Philosophy and Buffy

[chani]

Yesterday the Baccalauréat, our national exam, started, like every year, with the Philosophy test. Among the topics, there was a text by Malebranche  from De La Recherche de la Vérité (On the Search Of Truth).

 

Sapientis occuli in capite ejus, stultus in tenebris ambulat.

 

The eyes of the wise are in his mind, the demented walks in darkness.

 

And I thought of Buffy.

 

 

In that text Malebranche uses an analogy between sight and discernment (insight) to argue about truth. Most people only use their corporeal eyes to rule their lives while they should use their mind. By doing that they only see through the others’ eyes which means they actually don’t see at all. That’s why the demented are truly blind. I would add, that’s why they aren’t free.

 

In the Jossverse the matter of  sight and insight was recurring. William only wanted to be seen by Cecily, and Dru showed him in the alley that she could see his glory and that effulgent goal he was chasing. BTW there were so many seers in that show!

 

Sometimes you couldn’t trust what your corporeal eyes see. By the way the vampires were supposed to prove that. They looked like the human they they were demons hiding their true fanged face, their game face. But the metaphor could also work the other way round. There could be a man (or a poet!) behind the game face (Angel the Souled One and later Spike the Anomaly). Anyway from the beginning we were told to beware the appearances.

 

Buffy was taught that lesson with Angelus and she learnt to use her mind’s eyes later in A New Man. She was able to recognize Giles behind the Fyarl body, something she pointed out later when she was in Faith’s body.

A spell helped Buffy to overcome the monks’ magic and to see the actual lack of a sister. And in Sleeper she saw Spike hunting but she was able to see the truth about him…unlike Giles the watcher! Giles whose blindness was metaphorically revealed in Something Blue. Yet Giles was supposed to be the mind in Primeval/Restless. Giles couldn’t see because he was confused in season 4. In a way Giles’ blindness came back when he took on his role of watcher again during season 7.

 

Xander is a very good example. He tended to see/witness a lot of things without completely understanding them. He saw Buffy’s stakes in Welcome to the Hellmouth, later he was there in the library and found out about the Slayer, and he was also the one who saw Buffy and Angel in season 3. Xander was THE witness since episode 1. He even witnessed himself in Restless during the sandbox scene. He saw but he was like the demented walking in darkness. He ran from room to room, always ending up in the basement and showing us the whole set, but he was lost in a labyrinth. The labyrinth is the perfect metaphor of  what it means to see only with corporeal eyes. If you don’t use your mind (Ariane’s thread) you’re lost.

 

In season 5, during The Replacement he saw his double without getting the truth about him. He noticed a coin that was pointless and completely missed the truth. Same with the Buffybot in Intervention (“Already got the visual”).. Of course Xander wasn’t the only one who couldn’t tell Buffy apart from the robot. But later in season 6 he displayed his blindness during Gone in Spike’s crypt when he walked in on the shagging couple. In SR he saw the aftermaths of the bathroom scene but didn’t really understand it. Well Buffy didn’t help him for sure.

Xander didn’t really see because he only used his eyes, because he often lived in denial. BTW in Something Blue when facing the Spike/Buffy couple he already asked for that blindness “can I be blind too?”. That flaw was shared by many people in Sunnydale, and above all by Joyce who couldn’t see her daughter as the Slayer despite all the clues, who was fooled by the evil kids in Gingerbread and who chose to stay behind a wall in Restless (that wall called to mind the broken door from School Hard when Joyce tried to make out the outside before buying the official explanation in the end). Yet all those people had potential and could see when they wanted to. The umbrella Buffy got from the students kind clued us. Even Joyce was able to see the truth sometimes, about Spike or when she got that Dawn wasn’t hers.

 

But it’s Xander who had the most obvious journey IMO because he was the eyes that didn't see during a long time. In season 7, Xander started to really see with his mind. Beneath You might be pivotal, and after Selfless Xander was no longer blind. No matter that Caleb took one of his eyes in Dirty Girls. One-eyed Xander could see better, know better nonetheless. And he did see Dawn in Potential when nobody else did.

 

DAWN

Maybe that’s your power.

XANDER

What?

DAWN

Seeing. Knowing.

Of course I could go on and talk about the insane people that could see the Key but 
I shall be quiet now.

Comments

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

The definition was very straightforward: a myth is a "story" that explains the world. So most of them replied something like "This isn't a myth per se, because it doesn't explain anything. We have science to do that. A lot of people do need something to get their mind of things, to step outside of this world and that's whhy we need sttories like this."