Fri, 9 September 2005 "Hey, Who Ordered the Hot Chicks with Superpowers?" Was Buffy's decision to share her slayer power a case of the-more-the-merrier or misery-loves-company? Comments[16] |
Very interesting show, Revello, I just finished listening. What made me go 'hmm' was the idea of a sort of Slayer Uprising, in the future. It's why I had problems with her giving out the power, as well as agreeing with it.
Just as Buffy went back and forth, (she had a moment where she experienced her own Want. Take. Have. free spiritness) So, other slayers will as well. Faith didn't have any guidance in her life and that's why she was the way she was.
Meeting Buffy and co. was the best thing to happen to Faith, in terms of saving her life. Great show, Rev!
Just as Buffy went back and forth, (she had a moment where she experienced her own Want. Take. Have. free spiritness) So, other slayers will as well. Faith didn't have any guidance in her life and that's why she was the way she was.
Meeting Buffy and co. was the best thing to happen to Faith, in terms of saving her life. Great show, Rev!
The parallel with the shadowmen is simply spot on, she has taken the role of one of them the other two being Giles (her moral compass) and Willow (The one who can work the magic). Having the consent of the potentials is simply poppycock; they at the very least under a legal definition are not qualified to make that decision. Imagine being hunted by the dark forces, watching people die nightly, and realize the only people who can keep you alive are now asking you if you want super powers… what the fuck would you possibly say to these people? Ummm… yessir thank you sir may I have another sir! (Insert military tone and reference) These girls do not have the capacity to have choice it is a false dichotomy. It’s the “your money or your life� choice, it isn’t really a choice.
Let’s also discuss the how moral it is to continue the tradition of the slayer and secondly we should discuss the metaphysics of the slayer. We watch the shadowmen violate the first slayer, we watch them create a feral, vampire slaying machine with no sense of morality (as she kills Buffy’s companions in their dreams). Buffy as the main character gives us a very clear moral read on this event, it was wrong. When you talk about “violating� a woman you have to draw the analogy to rape. In this case we also see people infuse the soul of a DEMON into a woman. That means as Dracula points out that the basis of this power is dark or evil and to share this is an evil act. However the show treats this as a blessing a sort of “female empowerment.� This obvious narrative dichotomy seems difficult for people to work out and I think is one of the larger flaws in the shows.
Let’s also discuss the how moral it is to continue the tradition of the slayer and secondly we should discuss the metaphysics of the slayer. We watch the shadowmen violate the first slayer, we watch them create a feral, vampire slaying machine with no sense of morality (as she kills Buffy’s companions in their dreams). Buffy as the main character gives us a very clear moral read on this event, it was wrong. When you talk about “violating� a woman you have to draw the analogy to rape. In this case we also see people infuse the soul of a DEMON into a woman. That means as Dracula points out that the basis of this power is dark or evil and to share this is an evil act. However the show treats this as a blessing a sort of “female empowerment.� This obvious narrative dichotomy seems difficult for people to work out and I think is one of the larger flaws in the shows.
posted by: Miles on Fri, 9/9 02:59 PM EDT
Good thoughts, Miles. And like Revello said, wasn't it also just the case that she flat out needed their help? And on more thinking, especially on the Dracula episode, Buffy did realize she had some darkness in her because of her Slayer line. It had been very difficult for her to accept and deal with--I don't doubt these girls will have the same difficulty. I don't think what she did to the potentials is as bad as what the Shadowmen did, but in the end she did infuse them with dark (demonic) powers they didn't ask for. And if this slayer tradition isn't continued, then what happens? And if all these slayers die, will there still be only one?
I actually find Buffy's choice to be justified, and not just simply in the sense that "the end justifies the means." The Potentials, even the ones who were unaware of the Plan, had been already been doomed by the Shadow Men. Buffy could have left them as Potentials, but they'd still be in the Slayer line. So if anything, Buffy was simply amending what the Shadow Men had already done. As far as we know, the battle would have been lost if Buffy had not activated the Potentials. But the world would not have ended right then and there. The Turok Han would still have to overrun the earth and outnumber humans for the First Evil to become flesh. So, the Potentials would still be in the Slayer line due to the Shadow Men, and they'd still be hunted by the Harbingers. What people seem to find unethical about Buffy's Plan is that all the Potentials will now face all the disadvantages of being Chosen. However, if Buffy had failed to stop the Turok Han at the Hellmouth, any given Potential was looking at two possible outcomes: 1) She would be Chosen in the line starting with Faith, and she would die alone, or 2) The Turok Han or the Harbingers would get to her and kill her even before she had a chance to be Chosen. The Shadow Men were responsible for creating the Slayer line, which made the Potentials' involvement inevitable. Buffy just changed the nature of their involvement. Assuming she had no other way to free them of that involvement, I think it would have been immoral not to make them Slayers.
