Faith, Dawn, Season 4, and dreams

[RoJoHen]

I managed to pick up Seasons 1-4 of Buffy at Walmart for $15 a piece. I finished them tonight, so I decided to head back to Walmart to see if I could pick up Season 5, but sadly they didn't have any in stock.

So, instead of watching Season 5, I would like to bring up some curiosities regarding Season 4.

This is my second time ever watching Buffy straight through, but the first time through I was completely oblivious to the foreshadowing of Dawn's arrival. As far as I can tell, it starts as early as the episode where Faith wakes up from her coma. We see Faith and Buffy making her bed, and Faith mentions the anticipation of the arrival of the little sister.

This dream is similar to the one at the end of Season 3 when Buffy puts Faith in the coma in the first place. In the Season 3 dream, I was under the impression that they were sharing the vision. In Season 4, it's more ambiguous. The bed-making scene feels like a shared dream between Buffy and Faith, but the rest of the dream seems to take place specifically in Faith's mind.

So how does Faith (or Dream-Faith) know that Dawn is coming?

Following that, how does Tara/The First Slayer in "Restless" know that Dawn is coming? Has Dawn always been destined to arrive, and why does Dream-Tara seem to believe that Dawn is Buffy's true destiny?

Also, who is the Man with the Cheese?!

 

[Too Much Fun]

Yeah, Joss Whedon likes to plan ahead. Even though Dawn seemed to come out of nowhere in season 5, she was in Whedon's plans for a long time, hence all the foreshadowing. And the cheese man is just a non-sequitir joke that doesn't mean anything significant...it's just some weird dream thing that doesn't make any sense.

Despite the abstract quality of them, there was a lot being said about the characters in those dreams, but the cheese man was the one specific element that didn't have any deeper meaning, just a fun "wtf?" image thrown in there for kicks.

 

[Forbin]

"Be back before Dawn..."

 

[Ethros]

The "Little Miss Muffet" line in Graduation Day pt.2 is a reference to Dawn. And the "counting down from 730" is two years in days till what happens in The Gift


As to how they knew in their dreams, they're just Slayer prophecy dreams, as Buffy had multiple times

 

[NileQT87]

You'll also notice the crazy man (who had been brainsucked by Glory) comes up to Dawn and rants about "curds and whey"--referring to Little Miss Muffet. And yes, 730 refers to (approximately--it's actually a bit less than that) how many days until Buffy dies.

Tara also makes a comment in Restless about how the clock is wrong (it says 7:30), referring to the fact that Buffy no longer has 2 years left. The same scene has the "Be back before Dawn" comment.

In a similar use of foreshadowing, Angel winning a life in The Trial was the necessary ingredient for Connor (as Darla could not be the recipient of that life). And of course, that was added into the Jasmine arc. Coincidently, The Trial also happens to be the episode where we first hear about Holtz (who was the one chasing Angelus and Darla into the barn).

We also learn about the Mayor and him being connected to Snyder a season before the Mayor first appears (similar to the introduction of Holtz and the excessive foreshadowing of Jasmine that was made to go years back).

One of my favorite moments has always been Angelus in Innocence saying "To kill this girl, you have to love her." when talking to Spike about how to defeat Buffy (him being in a wheelchair at the time). Of course, that later became quite relevant for Spike.

 

[Ethros]

^ There's also a line in The Trial where Darla is in Angel's garden looking at the flowers and says "Hmm, Jasmine. It blooms at night. I remember what that was like."



There's also little things like Tara messing up the demon locator spell on purpose in mid Season 4 Goodbye Iowa, which we found out why in Season 5's Family

And the beginning of Dawn's stealing obsession in Season 5's Intervention, which plays a lot more through Season 6

 

[DigificWriter]

I've come to the conclusion/realization that there are quite a few things with unexplained causes that occur on Buffy which can be attributed to or fit the pattern of actions taken by the 'Powers That Be'. Things like the Slayer dreams (which you could correlate to the visions that the PTB send to their chosen 'vessels'), and Dawn's connection to Buffy strike me as things that the PTB might've tried to co-opt for their own purposes, although not in the sinister manner that Jasmine - a fallen power - did.

