S7 gave me a lot of sympathy with Quentin Traver's viewpont that the Slayer is just the weapon, and it needs the CoW to make the call on just how the weapon should be used.

Even though I loathe S7 a great deal with a couple of exceptions I will say there are two things about Bring On The Night that I absolutely love...

1. Anya looked adorable. I really thought either the wardrobe department and/or Emma had struck gold. I thought her hair (color/style/length), the glasses, everything, was lovely. I always thought she was pretty but after that ep. I thought she was gorgeous.

2. Dawn's attitude in the ep. When she was slapping the shit outta Andrew that was my very first I *heart* Dawn moment ever. Not to mention the Anya/Dawn interrogation and interplay wrt Andrew. The whole hot water exchange was just hilarious, and the looks & reaction they have to Buffy coming in the room have me just laughing for days.

What you mean her anchoves song or being posable didn't give you I love Dawn moments?

ETA: I just rewatched Showtime and when Buffy is talking tp Willow psychicly her voice doesn't sound right, is that SMG talking or did someone else do the voice over?

[sniff]A comment from another board reminded me of Cassie Newton's actual website that they put up after Help and I decided to check it out and actually read the poems this time. And it's gone. It's just another little detail that exemplifies that Buffy really is gone. That just made me really sad again, and I thought I'd share.[/sniff]

Hexlover, I have vague recollections of that being a huge issue when people first saw the wildfeed of that ep. I think it was finally established that SMG was sick when she voiced the dubbing, so it sounded weird.

DaBigDave, I think you touched upon an important point about Buffy's evolution by and through S7. From s1-5, Buffy had, despite the Angel trauma, been a pretty good leader IMO. But the decisions required of her by the end of S5 broke her and the last two seasons have been about how tired she really was of the job. Viewed that way, S7 is about Buffy playing that out and finding a positive way to deal with her burden. I know there's a lot of issue about whether the Potential-Activation spell was really a good idea but as a metaphor for Buffy freeing herself by sharing the power and responsibility ( instead of killing herself or running away yet one more time) it was a nice end to her story.

I"ll have to watch S7 again to se if any of the other things that bugged me about S7 makes more sense to me now.

Something that really bugged me was the way that she kept venting her frustration on Faith. She punches Faith twice, can't understand why Faith came to help them, and tried to blame Faith because the SiTs didn't like her and said that Faith had planned this to take everything from her. And throughout all of these events Faith manages to controll herself and doesn't respond with anything stronger than an insult. So, bully for Faith.

I didn't see it as her venting her frustrations on Faith so much as showing that she had a lot of unresolved issues regarding Faith. The things that she seemed to fear about Faith were issues she'd had with Faith from S3, beginning with Faith seemingly taking over her friends (or at least captivating them with her stories) to Faith actually taking over her body and life in S4. Not much progression on her part since she hadn't taken the time to deal with those issues. It's not so much that she "couldn't understand" why Faith was helping them as that she initially couldn't believe that Faith had changed. You'd think Anya and Spike would have taught her to be less suspicious of people's ability to change, but IMO she was more irrational about Faith because Faith's "bad deeds" of the past more directly impacted her on a personal level. Yeah, there was the AR but for the most part, the evil that Anya and Spike had done was more abstract, on the level of "protect the general populace" rather than infringing on Buffy on such a personal level. IMO her going to talk to Faith and "share the power"/scythe with her in "End of Days" was supposed to show her progression towards accepting Faith. And yeah, bully for Faith for not rising to the bait/controlling herself. Because she *did* progress and come to terms with her issues with Buffy. She had years to do nothing but deal with her issues, sitting in jail. And they did a nice job of showing how far she'd come in the way she responded to Buffy's irrationality.

ETA: It's too bad that Faith came so late in the game and that they didn't try to explore the Faith/Willow or Faith/Xander issues more. IMO in many ways, Faith impacted the whole Scooby Gang on a far more personal level than any other "villain" in the past, except maybe Dark Willow. And even then. But then, they seemed to shy away from a lot of this kind of thing in later years - why not explore the Spike/Xander dynamic from another level and show how it's changed and not changed since S4? Why not have Spike and Willow compare notes on redemption? Show how Spike/Dawn's relationship had changed/been affected by the AR and the soul and show whether they could ever have become friends again. I know that sounds like a very Spike-centric POV but my point is that there were a number of relationships/interactions with a lot of potential for interesting development that they seemed to steer completely away from in S7. A lot of people complain that Spike "took over" in S7 (which I don't agree with) so I guess I'm saying if they were going to use him a lot, why not use him *and* the other characters to explore interesting new dynamics?

