From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V4 #41 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Thursday, March 14 2002 Volume 04 : Number 041 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: normal again??? ["Susan Kroupa" ] Re: normal again??? [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: normal again??? ["David S. Bratman" ] b/again, normal again ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: normal again??? ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/again, normal again ["David S. Bratman" ] b/ normal again ["Berni Phillips" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 09:42:00 -0800 From: "Susan Kroupa" Subject: Re: normal again??? I thought perhaps that was referring to the last time she was comatose and Willow brought her back, since that incident was mentioned in the ep. But I don't remember when that happened. Sue - ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 9:05 PM Subject: Re: normal again??? > One very significant throwaway line was what the doctor said about Buffy > having briefly awakened or returned to reality or something like that last > summer. > > Last summer. When she was dead and in heaven. > > Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 11:10:39 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: normal again??? Obviously this ep provides lots for discussion and analysis, but since I'm short on time, I'll have to mostly content myself with reading others' comments. But a coupla things: I did not get the impresison that the Nemesises knew what was happening to Buffy exactly; only that the poison was having some effect. << Yeah, and I also noticed the comment that Gayle observed, his reference to Buffy's period of death. But it's got to be more complex than a simple recovery, as "recovering in a mental institution" doesn't fit Buffy's description of heaven. >> Yet clearly it was a reference to that (the doctor even said something about her friends taking her away from that) and I think it was meant to be something complex and provocative. And how =did= Buffy describe heaven? Trying to remember: all her work was done, all the people she loved were safe (hmm), and she was at peace and loved? Being freed of her Slayer-ness and in the loving embrace of her reunited parents (who would try to make life as un-stressful as possible for her, I would guess) isn't all that far from her description, come to think of it. I do believe that this was planned from the time Buffy died, and that the implications will continue to be seen, but I was not intending to suggest that there was anything simple about that remark -- quite the contrary. It suggests something very complex. Especially since the show ultimately cannot come down on the "Sunnydale is merely a hallucination" side. (It can't be, since things happen in Sunnydale that Buffy doesn't know about.) But even if Sunnydale is real, the other world =could= be real too, a parallel world. Or the hospital could be a hallucination in another way: it could be Buffy's struggles with her experiences with heaven, or with her desires to return to heaven, or it could be that part of her returned to heaven under the influence of the poison but she was so conflicted that it turned into something else not quite so heavenly. Regardless, to me it still seemed obvious that the line about Buffy briefly coming back (when she died in the Sunnydale world) was the most important line in the episode. Plus, there were the hints that there is a connection between all this and the reality-altering that happened with the introduction of Dawn-the-key. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 09:10:22 -0800 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: normal again??? If Joss had really wanted to mess with our brains as well as Buffy's, he could have had the doctor prove to her that Sunnydale was an illusion by pulling out a real map of Southern California and showing her there's no Sunnydale on it. If he'd really _really_ wanted to mess with our brains, he could have gone even further by having the doctor prove to Buffy that she's getting all these hallucinations of vampires and so on from watching this tv show on WB and UPN ... At 08:10 AM 3/13/2002 , Gayle wrote: > But a coupla things: I did not get the impresison that the Nemesises knew >what was happening to Buffy exactly; only that the poison was having some >effect. Again I'll have to confess to not remembering the exact wording, but it was something to the effect of "she's totally wigging out." They might or might not have known the exact effect of the poison, but I certainly had the impression they were deliberately pulling mind games on her again. >And how =did= Buffy describe heaven? Trying to remember: Here it is: "Wherever I -- was -- I was happy. At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time -- didn't mean anything -- nothing had form -- but I was still me, you know? And I was warm -- and I was loved -- and I was finished. Complete. I don't understand about theology or dimensions, or -- any of it, really -- but I think I was in heaven." I don't think that parses with being in the same alternate reality, "Doctor-world" as I'm calling it, that she was in this week. It's peaceful and happy, but it is also without form and void. (If heaven