Discuss Selfless....

[Alyrenee]

I am focusing on the season 7 episode "Selfless" for an upcoming Undead America podcast.... I would love to hear your thoughts and possibly read them on my show...

This is one of my favorites from season 7 for sure. I loved that they FINALLY dealth with Xander's lie to Buffy from way back in Becoming Part II. The Mrs...song was brilliant and the Aud flashbacks were fabulous... We also see a hint of the old dark Willow in this one and I love me some D'Hoffryn.

I am sure you all have more profound thoughts than this...as do i but i currently lack the energy to write them.... Evryone did a brilliant job with the Spike review...so get to it...

[piratesrhot]

Anya is such an interesting character. I like her the most in season 5 when she starts working at the Magic Box. She is so funny.

Selfless is really sad. It's great to see Anya's backstory, though. I love the Aud stuff and when Olaf is chasing the townspeople. I found it interesting that Buffy had considered that one day she might have to kill Anya. She has to think about things the others would never even consider. I liked that she brought up that she was willing to and did kill Angel. Also, about what Xander said that Willow had said in Season 2. That was great!

I liked the added song to go along with OMWF. I also liked seeing her really evil, when her and Halfrek are drinking after killing all those people.

I feel so bad for Anya at the end of the episode, though, and I wish we could have gotten to see more of her in season 7 than we did. She did sort of come to know what she wanted at the end, but she could have grown more before she got killed. There just wasn't enough time that season.

[Alyrenee]

For me this episode is a great set up for three characters....obviously we have Anya...trying to regain her former vengeance demon glory but finding that its not as much fun as it used to be...she discovers she's more human than she though. And she then realizes that she has no clear sense of who she is. She has always let someone else define her. We have Spike...still batsh*t in the basement of the high school who has lost himself and his mind after being ensouled..and driven crazier still by the taunting first. Then we have Willow...recently returned from her flaying spree...trying to get back in the scooby swing of things. The situation with Anya is especially difficult for her since it wasn't too long ago that she was the one Buffy might have to kill.

The thing that bugs me in this episode is Buffy...she is really self-righteous i think. It seems like there is a big double standard here...any evil creature buffy has slept with is allowed to live...yet Anya needs to die no arguments about it.

I have to give major props to Drew Goddard. This was his first stint as a buffy writer and the episode is chock full of references to past seasons...the best being the dialogue about Xander telling Buffy to kick Angel's butt and Willow saying, "I never said that..."

[shondrasu]

I was just remembered that scene where Aud was playing with the bunnies before Olaf got home. It's funny that she is so frightened of bunnies now. Do you think maybe the bunnies got into that troll potion and gave her a good fright??? lol


I agree about Buffy's double standard with Anya but I think her attitude was preparing us for her no nonsense leading that followed her "scooby gang" mutiny.

[Alyrenee]

Yeah but then she looks like a HUGE hypocrite when folks want to kill Spike for killing like a dozen people later in the season...and she protects him...

[CowboyGuy]

LMAO...I NEVER have the energy to post long winded stuff either haha.

Anyway of Season 7, this episode is one of the best! I really like the flashbacks best, as we never got that much insight into Anya's life. It set up the rest of the season as well regarding Buffy's newfound "attitude" (which I hated), as well as giving us throwbacks to past seasons..

I really liked the line about "kick his ass for me". It shows that must have bothered Buffy subconsciously for FIVE YEARS!! I loved that.

I have no words to express "I'm The Mrs." that is my favorite part of the ep for sure. It's fantastic!

[Jsebold87]

As many people know "Selfless" is my absolute favorite Buffy episode. I love that we finally get more of a backstory on Anya. I'm a fan of flashbacks, so naturally I loved the ones that were shown in this episode. My favorite probably being the Sweden flashback of her Aud days. It's so funny when Olaf is chasing the townspeople around.

I have a theory on her bunny hate, but it's really hard to express into words, so bear with me. I think that she relates her love of bunnies to her love of Olaf. So when Olaf cheated on her with a lowly bar matron, her love turned into hurt and anger, and she associatied that bad relationship with bunnies. As you can tell in the Sweden flashback scene she used to love bunnies, she had lots of them all over in their home, I just think she regards them as a sign of her bad relationship and being hurt and therefore she's afraid of them now. Does that make any sense?

I'm not too fond of Buffy in this episode at all. I do realize that because she is the slayer she needs to make hard decisions sometimes, but she really does look like a hypocrite (like Aly points out) when she doesn't kill Spike in the later episodes when he actually poses a huge threat to the group. She did kill Angel for the greater good in season 2, but not Spike...

I also really like the reference of "kick his ass" in the episode too. That pissed me off when Xander made that up too, I was happy to see that finally addressed.

All in all, I really like that Anya comes full circle in this episode, that she finally regrets what she has done. And it shows a lot that she was willing to give up her life to rectify her wrongs in the frat house. That's the moment that made me actually really love the character of Anya. The first time I saw that episode it really made me think differently about her. Before that Willow had always been my favorite character, after that, it changed to Anya.

