From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #61 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Wednesday, March 15 2000 Volume 02 : Number 061 Today's Subjects: ----------------- b/Neat Joss interview on Entertainment Weekly Online [Micole Sudberg ] b/faith redeemed ["Donald G. Keller" ] o/ted hughes' version ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: b/faith redeemed [allenw ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 09:50:26 -0800 (PST) From: Micole Sudberg Subject: b/Neat Joss interview on Entertainment Weekly Online http://www.etonline.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?article=/html/Interviews/JossHome.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 21:24:11 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/comments3/14 A general request. If someone is going to make a modest-length comment to my overlong posts, would they try not to hit "include original message in reply"? Even I'm bored seeing all my words go by again, especially since I've already read them over two or three times before I send them... Greg: Thanks for the reassurance that I haven't "missed a vital text." But that only goes for the specific point. As I've said before, I feel like if I'm going to write a responsibly-researched book about this show, there's a huge hole due to my near-complete lack of knowledge about comics. What I need is either 1) good secondary material (=The Superhero of a Thousand Faces= as it were) or 2) a collaborator who knows the comic universe in general and the Marvel universe in particular (it seems) =really well=. Here's a point of discussion: what in the world is the Council up to, and what might they do next? Have they gone back to England and given up? Or are they on Faith's trail? And =are= they watching (as opposed to Watching) Buffy, too? Why did the commando team go to see Giles? What use are they? And as far as what might happen the last six episodes, I suddenly remembered that there's one more "piece on the board" that we haven't mentioned lately: Ethan Rayne. He's incarcerated somewhere, but let's not put it past him to escape and cause havoc (or maybe even team up with the team?). And I figure Spike still has an important role to play. I forgot, also, to mention an important piece of evidence. Turns out that Buffy's dream of Faith in "GDII" and Faith's =1st= dream about Buffy in "This Year's Girl" use =the same incidental music=. Not the same arrangement, but it's most definitely the same theme, if you play them back to back. Remaining cautious, I think this =probably= doesn't mean much more than that we are supposed to think of the two dreams as twins, two versions of the "same" dream, two sides of the same coin. Which leads me to my next topic... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 21:37:34 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/faith redeemed >...I think that if Faith (in Buffy's body) wasn't referring to >herself when she was calling Buffy those names at the end, then, at >the very least, I think we were meant to _wonder_ about it. Too >many other people have seen it way I saw it--which isn't to say >that you're not right and Joss is once again misleading us...Part >of me understands David's unsympathetic assessment of Faith, but a >greater part yearns (like Buffy does, I think) for Faith to be >rehabilited.... I had already pondered taking up the theme of Faith Redeemed again, but Susan's comment (excerpted above, I hope not misleadingly) gives me a comment hook. If I speak of this metaphorically as though it were a religion, it is without irony and with no intention to mock, but to indicate the intensity of the feelings people have on this issue (and I'm not unsusceptible myself). I don't think there's any question that the "high priestess" of this "cult" is Buffy herself; how many times has she expressed the hope, wistfully or urgently, that Faith might "come around"? How many times has she tried to talk to Faith, to give her the space to...well, redeem herself? Answer: a lot. And =every time= so far, Faith has refused. So history is against it. But just as Susan acknowledges that =she= might be wrong, I acknowledge that =I= might be, too. Make no mistake: I think the writers could certainly make it =work=, make me =believe= that Faith has reformed...but I'll still believe it when I see it. (Guess that makes me an agnostic.) At the risk of running on, let's take a look at the History of Faith. We don't know much about her early life except that her mother was drunk and neglectful; she became a Slayer in roughly May of 1998 (somewhere in her mid to late teens), and we know of two incidents--one in Boston involving a priest, another involving alligators--where