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But Buffy does believe that the end justifies the means, at least when it comes to what she wants to do. Only the end (Buffy succeeds) truly justifies her decision to risk the entire world (with Dawn in it I might add) because she doesn't want her sister to die, even though she rationally knows it's not even her sister. She is willing to use questionable means to get to an end she best likes.
I would say that the end justifies the means so long as the means justify the end. In Buffy's case it doesn't, as I'm sure just the immediately affected citizens of Sunnydale who've never met or doesn't know Dawn would agree had she failed and their children and loved ones would've been eaten dragons and what not. Buffy is lucky her means could be justified. She is still a champion, but she's not a better type of person than Giles in my mind.
As for Giles being too jaded and dark to be a true champion I disagree. Giles is certainly a true champion, which is why he tries to shelter Buffy from having to make hard decisions like having to deal with what to do with Ben. Buffy would've been all too happy to kill Ben as a side-effect so long as he kept looking like Glory.
Scenario: Giles doesn't kill Ben, Buffy leaps to her death, Glory re-emerges and is pissed as hell that she no longer has an active key to get home with (assuming since Dawn's key persona literally disappears as a concern after this). Pissed hellgod goes on a rampage killing innocents because what else is she to do and who is going to stop her? Buffy doesn't think about these things, and she doesn't have to, because she has Giles. So yes, he is a grittier kind of a champion, but he is most certainly a true champion.
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WillowFromBuffy
Guest
Unfair. Now you're just turning everything upside down. 😛
Giles drops the ball again and again with his depression and his drinking. Buffy soldiers on through everything.
When the weight of the world becomes to much for a slayer to bear, that is when Spike comes by to take the pain away. It is made very clear that it is friendship and a strong connection to the world that can keep a slayer alive, not callousness. Giles has his uses, but when Buffy dies he scampers back to England.
This literally made me laugh out loud.
With his depression and drinking... yes, I forgot that Buffy is unfamiliar with depression and dropping the ball on things. She doesn't drink, but only because she uses sex as a feel better instead. Buffy's a great champion to me because she's flawed, just as Giles is, not because she's "better" than everyone else.
What does Spike have to do with anything?😵
This picture suggests you mean he comes to take the pain away by killing Slayers?
Also, yes, look how warm and connected Buffy is in season 7. Just watched that rousing speech of hers in Get It Done, the "I've been carrying all of you" and generally alienating all of her friends and these girls she's meant to protect because she has become so filled up with the myth of her own greatness. Callous as she is, she sure as heck survives season 7.
So Giles is not a true champion because he leaves Sunnydale? He can't be a champion in England, where he may serve better use? Use like being able to come back and awaken a spark of humanity in Willow? Like staying informed and saving a bunch of potentials later? Giles is a champion for the reason that he is ready to do what needs to be done, regardless of what he wants personally, not because he's hanging around Sunnydale trying to step into Buffy's shoes or whatever he's supposed to be doing there once she's gone. She dies, he has no purpose there, he knows that.
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WillowFromBuffy
Guest
She's a little bit better 😛 Mostly though, she is the strongest warrior and the banner they all band behind. Giles could not be that.
He was able to defeat two slayer, because they had become tired of fighting for survival. He was still lovin' it.
Buffy is slipping in series 7. I don't think her callousness is an advantage. Remember McCartney, "Don't you know that it's a fool who plays it cool by making the world a little colder." Friendship saves the day in the end, though.
A spark of humanity in Willow? Willow is the most humane human if ever a humane human there was. I always wondered why Giles reserved all of his fatherly love for Buffy. When Giles brought Willow to the hippie retreat, she though he was going to have her executed or locked away. Willow had a crush on Giles, she was his most devoted student and assistant. I remember him repaying this affection exactly twice: His "best of us" eulogy in dobbelgangland, which she is not there to hear, and his "we are who we are" speech at the start of the series 7. Apart from that, there is a lot of frowning and wagging of fingers.
Willow, Tara, Spike and BuffyBot led by Giles could easily have rivalled Angel Investigations.
Priceless
A sneaky Beatles lyric deserves good karma
This just makes me kind of angry, "they had become tired of fighting for survival", makes it sound as if it's their fault Spike killed them... :/
Well they do mention that he comes with the pure magic to do just that in season 6, no? To awaken Willow's humanity. That's what I'm referring to. When Dark Willow was not so much the most human human there ever was and was slipping away from her humanity...
Let's not forget that Giles was sent to Sunnydale to take care of Buffy. She was his charge. He cared about her friends, but he wasn't responsible for them the way he was with Buffy, so I'm not sure why he's expected to be everybody's daddy.
Ehm... hm... yeah, a bit speechless actually because couldn't disagree more.
Anyway, this isn't a thread about Giles so I'll stop defending him now. 🙂
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WillowFromBuffy
Guest
Hey! Couldn't you give me a little more credit than that? It is just that Spike's pep talk made sense to me. In order to make it in the world, you have to want it. The moment you start fantasising about something taking you out of it, you know you are in trouble. Spike's logic works well with the demons-as-metaphors-thing. You need a strong centre, because there is likely something down inside you that wants you harm.