-Jess

[nmcil]

shondrasu said:

I was just remembered that scene where Aud was playing with the bunnies before Olaf got home. It's funny that she is so frightened of bunnies now. Do you think maybe the bunnies got into that troll potion and gave her a good fright??? lol


I agree about Buffy's double standard with Anya but I think her attitude was preparing us for her no nonsense leading that followed her "scooby gang" mutiny.

This episode, as an earlier post states, is one very much of contrasts and the status of three major characters, all who Lost the sense of "self." They are now on the path to redifining who they are. Not only did they rediscover themselves but all three were major heroes at the conclusion of the series, their new knowledge of "self" allows them to Live Out their "Better Self" by finding what was truly strong to their basic characters.

Anya finds her humanity by actually fighting for and understanding that human beings will fight for their freedom. Willow finds her strength back in Magic but with control and Spike, I my opinion, the most significant of all the Buffyverse characters, finds his Heart and Spirit, his inner self-made and self-discover God; the god that lives in each human. Not an imposed God, but the force that allows people to find within themselves what is needed to become a positive force for good in this world.

Another contrast that is also very important is the switch of roles played by Buffy and Xander - While Xander was always on the side of "Kill Evil Demons and All Vamps are Evil" - when his Anya is a stake (sorry, how could I resist) he wants The Slayer not to dispense Justice - he has done a complete turn-about. The early season of Buffy's mercy for Angel, which for Xander was all so very wrong, is now one of Buffy's mercy for Anya. Xander now wants the mercy that he would have denied, and did deny, to Angel.

I loved this episode - it was indeed one of the saddest ever because it showed us Anya in such bittersweet moments - moments of lost hope and lost love and so much dispair - and it also showed us Xander learning a very hard lesson about life and mercy and all the gray areas he often ignored.

Buffy as general was also being introduced - but with the ironic twist that was to come at the end - the contrast of Buffy showing mercy to Spike and in doing so saving the world. Both Buffy and Spike start and complete their mythic heroes journey of Return of Boon and Change The World. And isn't Mercy and Justice what the real lesson is all about? The metaphor of The Buffyverse is all about our real world and what our real world, life the Buffyverse needed, was to find mercy and empathy for your fellow man and the other life forms.

[Alyrenee]

yeah this is all awesome stuff guys...thanks for doing my work for me! Cheers!

[xmadxscientistx]

I like Jess's Bunny theory, I think it psychologically would work.

Of course we all know Anya as a woman of adaptation and transition. She was a big fan of communism when she thought it would work, and when she found something else that worked better to her advantage, she changed. She loved being a vengeance demon, and then when she discovered she didn't like it anymore, she changed. She thought humans were all manner of lowly things, but when she discovered they weren't, she changed. Anya evolves to survive throughout her lifetime, and she thrives right up until the end.

[ilovewillow]

alyrenee said:

Yeah but then she looks like a HUGE hypocrite when folks want to kill Spike for killing like a dozen people later in the season...and she protects him...

Yeah, but Spike never had free will, Anya did. I don't think Selfless demonstrated Buffy's double standards, IMO the bottom line is that when it came to the crunch she did kill Angel. So I don't think her sleeping with him affected her decision or the fact that she has a job to do.

[Bennyboi]

Selfless is definately one of my fave episodes of Season 7... There was so much we didn't know about Anya's past that are finally told in flashbacks and the present... I love how her character has evolved from being quite a scared new human girl to a strong, brave woman. Loved the musical flashback as it showed how much she was looking forward to life with Xander and what that meant to her... Top work from Drew Goddard and thank you for bringing us such a great episode. Also, I hated Buffy in this episode... I agree about the thing with Spike and not killing him... It's disgusting...

[kittyfantastico]

I just rewatched Selfless. I think what's really missing is that Xander and Buffy should have had this conversation years ago. All the times Xander said hurtful things to Buffy about her relationships with Angel and Spike, and meanwhile he's dating someone who's killed far more people than they have, and not only has no regrets about it but chatters about it when making smalltalk. They should have had a conversation about the double standard there already. Why is it ok for Xander to love Anya, who STILL thinks vengeance is fine and dandy, but its not ok for Buffy to love Angel when he has a soul, or to sleep with Spike when he's been helping them and has even withstood torture to save them?

Buffy definitely also has a double standard about who can be killed without a thought and who can't. The whole human vs not seems more and more like unfair racism as the show goes on and demons are shown to have different characters. But they needed to talk about this years and years before. Their conversations in this episode ring false because it sounds like its the first time they've talked about something that has really been one of the most important things in both their lives for years.

Anyway, it was mean of Buffy to announce she had to kill Anya without giving Xander a say, but he's been quite a jerk about her loves in the past-- maybe subconsciously she wanted him to see how it felt.

