Question About Slayers Killing Humans... "Spiral" Related

S

SlayerShel

Hoosier Slayer?
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In the episode Spiral, 5X20

I noticed that Buffy seemed to take out one of those knight guys, the axe in the center of the chest while fighting on top of the RV.

I am not entirely sure those guys were human, but I noticed that Spike suffered pain when hitting them.

This may have been discussed before, but it was just an observation I made last night while watching.
 
Yeah the Knights of Byzantium are human, but Buffy had absolutely no other choice, The other times that it's discussed about killing humans the danger was not right on top of them like it was in Spiral, it really was kill or be killed. It was self defence so she would have been fine 🙂
 
I think the major heated discussions revolve around killing humans that are 'victims' or innocent. Like they just got caught in the crossfire. I agree that because she was trying to be killed, it was retaliation and self defense.
 
Actually I disagree Hannah.
Even if a human is innocent or not, doesnt let Buffy kill them. Remember Gingerbread? Buffy told Giles to find her a loophole about killing humans cos she couldnt do it. Even though, as far as they were concerned, the witches were kiillers.
Also you implied the KNights of Byzantium were not innocent. Why? Becuase they were trying to kill Dawn? The reason for that was to save the world. Id say that was innocent. They were the good guys too. They just handles things in a different way.

And if you consider them not innocent, then neither is Ben. He took Dawn to be killed so he could live. And if Buffy was able to kill non-innocent people, she would be able to kill Ben.
 
E
Edmund Blackadder
ummm, i did try to disagree with the Ben part:)
bear in mind that the way the knights went about things was not ok they were going to kill an innocent, Dawn so natrually Buffy would want to save her.
 
I'm siding with Wicked in this...yikes!!!
The Knights of Byzantium were indeed a group of humans who were doing the job they believed was correct.
The Ben argument is flawed, personally Giles is the one that should be compared.
He in no uncertain terms told Buffy
I've sworn to protect this sorry world, and sometimes that means saying and doing ... what other people can't. What they shouldn't have to.
Click to expand...
....to which Buffy retorts,
You try and hurt her, and you know I'll stop you.
Click to expand...
This passage clearly shows that she is gonna stop anyone from killing Dawn, even if its the only hope.
She'd rather the entire world die then Dawn.

The Knights may have been wrong in their approach, infact i think they should have aided Buffy in removing Dawn from harms way, but they were doing it for the benefit of Humanity.
 
W
Wicked
oh my god. you agreed? Is the world ending and no one told me? ;p
We had a discussion on this back when I was writing one of the stories for Tales of the Slayer. I took the position that this "don't kill humans" thing was a recent addition to the Slayer canon, in that in the past, life was short and cheap, and there were lots of wars, etc that sort of caused a casual brutality unseen in the modern world. I personally never had a problem with Buffy killing anyone. With the Knights, they were attacking her, so self-defense is a good reason. Killing someone in the heat of battle is different from murdering someone. Like, say, Warren. It would have been murder if Buffy had killed him when she was in a position to turn him into the authorities (and it was murder when Willow skinned him...ewwww). Killing isn't always murder...I think the Slayer canon should say you shouldn't murder anyone.


Here's a link to the earlier discussion: https://www.buffy-boards.com/showthread.php?t=19882

It starts a couple of posts in.
 
Seems like another one of those moral absolutes vs relativism (or consequentialist/utilitarian) arguments. I.e. is killing a human always wrong no matter what the situation or the resulting consequences or is it acceptable in some situations, for example killing one man in order to save a hundred other lives. In this situation according to the absolutist then buffy was in the wrong but in my opinion she wasnt wrong as it was self defence and the consequences could have been dier and buffy isnt really in a position where she can debate about what could happen, she has to make a snap judgement and i'd have to say that in this situation that she made the right choice
 
Just so we are clear, i hope no one thinks i was against Buffy killing.
I'm all for trying to not kill, but if its a matter of me vs them with no other way, i'll pick me everytime...unless theres mitigationg circumstances....in this Case Buffy did what she had to do.
 
no what i mean by humans not being innocent.. as in rapists and muderers.. i wasnt referring to buffy killing etc... sorry didnt make that clear.. and i do agree with what you have said Wicked 🙂
 
Xin Rong said:
In this situation according to the absolutist then buffy was in the wrong but in my opinion she wasnt wrong as it was self defence and the consequences could have been dier and buffy isnt really in a position where she can debate about what could happen, she has to make a snap judgement and i'd have to say that in this situation that she made the right choice
Click to expand...

That's the most incredible run-on sentence I've ever struggled to read.
 
I'm not against Buffy killing humans if it's to protect her family or the world or whatever...and Dawn is her family.
 
Thing is that Buffy is at times 100% against killing humans. Like, it almost doesn't matter what circumstances there are, slayers shouldn't kill humans. But she breaks this rule of hers at a few times (for example when planning to kill Faith, etc.). But she didn't want to kill Ben (which was why Giles did), even though he sort of joined Glory's side at the end, helped her almost killing Dawn etc.
 
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