Actually, I think Buffy's feelings about the AR have a little something to do with how she treats Faith.

Throughought the series, Spike and Faith have had parallel roles in Buffy's life and I think that's true here. Namely, I think that on a certain level, Buffy is redirecting some of her Spike-anger onto Faith.

One suspects that Buffy must have some major anger and resentments toward Spike, but for various reasons she can't express them. But Buffy can express her resentments toward Faith. So she does. And I think Buffy over-reacts partly because she's pouring those other stifled resentments onto Faith. Just as in S6, she was pouring her stifled resentments onto Spike.

Huh. I didn't see that at all. Food for thought. So Buffy has been repressing her anger at Spike all season and then Faith comes along and she suddenly dumps it all on her? IMO, if that was true, we would have seen a lot more anger/resentment from her towards Spike before the soul-revelation than we saw. I just don't think they ever showed that much resentment or even that much anger from Buffy wrt to the AR except for the implied trust that Spike broke (despite her insisting that she didn't trust him), even right afterwards. I always got the impression that she sort of understood how they got there. It does rather diminish the impact of the AR on the victim in some ways, but in others, I thought that reaction was rather true to the kind of relationship the two of them had had rather than a cliched Buffy as victim reaction. Though I've never gone through that kind of experience myself and it may be unfair to call that cliche.

But I honestly don't see Buffy's reactions to Faith as overreactions on any level beyond her own unresolved issues with her (plus her own resentment/stress of the leadership role she's had to take on). IMO, if she's venting anything on Faith, it's the stress of the job. But I don't really think she is taking things out on Faith. If anything, she's using the stress of the job as an excuse to express her issues with Faith (ie, punching Faith outside the Bronze).

I personally think that was a bit of a mistake in the direction. Nonetheless it might add weight to the idea that Buffy vented a lot of the repressed anger she had over the AR onto Faith. Afterall Faith did violate Buffy, by invading her body foremost, and by manipulating Riley into sex, thereby polluting her sexual relationship with her boyfriend. There are some parallels to what Spike did.

As far as the Buffy/Faith thing goes, Buffy did piss me off with the way she treated Faith -- especially with the punching in the cemetery. However, in a general way I can understand her hostility. As others have mentioned, Buffy would have a hard time accepting Faith after the things Faith did to her, and the joy Faith (usually) took in it.

Further, considering how cold and sometimes outright bitchy Buffy had been to everyone lately, I guess it isn't odd that she wouldn't care much about restraining her feelings toward Faith. And pretty much all of her aggression towards Faith is seen pre- (and during) mutiny. After she has her big epiphany in "Touched," she seems to accept Faith a lot more.

I still hate that first punch, though.


See, the thing that I like about the empowerment spell is that it isn't just Buffy freeing herself. She's also freeing every other potential. Now, I'm sure an argument could me made to the contrary -- I know people have said before that since Buffy made them all Slayers, they'd have more trouble with demons, etc. and that the burden of Slayerhood had been forced on them.

But here's how I look at it. Rather than thinking about every individual girl, I see it as Buffy freeing The Slayer. Before, there was (stupidly) "one girl in all the world." And that girl had to carry the burden of fighting vampires and demons, and all that. And she had to do it alone. Sure, we've seen that there are obviously non-Slayer people who also fight evil. But as The Slayer, she had an unavoidable responsibility to carry that burden.

With the empowerment spell, Buffy made sure that no single girl would ever have to shoulder that burden again. Rather than fighting alone, that girl now has help. She has entire community of Slayers worldwide to fight with her. And since the burden is no longer on that one girl, whoever she may be, she can decide how involved she wants to be. She can take vacations. She can go travel the world. Now, She has a choice.

If Buffy was taking out her Spike issues with Faith, does that mean she was taking out her Angel issues with Anya?

Of course, I saw Buffy hitting Faith as just another example of Buffy's megalomania ...

Well probably considering that she was using that experience as an example and saying, "I won't let that happen again". Plus she stabbed Anya in the same way that she stabbed Angel even though she knew that Anya wouldn't be killed by it.

Is that sarcasm? Because I'm not sure how the S2-Angel storyline parallels in Selfless could have been made more apparent.

I think Buffy had a lot of legitimate reasons to be angry with Faith, and her initial reaction, while not necessarily approrpriate, was understandable an IMO not an act of megalomania. If you were to catalogue Faith's offenses against Buffy and stack them up against the punch, I'd say Faith got off pretty easy. I like Faith plenty (love her, actually - she's one of my favorite all time ME creations), but she never tried to kill my first boyfriend and then sleep with my second, assault my mother, steal my body and therefore my life, and follow that all up with a rousing game of trying to kill the first love once again. I know Faith is repenting, but Buffy isn't required to forgive her quite so easily and I think I'd punch Faith too if I'd have been in Buffy's shoes.

