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shadowkatBeen rewatching S7, halfway through the season now, just finished watching the climatic and somewhat controversial episode Get it Done - written and directed by Doug Petrie. Get it Done underlines how power can be abused, misunderstood and misused. Also how people often use power to control others. But, while watching it and First Date...the theme of vengeance kept hitting me, for some reason. Not from Buffy herself, she's actually the counter-point. During this Season, and it may well be why I'm enjoying it so much, Buffy decides to forgive those who hurt her, to let them back into her heart and redeem them. All of them. Not just one person, but everyone. It is how she defeats the first.
Buffy also during this season seems to come to grips with her own power, where it comes from, what it means, and how to use it. In "Get it Done" - she finds out that she gets her power from the same source that the vampires do - the heart of the demon, and like the vampires, the first slayer was raped. Each vampire has been raped, his/her life raped from them and then, turned into the very thing that took their life. Corrupted their innocence. The demon is pushed into their body. The slayer ironically is created in similar way. Dracula is right, they are kindred. And it does explain, why Buffy has been drawn to and fallen for, two vampires at two different stages in her life.
But back to the themes of forgiveness and vengeance.
Vengeance or the abuse of power to carry it out is a major theme this season. It is to a degree a carry-over from the previous season, and has been an on-going theme throughout the series. But not just vegeance, but how people use or rather misuse their power to carry out a vengeful act.
In the Harrison Ford film based on the Tom Clancy novel of the same name - In Clear and Present Danger - the President of United States decides to avenge the murder of a personal friend by taking out a drug cartel - as a result innocent women and children are killed. The President used his power to destroy someone and in the process killed innocent lives and almost started a war. The West Wing - tackled a similar theme when President Bartlett's kid was kidnapped, and prior to that when his friend was shot. In real life - President George W. Bush has been accused of starting the war in Iraq as an act of vengeance.
In BTVS S2 - we learn that Jenny Calendar's family cursed Angel with a vengeance spell. The spell as Jenny's uncle states is not about Justice but Vengeance. Her uncle's wrath regarding Angel and his speech to Jenny in Season 2 is almost word for word similar to two other speechs, one in S6, where Willow and Xander state that Warren should pay for Tara's death, and in S7, with Robin Wood, who states more or less the same speech to Spike.
People believe that vengeance is often justified if the person does not show remorse. But as we see with Anyanka - vengeance provides its own toll. And the truth is, we never really know if someone feels remorse for what they've done or in their head, if they have rationalized it just as we have the vengeance.
In UK TV Series Merlin - King Uther, Arthur's father, executes Guivenvre's father without a care. When Merlin asks Gwen if she wants him dead. Gwen answers - I care not if he lives or dies. But I do not want him dead. Nor would I kill him. For that would make me no better than he is. I would be a murderer just like Uther. Uther doesn't show remorse initially and he never shows it to Gwen or Merlin, but he does show it to Morgana,his ward, eventually. He states he regrets it.
Two characters in Buffy S7 - seek vengeance with dire consequences. Robin Wood and Anya.
Anya does it first in Beneath You through Selfless. Her acts are justified - the men did do horrible things. But they almost destroy her and they almost destroy those around her. Just as Willow's act in Villians is justified - Warren did deserve it, but the act destroys her and those around her. She is using her power to destroy. It is eating her alive. Robin similariy is filled with hate and vengeance - it is why he who he is, it is why he slays vampires, and he spent a good portion of his hunting the one who killed his mother - who died when he was four years old. He has found other more meaningful callings, but when push comes to shove - he gives into it again, even if it is the First Evil who does the pushing. The First as Buffy's mother tells her in a dream is little more than evil in us all. The evil Buffy is fighting - is the evil in herself, in her friends, it is her own demon that she is battling, her own fear, her own hate, her own uncertainities - everything from the past six years that lies buried in the bottom of that highschool - like a timecapsul ready to erupt. She may not feel vengeance per se, but she does feel like she should, she's uncertain, scared. Of her own dark power. And she also feels shame and guilt for what she herself has done.
