Warren And Faith

[thetopher]

So, this was posted by @The Bronze on another thread:

Faith tried to frame Buffy for the manslaughter of the assistant Mayor. Faith tried to torture and murder Buffy. She assaulted Xander and was in the process of choking him. We can't be sure if she was going to rape, torture or murder him as she was interrupted but I wouldn't rule any or all of them out. Then we have the person she murdered for The Mayor. The countless people she beat senseless in her Season 4 / Season 1 arcs. Trying to kill Angel. Trying to destroy Sunnydale and her treatment of Riley. She was also in full possession of her soul and nothing is different between then and now. She was like that through choice.

My point being that Faith had people bending over backwards to help her and she eventually sorted herself out. If you switched around the intervention teams maybe Warren would have sorted himself out as well. If Willow had flayed Faith after her rampage then she would have went out in the same light that everyone sees Warren in. If Angel had interrupted one or two of Warrens evil acts maybe he could have had a redemption arc.

Is this a fair comparison?

Could Warren have been redeemed at some point along his chosen path (either on the show on in the comics) and become more like Faith?
If not then why not?

 

[Blaze]

I don't think so. It comes down to Warren displaying every symptoms of being a psychopath, or at least having some sort of mental disorder. Faith was just a teenager that took a wrong turn, a really, really wrong turn, but she's not a psychopath. And through out it all, Faith always cares, whether it's about Buffy, Angel or the Mayor, Warren doesn't give a shit about anyone. Warren needed to be locked up for good. Faith needed to be rehabilitated.

 

[Kenimowy]

I agree with Blaze.
Yeah Faith did some extremely bad things, but she had a conscience, however mute it was. She went wrong somewhere and decided all by herself that she was a lost cause and took the easy way out. Instead of trying to right her wrong she just went with it and became a bad guy. You can notice in certain episodes that though she goes along with the evil plans she is usually hesitate about it for a fraction of a second. Like when the Mayor said "let's kill your little friend" or something to that effect. It was enough to make her pause. Or when Wesley said he wanted her to know something as she was torturing him to death. Though he intended to say something nasty to really tick her off, she for a moment believed he might say something out of love and she was interested in it. Those tiny moments, however small they are reflect a person inside that still cares. She was at those times a weak minded and scared teenage girl.
Warren on the hand, no conscience whatsoever. Never feels remorse, relishes in the idea of hurting others, especially women. Never thinks twice about throwing the only two people that gave a crap about him under the bus. The only person he ever showed any thought for was himself. He killed his ex and was so unmoved by this that he able to formulate a plan to pin her murder on someone else without even showing the slightest form of panic. Even Faith showed some freaking outness when she killed someone. The only time she didn't was near the end of her rope on Angel when she went on a suicide mission because she had totally lost her marbles. The only time Warren ever showed panic was when he was fixing to get an extreme makeover courtesy of Dark Willow.
So I think it comes down to knowing when one is a lost cause from the get go, and knowing which one deserved a chance, though she may have gotten far too many.

 

[Lyri]

I agree with @Blaze Through everything that Faith did, she knew what she was doing was wrong, we saw that on the screen. She harboured major guilt and knew she had to pay for what she'd done. Warren never had that. Warren just didn't care. He wanted what he wanted and he was never going to give a damn about who he killed or hurt in the process. Faith never really did anything that was premeditated. She killed for the Mayor, yes, but she didn't plan it, not in the same sense as Warren. Warren planned and implemented the rape of Katrina, he knew exactly what he was doing go into that and he did it anyway.

I'm not saying that Faith was innocent of everything she did, she herself knows that she's guilty and she's still paying for what she did, but she also has a level of humanity that Warren just doesn't possess. She's capable of remorse and even redemption. Warren just doesn't have that.

 

[thetopher]

I agree that Faith always showed signs of remorse (however muted) and also hated herself for becoming what she chose to be (evidenced in 'Enemies', 'Choices', 'Who Are You' and 'Five By Five'). Which in my eyes always made it seem that she was redeemable- there was somebody in there that could be reached somehow.

I don't think Warren ever showed any remorse for killing, betraying, or doing and of the horrible things that he did.

But... to play devil's advocate for a second (because I think there's an interesting discussion to be had here) there are a couple of things that we should consider:

Scale: Faith ultimately did way more damage than Warren did (or could've if she hadn't been stopped)- she was the right hand of a plot to destroy an entire town, she murdered a few people and brutally beat others. Tried to kill Angel and others, tortured Wesley.
Warren never had that much power to begin with and is responsibly for the deaths of two people. Shouldn't that be a factor?

(I'm ignoring the comics to make this point, obviously teaming up with Twilight and Amy to kill loads of slayers is ultimately an apocalytic plot way worse than the Mayor's was)

Secondly, we know and identify with Warren's victims more than Faith's. We can see and care about Katrina and Tara independently of what Warren does to them so their deaths have more impact.
So what if instead of killing a couple of nameless innocents like Prof. Worth Faith had killed somebody we actually knew and cared about (say she'd killed...Larry or Percy in S3 for example) - would it matter that she felt bad about it before, during or even after? The guy's still dead.

I suppose this got me thinking about a wider point: take Anya and Andrew during S7 for example. Anya (with soul/conscience) summons a demon to brutally kill a house full of frat boys.
Andrew kills Jonathan at the behest/manipulation of the First.
Now one is clearly worse than the other and yet even before the wish gets reversed I'm more inclined to be sympathetic to Anya's plight/show of remorse because I actually know and liked Jonathan- his death seems more unfair, more personal and that (perhaps unfairly) reflects on how I view the person who commited the murder.

