What can be learned from Buffy?

The way Anya's happiest moment was inserted in between her being stabbed through the heart and showing her pinned, apparently dead, to the wall (from a page or two back) makes that flashback seem like a dream sequence or fantasy sequence, even though it's actually a real event (in the story world). Also, the fact that it took place when the demon had ensorcelled Sunnydale into a musical makes it feel more surreal. Musicals are very dreamlike in that regard—the music, singing and dancing makes things very dreamlike and poetic.

The beginning of this clip is a very well-done unannounced dream scene:

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Everything seems totally normal at first. I don't remember the context, if it makes sense that Buffy and Faith would be making a bed together and talking nicely like that. I suspect not, because it's shown that it's actually Faith's dream as she lay in a hospital bed hooked up to monitoring equipment. Clearly she and Buffy fought. But here's a subtle thing Joss and company did that helps blur the line between dream and waking reality—it could actually be a flashback. Those are also frequently unannounced in Buffy.

When we first see the blood dripping on the white sheet we have no idea where it's coming from, and it isn't revealed right away, instead we get some dialogue that begins to give us context for what truth is being revelaed. Faith says, quite calmly "Are you ever gonna take this out?", and it still takes a moment before we see the knife Buffy has jammed in her gut. And that in itself is a figure of speech—to stab somebody in the gut means essentially to betray them. Well, not precisely—back-stabbing would be more on the nose, but the fact that it isn't the standard cliche makes it more surreal and dreamlike. And in fact, this is very similar to the Anya scene in that it happens during Faith's darkest hour, while she's barely hanging on to life, and the dream scenario is sweet and beautiful, no hint of the pain or betrayal she actually feels at the time.

This is another thing about dreams—I'd say Joss, or one of the writers, has paid attention to his dreams, because he seems to know things like this about them. Often a dream will start by seeming sweet and pleasant, and then suddenly an element or a theme of something harshly negative will be introduced, and that might take a moment or two to build up before the real horror is revealed. I had a dream shortly after my mom died that I was talking to her, in her house where I grew up, and everything seemed perfectly normal. But as we were talking, I began to remember that she was dead. Actually it started more as just a vague dread, I knew something was wrong and that this couldn't actually be happening. And gradually one of her eyes got weird and began to look dead, then it fell out of her face and that eye socket looked very dead/zombie-like. That woke me up in shock and horror. Joss seems to really understand these things, as people who pay deep attention to life do (including to dreams). People who aren't personally familiar with dreams from having studied their own for some time tend to write much more cliched dream sequences, unless they've learned the craft of it from good movies and shows.

I went back and watched more of that last clip. Actually at least the first 5 minutes of it is all from the same episode, and there are several more dream sequences Faith has while in the hospital bed. It's a little hard to follow because sections have been edited out, but what really happened before this episode is Faith and Buffy switched bodies. When we see Faith, that's actually Buffy in her body. Then, when we shift out of dream sequence into waking reality, things are still very surreal and dreamlike (as they often are in the Buffyverse) because we don't know yet that the switch has happened. It was a strange, mysterious thing that occurred at the end of the last episode and hasn't been explained yet. So we see Faith escape from the hospital and go wandering around seeming lost and forlorn for a while, and it's still some time before we realize they've switched bodies. This is a way of majorly playing around with the dream state and dreamlike reality, so it becomes hard to tell which we're in at a given moment. This is dream-nature spreading out into waking life, for the character (Buffy probably takes some time to realize she's in Faith's body now, struggles to accept and understand it, and probably thinks she must be dreaming), and for us the viewers.

Many tricks of cinematography, music, sound design, acting, and who knows what else are employed to help these scenes feel strange and dreamlike, but usually with great subtlety. And in some episodes the surrealism is sustained for the most of the runtime.

This guy's videos are amazing:

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And he goes into a great deal of depth concerning what I talked about in my last post. God, what a great show. I'm feeling the need to binge-watch a bunch of episodes and then his breakdowns of them.

Playing with character traits

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I've had this vague idea in my head for a while now, concerning the way Joss and company build vampires and various kinds of demon characters, but this video just made it totally explicit.

