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Rather random entry heh, but something on tumblr recently made me wonder what everyone else's view of Joyce on Buffy was? I always felt like the writers thought that she was coming across as this really great mother and that she and Buffy were so close, but eh to me she always seemed to act like she was just waiting for Buffy to throw some more trouble in her path and that Buffy was such a chore to handle, but I'm not sure that was really justified? I.e telling Buffy not to get kicked out on her first day starting at a new school, or in an episode like Bad Eggs when she is constantly grounding Buffy and trying to catch her out, even without any conclusive proof that Buffy had done anything wrong. And in School Hard she apparently immediately swallowed every word that Synder said to her about Buffy (Joyce was acting very pissed and "in the car now" after his little talk with her) even though Buffy had been doing everything she could to help out at parents teacher night, as well as covering for Sheila's lack of participation at the same time, yet she clearly knew that Joyce wouldn't believe her if she explained that Synder was someone who just had it in for her

And it wasn't like Buffy was ever an openly defiant and hostile teenager, she was never rude and snapping at her mother from what I recall, yet Joyce seemed to constantly be on the alert before Buffy had even done anything wrong. I guess I felt like past events in LA had left Joyce stuck on a very unfair view of Buffy as this wayward teen who was constantly bringing drama into Joyce's life, even though we rarely saw much evidence of seasons 1 and 2 Buffy actually being that rebellious or out of control, even from Joyce's perspective of not knowing that Buffy was the slayer. At worst she caught Buffy fully dressed late at night in Bad Eggs and suspected her of sneaking out late (although she was actually just talking with Willow on the phone and dealing with her wayward egg heh). And c'mon, even if Buffy had been sneaking out to meet up with her friends, it's not like it's unknown for teenagers to do that occasionally! It would hardly made Buffy this nightmare teenager that's impossible to deal with, but you wouldn't know it from some of Joyce's reactions to what Buffy ~puts her through~

Buffy was hardly associating with gangs and giving the impression that she was about to go off the rails, for a start being best friends with the shy and studious Willow (whom Joyce certainly seemed to like) was pretty far removed from her life of hanging out with shallow popular kids in the Becoming flashback. Yet Joyce still often seemed to act like she was just waiting for Buffy to throw some trouble her way again? Not really the actions of a supportive mother who is committed to giving her daughter a second chance IMO

And this might be controversial, but I also thought that she expected too much of Buffy when she was sick. Buffy at barely 19 was in no way old enough to take care of a sick and mentally unstable Joyce in Listening To Fear, the doctors themselves said that she should be in the hospital under their care. I understand Joyce preferring to be in her own bed of course, but it was unfair to put Buffy in that position IMO, it really annoyed me when she immediately breathed a sigh of relief when the doctor's said that she could only go home if Buffy would agree to it. I felt like Joyce just piled everything on Buffy at that time because she knew that Buffy wouldn't say no, but then Listening To Fear ultimately resulted in Buffy completely breaking down and clearly unable to cope with Joyce's illness.

Nor should Joyce have left Buffy as the guardian of her 14/15 year old sister IMO. Joyce presumably knew that Hank was a dead loss as a guardian, but she must have had other relatives that she could have considered (Aunt Arlene gets brought up several times throughout the series?), or possibly even a friend that she could have asked? Hmm actually I don't know if Hank should automatically be considered out of the running either, yeah the show put him at more and more of a distance over the years, but he was never your typical total deadbeat Dad either. In Bargaining we're told that the Scoobies had been using the Buffybot to convince Hank that things are fine with Buffy and Dawn, so at the very least they must have suspected that he would have come back into the picture for Dawn otherwise? I mean idk, it was better for Dawn's sense of stability if she could remain with her sister of course, but was it really what was best for Buffy? Joyce kind of put her in an impossible position by asking her to promise to take care of Dawn and "love her like I love you", aka be Dawn's mother figure, even though Buffy was Dawn's sister and only separated by her in age by 5 years

