Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Adventures on the Hellmouth

An essay utilising the work of Joseph Campbell’s Hero With A Thousand Faces to explore both seasons two and six of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer.

Buffy: The Vampire Slayer has always existed on multiple levels. The show began with the idea to make a metaphoric world where the psychological horrors of life are made real. By doing this, Joss Whedon and his group of writers set the stage for the extended and multi-layered journey that their heroine would travel. Buffy’s adventures can be segmented into a Campbellian “Hero’s Adventures” for each episode or season, or for the series as a whole. The difference is that each season shows Buffy at a slightly different point in her life as she matures from highschool student to wayward adult, trying to make her way in the world. As such, by comparing the Adventures of two different seasons, is it possible to glean something about Buffy’s overall Adventure spanning the seven seasons that the show was broadcast.

Seasons Two and Six each show Buffy at important times in her life. In Season Two, Buffy begins to come of age, loses her virginity, and must deal with the repercussions of her initiation into the adult world. In Season Six, she begins another transformation: from adolescence into full adulthood. Buffy must accept her role in the greater community and the responsibilities that accompany it.

One of the problems with breaking down the Hero’s Adventure in Buffy’s second season is that the season exists as a double entity, ostensibly following one storyline until episode 12 (“Bad Eggs”) and another one afterward. That season, however, is remembered as the year when Angel went bad[i] and, for the first time, reverted to his soulless alter-persona, solely referred to here as Angelus. That story arc, therefore, is the one to follow, since it shows Buffy as she moves from the child world into her first moments of adulthood.

As far as Season Six is concerned, there are two symbiotic plots that follow one another through the season. The first, of course, is Buffy’s coming to grips with her return to the mortal coil and how she deals with that both physically and emotionally. Built into that is her budding ‘relationship’ with Spike and her use of him to make herself feel human or, in honesty, anything at all. The one plot leans heavily upon the other to give it credence. Perhaps the best way of defining Buffy’s adventure in this season would be to say that she must accept life and become willing to truly live it again, despite the darkness that seems to surround her.

Joseph’s Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces divides the Hero’s Adventure into three parts: Departure, Initiation, and Return. The best way to compare two adventures, therefore, is through the comparison of these three events.

Buffy’s Adventures

Departure: The Child and The Corpse

Call to Adventure

Campbell describes the Herald announcing the “Call to Adventure” as someone or something considered tainted by the world in which the adventure is set: “The herald or announcer of the adventure, therefore, is often dark, loathly, or terrifying, judged evil by the world.”[ii] However, the Call to Adventure is the moment when the hero has reached the proverbial fork in the road. The life of the hero is ready to change, setting her on her new path: “...in these adventures there is an atmosphere of irresistible fascination about the figure that appears suddenly as guide, marking a new period, a new stage, in the biography.”[iii]

In both seasons, Buffy is brought into her new stage of life through a tainted entity. In Season Two, that guide is Angel, leading her, albeit unwillingly[iv], from maidenhood into adulthood. In Season Six, Buffy is called back to her body by Willow as she dips into magicks that are darker than she is willing to admit to her friends. These heralds are symbolic of Buffy through these two seasons. Angel, as the symbol of what she strives for and desires, stands as the marker of adulthood, which Buffy both longs for and fears. Willow’s magical darkness mirrors the emotional darkness Buffy will contend with for the rest of the season, both forming a type of addiction for each woman.

Refusal of the Call

In Season Two, the call might be misinterpreted as Buffy’s longing to consummate her relationship with Angel, but it is not.[v] Buffy’s call comes after their consummation. She has stepped through the door into that new realm and must decide if she is willing to remain there, despite the consequences. Like any young woman who finds her boyfriend thus changed after their first night together, Buffy is unwilling to accept the changes wrought in her world. If the adventure can be defined as Buffy’s relationship with Angelus as it spans the second half of Season Two, then the refusal of the call would be her denial that Angelus had actually returned.[vi]

In Season Six, there are two times when Buffy refuses the call, emphasising the duality of that season. The refusal happens in the second half of the season opener, “Bargaining, Part 2.” Standing on top of the scaffolding, Buffy asks Dawn, with her first words since being resurrected, “Is this hell?”[vii] She is unwilling to accept her life, believing instead that she has moved from a heavenly dimension to a hellish one. The second refusal happens later, behind The Magic Box. She admits to Spike that she was happy in death and thinks that she was in heaven before being called back. This divulgence would be an acceptance of the call if the talk did not end with her expressly telling Spike never to tell the rest of the Scoobies. She is unwilling to truly return to living her life, integrated with those who were once close to her heart.

