Damaged Souls
Jan. 29th, 2004 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatHad a conversation with my mother recently about John Steinbeck's EAST OF EDEN, the conversation focused on something that I've been struggling with internly for a while now and that is these nasty human emotions.
Emotions you don't say or write out loud, for fear someone will think poorly of you. Envy, jealousy, anger, rage...Steinbeck is an interesting writer - one who does not back down from discussing the more negative aspects of humanity. In East of Eden, he makes a very strong case for accepting our imperfections. Our capacity for cruelty, meanness - is partly what does make us human. And like it or not, we all have it inside of us.
Monsters.
I don't know how many people out there have actually met a human monster. I have. I have sat across from a human being who killed for selfish purposes and showed no remorse for those killings. He touched my hand. I visited with him. I looked into his eyes. It is not an experience I will forget and it is not one I've seen replicated well onscreen. What was unforgettable about the experience was the person on the other side of that small coffee table we sat at, was human. He was not evil. He was not good. He claimed he was innocent, and I wanted to believe him. But after several visits, discussions with his attorneys, and a thorough inspection of the evidence, I realized he wasn't. He was a hit man. He killed others for money. Didn't think about it. Didn't look back. Each paycheck he got he put towards his dope habit. Until he was finally caught and locked away in Leavenworth Penitentiary.
Looking at this wreck of a human being, and he was a wreck with needle marks up his arms, yellowing eyes, and a slur, my niavete and innocence melted away. No longer would I look at murderers the same way. I couldn't. Because what I saw in front of me was not a monster, it was a man. Who had comitted horrible acts.
I also realized the words of my old criminal defense professor were true: "There but for the grace of god go I." Circumstance, luck, enviroment, genetics, etc had saved me from becoming a monster like this man had become.
What creates a Monster? Is it one act? OR several? The recent movie, MONSTER by Patty Jenkins demonstrates that it takes several acts over time. Most serial killers were abused horribly as children. They weren't born monsters. They didn't come out of the womb that way. Some were raped as children, beaten, tortured, mentally and physically abused. Their families ripped from them. Or they just couldn't connect to them anymore. So psychologically traumatized that in the end they retreated to that world permanently takening out their pain on others.
Not all people who are abused become Monsters. Our lives are not predestined. And the horrible abuse we suffer at the hands of others does not in any way justify the acts we do ourselves. We do have choices.
Even though at times it seems like we don't. That we are compelled to do things. Part of our struggle, is saying no. Not giving into the compulsion.
I keep coming back to two things that revolve over and over in my head...1. people don't become monsters over night, its more than one act, one circumstance that creates them and 2. what role does society play in the creation of human monsters...do we in fact create our own? By our inability to stop at any point what is happening, to intervene, and our own human imperfections which get in the way of helping?
I've found the posts on last night's Angel episode about Spike interesting and lovely, *but* they all are skipping around something that has been bugging me since I first read the spoilers for it.
How to put this into words? Dana...is someone who was become a monster due to what has been done to her by others without her consent. ATS touched on this lightly with Untouched - about a woman who unknowingly uses her telekinesis to hurt others. She was molested as a child and that experience caused this reaction. The difference between Dana and the girl in Untouched, is will. Dana wants to hurt and actually seems to enjoy it. The girl in Untouched didn't want to hurt, her power was doing it without her will. Both girls had their power pushed to the surface by an external entity - with the girl in Untouched it was Lilah and W&H, with Dana it's Buffy and Willow. Both also were damaged as children. Both had a doctor with ulterior motives.
What's important about both cases here - is it's not just one person, it's a group of people - the worse violators may actually be the well-intentioned ones.
1. Walter the serial killer. He traumatized her. Tortured her. Killed her family. Walter was worse than the vampires. Why? Because he did have a soul. He wasn't a demon. He was human. He didn't kill to drink blood and sustain himself. And don't misunderstand me to say that this justifies the vampires evil - it doesn't. I'm just pointing out a distinction.
2. The Doctor who is using Dana to write a book. Instead of figuring out what is wrong with her, he is using her a bit like a guinea pig. Keeping her doped up, video taping sessions. Keeping notes. Seeing her as a file on a desk.
