Previous July 2003

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When last we left our intrepid reviewer and his somewhat less intrepid (and mostly inebriated) evil sidekick...
well, sidekick really isn't the right term either, but until the Supreme Court decides otherwise, the chad will just
have to fall where it may, or so we've been told... they had taken a break from their normal pseudo-intellectual
Buffyverse schmoozefest to log on and Google the recent FOX News story about the possible existence of "Evil
Pills". And wow, wasn't that a really long sentence? As always, you can count on MRI (Mirror Research
Institute, a wholly-owned front operation for PATTSI (Pennsylvania Timely Tax Shelters Inc)) for
more words for less! Anyway, the EP story has proven to be significantly less than accurate, so it's time to
re-board the bus to Sunnydale, or at least a bus operating somewhere within an alternate dimension where
Sunnydale isn't a great big hole in the ground:


OnM: I told you it was ridiculous. Just another stupid scam that gets picked up on and passed around in
a blatant attempt to boost ratings. That's the real evil, I tell you. When I was a kid, the news was the news, it
wasn't dressed up as something fashionable and presented as infotainment. Chet Huntley, Dave Brinkley, Walter
C. Que es muy macho, eh?

Evil Clone: Barbara Walters? And isn't 'muy' the wrong word? Don't you mean to say 'more' and not
'very'?

OnM: Please! Give me Diane Sawyer any day. Or even Leslie Stahl. Besides, it wasn't about a
male-macho thing, it was about that kind of 'just the facts, ma'am' presentation those guys were known for. The
news isn't about entertainment, it's about reporting the facts of whatever situation and keeping the democratic
institutions of the country on a proper heading. I don't think it's remotely a coincidence that the credibility of our
current governmental institutions is at it's lowest point ever when the press is a willing party to subterfuge by
evasion and spin.

EC: They've always done that, you just weren't aware of it. It was behind the scenes, which is a motif
that's far harder to pull off these days, what with the high value placed on continually feeding the voracious maw
of the electronic news. In the old days where things were mostly print-oriented, it was easier to take a break in
between events.

OnM: I know they've always done it, but there was a certain shame and disrepute attached to the act.
Now it's like they actually revel in the iniquity-- it's like 'news, schmooz-- lookit them dollars rollin' in!'. The
ends justify the means all right, but 'the ends' isn't the distribution of accurate information that is in the public
interest-- 'the ends' is about income for the network.

EC: You expect them to work cheap, or for nothing?

OnM: It's a higher calling, like medicine. The bottom line is important, I don't dispute that, but the tail
is wagging not only the dog now, it's wagging the whole damn doghouse. It's what leads to things like Saddam
Hussein's chemists creating 'Evil Pills' that give an excuse for military actions that backfire at worst and cause
inevitable death and suffering at best.

EC: Hey, Evil Pills could be worse than nukes in the wrong hands. We could have ended up with a
whole bunch of Saddams. Or even more Jerry Falwells. God would soon be removing all kinds of protective
shields around America!

OnM: (shudders) Don't go there. Thank the fates it was bogus. I was almost certain that was the case
from the time you first mentioned it, but that one report we found about manipulating DNA to strip away the
part of the code that controls the development of the ego and superego and leave only the id remaining was
pretty scary. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to extend that concept into a virus deliverable in pill form that
could genetically reprogram innocent individuals.

EC: Yeah, who was behind that? The national telemarketing council?

OnM: I think so. The one article at xf.lonegunman.org claimed it was in response to the recent national
'Do Not Call' legislation. They reasoned that if we were all creatures of the id, programming an autonomic
response of "Want that! Buy it!" to any sales presentation would be easy to accomplish. They are calling
far less people, but absolutely everyone buys something, so on balance they come out ahead.

EC: Tsk. Just think, you try to help the economy, and ya end up Evil. Go figure.

OnM: Well, I fear it's only a temporary respite. The level of manipulation is growing steadily on all
fronts, not just the electronic news one. No matter how adept we are at rejecting it, it wears us down. Eventually
dire consequences could and probably will result.

EC: Speaking of which, are we done talking about Faith and Spike now? That is, if we're ever going to
get back to discussing the show?

OnM: It's my understanding that there is a board moratorium of sorts on Spike, but I also think there
are some other boarders who dispute that. I'm not getting involved other than peripherally. I think all is cool on
the Faith front, but I pretty much covered what I wanted to say about her character last time around. You have
any final thoughts?

