Consequences

[Updated April 30, 2013]

“There were few at the scene, but they all agreed

 That the slayer who ran looked a lot like me.”

Consequences reads like waking up with a hangover after a night of binge drinking. Maybe binge drinking that led to a hit and run accident.

The metaphor of Buffy’s dream in the teaser seems pretty obvious: she’s drowning morally, just as she did physically in Bad Girls, and it’s Faith who’s holding her under water by insisting that Buffy not “rat her out”. The metaphor ties in nicely to the fact that Faith dumped Finch’s body in the river. It’s also a prophecy: Finch’s body can still provide the clues which will “grab” the Slayers. In light of all this, you have to give “credit” to Faith for using the one argument that would successfully guilt Buffy into silence, namely mentioning Buffy’s concealment of Angel’s return.

Faith’s arguments justifying her behavior are as problematic as her unsuccessful attempted concealment of the crime. Take her first one for example:

“Faith:  (steps closer) Buffy, I'm not gonna *see* anything. I missed the mark last night and I'm sorry about the guy. I really am! But it happens! Anyway, how many people do you think we've saved by now, thousands? And didn't you stop the world from ending? Because in my book, that puts you and me in the plus column.”

Faith wants to treat an individual human life as nothing more than an accounting chit, something to balance or trade as the case may be. For Buffy, each person is an end, not a means to achieve some greater goal. In contrast to Faith, she is “going to cry over some random guy who gets caught in the crossfire”. Buffy will consistently reject Faith’s argument throughout the series, no matter who makes it (and it will get made, repeatedly).

Faith next suggests an entitlement to special rules:

“Faith:  You're still not seeing the big picture, B. Something made us different. We're warriors. We're built to kill.

Buffy:  To kill demons! But it does *not* mean that we get to pass judgment on people like we're better than everybody else!

Faith:  We *are* better!

Buffy is taken aback.

Faith:  (exhilarated) That's right, better. People need us to survive. In the balance, nobody's gonna cry over some random bystander who got caught in the crossfire.”

Here’s writer Doug Petrie describing what he was trying to do in Buffy Magazine July 2004:

"Faith brings out a lot of stuff that, sooner or later, Buffy was going to have to deal with. What I like about Faith is that she's a character that forces you to take the whole premise seriously. That episode enabled us to get into the idea that, like it or not, whether they're good guys or bad guys, Buffy is a professional killer. We've gotten a lot of mileage out of the juxtaposition of Buffy being a blonde, southern California high school student who's also a professional killer of bad, non-human things. But she kills; that's her job, and what that episode got to do was take an unflinching look at this dark side of what it is they do. There's one scene in which Faith says, 'we're killers,' and Buffy says 'No, we're slayers' there's a difference.' But is there? So we got to really go pretty far with that…. Faith's idea of what they are isn't entirely accurate for Buffy. It's not wrong; that's what I love about Faith. She's not wrong; she's saying 'Let's call us what we are, we're killers,' and Buffy has a hard time with that."

And then later, but on the same theme, Faith again:

“Faith:  (approaches Buffy) But that's not it. That's not what bothers you so much. What bugs you is you know I'm right. You know in your gut we don't need the law. We *are* the law.”

It’s pretty clear that Faith made this argument in order to evade her responsibility. It’s a way of saying “I have the power so I can do what I want.” You may remember this idea being mooted in Ted, that time by Buffy’s then-shadow figure, Cordelia:

“Cordelia:  I don't get it. Buffy's the Slayer. Shouldn't she have...

Xander:  What, a license to kill? (takes a bite of a cookie)

Cordelia:  Well, not for fun. But she's like this superman. Shouldn't there be different rules for her?

Willow:  Sure, in a fascist society.

Cordelia:  Right! Why can't we have one of those?”

I’ve previously talked about the concept of responsibility in existentialist philosophy, but I don’t think I need to complicate matters here. Everyone can see that Faith’s refusal to accept responsibility for her actions was wrong. There are mitigating circumstances, there are “military” justifications for “collateral damage”. But none of them can possibly apply unless and until she owns her actions, as Buffy did immediately in Ted. “Giles:  She's in denial. There *is* no help for her until she admits what happened.”

