Excellent analysis of Faith but I do think the mirror angle favours a kind of binary thinking that can lead to some false dichotomies. Which is to say I think Buffy is more complicated. To take a simple example the choice Faith has to make after killing Finch is not just between turning herself into the police and keeping the whole thing secret. Buffy initially suggests that she talk about it to Buffy, to anyone, Faith responds by saying she’s covered it up and she doesn’t care, it never happened. That’s not rational acceptance of a regrettable error but full blown denial. I think also that in the context of the episode the killing is not quite as simple as an unavoidable accident. Bad Girls is all about Faith tempting Buffy to let herself go, give in to the realm of the senses and slay purely for the fun, the rush of it. I think it’s not just because Buffy is a couple of seconds behind Faith that she notices Finch is human just before Faith stakes him. Faith is caught up in the rush, she’s not paying attention. Her initial response
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I think also that in the context of the episode the killing is not quite as simple as an unavoidable accident. Bad Girls is all about Faith tempting Buffy to let herself go, give in to the realm of the senses and slay purely for the fun, the rush of it. I think it’s not just because Buffy is a couple of seconds behind Faith that she notices Finch is human just before Faith stakes him. Faith is caught up in the rush, she’s not paying attention.
The writers also made a deliberate point in Dopplegangland, when Buffy is in the act of staking VampWillow and Willow shouts "Buffy, No!" Buffy is able to stop herself from staking VampWillow
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I totally agree with you about the binary thinking -- and was trying to use the essay to suggest that things are much more complicated than the light/dark imagery might lead us to expect
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I totally agree with you about the binary thinking -- and was trying to use the essay to suggest that things are much more complicated than the light/dark imagery might lead us to expect.
Absolutely, I think you did a wonderful job and wish I had been able to express that better. The human brain she is wired in opposites, I slipped into setting up my own hot/cold dichotomy mid-comment.
Your point about the effect of the Ted incident particularly made me think and it’s also true that Faith’s the type to have an inferiority complex about her inferiority complex. Still I don’t know if any intervention would have stopped her, the pattern was set already in her first episode. If it’s possible to account for Buffy playing Generalissma in S7 by her caring too much about the potentials and reacting by refusing to care at all, I think the same can be said of the Faith running from having witnessed whatever Kakistos did to her Watcher. And she’s so very young in S3 for all her street cool bravado.
For me, Buffy's coldness is the expense of
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Good point about Wishverse Buffy. But there are other factors in play there as well. Very often in the Buffyverse (as in real life) there are multiple explanations for why people are the way they are. And they are often all true. So it's hard to answer counter-factual questions like -- would a Wishverse Buffy with friends and family but without a Wishverse Faith or Spike to be superior to have been so cold? In any case, the coldness of Wishverse Buffy strikes me as different from the coldness of our Buffy. All very interesting to ponder
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The writers also made a deliberate point in Dopplegangland, when Buffy is in the act of staking VampWillow and Willow shouts "Buffy, No!" Buffy is able to stop herself from staking VampWillow ( ... )
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Absolutely, I think you did a wonderful job and wish I had been able to express that better. The human brain she is wired in opposites, I slipped into setting up my own hot/cold dichotomy mid-comment.
Your point about the effect of the Ted incident particularly made me think and it’s also true that Faith’s the type to have an inferiority complex about her inferiority complex. Still I don’t know if any intervention would have stopped her, the pattern was set already in her first episode. If it’s possible to account for Buffy playing Generalissma in S7 by her caring too much about the potentials and reacting by refusing to care at all, I think the same can be said of the Faith running from having witnessed whatever Kakistos did to her Watcher. And she’s so very young in S3 for all her street cool bravado.
For me, Buffy's coldness is the expense of ( ... )
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