What did you like better: the earlier seasons of Buffy or the later seasons?
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Bop
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I mean, we can always agree to disagree, but... Anya DID do what Faith did. Like Faith, she chose to stop doing bad things, and she payed for her bad deeds, and she joined the good fight, and she even died fighting it. What more does she need to do to be redeemed in your eyes?
Also, "the buffyverse did set out rules for redemption (Angel and Faith)"? That statement makes no sense. The Buffyverse can't just invent rules of morality. The circumstances of the Buffyverse differ from our world, but the moral principles are the same. If you think that Angel and Faith's defintion of redemption is correct, then it needs to be based on the morality of our world, not on "because the writers say so".
I disagree about that. We DO agree sometimes! 😛
Like, we agree on Trump and stuff.
The world needs to know about that!!!!!!1111one
Obviously, a person's choice also matters. Morality is all about choice. If Ted Bundy stopped doing bad things because he realized that it's wrong and didn't want to hurt anyone anymore, then yeah - he'd be a good person. If he only stopped hurting people because he was no longer capable of doing it, then he'd still be a bad person. It's all about choice.
For example:
In season 3, after 'The Wish' and 'Doppelgangland', Anya stopped hurting people, but she only did it because she had no choice: "When I get my powers back, you will all grovel before me!" Therefore, Anya was still a bad person at that time. But in season 7, after 'Selfless', Anya refrained from hurting people OUT OF CHOICE, and therefore she was a good person.
I mean, why is Faith a good person (post-'Sanctuary')? Is she a good person because she payed for her crimes? If that's the case, then you could say that Ted Bundy would be a good person as long as he did something to help the world, even if he would continue to hurt people at the same time (as long as he helped more people than he hurt). Which is exactly what Faith thought during 'Consequences', while she was still hurting people - "We ARE better. People need us to survive".
As I see it, post-'Sanctuary' Faith is a good person because she made the choice to stop hurting people. It doesn't matter how many people she saved or how much time she spent in jail.
Think about Angel - if Angel was murdered by someone immediately after getting his soul back in 1900, before he decided to help people but after he decided NOT to hurt people (after all, Angel didn't start helping people until he met Buffy, a full century after he got his soul), would you say that he would have died an evil man?
This combines two issues:
The first is why Spike wears the coat at all after 'Get it Done', which as I said, was a simple tactical decision - he simply fights better with it (yes, it's dumb, but that's his reason).
The second issue is why did Spike act the way he did toward Robin in 7x17. And as I said, I see that as being equivalent to Angel's actions in 3x17, when he chokes Wesley. Is it a good deed? No. But it is a very understandable deed, and it doesn't make him reprehensible. He was just acting out of anger toward a person who wronged him greatly.
Okay...
herochat.com/index.php?topic=14160.0
She did not do what Faith did, Anya killed thousands of people, Anya joked about her crimes, Anya was never punished for her crimes, Anya went back to killing. Those are the differences and that's why she never had a redemption arc.
She DID do all of those thing in season 7. In 'Selfless', Anya was punished for her crimes (by D'Hoffryn), and she didn't go back to killing again after that.
And Anya did kill more people than Faith, but I don't think that math is a factor in these things.
BTW, Faith joked about some of her crimes too:
"Remember that time I flirted with you while I was raping Buffy's body? Wasn't that wacky?"
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Nope. Faith joked once, it was Anya's job to be comic relief and make jokes frequently about her past.
Also, dying is not suffering, so Anya was given no punishment for her crimes.
Anya liked who she was when she was a killer, she expressed longing to go back to her old ways when she first became human, she was UPSET that she lost her killing powers in season 3. I don't believe that Anya was burying her conscience because that implies that deep down she didn't want to kill the men. I disagree with that, Anya clearly loved doing what she was doing. That's why she makes jokes about it, because she's proud of her past.
Faith NEVER wanted to go back to the way she was in season 3 because that was not Faith having a good time. Anya enjoyed being a demon and always saw her murders as justice, she saw what she was doing as her job, kind of like Lilah. Anya repeated the exact same thing she did hundreds of years ago, a man wronged her (this time Xander) and she turned into a killer again. This is proof that she was going through no sort of redemption between season 3 to seasons 6/ the start of season 7. Her wanting to die for those students she killed doesn't mean she's redeemed, it means she has the potential to be redeemed.
