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| Warning: this page contains info about episodes up through season 5 BtVS/season 1 AtS. If you're in danger of being spoiled, proceed with caution. |
Vampires and magic: Besides the ability to make over-night changes in Sunnydale's real estate, Vlad the Impaler is very adept at
Buffy didn't actually *dust* Drac -- she staked AT him, but before she could hit home, Drac "dusted/misted" himself.... he reforms, they play the gag again, and then she says, "I'm standing RIGHT HERE." and the mist moves elsewhere. ...it would be my *assumption* that Drac, seeing that Buffy is no longer interested in being his Dark Princess (bator), went on his gothy way (-mere-, Sep 27 10:30 2000).
Spike calls the Transylvanian Count's magic "showy gypsy stuff", but as we know, Buffyverse gypsies are pretty good with the spells.
Vampire stereotypes: In Parting Gifts, Angel says that vampires-in-coffins is a Hollywood-hack stereotype, but Buffyverse Dracula is responsible for that bit of vamplore. This famous vamp is also the origin of other stereotypes--vampires flying, turning into bats, and showing fangs with out vamp-face. Rich people are weird.
The thrall is gone: Vlad lures Buffy to his castle and convinces her to put down her stake. But she did bring a stake. Part of her can resist him. Indications are, it is her predatory slayer nature that is doing the resisting. Ironically, this was the part of her the Dark Prince wanted to bring out. He kept alluding to her primal power hoping that it would attract her to him, a fellow predator. But it is also the part of her that will not be his victim. Unlike the dutiful Kendra, who died in the grip of Drusilla's hypnotic powers, Buffy finds the strength of resistance in accepting the killer within herself. Dracula thus defeats his own purpose in the very act of seduction. He should have vamped her in her bedroom when he had the chance.
Slayer high-jumping
The sire-ing of vampires: When Buffy feeds on Dracula's blood, it gives her a rush of predatory power. But why wasn't Buffy turned into a vampire by their fluid-exchange? She wasn't close enough to death from Dracula's bite for his blood to transform her into a member of the living dead.
Vampires: Dracula has three female minions which Giles refers to as "the three sisters" (also called his "brides" in Dracula lore). These women are alluring and prefer male victims whom they seduce, although in a much less subtle way than their Master. They begin an unholy orgy with Giles, but are scared away when Riley shows up to uh, er, save him.
The incantation to start a fire: Willow says, simply, "Ignis Incende" and poof, the barbecue flames ignite. Or maybe not so simple. Getting one element to cooperate means preventing the others from doing the same. Willow claims the sudden down-pour at the beach isn't her fault, but if not, who's is it?
...Dracula's arrival caused the storm. In Bram Stoker's version, the ship in which Dracula traveled was enshrouded by Dracula-caused fog and its arrival heralded by a sudden, violent thunderstorm (lmstraat, 30 Nov 2000 16:31).
Prophecy transpired: Who is Dawn?
Good and Evil in "Buffy vs. Dracula"
Dracula is very definition of temptation-unto-evil. His goal is not simply to turn his victim into a vampire. He wants her to desire that fate. He uses his hypnotic and shape-shifting powers to wedge his way into her world. She submits to his thrall and he bites her, However, his bite doesn't kill her immediately. By the time his victim is close enough to death to be made into a vampire, she longs for it. Buffy would have been the ultimate prize for Dracula had she followed his little seduction script, because she is already a human predator--imagine if she were vamped!
Slayers/Predatory Good: "Do you know what a slayer is?" Buffy asks Drac. His response? "Do you?" Drac's definition goes beyond the "chosen one" concept Buffy is familiar with. He calls Buffy a "killer" (echoing DreamRiley in Restless), and "kindred" and says that her power is "rooted in darkness"--Buffy has the instincts and urges of a predator, even though her natural prey are demons (who are not always evil).
Moral Ambiguity in "Buffy vs. Dracula"
Ever since the gang called on the First Slayer, Buffy has been exploring the primal part of her slayer nature by turning "patrolling" into "the hunt". The difference? A patrol is that thing where she wanders around waiting for trouble to show its demony face. A slow night is a good night when you're patrolling. It means all is well in Sunnyhell. The hunt is an active search and destroy mission--Buffy wants a good slay; she seeks it out and enjoys it. Granted, patrolling has sometimes turned into "the hunt" in the past. And that's sort of very the point--Buffy has a predatory nature in her, always did. But its darkness scares her--it is, after all, the urge to destroy. And while her urge is to destroy evil things, she knows all too well it could be used to serve evil as well
After feeling close to useless for a year, Giles decides leave the adult slayer and her research- and magic-capable friends and return to England. However, Buffy's having issues with her slayer nature. She needs someone with a unique understanding of slayers, slayer history, and herself in particular to help her. And there is no one better qualified than him.
