"Fortune favors the brave."

--Aeneas in Vergil's Aeneid; Buffy in Whedon's "Hush"

"Hush" is a BtVS episode embraced by fans and appreciated by those outside the Buffy circle: it is the only episode to have been nominated for an Emmy for its writing. This widespread approval may be in part because it is the epitome of polysemy: it allows, more markedly than many BtVS episodes, a traditional fantasy response but at the same time clearly invites a counter-reading.

"Hush" is recognized by many (e.g. Sarah Skwire in Fighting the Forces) as a fairy-tale episode, with the implicit hierarchical world of the fairy tale. When the wise man Giles speaks of the need for a princess, all the characters (including Buffy) and presumably viewers alike immediately presume that Buffy is that princess; after she and her hero kiss (to Beck's wonderful Buffy-Riley theme), the monsters are defeated, the world is (temporarily) righted once more, and the heterosexual couple end up together.

But "Hush" undercuts many of the fairy tale tropes defined by scholars such as Propp, Bettelheim, Tatar, and Kashdan. Visual images often carry the weight of this meaning. Instead of being the princess imprisoned in the tower, Buffy literally breaks into the tower. Instead of being swept off her feet to be saved by the hero (cf. Errol Flynn, or Luke Skywalker swinging on that rope with Princess Leia), Buffy herself grabs a rope and swings through the air feet first in battle. Buffy and Riley reveal their secret selves to each other at the moment when they aim their weapons directly at each other. And when the princess screams to destroy the monsters, it is not, as Darin Morgan once had Scully say, "a girly scream." These images, visual and aural, all work towards the presentation of the empowered female characteristic of the Buffyverse,, but--as is also typical of the series--there are not simply implicit exhortations to young women to stand up for themselves, but also broader implications about the social system, too.

"Hush" has possibly the most frightening monsters in the Buffy series--and they look for all the world like dead white men. Instead of being the monster in/of the mansion, the Gothic female space, they are associated with a phallic tower, and float through the streets to cross the threshold into various homes, and, of course, to violently enter various bodies. Buffy and Riley, princess and hero, fight them together. But as Don Keller notes in Fighting the Forces, in Buffy's opening dream, Riley becomes one of the Gentlemen (169). Keller also identifies Buffy's line "Fortune favors the brave" as coming from Vergil, and notes that "whatever its general applicability, it specifically refers to Buffy and Riley's apprehension about kissing" (171). I would add that the specific source, the Aeneid, is significant (cf. C. W. Marshall on Giles and Aeneas). Aeneas is perhaps the most purely patriarchal of the classic heroes. This (to me) dull and duty-bound hero is an excellent parallel for Riley, the least liminal of Buffy's significant others. For Aeneas, the good of the state is more important than personal relationship--a defensible or even sometimes praiseworthy view in theory, but one often shown to be dubious in practice. Those familiar with the BtVS story beyond the standalone episode can see further parallels: After Aeneas and Queen Dido's love affair, he leaves to fight for his (future) country and she kills herself. Thus the episode presents patriarchy as horror in the form of The Gentlemen, and patriarchy with its best face on as the kindly, brave Riley.

It is further noteworthy that "Hush" has perhaps the most diverse representation of a threatened population. The first victim we see is a young male; and one of the most frightening moments occurs when Giles's girlfriend Olivia, a black woman, comes face to face with a Gentleman. The monsters roam the college campus, it is true, but we come to see that the whole town is endangered--all ages, genders, races, classes--even other monsters (Spike stays indoors with the rest of the Scoobies). Everyone is threatened, everyone is silenced, by The Gentlemen. Surely one of the most frightening things about "Hush" is the fact that the voices of the characters are stolen. As BtVS shows time and again, those in power can choose not to hear, not to know (the news broadcast in "Hush" is emblematic). But just as frightening is the fact that this enemy does not speak. The Gentlemen are monstrously silent in the face of the horrors they create. As Overbey and Preston-Matto say, "'Hush' […] makes communication a subject" (73). Buffy tries to communicate with Riley, the best representative of patriarchy, but at the end of "Hush" they are sitting in silence, "as hush as death" (Hamlet 2.2.447: a description of a scene from the Aeneid).