S2 Angel/S6 Buffy - The Cold

[butterfly]

That's what Angel's trying to escape in Reprise. That's what Buffy thinks her friends can't handle in Once More, With Feeling. Both of them take comfort in sex with a vampire.

Angel gets his moment of clarity after sleeping with Darla, but it doesn't last. He starts hoping and then he pins his hopes on family - primarily Cordy and then Connor, secondly on Wes, and then also on Gunn, Fred, and Lorne.

One by one, he starts losing what he loves. He starts losing his hope and his heart is bleeding out because of the pain it feels. In the end, he feels like he has to cut out his heart to continue the fight.

Just to compile some of the pertinent ideas:
"If we don't gut ourselves and burn out everything inside that gave her power over us, then we're lost." From Angel. The one who believes that not everyone can be saved. Who thinks that he's damned to hell.

"That the world we're fighting for? The right to be heartless, an uncaring shell? To be dead inside? That's not enough." And that's from Fred, who still believes. Fred hopes.

To be heartless. That's something that Angel would welcome. Hearts get in the way, right?

Love is sacrifice. Sending your lover to hell to save the world. Jumping into a portal to save your sister. Slicing into your son to save him. Giving up your chance at humanity to save a new friend.

What is right? What is good?

Are they always the same?

There's an essay about Terry Pratchett's books called In Defense of Niceness that mentions the differences between Right and Good and Nice.

Excerpts that apply:
"Of Carrot, for example, Terry has said that he is "Good, but not necessarily Right or Nice". An understanding of the semantic scope of these words, of where boundaries between Rightness, Goodness and Niceness lie, casts light on the function of the various characters within the moral scheme of the Discworld. It is a notable feature of Terry's strong "good" characters that they have the potential to be evil, whereas the evil characters have no such potential for good, and this to a large extent accounts for the much greater fascination that the good characters exert."

"The perfectly good character would be right and good and nice (Brutha springs to mind), but the majority of good central characters embody only two virtues."

"Right is thus clearly the category into which the Patrician falls. He is perfectly willing to sacrifice individuals for the good of the whole, but he does his best to ensure that the price is paid by the smallest number."

"And in this sense, as a fully-fledged member of a community, Sam Vimes is undoubtedly Nice. He deals with his fallible fellow creatures on a personal level: he acknowledges their limitations, indeed hates them at times, but he knows them. Not in the manipulative, impersonal manner of the Patrician, nor in the idealising, impersonal manner of Carrot, but as a fellow-member of that community."

Who in the BtVS/AtSverse is Right? Who is Good? Who is Nice?

Comments

Hmmmm

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Not sure I'd call Sam Vimes nice (or Nice). I agree he's somewhere in the middle between Carrot and the Patrician, but I struggle to find another word to define the position.

However, back to the Jossverse: I'd say that Giles is Right most of the time - putting the Greater Good above all (most pointedly in his arguments with Buffy in The Gift and Lies.... So is Wesley. Both men, however, relate to individuals and have at times put individual affection over the greater good, though rarely. Angel in season 2 and apparently now again (interesting that season 2's malaise was after losing (human) Darla, and season 5 after losing Connor) is trying to be Right and Good without being Nice, but has trouble managing even the Right part. Buffy I think stopped being Good in the idealising Carrot sense as early as season 2. She always tried for Right. (Not saying she always suceeded, obviously.) Nice becomes an increasing effort in times of extreme stress, but it should be noted that even an emotionally exhausted Buffy (like in Anne, or Empty Places - can relate to individual strangers - in fact better than to most of her friends). Of course, with Buffy you have the ongoing problem that sometimes Nice and Right can mean opposite things - saving the world vs. sacrificing Dawn in season 5, or being a leader vs being a member of the community in season 7.

Re: Hmmmm

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I'm unsure of it myself sometimes, but when asked to find a character who was Nice, Vimes is who Terry Pratchett named.

Maybe, not so much as Nice, what he is is personal. Both Carrot and Vetinari do deal at people from a distance ("Personal isn't the same as important." - Carrot), whereas Vimes always deals with people, not ideals. Carrot can force people to do the Good thing through sheer force of will, and Vetinari can force people to do the Right thing by dint of the fact that he's the Partician. Perhaps the key to Nice is that you don't try to make people change. You accept them as they are, whatever that may be, not forcing your own views on them.

Good is probably the hardest, which is why Carrot is such an interesting yet foreign character.

Actually, though, I would say that Xander is mostly Right, with a side of Good. And much of the time, he's not nearly Nice enough. He does tend to idealise people and things. He puts things into black or white categories.

Actually, S5-wise, I'd say that saving the world vs. sacrificing Dawn is more a struggle between Right and Good. Letting an innocent girl die for the sake of everyone else may be Right in terms of minimising suffering, but it isn't Good. But S7, I agree was a fight between Right and Nice. Interesting that Good and Nice both win out over Right in later seasons Buffy. She thinks that Right is the most important because of what happened with Angel and later learns that that's not true.

Hmmm

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I always thought Willow in S4-6 was a portrayal of the dangers of thinking that Nice was enough. She certainly reminded me of Lily Weatherwax up to the point where the drug metaphor kicked in.

Re: Hmmm

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That's an interesting thought. And she, like Lily, could annoy me so much. And I could see her pulling just that type of thing, actually. The screwed up fairy-tale land.

And it's possible that my 'not really a Willow fan at all' roots are showing.