Drac's thrall turns Xander into a Renfield-like puppet. In Drac lore, Renfield is a madman who devours birds, insects and other animals whole. His goal is to "absorb as many lives as he can." When Renfield meets Dracula, he admires the vampire's blood-sucking lifestyle and becomes his devoted human minion. But Xander doesn't want to be anyone's butt-monkey.
| Prophecy transpired: The mysterious younger "sister" who appears in this episode is the "little sis" from the first Buffy/Faith dream in TYG (also mentioned in DreamTara's warning to Buffy to "be back before dawn" in Restless). And no, you didn't miss anything, and neither did Joyce and Hank Summers. Buffy has been an only child up until now. Dawn comes from some place else entirely. |  |
According to one of the staff writers, everyone will behave as if Dawn has been around since Season One/Episode One. ...When I watched the intro scene [at the end of DvsB], Buffy seemed surprised at finding Dawn, then there was some light effect followed by Joyce's suggestion. Buffy then reacted as many big sisters would (wolfguard, Sep 26 22:16 2000).
The only people who question Dawn's presence are Buffy and a Crazy Lunatic Guy that Dawn encounters on the street. He says "I know you. Curds and Whey. I know what you are. You don't belong here." The statement appears in the old children's rhyme:
Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet
eating her curds and whey
Along came a spider who sat down beside her
and frightened Miss Muffet away
This is a reference to an even older hint of Dawn's arrival given by Faith in Buffy's 7-3-0 dream from G2:
[BtVS/AtS writer] David Fury says, 'In a dream sequence, Faith refers to Little Miss Muffet, which is a reference to Dawn. It's one of those bizarre things thrown in there. Joss just knew he wanted Buffy to have this relationship that he wasn't able to have prior to it because [Buffy] was an only child' --Cinescape.com
Slayer sense: Buffy is busy finding her new slayer center, and it may be paying off already. She's starting to question Dawn's presence in her life. "I know it's always been this way," she says, referring to Dawn's baby-in-the-family status, "But for some reason, it's really been getting to me lately." No one is paying much attention to Buffy's rants, however, because she's acting like a typical older sibling, annoyed with her sister's behavior.
The Invitation to Vampires: Buffy concludes that Xander and Anya could not have invited vampHarmony into her house because "[o]nly someone who lives here can." In addition, Harmony's invite does not extend to her minions who are within earshot of Dawn's inadvertent invitation. However, one of them does get his hands across the kitchen threshold a bit later when they are nabbing Dawn. This just seems to be a blooper.
The unintended consequences of Magic-store ownership: In a town where magic is power and demons search for every advantage, magic shop owners have a very short life expectancy. Mr. Bogarty and the shop-keeper in Lover's Walk and the Boogedy-boogedy shop keeper in Passion--all dead as a doornail. Giles takes over the store anyway.
The moral ambiguity of Tara
Evil for dummies: VampHarmony
The Metaphysics of "The Replacement"
Toth is the last survivor of the Tothic demon Clan. He wears a hooded black robe to hide the skin hanging from his black skull, and can wield powerful magical devices. But in the end Buffy subdues him and impales him with a sword.
The forging of the ferula-gemina: We are not told the initial steps of this process, but Toth puts a spell on a rod--a black cylinder inscribed with arcane symbols--to create a weapon. The last step involves dipping the rod and his hand into a bubbling cauldron. His pain is the "price with which I purchase the death of the Slayer." The rod emits a bolt of energy. If the bolt hits a person, it creates two entirely independent versions of them. Each individual inherits different traits from the original. Toth wants to separate the human woman Buffy from her slayer powers and heritage. Although the slayer half would be tough to kill, neither half can live without the other. Thus, if Toth killed the weaker Buffy, the stronger slayer would die as well. Giles speculates that when the bolt hit Xander, it separated him into "his strongest and weakest qualities."
