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Families and Buffy Meta
| ONLY CHILD | HAS/HAD SISTER | HAS/HAD BROTHER | UNKNOWN |
| Connor | Buffy | Tara | Anya |
| Buffy | Dawn | Lorne | Darla |
| Fred | Gunn | Andrew | Lilah |
| Spike | Justine | Lindsey | Riley |
| Xander | Angel | Harmony | |
| Willow | Drusilla | Jenny | |
| Wesley | Kennedy | ||
| Cordelia | Lindsey | ||
| Faith | |||
| Gwen | |||
| Groo | |||
| Amy | |||
| Wood | |||
| Kate | |||
| Oz? | |||
| Nina? | |||
| Giles? |
Looking at the only children: First up: children born alone due to prophecy: Buffy is cast as an only child at first to emphasize the loneliness of being Chosen. Both Connor and Groo are children of prophecy as well, but as their Chosenness is genetic, plot-wise they are children who will be desperately alone (maybe that is why Groo is such a goofball. He's just lonely!).
Nina is shown to live with an aunt and a cousin, I think; my guess is this was in some ways to help her to stand out as not just "some girl", but also to cut her off more deeply when she gets bitten. Relationships with aunts and cousins don't read as immediately as important as those with a mother and sister (though they can if the relationships are more established and we found out the aunt had been a mother to Nina, but as it is, it's easier to believe Nina feels lost). Anyway, Nina is not a child of prophecy but she does get singled out in a way not as lonely as a Slayer, but in some ways similar. Gwen might also fall in this category. Lastly, Wood can go in the same bracket, though he is interesting since he is not the Chosen One--his mother was. Still, I think Wood's status as an only child is meant to emphasize Nikki's specialness, not Robin's--she is doomed to die and thus couldn't even live long enough to bear more children if she wished.
Then there are the characters who I think were cast as only children partially to emphasize parental influence. Kate and Wesley both have overbearing fathers who really influence the characters through belittlement and lack of encouragement. Spike's mother is virtually the opposite; in her one living scene we're led to believe she's constantly praising him. This tends to fit somewhat of a pattern in Jossverse: fathers don't express love and mothers do; also, fathers still try to tell you what to do later in life (Kate's, Wesley's, Angel's, Tara's, and possibly Giles's fathers, and to some extent, Angel and Holtz); but mothers need to be taken care of later in life (Buffy's, Spike's, and Lilah's mothers).
Lorne's and Amy's mothers, however, do not fit that pattern. Lorne's mother is much more in the style of Buffyverse fathers in her disappointment and insults to Lorne . . . which is possibly why Lorne's mother is played by a man. Amy, however, has a womanly (also "womanly", in that there is much talk of Amy's mother's figure) mother who is just as bad or worse than any Buffyverse father. It's interesting to note that the ones with strong maternal presences for significant portions of their lives: Buffy, Dawn Lorne, Spike, Lilah, Amy, half end up evil for most their lives. Out of the ones with strong paternal influences, only Angel is really evil for most of his life, unless you want to count Connor, which I wouldn't.
Still, Amy's mother speaks to what I think is a more universal Buffyverse theme that all parents, when they are present at all, must try to control their children's lives to an unhealthy extent. Spike's mother's vampire form suggests that she was overbearing as well--she was probably overprotective and selfishly (if even unintentionally) keeping him to herself instead of encouraging him to live his own life. Buffy's mother was similar in some respects early on (before she needed taking care of later).
The exception to this, as has been often stated, is Fred, whose parents seem to accept that she is adult and can make her own decisions. This happened in Buffyverse, I think, solely for plot purposes of the episode in which they first appear, and the reason no other character with such a healthy relationship with their parents ever came around again is that particular gag only works once. I do think that Angel tried to let Connor make his own choices, and Darla's appearance in "Inside Out" is about telling Connor he can choose his own way...but almost in a way they want to impose a free will on Connor which Connor doesn't think he has. Which is exactly the opposite of most Buffyverse children who want their free will that their parents want to constrain, but the end result for the child feels similar.
