Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Discuss Their Favorite Television Show (Smart Pop series) (37 page)

For instance, Dawn’s insertion into the story reshapes the dominant reality of the
Buffy
verse, thereby situating every episode after that one
in a parallel universe. Dawn’s arrival retroactively alters the
Buffy
verse’s past as well as its present, so that the changed past becomes the “real” past. The fact that the audience remembers a different history does not invalidate the reality of the “new” past within the universe of the series. By all criteria the characters can apply, including confirmation from other people in the external world (with a few exceptions to be discussed below), their memories reflect objective fact. Moreover, the parallel worlds briefly experienced by the characters possess objective reality. I maintain that they do not exist solely in the characters’ minds. They exist alongside the dominant reality, with no necessarily compelling reason to privilege that timeline over the alternate ones. By their existence, they foreground the malleability of the universe inhabited by the
Buffy
characters.

As mentioned, each of the
Buffy
verse alternate realities creates a parallel world through some relatively minor “alteration” in the dominant reality as the characters know it. Events in postseason five episodes and events in “Superstar” (4-17) feature one change and its consequences integrated into an otherwise unchanged timeline. After the nullification of Jonathan’s spell in “Superstar” (4-17), the characters remember the events (at least dimly), and actions taken during the period of altered reality have consequences in the restored dominant timeline. “The Wish” (3-9) also begins with a single change and explores its consequences, but Cordelia’s visit to that reality occupies no time in the dominant reality. With the reversal of her wish, she returns to the instant when she made it, and neither she nor Anyanka remember the alternate world. “Doppelgangland” (3-16) later suggests that the world spawned by Cordelia’s wish has an independent existence on a separate dimensional plane. As for Buffy’s alternate life in “Normal Again” (6-17), it occupies a space-time completely distinct from the dominant timeline and thus can claim the status of a true parallel universe.

It may be objected that “Superstar” (4-17) and the entire sequence of events after the first episode in season five do not occupy alternate universes, but the original universe with altered memories. This objection, however, makes an unwarranted distinction between perception and reality. The audience, standing outside the
Buffy
verse, is aware of both realities, old and new. To the characters, though, the old reality does not exist and never has existed. In the context of the respective episodes, Buffy has always had a sister named Dawn, and Jonathan has always been a superhero. As far as any practical effects are concerned,
the world as they perceive it in the present and remember it in the past is the only reality. On an emotional level, they idolize Jonathan and love and protect Dawn even after they become intellectually convinced of the magical alterations that have produced these situations. That perception and reality are, in practical terms, indistinguishable, is particularly highlighted by “Normal Again” (6-17), as discussed below.

Thus we find no valid distinction between the world as perceived by the characters and as it “really is.” Particularly when applied to the past, this dichotomy becomes meaningless. If a character’s own memory and the consensus of his or her companions’ memories recall the past in a certain way, and if all external sources that can be checked confirm this recollection, in what sense can this remembered past be considered “not real”? Although as viewers we assume the dominant
Buffy
verse timeline in “Normal Again” (6-17) to be real and the asylum experiences delusional, within the world of the episode neither realm can be privileged over the other. Similarly, the characters’ current memories of a Sunnydale and a Summers household that include Dawn are neither less nor more “real” than the previous, and now erased, memories of a Dawnless world were during the period before Dawn’s advent. The various magics that create the parallel worlds retroactively rewrite reality. The term “rewrite” is deliberate, since the fluidity of the Buffyverse’s reality draws attention to its fictional nature. After all, the dominant reality of the
Buffy
verse is, in what we call the “real world,” only the invented setting for a television series, and “rewriting” is precisely what the writers of the series did at the beginning of season five.

