Lilah- Evil Hellwench or Ambitious Feminist Icon?

[LadyLavinia]

I guess maybe it all comes down to free will, right? If you have freedom of thought and action, you're sentient, you can make conscious decisions. Maybe I'd argue that humans aren't good or evil, "bad", if you prefer. Yet they can act for the good or act for the bad. For something to do "evil", something must have consciousness and free will to act. We don't consider a hurricane evil.

Therefore, Buffyverse demons are at least a little more than animals, they would have to have something like free will, as humans do. Yet they don't share human morality. Spike managed, with the help of a chip early on and "love" for Buffy to deny his "urge" to do evil. Maybe demons are like animals on the verge of consciousness, the verge of being human and recognizing a morality. Maybe love for Buffy pushed Spike towards humanity, towards full free will and sentience.

For example, there are many have no qualms about Angel making a decision that led to the erasure of Buffy's memories of a certain day in "IWRY" - without her consent. And there are some who do.


Just because they don't possess human morality doesn't automatically make them evil. What is evil for some is considered moral for others. And vice versa.

 

[goldenboy]

Agreed. Evil is ultimately a personal judgement made by a sentient conscious being. It will differ from being to being. And the judgement can even differ within an individual being's mind over time. One may have second thoughts, a change of heart, about what's considered evil or immoral behavior.

 

[Jill_Valentine]

This sounds like a scenario that belongs on CHARMED and not in the BUFFYVERSE.

That's fair, it was an extreme oversimplification.


The question of the definition of Evil is big, real big, but rather than comparing Lilah to Hitler, would it not be more appropriate to compare her to the average soldier on the street? The ambitious field officer?

 

[eponinethen]

Um yeah, that's definitely true. Not that it matters much to me since in my opinion neither the soldier or Hitler is/was evil but yeah.

 

[goldenboy]

I think the ambitious field officer is the best analogy I've yet heard. She's extremely ambitious. Maybe even feels a bit of resentment and envy because she knows she's smart, "deserves" power.

I think you can make a claim that she's selfish and does evil things. Whether or not one is comfortable with the "evil" term. Yet, she has moments when it seems she's feeling something that seems to be empathy. Like helping out that psychic assassin girl. Giving her a pep talk. You sense she identifies with the girl's alienation, resentment. Nonetheless, she's grooming this girl for WR&H, using this girl.

And after she and Wesley escape the zombies at WR&H, she almost reluctantly informs him that Connor is still inside. She and Wesley are over at that point, right? Can't remember for sure. Yet, she seems to act out love for him, or maybe just basic human decency.

At and earlier point, she gives Wesley a gift, "Dante's Inferno". In an effort to bring him into WR&H, reminds him that Judas Iscariot, the betrayer, was in the lowest level of Hell. Seems like she's saying, "It's OK, you're like me, a betrayer".

So, it seems to me she's fully human, conflicted. Has a conscience, recognizes a morality. Yet she chooses to ignore her own sense of what is moral. Apparently it's because her desire for power overrides everything else.

Or, I wonder if she has partially convinced herself that she's actually doing something good, moral? Striking a blow for women, equality, even if it's at WR&H. Maybe that's one reason she's able to ignore her most basic sense of morality.