I am not sure I can agree with your analysis Diagoro. While I agree that at a certain level all of the potentials were included in the slayer line I do not believe that it is a forgone conclusion that they are somehow as doomed as the ones who are chosen. Before Buffy there was no second slayer but there were potentials. There must have been uncounted girls who were potentials who never activated or became any kind of powerful or even knew they were chosen. As for the girls being chosen in line and dying that might well have been the case if Buffy had failed, that does seem logical in the scenario that the world is ending and certainly the girls chosen would be unable to defend themselves any better than Buffy. But that is an argument of saying the end justifying the means, the end of saving the lives of the chosen justifies having them live the life of a chosen. Is it better to force someone to live a cursed life or is it better to let them die without having lived a cursed life? I can’t answer these largely moral questions but I can say that Buffy cursed all those girls rather than blessing them as some might argue.
posted by: Miles on Mon, 9/12 02:04 PM EDT
"Chosen" really is a curious comment on female empowerment. In the montage of the various females receiving the slayer power, the suggestion, unintentional as it may be, is that none of these people had it within themselves to take control of their lives or make their lives better: they rely on an outside force to be the agent of change. The scene with the little baseball girl (as nice as it is) is an example. What lesson does someone take away from that scene? Certainly not that the girl has it within herself to suceed - the implication is that her innate abilities are inadequate and without the slayer juice she will whiff and strike out (hey, is there a steroid analogy in there somewhere?)
I think what you have on your hands at that point is a critique of feminism. The assumption of female disenfrancisement is key to having the classical femminist argument. Some cultural feminists especially when we start to get into post modernism is that women have already come to a place where female empowerment is not the order of the day but female solidarity and continued improvement on their already moving sitation should be the focus. but I agree Joss does tell us that these girls are somehow "less than" without this blessing of the Slayer's power. though I think we could do many episodes on the different styles of femminism portrayed by the show. All of the female characters have a very different sort of female empowerment, from Willow to Buffy to Faith to Kendra to Dawn to Anya all of them would asnwer the questions of the feminist critic very differently.
posted by: Miles on Tue, 9/13 03:24 AM EDT
Well, all heroic traditions are meant as models for behavior, or at least they should have sympathetic characters the audience can relate to. But in stories with heroes with super powers, it's sometimes difficult to separate a genuinely sympathetic superhero from simple escapism or wish fulfillment (like the baseball player). I actually believe Joss usually succeeds at this, by making his most powerful heroes (Willow, Buffy, Spike) the most emotionally vulnerable, or at least the story catches them in those moments. The real heroic model for behavior is that Buffy, even with her powers, isn't able to defeat her opponents until she has overcome her own personal conflicts. The montage with the baseball player and the other girls seems to go against this, at least on the surface, but it's more of a feel-good scene, and I thought it was a nice moment. At least they didn't try to tell us that Joan of Arc and Amelia Earhart were slayers.
I think you can easily take the Joseph Campbell analysis here and say that Buffy is a archtypical hero and that her behavior is therefore a behavior model based on elementary building blocks of the collective unconscious also forwarded by Carl Jung. These are both very valid as Joss has mentioned them before in interviews as some of his inspirations for writing some episodes. I do agree that some of the better hero moments are the introspective moments, those times where we can slip into their heads and see through their eyes. That said I also think that the “feel good� moment of the potentials being activated really hurts the show’s credibility, it shows us something that breaks with the show’s general theme and seems illogical given the history and mythos of the slayer creation myth which is I think the point of what many of us are saying. Does Buffy have the right to foist this on people? Is this a gift? Why are these girls happy about being taken out of their roles as girls and being put into this new Slayer role? Will they be happy in a few years when they start being drawn to the darkness and having some instinct to violence?
posted by: Miles on Wed, 9/14 01:58 AM EDT
Just discovered the podcasts on iTunes. Great job overall, thanks! This topic, in particular, deals with the vexing end to the series. My first reaction to distributed Slayage was very positive - slayer power as a metaphor for true femminist liberation. Girl Power to the max! But as I pondered the implications, I became more concerned along the lines of your analysis. What to do with all those new Slayers? Do they form a ruling elite? Or break into competitive factions? The implications were explored, in unsatisfying way, in the pulp book "Queen of the Slayers" and is worthy of addtional discussion.
Excellent show.
I've never been able to decide what I actually think about her decision to turn em all into Slayers, but your show did have lots of good points.
However I don't think you really touched on the selfishness of Buffy for taking a decision like this. I mean since day one she's done everything she can to get out of the gig and from my point of view she actually killed herself twice, but didn't really help. How come then she would ever consider making every potential in the world into an active slayer, unless you count the purely egocentrical reasons as to her to get off the hook.
I know there's more to it and perhaps the world would have ended if she hadn't done it, still I'm no big fan of the type of Buffy we've got in the later seasons.
