xfivebyfive
Because its Fate.
So this is an essay I wrote on tumblr about Faith. I wanted to post it here to see what people thought.
Trigger warning for sexual abuse, and violence.
"My dead mother hits harder than that" Faith, Hope, & Trick
From the moment Faith arrives in Sunnydale we are led to believe she had a very traumatic and damaging childhood. But throughout her entire run in the series we are given few specifics. It's left vague on purpose, leaving it up to the viewer's discretion to fill in the blank; if they care to. But we are given hints, and hidden facts, to draw our own conclusions from. Faith's rage combined with her lack of emotion towards sex suggests she was physically and sexually abused as a child.
Faith's anger is stemmed from the emotional and physical abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother. It is implied right from the start when Faith says the quote mentioned above. From it we can infer two things, one that her mother is dead, and two that she was abusive. She spews out this sentence in a blind rage where she has lost total control of herself and her surroundings, leaving Buffy (her partner) to fend for herself in the attack. Faith uses the vampire as an outlet for her rage, which she clearly has a lot of. As a small child, unable to defend herself or fight back, she became the target of her mother's rage. Now grown and filled with hatred and rage of her own, she unleashes it against the evil she's called to fight.
The anger is so blinding and consuming that everything else fades away. We see Faith slip into the anger and when Buffy pulls her off slip right out; as though she was another person. So we see from the start how broken and mentally unstable Faith is. Someone does not become that broken simply from being slapped around a bit as a child. Faith slips in and out of her anger as though changing her clothes. It lives right under the surface, the facade she puts up of being happy, carefree, daring, mask the visceral anger and self-hatred.
Even in "˜Faith, Hope, & Trick' which is one of the few times we see Faith get emotional, it is out of fear. She feels afraid and vulnerable and it's not until Buffy pushes and pushes does it come out. There's a moment where the camera is focused on Faith and you see her change. Up until then Faith has pushed it down, ignored it, or ran away, but now she has to confront it and you see the facade, the bravado, stripped away, and she becomes a panicked, hysterical child. It's the only time Faith has ever had to deal with her past. But it doesn't even scratch the surface.
We know that Faith's mother is an abusive, neglectful, and a drunk; but when she is not drinking and passing out, what is she doing? She must have had a job, but what kind of job could she hold down? In the non-canon book "Go Ask Malice" Faith's mother is a prostitute. Given what we know about Faith's relationship with sex, it's not far off the mark to assume she was. Now a mother, that gets paid for sex, of a young girl, chances are Faith was a) on her own a majority of the time and b) frequently around strange seedy men. With that said, is it a big jump to believe that Faith was sexually abused as a child?
Faith believes she is nothing, she is a stupid girl from southie that can't do anything right. The only things she actually believes she's good at is slaying (violence) and most important to her, sex. Sex is an activity, nothing more. There is no emotional connection for her. It is something she enjoys being good at. That alone does not suggest sexual abuse. A woman can love her sexuality and enjoy sex without having been abused as a child. However, that combined with her detachment from it, and the extreme anger issues she has, do.
It can also be said that Faith is suicidal. She is careless with her life, rushing into life or death situations without pause. Almost getting both herself and Buffy killed on more than one occasion, (ex: "˜Revelations', "˜Bad Girls'.) Later on in the series we see more suicidal tendencies, the most glaring being when she actively pursues Angel in an attempt to have him kill her, ("˜Five by Five'.) Going forward even more, when she takes on the beast alone and continues fighting both the beast and Angelus well past her limit, ("˜Salvage'.) And finally, when she's willing to sacrifice her life by poisoning herself and giving her body over to Angelus, ("˜Release', "˜Orpheus'.)
When Faith first meets Giles the first thing she does is flirt with him, same for Xander, Principal Wood, she even flirts with the Mayor who she sees as a father figure (which is very telling.) In "˜Enemies' she uses sex as a manipulative tool several times to try and get to Angel, as well as the way she relates to Buffy in the end. Faith gives off sexual feelings towards everyone she interacts with, which may be one of the reasons she is shipped with nearly everyone in the buffyverse. Again, not a bad thing on its own but combined with everything is else is yet another sign. The way sex is so prominent in everything she does, even in her violence.
Faith shows a fascination with violence; in particular, with knives/stabbing, which is often equated as a sexual act.
