Ok, lads I apologise for this seriously obnoxiously long post but Eleftheria asked me to write a synopsis of the issue and well this seemed like the best place for it. :blush:
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As the issue opens Buffy is lost in her own thoughts. Willow has just told her that her new found powers are really those of the dying Slayers. Buffy sees herself as sucking the life out of her girls. She equates herself to being a vampire. She has become her own worst nightmare.
Meanwhile Giles has just realised who Twilight is.
Th-that voice...I know that voice.
Twilight’s reply is one of the most interesting of the entire issue.
Of course you do Giles...That's what happens when you get rid of your resident witch...People start to see the truth.
I found this incredibly cryptic but an obvious reference to Willow. We have been shown throughout the entire season that Willow has been keeping secrets. Whatever "truths" she has been concealing appear to be quite significant.
Next Page
Xander once again plays the hero as he has throughout the season and saves Buffy from herself and insists that she is not a vampire. Buffy continues to wallow in her guilt.
I'm sucking their powers. Then I get stronger. What's that sound like to you?
The development of Buffy's guilt has been a major issue this season, but more on that later.
Xander has heard enough and decides to set her straight.
It sounds like the one person in the world who, as always, is capable of anything...Truly anything this time...except forgiving herself.
Most notably he goes on to say,
...If the universe is giving you that power it's gotta be for a reason. That's why you were chosen in the first place, don't you see? You.Are.Here. for a reason.
Angel will tell her what is essentially the same thing pages later.
Buffy has been galvanised by Xander's words and is in fighting form.
Just tell me what we are doing.
Xander's reply is a nice reference here to Pinky and the Brain.
Same thing we always do Pinky. Find the Big Bad...
Next page
...and kick him in the boulders
Here we see Twilight being attacked by Faith and who does indeed kick him the boulders. I thought this was a nice allusion to Buffy giving Angelus a savage, knee crippling kick to said boulders in Innocene.
We now learn that Twilight is invulnerable and Faith has just done herself a serious injury trying to detach his family jewels with her foot.
It's actually kinda funny.
Faith lunges at him with a high kick to his crotch and makes contact.
Twilight looks down, totally unaffected and looks back at Faith.
(Here endeth the funny).
Twilight pushes her to the ground with an almighty thump to her head.
Next page.
Willow and Amy are doing a spell to reveal Twilight's HQ which is three seconds in the future, and also having a nice little bitchy back and forth in the process.
We also learn that Buffy can feel that Faith is hurt, she can feel all the slayers.
There is an interesting discussion going on between Warren and The General. Warren is venting about Twilight stealing his HQ.
My H.Q. it was MY genius that built it! And for Twilight to think he can steal it from me!
To which the General replies.
Relax soldier. We'll be back on track soon enough.
Reading that exchange having already read the explanation Angel gives to Buffy for the events of the last year adds a little bit more credibility to his reasoning that he was trying to contain the forces massing against Buffy and her Slayers. However, it has yet to be determined if it gives it credibility because it is the truth or because it is what he wants us to think. Only the remaining issues will be able to confirm this.
As in the previous issue Dawn is the voice of reason.
...You listening to these nutwads!?! I mean Warren...The General...They've all tried to kill us.
Next Page.
An apparently worried Twilight is holding his hands out in supplication to an unconscious Faith on the floor.
Faith...?
Oh, c'mon. You're stronger than that
...Faith...?
By now Giles has started to put it all together. He knows something we don't. A very big something.
Twilight confirms that he has gained the exact same powers that Buffy has.
Superspeed. Plus strength. I can fly too. You know where this is headed, right?
He continues to speak to Giles.
Every watcher wonder's if his slayer might be the girl...and you've had more reason than any.
Definite echoes here of Xander's "You were chosen for a reason".
Twilight goes on to confirm that the reason Giles was tearing across Europe with Faith was to determine if Buffy was "The Girl in Question" (See what I did there? 😉 😛). Giles has told neither Faith nor Buffy about this.
I can't help but feel sorry for Faith here. Yet again she has turned runner up in the Slayer Pageant. More than that, Giles led her to believe that they were working together because Faith offered something that no other slayer could, that she could help the girls that had lost their way. To have it turn out that it was once again all about Buffy and had nothing to do with her, well it's a real hard pill to swallow.
Twilight ends this speech about Buffy ominously.
...she has no idea what she's about to become.
Reading this I had an instant flashback to the First Slayer's warning to Buffy all those years ago.
You think you know ... what's to come ... what you are. You haven't even begun.
Is season 8 making good on this warning that has hung over the verse since the Season 4 Finale? I really hope so.
According to Twilight, these changes that are happening to Buffy, she cannot fight. He will elaborate on that later.
By now Willow and Amy's spell has worked, they have found Villain HQ and Buffy is out of here! She crashes through the wall and sends Twilight cruising across the sky, and she is right on his heels.
Buffy catches hold of Twilight and then we are here, the unmasking and finally we get a reference to that OTHER Twilight!
