post Buffy s4

The following is a definition of 'faith' copied from www.dictionary.com:

1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, an idea, or a thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms under “trust.”
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.

How does a person who’s completely alone, who doesn’t believe in love, trust, friendship, or the power of forgiveness relate to the world? The answer is that they don’t or at least not in a way that’s healthy or positive. The ironically named arch-villain, Faith is such a person. Many people forget that our girl Faith didn’t start out this way. In this essay, I will analyze Faith from her beginnings in season three as an awesome free spirited riotgrrl through her metamorphosis into the psychotic, roof-jumping, Angel-humping, erotic-asphyxiating bitch from hell that we’ve come to love. But Faith isn’t just any old girl; she’s a Slayer, and I think we first need to view her character through the lens of her calling.

The Burden of Slayerhood

Despite the fact that the protagonist of BtVS is a Slayer and the audience has been introduced to two others, precious little is known about the office of Slayer. How is the girl 'chosen'? Does a deity select them? How does the Watcher’s Council locate Slayers and potential Slayers? What are the rights and responsibilities of Council members? There are more questions than answers in the mystery of who and what a Slayer is. The only thing that seems certain is that the life of a Slayer is usually brutal, lonely, and tragically brief.

Buffy is the exception to this rule, because she was discovered by the Council late in life, and because her Watcher is a friend rather than a drill sergeant in tweed. I can only speculate on what “normal” relations between a Watcher and a Slayer are and how that partnership may have affected Faith.

Using Kendra’s appearances as a guide, it seems that normal Watcher-Slayer relations are extremely formal master/student situations. There is respect and loyalty between the two, but no love or affection. The Chosen One is regarded as a living weapon, rather than a person with needs and feelings. She isn’t allowed to have friends of any kind or a life outside of slaying.

In addition to the objectification of these girls, the very nature of Slayerhood presupposes the ultimate disposability of young women like Buffy and Faith. One Slayer dies and another is called. This causes their Watchers to view them as easily replaceable cogs in a great machine, rather than human beings. Despite the fact that they defend the world against the darkness, Slayers are not highly valued. Their Watchers are charged with the task of guiding them, but that does not mean that they will protect them. Watchers, even kind ones, have been known to send these young women to their doom to serve the greater good. (Ex: Giles knows that Buffy is fated to die in Prophecy Girl and almost doesn’t tell her. In Helpless, he weakens her and puts her through the Cruciamentium. In Consequences, Wesley has no qualms about manacling Faith and shipping her off to England for the Council’s judgment. The Council has attempted to assassinate Faith twice.)

So, while Faith is powerful, because she is the Slayer, she really doesn’t control her own life or have anyone she can trust completely. Because she is a Slayer she is cut off from the possibility of a surrogate family of friends and according to her, all her relations with men have been dismal failures. Despite all of this, when she first appears in Sunnydale, she is remarkably bright and hopeful for a girl on the run from a monstrous ancient vampire. She likes Buffy and her friends and has a small crush on Giles.

Faith is very different from the coldly self-sufficient Kendra or the needy, emotionally receptive Buffy. In her first appearance, in Faith, Hope, and Trick she presents a tough, sexually precocious façade, but it’s obvious that she desires friends, family, and the protection of guardians she can trust. She sees the possibility for this in Buffy and her extended family.

Faith is extremely needy, but she’s afraid of rejection and betrayal. Her contradictory impulses cause her to quickly attach herself to Buffy and a number of others who chip away at the remnants of her trust in others, ultimately leading her toward a path of destruction.

Part Two: Parental Figures in Absentia: Hello Freud, Goodbye Sanity

There are seven major parental figures in Faith’s life: her mother, her first Watcher, Gwendolyn Post, Wesley, Giles, Angel, and Mayor Richard Wilkins. Although, they cannot shoulder all the blame for Faith’s actions, each of these people failed her during pivotal moments in her life.