Rejoining the Xanders: As Willow explains, the natural state of a person (like Xander) is to be one individual (possibly because the Xanders share the same human soul). Only the spell on the ferula-gemina is keeping them apart. To put them back together, she need only break the spell. The gang light candles and place them on a points of a pentagram which Giles has drawn on the floor. The two Xanders stand side by side in the pentagram. They are each wearing the outfits they had on when the split happened. Willow says
Let the spell be ended
Only one reintegrated Xander remains.
Buffyverse goddesses
Like other warrior demons before him, Toth considers the slayer the ultimate trophy. He is so focused on his mission to find and kill her that he does not bother killing Giles when Giles assaults him.
Good and Moral Ambiguity in "The Replacement"
Will the real Xander please stand up? Fans have been divided for a while about who the real Xander is--the
This debate heated up during the 4th season when it seemed that brave Season 2 Xander had disappeared completely. Some fans even charged that the writers didn't understand Xander's character. This charge assumes that zeppoXander is the undesirable non-Xander while suaveXander is the desirable "real" Xander.
Xander's friends assume zeppoXander is the real Xander--because he knows things about Xander's past, but also because suaveXander is too "forceful and confident." When zeppoXander sees suaveXander living his life better than he does--getting the promotion, the apartment, the girlfriend, the slayer help--he is tempted to hand his life over to him, even though he thinks suaveXander is a demon hypnotizing people into giving him the goodies. But as Giles points out, they are both the real Xander. Neither half is evil, neither half can exist with out the other, and neither half is less valuable than the other.
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Up until now Anya hasn't had to really deal with her mortality. When her head was hit and her shoulder dislocated by a vamp in Real Me, though, this changed. She now realizes that she doesn't have forever. She wants to take control of her life rather than wait for the next stages--the car, the kids, the puppy--to simply happen. With a patient Xander helping her, though, she won't be quite so impatient with her personal development. |
Riley tells Xander that Buffy doesn't love him. Does Buffy love Riley?
No
She's been completely faithful and in all ways a terrific girlfriend, but Riley's said he loves her on several occasions ..but I can't remember her ever replying in kind (Jolly, 11-Oct-00 19:54).
I think she loves him as a friend. She'd die to save him. That doesn't mean a vast and great passion like the one she has/had with Angel (Nimrod13, 12-Oct-00 11:16).
Yes
Although Buffy has never said "I love you" to Riley, it's obvious from her actions that she does. ...What makes us not confess our love?? Fear?? Buffy has every right to be afraid of the love-thing. ...in "Sanctuary," Buffy told Angel that she had someone new in her life, "someone I love" (Heather, 11-Oct-00 22:02)
The good of Riley
The Metaphysics of "Out of My Mind"
Riley: Professor Walsh pumped strength- and aggression-increasing chemicals into all the soldiers. But Riley was her pet project, and he got more of them than anyone else. In April 2000, he quit the Initiative. But his alterations are still there, and are going unmonitored. In October, it finally catches up with him. Riley experiences "hyperadrenal overload." When a human being faces danger or other challenges, adrenaline pushes the body into action. It increases heart rate and muscle strength and decreases awareness of pain and the passage of time. This is fine in small doses, but if it stays at high levels over a prolonged period of time, overworked and strained muscles can wear out. Riley has been experiencing all these symptoms for weeks while in a normal, resting state. Fighting vampHarmony causes him to collapse with a heart attack. The operation to save his life involved (among other things) cutting open his chest where the chip he removed had been implanted.
Altered Realities: The gang is living in the same reality they always have. But their memory and perception of it has been altered by a spell. Their behavior towards Dawn is similar to the reaction towards Jonathan in Superstar. The spell loses its grip on Joyce briefly. She gets dizzy, no longer recognizes Dawn, then collapses. When she recovers, everything is back to the new version of normal. Dawn is more concerned about helping Joyce than she is with the fact that Joyce didn't recognize her. Dawn does not know she doesn't belong any more than they do.
The Tinkered-With Tinkerbell spell: Willow pulls out a bottle and throws it to the floor.
Fiat Lux!
Translation: Let there be light!
A flame fills the dilapidated school hallway with light. Willow has taken a small spell to create fire and made it extra-flamey. But we might wonder, as Tara seems to, whether Willow's desire to become a more powerful witch is making her careless.
Spike's chip
Moral Ambiguity in "Out of My Mind"
The Initiative is allowing Riley to have his own life despite everything he knows (or maybe because of it), but they are keeping tabs on him by tapping his phone. And while Riley is a civilian now, his life is anything but normal. He's still demon-hunting, helping the slayer. But he feels inadequate being Normal Joe Guy, even though Buffy says that's what she wants.
