Spiral

[Updated May 2, 2013]

Spiral makes explicit the full implications of The Replacement. We’ve known since Blood Ties that Ben and Glory share the same body, but the consequences weren’t spelled out until now. Since Glory and Ben share the same body, they can’t exist apart from each other: “Kill the man and the god dies”. In case it’s not obvious, I’ll state unequivocally the choices Gregor presents to Buffy: kill Ben to destroy Glory (though when he says this the characters themselves don’t know that Ben is Glory); or kill Dawn to save the world from Glory. You should be thinking about these choices and the moral issues they raise as we move towards the finale.

As long as we’re at it, there’s no reason to limit the moral issues to Buffy. What’s Ben’s ethical obligation? If you were in his shoes, would you feel obligated to commit suicide to prevent Glory from going back home? And if you think Ben has the obligation to save the world by destroying himself, what then would you say of Dawn? If either or both have the obligation to destroy themselves, is it therefore Buffy’s obligation to help them?

I’m deliberately stalling on Buffy’s choices and on the issues raised by Ben and Dawn because I’ll get to them in the next two episodes. The beliefs of the Knights raise a related point, though, which I do want to explore here.

The Knights offer essentially two reasons for attempting to kill Dawn: the Key is too dangerous; and “such is the will of God”. It’s the latter justification which raises a deep philosophical problem.

Any system of morality based on belief in a divine being has two possible ways to explain moral actions:

1. The act is good in itself and can be justified by moral reasoning such as deontological ethics (as discussed in previous posts on Choices and Listening to Fear). Systems of morality which don’t rely on belief in divinity are limited to moral reasoning in order to explain “good” and “bad”.
2. The act is good because God told me to do it. What God tells me to do is by definition good. 

Here’s the problem: if an action is good because it can be shown to be good by standard moral reasoning, then there’s no need for God. If an action is good because God ordered it done, then we need to know if God ordered it because the act was good in itself – in which case the fact that God gave the order is irrelevant – or if God ordered it arbitrarily. Arbitrary orders from God can seem quite evil. A classic example appears in the Biblical story of God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. And a God who orders evil done in his name is perhaps not a God who should be worshipped.

Thus, commands from God create two possible moral answers, but both paths seem to call into question the need for God. There’s a formal term for this problem: it’s called the Euthyphro Dilemma:

“Socrates in one of the early dialogues debates the nature of the holy with Euthyphro, who is a religious professional. Euthyphro is taking his own father to court for murder, and though ordinary Greek morality would condemn such an action as impiety, Euthyphro defends it on the basis that the gods behave in the same sort of way, according to the traditional stories. … Socrates's problem with the traditional stories about the gods gives rise to what is sometimes called ‘the Euthyphro dilemma’. If we try to define the holy as what is loved by the gods (and goddesses), we will be faced with the question ‘Is the holy holy because it is loved by the gods, or do they love it because it is holy?’”

If the gods only love something which is already holy, then we don’t need the gods. If someone argues that something is holy simply because the gods do it, like Euthyphro did, then we’re going to see that person as committing a wrong.

Bringing this back to Buffy, in her conversations with Gregor he gives some lip service to the idea of the dangers involved if Glory were to obtain the Key. He also makes a consequentialist argument to Ben when he urges Ben to kill Dawn: “You can save all their lives by ending one.” Gregor obviously expects this argument to persuade Ben, and it’s a form of argument we’ve seen several times before, notably in Choices with Wesley arguing against trading the Box of Gavrok in order to ransom Willow. We’ll see it again very soon.

However, Gregor’s own motivation seems to be that destroying the Key is “the will of God”. I say this is his real motivation because the danger posed by the Key might be addressed in ways other than destroying it (e.g., hiding it). Gregor rejects the alternatives, indicating that his fundamental motivation rests on divine command. Buffy then gets right to the heart of the Euthyphro Dilemma: “What kind of god would demand her life for something that she has no control over?”

Buffy’s question suggests her own answer, but we’ll see more of her reasoning in the finale.

Spiral also raises another moral issue. I’ve seen it argued that Buffy violated her code by killing humans. I think this is wrong for two reasons. First, the Knights aren’t the first humans to die because of Buffy. In order we have (1) Amy’s mother in Witch; (2) the zookeeper in The Pack; (3) Coach Marin fell into the sewer with the fish monsters after Buffy tripped him (Go Fish); (4) the Tarakan assassin whom Buffy killed on the ice rink in Surprise What’s My Line (h/t local-max) was seemingly human; (5) the terrorist Gruenstahler brothers who shot each other to death after Buffy threw her corsage onto one of them (Homecoming); and (6) Gwendolyn Post, whose hand she chopped off in Revelations.

In Coach Marin’s case, she did try to save him but failed. In cases 1, 2, and 6, there’s a good argument that the humans tried to access mystical powers and therefore brought themselves within Buffy’s jurisdiction. This applies to the Knights as well – human they were, but the Knights were intruding themselves into the mystical and that’s Buffy’s jurisdiction.