Each of the three alternate worlds considered here—found in “The Wish” (3-9)/ “Doppelgangland” (3-16), “Superstar” (4-17), and “Normal Again” (6-17)—comes into existence (or, possibly, the characters simply become aware of its existence) through the force of desire. In each case, one character’s will finds expression in an altered reality. And, in each case, a relatively small shift in the dominant reality causes an alternate world to branch off at the point of the change. In the world of “The Wish” (3-9), Buffy is still the Slayer, but she operates in Cleveland instead of Sunnydale. “Superstar” (4-17) alters the personality and biography of Jonathan, while leaving all other aspects of reality unchanged except insofar as Jonathan’s transformation affects them. “Normal Again” (6-17) introduces Buffy to the timeline that would have unfolded if she had remained in the institution where she spent a
brief period as a patient right after learning of her destiny. We may note that the outside world, not just Sunnydale alone, reflects the repercussions of these changes. In Cordelia’s “bizarro” realm, Giles telephones Buffy’s Watcher in Cleveland, and Buffy travels to Sunnydale from there. In “Superstar” (4-17), Jonathan has coached the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team, starred in
The Matrix
, and invented the Internet, actions that must certainly affect the world as a whole. The reshaping of the past along with the present does not change Sunnydale alone. As for “Normal Again” (6-17), we see none of the alternate reality outside the mental ward; however, a world in which either (1) demons and monsters do not exist, or (2) Buffy has not embraced her destiny of fighting the monsters, would be a radically different place from the dominant reality of the
Buffy
verse.

The role of desire/will in evoking the alternate reality is most obvious in “The Wish” (3-9), when Cordelia wishes Buffy had never come to Sunnydale, and in “Superstar” (4-17), when Jonathan works an augmentation spell to transform himself into “a sort of paragon, the best of everything.” The transformed reality of “Normal Again” (6-17), however, also expresses desire, but in a less direct way—Buffy’s yearning to be “normal,” an ordinary girl, a wish demonstrated on many occasions, such as her tryout for the cheerleading squad and her campaign for Homecoming Queen. As Dawn accuses, “It’s your ideal reality, and I’m not a part of it” (“Normal Again,” 6-17). Willow later recognizes the same unacknowledged desire: “You’re trying to sell me on the world. The one where you lie to your friends when you’re not trying to kill them? . . . And insane asylums are a comfy alternative?” (“Two to Go,” 6-21). The alternate timeline Buffy imagines (or possibly accesses) as a result of the demon’s venom gives her back her parents as well as a stunted version of a normal life. In that place/time, she does not have to fight monsters, her parents are alive and together, and, as an only child with a serious illness, she has their full attention.

Buffy’s “shadow” (in the Jungian sense, a repressed or neglected aspect of the self) appears in at least two guises in this episode. In the mental ward, we see Buffy as the ordinary girl she has, on one level, always longed to be. Ironically, in this “normal” world where demons do not exist and the Summers family unit remains unbroken, Buffy herself is normal only in the sense of having no superhuman powers. Her shadow self, a helpless, terrified schizophrenic, is far from the conventional definition of “normal.” Within the dominant reality of Sunnydale as we know it, Buffy’s shadow expresses itself in the outbreak
of violence against her friends. It seems likely that she harbors repressed resentment against them for bringing her back from Heaven. In the context of the alternate reality of the mental ward, the asylum itself fills the role of Heaven. The doctor reminds Buffy: “Last summer, when you had a momentary awakening, it was them [her friends] that pulled you back in” (“Normal Again,” 6-17). As Willow later taunts her, “The only time you were ever at peace in your whole life is when you were dead” (“Two to Go,” 6-21). In the
Buffy
verse dominant reality, Buffy was in Heaven during that period of “peace”; in the alternate reality, she was in the asylum, momentarily “awakened” and, presumably, happy in the awareness of her parents’ presence and love. Her covert hostility against the Scoobies for dragging her out of this “peace” finds an outlet in her attempt to kill them.

Another incarnation of Buffy’s shadow appears in “The Wish” (3-9), Buffy as she would have become without the guidance of Giles and the friendship of the Scoobies. This alternate-world Slayer, hardened and cynical, unable to “play well with others” (“The Wish,” 3-9), foreshadows Faith, even in her clothing style, although without (as far as we can tell) Faith’s blatant sensuality. Survival and destruction consume all other facets of this Buffy’s personality. The bizarro realm also displays the shadow selves of Willow and Xander (whose personalities and mannerisms, interestingly, parallel those of Drusilla and Spike, who apparently never visited Sunnydale in this timeline, where the Master still rules). The bizarro-world Willow appears deliberately constructed to embody the extreme opposite of the gentle, shy girl familiar to viewers. Vamp Willow’s foreshadowing (in “Doppelgangland,” 3-16) of dominant-world Willow’s later coming out as a lesbian is, of course, obvious and often noted. As the dark side of Willow, however, her vampire incarnation also foreshadows her embrace of evil at the end of season six. The incarnation of a character’s shadow is displayed most explicitly in “Superstar.” When Jonathan transforms himself into a “paragon,” Giles explains, “In order to balance the new force of good, the spell has to create the opposing force of evil, the worst of everything” (“Superstar,” 4-17). As in
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
, an attempt to suppress the negative aspects of humanity only makes them break out more powerfully. Jonathan’s augmentation spell unleashes a force of evil that literally shadows him. The weakness suffered by Jonathan when Buffy attacks the monster confirms that the creature is the rejected part of himself. Therefore its destruction causes the world to revert to its dominant-reality status.

