Previously: Ayn Rand’s The Devil Wears Prada and Rupert Giles, MLS.
BUFFY: My shoulders are naked and I am drenched in the blood of my enemies. You are my physical and mental equal. I wish to express my respect for you in the physical embodiment of my ideals: the act of love. Let us have sex now.
ANGEL: Buffy, I can’t. You know that if I were to experience even a moment of perfect happiness I would lose my soul.
BUFFY: This sounds like a problem for you, not a problem for me.
ANGEL: I can’t —
BUFFY: We’ll just do me, then. Kneel.
THE FIRST SLAYER: Death is your gift.
BUFFY: I don’t recall offering to give you anything.
XANDER: You won’t be alone. We’re coming with you.
BUFFY: What could you possibly do for me?
XANDER: I —
BUFFY: For true friendship to flourish, there must be a measure of mutual respect and equality. You are not my equal. You have only ever slowed me down.
XANDER: Buffy, I — Oh, God —
BUFFY: See how easily I broke your leg just now? I could never break the leg of someone I truly respected.
GILES: In every generation there is a Slayer. She is the Chosen One. She alone will stand against the forces of darkness —
BUFFY: What does it pay?
GILES: What do you mean?
BUFFY: I’m being expected to risk my personal health and well-being on behalf of those too weak to fend for themselves, yes?
GILES: I wouldn’t put it exactly like that.
BUFFY: Surely this kind of specialized labor merits compensation, if my skills are so highly valued on the free market.
GILES: Well, we can’t really offer the Slayer money, if that’s what you mean.
BUFFY: Then I will find someone who can, and work only for the highest bidder.
[a group of vampires bash their way into the library and begin chewing on Giles]
GILES: Buffy, help —
BUFFY: If you really valued my services, you would pay me.
GILES: I’m dying —
BUFFY: This is emotional extortion and I won’t respond to it.
DAWN: Buffy, the portal — it’s opening —
BUFFY: Dawn, listen to me, listen. I love you. I will always love you. The highest moral purpose is the achievement of your own happiness. And this is the work that I have to do. Any action that a man undertakes for the benefit of those he loves is not a sacrifice if, in the hierarchy of his values, in the total context of the choices open to him, it achieves that which is of greatest personal (and rational) importance to him.
Remember, you can love your friends without taking care of them.
DAWN: I don’t understand.
BUFFY: The only way to reject the terms of a madman is to refuse to play the game. No one goes in the portal.
DAWN: Buffy, if we don’t do something, that portal’s going to bring Hell to Earth —
BUFFY: The only real Hell is not taking advantage of every opportunity.
DAWN: I’m so scared.
BUFFY: There’s nothing to be afraid of. Another dimension means an entirely different set of markets, an entirely different economic playing field. The chance to make and win our fortune in strange and exotic trading floors.
DAWN: Aren’t you at least going to untie me?
BUFFY: That would be an act of violence disguised as an act of mercy.
DAWN: What does that mean?
BUFFY: No.
