That's exactly what I mean when I say "Believe the tale and not the teller." *g*
I know I've filled up your inbox like a spaz, but I had one more thought re: Dawn's agency Never apologize for filling up my inbox!
to what extent can we say that Buffy is likewise guilty of overriding Dawn's agency in the Gift I'm actually going to refer to pocochina's meta ... BUT FREEDOM!!! which is a really lovely multi-fandom meta on the difference between free will, agency, and consent - in which she breaks it down like this:::
So, let’s walk this through: imagine someone walks into a corner shop, holds a gun to the clerk’s head, and says “give me all the money in the register.” The clerk, who reasonably fears for their life, complies.
Does the clerk have agency in this situation? Yes. The clerk could have told the robber to go fuck themselves. They, as subject in their own right, decided that arguing back with the robber was not worth their life. Another way of saying this is that they are responsible for their own behavior - indeed, I would commend the clerk on behaving responsibly in a normative sense by trying to keep the situation from escalating. This does not, of course, mean that any reasonable person or society would hold the clerk culpable for making the responsible choice.
Did the clerk have free will in this situation? Absent any evidence of an interventionist higher power taking an interest in the clerk’s end of this situation, sure, the clerk had free will.
Did the clerk consent to participation in the robbery? No. Not even if they squeaked out a coerced “yes” or “okay.” (If you got this last one wrong, you need to go to the back of the class and think about what even made you this way.)
So, to answer your question: No. Buffy does NOT take away Dawn's agency.
Agency is the ability to make a decision. Dawn still had AGENCY in that moment, she still made the decision - and while Buffy made a counter-decision that counter-acted that which Dawn made, she still had the AGENCY to make a decision for herself and was fully prepared to commit to it - which is a mentality she has to live with.
Regardless of Buffy jumping in, Dawn consciously made the decision and will always know that about herself. A point of fact that before she became Real - was not a possibility in her life.
Of course then there's the Giles factor, ready to kill Dawn if necessary, which is not something Dawn would want or actively seek either I don't really understand where you are going with this? That decision would be about Giles' Agency, not Dawn's. Typically character's don't have agency when another character kills them? That's not generally their decision - and as pocochina points out - would not give their consent for that action to be done to them. So... as Giles is the active agent in this scenario, I'm a little confused.
*g*
I know I've filled up your inbox like a spaz, but I had one more thought re: Dawn's agency
Never apologize for filling up my inbox!
to what extent can we say that Buffy is likewise guilty of overriding Dawn's agency in the Gift
I'm actually going to refer to pocochina's meta ... BUT FREEDOM!!! which is a really lovely multi-fandom meta on the difference between free will, agency, and consent - in which she breaks it down like this:::
So, let’s walk this through: imagine someone walks into a corner shop, holds a gun to the clerk’s head, and says “give me all the money in the register.” The clerk, who reasonably fears for their life, complies.
Does the clerk have agency in this situation? Yes. The clerk could have told the robber to go fuck themselves. They, as subject in their own right, decided that arguing back with the robber was not worth their life. Another way of saying this is that they are responsible for their own behavior - indeed, I would commend the clerk on behaving responsibly in a normative sense by trying to keep the situation from escalating. This does not, of course, mean that any reasonable person or society would hold the clerk culpable for making the responsible choice.
Did the clerk have free will in this situation? Absent any evidence of an interventionist higher power taking an interest in the clerk’s end of this situation, sure, the clerk had free will.
Did the clerk consent to participation in the robbery? No. Not even if they squeaked out a coerced “yes” or “okay.” (If you got this last one wrong, you need to go to the back of the class and think about what even made you this way.)
So, to answer your question: No. Buffy does NOT take away Dawn's agency.
Agency is the ability to make a decision. Dawn still had AGENCY in that moment, she still made the decision - and while Buffy made a counter-decision that counter-acted that which Dawn made, she still had the AGENCY to make a decision for herself and was fully prepared to commit to it - which is a mentality she has to live with.
Regardless of Buffy jumping in, Dawn consciously made the decision and will always know that about herself. A point of fact that before she became Real - was not a possibility in her life.
Of course then there's the Giles factor, ready to kill Dawn if necessary, which is not something Dawn would want or actively seek either
I don't really understand where you are going with this? That decision would be about Giles' Agency, not Dawn's. Typically character's don't have agency when another character kills them? That's not generally their decision - and as pocochina points out - would not give their consent for that action to be done to them. So... as Giles is the active agent in this scenario, I'm a little confused.
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Thank you for the clarification and the link to Pocochina's meta!
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