According to Faith, her mother was a neglectful alcoholic. We can only imagine what their day-to-day family situation was like. There was probably an overall lack of stability and trust in the household. In Enemies, Faith tells Buffy that she always wanted something to love—anything, even a dog. I speculate that the Council must have discovered Faith after the age of 12. At that point she was too old to be programmed into the perfect Kendra-esque Slayer. She was probably stuck with a Watcher who was more interested in making her into a perfect Slayer than in dealing with Faith’s emotional problems.

I imagine that Faith struggled against the new restrictions, but eventually began to revel in the new attention that she was given as well as discipline she had never known. Discipline (curfews, limits, admonishments, and compliments applied correctly) make children, especially neglected children like Faith, feel loved. Her role as a Slayer or a potential Slayer also gave her a sense of purpose and self-esteem. (In Faith, Hope and Trick she tells Joyce, “I love [slaying]. When, I’m fighting, its like the whole world goes away.” Then, Kakistos murders her first Watcher. Faith suffered grief, guilt, and anger. Grief because her caretaker was dead, guilt because she failed to protect her, and anger, because she was abandoned by yet another mother figure.

Then Faith comes to Sunnydale and meets Buffy, Giles, and the Scooby Gang. She’s confronted with everything that she isn’t. Buffy’s life is a distorted Bizarro-world mirror of her own. From Faith’s perspective, Buffy is a perky California teen with a perfect mom, a cool Watcher, awesome friends, and *no problems.* Buffy has *everything*, but surprisingly Faith doesn’t seem to resent the other woman. She tries to insinuate herself into the group, but Buffy, vulnerable and mistrustful after abandoning her friends for the summer, is threatened by Faith and pushes her away.

So, Faith becomes a peripheral member of the group. She’s in, but no one shows her the secret handshake. When Faith tries to draw Buffy out emotionally, the blonde Slayer slaps her down. Buffy isn’t trying to be cruel, but she isn’t into sharing her pain. Faith even cares enough about Buffy to get some humorous revenge on Scott Hope in Homecoming. Faith continues to help Buffy patrol and joins in with the general monster-fighting, but she doesn’t follow the same rules that the others do and she’s an unreliable loner. Poor Faith sort of floats in limbo with a second-hand Watcher and a shallow set of friends.

Then Ms. Post comes along in Revelations. The new Watcher is confident, no-nonsense, and best of all, she seems completely focused on Faith. Not Buffy. Not the Scooby Gang. Just Faith. For Faith, there was always the sense that they wouldn’t accept her unless she was more like Buffy. Now, here is a person, who not only likes her, but more importantly *disapproves* of Buffy. In fact, Post seems to dislike the whole Sunnydale crew. Conversely, Post accepts Faith for who she is. Instead of disdaining Faith’s itinerant lifestyle, Post describes it as “Spartan.” It’ no wonder our girl latches on to Post like she was a lifeboat on the Titanic. Post draws her away from her Sunnydale friends, feeding her distrust of the Buffy/Angel relationship and gets Faith to trust her.

Post tricks Faith into a bitter battle with Buffy, then she betrays Faith. Then the evil Watcher twists the knife by taunting Faith for her foolish trust. Her exact words were, “Faith, you’re an idiot.”

Buffy and Faith’s friendship is damaged. They have a stiff conversation at the end.

Buffy: Look, Gwendolyn Post, or whoever she may be, had us all fooled. Even Giles.

Faith: (without looking up) Yeah, well, you can't trust people. I should've learned that by now.

Buffy: I realize this is gonna sound funny coming from someone that just spent a lot of time kicking your face... but you can trust me.

Faith: (looks up, amused) Is that right? (tosses the magazine aside)

Buffy: I know I kept secrets, but I didn't have a choice. I'm on your side.

Faith: *I'm* on my side, (nods) and that's enough.

Buffy: (shakes her head) Not always.

And what exactly is Giles’ response to Post’s duplicity and Faith’s hurt feelings?