3. Buffy and Willow - who decided to share Buffy's slayer powers with every potential slayer in the universe. Not knowing who these girls were, what their mental state currently was, and what sharing these powers might do to them. Andrew claims that was entirely unforeseen. Hmmm. Buffy has had the powers for seven years, has hated having them, been tormented with dreams she didn't understand and when she first got them was quickly tracked down and aided. That was when just one slayer got chosen. She didn't foresee
what this would do to people? Plus she does it so she can build an army of girls to go out and kill vampires?
This has disturbed me since Chosen. Maybe because I don't see female empowerment the same way Whedon does, I don't see it as being physical. Fred to me is an incredibly powerful woman and she is not physically powerful nor has great magics. Tara was also incredibly powerful. And I'd like to add Cordelia who tried to help the world day by day with painful visions. What Buffy and Willow did last year reminds me a great deal of what Cordelia did with Jasmine and what is happening with Angel...the puppet images.
It disturbs me.
What did Buffy's power do to poor Dana? It inflicted thousands of years of nightmares on someone who was already having nightmares. It inflicted power on someone who was filled with rage and wanted to inflict that rage on anyone who stopped by. And she does. She kills over 10 innocent people in this episode and she does it horribly. Buffy's power turned Dana into a killing machine. That disturbs me. And it never occurred to Buffy that this would happen?
I'm not sure if these are the questions the writers intended and since no one else seems to be asking them, maybe it's just me. Not sure.
Regarding Spike and Angel. This is the part of the episode I enjoyed. It didn't disturb me that much and it was about time the writers addressed these two characters issues.
While I had no problems with the mutilation of Spike - and the hands image. Lovely metaphor. Don't feel the need to analyze it since so many others already have. Ramses2 and morgain on ASSB wrote amazing posts analyzing it when spoilers came out this fall. I'm more interested in patterns - such as the use of physical torture to examine Spike's character as opposed to psychological torture.
The writers certainly like to physically torture Spike, don't they?
A brief list:
1. S2 What's My Line - Killed by Death: Spike hit by pipe organ, burned and in a wheel chair, tormented.
2. S3 Lover's Walk - drunk, burns his hand...actually gets off pretty well this season
3. S4 The Iniative - gets a chip in his head that makes it impossible for him to kill anything
4. S5 Is tortured by Glory and almost killed
5. S6 Is beaten up by Buffy and tortured in trials while getting a soul
6. S7 Is tortured, crucified and (it is implied, raped) by the First Evil's ubervamp and burns up saving the world
ATS
1. Conviction - comes back to life burning
2. Just Rewards - can't touch or feel anything
3. Unleashed - is being pulled to hell and can't control his visibility and can't leave
5. Hellbound - is being tortured by a ghost in numerous ways
6. Damage - has his hands cut off....
For some reason they rely on psychological torture for Angel and physical torture for Spike - to motivate character development. Not that Angel isn't going to get his fair share of the physical torture this year or hasn't been physically tortured in the past, but the emphasis has always been more psychological. I wonder if this is yet another way of distinquishing the characters - Spike is more physical than Angel, he's all about the body, the experience, while Angel is cereberal, all about the mind, and overthinks it. Their descriptions of how they looked at victims certainly support this:
Spike states that as a demon he never really saw the victims themselves, just bodies to kill. The rush. The crunch. This explains why when he discovers he can kill demons in Doomed, he's thrilled. He gets off on the rush of the kill. Who the victim is doesn't really matter to him. Demon? Human? Not a biggie. Someone online, can't remember where, (problem with lurking in so many places is you forget where you read things), stated that this made sense: Spike is chaotic evil, chaos doesn't think about victims or consequences - it just rips through, remember the little girl in the white room way back in S3 Forgiving mentions chaotic evil. For Spike - evil wasn't really a thought. He didn't care. It explains why he does what he does for Buffy in S4-6, occassionally helping. He does it not because its good or evil, but because it's fun. It's a party. It's a rush. Spike is in many ways a lot like the hired gun I mention above - the hit man who kills for the adrenaline rush and the next hit. Doesn't matter which side he does the hits for, he just does them. Makes him unpredictable, impossible to control, because he has no allegiances, he just does whatever feels good at the time.
Angel on the other hand, was in it for the evil. For Angel it is all about the individual victim. Angel is organized, structured in how he approaches things. Analytical. Calculated. He's a lot like Holland Manners of Wolfram and Hart, or Lindsey and Lilah, or
the little girl in the white room. To him, the fun was in the plan. In how you destroy the person, break them down, bit by bit.
How they go about finding Dana - emphasizes these two very different takes as well.
