Vengeance - BTVS meta on episodes Beneath You and Selfless

[shadowkat]

In 1994, I had an interesting experience in the Kansas State Senate that not many people get to witness. I stood on the floor, trying not to look uncomfortable, listening for two, possibly three hours as the Senate debated the re-instatement of the death penalty in Kansas.
Kansas had not had the death penalty since around the 1960s - in which a moratorium had been placed on it. Below is a link to a site that tells you in depth about Kansas and the death penalty.

http://www.aclu.org/capital/moratorium/10620prs20041221.html

The argument I heard on that Senate Floor was in some respects similar to the arguments posed in the Buffy episodes Beneath You and Selfless, as well as the argument posed in the BattleStar Galatica mini-film RAZOR. It was also similar in some respects to the arguments I heard in my own country and had inside my own head, and with my friends online and off after the events of 9/11.


Xander Harris has been and always will be the perfect "everyman". He is the voice of the Greek chorus in Buffy. The normal Joe. There's a reason Xander has no powers, Xander doesn't sleep with Buffy, and Xander is often watching. He is in some respects the viewer and the writer. Xander thinks with his heart, not his head. He reacts to what happens emotionally.
It is in some respects a role reversal, normally or in most superhero mythologies - the woman is the chorus or the emotional heart of the series, not here. Here, Xander is the emotional heart. He also reflects for Buffy - what the everyman would think. How society views what she is doing. Xander is rules, boundaries, and the end zone. Xander looks at the world simply, doesn't see the nuances, and as Anya points out, always sees what he wants to see.

Anya/Aud/Anyanka represents Buffy's desire for Vengeance. Anya has always made things simple.
People are their actions in Anya's head. They are defined solely by what they do. As Aud - she defines her existence by breeding rabbits and selflessly giving them to her neighbors and being a good wife to Olaf, as Anyanka - she defines it by being the best vengeance demon ever - wracking vengeance on men who scorn women, regardless of whether they deserve it, regardless of the degree or intent, or the situation. She demonizes the people not the act, and in doing so, becomes a demon herself. She, as Buffy states, chooses to become a demon.
When Xander stands her up at the altar, Anya's first impulse is to make him pay. It makes sense, because that is how she met him to begin with - as the result of Cordelia's desire to make Xander pay for cheating on her with Willow - even if it was little more than a passionate kiss.

Anya's view is not unlike many people in society's view - you pluck out my eye, I pluck out yours.

In the episode Beneath You - Anya is struggling to become Anyanka again, to go back to being the vengeance demon she once was. But the power she is weilding scares her a bit. It has lost its appeal and as a result she is struggling with the demon community as well. She tells Buffy and her friends, that she's a demon, they are human, she plays by different rules now.
But, she sees the change in Spike before they do, and it is why he hits her. She sees the soul and is bewildered and amazed that he did it. She, alone, catchs that he is not demon, there is definitely a man in there. Also, when Xander gets her to withdraw her curse on Ronnie, turning him back into a man, Anya retorts to Xander's comment that she did the right thing, with compassion towards Ronnie.."tell him that." Just as Spike states to Buffy in regards to Ronnie..."Poor Ronnie." Both Anya and Spike react to Ronnie, not Nancy, but Ronnie with compassion.

Buffy and Xander in Beneath You, are struggling as well - as is Dawn. They want to see demons.
It's easier. Makes things simple. When Spike tells Buffy he has changed in Beneath You, Buffy says but she's not sure what into to. And when he enters her home, she tells him everything about him is wrong. When she looks at him in Beneath You, touches him, fights him, all she sees is his act in Seeing Red. She does not see him. Any more than Nancy sees Ronnie. Ronnie literally becomes the Sluggoth Demon that Nancy sees. Spike is juxtaposed with that demon, as Anya is with Nancy. Nancy is flirting with Xander and discussing ex's. Anya is discussing cheating men and exe's with the women at the Bronze, one of which had been Nancy. And when the episode starts - in the car, on the way to school, Xander and Buffy discuss Anya and make light of her vengeance activities. After all, these people deserve it, right?