Willow's mother is the overbearing of Buffyverse fame in "Gingerbread", but otherwise she's absent in Willow's life, which brings us to the parents in Buffyverse who ignore their children, which seems to be many of them. Buffy's father, noticeably. While we're on the subject of Buffy's father, it's interesting to note how if a parent is present or suggested to be important in a character's life, it's a parent rather than both. Buffy only has Joyce; Spike only has his mother. Angel is shown as having a mother but her influence on Liam seems insignificant compared to the father's, same with Wesley, same with Lilah only in reverse, and on. The exception to this is again Fred, and, I would add, Xander.
Xander's parents seem to pretty much ignore him in a common Buffyverse way, except we are given hints that they still very much influence his character. Wesley's father is not present, but he still wants a hand in Wesley's life; I'm not so sure that that is the case with Xander's father. The fact of Xander's parents ignore him forms him in a way that it doesn't for Willow, or for other characters. Cordelia's parents seem to forget her completely by AtS, but this is not shown as having any effect on Cordelia. Even the absence of Buffy's father, while it really bums her out in some eps, doesn't seem to actually influence who she is in the way that just a few *very* effective images and comments of Xander's we viewers are given lead us to conclude it has much more to do with who Xander is. That is, his feelings of worthlessness etc may be largely derived from how his parents treat him, or don't treat him at all.
Faith only mentions family once (her mom, in passing, in what really comes off as sarcasm or a lie), but I put her in the only child column because if ME had pulled a sister or a brother of Faith's out on us I think we all would've smelled retcon, and not so much because she reads as an only child as because...it seems like it should've come up, you know? Possibly not. Anyway she actually reads to me most like Lindsey, who I put in both the brother and sister columns on the assumption that his big family meant he had siblings. Although we know nothing about her family life, she and Wesley are the characters with whom I find it most easy to infer about what it might've been like, and like Wesley, I think Faith's family life was *very* influential to who she became.
Looking at the ones with sisters: Sisters in Whedonville seem to be about sacrifice and protection. You protect them, and if you can't, you sacrifice yourself for them. Buffy obviously does this for Dawn. Gunn and Justine aren't able to protect their sisters from vampires, but their failure to do so alters them significantly. (With Gunn this alteration is less sharply defined, but twice later in canon comments are made about how Gunn's changed since Alonna died.)
Angel, of course, neither protects or sacrifices himself for his sister, but I think this is supposed to be telling to the true Evil that is Angelus. The horror he has become is not demonstrated by his dead mother on the floor; it is Kathy. And it is to Kathy Liam says goodbye when he leaves his father's house; as such she appears to be the only one he is sad to leave. A similar factor seems at work with Drusilla: she's shown with who we assume are sisters (right?), and Angel's bloodlust for them, not parents, is what's played for horror.
Kennedy is the only one who mentions a sister in passing who does not get elaborated on, but I think this is more due to the fact that a. she was on-screen so little, and b. with the introduction of the potentials, there were a lot of characters introduced at once that the writers were trying to define as separate entities; giving her a sister (half-sister) gave us something to remember about her--if you remembered it at all.
Lindsey is the only one who mentions a large number of siblings, some of which I just assumed had to be sisters. (Riley may have several siblings but never explicitly mentions it.) The fact that his job at W&H seems more of an escape from his home life (as opposed to Lilah), suggests he's evil also, as you must sacrifice for your sister in Buffyverse. Joss likes that.
Looking at ones with brothers: Brothers, on the other hand, seem to be the ones who your parents wished you were, but you failed to be. Tara's brother doesn't quite fit that mold, because since Tara's brother is a man, he gets more freedom than Tara's father would've ever wanted Tara to have. Still, Tara's brother is eating up all Mr. McClay's bullshit and does play the dutiful son. Furthermore, I find it interesting that the female McClay is Tara's cousin, not Tara's sister. That's why the female McClay isn't protecting Tara, or making sacrifices for her--possibly ME couldn't stand to write a sister who wouldn't do so.
Numfar, Lorne's brother, is obviously what Lorne's mother wished Lorne was. Andrew, though his parents are not really mentioned, I don't think, stands in his brother's shadow for almost two whole seasons in the eyes of his peers. Yes, this is a running gag, but I think the reason this gag gets started is the tendency for brothers in Buffyverse to overshadow you. Although they're minor characters, which I didn't include in the chart, "Some Assembly Required" is another example of this.
