Warning:
this page contains info about episodes up through season 7 BtVS/season
5 AtS. If you're in danger of being spoiled, proceed with caution.
Principal
Snyder |
|
A lot of educators
tell students, 'Think of your principal as your pal.' I say,
'Think of me as your judge, jury, and executioner.' |
Principal Snyder is an insecure man who
has been given the responsibility of running a school that sits
on a hellmouth without all the information
he needs to do it. He knows about the hellmouth to some extent
(School Hard, IOHEFY, Band Candy), and probably does not feel
totally up to the job, but he won't admit
it.
Although Snyder isn't nice to any of his students (except jocks,
it seems), he has a special interest in harassing Buffy:
- spies on Buffy and confronts her at Morgan's
locker (TPS).
- resents Buffy's intrusions into "his
domain", e.g., investigating Mitch and Harmony's accidents
in Invisible Girl.
- predicts Buffy will be expelled or in
jail (WSWB).
- gets Buffy in trouble with her mom even
after all her hard work in School Hard.
- puts Buffy to work baby-sitting, but tells
her not to talk to them (Halloween).
- keeps an eye out for Buffy at the Career
Fair.
- busts Buffy instead of her steroid-crazed
date(Go Fish).
- expels Buffy from school, perhaps at the
Mayor's request. "In case you haven't noticed, the police
of Sunnydale are deeply stupid," he tells her, and yet he
can't figure out that Buffy could help him keep the school under
control.
- the hard, bigoted rodent
man gets "a nearly physical sensation
of pleasure" at keeping Buffy out of school.
- gets humiliated by Buffy and Joyce when
Buffy's let back in school.
The corrupt Snyder: Snyder uses bravado as a shield. I'd feel sorry
for him, if he didn't get off on throwing what little weight he
has around so much.
- tries to get Willow to change Gage's grade
(Go Fish).
- aids and abets MOO
- coerces Willow into doing a jock's homework.
The repressive Snyder: Principal Snyder is good at sticking his head
in the sand.
"Why
couldn't you be dealing drugs, like normal people?" -- to
Buffy and the Gang in Choices |
- while Snyder, Joyce, and some SHS teachers
are trapped in the science room during a vampire siege, he declares,
"This is my school.
What I say goes, and I say this is not happening." Even the normally repressive
Joyce doesn't buy that.
- helps Buffy in Band
Candy, and still thinks she's a delinquent the next day.
- stumbles in on the Willow-Box of Gavrok
exchange looking for drug dealers. When he sees the Mayor instantly
heal after the demon spider attack, he is shocked.
- The demise of
Principal Snyder
But was he evil? Joss on Principal Snyder
"Okay.
You do remember that you're a vampire, right?" |
Spike |
I think that
our interest in him based... on the very ambiguity of his character.
We don't know what category to put him in. Yes, he's a killer. But is he completely evil? He's
no Angelus. He's capable of love. He has
a sense of honor (warped as it occasionally is). In other words,
he's more "human" than most vamps (Mircalla, Mar 23
21:03 1999). |
Spike is a bigger example of moral ambiguity
than Angel because there's no human soul lurking in his vamp body;
that's gone. He's all demon.
Yet, his devotion to Drusilla is obvious, and he's not particularly
interested in destroying the world. We feel for him, we cheer
on one of Buffy's enemies! Spike makes us wonder if all demons
are truly evil in and of themselves or only evil because they
are anti-human. With Spike, we begin to see that at least some evil is in the eye of the beholder.
Examples of Spike's ambiguity:
Spike's ability
to love | Spike and the
Slayer | Spike's finest moments | Other
examples of Spike's ambiguity | SouledSpike
|
Spike's ability
to love:
When William the Bloody was made into a
vampire, he didn't lose his ability to love. He came to love
his sire, Drusilla, and he continued to love his mortal mum.
Highlights of the doting Spike:
|
|
Spike
and the Slayer |
|
In the beginning...