were Doctor-world, who would be the "everyone I cared about"? In Doctor-world, most of the people she cares about don't exist, or so we're told. That leaves her parents, nobody else we know.) But I agree that there's definitely a connection. Buffy's activities in Sunnydale-world straightforwardly affect her behavior and state of mind in Doctor-world, so if Doctor-world does exist as an alternate reality, it makes perfect sense for her Heaven-world sojourn to be reflected in snapping out of her psychosis, which could easily register with the Sunnydale-world Buffy as herself snapping out of Sunnydale-world. If Doctor-world is merely an illusion conjured up by Buffy's brain in response to the poison, along the lines of Orb-world last week, the idea that she was better (in Doctor-world) while dead (in Sunnydale-world) is part of her mind's retroactive explanation of events. So whether it's important or not Remains To Be Seen, but the belief that it's important does imply that Doctor-world does have some alternate-reality existence. At 12:41 AM 3/13/2002 , Joseph wrote: >I was reminded a lot of various Twilight Zone and Night Gallery >episodes. And also of "The Jet-Propelled Couch", the first section of >Robert Lindner's "The 50 Minute Hour: : A Collection of True >Psychoanalytic Tales", in which a scientist was continually drawn away >from the real world by the superhero science-fiction world in his >head. (I recall that this was reputed to have been the man who wrote >under the name Cordwainer Smith, but it has been decades since I read >it.) There was a long article in _New York Review of SF_ recently about the identity of the Jet-Propelled Couch Potato, and the possibility that he was Cordwainer Smith came out stronger for the investigation. If so, a lot of the personal details were changed - but the researcher also showed that the personal details must have been changed at least some, for as given no person fits them. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 16:03:49 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/again, normal again Almost forgot: | v | v | v | v | v Enough spoiler space? JOYCE: No, this is insane, Buffy, you need help. BUFFY: I'm not crazy! --"Becoming" II Yes, of course I went back and checked (partly because I vaguely remembered this as well as Joseph did--welcome, Joseph, by the way). This comes directly following Buffy's classic speech beginning "Open your eyes, Mom" and ending "But I have to save the world. Again." And after a rather bitter exchange, Buffy walks out after her mother tells her not to come back. There's also this exchange from the teaser to "Bad Eggs," the episode directly following "Ted" (and therefore was rerun this past weekend, which is partly why I remembered it): JOYCE: Honestly, don't you ever think about anything but boys and clothes? BUFFY: Saving the world from vampires. JOYCE: I swear, sometimes I have no idea what goes on in your head. This was only the second time Buffy had blurted out something about vampires in her mother's hearing: the first was way back in "The Witch" (only the second episode ever, counting the two-hour series premiere as a single episode), where Buffy--under the influence, again, this time of the witch's spell--giddily bounces around the kitchen singing "Macho Man" and says something about being a vampire slayer, and her mother asks her if she's feeling all right and feels her head. And in "Killed By Death" (late in 2nd season) Buffy, delirious from the flu, says something about vampires, but Giles and her friends laugh it off. (There's also Buffy's fear of hospitals mentioned in the same episode--blamed on the suspicious death of her cousin--which could =also= have been due to being in an institution, but not mentioned.) One more thing: I also checked a scene at the beginning of 2nd season, "When She Was Bad," one of the few where Buffy's parents are both present (and the only one, I think, where Buffy is absent). Summarizing rather than quoting, Joyce says her nightmares about Buffy don't have to do with clothes... Hank says Buffy stayed out of trouble during the summer, but was distant, no connection. Joyce says she hasn't been able to get through to Buffy for a long time. =All= of these can be taken for their surface meaning only (parental concern for Buffy's =physical= health, and for her getting into trouble), but I think it's fair to say that any or all of them could be read with the subtext ("is our daughter crazy?") never spoken aloud. Which is my long-winded answer to David's question about whether the revelation about Buffy's brief institutionalization (damn, that's a long word) fits into her known history. There's nothing of the kind, I don't think, in the original film; but I don't see that as an important datum. Several people made good points in this last round of discussion, which I'll acknowledge as we go along. What I propose to do is to continue the decipherment of "Normal Again," and stick to the axiom that Sunnydale is the base reality. I propose to turn the words of the nice doctor against him and theorize that Doctor World (thanks, David; I was going to call it Asylum World, but that's the title of some old sf novel, I think) is the self-consistent delusion. To begin with, I think it's important to note that we have no reason to