In each of these alternate universes, at least one person realizes that reality has been manipulated, that something is “wrong.” In “The Wish” (3-9) Cordelia, as maker of the wish, and Anyanka, as granter of it, know the world has changed. Adam, the Initiative’s demonic cyborg, recognizes in Jonathan’s reshaped universe: “None of this is real. The world has been changed. It’s intriguing, but it’s wrong” (“Superstar,” 4-17). Why does Adam alone remain unaffected by Jonathan’s spell? His explanation—“I’m aware. I know every molecule of myself and everything around me”—is unconvincing. Perhaps some aspect of his unique status as a demon-machine hybrid renders him immune to magic, at least of this kind. This possibility, however, only provides a rationale for the commentator role he fills as the audience’s representative within the story, aware (like the viewers) of both realities, original and transformed. In my opinion, the audience does not need a character to perform this function, since, just as with the arrival of Dawn, we can hardly avoid noticing the transformation of reality.

As for the overarching shift in the dominant reality, the rewriting of
Buffy
verse history catalyzed by the advent of Dawn, certain people recognize her as “not real.” This recognition comes from the brain-damaged and the mentally ill, including Joyce Summers when her brain tumor grows out of control. An impaired mental state, apparently, confers resistance to the magic used by the monks who transformed the Key into Buffy’s sister and altered everyone’s perception accordingly. Unlike Adam’s immunity to Jonathan’s spell, which remains unexplained and leads nowhere, this recurring theme of mental derangement illuminates the issue of perception versus reality. The few people who know the “truth” in each of these alternate realities represent a minority view. Those who deny Dawn’s reality are literally insane. Anyone who, in “Superstar” (4-17), spoke up to insist that Jonathan did not star in
The Matrix
or invent the Internet would be dismissed as delusional. In “Normal Again” (6-17), Buffy’s belief in demons and her own Slayer destiny marks her as mentally ill in the alternate reality, but in the dominant reality of the
Buffy
verse we know, her growing belief that Sunnydale and her friends do not exist manifests itself as a mental breakdown. If “reality” can be defined in postmodern style as “consensus reality,” those who contradict the consensus by denying the Master’s control of Sunnydale, Jonathan’s heroic achievements, or Dawn’s relationship to Buffy must be victims of delusion.

What evidence do we have for and against the objective existence of each of these parallel worlds? If every possible change in the course
of events can cause a separate timeline to branch off and develop according to the logic of its own history, an infinite number of alternate worlds can come into existence, each objectively “real” in its own dimension. This concept appears, of course, in many science fiction novels, such as Robert Heinlein’s
Number of the Beast
, in which even imaginary universes—every one ever conceived—have concrete existence on their own dimensional planes. It first appears that the bizarro realm of “The Wish” (3-9) is only an altered Sunnydale warped by Anyanka’s magical response to Cordelia’s desire. As Larry succinctly evaluates the situation, “The entire world sucks because some dead ditz made a wish?” The premise seems to be that the bizarro world simply replaces the dominant reality. Anyanka’s assertion to Giles, “This is the real world now” echoes bizarro-world Buffy’s flat declaration, “World is what it is. We fight. We die.” “Doppelgangland” (3-16), however, complicates this assumption. Anya appeals to her demonic patron to “fold the fabric of time.” Yet, when Willow joins Anya in the abortive spell and glimpses the bizarro realm, she says, “That wasn’t just some temporal fold, that was some weird Hell place.” This remark gives the first hint that the alternate reality has an objective existence in a parallel dimension alongside the dominant reality as we know it. Vamp Willow’s physical arrival in dominant-world Sunnydale, in my opinion, confirms this hint. The tangible existence in the “real world” of a character from another timeline suggests that both worlds exist simultaneously.