Making choices requires that you accept the consequences of those choices. From my post on Lie to Me: committing yourself means that your actions “become something that I myself own up to, become responsible for.” Existentialists don’t get to make excuses or invent new rules that apply uniquely to them; those are just attempts to avoid responsibility rather than accept it. As long as Faith is lying about the incident, she’s acting in bad faith under any definition of morality. And yes, I do think her name was intentionally chosen for its resonance with that concept.

It’s therefore important to understand that Faith’s fundamental problem was not that she killed Allan Finch. That was an error – she was negligent (at best) or reckless (at worst) in her behavior, depending on how you interpret the scene. But her real flaw was her lack of remorse, the fact that she was “utterly unable to accept responsibility”, in Giles’ phrase, for her actions. It’s that failure which puts her at risk of “having [or developing] a taste for [killing]”, as Angel says. Because Buffy interprets her rescue from Trick as a sign of Faith’s remorse, Buffy’s “not gonna give up on her”. It was Faith who gave up on herself when she showed up at the Mayor’s door.

Some additional points:

Remember Faith’s arguments here. All of them will be relevant in later episodes.

Despite his seeming flash of insight in The Zeppo, Xander continues to behave cluelessly in this episode. His attempt to intervene with Faith was clumsy at both ends. First he managed to disclose the fact that he had sex with Faith in probably the most emotionally painful way possible for everyone, then he didn’t realize how he’d been used, then even after Buffy had told him that as nicely as she could, he persisted in his mistake and said things to Faith that wound her up to the point of trying to rape/murder him. Ironically, perhaps, Angel’s a real hero in rescuing the guy who hates him and tried to kill him. Angel really did take to heart what Buffy said in Amends.

Just when you thought it wasn’t possible to dislike Wesley more, he proves you wrong. He actually does conduct an intervention that manages to be even less successful than the ones with Buffy in Dead Man’s Party and Revelations. I think his behavior may have stemmed from resentment at the way his failings were exposed in Bad Girls, but that’s hardly a defense, and in any case he’s plenty officious enough to have acted that way without any other motive. Just one more reason to dislike the WC (as if we needed more after Helpless).

Lastly, Faith, whose behavior has careened even more out of control since she last spoke to Buffy, posed a challenge to Buffy on the docks:

“Faith:  I've seen it, B. You've got the lust. And I'm not just talking about screwing vampires.

Buffy stops in her tracks.

Buffy:  Don't you *dare* bring him into this.

Faith:  (taunting her) It was good, wasn't it? The sex? The danger? Bet a part of you even dug him when he went psycho.

Buffy:  No! (continues walking)

Faith:  (follows) See, you need me to toe the line because you're afraid you'll go over it, aren't you, B? You can't handle watching me living my own way, having a blast, because it tempts you! You know it could be you!”

Given Buffy’s reaction, Faith struck a nerve with these comments. Buffy’s at least worried that Faith might be right. That, after all, is what a shadow self is and does:

“In Jungian psychology, the shadow or ‘shadow aspect’ is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts. …’Everyone carries a shadow,’ Jung wrote, ‘and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.’ It may be (in part) one's link to more primitive animal instincts….

According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to projection: turning a personal inferiority into a perceived moral deficiency in someone else.”

So I’ll leave you to think about whether Faith is projecting her own weaknesses on Buffy or whether she’s truly articulating what Buffy knows about herself deep down inside. You might keep in mind Cordelia’s request for a book when she walked into the library: “[P]sych class. Freud and Jung.”

Trivia notes: (1) Apparently Cordy’s a Star Trek fan (“Giles: The Next Generation”). (2) Detective Stein makes his third and last appearance on the show. (3) The Mayor loved the idea of a Slayer “up for Murder 1”. This is a good example that we can’t take a character’s statements at face value. Murder 1 requires premeditation (with exceptions not relevant here), so that wouldn’t be the charge. Of course if we were being “realistic”, both Slayers would be guilty of obstruction of justice for giving false statements to the police. (4) Goody Two Shoes (you know you’ve always wondered where that came from) was the title of a 1765 book. It was a morality play on the benefits of virtue.