Buffs search for meaning.

[Lukee]

Searching for the meaning of life. If you think about it thats just about what the Buffster has been doing all her life as the slayer. But it only ever really effected her when her mother died and when she died and came back.
I was reading the book Psychology of Joss Whedon and i was reading the section of Buffy's search for the meaning of her life. How death was her gift and how she coped and tried to get her life back into place once she was dragged from Heaven.

I was wondering what yalls thoughts on Buffy's search for meaning is?

When she was alive she found her meaning. She was the slayer. When she died saving the world and Dawn she completed her mission. Her meaning for life was all in place she found it. It was her time. She died knowing she saved the world and her sister. Knowing that it was her time. That she did good but when Willow and the gang dragged her from heaven she found she had no meaning in life. She was just there.
So she had to try and find her meaning. I look back on Season six with the Spuffy sex drive and [as much as i hated Buffy and Spike together in that way because well we] junk and think well she was just using Spike because he was there, because he had no meaning in life now and he was just there to walk the earth meaningless. So she could connect to him.

Buffy now is still searching i think for that meaning in her life. Feeling alone, never being about to truly feel happy.
I wounder if she ever will. Until shes dead. Maybe because she isn't meant to be on Earth she wont find happiness.

[Enisy]

She found herself a purpose in Grave: "I got it so wrong... I don't want to protect you from the world. I want to show it to you." She got a bit distracted from that in Season 7 in favour of more immediate concerns (Apocalypse Nowish), but she is back in touch with the world.

[patrick]

enisy said:

She found herself a purpose in Grave: "I got it so wrong... I don't want to protect you from the world. I want to show it to you." She got a bit distracted from that in Season 7 in favour of more immediate concerns (Apocalypse Nowish), but she is back in touch with the world.

Yeah...not buying it.

She's still looking, as are the rest of us.

[Rebecca]

I think this all can relate to Buffy's cookie speech in Chosen. Although that was relating in specifics relationships and men, it can be broadened to her search for who she is as a person. After all, it is unhealthy to be involved romantically when you do not know who you are yourself.

I believe Buffy will have a difficult time finding herself in the near future due to the gulf separating the scoobies. (I am actually kind of mad at Giles and Willow for being so self-centered.) At least she has Xander, I think she should lean on him a little more, let off some of her pressures. At this point Buffy is feeling socially isolated, and I think she will have a difficult time figuring out who she is when she is depressed and alone.

In effect, she will not be done for a long while.

[BuffyFanOne]

I was going to say the same thing onemoretouch. I think the cookie dough speech is the closest thing to the meaning of life for Buffy. She needs to be complete before her life's true meaning will be apparent or even attainable. She is still cookie dough at this point in her journey.

[mandikaye]

But aren't we all cookie dough? Are we ever really cookies?

[BuffyFanOne]

mandikaye said:

But aren't we all cookie dough? Are we ever really cookies?

So philosophical!
I guess we are never really cookies but we certainly cook as we age Rather we get to completion or not, only time will tell.

[Rebecca]

buffyfanone said:

mandikaye said:

But aren't we all cookie dough? Are we ever really cookies?

So philosophical!
I guess we are never really cookies but we certainly cook as we age Rather we get to completion or not, only time will tell.

I do think there is a point in life where we feel confident in ourselves, who we are, our strengths and weaknesses, enough to face tomorrow without apprehension. It's just a part of growing up.

[BuffyFanOne]

scoobiegroupie said:

I do think there is a point in everyone's life where we feel confident in ourselves, who we are, our strengths and weaknesses, enough to face tomorrow without apprehension.

It's just a part of growing up.

but the big question is, is that as far as we go. Of course we continue learning but when we reach the point where we are without apprehension is that it? Are we done?

[Rebecca]

No, i think the finality of the metaphor is disillusioned. the finality i reference is the point in which we reach confidence in knowing ourselves. we never cease to change, nor cease to find ourselves, however Buffy needs to figure out who she is now, at this point in her life.