Also, before anyone tries to dispute this idea with the whole 'the Powers are a sham' thing from ANGEL S4, keep in mind that since Skip was working for a fallen Power that clearly had its own agenda, a lot of what he says is automatically suspect.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Another little tidbit: during her freak-out in "No Place Like Home," Glory says she needs to place the key on a "tuffet" or some such. (Don't remember exactly what she says and it's kind of hard to hear.)

Also, the melody and meter used in the original Thomas Muffet limerick was borrowed from a Celtic marching/drinking tune called "Little Miss Riley" that was sung during the Crusades. So, there's either supposed to be something to that, or it's an unbelievable coincidence.

As an interesting side note, the Queller demon in "Listening to Fear" was sort of the catalyst for him leaving--it "scared him away" as it were. It was a bit arachnid, creepy-crawly like in its appearance...

Of course, I could also be way over thinking things.

As far as Faith is concerned, I'm pretty sure it's mostly just a plot-device thing. But really, the events of TYG/WAY really set up the whole "duality" theme that season five centered around.

Remember, season five was all about the duality we all have, especially as we mature, in the facets of our lives--the two selves: the one we show others and the one we keep inside. This was obvious repeated pretty much ad nauseum:

Buffy & Dawn
Buffy & Buffy-Bot
Glory & Ben
Xander & Xander (Litterally!)
Dawn & Riley
Willow & Tara
Willow & Dark Willow (This was sort of alluded to in “Restless.”)
Riley & Riley
Spike & Riley
Harmony & Drucilla

...and on and on.

The Buffy/Faith dyad in the two-parter was just the precursor to this.

Of course, the Buffy/Dawn bit is really the biggest aspect of the season. As set up in BvD, the slayer part of her is rooted in darkness/evil and she’s starting to feel the evil take-over. As a result, she’s become more Buffy the Vampire Slayer and less Buffy Summers. Dawn is representative of the latter as the monks didn’t make her from The Slayer but from Buffy Summers. So really, Buffy didn’t sacrifice herself in “The Gift” to save the world so much as she did to simply save herself.

This relationship is also reflected in TYG/WAY. You have the two sides of the proverbial coin: Faith as evil, Buffy as good and, via the Mayor’s device, Faith sacrifices the evil part of herself to save the good part of her self. And, once she becomes Buffy she discards (or at least tries to) The Slayer altogether—she wants to run away and just be Buffy Summers.

In a more literal sense, Dawn arrival also means Faith is being replaced; the pseudo sister is being replaced by the real sister. Then, to further rub Faith’s rhubarb, Dawn represents the part of Buffy Faith utterly abhors but ultimately wants to be.

Her whole dream sequence is about her not having a place, home, or family, and even is he hates her, Buffy is the closest thing to family Faith has. So, take one part Johnny Smith coma powers, two parts Super Slayer Sense, and Faith "sees" somthing happening and feels threatened.

EDIT: Oh and AFA the cheese, I know Joss said in the commentary it didn't mean anything, but I do seem to remember noticing once (It was a while ago.) that there seemed to be fewer slices with each subsequent "Slay" so it was sort of a "Ten Little Monkeys" kind of thing.

 

[RoJoHen]

EDIT: Oh and AFA the cheese, I know Joss said in the commentary it didn't mean anything, but I do seem to remember noticing once (It was a while ago.) that there seemed to be fewer slices with each subsequent "Slay" so it was sort of a "Ten Little Monkeys" kind of thing.

At first I was thinking it was a reference to earlier in the season when Willow tells Riley that Buffy likes cheese.

I dunno, I was kind of hoping for an evil Cheese Demon or something pop up in Season 5.

 

[RoJoHen]

All right, I broke down and went to Best Buy and bought Season 5 (why is it $20 more at Best Buy than it is at Walmart?).

Here's a new question: did Dawn kill Joyce? Joyce didn't have any problems until Dawn showed up in Season 5. Then, even though she was supposedly healed, she died later anyway. Do we think it's because of Dawn? Or was it a totally non-paranormal death?

 

[Forbin]

Joyce's death was totally natural. Joss was trying to show us that, even on the hellmouth, real life badness can happen.

Unfortuantely that utterly brilliant episode (The Body) aired on the first snniversary of my wife's mother's death, upset her horribly BECAUSE it was so real, and we'll never be able to watch it again in our house.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I thik it was also was used to show the characters dealing with death since we never got to actually see them grieve for ensuing death of Buffy.