I agree that Buffy was taking out her First Evil issues with Faith, just as she did with other people. I also agree that it would have been nice to see more Faith interaction with Xander and Willow. By the way, it's nice that Faith and Willow were civil to each other, but you could hardly tell from their interactions on BtVS or AtS that they fantasized about killing each other the last time they met. I like the way Mutant Enemy resolved the tension between Faith and Wesley on AtS much better.

Anyway, I see the activation spell as another example of Buffy focusing on herself at the expense of the mission. Her battle plan had no chance of succeeding as she conceived it, but she went ahead because sharing the burden of slayerhood had a strong personal appeal to her.

I notice "and tried to kill my best friends" never made your list.

The thing is, if Faith was due a punch, it should've happened in the graveyard when they first got together. Buffy did not do that. She seemed cool with Faith until the bar. Not warm and friendly, not hot with anger, but cool. She's here, that's fine, but no big hugs. The punch came after an admitted but justifiable mistake, and I really don't have a read on why she did it, but I don't hook it with unresolved Spike issues.

Buffy did punch Faith at the cemetary and then again at the bar, after Faith had been wailed on by the police. While I will admit that Faith kind of deserved the first punch she did not deserve the second one.

Yeah, that happens to me at least once a week. That's why I left it off the list. :)

I was referring to the graveyard punch, not the punch at the Bronze. The one at the Bronze made me more sad for Buffy than angry. She's so clearly falling apart and out of touch with reality. I think if ME had actually done something that would have made the audience (and her friends) appreciate her deteriorating mental state and subsequent irrational need to lash out - she'd have been far more sympathetic. She's so very far beyond hurthing at this point in the game that it would have been wonderful to see her pain addressed by her, her friends, Giles, etc. I'm one of those people who believes that the root of all anger is pain though, so YMMV.

Weirdly, I find I'm able to not blame Buffy but Marti Noxon. I sleep better that way.

I'm a little confused whether you think they were clear about it or not =) but I personally think they were. IMO Buffy was clearly heavily frayed at the edges at this point, somewhat paranoid, and almost visibly forcing herself to keep going through each moment. She seems perpetually on the edge, trying to be strong but lashing out everytime her control slipped, and utterly unable to connect with anyone. I think it's interesting to contrast her sympathy with Willow in The Gift (paraphrased - "the last couple days, I've mostly been looking for ways to help Tara. I know that shouldn't be my focus" "of course it should") with her complete inability to deal with Xander's injury (including Dawn's inquiry about it). She also seems incapable of talking to anyone on any level except to talk about work and the mission. IMO she's so clearly close to breaking, so utterly on edge and visibly struggling to keep control over herself, so increasingly irrational and distant, that I find it very hard to understand the perspective that ME meant to say that she was 100% right in "Empty Places". And her lashing out at Faith and Giles, Faith in particular, IMO isn't so much her choosing to vent her frustrations at this particular target as the edges of her control fraying at some of her more emotionally weak/vulnerable spots. Her issues with Faith make it that much harder for her to maintain control around her. I think the punch outside the Bronze was completely uncalled for and completely irrational myself, but I don't think there was anything deliberate about it. Just a point where her control broke b/c Faith is still very much a sensitive spot for her that she hasn't dealt with.

I didn't much like Buffy by the end of S7 but the more I think about it, the more I have sympathy for her.

Re: Buffy punching Faith. Buffy doesn't seem to have any problem punching anyone strong enough to take it. She frequently punches Spike and Angel as well as Faith. I think that among physical equals she doesn't think it is much different than yelling at them.

Which is a whole new reason to find her scary.

Which again, was why I'd posited that Buffy lashing out physically at Faith was, in addition to being about her lashing out at Faith, also about Buffy venting frustrations that she felt for other targets but which she was unable to deal with or vent.

By that point, Faith is symbolic of a lot of Buffy's personal frustrations, but she's also the one person Buffy feels it's "okay" for her to be venting her frustrations against. Up until the end of Empty Places when Buffy finally acknowledges that Faith is trying to help, isn't looking to betray her, and should be accepted.

I don't think they meant to say that she was 100% right. However, I think they meant to say that she was partly right, but they failed to support this (as we've already discussed at length) and ultimately rewarded her for making poor choices by giving her an unearned victory (as we've also discussed).