think that Buffy is =genuinely= borderline schizophrenic: she stated to Willow that it was because she started talking about vampires being real that she ended up in the institution, and was released when she stopped talking about them. She may =fear= she's schizophrenic, but I don't think she really is. I like Dawn's point that the reason we get the final shot of Doctor World is that Buffy is still under the influence of the poison; she never did drink any antidote, remember. Dawn also reminds us of the human tendency to have dreams (delusions being a similar species) about reuniting with people we've lost (Buffy-->her mother); I'll add to that point that what is the most likely fantasy/delusion of the child of a divorce? That her parents were still together. On a number of occasions it's been clear that Buffy felt the divorce very keenly. (And in her nightmare-come-true in "Nightmares," 1st season, her father tells her it was her fault!) Something else I checked was the in-Buffy's-head sequences in "The Weight of the World" (the 5th-season episode immediately preceding "The Gift"). Here Buffy goes briefly catatonic, but considering the pressure she's under, it's believable, and still doesn't undermine her general mental stability. The three repeated elements in Buffy's fugue state were: 1) herself as a small child seeing her sister come home for the first time (and remember that =that= is a manufactured memory, just to recomplicate things!) 2) the moment of decision when she "wanted it to be over" (which, in retrospect, was also her reconciling herself to her own death) and 3) killing Dawn. All of these, I think, are reflected in different ways in her Doctor World delusion. As is her experience of being in heaven. Consider: in Doctor World she has her own cocoonlike (womblike?) room, where she is cared for and loved (and her parents are with her), just as it was when she was small, and when she was in heaven; a place where she doesn't have to be the Slayer, it's "over"; and in order for it to be over and for her to stay there, she has to get rid of her friends and her sister. Here's the doctor's quote, by the way, that Gayle referred to: "Last summer, when you had a momentary awakening, it was them [her friends] who pulled you back in." Within Buffy's self-consistent delusion, even her absence from life in Sunnydale is accounted for; and one can see the still-present resentment towards her friends expressed in this (and in the phrase "pulled back"), and in her actions in Sunnydale supporting the delusion. So, she felt safe within her own head in "The Weight of the World"; safe in heaven between "The Gift" and "Bargaining"; safe in Doctor World with her parents in "Normal Again." And note that last episode title: this all ties in with Buffy's frequently expressed desire to be normal and not be the Slayer. To answer a point of David's: the Nemesises did cause this situation: Andrew summoned the demon that poisoned Buffy, and if Willow and Xander could figure out what demon it was, presumably Andrew (who has expertise in this area) knew ahead of time, and what effect it would have. And, yes, this does tend to influence the interpretation toward Sunnydale being real. We have to suppose that the demon's "poison" is some kind of hallucinogen, I guess. A couple more bits. How interesting was it that when Buffy attacked Xander, she first hit him with a frying pan (as she did to Ted), and then choked him (like Faith did)? I'm not certain why Tara so conveniently showed up when she did: was it because she had seen Willow walking away and decided it was time for them to talk? The basement scene also answers the question of whether Tara is willing to do magic... People have been noting parallels to other screen fiction; one I suddenly remembered was when Buffy said, in re the asylum, "What if I'm still there?" which is basically what Scully says to Mulder concerning the giant fungus which made them hallucinate; but if my analysis works, it's the opposite, since Scully says it from =inside= the hallucination and turns out to be right; Buffy says it from =outside= the hallucination and turns out to be wrong. One of Buffy's strongest qualities is her determination; and it's interesting to see it applied to a flipflopping of motivations: first, after Spike zings her, she determinedly pours out the antidote and pursues her plans to dispose of her friends and sister; then, after her dream-mother suggests she believe in herself, she just as determinedly snaps out of it and disposes of the demon. Here's an interesting tidbit I learned from tvtome.com: this episode was originally supposed to be Episode 8 (right after the musical and before "Tabula Rasa"), original title "Asylum," but was moved to later in the season. Wonder how big a difference that would have made had it happened earlier. I'll agree with the consensus that this was possibly the most painful episode of the season: but in the end, as I said, I think it has started the upturn from the despair that seemed to engulf the season as of the end of "Hell's Bells." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 13:18:12 -0800 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: normal again??? Somebody may be trying to tell me something. In a store today over lunch, I was bombarded by a pop song with the repeated line "Heaven is a place on Earth." Couldn't make out any more of the words, but thoughts of Buffy's predicament came immediately to mind. