Dana: Thoughts on her being handed over to the ''slayers''?

[itssmiletime]

This has always bugged me. In "Damage'', Dana clearly isn't healthy: she has problems telling what is real and what isn't; she is paranoid and has suffered considerable mental damage from witnessing her families murder. We don't know that much about the new slayers (just that there are heaps of them) and how they'd treat them. So my question is, what would have you have thought would have been appropriate action?

 

[Robb Stark]

It always ticked me off how that whole scene was handled. Now, it's Angel's show and Angel is the lead so obviously we're supposed to be behind him, but even still, that whole thing was just a debacle from start to finish on the Slayers part.

I know Angel didn't have many outs. He was outgunned and outmanned, even with the W&H backup. But still, it was Buffy and Willow who executed that spell. They were the ones who gave Dana that power, which she then went out and killed people with, just like they were the ones who did that with the British aristocrat girl in S8 who butchered people.

So for Andrew to just march in and muscle custody of Dana was, from a right and wrong perspective, a complete joke. The fault of all that was with the Scoobies. Angel and Spike cleaned up their mess, and got the shaft for it.

 

[white avenger]

I never understood precisely what Angel though that he, even with the resources of W&H at his disposal, really thought that he could do for Dana in the first place. The Slayers should be the ones to take care of her, since she is part of the "family," assuming that thy have some sort of facility and personnel capable of doing so. Unfortunately, there hasn't been even a brief comment about her or whatever treatment or care she was receiving, or even, for that matter, whether or not she is still alive. It's all just guess work and speculation, without a single shred of evidence, at this point.

Just another one of those things that Joss may come back to someday, if it suits his purpose.

 

[crazysoulless]

Angel always thinks he knows what is best. He thinks that he has the patent on redemption and guilt. I don't think it ever occurs to him that someone else might be better at handling a situation or has more of a personal stake in it. He was still in his "not in my town" mode of thinking and acting.

Slayers are their own species. Their physiology is different. The way they feel emotion is different. The Slayer line goes back thousands of years. Those girls and women share a unique and insular heritage. They have the same memory dreams, instincts, urges, and paranormal abilities.

Angel will never truly know what it means to be a Chosen One. To be a human female with that shadow spirit inside. Being undead, having the memories of Angelus, and sharing a body with a vampiric energy is very different. He can relate to Slayers but he couldn't understand what it's like to be one any more than a human would know what it's like to be an immortal bloodsucker or a man would know what it's like to be a woman.

Buffy and Co founded something truly exceptional. Slayers had been used and misrepresented by people (mostly men) since the first Slayer Seneya. With the Watchers Council gone and the activation of all Potentials, Slayers never had to feel that isolation and disfranchisement again. It wasn't one girl navigating through the confusion but a community of females that understood and were there for each other. They were each other's people, blood kin, mystickally linked amazonian warrior tribe. They look after their own and take responsibility for them.

The very fact that activating the Potentials was Buffy's idea, her scythe was used, and it was Willow's magick that let it come to pass, is why they should be the first called in on any and everything Slayer related. For good or ill, it was their domino effect or spreading ripples. If it is a mess than it's their mess to clean up. Even if she had remained a Potential, she would still be a member of their family.

Dana wasn't the first Potential or Slayer to be locked up in a psychiatric hospital. She wasn't the first to be victimized. She wasn't the first to not know where to draw the line with vigilantism and ridding the world of bad guys.

I do not think that Angel & Spike cleaned up anybody's mess. Any girl at any time in any part of the world could've been the next activated (had Faith died). It could've been Dana. I doubt that her frame of mind would've been different in a year or five years. At least being activated now she had a real support system of fellow Potentials turned Slayers instead of a few men and their still kinda evil lawfirm.

The line that Buffy said to Spike really sounds like something that should be said to Angel. You think you have insight into the world now that your soul is drenched in blood? You don't know me. You don't even know you.

We still do not even know if Buffy gave Andrew a message outside of "Yes. Bring that poor girl into the family. We'll take care of her." We have the word of a guy that is being groomed by Giles---a Watcher that has kept the Twilight Prophecy from his Slayer and searched the globe for a totem to kill her if the need arose---and flat out lied in The girl in question because he thought it was funny, he might have stupidly thought Angel & Spike weren't on the needs-to-know list about the decoy Slayers, or at Giles' insistance wanted to keep either of Buffy's possible Twilight mate from getting too close to her. From Buffy's dreams in S8, it definitely seemed like she still trusted both souled vampires. The only Scooby we know for sure---thanks to his refusal to help save Fred later in S5---didn't trust them is Giles.