It was a rhetorical question ... the point being that Buffy shouldn't be allowed to take out her emotional issues on other people.



Considering that Buffy is harboring Spike, she's throwing stones in a glass house if she's holding Faith's past against her. Of course, in the case of the second time Buffy hit Faith, it probably had more to do with the fact that Faith dared to speak to Spike.

It does make me sad that she seems to have forgotten what Giles taught her in season 2: Forgiveness is an act of compassion, Buffy. It's given not because it's deserved, but because it's needed.

Buffy and Faith's dynamic does improve though, and I'm glad for it. Maybe it's a little Pollyanna of me, but I wanted them to end the series on good terms.

Here's a reminder from the BBC Buffy site:

Whether ME actually MEANT to imply that Buffy was right in "Empty Places" gets eclipsed, IMHO, by the fact that she is completely vindicated by the writing. That's the problem I think ME had especially in the UPN years, execution never quite seemed to gel with intent. Saying something over and over doesn't make it true. I need to SEE it, to some extent, to believe it. Granted, a lot of that is left up to personal interpretation, but when so many others see it similarly, I have to wonder if the problem isn't with the viewers, but with the writers et al.

As for whether or not Faith might have deserved being hit, I have to agree with an earlier poster -- if Buffy is willing to (IMHO) blindly and totally defend Spike after everything that had gone on prior, she has lost any right, moral or otherwise, to complain about Faith's actions, especially prior ones, when she remains silent on Spike's. Of everyone appearing in the final season of BtVS, Faith seems to have actually atoned and made some peace with herself.

SHOWING us more of Buffy's supposed breakdown (and I say supposed not to mock anyone here, but because ME did a terrible job, IMHO, of selling that view) would have made her a sympathetic character.

I can see where ME wanted to go with Buffy's issues, but to me, they never got there, aside from playing lip service to it. While I agree with another poster, that I'd rather blame Marti/Joss/whomever, ultimately, at the end of the day, I'm left seeing these things come from Buffy's mouth and actions, and she regrettably takes the blame for them.

Here's the thing.

The First never worked as a villain. Well, a little, in "CWDP", but there it's working on Willow and maybe on Dawn, never on Buffy. We don't really know what it wants, or why it thinks taking the actions it takes will get what it wants. Because the First never worked as a villain, we never really got the feeling that Buffy was exhausted, mentally, physically or emotionally because of her struggle against it. We are told that something Buffy did allows it to be here, but we never are told what. (It could be that she didn't die completely before Kendra did, which explains why the First was up and around in S3, no S2, but really, it could be something she did at Hemery for all we know.) They wrote that she was, but they never sold it. From what we are shown, she worked harder and was more personally hurt in S3, and in the midst of that, she made herself pretty and went to the Prom and smiled and joked and such. And even in that, they undercut their work. She's exhausted and emotionally separated, but she's going "Willow and Kennedy sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G" in "The Killer In Me". She's humorless and dying inside because of the pressure she's under, but she's flirting at a french restaurant with Wood in "First Date".

That's the core problem with S7. I never felt she was lashing out because of her disconnection because I never got that she was disconnected. Well, more than usual -- she's been saying "You won't understand; it's a Slayer thing" since nearly the beginning, and it has almost always come back to bite her. I got that she was seriously disconnected in S5. I got that she was in S6, in spades. Not so much in S7. She never really talked to Xander post "CWDP", but they were pretty close before, and they never show why. She stopped talking with Willow, except when they made sure in conversations with Willow that things were fine between them. She was way disconnected with Dawn, but from what I saw, that was more a problem with Dawn than with Buffy -- we never saw Buffy wanting to talk to her sister and stopping. And whatever disconnect was going on with Giles is his deal, not hers. I'm fine with the Spike aspects of "Lies", pretty much, but I fail to see what Giles was trying to do with Buffy besides distract her while Robin deals with Spike. Yes, it shows a disconnect between her and Giles, but Giles has been off in England. Of course she's a bit disconnected from someone she isn't really connected with anymore.

And because they never sell their key points leading to the finale, I never bought the finale, and go WTF? when I see Buffy smiling at the end of "Chosen". Sure, evil has been fought and defeated (with two issues on that one -- I don't see that the First's plans were really thwarted because the didn't seem to further the First's anti-Slayer goals, and the defeat of Evil was brought to you via a generous grant from Wolfram and Hart, the evil law firm from another series) and a number of other little girls are available to take up the slack, allowing her to get a good night's sleep, but the entirety of her life for the last seven years, including the grave of her mother, have been obliterated and people she cared about were killed and wounded. It would've had to been at least bittersweet.