Probably Buffy would have insisted on looking after Dawn anyway and doing her best for her, but then Joyce automatically asking Buffy to be the one to take care of Dawn didn't give her a lot of choice, and that did result in Buffy having to drop out of college in Tough Love and struggle to find the money to take care of them both in season 6 through working minimum wage jobs. Normally in other fictional stories of being brought up by siblings (like Party Of Five) they were muddling along as best they could only because the parents died unexpectedly with no plans in place for guardianship, but on Bts it did seem like Joyce's sole plan was to expect Buffy to step into her place as mother to Dawn? I'm not saying it's wrong even for Joyce to want Buffy and Dawn to stay together, but it's so strange to me that she didn't seem to have made any plans to put any other support network in place for Buffy, even though Buffy herself was barely out of high school and had been hoping to work towards a college degree at the time.

There didn't seem to be much middle ground between high school Buffy being treated by Joyce as this wayward kid who keeps bringing drama into her life, or later on as this old before her time adult who needed to sacrifice her own dreams for her little sister

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I don't think writers ever intended to show Joyce as a great mother. They intended to show (and accomplished it brilliantly) parent from teenager's point of view.
You know, that stupid clueless adult that never gets that It Is The End of the World!
I don't think we ever see the real Joyce in the show, all we see is Buffy's perspective on her, and Buffy is exaggerating a lot, as all teenagers do.

I definitely get the feeling that we see Joyce from Buffy's perspective a lot of the time, and how it's frustrating how little her mother can understand, but I also got the sense that the shows view of Joyce was that she was a great parent and that Buffy was at an age where she couldn't fully appreciate how hard it was for Joyce having to deal with her as a single parent.

But when I started really thinking about those seasons when Joyce wasn't in the know of what Buffy was really getting up too, there still isn't all that much reason IMO to act so long-suffering about what trouble Buffy is going to get into next. We really don't get much indication of what she's so upset about, in Bad Eggs for example she basically just catches Buffy dressed in her room (not sneaking in or out), and then not being in the library when Joyce goes to the school. Of course the audience knows that Buffy was out slaying and couldn't tell Joyce exactly what she was doing, so from that perspective we are invited to sympathise with Buffy, but was there really any reason for Joyce to get so mad over Buffy not being in the library at the school, even without knowing about Buffy being a slayer? It's not like she caught her cutting school to go out shopping or something, she was still actually in the school building and trying to say that well yeah but there was a gas leak, but apparently that was enough for Joyce to completely cut her off and say that you're now confined to your bedroom indefinitely? It just didn't seem like the writing really backed up why Joyce was getting so frustrated with Buffy's behaviour

Edited 2015-05-07 19:05 (UTC)

That Bad Eggs moment is one of the reasons why I prefer to attribute most of these things on Buffy's POV. ("It's not what really happened, it's just how Buffy remembers it.")
Because otherwise Joyce's behavior doesn't make sense. She overreacts when it shouldn't be a big deal, but remains calm, when she should be freaked (like when Buffy mentions saving the world from vampires in "Bad Eggs". Given Buffy's previous mental issues Joyce must be terrified).
The only other possible explanation why Joyce's reactions are so bizzare is brain tumor, that affects all her actions during the whole series, from season 1 until death.

Just chiming in from seeing the post over in my home page, hope that's okay!

Regarding this:

But when I started really thinking about those seasons when Joyce wasn't in the know of what Buffy was really getting up too, there still isn't all that much reason IMO to act so long-suffering about what trouble Buffy is going to get into next.

From what I recall (and it's backed up by a quick search on wikipedia), Buffy and Joyce first moved to Sunnydale and came to the new school because Buffy got into trouble for blowing up her old school. I'd say that gives Joyce plenty of reason to be frustrated with Buffy and wary of what trouble she might get into next. Blowing up one's school goes well beyond cutting class to go shopping or getting detention.

So I think going into the very start of the series, Joyce was already pretty tired of Buffy getting into trouble and wanted the new school to be a fresh start. But Buffy started getting into trouble again, ticking off the principal, sneaking out her window at night, coming home with unexplainable bruises or weird stories.