At the end of Beneath You, after Anya turns Ronnie back into man, things change dramatically.
The tone of the episode shifts from Nancy/Buffy/Anya as the wronged parties, to well Xander,Spike and Ronnie. Anya tells Xander that she's doing it because he left her at the altar, none of this would have happened if it weren't for him. And Xander replies -" sooner or latter, Anya, that stops working." You have to own your actions. You can't blame me for who you are. Or the choices you make. Sure I was wrong to stand you up, I regret it every day.
But. And same deal with Nancy and Ronnie, when Anya turns Ronnie back, Nancy is horrified, she is before then - calling them freaks. We see that Nancy is far from perfect. And no, she did not deserve Ronnie's abuse. But Ronnie did not deserve to be turned into a worm either.
He is not a worm. It is not that simple. As Anya states to Xander - it's not that simple.
Spike too reacts to Ronnie - it is when Ronnie is turned back and Spike realizes he's hurt a human, in a way he has stabbed the pole through himself, metaphorically speaking. He reacts as if he has. And is shattered. He can no longer pretend to be the big bad he once was, the demon that Buffy and Xander want him to be. That he wants to be. Because things were easier then. It made sense. Shattered - he runs to a church, confesses to Buffy, and embraces a cross - crucifying himself. Seeking forgiveness from a power that will only burn him.

In Selfless, the focus shifts back on Anya, and to a degree Buffy herself. Anya has unleashed a crimsonlaw demon or spider demon that rips out and eats human hearts in response to a wish.
A young girl was taken to a fraternity by her boyfriend, where he proceeded to break up with her in front of his friends and they all shared a nice laugh about it. Humilating the girl and metaphorically tearing out her heart. As the girl tells Willow, "I just wished that for once they'd know what it felt like to have their hearts torn out and that's when it came.
It came and tore out their hearts. I take it back. I take it back." After it came, Anya is leaning against the wall, horrified and depressed at what she's done. What have I done, she asks. And as she washes the blood off her hands, the overlay is Spike's voice stating: "I don't trust what I see anymore..." It is a statement that applies to them both. Who are we?
Demons?

The metaphor of the hearts being ripped out fits both Buffy and Xander, and to a degree Willow. Xander states to Anya in Entropy that he felt like he ripped his own heart out when he stood Anya up at the altar. That he feels empty inside, twisted. Which is also how Anya feels. Buffy also feels that way, in regards to four guys she dated. Angel - when he turned into Angelus, when she sent him to hell by pushing a sword through his chest, and when he leaves her for LA, and several other episodes after that (Angel metaphorically ripped Buffy's heart out about six times before she finally moved on). Parker - when he told her their relationship was just a nice roll in bed. Riley - when he went to the vamp whores then left Sunnydale for good. Only to return married with the perfect life. Spike - when he attempted to rape her. And Willow felt that way when OZ left, Tara left and Tara died - as if her heart had been ripped out of her chest. Spike too feels it or did after he attempted to rape Buffy, he even states it in Same Time Same Place - your heart falls out of your chest, you try to put it back in, wall off the bad parts, but it doesn't fit and it doesn't work and you are the same as you've always been.

You can't take it back. Or rather you can try but not without consequences. Anya wants to take back what she did. Xander wants Willow to mystically fix it. But as Buffy puts it, it is never that simple. And when Xander tells her she is making it simple, deciding quickly in the space of minutes to kill Anya, and that she has no idea how he is feeling and no respect for it. That's when Buffy throws a couple of hard truths in Xander's face:

"I killed Angel. I loved him more than anything I will ever love in this life. I would have given everything I had to be with him. But I killed him. And you told me to do it. You egged me on. You and Willow - you told me that Willow said to kick his ass."

Xander stands horrified at Buffy's words. Almost speechless. He tries to say it is different.
That she has simplified it. That she's made the unilateral decision to shut them out again and do it her own way. But Buffy states it is never simple. You say I shut myself off from you, you have no idea what this is like. There are no rules, no guidelines, no all knowing Watcher Council. It comes down to me. I'm the law. She has the power and she doesn't want it.
And she doesn't want to kill Anya.

