Throwing acid on people to 'check'..

[clemsgirlfriend]

Does it bother anyone else that the scoobies threw a mixture of some kind of acid and mercury on someone to "check" if she was a witch or not? Doesn't that seem kinda like the Salem witch trials where they threw the person into a lake, and if they drowned, it proved that they were innocent, and if they survived it, it proved that they were using witchcraft, so then they were murdered a different way because of that? It always bothered me that the gang of heroes throws poisonous, corrosive stuff on someone that they don't know is even guilty (even if they knew that, i'd have issues with it, but especially since they didn't...).

 

[Relic]

Well, I always imagined Willow in her infinite intelligence, new just the right amount of what-nots to make it safe in this fictional world. It's not like Amy jumped up and screamed in pain with a smoking hand. As far as the mercury...wait till the light bulb manifesto kicks in. (I'm sorry my moral outrage is getting me way off topic.)

Mercury in a small enough amounts is not lethal, and maybe the acid was balanced with a base? If they expected it to really harm her I doubt they would have used it...then again they are teenagers living on a hell mouth 🙂 .

Joking aside, I don't see a witchcraft trial correlation at all. They aren't being confrontational about it and trying to force a confession. They are not even harming her.

On the contrary they are keeping it low key, and not cornering her somewhere and interrogating her. They are trying to track down a witch that is hurting people and did so in a 'whoops'/undercover kind of way.

I always compared it to something akin to checking for fingerprints or 'crime lab work' or something, so no, I never saw the harm. It didn't seem to hurt Amy's body at all by burning her.

 

[Big Damn Hero]

I can't remember what exact chemicals it was, but it wasn't dangerous. Even if the two chemicals themselves were toxic/corrosive/carcinogens or whatever, the combination of them might not be.

For example, sodium is a highly corrosive & toxic & oxidising & generally nasty chemical. It has to be stored in oil because it reacts with air.
Chlorine is a really nasty smelly green gas. Toxic & a carcinogen too.

Yet sodium chloride is normal table salt, that we put on our chips.

So even if the two chemicals they used (plus the eye of newt & her hair) were dangerous, the mixture of them probably wasn't.

[Wow, something of my part of a chemistry degree has come in useful!]

 

[randiann]

Yeah, gotta agree that it's way different then throwing people in a lake. They weren't trying to kill her, or even harm her. Plus, common things like lemon juice are very acidic, yet we don't shy away from them. It all depends on the mixture itself. Lots of common things are acids (ascorbic acid is even Vitamin C...I think).

I think QC just explained why we all are going to die though. Table salt. It'll cause cancer and smelly gas.

*Disclaimer* I don't think that last part is really true. But it does cause high blood pressure. So no more table salt for you.

 

[Big Damn Hero]

Aye, but too little salt is bad for you too - s'why athletes have special isotonic (I think that's the right iso-, but whatever) drinks for after sport, because they lose a lot of salt via sweat.

And, just so it's on topic - I really don't think it compares to witch trials, because 1) it didn't harm her at all & 2) it was an actual method of seeing if she was a witch, not just folk-lore trying to get rid of people & 3) they didn't kill her.

 

[itsxpaperdoll]

Also, if I do remember it correctly, they were quite sure, right? It would have probably different if they thought someone was a witch, and just started pouring acid over everyone.

 

[clemsgirlfriend]

I looked at that scene in the episode again - it was nitric acid (a very strong acid, not like vitamin c or vinegar or other mild ones) mixed with mercury. That is a combination that is harmful (toxic, corrosive) to people. The parallel with with Salem which trials is that they did something to check is someone was a witch (as in the trials) that would harm someone who wasn't, and in their mind, not harm a witch. It didn't actually harm Amy's mom in the show only *because* she was a witch (in the buffyverse, it apparently reacts with witches skin to turn blue and doesn't harm them). The point is that if their hunch had been wrong and she hadn't been a witch, it would have harmed her, just as the 'tests' in the Salem witch trials did. Yes, they thought it was her, but they didn't know, and if they had been wrong, it would have hurt an innocent person if she hadn't been the witch.

For the comment about this being fiction - yes, i know this is a fictional story, but that is the whole purpose of these boards - to talk about a fictional story. There are discussions about whether it was right to kill or harm people on other threads who were clearly guilty or in the process of endangering others - in this case what bothered me is that they didn't know if Amy's mom was the witch or not, and they used a test that would have harmed Amy if she hadn't been.

 

[Relic]

I kind of look at like this, you take monkey brains, frog eyes, the blood of a wolf at a full moon, a pinch of sulfur, and rotten mushrooms and mix it all up to make a potion, not a potion of testing like the scoobs did, but lets say a strength potion.