Now she's getting stronger and more skilled, and he is so worried she'll want more from the man in her life that he puts his own life in danger. But does Buffy want more? She argues that if all she wanted was a super-guy, she'd be dating Spike. This argument misses Riley's point however. He's not trying to be simply a super-guy for her, he's trying to be a super good-guy. Like the ex they kept mentioning but never called by name? Although Buffy does not remember it, she was more than willing to be Joe-regular-Angel's girl. And she claims to need Riley. But does she love him?
Spike's secret thing for the slayer isn't so secret any more--at least not to Spike. We know a souled vampire can love a slayer. But Spike doesn't have a soul. Is that significant?
Is Spike's "love" for the slayer more like Angelus' feelings for Buffy, or Spike's feelings for Drusilla?
Spike has both an attraction to and a desire to conquer strong, beautiful women. He is a dual-natured creature, at once both man and demon. And like Angelus, he can't always separate these desires from each other. But in the past, the desire to kill was predominant in the pragmatic Spike. Now, the chip prevents him from killing her and his sexual desire and ability to display tender feelings have come to the forefront. Can Spike love Buffy?
Ethical Quandaries in "Out of My Mind"
De-chip a vamp or refuse and face death?
Initiative doctors aren't known for their high moral standards, but pretend for a moment that you're Dr. Overheiser. Hostile-17 comes to you demanding to be dechipped. What do you do?
You find a third option. The doctor bets that he can bluff his way through the "operation" without VampHarmony getting suspicious. VampHarmony has been "training and stuff" and could subdue a human being who lacks great physical strength and/or fighting skills, so this choice isn't without risk. When VampHarmony turns to put out her cigarette, he plops a penny in the tissue container and says he removed the chip.
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No Place Like Home
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The Key: Before August, 2000, this mysterious entity had no form at all, it was only energy. It existed like that for centuries, protected by an order of Czech monks. One of the monks tells Buffy that "the Key" opens a portal (a door to another realm). Now a malevolent Beast ("Glory") wants the Key. If Buffy doesn't protect the Key, many people will die.
The Monks possess the ability to bend reality. In August, the Beast tried to get the Key from the monks. To protect it, they transformed this energy into a human girl, a form the Beast would not recognize. Then they put the girl, Dawn, into the Slayer's home and gave Buffy and her mother false memories and the physical objects required to back up these memories so that they would think Dawn had always been a member of their family.
...compare Dawn (the key which opens the portal) to what Whistler said in B2: Angel's the key. His blood will open the door to Hell. Acathla opens his big mouth, creates a vortex. Then only Angel's blood will close it. One blow will send 'em both back to Hell" (Dianne, Oct 25 19:56 2000).
Dawn has the false memories as well, and does not know she isn't Buffy's biological sister.
"She still thinks I'm little miss nobody, just her dumb little sister. Boy, is she in for a surprise."
... honestly, what teenager doesn't think that there is more to them then others believe? we all have our secrets, and at least *want* to believe we are special in ways no one knows about (G: Fuzz, Oct 25 14:42 2000)
The Ritual to Incarnate the Key: Three monks sit surrounded by burning candles within a sacred circle inside a monastery temple. They hold their hands out in front of them and enter a meditation. A wind starts up, and then energy flashes in the center of their circle and escapes up out of the temple.
The Dagon Sphere is a centuries-old protective talisman used to ward off an ancient primordial evil which cannot be named. Giles explains that entities that go unnamed are usually objects of deep worship or great fear--in other words, very powerful. It is probably not a coincidence that the Dagon Sphere fell into the hands of the Slayer. The monk who came to Sunnydale arranged this to help protect Dawn.
A Tirer la Courture (pull the curtain back) was developed by a French sorcerer named Cloutier in the 16th century. As Giles explains, when a spell has been cast, it leaves a mystical trace signature (images or other hints of what the spell did) that is not perceptible to the human eye but can be seen while in a special ritual-induced trance. If a person suspects a spell has been cast, they burn incense and sit with a circle of sand meditating until they reach the required state of consciousness.
Buffy performs this ritual to find out who is hurting her mother. After she enters the trance, she leaves the circle and physically walks through her house looking at things. She doesn't see any evidence of spells around her mother. However, the photos of her family appear to snap back and forth, first with Dawn and then without Dawn. Dawn's room snaps back and forth from a teen-aged girl's room to an extra uninhabited room. All Buffy learns from this trance is that Dawn is not a real member of her family.