The biggest disconnect is between the writers and what they thought they were saying and the audience and what they were showing, and it started, I think, with the villain.

Earl Allison, as I've said before, arguing that the last few episodes of S7 were a "total vindication" for Buffy when she got Xander's eye gouged out, killed a bunch of SiTs, got her ass kicked, got kicked out of her own house by every meaningful character in the show except Spike seems like strange vindication to me. I did see all those things. Some wrong decisions, some right decisions, some right decisions for the wrong reasons and vice versa, I saw all of that plenty.

I don't think Buffy's issues could have been telegraphed more clearly. ME couldn't show us a breakdown for Buffy because, come hell or high water, Buffy was not going to break down. That's the point, Season 7 showed me someone who wanted to break down, who would have loved to break down with all her heart, but to do so would bring down everything she loved for all time.

I look at what Buffy had to do, I look at the person I know Buffy is, I look at the pressure she is under and I look at the consequences of her failures and I understand her. Willow in Season 6 had Tara to tell her that she didn't have to be strong in front of her, she could let her guard down. Who was doing that for Buffy in Season 7?

Also:


I disagree with this, not with the idea that the punch was wrong because it was but with the idea that defending Spike in Season 7 somehow removed Buffy's right to make any moral judgments whatsoever. However tiresome anyone might find the plot development, Spike did have a soul now. If allowing an ensouled Spike to hang around was utterly indefensible, then Wes, Fred, Gunn, Cordy and the others have some explaining to do over on AtS.

ITA, LFChickenhead. By that logic, Buffy would have lost the right to make moral judgments in S3 after Angel returned. As for the rest of it, I've tread down this path with Earl Allison before, and I don't care to again. Suffice it to say, I disagree, I believe ME did lay it all out there, and I don't believe it is "a fact" that she was totally vindicated by the writing, especially given the differences in opinions and interpretations laid out in this thread already on that subject.

To me it did. She began the trend when she bucked Xander in Selfless about making moral calls yet Spike was in the basement & still alive and Willow was sitting in the living room while Faith is sitting in prison. Both the girls killed a man yet one is in jail the other isn't? Faith came with the intent to help and Buffy just gets quite nasty with her IIRC as does Willow. Luckily Faith was able to marinate on things in prison and come out of it more mature and levelheaded. It's weird cause in S7 Faith became Buffy & Buffy became Faith without a katra IMO. On top of that she tells Wood that she'd let Spike kill him if next time. But isn't Wood an innocent? If it's her job to protect innocents then isn't telling him that comprimising her moral stance?

IMO Buffy never suffers any full repercussions of her actions in S7. Xander let her off easy in the hospital because he cared but the sad thing was that if it wasn't for him that the SIT's quite possibly would've never gone into battle to begin with. Yet one of her best friends, argueably the one that's had her back most of all, she can't stay with and comfort in what is most likely his worst hour?

The SIT's that suffered can't argue with her cause they're dead. And it seemed that more and more that the people she depended on & needed's lives were being more & more devalued and sacrificed on the altar of her issues & bad choices IMO.

A lot of S7 pressure she's under comes from being hardheaded and ignoring every lesson she'd learned in ever season that came before IMO. If she had been paying attention Anya might not've had a sword through her chest, Xander might still have both eyes, the dead SIT's might still be alive, she could've stayed in the house in EP, there might not've been a huge rift between she & Giles, she & Dawn might not've have been estranged, and so on & so forth.

I mean in DG alone she should've known it was a trap and yet she pushes to go anyway a lesson she learned as far back as WSWB and then again in Becoming. Then when there is vociferous disagreements to her methods & choices instead of understanding the disagreements about her choices she takes them personally and grasps at straws to maintain her position as leader.

What's the time frame here, though? When Spike first returns, Buffy isn't all that nice to him either. In fact, she treats him rather similarly to how she later treats Faith - coldly, distrustfully, and with some biting snark/insults. I'm not saying she didn't have the right to, but it's not like she welcomed him with open arms. Then she finds out about the soul, which has *always* made a big difference in how Buffy views things, and even then, is so flustered about it that she leaves him in the basement for what seems like a good month, only going to him to demand information, use him as a bloodhound, or coldly try to snap him out of it. It's not until after her experience with Anya that she goes back and gives Spike a chance (she also takes Anya into the fold at that point as well). Yeah, something like 8 episodes after he returns, after she finds out about the soul, after sees his regret, his pain, and his penance, after she sees him take responsibility for actions he doesn't even remember, Buffy puts faith in Spike and starts defending him. And there was a lot less stress then. Faith was only there for 5 episodes at the height of the most stressful period of time, and by her 4th episode, Buffy and Faith were starting to patch things up.