Now you could get salmonella from the brain or the eyes, rabies or worse from the blood of the wolf, you could have a sulfa allergy or penicillin allergy that would spell game over for you (if it was severe enough) for the sulpher and mushrooms, yet mix it all together and that presto chango old world magic of alchemy (not real world chemistry) would kick in and make all those harmful ingredients A-OK and safe, that is, as long as it was made correctly. I'm sure you know fantasy is ripe with mismade potions and effects gone goofy.

I really appreciate you pointing this out and making me think about it, beacuse now I'm thinking this was probably Willows first attempt at magic. (Before this conversation my opinion was her first experiences with magic were much latter.)

We see chemistry, but I think it was intended to be accepted as old world (fantasy)alchemy.

Now would Giles approve her using dangerous chemicals?
I don't know, I can see why you could question it's ethics, she could prepare it wrong and burn Amy by a failed potion. If he thought this was simple enough for Willow to do, with Willows Chemistry background and familiarity with tools alchemy shares with chemestry...scales, calcinators, mortar & pestals etc. He may be willing to gamble the risk due to his faith in her and the ease of the potions creation.

^^^^and all that crap is just my made up supposings. Willow may not have even known there was a risk; for that matter, maybe there was none.

 

[Big Damn Hero]

I looked at that scene in the episode again - it was nitric acid (a very strong acid, not like vitamin c or vinegar or other mild ones) mixed with mercury.

Only concentrated nitric acid is that harmful. Normal bench (2M) nitric acid isn't that bad - in fact, I've even had to use it to get a much worse chemical off my skin when the person sharing my fume hood decided to spill a round bottomed flask full of nasty (mostly alkaline though) stuff over me.

As for the chemistry of mercury, yeah that is pretty toxic, but in small quantities the amount that would be absorbed through the skin would be minimal.

To be honest I don't think the writers thought that much about it - they just thought "oh, what's in a chemistry lab that sounds fairly exotic?". I don't think it's intention would be to harm any non-witches that it came into contact with.

 

[Aly Fan]

Put it this way, Girls around the school are seriously in danger. Cordelia almost got ran over after being blinded! Another Girl burst into flames! And anothers mouth disappeared!! You're not going to sit back and think, you know maybe she's the witch....you're going to do something about it. And the solution wasn't that toxic , or not deliberatly made so by the writers because Amy didn't shreik in pain...or make any signal as to suggest it did harm her! I agree with QC that the writers probably just used what sounded good! Well within reason.

 

[clemsgirlfriend]

Throwing nitric acid on your skin to get rid of something else only works *because* the something else was a base. Throwing nitric acid on there first would have required throwing the base on there afterwards to reacts with it and neutralize it, otherwise, it would cause damage (i don't recommend trying this for obvious reasons).

But it is conceivable that the eye of newt and hair made the whole combination non-harmful, even for non-witches.

 

[Big Damn Hero]

The point I was making was that bench nitric acid isn't that harmful. Of course I know that I only used it because it was a base that was spilled on me - anyone that's completed GCSE chemistry would know that. My point was that out of all the acids I could have used it was nitric, and it was certainly in excess.

I think there's a very thin line between what makes something a potion and what makes something just plain chemistry. Obviously chemistry would affect the outcome of potions to a certain extent. Also, did willow do an incantation over the potion, or did she just mix it up? If she did an incantation then there's a chance that words would change the constituents of it etc.

 

[Relic]

Agreed about that thin line. I think in this case it was crossed to make it alchemy. It had almost a voodoo like quality to it that required Amy's hair. Fictional alchemy is a lot like that, and in some of the stories I've read and games I've played, it need not have a verbal component to it, but sometimes does require a tie to the ingestor/lab rat....pun for Amy intended. In this case, hair.

If there was to be an adverse effect from the acid or the mercury, there is a chance that by mixing the hair in, the hair acted as an insulator of sorts and perhaps the same mixture spilt on someone other than Amy may have hurt them.

Perhaps the hair represents the test subject and acts like an acquired immunity....which is also used in chemistry/micro biology...ahhh, the double standard... and needed to be in the potion for that reason as well as any other? I still think it is alchemy in this case of the double standard because their is no chemistry tie in for hair and acid 🙂

I just don't see early Willow as someone who would be apart of a plan to spill something on someone even if it was thought to be harmless and/or might only cause them a rash. She's doesn't strike me as one for causing or risking needless hurt, at least not in season one. (I think Willow knew Amy would be safe, either way though.)

I've got jack squat to back up all these assumption, it's just my feelings on it.