They highly exaggerate certain traits and maybe tamp down a few others. This way for instance all vampires or all types of demons aren't the same, and it allows them to explore things and make certain ideas highly explicit.

I know, this needs examples and to be explained better. It's a slippery concept (or at least a little hard to explain).

Most of the clips included in this video show Anya being "Strangely literal" (her own words). I said earlier that she seems to exhibit traits of being on the Autism spectrum, taking things literally being one of those (I think). But they seem to be running mostly with just this one trait, and it allows her to say things that bring otherwise subtle aspects of the show right to the surface. Just like the Buffyspeak, which sometimes allows people to explicity state the subtext or reveal emotions that are under the surface.

This is also closely related to what they were doing when they (Joss) created Faith—a character designed to be a foil for Buffy in very specific ways.

In fact maybe that's something Joss is doing very deliberately, designing characters or affectations to help bring some of the otherwise hidden ideas to the surface more obviously.

All this is making me start to see character traits as a sort of game that can be manipulated for specific results. I mean, that's exactly what they are, but I'm seeing it in a very specific way now that I wasn't before, as if now I can almost see the code flowing on the screen Matrix-style.

See, this is the benefit of studying something like this for a good long time. At first you're seeing surface-level things, but after a while you start to have insight into the deeper stuff. You want to keep going long enough to hit this level, and who knows how deep you might be able to go, given a show with obvious depth to it like Buffy.

The Long Slow Reveal, or The Belated Reveal

I just noticed it in It (Steven King movie, detailed in previous entry), but it definitely applies just as much to Buffy. Scroll back up and watch that Faith Lehane Scenepack S4, at the top of the comments for this page. Look how long it took before we get the reveal on why there's blood dripping on the freshly-made bed. Hell, actually we're still waiting to discover why Buffy and Faith, who were at each other's throats last we knew, would be making a bed together in a quiet tranquil scene of domestic bliss. The shot of the knife in Faith's gut with Buffy holding it is a partial reveal, then she violently jams it in harder, but really we still don't know what's going on. Yes, it's a dream sequence, but so far those have all been Buffy's (I believe). That doesn't quite make sense here, unless Buffy is feeling guilt, but it really doesn't work. If it were her guilt dream, she wouldn't be like a relentless killer. Then we see Faith in a closeup with her eyes closed lying down—pull back, to reveal she's in a hospital bed hooked up to machinery monitoring her vital signs. Ah, ok, it's HER dream! Well, that makes sense. But then what's this? We're back in another scene that seems fairly normal at first, except that Faith is in it, and it's a nice sunny summer day and she's lying on a picnic blanket with the Mayor (who we know is dead) and he's playing with a tiny little snake. Is this some twisted Adam and Eve reference? No, wait—before he died he turned himself into a giant snake! Oh, that's right! (Plus I think it's also a twisted Adam and Eve reference. That totally fits Faith's little Buffy-devastated-bliss-dreams thing).

And Buffy appears as some kind of female Terminator, advancing relentlessly, and kills the mayor, and is coming for Faith, who is now crawling away in terror. And slow motion. Whaaat? We've never seen Faith afraid before. But lo, what's this? It's another dream! Well, of course it is. And then we enter yet another one. Pattern detected.

This is a variation on the slow or belated reveal, with all kinds of twists to it (typical for Joss and company). Sort of the repeated False Awakening, only we never actually see Faith wake up, each one just begins with her in a new idyllic situation until the Buffinator shows up, advancing unstoppably, and holding Fath's knife (which I believe is the one she stabbed her in the gut with at the end of, what was it? Season 3?). In fact it's the knife the Mayor, her mentor/father figure, gave her. The one clearly visible in Buffy's hand at the top of this page.

And now I just realized the end of Season 3 was Faith's Might-Have-Been, setting up for her tragic fall. The mayor was kind to her when no one else was, gave her a job and a sweet double-bladed knife, all kinds of great advice (if you're growing up to be a stone cold killer). It was like she was headed for redemption of a sort, but without turning good first. Or at least she was headed for a sweet life like she didn't think she would ever have.

Yeah, it's plain to see now, this is nearly as devastating as when Anya got the sword through her heart. Huh, and both delivered by Buffy. Damn, I had never noticed all this before. This sometimes happens when you start really paying attention, and writing about what you notice. I never would have caught most of this if I didn't decide to write about the slow reveal.

