It’s been years, but I still stand by this parallel, and even more so since I originally wanted it to be Sam’s little speech from 9.13. And looking back on it now without the fear of getting bombarded by Sam stans and getting death threats: the reason I connected these scenes is because Anya and Sam are similarly… I can’t think of a different word than narcissistic, but that isn’t quite the right word because that has more negative connotations, and at their core neither of them are Bad or completely devoid of empathy for others. Their default is just to assume that everything revolves around them.
Anya is very “I’m the most important person in my life” which honestly is so valid, and Sam grew up being told he was smarter than Dean, the implied message from John his whole life was that Sam was more important than Dean, and he has a lot of historical evidence to show that actually yeah, a lot of the time he genuinely was the main character - it was actually about him. But in these scenes, they’re completely projecting their own bullshit onto the person in their life who’s always been seen as a protector until they were humanized (s6 Buffy, in the context of 9.13 Dean betraying Sam with gadreel, in the context of this scene Dean coming back from purgatory).
Dean and Buffy are two sides of the same coin - they were given this legacy that they didn’t want, and given it at such a young age, and because they’re both such naturally empathetic people they’ve really internalized the Chosen One narrative.
Dean’s number one job since he was 4 years old has been to protect Sam, keep Sam safe, keep his brother alive - that was his purpose. In his head, his life had no worth outside of that. So in season 8, he sees that the trials are probably going to kill whoever does them so he’s like “great, yeah, obviously that’s me, because that’s my job. I’m supposed to keep you alive, that will kill you, so I’ll do the trials.” In season 9 when he makes the deal with gadreel (important context to remember: Sam spent all of s8 telling Dean he wants to live and make it to the other side of the trials), he’s faced with what he perceives as a failure on his end (because he’s supposed to keep Sam alive) AND he’s under the impression that Sam wants to live.
Buffy is, it’s important to remember, like 24 in season 7 and dealing with an immense amount of trauma and anger and isolation, especially with regards to her friends. She loves them, she cares about them and wants what is best for them, but she still resents them for bringing her back from the dead - which is so valid - and is struggling with a lot of guilt from those feelings. So she spends s6 & the first half of s7 grappling with the fact that her friends would do something she never thought they’d do (a crack in her trust with them), being upset that they did it, feeling like she’s in the wrong for being upset about it, and hurt because she becomes so isolated from them. So is she kinda cold in s7? Yes. Honestly, she was way nicer than I would’ve been and none of them had the emotional wherewithal or maturity to consider what she was dealing with.
But her isolating herself and shouldering all the responsibility for their safety has very little to do with them. She doesn’t think she’s better than them, she’s just like “yeah, I’m the chosen one, I’m the one with super powers, obviously I’m fighting this fight and not you guys, if you die that’ll be my fault wdym” and all of them take that very personally for reasons I will never understand lmao. To Buffy it’s: the sky is blue, grass is green, I’m the chosen one and it’s my destiny to die in battle, it’s my responsibility to protect the innocent and you guys are innocents.
Are Buffy or Dean blameless in these situations? No. They’re very flawed, traumatized people who lack the communication skills and emotional maturity to articulate any of this (not that it would’ve been received well) and unintentionally cause harm by making these decisions. But in these moments, they’re both confronted with the fact that the most important people in their lives fundamentally don’t understand who they are as people. And it’s in part because they’re both surrounded by equally traumatized people who don’t have the same level of empathy and deeply ingrained lack of value for their own life outside of serving others.
Anya is an ex demon who cares about her friends and learns to care about people in general, but ultimately she’s always her number one priority. I can give the scooby gang a little bit more grace in season 7 because they’re also young, immature and dealing with a lot of conflicting emotions and feelings and trauma that’s never unpacked or dealt with - but my heart still absolutely shatters every time I watch this scene, because it’s such a slap in the face to Buffy. She thought that they understood her at least, and then she finds out that this is what they think of her and it’s so upsetting and hurtful because she’s only ever tried to do what was best for them.
Sam was raised by an emotionally abusive parent, and a brother who never witnessed healthy emotions like… ever, and was repeatedly told by both of them that he was the most important. His default for so much of the show is very much giving “they tell me everything is not about me - but what if it is?? 👀 they said they didn’t do this to hurt me, but what if they did??” and like I said, yes, he has some canonical evidence to validate those thoughts, but the fact that he took Dean essentially telling him point blank that he wants to do the trials so his death will mean something and oh yeah, he wants to die, and turned it into “it’s because you don’t trust me” is absolutely fucking wild lmao.
And this scene just makes me so sad, because you can see the realization on Dean’s face that Sam has no idea what he’s feeling. He told him he was suicidal, and Sam’s like “actually, I think you just don’t trust me” and you can see this image Dean had of Sam in his head shatter. Because he thought if nothing else, Sam understood why Dean does any of this - and clearly, he doesn’t. And Christ, in 9.13 when Sam says that he wouldn’t do the same thing for Dean (which is a lie), it destroys Dean because it validated that feeling of his life being worthless outside of keeping Sam alive.
anyways, what I’m trying to get at is the parallel of these scenes is supposed to be Buffy and Dean realizing that they’re genuinely alone in this. It’s the realization that the people they thought knew them, don’t understand them at all.
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