It's Fairly Appropriate, Given The Time Of Year

I've been kicking this post around for at least two months, maybe even since the start of the Faith storyarc in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I just couldn't quite decide what I was wanting to say, and I guess I finally settled on talking about why I like the character so much.

I mentioned once before that one of the things I liked was that Faith enjoyed being a Slayer. By the time I started watching the series, Buffy was in her more, unpleasant, days, and she wasn't really a character I wanted to root for. Seeing the earlier episodes, where she was more cheerful, was nice, but Faith loved being the Slayer, and I like characters that see being special as something really great, even if it's just a way for them to escape their less-than-great everyday lives.

Another part of it was that Faith strikes me as decisive. Whereas I can spend ten minutes in a grocery store, trying to decide whether to buy nacho cheese chips or peanut butter crackers for snacks, Faith seemed able to come to a decision quickly. Part of that is being impulsive, but it was also the fact she tended to stick with those decisions as long as she could. After she accidentally killed the deputy mayor (I say "accidental", even though she fully intended to put the stake in his heart, but she thought he was a vampire, and he was stupid enough to walk right up behind her in a dark alley, so no big loss to their world), she decided to try and dump the body and just move on. Not a good plan, but I was impressed with her ability to make a choice quickly and go with it. Of course, that seemed to be a theme with Faith, making a less than advisable choice, then trying to see it through. She stuck with the Mayor until she went into a coma, and picked up where she left off when she woke up (which makes that dream Buffy had where she talks with Faith contradictory, but it was a dream, and they'll do that sometimes). She tried pretty damn hard to get Angel to kill her, she stayed in prison when it was painfully obvious she could escape anytime she wanted, she took the Potential Slayers out to party and loosen up, even if it got The Royal Slaying Pain-In-The-Ass (Buffy), angry that someone did something without consulting her first. And most recently she actually got to know Gigi a little, and tried to convince her not to try and kill Buffy. Like I said, these decisions didn't tend to work out, but it was impressive to me that she would choose and path and try and stick to it.

An extension of that was Faith's loyalty to people, even though they rarely justified it. Faith defended the fake Watcher against Buffy, because she believed in her, and the fake convinced Faith that she believed in her as well. Once Faith realized she'd been tricked though, she had no issues with drawing lightning bolts in her direction to help the people she'd been fighting against moments before. Eventually she felt like the Scoobies were against her (and certainly Willow and Wesley were against her, though Xander wasn't, initially), and she turned to the Mayor. And she was loyal to him, even after he got blowed up real good. Backed the wrong horse again (story of her life it seems), but the Mayor always seemed to stick by her, and Faith returned that trust with her own. That was a weird relationship those two had, do you think he'd lost a daughter sometime before he became whatever he was?

The one time that loyaltyseems to have worked out is with regards to Angel. He pulled her back from the suicide, helped her to face up to what she'd done, and when he needed her help, having lost his soul again, she was the one who nearly died capturing him, so he could get his soul back. I liked how determined she was to bring Angelus back alive so he could be resouled, even if it cost her some pain, or if she had to smack Conner around. Personally, her pummeling Conner was the part I enjoyed the most. When she returned to Sunnydale, she seemed to really try to not cause Buffy any static, even letting Buffy punch in the face without comment, though any decision she made seemed to be interpreted as Faith trying to usurp Buffy's role, and she unwillingly wound up as leader eventually.

The last thing wasn't so much anything Faith did, as much as it was something other characters weren't doing: taking responsibility for their actions. I apologize in advance, I'm going to be a bit. . . cross for the next paragraph or so. It took her awhile, but Faith did fess up to her crimes, and she did go to prison, and she stayed there, up to the point when she was needed outside. Buffy Season 6 bugged me because no one seemed to take responsibility for what they did. Willow's mind-wiping and other antics seemed to get foisted off on "bad magic" or Amy, and her punishment for killing one person, flaying another (since Warren apparently isn't dead), trying to kill several other people, and oh yeah, trying to destroy the world was. . . to go to a coven in England and learn to control herself {Here we go}. Ooh, harsh. She gets friends waiting at the airport with a sign; Faith gets remarks from Dawn about them letting a murderer stay in the house {blood pressure's rising} Xander getting mad at Anya about her drunken one-time thing with Spike, when he bailed on her at the altar about made me see cross-eyed {grinding my teeth}. I would have loved to have seen Buffy one time admit to the others that she did a lot more damage to Spike than he did to her. But no, she got to skate on all the crap she pulled, and Spike had to deal with everyone treating him like dirt. Yeah, it was swell of her to defend him when he was under the First's control, but that support might have been more useful back when he was an unsouled vampire trying to fight his nature, as opposed to Buffy's "screw Spike, then punch him and call him names until the next time you feel horny" strategy. {yelling at the ceiling while typing}

I'm OK, I'm better now. The point was, Faith recognized she did wrong, and accepted punishment for it, then tried her best to atone for her poor choices when she left prison. I really appreciated seeing that after all the stuff I ranted about in the previous paragraph. And now she's decided to try and find troubled Slayer's and keep them from going down the same roads she and Gigi did, likely to make up for the fact she wasn't able to save Gigi from herself. It's nice, you know? Warms my heart, and in a good way, not the "I'm frothing with rage" way it was happening earlier.

I'm taking the next two days off, as I'll be visiting relatives, and trying to resist the urge to kill them, I mean, sharing in the love and togetherness of the holidays. Until Wednesday, I guess.