Slayers

[itsnotmymind]

So this is about Faith.

Or maybe it's about Buffy. I'm not quite sure.

I was originally planning on having better organization to these thoughts, but I didn't like my initial plan, and making new one would be, like, work. So, it's a little scattered.

This is about how the bad slayer/good slayer dichotomy contributed to Faith's turn to evil. This is also about the ways in which Buffy's actions contributed to Faith's turn to evil.

This isn't an argument that Buffy was mean and rejecting to Faith and therefore it's totally understandable that Faith would run to the mayor. Buffy wasn't mean and rejecting to Faith. She wasn't a perfect little saint, but she was very kind to Faith.

That's actually part of the problem.

In my experience, we in fandom have a tendency to focus on blame. Don't get me wrong, I love blame! The sci-fi/fantasy TV shows I enjoy are full of characters making horrible choices. By all means, blame away.

But sometimes this blame prevents people from analyzing what actually happened. Why characters made the choices they made. How they react to each other, influence each other. Obsessing over what was who's fault can make it hard to see the complexities of a situation. If a conversation between two fans turns into an argument over which character wronged which character the most...well, there's a lot that a conversation like that is going to overlook, no matter how smart and respectful the fans in question are.

One more thing to think about before I start: Suppose someone says or does something the can only interpreted as good and fair. I'm not talking about a bad thing disguised as good and fair, but something genuinely good and fair. And this interaction leaves you feeling bad and dirty, even if you haven't done anything wrong, or haven't done anything that wrong...

Who is at fault? Are you at fault, for feeling attacked when you aren't? Are they at fault, for making you feel bad? Is anyone at fault?

So. A handful of thoughts about the good slayer and the bad slayer.


Faith comes into Sunndale completely ripe for taking on the title of "bad slayer". She's introduced to us by Cordelia describing her as "Slut-O-Rama". She's out of control, as we see when she punches a vampire repeatedly instead of killing him, ignoring the fact that Buffy is in danger despite Buffy's repeated cries for help. We soon find out she's on the run from Kakistos, and is hiding this from Buffy and the Scoobies.

When Buffy finds out, she reassures Faith that the other slayer did the right thing when Kakistos killed her watcher. Together, the girls defeat Kakistos. Buffy is undoubtedly helping Faith here. Her motives are good. She sees that Faith is scared and guilty and wants to help. She's going the extra mile to reach out to Faith, whom up to this point she has resented, and help Faith overcome her fears.

From Faith's point of view, Buffy's support and reassurance helps her to overcome at least some of her fears and guilt. This naturally causes her to think positively of Buffy, to even look up to her a bit. But even at this point, I think it's more complicated than that. It causes her to feel inferior to Buffy. It causes her to feel like that Buffy is better than her...and to feel that Buffy also thinks Buffy is better. Faith wants Buffy to be like this, to be supportive like this. But she also wants Buffy to come down to her level. The idea that Buffy is wonderful and she's just a loser is exquisitely painful.

Buffy's attitude in her interactions with Faith is superior. Admittedly, it can be nice to have someone around who acts like they know what they're doing, especially when you're as out-of-control as Faith, but being treated (whatever Buffy's intention) as not as good starts to hurt after awhile. And create resentment, anger, and bitterness.

In Revelations, Faith comes close to trusting Buffy--and then doesn't. Faith's trust is at a low ebb after Gwendolyn Post, and Buffy didn't trust her with Angel. It's worth noting that even with all of those issues, Faith still almost trusted Buffy.

The fact that Buffy so nobly reached out to her and Faith rejected her is going to be something that will sting. Faith can argue to herself that Buffy shouldn't have lied about Angel--but when Faith lied about Kakistos, Buffy didn't hold a grudge. Faith is probably starting feel that Buffy just does this shit, these attempts to reach out to Faith, just to make herself look like the good guy. And while that's certainly not a fair assessment of the situation, I'm not sure it's entirely off-base. I would have to write several paragraphs to explain what I mean, exactly, but I'm not going to do that, so all you Buffy defenders will just have to deal.

