How Good A Leader Was Faith?

[white avenger]

In Season 4 of "Angel," and then again in Season 7 of "Buffy" for one reason or the other (actually the same reason both places: she's filling in for the REAL leader during their absence) Faith has to step forward and take charge of the group. So, how good a job do you think she did?

I think that she did a much better job on "Angel," especially in kicking the crap out of Connor (I love that line, "Break me off a stick, cause there's gonna be a whupping."), but that might be because she's still a bit intimidated by Buffy.

 

[JenniferAlice]

Yeah, I think you're right about Faith being intimidated by Buffy, I don't think she wanted to step on her toes, I think Faith did her best though, she wasn't as wreckless as she has been in the past.

 

[Lyri]

I think she could grow into the role of a leader, if she had been given enough time. Which is one of the reasons I'm so annoyed that she's back to being an outcast in S8. She'd be a kick ass leader.

I think part of the reason she seemed to do better in LA than in Sunnydale is because the people she was 'leading' in LA were full grown adults, who knew the score and knew what Faith was leading them into. In Sunnydale, she was leading a bunch of children into something even she couldn't properly determin. She also had to step into Buffy shoes, and after seeing Buffy in the leadership role before, she knew she had a lot to live up to, even if she didn't think Buffy was making the best decisions at the time.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

I think part of the reason she seemed to do better in LA than in Sunnydale is because the people she was 'leading' in LA were full grown adults

But she wasnt really leading anyone per se. Wes gave her the situation and told her what she needed to do. She was only following his directions- for the most part- and not really forming battle plans, as she did in Sunny D.

I did not see Faith as really leading anyone in LA until WA called it such.

 

[Kean]

I agree that she was better in L.A. than Sunnydale. I think there is a few reasons for that.

1.) She was in L.A. to help Angel. She sees him as her only genuine friend. She was immediately focused on saving him, everything else was secondary.
2.) The person she hurt the most in Angel was Wesley and he was the one who came to get her, that establishes a kind of unwritten agreement between the two and also makes her feel needed.
3.) She was the only Slayer. She was it, she wasn't competing for anything.
4.) Unlike Sunnydale, only one person from the L.A. that was around for her truly awful behaviour, when she was at her worst. She didn't have to prove anything to anyone.

In Sunnydale she was asked to come by Willow, not Buffy. The bad blood between them runs deep, it makes an already stressful situation worse. Also faith felt that she was a changed person, that she had earned a greater level or respect and trust but to the Scoobies she was still the same psychopath that had tried to kill them all.

She never really had a chance.

 

[white avenger]

But she wasnt really leading anyone per se. Wes gave her the situation and told her what she needed to do. She was only following his directions- for the most part- and not really forming battle plans, as she did in Sunny D.

I did not see Faith as really leading anyone in LA until WA called it such.

Look at the scene in "Calvary" right after Wes introduces Faith to the gang. From the first syllable out of her mouth, she is the lady in charge, with only one dissenter: Connor. To everybody else, she was the boss, and they accepted her as such.

Her arrival in Sunnydale, or rather, her first contact with Buffy, was Buffy's fist and her jaw. Just like old times. Off on the wrong foot immediately. In LA, Faith was the Vampire Slayer. In Sunnydale, as Caleb said, she was "the other one." After Buffy left, though, LA Faith came back: self assured, decisive, and as capable of handling Kennedy as she had been of handling Connor.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Look at the scene in "Calvary" right after Wes introduces Faith to the gang. From the first syllable out of her mouth, she is the lady in charge, with only one dissenter: Connor. To everybody else, she was the boss, and they accepted her as such.

Understood. I just never really thought of her as leading in LA as much as just going there to get the job done.