This continues a pattern of Faith being left outside the Scoobie brain trust. However appealing she may have been when she arrived,...There is a lot of objectification going on, concerning the Scoobie's view of Faith. Xander objectifies her as a sex symbol, Willow as "the other", Giles as "a slayer" (which becomes ever more clear when discussing Buffy's future after school: He (wants to) see(s) a future for Buffy away from her duty by installing Faith as the slayer-on-the-hellmouth but doesn't stop to think for one second that maybe Faith is a person, too, with dreams and a possible future, too). Oz and Cordelia ar indifferent (Oz because he follows Willow's lead and Cordy because Faith is just another "lowlife" in her eyes). Indifference = not taking fully into account (as a person
( ... )
Everyone does project what they want to see (or don't want to see) onto Faith, it's true. Because her outward face is such a front, she sort of lets them. I think there's some mutual objectification going on, at least by this point...she doesn't pause to let Giles' possibly life-threatening injury deter her from her mission to go after Angel, and the moment Xander becomes inconvenient she tosses him headfirst into a wall. But it's probably true that they started objectifying her "first." Giles' seeing her as merely "the slayer" hurts the most, because he actually has a duty to be her Watcher and is her only caretaker. But I suppose emotionally he's all tapped out with Buffy and with his big loss of Jenny
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Yeah, I'm not particularly sympathetic to Buffy here. For all it's a huge part of their dynamic that they can't understand her burden, she has no idea what it's like for them, either. To know all the things that go bump in the night and be completely powerless to protect yourself? To know that you are completely dependent on one girl - well, now two girls - in all the world keeping her focus, and then knowing there's a huge danger out there about which she "can't think straight"? Being in the fight really isn't voluntary for any of them save Giles; they're on the Hellmouth and potential victims whether they try to get involved or not.
And then she can't be bothered to tell them Angel's back? That's not just an egregious dereliction of duty (what if Angel had killed someone during BatB, would she have been able to kill him again? I don't think so. She needs someone to do the things she can't). It's a big old "screw you." It's tough for me to fault them for not starting the intervention with hand-holding.
It's tough for me to fault them for not starting the intervention with hand-holding.
Even as a matter of practicality, setting the thing up as an intervention guarantees defensiveness. It doesn't leave any room for Buffy to respond well.
But more importantly, while I think Buffy is dead wrong in all of this -- I think the case against her has to include acknowledgement or some feeling for what Angel means for her.
Interesting obervation about the Wesley::Faith parallel!
Re: Strudel herepocochinaMarch 16 2011, 04:32:56 UTC
I think it's Buffy's feelings for Angel that trip me up here, to be honest. It was one thing in S2, where she had to kill him, and there was nobody else who could take him (well, Spike, I suppose, but nobody knows that about him yet), and so she really did have to prioritize pulling herself together.
But this...hiding it from them, when just coming clean ASAP with "he's back and has a soul" might have been difficult, I realize. But it was completely unethical to withhold that information when she knew she couldn't be reasonable about it on her own.
Faith, meanwhile, has done her part to create a slayer alliance -- and up to now has not done anything that should make Buffy distrust her -- but Buffy hasn't taken her up on it.
Yeah, I don't see how shutting Faith out was a good way to keep Angel alive, even, as long as he was around and lurking she would've just thought he was another vampire to slay (and not unreasonably so).
Yeah, I think that's one of Buffy's low points... a real cheap way to dodge the fact that Xander had a very legitimate grievance here. And as you say, that grievance is about him and others being put in danger which makes it even worse. Buffy's love life was more important to her than the safety of her friends. That's the bottom line here. (And we got a replay of it in season 8, so it's not a fleeting personality trait; and as Vamps would argue taking out Spike's chip was another such case -- though of course I want to say Spike was safe so that's different!!!)
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This continues a pattern of Faith being left outside the Scoobie brain trust. However appealing she may have been when she arrived,...There is a lot of objectification going on, concerning the Scoobie's view of Faith. Xander objectifies her as a sex symbol, Willow as "the other", Giles as "a slayer" (which becomes ever more clear when discussing Buffy's future after school: He (wants to) see(s) a future for Buffy away from her duty by installing Faith as the slayer-on-the-hellmouth but doesn't stop to think for one second that maybe Faith is a person, too, with dreams and a possible future, too). Oz and Cordelia ar indifferent (Oz because he follows Willow's lead and Cordy because Faith is just another "lowlife" in her eyes). Indifference = not taking fully into account (as a person ( ... )
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Uh-uh....
When was that?
:-P
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And then she can't be bothered to tell them Angel's back? That's not just an egregious dereliction of duty (what if Angel had killed someone during BatB, would she have been able to kill him again? I don't think so. She needs someone to do the things she can't). It's a big old "screw you." It's tough for me to fault them for not starting the intervention with hand-holding.
Xander technically mentions ( ... )
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Even as a matter of practicality, setting the thing up as an intervention guarantees defensiveness. It doesn't leave any room for Buffy to respond well.
But more importantly, while I think Buffy is dead wrong in all of this -- I think the case against her has to include acknowledgement or some feeling for what Angel means for her.
Interesting obervation about the Wesley::Faith parallel!
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But this...hiding it from them, when just coming clean ASAP with "he's back and has a soul" might have been difficult, I realize. But it was completely unethical to withhold that information when she knew she couldn't be reasonable about it on her own.
Faith, meanwhile, has done her part to create a slayer alliance -- and up to now has not done anything that should make Buffy distrust her -- but Buffy hasn't taken her up on it.
Yeah, I don't see how shutting Faith out was a good way to keep Angel alive, even, as long as he was around and lurking she would've just thought he was another vampire to slay (and not unreasonably so).
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