Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales of the Slayers- Presumption and The Glittering World

The middle issues of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales of the Slayer" ,"Presumption" and "The Glittering World" dip into the history of slayers by way of using genre fiction as historical narrative. Written by "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" writers Jane Espenson and David Fury, "Presumption" and "The Glittering World" tell two different stories, both of which rely on a subversion of existing historical genres, one a pastiche of Jane Austen with vampires and commentary on gender issues and the other, a commentary on Native Americans and the Wild West -- of course with vampires.

Ironically enough Jane Espenson had written the rather mediocre "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode "Pangs" that dealt with an extinct Indian tribe, the Chumash, returning in spirit form to take vengeance on the living residents of Sunnydale, California who had colonized their land. Here though it is David Fury who pens the story of the Native Americans and the Wild West and Jane Espenson who plays Jane Austen.

As Joss Whedon had heavily stylized, "Righteous" to match the writing of the time, namely the medieval lay or ballad, this process continues with "Presumption" which styles itself on Jane Austen complete with English High Society in the rural countryside, fancy dress balls, gallant gentlemen and gowned ladies searching for a husband and witty banter between the sexes. Halfway through the plot seems to be approaching an inevitable conclusion, when a twist occurs that rather than giving a simple ending raises the question of gender equality and rights in Victorian England.

Unlike many of the other slayers we encounter in "Tales of the Slayers", we learn very little about the slayer of "Presumption." We do not even properly learn her real name, Elizabeth, until the very end. The bulk of the narrative focuses on a narrative trick that confuses the question of the narrator of the story up until the very end and in light of that final revelation requires a rereading of the story with an eye toward viewing the same narration with a new perspective as increasingly sardonic. Through her choice Elizabeth escapes the sort of gender based persecution the medieval slayer experiences in "Righteous" but also remains an enigma to the reader. All that we learn about her is embodied in her choice, to escape the confines of Victorian society in order to perform her duty as a slayer or perhaps out of a desire for a greater freedom. It is unknown if Edward is her slayer, but it appears likely and probable.

The focus of "Presumption" is a subversion of the conventional literary narrative of the Victorian romance in which a woman finds a likely mate by stripping the circle of high society naked of its pretensions at civilization and exposing the ballroom as a battleground between predator and prey, hunter and hunted, between men and women and humans and vampires. All told "Presumption" is less a story of a slayer than a story of a place and time. And if Jane Espenson forgets the slayer for the political and sociological commentary, she nevertheless tells a good story.

In "The Glittering World" a conventional Western narrative unfolds in the hands of David Fury into a story that plays with the conventions of the Western story of Cowboys and Indians and recreates a very familiar story from the Buffyverse leading right up into a meeting with a character from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

The Western narrative has been often questioned and subverted in film and fiction, including by such contemporary fare as the movie "Brokeback Mountain" and HBO's "Deadwood", David Fury breaks no new ground but economically tells his tale in the deadlands of the West while Steve Lieber of "Whiteout" provides atmospheric art in which every frame seems to be blown by sand, worn and weathered.

In the conventional Western narrative the hero is the cowboy coming to save the day against the ruthlessly savage Indians. In "The Glittering World" the remnants of the Navajo people have sent forth two to the lands overrun by the white man's towns. There the Navajo slayer finds a bar filled with vampires and the trail of the particular vampire she is searching for. Drawing on Native American mythological dualities, the vampire she is searching for is her sister and the struggle that follows is an epic one that parallels the struggle between the prototypical Monster Slayer and Death.

"The Glittering World" introduces a variety of complexities into the narrative by having both sisters be half-breeds produced by a rape inflicted by a US Cavalry soldier. Monster Slayer fights under the guidance of a white watcher, while her sister does not fight for an ethnic Navajo identity but for a new identity as a demon, devoid of anything but a desire to kill and destroy. In doing so she has come to embody death, while the Navajo slayer, who is like all slayers at once a killer, also represents life. The murder of "death" is part of the mythological paradox that gives way to the cycle of resurrection and the problem of evil that runs through the stories in "Tales of the Slayers".

Though the Navajo slayer's dress allows her to be mistaken for a boy, David Fury does not appear to be commenting explicitly on this. Nevertheless it forms a sort of parallel with "Presumption". Beyond this both "Presumption" and "The Glittering World" subvert historical narratives to tell the more complex story of persecuted minorities and the role of gender and race in a world that may be overrun by vampires, demons and the other manifold forms of evil in the Buffyverse, is one that still marginalizes those who are different.

At the end, the very familiar figure of Mayor Wilkins arrives with plans to construct the town of Sunnydale on the same spot where the battle in "The Glittering World" took place. The point of a struggle between Death and the Slayer. The town that Mayor Wilkins builds comes to serve as a home for evil that Mayor Wilkins nurtures throughout his long drawn out life. Thus the conquest of the West gives way to the modern day political dominance of a corrupt elite.