Is Buffy Really a Thief? Maybe Not. The Filesharing Argument.

[nerd4hire]

In Season 8 Buffy and a group of slayers break into at least one Swiss bank, and appropriate Nazi loot that is stored there. Is that theft? Maybe not.

I'm fuzzy on the details, but the way I remember the story. That loot was stolen from people, and countries by the Nazis. It was all part of what's been accepted as war crimes.

The banks themselves have been found to be holding as much of the loot as possible hidden from the organizations which would re-appropriate it if they knew it was there.

It all kind of reminds me of an argument you hear on filesharing message boards. If you take something from a crook who shouldn't really have it in the first place, Is it stealing?

Primarily this has to do with music. The music industry is known to in effect blackmail artists into unjust appropriation of copyright.

Big Music takes control of the gateway through which artists can make their work commercially available. It does this through lobbyist manipulation of existing law, fudging on the laws that then exist, and forcing the artists to hand over copyright by being the only game in town, and forcing them to turn over their copyright if they want their music to be heard. Innumerable artists have come out against this. Many have said publicly to their fans, "go ahead share the music". In fact there's a coalition of artists in Canada including big names like Avril Lavigne and Sara Maclaughlin who are against suing fans for sharing their music.

So the way the argument goes. It's the big music companies who are calling filesharers thieves. Should the sharers really care about redistributing the art that was acquired through crookery? Should they consider themselves thieves?

The same argument applies to Buffy redistributing the stolen Nazi loot. In fact, maybe moreso.

 

[white avenger]

It seems to me that stealing is stealing, no matter how you moralize it. If I steal from a thief, then I am a thief. On the other hand, if I steal from a thief, or their agents, in this case the Swiss bank, and the reason that I steal essentially from criminals, is to finance an army sworn to fight the forces of evil, funding an enterprise that might very well be the only thing on the planet that is capable of defending humanity from those same forces of evil, then I am still a thief. But I have managed to convince myself that two wrongs do, indeed, make a right.

But that's just my opinion.

 

[Kemy]

She took a group of armed troops, broke into a major bank, stole a very large sum of money, used items with an already sordid past and made it worse by selling it to probably the only people who would take it, people as/even more dodgy than the Nazi's and assaulting who knows how many guards to get to the vaults.

Buffy is now an internationally sought major criminal and thief. One of the many reasons I gave up on this "season" being canon.

 

[nerd4hire]

Yeah, I'm not going to defend this argument of rationalizing the possible crime, just present it. My personal opinion though. I really don't know.

 

[Kean]

As fans we tend to find it hard to see wrong in what our favourite Slayer does, we rationalise, theorise and damn well fanwank. Anything so she remains the hero. I can't do that this time. She stole that money, she may have done it in a very Robin Hood type fashion but stealing is still stealing..

This seems to be a bit of a theme with Whedon and the Buffyverse. First Angel, Dawn, then Anya now Buffy. Our Joss seems to be a vicarious klepto through his characters.

 

[Superstar]

First Angel, Dawn, then Anya now Buffy. Our Joss seems to be a vicarious klepto through his characters.

You forgot a few.

Just off the cuff...
Xander - RPG
Faith - pointy stuff
Buffy - other pointy stuff
Buffy - Box o' spiders
Willow - Ascension pages
Andrew - Food and medical supplies
Various tomb robbing throughout.

 

[The Arcane]

The Buffyverse has never been about black and white/good and evil. It's always demonstrated that life is about endless variations in shades of grey, which is how it really is.

Buffy made a choice to do something wrong which would enable her to do something right on a much larger scale. That's life, folks. We often have to make moral sacrifices in a world where the laws and legal systems are too often designed to benefit the bad guys. Nobody can remain entirely pure if they hope to survive today.

I back her choice 100%. I'd have done the same thing, in her position.

 

[Superstar]

Keanoite agrees: I also forgot Giles...wow he really liked them stealing didn't he

Soooooooo is Buffy ripping off some goodies (money) of dubious origin out of character after all?
Survey says...

I am so tired of arguments using "Out of Character" to explain Season 8 anti-sentiment - including the Satsu thing.
Some blinders people wear are simply truly amazing.
We won't even count all the incidents of breaking and entering, resisting arrest, felony flight and other crimes (arson... hello?).

 

[The Arcane]

I am so tired of arguments using "Out of Character" to explain Season 8 anti-sentiment - including the Satsu thing.
Some blinders people wear are simply truly amazing.
We won't even count all the incidents of breaking and entering, resisting arrest, felony flight and other crimes (arson... hello?).

Could not agree more. How anyone can say they are a fan of Joss and not understand that his characters change, I have no idea. The Willow we met in Welcome to the Hellmouth would never have dreamed of destroying the world with black magicks but we accept that six years later she was more than capable of doing so.

Buffy's actions are the result of a young lady understanding the magnitude of her situation and accepting that some lines are going to have to be crossed to make it work, and that to me is exactly the Buffy we saw developing in seasons five, six and seven.