Buffy: You listen to me Twilight--My god, is that really the name you picked? Twilight?!? Y'know I lived that idea first, right?
And my vampire was so much better.
Buffy looks on with utter abhorrence as the mask comes off and Twilight is revealed to be Angel.
Yeah...I missed you too.
Buffy is shocked and appalled and sends Angel crashing into a forest.
As Angel tried to get his bearings and talk to Buffy she is busy tearing up a gigantic tree and fashioning it as stake.
Angel comments that the blows Buffy landed on him are the first he's felt in a long while. He wants her to stop and think what that means.
Instead Buffy has her own conversation going on in her head.
That's not Angel. It's Not. It's got to be Angelus.
Angel chimes in straight away with.
And don't think I'm Angelus either. I'm me. And you know I'm me. I know you feel it....Oh and Buf--
She cuts him off with a really great line.
STOP TALKING! Your best asset was that you weren't a talker!
She then attacks him with the giant stake but when it makes contact with Angel's chest it disintegrates.
Buffy is now furious and lunges at Angel, vainly trying to land blow after blow on him and instead berates him verbally.
You killed my girls! Two Hundred and six girls!
Angel argues that he didn't kill anyone, that this, whatever this is, was happening anyway.
You really don't know how much worse it could have been? Powerful people--Governments--lining up to wipe out the "Terrorists" you created. Demons weren't thrilled either.
I put on a mask, talk about 'Master Plans'...Distract them, keep the body count as low as I can while I push.
Throughout all of this Buffy continues to try and punch Angel.
She questions what he was pushing her towards.
Push me why? So I can absorb the power my dead friends?
Angel snuffs this idea out.
Who told you that? Willow? I thought she'd see further than that.
(Willow's concealment of "truths" is further implicated. The witch has been holding out on us. And we really need to know what she has been up to with her Nekkid Snake Lady Friend!)
Angel continues.
That's not why you have these powers.
Still Buffy tried to get a punch in but it just ain't happening. Angel tells her it won't make her feel better to which she responds by sending him careening into a bunch of trees.
Angel gets back on his feet and is still with the motor mouth.
It's different now, Buffy. Your power--Like my power--has nothing to do with the other slayers. What's happening to you--to us--this is what we've been waiting for. What we earned. What we need.
Those last three lines remain incredibly cryptic. We don't get an explanation in this issue but it appears Buffy and Angel have an intertwined destiny that we haven't even conceived of. Also, while Angel maintains their power has nothing to do with the slayers I think it is very closely linked to the spell used to activate them.
Buffy doesn't buy this at all. She rages at Angel to stop lying, that he had been hiding. He counters saying he was hiding that he was in L.A. He says things got " very Funky" but he's ok now.
That remains to be seen.
Buffy tells him she doesn't give a crap about L.A. and demands to know why he put them through Hell for the last year.
What he replies with is very interesting.
You fundamentally shifted the balance of power in this world Buffy. People die when that happens. Everytime. It could never be as simple as you hoped. Not on this plane. But it was a pure act, and it meant you were ready.
Note how he says "on this plane". I think this is where the Frayverse and Willow’s dimension hopping comes into play. Buffy didn't just change her world but other dimensions too.
Also the "pure act" interests me. By activating the slayers Buffy "fundamentally shifted the balance of power". Could Angel taking down the Black Thorn and the events of NFA as well as ATF be his pure act? It seems that the intention of the act is what matters, not the outcome, which in both cases was disastrous, even if we are only now fully realising how true that was for Slayer Spell.
Angel goes on to say that the whole Twilight shtick was to push Buffy to be what she has become.
We still don’t know what that is yet.
He continues.
That twist in your belly isn't just rage, or confusion--and for once, it's not even guilt.
You feel me, Buffy. You feel us.
At this point Buffy and Angel begin to glow.
There are a couple of things here that stand out to me. First off, The Guilt. This seems to be key aspect to this whole transformation. We have spoken alot on this board about Buffy's questionable moral stand point this season. She saw no wrong in what she did with the Slayer Spell, she viewed it as empowerment but in reality she forced an immense power into almost two thousand girls that didn't ask for it. She then put weapons in their hands and sent them out to war. She robbed banks to fund that war. When the The Government came after her she spoke to Willow about her willingness to kill human soldiers if she had too. She tells the General, when they go to rescue Willow, that what makes Buffy and her army the good guys and The General and his army the bad guys is that she is actually good. Buffy was never this black and white. She was also never so blind to her own self. She has acted as if the Scythe in her hand bestows upon her a moral superiority that she doesn't actually have. Much like Angel her sin was hubris and it is only when things start to go wrong; slayers dying and headquarters exploding that Buffy begins to acknowledge that she may be wrong this time. Her reaction to society turning on Slayers is very telling, she asks Willow whether society knows that they are the good guys. That is the problem though, they don't know. The revelations in Tibet are a turning point, Buffy sends regular human girls to their deaths as well as killing soldiers of the opposing side, the fact that she later took injured soldiers in does not take away from the fact that not long before she was trying to kill them. On top of that they call on more power to help them defeat "the bad guys" and the Goddesses kill indiscriminately. I think this killing by Goddesses is the perfect example of how a) Buffy and her army were abusing their power and that power is coming back to bite them in the arse and b) who the good and bad guys are is really not obvious at all. The news Willow brings her that he slayers are dying sobers Buffy hugely and guilt overwhelms her. It is seems ironic that having spent, what we assume is years since S7, acting like a God, it is only when she feels the repercussions of those actions that she becomes a God.
