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Week 7 - Friendship
"What Can't We Face If We're Together?"

Opening

The idea of this band of outcasts being the heart of the show and creating their own little family is the mission statement of the show.

-Joss Whedon,
creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Whatever we might say about friendship will sound like the science of botany compared to flowers.

-Henry David Thoreau

A Slayer with family and friends. That sure as hell wasn't in the brochure.

-Spike

Episode 3.16: Doppelgängland

Continuity

  • Featuring Anya, a former vengeance demon who granted Cordelia a wish after her break-up with Xander

What to watch for

  • How everyone helps to support both Willows
  • Similarities between good Willow and the other Willow

Transcript is available at http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/season3/transcripts/50_tran.shtml

Episode 3.17: Enemies

What to watch for

  • Evolution of the relationship between Buffy and Faith
  • How Buffy and her friends work together

Transcript is available at http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/season3/transcripts/51_tran.shtml

Questions

How does Buffy's network of friendships differ from other superheroes in fiction?

What do Buffy's friends do for her, beyond direct contributions of magic and staking the occasional vampire?

What does Buffy do for her friends?

For Xander and Willow, how has the Scooby Gang supplanted their natural families?

We've seen a dark side of Willow. How does this relate to the Willow we know?

How much of the rift between Buffy and Faith is truly a "family" issue? Is there any way this could have been foreseen or prevented?

How do friendships work for us in our own lives?

How do we find and maintain our own extended families in real life? How do we go beyond "community" (such as the community at UUFR) to include people in our extended families?

How do you find the balance point between self-reliance and relying on friends?

How do our friendships survive our flaws?

Closing

Love is neither transcendence nor undifferentiated union. Love is the wisdom of life that knows when connection can heal and when separation will make life flourish. Love is the capacity to use the powers of holding on and letting go in the service of life. Love is capable of detachment as well as empathy, differentiation as well as union, hierarchy as well as mutuality. Love is the guardian of powers. Love directs the use of specific powers, in response to particular circumstances, for the sake of creating, sustaining, or healing life. In every situation, love asks, "What will serve life?" this means human love comes from a growing wisdom about life itself. If one wants to love, it is life that one must seek to fully know. To love is to choose life.

-Rebecca Ann Parker

Additional Reading

Battis, Jes, Blood Relations: Chosen Families in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2005.

Brock, Rita Nakashima, and Rebecca Ann Parker, Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us. Boston: Beacon Press, 2001.

Forster, Greg, Faith and Plato: "You're Nothing! Disgusting, Murderous Bitch!" South, James B, ed., Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2003.

Lorrah, Jean, Love Saves the World. Yeffeth, Glenn, ed., Seven Seasons of Buffy. Dallas, TX: Benbella Books, 2003.

Milavec, Melissa M., and Sharon M. Kaye, Buffy in the Buff: A Slayer's Solution to Aristotle's Love Paradox. South, James B, ed., Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2003.

Pender, Patricia, "I'm Buffy, and You're... History": The Postmodern Politics of Buffy. Wilcox, Rhonda V., and David Lavery, Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002.

Playdon, Zoe-Jane, What You Are, What's To Come: Feminism, Citizenship, and the Divine in Buffy. Roz Kaveney, ed., Reading the Vampire Slayer, second edition. London: Taurisparke Paperbacks, 2004.

Riess, Jana, What Would Buffy Do? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2004.

Stevenson, Gregory, Televised Morality: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Dallas: Hamilton Books, 2003.

Stoy, Jenifer, Blood and Choice: The Theory and Practice of Family in Angel. Kaveny, Roz, Reading the Vampire Slayer, second edition. London: Taurisparke Paperbacks, 2004.

Williams, J. P., Choosing Your Own Mother: Mother-Daughter Conflicts in Buffy. Wilcox, Rhonda V., and David Lavery, Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002.