Week 14 - The Journey
"You Think You Know... What's To Come... What You Are"
Opening
[People] on their modern spiritual pilgrimage... must become aware of their own
kinship with primitive savagery, with that part of themselves that society has
stamped "unacceptable," of which they have been taught to become ashamed. As
children we owned all of ourselves. As adults, in response to the expectations
of others, we have had to hide much of ourselves away, out of sight even from
our own eyes. The cost of such voluntary losses is great.
No one can afford to give up any part of himself. All of you is worth something.
Even the evil can be a source of vitality if only you can face it and transform
it.
Our love of pure goodness, our insistence on innocence, is a hazard. For the
sake of appearing to be what others require us to be, to be more moral than any
man can be, we sacrifice our own strength.
-Sheldon Kopp
Episode 4.22: Restless
What to watch for
-
Insecurities on the part of each character
-
Distortions of the past
-
Hints of the future
- Extended family ties that persist in dreams
Transcript is available at
http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/season4/transcripts/78_tran.shtml
Episode 5.5: No Place Like Home
Continuity
-
Part of the season-long story for season five of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
involves the sudden appearance of a new character, Buffy's younger sister,
Dawn. In a series that built a reputation for taking big risks, the
introduction of Dawn stands out as an audacious move. Part of the storyline is
that Dawn has "always" been part of the family, although it is perhaps
inevitable that Buffy and Giles would discover the truth.
What to watch for
- Buffy's reaction to learning about Dawn
- Family dynamics
- Keeping secrets, again
Transcript is available at
http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/season5/transcripts/83_tran.shtml
Questions
"Restless" is full of portents. Some are quickly resolved in the near future;
some are ground-shaking previews of life-altering events. How often do we
recognize these portents in our own lives? What does it take in ourselves to
recognize these things and act on them?
How much of each character's anxieties do you think that they're explicitly
aware of?
What would it mean to Buffy to "own" the savagery of the First Slayer? The
isolation?
Where is the line between "it's all about the journey" and "being in the
moment?" How do we integrate "living in the now" with our past, present, and
future?
Is it possible to process our journey in real-time, to examine the larger
issues while we are caught up in events?
What is the process, from the shock of discovery, to being able to deal with
change, to understanding what that change means, to being able to accept the
change?
Closing
ILLYRIA: I traveled dimensions as I pleased. I walked worlds of smoke and
half-truths, intangible. Worlds of torment and of unnamable beauty. Opaline
towers as high as small moons. Glaciers that rippled with insensate lust. And
one world with nothing but shrimp. I tired of that one quickly.
All I am is what I am. I lived 7 lives at once. I was power and the ecstasy of
death. I was god to a god. Now? I'm trapped... on a roof. Just one roof.... In
this time and this place.
And I fear in any other dimension in this form I'd be but prey to those I knew.
Your world is so small. And yet you box yourselves in rooms even smaller. You
shut yourselves inside... in rooms, in routines.
WESLEY: There are things worse than walls. Terrible... And beautiful. If we look
at them for too long they will burn right through us. Truths we couldn't bear.
Not every day.
-Illyria and Wesley Wyndham-Price
Angel, episode Underneath (5.17)
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.
Covey, Stephen, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective
People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.
Kaverny, Roz, She Saved The World. A Lot. An Introduction
to the Themes and Structures of Buffy and Angel. Kaveny, Roz, Reading
the Vampire Slayer, second edition. London: Taurisparke Paperbacks,
2004.
Kopp, Sheldon B., If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill
Him! Toronto: Bantam Books, 1972.