Giles' attitude towards Faith was that of a typical Watcher towards a typical Slayer. In Faith's first appearance in Faith, Hope & Trick his opinion of her out-of-control behavior is that "she's a plucky fighter who is really into the slaying" because she doesn't have the distractions that Buffy has. He seems to admire this about her in the same way he liked this diehard attitude in Kendra. Giles treats her like he would any normal, emotionally healthy, well-trained Slayer. He trusts her, expects her to be independent, and he doesn't worry much about her emotional well-being. This is probably of typical Watcher-Slayer relations. It seems that the average Slayer is an independent loner. Kendra's Watcher sends her alone to the Hellmouth twice and Faith comes to Sunnydale sans Watcher. Giles doesn't seem to think that either situation is unusual. So, as the season progresses, Giles keeps a nominal eye on her, but he doesn't treat her the way he treats Buffy. I think that Giles regards Buffy as a special case. In What's my line? he tells Buffy that after meeting her he realized that normal Slayer training wouldn't work for her. As time went on, he diverged from Watcher traditions and began to have an affection for his charge. But with Kendra, and later Faith, Giles is the typical cold-blooded Watcher. So after the Gwendolyn Post episode, when you'd expect Giles to be most sympathetic towards Faith, he leaves her alone. She's a Slayer, and as a Slayer she can deal. If it had been Buffy, he'd have given her a pep talk and a shoulder to cry on. But Faith, to him, is a typical Slayer who will suck it up and soldier on. After the Post incident Faith withdraws from the others. We don’t see her (except for short scenes in Amends where she’s extremely withdrawn) for six episodes until, she deflowers Xander in The Zeppo. That’s six weeks—an incredibly long time to ignore the closest thing you have to a family.

When we next see Faith in Bad Girls and Consequences she seems harder edged, more about taking than sharing. She’s not trying to be part of the group anymore. It’s as if she’s decided, “I may not have Buffy’s perfect life, but at least I know what being a Slayer is all about: aggression, power, and excitement.” Faith convinces herself that her life is superior to Buffy’s and, weary of being a victim and an outsider, she revels in her Slayer power and tries to convert Buffy to her way of thinking.

Now we come to the two most pivotal moments in Faith’s life: the accidental murder of Allan, the mayor’s assistant and the entrance of Wesley Wyndam-Price into her life.

Wesley is an ineffectual prat, a lily-livered, paper-tiger authoritarian who makes no attempt to connect with either of his charges. When the shit hits the fan, this isn’t the guy you go to for a shoulder to cry on.

In addition to this, Faith’s 'faith' in her friends has completely eroded. When Ms. Post betrayed her, she decided that concepts like trust, loyalty, and forgiveness were the stuff of fantasy. She didn’t feel any of these emotions toward the Scoobies, and she assumed that they would not feel that way towards her.

More than that, she was afraid to even try to reach out for help, fearing that her hand would be slapped away. Rejection by yet another family. So she goes into denial mode.

If she admitted that she’d made a mistake, then she’d have to acknowledge that Buffy and her moralistic worldview are correct and her amoral one is wrong. She denies all moral responsibility for Allan’s death.

So, Faith cloaks herself in the armor of self-righteousness and Nietzschean overman ethics. Might makes right. Because of her superiority, she’s above human law. She embraces the act of slaying, but rejects the *purpose* of her calling—to defend people. In the end she tells Buffy that she doesn’t care that she killed a man.

In Consequences she tries to put the blame for the murder on Buffy. She wants Buffy to be as culpable as she is, so they’ll be on the same level. Her ploy fails. The Scooby Gang believes Buffy. Again both Buffy and Xander try to connect with her. She rejects Buffy verbally.