In The Prayer of St. Francis - sung with quiet beauty by Sarah McLachlan...there is a line that states:
"it is in pardoning that we are pardoned"
and "where there is hatred, let me sow love..."
It occurred to me while listening to this prayer today...that it is harder to pardon and love those who have hurt us. Almost impossible. I'm not sure sometimes I can do it. Those who can are I think saints. Because it is necessary. It is what Jesus in the new testatment does...he is hanging from the cross, in more pain than I think we can possibly imagine, tortured, having seen his family and friends prosecuted, and as he hangs there - given the temptation to condemn all those around him - he does the opposite. This is a miraculous bit - right there, it is counter to all that came before in the story - Jesus, his head bleeding, dying, he states "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do" and he proceeds to forgive the criminals, a thief and a murderer on either side of him, and his captors, everyone.
EVERYONE.
And it is not the only religious story where the hero forgives.
Forgiveness. Buffy has learned the great power of forgiveness. Forgiveness can create an entire religion. A movement. It can change lives. It is actually more powerful than vengeance. For example - Christianity came from the story of Jesus hanging there and forgiving everyone. People preferred the story about a forgiving God than a condemning/unforgiving one.
In my last meta - I discussed how Buffy struggles with emotion of vengeance. She never goes after it or seeks it, but she does struggle with it a bit - she struggles with whether it makes sense to forgive and allow the following people back into her life: Willow, Spike and Anya. In the previous season - each of these people had hurt her. They all gave her reason not to trust them ever again. Willow almost destroyed the world, and tried to kill her and Dawn. Spike slept with Anya and tried to rape her. Anya slept with Spike and became a vengeance demon who killed people. And she does struggle with her feelings for each of them. In Same Time, Same Place - she wonders if Willow skinned the boy at the school. In Beneath You through a portion of Sleeper, she wonders if she can trust Spike, if he is redeemable. In Selfless - she thinks she has to kill Anya. But, somehow she finds a way to forgive them. To let them into her house, to let them back into her life. She brings them inside and as a result they become her allies. She does the same thing with Andrew - who was partially responsible for Tara and Katrina's deaths, and killed his best friend Jonathan. In doing so, she begins to combat the First Evil or rather the evil inside. She pardons, and in pardoning begins to find forgiveness for her own transactions.
In Get it Done - she uses her power to encourage her friends to use theirs, even though she knows they fear it. When confronts Spike about his, he retorts that he's lost his taste for it and isn't this what she wanted - to see this person, not the demon? But she retorts - no, I need, the man you were, the one who tried to kill me when we first met. Who is dangerous. So off he goes to find the appropriate costume. For Spike has unbeknowest to Buffy spent his life trading clothes and ringing pavlov's bell - he does it again here. Each episode wearing a different outfit, trying a different bell. (But that's another meta for another time..)
And Buffy later feels quilty for the encouragement. Her power, she discovers comes from a dark place - it is demonic in form. She is part demon. Human with demon inside or as Dracula tells her - kindred. Spike is now her counterpart - he is the demon with the power of the human inside and she is the human with the power of the demon inside. He chose the soul, sought it. She seeks the power, but turns it down. For it does not provide her strength...and she has enough for an entire army. She doesn't want to become less human. And as she tells the men - it is your power that you are forcing down my throat or up my gullet. It's in your staff. You wish to rape me and violate me with it - to make me strong to fight your battles, because you are too weak to do it yourselves. I am no more than a weapon. (Rape as discussed previously is all about power - or demonstrating one's power over another - often male power over female or male control over the female - I control you with my ability to violate you in a sexual manner with my penis - of course, we could always chop it off - which is what Buffy figuratively does when she breaks the staff in two, effectively killing the power. It's a weird metaphor - because the indication is that the rape/violation gave the slayer her power - but I think that is the point - since vampires got their power in the same way. Both Liam(Angel) and William (Spike) were seduced and raped. As were Drusilla and Darla. Vampirism historically has always been a metaphor for sexual violation, rape, seduction. The men basically made a counterpart to the vampires they were battling against.)
