Martyrs and Heroes
Jan. 4th, 2004 12:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflyI have crazy and wacky definitions sometimes. And well, it's good for people to know what I mean when I say things, or we're all talking in tongues and none of us are getting through.
First, there is this - to me, being a martyr encompasses and supersedes being a hero. Buffy and Frodo are heroes, but first and foremost, they are martyrs and that is how I treat them. The martyr aspect means more because it entails a level of sacrifice that 'simply' being a hero does not - it entails direct sacrifice of self - not of body, but of being.
Or, to put it another way - you can have a fallen hero yet you need not fall to be a hero. All martyrs are fallen by definition. They give up their essence to save. They empty themselves for a cause, and that does leave them empty. In a way, a martyr is a hero both fallen and risen - at the same moment and by the same action.
The difference between Frodo and Buffy is that Buffy wasn't allowed to stay in Valinor. She was forced to return to her never-quite-a-Shire, which had been Scoured and was not granted a release from it because the love her friends bore her was different than the ones that Frodo's bore him. Frodo was loved selflessly, Buffy selfishly. This is not to condemn those who loved her - Willow and Xander were not Sam, but they loved Buffy more they could bear. And Sam had the hope of going to Frodo, when the time came - he had a specific place to travel to. Willow and Xander were mapless, trapped in Emyn Muil with no Gollum in sight.
I've compared Buffy and Frodo before and the idea is always tempting. They have so many differences, but they also have a great deal in common. Both of them are about the journey of innocence forever lost - about people who give every ounce of what they have and then give a little more - people break themselves for the sake of the world and for the sake of one who represents the world.
I love heroes - who fight until they win or until they give their last breath fighting. But even more, I love the one who stops fighting and instead gives their last breath. A hero is a match in a dead forest, a martyr the last drop of water that breaks the dam.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 12:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 12:35 am (UTC)And I'm just glad my brain started working. I was at the "Fire bad. Tree pretty." level after my first couple of viewings.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 01:26 am (UTC)I think you're exactly right re both Buffy and Frodo. I always remember that little bit Frodo tells Sam (I think it's Sam) that someone has to save things, and in that way not have them, so everyone can have them (that's v poorly paraphrased, but I looked for the passage twice already and couldn't find it). It also always reminds me of this heartbreaking little sentence right near the climax of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven, where the hero enumerates the things that give him courage and Le-Guin-as-narrator comments: "It did not seem like much to cross the darkness on. He went forward. He knew as he did he would lose all he had."
moi
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 01:37 am (UTC)I think that he implies that in the movie as well, when he says, "We set out to save the Shire. And it has been saved... but not for me."
Gah. So heartbreaking.
The parallel has crossed my mind before...
Date: 2004-01-04 01:29 am (UTC)Re: The parallel has crossed my mind before...
Date: 2004-01-04 01:36 am (UTC)Re: The parallel has crossed my mind before...
Date: 2004-01-04 01:39 am (UTC)moi
Re: The parallel has crossed my mind before...
Date: 2004-01-04 01:08 pm (UTC)Yeah, they do have a lot in common.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 01:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 02:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 03:13 am (UTC)She's a hero, you see. She's not like us
Date: 2004-01-04 04:27 am (UTC)I'd say Angel definitely becomes a martyr (for Connor) in "Home" -- that's his dive off the tower, metaphorically speaking. It's hard to see how ME might revive him -- he seems in just about as bad a place as early S6 Buffy was. I think there tends to be a lot more debate about doing-good-for-the-right-reasons or doing-good-to-get-rewarded on Angel than on Buffy, although there was some of it re Spike. When Buffy did the right thing, it was nearly always without any personal benefit -- Slayerness was always entwined with death, even as late as S7 ("that's the cool reward for being human. Big dessert at the end of the meal....You think you're different 'cause you might be the next slayer? Death is what a slayer breathes, what a slayer dreams about when she sleeps. Death is what a slayer lives"). From S1 on Angel on you had the possibility of shansu as the "reward," as Wesley terms it, for being the Champion, although now ME seems to be fudging that up a bit ("That's not a prize you're holding. It's not a trophy. It's a burden. It's a cross. One you're gonna have to bear till it burns you to ashes. Believe me. I know").