Obviously Buffy felt she couldn't tell her mom the truth, so a lot of Joyce's behavior seems unreasonable because Buffy's trying to do all these amazing things, but her mom has no clue. But I don't fault Joyce for that. I saw her as a parent who was fed up with her daughter, a woman who had had to give up a career, life and friends in a whole other city because her daughter blew up a school (!) and doesn't want a repeat of that. So perhaps she was overzealous (I know I was frustrated with her in the early seasons), but I still think from Joyce's point of view, she had good reason to be suspicious and frustrated with her daughter.

What I loved about the show's writing was that nothing was ever fully black and white. Joyce was right about some things, and totally wrong about some things. And the same could be said for Buffy, who made some terrible choices as she went along as well. They were both wonderfully human.

Edited 2015-05-08 00:37 (UTC)

Of course it's okay, I'm always happy to talk with other Buffy fans :)

because Buffy got into trouble for blowing up her old school.

She burned down the gym, I don't think there's any mention of her blowing up the school though? In School Hard she's even making excuses to Synder about how that was never actually proven to be her, so she would have presumably tried to come up to similar excuses to Joyce at that time, rather than coming across as a full-out delinquent who deliberately set fire to the building...At worst it would appear to Joyce that Buffy got involved with a bad crowd, and was then the one (unfairly?) blamed and trying to make excuses when things went wrong, but I find it hard to picture Buffy as coming across as completely going off the rails, that just doesn't fit with the Buffy we meet who is constantly trying to cover up her slaying and appear to be toeing the line

We the viewer know of course that she would have been covering up for vampire slaying in reality, but that still = her not being an actual ~bad kid~ at that time and trying not to upset her mother with her behaviour, so surely the gym burning down and Buffy getting kicked out would have seemed like an hugely out of character anomaly to Joyce? Yet I always got that vibe that Joyce was just waiting for Buffy's past issues to start up again, and that seemed very unfair to me when Buffy was clearly hanging with a VERY different crowd in Sunnydale, and she really wasn't getting into that much trouble outside of Synder taking a dislike to her.

Joyce wanted Sunnydale to be a fresh start, but it seemed like she was the one that wasn't prepared to actually go with that. Her excessive punishing of Buffy in Bad Eggs for example only makes sense if Joyce was still stuck on that LA mindset of not trusting Buffy and wanting to know exactly where she is at all times, otherwise it shouldn't have been that big a deal that Buffy wasn't in the exact spot of the library during a supposed "gas leak" evacuation

Edited 2015-05-08 12:18 (UTC)

That's interesting, I never saw it like that. I mean, yes, obviously it was a Buffy-centric show, and we see how much Buffy's trying to juggle while Joyce doesn't. But it never occurred to me that the scenes we actually saw didn't happen that way.

I see Joyce's behavior as unreasonable and poorly-thought-through... but also believable. Some parents really aren't good at showing any care for their kids' emotional well-being, or cutting them any slack.

Likewise, Joyce being idealized after she died made total sense too -- people idealize those people (or communities) they've lost, it's part of expressing how huge the loss was. But the loss can be huge even if the person (or community) was imperfect.

Well, it's my way of dealing with all the inconsistencies in Joyce's behavior.
Joyce being harsh to Buffy never bothered me (the main issue that gets her so much hate from Tumblr users). Joyce being unconcerned and NOT ENOUGH harsh - did. Given Buffy's previous mental and criminal issues Joyce's light attitude doesn't make sense.
So - it's either "Buffy is exaggerating" or "Joyce is brain-damaged".

Or she was a functional alchoholic.

Or, Joyce didn't know about the vampire part until Dawn got inserted into the memories.

Or, like you say, Joyce really was suffering from a brain tumor all along.

Exactly. This is how I interpreted it. In fact, it's a trope--every "kid"-centric show have to have the parents out of the picture in order to have the kids take over and take charge. They never understand, they never believe, they never have time. Otherwise there's no story.