- The notorious "William the Bloody"
had an obsession with Slayers. He'd already killed
two of them.
- When Spike first came to town, he thought
he could dispatch the slayer rather
quickly. When that didn't happen, their relationship got... interesting.
- ...the original Buffy-Spike
flirtations in B2: "Hello cutie!" and
all that followed (jengod, 1:37 pm Oct 25, 2000).
- Spike was down right "Buffy-whipped"
in Lover's Walk. He got nasty again
after that,
- but when he was "neutered"
by The Initiative, he was her starving lap-dog again (or
at least he pretended to be).
Kiss or kill? Spike's secret thing for
the slayer:
"Wasn't lurking. I
was standing about. It's a whole different vibe." --William the Bloody, 2001
- At the beginning of ...Something
Blue, when Buffy was feeding Spike in the bathtub, there was
a vibe. It was vibey (Bob K, 1:19 pm Oct 25, 2000).
- Spike shows almost genuine concern when
Buffy is trapped in Lowell House. After calling her "sweet
slayer" in Superstar, one might wonder what thoughts Faith
put in his mind about Buffy in Who Are You. Faith ...came onto him with some very strong, seductive,
bad-girl language, and Spike was not unaffected.... And, as I
recall, no one ever bothered to tell Spike that the woman who
flirted with him WAS NOT BUFFY (Dunlin, Oct 25 16:49 2000)
- Spike realizes his feelings in Out
of My Mind and becomes shy stalker-boy in NPLH....he might have walked away from
Buffy sooner outside her house if she hadn't been so mean to
him.... Do you think she has any idea the effect she has on him,
every time she gives him a smack? (J. Hergert, 7:41 am Oct 25,
2000)
- There's a part of Spike that wants the
Slayer dead. But every time he heads off to kill her, something
else stops him. Can Spike feel real love
and compassion?
- Riley had his own problems in his relationship
with Buffy, but Spike's jabs at Riley's
ego hastened the ex-Initiative soldier's exit.
- Spike: bumbling
suitor, or self-involved stalker?
- Spike professes
his love for Buffy in front of Drusilla--while both are bound
in his crypt.
...I enjoy the fact that
my character [Spike] is in love again because when we met him
he was in love. That was the primary interesting thing about
Spike, for me, that he was a psychopathic killer but at the same
time he was the most gentle lover and the most gentlemanly lover
that you could get...and how the hell is that? ...And I think
that it can motivate him towards acts of heroism or villainy.
Love will do that to you (J. Marsters [Spike], July 20, 2001).
The morally ambiguous relationship of
vampire and slayer
Unsouled Spike's good deeds |
|
- agrees to guard
Buffy's family for an afternoon with only an idle threat
to his un-life in exchange.
- helps Dawn
break into the Magic Box and later helps Buffy search for her
run-away sister.
- helping Dawn with a
spell to raise Joyce.
- doesn't spill the beans when Glory tortures him for Key-info
- assures Dawn she isn't evil, 'cause Spike
knows something about evil.
- tries to fight (1) the
Knights when they attack the camper and (2) Glory
when she takes Dawn from the gas station.
- swears to Buffy he will fight for Dawn
to "the end of the world.". But when he tries to save Dawn from Doc, he fails.
- is devastated when Buffy sacrifices herself
instead
Spike always wanted to
slip in and have himself a good day, he finally got what he said
he wanted only to find it the worst day and loss of his unlife...his
reaction was extreme...his facade of the big bad finally dissolved
in grief (Rufus, 19:13 5/23/01).
- stands loyally by Dawn's
side while he mourns the death of Buffy, but he is also a bit
envious of the demons and their frolicking
destruct-o-rama.
- tells newly-risen Buffy that he has been
haunted by his failure to protect Dawn--a failure that lead to
Buffy's decision to jump into the portal.
- pulls Dawn to safety after a
demon attacks her in Wrecked.