As far as Dawn causing Joyce's tumor. Didn't the spell Buffy did eliminate that possibility? If there was anything mystical about it wouldn't it have shown up in [Joyce's] "aura"? I thought the whole point of the tumor was to have Buffy up against something over which her Slayer powers are useless. Against which magic is useless (janni, Nov 22 9:49 2000).
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The Beast ("Glory") is a malevolent entity trapped on the Earthly plane in the form of super-strong young woman. Her goal is to get out of our existence as soon as possible. The key (Dawn) is the way out ("Until someone's going to sit down on their tuffet and make this birthing stop!"). The monks are trying to prevent this. One is willing to sacrifice his own life to prevent Glory from finding the key. |
The other distinguishing feature of Glory is her need to feed on the mental energy of humans to preserve her own sanity. Glory assaults two security guards and is responsible for the crazy guy in Real Me. The significance of the night security guard's words, "They get to you through your family," is unclear. What Buffy says is true, though: "Whatever touched this guy, it made him see through what the rest of us are seeing."
Slayer super-durability
Good and Evil in "No Place Like Home"
Buffy
Buffy is supposed to protect the key so they made her a member of Buffy's family, someone Buffy would naturally protect. Buffy has always been very protective of her mother. I believe that she has it within her to be the "big sister" and protect Dawn with the same passion (JennJoy, 25-Oct-00 12:16)
...Both have been forced with a destiny not of their choosing. Dawn may not know it yet, but she has a purpose bigger than being a girl. How precious these moments of innocence must be for her, although only Buffy, who was forced with a burden herself, can see it. Soon, Dawn is going to have to be something more, prolly at the cost of her own life. She's going to need someone who understands that awesome responsibility to help her deal. Who else other that her big sis, and now really so, on a higher level than mere genetics (Wilder, 03-Nov-00 18:34)
The evil of Glory
Moral Ambiguity and Ethical Quandaries in "No Place Like Home"
Dawn is a klutz and a momma's girl and has a tendency to say whatever pops in her head without considering the consequences. Just an annoying baby sis? Not exactly.
...knowing that Dawn was previously pure energy can certainly explain some of her oddities in behavior. ...chances are that monks aren't the best at designing 14 year old girls to begin with and there's a chance that all that energy is a little much for that little package, making for rambunction and foot in mouth moments (Lovely Poet, Oct 25 11:21 2000).
Whatever age Dawn is supposed to be does not change the fact that she is actually only two months old. A baby in need of a mother to care for her (Comteacher, Oct 25 10:09 2000).
When the Monk tells Buffy the truth about Dawn, she protests, "You put that in my house?" They altered her memories, and her mother's, of the last fourteen years. "This is my life," Buffy argues. Is the slayer just being a whiny cry-Buffy? Or does she have a point?
On a purely moral level is it right to manipulate someone's memories in order to protect this energy? I understand the importance and the safety of the key to the degree we have been shown. However was there a better way to have done this. Shouldn't the Slayer have been informed of what her mission was before now? If they could set the key up in her home, messed with everyone's memories, and established physical objects (like a bed for Dawn), why was there no time to give a little background to Buffy? Why wasn't the orb left with the key rather then separated from her? (JennJoy, 26-Oct-00 17:52)
In the end, Buffy accepts the job. Dawn's an innocent helpless human, and that Buffy does know how to protect. And perhaps she's learning something her ex-boyfriend already knows, that he and Buffy "...don't belong to ourselves. We belong in the world, fighting."
Spike and the Slayer
Lei Achs are white-skinned, cat-like demons with long tongues, useful for sucking the bone marrow from weak, sickly humans.
Natural witches are humans whose extraordinary ability to harness mystical forces has been handed down from parent to child. The only clear examples of natural witches we've seen have been Amy and Catherine Madison, and now Tara, her mother, and grandmother. It is therefore possible that this is gender-specific genetic trait passed down from mothers to daughters, but not to sons (i.e., an X-chromosome trait that does not appear on the male 'Y' sex chromosome).
The blind-to-demons spell:
Tara incants:
Blind Cadria, desolate queen, work my will upon them all
Your curse upon them, my obeisance to you.
