn's life that Joyce took on for Buffy in her earlier stages. Although with Joyce being there herself, it becomes a problem for Buffy to know where exactly she fits in. Thankfully, she has her slayer training to fall back on and that greater history gives her the space to create her own identity separate from her family. At least up until the point where she has to take on more responsibility for her sister when her mother gets sick.
Whatever space Buffy might've had between her family life and her slayer life shrinks to basically none. It's a painful and difficult thing to take on responsibility you weren't prepared for. Even if you are, it's hard to deal with but when you're forced to take on a responsibility you weren't ready for, this can make it so much worse. It can almost feel like a kind of torture that you might never be able to escape from.
She's even faced with the prospect of being forced to work with people who wanted to keep her under their thumb as a slayer. Rather than having Buffy strike out on her own and learn to become the kind of person she has, The Council wants her to do as they say. They want her to be the kind of person she rejected years ago. One who has to be given orders instead of making her own decisions and fixing her own problems. It would be easy for Buffy to simply allow herself to be taken in by the power The Council wants to have over her. The responsibility Buffy has taken on is difficult to handle. Even having gone through everything she has to get where she is, the option is still there for her to give up and simply allow herself to reject the responsibility she has. But she doesn't.
“There isn't going to be a review. No review, no interrogation, no questions you know I can't answer. No hoops, no jumps, and no interruptions. See, I've had a lot of people talking at me these past few days. Everyone just lining up to tell me how unimportant I am. And I finally figured out why. Power, I have it, they don't, this bothers them. Glory came to my home today... just to talk. She told me I'm a bug, I'm a flea, she could squash me in a second... only she didn't. She came into my home and we talked. We had what in her warped brain probably passes for a civilized conversation. Why? Because she needs something from me. Because I have power over her.”
You might even say that it's like going out of your mind. Which is where Glory comes into the picture in many ways. Despite being a god, she's forced to be imperfect thanks in part to her own actions and the consequences she's living with as a result. It makes her crazy on so many levels. Enough that she has to transfer the insanity of her circumstances to someone else. She sees the way humanity acts in the world and can't live with it on basically any level. She needs to get away from it in whatever way she can. Glory would even go so far as to end the world just to get away from the ridiculous nature of it. She has all the power but none of the responsibility. She couldn't care less what happened to anyone or anything so long as she gets what she wants.
Glory has her own history to contend with. Unlike Buffy however, Glory is well aware of who she is and where she comes from. She knows exactly where her power and her focus should be directed. At least to some extent. To give her what she wants and to accomplish her goals, she needs to find The Key. There really isn't anything else to it. The problem being that people are hiding it from her. People don't want her to get what she wants because of all the pain and suffering it would cause if she were able to achieve it. They want her to take the punishment she's been given and learn to live with it. Yet Glory refuses for obvious reasons. She wants what she wants and she's willing to do whatever she has to in order to get it. There's no responsibility holding her back and understands exactly what the consequences are. Being immortal, she doesn't have to worry about the future either. It's all about what she wants in the moment no matter what.
“How do they do it? People... how do they function here like this in the world with all this bile running through them. Every day it's woooo... you have no control, they're not even animals. They're just these meat baggy slaves to hormones and pheromones and their... and their feelings, hate em. I mean really, is this what the poets go on about? This? Call me crazy but as hardcore drugs go human emotions are just useless. People are puppets. Everyone just getting jerked around by what they're feeling. Am I wrong? Really I wanna know. Gonna bleed you either way.”
This makes her the perfect contrast to Buffy in many ways. Whereas Glory couldn't care less about people's lives and the pain they're suffering, Buffy has too much to live for. Too many loved ones she needs to protect after all these years. More than anyone though, she wants to protect her mother and her sister. No matter how much they might argue and hurt each other's feelings sometimes, they love each other on a scale that's hard to express. Even when it gets incredibly painful and often destructive, it's important to stand by them, no matter how hard it gets. In large part because the pain is a necessary aspect of the intensity of the love you can feel for the exact same people. You don't get one without the other. So you endure the pain for those small moments which gives you the endless joy they can give you. It's what makes the hard parts worth living through, even if it would be easier to just leave these people behind and get away from the suffering.
“Tell me to kill my sister.”
“She's not your sister.”
“No, she's not. She's more than that. She's me. The monks made her out of me. I hold her, and I feel closer to her than... it's not just the memories they built. It's physical. Dawn is a part of me. The only part that I...”
Just how hard it can actually be however is something we'll explore in more depth when we get into season 6. You can also check out season 7 as a paid subscriber.
Check out the show on Hulu as well as Amazon and Disney Plus.
Thank you for such a touching, thoughtful piece.