I'm not sure how to fit Angel from "Epiphany" into the mix (although frankly I like the nothing-matters-so-everything-matters approach, but that's probably because I'm a sucker for existentialism). And then there's wayy back when Whistler approached him and he decided he wanted to be someone who "mattered"....Angel the character has always seemed more day-by-day and existential to me (in "Gingerbread" with "We never win....We never will. That's not why we fight. We do it 'cause there's things worth fighting for"). That doesn't seem to me to fit with the Grail of "Destiny" and the shansu reward, or maybe that's just cause I should go to bed now.
moi
Re: She's a hero, you see. She's not like us
Date: 2004-01-04 08:38 am (UTC)Good one. That's a word ME has beaten into the ground beyond semblance of actual meaning.
To me, Angel's been a very existentialist character, though his outlook "I fight because I don't want people to suffer" is also very Bhuddist as well.
I don't quite see Angel as a martyr in the way that I see Buffy. Not that it's a bad thing. Buffy has shown that she's willing to give everything she has, if she has to, in order to do good. I think there's a tiny bit of Angel that he's always holding on to, because he believes he's needed to keep going in the world.
It's not a negative thing. Rather, I think he's sort of a Bodisattva figure in that regard.
Re: She's a hero, you see. She's not like us
Date: 2004-01-04 03:50 pm (UTC)I think there's a tiny bit of Angel that he's always holding on to, because he believes he's needed to keep going in the world.
Hunh, I think that would be true before Connor. I think after losing Connor, getting Connor back, losing him again, having to kill him, and losing him again, Angel is sort of....gone. I see a definite parallel between Buffy/Dawn in the S5 finale and Angel/Connor in the S4 finale although Angel "gets" W&H instead of heaven -- YMMV, of course.
It's not a negative thing. Rather, I think he's sort of a Bodisattva figure in that regard.
Now that's an interesting way to look at it. I think that's v true of Angel in S5, although of course his friends may not see his "helping" them in the same way if they ever find out about the mindwipe.
moi
Re: She's a hero, you see. She's not like us
Date: 2004-01-05 03:37 am (UTC)But he's only "sort of" gone. Buffy was completely gone, as in dead. Angel, depressed and disheartened as he currently is - is still "alive" and in the world fighting. Even if it's inside the belly of the beast. Buffy was removed from the world.
There is though, an interesting parallel between Buffy's description of Heaven and Angel's viewing of Connor in that both seem to reveal what these two really want. In Buffy's case, more than anything, it seems to me that she wants a world where her friends are safe, loved, and happy. And people are okay. She can be at peace. And Angel, as much as it hurts him, can be at peace with his decision re:Connor as long as he believes that Connor is safe, loved and happy. Or at least as close as "being at peace" with anything as Angel is really capable of being.
Re: She's a hero, you see. She's not like us
Date: 2004-01-05 08:49 am (UTC)((going all technical for a moment)) But Angel IS dead! ((ducks))
Ha. I actually think Angel at this point is more like Buffy after she was brought back -- like someone with serious depression, he's just limping through every day. I guess I consider him psychically gone, if not physically so.
moi
Re: She's a hero, you see. She's not like us
Date: 2004-01-04 01:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 01:10 pm (UTC)And Angel... I think that he has had his moments, but as to whether he's ever had a heroic heart... that's up for debate (which I do like about his character).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 01:38 pm (UTC)Thanks.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-06 11:18 am (UTC)Very welcome. I'm always willing to put my words into other people's mouths.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-06 11:18 am (UTC)Very welcome. I'm always willing to put my words into other people's mouths.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 07:17 am (UTC)Oh, that's interesting. I'd flip it around; a martyr can be a hero, but for me hero is the larger term. A martyr endures. A hero does. (So Frodo and Buffy are both, in my head.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 01:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 04:20 pm (UTC)moi
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 05:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 09:42 am (UTC)Say, can I marry you?
::coughs::
Anyway, you took the words right out of my brain. *g* This morning, upon waking up, I started musing about Frodo/Sam and Buffy/Spike and the way they save the world...which brings you to the parallels between Frodo and Buffy, of course.
You've said it beautifully: they are both martyrs; even though I would argue that the difference isn't only remaining in that peaceful h(e)aven but is already present the moment they are perched on the edge, looking into oblivion. To me, unlike Frodo when he puts on the Ring, Buffy hasn't given up herself but has simply given herself: this last act isn't denying who she has been but fulfilling who she is. Jumping off the tower is not about the loss of Buffy -- it's her gift.
Both of them are about the journey of innocence forever lost - about people who give every ounce of what they have and then give a little more - people break themselves for the sake of the world and for the sake of one who represents the world.