The other 2 cases involve humans whose deaths Buffy caused, one directly and one indirectly (but intentionally). One was self-defense and the other a combination of self-defense and defense of Angel, which leads us to the next point. I think we have to distinguish self-defense situations from Buffy’s ordinary Slayer duties. Buffy doesn’t track down human criminals, but if one attacked her I have no doubt she’d defend herself. She has yet more justification for defending the helpless and innocent Dawn and the others with her like Tara.

Local-max suggested in comments that the Knights pose a harder question than the other examples I gave: “While Buffy's killing the Knights is justifiable, I think we should be more uncomfortable with it than the other examples listed, because, well, all the other examples were people who were clearly being evil by most measures. … The Knights' goal is to protect and save the world. They are not wrong that Dawn endangers the world. Killing people in self-defense when those people are working from a flawed but well-meaning moral system is trickier than killing people in self-defense when they are acting clearly immorally, I think. I still support Buffy's choice ultimately and think it is in character though.”

Here’s my response:

“Your point about the Knights being a tougher call is well-taken. I'd still say Buffy was correct, but the reasoning is more complicated. Suppose there's a train coming and it's out of control. It will kill 5 people unless something is thrown onto the track to stop it or divert it. You, seeing the emergency, try to throw me onto the track. Do I have the right to claim self-defense in order to stop you? I think I do, but that's not entirely clear. If, for example, I need to kill you to defend myself, there will be 6 deaths (yours and the other 5). If you throw me on the track, there will be one (mine). From a social POV, one death seems preferable. To a strict deontologist, my right supersedes and the 5 deaths are just an unfortunate accident.

Dawn's situation, and Ben's, raise this issue to the ultimate because the fate of the whole universe is at stake.”

Some additional points:

Buffy’s plan to run away fits perfectly into the metaphor of growing up which I see as the main theme of the series. I’ll explain this in more detail in the finale when I discuss Glory’s metaphorical role.

What we see of the Knights in Spiral reinforces the suggestion I made in my post on Blood Ties about their metaphorical role as religious and patriarchal. The General’s name, Gregor, was the name of a number of Popes (Gregory). Dante’s name association is fairly obvious, as are the clerics, the attire, and the weaponry. Xander’s reference to the Crusades adds another link.

I think one could argue that the confrontation with the Knights takes place in the desert to show both the barrenness of the world if Dawn were to be destroyed and to represent Buffy’s mental state from the stress she was under.

Note the parallel between Dawn and Buffy. Dawn has it within her to destroy the universe. Buffy has struggled all season with the destructive force the Slayer within her represents.

Trivia notes: (1) Spiral is an homage to the movie Stagecoach, or at least the chase scene from that movie. Stagecoach was the first “talkie” Western by Joss’s favorite director, John Ford. Ford later made the movie The Searchers, which I discussed in my post on Buffy v. Dracula. For Stagecoach Ford plucked from obscurity an actor named John Wayne and the rest was history. (2) Gotta love Dawn’s use of the phrase “bring it on” in describing Buffy’s confrontation with Glory in the street – Clare Kramer (Glory) was in that movie. In the same narrative Dawn also used the phrase “she’s all that”. SMG was in that movie. (3) The rocket launcher Xander mentioned was, of course, used by Buffy in Innocence. (4) Anya mentioned the “creepy cartoon rabbit”, meaning Bugs Bunny, and the “nice man with the speech impediment”, meaning Elmer Fudd. Giles’s sarcastic suggestion of painting a tunnel on the side of a mountain refers to a stock cartoon event. (5) Buffy pulled out Adam’s uranium power core in Primeval. The obvious reason for mentioning the rocket launcher and the joining spell was to emphasize just how powerful Glory was. (6) Xander twice mentioned Sergeant Rock, a famous comic book character. (7) Spike’s phrase “put the hammer down” is American slang meaning to push the accelerator pedal to the floor. (8) Spike’s phrase “toss your cookies” is American slang meaning to vomit. (9) Xander referred to Spike as “undead man walking”, which is a reference to the movie Dead Man Walking. (10) When Anya held up a can of food (I use the term lightly), it was a can of SPAM. (11) The scene where Buffy throws the axe into the chest of the Knight very much resembles the scene in Checkpoint where she threw an axe into the dummy. (12) Florence Nightingale, mentioned by Spike, was a famous nurse. She would have been very well known to William as a result of her work for the British Army during the Crimean War. (13) Note that Willow’s eyes turned black both when she created the barrier and when she brought it down. (14) Willow mentioned Heckle and Jeckle, also cartoon characters. (15) One of the mental patients in the hospital was the man who confronted Dawn in Real Me. (16) Buffy’s mention of The Outer Limits was to the 1960s TV show of that name. (17) Ben promised not to leave until he’d worn out his welcome. That was prophetic, in a way. (18) Spike’s description of the Knights as “the Renaissance Faire” refers to the American theme fairs of that name. (19) Spike’s description of Gregor as “General Armour-All” refers to the auto care product Armour All.