I've got a few more thoughts on the Buffy/Faith things I was discussing this weekend I want to get to, so that's where I am at today. So one of the other complaints I saw about the arc starring Faith in the current Buffy comic was that there was no way that the Scoobs would ask Faith to go and assassinate this other Slayer. After all, the last time she killed someone, she went off the rails until she wound up in a coma. When she came out of the coma, she went back to attacking them, then went after Angel, with some Wesley-torture along the way.
A couple of responses to that. One, the commenter seems to be assuming that Faith hasn't grown as a person, learned anything from that whole experience that might help her. Originally, Faith tried to deny the incident bothered her at all, not only to Buffy, but to herself, which is not a healthy attitude. I think when the comic shows Faith consistently marks her arrival at her apartment by angrily stabbing her stake into the wall, combined with her attempts to get a passport and leave Cleveland, it suggests she knows she's not happy with where she is or what she's doing, so at the very least she isn't lying to herself anymore. Plus, that denial the first time around left her deaf to the people who truly wanted to help her (that'd be Xander and Angel). This time around, she hears Giles when he tells her she isn't the first person to screw up royally as a teen, and that he gets feeling the need for atonement*. She knows now there are people who care about her, that believe in her, and that makes a difference. By the end of the arc, Faith wants to travel and try to help other Slayers from not making her mistakes, so she is definitely not the same person she was in Season 3.
Secondly, who else could they send? Buffy obviously can't go, with her being the target (even assuming she would kill Gigi). Gigi's been killing other Slayers for awhile, so sending one of the newbies is risky. I think Gigi's Warlock Master would notice if you tried to send Willow, and Giles ruled out sniping her from a distance, so what's that leave? Giles or Xander trying to sneak in and kill a Slayer at close range? It is to laugh. Listen to me laugh. Ha. Ha. Ha, ha.
I think what amused me about that criticism of the story's logic was the claim that putting Faith in a situation like this, where she could go back down that same dark road, is completely unlike the Scoobies. Let's set aside whether Giles thinks the same way as the Scoobs (I'd say no). What amused me was I recalled Buffy telling Willow and Spike to confront their fear of their dark sides for the greater good. She told Willow she needed to get over her fear that using heavy-duty magic would drive her evil again**, because as things stood, she wasn't helping enough. Then she got on Spike for not being a good fighter since he got his soul, and how she needed the old Spike back, because he'd be useful in the battle to come. You remember the old Spike, brutal killer, Slayer of Slayers? The one Buffy only escaped from in their first battle thanks to the intervention of Joyce Summers and a fire ax? Both come in the same scene, and in that same episode, Buffy meets the fellows who created the first Slayer, by infusing some girl with the essence of a demon to give her its power or something like that. They offer Buffy more power (apparently the connection to that demonic force has been diluted), saying she'll need it to beat the First Evil, and she turns them down.
Why I think that's interesting is that one of Buffy's fears has seemed to be the essence of the Slayer itself. When she and Faith first met, Faith talked about how much she enjoyed getting out there, slaying the baddies, and how it left her feeling like finding a steak or a guy afterwards. Buffy makes some weak joke in response about how sometimes she craves a fat-free yogurt after slaying. At the start of season 5, when she meets Dracula, she finds herself going out in the night, hunting, as she puts it for demons to slay, as opposed to patrolling earlier in the evening. She tells Giles this scares her, and she needs to know more about where her power came from. Buffy consistently tries to deny any sense that she enjoys the slaying part of being a Vampire Slayer, and if she starts to enjoy it, she gets worried.
Buffy's met the First Slayer (in a dream), and she's seen what happened with Faith, so perhaps she has good reason to fear, but still, it's hypocritical to stand there and order other people who are trying very hard to rein in their darker tendencies to get over it when one isn't ready or willing to do so themselves. It's like one of those war movies, where the Bad General keeps ordering his men to throw themselves at the Fortified Enemy Position on a Nameless Hill, while he sits comfortably safe behind the lines enjoying his steak and fine wine, while the Kind Squad Sergeant grieves, fumes, shares his rations, and tries to keep his men alive, without disobeying orders. Of course, the Kind Squad Sergeant usually dies taking the position singlehandedly, or saving the peach-fuzzed kid in the outfit, so I'm not sure who in Buffy season 7 would play that role.
* And I can't help thinking, "Why the hell didn't you tell her this in season 3, Giles?" Maybe she's too deep into denial for it to sink in, but I felt she respected Giles - perhaps because his concern for Buffy reminded her of her first Watcher's (the one Kakistos killed) concern for her - enough to listen. Xander and Angel tried and failed to reach her then, but I think Faith figured Xander was just looking for another roll in the hay, and Angel, well, he is a vampire. One that tried to destroy the world, no less. Plus, his attempt to talk to her came after he clocked her with a bat (shovel?) and chained her to a wall in his home. Not really conducive for sharing of feelings.
** This feels like more excuse making for Willow, which started in Season 6, when they started arguing the magic she was using was dark, and that's why she did bad things. This as opposed to, Willow likes magic because it gives her control over the situation, but she abuses that power because she thinks her intelligence makes her more perceptive of what's best than the others. So Willow went from being Jerk-style Batman to a coke addict. Boo.
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2 comments:
I think Slayers in general make bad generals. That's why the Watcher organization exists after all. Slayers are really a weapon, you point it at the bad guys and let it go. If it dies, another one will appear and you start over.
Depending on how you look at it, Buffy's a good case for this. Her personal effectiveness actually decreased after she quit the Watcher organization. She wasn't very good as a leader (her friends stuck out of loyalty but they suffered a lot of casualties).
While the threats they faced increased the solutions depended a lot more on the increased capabilities of her friends. Willow went from computer geek and target, to super-powered sorceress. They added full vampires and demons to the team. Even Xander added a lot of "field experience," plus he eventually ended up with military skill as well.
Buffy's own ability stayed the same, and effectiveness dropped. Sure the bad guys got stopped, but Buffy's role was usually just to get beat up until someone else solved the problem.
That's why Faith was always fairly impressive. She thought like a weapon, and understood her role while Buffy fought it (and her Watcher encouraged it).
seangreyson: That's a really good point, Buffy was pretty much running in place while all the characters around her grew in power (even Giles, if only because he let "Ripper" out every once in a while).
I suppose I understand Buffy resistance to the "You're a weapon" theory, since sooner or later, the sword breaks or the crossbow misfires, and then you have to toss it aside, and it's not a lot of fun knowing they think that about you. Still, Buffy never struck me as the most tactically sound person, especially not when it came to leading groups, probably because of the Slayer part of her. It had to always be in the middle of things, and it's hard to give directions when you can't see the whole field (I'm reminded of that scene from early Season 6 where the Scoobs are trying to carry the load for Buffy and Willow's playing leader, standing on a mausoleum, guiding the rest of the team, because she has the best view of everything).
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