 

[white avenger]

We still do not even know if Buffy gave Andrew a message outside of "Yes. Bring that poor girl into the family. We'll take care of her." We have the word of a guy that is being groomed by Giles---a Watcher that has kept the Twilight Prophecy from his Slayer and searched the globe for a totem to kill her if the need arose---and flat out lied in The girl in question because he thought it was funny, he might have stupidly thought Angel & Spike weren't on the needs-to-know list about the decoy Slayers, or at Giles' insistance wanted to keep either of Buffy's possible Twilight mate from getting too close to her. From Buffy's dreams in S8, it definitely seemed like she still trusted both souled vampires. The only Scooby we know for sure---thanks to his refusal to help save Fred later in S5---didn't trust them is Giles.

As far as that goes, we only have Andrew's word that he was sent by, or that the message about no longer trusting Angel, actually was from Buffy. I know that it's pure speculation on my part, but given the fact that Giles, not Buffy, refused to help Fred, or even tell Willow about the problem, leads me to suspect that he instigated the whole thing with Dana, from tricking Angel into locating and subduing her, using W&H people and resources, to seizing control of her only after all the work had been done. Add to that, the whole "Buffy doesn't trust you anymore, Angel," speech was pure Giles or Xander, totally out of character for Buffy. She ALWAYS trusted Angel and Spike, even when doing so put her at odds with her friends as it did in Seasons 3 and 7. On the other hand, I seriously doubt that Giles ever totally trusted Angel again after Season 2, and never, ever trusted Spike, especially after Buffy had his chip removed.

In the beginning issue of the "No Future For You" arc, Giles tells Faith that he and Buffy aren't on friendly terms at the moment, and I seriously suspect that the situation with Dana and what happened with Fred, combined, of course, with Giles' conspiring to have Spike killed in Season 7 were the things that put the strain on their relationship. And, obviously, given Giles' actions at the end of Season 8 and their results, he never really learned his lesson about going behind Buffy's back to do things that she almost certainly would never have done herself or knowingly allowed anyone else to do.

All of this is pure conjecture on my part, however, with no more real proof than exists about the infamous second rifleman on the grassy knoll, but it's still the thing that makes the most sense to me.

 

[Robb Stark]

Angel always thinks he knows what is best. He thinks that he has the patent on redemption and guilt. I don't think it ever occurs to him that someone else might be better at handling a situation or has more of a personal stake in it. He was still in his "not in my town" mode of thinking and acting.

Well, it is the town he's trying to protect. Buffy is in Scotland, a half a world away, and one of the ramifications of her spell is wrecking havoc and killing innocent people, so of course he feels like he has jurisdiction. Buffy just proved that she wasn't fully capable of handing everything she set in motion with that spell.

Angel will never truly know what it means to be a Chosen One. To be a human female with that shadow spirit inside. Being undead, having the memories of Angelus, and sharing a body with a vampiric energy is very different. He can relate to Slayers but he couldn't understand what it's like to be one any more than a human would know what it's like to be an immortal bloodsucker or a man would know what it's like to be a woman.

I don't see how that is relevant, really. Slayer or not, Dana murdered people. That shouldn't be excused because Angel is a guy, or not a Slayer. And, when you think about it, beyond Giles, Angel probably knows more about Slayers than any non-Slayer in the world, after his work with Buffy, Faith and now Dana. And if anyone understands the word "chosen", it's Angel. He's a vampire with a soul, and there are exactly two of those. Two in all the world. Sounds kind of familiar.

Plus, Angel proved beyond much doubt that he understands Slayers, and how to help people. Look at his relationship with Faith. He did more for helping her rehabilitation than any Slayer, including Buffy, ever did (I know Buffy had cause not to help). To say that Angel isn't capable of understanding women or Slayers because he isn't one after what he did for Faith sounds, to me, pretty sexist.

