Is Buffy Already DEAD

[buffybot38]

So i guess we have all seen the episode Normal Again where Buffy sees herself in a insttution but which world was actually real maybe Buffy actually Died in that hospital and what we have seen from then is just her never ending dream or her version of heaven. Because the way the episode was left opened it seemed that the hosital world was real and this world was the dream because i wouldent leave it to Joss that after the end of season Nine it all shifts to the world were buffy died

[Beaumonde]

she didn't die in the hospital

Joss left the ending open for the audience to interpret it how they wanted
i don't like thinking that mental institute Buffy is actually what's really happening, and that everything we've seen is just made up in some crazy girls mind

[Midnight Butterfly]

You never know.
The episode was left like that for fans to believe what they choose.
Joss made it so that both could be true, its up to you to choose which one you prefer really.

[tkts]

The rest of the show militates pretty strongly against that interpretation. If everything on the show happened in Buffy's mind, couldn't we expect every scene to be told from her perspective, and for nothing to happen without her presence? Instead, we get frequent scenes from the POVs of Williow, Xander, Anya, etc., without Buffy's presence or knowledge. Plus "Angel," an entire show full of events happening in the same universe of which Buffy is only sometimes aware.

[Erica]

Sometimes I like thinking that the entire show is made up in Buffy's mind & she's always in the mental hospital, only 'cause it's interesting. Lol.

I completely agree with tkts though. If it were that way, Buffy would be even crazier than she seems, making up all that stuff about Gunn and Fred. I know insane people can do some pretty...insane things, lol, but I find it hard to believe she'd be able to think of all the events of Buffy AND Angel in her mind.

Even though sometimes it's fun to think it's all a lie (for me anyway, lol), it does kinda suck. I'd be mad if on Buffy's 20th anniversary, Joss announced, "It was all a lie. None of it happened. It was all a crazy girls' thoughts."

[Daphne_Moon]

The rest of the show militates pretty strongly against that interpretation. If everything on the show happened in Buffy's mind, couldn't we expect every scene to be told from her perspective, and for nothing to happen without her presence? Instead, we get frequent scenes from the POVs of Williow, Xander, Anya, etc., without Buffy's presence or knowledge. Plus "Angel," an entire show full of events happening in the same universe of which Buffy is only sometimes aware.

I'm not arguing with you here in the sense of saying "You're wrong", it's just I personally never agreed with that reasoning behind the fact that the hospital was the lie. Because we have to accept, regardless, that these are all characters in a TV show so as it's purpose in the TV show we are seeing different scenes with different characters from different perspectives because we're watching it upon a screen. And well, complicated storylines are needed to entertain us.
But if we consider the world to be real and not for our entertainment then Buffy would only know what she would see and experience first hand and she would only ever see the consequences of something that happened "off-screen" or what a person involved told her. (I hope that made sense). So if the show was real and not a show at all then it's entirely plausible that she could really just be imagining it all from a mental hospital.

I realize that was a ramble and really, really hope it was comprehendable.

[Angel Beast]

To me I view it as a flashback to Buffy Omnibus vol. 1 and the story Slayer Interrupted.

[Saturn 5]

Doesn't die at the end of Normal Again, Asylum Buffy goes catatonic.

1001 reasons why Buffy can't be a mad girl in an asylum, things happen in the Buffyverse that she never knows about. She makes contemporary pop culture references she could never have heard of if she was shut off from the outside world in her delusion. In weight of the world she goes catatonic within her catatonia?

Basically 3 theories towards this;

1. Sunnydale is real and asylum Buffy is just her delusion caused by the nerds drugging her

2. Asylum Buffy is real and Sunnydale is her delusion. Therefore the end of Chosen where Sunnydale is destroyed and Faith tells Buffy she'll have to live as a normal person is actually her waking up sane again in the asylum and resuming her real life. She becomes a successful author of stories based on her delusion which are turned into a TV series. And calls her children (and Hank and Joyce's beloved grandchildren) Dawn, Willow, Faith, Rupert and Alexander.

3. They're BOTH real and Sunnydale Buffy and Asylum Buffy are somehow linked between their realities. So post-Chosen Asylum Buffy is sane again and returns to her normal life but still dreams of Sunnydale Buffy and writes the comics based on her adventures.