She's Not A Cheeto

Earlier in the season, Buffy had complained to Giles that she knows she has an expiration date, but she would prefer it be a long time away…like a Cheeto. Too bad.

Still, nearly all of Season 5 has focused on how much Buffy has lost recently as her life slowly falls apart. By the time Buffy gets to the final battle with Big Bad Glory, it makes me wonder just what is she giving up when she sacrifices herself?

Poor overwhelmed Buffy says in the understatement of the series that “It just keeps coming.” In the past few years, Buffy has lost Angel, Riley left, her mother died, and now she’s forced to chose between killing her sister or letting the world be destroyed by an insane hell god. Among other things.

I think things are so difficult because they attack Buffy on a personal level, on top of requiring all her Slayer strength. We’ve seen in the past few apocalypses, Buffy defines herself by the people around her, and her sense of duty is dependent on who she’s protecting. She’s lost that by having to choose between what she believes she should do, and what is being asked of her. As she says “I don’t know how to live in this world if these are the choices.” Buffy can’t accept (to the point of being catatonic) the situation that turns her world upside down. Throughout the series, the Slayer and her friends are good and defeat anyone who opposes them as evil. When this order is changed, and Buffy needs to sacrifice a part of herself, she shuts down. She still follows through with the plan to save Dawn, but the fact that this isn’t the clearest way forward, or the one supported by the other Scoobies, seems to destroy some part of Buffy before she ever climbs the scaffold.