Digging up a very old, moldy corpse here (thanks to Buffy reruns on FX):
Thinking back on the way the season played out … what does Joyce mean? Am I forgetting a major development that warranted Joyce’s epic struggle from beyond the grave to deliver her message to Dawn? Or was Joyce just another manifestation of the First? (And doesn’t the First tell the truth, anyway, even though it hurts? In which case, the original question still stands.)
Didn’t Buffy abandon Dawn to go close the Hellmouth? Might not have been against her, but she sure wasn’t there for her…
It’s just another of the seemingly 10,000 loose plot points that were abandoned in season 7.
Buffy didn’t choose Dawn to be there for the final battle. She had Xander drive her as far away as possible. Dawn overpowered Xander and headed back, of course, but this was what I assumed was meant regarding Buffy not choosing Dawn.
You’re probably right. Doesn’t really seem all that important.
There was an interview with Joss Whedon (I think it was linked to aintitcoolnews.com) where he stated unambiguously that Joyce was a manifestation of the First in that episode.
BTW, the First just claimed that it never lied. In fact, it lied every time it tried to pass itself off as another person. I’d say it was as capable of lying as anybody else.
RIght. I figured it was just a head game. Dawn is massively insecure, though she was getting better that season, and probably being abandoned is a prime fear. Especially since Buffy died so soon after Joyce did. If the First wanted to drive a wedge between Buffy and her friends and family, then starting with Dawn was a good place.
I don’t think the First was that lame in hindsight. By the middle of the season, it had killed several potentials, and had made pretty strong plays to drive Buffy’s most powerful allies away. It very nearly had Spike staked by Buffy herself, very nearly had Willow slitting her own wrists, very nearly had Dawn turn her back on her own sister, probably had been working on Wood from the beginning…Things could have been done better, but the plan wasn’t too horrible.
Just because Joss said Joyce was a manifestation of the First doesn’t mean I have to believe it.
The moviemistakes.com Questions section about Buffy (go to the very bottom of the page) has an interesting and relevant claim.
My problem with the First being Joyce is the strange glowing light and flying Joyce stuff. That doesn’t match other appearances by the First.
Well, it may be that’s what the First thought that Dawn would expect in a “good ghost.” It made her mother look angelic-- less scary.
It seems an easy trick for the First to pull off.
The idea that the Joyce manifestation is TFE violates pretty much everything else from any other appearance of TFE. TFE at no other time manifests any sort of a light show. TFE never at any other time manifests the abiliy to appear as two different beings at the same time and place (and I’m not certain that we ever otherwise saw TFE bilocate), and the Joyce manifestation is seen being throttled by a demon. TFE never at any oher time manifests the ability to appear in a physical condition other than one the person it was imitating had at one point appeared in and the Joyce manifestation exhibited such non-Joyce looks as the filmed over eye thing. And most tellingly, TFE never otherwise manifests the ability to cause physical objects to move. In point of fact that’s a major motivation of TFE, to gain corporeality. If TFE could cause poltergeist effects then there’s no need for Bringers or Ubervamps or its manipulations of Andrew, Spike and Robin. All TFE would have to do to wipe out the Slayer line is identify the potentials (which it apparently could) and poltergeistily hurl a few dozen knives at each of them. If we accept the Joyce manifestation as TFE then it makes S7 even more of a mess than it already was.
Leaper’s link makes the most sense … S7 was a mess, and well, despite the many good scenes in that particular episode, Joyce’s appearance was a very big part of that mess.