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 14:22:15 -0800 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/again, normal again At 01:03 PM 3/13/2002 , DGK wrote: >Almost forgot: > >| >v > >| >v > >| >v > >| >v > >| >v > >Enough spoiler space? > > >Which is my long-winded answer to David's question about whether the >revelation about Buffy's brief institutionalization (damn, that's a long >word) fits into her known history. There's nothing of the kind, I don't >think, in the original film; but I don't see that as an important datum. Which doesn't say exactly when in known events this might have fitted in, but does show that insanity was on her parents' minds, and the hospitalization story doesn't sound improbable. >theorize that Doctor World (thanks, David; I was going to call it >Asylum World, but that's the title of some old sf novel, I think) Yes, and it's by John Jakes, in his early SF phase before he went on to giant historicals. >To begin with, I think it's important to note that we have no reason to >think that Buffy is =genuinely= borderline schizophrenic: she stated to >Willow that it was because she started talking about vampires being real >that she ended up in the institution, and was released when she stopped >talking about them. She may =fear= she's schizophrenic, but I don't think >she really is. Certainly not on the basis of that, not if the vampires are real. Being locked up as crazy because you see things that nobody else does (poor souls, nobody told them they were characters in a fantasy story) is a very old gimmick. >I like Dawn's point that the reason we get the final shot of Doctor World >is that Buffy is still under the influence of the poison; she never did >drink any antidote, remember. I thought she did, finally, and that's why she goes completely catatonic in Doctor-world at that point. >Here's the doctor's quote, by the way, that Gayle referred to: > >"Last summer, when you had a momentary awakening, it was them >[her friends] who pulled you back in." So in Doctor-world, she was awake, conscious, and knew who she was. That can't be reconciled with her Sunnydale-world description of Heaven-world, unless she forgot most of it on being revived. >I'm not certain why Tara so conveniently showed up when she did: was it >because she had seen Willow walking away and decided it was time for them >to talk? The basement scene also answers the question of whether Tara is >willing to do magic... It's a good thing you posted first, because if I'd written the first comment on this episode I'd have used the spoiler subject line of "Tara Ex Machina". >Here's an interesting tidbit I learned from tvtome.com: this episode was >originally supposed to be Episode 8 (right after the musical and before >"Tabula Rasa"), original title "Asylum," but was moved to later in the >season. Wonder how big a difference that would have made had it happened >earlier. If so, they reworked it considerably, because as aired this episode definitely postdates Spike & Buffy's affair. Back to previous discussion on what Orb-world in "Hells Bells" revealed about Xander's fears, a relevant quote comes to mind, from the musical. Anya: "When things get rough, he / Just hides behind his Buffy." And then you have the scene in Orb-world where Xander is permanently injured from unsuccessfully defending Buffy, and Anya resents it. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 19:46:06 -0800 From: "Berni Phillips" Subject: b/ normal again S P O I L E R S P A C E I think this was the most disturbing episode I've seen. Not just painful -- disturbing. While watching it, I remembered a book I read in junior high, _I Never Promised You a Rose Garden_. This was a true story (IIRC) about a schizophrenic young woman in an asylum who lived in this fantasy world where there were magical creatures that held her prisoner, etc. The parallel disturbed me. Reading some of the messages y'all have posted, I flashed on Andrea Yates, the Texas mother of five who drowned all her children "to save them from demons." I thought of Buffy systematically attacking and collecting her friends in the basement. The parallel disturbs me. She was damn lucky no one broke her/his neck when thrown down those stairs! To think that she could, even for an instant, watch that demon attack and kill her friends chills me to the bone. Even given that she was under the influence of a poison, how can they trust her again? They can forgive her, but won't there always be that little shudder, wondering when will be the next time that Slayer strength is turned against them? And when she deliberately didn't drink the antidote, I thought, "how selfish!" Maybe she wanted Doctor World to be real and have both her parents again. Have the hope of being normal. Be able to relax and have no responsibilities. But if she chose it in error, or if she chose just to escape, what would happen to Dawn? I was surprised that Tara came to the rescue. I was expecting Spike. And, hey, how did she manage to keep her job at the DoubleMeat Palace after leaving abruptly with Riley? Berni ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V4 #41 ****************************