Notion of Goodness
Mar. 4th, 2012 01:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsnotmymind“So, you're the slayer,” Caleb tells Buffy in their first confrontation in “Dirty Girls”. “The slayer. The strongest, the fastest, the most aflame with that most precious invention of all mankind—the notion of goodness.”
Most of the characters on BtVS, especially the male characters, put Buffy on the pedestal of the perfect hero. With the two vampires who remade themselves into heroes for her, it goes beyond simply seeing her as a heroic, to seeing her as representing goodness. Someone once put it that way: in falling in love with Buffy, Spike fell in love with goodness itself.
It's hard not to see that as gendered. Women, more than men, are used to represent all that is pure, and right, and good in the world. On many shows (BtVS being a rare exception), the heart of the team is a woman. Women are compassionate. Women are oriented toward others. A woman can represent goodness.
Of course, the flipside of the woman who represents Goodness is the woman who represents Badness. In S1, Buffy represents Angel’s good side while Darla is his bad side. Drusilla takes Darla’s role in S2, and Faith takes the role in S3. There is a bit of a subversion with Faith--the surface love triangle of Faith and Buffy competing over Angel (both romantically, and over whether he should be bad or good) is not the more important love triangle. Instead, the more important love triangle is the below-the-surface triangle of Faith competing with Angel for Buffy, who she wants to corrupt. Unlike Darla (whom Buffy only has one conversation with that I recall, and of course it is about Angel) and Drusilla (with whom Buffy never really has a conversation with, despite sharing two boyfriends and encountering each other several times), Faith has a relationship with Buffy that is separate from, and more important than, their competition over Angel.
Drusilla takes the role of the woman who represents badness in S5 and S7 for Spike, instead of Angel. Over on AtS, Lilah represents badness for awhile Wesley, while Fred represents goodness. There’s a rare genderswapped version in Buffy S6: Spike represents badness, Riley goodness. But here’s the thing: Unlike Lilah, Dru, Faith, and Darla, Spike isn’t actively doing evil. This is mainly due to Buffy’s personality: Even being involved with a guy who has no remorse about the evil he did in the past freaks her out. If Spike were actively doing actual evil, Buffy would kill him. If he were human, she wouldn’t kill him, but she certainly wouldn’t sleep with him.
One the things I really like about the Buffy-Spike-Wood-Faith dynamic in S7 is that, although loyalties are very much tied to flirtations and sexual partnerships, it’s never a bad-girl-vs-good-girl thing, or even the gender swapped version. It’s more complicated than that.
Most of the characters on BtVS, especially the male characters, put Buffy on the pedestal of the perfect hero. With the two vampires who remade themselves into heroes for her, it goes beyond simply seeing her as a heroic, to seeing her as representing goodness. Someone once put it that way: in falling in love with Buffy, Spike fell in love with goodness itself.
It's hard not to see that as gendered. Women, more than men, are used to represent all that is pure, and right, and good in the world. On many shows (BtVS being a rare exception), the heart of the team is a woman. Women are compassionate. Women are oriented toward others. A woman can represent goodness.
Of course, the flipside of the woman who represents Goodness is the woman who represents Badness. In S1, Buffy represents Angel’s good side while Darla is his bad side. Drusilla takes Darla’s role in S2, and Faith takes the role in S3. There is a bit of a subversion with Faith--the surface love triangle of Faith and Buffy competing over Angel (both romantically, and over whether he should be bad or good) is not the more important love triangle. Instead, the more important love triangle is the below-the-surface triangle of Faith competing with Angel for Buffy, who she wants to corrupt. Unlike Darla (whom Buffy only has one conversation with that I recall, and of course it is about Angel) and Drusilla (with whom Buffy never really has a conversation with, despite sharing two boyfriends and encountering each other several times), Faith has a relationship with Buffy that is separate from, and more important than, their competition over Angel.
Drusilla takes the role of the woman who represents badness in S5 and S7 for Spike, instead of Angel. Over on AtS, Lilah represents badness for awhile Wesley, while Fred represents goodness. There’s a rare genderswapped version in Buffy S6: Spike represents badness, Riley goodness. But here’s the thing: Unlike Lilah, Dru, Faith, and Darla, Spike isn’t actively doing evil. This is mainly due to Buffy’s personality: Even being involved with a guy who has no remorse about the evil he did in the past freaks her out. If Spike were actively doing actual evil, Buffy would kill him. If he were human, she wouldn’t kill him, but she certainly wouldn’t sleep with him.
One the things I really like about the Buffy-Spike-Wood-Faith dynamic in S7 is that, although loyalties are very much tied to flirtations and sexual partnerships, it’s never a bad-girl-vs-good-girl thing, or even the gender swapped version. It’s more complicated than that.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-05 07:10 am (UTC)Some additional observations: Over on AtS, Lilah represents badness for awhile Wesley, while Fred represents goodness.