Both refusals, however, are pointless. Buffy is never completely allowed to turn her back on her calling and become something she is not. In Season Two, Buffy is quickly realises that Angel is no longer the ensouled vampire she once loved. He is a monster waiting to destroy the lives of her friends purely to torture her. In Season Six, Buffy is returned to a world that suddenly needs her again and the weight of responsibility keeps her from refusing the call in the only way possible: suicide.[viii]

Supernatural Aid

Supernatural Aid appears in very different ways in these two seasons, once again emphasising their differences. In the Buffyverse, the existence of the supernatural is commonplace, so sending an “old crone or old man ... who provides [Buffy] with amulets against the dragon forces”[ix] would seem both mundane and clichéd. Seasons six and two find very different ways around this cliché. For the younger Buffy, supernatural aid must come in the most natural of forms. Her first strike against Angelus’ power is through the use of a rocket launcher provided by the army (care of Xander) to destroy his then-greatest weapon: The Judge. In Season Six, Buffy is unable to help herself and a truly outside source must come to her aid. Sweet, the singing, dancing, spell-casting demon in “Once More With Feeling,” provides the aid Buffy requires to tell her friends that she was in heaven and she deems them responsible for taking her out of that place. Because of this, her friends are finally able to understand her seeming apathy for life and, in theory, begin to help her.

The Crossing of the First Threshold

In earlier years, Buffy was willing to cross that threshold sooner, allowing herself to be pulled into adventure as a matter of course. It takes less than an episode for Buffy to move on in Season Two. She crosses the first threshold, taking her into the new and perilous world, through her willingness to face the changes in Angel for the first time. She can be said to have truly departed and crossed when she first connects with Angelus in an offensive manner, accepting their respective roles in the adventure. The threshold, for Buffy, is the point where she accepts that her “boyfriend is dead”[x] and is willing to begin dealing with the monster that came to inhabit his body.

Nothing could be farther from the truth in later years. The episodes in Season Six preceding “Once More With Feeling” work to demonstrate Buffy’s ennui to the world at large. She is unable to pull herself away from her own inner-demons long enough to see what is going on around her.[xi] In the song “Going Through the Motions” at the start of the episode “Once More With Feeling,” Buffy says “I don’t want to be going through the motions, losing all my drive. I can’t even see if this is really me and I just want to be alive.”[xii] She wants nothing more than to feel again. In an attempt to do this and bring herself back into the world she has been forced into, Buffy has sex with Spike for the first time, in the episode “Smashed”, and crosses her first threshold.

The Belly of the Whale

As a metaphor, the Belly of the Whale exists when the hero is drawn in, becoming encompassed by the danger of the new realm. As a journey of self-discovery, however, it is also the place where the hero learns something important about herself, often something that will help in the time to come. This information comes in very different ways in each of the seasons. In Season Two, in the episode “Phases,” Buffy is given a look at herself and what it might mean to be the Slayer. The hunter, Cain, shows no mercy for the creatures he kills, only the reward he achieves through their death. He creates a sobering vision, reminding her that it is her humanity that makes her such a potent weapon. This knowledge comes in useful later in this season and becomes a theme for the series at large.

“The Belly of the Whale” is much more obvious in the later season. By sleeping with Spike, Buffy throws herself into his power, letting herself sink lower than she had before. While he does make her feel something, at the end of the day she only feels dirty. Spike loves her and Buffy does little more than use him. However, the self-disgust that Buffy experiences allows her to be emotionally active once again, which later facilitates her return to her old self. Joss Whedon does a particularly good job of showing the Belly of the Whale symbolically when Buffy and Spike break the floor of the old house in the midst of their passion, falling into its literal and metaphoric bowels.

Initiation: Darkness Consumes Her

The Road of Trials

Campbell describes the Road of Trials in relation to the many heads of the Hydra, “one head cut off, two more appear - unless the right caustic is applied to the mutilated stump.”[xiii] This description in particularly apt when describing Buffy’s reaction to her Road of Trials. Of all the moments in Buffy’s Hero’s Adventures, The Road of Trials is the most obvious, usually drawn out, given the nature of the creative medium, and encompassing the entirety of Buffy’s initiation.