Angel thinks it through. Asks advice. Questions the nurse. Looks at the data. Analyzes it. Considers his options. He's very orderly. Had Wes call Buffy's group. Even sets up a tactical team to back him up. Order.
Spike rushes out and does it. Gets the info he needs.
Then takes off. Impulse. Chaotic. He finds the girl faster than Angel, using his body to do so. His sense of smell. His hearing. His senses. Angel uses the technology of W&H.
So it does make sense - that to push Angel's buttons - you go with the psychological torment. With Spike? You hurt his body. You go after his senses.
Angel - we get flashbacks, or visions of the victims that he spent so much time turning into monsters.
Spike - we get incorporeality, dragging to hell, cut off hands.
Angel- his dreams and mind is attacked with images.
Spike - his senses are removed or attacked, he can't feel, he can't touch, he can't smell.
Angel comes to an epiphany when a parasite gives him bad dreams. Spike when his hands are cut off.
It's interesting to me how this show demonstrates how order and chaos interrelate, how both are necessary but can also lead to evil. And it's equally interesting how they compare and contrast the use of physical and psychological images to examine character.
A bit of a ramble I'm afraid. Thoughts still way too cloudy by other things to remain coherent.
Overall a good episode. I actually enjoyed Andrew in it. Shocking I know. ;-)
Another frigid day outside with windchills. Ugh. Was hoping for a walk outside. Stretch my legs. Shake off the cabin fever and the growing feeling of isolation, which maybe adding to my irritiability.
Emotions you don't say or write out loud, for fear someone will think poorly of you. Envy, jealousy, anger, rage...Steinbeck is an interesting writer - one who does not back down from discussing the more negative aspects of humanity. In East of Eden, he makes a very strong case for accepting our imperfections. Our capacity for cruelty, meanness - is partly what does make us human. And like it or not, we all have it inside of us.
Monsters.
I don't know how many people out there have actually met a human monster. I have. I have sat across from a human being who killed for selfish purposes and showed no remorse for those killings. He touched my hand. I visited with him. I looked into his eyes. It is not an experience I will forget and it is not one I've seen replicated well onscreen. What was unforgettable about the experience was the person on the other side of that small coffee table we sat at, was human. He was not evil. He was not good. He claimed he was innocent, and I wanted to believe him. But after several visits, discussions with his attorneys, and a thorough inspection of the evidence, I realized he wasn't. He was a hit man. He killed others for money. Didn't think about it. Didn't look back. Each paycheck he got he put towards his dope habit. Until he was finally caught and locked away in Leavenworth Penitentiary.
Looking at this wreck of a human being, and he was a wreck with needle marks up his arms, yellowing eyes, and a slur, my niavete and innocence melted away. No longer would I look at murderers the same way. I couldn't. Because what I saw in front of me was not a monster, it was a man. Who had comitted horrible acts.
I also realized the words of my old criminal defense professor were true: "There but for the grace of god go I." Circumstance, luck, enviroment, genetics, etc had saved me from becoming a monster like this man had become.
What creates a Monster? Is it one act? OR several? The recent movie, MONSTER by Patty Jenkins demonstrates that it takes several acts over time. Most serial killers were abused horribly as children. They weren't born monsters. They didn't come out of the womb that way. Some were raped as children, beaten, tortured, mentally and physically abused. Their families ripped from them. Or they just couldn't connect to them anymore. So psychologically traumatized that in the end they retreated to that world permanently takening out their pain on others.
Not all people who are abused become Monsters. Our lives are not predestined. And the horrible abuse we suffer at the hands of others does not in any way justify the acts we do ourselves. We do have choices.
Even though at times it seems like we don't. That we are compelled to do things. Part of our struggle, is saying no. Not giving into the compulsion.
I keep coming back to two things that revolve over and over in my head...1. people don't become monsters over night, its more than one act, one circumstance that creates them and 2. what role does society play in the creation of human monsters...do we in fact create our own? By our inability to stop at any point what is happening, to intervene, and our own human imperfections which get in the way of helping?
I've found the posts on last night's Angel episode about Spike interesting and lovely, *but* they all are skipping around something that has been bugging me since I first read the spoilers for it.