[Greer]

Feb 15, 2009 18:30:24 GMT -5 kittyfantastico said:

Anyway, it was mean of Buffy to announce she had to kill Anya without giving Xander a say, but he's been quite a jerk about her loves in the past-- maybe subconsciously she wanted him to see how it felt.

I think that's an interesting thought, and whether or not Buffy intentionally meant to do that, I think that it was warranted. I think that the conversation that they had regarding the whole 'kick his ass' was long overdue. I wish that the conversation could've been longer and little more in-depth. Ever since that happened in S2, I've always wondered what Buffy would've done if she knew what Willow was doing. Would she have been able to stop Angelus in time? Perhaps. I think she would've focused her attention more on stopping him than wasting time taking out a few mild vamps that were guarding (and quite badly, I might add) the perimeter.

Anya had free will in this situation. Yes, I do believe that Buffy does tend to bend the rules when things are more in her court, but there is a difference between Anya and Spike/Angel. Anya chose her fate many years ago, and Angel/Spike were unwillingly thrust into theirs. Angel didn't control his change into Angelus, and Spike was being controlled by The First when he returned in S7. I believe that Buffy was a little hasty in this situation, and I do think she should've waited. She waited it out with (dark) Willow as long as she could've, and she fought her but I don't believe that she wanted to come to the decision of killing her that quickly. Anya needed to be controlled but not killed right away. I believe that if they had tried all alternative avenues and there was no proper resolution, then Buffy would've had to eventually kill Anya. But how would she have done it? Anya didn't die in a proper battle, so that is a whole different story/what-if/possibility that would have to be strategized.

I do enjoy this episode, it's one of my favorites of S7. I love the Aud/Anya backstory, the pain that she expresses (still) towards Xander, the conversation about Angelus, and the fact that it's still the core Scoobies that are involved before the little runts...ehh, i mean Potentials... come running into Sunnydale.

It's an excellent episode, one of the strongest in S7. I just wish it could've been a little longer.

[henzINNIT]

Nearing the end of the season's great start in my opinion. It really tackled a lot of problems with each character, everyone getting moments and beats, so it's great but also serves to highlight how muddy the later half of the season gets when the fuzzy major plot starts. This is further shown by the set up of Halfrek's sacrifice and the "pain" that's to come, which went nowhere after a segment was cut out of CWDP.

Great Anya centric episode; definately a massive character study for her. It's pretty much the end of the Anya character sadly, she may as well have been written out after this.

[Saturn 5]

Was saving this for the rewatch but what the hell

Selfless

The Good;
All the swedish scenes are just hysterical. The spider is truly terrifying (Buffy shows it that she's the REAL black widow) and D'Hoffryn and Halfyrek are excellent as ever. Emma looks wonderful in her dress and we have a wonderful musical number from her. Also love Dawn's advice for her.

The Bad;
Not much, pretty much all brilliant

Best lines;
"Your hips are small. Like a Baltic woman from a slghtly more arid region" ties with "Pelt him with fruits and various meats" and just ahead of the old Scooby favourite "Sitting right here". What a shame that they dropped the gag about D'Hoffryn staring at the slaughtered Frat boys and telling someone to call Maxim and cancel 12 subscriptions (especially as nearly all the Buffy girls appeared in Maxim at one time or another?).

Wheldon Cliches;
Character death; yep, byebye Halfyrek, guess she and Spike will never know now? Actually her death is SO clever and shocking, the last thing your expecting
Shot;
Tied up; remarkably with all the webbing about, no
Knocked out; yep, Xander by the spider
Women good/men bad; actually here Anya is the villainess although she does get cheated upon by Olaf

Questions and observations;
So great that eps like this and Disharmony, Superstar etc can take bit players and make then the star of the show, it's just wonderful. Personally thought that Xander's big secret from Becoming pt2 was going to be revealed here but it isn't, you wonder if it ever will be? Then again, another point against Normal Again, things happen in the Buffyverse that she not only doesn't know about but never finds out about.
5/5, no question about it

[kittyfantastico]

I'm still not sure Buffy understands what Xander really did when he said "kick his ass" in Season 2. That could be seen as a big betrayal, and its something they should talk about.

Actually its amazing that Buffy and Xander have stayed friends for all these years, given how much they disrespect each other's choices and how harsh they can be when stressed.

[Greer]

I have to agree with kittyfantastico. I always see Xander going all "anti-Buffy" when it's her relationships or choices in regards to battle or men. I just always feel like he does a lot of mean/wrong things to her and yet she's still his friend. But that's just my opinion that he's a crappy friend to her a lot of the time.

I also agree that she doesn't really realize the brevity of the situation in which he told her "kick his ass". That'll be something that bothers me about the Buffyverse forever.

[kittyfantastico]

Hee, you might want to look up brevity. I think you meant gravity. ;-)

[Greer]

ha ha, yea I think that's what I meant. You know!