Xander brings up Spike - a mass-murdering demon, with a chip, that you didn't kill because you were boning. Buffy counters - Spike was harmless. Xander - he had no choice. And here's the kicker - Buffy states - but Anya did! She chose to become a vengeance demon twice. She knew what she was doing and chose to anyway.

Yet, it's still not simple. Willow goes to Anya, before telling Buffy and Xander what Anya's did, and Anya defends herself. "They deserved it. Do you know what they did to that girl, how they humilated her..." Willow disagrees and disagrees that Anya truly feels that way. Anya throws Willow's own actions regarding Warren back in her face and Willow states no she has not forgotten what she did, she remembers it every day. After she did it, when she did it, she wanted to die. Just as Spike and Anya want to die after they did what they did.

Buffy and Xander confront Anya - and Xander attempts to stop Buffy, but Anya continues to push him aside. "Don't help me, Xander" - she tells him. And her reasons are mixed. "Don't feel for me." She wants to hate him. She also wants to be punished. Buffy fights Anya with a sword in much the same way she fought Angelus, and like Angel, she shoves a sword through Anya's chest and like Angel, Anya does not die. She bucks death - because vengeance doesn't die, it lives as long if not longer than we do. She is as she tells Halfrek in 1905, I am the embodiment of vengeance. Yet, now...it has lost its appeal. "Stop saving me, Xander." she shouts when stops Buffy from actually killing her. And that's when D'Hoffryn shows up, summoned by Willow - who states that she wants him to talk to Anya. She wants him to give Anya the choice.

And he does...he asks what Anya wants. And Anya wants to take it back. I want to take it back.
Not that easy says D'Hoffryn. The scales need to be balanced. A life for a life. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. There are what 12 people dead in there? That's a hefty price.
It will require the soul and life of a vengeance demon. And Anya assumes he means her, she assumes she can offer her own life up for the choice. But as D'Hoffryn states - I always told you Anya, don't go for the death, when you can go for the pain. And he takes Anya's best friend, the one constant in her life, Halfrek. And Anya is bowed with guilt. She no longer knows who she is. She's not Xander's girlfriend, she's not a vengeance demon, she's nobody.
She feels like a nobody. What if that is all I am, she asks Xander.

This episode happens prior to the one where Buffy finally chooses to help Spike, stops seeing what Spike did and chooses to start looking past it, chooses to tell her friends that he has a soul now. She stops demonizing Spike, and demonizes what he did instead. Through Anya, Buffy starts to see how actions aren't always the person. She also becomes a little ambivalent about her calling...wondering if slaying is the correct course of action here.
Is she any better than Anya? She tells herself she is.

Vengeance is a prevalent theme in the series. It is one in most films and tv shows. From the cathartic thrill of Quentin Tartino's vengeance fantasy blood-baths such as Kill Bill and Inglorious Bastards to the questioning and uncertainity depicted in Speilberg's oscar nominated film about the Isralie special police (which I can't remember the name of), Jodie Foster's The Brave One, Sigourney Weaver's Death and the Maiden, and Coppola's the Godfather triology. It's also a theme on tv - we see it in 24 as a cathartic release, and in BSG, as moral guagmire.

And it appears in religous text. Most religious leaders/prophets/gods preached against it, from Christ to Mohammhmad to Buddha. Jesus stated in many a parable and many a speech - to not demonize the actor, but the action. It is the action that must be vilified, not the person committing it. Vengeance as Joseph Conrad states rather brilliantly in Heart of Darkness will devour you whole and turn you into the very monster that you wish to kill. And that is literally what vengeance did to both Anya and Willow - it devoured them.
It is vengeance that cursed Angel with a soul, and it is vengeance that made him lose it the moment he made love to Buffy. And in BattleStar Galatica, Admiral Kane literally destroys herself and her crew by embracing vengeance as their sole raison d'etre.

Vengeance twisted Aud into Anyanka. It twists Ronnie into a worm. What can forgiveness do?
What is the power of the opposite? And is it really that simple? No. Of course not.
Xander again is the voice of the everyman. And Buffy the echoing pov.