Here's a slow/belated reveal in It.
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This kid (a loser at the school like all the kids are—incidentally another link to Stranger Things) got his cast signed by a girl at the drug store, who made fun of him because nobody had already signed it (implying he has no friends). She made intense eye contact while signing it, and that caught him off guard. But we weren't shown right away what she wrote there. It wasn't until a scene or two later we see this, and we can infer what happened. Would'a worked better if he used a little whiteout and went over all the other letters with the same red marker, but then it wouldn't have shown up so clearly for us, as a belated reveal.

Whoah, you know what this is?

This is showing done in a movie. The equivalent of it anyway—making the audience work a bit to understand what happened. Not real hard, just a bit. Then they appreciate it more. The instant reveal is telling. Weird to think there can be telling in a movie, but there it is.

You can just watch random Buffy scenes and run across all kinds of subtext and meaning skilfully encoded. Case in point:

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This scene is a variation on the core idea of the first episode (core idea of the entire show really), where Joss took the idea of the hapless blonde girl who walks into an alley and encounters a monster and re-imagined it so she kicks his ass.

Even that first episode began with a variation on the concept:

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Our expectations are being flipped. They set up a cliche and inverted it, which is what the whole show is going to be.

Hah! Just writing that made me realize an unexpected metaphor. Let me see if I can find the first scene where Buffy encounters Angel...

Here we go:

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Get it? She's inverted. She's 'flipped on her head,' just like our expectations. Lol, these guys really think their way through what they're doing.

That first scene I posted in the previous entry is just a series of inversions. It starts with the 'hapless blonde girl running through the graveyard at night persued by someone unseen' cliche, and then we get put through a dizzying series of setups and inversions. Oh, it's Spike—wait, he's a good guy now, did he fall back into being bad? But it's ok, here's Buffy—no, it's Faith. They go back and forth trading punches, kicks and quips, and then Buffy does appear. But we still don't know who that blonde girl is (this is a variation on the slow reveal). Oh shit, she's a vampire! Well, of course she is.

I'm guessing this is what a lot of the show consists of—multiple inversions of tropes and extended reveals. But it needs to be skilfully done so it carries meaning, so the meaning is revealed in the right order with the right timing, and it should be funny or scary or something (maybe both? Why not?), and it can also add to what we know about the situation and maybe one or more of the characters. Often this show hits all of these in what seem to be ordinary scenes. This is why it's such a delight.

Really this is standard beat progression, which is always done through a series of reversals. But not just any reversals, there has to be a progression to it, of idea, or of meaning or understanding.

Who's that girl running through the graveyard?
Don't know.
Who's chasing her?
Oh, it's Spike.
Why is he chasing her?
Don't know yet.
Has he gone bad. again?
Seems like it.
Here's Buffy—
No, it's Faith!
She's good now, she'll save the poor defenseless girl!​

Here the beats shift from action/visual revelation to traded verbal quips punctuated by more physical action. It's still a constant back-and-forth, but with a progression of information or knowledge. But it's still the same progression of understanding gradually developing, through the physical action and the spoken words. And in the end, the biggest reveal is that the first girl wasn't the poor threatened innocent she seemed, she's a vampire, and (getting to be a rarity these days) not a good one. And it's also served to remind us who's who, who's turned good, who's on who's side etc. We need reminders every now and then in such a complex show, plus you might have missed an episode or two or just be starting to watch it.

By now of course we're very familiar with the inverted premise of the show—what seemed to be a poor innocent blonde girl is actually the hero, and some monsters turn good. But it's still fun, we know they're going to constantly play with our expectations. And the skill they do that with is what makes it still so much fun.

The ideas have gotten increasingly complex. Oh, Buffy isn't just a victim, she's the hero, and the tall dark brooding guy isn't just a vampire, he's a good vampire with a soul, and her love interest. And wow, a vampire slayer in love with a vampire... well, that's good for some drama and comedy both, as well as a lot of smash-bang martials arts and some good staking action (metaphor intended). But then later we get more complex inversions. Spike is sort of like Angel, but different and more complex, and he actually gets a real redemption arc. Faith is sort of the same, but a slayer rather than a vampire, which makes her a dark reflection (shadow figure) for Buffy. And along the way we've had other similar inverted and increasingly-complex things, like Anya's arc toward redemption that was tragically cut short. They always keep us off balance, we can never really predict where it's going. And just when we think we can, Bam! They hit us with another inversion and an added level of complexity.