The murder of Warren was a crime of passion. I would have been a lot more upset if I had to watch Willow sacrifice an innocent for a tactical advantage. Murdering Dawn and Ben to save the world is more logical, but I think doing so takes you to a darker place than avenging your lover.
Because he took her help for granted and chastised her for every mistake. You should not take more from others than you are willing to give back. I love Giles, but he is a little self-centred, and I don't think he likes any of the Scoobies, except Buffy, much.
Anyway, let's get back to Dawn. Does she really have so few fans on this board? I really think series 5 through 6 needed that ray of sunshine, because they were often quite bleak.
Guess that means season 1 Buffy didn't want to make it in the world either. Without Xander, that'd be the end of Buff, poor gal didn't want it enough. But then I think his logic just comes across as pompous and shallow, a lot of talk, little substance. *shrug* Guess we see different things.
Personally I don't hate Dawn, I hate that they didn't seem to know what to do with her after season 5 and never bothered to explain whether she was still a Key or not? Or whether that mattered. To my knowledge at least. Which frustrates me because it just made her existence seem ill planned. But like I said earlier in the thread, I didn't really think she should die at the end of season 5 (but if she had I don't think it would've harmed the show either), I guess I'm a bit on the fence for the whole thing. I think either way works, Dawn dying, Dawn not dying...
Dawn dying might've lead to a psychologically interesting journey for Buffy. For me at least, I feel like at the start of the show we follow Buffy, a Slayer. Then around season 6-7 she becomes Buffy, the Slayer. Miss Superfantastic Extraordinaire better than all other Slayers ever... which for me is where Buffy gets boring. I much prefer seeing her being just a regular person who happens to be Slayer and no better than any other. So seeing her react to a major failure would've been interesting I bet... I'm not saying it would have been better however, or even that it should've been that way, I'm just saying that if Dawn had died, interesting stories could've come out of it.
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WillowFromBuffy
Guest
😵 I am not saying that Spike was right to kills the slayers, but he was able to. To me, Buffy's defining characteristic is her perseverance. If she lost that, then she would be in trouble, because there is a lot for her to persevere against.
Did it just get cold in here?
This is interesting, because to me, it is the other way around. High-school Buffy could bounce back from anything. Uni-Buffy and post-uni Buffy was starting to let things get to her. All throughout the show, Buffy went through some terrible stuff, but she always got back on her feet.
In series 7, she did not really have much to fight for except Dawn. Dawn meant that Buffy always had something precious to lose.
Taake
Haha, yes, it did get cold. I do spread a general chill of evil wherever I go :D
RomanticSoul
Frell Me
Spike didn't win because those slayers had a death wish. He won due to fortunate circumstances during the fights, nothing more. Spike as this 'great oracle' when it comes to slayers is frankly idiotic. Nikki didn't have a death wish, she had a son she loved. Neither did the Chinese slayer who lets not forget Spike couldn't even understand because he doesn't speak Chinese. To see the nonsense Spike spews as anything other than self-promotion is frankly laughable to me. Because we have seen the events with Nikki and the Chinese slayer and both blatantly oppose the 'slayer deathwish' theory of Spike's.
Once Marti came back from maternity leave the family unit of Buffy/Xander/Dawn was utterly destroyed. And after that how much Buffy/Dawn was there? I saw how much Buffy cared in LMPTM. Spike flattens Dawn with a cot and it isn't until the end of the episode that Buffy even goes to check on Dawn. And then it's only used as an excuse to slam the door in Giles' face. And then Whedon comes back for the finale and suddenly Buffy cares about Dawn again. My head is spinning...
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Isn't it in season 7 Giles says "faced with the same choice now, you'd let her die"? (Sorry, can't remember the episode)
I'm just gonna add that I meant it in the perspective of story-telling. Either situation makes for a fine and dramatic story. 🙂
(not that cold 😉 )
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WillowFromBuffy
Guest
I know. It was intentional and totally hypocritical of me. Sorry.
Yes. That line hit me hard when I first heard it. I think the world needs idealists. Pragmatism only takes you so far. I do not think Giles is right here, though. Buffy always comes through in the end 😉
There was so many great moments with Dawn. When she cuts herself to prove she is real, when she shouts at Buffy for shutting her out, her attempts to reconcile Willow and Tara, her dance scene in Once More with Feeling, her relationship with Xander, the bit at the school in The Body, the way she freaks out at having a walking taxidermy sexbot reminding her of her dead sister... Dawn was also a nice throwback to Buffy's roots as a show about teenagers. Her origin story was odd. Everything else was great.
If Dawn had died at the end of Season 5 I would have thought 'well what was the point of that'! That sort of easy-out would have really disappointed me in such a well written and complex world.
Why bother changing the whole history of every character, in essence opening up a whole new world, for one season of a new character who you then kill off. It would just be horrible story-telling and horrible world building. Dawn was a major risk, but became an integral part of the mythos of this show.
