Joss' Plan For Faith

[white avenger]

I'm not sure if this has ever actually been confirmed, or even asked, before, but, do you think that Joss planned Faith's story line from the beginning, that she would be lured over to the dark side, then reformed and redeemed as a hero once more? I read once that she was originally used as a device to simply stop the progression of new Slayers popping up, since, as long as she was in a coma, no one else could be Called.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Faith from the start was always kinda on the dark side.. there was not much luring involved. But hell, coming from Cleveland who could really fault her disposition.

 

[Buffy Summers]

I agree, Cleveland sucks.

😀

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Though I suppose she would have been worse if she came from.. I dunno.. someplace like Pittsburgh. Those fans are horrible!

 

[thetopher]

This is pretty much the definitive answer. 😉

When Eliza went to audition for Buffy she was only supposed to be in it for 5 or so episodes.
The plan was for Faith to kill somebody by accident and then take her own life in guilt/remorse. The plotline would reveal that being the slayer, with all that darkness inside you, could cost you in a different way if you lost control.
Faith would be the out-of-control slayer who lost her grip and fell into darkness, but in a very different way.

But Eliza impressed a lot of the crew (and Joss of course) as Faith so much and he saw real potential with the character and just kept on adding scenes with Faith in. (It's why she's absent from some episodes, like 'Gingerbread' and 'Helpless' for no real reason)

It mirrors JM's role as Spike in many ways, since he was meant to die at the end of 'WMY part 2' but thankfully the writers saw his potential and went a different way.

(Fun fact: Lover's Walk was meant to mark the return of Spike AND Dru to Sunnydale, as a happy vampire couple causing havoc, but they couldn't get Juliet Landreu so they instead had to go with a heartbroken Spike- which in turn led to Joss seeing more depth to his character- so he returned in S4...and the rest is history)

I remember Eliza saying in an interview that half the Faith lines in 'Choices' and 'Graduation Day' were written on the fly- especially the ones between her and The Mayor.
Joss would run off and amend a script to give her more lines about Faith's childhood, or a turn of phrase that Eliza herself used. There's a lot of Eliza in Faith's character, which is why I think Eliza has a lot to draw upon in the role. 🙂

Then Joss decided NOT to kill Faith off at the end of the Season and instead to put her in a coma. All so he could bring her back for a redemption arc that would end on the show 'Angel'.

The fact that it all seems (mostly) so seemless is just skilled writing.

Oh, and Faith's from BOSTON, not Cleaveland. Nothing wrong with Boston. 🙂

 

[Lyri]

I think, in the beginning, Faith was brought in just to be the mirror image of Buffy - she was Buffy's opposite in every single way imaginable. After that, I don't really think that they had a definite plan, though what @thetopher said makes a lot of sense. We know that Joss and the writers have done that with other characters.

I do wish they had gone down the original route with her - maybe not killing her off, but making her even darker than the character we got. Don't get me wrong, I adore Faith, she's one of my favorite characters, but I just wonder sometimes what she would have been like if she had wallowed in the guilt of killing Finch rather than just ignoring it and hoping it would go away. Buffy finding her trying to hang herself and saving her, for instance, would have been such a dark and compelling storyline.

 

[Blaze]

I wonder how it would have pan out if they did go for a darker route. I'm not sure Buffy s3 was ready to deal with a suicide, the show was always dark, but the highschool season still had a sort of brightness to them. A suicide would have needed very, very strong writing. I definitely think it could have been done with Joss behind the wheel. It would have been really interesting to see, and a great story to tell. But because I love Faith so much I'm glad she didn't die. I'm also glad Buffy didn't kill her.

 

[Fuffy Baith]

If that's true then I'm glad they didn't kill her off. It does explain a lil of why she wasn't used a lot before 'Bad Girls'. Faith was like the opposite of Kendra, both were the extreme differences of Buffy. Suicide is pretty dark, I think Jonathon is the only one that we see who tries to commit suicide but Faith does try to get Angel to kill her and that's pretty dark. So glad that they decided to keep Faith around, Spike too. It would be interesting if Dru had been in 'Lover's Walk' and what would have happened to Spike. No chip probably.