Most of the universe we can fathom is based on dichotomies, opposing pairs of attributes such as light and darkness, life and death, or good and evil. But it’s no secret that what might have seemed to us as belonging to one category can easily switch to the other… and the other way around. And that’s because OUR interpretation of what is good and what is evil makes the whole difference between one and the other.
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Whedon forces us to question the traditional concepts of right and wrong, and good and evil, right from the start. In going against the tide, he creates a remarkably convincing copy of reality in which monsters of all sorts walk among us, only to be fought and opposed by the most unlikely kind of hero – a heroine. The legendary Slayer, meant to fight against all forms of evil, finds help and support in none other but a tormented vampire – a former representative of evil who has turned good not out of choice but out of a punishment (talk about reversing the traditional models!). When this character leaves the show, she gets help from a special operations soldier who seems to be the very essence of good – except that, unbeknownst to even him, he is not. In the fifth season, when Whedon raises the stakes and increases the drama to the point where it is almost unbearable, one character who is on the side of light, Dawn (amazing name, in this context), turns out to be the very key to the world’s most horrible evils. Last but not least, the character who is trying to get its hands on this key is both a cruel, blood-spilling goddess and a tender-hearted, well-meant human doctor… both trapped in the same body.
But the most amazing sample of Whedon’s genius in playing with the concepts of good and evil comes in the seventh season, along with the violent death of a central character. We are now dealing with a very powerful witch, who’s been fighting a difficult battle against her addiction to magic, only to find that all her efforts were turned to dust by one erratic non-mystical bullet. At this point, one of the characters who has been one of the effigies of good, the witch, is overcome by her grief and abandons herself to her enormous powers, at the cost of renouncing her whole humanity and switching sides to the evil. It’s a very strong metaphor of the evil that lays within all of us, and of the things that can trigger it to surface but, even more important, it’s a reminder that not all is as it seems, and that, while any dichotomy will always have two terms, they might sometimes switch places more than once, so that, in the end, it’s not a line we’re walking, but a triangle we’re circling in.
Later edit: I'm about to finish watching the seventh season, and there are two more things I need to say about this film.
One star goes for the way these girls fight! There's enough fighting action in any given episode to keep any man glued to the screen!
And one more star goes for inventivity and trully unexpected turns! Thumbs up for Giles, that's all I'll say!
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