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Date Posted: 11:30:35 01/25/13 Fri
Author: chuckit25
Author Host/IP: 76.84.201.26
Subject: Re: Bad Girls
In reply to: Werewearer 's message, "Bad Girls" on 23:07:25 11/08/12 Thu

The fact Faith is ambivalent in her emotions does not change the fact the guy doesn't get to be ambivalent in his; he is dead aka manslaughter. A legal crime, a moral reality regarding "what next?"


She also wasn't too interested in calling the police as a responsible person must. She thought by "not caring" or turning off her moral sense of "other," she could just be indifferent. This is the very defintion of evil and is exactly the defintion of the vampire.

Faith deserved punishment and wanted to "power" her way out of her moral pain. Pain is a teacher and Faith wanted her pain to stop, not to deal with the confict of moral correctness and freedom. She has always counted on her power, as a slayer, to "force" her will, even as she views her own survival. She doesn't accept the notion with great power comes great responsibility. That's not 'fun.' And she doesn't want to be defined as a slayer alone.

She counted on her power to protect her, even as she "stopped caring"--not really, we viewers know, for she is a human being--in order to pursue her deeper anxiety for absolute acceptance, including her "bad self."

The moral divergence is not just because "it's the law," but because her "not good not bad" dealio isn't merely about *her * "guilt," the question "whatever the rules are, wherever you are," right or wrong, each action (and non action aka "choice" can have a consequences you can't "take back." Ever.

This alone is power. And that means defining what is good and what is bad suddenly isn't in isolation or an isolated event. Things are now complex, complicated.

Morally, "Betrayal" may be considered worthy of the ninth circle of hell, but killing someone means they will never have the opportunity to forgive you.

Further, the discussion of connection/relationship asks "big questions" in what defines "human," who am I, what is my purpose, how long do I have, is there meaning or only belief (faith) "that lasts" or only "gets you through the day?"

Buffy may be the law when it comes to killing demons, but she submits to the law of human beings when human beings are killed--and that is turned on its head in the reality of Angel/Angelus; and in the "becoming" story of Spike in Buffy's own Becoming story of growing up. Faith is her shadow self, as all these characters are all about Buffy.

There is no way to write all the laws to guide every action/reaction. We humans, therefore trust some "moral" code e.g. the 10 Commandments, boilded down all say "don't steal." Don't steal God's due, parents due, neighbor's wife, reputation, goods, or life.

Further, it would seem the demons only have a "death penalty." There is no "mercy." This is a "Buffy power." A human power, not a slayer power.

There are no easy answers, legally, or morally. Too often they become arguments about power in a dualism. Or denying the reality of a dualism. Nothing is perfect and that is painful, yet pain teaches, while suffering "dooms," even as nothing perfect lasts, for "no change" is by defintion death (or hell).

BTW, I love Faith. I see her as having great pluck, but I also know that her power runs out of steam simply because her own self esteem has been badly damaged and she does seek acceptance for all herself by another. She really doesn't accept herself as "all that" and that means the need to surive itself can be threatened until she actually figures out she really must survive to figure that out. It's just hell on people and furniture.
Be well
chuckit25

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