av Mr Chase » ons mar 31, 2004 3:53
Mr Chase önskar att han vore någon annanstans:
43. The Wish
Be careful what you wish for, 'cause you might get it! This is the lesson of this episode and as such it's not terribly original. However "Buffy" managed to take on this cliché in an interesting and thoroughly entertaining way even if it was obvious that the dreaded reset button would be pushed in the end. So the lesson is actually never learned by our characters, which is too bad. But at least the viewers got an additional glimpse into their minds and what they mean to each other -- and the world.
I normally hate TV shows that play with the audience in a way that you just know that all the awful things that happen miraculously will be unmade before the end credits roll. The Star Trek universe has become infamous for this and that is sad for such a good franchise. You know that major characters won't die and when they do and still returns when all that had transpired really didn't happen you feel righteously cheated. "Buffy" mostly managed to avoid this here though, which says a lot about the quality of this show. However, they definitely shouldn't try to do this more. Once is enough since the pitfalls of doing so are much too dangerous.
With that in mind the emotional impact of the end when everybody dies in slow motion is lessened, at least for me, even if it was beautifully executed. But in that alternate reality the characters didn't relate to each other and thus it didn't mean that much. It's only our knowledge of what was supposed to be that made the difference. In that reality harsh deaths are expected.
The concept isn't, as stated, very knew. It is more or less inspired by Frank Capra's 1946 Christmas classic "It's a Wonderful Life" in which a man (played by the always great James Stewart) wishes he'd never been born and is shown how terrible the lives of his loved ones would've been without him.
But this is Cordelia's wish. Well, sort of, it's the kind of "wish" that we all utter from time to time without really wanting it to happen if we think it through. That kind of nuances is beyond Anyanka, patron demon of all women scorned or some such, and the "wish" is promptly granted. Buffy Summers never came to Sunnydale.
For a girl who always valued telling the truth, no matter how painful or tact-less it might be, Cordelia this time is lying to herself. She imagines that her life would've be so much better if she'd never loved Xander, that she'd never gotten close to him and Buffy's arrival was the vehicle that draw her into the Slayerette circle. That's the world that Anyanka gave to her but it's more of a nightmare come true than a dream. She's queen of the hill except there's no hill and Xander's dead. And in death he has bonded even more with the equally dead Willow, since they're both vampires.
Cordelia: "No. No! No way! I wish us into Bizarro Land, and you guys are still together! I cannot win!"
I believe that she came to realize that in the end she still wanted to have Xander no matter how much pain it caused her in the real world. As Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." In the wishverse though, the betrayal is complete as Xander and Willow kills her. Unfortunately Cordelia doesn't learn this lesson in the real world, but it nevertheless gives an insight into her character. Hopefully she'll realize it eventually, but then again, by then it might be too late. Too bad that Joss Whedon seems to have taken a phrase from Socrates to heart: "The hottest love has the coldest end."
I so feel for my poor Cordelia in this episode (no big surprises here). She's more or less lost everything -- her boyfriend, her popularity, her friends and gotten impaled in the process. The former Cordettes are inexcusably mean and nasty to her and I so wished all the bad things you could possibly imagine on Harmony, who so does not live up to her name. Anya's put down on her was spot on: "If that girl had an original thought, her head would explode."
Cordelia has both literally and figuratively landed on the garbage heap.
Harmony: "Oh, hey, it's Garbage Girl. Loved the look last night, Cor. Dumpster chic for the dumped." I wanted to kill her right there, consequences be damned. And that jock saying he wouldn't be caught dead with "Xander's cast-off", well I *so* could have helped him with the dead part. When it comes to protecting my Cordy I will absolutely show *no* mercy!
For what it's worth, Xander feels extremely bad, leaving Cordelia a ton of messages. But since she's understandably in no mood for forgiveness he tries, unsuccessfully, to cast the blame elsewhere.
Xander: "And they burst in, rescuing us, without even knocking? I mean, this is really all their fault."
Buffy: "Your logic does not resemble our Earth logic."
Xander: "Mine's much more advanced."
Willow rightly admits to wrongdoing but Oz is right when he concludes that what she wants has more to do with making herself feel better than doing anything for him. She's sounding like she's a victim when she's in fact the villain, which must be a first for her. Don't bet on that Oz's sentiment will last. He hasn't got as much inherent pride as Cordelia does, the poor werewolf.
The wishverse is a truly disturbing place. The vampire versions of Xander and Willow are just the first parts and they played it beautifully. Vamp Willow was a frightening thing to behold, a sexy yet deranged Drusilla-like character clad in leather, taking pleasure in torturing "the puppy" that is poor Angel. With no Buffy in sight the souled vampire must feel that destiny has royally cheated him.
Giles on the other hand tries to defy destiny. Even without his slayer, and his watcher status revoked, he's done what he can to fight evil even to the part of recruiting fellow Slayerettes in the absence of the ones in the real world.
But Buffy is worst of. As has been shown previously her strengths as a slayer comes as much from her reliance on her friends the Slayerettes as with her inherent abilities. Bereft of them she's all alone and hardened much like Kendra was and cynical like Faith.
Buffy: "World is what it is. We fight, we die. Wishing doesn't change that."
Giles: "I have to believe in a better world."
Buffy: "Go ahead. I have to live in this one."
It sure is a brave new world, as Anyanka put it. That is a reference to the dystopic novel by that name, written in 1932 by Aldous Huxley. The term however comes from Shakespeare's "The Tempest", act 5, scene 1:
"Miranda: 'O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!'"
Other Shakespeariana from this episode comes from the Master when he asks: "What news on the Rialto?" That's Shylock speaking from "The Merchant of Venice", act I scene 3. You cannot say that watching "Buffy" won't educate you on the classics.
And Buffy calls Giles Jeeves, which of course is a reference to the clever butler in P G Wodehouse's novels.
Xander knows his popular culture when speaking of Cordelia he says "Tears of a Clown". That was a song which became a hit with Smokey Robinson and the Miracles back in 1970.
And the vamp version of him manages to make a little put down on "Buffy" critics who haven't gotten past the intentional silliness of the lead character's name: "Someone has to talk to her people. That name is striking fear in nobody's hearts."
Rupert Giles: "I'll be back in the Middle Ages."
Miss Calendar: "Did you ever leave?"