Why bother changing the whole history of every character, in essence opening up a whole new world, for one season of a new character who you then kill off. It would just be horrible story-telling and horrible world building. Dawn was a major risk, but became an integral part of the mythos of this show.
I actually don`t know if this really is an utalitarian point of view but even if so, that wouldn`t suffice as a justification. If you allow utalitarism to violate the humans rights of even one individual, you are opening the box of pandora.
The utalitarian argument would begin apply, if you have one innocent person on one side and two innocent persons on the other. Because then you start to maximise the good by killing the one person rather than letting the two persons die. And it would lead you to: " Hey, let`s kill ! It is not a murder ! It is utalitarian. "
Buffy had three options to save the universe (or at least Sunnydale) from being turned into a hell dimension.
1. Kill Dawn
2. Sacrifice her own life
3. Let Dawn sacrifice herself
Going for the first option would have been the easiest way out. But wouldn`t it have been a cowardly way out ?An if it really would have been utalitarian, who would be the one to judge ? Who should have been the one to make this decision ? Would Buffy have been right to decide to kill her sister rather than sacrifive herself - even if it was for the safety of our universe - from an utalitarian point of view ? Certainly not, because she would have become jury, judge, executor and beneficiary in one person. Buffy does not choose the second option and that makes her a real hero and a champion.
As far as I remember it - you may prove me wrong - Buffy has killed humans only in a fight or in self defense. I also rember that she has always rejected to kill humans apart from the above mentioned exceptions. That is why she did not kill Ben, while Giles without hesitation took over the task of being jury, judge and executor in one person.
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Ethan Reigns
Scooby
Buffy seemed to have no problem with sending the zookeeper to his death by hyena pack in "The Pack". I don't think she is as averse to killing humans as we are led to believe.
For a long time, Glory had this mojo going on where Ben was Glory and Glory was Ben but no one could see it because the thoughts were being actively blocked and it worked against everyone but Spike. If they had seen the connection between Ben and Glory, they may have been a bit more ready to dispatch Ben.
For a long time, Glory had this mojo going on where Ben was Glory and Glory was Ben but no one could see it because the thoughts were being actively blocked and it worked against everyone but Spike. If they had seen the connection between Ben and Glory, they may have been a bit more ready to dispatch Ben.
DeadlyDuo
Scooby
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Whilst Spike's words make sense, hence why Buffy was rattled by them, I think he also said them just to mess with Buffy. Buffy had began thinking she was invincible and being stabbed by her own stake had taken her down a peg. Spike was just twisting the knife so to speak. I do think there is some truth in Spike's words though that slayers do wish they could stop being slayers from time to time (which is actually normal, wanting to stop doing something you don't enjoy) but it is in those moments that slayers are at their most vulnerable which is where the demons/vampires get that upper hand. The Chinese slayer and Nikki Wood weren't committing suicide by vampire but it has been shown that slaying does take its toll eventually.
Essentially what happened is Buffy got complacent and Spike, spotting that weakness, decided to screw with her.
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WillowFromBuffy
Guest
No, no, no. What I am saying is that being a slayer takes strength and depression and despair saps you of that strength. "The hardest thing to do in this world is to live in it." The later series deals a lot with depression. Depression is a sneaky thing. It creeps up on you. It often takes a while before people realise they have started to sabotage their own lives.
Spike is definitely enjoying himself, but I think he is saying something Buffy needs to hear. If Buffy wasn't depressed, she would not have needed Spike. Still, I think Spike is trying to help Buffy. He wants Buffy to be strong, because he loves her for her strength.
Agreed. Spike had feeling for Buffy, he didn't want her dead, not matter what he said. He was trying to help her, to keep her alive as long as possible.
DeadlyDuo
Scooby
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I disagree. I don't think Buffy is depressed at this stage, but I thinks she wants to stop being a slayer but knows she can't. That's not to say that she wants to give up being a slayer completely, but she just wants a break, a period of time when she's not "The Slayer" but is just Buffy. It's in those moments, when they don't want to be the slayer, that slayers are at their most vulnerable. It's normal to not want to have to fight for your life everyday which is essentially what slayers are forced to do. That doesn't mean they want to die, it just means they want to be normal.
I think Spike is very confused about his feelings for Buffy at this stage. He both hates and loves her at the same time. He enjoys twisting the knife but he doesn't want her to die. He tries to kiss her then when she rejects him, he wants to kill her. He sees her crying and he goes to comfort her. Spike wants to hurt Buffy but he can't bear to see her come to harm. He's very conflicted.
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WillowFromBuffy
Guest
I am a firm believer in a lot that old Freudian gubbel-de-goo. We all have life-drive and death-drive. If your life-drive is too weak, then you are in trouble. It doesn't mean you want to die. It is problematic just to not want to live enough.
If Buffy the show is a metaphor for high school and the demons are a demons of the mind, then being the slayer is simply being able to deal with everyday shit. We all want a break, but there is no break from life. The problem with suicide is its permanency. One of Spike's best speeches is in Gone, when he angrily warns Buffy about toying with the idea of detaching herself from her actions. It's not healthy. It won't do you any good in the long run.