In my mind you fail to make crucial moral distinctions between a faulty sense of judgment about how to exercise power and a willful decision to misuse it.
I don't make that mistake. Faith herself does. Faith and Buffy willfully misuse their power in "Bad Girls" when they rob the Sporting Goods store. Faith argues "Want.Take.Have" that there is no distinction between faulty use of power - that she got caught - and faulty moral judgment. (That she shouldn't have committed the act in the first place.) Faith's refusal to face the second is emblematic...
But by invoking the word 'killer' so early on, Buffy closed out some of the space in which Faith might have had room to take that responsibility.
Buffy's invocation of the word killer does not preclude Faith from taking responsibility. If Faith is big enough to run around with a stake, she's big enough to make the room to be responsible. She's big enough to say "I'm not a killer - I just screwed up. I'll talk to Giles and work this out".
It's not the negligence that brings Faith over the line. It's her willingness to leave her own responsibilities on others. First by putting it on Buffy metaphorically (Buffy says I'm a killer, so I guess I'm a killer) and later literally. (as she goes to Giles and places direct blame on Buffy) that takes her over the line and she's solely responsible for it.
Putting Faith into a coma was a morally serious act on Buffy's part -- one which as far as I can tell had no consequences for her.
Putting Faith in a coma then, instead of stopping her long before has negative consequences for the Professor. Probably makes Buffy feel pretty guilty, letting more people die because she can't bring herself to stop someone she cares about. Putting her in coma then, has remarkably positive consequences for everyone except Mayor Wilkins. It also has the consequences of Buffy forgiving Faith. When Faith wakes up from her coma, there is no one more positively inclined towards her than Buffy is.
I am hardly claiming Buffy is pristine. But it's equally simple to hold out Graduation Day in the hopes of equalizing things or mitigate Faith's act. It's a non-sequitor.
I'm going to let you have the last word on most of this, since we aren't about to come to agreement on any of this. But I did have to take issue with a new note you introject here.
Putting Faith in a coma then, instead of stopping her long before has negative consequences for the Professor. Probably makes Buffy feel pretty guilty, letting more people die because she can't bring herself to stop someone she cares about. Putting her in coma then, has remarkably positive consequences for everyone except Mayor Wilkins.
Buffy, at least, has a firm rule that says you don't kill humans no matter what evil they might do. She thus is put in the difficult position of *having* to let Warren live, even though he is by all evidence committed to a course of evil. Buffy doesn't slay humans. Her choice to go after Faith in this way breaks her own rule. (It is true that Buffy feels a lot of guilt for not slaying Angelus -- but Angelus is the sort of being that Buffy is supposed to slay).
Buffy, at least, has a firm rule that says you don't kill humans no matter what evil they might do. She thus is put in the difficult position of *having* to let Warren live, even though he is by all evidence committed to a course of evil. Buffy doesn't slay humans.
I'm not sure it's quite that clear cut. True, Buffy wants to believe that she has such a rule: Buffy is the type of person to hold herself to very high moral standards then get depressed because she fails to meet them. But in 'Villains', her main concern is the effect on Willow of her using dark magic to hunt down and kill someone out of vengeance: the fact that killing humans is wrong in itself is secondary to her. (If anything, it's her explanation - for Dawn's benefit - as to why she's not grabbed an axe and gone straight out to hunt down Warren side by side with Willow). I think the clearest sign of this is her comment in the next episode: "And the only reason it happens to be your lucky day is because if she kills you, a line gets crossed, I lose a friend. And I hate losing." Deep down, she's not sorry Willow killed Warren. What scares her is Willow spiralling out of control and killing everybody else as well.
As an unrelated aside, I seem to have accidentally left a few duplicate replies to moscow_watcher elsewhere in your post - first anonymous and then logged in. Would you please delete the anonymous duplicates. I wouldn't want to leave your entry cluttered with excisive duplicates.
I don't make that mistake. Faith herself does. Faith and Buffy willfully misuse their power in "Bad Girls" when they rob the Sporting Goods store. Faith argues "Want.Take.Have" that there is no distinction between faulty use of power - that she got caught - and faulty moral judgment. (That she shouldn't have committed the act in the first place.) Faith's refusal to face the second is emblematic...
But by invoking the word 'killer' so early on, Buffy closed out some of the space in which Faith might have had room to take that responsibility.
Buffy's invocation of the word killer does not preclude Faith from taking responsibility. If Faith is big enough to run around with a stake, she's big enough to make the room to be responsible. She's big enough to say "I'm not a killer - I just screwed up. I'll talk to Giles and work this out".
It's not the negligence that brings Faith over the line. It's her willingness to leave her own responsibilities on others. First by putting it on Buffy metaphorically (Buffy says I'm a killer, so I guess I'm a killer) and later literally. (as she goes to Giles and places direct blame on Buffy) that takes her over the line and she's solely responsible for it.
Putting Faith into a coma was a morally serious act on Buffy's part -- one which as far as I can tell had no consequences for her.
Putting Faith in a coma then, instead of stopping her long before has negative consequences for the Professor. Probably makes Buffy feel pretty guilty, letting more people die because she can't bring herself to stop someone she cares about. Putting her in coma then, has remarkably positive consequences for everyone except Mayor Wilkins. It also has the consequences of Buffy forgiving Faith. When Faith wakes up from her coma, there is no one more positively inclined towards her than Buffy is.
I am hardly claiming Buffy is pristine. But it's equally simple to hold out Graduation Day in the hopes of equalizing things or mitigate Faith's act. It's a non-sequitor.
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Putting Faith in a coma then, instead of stopping her long before has negative consequences for the Professor. Probably makes Buffy feel pretty guilty, letting more people die because she can't bring herself to stop someone she cares about. Putting her in coma then, has remarkably positive consequences for everyone except Mayor Wilkins.
Buffy, at least, has a firm rule that says you don't kill humans no matter what evil they might do. She thus is put in the difficult position of *having* to let Warren live, even though he is by all evidence committed to a course of evil. Buffy doesn't slay humans. Her choice to go after Faith in this way breaks her own rule. (It is true that Buffy feels a lot of guilt for not slaying Angelus -- but Angelus is the sort of being that Buffy is supposed to slay).
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I'm not sure it's quite that clear cut. True, Buffy wants to believe that she has such a rule: Buffy is the type of person to hold herself to very high moral standards then get depressed because she fails to meet them. But in 'Villains', her main concern is the effect on Willow of her using dark magic to hunt down and kill someone out of vengeance: the fact that killing humans is wrong in itself is secondary to her. (If anything, it's her explanation - for Dawn's benefit - as to why she's not grabbed an axe and gone straight out to hunt down Warren side by side with Willow). I think the clearest sign of this is her comment in the next episode: "And the only reason it happens to be your lucky day is because if she kills you, a line gets crossed, I lose a friend. And I hate losing." Deep down, she's not sorry Willow killed Warren. What scares her is Willow spiralling out of control and killing everybody else as well.
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Thanks, and my apologies.
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