The very fact that activating the Potentials was Buffy's idea, her scythe was used, and it was Willow's magick that let it come to pass, is why they should be the first called in on any and everything Slayer related. For good or ill, it was their domino effect or spreading ripples. If it is a mess than it's their mess to clean up. Even if she had remained a Potential, she would still be a member of their family.

I'm sorry, but I don't see the reasoning in this. I understand why Buffy and Willow had to do the spell to save the world (kinda...I'm getting there), but just because they did it, and clearly by Dana's example didn't have much of a plan to deal with the consequences, doesn't give them ultimate authority over any Slayer situation. The fact is, and this can't be disputed, Dana didn't have superpowers before that spell. She didn't. It was those powers, given to her by Buffy and Willow, that allowed her to go out and kill people. That's a pretty huge mess if you ask me, and it was Angel and Spike who mopped it up. They did the leg work, and then got shafted for it.

I do not think that Angel & Spike cleaned up anybody's mess. Any girl at any time in any part of the world could've been the next activated (had Faith died). It could've been Dana. I doubt that her frame of mind would've been different in a year or five years. At least being activated now she had a real support system of fellow Potentials turned Slayers instead of a few men and their still kinda evil lawfirm.

Well sure, but instead of any one Potential being activated, all of them were. So instead of a very slim chance of the next Dana or Faith being called, all of them were, and there was little followup to deal with that reality (I'm sorry, but if Dana was allowed to run amok and butcher people, that's a major screw up. I don't know why people can't see that). Angel and Spike completely cleaned that up. It was only because of them that Dana didn't kill more innocent people. And Angel has proven, pretty conclusively, that he understands people in trouble, including Slayers. He was the one, more than anyone else, who helped rehabilitate Faith.

We still do not even know if Buffy gave Andrew a message outside of "Yes. Bring that poor girl into the family. We'll take care of her." We have the word of a guy that is being groomed by Giles---a Watcher that has kept the Twilight Prophecy from his Slayer and searched the globe for a totem to kill her if the need arose---and flat out lied in The girl in question because he thought it was funny, he might have stupidly thought Angel & Spike weren't on the needs-to-know list about the decoy Slayers, or at Giles' insistance wanted to keep either of Buffy's possible Twilight mate from getting too close to her. From Buffy's dreams in S8, it definitely seemed like she still trusted both souled vampires. The only Scooby we know for sure---thanks to his refusal to help save Fred later in S5---didn't trust them is Giles.

Yes! One we agree on 🙂. I liked everything [MENTION=6758]white avenger[/MENTION] said in his post. I don't think there's anyway it makes sense for Buffy not to trust Angel and Spike. If she was so paranoid about them being at Wolfram & Hart, she would have confronted them about it. It makes far more sense to think that Xander or Giles is behind it.

---------- Post added at 01:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:25 PM ----------

Also, I forgot to mention but should say it, I'm a obviously a huge Angel guy. Overall, he's probably my favorite character of the entire Buffyverse, and this was always a scene that bugged me.

 

[crazysoulless]

I completely understand the Angel love. But for me, it's loving a screwup. Every season makes me think of it more and more. A drunken playboy turned rapist serial killer turned unintentionally manipulative BF turned pompous puppet. That's how he is a tragic character to me. With Buffy, it's the world making sure she will always be in the down and outs. With Angel, it's that on his path to redemption, he will always be three steps forward and two steps back.

I saw it as less of him wanting to protect the town he was currently living in and more of a macho movie cowboy behavior that stems from putting so much stock in his champion-y status and some of that father-knows-best thinking that led to thinking it was okay to memory wipe others or make huge decisions without consultation.

Buffy may have been in Scotland but she had her trained Slayers stationed all over the globe. Spain. Russia. Italy. England. Japan. New York City. Chicago. San Francisco. And who knows how many jets. It was an international paramilitary (and Psi) organization.

I don't think that Dana murdering people should be excused. I see it as similiar to when Max (Dark Angel) found out one of her fellow transgenic xers was killing people. Logan thought of it as just a murderer needing to be dealt with by whoever was in charge but Max saw it as her responsibility because he was part of her kin and he might not be out in the world if not for her. There's also what Xander said about how "when one of our friends goes evil we help them." You don't hand over the reins to another friend because they were nearby.

I don't see a vampire being vegeance cursed into a soul as being the same as joining a long line of mystickal worthies. Angel proved he was extraordinary (dealing with the guilt) but it's not the same as being chosen.