I've never been able to decide what I actually think about her decision to turn em all into Slayers, but your show did have lots of good points.
However I don't think you really touched on the selfishness of Buffy for taking a decision like this. I mean since day one she's done everything she can to get out of the gig and from my point of view she actually killed herself twice, but didn't really help. How come then she would ever consider making every potential in the world into an active slayer, unless you count the purely egocentrical reasons as to her to get off the hook.
I know there's more to it and perhaps the world would have ended if she hadn't done it, still I'm no big fan of the type of Buffy we've got in the later seasons.
I think it's fair to concentrate on the injustice possibly done to the new Slayers, but what of the rest of the world?
Buffy couldn't possibly have known what each girl was like. And we saw what destruction an "evil" Slayer could have in Faith. To give many (hundreds?) of women that power is great- but what of the women who don't have it, and what of the women who do and go down the same path Faith does? They don't have the Watchers to train them. The world has suddenly been given knowledge of the darkness, and women who have new strength with no reason why or how, and no training, and a great propensity to violence. I think Buffy had to- she's justified to do it to save the world - but what of the world after?
Imagine an army of Faiths... It was justified, but extremely dangerous. I'm not saying there's an Eve/Lillith dichotomy and that half of the new Slayers will be perfect and the other evil, but it's more than likely some will abuse their power...
But when you see the clip of the woman rising back against her abuser, it's harder to argue that.
Buffy couldn't possibly have known what each girl was like. And we saw what destruction an "evil" Slayer could have in Faith. To give many (hundreds?) of women that power is great- but what of the women who don't have it, and what of the women who do and go down the same path Faith does? They don't have the Watchers to train them. The world has suddenly been given knowledge of the darkness, and women who have new strength with no reason why or how, and no training, and a great propensity to violence. I think Buffy had to- she's justified to do it to save the world - but what of the world after?
Imagine an army of Faiths... It was justified, but extremely dangerous. I'm not saying there's an Eve/Lillith dichotomy and that half of the new Slayers will be perfect and the other evil, but it's more than likely some will abuse their power...
But when you see the clip of the woman rising back against her abuser, it's harder to argue that.
The theory of a slayer civil war is explored in the Buffy novel Queen of the Slayers. It delves into fascinating areas of a slyer vs. slayer dynamic, namely Buffy dealing with her decision. If you have the time and don't mind reading a Whedon-free Buffy-verse then you should check it out. Also, the idea that someone was hunting potentials and there being more is plausible only because there are constantly more potentials in every generation
While admitedly not explicitly stated I've thought that the Empowerment montage and surrounding dialog made it seem as if on some unconscious level every girl who *wanted* the power, got the power. Remember that the magic Willow used to make this happen was pure as emblemized by her hair turning white. I would think that only dark magic could force things upon someone against their will and that white magic requires the recipients' acceptance.
This idea, of course, only potentially lessens the notion that slayerhood was forced on the potentials. It does not deal with the issue of whether or not it was wise to create that many slayers.
This idea, of course, only potentially lessens the notion that slayerhood was forced on the potentials. It does not deal with the issue of whether or not it was wise to create that many slayers.
I think you raise an excellent point about the color of Willow's hair as she unlocks the power of the Slayers, however, I think it is less about acceptance of the power as it is about the true origins of the power being pure. While what the Shadowmen did was certainly wrong, I personally interpreted (and this is what makes Buffy great, the many different interpretations) Willow's change of hair as ascribing the way the Slayer has over the years have converted something originally selfish and malevolent into something about girl power and strength. Essentially what I'm saying is that while it's origins are in darkness, it's the way you use the power that counts, as the power itself is essentially pure. The Shadowmen used it in a dark way, Buffy uses it (most of the time, and overall) in a good way.
As far as the darkness consuming a slayer and stealing her ability to love, I felt it was more of the burden of being the only Slayer and dealing with that responsibility that caused Buffy to become hardened, as opposed to the actual power itself being the cause. And even as we could see, Buffy did manage to love Spike, what kind of love being debatable. With the slayer power ascribed to many, Buffy is relieved of that burden and can focus more on love and her life, as we saw in the final Angel episodes. There will always be good and evil in everyone, whether they are a slayer or not, so similar early-Faith-like slayers are sure to come, as are Kendra-like slayers on the opposite spectrum.
As far as the darkness consuming a slayer and stealing her ability to love, I felt it was more of the burden of being the only Slayer and dealing with that responsibility that caused Buffy to become hardened, as opposed to the actual power itself being the cause. And even as we could see, Buffy did manage to love Spike, what kind of love being debatable. With the slayer power ascribed to many, Buffy is relieved of that burden and can focus more on love and her life, as we saw in the final Angel episodes. There will always be good and evil in everyone, whether they are a slayer or not, so similar early-Faith-like slayers are sure to come, as are Kendra-like slayers on the opposite spectrum.
