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.
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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.