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Week 6 - Consequences
"Oh, Well, It's Supposed To Hurt"

Opening

What is hateful to thyself, do not do to another. This is the law; the rest is commentary.

-Rabbi Hillel

We must live within the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and partial knowledge. All important decisions must be made on the basis of insufficient data. Yet we are responsible for everything we do. No excuses will be accepted. You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.

-Sheldon B. Kopp

Episode 3.14: Bad Girls

One of the basic rules of Wicca is the Threefold Law: "What you do comes back to you three-fold."

Everything that happens in the Buffyverse has consequences, and sometimes the three-fold law seems inadequate to describe how implacably those consequences fall into place. We ignore consequences at our own peril.

Continuity:

  • Before these episodes, there has been some rapprochement between Buffy and Faith, with Faith joining Buffy's family for Christmas dinner

What to watch for:

  • The contrast in character between Buffy and Faith
  • The seductiveness of Faith's approach to slaying
  • The new Watcher

Transcript is available at http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/season3/transcripts/48_tran.shtml

Episode 3.15: Consequences

If Buffy's obligations are to family, friends, and duty, Faith is a person whose only obligations are to herself. Faith herself expresses her philosophy as, "Want, take, have," but others have been more eloquent. Her morality is based on Nietzsche's view that the strong have the right to act without restraint. Faith trusts no one, listens to no one, pursues only her desires, and is ruthless towards anyone or anything who stands in her way.

There is no rational refutation to Nietzsche. The proof, or the repudiation, is to be found in living. As long as Faith's actions affected no one else, how she lived didn't really matter. But the stakes are higher now. Faith has killed a human, and as Angel says, "That changes everything."

What to watch for

  • Faith in conflict with herself
  • Buffy reaching out to Faith
  • Wesley, the new Watcher, shows cowardice again

Transcript is available at http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/season3/transcripts/49_tran.shtml

Questions

Faith doesn't want to talk about the murder. What happens to feelings of guilt that we don't express or examine?

What is the difference between a "slayer" and a "killer?" How does the use of violence, even when it is appropriate, condition us to use violence again in the future?

Faith is often described as being the dark side of Buffy. How does Faith compare to the person Buffy might have been without friends or family?

What problems do we see in the world today because of people trying to avoid the consequences of their actions?

How do we recognize cause-and-effect relationships in our own lives? In others' lives?

What's going on with Wesley when he releases Faith? Why do we sometimes lack the will to follow through on hard decisions?

Faith has been described as the embodiment of Nietzsche's ideal: "a powerful physicality, a flourishing, abundant, even overflowing health, together with that which serves to preserve it: war, adventure, hunting, dancing, war games, and in general all that involves vigorous, free, joyful activity." What is missing from both Faith and Nietzsche's ideal?

If we have done something bad once, is it easier or harder to do the same thing again? Why?

When our own pain blinds us to the pain of others, what kind of consequences may arise?

Follow-up Questions

What is it about violence that attracts Buffy? What about violence repels her?

Closing

From arrogance, pompousness, and from thinking ourselves more important than we are, may some saving sense of humor liberate us. For allowing ourselves to ridicule the faith of others, may we be forgiven.

From making war and calling it peace, special privilege and calling it justice, indifference and calling it tolerance, pollution and calling it progress, may we be cured.

For telling ourselves and others that evil is inevitable while good is impossible, may we stand corrected.

God of our mixed up, tragic, aspiring, doubting, and insurgent lives, help us to be as good as we have always wanted to be. Amen.

-Harry Meserve

Additional Reading

Forster, Greg, Faith and Plato: "You're Nothing! Disgusting, Murderous Bitch!" South, James B, ed., Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2003.

Kopp, Sheldon B., If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! Toronto: Bantam Books, 1972.

Marinucci, Mimi, Feminism and the Ethics of Violence. South, James B, ed., Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2003.

Miller, Jessica Prata, "The I in Team": Buffy and Feminist Ethics. South, James B, ed., Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2003.

Riess, Jana, What Would Buffy Do? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2004.

Schudt, Karl, Also Sprach Faith: The Problem of the Happy Rogue Vampire Slayer. South, James B, ed., Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2003.

Stevenson, Gregory, Televised Morality: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Dallas: Hamilton Books, 2003.

Stroud, Scott R., A Kantian Analysis of Moral Judgment in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. South, James B, ed., Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2003.