she killed vampires. Then her (female) Watcher was (in some unspecified way) tortured and killed in front of her, and Faith managed to escape, at which point she came to Sunnydale. By her own account, Faith wanted only to meet Buffy, and perform her Slaying job as best she could. She freely offered her friendship and her collaboration. What did she get for it? Buffy spent about half the time criticizing Faith's methods and the other half stonewalling her, refusing point-blank to talk about Angel, and also refusing to become best friends (she already had Willow for that niche in her life). To be fair, from Buffy's point of view, here comes this interloper trying to share her life when she'd just come back to reclaim that life; and Buffy, Privileged Only Child, didn't want to share with Faith, Deprived Only Child (both with absent fathers as well, note). And then, to make matters worse, Faith gets stuck with a severe new Watcher, Mrs. Poste. And =then=, it turns out that Saint Buffy, whom everybody loves, has been harboring a Dark Secret (i.e. Angel), and when Faith goes off to Do the Right Thing, Buffy prevents her, and pounds her face for good measure. Why indeed should Faith trust Buffy after that? As I've said before, their relationship hasn't ever really recovered from that contretemps. For the next six episodes (end of "Revelations" to beginning of "Bad Girls") Faith is little in evidence, presumably sulking in her little motel room. She accepts at length a Christmas invitation (insisted upon by Joyce, note), is mentioned as being "on walkabout" in "Helpless," and carries on with Xander in "The Zeppo." But it's not until "Bad Girls" that she makes a last-ditch attempt to bond with Buffy, seizing upon Buffy's patent disaffection with new Watcher Wesley to try and persuade her that they don't need anyone to tell them what to do. (This may, it just occurs to me, have influenced Buffy to eventually "fire" Wesley in "GD.") Buffy goes along with this for a while (even snubbing Willow in the process), but of course it leads to disaster (the accidental killing of Alan Finch), which sets them back to Square 1: Buffy critizing Faith and stonewalling her. We should be careful to be evenhanded here: Buffy is partly to blame for the situation (vacillating between the two extremes of pro- and anti-Faith), while at the same time acknowledging that Faith really goes out of bounds: killing a man, trying to blame Buffy, trying to strangle Xander. And oh by the way beating up Wesley and the other Council members while escaping. Then we come to a crux: Trick and other vampires attack the arguing Buffy and Faith, and Faith, after disposing of the rest, also dusts Trick who is threatening the injured Buffy. =What= unspoken communication passed between Buffy and Faith as they stared at one another? It's very important, and very mysterious to this day. Because the result was 1) Buffy is left with the impression that Faith was ready to "reflect and grow" 2) Faith goes and joins the Mayor's team. So this was the first point where Faith had an opportunity to redeem herself. Question: =what= motivation did she have to do so? What were her prospects? To end up playing second fiddle to Buffy again? Not what she wanted. But she played along--and that's exactly the role she was given--while being treated like a princess by the Mayor. From a purely "commercial" point of view, which was the better deal? We'll skip over the "evil" phase, her skirmishes with Buffy (though let's note Willow's quite uncharacteristically dismissive attitude towards Faith--"it's way too late"--and contrast it with Buffy's attitude), and fast-forward to "GD," where Buffy--also uncharacteristically, though not from Faith's point of view--hunts Faith down with the firm intent of murdering her in cold blood. And why? Oh yeah, on account of Angel (again!). And Buffy nearly succeeds; Faith ends up in a coma. Next there's the case of the dream in "GDII," in which Faith =appears= to be a kind of spirit-guide, giving Buffy "the answer" to the dilemma of the Mayor. This gave a lot of fuel to the believers in Faith Redeemed. But as I attempted to demonstrate in my analysis of said dream, it made just as much sense, not as a shared dream, not as a spirit-message, but as Buffy's unconscious figuring things out for itself, as usual. So Faith wakes up. Now, remind me: =why= again should she "go to tea" with Buffy and play nice? She has reason to feel mistreated, after all; Buffy has basically given her nothing but grief, and furthermore has attacked her quite ferociously, twice, on account of Angel. Faith's unconscious has perfectly good reason to be afraid of Buffy, however good a front her conscious maintains. And I think it's fair to say that