But when Xander comes to her hotel room to convince her that he’s a friend, and that their relationship is more than sex, he makes a near fatal error. Faith has set the boundaries for that relationship, and Xander tries to jimmy his way in through her defenses. For Faith, that kind of emotional intimacy is more dangerous than ten vamps in a locked room. She can’t deal with the possibility of that kind of vulnerability, so she tries to take control of the situation—first by reasserting the boundaries of what she considers a mere sexual relationship and then by affirming her physical dominance. There’s nothing erotic about her attempt to asphyxiate him.

But just when it seems as if Faith is completely lost, she is temporarily rescued by an unusual father figure: Angel.

Angel talks to her and empathizes with her. He is a comfort, because no matter how 'bad' she thinks she is, Angel was a thousand times worse, and he still managed to change. Although he has always been a source of contention between she and Buffy, and a vampire to boot, Faith begins to believe in the possibility of redemption. Faith has one moment when she begins to regret some of the decisions she’s made. Maybe it’s okay to trust, she thinks. Maybe I’ll get through this with my soul in tact. Angel offers her the frailest of human concepts: hope. Unfortunately, Angel fails to get through to her before the Council’s thugs come.

Wesley, her uncaring authority figure decides that punishment and judgment are more important than understanding. His actions solidify her conviction that having faith in anything or anybody is a crock. Everybody is out to get you, so it’s better to be around people whose motives are clear.

Moreover, she adopts a binary definition of life. Everything becomes black and white for her. If Buffy and her friends are “good,” then she must be “bad.” She embraces that idea fully. It gives her an identity all her own that she doesn’t have to compete with Buffy to keep.

That’s when she hooks up with the mayor. In a perverse way, Wilkins is the best parent she ever had. He supports her, accepts her for exactly who she is, and he even likes her as a person. He rewards her “good” behavior (murder and mayhem) and scolds her for bad behavior (disobeying, pouting, and not drinking her milk). They come to trust and love each other as father and daughter. It’s tragic that Faith discovers the most loving relationship in her life with a monster.

In this case, though, evil wears a pleasant face. Maybe Faith would have eventually rejected the mayor, if he had been overtly cruel or if he treated her as a mere servant, but he doesn’t.

He definitely uses her, but no more than the Watcher’s Council does. Whether she’s with the mayor or the Council, her objective is to kill. The difference is that the mayor doesn’t force her to question her choices of listen to the dictates of her conscience. With him, she is completely free of any moral restraints and is rewarded for it.

Wilkins begins his G-rated seduction of Faith in Doppelgangland. He buys her a furnished apartment and then tells her that he going to have Willow killed. When she seems reluctant to do the job herself, he assures her that he won’t ask that of her yet, and then he gives her a Playstation. Wilkins is smart. If he had forced the issue, Faith may have cracked. And he softens the blow to her conscience with a gift. Faith is on her way to damnation.

In Enemies, Faith carries out her first mission for the mayor. It’s a two-part deal. She has to prevent the Scoobies from getting the Books of Ascension and deliver them to the mayor then seduce Angel and steal his soul. (Their assumption that merely an orgasm is the key to stealing Angel’s soul is indicative of a certain emotional shallowness or a lack of belief in profound romantic love that the mayor and Faith share.) This is the episode in which Faith commits her first intentional murder. Although her victim is a demon, he’s harmless. Her actions are vicious and wrong. Maybe she rationalizes that the murder was okay, because he was a demon. We’ll never know, but there was no way she could rationalize her plan to torture Buffy, a human being, a former friend, and a fellow Slayer.

[This is a moment in Buffy history that I can’t explain in terms of character evolution. Simply put, the writers dropped the ball. In one week, Faith goes from feeling a twinge of conscience at the thought of killing Willow to gleefully considering slicing Buffy into bacon? I don’t think so. I can see Faith *killing* Buffy in a fair fight. I say 'fair' because I don’t think that Faith could sleep nights unless she felt that it was her own superiority that defeated Buffy, rather than trickery. But this Joseph Mengele crap is just an awkward plot device designed to make the audience hate Faith quickly. This woman went from misunderstood to full-out psychotic in a mere two weeks. I can accept that Faith is capable of terrible things, but I question the timing. It was too soon.]