So is that what's going on here? Do people think Warren is worse than Faith because he killed Tara (by accident), a character who many people had grown to love/care about?

 

[Lyri]

Anya always gets a pass in the show. She's guilty of FAR more murders and evil acts than Warren, Faith and the Fanged Four COMBINED, yet she's never held responsible for any of it. As soon as she becomes human, it's like her past doesn't exist. She isn't like Angel, she's not a different person when she's a demon, she's the same person who did all of that. And yet everyone looks the other way. Alright, so her victims were nameless, faceless, probably not-stellar guys, same as Faith, but she's guilty of more crimes and yet this discussion never gets brought up around her. I find that interesting and I don't see the difference.

When Faith was torturing Wesley, there was a purpose to it - she wanted to make Angel angry enough to kill her. She wanted to be stopped and she thought that torturing Wesley was the only to make Angel think that she needed to be stopped. Yes, the torturing was bad, it was a heinous thing for Faith to do, but she didn't do it because she thought it would be a good time.

Warren did. He put that dampner spell on Katrina so that he could use her to have a good time. He wanted to get his rocks off and he didn't care whether Katrina wanted it or not. There was nothing about Warren's actions that indicate that he felt any sort of remorse or guilt for what he'd done. The fact that he had a robot decoy proves that. He wanted to literally get away with murder for no other reason than he thought he could.

 

[thetopher]

I would also point out that Faith always gets accused of 'framing Buffy for murder' but Warren, Andrew and Jonathan never do- even though their 'frame job' was far more elaborate and ultimately a lot more successful.

Faith's frame job was more 'I'll tell on her before she tells on me'- a stupid, juvenile lie to protect herself rather than the thought-out malicious manipulations of the Trio.

 

[white avenger]

Warren was a total sociopath, more unfeeling and evil than any vampire or demon that Buffy had ever encountered. There is no redemption from that, because there is no regret, no desire to make amends. Warren never even seemed to have any concern whatsoever for anyone beyond what they could do for him or give to him.

Faith, on the other hand, was always a good person, she just got misled for awhile through a chain of events that never should have happened. The assistant Mayor's death was a tragedy, but it was also the case of someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time. An accident, plain and simple. If it had been handled as such, there never would have been anything more needed to be said about it. Almost certainly, there had been many, many, humans who had lost their lives because of Slayer/vampire conflict. And almost just as certainly, the official policy of the Watchers was probably aware of and more or less accepting of that fact. It was Buffy's reaction that needed to be addressed, not Faith's. If Faith had had the proper support from Buffy and the others, especially Giles, all of that could have been avoided.

 

[The Bronze]

Lots of good posts in here. Thanks to @thetopher, always glad to kick off a meaty debate with my controversial musings. Of course you don't realise your viewpoint is in the minority until you throw it out there. I'll re-read the thread and pick up some points tomorrow hopefully when I'm less tired and more sober 🙂

 

[Fuffy Baith]

This is a good discussion because it brings up the question of whether or not every bad person or murderer can be saved. There are some similarities between Faith and Warren sure, but it's the differences that determine whether or not Warren should be given a second chance. He accidentally kills Katrina, but he never apologizes for it even though we were supposed to believe that he cared about her. Instead he immediately comes up with a plan to frame it on Buffy and relishes in the act that he got away with it. Faith actually does say she's sorry in 'Consequences'. She says to Buffy that she's "Sorry about the guy" and then to Giles after she puts the blame on Buffy. So we do know that Faith does feel bad and knows it was wrong. She simply is trying to cover up her feeling of guilt and remorse, where as Warren seems to have no guilt or remorse. You can't help people if they don't think what they did was wrong or even if they did they would still do it anyways. Warren seems like he knows killing is wrong, but he's willing to do it anyways. And Warren was killing for his own selfish pride. Not that it makes it any better but Faith killed because she believed in the Mayor and she could try to at least rationalize it a bit in her head. She might think 'I'm just doing a job for the Mayor, if not me then someone else, the professor guy is old anyways so who cares, it serves a purpose in a greater plan' these are all things that she could have been thinking to deal with the murders and make it easier and less personal. There is no trying to rationalize what Warren did, it was all personal and purely for his own selfish motives and vendettas. This is the difference of why Warren probably couldn't be saved. I'm not saying that he couldn't change, perhaps years spent in prison would change his mind, but we just don't see enough of Warren's emotions to say that he deserved to be redeemed in any way.

 

[thetopher]

Scobro: "And correct me if I am wrong but wasn't both of Warren's killings accidental? I thought Katrina was an accident but cant remember."

I think if you bash somebody in the back of the head to stop them going to the police about your rape attempt then you don't get the benefit of the doubt.

I think 2nd degree murder- Warren wanted to STOP Katrina, he was angry that she'd scatched him so he bashed her with something heavy.

Also the fact that Warren almost immediately thought about cover-up (unlike either Jonathan or Andrew who both completely freak striaght away) puts his state of mind in context.
No hesitation, no running and then going back to the scene of the crime later. Just calculated 'how do I- no we- get rid of this?' 🙁

 

[Buffy Summers]

With Faith, you saw how all she really wanted was family. With Warren, there was never anything else but being a "villain". So I just can't see redemption within his character.