"you refer to the prophesy? The one who will bring balance to the Force?"

wait...wrong mythology...

Blood and symbols, that's what Buffy always comes down to, in the end. And, due to feeling all my fun speculation about the identity of the Big Bad has been curtailed, I decided to look at the symbolism in the last scenes of Never Leave Me.

As you can see, I got a bit carried away sketching it. The symbols are:

• top left: an elaborate A which seems to gain an extra vertical line during the bleeding.


• top right: a curving H on its side.


• lower middle: an inverted triangle with small circles cut on each point (and ouch! that's going to scar).

Someone suggested the inverted triangle was the Hewbrew symbol for Yod (meaning 'hand' or 'manus') but it definitely isn't Hebrew. The nearest similar symbol I could find - identical except it was not inverted - was in the Celestial Writing outlined in an alchemical text. The symbol did indeed mean 'Jod' and thus 'hand' (or more probably, given the symbolism of the hand in Buffy, 'force').

The alchemical roots are worth following. The elaborate A in the top right resembles the symbol for abstrahere (meaning draw down, summon) whilst the H is used in alchemy to symbolise any number of things, including Pisces, Libra, Faet. (ah, Libra, you're thinking, having spotted that symbol on the Seal but I'll come back to that in a minute). Sticking with alchemy for the moment the faet fiada was a spell to make visible the invisible, or vice versa. Or to transform men into animals (and hopefully vice versa). Transformation is the key though. (It's also Anglo-Saxon for vessel but I don't think alchemists are noted for their use of Anglo-Saxon).

So carved on our lad's chest are symbols suggesting ' summon transforming force'. Oddly enough, that fits with what his blood is doing as it is drawn out of him, giving the First Evil visible form, presence.

So let's get back to that Libra symbol on the Seal. And the Taurus one. Balance and Earth, you're thinking, right? Except the Libra symbol is also the alchemist symbol for 'sublimate' (to refine, or solidify) whilst Taurus also means 'congelation'. And really, if you were buring the Ur-vampire under a great huge Seal, would you be busy re-inforcing it with a symbol for balance or symbols meaning to solidify, to hold in amber, as it were?

I have way too much time on my hands. And so did alchemists.

I rather suspect Libra means balance and I've just constructed meaning out of Spike's chest when all the symbols are there for is so we can have some more Spike/Buffy Hurt/Comfort scenes. Still, it passes the time until the next episode.