Kinship and Forgiveness

[butterfly]

We tend to like characters that we can understand. People generally need to have an 'in', to be able to get inside that person, for some reason or another.

Which isn't to say that that's the only characters that get liked.

I like Buffy Summers - I have a lot in common with her. The only part where I had trouble was in Season Seven, when she had faith in Spike, which I couldn't understand. I'm starting to, now, but I'm not a Buffy or a Fred or an Andrew. When it comes to Spike, I'm much more an Angel. Season Seven was the first time that Buffy ever did anything that I couldn't understand right away. It broke my heart - she broke my heart. Which, in one sense, is silly - she's just a character on a television show. But in another sense, she's me.

Essence of teen girl grows up to be essence of woman - that's my Buffy. That's my BtVS - the journey from girl to woman.

When I watch something on a regular basis, I do put my heart into it. I can't quite see the point otherwise. Not only do I need to care to keep watching, I want to. My mom hates it when a show makes her cry, but I welcome it. Tear my heart out. Make me cry, make me laugh, make me think and change and grow.

Make me see outside myself.

I use what I love to show myself how to love. It's about challenging my own ideas - I want to know why I care, what I care about, and how to go about caring more. Slowly, I am learning the why and hows of my own heart and that's a valuable thing to know.

Buffy has taught me the value of so many things, but most of all, what I've learned is centered around forgiveness. People do horrible, stupid things sometimes. There's isn't a character on Buffy who hasn't. But that doesn't make them horrible or stupid. It makes them human. But before Season Seven, it didn't really hit home, because the show's central character had never done anything that I'd found it hard to forgive.

To err is human. To make mistakes is to be alive because life can't be made without them. You can't get to right without stopping by wrong at least a few times.

Life is a series of choices, and no matter how many times any one of us make the wrong choice, life remains a series of choices. It's all about choice and change, and sometimes you have to make the wrong choice in order to understand why it's the wrong choice.

Jasmine: "No. No, Angel. There are no absolutes. No right and wrong. Haven't you learned anything working for the Powers? There are only choices. I offered paradise. You chose this!"
Angel: "Because I could. Because that's what you took away from us. Choice."
Jasmine: "And look what free will has gotten you."
Angel: "Hey, I didn't say we were smart. I said it's our right. It's what makes us human."
- Peace Out

Comments

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

I like Buffy Summers - I have a lot in common with her. The only part where I had trouble was in Season Seven, when she had faith in Spike, which I couldn't understand. I'm starting to, now, but I'm not a Buffy or a Fred or an Andrew. When it comes to Spike, I'm much more an Angel. Season Seven was the first time that Buffy ever did anything that I couldn't understand right away. It broke my heart - she broke my heart. Which, in one sense, is silly - she's just a character on a television show. But in another sense, she's me

Did you find yourself understanding why she might have done so?

Because I didn't see her really forgiving Spike on it's face.

To me, Buffy's need to see Spike be the good guy and hero in S7 - wasn't really about Spike. It was in large part about duty and obligation and atonement - not solely for using Spike in S6 - but for being the person she was during her depression. It felt to me like she was working through a lot of things - and helping Spike be a better person was a big part of her effort to see herself as being a better person as well.

Some of it was akin to Angel helping Faith in AtS-1.

IMHO, some of it is the mentorship/support she feels somebody should have offered him in S5-6. I think Buffy also needs to see him be strong and good and okay to make up for the guilt she feels when she sees him insane and miserable in the basement - particularly when he invokes Angel's name. Some of it, is Buffy getting a second chance at helping out Angel - as Buffy defends S7 Spike in front of her friends in a way she feels she never defended Angel. And Buffy needs him to be a good guy and a hero, because it justifies her not staking him like she believes she probably should have a long time ago. And Buffy standing up for Spike, accepting responsibility for his condition, allows her to not feel like she was his victim.

IMHO, that's how messed up she still was over S6.

But before Season Seven, it didn't really hit home, because the show's central character had never done anything that I'd found it hard to forgive.

Me too. My real problem with Buffy in S7, wasn't her treatment of Spike - which made me pity her rather than be upset at her. That was just a symptom of her greater problem. What I had problems with, was her atrocious performance of her duties - her terrible leadership - her inability to recognize what her enemy was, what her resources and strengths were, and her inability to interact with her friends in a way that achieved her goals - as a slayer or as a person.

But even then, she never struck me as a bad person - but a fundamentally lost person - and someone in desperate need of a sabbatical.

Re:

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Did you find yourself understanding why she might have done so?

Actually, it has a lot to do with what you said - she conflated Spike with Angel. She had to believe that a soul was a special, beautiful, difference-making thing because of Angel(us). Because of what had happened with that.

But even then, she never struck me as a bad person - but a fundamentally lost person - and someone in desperate need of a sabbatical.

Exactly. Buffy needed a break. Luckily, she has one now and I wish only the best for her in Rome.

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

Apropos of quoting Jasmine, I finally saw the first Angel episode featuring Connor over the weekend. Yay for syndication! Maybe it's because I know the way his story ends, but I saw him as completely lost even moments after he arrives on Earth. He's so focused on killing Angel, and when he can't he falls back on his hunting skills. Poor, poor Sunny, who was lost in a different way, yet gained a connection to Connor even after knowing him only a short time.

And Angel! I really felt for Angel - his joy that his son had returned, mixed with the knowledge that he'd never really have Connor, that Connor was already so twisted from growing up with Holtz that he couldn't survive. Oh, the tragedy! The moment when Connor looks up at Angel and says, "My name is Steven" - such a repudiation of everything Angel would offer him. I'll be curious to see the rest of third season, and to finally see all of four to see the entirety of his fall.

I really hope he'll be on the show at some point this season. I loved that Cordelia and Angel talked about him last episode.

Re:

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is a great episode. That's when I started watching the show again and I was so thrilled and excited by Teen!Connor.

Like you, I hope to see him again.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I agree utterly that kinship makes the love. I mean, Buffy? Buffy was the kid who made my life hell, she's the one with influence who gets wrapped up in herself and steamrollers over other people. I can't sign up to be with Buffy. Faith, otoh, I can see the reasoning in. I can get that feeling of being Outside and knowing that you're never going to be like the cool kids. I might not have killed anyone, but I did that thing of one day going "Fukkit, they hate me anyway, I'm not gonna repress anymore." And I've seen that Buffy/Faith dynamic so many times getting people fucked up.

Earshot, when Buffy tells Jonathan off for being miserable? I'm Johnny, and I wanted to kill her.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Whereas, for me, Faith is the one that frustrates me all to hell because she didn't need to go off like that (the only person who didn't reach out to her was Wesley, and even he was doing his best, in his own incompetent way) . Like Buffy, I'm the type who represses until she dies.