Buffy Anne Summers, aka

Sorry to be so late on this post, folks. All sorts of troubles and projects and deadlines and technical difficulties getting in the way this past week, and you might as well know I have grave doubts that my 8th post will be ready next week. We’ll see, maybe everything going on right now will all fall into place, but it is rather likely to be the week after.

Again, spoiler alert! Continue reading at your own risk if you are not entirely familiar with the show.

Anyway, as I said last time that I would begin this time in medias res, here goes:

Out here in our real world, rankism (a la Robert Fuller) is ubiquitous, and it seems to play a large role in the world of Demonic forces as well, but it is fairly unusual for anyone in the world of Buffy Summers to pull rank, and more unusual to unequivocally respect that rank for very long — and further, when someone has an issue, a concern, or something emotional to communicate, unless there are "secrets" or personal reservations involved, much more often than not, that character will tend to say it with relatively little disregard for rank or for the potential harm, either to themselves or to the cohesion of the group.

In other words, while the characters are all capable of pulling emotional punches, they rarely do so based on any of the standard hierarchies, i.e., in addition to a relative lack of familial relationships, money, gender dominance, social/political status, education, age, intelligence, athleticism, physical stature, survival skills, etc., also play very minor roles in terms of our primary characters’ relationships with one another — and even with most other characters in the outer world. Even the attempts by some characters (Giles, Cordelia, Snyder, Quentin Travers (Harris Yulin) and other members of the Watcher’s Council, Detective Stein (James MacDonald) and the Sunnydale police, etc.) to impose some hierarchy or another (age and education, money and social/political/legal — even mythological — status, etc.) generally come up quite short.

It would be reasonable to object that some of these hierarchies exist, and they do, but they exist only tangentially and superficially.

At the risk of belaboring the point, for example, the subject of money hardly comes up before season six. Even then, it is of significant concern due only to Buffy’s and Dawn’s (Michelle Trachtenberg) circumstances after the death of their mother, Joyce (Kristine Sutherland) — and after Buffy’s own death and resurrection — and even at that, money is a concern only for a short while. In the Buffyverse, with the possible exception of an episode or two, there simply is no "tyranny of money."

And so forth, e.g., in the world of Buffy Summers, the subject of status (social, political and legal) is rather limited, mostly limited to parent/child (or, similarly, Watcher’s Council/Watcher and Watcher/Slayer) relationships — oh and let’s not forget the Principal Snyder/student dynamic — but all such hierarchies are quite malleable, unevenly enforced when enforced at all, and any boundaries implied are (almost) always easily and often crossed.

The only major characters in the world of Buffy Summers that truly can be said to respect hierarchical relationships are Rupert Giles and Riley Finn (Marc Blucas), and neither remains steadfast in that respect, i.e., Giles has already been discussed in this regard, whereas Riley struggles with the hierarchy of "the Initiative" once he becomes involved with the Buffy "family," then breaks away from it altogether, and only goes back to the familiarity of the hierarchy from whence he came as a result of finally leaving Sunnydale and Buffy behind.

Later, when Riley shows up at the Doublemeat Palace unexpectedly (As You Were), Buffy simply takes off her hat and abandons her station, and yet it is clear in subsequent episodes that she still has her job. Of course you may object that’s just because she knows about the secret "meat process" ("It’s a process, they do it to the meat.") — but as insignificant as the observation that she keeps her job may be, for me at least, it is yet another reminder that, time and time again, what many of us would consider to be the normal hierarchical rules don’t usually apply in the world of Buffy Summers, i.e., she ignores the employer/employee hierarchy (and not exactly for the first time) without significant consequence.

Though it does seem to play a significant, though never explicated, role in the world of Demonic forces, not even the subject of religion holds fast in this regard.

If one forgets the metaphorical and takes plot situations literally, one might expect that characters facing death, and far worse, on an almost daily basis would occasionally give religion and religious authority their due, and even more so considering the essential qualities and quasi-religious iconography of the world of Demonic forces. Instead, the subject of God, at least in any monotheistic sense, is rarely broached, and when it is, it is summarily dismissed — for example, in Conversations with Dead People, as when the vampire Holden Webster (Jonathan M. Woodward) asks Buffy of God, "Does he exist? Is there word on that, by the way?" and Buffy replies "Nothing solid."

Clearly, this is in the manner of most fantasy and magical realism, which generally replace religion with enchantment, but it is not so characteristic of the horror genre. It might be an indication of Whedon’s atheism, or that he and his fellow writers are simply smart enough to refrain from swimming in such dangerous waters, but it also serves my point, I think, that it is no exaggeration to contend that there is no tyranny of any hierarchy in the world of Buffy Summers, that is, no hierarchical relationships that prove particularly lasting or significant.

So now that I’ve (probably) overstated my case, what does it mean and why do I think it is important? To find that out, you’ll have to wait for my next related (and quite possibly, belated) post.

Related posts:

1. Buffy Summers & Beyond Good and Evil (6th post)
2. Buffy Summers & Beyond Good and Evil (4th post)
3. Buffy Summers & Beyond Good and Evil (5th post)
4. Buffy Summers & Beyond Good and Evil (the 2nd post)
5. Buffy Summers & Beyond Good and Evil (the 3rd post)