About Where Buffy Was...

J

Jay Jade

Bloody Puppet
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Yes, I'm aware she was in a heavenly dimension, but I just can't see how in anyway she could have been in a Hell dimension.

She swan dived into a large, bright ball of light, and saved the world, and I'm pretty sure she was faintly smiling when she was dead on the boxes,
and they assume she's in hell? Yes, it was a hellish portal, but still. I'm also aware there is no way they could have known whether or not she was happy where she was.

I can't imagine after what she did, she would be in hell.
And it might be just me, but the way her grave was set out, all peaceful...I just couldn't and didn't think she was in hell.

I found it a tad annoying Willow and the others just assumed she was in hell. It was like they were just completly lost she wasn't there and just needed her back.
I was a bit happy Tara wasn't all that proud of the idea of messing with life and death - since it wasn't really something Tara did - after I re watched the series.

What about you, after seeing what she did - after seeing her save the world [again], could you have seen her in hell?
 
I can completely understand why Willow and the others were convinced Buffy was in a hell dimension. The only other situation like this they had to compare it to was Angel being sucked into a Hell dimension in 'Becoming PT2'.

The thing is, it wasn't like Buffy died a natural death - she didn't even die a normal Slayer death. She was ripped apart by other worldly energy until all that was left was a body. So, I always assumed that Willow and the others thought that, when Buffy's energy or whatever forced the portal to close, her soul got sucked into the portal with the rest of whatever came out of it. Yes, Buffy deserved to be in a Heavenly dimension after what she did, but up until that point, the Scoobies had no actual knowledge that that's what would happen to Buffy after she died. They had plenty of knowledge of portals sucking people into Hell dimensions, so of course that's what their first, and only, conclusion would be. Buffy has survived falls like that before, I'm sure. Look at what she faced at the hands of Glory during that season, but the energy could have easily ripped her soul from her body and when the energy dissipated and the portal closed, her soul went with it.

Buffy's grave set out all peaceful, as you say, that has nothing to do with assuming Buffy would be in a Heavenly dimension. That just proves how much her friends and family loved and cared about her.

Yes, Willow and everyone were completely lost without Buffy. Without her, they weren't much. In fact, they were nothing, they no longer had a purpose, so if Willow assumed Buffy was in a Hell dimension, there was no way she was going to stop until she was out.

I think it was incredibly naive for them to just assume that Buffy was sent to a Hell dimension, but I understand why they did think that. When I first watched S6, I honestly had no thought one way or the other. As an Atheist, I don't think about Heaven or Hell, so I was just happy to sit back and watch the show. Of course I was shocked when the truth was revealed. Willow seemed so sure that she knew Buffy had been sent to a Hell dimension that I just believed her.
 
M
Ms.Trick
Yes, yes, yes! :heart:
P
prophecygrrl
[No message]
She had her soul ripped from her body as she jumped through a gateway to hell. I don't really see how you can assume she's in heaven from that! We know that there's no real religious conception of heaven and hell in the verse. There's no St. Peter standing at the gates looking at the heroic way she died. She was just done, and she was in a place where she didn't have to try anymore. But I don't see how they could possibly have guessed that.
 
I can see why the others thought she was in a hell dimension. But what boggles my mind is how they never, even for a second, thought she could have been in a heavenly dimension. That portal was supposed to tear down the walls between ALL dimensions. Heavenly dimensions included. So if they were going with the theory she fell in one of them (which is quite frankly, a bit ridiculous since her body was there), they should have at least considered the possibility she fell into a heavenly dimension.
 
L
likefireworks
They didn't want to consider it. Selfish people. :(
As Linds mention, before S6, there's never been reference to a Heavenly place in the Buffyverse, so I don't think the Scoobies even thought it was a possibility. It's not that they don't think that Buffy deserves to be in a Heavenly dimension, it's more that they didn't think it was an option.

While they walls between all the dimensions were torn down, the energy that did the tearing was, without question, evil, since it used a lot of black magic and the blood of an innocent girl, which is, let's be honest, human sacrifice.

When you look at the bigger picture like that, it's not hard to see why they thought she'd been sent to a Hell dimension and was suffering.
 