From here on, Buffy and Faith fall into their roles as the "good" one and the "bad" one. In Helpless, we see that Faith goes on "unannounced walkabouts," while Buffy is conscientious about her training.

By the time we reach Bad Girls/Consequences, the good slayer/bad slayer dynamic has been solidified. We see Faith rather aggressively trying to convince Buffy that Buffy is "bad" like her. These range from Faith's insistence that staking vampires gets Buffy "juiced" early in Bad Girls, to Faith's declaration at the end of Consequences that "You can't handle watching me living my own way, having a blast, because it tempts you!"

Although some of Faith's claims are on the mark, others are not. Faith's insistence that Buffy is just like her is not entirely about what Buffy is actually like. It's about what Faith, for various reasons, wants her to be like. Part of this is a way of building up Faith, herself, as being enviable rather than a loser, and Buffy, the good girl, as a boring person who secretly wishes to be just like Faith.

As the above quote from Consequences implies, Faith during this period is getting every bit of enjoyment that she can out of her role as the "bad" one. This starts with taking delight in killing vampires, moves to her insisting that their role as slayers means that she and Buffy can do whatever they want, and ultimately turns into enjoyment of violence against humans, even innocent civilians such as Xander.

But until the end of Bad Girls, Buffy does not have much in the way of moral high ground over Faith. Faith might be the ringleader, but Buffy is happy to join her in shoplifting, escaping from the police, and other escapades. Buffy expresses a lot of concerns about the ethics of what they are doing, but it doesn't actually stop her.

Even the killing of Finch was a matter of misjudgment and possible recklessness than any kind of malice. Buffy is the one who tosses Finch into Faith's path, and Buffy herself admits that she only realized a second before that Finch wasn't a vampire. Furthermore, Buffy screwed up the previous season when she killed Ted--and just got lucky when Ted turned out to be a robot.

It's only when Faith goes into denial about what happened and refuses to accept any responsibility that Buffy becomes the good girl again.

Strangely, by the end of Consequences, Buffy's role in Finch's death has completely and permanently disappeared from the narrative and as far as we know from the minds of all the characters. In fact, even when Buffy attacks Faith in Graduation Day with the intent to kill and puts her in a coma, there's little in the way of fall-out, either narratively or in terms of how the other characters react. It's not these actions make Buffy "bad"--certainly, Faith has done worse, and the lack of follow-up to what she did to Xander is worrisome. It's that Buffy can go pretty far without anyone being concerned about her morality or, more to the point, without getting pushed her out of the box of "good slayer". Faith was the bad one before Finch's death. Buffy is the good one after Faith is in a coma.

Back to Bad Girls/Consequences. Buffy, after playing with being bad for most of Bad Girls, approaches Faith to discuss what they are going to do. Buffy talks in terms of "we". Faith talks in terms of "I". The only time she says "we" is when she is trying to intimidate Buffy into not telling anyone what happened.

Buffy is oh-so-gracious (but also kind of accurate) in her attempt to treat it as something they were both responsible for, as opposed to Faith alone. But Faith screwed up. Faith knows she screwed up. Buffy realized what was going on, shouted at her to stop, and Faith couldn't stop quickly enough. Maybe if she'd been more conscientious about training, she would have. For Faith, Buffy being so helpful and gracious is like getting her face rubbed in the fact that Buffy is just better than her.

Something that I think I've discussed before is that Faith plays a big role in getting Buffy's participation in Finch's death forgotten, in reinforcing the good slayer/bad slayer polarization. Faith is the one who goes to Giles and tells him, not that she killed Finch, not that she and Buffy both screwed up, but that Buffy alone did it. This leaves Buffy desperate to convince Giles that it was actually Faith who committed the "murder". From then on, any culpability that Buffy might have in Finch's death is forgotten. Faith's attempt to turn Buffy into the bad slayer in Giles' eyes backfired terribly.