I'm not saying that men can't understand women. I'm saying that a woman often understands another woman (especially if they're from the same culture) better. Dana may not have really known yet what a Slayer is, but the mystickal whatever that makes a girl a Slayer goes down to their core. Even without memories, even with two girls from polar opposite upbringings or racial markers, there is something instilled in them that bonds them and sets them apart from others.

I have no comment on Faith. I still think that Buffy should've been able to be left alone with Faith and be able to confront her and for them to have it all out. Buffy thought Faith should be in jail, she wasn't going to kill her. The fact that Angel thought differently showed how blinded he was being. I really think Angel overstepped and became too protective for Faith in that episode. I think he was projecting his own issues (the guilt of having done evil things) onto Faith and that what they were going through was two completely different things. Buffy was Faith's only real friend. Buffy was the one that had genuinely trusted and believed in Faith's rehabilitation prior to Sanctuary. Buffy was the one that Faith had betrayed the deepest. Buffy was the one that Faith cared about the most, possibly the only person outside of the slain Mayor Wilkins that Faith cared about up to that point. Angel said it wasn't about Buffy but that wasn't true. How she felt about Buffy influenced her actions in S3 and it was literally being in Buffy's skin that got her on the path to change in BtVS S4/AtS S1. I still think that it was the conversation with Buffy on the rooftop and Buffy helping to save her life from the WC hitmen that was the deciding factor for Faith turning herself in.

Even with several dozen Faiths and Danas, there would still be a lot more Buffys and Nikkis. There were 2000 Slayers. The fact that there were so many made it even more managable than say Buffy dealing with one psychotic slayer.

 

[Anya2012]

IMO Angel would have been able to help Dana. He had the resources to do so. He was a major help to a damaged Faith. However because Dana was a Slayer, Andrew and Buffy clearly thought she was theirs. And that ticked me off.

 

[crazysoulless]

I can't see Dana being comfortable in the Wolfram & Hart offices. Buffy's side was offering her a permanent home. What would've happened to Dana when Angel had a new case? Would she have been handed over for the WR&H staff to look after?

Dana's issues weren't feeling guilt for having chosen to do evil things. She had been hurt by monsters. It was trauma and confusion. It wasn't just hurting the innocent and wanting to make other people's life hell. She thought she was in real danger, was in fight mode to protect herself from more abuse, and she wanted those that hurt her to pay. Dana was damaged but she wasn't a sinner. She did not get seduced by the dark side. She was a psychiatric patient and still an innocent.

The way Angel helped Faith was by responding to the guilt and patheticness she felt. By having done things that were more evil (he was Angelus though so it wasn't the same as a souled human crossing that line) and more pathetic (wasting 98 years of his life).

Angel had the resources but so did Buffy's team.

 

[Tuppence]

I always took the 'Buffy doesn't trust you' message, to be more about the fact she can't trust him while he was heading the L.A Branch of Wolfram and Hart because, well, it is one of the many bad guy centrals so nothing's safe there. How does she not know that Angel might innocently delegate tasks related to anything Dana or general-Slayer related and one of those staff passes it on and so on until a really bad guy gets hold of the info and uses it? You can't trust someone whose working in what is essentially a dodgy place, it doesn't necessarily mean you don't trust that specific person; just their situation. Then again, maybe part of her would think it was Wolfram and Hart's grand, yet gradual, plan to get Angelus out and about and that Angel was slowly getting a little more shady. She didn't know the full situation, only that Angel was the head of a bad operation with Harmony as a secretary; therefore she'd have to put a no-trust presumption on the whole thing.

That aside, I think it was right that Dana went with the Slayers. Slayers help slayers; they know what one another is going through, what power they have, therefore they would be better able to help someone with real problems besides. It kinda annoyed me this episode, or rather Angel did, because my attitude was while he may have the best of intentions, he has no right to the girl at all and he seemed to behave as though he did. Technically no one had a right over her, but the ones most likely to help are the ones who were of the same 'species' that is, Slayers. They'd understand, be more likely to help, and had the strength to match her.

 

[white avenger]

What we actually know about Dana's past is, at best, sketchy, whereas what we DON'T know would fill volumes. A group of Slayers from somewhere, on someone's authority, took her from Angel's custody. Beyond that, everything is guess and conjecture, and we never will know for certain unless Joss decides to officially follow up on the story.