S
sisterofmercy
[No message]
From 'Bargaining PT1':

WILLOW: Her body, yeah. But her soul ... her essence ... I mean, that could be somewhere else. She could be trapped, in-in some sort of hell dimension like Angel was. (tearfully) Suffering eternal torment, just because she saved us, and I'm not gonna let ... I'm not gonna leave her there. (intensely) It's Buffy.
Click to expand...

I assumed this meant that her soul was pulled from her body by the energy that she was surrounded by. Like we said, Buffy has survived a lot in the past, it wouldn't be far fetched to say that she could survive a fall like that, even with all that energy swimming around her.

And also, as we pointed out, where someone goes after they died was never touched upon before in the verse, so for them to be making a big deal out of this, then they had to have thought it was something different.

I'm not saying that that's really what happened, could be the damage done to her body from the energy and the fall was enough to kill her and she went to the Heavenly place as her natural reward, but for the Scoobies to insist that she went somewhere else, they had to think that it wasn't a natural death, which they said many times in the show.
 
It's interesting when someone sees the show differently.

I always assumed Death was the price of closing the portal. from what Giles and Willow had researched. I never thought it was the fall that killed Buffy. I get that it was an unnatural death because it was a kind of magical bargain, but also i never got the idea that it was a soul ripping thing. Just that the soul and the body went their separate ways when she died. this might just be my beliefs but i'm curious if there was anything other than assumption in the show about this.
 
For me, as an Atheist, I don't think much of life after death. Once you die, that's it, but for the purposes of this thread, I'm trying to think like the Scoobies thought at the time, so please forgive me if I haven't got all my thoughts in order.

You say that death was the price for closing the portal, but, speaking in terms of the verse, to me that sort of suggests that she gave up her soul in order to close the portal. We've already come to the conclusion that Buffy's death was her gift to Dawn and the world, but I think her simply dying to close the portal is too easy. If dying was the answer, why didn't Buffy just jump where she was standing? Or find some rusted piece of metal? I know jumping into the portal was all dramatic and made for great TV, but Buffy wasn't the only one to think that she needed to do that. When Dawn decided that she had to die to close the portal, she was going to jump into it as well, instead of straight off the side of the tower. I don't know if it was something they'd figured out off-screen, but both of them somehow realized that their body needed to pass through the energy of the portal to close said portal.

The power of The Key was needed to open and close the portals, and to me, power means essence, which is the soul.

Maybe the soul ripping thing never happened, we'll never know for sure, but the fact remains that Willow assumed that Buffy's death somehow caused her to be in a Hell dimension. If she'd died a 'natural' death, say at the hands of a vampire, or even if she'd stayed dead in 'Prophecy Girl', I don't think they would have been having this conversation. They certainly didn't think about it when Kendra died.
 
Yeah, the blood had to fall in a very precise place for the ritual to work. That's why the whole tower was built. It seems odd to think that Buffy dying underneath that spot would be enough. I would think that the death needed to occur at the same spot. I mean, if Glory had killed Buffy halfway up the tower, the Portal wouldn't have closed. The ritual element suggests that it was the actual ritual that killed her, not the fall. And since that's the case, her body and soul separated in that point where the dimensional walls no longer existed.
 
PassionBecoming
PassionBecoming
Agreed. They say that the blood opens the portal, and once the blood stops flowing the portal closes.
Lindsey McDonald said:
Yeah, the blood had to fall in a very precise place for the ritual to work. That's why the whole tower was built. It seems odd to think that Buffy dying underneath that spot would be enough. I would think that the death needed to occur at the same spot. I mean, if Glory had killed Buffy halfway up the tower, the Portal wouldn't have closed. The ritual element suggests that it was the actual ritual that killed her, not the fall. And since that's the case, her body and soul separated in that point where the dimensional walls no longer existed.
Click to expand...

I can't rep you again, but how come you can say everything better than I can? That's pretty much what I was thinking, but you can somehow communicate it better, lol.
 