This is a way to keep storytelling fresh and fun.

Eudaemonia in Buffy?

I got a book called Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale. In the first essay—Faith and Plato: "You're nothing! Disgusting, murderous bitch!" Gregg Forster makes a very strong case that the moral universe in Sunnydale is ruled by Eudaemonia. Wait, let's back up a bit. In the beginning of course, vampire stories and movies were based on the Good/Evil moral dichotomy of Christianity, and a more recent wave of them got its morality (or lack thereof) from Nietzsche. Then he goes on to say Joss Whedon didn't use either of these very familiar moral systems for the Buffyverse, but rather the ancient Greek concept of Eudaemonia.

Well, that's something I'm quite familiar with. It's what Stoicism is built on. But I was surprised to see it mentioned here—I never had a clue there was any Stocism in Buffy. Actually though, the way he tells it, the eudaemonia in Buffy is based entirely on Plato's ideas about it. And apparently several of the big key sequences in Buffy are extremly similar to some of the theoretical situations Plato discussed in his written works. I have those written works in PDF form on a hard drive, and I've read a little here and there, but I can't say I'm highly familiar with it (or even slightly really), so I'll have to take his word for it. But he did convince me.

Eudaemonia is often translated as happiness, but it isn't like what we usually think of. Ecstasy and joy are intense emotional states that arise as reactions to events. We feel elated briefly, and then it passes and we're back to normal. But eudaemonia really translates better as contentment. And it isn't caused by external events, but by our own choices and actions. The basic idea is that if you do bad things to people or make poor life choices, you'll feel bad as a result, and quite likely suffer consequences for it. On the other hand, if you live a life of relatively decent moral decisions and actions, your inner emotional state will be in a much better equilibrium—you'll feel good and quite likely reap rewards for it. You won't be haunted by a troubled conscience for one. You'll be able to sleep without nightmares, at least ones refering to your own decisions and actions.

Faith's character arc

By far the best character arcs in the series belong to characters who weren't originally part of the show, but were added in later. Both Anya and Spike, who had incredible arcs—one of redemption and one of tragedy—weren't intended to stick around, they originally had a brief arc of an episode or two and were supposed to die, but because Buffy had an internet message board and the writers paid attention to it, they realized both characters were massive fan favorites and decided to keep them around long term. I think part of the reason they were able to have such powerful arcs is because the main cast and the show's premise were already established. The main cast—the characters the show has been about from the beginning—have to continue their own long-term arcs, and those can't be too tragic or powerful or it disrupts the whole dynamics of the show. But when you bring in a character who's exciting and has great possibilities and isn't part of the group of happy friends—look out! You can go anywhere with it. And it won't deprive your MC of their best friend or an important support character.

Faith was brought in specifically to be a dark doppelganger for Buffy, one with a lot more substance than Cordelia—who represented the shallow, mean popular-girl cheerleader that Buffy was at the beginning of the movie. Cordy was Buffy's shadow-self early in the series, but she wasn't a slayer. She represented what Buffy's life would have remained if she had never taken on the mantle of being the slayer and of growing up. But Faith is a slayer with no moral compass. She represents what Buffy could be even now, if she decided to give up morality and responsibility and use her slaying skills to pursue short-term pleasure and power. And wow, did Faith get an amazing character arc!!

There's a certain similarity here with Spike, and also with Xena, who originated on the Hercules show that was airing at about the same time. Spike was sort of the dark doppelganger for Angel—what Angel could have been if he didn't have to be the bad boy with a heart of gold. And Xena was a dark doppelganger for Hercules—at least for the goody-two-shoes 'There's no need for violence' Hercules at the center of that show. I think both shows started off really wanting a likeable main character and main cast, to make them relatable to mainstream TV audiences, and as a result there were no really powerful characters capable of a tragic arc or a serious redemption arc, at least not in the beginning. But I suspect the shows' creators came to realize they were working with some pretty whitebread characters and situations, and wanted to stretch out into more powerful dramatic territory. And when they introduced the shadow characters, the dark reflections of their do-gooder primaries, they had something they could really kick around and not have to worry about keeping them moral and likable. So they were able to explore some really dark territory.