The pushme-pullme with Spike has changed, it is different now. She is not fighting her power. She is struggling to accept and live with it. Not embrace it. But find a why to handle it. Spike her counter-part in some respects - is echoing that struggle, but from the opposite perspective. He is almost a mirror to her - he is struggling to accept and handle the soul, the power the soul represents, the human soul. While Buffy is struggling to accept and handle the demon inside. He is trying to deal with his own darkness, his dark power, while at the same time - the poet, the human who doesn't quite like violence, the two sides of himself, which are the counter of Buffy. When she looks at Spike she sees her counter. Forgiving him is in a way forgiving herself. Encouraging him and Willow to use their power, to embrace it, find a way to use it in a helpful way, is in a way encouraging herself. Through them - she finds her own balance.
I don't know what I'm trying to say tonight. It's been a tough day. And I'm frustrated.
So going to bed. If you can make sense of the above, kudos. Leaving it up for now.;-)
Buffy also during this season seems to come to grips with her own power, where it comes from, what it means, and how to use it. In "Get it Done" - she finds out that she gets her power from the same source that the vampires do - the heart of the demon, and like the vampires, the first slayer was raped. Each vampire has been raped, his/her life raped from them and then, turned into the very thing that took their life. Corrupted their innocence. The demon is pushed into their body. The slayer ironically is created in similar way. Dracula is right, they are kindred. And it does explain, why Buffy has been drawn to and fallen for, two vampires at two different stages in her life.
But back to the themes of forgiveness and vengeance.
Vengeance or the abuse of power to carry it out is a major theme this season. It is to a degree a carry-over from the previous season, and has been an on-going theme throughout the series. But not just vegeance, but how people use or rather misuse their power to carry out a vengeful act.
In the Harrison Ford film based on the Tom Clancy novel of the same name - In Clear and Present Danger - the President of United States decides to avenge the murder of a personal friend by taking out a drug cartel - as a result innocent women and children are killed. The President used his power to destroy someone and in the process killed innocent lives and almost started a war. The West Wing - tackled a similar theme when President Bartlett's kid was kidnapped, and prior to that when his friend was shot. In real life - President George W. Bush has been accused of starting the war in Iraq as an act of vengeance.
In BTVS S2 - we learn that Jenny Calendar's family cursed Angel with a vengeance spell. The spell as Jenny's uncle states is not about Justice but Vengeance. Her uncle's wrath regarding Angel and his speech to Jenny in Season 2 is almost word for word similar to two other speechs, one in S6, where Willow and Xander state that Warren should pay for Tara's death, and in S7, with Robin Wood, who states more or less the same speech to Spike.
People believe that vengeance is often justified if the person does not show remorse. But as we see with Anyanka - vengeance provides its own toll. And the truth is, we never really know if someone feels remorse for what they've done or in their head, if they have rationalized it just as we have the vengeance.
In UK TV Series Merlin - King Uther, Arthur's father, executes Guivenvre's father without a care. When Merlin asks Gwen if she wants him dead. Gwen answers - I care not if he lives or dies. But I do not want him dead. Nor would I kill him. For that would make me no better than he is. I would be a murderer just like Uther. Uther doesn't show remorse initially and he never shows it to Gwen or Merlin, but he does show it to Morgana,his ward, eventually. He states he regrets it.
Two characters in Buffy S7 - seek vengeance with dire consequences. Robin Wood and Anya.