Then she blows a pink powder at the gang. It travels into each of their faces and makes them blind to any physical demonic entities. Tara does not want them to see what she believes is her "demon heritage", but it makes them blind to the Lei Ach demons, and Buffy cannot see Spike when he comes into the magic shop. When they pan Spike and the Lei Ach from Buffy's point of view, right before she goes into the main store, the back room appears empty. Since vampires are demon hybrids, it's likely it would have made other demon hybrids (such as Doyle) invisible to those under the spell as well.
Reversing the blind-to-demons spell:
Tara incants:
Blind Cadria, lift your veil,
Give evil form, and break my spell.
Buffy's eyes flash and she can see the demon attack Tara.
Spike's chip and Tara's humanity: Spike decides to end the debate about whether or not Tara is fully human by punching Tara in the nose. His chip kicks in and zaps him. Mystery solved? Perhaps: Spike's chip as a "human detector"
Spike wasn't faking it, because Tara could still be seen by the Scooby Gang even after the spell was cast. If she was demon, they wouldn't have seen her - or at least I'm assuming her image would have been screwed up a little if the spell had affected hiding her as a demon. Besides why would Spike want to fake it? He has no real connection to Tara (Hollyn, Nov 8 9:43 2000).
[Tara] is still no more "ordinary" than Willow. She's a ...powerful Wicca, descended from a lineage of women who are gifted magikally, but her energies have been diverted toward an unnecessary end: stopping her "transformation" into a demon. She can now come into her own fully (Raven Munin, Nov 8 13:47 2000).
Sandy the Vampire
Lei Achs are predatory demons, but they have a reputation as warriors as well, which is why Glory recruits them to kill the slayer. One little brotherhood of demons isn't going to stop the Buffster, though.
The good of the gang: Giles, Willow, Xander, Anya and Buffy
Moral Ambiguity and Ethical Quandaries in "Family"
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Tara kept her distance from the gang even after Willow introduced them. At the same time, she worried about not being useful to them. This apparent contradiction comes from Tara's own ambivalence about herself. For years, she's believed that her talent with mystical forces came from the alleged "demon part of her" that she inherited from her mother. Tara's family has controlled the powerful witches in their lineage with this "family myth". Tara was told that at age twenty her "demon side" would reveal itself (as it did for Doyle at age 21), and that when it did, she would use her magic for evil. Why? Well, because demons are evil, aren't they? |
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...Picture a young girl (or boy for that matter) being told each and every day that she (or he) ...Will be evil someday. ...She was in a mentally abusive environment growing up, frightened of what she was to become and apparently loving and following her father out of fear and command. Somehow, she found the strength to escape the abuse and run... to college where she could be educated, to a group where she could be accepted, to a place where she could study her hobbies and live her life as she wished. She found herself and was free from the pain and torment that she must have experienced on a daily basis back home (Little Willow, Nov 8 09:32 2000).
Now her family has come to take her home where they can "control" her, and she doesn't want to go. There is a part of her that does not believe her family's story. But she still worries that she will transform physically into a demon, and she fears the gang's reaction. So she finds a spell to "hide her demon" side. But it has the unintended consequence of making everything demonic invisible to them, including the Lei Ach assassins who are after the Slayer.
As Willow points out, Tara did not intend to hurt them, she was trying only to protect herself. That was the same reason she botched the demon-finding spell with Willow in Goodbye, Iowa. Her only real moral weakness, if it can be called that, was her failure to trust Willow and the gang.
...She was in a panic, and hurried, and didn't think. Like someone who stands on a chair to replace a light bulb and doesn't notice that the chair has rollers.... Maybe the magic is just a tool. But that gives the one who wields it the responsibility to be careful.... Tara was just lucky that no one died. As Willow was in Something Blue. Sometimes you get lucky. Lots of times you don't. ...It's great that Willow and the others would focus on Tara's intentions and her pain and forgive the possible consequences. And that Tara could accept and trust the forgiveness and support, fearful as she was. But if Willow and Tara could (separately) think about it and be more careful of their power, I'd be happier (white wings, Nov 8 20:59 2000).
Mental influence or moral ambiguity? Did Buffy's dad really abandon his family, or is that just how they're remembering it because of the spell? Joyce has made it clear on more than one occasion (Nightmares, Lover's Walk) that the Summers' divorce was a mutual decision based on personal differences between Joyce and Hank and that Hank adores his daughter. Did Hank bail? What does Joss have against fathers?
The moral ambiguity of Spike and Riley
Buffy and Tara's secrets and ...lies?
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