Ultimately, the mayor’s plan fails. Her former friends now know the depths of her duplicity. Even if she wanted to go back to the Scooby Gang, she couldn’t. She’s reached the point of no return.

We next see Faith two weeks later in Choices. By now, the rogue Slayer is one hundred percent in the mayor’s camp. She’s begun to swagger in her blood-bought clothes and the security of the mayor’s support. Faith and Wilkins have established a pleasant rapport with one another and on the surface, she seems happy. The mayor even gives her a gift of a huge blade, which she loves. After presenting her with the knife, he sends her to collect the Box of Gavrok. Again, the mayor connects gifts and words of parental pride with acts of violence and larceny. At the airport, Faith reneges on the deal, kills the delivery guy, and keeps the payment for herself. At this point, she doesn’t even hesitate to kill and then dismember the man to get the box. And when she returns, Wilkins praises her for it. It’s in this scene that we see the first signs that she may regret the loss of friends caused by her betrayal. But the mayor reassures her that she’s doing the right thing and that *he* is her friend.

Another extremely important conversation between Willow and Faith occurs later in the episode. Until this time, the two young women have had very little interaction. Faith is threatening and sadistic, while Willow remains defiant.

Faith: Anyone with brains, anyone who knew what was going to happen to her, would try to claw her way out of this place. But you, you just can't stop Nancy Drew-ing, can you? Guess now you know too much and that kinda just naturally leads to killing.

Willow: Faith, wait. I want to talk to you.

Faith: Oh yeah? Give me the speech again, please. Faith, we're still your friends. We can help you. It's not too late.

Willow: It's way too late. You know, it didn't have to be this way. But you made your choice. I know you had a tough life. I know that some people think you had a lot of bad breaks. Well, boo hoo! Poor you. You know, you had a lot more in your life than some people. I mean, you had friends in your life like Buffy. Now you have no one. You were a Slayer and now you're nothing. You're just a big selfish, worthless waste.

[Faith punches Willow in the jaw and she falls to the ground. ]

Faith: You hurt me, I hurt you. I'm just a little more efficient.

Willow: Aw, here I just thought you didn't have a come-back.

Faith: You're begging for some deep pain.

Willow: I'm not afraid of you.

[Faith pulls out the knife.]

Faith: Let's see what we can do about that.

Willow’s harsh words echo the self-condemnation that Faith disguises beneath her tough-girl bravado. When Willow says, that Faith is a “big, worthless waste” she is confirming Faith’s worst fears about herself, and she responds with efficient violence, quieting the source of her pain. Faith has become an expert at suppressing the pricks of her conscience. Its ironic that she had become the killing machine that the Council probably wanted her to be, but in the service of the bad guys.

Faith and Buffy have their final confrontation two episodes later in Graduation I. In the beginning, we see Faith murdering harmless Professor Wirth. She is unperturbed by his helplessness, his screams, or the bloodiness of her actions. This is the behavior of a stone-cold sociopath, but she’s not crazy. Faith’s violence is immoral, but purposeful- from the vicious murder of the book-selling demon to the poisoning of Angel. At this point, Faith is completely cut off from any sort of basic human morality. She no longer cares about what her former friends think of her. Her sense of self-worth and her future is all wrapped up with the mayor. In an early scene, we see their closeness.

Mayor: Nobody knows what you are. Not even you, little Miss Seen-it-all. The Ascension isn't just my day. It's yours too. Your day to blossom, to show the world what a powerful girl you are. I think of what you've done, what I know you will do (caresses her face) no father could be prouder.

Faith: I hope I don't let you down.

Mayor: Impossible.

In a later scene:

Faith: You gotta give me something to do. There's no way I'm sleeping. Don't you need anyone dead? Or maimed? I can settle for maimed.

Mayor: (chuckles) You little firecracker.

Faith: My mom used to call me that when I was little. I was always running around.