- helps fight the
sword demon in Older and Far Away
- helps capture and guard the
GGK demon
Other
examples of Spike's ambiguity
Lots of the vamps we've
seen use humor to render their sadism more... sadistic. ...But
Spike, while his humor is dark and ungentle, doesn't always have
a utilitarian purpose when he says something sarcastic or ironic
or smartass. He just seems to like being witty, and to like amusing
himself... [e.g.,] his hilarious mockery of Angel from the building
above... And then there's Spike's pop culture proclivities. Angel
mopes around reading Proust and "Sonnets from the Portuguese."
Spike likes the Sex Pistols, and... watching tv... he moves with
the times. He's got energy and vitality that Angel doesn't (Diajanwal,
Dec 08 1999 02:59)
- going from vicious
predator to sensitive guy when he can't feed on Willow
- Neutered Spike seems just a little intimidated
when a taller-than-him ex-Initiative
soldier threatens to kill him in BvD.
- Since the flaccid vamp found out he could
do violence to other demons in Doomed,
he has made a reputation for himself among Sunnydale's inhuman
population. He gets a fist in his face in Goodbye, Iowa and some
nasty attitude in Real Me.
- Is Spike joking when he says he would
bite all the Scoobies but Anya if
he had the chance?
Remember, it ain't over until the inebriated
British cancer-stick-inhaling, scorned, bleach bottle blond undead
guy sings.
What is the explanation for Spike's"humanity"?
- pure, unadulterated self-interest.
Spike will do good or evil if it gets him what he wants
-
SouledSpike
After brutally
attacking Buffy in a desperate attempt to get her to admit
her love for him, Spike decides there is only one way to truly
win her love. He heads to Africa, where he asks a demon to make
him the kind of man Buffy "deserves". The demon puts
him through several torturous trials. Spike endures the trials,
and in the end, is rewarded with his
soul.
Upon his return to Sunnydale, however, he
captures the attention of the First Evil, who sees in Spike the
same potential It once saw in Angel:
the potential for malevolent vampiric evil. The presence of a
soul should have empowered Spike, it should have given him the
freedom to chose between good and evil, to become his own man,
the "master of his fate." But due to the
First's manipulations, Spike has become less his own man than
ever.
- crazy basement
Spike
- follows the trail of blood spatters left
by Gnarl to a cave where the demon
lives.
- falls under the
hypnotic thrall of the First Evil and goes on a killing spree,
then later confesses his "transgression"
to Buffy.
- Spike's killing spree comes to an end
with the help of Buffy, but the First Evil has other plans for
Spike--like using his blood to open the
Hellmouth.
- Should Spike be
staked now?
- Spike wants to be a better man, the kind
of man Buffy can respect. A worthy goal, but is Spike doing
it for himself, or for Buffy?
- [Principal] Wood has been
saved ironically enough at least 6 times by Spike: 2 times in
Him from Buffy herself, once in First Date sort of from the she
demon, once in Get it Done (when the beast attacks), once in
Storyteller - in the school from rampaging kids, and once in
LMPTM from a vampire (shadowkat, 3/26/03 20:21).
- After Wood tries to kill Spike to avenge
the death of his mother, an angry Spike threatens to kill Wood.
He stays his fangs in acknowledgement
of the fact that he did, indeed kill Wood's mother, but he promises
that he won't do it again if there any more threats from Principal
Demon-fighter.
- Spike sees Buffy and Angel kiss and gets
jealous at how easily they seem to slip back into their former
relationship with each other.
- Spike's back, and straddling the crevice
between Earth and hell. But why is he keeping
this information from everyone but Fred? Is it fear? Pride?
Or something else?
- cat-fights with
Angel to claim the cup he believes
will erase his sins, make him mortal, and show-up his grand-sire
(i.e., prove his worth).
- Is Spike finally
starting to see his treatment of Harmony from Harmony's point
of view?
- becomes "champion
of the helpless" when he is
recruited by a faux-Doyle to "work for" the Powers
that Be.
- Some things never change: Spike's rough-and-ready approach to doing
good closely resembles his approach to doing evil.