Looking at the unknowns: Jenny is a little different, as her family is her clan, and possibly does not include immediate family. Enyos may be her uncle so the writers didn't have to deal with what should've been extreme grief it Enyos had been father or brother, on top of Jenny's other issues. But I also think it might be to make us the audience, as well as Buffy (and Giles) feel betrayed by Jenny. What would in many circumstances be positive--her loyalty to her family--isn't played up for much sympathy. Maybe if Enyos had been her father we'd feel more obligation to forgive her because she would be much more sympathetic.
Riley's feelings for his family seem to be affection and comfort, also usually contrued as positive. While those feelings remain superficially positive, the relationship is exactly that--superficial. Because we never see Riley's family or him interacting with his family, his home life, background, etc, they only exist in contrast to Buffy's life. They are presented as an idyllic fantasy Buffy can never really attain, much as she wants it. And they are generally referred to as "Iowa" to set them off. So while Riley's relationship with his family remains cast in a positive light on the show, it's again used to negative effect--particularly to emphasize Buffy's trauma when her own home life is falling apart. Riley's marriage with Sam (the only canonical "happy" marriage besides the Burkles) is used in a similar fashion, though that contrast with Buffy is less about family than intimate relationships, obviously.
I really want to put Lilah under "only child" because she fits the mold. Her actual canonical interaction with her family best mirrors Wesley (which is just so cool, considering): they both talk to the important parental figure on the phone, where the other conversant is unheard. But with Wesley, the figure is the father and is overbearing, and with Lilah, the figure is the mother and needs taking care of. Lilah's mother fits with some of the most important Buffyverse mothers, such as Joyce and Spike's mom. Content-wise, Lilah's mother seems to most mirror Spike's, as taking care of both is a great influence in both lives, and in both cases it's suggested the influence is to an unhealthy extent. Content-wise, Lilah's family's situation actually seems to most directly oppose Lindsey's (which is also so cool, considering): Lindsey fled his big, poor family; Lilah's work at W&H is not departure but return, recompense, to a small family who helped her get where she is. (Do I remember wrong, Lilah talking about her parents really pushing her hard? And they sounded upper middle class?)
The last unknown case I find worthy of note is Darla. Darla is one of the only recurring characters who never mentions family, and she is also the only one to start her own (blood-wise), besides Connor, and Connor is, of course, Darla's family (I wouldn't count Cordelia as starting her own family because it's not really Cordelia). But everything we see of Darla, even before Connor, is imo driven by family. Her defiance of God before she is turned, and her continued pattern of devotion and defiance afterwards all speak to me of Daddy Issues. Her abhorrence of being called "Grandmum" by Dru, and her insistence that Angel kill the child in China both speak to me of Mommy Issues. Even her need for immortality speaks to that issue, if you wanna get twisty about it.
Conclusions: The reason I started looking at all this was because of the very powerful relationship between River and Simon Tam. Everyone on "Firefly" is connected in so many ways, but none others by anything so defining as blood, which made them stand out. And while I was well aware of Buffyverse having so much to do with families, this strong family stood out to me from Buffyverse too. It was the only really strong sibling relationship I could think of in all of Jossverse until I conked myself on the head and remembered Buffy and Dawn. But when you consider that most of the characters in Jossverse do seem to be only children, and that Dawn's characters was invented precisely to give Buffy an uber strong relationship she would sacrifice herself for, it was apparent to me that Whedon probably feels relationships with sisters are singularly strong, read to viewers as singularly strong, and should be treated as colossally important.
That is why, I think, so many characters are only children. They're just easier to write, because sisterly relationships are so important that if the characters had sisters, those sisters would have to be more fully fleshed out. I'm not sure what that says about how few main characters have brothers. Possibly it speaks to the fact that Whedon wanted a sister and felt overshadowed by his brothers? I actually don't really care about that, just about why there are sisters when there are sisters and so on.