"Faith was the first human monster on the show"

This was said by Joss in one of the behind-the-scenes segments. The reason they went with the familiar device of vampires 'dusting' when they're killed is so there was no confusion—these are not human beings getting staked through the heart—they're simple monsters with no depth to them. You don't feel any compassion for them when they die. And of course, as was already mentioned a couple pages back, they represent immaturity in a show based on growth toward maturity. That's something that needs to be slain mercilessly.

I'd say Faith also represents immaturity, in the specific form of immorality. It can be defined as a failure to grow up in terms of recognizing that other people suffer just like you do. Or in other words a failure to develop empathy.

Faith's immorality is defined in several of her characteristic sayings, such as. "Want, Take, Have." Did I already post a video segment showing that one? Where she convinces Buffy to help her loot a hardware store to get some weapons? Here it is, kind of a crappy little video but it's exactly the part I'm looking for:

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Buffy is getting seduced away from her morality—an important part of growing up in the adolescent years. And she's digging it, starting to lean that way. Note she's wearing a black leather jacket, like Faith does. The excitement of the use of power unrestrained by morality gets ahold of her for a while. That entire micro-arc or partial arc is condensed into this one brief scene. Joss and company have a brilliant way of doing that—these little emblematic scenes that encapsulate some important metaphor or idea they're trying to express. And how perfect that the police show up. I wish the clip included the next litte bit, where Faith really didn't care about getting arrested, and used it as a pretext to flirt with the cops just for fun and to undermine their authority, while for Buffy the realization of what she's just done and the ramifications of it settle in palpably. I don't remember, but this might be the moment where Buffy realized she can't live consequence-free like Faith does because she has a conscience.

To be more precise/specific—Faith's failings (that in the beginning she sees as strengths) are the use of physical power and sexuality, unrestrained by any moral limits. I just wanted to correct my earlier statement, that I felt was too narrow, that it was just broadly a lack of empathy. That's definitely a part of it, but Joss and his writing team seem to have these character traits (for each vampire/monster/demon character) nailed down pretty specifically as to how they relate to the show and to Buffy's growth toward maturity arc.

Faith's Master Morality

Those last two posts were me laying the groundwork to set up for Faith's character arc.

This comes from the book Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale—Chapter 2: The Problem of the Happy Rogue Slayer. The author of this section, Karl Schudt, begins by giving some relevant info on Nietzsche's ethics, because Faith (the titular Happy Rogue Slayer) embodies his ideal of Master Morality. Both of the sections I've discussed so far (well, I'm about to discuss the second one) can be read in the Sample for the book on Amazon. Nietzsche broke morality down into two basic kinds—what he called Master and Slave Morality. Master Morality is the kind observed by the ancient Greeks, personified by heroes like Odysseus. The noble class had power and were expected to use it. They saw themselves as powerful, noble, and courageous, and the lower class as weak and pathetic—beneath their notice. I was dumbstruck in reading The Odyssey to discover that, needing some food and supplies for his unexpected lengthy journey all around the Mediterranean Sea, Odysseus stopped off to sack a few villages and take everything they needed, leaving the villages in smoking ruin. That hardly counts as moral in today's world. And at story's end, he solves the problem of many suitors to his wife living in his house and eating his food by locking them all in and slaughtering them. He was a feared warlord, and it was very much a Might Makes Right worldview.

This is exactly the view Faith has of herself, and that she tries to convince Buffy to accept as well. She frequently says slayers are the powerful ones, who defend ordinary weaklings from vampires and demons, so by rights they should be able to ignore laws and common morality (Slave Morality according to Nietzsche) and take or do whatever they want. And for a little while Buffy was at least partially taken in by the excitement of it. Most of us probably went through a phase in adolescence where we would get a thrill out of breaking the rules, getting high or drunk and going out raising hell. And maybe we had run-ins with the police over it.