How to put this into words? Dana...is someone who was become a monster due to what has been done to her by others without her consent. ATS touched on this lightly with Untouched - about a woman who unknowingly uses her telekinesis to hurt others. She was molested as a child and that experience caused this reaction. The difference between Dana and the girl in Untouched, is will. Dana wants to hurt and actually seems to enjoy it. The girl in Untouched didn't want to hurt, her power was doing it without her will. Both girls had their power pushed to the surface by an external entity - with the girl in Untouched it was Lilah and W&H, with Dana it's Buffy and Willow. Both also were damaged as children. Both had a doctor with ulterior motives.
What's important about both cases here - is it's not just one person, it's a group of people - the worse violators may actually be the well-intentioned ones.
1. Walter the serial killer. He traumatized her. Tortured her. Killed her family. Walter was worse than the vampires. Why? Because he did have a soul. He wasn't a demon. He was human. He didn't kill to drink blood and sustain himself. And don't misunderstand me to say that this justifies the vampires evil - it doesn't. I'm just pointing out a distinction.
2. The Doctor who is using Dana to write a book. Instead of figuring out what is wrong with her, he is using her a bit like a guinea pig. Keeping her doped up, video taping sessions. Keeping notes. Seeing her as a file on a desk.
3. Buffy and Willow - who decided to share Buffy's slayer powers with every potential slayer in the universe. Not knowing who these girls were, what their mental state currently was, and what sharing these powers might do to them. Andrew claims that was entirely unforeseen. Hmmm. Buffy has had the powers for seven years, has hated having them, been tormented with dreams she didn't understand and when she first got them was quickly tracked down and aided. That was when just one slayer got chosen. She didn't foresee
what this would do to people? Plus she does it so she can build an army of girls to go out and kill vampires?
This has disturbed me since Chosen. Maybe because I don't see female empowerment the same way Whedon does, I don't see it as being physical. Fred to me is an incredibly powerful woman and she is not physically powerful nor has great magics. Tara was also incredibly powerful. And I'd like to add Cordelia who tried to help the world day by day with painful visions. What Buffy and Willow did last year reminds me a great deal of what Cordelia did with Jasmine and what is happening with Angel...the puppet images.
It disturbs me.
What did Buffy's power do to poor Dana? It inflicted thousands of years of nightmares on someone who was already having nightmares. It inflicted power on someone who was filled with rage and wanted to inflict that rage on anyone who stopped by. And she does. She kills over 10 innocent people in this episode and she does it horribly. Buffy's power turned Dana into a killing machine. That disturbs me. And it never occurred to Buffy that this would happen?
I'm not sure if these are the questions the writers intended and since no one else seems to be asking them, maybe it's just me. Not sure.
Regarding Spike and Angel. This is the part of the episode I enjoyed. It didn't disturb me that much and it was about time the writers addressed these two characters issues.
While I had no problems with the mutilation of Spike - and the hands image. Lovely metaphor. Don't feel the need to analyze it since so many others already have. Ramses2 and morgain on ASSB wrote amazing posts analyzing it when spoilers came out this fall. I'm more interested in patterns - such as the use of physical torture to examine Spike's character as opposed to psychological torture.
The writers certainly like to physically torture Spike, don't they?
A brief list:
