Would she have gone through with it?

[Gum Gnome33]

For the first time ever, while watching Grad Day part 1, I started thinking about what would have happened if Faith were present during the (attempted) ascension. Without giving it much thought, I'd say that she would have gone through with her part as planned, at the mayor/snake's side. But having thought about it a bit, I'm not so sure. I'm actually starting to think that perhaps she, upon seeing the class of '99 rise to defend themselves, might have experienced a change in heart. Here is a glance at my reasoning:

-Look at how suddenly her descent happens, and how. Before that cold, chill-inducing moment during which she retorts, "I don't care!" upon having been reminded that she's killed a man, we had no reason to think that Faith was a bad person. She was a restless, jealous slayer who was a bit overeager to perform her duties. That's all. She accidentally kills, and doesn't want to go to jail for it. She's eighteen. Her instinct to flee is, I think, understandable. She seems to be genuinely horrified by what she's done.
Suddenly she's completely evil; killing steadily and on command, ready to help the mayor decimate the town. Huh? This comes out of nowhere, and I'm just not convinced that this is a permanent state.

-Turns out I was right; look at how (relatively) quickly her attempt at redemption comes along. She goes rogue and joins forces with the Mayor in the middle of season 3. By season 4/season 1 of Angel, she has already confessed and put herself in prison.

-By season 7, Faith is one of the good guys. Ready to die, fighting the good fight. In 4 years she's gone from itching to kill everyone, to experiencing a strong motivation to be redeemed to everyone, to herself. Something's missing, here.

-What Faith really wanted was a family. What Buffy had. Friends. People who loved her. She found that, twisted as it was, in the Mayor. So in theory she was willing to do whatever he asked of her, and she was certainly psychotic enough to do it for a while. But I believe that her desire to find love in the form of an evil man is the only real motivating factor for her actions--and as I said, her psychopathic state certainly made it possible. But the nature of the rebound makes me question its roots.

-When the Mayor buys her that pink dress and she says, "it's not really my style," she seems genuinely disappointed that it isn't. She wants it to be. I think the entire exchange is so symbolic; in that in that moment, she wishes that the Mayor was really her father, and that they were a normal family.

-Committing the heinous act of torturing Wesley is the final straw that gets her to truly confront herself. She begs Angel to kill her and, finally, enters prison voluntarily. What if, before that could happen, the act of combating friends on the Mayor's ascension day was enough to evoke that same response; to "snap her out" of what she'd become. It's true; she'd just willingly killed another man--the volcanologist--and remained unfazed. But is it unlikely to think that some point during the ascension she would have reached the same breaking point that she did after attacking Wesley?

-If so--assuming she did reach that point during the ascension--she'd have looked to her side and seen, in the place of her new friend, a giant snake demon who would be no more "there for her" or "like family" than an actual snake. And what would she have done? I'm guessing she'd have run away, shame and guilt finally kicking in.

-Another thought: one of the things that really prolonged Faith's evil spell was the fact that Buffy attacked her and put her in a coma. That facilitated her revenge rampage in season 4. Had that scenario never occurred, freeing her up for attendance at the Mayor's big day in the first place, it's even MORE likely that she would have reached that breaking point, sooner.

So, anyway. The more I think about it, the more I think that Faith would have stopped fighting for the Mayor on his big day. Do I think she would have immediately joined forces with Buffy, helping to defeat him, instead? No. Like I said, I think she would have run away.

What do you think??

 

[Ethan Reigns]

Buffy managed to marshall the entire school into a fighting unit. If Faith had been around, how long do you think it would have taken for word of the planned student uprising to get to her? She would have told the Mayor immediately and he would have been ready. After murdering a harmless professor, she was beyond the reach of anything normal. The mayor was the only thing in her life that remotely resembled a family. She would protect him to the end.

 

[Gum Gnome33]

Buffy managed to marshall the entire school into a fighting unit. If Faith had been around, how long do you think it would have taken for word of the planned student uprising to get to her?

Thanks for responding! Good point but it is possible that if Faith were around, Buffy would have handled the plan a bit differently.

Also worth considering is the fact that the Mayor didn't know about the uprising and one would think that with his connections both as a leader of Sunnydale and someone who for whatever unknown reason has very close ties with the principal, he'd have found out before Faith. In fact, his complete surprise is rather hard to believe, but that's a subject for another thread of course.

