imagine trying to beat a horse while you are sitting on it. Most people I know would probably hurt themselves more than they hurt the horse

Would these same people hurt themselves beating a live horse?

Isn't the expression based on the premise that you don't know the horse is dead, and you're still trying to ride it or have it pull something?

Xander always had B's back, yo

He hated Angel, and Angelus had killed people he cared about. That dead-horse lie was a totally selfish move on Xander's part.

I know it's almost sacrilige (sp?) to simlify it this way, so I apologize. Willow was more important for Buffy because of the magicks. Xander, on the other hand, was more important to Buffy especially in regards to Angel. Xander was always the first person to call Buffy on how her view and emotion towards Angel or Angelus got completely skewed vs. rational reasoning. It helped Buffy really think about what she was doing, even just a little, than doing the first thing her impulses told her to do. So, yeah, she was a little obsessive about re-souling Angel and the end of Season 2, but it was another way to kill 2 birds with one stone - get Angel back & stop Acathla.

Would these same people hurt themselves beating a live horse?

I think the idea is that you get off the horse before beating it. Live or dead. Better angle for the beating, you know?

Isn't the expression based on the premise that you don't know the horse is dead, and you're still trying to ride it or have it pull something?

I think the expression is based on knowing the horse is dead and beating it anyway. It's not "trying to make something work in the absence of understanding that the thing is irrevocably broken"; it's "knowing the thing is broken/argument is ended/decision is made and being unable to give up on it."

I think that sitting on top of a dead horse is not the same as riding it.

Oh dear, we're venturing dangerously close to equine necrophilia snuff porn here folks.

Why am I not surprised?

I think the idea is that you get off the horse before beating it. Live or dead. Better angle for the beating, you know?

Your friends may need to upgrade their riding crops. It's really easy to beat a horse while you're riding it.

It's not "trying to make something work in the absence of understanding that the thing is irrevocably broken"; it's "knowing the thing is broken/argument is ended/decision is made and being unable to give up on it."

I'd never looked at it that way. I figured we were being all meta and ironic, but that most people beating dead horses have some sort of denial/ignorance in place that makes them insist it's actually a viable enterprise, despite all the evidence in the world.

When I picture someone beating a dead horse, the horse is hooked up to a cart. I don't know if this is just my brain or if there was a story to go with the cliche or what.

Sometimes, there is a stream just beyond the horse, which the person doing the beating will not be able to lead the horse to, nor make it drink from.

I don't think I'm gonna be able to decide the which was more important to Buffy question.

I think it depends on whether you're saying, "Not to beat a dead horse here, but..." or whether you have to be told that's what you're doing.

And for some reason, I always interpreted "beat" as in "to death." As in you'd already beaten the horse to death, but just kept wailing on it anyway.

Hmmmm. I think Xander was more important *to* Buffy, because he was completely normal. No demon blood, no witchy power, No arcane knowledge, no nothing. A normal, regular guy who could live the life she was supposed to want, but who also chose to fight the darkness. Sort of like how Buffy was a symbol to Angel - I think Xander was that symbol to Buffy, if she had bothered to think in symbols at all (not saying she was dumb, just saying girl had an uber-straightforward way of thinking).

Well, Jessica, you don't just randomly awlk up to a horse-corpse and start beating it. I imagine there's a reason the horse is dead.

Although, ita's mention of riding crops makes me wonder -- what are we beating this horse with that it's dead? I mean, a riding crop is like a flyswatter -- not really painful, and really not able to cause damage. And if you're beating your horse with a sledgehammer, I really hope you got off it first, because I think you'd hit yourself with the hammer.

ita's mention of riding crops makes me wonder -- what are we beating this horse with that it's dead?

Your vision isn't like mine -- my impression is that you work the horse to death, but keep beating it in order to (unsuccessfully, naturally) get it to keep going.