My ranking of seasons is probably 5, 2, 1, 4, 6, 3, 7. Though damn, the first third of 6 is probably in the top 2. In fact, start with Blood Ties and go through Tabula Rasa, and that's probably the finest set of episodes in the series.

The moment where Anya steeled herself was much like where Merry and Pippin leapt out to distract the Uruk Hai from Frodo -- it made me tear up because they're not supposed to fight, dammit! But they do get it, now, something bigger than self-preservation -- world preservation, and even though they're the least well equipped, pitifully so, they do it.

Because you can be a hero without the power.

The "stupid" thing Anya did? Was go against her every self-description, and fight for people she didn't even love. For people she didn't even know. Yeah, by her books, it was stupid. A marvellous stupid thing.

Damn it, ita, you're making me tear up.

But knowing Eliza Dushku will be in five episodes, or Anthony Stewart Head is leaving the show, or whatever TV Guide tells me? Not so important to my viewing experience.

I don't think ME considers most of that kind of stuff to be spoilers, because Joss will tell in interviews, "We're going to have Tony in 10 episodes rather than 6, in season 7; Eliza's coming back," etc. I don't think of those official-release things as spoilers either (I mean I know they are spoilers *here*, but they're not spoilers as I define them).

cereal to complete thought:

I have to know if someone I love is going to die. It will ruin the show for me if I don't know. If Xander had died in the finale (or Giles) and I hadn't been prepared, it would have broken me in the way Joss desires when he kills a beloved character, but it also would have turned me off the show. I was very glad I got spoiled on Tara's death. That would have turned me off the show, had I not known. I knew so far ahead of time though, that by the time the episode rolled around, although it still broke my heart, it didn't make me angry on the meta level.

I'm the opposite-ish, Cindy. Not knowing means that I can enter into the show and not be obsessing over how. Knowing that Tara was going to die in advance made the actual event... I dunno. Flat. I kept expecting it to happen. Sudden is how I want to go and so the suddenness of Anya was really moving for me.

But obviously YTakeonDeathMV.

BTW, I've just realised how Moorcockian the ending is. I've mentioned the link before - I swear Joss read all the Eternal Champion books as a boy - but there's a Moorcock essay about how the perfect hero is one who gives away his power - who shares it out, so everyone in the world has it. It's his argument of how you can have a Hero who isn't fascistic. Plus, of course Buffy and Angel are instances of the Champion, and Spike is Jerry Cornelius...

Hey, all. I'm finally caught up here...

I liked this ep as a series finale, but not as a season finale. Other people(especially ZeusGirl) have explained my reasoning better than I could, so I'll leave it at that.

I'm gonna miss Amanda, oddly enough.

But obviously YTakeonDeathMV.

If a story hits the right spot on my truth-o-meter (and 90% of BtVS tragedy does), I react as if it were real. I mean, I know the difference; I'm not at that level of delusionosity (yet), but my feelings are just as real and strong, as if it happened to me in real life. I was spoiled against my will for Joyce's death though, and was angry as hell about that, at the time. I was at the threaded WB Bronze, and someone made it a thread title: JOYCE DIES IN EP. #15 - asscaps and all.

Now in this finale, Spike's death was a little flat for me because of being spoiled, but I would have been okay with Spike's death, anyhow - even though I've enjoyed him. I also would have been okay with Anya's death. I actually had no confidence she was really going to be killed, because there were a few convincing foilers, that Andrew might die instead. Still, I just needed to know Buffy, Xander, Giles and Willow (and oddly enough - Dawn - but I think that was for Buffy's sake) got through it okay. Had one of them been killed, and I'd been unprepared for it, it's likely I would have shut off the tv in disgust.

I went full-hog on the spoilers when indications that something would happen to Xander in Dirty Girls started leaking out. Given it still kills me when they show the eye-gouge in the previouslies, I'm glad I was spoiled for that, too. Given that nobody I adored died in the finale, and there was no graphic B/S sex, I would probably have been happier unspoiled, but I was still pretty damned happy.

The Buffy and Philosophy book is generally excellent, except for the essay Brownskirts, which treats BTVS as a fascist paradigm. The problem isn't that it is highly critical of the show, the problem is it is ridiculous. It isn't that you can't read the show that way (the author demonstrates you can read almost anything into the Buffyverse) but that clearly isn't the show's intent, nor is it how most viewers see the show, so it is hard to come up with any purpose to such an intentional misreading.

The author basically makes the vamps and demons the Jews of the Buffyverse, victims of Buffy's genocidal crusade. This is wrong on many levels, the most obvious being that in the Buffyverse demons aren't scapegoats, they are active agents of death and destruction. Equally important, whereas the Nazis genocide was determined to kill ALL Jews just for being Jews, Buffy makes ethical distinctions among demons. Buffy would not only not kill Clem (or Angel, Lorne) simply for being a demon, but would not even kill a still-evil Spike who the chip rendered unable to attack others or defend himself.

So, buy the book, skip the chapter.