OK this is huge and im loving the more constructive discussion compared the big flame war i had in the past on this section but i totally believe that what buffy did was right and even neseccery.
someone who i had a flame war with about it i will not name names mostly cause i forget his, said that buffys plan was stupid moronic and just plain bad and in your cast you said if Angel's dialogue was different it would have been better. this guy says the best plan would have been to call the iniatives to help and he did have a point seeing as his discussion was strictly about the practicality of it and not the writing and the story. But how stupid would the ending be then?? Joss said in the commentary for chosen that it was all about female impowerment and i cant help but feel that most people here think that he did that all wrong. Sure Buffy gave back them there power but was she morally right to? I dont know to tell you the truth on the one hand the world might be destroyed (what if the initiative couldn't come? or they couldn't handle it) sure she couldve had angel's crew help but could 2 vamps 2 slayers a bunch of potentials 2 watchers a princple an xdemon 2 nerds a witch and gunn handle all that, i dont think so and i think buffy didn't either thats why she sent him back.
Now to the angel thing. maybe he told her about the amulet off screen after all we left when spike did. Now im going to have to enter Angel's show to delve deeper into this but if any of you watch it you would know how angel acquired the amulet. First question is why on earth did he trust Lilah its one thing to join an evil law firm to work from the inside thats could work in theory but an unknown amulet just gives the writers an out. It bugs the hell out of me maybe they wanted us to be surprised cause spike was too die but i was told that people who watched the original airing had a spoil when they said that spike will return to angel... ok sure spike is my favorite character but this cheapens the ending BIG time. Now i better stop because i can go on forever with wolfram and hart (what were there plans with spike???) but thats not what this 1s about.
I think its mostly a testimate to joss' genius to have so many loose ends and have me not care about 1 because in the end it ended on a good note. But the main issue here is the future and what will it hold for the buffyvers? just watch Angel season 5 episode damage to see the bad but what about the good?? someone said that even though the montage of the girls getting the powers was good it showed that they were weak without it... hate to say it but thats one of the sucky parts of this reality there are real horrors that would make Glory or the first or any of the buffy villians look like telletubbies. Rapists pedyphiles (SP?) slave owners (sad but true) we got evil dictators who have loads of missle systems and no indication what they intend to do with them... my favorite show 24 deals with terrorism and that show scares me more than buffy or angel ever could i wouldn't mind a bunch of slayers working with CTU might make Jack Bauers life easier.
someone who i had a flame war with about it i will not name names mostly cause i forget his, said that buffys plan was stupid moronic and just plain bad and in your cast you said if Angel's dialogue was different it would have been better. this guy says the best plan would have been to call the iniatives to help and he did have a point seeing as his discussion was strictly about the practicality of it and not the writing and the story. But how stupid would the ending be then?? Joss said in the commentary for chosen that it was all about female impowerment and i cant help but feel that most people here think that he did that all wrong. Sure Buffy gave back them there power but was she morally right to? I dont know to tell you the truth on the one hand the world might be destroyed (what if the initiative couldn't come? or they couldn't handle it) sure she couldve had angel's crew help but could 2 vamps 2 slayers a bunch of potentials 2 watchers a princple an xdemon 2 nerds a witch and gunn handle all that, i dont think so and i think buffy didn't either thats why she sent him back.
Now to the angel thing. maybe he told her about the amulet off screen after all we left when spike did. Now im going to have to enter Angel's show to delve deeper into this but if any of you watch it you would know how angel acquired the amulet. First question is why on earth did he trust Lilah its one thing to join an evil law firm to work from the inside thats could work in theory but an unknown amulet just gives the writers an out. It bugs the hell out of me maybe they wanted us to be surprised cause spike was too die but i was told that people who watched the original airing had a spoil when they said that spike will return to angel... ok sure spike is my favorite character but this cheapens the ending BIG time. Now i better stop because i can go on forever with wolfram and hart (what were there plans with spike???) but thats not what this 1s about.
I think its mostly a testimate to joss' genius to have so many loose ends and have me not care about 1 because in the end it ended on a good note. But the main issue here is the future and what will it hold for the buffyvers? just watch Angel season 5 episode damage to see the bad but what about the good?? someone said that even though the montage of the girls getting the powers was good it showed that they were weak without it... hate to say it but thats one of the sucky parts of this reality there are real horrors that would make Glory or the first or any of the buffy villians look like telletubbies. Rapists pedyphiles (SP?) slave owners (sad but true) we got evil dictators who have loads of missle systems and no indication what they intend to do with them... my favorite show 24 deals with terrorism and that show scares me more than buffy or angel ever could i wouldn't mind a bunch of slayers working with CTU might make Jack Bauers life easier.
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