Even at this point, when she seems to have completely embraced her role as the "bad" one, Faith is trying to be the "good" slayer. She can't be as good as Buffy--and she can't present herself as good as good as Buffy. Her attempts to become the "good" one have become increasingly underhand--and they're only going to blow up in her face. Faith hasn't yet figured out that in order to truly be good, you have to accept that not everyone in the world is going to see you as good, and that sometimes you are going to screw up, and then you are going to feel like a pretty bad person.

By the end of the episode, Buffy is still trying to reach out to Faith. This after Faith betrayed her and tried to rape and murder her best friend. Once again, Faith is using her role as the bad one to place herself as superior to Buffy, claiming that Buffy is as bad as her but afraid to act on it. Buffy's compassionate attempts to reach out to her can only backfire--it's just more evidence that Buffy's a better person, that Buffy never does anything wrong, and that Faith's options are evil or loser.

A lot what I've talked about in this post, in terms of Faith's feelings towards Buffy, is made explicit in Enemies. "I'm the Slayer. I do my job kicking ass better than anyone. What do I hear about everywhere I go? Buffy. So I slay, I behave, I do the good little girl routine. And who's everybody thank? Buffy." Also, in response to Buffy requesting Faith to listen to her, "Why? So you can impart some special Buffy wisdom, that it? Do you think you're better than me?"

Faith at this point has not yet worked out an understanding as to why her life up until now has been such a mess. She's on the right track--referencing her miserable childhood, the way people around her treat her as inferior to Buffy, the fact that Buffy has support that she doesn't, and Buffy's own holier-than-thou attitude. But she doesn't actually make any kind of sense of all those complaints, and instead projects every single problem onto Buffy. She also doesn't seem to get the part where being hard done by is not an excuse for unleashing a soulless monster on the earth and trying to torture someone to death.

Skipping ahead to Who Are You?: While both Spike and Faith play a similar role in their relationships with Buffy, and both of them are redeemed through Buffy, these redemptions take a very different form. Spike redeems himself though his interactions with Buffy.vFaith, instead, starts her redemption through the experience of living Buffy's life. Faith can't acknowledge to herself how much she wants to be the good one until she starts playing the role of the good one, of Buffy--first on a very shallow level, and then more sincerely. And she can't have that experience, can't move out of the role of the bad one, until she is the good one--specifically, until actual Buffy is out of the picture. As long as Buffy is there, eternally better than her, she can't be good. Buffy is her idea of goodness, and being Buffy allows her to be good for its own sake. She can't, at least at this point in her life, understand goodness separate from Buffy.

Sanctuary: Buffy gets a lot of criticism for her behavior in Sanctuary. And yeah, she's a brat. A brat who has every right to be pissed, but still, a brat.

And yet--if Buffy had showed up as the person she was at the end of Faith, Hope, and Trick, at the end of Revelations, and the end of Bad Girls...if she had shown up as the compassionate good one, what would have happened? At this point, I certainly think Faith's desire to redeem herself was separate from anything Buffy could have said or done. If it wasn't, it wouldn't have been much of a desire for redemption. But what would have happened?

Sanctuary has one of my favorite television quotes of all time (okay, I have a lot of those, but shush): "You're all about control. You have no idea what it's like on the other side! Where nothing's in control, nothing makes sense! There is just pain and hate and nothing you do means anything."

When Faith tells Buffy, "You're all about control" it's different from her previous observations about Buffy, that were generally more about Faith's own issues that about Buffy. I'm trying to think of another time a character described Buffy as "all about control", or something similar, and nothing's coming up. I don't think Faith means that Buffy is controlling. I think she's referring more to self-control. Self-control is something that Faith has lacked since her first appearance.

And it's in this context that Faith asks Buffy to tell her how to make it better, and ultimately follows Buffy's rather forceful suggestion and turns herself in to the police.

And that's all I've got.

Comments

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Mmmm. Nice, juicy thoughts! Both of them are my girl, too!

Back when I was an undergrad, my one sociology course introduced me to an interesting truth that had been proved through controlled social experiments. If you can convince a somebody to do you a small favor — tell you the time, get you a coffee from the free office coffee source, etc. — they will decide that they like you. If they do you this favor, your opinion of them does not improve, however. Doing a favor for someone else doesn't make them like you, but it makes you like them. You like the people you help, but not necessarily the people who help you. That seems to be the dynamic you are describing with Buffy and Faith.