[mandikaye]

That's an interesting point, in light of issue 11. Twilight is seeking to rid Buffy of her moral certainty - the confidence she has in who she is and what she does.

She's had that certainty and confidence in her life. We've all seen it. Now it's starting to wain.

I'm not really sure what that means. I think that maybe I'm trying to say that Buffy has had that meaning in her life. She just needs to find it again.

[BuffyFanOne]

Either that she needs to find it or that for her, the meaning she is looking for is trusting what she already knows about herself.
I think that she has already found her clarity, but she will not be complete until she learns to trust it.

[mandikaye]

buffyfanone said:

Either that she needs to find it or that for her, the meaning she is looking for is trusting what she already knows about herself.
I think that she has already found her clarity, but she will not be complete until she learns to trust it.

Yes! That's it exactly. She just needs to trust what's already there. Her identity hasn't changed, she just needs to see it for what it is.

[Rebecca]

mandikaye said:

That's an interesting point, in light of issue 11. Twilight is seeking to rid Buffy of her moral certainty - the confidence she has in who she is and what she does.

She's had that certainty and confidence in her life. We've all seen it. Now it's starting to wain.

I'm not really sure what that means. I think that maybe I'm trying to say that Buffy has had that meaning in her life. She just needs to find it again.

Yes, I agree, she needs to find it again. Although I believe the point was made earlier about her losing her self-confidence after she died in S5. She hasn't fully recovered, imo.

[BuffyFanOne]

I feel like she recoverd from that in the end of season 6. Well, maybe not but she did find a new meaning through Dawn. I am not sure when she exactly lost that, maybe toward the end of season 7.
I think that she was destracted by the goings on of season 7, her most serious battle to date.
I guess she has yet to re-find herself. Hopefully Twilight will backfire. Buffy is stronger than he thinks.

[mandikaye]

Buffy is always stronger than anyone gives her credit for... except maybe Xander. He's the one who has always seen everything.

[Lukee]

mandikaye said:

But aren't we all cookie dough? Are we ever really cookies?

Well i would say Buffy was cookies in the end of season 5. when she found her meaning.
But when she came back she now has to re-mix the dough and cook it again.

When Buffy said she wanted to show Dawn the world i don't think she really did in season 7. She still tried to hide her from it. She told Xander to take her and Dawn out of SunnyD before the battle and stuff. And i think they even grew more apart by the end of season 7 and season 8.

Since a slayers gift is dieing and that was Buffy's last meaning in life maybe its the same again. Maybe her meaning in life is the end all magic and stuff herself. From what we know from Fray maybe it was Buffy who did it. Maybe that was her meaning. The reason she was really brought back.

[Rebecca]

Wow, would I be sad if Buffy's meaning in life is death. Very depressing, lol. I do understand that her meaning at the end of S5 was to die for Dawn/world, but she came back... so was that her entire purpose? or just a trial?

[Enisy]

It definitely wasn't her entire purpose. That's what she was thinking all through Season 6 -- that she had been "finished", "done", that another Slayer would have taken her place -- but she realized how wrong she was in Grave.

[spikeluv13]

none of us are ever completely finished baking. We always grow and always experience new things. We change as life goes on, as do our perceptions of things. Right now Buffy is growing in a typical fashion: she is in the next stage of morality, where things are not black and white, right or wrong. She is seeing all sorts of gray and she feels as if she caused some of that gray. Twilight is feeding on that. (Sorry....psych degree.. )

Meaning of life: it is different for everyone. For some it is to have and raise kids. Probably not Buffy's meaning. For some it is to invent something, be remembered for this or that, etc. Life's meaning is what you make of it, what is important to you. For Buffy, that keeps changing. From love, to saving the world, to being a regular girl, to dying for dawn, to caring for dawn, to empowering all slayers, to who knows what's next. that is why we like watching/reading her. she is ever changing and is never satisfied...mostly because life likes to screw with her.

oh and vampire dust slayer: spuffy kicks. she loved him. he truly loved her.