No, not seeing things the parallel is plainly there. Another parallel to note is between Dawn and Buffy. Dawn has it within her to destroy the universe. Buffy has struggled all season with the destructive force the Slayer within her represents. Buffy's decision to runaway is tied to the seasons theme of growing up, as every season is.
When Buffy enters a catatonic state over the guilt of wanting to relinquish her responsibility for the world, it appears she is crumbling under the pressure of being the Slayer while protecting Dawn and for a moment, gives credence to Spike's claim that every Slayer ultimately crumbles under that undisclosed desire to end that responsibility, dying is one way to do that of course. Willow's dialogue with Buffy forcing her to confront her sense of guilt over Glory taking Dawn undermines Spike's death wish theory, whether he was right or wrong about the other Slayers he killed, he is wrong about Buffy.
At no point does Buffy ever say she wants to die, what she says is that she wants an end to the responsibility of taking care of Dawn.
“I just wanted it over; If Glory wins ... then Dawn dies. And I would grieve. People would feel sorry for me. But it would be over. And I imagined what a relief it would be.”
In fact her words suggest the opposite, namely, that after Dawn has died she would still be alive to grieve and to know that people felt sorry for her.
Buffy interpreted her desire to end her responsibility as failing Dawn but when Willow tells her to get over her guilt, Buffy does. She’s not going to give up, she’s going to keep fighting.
Compare this to Ben, who struggles against Glory but can’t see a way to protect both Dawn and himself so he eventually gives in to Glory. It's plot but it's metaphor too, when Ben gives up the fight and returns Dawn back to Glory, we know that he’s no hero.
The point of the season in metaphor, is that Buffy needs to find a way to incorporate preserve her childlike innocence as part of her adult persona as she grows up. Buffy gives us the answer to the question we have been asking since Dawn first appeared: who or what is Dawn? “She’s me. … Dawn ... is a part of me. The only part that I --”. Ben is Glory, Glory is Ben, Dawn is Buffy; Buffy is Dawn.
Dawn represents how Buffy see's her vulnerable human half and Glory represents how Buffy sees her slayer half, her fears of what adulthood might entail, fears which come from out of her mind, perhaps why the episode of that title immediately precedes Glory’s first appearance.
The net effect of this is that Glory is Buffy too. Glory and Dawn are the two halves of Buffy. One side is how she sees herself, the other is her fear of what becoming an adult might make her. Slayer Buffy needs to avoid becoming a hard, ruthless killer, in metaphor, all adults need to preserve their inner child in order to avoid becoming hard and unfeeling as adults and Buffy does this by preserving her inner child, her human half.
Ben represents the typical adult but the wrong path to take, refusing to sacrifice himself for anything, not for Dawn and not for the world. Ultimately Ben represents a selfish form of adulthood, one that is willingly sacrifice others for its own benefit.
Episodes through out the season drop clues to the split personality theme, appearing for example in "The Replacement" as Xander is literally split in two, creating a competent, mature half and the other, a childish, inept half. One immature, the other mature, both were Xander.
Aside from the mature/childish contrast, it hinted throughout using key phrases associated with Dawn. When the two Xanders confronted each other in front of Anya, Xander told his twin “You don’t belong here.” That’s what the crazy man told Dawn in Real Me. Or there’s this: “Immature Xander [to Willow]: “I get in trouble and Buffy saves me.” That’s what Buffy does with Dawn.
In "I Was Made To Love You" Buffy says that “I've had it with super-strong little women who aren't me.” That obviously refers to Glory as well as April, both of whom resemble Buffy in this and other respects. In "Family" Buffy tells Giles that Glory “was kinda like Cordelia”, expecting us to remember that Cordelia was Buffy’s shadow self, what she could have been like if she wasn't the slayer: “Well, I, I don't wanna say shallow, but let's say a certain person … we'll just call her Spordelia, looked like a classical philosopher next to me.”
In "Real Me" The first meaningful words we hear Dawn say is this in voice over “Nobody knows who I am. Not the real me. It's like, nobody cares enough to find out. I mean, does anyone ever ask *me* what I want to do with my life?” The whole episode isn’t about Dawn at all, it’s about how Buffy’s human half sees the world. It's Buffy talking about herself.
Here is a list Dawn’s attributes: She keeps a diary. She loves Willow, she loves Xander, she loves her mother. She thinks Giles might not like her because he’s so old, she finds Buffy’s training boring, and she resents the fact that Buffy is always telling her what to do even if, in some sense, she idolizes her sister. She likes Tara, she’s not so sure about Anya. Interestingly, she expresses no opinion about Riley. She feels isolated at times, and she gets to be the child of the family in a way that Buffy wishes she could.
Buffy kept a diary when she was younger, Giles called Buffy to her destiny and pushed her ever since, he tends to have little patience for her less adult moments (“I'm serious, Buffy, there's going to be far less time for the sort of flighty, frivolous-….” Real Me); Buffy has a mixed relationship with Anya (see, Superstar or Buffy v. Dracula); Riley is pretty self-explanatory at this point; Buffy’s sense of isolation is well-established;
The episode opens with GILES VOICEOVER: You are the center. And within you, there is the core of your being ... of what you are.” Buffy’s search is interrupted when Dawn interferes, knocking over the crystals and demanding to leave. Dawn is, in part at least, Buffy’s true self, the core of what she is. The point is that Buffy needs to overcome the belief that her human/child side is a hindrance to becoming an adult.
"Real Me" also set up "The Gift" in the plot outline. The basic story of Real Me was that Dawn was kidnapped and tied up by an evil blonde woman with super powers who threatened to kill her. In substance, that was Glory’s plan too. Both whined to Dawn while she was a captive and Harmony promised Spike that Buffy would “be dead by sunrise”.
Spike’s promise to defend Dawn “till the end of the world” has to be understood in the context of the metaphor. Dawn is Buffy’s human half; Spike has now pledged to defend Buffy’s human self. He’s no longer only in love with "the Slayer" but devoted to the whole of Buffy. It’s interesting, too, that Buffy commends her better half to Spike’s care. Spike had told her in Fool For Love that he would slip in and have himself one good day. Buffy got “that final gasp, that look of peace” and it turned out to be the worst day of his life.
In "Dracula" Dracula told her that her power was rooted in darkness and Buffy recognized her fear that being the slayer was making her hard; she needed to understand it better. What she needed, it turned out, was to be able to maintain a connection – a link; “the Key is the link” – to her humanity. Which is introduced at the very end of the episode in the form of Dawn.
The Knights represent the patriarchal structure and utilitarianism, a form of ethics we've seen brought up many times over with Giles making that argument about Dawn, Wesley making it in "Choices" over Willow and the Mayors Box and Faith, with instead of a death wish or perhaps in addition to it, using it as one way of evading responsibility.
The Knights represent a faction which desires to "sever" the link, to stop Buffy from becoming a integrated whole adult, because if Buffy or any woman becomes an authentic adult, that threatens the traditional patriarchy by forcing the world to view a actualized woman as a equal.