- is a little embarrassed when he finds
out he's been duped into playing Champion
for one of Angel's enemies
- tortures the Wolfram and Hart doctor until
he gets information about Illyria's
temple.
- Although Spike doesn't believe he has
a shot with Buffy, he's still determined
to "save" her from her new boyfriend, the Immortal.
But he can't even save his leather duster.
Spike needs to move on.
Stop holding on to the past. And in a way he compromises - he
gets the same jacket, but newer, cleaner, and no longer associated
with old crimes or accomplishments. Just as Spike
keeps the name Spike, yet isn't still Spike - the jacket looks
the same but isn't (shadowkat, 2004-05-05 23:28).
Souled
Spike's
finest moments
The evil of
Spike
Jonathan |
|
Jonathan Levinson cannot really be called
evil in any way, but he sometimes does
questionable things out of low self-esteem and a need for attention.
Does he need redemption? Or just higher self-regard?
Jonathan the victim: When we first meet Jonathan, he's the kid who
nobody notices, and yet he seems to show up everywhere--just in
time to get munched.
- almost has the life sucked out of him
by a 500-year-old Incan Mummy
- has the "fortune" of being Cordelia's
"young man" date at the Bronze in Reptile Boy
- is held at knife-point by a Tarakan
assassin
- screams when Bezoars
attack him in Bad Eggs, then, under the influence, coolly heads
over to dig up Mama Bezoar as if nothing has happened.
- gets picked on by a bewildered Xander
when he walks into the library in Passion
- has his head shoved under water by steroid-crazed
swim-team members who have no intention
of letting him on the team
- is the "you over there by the dip"
who gets picked on by Buffy in Dead Man's Party
- finds himself the object of conniving
queen-candidates in Homecoming
- is Harmony's way of ridiculing
Cordelia's recent taste in men in The Wish
In Earshot, we
get inside Jonathan's head and discover a very lonely, isolated young
man. He tries to commit suicide with a rifle in the school clock
tower. Luckily, Buffy stops him in time. After this, things start
to look better for Jonathan. But are they?
- arrives at the Prom with a date on his
arm and gives Buffy the class-protector award
- helps with the battle preparations in
G2
Jonathan, Superstar: After Earshot, Jonathan is still suffering from
low self-esteem. He boosts himself up with a spell that makes
him a super-talented celebrity--every
person's ideal, noticed and adored. But magic
comes with a price. The spell also creates a monster with
an evil equal to super-Jonathan's good. It wreaks havoc in Sunnydale
until Jonathan decides to stop ignoring
it. He throws the monster down a chasm, ending the spell.
Jonathan, super geek villain: When we see Jonathan again, he has joined a trio of geeky guys whose "super-cool
mission statement" is to become the crime lords of Sunnydale.
While amoral Warren seems up to the task, Jonathan and Andrew
struggle to determine what exactly that means to them, besides
(an unlikely) access to "chicks, chicks, chicks." The
Trio has decided that Slayer is their arch-nemesis. But Jonathan
knows Buffy has saved his life "a bunch of times". Can
he really be her enemy?
- helps summon a M'Fashnik demon to rob a bank
- puts Buffy through a repeating
time loop to test her reasoning skills. Later, he transforms
into a demon to try to intimidate Buffy
(unsuccessfully)
- freezes a guard when the Trio steal a diamond from a museum
- there's an irony in Jonathan inadvertently
causing an invisibility in Buffy he must have felt all through high school.
But Jonathan stands up to Warren
when he wants to let Buffy die of her invisibility.
- after Jonathan realizes the Trio is attempting
rape and that Warren is attempting to cover up their intended
victim's death, he begins to question
his involvement with the Trio.
- in response, Andrew and Warren keep their
new plans to themselves, making Jonathan even more wary (Normal Again, Entropy).