And back to the Kansas State Senate and the reinstitution of the death penalty..if you followed the link above, you would have discovered bits: since it's reinstatement, the death penalty has never been used in Kansas, the expense of it has almost bankrupt the state,
and the Supreme Court of Kansas recently voted that statute was unconstitutional in how it handled prisoners. The enactment of the statute has ironically done more to hurt the state of Kansas and those who voted for it politically than the people it was originally meant to hurt. That's the thing about vengeance - when we seek it, it hurts us more than it hurts those we seek it against. IT is a bit like that mirror trick in Buffy S1, episode Witch, where Amy's mother does a vengeance spell against Buffy and Buffy flips the mirror - which causes Amy's mother to be encased forever in a cheerleadering trophy. Willow's desire for vengeance almost ate her alive, Anya's turned her into a demon...power abused to hurt others for one's own gratification. The writer seems to be saying here - vengeance, the seeking of it, and infliction of it, the demonization of the actor not the action - will hurt the seeker of vengeance more in the long run, by demonizing someone else, we run the risk of demonizing ourselves. When we lash out at others, we lash out at ourselves. The metaphorical mirror reflects it back at us. Anya rips out the hearts of the men, she rips out her own. Xander by imposing moral righteousness on Buffy in S2, finds it reflected back at him years later, but with a twist. Is Anya, Buffy states, any different than Spike or Angel? She's lived longer and wracked more violence and like Spike and Angel, bucked the system, did not die - vengeance has kept Anya alive. Is the fact it was done in the name of vengeance justify it?
Can vengeance ever be justified?

Is what Buffy does the same as vengeance?

No. Not really. Any more than putting a man in jail for killing someone is. There is a difference between vengeance and protecting yourself. Protecting the world. And that is the line the writer seems to be attempting to define in this season, where is that line and what is the difference? How should we use our power? When are we abusing it? When aren't we?

Comments

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Very interesting meta. Your take on what 'demonizing' means in the 'verse is especially insightful, I think. I totally agree with you that the show never comes to a clear point on whether Buffy's job might lapse into vengence rather than pursuit of justice.

At the same time, the role of 'demonizing' (and letting demons be redeemed) in distinguishing between the act and the actor pushes the metaphor into territory that really should make us rather uncomfortable. Buffy still needs to protect the world. But insofar as the demon metaphor stands in for bad "people", her job not only raises questions regarding Buffy's power over life and death, but also the question of vigilantism. Buffy is the judge, jury, and executioner -- a point which as you note, she makes to Xander. The problem is that one of the main functions of civil society (at least in the modern western sense of the term) is to handle justice so as to avoid the inevitable lapse into vengence-seeking that would happen if people pursued justice on their own behalf (because we never can judge such matters impartially).

We do get a tremendous amount of catharsis from stories which depict heroes getting vengence on the bad guys. But it would destroy society if we actually all started acting that way. I don't know if Joss, et.al. mean to raise those particular sets of problems -- but I can't help but bring them to the table when watching the show. It's a big part of the difficulty I have in seeing the show's final metaphor (Buffy shares her power) the way ME presumably wanted to depict it. Buffy doesn't share the power with society at large (which would be to recapitulate the idea that justice belongs in the hands of the state), she shares it with a select few. I'll be very interested to see how that metaphor fares in the wake of a completed season 8 -- where these issues seem to be front and center. A lot will depend on what sort of villain Twilight turns out to be. If he's a straight-up villain, then the slayer spell was good, and the slayers are just a persecuted (martyred) group of heroic individuals trying to save the world despite itself. That would fold back into our lust for vengence, and I'd be disappointed if that's the road Joss takes. I am hoping that Twilgiht is more interesting than that.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

At the same time, the role of 'demonizing' (and letting demons be redeemed) in distinguishing between the act and the actor pushes the metaphor into territory that really should make us rather uncomfortable. Buffy still needs to protect the world. But insofar as the demon metaphor stands in for bad "people", her job not only raises questions regarding Buffy's power over life and death, but also the question of vigilantism. Buffy is the judge, jury, and executioner -- a point which as you note, she makes to Xander. The problem is that one of the main functions of civil society (at least in the modern western sense of the term) is to handle justice so as to avoid the inevitable lapse into vengence-seeking that would happen if people pursued justice on their own behalf (because we never can judge such matters impartially).