 

[Lindsey McDonald]

It all seemed a bit Wolfram and Hart logic to me. What I mean is that Angel was excommunicated from the slayers for using the resource of W&H, while Buffy was off using resources stolen from banks. It just all seems a little hypocritical, and a little "Want, take, have."

 

[andrewcutter]

stealing is stealing, now if u want to argue on if it was for a good reason or the right thing to do thats a different story. reminds me of a story kind of................... a poor man wife is deathly sick and he has no money to buy the medicine for her. He then breaks into a pharmacy and steals the medicine....... is what he did wrong? legally yes, morally no.

frankly dispite her reasoning what buffy did was above the law and that can cause problems putting yourself above the law

 

[palabravampiress]

You know... I definitely question the necessity of a lot of Buffy's season 8 spending. Knowing that the money was ill-gotten (rather than just Watcher's Council reserve funding, which, granted may very well have also been ill-gotten) makes me even more skeptical. I mean, the slayers now have fancy combat gear, helicopters, video monitor thingies, a central control station, a freakin' castle, and all sorts of other fancy shmancy frippery at their disposal. What I don't understand is why they need all of that who-ha now when they were perfectly capable of averting apocalypse by themselves before. Heck, Xander did it twice without so much as a single weapon. It reminds me of the Initiative, an organization which the Scoobies clearly opposed. It also reminds me of Angel season 5. In that season, our heroes took over an organization that they had previously opposed. I'm seeing a common theme, here. Power (or, perhaps, responsibility) corrupts, and I think it's starting to corrupt our Scoobies. I can see this going very badly. I can see them possibly losing sight of their real purpose.

That said, I'm not sure I'm against any one specific decision. Certainly, the scoobies have done wrong. Sometimes, they have done great wrong. I think that makes them complex and interesting. I like the fact that they are constantly testing and confronting their moral boundaries. They're not static. They grow and change -- and, best of all, that change is not always for the better.

As for the case of Buffy stealing Nazi loot in order to raise money for her demon fighting outfit, I find it ethically interesting. On the one hand, I am disappointed in Buffy for stealing. On the other hand, I think her cause is essentially a worthy one. She protects people from the things that go bump in the night. The funds that she appropriated were stolen a long time ago by and from people who are, for the most part, no longer alive. I'm really not sure who she's harming, here, but I am sure she's helping those who would otherwise be dinner to the demons she kills. It's not as if she's stealing candy from babies. I think she may be misusing some of her funds and being extravagant in her spending, but I'm not ready to say that what she's doing is wrong.

You know what they say: one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. I think that's the case here. Buffy and co. are doing things that make the world see them as a threat, and yet those who are in the know can see a greater good behind her actions. As her actions get progressively more and more questionable, perhaps my opinion will change. Maybe she will cross the line. I think it's a very interesting dynamic and a brave one for Joss to explore, especially in today's political climate.

 

[nerd4hire]

What's that movie...I think it's a Woody Allen movie. Let's say it's Woody Allen for arguments sake.

In it somebody comes back at Woody Allen all puffed up with moral indignation and says, "You're just rationalizing", and Woody Allen replies something like, "Well yeah, I can't go through 5 minutes in a day without a good rationalization".

How does a person justify something to himself? That interests me more than the illusory possibility whether not they are correct under some moral construct. I like to watch the mechanics of it.

As far as Buffy and the bank raid goes. What if it went down something like this? There's Buffy between Chosen and the year and a half until Long Way Home. She's responsible for changing the lives of perhaps thousands of girls, and not necessarily for the better. She's made them slayers. She's seen the dark side of that in Faith. She almost walked over to it herself. She knows the pain of being a slayer, and she's infected these girls with it. She feels responsible. She believes she could help them if she could reach them. She wants to. She plans to, but how can an out of work, ex-fast food worker do that? Reach thousands of girls across the world, and put them in a spot where they can learn to manage their new power without hurting themselves or others.

Let's suppose this guy comes up to her. Let's call him Giles. Suppose this Giles guy tells her the story of the Nazi Gold. How nobody actually owns it, because it's melted bullion from nobody knows exactly where, but there is a general opinion is it was acquired through nasty means. The people controlling it don't own it. If they made the knowledge public others would lay claim to it, so it sits there, not really owned by anybody. This guy Giles suggests they could get it. Buffy could never come up with a plan like this herself, but she trusts this guy, as a basic teller of truth, who's cause is more or less noble, and so she chooses to accept the proposal. Morally to her it feels in the area that is gray based on the information she was given yet she feels she can walk the line between black and white this once, if the goal at the end is has value to the greater good.

Under all those conditions, I find the bank raid understandable, and can accept it as true to her character. I could totally see her going for that one.

Now is she a bad girl. Perhaps...yet, why don't I care. Anyway I know this girl's story well enough to know she'll pay the piper. She'll get her spanking. I can accept all this, watch the show, and enjoy.

