Re: [Re: FIC: Deeper-Post Season Six Fic(1/1)]

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

Hamlet,

First of all, apologies for going from memory and mixing up Ocean with
Sea. This isn't the first time (or even the hundredth) that someone has
referred a source concept that I was unfamiliar with and I've had
trouble catching up as I went along. Put it all on the table for me,
and I will analyze until the cows come home and track mud all over my
living room carpet, but disorient me and I have a devil of a time with
the reorienting. I'm beginning to think I have the soul of an
accountant, although that phrase may be an oxymoron.

And I confess I was completely spun when Willow mentioned Tara's name
when I was trying to attach players to the energy blobs. (Hey, where
was Dawn? This would have been like Old Home Week for her, right? <g>)

I think our talking at cross-purposes over the Faith issue maybe because
I haven't stressed the question of degree hard enough (of course, given
that we **are** talking at cross-purposes, I may be completely wrong
about that, or even about the fact of the cross-purposes at all). Yes,
Buffy had a homicidal impulse towards Faith, but I see "murder" in
roughly for stages:

1. Idea
2. Opportunity
3. Attempt 
4. Success 

Yes, Buffy, seemed to have reached Stage 1. However, I feel it's a
long way from 1 to 3, and often, as with Willow and the curse on Oz in
"Wild at Heart", it proves we weren't really serious back in Stage 1, we
just tricked ourself into thinking we wanted to do it because it was
emotionally satisfying. Along those lines, I feel Cordelia only
succeeds in remaking Sunnydale in " The Wish" because she doesn't know
that Anya=Anyanka=Opportunity. As embittered as she was, had the fact
that this was actually going to happen been explained to her in advance,
I don't believe that the Idea would have actually become the Attempt "I
wish Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale".  

Most of us have our moral tethers in place, even if we don't want to
believe it, even if we like to imagine that we could be the bastards we
aren't. Perhaps when Giles went to grab the crossbow in "Amends", he
thought to himself "I'm going to walk over to the door and squeeze the
trigger and dust Angel". But when he reached the door and faced his
Opportunity, he didn't actually make the Attempt. Now perhaps that was
because he got scared of the consequences or because he thought of some
new factor--or perhaps he came to realize that he'd never really had
true intent, that his "Idea" was in fact merely a passing fancy. 

Perhaps when we don't actually attempt our allegedly-contemplated evil
deeds, we become aware that rather than actually wanting to dust
Angel/curse Oz/knife Faith, all we really wanted was to be able to
imagine that we **were** the sort of people who would do those things,
because we felt that it would be more emotionally satisfying than having
to deal with the pain of Angel killing Jenny/Oz dumping me/Faith
poisoning Angel, and **knowing** that, despite our suffering, we really
weren't going to be able to take that kind of revenge. Lacking the
knack for brutality can make you feel impotent, after all (oops, sorry,
Spike!).

To sum up, I'm not even certain that when Buffy says "I'm ready to kill
Faith" (paraphrasing, obviously), she really meant it, even if she
thought at the time that she did. After all, when she saw Enyos's blood
scrawled on the hotel room wall at the end of "Innocence", she thought
she was ready to kill Angel, but she wasn't. Nothing changed between
then and the moment in the movie theatre lobby when she got her
Opportunity--she just came to realize that she hadn't really had the
Idea she thought she'd had.  

But let's say that Buffy did, in fact, go to Faith's with intent to
kill. In my opinion, that's still a long ways from Willow's actual
killing of Warren. To me it's not "You tried to kill Faith, so you're
just like me", it's more like "You wanted to kill Faith, and if you'd
gotten the chance to do it and tried to do it and succeeded in doing it,
you'd be just like me!"

It should be noted that I'm assuming Buffy's plan was to subdue Faith
and bring her, alive, to Angel for lunch, not hack her into Faith-kebabs
and have Angel lick the Slayer sauce from them. That is, I suppose,
subject to interpretation. (Although, if nothing else, Faith's
circulatory system makes a more efficient means of transporting Faith's
blood over to Crawford Street than any other container Buffy could
provide. Apparently you visualized Buffy doing a shoheit impression
rather than knocking Faith out and dropping her at Angel's feet, but I
always saw it the other way around.) But that's why I don't feel that
Buffy's stabbing of Faith counts as an attempt to kill her, since I
don't believe she intended to finish Faith off then, and she had no
expectation that it would be a fatal blow (as, indeed, it was not,
despite copious Faith-inflicted complications).  

