2003-05-27 - 11:09 a.m.

I was sure she was going to die. I kept saying out loud that she was going to be fine, but I totally thought all the spoilery people around me knew the truth & were just dealing with it & I knew I couldn�t deal with it. I kept seeing headlines that made it seem like she dies. Stuff about putting a stake in Buffy, & Buffy�s final battle, which referred to the series but really seemed to refer to the character too. My best friend has been talking for like a YEAR about how much she wanted (yes, wanted) Buffy to die in the finale, which I just had to ignore & pretend she was speaking some other language & that the syllables coming out of her mouth were meaningless. God. But it stayed in my mind as the probable end. And we know what happened to Xena. The whole Thelma & Louise thing. Ladies who died for the struggle. Or was it died for struggling? That�s how it feels sometimes.

I�m still in shock at being wrong. I know that Joss is unperfect, & falling into that whole lesbian death stereotype was ugly, & I didn�t know if it�d be like that again. It�s a painful show & there�s no reason to think he�d spare us � he never does. But he also is unlike anyone else making popular culture, & so he gives us a message that we rarely get � sometimes you fight & you fight & you fight & you may have to die & come back & that will suck but eventually you win & the fight has been sooo worth it. I�m so happy that Buffy didn�t have to be a sacrifice. I�m happy that Spike was, because he was miserable & had centuries of atonement ahead of him otherwise, unlike Buffy who has shoe-shopping & slayer-teaching. Hopefully equal parts of each. And that smile on her face! And Faith & Robin Wood! And Willow with the white hair! And Giles finally back to being annoyed with everyone. In the first episode of this season, the line that was repeated was something like �It�s all about power. It�s all connected.� I would not have dared to hope for what that eventually came to mean � even with the season 3 ender that featured Buffy organizing what was effectively her entire workplace to kill the mayor, I still feel like I push too much of my politics onto what�s actually there. But I shouldn�t have worried � it�s like the entire show turned outward & pointed at us � there aren�t vampires to fight but there are these things � girls you know who are trying to be strong & people trying to hold them down. All of us have some power, & an obligation to fight once we look around us & see how much there is to fight against. A fucking great perfect ending.

And Buffy is young again. She was so old, she was a mom, she was exhausted & never smiling, she was at a constant loss for resources & energy. Now, her ponytail is high on her head. She�s grinning & she even tells Angel she�s not ready for guys � she doesn�t even know who she�ll end up being. She has an amazing group of people to make her life with. She has a free place to stay in L.A., & Angel happily waiting for her. She can travel, she can take that poetry class she had to drop in Season 5, she can go with Willow & Giles to meet the fancy coven. She can help girls all over a world that is new & changed because of her & Willow, & go to malls she�s only heard about. Fuck dying. Buffy finally lives!

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