1. S2 What's My Line - Killed by Death: Spike hit by pipe organ, burned and in a wheel chair, tormented.
2. S3 Lover's Walk - drunk, burns his hand...actually gets off pretty well this season
3. S4 The Iniative - gets a chip in his head that makes it impossible for him to kill anything
4. S5 Is tortured by Glory and almost killed
5. S6 Is beaten up by Buffy and tortured in trials while getting a soul
6. S7 Is tortured, crucified and (it is implied, raped) by the First Evil's ubervamp and burns up saving the world
ATS
1. Conviction - comes back to life burning
2. Just Rewards - can't touch or feel anything
3. Unleashed - is being pulled to hell and can't control his visibility and can't leave
5. Hellbound - is being tortured by a ghost in numerous ways
6. Damage - has his hands cut off....
For some reason they rely on psychological torture for Angel and physical torture for Spike - to motivate character development. Not that Angel isn't going to get his fair share of the physical torture this year or hasn't been physically tortured in the past, but the emphasis has always been more psychological. I wonder if this is yet another way of distinquishing the characters - Spike is more physical than Angel, he's all about the body, the experience, while Angel is cereberal, all about the mind, and overthinks it. Their descriptions of how they looked at victims certainly support this:
Spike states that as a demon he never really saw the victims themselves, just bodies to kill. The rush. The crunch. This explains why when he discovers he can kill demons in Doomed, he's thrilled. He gets off on the rush of the kill. Who the victim is doesn't really matter to him. Demon? Human? Not a biggie. Someone online, can't remember where, (problem with lurking in so many places is you forget where you read things), stated that this made sense: Spike is chaotic evil, chaos doesn't think about victims or consequences - it just rips through, remember the little girl in the white room way back in S3 Forgiving mentions chaotic evil. For Spike - evil wasn't really a thought. He didn't care. It explains why he does what he does for Buffy in S4-6, occassionally helping. He does it not because its good or evil, but because it's fun. It's a party. It's a rush. Spike is in many ways a lot like the hired gun I mention above - the hit man who kills for the adrenaline rush and the next hit. Doesn't matter which side he does the hits for, he just does them. Makes him unpredictable, impossible to control, because he has no allegiances, he just does whatever feels good at the time.
Angel on the other hand, was in it for the evil. For Angel it is all about the individual victim. Angel is organized, structured in how he approaches things. Analytical. Calculated. He's a lot like Holland Manners of Wolfram and Hart, or Lindsey and Lilah, or
the little girl in the white room. To him, the fun was in the plan. In how you destroy the person, break them down, bit by bit.
How they go about finding Dana - emphasizes these two very different takes as well.
Angel thinks it through. Asks advice. Questions the nurse. Looks at the data. Analyzes it. Considers his options. He's very orderly. Had Wes call Buffy's group. Even sets up a tactical team to back him up. Order.
Spike rushes out and does it. Gets the info he needs.
Then takes off. Impulse. Chaotic. He finds the girl faster than Angel, using his body to do so. His sense of smell. His hearing. His senses. Angel uses the technology of W&H.
So it does make sense - that to push Angel's buttons - you go with the psychological torment. With Spike? You hurt his body. You go after his senses.
Angel - we get flashbacks, or visions of the victims that he spent so much time turning into monsters.
Spike - we get incorporeality, dragging to hell, cut off hands.
Angel- his dreams and mind is attacked with images.
Spike - his senses are removed or attacked, he can't feel, he can't touch, he can't smell.
Angel comes to an epiphany when a parasite gives him bad dreams. Spike when his hands are cut off.
It's interesting to me how this show demonstrates how order and chaos interrelate, how both are necessary but can also lead to evil. And it's equally interesting how they compare and contrast the use of physical and psychological images to examine character.
A bit of a ramble I'm afraid. Thoughts still way too cloudy by other things to remain coherent.
Overall a good episode. I actually enjoyed Andrew in it. Shocking I know. ;-)
Another frigid day outside with windchills. Ugh. Was hoping for a walk outside. Stretch my legs. Shake off the cabin fever and the growing feeling of isolation, which maybe adding to my irritiability.
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Re: This is why I have issues with "Chosen"
Date: 2004-01-29 03:09 pm (UTC)Wrote a lengthy essay - Season 7 Review at www.geocities.com/shadowkatbtvs detailing some of them.
I had troubles with it being an amulet that was brought over by the lead character of another series in the final episode being what saved the world. It took away from the sharing the power theme. Oh I know what Whedon wanted to say, I just don't think it was well conveyed, rather clunkily conveyed actually.
I wrote ages ago a post on atpo explaining what I think Whedon meant to do in that final scene where Spike saves the world and Buffy helps. In that post which is probably in the archives back in May? I state that he's trying to show how Buffy needs to accept the darkness in herself, go beyond good and evil and share that with the world. I saw the metaphors, I saw the message. But...I did not find the way it was conveyed to be clear or well-written. The characters didn't further the plot so much as were used by the writers to make statements. Often thrust into situations that made no sense or felt out of character. In S7 I felt as if the writers had grown bored of the story they were telling and just pushing out episodes and occassionally playing games with the audience. I may change my mind in years to come. But right now? It's my least favorite season of both series and not one I re-watch. The only two episodes I *really* liked out of it were Beneath You and Selfless. LMPTM is ruined by two things - Robin Wood, a character I can't watch without cringing, and
Giles, who felt off and underdeveloped. While they finally followed up on Spike, they have yet to satisfactorily follow up on Giles. Hopefully someday, I'll be able to watch that season with a different more positive perspective, but right now? Doubtful.
S7 had good eps, but lousy arc
Date: 2004-01-29 07:05 pm (UTC)Hopefully you're right about perspective. I'd like to be able to go back to S7 one day and see a stronger, less scatter-shot story.