Yes, the standard for Buffyverse injury survival is medically dubious.
After all, not only should Cordelia and Wesley have checked out, but
getting the jugular vein pierced pretty much finishes you, no matter how
much blood someone drinks from it, so that would wipe out Willow in "The
Harsh Light of Day" and Riley in "Shadow" as well as
Joan/SisterSunshine/Chantarelle/Lily/Anne/[insert name here] and her
fellow vamp wannabes in "Lie to Me". And Dawn should have been a big
smear after that 10-story plunge in "Bargaining", Buffy-shaped pillow or
not. But according to the Jossverse rules of wound survivability, the
knife to the gut wasn't close to fatal for a Slayer, and Buffy
presumably would have known that, so I can't call that attempted murder
on her part. Therefore I don't see her actions in "Graduation Day" as
being even nearly equivalent to Willow's in "Villains".

That said, it still seems to me that it's all OT; that Buffy's purity
or lack of same doesn't reflect on Willow's justification or lack
thereof in executing Warren. Your feeling that the couch scene in
"Villains" was politically motivated doesn't affect its canonical value
any more than my belief that Spuffy is a lame attempt at a ratings grab,
alas, and likewise your discontent with SMG's acting in the scene no
more changes Buffy's feeling on the subject than my annoyance at Sarah's
comatose non-emoting erases the fact of the "Buffy is depressed about
leaving heaven" arc. (Fights off temptation to insert Riley joke.) It
does seem to remain that Buffy honestly feels that killing humans is
wrong, and that her argument is so compelling it wins Dawn and Xander to
her side, and it is a fact that this view on the Slayer not killing
humans is in line with BtVS continuity going as far back as "The Puppet
Show". In my opinion, they've successfully reinforced the idea that
souled creatures should not be executed for personal reasons both
because of the ensouled's capacity for subsequent redemption (Faith) and
the deleterious effect it has on the vigilante's moral compass (Willow).
Indeed, Faith's own fall was the consequence of something similar; by
refusing to accept responsibility for Allan's death, she set herself up
as being above humanity, valuing her freedom to act above the value of
human life, and from there, it was only a short step to killing for
personal pleasure.  

A couple of other notes:

I can't see there being any sort of line between Warren and his fellow
murderers (of Katrina). What, Willow's only justified in killing Warren
because he personally offended her--if Katrina doesn't have any
pissed-off kinfolk, then Jonathan and Andrew are in the clear? If one
excuses Willow's killing Warren because vigilante justice is okay, then
all murderers at large should be equally fair game. Unless you're
saying that Willow's entitled to kill anyone she feels like, regardless
of any legal threshhold they may or may not have crossed, which would
seem to be a very efficient way of solving the overpopulation crisis.
<g>

Yes, Rack is dead. The script makes it clear that he's deader than his
floating crackhouse's doorknobs.

Your response to my question about what Rack had done to merit his death
at Willow's hands was "What did Willow do to deserve losing Tara?"
Well, yes, both Rack and Willow are the victims of evil acts of
murderous violence. How Tara's death gives Willow license to
**perpetrate** evil acts of murderous violence on people who (AFAWK)
haven't killed anyone and certainly didn't harm Tara, that I have
trouble seeing.

Lastly, Warren lived in his mother's basement, and we saw (in "Flooded")
that his mother is still alive. By your argument that killing for
revenge is justifiable (the revenger will have to deal with their own
conscience, but everyone else should forgive them, if I understand
correctly), may Mother Meers now proceed to empty a Glock in Willow's
cranium? Should Willow's "hey, he had it coming" be presumed to
alleviate Mrs. Meers's pain over her son's death any more than Warren's
"hey, I was aiming at Buffy" diminished Willow's grief over Tara?
(Indeed, Mrs. Meers's cause would appear to be greater, since Willow
deliberately sought to inflict this painful grief upon her whereas
Warren didn't seek to do the same to Willow.) If Mrs. Meers took revenge
on Willow for taking revenge on Warren, should Buffy then rip out Mrs.
M's brainstem in revenging herself on that unfortunate woman? Pardon
the descent into cliche, but "an eye for an eye makes the whole world
blind".

While I understand that we're probably in "agree to disagree" territory
here, I can't say that I'm in favor of the concept that Willow did
nothing wrong and the only price she should have to pay is struggling
with her conscience. (And if she did nothing wrong, why is she
struggling, anyway?) I fervently hope that both Willow and the others
can find a way to forgive and trust her after last year (I don't see
how, since I see no reason to believe she wouldn't do it again, should
she wake up and think herself "justified" again), but I have
difficulties with the "it's none of your business, Buffy" approach, as
is evident from the [metaphorical] trees I've sacrificed in reply. 

(Which, again, doesn't make the fic any less
well-written--philosophical differences and literary criticism being
two very different things.)

Dan