Yeah, Buffy wasn't the nicest person to Faith when she first returned, but she hadn't earned their trust yet. She may have been in jail the last few years, but the last experience she had with her wasn't exactly positive. And she never got the chance to work those issues out before Faith returned. I think it would have been unrealistic in the extreme if everyone just welcomed Faith back because she was there with "the intent to help." Trust issues, you know? We saw her repentance and change on AtS, Buffy didn't. And aside from the initial punch in the graveyard (which Faith seemed to understand - she wasn't exactly contrite upon her return either), Buffy actually did attempt to talk to her when they were out checking out the vineyard - of course, that conversation led to a minefield as well (you were in Angel's head?) and she wasn't all sweet during it. But it's not like she rejected Faith's help and drove her out.

And no, once Wood took it upon himself to go behind her back, fill a garage with crosses, and trick Spike into fighting with him to fulfill his personal mission despite the larger battle at hand, I don't think he was an innocent at all. If Wood goes out of his way to provoke Spike again, it's not Buffy's job to protect him from his own stupidity when he's already been fairly warned.

And quite frankly, I think having everyone under her command and every one of her friends (except Spike), including her best friends, her sister, and her mentor turn against her and then boot her out of her house was a rather large repercussion for how she'd been treating people, for the bad decisions she'd been making, etc.

In S7, Buffy was forced into the role of general of an army, a role she wasn't trained for, didn't ask for, was ill-prepared for. She made bad decisions, yes, and she wasn't particularly good at it. But I can't see her as devaluing the lives of the SITs when IMO it was evident that she took every death to heart as a failure on her part, when every death and injury sustained drove her to greater acts of desperation. IMO the problem was quite the opposite - it wasn't because she didn't care that she carelessly lost lives to bad decisions, she was making bad decisions because she cared too much but didn't know what to do, yet felt driven to do *something*. Her failure to connect to the SITs stemmed from a fear of the pain of losing them. IMO it's been a recurring theme with Buffy that she feels a lot of pressure to be for others what she thinks they expect her to be. In S7, she feels that she's supposed to be the strong leader who comes up with the plans of action, who's responsible for finding a way to defeat the First when she hasn't the faintest idea how to. And no, she's not all wrong - Caleb was hiding something. The fact that her intuition was right about that doesn't mean her original plan to rush in again with everyone was vindicated. How did she succeed in getting past Caleb after all? By going alone, slipping past him defensively rather than taking the offensive, by going around him rather than trying to go through him. Not exactly what her original plan entailed.

Throughout season seven there are comments about how Buffy realises she is being a bitch to her friends. "The things I've done...the way I've treated my friends..." I'm sorry for not being too specific but there was an episode where I screamed blue murder at my TV when Buffy having just completely snipped at her friends and been a complete moody cow goes and meets Principal Wood and is all "happy happy!" Why does she find it so hard to be friendly to people who have stood alongside her for seven years and love her dearly when she can clearly get along very well with other characters perfectly (Spike, Principal Wood).

Another irky thing is that we were promised a happy, back to the beginning series which was delivered for the first six episodes. I was so overjoyed to see Buffy being all smiles and hugs with the scooby gang but then in CWDP the writers resort her back to her manic, depressed ways of season six. She claims all this stuff about being alone and her friends not understanding and she gets all glum again when previously everything has been fine. Hence after CWDP the Scooby interaction all goes to hell and doesn't come back in a cute comic group hug like in "Primeval". Buffy seems to forget how she had so easily fitted in with her friends the past episodes and forgets all her promises to Dawn and reverts back to the season six Buffy who can't feel anything. Big fucking whatever.

[Uncalled-For Sarcasm] Hmm, I must have missed the episode of Angel where he vamped some humans while under the thrall of an ancient evil, then was welcomed into a house with a bunch of non-Slayers that couldn't protect themselves should he become unhinged again.[Uncalled-For Sarcasm]

Seriously, though, and I've said this before, but I didn't find Buffy's decision to bring Spike into the house after his thralled killing spree to be very reasonable or well-thought out. Saying 'he has a soul now' (eliminating the extra vowels for my own sanity) would have been damn cold comfort if the trigger had continued to work while he was holed up with the junior Slayers, not to mention Dawn, Xander, Anya, and Giles. I can see where the 'Spike should be saved' argument is coming from, I'm just not sure comparing Souled!Spike to Souled!Angel is valid. Of course, OMMV.