In Season Two, every episode between “Innocence” and “Becoming, Part 1” is Buffy’s Road of Trials. In each of these episodes, Buffy or her friends encounter Angelus, one way or another. Though he is thwarted each time, Buffy does little more than cut off Angelus’ metaphoric heads before deciding that she is getting nowhere and will finally take the fight to him.[xiv] In Season Six, while Buffy begins to claw her way up out of her own mind and into full interaction with the rest of the world, she continues to meet with Spike, letting him become her dirty little secret. She finds herself treading a road that involves Willow’s addiction, the possible loss of custody of Dawn, and getting a job for the first time in her life. However, no matter how many times she tells herself that sleeping with Spike is disgusting or degrading, she continues to go back to him because it seems like the caustic to her other trials. She allows herself to cut off heads, never worrying that Spike may be one of them.

The Meeting with the Goddess

There are certain parts of the Hero’s Adventure that change when applied to a form of mass visual media. The Meeting with the Goddess in Season Two happens for the viewers and not the Hero herself. If the goddess is described as the being the one who lives in both the Normal World and the World of Adventure, then in Season Two that character would be Jenny Calendar. As a teacher at Sunnydale High and sometime Scoobie, she is part of Buffy’s Normal World. However, through her heritage with the Kalderosh, the gypsies who cursed Angel with his soul, she also lives as part of that other realm encompassing the mystical world. The meeting, however, comes in the episode “Passion” and it is Angelus, not Buffy, who meets with her, denying her help to the hero through the death of the Goddess.

The duality of Season Six shows Buffy with two goddesses, both giving her something that will help along her adventure. The first is Willow’s estranged girlfriend, Tara.[xv] At the end of the episode “Dead Things,” Buffy breaks down for the first time, revealing her “dirty little secret” to Tara as she comes to realise that she is, in fact, responsible for the horrible things she has done since returning. Tara, therefore, gives her the gift of becoming self-aware.

Much later in the season, Buffy encounters a second goddess, the Mother Incarnate.[xvi] In the episode “Normal Again,” Buffy is able to again encounter her mother, this time inside her own mind through the assistance of a demonic hallucination. She receives from the image of her mother the strength and love that was missing in the darkness of her current world. Buffy is also finally given the choice between the adventure and a true refusal of the call by remaining within the confines of her own mind forever.

Woman as the Temptress

Although the label comes from Campbell’s own book, this phase is usually interpreted as the temptation, which comes partway through the adventure, for the hero to stray off the path. In Season Two, this temptation comes near the end of the episode “I Only Have Eyes for You.” Once the spirit of James moves on, Buffy finds herself in the one place she has wanted to be since the beginning of her adventure: back in Angel’s arms. Angelus, however, is not amused by this turn of events and reminds the tempted schoolgirl that he is no longer the same vampire she once loved. Buffy is left alone in the band room, having momentarily fallen to temptation.

Temptation is similar in Season Six. The temptation for Buffy throughout this season is Spike. To Buffy, Spike is the easy way out, the temptation to give into the darkness. He loves her unconditionally, letting her do anything she wants to him. That kind of love is seductive to her. It is something she cannot screw up, unlike her relationships with her friends, watcher, and sister. In Spike, Buffy is able to achieve a certain amount of release for the feelings she has and cannot express to the world that exists in the daylight. However, that temptation takes her away from the life she is trying to strive for, a life involving her friends, family, and the rest of the human world.

Atonement with the Father

The farther along the Buffy timeline the story progresses, the less important this stage is to the Hero. As a child venturing into the adult world, Buffy requires the assistance and support of her parental figures, her Watcher and Mother. In Season Two, Atonement with the Father happens in the moment between the Departure and Initiation. Buffy faces the sometimes monstrous form of her father figure, her watcher Rupert Giles, and places herself before his mercy:

Buffy: You must be so disappointed in me.

Giles: No. No, no, I’m not. Buffy: But this is all my fault. Giles: No. I don’t believe it is. Do you want me to wag my finger at you and tell you that you acted rashly? You did. A-and I can. I know that you loved him. And he has proven more than once that he loved you. You couldn’t have known what would happen. The coming months a-are gonna, are gonna be hard... I, I suspect on all of us, but if it’s guilt you’re looking for, Buffy, I’m, I’m not your man. All you will get from me is, is my support. And my respect.