Now, Faith needed all the help she could get when she rolled into town, more than she actually got, IMO. It would have been cruel to withhold that help. And Buffy is still helping Faith in "Sanctuary", even it that wasn't her express intention. In fact, it was the opposite of her intention. But faced with the patriarchy Council, well, sisterhood is indeed powerful. But yeah, Buffy was not longer in a forgiving mood, and that was definitely a contributing factor to Faith deciding to face the music.

I actually am fascinated by Buffy deciding to murder Faith in "Graduation". I think Buffy shocked herself with that attempt, and it's strange than nobody ever calls her on it. (Thank you, fanfic.) I can't remember if Buffy knew about Faith's attempt to assault Xander in "Consequences". Angel knew, obviously, but that's the kind of thing it would be hard for Buffy to forgive, and I don't think Xander ever discusses it.

But yeah, Buffy's motivations are mixed. She wants to be a good person, but she also wants to feel like she's a good person, which isn't exactly the same thing. I'm sort of an "actions matter more than intent" person, sometimes, so I'm perfectly willing to allow people to get their jollies from altruistic actions without deducting "goodness points" because it also makes them happy or feel superior or what-have-you. But, as in the experiment above, it won't necessarily make people like them any better.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

I still get a bit annoyed with Giles for not doing anything about Faith. She was his responsibility, and he basically did jack. Interestingly enough, she defends him to Gwendolyn Post, and he's one of the few people in Buffy's circle whom she never victimizes.

I wonder--even if Faith had decided to trust Buffy in Revelations, would it have led to good places? I'm not sure Buffy would have been able to take on all of Faith's issues. She was just a girl herself. I don't know what would have happened, but I could see it ending badly.

When I first watched Graduation Day, I just emotionally withdrew when Buffy decided to kill Faith. I knew that the writers were not going to go through with all the implications. That said, I've come to the conclusion that while I hate the lack of follow-up, I don't have a whole lot of moral issues with Buffy's attempt to kill Faith. We've got a rogue slayer who can't be handled by the police, who is killing people. Attempts have made to talk to her, and they aren't working. Then she sentenced Angel to a painful death by which the only cure appeared to be her life or Buffy's. This is a little iffy, since Angel was a mass-murderer who could in theory revert to his murderousness at any time, but I am still pretty okay with all this morally.

But after Faith accidentally killing someone was such a huge deal, you'd think Buffy trying to kill someone and instead putting them in a coma would have some kind of affect on the narrative.

I know Xander had bruises on his neck after Faith attacked him in Consequences, and I'm pretty sure Willow at some point in the episode made a comment, with Buffy in the room, about Faith hurting Xander. I don't know if Buffy knew the details, but she knew it was bad.

You know, we tend to assume that Buffy's "goodness", for lack of a better word, comes from her apparently happy and stable childhood. And I don't think that's untrue, necessarily. But if I compare her to the people I know in real life who remind me of her, well, that just doesn't fit. And I wonder how much of that aspect of her personality is actually a result of her learning how to hold herself and the world around her together during her incredibly traumatic adolescence.

[rahirah]

I was always a little disappointed that Buffy and Faith didn't get more interaction in S7, because after her experiences in S6, I would have thought Buffy would be able to understand Faith better. But then, once it was over, Buffy may well have wanted to think as little about her fall from grace as possible.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

I would have loved to see more interaction between Buffy and Faith in S7.

Oh, I had all these thoughts about Buffy and I didn't put them in there because I couldn't get them to make sense.

I think Buffy was coming from a completely different place in S6 as Faith was in S3. And I actually think Buffy thought about her fall from grace all the time...because yes, she thinks she's better than everyone else, that she knows better than everyone else, but she wasn't joking when she said she believed she was worse than any of them.