If you want to see some video detailing parts of this arc, scroll up a ways and watch the video titled Who Are You—TPN's Buffy Guide, and go back a page and look at the one called Faith character profile. It's ok, I'll wait. Consider it a primer for this section of the blog entry.

I think her arc is the most powerful part of the show. More so than Anya's tragic arc, because Anya didn't represent anybody in the cast, she was just Anya. As a Vengeance Demon, she represented immaturity too, in the specific form of obsessions with sex and money (shallowness) and a palpable social awkwardness and non-understanding of social/emotional cues, as well as taking everything very literally. She did begin her life as a human woman, way back in ancient Scandinavia, but was turned into a vengeance demon when she got really pissed off at a lover who spurned and burned her. Her arc was a masterclass in the Trubian method of Aristotelian Tragedy, but it wasn't a reflection of any of the main characters. Because Faith is a dark reflection of Buffy, and started off as a friend to her and the whole Scooby gang, her arc takes on extra poignancy and power. And though she isn't a demon or vampire, she still does represent immaturity as I explained previously. In fact, it could be said she became something like a demon, or in Joss' words, their first human monster.

Ok, with that I'll start to gather myself to launch into the rest of this thing. I'll probably need to read over the chapter again and take notes, so it could be a few days (probably not, I have a way of writing even if I have little to actually say... ).

Oh, I need to write a little about Nietzsche here actually, to help set this up. It was really cool to read this chapter of the book, because it explained his ideas on morality and power really clearly, all done in relation to Faith and the show. The thing about Nietzsche and his philodophy is that he was obsessed with power. His big theory was the Will to Power, which he believed was the primary drive in everyone, in much the same way Freud belived it was sex. And there's definitely something to both ideas. I mean, they're not entirely wrong, but like those early Pre-Socratic philosophers who all tried to decide which of the four classical elements the world is made of (fire, earth, air or water), they all fall short. Strong arguments can be made for each position, especially if the philosopher is good at persuasive rhetoric (and that was their big thing). But I don't actually think there's any one primary drive underlying everything we all do. Oh, for some people there is, but I think different people have different drives, and many people have multiple drives I think. Plus I kinda side with Jung, who called all philosophers demented lunatics swamped in their own words and mistaking them for reality. I think he said they were all too consciously-oriented, and had no understanding of the unconscious and its vastly important role. Without that, you get a very shallow and empty version of reality and life. Of course a similar argument can be made about all the psychologists, except that many of them are quite aware of the unconscious. Each has their own pet theories and concentrates on them to the detriment of many other things. But then, no one person can figure out everything (many philosophers thought they could, and some that they had). All we can expect from any of them is a good partial accounting that jibes with reality as it presents itself to us. Wait, what was I talking about—?

Oh yeah, Nietzsche. His later philosophy was built around this master/slave morality, and especially his predicted Ubermensch (Overmen or Supermen) who he hoped would rise up in society after his passing, educated through his writings and ready to surpass humanity as it had always been. He believed they would be capable of jettisoning morality as it currently exists (slave morality), and re-value all values, meaning they could define their own values. I (and Jung) don't believe that's possible, and any attempt to live that way would drive a person crazy eventually, as repressed guilt builds up in them. Because deep in the unconscious, you can't decide on your own morality. It decides on you instead. It's there, programmed in through your cultural upbringing plus whatever hardwired values we all share plus your more powerful experiences/traumas/coping mechanisms etc. Actually this connects with the section I wrote recenty about Eudaemonia (ancient Greek term for contentment) being created through positive acts and choices, and destroyed by negative ones that cause guilt deep inside. No matter how much you tell yourself (c0nsciously) that you feel no guilt, it could be simply repressed or suppressed into your unconscious, growing and looming to burst forth one day and destroy your life.

The author does a much better job explaining all this stuff. If it interests you, click on through and read the Sample for the book. Scroll backwards up to the table of contents and then click on Chapter Two. Or read the whole sample if you want.

I still intend to write this, because that's how you really learn something, Study it, then write it up in your own words. It forces you to understand it and you'll be much more capable of remembering it then. And this is stuff I want to remember. Mine will be a brief encapsulation (hopefully), getting at the gist of things.