Buffy comes to grips with her guilt, somewhat, by channelling it through her father figure. It is important that this moment happens earlier in the story, however, because as her Watcher and a companion along the Adventure, Buffy must atone with Giles before her Road of Trials begins.

Unlike in Season Two, Buffy’s atonement in Season Six comes much later in the season. As an adult, Buffy no longer requires the constant assistance or approval of her Watcher and father figure. Therefore, she must wait until Giles’ return to Sunnydale from England before she can truly atone, placing herself again before his mercy and revealing the darkness of the previous months.[xvii] His forgiveness, however, although no longer required, still gives Buffy a certain amount of release, allowing her to heal some of the emotional wounds created over the previous months.

Apotheosis

The OED Online defines Apotheosis as “The action of ranking, or fact of being ranked, among the gods.”[xviii] In Season Two, Buffy’s Apotheosis happens in a single moment in the episode “Becoming, Part 2.” At 36:08, Buffy catches Angelus’ sword between her hands and transcends from being mortal, albeit an unusually strong mortal, into the realm of the Godly; she truly becomes the Slayer. Up until this point in time, Buffy’s reaction to being the slayer was quite handily summarised by Kendra, “You talk about slaying like it’s a job.”[xix] Buffy does not completely accept that being the Slayer means being more than just being a normal human with superpowers until her apotheosis at Angelus’ hands. In Season Six, Buffy finally finds something worth living for. In doing so, she transcends the world she lives in, accepting her role in the world as a true hero. In the episode “Grave,” the end of the season, Buffy realises that she wants to show Dawn the world. If all else went away, Dawn would still be there and Buffy would still have a reason to live, something to make her want the life and power that was given back to her.

The Ultimate Boon

Each season’s boon is representative of the season itself. In Season Two, the Ultimate Boon is, and has been since the beginning of Buffy’s Initiation, the defeat of Angelus and all that comes with it, both good and bad. That boon, however, is taken away from her to a certain extent. Willow, not Buffy, defeats Angelus, forcing a soul upon him and turning him back into Angel. Buffy must deal with the repercussions of Angelus’ reign by defeating the plans he put into motion. By sacrificing her lover, Buffy reaches the Ultimate Boon at a far more terrible cost.

In Season Six, Buffy rejoices that she is human and alive at the end of the season. The Boon is not something for Buffy to experience this time, but for the rest of the world and her friends to receive. While it does enrich her own life, Buffy is finally able to make Sunnydale a happy place for her friends again, at least for a little while.[xx]

Return

In the Buffy universe there is not always a return. In Season Six as an adventure on its own, for Buffy to go through the Return stage would mean for her to die. The point of Season Six was for Buffy to once again enjoy being alive. This follows the theory that the series as a whole is an extended version of the Hero’s Adventure.

In Season Two, however, Buffy does go through a form of the Return stage, although it does not all happen in the same season. After defeating Angelus, Buffy does not have to return with her elixir or boon. Instead, her elixir is felt by those who were awaiting her return as she refuses to return to her normal world.

Cordelia: Any word?

Xander: You guys haven’t seen her either?

Willow: No.

Oz: But we know the world didn’t end, ’cause check it out.[xxi]

There is no dragon drawn chariot or winged sandals for Buffy, either. Her flight happens in the least magical way possible. After the emotional trauma of achieving the Ultimate Boon, Buffy boards a bus headed for L.A., where the next season begins, finishing the Hero’s Adventure, following every aspect of the end of Campbell’s journey[xxii], and eventually bringing Buffy back to Sunnydale.

Seasons two and six exist as very different journeys. The reason for this is because they both exist in the longer version of Buffy’s Hero’s Adventure. As an early journey, Season Two is part of Buffy’s Initiation. It spans the time between the Departure and Initiation as she begins to enter the adult realm. The series can here be broken into two options. Either the journey ends in Season Five with Buffy’s death and moves into a new type of Adventure or the entire series from seasons one through seven are an extended Adventure. In the latter case, Season Six, as a later season, covers the end of her Initiation. The end of Season Six is Buffy’s Apotheosis in the grand scheme. She finally accepts being god-like, something that she has been since the beginning, and transcends her earthly existence. Beginning in Season Seven, Buffy is able to take on the responsibilities of an adult by taking care of her sister and leading an army of her kindred against the true forces of darkness.