Obviously, from what we saw at the beginning of the episode, no normal medical facility, manned by normal personnel, would be equipped to handle anyone as physically powerful as a Slayer. With that in mind, if I were writing the story, I think that I would have had the Slayers turn Dana over to the mysterious Coven in England who helped Willow between Seasons 6 and 7. Granted, they aren't Slayers, but if they were the best ones that we know of to handle super powerful witches with emotional problems, they would be the ones who I would trust with a Slayer with similar problems. Again, if it were my story, the Coven would be assisted in her care by one or more young Slayers who just conveniently had some experience in the care of emotionally disturbed individuals, and would have the muscle to be able to physically restrain her if and when that were required.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

What we actually know about Dana's past is, at best, sketchy, whereas what we DON'T know would fill volumes. A group of Slayers from somewhere, on someone's authority, took her from Angel's custody. Beyond that, everything is guess and conjecture, and we never will know for certain unless Joss decides to officially follow up on the story.

Nothing I have seen says that slayers have any better rapport with other slayers (Faith and Buffy are examples of this and the potentials wanted Buffy out) or any kind of psychiatric expertise to treat Dana's problems any more than Angel and his group (with the resources of W&H). Extreme Post Traumatic Stress Disorder of the kind Dana had may not be treatable.

Obviously, from what we saw at the beginning of the episode, no normal medical facility, manned by normal personnel, would be equipped to handle anyone as physically powerful as a Slayer. With that in mind, if I were writing the story, I think that I would have had the Slayers turn Dana over to the mysterious Coven in England who helped Willow between Seasons 6 and 7. Granted, they aren't Slayers, but if they were the best ones that we know of to handle super powerful witches with emotional problems, they would be the ones who I would trust with a Slayer with similar problems. Again, if it were my story, the Coven would be assisted in her care by one or more young Slayers who just conveniently had some experience in the care of emotionally disturbed individuals, and would have the muscle to be able to physically restrain her if and when that were required.

Plausible, but Willow recognized her addiction and was ready to be rehabilitated and cooperated fully. Dana could not be released into society with anything less than the mind-wipe Willow tried on Tara. But this kind of thing always has consequences and there could be a sudden full recollection of what had happened with disastrous effects for everyone around her. But that would have been an interesting episode - Dana gets total recall and tries to kill everyone, similar to Grave on Buffy.

 

[white avenger]

ble.



Plausible, but Willow recognized her addiction and was ready to be rehabilitated and cooperated fully. Dana could not be released into society with anything less than the mind-wipe Willow tried on Tara. But this kind of thing always has consequences and there could be a sudden full recollection of what had happened with disastrous effects for everyone around her. But that would have been an interesting episode - Dana gets total recall and tries to kill everyone, similar to Grave on Buffy.

I agree, the chances are that Dana ever making a full recovery aren't very likely, but my suggestion was basically for a place and manner by which she could be properly, safely, and humanely restrained in order to keep the risk of her escaping to harm anyone else to a minimum while also making her as comfortable as possible and reducing the stress and trauma of that restraint to a minimum. She might very well never fully recover sufficiently to be allowed to be able to return to normal society without very close supervision, but I still believe that fellow Slayers or someone with supernatural powers, like witches, would be better able to administer care than any normal human facility.

Also, keep in mind that, in the Buffyverse, it is not only possible, but totally acceptable and not in the least surprising for an ensouled vampire to willingly and without coercion enter into a bargain with an evil higher being that results in the deaths of thousands of innocent people and an almost successful attempt to destroy the entire universe, and receive no more punishment for his actions and crimes against society than to simply accept his promise that he will probably not ever do it again, and the assurance that his own personal feelings of guilt are sufficient punishment for his actions, and still, after all of that, be considered the love of the world's chief defender's life. Having a young girl come to grips with and recovering from the trauma of an abused childhood and becoming once more a useful, dependable member of society would be a relatively simple process.

At worst, seeing as how all of her problems seem to stem from and be concentrated on men, keeping her restrained in a facility run and staffed totally by witches and Slayers, all female, with all contact with men kept to an absolute minimum, would seem to be the best environment for her.