Finally, one of the most glaring and frightening signs that Faith was sexually abused is her sexual abuse of others. First being her attempted rape of Xander ("˜Consequences') in which he tries to reach out to her and she tries to force him to sleep with her and nearly strangles him. The violence in that attack is frightening and disturbing as a viewer. Then there is the less obvious rape of Buffy when she swaps bodies with Buffy, ("˜This Years Girl', "˜Who are you?'.) Now her intent was not to rape Buffy, she believed the body belonged to her now and had no intentions of giving it back. However it is still a rape, because the body did not belong to her and Buffy had no say in the matter.
Another thing to come out of that scene is when Riley tries to make it intimate by telling "Buffy" that he loves her, Faith freaks out. She can't equate sex with intimacy, and she repeats "no, get off, no" while attempting to push Riley off her. It's almost like a victim trying to get out from underneath their rapist, or a child's plea for an assault to stop. Faith is a slayer if she wanted Riley off of her he would be in a matter of seconds; it was as if she was reliving something more traumatic.
It is never stated out right that Faith was sexually abused but the way Joss Whedon wrote her, the depth of her damage, how broken, almost shattered, she appears is evidence of a sexually abused child. It is however not canon so people can choose to believe whatever they want about her. But the character Joss wrote is a severely abused child, whether he meant her to be or not. Though being Joss Whedon, it's safer to assume it was intentional.
Trigger warning for sexual abuse, and violence.
"My dead mother hits harder than that" Faith, Hope, & Trick
From the moment Faith arrives in Sunnydale we are led to believe she had a very traumatic and damaging childhood. But throughout her entire run in the series we are given few specifics. It's left vague on purpose, leaving it up to the viewer's discretion to fill in the blank; if they care to. But we are given hints, and hidden facts, to draw our own conclusions from. Faith's rage combined with her lack of emotion towards sex suggests she was physically and sexually abused as a child.
Faith's anger is stemmed from the emotional and physical abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother. It is implied right from the start when Faith says the quote mentioned above. From it we can infer two things, one that her mother is dead, and two that she was abusive. She spews out this sentence in a blind rage where she has lost total control of herself and her surroundings, leaving Buffy (her partner) to fend for herself in the attack. Faith uses the vampire as an outlet for her rage, which she clearly has a lot of. As a small child, unable to defend herself or fight back, she became the target of her mother's rage. Now grown and filled with hatred and rage of her own, she unleashes it against the evil she's called to fight.
The anger is so blinding and consuming that everything else fades away. We see Faith slip into the anger and when Buffy pulls her off slip right out; as though she was another person. So we see from the start how broken and mentally unstable Faith is. Someone does not become that broken simply from being slapped around a bit as a child. Faith slips in and out of her anger as though changing her clothes. It lives right under the surface, the facade she puts up of being happy, carefree, daring, mask the visceral anger and self-hatred.
"Dissociation is a term in psychology describing a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from one's immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from one's physical and emotional reality." (x)
Whenever Faith speaks about anything emotional, her past relationships, her childhood, she becomes detached. As though she has to separate herself from the person she is speaking about. When she talks about her "dead mother" she is not the person we saw prior to the vampire attack. The girl joking around, pushing Buffy's buttons, has suddenly become this rage infected monster. Another scene is "˜Enemies' when she talks about her childhood:"When I was a kid, I used to beg my mom for a dog. Didn't matter what kind, I just wanted, you know, something to love. A dog's all I wanted. Well, that and toys. But Mom was so busy, you know, enjoying the drinking and passing out parts of life, that I never really got what I wanted."
Again just carelessly tossing such important information about her out into the open; as though, it's not about her or not of importance. She can't/doesn't know how to deal with her emotions so she ignores them or suppresses them. Then when she talks about it's not as if it's really about her.Even in "˜Faith, Hope, & Trick' which is one of the few times we see Faith get emotional, it is out of fear. She feels afraid and vulnerable and it's not until Buffy pushes and pushes does it come out. There's a moment where the camera is focused on Faith and you see her change. Up until then Faith has pushed it down, ignored it, or ran away, but now she has to confront it and you see the facade, the bravado, stripped away, and she becomes a panicked, hysterical child. It's the only time Faith has ever had to deal with her past. But it doesn't even scratch the surface.
We know that Faith's mother is an abusive, neglectful, and a drunk; but when she is not drinking and passing out, what is she doing? She must have had a job, but what kind of job could she hold down? In the non-canon book "Go Ask Malice" Faith's mother is a prostitute. Given what we know about Faith's relationship with sex, it's not far off the mark to assume she was. Now a mother, that gets paid for sex, of a young girl, chances are Faith was a) on her own a majority of the time and b) frequently around strange seedy men. With that said, is it a big jump to believe that Faith was sexually abused as a child?