- keeps super-Warren from pummeling Xander
in the Bronze, then gives Buffy the key to foiling super-Warren's
robbery and Slayer-killing plans (Seeing
Red)
- Let's hope we see more of Jonathan. His
readiness to accept responsibility for his actions slips
again into a desire to escape responsibility when the Scooby
gang work to protect him from Willow.
Jonathan's end: Jonathan dies
in the act of trying to help the slayer save Sunnydale. So
long, friend.
|
Willy the
bartender |
"So he's human. He
just harbors demons. Which makes him a good guy...?" --Riley, Goodbye Iowa
Willy is a duplicitous "double-agent"
snitch. He's a human being who owns a bar frequented by demons
and vamps, and when he hears things, he passes them on for money.
Or his own physical safety.
- When Angel gets a bit "Angelus"
on Willy in WML, Willy tells him who sent the
Order of Taraka after Buffy. He also saves Angel from combusting. But Willy also gives
a weakened Angel to Spike for the ritual
that would have killed him, and when he takes Buffy to the church
to save Angel, he hands her over to the Order of Taraka.
- Willy gives Buffy information about the First Evil, but has to shoo away
some vampire patrons before he talks to her.
- Willy is the bartender with the heart
of gold in The Zeppo, urging Buffy to be with Angel before the Sisterhood of Jhe end the world.
- Willy is willing to give the slayer information
about who is skewering people around
town, but only if she pretends to punch him out first. He doesn't
want his customers questioning his loyalties. It's us who should
wonder what the heck his loyalties are--is this just about making
a buck? Your clientele ain't exactly nuns and orphans, Willy.
The Mayor
is a unique villain. Sort of a Mr. Rogers crossed with Charles
Manson (Llewellyn, Mar 17 22:23 1999). |
|
Mayor Richard
Wilkins III |
It has long been implied that something
was up with the political leader of Sunnydale, but the man we
meet in Homecoming seems pretty normal. Well, human, at any
rate. Highlights
of the morally ambiguous Mayor:
- worries about exposed gas pipes and sewer
repair while waiting to witness the ritual murder of four babies
(Band Candy)
- gets his picture taken with boy scouts
(Lover's Walk).
- The Mayor and Faith
He's as nutty as a fruitcake,
but he does have some capacity for loyalty. ...I think he cares
for Faith. That is a redeeming factor in my book. Not totally
redeeming, mind you. ...But it shows that at least he as some
trace of humanity (StGermain, May 18 18:52 1999).
- Did the Mayor
love his wife?
- threatens the life of Buffy more than
once with a chipper smile on his face.
- on his knife gift to Faith: "You be careful not to put
somebody's eye out with that thing. 'til I tell you to."
- reveals that he has a soft spot for Faith
which transcends his other priorities.
- giving his vampire minions instructions
that will enable him to devour the student body on graduation
day: "No snacking.
I see blood on your lips, it's a visit to the woodshed for you
boys... And boys? Watch the swearing."
The evil of
the Mayor:
corruption and deception
The Watchers |
Whatever one might think of
their methods, the Watchers train slayers
to fight on the side of good. They
see themselves as a group engaged in a war against evil,
with the slayer as a soldier in that war. |
What are Watchers and the Watcher's
Council?
Giles and the Watchers
Known activities of the
Watcher Council:
- sent Giles to Sunnydale to serve as Buffy's
Watcher.
- didn't inform Giles about Kendra.
- ...we learned that there
is a Slayer's Handbook so they've been quietly indulging in publishing
activities (Cleio, Mar 14 21:50 1999).
- informed Giles about Faith's watcher's
death in FH&T
- retreats with lectures and outdoor activities
- swore to Giles there was a memo about
Gwen Post being kicked out of the Watchers
- The Cruciamentum
test: the ethics of the warrior
- fired Giles for his emotional connection to the slayer
- didn't take Giles' calls afterwards, even
though the world was in imminent danger (The Zeppo).
- Wesley Wyndam-Pryce's
Watcher activities
- took Faith off active
duty temporarily when she killed Allan.
- refused to help save Angel from the "Killer of the Dead"
poison.