You seem to be comparing post-'Sanctuary' Faith with pre-'Selfless' Anya, and that just misses the point I'm making here: I'm not saying that Anya was redeemed in season 3, or 4, or 5, or 6, I'm saying that she was redeemed in season 7. The fact that Anya joked about her murderous past in season 3 is completely irrelevant to this discussion, because I'm not claiming that Anya was redeemed in season 3. I'm claiming that she was redeemed in season 7.
Anya DID get punished in season 7, she did suffer - Halfreck, her best friend, was murdered before her eyes by D'Hoffryn specifically to hurt her. She was hunted by D'Hoffryn's minions.
And Faith DID enjoy some of her evil deeds in her murderous period. After she shot Angel with a poisoned arrow, Faith told the mayor that it was "a good time". When she was fighting Buffy to the death, Faith said that "I'm gonna miss this". After her redemption, Faith no longer missed her evil deeds, but neither did Anya after 'Selfless'. And like Faith, Anya also missed certain ELEMENTS from her evil past - she missed her powers, just like Faith missed the Mayor.
Bop
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Who cares if she misses Halfreck? Halfreck is a mass murderer, and quite frankly if she cares enough about Halfreck to miss her, she's clearly not hating all their lovely memories together (which is her killing sprees).
Faith deeply grieved for the mayor, but just like Anya seeing Halfreck die, that's not punishment. Anya and Faith deserved that grief because they got themselves into that mess. None of the things you mentioned are punishment enough for what Anya's done.
Also, obviously it seemed like Faith was enjoying what she's doing but the difference is that Faith never expressed wishes of going back to the way she was, unlike Anya which clearly means that she actually wasn't having a good time.
Anya missed her powers yes. And what did those powers do? They were used to kill people! Meaning she misses how she use to have the power to kill people.
Her act of wanting to die in selfless was just too little too late for me, her crimes were unimaginable and her lack of guilt in seasons 3-6, and ability to long and wish for her powers back was too cold for me. Maybe it wasn't that way for you, you obviously see something in Anya that I don't. That's fair enough, but respectfully I disagree 🙂
Who cares if she misses Halfreck? Halfreck is a mass murderer, and quite frankly if she cares enough about Halfreck to miss her, she's clearly not hating all their lovely memories together (which is her killing sprees).
Faith deeply grieved for the mayor, but just like Anya seeing Halfreck die, that's not punishment. Anya and Faith deserved that grief because they got themselves into that mess. None of the things you mentioned are punishment enough for what Anya's done.
Then what IS punishment enough? What exactly did you want her to go through? Jail? Don't forget, Angel never went to jail either, and Faith never completed her sentence.
Anya didn't express a wish to go back either, AFTER 'Selfless'.
They also allowed her to teleport wherever she wanted, and to be immortal, and to be almost completely invulnerable. I'd miss those things too, in Anya's shoes.
I see in Anya the same thing that I saw in Faith - a very flawed person, who made some terrible choices, and did terrible things, but eventually changed her ways and became a force for good in the world. It doesn't matter WHEN she changed her ways, it matters that she did.
That's perfectly fine, of course. Maybe it is best to agree to disagree here...
#JusticeForAnya
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Oh come on the main use for her powers was to kill people, the girl was given the power to teleport so that she could travel long distances to kill people. She was also given her immortality and invulnerability so that she could forever kill people. She missed that, I don't think even the biggest Anya fan could deny it.
I do appreciate what Anya did in selfless, and she definitely made progress but as I said it was way too little, way too late for me. I'm finding it hard to look past her behaviour in seasons 3- 6 which I don't think anyone can justify. I get that Anya was wronged by her husband but how petty is that for a reason to become a mass murderer? Then again in season 6, I really did feel for her when she was dumped at the altar but again that reason is too petty to become a mass murderer again! I don't know, I really just can't gather up much sympathy for Anya after all that. I don't see a redeemed person in Anya, because I never saw a redemption arc, selfless was her redemption moment and the beginning of her redemption arc. 'Selfless' was Anya's 'Five by Five' but that's only the begining of her redemption arc. Faith was not redeemed in 'Five by Five' and Anya was not redeemed in 'Selfless'. To me anyway.
