Buffy the Vampire Slayer 3x15 "Consequences" Full Reaction
Added 2019-12-12 20:34:23 +0000 UTC
Comments
Lol, I had a long reply, that I accidentally deleted. The short version: Great post about Faith. She is endlessly fascinating and Eliza Dushku is amazing.
Kirby
2021-03-20 00:26:34 +0000 UTCAngel WAS getting through to her. Given more time, he would have got her to trust him.
HuntingSwan
2020-01-01 14:47:36 +0000 UTCOn another note (sorry, I meant to make this one post), I honestly think that Faith defines herself in comparison to Buffy. They're sort of like a yin-yang for what it means to be a Slayer. When they're in sync, like at the start of Revelations, they bring out the best in each other. When they fall out of sync, they fracture and divide and hurt each other. More than that, I really think that Faith is either in love with Buffy or else the idea of what Buffy represents. When she first arrives, she says she's heard all about Buffy, and is interested in hearing her stories. It's only when Buffy's own friends interrupt to hear Faith's stories that Buffy starts to feel insecure. And when Scott Hope dumps Buffy, Faith pranks him at the dance purely because he screwed over Buffy, which shows that she cares about her. I may be reading too much into this, but when Faith says, after Scott dumps her, "You still have the tickets, why don't we go together?" She quickly amends this to "using and discarding" some guys when Buffy seems reluctant, but look at their chemistry early on. Look at what they bring out in each other. And listen to how Faith defends herself at the end of this episode. She doesn't really defend herself, but she gets into Buffy's headspace, trying to convince Buffy that she has the same darkness in her that Faith does, and when Buffy hits her, Faith says, "There's my girl," as if her point has been proven. And Buffy never fully denies what Faith says about the nature of being a Slayer. She walks away from Faith, you could say she's running, afraid to hear it. In all honesty, I think Faith desperately wants Buffy to come around to her way of thinking because Faith is alone in the world and Buffy is the only one who might understand her. Her watcher is dead, she has no family in Sunnydale, she has no real friends, she lives in a crappy motel room, and I can only imagine what must go through her head when she sees Buffy and all that she has. Before she came to Sunnydale, she heard stories about Buffy, so I imagine that Faith thought that she was some sort of superhero, and when they hit it off, Faith must have felt like maybe she could be a hero, too. But when that horrible accident happened - and it WAS an accident - her hero felt ashamed and horrified, and to Faith, that was like her hero, someone she truly looked up to and maybe loved, was ashamed and horrified of HER. Of course, this is all just my opinions and theories, but I hope someone reads this and gives it some thought.
Jonathan Bruser
2019-12-14 02:20:20 +0000 UTCYou made a LOT of good points, and I am so glad that while you excoriate Faith when she does bad things in the episode, you go out of your way in the analysis to understand her as a character and not just as an 'evil bitch.' I don't believe Faith when she said that she didn't care about killing Allan. I think she does care a ton, but she's afraid that admitting that to herself will weaken her and end with her in prison. She went back to the body and looked at it, touched it as if to make sure it was real. In his office, she held up his photo and noted how "he came out of nowhere." She lets her mask slip for a moment, and the moment Buffy notices it, Faith puts her guard up again. I think she's afraid that if anyone sees her caring about anything, she'll be forced to confront what it means to care about it herself.
Jonathan Bruser
2019-12-14 02:11:46 +0000 UTCThis is a mad complicated ep, and you hit the nail on the head with every point. A lot of people their first watch don't get why Willow was crying in the bathroom, or that you can both completely condemn Faith's actions AND feel empathetic about how her circumstances led to this, or even that what she did to Xander was sexual assault and attempted rape. Faith behaved atrociously, arguably unforgivably. But unlike Buffy, Faith completely lacks a support system. She lives in a motel room for gods sake. Her mom is dead (she says so in ep 3), her 1st watcher died in front of her, her 2nd watcher betrayed and humiliated her. She's bonded a bit with Buffy, but not nearly enough to break down those walls she's been forced to construct to protect herself. And you're right: from Faith's perspective, Buffy's approach (while being the morally correct thing to do and is totally justified) is to come clean and risk Faith's imprisonment, so trusting her with her life is not really an option because freedom is all Faith really has. I have a LOT of feelings about Faith.
KT
2019-12-13 17:42:14 +0000 UTCShe's a bad bitch and she's cool! Kudos to the writers but extra kudos to Eliza Dushku for her performance.
Rey Gallogo
2019-12-13 01:23:07 +0000 UTC