Agreed. It hit me in my rewatch. I'd just listened to Whedon's Cultural Humanist speech, then rewatched the two episodes back to back again - and it struck me, wait...what is the writer saying here?

Because in Selfless - numerous characters from Xander to D'Hoffryn point out that Buffy is playing the law.
"Lady Hacks Away" or "Justice". And it is notable that in very next couple of episodes...she is struggling with that title.


I don't know if Joss, et.al. mean to raise those particular sets of problems -- but I can't help but bring them to the table when watching the show. It's a big part of the difficulty I have in seeing the show's final metaphor (Buffy shares her power) the way ME presumably wanted to depict it. Buffy doesn't share the power with society at large (which would be to recapitulate the idea that justice belongs in the hands of the state), she shares it with a select few.

Have you listened to the cultural humanist Q&A? Whedon said some interesting things in it, that makes me wonder if he himself is questioning that ending. He seemed to state that what he was going for was the one of many ending, that you aren't shut off, that you have shared your power with the world. But, he's uncertain of the metaphor. I'm guessing and I may well be wrong about this..that S8 is addressing that issue and that's one of the reasons he chose to come back to the story and not end it with Chosen?



I'll be very interested to see how that metaphor fares in the wake of a completed season 8 -- where these issues seem to be front and center. A lot will depend on what sort of villain Twilight turns out to be. If he's a straight-up villain, then the slayer spell was good, and the slayers are just a persecuted (martyred) group of heroic individuals trying to save the world despite itself. That would fold back into our lust for vengence, and I'd be disappointed if that's the road Joss takes. I am hoping that Twilgiht is more interesting than that.

Agreed. It depends a great deal with where they take this. I can't tell at this point. And after listening to Whedon's speech and Q&A, I'm not really sure - during that speech he made a point about how we should demonize the action not the actor. That he was most interested in those who had power and those who did not, and those who abused the power they had. He said for years he felt he had none, then discovered when he had it he was abusing it - and hope he could be redeemed. Dollhouse - he said was to a degree about that and how we objectify each other and project ourselves onto others. That comment makes me wonder what he is doing with Buffy and where he is taking that story. My guess is in the direction we want...because I've read Indentity Crisis (I think that's the name) by Metzler - the co-plotter, which is about the Justice League (Superman etc) and how their abuse of power gets an innocent person killed. How they bend the rules for their own purposes. Whedon picked Metzler to co-plot Buffy S8 based on that comic/graphic novel. Which is an anti-vigilantism novel about the abuse of power.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Interesting ideas but Anya/Aud/Anyanka representing Buffy's desire for vengeance ultimately doesn’t work for me. Or for you it seems, as by the end you point out what she does is quite different from what Anyanka did. I do see parallels being drawn between Buffy and Anya but it’s not that their both vengeful but that they’re both consumed by their professions. Anyanka is vengeance, Buffy is the law.

Vengeance is personal, it has no limits. It is, as we were told in S2, not like commerce, an eye for an eye but a living thing, never satisfied by anything but the maximum amount of pain that can be inflicted. I read Anya not being killed by a sword through the chest not as vengeance not dying but as vengeance (who in this eisode is represented by D’Hoffryn) not being satisfied. Death is too easy for her.

Law, justice, is impersonal. Buffy in her role as the Slayer is the Law as far as demons are concerned and by demon standards she’s infinitely restrained. She doesn’t set out to kill Anya just because she’s a demon, she waits until it’s become clear that Anya is a lethal threat. She doesn’t firebomb vampire nests while they’re sleeping, she leaves it until they come out at night and start threatening people. When she’s doing her job properly, if they run away she lets them go. I really don’t see demonizing people as a central theme of this season at all. S7 isn’t about demons, whether Buffy has a dark side, where her powers come from. We learn an answer to that but it turns out to be largely irrelevant to the final resolution. I think S7 is about Slayers not demons. What does it mean to be chosen, to be the one girl in all the world, to be the law?