Ethan Reigns
Scooby
Slayers didn't usually have a long life - but they may have killed hundreds of vampires by the time they were killed. This is not like the Nazis versus the Jews. The Nazis had all the power and the Jews had none. Slayers were dominant in any fight - that is how they survived as long as they did. If they were of equal capability, the slayer would have a 50% chance of surviving her first fight, a 25% chance of surviving two fights, a 12.5% chance of surviving three fights and so on. Obviously, her dominance in strength and training was sufficient to make her a feared opponent. In war, there are some intrepid soldiers who will seek out the most powerful enemy for the glory of bringing him (or in this case, her) down. Soldiers may train as special forces, Rangers, Seals or various other elite groups for just this purpose. Then they put their training to use to go after the most dangerous threat. There may not have been such a force in the vampire community but Spike was one of those who wanted the glory of being a supersoldier among vampires.
And soldiers do take their trophies and it is a reminder of their best effort and Spike went back to the coat he had taken from his enemy as a constant reminder that he was in a war and he was capable of doing things most other people could not do.
That said, wearing the coat in front of the son of his victim was certain to cause some bad feelings and possible reprisal and could be considered just plain bad taste, but it was effective - Spike was a badass again.
GraceK
Interesting perspective:)
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WillowFromBuffy
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I am going to get flogged for saying this, but I really loved the scene with Spike and Robin Wood. Wood didn't just want to kill Spike, he wanted to torture him. Spike tells him to get over himself. Like Spike says on the Angel-show, 'We were victims once, too.' I don't think it would have been any point in trying to hug it out.
Priceless
It's a great scene
Nazis didn`t keep the teeth of their jewish victims as a trophy or anything remotely similar. They pulled out only those teeth that had tooth filling because at that times teeth fillings were usually made out of gold. The gold was collected and sold.
May I most humbly and politely ask you to find another analogy ? I hate this one. Sorry !
flow
DeadlyDuo
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I liked that scene too. Badass Spike is better than Buffy-whipped Spike. I think the thing about that scene though is that they could've played it where both men had valid points in their favour so that neither was right nor wrong. However, because Robin came in so late in the game, the audience were already on Spike's side.
Priceless
Obviously not all the audience were on Spikes side - see thread :-)
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WillowFromBuffy
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I definitely feel sorry for Robin, but there isn't much Spike can do for him. You don't apologise to someone who spent the entire weekend building a torture-garage for you.
Spike put his coat on because that coat is his armour. It's his talisman, yes his trophy but also the thing he believes gives him his strength, makes his the killer he needs to be because they are at war. Buffy criticises him and says
What I want is the Spike that's dangerous. The Spike that tried to kill me when we met.
She's in a war with her strongest and most dangerous enemy, she needs her best fighter there with her. She has no sympathy for his wallowing, his guilt, his remorse. She needs him to be a killer again, and because he's a good soldier for the women he loves, he puts his coat back on and becomes what Buffy needs.
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WillowFromBuffy
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That is both a bad-ass and heart-wrenching moment, when Buffy says she liked Spike better in School Hard.
DeadlyDuo
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Yes, but if she had waited much longer, Spike would probably have started to write awful poetry again. Not just what you need in the middle of an apocalypse ;-)
flow
Priceless
lol
GraceK
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Are you serious? I didn't say that the Nazis kept the teeth as trophies...I said he's closer to A Nazi who kept the teeth as trophies...it's an Analogy for a reason.
Also, I'm sorry, but is ripping out the teeth with
Gold caps , just to keep the gold any better? I honestly don't know what your point is. I mean, why are you splitting hairs over what exactly Nazis did with the teeth of their victims???
Bop
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WillowFromBuffy
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I like him best when he is in a wheel chair, being beaten up, on fire or pining for love 😛