It's a Female Thing

Let’s take another look at the classic female journey as portrayed in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The journey begins with the virgin transitions through the “sacred marriage” into the mother and finally, once the wisdom of women is fully absorbed, becomes the crone. As determined in an earlier post, Buffy has passed into the mother stage of the female journey. When I wrote that post, I did not take into consideration the few examples of crone-ness that Buffy had previously displayed for brief periods.

In season 3 especially, there were several example that seemed to portray Buffy in the crone’s role. She had the experience and the discipline that Faith did not and she appeared at times to be passing it on. This would have been the role of the crone, but Buffy’s position in this role never lasted long. Buffy herself was still trying to figure everything out, and a lot of what she did know had to be learned with experience rather than passed down through words. In addition, Faith was not always receptive to her lessons preferring to take the lead as teacher, and Buffy was very willing to accept the role of student until things got to far out of hand and she was thrown into the full acceptance of the mother’s role. This brings us to where she is now, exploring and experimenting with this position as caregiver/protector.

So when will she move to become a true crone? As things stand now, it might not be possible for Buffy to ever fully finish the journey and accept the final stage. I’m not referring to the very real fact that she could die before the chance should present itself; I mean to say that the very nature of the position, passing down wisdom, seems to elude her as well as every slayer before her.

The problem is that a slayer must die before the next is called. Prior to Buffy’s drowning and resuscitation, there could only be one slayer at a time. Each slayer died before she had the opportunity to pass down her wisdom to the next heir of her birthright. This is supposedly the point of the Watcher’s Council, to pass down knowledge and maintain tradition, but there is a problem the Council has overlooked, or perhaps encouraged.

Slayers are women; theirs is a separate journey from the male hero; they pass through different stages; their epiphanies come in different forms, yet the Council is predominantly male. The few females we have heard of were either corrupt or inept and led to the disastrous consequence of a rogue slayer. Men, however, cannot take the place of crone; it is a woman’s job. Giles and the other male watcher’s can never fully understand the position of the slayer and they were not trained for that purpose.

This leaves Buffy without any female role model to look to, without any crone to gain wisdom from that she too might pass into the next stage. Yes, she may die before she has the chance, but the nature of her position dooms her to that fate of death before completion because there is no one for her to look to for guidance in the slayer/female department. Giles provides book knowledge on demons, but he is inept at offering any real training advice, and when it comes down to it, Buffy must face the darkest evils of Sunnydale without him, without anyone. The slayer’s tradition prevents the completion of her journey.