- The watcher council didn't
send anyone to help Buffy when the whole world was a stake (twice!!!)
why is it so strange that they wouldn't just for one town? (gazoo,
May 18 21:47 1999)
- Sent a retrieval
squad, (which soon became a hit-squad) after Faith
- The Watcher's Council and the struggles
for power among the forces for good: Buffy vs. the Watcher's
Council, part 1 (Graduation), part 2 (Checkpoint)
- found information
on Glory and held it hostage hoping
to regain control of the Slayer.
Fan
opinions on the value of Watcher Council:
Pro
Whatever their origins,
their presence is vital. If every Slayer begins as a teenager,
even if she's found as a child, how will she ever learn all that
stuff about demons, prophecies, mystical charms, etc on her own.
Having access to
all that knowledge in a Watcher is most helpful. Plus, Slayers are kids even in
centuries past and how are they supposed to always do the right
thing or even know what that is with such limited life experience
(Hostile-17, 19 Nov 1999 17:59).
While the Watchers' Council
may be overrated, they have been around for centuries. I'd argue
that the Slayers' Handbook more than likely holds lessons learned
by Slayers past, lessons that could
serve Buffy well if she were ever required to read
it (Monique, Jun 20 18:13 1999).
Mudpuppy's defense of the Watcher Council
They are fighting not just
for one person, but for the entire human population of the world.
If you were a normal person, with no knowledge of vamps, it'd be your rump they're trying to protect. If you did know of vamps, but
didn't know they Slayer personally, wouldn't you feel comfortable
that there was someone out there looking out for you and your
family? Wouldn't you want them as trained and as bad @ss as they
could possibly be? (Doc, Jan 20 07:42 1999).
Con
The Council, in their present form,
are in my opinion useless.
They haven't kept up with the changing times and are out of touch
with how things are in the real world. They have spent too much
time going over how it used to be that they have forgotten that
there's a girl risking her life every night and that they (the
Council) have to do whatever they can to support her in her fight
(CharlieX, Mar 10 19:50 1999).
...Perhaps the Watchers
Council was organized to gather information about demons and
other evil things and to assist the Slayer in her fight against
them. Gradually
over the centuries, the Council became more bureaucratic and
forgot who
was the real power - the Slayer. It would be very easy for a group of grown men
and women to usurp authority from a single teenage girl. A girl,
who until she is called/chosen, is naive about the fight against
evil. A girl who is not expected to live beyond her 25th birthday.
Because the Council is ongoing, not forced to start from scratch
every few years when a new Slayer is called, they began to see
themselves as the real authority. Kind of like a big government
machine - no matter how the players change, the basic operations
don't change and the people who perform those jobs believe that
everything would fall apart if their jobs ended (purplegrrl,
11-Dec-00 12:27).
|
The Initiative |
|
Activities of The Initiative
- The demons
have known for a while there is an organized group harming their
kind--and it's not the slayer.
- Initiative members call demons "hostiles",
a military term for the enemy.
- Initiative conditioning
techniques specifically prevent harming humans. Spike can
cause violence to other demons without pain. But he wasn't meant
to escape; his device was probably given to him to keep him manageable
within the lab.
- Dr. Walsh instructed the initiative soldiers
to keep the peace dressed as civilians during the "outbreak
of laryngitis" in Hush.
- Initiative soldiers prevented the rise
of the demon Barvain.
- The gang debates the
Initiative's morality
- How sharper than a serpent's tooth: Maggie's death
- Although Adam is evil,
his behavior is due in part to a design
flaw that was not part of Maggie's
original intentions for him. After his escape, he was considered
a "hostile".
- Government officials originally in charge
of The Initiative now monitor Buffy and
her friends.
The
Initiative vs. the individual
- "Control" isn't called "control"
for nothing. The Initiative does not value too much independence
in its soldiers. They capture
and contain demons without asking
too much about the purposes for doing so.
- Maggie claims to want to learn from Buffy,
but doesn't trust her independence. In the end, she tries to
decommission the non-team player
slayer.