For Wesley himself, certainly. (The man has a madonna/whore complex a mile wide, and note that long before Lilah enters his life, you have that ultra disturbing thing from Billy wherein under-the-influence Wes accuses Fred of leading him on, and in the final scene you have Fred, not so coincidentally, dressed in something that covers her from neck to toe as opposed to what she was wearing earlier.) For the show narrative, I would venture, no, because at the time Wesley sees himself as torn between Lilah and Fred, i.e. S4, Fred has her own aquainting herself with her dark side thing going on. And it's not like the show does a genderswapped good/bad thing with her, Wes and Gunn, either, because while Fred and Gunn have a mutual falling of the pedestals because of the professor killing, there aren't really saviors or villains in that breakup. Going back to Wesley, if there's any emotional struggle for him in the show's narrative as opposed to how Wes sees himself, it's not between Lilah and Fred, it's between his feelings for Angel and Lilah respectively. (Angel wins.)(He loses in s5 when it's Fred vs Angel in "Origin" as far as Wesley is concerned, but that's another story.)
Now, AtS does the good woman vs bad woman thing symbolizing the struggle in a man in the narrative, too, but I would venture not with Wesley, Lilah and Fred; they do it pretty blatantly with Angel, Cordelia and Darla. It's also subverted somewhat how it turns out, but Cordelia as symbolizing Angel's good side and mission to save people versus Darla symbolizing his past and dark side is pretty much on the nose in s2 (hence Angel turning against Cordy specifically, and making up to Cordy specifically, during and at the end of the beige arc).
Re: Buffy and Drusilla for Spike - what role does poor Harmony play then? :)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-05 05:55 pm (UTC)Fred, I'm sure, is completely clueless about the whole thing. And having her own drama with Gunn which does not fit into that pattern.
Good point with the Darla/Angel/Cordelia thing.
Poor Harm is just not evil to represent evil, or good enough to represent goodness. And she's not really important enough to Spike to represent anything for him. I guess she just gets to be the comic relief?
no subject
Date: 2012-03-05 10:08 pm (UTC)Incidentally, one of the interesting things about Lilah on AtS is that while she's clearly modelled after the 40s style film noire femme fatale in her outfits and demeanour, she's not playing that role in the story. Partly because her romantic relationship is with Wesley, not Angel. (And even there she's not doing the femme fatale thing of seducing him into evil deeds. Their relationship doesn't stop Wesley from doing the serious version of his rogue demon hunter act at any point, and the arguably darkest thing he ever does intentionally, keeping Justine as a prisoner in the closet for three months, he does without Lilah's knowledge.) And partly because Angel doesn't have the personal animosity for her he has for Lindsey. Their relationship is oddly professional, if you know what I mean. I find it fascinating that Angel's reaction after finding out that Lilah had spiced his drinks with Connor's blood isn't going berserk on her or deliver a cool threat but to have that chat at the bar with her which is the one and only attempt anyone ever makes on the show to dissuade Lilah from her path while she's still alive. (You know, the one that ends with "that mask has become me a long time ago".) Now granted, this might be because at this point he's just vented his rage by attempting to strangle Wesley and is about to try dark magic to get Connor back, but it's still interesting. Anyway, Lilah is an antagonist, but she's in a way that doesn't depend on her being female, is what I guess I'm saying.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 03:24 pm (UTC)Re: Buffy and Drusilla for Spike - what role does poor Harmony play then? :)
Harmony represents mediocrity, something that Spike always despised and wanted to get away from. He has a relationship with Harmony at the time when he isn't so sure anymore of his role as the big bad vampire, after Drusilla dumped him for not being evil enough anymore, at least according to her. He restarts a relationship with her when he's chipped and unable to be a real monster but hasn't still decided to try to be good and when everyone kind of sees him as a joke. Harmony herself doesn't need a chip to be seen as a big joke by everyone, she's a hedonist and acts on impulse and doesn't use her brain much (or in her case, she does but she just doesn't have the intelligence, unlike Spike who's smart when he doesn't let emotions and his temporary urges to win over), lacks self-esteem and when she falls for someone she'll stay with them despite being treated like crap.
Spike praises Drusilla for "saving" him from mediocrity in Crush, the same episode where he leaves Harmony as soon as Drusilla comes back and says that he's finally starting to feel like himself - before he makes it clear that he would prefer Buffy to Drusilla. For Spike, ultimately, Mediocrity < Evil < Goodness
no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 03:40 pm (UTC)So: Spike taking up with Harmony briefly on AtS and later on having an actual friendly and civilised conversation with her prefigures his recitation of William's poetry in the season finale as a way of Spike getting over his fear of mediocrity and acceptance of the non-glamorous part of himself?
no subject
Date: 2012-03-13 04:03 pm (UTC)