Is this what Angel was pushing her too? Is realising the fault in her "pure act" the next stage in her metamorphosis? It is completely unclear at the moment, but that is how I am reading the events.
The second thing I wanted to mention was about the glow. Once this starts to manifest between Buffy and Angel what we are seeing has less to do with them being superheroes and more about them being a man(pire) and a woman.
When Angel tells Buffy that what she is feeling is "us" she replies with "There is no us" and Angel again counters with "There's always been an us."
While she is denying what Angel is telling her, Buffy's inner monologue reveals what she is really thinking.
I'd never tell him he's right, but as he says the words...I know he's right.
Angel points to the glow that they are both developing. He tells her it gets stronger they get close. More cryptic follows.
This isn't just another fistfight, Buffy. This is history.
Can anyone say prophecy?
Buffy is still refusing to admit any sort of agreement with him (even though she clearly does) and tells him (as she glows lol)
There's no glow. You're imagining a glow.
We see Buffy staring at her very glowy hands and Angel tells her,
Buffy, let go. For one minute, let go of what you think you understand, and let your body tell you the truth.
This reminded me of Buffy not wanting Angel to 'logic' them out of IWRY.
Buffy is as stubborn as ever and insists
My body...isn't talking...
Angel counters.
It's singing. It's joy, Buffy. You and I don't have a lot of experience with joy, but I feel it being this close to you, I feel a connection even I wasn't prepared for.
Forget what I said about history--this isn't history. This is us, Buff. This is our future.
Angel's use of "Buff" here is worth noting. He uses it twice deliberately and once because Buffy cuts him off. I have a feel this is a signal. Much in the way it was in Enemies. If not, then it is a really silly oversight.
Howsever, Angel's words are beginning to effect Buffy and she tells him,
You don't know me like you used to know me.
Angel acknowledges that.
Maybe I don't. But I do know there's a reason we're both here, flushed with this unholy power.
1. At the beginning of the issue Xander assured Buffy that there is a reason the universe gave her this power. That there was a reason that she was Chosen. Now, Angel is reiterating that.
2. "Unholy", I think this is another signal.
Angel continues.
There's a reason I loved you the moment I saw you.
There's a reason we can't be happy with anyone else.
And there's a reason your whole body is glowing right now.
And there's a reason that despite all this power coursing through me, what I feel right now is weak.
I'm terrified you'll go. You'll leave before we have a chance to explore what this really is. This glow.
What if, just once, the right thing for us to do is also the most wonderful?
By now Buffy's eyes have filled up with tears. She looks so scared and hopeful at the same time.
Angel asks her,
Buffy...don't you want to be happy?
Buffy looks up at Angel, floats into the air, grabs his collar and kisses him.
Ok, that last section has caused mayhem in fandom and I have to say I was part of it when I was just going on second and third hand information. When you read it though and see the "acting" on the page, well I think it becomes so much more understandable.
The main issues are:
1. Buffy trusting Angel's story.
2. Buffy kissing Angel.
1. What Angel told Buffy was essentially an extension of what Xander told her. Xander is probably Buffy's most trusted friend at right now; I think it is very believable that she would trust Angel's reasons when they back up what Xander had told her.
Also, Buffy is human and was being crushed by guilt for sucking the energy from the slayers. If someone is offering you a plausible reason to emancipate you from that guilt, you're gona take it. Even if it only lasts for these few moments I can definitely see how Buffy would jump on Angel's reasoning
2. Despite everything else Buffy may be she is also just a girl and that girl had just heard the love of her life tell her ALL the things she had always wanted him to tell her. I can absolutely see how she would get lost in that moment. We have seen all season how Buffy has ached for a connection and a way to be "normal". The Slayer Spell was supposed to allow Buffy a measure of normalcy instead it only separated her more. Throughout this entire season we have seen Buffy move further and further away from society and humanity. The extra power is a further move that separates her from pretty much everyone else on the planet. Angel telling her they were both experiencing the same thing, that they were in it together and that they were essentially equals is pretty much what Buffy has been craving all season.
I'm not saying any of this is right or wrong but I can absolutely understand where the characters are coming from.
Also, I want to say that Buffy has been morally questionable ALL season. There are ALOT of her actions that could be mirrored with those of Twilights, what endears her to us is that we have been privy to her motivation. I think we should all keep our slayers' cool until we are privy to Angel's motivation.
I can definitely say that I no longer fear for these characters. There is a point to all this.