[ She falls silent. The Mayor observes her with a look of concern. ]

Faith: Tomorrow, at the Ascension and all that, am I going to get to fight?

Mayor: If everything goes smoothly, you won't have to. But how often do things go smoothly?

Faith: So you'll still need me in there.

Mayor: Always.

Faith has finally found her niche. If the mayor wasn’t a homicidal would-be demon, this would be very touching. These scenes still lend a poignancy to her final moments

Despite all the terrible things she has done and the hatred that exists between she and Buffy, when Buffy announces that she has come to kill her, there is a moment when Faith seems astounded. I think that she is surprised the Buffy, sweet, shining, perfect Buffy is willing to sink to her level. In her mind Buffy is “Good,” and she has accepted her place as the “Evil” one. She and Buffy fight to the death. Her last conscious words as of season three are “Shoulda been there, B., quite a ride” This line is connected to a happy story she tells Wilkins about her childhood: “When I was a kid, a couple of miles outside of Boston there was this quarry. And all the kids used to swim there and jump off the rocks. And there was this one rock like forty feet up. I was the only one that would jump off it. All the older kids were too scared.”

It’s as if she wishes that she and Buffy could have met when they were young and innocent, when things were uncomplicated or that things could have remained uncomplicated between them. So much of her time on Buffy: The Vampire Slayer was about Faith’s violence, rage and mistrust. Her last moments of the season reveal the vulnerable little girl still residing inside.

Whether you think that Faith was in love with Buffy or was merely indulging in hero worship, it’s obvious that she always sought a close relationship with 'the infamous Buff'. With what she believed was her dying breath, she made her one last overture to Buffy. Despite the fact that they had nothing in common Buffy was a fellow Slayer and a soul sister and Faith had higher expectations of that relationship. When Buffy rejected Faith’s attepts at emotional intimacy, the brunette Slayer reacted badly to say the least. But I cannot place any blame on Buffy for Faith’s downward spiral. Considering that she didn’t bare any responsibility for Faith, I think that Buffy did everything that she could. Despite the betrayals and the failures of her would-be surrogate family, Faith, ultimately bears the responsibility for her actions.

Essayists Notes: I won’t be analyzing Graduation II because it presents a ghostly version of Faith that seems more like a manifestation of Buffy’s subconscious than a shared dream. We don’t see the fear and self-loathing that reside in the depths of Faith’s subconscious until season four of Buffy and season one of Angel.

Acknowledgements: The folks at the buffydiscussion list were invaluable in the writing of this essay. The philosophical ramblings of Becky Bryant, Max VL, Eileen Gormly, and Annie B made me think and helped me to cover any oversights I had made. The dialogue excerpts were cut and pasted directly from Psyche’s Transcript site at http://www.psyche.kn-bremen.de/


Opinions

Rmsgrey 4/10/00
About the rapid change in Faith's apparent character [between Doppelganglandand] Enemies - there is one factor that's different in the first instance, the potential target is Willow - an innocent civilian (relatively) - Willow was never in direct competition with Faith, so Faith had no real grudge towards Willow so no motivation to kill her. In Enemies, Faith is up against Buffy, who was her major competition for the role of Slayer, and consistently beat her - Buffy had the friends, the better Watcher, the social life, everything Faith wanted, and all Faith's attempts to compete for Buffy's role failed, so Faith had plenty of reason to hate Buffy, even if those reasons weren't reasonable. Also, Faith spent a lot of time talking about hurting Buffy, but never got round to starting in on her physically. If you contrast that with a genuine sociopath as in the Angel episode In the Dark where the torturer vampire stuck some spikes into Angel before moving into the taunting phase, it appears Faith was still psyching herself up for real pain-dealing. Even when she finally fights Buffy in Graduation I, both of them seem to be reluctant to actually start, trading verbal barbs rather than getting down to business. I doubt Faith's transformation was as complete as was made out in Enemies.


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