It's hard to talk about my current Buffy-thoughts without going into depth about people I know, which I'm not comfortable doing in public, and then I just wonder if maybe I'm too busy seeing all these other people I know and have dealt with to actually see Buffy.

[rahirah]

I'm not being clear... what I mean is, I get the impression that when Buffy thinks about things like this, it's more or less "I did a bad thing, and that makes me a bad person. If I want to be a good person, I must never do that thing again." And maybe sometimes she gets as far as "I did that bad thing because I was depressed." But she wouldn't really ask herself "OK, I did a bad thing because I was depressed. Why did I do that particular bad thing rather than any of the other bad things I might have done? Why do I feel bad about this thing I did, but not about that other thing, which some people might argue was actually a worse thing to do?" She seems to me like someone who's intensely critical of herself, but not analytical, if that makes any sense? So she often ends up repeating the behavior she feels bad about, because she doesn't understand what's driving her to do it in the first place.

And one of the reasons she doesn't analyze is because she IS so self-critical; thinking about it makes her feel so guilty and down on herself that in order to function she just represses everything.

I think her conversation with Holden was probably the deepest self-examination she ever did, and yet there's some contradiction in there; she tells him she thinks she's the worst, but only an episode or two later she tells Spike that she doesn't hate herself any longer. Did something change between those two episodes? Was she lying to Spike? I don't think she way lying to Holden -- she had no reason to, since she was going to kill him. Did the writers just not communicate?

I don't know. Buffy is complicated.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

What Buffy actually says to Spike is, "No. I don't hate like that. Not you, or myself. Not anymore." Maybe I'm being overly analytical, but I think she could think herself worse than anyone without hating herself this way she did in S6. I don't think those two statements are contradictory.

I do think that Buffy is generally low on the self-awareness scale. Although I don't think not be analytical about something is the same as not thinking about it, necessarily, although it can be.

I'm not actually sure that analyzing your motives in depth is the best way to deal with your mistakes. I'm still piecing this together, and I'm not sure. And of course applying my experiences to Buffy is difficult because I've never done anything like beat my boyfriend black and blue. But I'm not convinced that I accept your premise.

Self-awareness was important for Faith, but I don't think the important thing for Faith was understanding why she did the stuff she did. I think the important thing for Faith was realized that she did want to be good, despite what she was telling herself and everyone around her.

I think...I think one of Buffy's problems is that she's trying too hard to be good. And this is hard to explain, because I think to a certain extent her "goodness" is a con, but it's also very sincere. And I feel like Buffy's response to any of the criticism I see launched at her in fandom would be to try harder to be good, and that's sort of the problem. Nobody can be that good. I think even before Buffy could begin to address her flaws, she has to accept the fact that her flaws are forgivable, and that she's lovable as a person.

I have no idea how that would happen, though.

[supernutjapan.livejournal.com]

Wow, I actually know what you are talking about :D very interesting anaysis and I agree insomuch as I know. Faith is a very complex character and it makes sense to me that she felt this way about Buffy.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[local-max.livejournal.com]

I think my favourite observation here is to consider that Buffy's being compassionate and understanding in some senses just makes Faith feel worse -- for example, after Buffy forgives Faith over her secrets about Kakistos, Faith can't really be that angry about Buffy keeping Angel a secret, or, rather, cannot justifiably. However, Faith still is angry and hurt that Buffy didn't share with her...but rather than hold this as a moral high ground excuse/reason to attack Buffy, Faith goes into her whatever-I-don't-care mode, because that is a way that she can cope with the feeling of betrayal which she *knows* she can't fully justify on rational grounds.

I think that's part of why in some of the eps in a dark phase, especially "Enemies" and "Five By Five," Faith is really reveling in being a psycho -- I don't just mean that she's reveling in being evil, but that she's specifically reveling in being unpredictable and possibly even insane. It's not that she actually is insane or incapable of judging right from wrong. But in "Enemies," there is the sense that she really wants to show Buffy, PROVE to Buffy what kind of madwoman she is, and then relish the opportunity. Because Faith has all these feelings that she cannot really explain, or that she can only explain by cliches that hint at the truth but don't really make full sense of it (Faith's mother being an alcoholic surely was traumatic, but Faith doesn't really believe that's the source of her problems, because she believes that she is the source of them, unless they aren't problems at all...).