This I agree with again, so maybe it's not a difference of quality but degree. Buffy *was* cracked, a shell of her old persona, but she was still herself, not irreparably broken and irretrievably lost. Granted, in Season Six, Spike is quite right when he tells her she came back wrong, but she when we look into her eyes at the end of Season Seven, we know the improbably has happened: the rifts in the foundation have been mended, and she'll be fine again (and not the Scully version of "fine", either).
Of course, she's both won the victory out of her own self, *and* she has had an unbreakable blood tie to the world-- I found it a bit sad that this idea of reconnecting via her love for Dawn wasn't explored more in Season Six. But then again, we had Spuffy sex, so why am I complaining? & ;-)
Hm. Somehow, my point of Frodo/Sam and Buffy/Spike got lost, and I'm almost off to meet a friend for Chinese. Will be back later. Run and hide! & :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 01:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-04 04:23 pm (UTC)You know, I really really like that. And one of the reasons I like that was because I disagreed with a lot of the criticism I heard that at the end of S5 Buffy "committed suicide" and it was depressing, and a bad way for her to go out, and so on. The end of "The Gift" always really destroys me, but it doesn't depress me. It's cathartic somehow, and I think for exactly the reasons you outlined above. I'm happy the series didn't end that way -- it's great that Buffy winds up with peers, that she's alive and has her friends and a future -- but I've never seen "The Gift" as depressing, and you just helped me figure out why. So thanks.
moi
Martyrs and Witnesses
Date: 2004-01-04 03:42 pm (UTC)Whenever I hear the word "martyr," though, I can't help but think of the original Greek meaning: "witness." In early Christianity, at least, a martyr wasn't necessarily someone who died for their beliefs, but someone who testified to the truth of their existence, who bore witness to what they believed, no matter what it might cost them. If the only alternative was to lie, to deny what they believed to be really true and really real, then the martyr would indeed risk ostracism, ridicule, persecution, and even grisly death in order to be true to the core of their being and hopefully show the world a better way. Only later did "martyr" come to have the popular meaning of someone who suffered and died for a worthy cause.
However, I think your argument still works, even with the older meaning of "martyr" as someone who bears witness to the truth. Angel's words to Connor at the start of AtS season 4, "We live as though the world were the way it should be, in order to show it what it can be" (I'm loosely quoting from memory, here), had seemed to me to point to the difference between being called to effectiveness and being called to faithfulness, between being called to succeed and being called to spend oneself in trying. Now, I'm thinking that was Angel's definition of martyrdom, of what it means to bear witness to the truth with no rational expectation of success or survival.
Perhaps heroes are defined, in the end, by their ability to make a difference, to change the world somehow, even if they die in the process. And perhaps martyrs like Frodo and Buffy are defined, in the end, not by their ability to change the world, but by their willingness to sacrifice everything but the truth in order to give the world a chance to change ITSELF, to make new and better choices?
Of course, in order to give the world a chance to choose a better future, the martyr does usually have to keep it from being swallowed in hellfire or drowned in orcs! Interesting questions you've raised. Thanks again.
Re: Martyrs and Witnesses
Date: 2004-01-04 05:48 pm (UTC)One of the things that people have said about me enough times for me to believe it is that I give great meta.
If the only alternative was to lie, to deny what they believed to be really true and really real, then the martyr would indeed risk ostracism, ridicule, persecution, and even grisly death in order to be true to the core of their being and hopefully show the world a better way. Only later did "martyr" come to have the popular meaning of someone who suffered and died for a worthy cause.
Of course - that makes perfect sense. As the 'witness' continued to be killed for standing up, the word narrowed to mean only that part of what had once been a larger whole. That's just fascinating.
Perhaps heroes are defined, in the end, by their ability to make a difference, to change the world somehow, even if they die in the process. And perhaps martyrs like Frodo and Buffy are defined, in the end, not by their ability to change the world, but by their willingness to sacrifice everything but the truth in order to give the world a chance to change ITSELF, to make new and better choices?
Oh, that's beautiful.
Finally "friending" you
Date: 2004-01-05 08:02 am (UTC)Re: Finally "friending" you
Date: 2004-01-06 10:16 am (UTC)Oh, you have a Sean Astin-y mood icon set!
Date: 2004-01-08 01:44 pm (UTC)(Just returned to LJ after months away, so my apologies if I missed the info somewhere.)
Re: Oh, you have a Sean Astin-y mood icon set!
Date: 2004-01-08 05:19 pm (UTC)