Anya does it first in Beneath You through Selfless. Her acts are justified - the men did do horrible things. But they almost destroy her and they almost destroy those around her. Just as Willow's act in Villians is justified - Warren did deserve it, but the act destroys her and those around her. She is using her power to destroy. It is eating her alive. Robin similariy is filled with hate and vengeance - it is why he who he is, it is why he slays vampires, and he spent a good portion of his hunting the one who killed his mother - who died when he was four years old. He has found other more meaningful callings, but when push comes to shove - he gives into it again, even if it is the First Evil who does the pushing. The First as Buffy's mother tells her in a dream is little more than evil in us all. The evil Buffy is fighting - is the evil in herself, in her friends, it is her own demon that she is battling, her own fear, her own hate, her own uncertainities - everything from the past six years that lies buried in the bottom of that highschool - like a timecapsul ready to erupt. She may not feel vengeance per se, but she does feel like she should, she's uncertain, scared. Of her own dark power. And she also feels shame and guilt for what she herself has done.
In The Prayer of St. Francis - sung with quiet beauty by Sarah McLachlan...there is a line that states:
"it is in pardoning that we are pardoned"
and "where there is hatred, let me sow love..."
It occurred to me while listening to this prayer today...that it is harder to pardon and love those who have hurt us. Almost impossible. I'm not sure sometimes I can do it. Those who can are I think saints. Because it is necessary. It is what Jesus in the new testatment does...he is hanging from the cross, in more pain than I think we can possibly imagine, tortured, having seen his family and friends prosecuted, and as he hangs there - given the temptation to condemn all those around him - he does the opposite. This is a miraculous bit - right there, it is counter to all that came before in the story - Jesus, his head bleeding, dying, he states "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do" and he proceeds to forgive the criminals, a thief and a murderer on either side of him, and his captors, everyone.
EVERYONE.
And it is not the only religious story where the hero forgives.
Forgiveness. Buffy has learned the great power of forgiveness. Forgiveness can create an entire religion. A movement. It can change lives. It is actually more powerful than vengeance. For example - Christianity came from the story of Jesus hanging there and forgiving everyone. People preferred the story about a forgiving God than a condemning/unforgiving one.
In my last meta - I discussed how Buffy struggles with emotion of vengeance. She never goes after it or seeks it, but she does struggle with it a bit - she struggles with whether it makes sense to forgive and allow the following people back into her life: Willow, Spike and Anya. In the previous season - each of these people had hurt her. They all gave her reason not to trust them ever again. Willow almost destroyed the world, and tried to kill her and Dawn. Spike slept with Anya and tried to rape her. Anya slept with Spike and became a vengeance demon who killed people. And she does struggle with her feelings for each of them. In Same Time, Same Place - she wonders if Willow skinned the boy at the school. In Beneath You through a portion of Sleeper, she wonders if she can trust Spike, if he is redeemable. In Selfless - she thinks she has to kill Anya. But, somehow she finds a way to forgive them. To let them into her house, to let them back into her life. She brings them inside and as a result they become her allies. She does the same thing with Andrew - who was partially responsible for Tara and Katrina's deaths, and killed his best friend Jonathan. In doing so, she begins to combat the First Evil or rather the evil inside. She pardons, and in pardoning begins to find forgiveness for her own transactions.
In Get it Done - she uses her power to encourage her friends to use theirs, even though she knows they fear it. When confronts Spike about his, he retorts that he's lost his taste for it and isn't this what she wanted - to see this person, not the demon? But she retorts - no, I need, the man you were, the one who tried to kill me when we first met. Who is dangerous. So off he goes to find the appropriate costume. For Spike has unbeknowest to Buffy spent his life trading clothes and ringing pavlov's bell - he does it again here. Each episode wearing a different outfit, trying a different bell. (But that's another meta for another time..)
