YMMV / Buffy the Vampire Slayer S5E22 "The Gift"

• Catharsis Factor: After all the crap she's pulled all season and with Scoobies barely able to harm her, Buffy repeatedly wailing on Glory with the hammer is one of the most satisfying moments in the whole series.
• Fans Prefer the New Her: Before she's to be sacrificed, Glory forces Dawn to put on a ceremonial dress. Despite her obviously not wanting to wear it, the gown is quite cute.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Other than obviously Dawn, the most stricken Scoobies by Buffy's death, openly crying, are Spike and Willow, who in the next season are villains, Spike only in one episode where he is trying to rape her, Willow becoming the Big Bad and trying to kill her. The other ones just look sad and grim.
  • Willow is given a Hope Spot where she's able to reverse the Mind Rape on Tara. Sadly in Season 6 she'd begin to do that herself, and Tara would draw a parallel between the two actions.
  • Joss Whedon joked that he spared Anya from dying because Emma Caulfield kept moving too much in the final scene. Her actual death in the series finale is sad enough, but the fact that it's even more sudden and anti-climactic. If she had died here, it would have at least had more of a purpose.
• Moral Event Horizon: Giles killing Ben inspired a lot of arguments about whether he'd crossed this. Ben had thrown in with his "sister" and it's hard to find fault in the argument Giles raises against letting him live, but it's still the murder of a defenseless man. If nothing else, it certainly cemented Giles as an Unscrupulous Hero.
• Never Live It Down: Buffy can't live down her declaration that she'd rather let the world end than sacrifice Dawn, even though she does her best to stop the possibility from coming up; concocting a plan to delay Glory from even starting the ritual. And she ultimately decides to Take a Third Option, sacrificing herself for the second time in the series.
• She Really Can Act: Michelle Trachtenberg really brings it throughout the whole episode; from her quiet acceptance at the beginning, to her fear when she's at the top of the tower and the way she breaks down as Buffy sacrifices herself...
• Signature Line: Buffy's speech to Dawn, and "the hardest thing in this world is to live in it".
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Buffy is portrayed as heroic for wanting to protect Dawn at all costs, even though she knows it means unimaginable suffering and probable death for herself- never mind that she knows that it also means unimaginable suffering and probable death for everyone and everything else in existence, including Dawn, meaning that she basically just wants to give up and let the world burn for nothing. In "Lies My Parents Told Me", when Giles asks her about this, she says she probably would have let Dawn sacrifice herself this time around.

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