Cobalt Stargazer

Thank you. You said it far better than I could have, and with much less snark :)

What's worse is, Buffy wants to unchain him scant SECONDS after he flattens Dawn with a cot! Way to look out for anyone not Spike, there, Slayer :)

Because they (the other characters) don't expect anything of her? Though her attitude towards Principal Wood in the episode following LMPTM was odd to the extreme, I'll admit.

And yeah, I'll agree that Buffy's decisions regarding Spike when the trigger was in place were rather irrational at times (he seemed to be clearer-headed about it than she was, except when he was so upset by facing his memories). I tend to think she had some lingering guilt issues wrt Spike that she didn't with Anya or Faith though. She was so determined to show that she had faith in him so that he could become a better man that she blindly overlooked some very real factors that were completely out of his control. But I think a large part of that was because she felt, right or wrong, responsible to Spike in a way that she didn't for the others. Not responsible for his actions now, but maybe responsible for her part in his soul-acquisition and the badness of the previous year.

I've noticed that any advice Anya gives is ignored by Buffy. She trys to get people to understand that Spike is dangerous but no one listens.

More interestingly, Xander leaves the Spike.Must.Die bandwagon without explanation, leaving Anya to drive it.

Dawn got injured by Spike and still only Anya said something, not Xander, not Willow, the Sits did and my opinion of them was raised a little for it but someone who has seen Spike in all his evil Glory should have said something.

And part of me would like to get into the how's and why's of character motivation in these instances, but deep down I know it's just piss poor writing and consistency on the part of ME in buffy's last two seasons. Some days it feels worth it, and others it all strikes me as fan-wanking. Anya in particular is a character who I thought all the writers handled differently, and in season 7 she really swung on a pendulum between rational and reasonable and an utter ditz.

But I presume that you saw the episode where he lost his soul, escaped his cage and teamed up with an evil PTB to try and rule the world for all eternity? The point is, the powerful characters in the Buffyverse are always at risk from being controlled/influenced to use their power for evil. The key moral issue is choice. Spike did not have a choice ergo defending him is a stand up moral decision. As Teenes pointed out, from a practical safety perspective, some of these decisions may have been questionable but the principle that Spike was not responsible for his actions while controlled by the First stands.

Indeed, the argument that Earl Allison made was that this was such a heinous judgment that Buffy forfeited any right to judge any other person, an argument I just cannot understand. Spike had a right to be treated at least as well as Angel was after his soul was restored and if an ally of mine is being controlled by an evil entity, I'll go kick the ass of the controlling entity not the friend. The solution in Bad Eggs was to do in the Bezoar, not Willow and Cordelia and everyone else it had its claws in.

IMHO, that's half the battle. The other half of the battle is to make sure those claws are no longer in my ally.


Upon her return to Sunnydale, Faith is a more credible ally then Spike is while under the affects of the trigger. If Buffy is honor bound to treat Spike well, then she is honor bound to treat Faith well too.

But IMHO, she's treating Spike better than Faith because she feels guilty about the soul and the previous year whereas she doesn't really feel particularly guilty about Faith. It's not a professional judgement in accordance to whatever respect either is due as an ally or potential force for good. It's a personal bias. And it does lead others to call her credibility and judgement into question.

And yet Buffy bends over backwards to accomodate Spike, something she was unwilling to do for ANYONE else -- that is my problem.

Faith did her time, and did a far better job of it, IMHO, than Spike did. She could have escaped prison at any time, and did not. Spike, when offered the chance to remove his chip, jumped at it repeatedly -- and yet Buffy spared him, be it due to honor, writer fiat, what have you.

Faith arrives in Sunnydale during S7 with Willow and is treated poorly from the word go. Buffy can't wait to go "faster pussycat kill kill" on Anyaka earlier in the season, but when similar instances crop up for Spike, she desperately tries to come up with rationales. I'd love to chalk it up to her learning something about taking it slow, but her treatment of Faith ruins that -- Spike gets better treatment because it's Spike, not through any rationale or reason.

And, IMHO, the fact that the writing ultimately bears this (sparing Spike, unchaining him despite lack of reason) out is immaterial -- Buffy has nothing REAL to base many of her actions on, and others suffer (in "Dirty Girls") or are put at risk (LMPTM, etc) because of her.

And if Spike's shiny new soul makes him deserving of decent treatment -- doesn't Faith's merit the same?

As DaBigDave mentioned, Faith is on better standing in an absolute sense when she returns to Sunnydale -- if Buffy has to punch, insult, and belittle her, doing anything less to Spike is hypocritical at best. And while it might be guilt or perceived responsibility that makes her treat Spike that way, it doesn't make it right or acceptable in my book.