In the end, Buffyverse is about families that aren't blood...or else a few that are, but not in the "natural" way. The Order of Aurelius, the surrogate fathership Giles gives Buffy (Angel gives Wesley, Wesley does not give Faith, etc), and circles of friends that function like family (Scoobs, Angel Investigations, et al). I feel like this is more a result of parents being overbearing and forcing the choices you make, though, rather than parents being absent and not caring what you do anyway so why hang with them. I feel like the reason the latter occurs so often in Buffyverse is not because parents are not important in the 'verse but because they are *so* important it's easier to quietly ignore them (again, Cordy is the most glaring example of this) than to flesh them out as would be necessary to really actually portray all the influence parents really have. That is a massive contradiction, possibly heavily based on how *I* feel about parents and how I would portray them in similar fictional settings.
This is perhaps why I feel so strongly about Joyce, and why I think she was badly handled. Buffy's arc is of someone forced into a destiny but who is trying to define her own. Breaking free of an overbearing parent parallels that nicely, but in some ways it is at conflict with the theme, which was that all of this supernatural stuff paralleled RL situations. Buffy's home life couldn't be tragic, or abusive, or a hell dimension; viewers could sympathize with that, but not empathize. So there's this balancing act of making Joyce come down hard on Buffy but also not be that bad, be kind of sympathetic herself. While I think it is very possible to do that with a character--and the best thing to do rather than completely villainizing or sanctifying them--both angles seemed to be coming from different direction in Joyce, not meshing at all. Part of it was the actress, too, but in the end I *hated* both Joyce's character and her as a person. Later in the series, Joyce served a completely different purpose, but I felt there illness was an obvious tool to rip up Buffy. Empathy for Buffy was always easy but I remain cold toward Joyce.
There's obviously loads to be said on the subject, and there's surely a whole lot more I could write about Connor and Angel and what it means in regards to parents in Buffyverse, but actually initially I just wanted to talk about siblings and kinda went tangenty.
SO...thoughts?
no subject
Buffy -- Slayer, only child (extrapolated image of life as a Slayer -- the only girl in the world = the only child in the family). If the world is represented by adulthood, in this case parenthood (the adults in Buffy's life through S3 are parents: Giles to Buffy, Joyce to Buffy, Principal Skinner to the Student Body, the Mayor to Faith, etc) and childhood/adolescence is it's own world than Buffy is separated/isolated on two levels, universally and familial (is that a word?).
A sibling potentially offers a place where Buffy is less alone because children make up their own component within the world/universe and within the family. Assuming that they accept each other which we assume they do in light of the points that you make about sibling relationships, at least between sisters, in the Buffyverse.
Nina actually does live with her older sister and her niece. I totally agree with your ideas for the function of those relationships and that makes her reaction to Amanda, her niece, that much more horrific, especially if the sisterly bond is a sacrosanct relationship. That makes her hunger especially perverted and destructive because we're looking at the destruction of the female connection that is so strong in Jossverse's.
I also really like the parallels that you're drawing, at least implicitly, between Nina and Buffy. Nina's selection, albeit a "perverted" selection. She isn't necessarily destined to be chosen, but she is chosen nonetheless. It started lining other things up in my head: Nina's blonde, her relationship with Angel, her relationship with her sister and niece versus Buffy's relationship with Joyce and Dawn, etc.
This tends to fit somewhat of a pattern in Jossverse: fathers don't express love and mothers do
I love this idea! It'd be interesting to look more exclusively and explicitly at the ramifications of this, especially with consideration of gender dynamics at work in Buffy and Angel.
which is possibly why Lorne's mother is played by a man
I really like this observation and the point you're making with it!
Still, Amy's mother speaks to what I think is a more universal Buffyverse theme that all parents, when they are present at all, must try to control their children's lives to an unhealthy extent.
