Season 3 Premiere, "Anne."
Let me set the scene for you- Buffy has been captured and thrown into a dungeon. .... remember that part in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where all of the villiage kids were kidnapped & turned into dead-eyed slaves to work the mines, looking for those glowing Stones of Power? It's basically that.
Buffy gets lined up with the rest of the new prisoners on the block. The guard goes to work- dehumanizing them, rooting out all hints of "who they are" and grinding them down, until.... they are no one.
Guard: You work, and you live. That is all. You do not complain or laugh or do anything besides work. Whatever you thought, whatever you were does not matter. You are no one now. You mean nothing.
(to boy) Who are you?
Boy#1: Aaron. (gets bashed to the ground)
Guard: (to Lily) Who are you?
Lily: No one.
Guard: Who are you?
Boy#2: No one.
Guard: (to Buffy) Who are you?
Buffy: (beat... suddenly eyes turn from dull to confident/mischevious)
(perky) I'm Buffy. The Vampire Slayer. And you are...?
(She knocks him out)
Buffy: Anyone who's not having fun here, follow me.
Sometimes we need a Buffy- we shake our groggy head and rub our eyes and wonder how we ended up down in the dungeon. A few words from the reigning bully reminds us of how we got here. We faced a choice: be yourself and prepare for a smackdown, or accept "nothingness" and slink to the shadows.
Sometimes, we are Buffy, and we need to enter that dungeon, stop the bully and remind the captives that they are free. They are okay. They just need to remember who they are.
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