At the beginning of the season she’s embracing her calling as an adult for the first time. A fresh start, a new High School opening. No council, no Giles, she’s on her own. It’s all going swimmingly until Spike and then Willow turn up. She can’t ignore her past, the Slayer can’t ignore her history. Help uncovers a little more of what she’s taken on, the simple fact that she can’t save everyone. It recalls Spiral in S5 and how she responded to the belief that she couldn’t save Dawn and it looks forward to the arrival of the Potentials, an army of Dawns who she won’t be able to save either. Selfless is a wonderful episode but I think as far as the season is concerned the heart of it lies in that central confrontaion with Xander when she has to spell out what she is, what she has to do and that she has to do it alone. Being the Slayer means that the final responsibility is always hers.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Interesting ideas but Anya/Aud/Anyanka representing Buffy's desire for vengeance ultimately doesn’t work for me. Or for you it seems, as by the end you point out what she does is quite different from what Anyanka did. I do see parallels being drawn between Buffy and Anya but it’s not that their both vengeful but that they’re both consumed by their professions. Anyanka is vengeance, Buffy is the law.

I don't see it/perceive it as that clear cut. While Anyanka defines herself as vengence demon and buffy defines herself as the slayer, there are overlaps between the two - the overlap troubles Buffy. Buffy is not just a slayer, she is human. And she does fall into vengeance - at times - and often to her detriment. Anyanka's action in Beneath You is a metaphor to a degree, just as Anyanka's action in Selfless is a metaphor, to a degree, for Buffy's own feelings. Not an absolute metaphor. I'm not saying Buffy is "actively" seeking vengeance here. I'm saying it is an emotional metaphor - which the writers have often done and is often done in television - where you will have another character not the lead, do an action that reflects the lead's own desires.

Law, justice, is impersonal. Buffy in her role as the Slayer is the Law as far as demons are concerned and by demon standards she’s infinitely restrained.

As I read the internet today, it hit me once again how our perceptions of things are so heavily influenced by our own experiences and background. The phrase Your Milegae May Vary or in as one poster once stated Your Mileage Will Vary is an apt one.

I used to see the law the way you do in the post above. I do not any more. I worked as and apprenticed to become a criminal defense attorney. I worked in the state legislature and stood on the floor as they discussed the reinstatement of the death penalty. I have also done jury duty and seen first hand how jury's are selected and how decisions are made. In all those cases? No one was impersonal.

The law is far from impersonal. For this reason - it is made by and run by human beings.

It is as Buffy herself tells Kendra - when Kendra says that the slayer shouldn't feel - Buffy says emotions make us who we are. And it is always personal. If it weren't she would be a robot, like the Buffybot.

Buffy's ability to love and show compassion is why she does not kill Anya, does not kill Spike, does not kill Angel. If she was as impersonal as you state above - Angel would be dust. Anya would be dead. And Willow would not be welcomed back into the fold. If it were impersonal - she would not have shared her power.






She doesn’t set out to kill Anya just because she’s a demon, she waits until it’s become clear that Anya is a lethal threat. She doesn’t firebomb vampire nests while they’re sleeping, she leaves it until they come out at night and start threatening people. When she’s doing her job properly, if they run away she lets them go. I really don’t see demonizing people as a central theme of this season at all. S7 isn’t about demons, whether Buffy has a dark side, where her powers come from. We learn an answer to that but it turns out to be largely irrelevant to the final resolution. I think S7 is about Slayers not demons. What does it mean to be chosen, to be the one girl in all the world, to be the law?