I don't think that Joyce fits into that theory, although you do make an argument for her inclusion. I always felt that she was an awkward parent, really out of touch with her child. Someone mentioned in comments Joyce's good willed, good natured enthusiasm, and I think that's an apt description. She always seemed like a pretty average parent unable to bridge the gap that seems to open up between most parents and children. Indeed, I think ME often went out of their way to enforce her Lois Lane syndrome, using that to highlight the ways that Buffy is misunderstood and therefore the ways that all teens are misunderstood by their parents. The other examples of parental heavy-handedness, I think, are more ... malicious ... is the wrong term, but I can't think of the word that I want. Anyway, they are concentrated in selfishness, whereas I don't think Joyce is. She really wants what she thinks is best for her daughter without coloring it with her own personal drama. I think.
oops, too many characters
Awesome point!! I really like this! It also ties in some to the adult/adolescent discussion and how children *need* guidance, but resist, but the mark of the adult is that they are able to accept guidance.
The odd absent presence of Willow and Xander's parents is interesting, perhaps more so for Willow. I think Willow is very much informed by her parents and their lack of notice. I don't remember if it's canonical or just implicit that her mother dresses her for the first three seasons. Willow's desperate need for acceptance, I think, is an extension of her need for her parents to acknowledge and interact with her. So, as much as they are *not* there, and although their absence isn't as controversial (I don't know if that's the right term, either) as with Xander, it makes a big impact. We could spin it out from there that Willow's need to control her romantic relationships is a result of her inability to control her relationship with her parents. Willow "acts out" with Oz and Tara as she never did with her parents. I'm specifically thinking of her reaction to Oz leaving in Something Blue and later with the crystal incident in Tabula Rasa.
Cordelia's parents seem to forget her completely by AtS, but this is not shown as having any effect on Cordelia.
With Cordelia I wonder if it's also a matter of that shift from adolescent to adult. Angel is a more adult show and ME "grow" Cordelia up to match the other characters on the show. Although, we do get Wesley's interaction with his father, I don't think Cordelia's relationship with her parents was ever meant to be indicative of her personality post-Buffy because she becomes a different person entirely AND an adult. But, I'm really not sure my little theory holds up in light of Wesley and Lilah's relationships with their parents.
Riley's marriage with Sam (the only canonical "happy" marriage besides the Burkles) is used in a similar fashion, though that contrast with Buffy is less about family than intimate relationships, obviously.
I think you're so right and it's really interesting that those "happy" relationships occur only off screen and with brief interjections into the narrative as a contrast of normality against the surreal, hyper-reality of the Jossverse. Riley and Sam, though, are definitely about family because they are, in theory, going to have children and become a Family. Again, as you state, something that Buffy cannot attain in the traditional sense.
It may be, also, that it's really important to set-up the divide between the real, adult world and Buffy/Angel's worlds. The insistence on isolation and the chosen family almost insists on an exclusion of blood relations if we won't to make our misfits as misfity as possible. They're rejects from society at large, high school and their own family groups.
Re: oops, too many characters
I think you're onto something there. Joyce is doing her best, while suddenly being Buffy's sole support, financially and emotionally, a wrench is thrown in by her daughter having a destiny that guarantees a life of loneliness. A life that was told in the heat of anger, without any chance to truly absorb what it entailed. That was part of why, I think, Joyce chose to accept Buffy's sacrifices. It was easier to pretend everything was all right, because a mother she didn't want to burden her child anymore than necessary. And she has seen what happened when Buffy runs, how it affects her. Better to not cause waves and to suffer in private.
And that's a vast difference to Willow, Xander (especially him), Amy, or Cordelia's parents. Where Xander's parents prefer to bicker and argue, to show their son what would probably happen if he were to marry later on. It's willful negligence, I think is the term. Children are decorations, merely to be had, and acknowledged when it was necessary to look good to their friends. In private, they are a nuisance. Or, that's how I read most of the parents of the show, and that's why I see Joyce as someone wholly different. She's concerned about Buffy first, while her own needs are ignored, put aside.
I don't think Cordelia's relationship with her parents was ever meant to be indicative of her personality post-Buffy because she becomes a different person entirely AND an adult.
I think, it also can stand to reason that Cordelia was forced to grow up when the IRS took away all she'd known, forcing her to go from being princess to working class in order to pay for a prom dress in the end she couldn't afford. I would lay heavy odds on that being the case. Notice her reaction when meeting Angel again in L.A., and the skeezy agent that uses Wolfram & Hart.
On whole, I agree with your assessments almost entirely.