I hear you, but… they never asked. That’s why they don’t know. They never actually asked Buffy what happened, what she was going through, or what she needed/wanted after her traumatic experience. They made assumptions, and then blew up at her when she reacted in less-than-stellar fashion, thanks to her depression and horrible life circumstances. Cordelia is the only one who tries to empathize with her, and Giles is the only one who suggests asking Buffy what she wants. (He is later the only one who tries to get her to talk about what happened during “Becoming”.) Willow, Xander, and Joyce don’t do that. I think it’s a consistent character flaw, especially on the part of Willow and Xander, who go through this same process again in S6- not asking Buffy where she’s at or what she needs, and then making assumptions about what they should do to make things better, without consulting her. I think that’s a big reason why she ends up confiding in Spike and later Tara, rather than either of them.
Did Buffy mess up by running away? Yes. Yes she did. But she messed up after saving the world by killing her boyfriend. She messed up after being rejected by her mother and told not to come home. She messed up after finding Kendra killed, being framed for the murder, and getting expelled from school, pretty much all in the same night. Buffy has been through a ton of traumatic stuff in a very short time frame, and her friends and mother ultimately react by publicly humiliating her for putting *them* through hardship. Even if she did need to be “called out” (and I would argue that this is not really an instance of that, though there are times when she does), that’s not the way to do it. Any way you slice it, that is not representative of good friendship or good parenting, and I think it’s probably a big reason why Buffy ends up shutting Willow and Xander out during S6, opting to confide in people like Spike and Tara instead.
Absolutely, we should understand why Willow, Xander, and Joyce react the way they do here. But I don’t think we should simply excuse them, and I don’t think we should ignore this moment when we think about what sort of friends the scoobies really are.
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