It was possible that she could be in a hell dimension..but like you said it is slim and quite strange after all that she did for the world. But I think that Willow and everyone saying that she was in hell and that they would not let her suffer was just an excuse to bring their best friend back. It is a sad circumstance and I do love Buffy and Season 6 and 7 and I do believe that Anya was wrong when she said that the world would be a better place if Buffy stayed dead but in the end...What's dead is dead and it should stay that way ( especially since Buffy triggered The First...oops ).
 
Lyri said:
The power of The Key was needed to open and close the portals, and to me, power means essence, which is the soul.
Click to expand...

There we go. I don't think the soul was the price of closing the portal. So we have different viewpoints there. It's ambiguous though. To close the portal the blood had to stop flowing.

I kind of think Dawn could have just stepped off the side ... but that's another topic.
 
At the beginning of Season 6 I thought Buffy was in a hell dimension too, if she were in the afterlife at all. I was thinking like the Scoobies, I guess. After everything she's sacrificed it makes sense that she'd be in heaven, but I don't really think that way when it comes to the afterlife so I never registered that in my mind lol. I was thinking mystically, since she jumped into a portal full of hellish dimensions (judging by what was pouring out), she'd be in a hell dimension. A part of me thought that anyway. Another part of me just thought she wasn't anywhere in particular.
 
Another wonder is, didn't they talk on the show about the fact that there were thousands dimensions? Couldn't Buffy be in one of them, if you consider that you can get there after you die?
 
Chosen Enemy said:
Another wonder is, didn't they talk on the show about the fact that there were thousands dimensions? Couldn't Buffy be in one of them, if you consider that you can get there after you die?
Click to expand...

All the dimension talk is confusing to me. I wish it were a bit more organized I guess..But no Christian story here apparently Joss is an atheist although it still does not mean that would make him incapable of making a Christin-based theme..Like heaven, hell, and purgatory. I'm not like a hardcore Christian but I just think it would have made a lot more sense to the viewers if Joss said Buffy was in Hell or Buffy was in Heaven. Not like Buffy was in one of the thousands of dimensions which just happens to be hellish or Buffy was in one of thousands of dimensions which just happens to be all heaven-ish..Confusiing isn't it? Well it is to me
 
Chosen Enemy
Chosen Enemy
[No message]
I always thought that it was VERY likely that buffy wouldn't be in a hell dimension. I mean, the whole point of the key was to open all of the dimensions, and there must be at least the same amount if not more heavenly/normal dimesions than hellish ones. So when she jumped through the portal thing, it just took her randomly to another dimension, which happened to be heavenly. I don't think she was sent heavenly place because she was good, or because of the fact that she died heroicly; I think it was just mere chance that took her to a heavenly dimension. But I would think that her friends would consider the high odds that she would be in a heavenly/normal dimension, and ponder that before they just ripped her out of there, causing her much heartache and confusion later on. Anyway, hehe, enuf ranting 😀
 
Chosen Enemy
Chosen Enemy
[No message]
I haven't gotten to Season 6 in my re-watch, so my memory is fuzzy. I think there are Christian undertones. I believe Buffy says more than once that she thinks she was in Heaven (not just a heavenly dimension or a nice place) and when she is ripped out of it, she asks if she is "in Hell". Not "a" hell, or a hellish dimension. Angel was sent "to Hell". So, I think they reference it that way, but of course there are many other dimensions in Buffy land. That's my understanding, anyways.
 
I think Joss & co were trying not to put a label on anything. Everything was very open on Buffy, it was left up to us the audience to interrupt in our own way what we saw.

Buffy going to a heavenly dimension sums that up perfectly. The writers were trying to say that Buffy went to a good place that was safe, warm and she felt loved. To anyone that could instantly say "Yes she went to heaven" to others it could mean differently. I never thought Buffy was actually in heaven, I like to think she was in one of the better dimensions. To me it leaves my mind open. I believe in life after death but not necessarily heaven and hell.

The Scooby Gang had never thought of a heavenly dimension before Buffy died because the only big death by mystical forces was Angel's. They knew he had been to hell so they just automatically assumed the same happened to Buffy. Heck even I did when I watched it the first time round, so it was nice to see the revelation played out. It was like having some humanity added to Buffy's death and what she went through as I've heard stories of people going towards that light and when they come back, being here can be twice as hard as before.
 
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