"A child who is the victim of prolonged sexual abuse usually develops low self-esteem, a feeling of worthlessness and an abnormal or distorted view of sex. The child may become withdrawn and mistrustful of adults, and can become suicidal." (x)
Faith believes she is nothing, she is a stupid girl from southie that can't do anything right. The only things she actually believes she's good at is slaying (violence) and most important to her, sex. Sex is an activity, nothing more. There is no emotional connection for her. It is something she enjoys being good at. That alone does not suggest sexual abuse. A woman can love her sexuality and enjoy sex without having been abused as a child. However, that combined with her detachment from it, and the extreme anger issues she has, do.
It can also be said that Faith is suicidal. She is careless with her life, rushing into life or death situations without pause. Almost getting both herself and Buffy killed on more than one occasion, (ex: "˜Revelations', "˜Bad Girls'.) Later on in the series we see more suicidal tendencies, the most glaring being when she actively pursues Angel in an attempt to have him kill her, ("˜Five by Five'.) Going forward even more, when she takes on the beast alone and continues fighting both the beast and Angelus well past her limit, ("˜Salvage'.) And finally, when she's willing to sacrifice her life by poisoning herself and giving her body over to Angelus, ("˜Release', "˜Orpheus'.)
"Some children who have been sexually abused have difficulty relating to others except on sexual terms. Some sexually abused children become child abusers or prostitutes, or have other serious problems when they reach adulthood." (x)
When Faith first meets Giles the first thing she does is flirt with him, same for Xander, Principal Wood, she even flirts with the Mayor who she sees as a father figure (which is very telling.) In "˜Enemies' she uses sex as a manipulative tool several times to try and get to Angel, as well as the way she relates to Buffy in the end. Faith gives off sexual feelings towards everyone she interacts with, which may be one of the reasons she is shipped with nearly everyone in the buffyverse. Again, not a bad thing on its own but combined with everything is else is yet another sign. The way sex is so prominent in everything she does, even in her violence.
Faith shows a fascination with violence; in particular, with knives/stabbing, which is often equated as a sexual act.
"Sadism is the act of deriving pleasure, often sexual, from mistreating others and therefore these people find others whom they victimize with their behavior. Some of the severe activities involved in sexual sadism include burning, beating, stabbing, raping, and killing. Usually the thoughts and/or behaviors of sexual sadism begin in adolescence or early adulthood. The behaviors are not only chronic, but they usually increase in severity with time." (x)
Faith's attachment to the knife from the mayor is one of the first signs ("˜Choices'.) she gets off on the beauty of the knife, even going so far as to sniff it. Other examples are her dreams/hallucinations of stabbing Willow ("˜Who are you?') and slashing Angel's face, ("˜Sanctuary'.) Again in the episode "˜Enemies' she seems excited by the tools laid before her to torture Buffy with, and enjoys threatening her with them. There is also her sadistic torture of Wesley, in which she takes pleasure in beating, burning, and cutting him with glass, ("˜Five by Five'.) She doesn't just enjoy violence she gets off on it.Finally, one of the most glaring and frightening signs that Faith was sexually abused is her sexual abuse of others. First being her attempted rape of Xander ("˜Consequences') in which he tries to reach out to her and she tries to force him to sleep with her and nearly strangles him. The violence in that attack is frightening and disturbing as a viewer. Then there is the less obvious rape of Buffy when she swaps bodies with Buffy, ("˜This Years Girl', "˜Who are you?'.) Now her intent was not to rape Buffy, she believed the body belonged to her now and had no intentions of giving it back. However it is still a rape, because the body did not belong to her and Buffy had no say in the matter.
Another thing to come out of that scene is when Riley tries to make it intimate by telling "Buffy" that he loves her, Faith freaks out. She can't equate sex with intimacy, and she repeats "no, get off, no" while attempting to push Riley off her. It's almost like a victim trying to get out from underneath their rapist, or a child's plea for an assault to stop. Faith is a slayer if she wanted Riley off of her he would be in a matter of seconds; it was as if she was reliving something more traumatic.
It is never stated out right that Faith was sexually abused but the way Joss Whedon wrote her, the depth of her damage, how broken, almost shattered, she appears is evidence of a sexually abused child. It is however not canon so people can choose to believe whatever they want about her. But the character Joss wrote is a severely abused child, whether he meant her to be or not. Though being Joss Whedon, it's safer to assume it was intentional.