 

[Rowan Hawthorn]

Yes, it's stealing. If you steal, it's stealing. Now, if you ask would I do the same thing in Buffy's place? Well, quite possibly. The ends don't justify the means, but, pragmatically, sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Even if he's a she. And a Slayer. And I think I may have run my metaphor aground, but anyway...

 

[nerd4hire]

Here's one. Suppose it wasn't Nazi gold hidden in a Swiss bank. Suppose it was pirate treasure, hidden for centuries in a cave in a country controlled by a nasty, killer, dictator. Suppose Buffy and the slayers grabbed that, and took off with it? Would it be easier to accept, I wonder, or is it still black and white wrong?

I was trying to think of how the 2 situations differ on a fundamental level of moral judgment. You know what I came up with? The pirate one is one we're more familiar with in our fictional mythology. We've already adjusted it into our moral compass. We're not used to the Nazi gold one yet. For that I don't blame Buffy.

 

[Rowan Hawthorn]

Depends. When you say it's hidden for centuries in a cave, do you mean that it's presence has been lost from knowledge? Because if it's not actually in someone's possession (i.e., they know where it is and they're keeping it stored in the cave,) then no. It's not stealing if it's been lost for centuries. Now, if someone is keeping it stored in that cave, then, yes, it's stealing. It doesn't matter who has it in their possession. If I break into the crackhouse down the street and take all the money I find, it's still breaking and entering and theft.

Understand, though, that doesn't mean I wouldn't do it. Especially if I thought I could do some good with the money. I'm not very black and white, even if the ethical reality of what I'd be doing is.

 

[palabravampiress]

^^ That's kind of where I was going when I mentioned the Watcher's Council funding. Isn't that where we all figured the money came from before we found out about the robbery? I mean, if you think about it, the Watcher's Council wealth is bound to have been obtained -- probably centuries ago, at the height of the British Empire, given the London location -- and expanded by some pretty unscrupulous means. I mean, British wealth established centuries ago so that a bunch of university educated, class conscious intellectuals could research demons and control the slayer almost definitely came from sources like colonization, exploitation, the slave trade, classism and possibly even the feudal system, etc., etc., and yet Buffy never had any huge problem taking money from Giles, who also never had any problem taking money from the Council. None of us seemed to have a problem with that, but if you trace the council budget back far enough, I'm guessing that it came from sources that were possibly even more shady than Buffy's trip to the Swiss bank.

The problem here is that fortunes, like power, are usually appropriated by less-than-ethical means. You just have to follow the money.

 

[nerd4hire]

Fun eh. Nothing like a good rationalization. OK, like on this one for instance...

Depends. When you say it's hidden for centuries in a cave, do you mean that it's presence has been lost from knowledge? Because if it's not actually in someone's possession (i.e., they know where it is and they're keeping it stored in the cave,) then no. It's not stealing if it's been lost for centuries. Now, if someone is keeping it stored in that cave, then, yes, it's stealing.

Well it's my analogy, so yeah in a similar sense to the bank holding this gold it can't actually get at, the country of Caverovia has a law saying any treasure within it's borders belongs to it. In this case though we know the way the evil dictator thing works. If he gets a hold of it we know the actual people of Caverovia will never see it. We know the treasure will go to the evil dictator, to enslave, rape, murder, and buy arms to terrorize his neighbors.

We know the drill from all the evil dictator movies we've seen. And when the hero is trying to sneak the gold out of the country we go, "Yay. Go hero. Get the gold."

Now with Buffy we go, "Oh bad Buffy. She's a thief. It's out of character." I suggest one reason for that is we're just not familiar with the Nazi gold thing. We can't pigeon hole it as the kind of theft we can give a moral thumbs up to. In fact I've read a lot of posts on this subject, and I can't help noticing most people don't even notice it was Nazi Gold, nor do they seem concerned as to exactly what that might mean. It isn't because there's a black and white moral determination on all theft. We've all seen movies where we cheer for the thief, and want him to get the loot. Some of them are more moral than Buffy. Ever seen Blood Diamond? The fisherman who steals the diamond gets it at the end, and we all go "Hurrah", cause he's a really good guy.

 

[gilesfan1980]

Who, exactly, did Buffy steal FROM?

 

[nerd4hire]

Good question, because at this point nobody really knows who owns the Nazi gold, or even where it is for that matter. There's a lot of legend involved.

We do know the Nazis looted countries it occupied,to finance it's war debt. Also others such as those thrown into concentration camps. As I recall the gold was melted down into bullion, and deposited in European banks to be converted to currency.

There's a lot of people, countries, and organizations that would turn up to lay claim to the gold if it ever turned up. We're talking billions at todays gold prices, I bet.

The Vatican bank is involved in a rumour concerning a big chunk of the concentration camp gold. Buffy could have robbed the Pope. 🙂

(Wait now...I hope you're not just saying you haven't read Anywhere but Here, and you don't know what we're talking about. If so click here for the canon watch thread on that issue.)