Anyway, one of the most powerful moments in "Enemies" for me is when Buffy responds to Faith's ranting accusation that Buffy thinks she's better than her with "I am." It's actually even more chilling (and a little damning of Buffy, in a way) after it's revealed that Angel and Buffy are playing a long game on Faith, which does really show that Buffy is not holding her upper lip stiff in the face of possible torture (compare with Wesley in "Five By Five" -- who really *is* holding onto his "you are a piece of shit" statement as a kind of desperate attempt to hold onto some of his dignity in the face of more and more torture). But anyway, Faith really is shocked that Buffy actually lays into her, rather than playing Miss Compassionate again; and she is shocked, too, when Buffy actually comes to kill her in "Graduation Day." "You did it, B." She doesn't quite believe it.

So she's got these complex feelings. On the one hand, she believes that Buffy is compassionate. On the other, she thinks it's fake compassion. *Piety*, I think -- Buffy is committed to a concept of goodness which leads to Buffy magnanimously forgiving Faith's numerous and frequent trespasses against her. Which does two things: it obscures the extent to which Buffy really is trying to reach out to Faith; and it obscures the fact that there actually *are* lines which Buffy won't brook Faith crossing.

I think of how hard it must be for Faith. To know that she is always second, even at the one thing she is best at in the world. And she has this love/envy for Buffy. And she also has this rage and anger at what she feels she's missing because of Buffy, or at the recognition that there is an asymmetry in their relationship to match the asymmetry of their studiousness as slayers. And she really doesn't actually understand where this rage is coming from, and on some level knows that it is not fair to direct it at Buffy. So Buffy must be faking her kindness, and it's not that hard to rationalize it because, well, yeah, I think that there is *some* fakeness to some of Buffy's overtures to Faith, though mostly I think Buffy is more genuine than not. And if Buffy isn't faking her kindness, well, she's a sucker and Faith's a psycho. And, oh wait, no, that's not it either. It's like she keeps circling around to find some reason for the difference between who she is and who Buffy is, and there is none. Can it be that Faith is just that bad? And, no, that's not it -- it really is a matter of circumstance that led to how radically different Faith and Buffy started out, and then bad choices compounded it. But I feel like we humans are so hard-wired to look for reasons for something, even ones that make us look bad.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

You commented!! :)

Mostly nodding along with all this, but let's see if I can summon some thoughts.

I always wondered if Faith was actually mentally ill or not, because in This Year's Girl or Five By Five she's described as "psychotic", right? But it makes more sense that she would actually be sane, but acting insane. Because it makes more sense than anything else.

And I think Faith does think that she's the problem, but she also thinks the world is out to get her. I think that's sincere. It's sort of up and down and back and forth. Is she a loser, or is the world out to screw her?

I think Buffy could justify herself declaring herself as better than Faith by telling herself they needed Faith worked up so she would talk...but I don't think that was the only reason. Because we know that Buffy does think of herself as better than everyone, as well as worse than them. And I think she means it, and I think it's sort of her weird way of getting back at Faith. And yet, strangely, she's also trying to reach Faith in that scene, and I don't think she's faking that, either. It's almost like her attempts to hurt Faith and her attempts to help Faith are the same, the same sort of attitude, the same sort of condescension and superiority. Note what Faith has just accused Buffy of: trying to share "Buffy wisdom".

Faith has the double-whammy of not having all the things Buffy has, and of not being able to keep up with Buffy as a slayer. She has nothing. She is nothing. And yet the one thing she does have is Buffy, because they have this special slayer bond. The chosen two. But Buffy is one of the very things that is keeping her down.

Sometimes I wonder if there is an element of fake it 'till you make to Buffy's kindness: She fakes it not because she's insincere, but because she's trying too hard. She acts good because she doesn't feel she is good. So she's worse than everyone, because she's not a good person, but she's better than everyone, because she acts so good and they don't.