And Buffy later feels quilty for the encouragement. Her power, she discovers comes from a dark place - it is demonic in form. She is part demon. Human with demon inside or as Dracula tells her - kindred. Spike is now her counterpart - he is the demon with the power of the human inside and she is the human with the power of the demon inside. He chose the soul, sought it. She seeks the power, but turns it down. For it does not provide her strength...and she has enough for an entire army. She doesn't want to become less human. And as she tells the men - it is your power that you are forcing down my throat or up my gullet. It's in your staff. You wish to rape me and violate me with it - to make me strong to fight your battles, because you are too weak to do it yourselves. I am no more than a weapon. (Rape as discussed previously is all about power - or demonstrating one's power over another - often male power over female or male control over the female - I control you with my ability to violate you in a sexual manner with my penis - of course, we could always chop it off - which is what Buffy figuratively does when she breaks the staff in two, effectively killing the power. It's a weird metaphor - because the indication is that the rape/violation gave the slayer her power - but I think that is the point - since vampires got their power in the same way. Both Liam(Angel) and William (Spike) were seduced and raped. As were Drusilla and Darla. Vampirism historically has always been a metaphor for sexual violation, rape, seduction. The men basically made a counterpart to the vampires they were battling against.)
The pushme-pullme with Spike has changed, it is different now. She is not fighting her power. She is struggling to accept and live with it. Not embrace it. But find a why to handle it. Spike her counter-part in some respects - is echoing that struggle, but from the opposite perspective. He is almost a mirror to her - he is struggling to accept and handle the soul, the power the soul represents, the human soul. While Buffy is struggling to accept and handle the demon inside. He is trying to deal with his own darkness, his dark power, while at the same time - the poet, the human who doesn't quite like violence, the two sides of himself, which are the counter of Buffy. When she looks at Spike she sees her counter. Forgiving him is in a way forgiving herself. Encouraging him and Willow to use their power, to embrace it, find a way to use it in a helpful way, is in a way encouraging herself. Through them - she finds her own balance.
I don't know what I'm trying to say tonight. It's been a tough day. And I'm frustrated.
So going to bed. If you can make sense of the above, kudos. Leaving it up for now.;-)
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-02 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-03 04:54 am (UTC)I loved when Anya was complaining about Spike getting a 'pass' and she has to say the line: "to forgive makes us human' (which she says in a really snippy way, but I think it is one of the points of this season).
Anyway I have to say that I think S7 is one of my top favorite seasons.... it really was solid. The only episode I could really do without was 'Showtime' (the Thunderdome fight one).
no subject
Date: 2009-09-04 03:17 am (UTC)I adore Spike and Buffy's arcs this season. Actually I like everyone's arcs - they are to a degree more drastic than in prior seasons and more uplifting.
Spike's is simply amazing.
Anya's remark is ironic - because, it goes back to the fight between Xander and Buffy in Selfless that Anya wasn't privy to.
Xander: you let a mass-murdering monster go free, because what, you were sleeping with him?
Buffy: Spike was harmless with the chip.
Xander: he had no choice.
Buffy: But Anya did! She CHOSE to become a vengeance demon twice. She chose to become a demon, she chose to do this.
Spike really didn't choose it. He was turned into a vampire. Just as Buffy did not choose to be the slayer, Spike did not choose to become a vampire.
The writer appears to be drawing a line between alcoholism or addiction - where we do horrible things under the influence or without agency, vs. say what Andrew and Anya do - which is when you choose to hurt someone while not under any influence except say your own emotions.
Yet, at the same time, the writer isn't certain about the line he/she is drawing. He doesn't know the answer, which is what makes the story interesting to me.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-04 03:24 am (UTC)I find it freeing, after writing precisely all day long. Hee.
Buffy's speech is a fascinating speech taken in light of the recent comics, which appear to be saying the opposite. LOL!
Spike and Willow have fascinating arcs in this season. I really adore Spike's. That character just keeps getting more interesting as the story unfolds.
What I also like - is how Buffy realizes that there is evil everywhere, in them all, and it really comes down to choice, how we choose to use power, and choose to treat others.
There's a great scene in Bring on the Night - two in fact - where Joyce tells Buffy in her dreams that she needs to sleep and that evil is in us all, that you can't eradicate it. That's not the way to fight it. Meanwhile Giles is stating just that - fight it, don't sleep, don't rest, don't take a break, don't date, don't love - fight the evil, eradicate all evil. This comes back to bite Giles big time.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-04 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-13 03:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-13 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-13 06:24 pm (UTC)