At the beginning of the season she’s embracing her calling as an adult for the first time. A fresh start, a new High School opening. No council, no Giles, she’s on her own. It’s all going swimmingly until Spike and then Willow turn up. She can’t ignore her past, the Slayer can’t ignore her history. Help uncovers a little more of what she’s taken on, the simple fact that she can’t save everyone. It recalls Spiral in S5 and how she responded to the belief that she couldn’t save Dawn and it looks forward to the arrival of the Potentials, an army of Dawns who she won’t be able to save either. Selfless is a wonderful episode but I think as far as the season is concerned the heart of it lies in that central confrontaion with Xander when she has to spell out what she is, what she has to do and that she has to do it alone. Being the Slayer means that the final responsibility is always hers.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Anyanka's action in Beneath You is a metaphor to a degree, just as Anyanka's action in Selfless is a metaphor, to a degree, for Buffy's own feelings. Not an absolute metaphor. I'm not saying Buffy is "actively" seeking vengeance here. I'm saying it is an emotional metaphor - which the writers have often done and is often done in television - where you will have another character not the lead, do an action that reflects the lead's own desires.
Yes this is something that’s done in television and in other forms of storytelling. I simply don’t see that they’re doing it here or if they are how it fits with Buffy’s emotional development at this stage. She has been motivated by vengeance; against Faith in Graduation Day and again in Sanctuary or against the vamp ho in Into the Woods. But it seems to be a motivation that’s become less and less part of her repertoire over time. In S6 she has a generalized anger against the world, which she both holds in and directs against herself and takes out on Spike but I wouldn’t describe it as vengeance. Vengeance is more specific, more pointy. Also, now I think of it, when Buffy gets her vengeance on it always seems to be triggered by attacks on ‘her people’ not herself. Faith attacked Angel and then Joyce, the vamp ho was sucking on Riley. In early S7 there’s no-one who quite fits that vengeance triggering criterium. Spike attacked her personally and although it’s something that obviously affected her and made her very wary about him she’s never seemed to hate him for it or desire retribution. Anya is killing people she doesn’t know personally and Willow tried to destroy the world - it might have been different if she’d hurt Dawn in the process but it didn’t work out that way. Lack of specific motivation aside, what I think we’re seeing with Buffy in S7 is an emphasis on how being the Slayer has depersonalized her over time. In S2 she was less alone in her responsibilities. There was still Giles and the council (except I don’t think Joss thought up the Council until S3) and, although she hadn’t read it, a mystical handbook to go to. In S2 she could tell Kendra that her emotions made her stronger but by S7 she’s the sole representative of whatever it is she represents. She’s having to make the calls on who to slay as well as how to slay them and emotions are something she can no longer afford to indulge.

The law is far from impersonal. For this reason - it is made by and run by human beings.
I’d draw a line between law as a concept and law as a practical reality. It’s the same with my own profession. Science is supposed to be objective but scientists are as driven by ambition, personal prejudice and cultural conditioning as anyone else. Hence idiocies like evolutionary psychology. But we know that. It doesn’t stop us trying to do it right.

Buffy's ability to love and show compassion is why she does not kill Anya, does not kill Spike, does not kill Angel. If she was as impersonal as you state above - Angel would be dust. Anya would be dead. And Willow would not be welcomed back into the fold. If it were impersonal - she would not have shared her power.
Buffy doesn’t kill Anya because she proves herself to no longer be a threat and is no longer a threat after D’Hoffryn grants her wish. She doesn’t kill Spike because the chip and his general incompetence (ie the screw up with Adam) make him not a threat. She doesn’t kill Angel because he has a soul and proves it by killing Darla. She does kill him when there’s no other way to save the world. She fails to kill Angelus because of her emotional attachment to him and Jenny dies for it. She doesn’t initially welcome Willow back, she waits until Willow shows she’s not still on a world-flaying rampage and Willlow understands that Buffy has to think that way because it’s her job. I think she shares the power *because* it’s impersonal. It’s not a power that any one person can bear the responsibility for. ‘One girl in all the world,’ the whole premise of the show, is a fundamentally flawed system and this is the season that demonstrates that to the full.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree with your take. I just am seeing a bit more in this season than you apparently are, that's all.

YMMV. ;-)

[shapinglight]

Great meta, as always. Season 7 gets more and more complex the more one watches it.

I did feel that Joss was trying quite hard in this season to put clear blue water between what were then current political events and Buffy's war against the First Evil.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Although.. I think, regarding commentary on current political events - he was sort of commenting on them, but in a sort of periphery or indirect way. BSG did it more directly.

I think Whedon was more direct in Angel S5, Firefly and Serenity - regarding the political climate.
Also to an extent Dollhouse.

Buffy, he was more careful about on tv. Not as careful in the comics.