- Riley and the Scooby gang as anarchists
The Initiative and civil
rights
The Initiative and demon's rights
- The Initiative tends
not to draw subtle distinctions among the creatures they
call "HST's".
- "Pain as bright as
steel" That lab isn't the Ritz--demons
are imprisoned, starved, experimented on. And there aren't any...
facilities.
Is torturing, experimenting
on, imprisoning, or implanting demons a proper moral action?
Do demons
have rights...[?]
(Lady Wolfsbane, Feb 22 23:36 2000)
[Demons] are merely another
form of life, and considered to be lower on the evolutionary
scale than humans. ... What
the Initiative is doing may not be that far from internment camps
at best, and racial genocide at worst. Joss has broadened
the types of demons
- some just want to be left alone, and don't want to bother humans,
period. Others will live amongst us but hide what they are. Is
this an allegory on how accepting society is of differences in
people today, be it their religion, sexual orientation, etc?
(NuPhalanx, Jan 19 21:03 2000)
- I think their fatal
flaw [is] arrogance. They have totally underestimated both the power of the slayer and, most importantly, the power
of the demons and monsters. These creatures of the night are
not stupid (DSP, Feb 9 14:47 2000).
|
Ben |
|
Hospital intern Ben is a human being whose
body is the unwilling fleshly prison of an exiled
demonic god. Although he was created by Glory's fellow hellgods
for that purpose, he seems to have a human
soul and has tried to live a normal life, going as far as
graduating from medical school and finding a position as an intern.
But Ben is an outsider among everyday humanity. Even his choice
to become a doctor arose from his desire to observe the "lives
and deaths" of normal humans. Glory
has the ability to take over for periods of time like an evil
alter-ego, and Ben has spent much of his life trying to minimize
the damage she has done. He wants to have a life and make his
own choices. But Glory will only die when he does, and if she
escapes, he will be destroyed in the process.
The deeds of the sometimes
gentle Ben:
- gives Buffy a sympathetic ear during her
ordeal with her mother's illness.
- ...Ben's beneficent nature,
as seen by his medical work, is contradicted by his brutal beating
of Glory's minion and his casual extermination of the crazy people (LenS, Jan 24 13:56 2001).
- refuses to turn
Buffy over to Glory, and Glory does not have the ability
to persuade him otherwise. She'd only be hurting
herself.
- finds out that Dawn is the Key but doesn't
tell Glory's minions.
- offers to get "inappropriately violent"
when Spike harasses Buffy, although Ben claims he doesn't actually
want to have to.
- gives Buffy his
phone number like a potential suitor
would, only it's Glory's phone number, too.
- stabs Jinx after he reveals too much about the key to the
Glory-minion.
- has the opportunity to destroy the Key
and doesn't. Of course, he had the opportunity not to enter
the Slayer's protected refuge and did. As a result, Glory
got her hands on the Key.
- tries to help Dawn escape from Glory.
Then in a moment of human weakness,
he changes his mind and decides
to save himself. In the end, there can be only one fate for poor
Ben, though. To save the universe from Glory's evil, he
must die.
It is tempting to think
that Ben never was a good man, I don't believe that though. He
did want to become a doctor to help people. His life has been
destroyed by his "sister" Glory. ...Both Ben and Buffy
have now had a similar moment where they gave in to wanting it
over. Buffy in the magic shop, Ben in an alleyway. ...I don't think that Ben is a bad person as
much as a person in a no win situation. ...Ben has tried everything
he can to rid himself of the sister he hates. Now that he shares her mind he feels he can't win. Her offer
of a separate life with no regrets was enough for him to say
to Dawn it's either you or me. In that moment Ben chose himself
(Rufus, 14:37 5/20/01).
| Lindsey
| Kate | Lilah
| Faith | Lorne
| Holtz | Jasmine
| Eve | Knox
| Magic | What
does Joss have against |
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This page last modified 5/09/04
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