Anyway, the fact that the Mayor didn't find out ahead of time must have meant that there was some sort of explanation made that if the kids valued their lives, they couldn't discuss the plan with anyone without whom they shared at least one class, thereby ensuring that Faith couldn't pose as a student to get information.

After murdering a harmless professor, she was beyond the reach of anything normal. The mayor was the only thing in her life that remotely resembled a family. She would protect him to the end.

I do agree with you here, but I think that the fact that she made such a sudden turn for the better after torturing Wesley is an indication of just how possible it was for her to see the light. She'd never be normal, sure, but she certainly desired to reform not long after this act. So instead of Wesley being the final straw that got her to see her ways, maybe it'd have been the HS fight instead, when she realized that the Mayor was now a snake and wasn't really going to be there for her, anyway. I mean after all, what she wanted from him was a family; a father. She wasn't going to get that from whatever it was he'd become...

 

[BuffyElevated]

I don't think Faith would have immediately switched sides. Like [MENTION=12171]Ethan Reigns[/MENTION] said, she would have done anything to protect The Mayor and guard him, because he was the closest thing she had in her life to family. He was her father figure and he took care of her; I don't think she would have turned on him. It didn't take her until years later to see that The Mayor was evil, with an evil agenda.

 

[white avenger]

Remember that Mayor Wilkins was, in her own words in Season 7, "like a dad" to her, almost certainly the closest thing to a loving parent that Faith had ever known. That alone would have kept kept her loyalty, even after he turned into a giant snake, so, if she had still been horizontal and mobile by the time of the Ascension, she would have been there at his side, ready to die, if need be, in his defense.

And if that had happened, there would probably been a big final showdown between Faith and Buffy, the result being that Buffy wouldn't have been able to lure Wilkins into the school in time for the Big Bang. That being the case, even if Buffy had been able to beat Faith, doing so would have taken so long that she wouldn't have been able to stop Wilkins.

 

[Gum Gnome33]

I agree of course that the Mayor was a father figure for her; I'm just wondering if it would have been enough, in the end. Again, the fact that less than a year later she was ready to reform and put herself in prison after torturing Wesley makes me wonder if at some point in that fight she'd have had the same revelation she did in LA.

To put it another way: is the main reason for Faith's change the fact that the Mayor is no longer alive? If he were, would she not have reformed so quickly? Something seems off to me about that. I understand that his death was a catalyst which facilitated her introspection and re-evaluation. But the fact that she never regressed leads me to believe that the change came more from her than from any outside factors. Because of that, I do think that even if the Mayor were alive, she'd have gotten to that place of clarity.

 

[brinkster130]

I always suspected that she would have stuck by the Mayor's side up until the very last minute more out of pride than truly evil intentions. Eventually when she saw the situation unfolding (and her undoubted loss) I could see her deciding to cut her losses and bail on everyone.

 

[white avenger]

To put it another way: is the main reason for Faith's change the fact that the Mayor is no longer alive? If he were, would she not have reformed so quickly? Something seems off to me about that. I understand that his death was a catalyst which facilitated her introspection and re-evaluation. But the fact that she never regressed leads me to believe that the change came more from her than from any outside factors. Because of that, I do think that even if the Mayor were alive, she'd have gotten to that place of clarity.

The absence of the Mayor's direct influence in Season 4 certainly helped in Faith's reform, but I've always thought that the moment when Faith, in Buffy's body, abandoned her plans to leave town and went to help the people in the church was her real turning point. She had, during her time under the Mayor's influence, lost track of what she was, and what she was supposed to be, and that's when she began to realize that she had lost track of it.

I think that Faith would have come to that realization eventually, even if the Mayor had still be around to influence her, but his absence let her figure it out faster.

 

[BuffyElevated]

And if that had happened, there would probably been a big final showdown between Faith and Buffy, the result being that Buffy wouldn't have been able to lure Wilkins into the school in time for the Big Bang. That being the case, even if Buffy had been able to beat Faith, doing so would have taken so long that she wouldn't have been able to stop Wilkins.

I totally agree. I thought about how that would have played out as I was typing up my reply earlier and thought to myself that if Faith had been present at the school, Buffy's plan to blow up the school with The Mayor in it might have failed miserably. Faith would have been too much of a distraction.