However, the parallel @Joan the Vampire Slayer brings up reminds me of Han Solo saying, "I know," when Leia says she loves him, and I wonder if Joss et al. wanted to play against that, too!
In short, yes. IIRC, he (or someone) has talked about the Han Solo moment, in the sense of "how do you top it?" One of the major themes of S7 is "not knowing" or the impossibility of full knowledge. How does one know (anything)? In the West, we equate knowledge with seeing ('seeing is believing', 'see for yourself', 'I'll believe it when I see it'). Take a look (pun not intended) at S7 - at how often eyes/sight are mentioned. It's not just direct reference: Lessons begins with people not wanting to see; Anya sees Spike's soul in/through his eyes; eyes are the windows to the soul; Xander mends windows; Xander is "the seer".* It's a season about ocularcentrism (the West's privileging of sight), which is shown to be flawed.
History is another source of knowledge - but history is shown to be incomplete. In S7 we learn new things about the past (the slayer/Spike/Anya have untold origin stories; the Guardian gives Buffy a parallel history). What we know changes - change the past and you change the present and the future.
The other source of "knowledge" is language but language is shown to be unreliable - either lacking or too full (codes are forgotten or duplicitous). How do you trust what people say in a season full of Freudian slips and intrusive unconscious?
Touched is key here. Forget Spike's speech. In the latter half of last century there was a school of thought that elevated the sense of touch above sight (it's to do with object/subject). There's a line in a Leonard Cohen song "I couldn't
feel so I learned to
touch". People forget the words are treated as synonyms (philosophically they're different). It sends us spiraling back to OMWF (and SR where he tries to make her feel). They're learning to "touch". It's significant that once he gets on the bed there's no sound or language...except for the Heather Nova
It's Only Love. Interesting lyrics:
I used to think that I knew what we needed
I just assumed we would always be fine
Now I don't think that we lost the feeling
But we, let everything build up inside
It's only love
But love should make us strong
It's only love
But love has been hurting so long
What a challenge, honesty
What a struggle to learn to speak
Who would've thought that pretending was easier
It's only love
But love should make us strong
It's only love
But love has been hurting so long
And it's all, a part of me
It tears at my heart
Only love
And it's all an eternity
Hoping to learn
Only love
Love
There's a part of you I'm trying to reach
Still a part I don't know
Tell me, is devotion a gift or a thief
Do you wish I'd let go
It's only love
But love should make us strong
It's only love
But love has been hurting so long
And it's all, a part of me
It tears at my heart
Only love
And it's all, eternity
Hoping to learn
Only love
Only love, only love
Only love, only love, only love, only
Only love, only love, only love, only love
Love, only love
The line the ends on Spuffy is
"And it's all an eternity hoping to learn only love".
There's new knowledge of "the other" being created here -
so new they don't have a word for it. "What does it mean" (EoD)
In short, he doesn't know/she doesn't know/the viewer doesn't know. It's the opposite of the Han Solo moment. If the viewer "knows", s/he takes responsibility for knowing. S/he is "Master of the text" - not Joss. S5-7 are full-blown critical postmodernism and postmodernism plays by its own rules.
*Some fans complain about the absence of big metaphors in the later seasons but they're absolutely replete with metaphor/symbolism in the sense that metaphor/the symbol stands in for something else - the unspeakable Real. The burning hands are probably more significant than the ILY-NYD.