believers in Faith Redeemed had their hopes, for the moment, dashed. Again, I was agnostic; if Buffy had had more dreams about Faith, if they had clearly been shared, I would have said, OK, that works, too. But the writers chose the other road. So now we have this new situation, where Faith has had a chance to sample what Life As Buffy is like. Did it change her? Having a mother who loves her? Getting thanked, feelingly, by someone she saved? Having a boyfriend who loves her tenderly? Feeling a real sense of responsibility, and purpose, in being "the one and only" Slayer? Well, maybe. And again, if the writers choose to go that way, I'll go along. But I'm not so sure. Because Faith =really thought= she had Buffy =out of the way=, and she could decide how to live her (or rather Buffy's) life at her leisure. But then Buffy, Thorn in Her Side, shows up again, manages to (re-)turn the tables, and make herself kingpin again. And Faith has lost her opportunity, again. And flees the scene. Now, it's very suggestive to have that montage-dissolve of Buffy looking pensive (and pained), and Faith looking pensive as she's leaving town. And believers in Faith Redeemed can continue to hope that she will see the light. But, again, I don't think so. Why should she? I think she's going to show up in Los Angeles, badass as ever, threaten Wesley (who will stand up to her as best he's able), terrorize Cordelia, and fight Angel to a standstill. And then what? Who knows. As always, we'll see. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 21:41:16 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: o/ted hughes' version From Ted Hughes' =Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being= [wherein he is summing up Frances Yates' ideas in her books on the Hermetic Tradition or Rosicrucianism, which he refers to as Occult Neoplatonism], p. 30: "...in England Occult Neoplatonism's dealings with the supernatural had proved suicidal. Since the movement aspired so openly to dissolve both Catholicism and Protestantism in its own greater synthesis, they combined effectively to liquidate it. The magical theory and practice, so easily seen as diabolism, was the exposed underbelly. For Catholicism this 'most imaginative idea of the Renaissance' became devil worship and heresy ([Giordano] Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome in 1600). For Protestantism it became plain devil worship (John Dee was discredited, and died rejected and destitute in 1608). For Puritanism it was devil worship and idolatry (hence the pictographic imagery of memory systems--and the divine faculty of the Occult Neoplatonist, imagination itself--became anathema, even as an educational technique, in the Puritan society). For materialist, rationalist philosophy it was a superstition. For science, an absurdity. It disappeared from the intellectually respectable range of ideas and was pushed so deep into Hell (with the witches) that sensible men soon feared to be associated with it. In the works of Shakespeare, or anywhere else, it ceased to be visible (and much of Shakespeare, accordingly, ceased to be visible). In later centuries it stirred occasionally, where revolution cracked the crust of suppression, and reached up an arm to embrace Goethe--who was wondered at. And Blake--who was deplored. And Yeats--who was ridiculed." I shouldn't be surprised that Hughes--a great poet, and as I also have had occasion to note in the past, a first-rate critical writer- - -should have done a better job than I was able to in describing the situation of the world of ideas in 1600 or so. And the whole book is exactly the sort of book I want to write--it attempts to see the whole of Shakespeare's work as the expression of a single myth--a multivalent version of the Great Goddess and her son/lover/killer. Hughes shows great skill in tabulating the way the myth-pattern transmogrifies itself, grows and changes, as Shakespeare's =oeuvre= proceeds. I'm just 40 pages or so into a 500- page book, but it's already fecund with ideas. More as time goes on. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 23:36:06 -0600 (EST) From: allenw Subject: Re: b/faith redeemed I don't see many, or any, posts or posters claiming that Faith *is* redeemed; rather, I see myself (and others) arguing that Faith is still working towards redemption in fits and starts (and stops), and that the intent of the writers appears to be to lead us to so believe. Kind of like the Willow/Tara love story, except that that's moving rather more quickly . We could still be surprised in both cases, of course, but it would a result of deliberate misleading from the writers. -Allen ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #61 ****************************