All IMHO.

As a devoted Anya fan I would love to agree with you but I can't. I origionaly thought the same thing when I first saw the episode but I on watching it again (and again and again) I don't think that Buffy was eager or enthusiastic about having to kill Anyanka. She discusses it with Xander and Willow instead of just rushing off the second that she hears about it, thus giving them an opportunity to provide alternative solutions and when none are stated she goes all hardBuffy and detaches herself emotionaly because I don't think that she could have gone through with it otherwise. And when Xander says that there has to be another way she says, in a voice that I heard as practicaly begging, "Then find it." When she finaly enters combat with Anyanka she doesn't play around or make any puns she just wants it over with. When D'Hofferyn (bastard!) dedemonizes Anya Buffy probably should have killed Anya anyway but instead she tells Xander to go and try and comfort her.


Also, I hate D'Hofferyn!

So you're saying that Buffy is comparable to the "mole" who betrayed the MoG (which is how Angelus got around the precautions that they set)?

I think the way Buffy deals with Spike is characteristic of the selfishness she displays in S7. She talks about putting the mission first when it suits her own needs, but she does what makes her feel better instead of what best serves the mission (as we've already discussed at length). Fortunately for her, she was eventually rewarded for her selfish and foolish choices with an unearned victory (which is part of the reason why people think Mutant Enemy was endorsing her behavior).



I think that's in character for S7 Buffy. She has such a gigantic sense of entitlement that she walks into work as if nothing has happened after she threatened to have her boss killed and is surprised when he fires her (even though she's also incompetent at her job).

Willow?

How many examples are we working from here, anyway?

We've got Spike, a fairly well-covered area already. And I do agree that Buffy had a personal bias there. I don't agree that means she's forfeited any sort of right though. Plus, Buffy did belittle and insult Spike at first, before Selfless. And Buffy was treating Faith better by End of Days.

Anya, who Buffy apparently knew was a vengeance demon again but didn't do anything about until she had slaughtered 12 frat boys (and turned a guy into Sluggoth Demon) and acted as if she didn't care. (We knew she did, but she put up a definite front of not caring when Willow went to talk to her). I don't agree that she was all "faster pussycat kill kill" wrt to Anya or she would have gone after her at the first sign she was back to her old vengeance demony ways. Anya had been a vengeance demon since after Hell's Bells. Once those deaths were on the table though, Buffy is determined not to repeat her mistake with Angel and goes after Anya.

There's Willow, who came back from England before her "training" or whatever it was was complete, who admitted herself to insecurities about her ability to control her magic, etc. Buffy was a bit wary, but on the whole supportive and accepting of her.

And then there's Faith, who Buffy punches twice and is rather snide towards. And who she unfairly jumps all over when the confrontation in Empty Places takes place. Yeah, she treats Faith poorly and suspiciously but she *does* give her a chance and accept her help. She has definite trust issues when it comes to the personal role Faith plays in her life but not to the point of refusing to believe that Faith could possibly be there for any good.

Not a whole lot of examples (unless I'm missing some), and varying degrees on how much Buffy bends to accommodate each. As far as I can see, no clear Spike-elevation above the rest in terms of treatment by Buffy. Except the irrational inability to recognize the threat of the trigger.




Faith has a shiny *new* soul? Difference between Faith and Spike? Faith had a soul when she did her bad stuff. Spike didn't. It's not that Spike is a souled being which means he's suddenly worthy decent treatment, it's that it's been a long-held belief of Buffy that the soul makes him essentially a different person. Angel issues. Spike gets better treatment because he has a soul, and because he got that soul for Buffy (guilt and responsibility on her part). I don't think him being Spike has anything to do with it. As for jumping at the chance to get his chip removed? All when he was an unsouled vamp. Personally, I'm not much of one for the souled/unsouled he's a totally different person rationale (hated it over on AtS) but that's what Buffy believes. Whereas Faith is the same person, had a soul then, has one now, which makes it harder for Buffy to trust that she'schanged, IMO.

I'm not trying to argue right or wrong here, btw. I don't think it's right for Buffy to treat Faith the way she does, and I definitely don't think that Buffy's actions wrt any of the four I listed above were all right or all wrong. But I don't think that she somehow gives up any right to judgment because she's human and has personal biases and issues that she has difficulty setting aside, either.

Forget it, not worth repeating again.

Actually, Spike had a soul and the trigger, and certainly was doing bad things. One might argue it wasn't free will, but he still was doing very dangerous/scary things after he had his soul.