EC: Never. There is always another thought, no thanks to you! Why couldn't you have stripped
out the think-too-much gene before you pulled me out of the tank? Like the lady said, what's so great about
really deep thoughts?

OnM: (genuinely sad) Freedom is slavery, e tu God? I honestly did try to modulate it some, but it didn't
work. Apparently the gene is solipsistic in structure, and keeps reconstructing itself in its own original image
over and over again. The local rental shop kept threatening to repossess the electron microscope unless I paid for
another month up front, and it was either that or get the car fixed. So I had to let it go and move on to other
things.

EC: (looks at the floor, somewhat dejectedly) My mother the car.

OnM: A Sophie's choice, but that's life in the little city. Anyway, we can't change the past, we can only
analyze it into submission. So what did you think of the Big Feminist Statement (tm) at the ending? You know,
with all those new Slayers being called and whatnot?

EC: (brightening) Yeah. Talk about dangerous choices! I loved it, 'cos it was so righteous and so evil at
the same time!

OnM: (bemused) Go on.

EC: OK, so Buffy has finally done what she has always dreamed of doing-- freed herself from the
horrible loneliness of being the one and only Slayer, to each generation etc. etc. A loneliness that only ends in
death, what a great payoff for being a hot chick with superpowers, right?

OnM: I'm still debating whether that was genuine or ironic or both.

EC: It's a moment to revel in, she should be ecstatic, all bubbly and bouncing, but all we see is that
enigmatic little smile. And it's because she knows, there is no gift without purchase. She's still somewhat in
shock about everything that's happened, so it's mostly subconscious but it's still gotta be there. She is 'free', but
she has done it by essentially enslaving hundreds, maybe thousands of other girls around the world, making them
into Slayers without first asking their permission.

OnM: You're right.

EC: (pausing) I am?

OnM: You are-- there's no arguing with the simple fact of the matter, and that's part of the genius of
the series finale, in that on the surface it appears that the cosmic balance has been tipped overwhelmingly in favor
of the side of good, but that isn't inherently true. There is now the possibility for even greater danger in future,
and Buffy and her friends are the prime instigators of that possibility.

EC: Because the presumption is that the new Slayers will all choose to use their newfound power to
serve the same side that Buffy serves, but they may not. Faith went down the dark road, and it was something
close to a miracle that she came back. But presumably Buffy and Co. will immediately set out to recruit the
newly called, and put together some kind of X-Men like organization, or a 'New Council of Watchers'.

OnM: I think that that is a given, and if there had been an eighth season, I imagine that this September
we'd be seeing the beginnings of that organization start to take shape. The original Watcher's Council may have
been misguided in the way that it treated the 'weapon' at its disposal, but the need to teach the Slayer and
connect her to her heritage is something very necessary. Now that there are a whole big bunch of Slayers, the
need is exponentially greater.

EC: And as I said before, none of the new Slayers asked to be called. It is a form of conscription,
no matter how well it was intended.

OnM: You know there were a lot of potentials in the Casa Summers living room when Buffy gives the
'do you want to be strong' speech. I think we are led to believe that the whole crowd voted 'yea' and joined
Buffy at the Hellmouth, but it was kinda hard to run up an accurate count. I wonder if any of them said no
thanks? And even if they did, what difference would that have made-- the spell Willow cast would have still made
them Slayers. I have had this odd visual running through my head where Buffy is over in a corner of the room
with five or six angry or frightened young women who are arguing that they didn't even want to be potentials, let
alone full-fledged Slayers. They just wanna be out of the line of fire and go home. Buffy needs every single
warrior she can bring to her cause, but how does she reconcile forcing someone who doesn't want the deal? Not
a good place to be in psychologically.

EC: Well, then they can just sorta die as potentials, then can't they?

OnM: I assume that would be the direction she would take with them. But the basic issue is still there,
and irresolvable. Buffy is playing up the need to meet the greater good, or as Spock put it back on Trek years
ago, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". Taking the big picture into account, she is on solid
ethical ground, but on the other hand, no means no. As I said, it's irresolvable. Someone's rights will be trampled
on.

EC: So. Let's assume that three of the women choose to sit out the battle, and the other three join the
main group. Two of them die, one survives. All three of the rejectees live, of course. So they made the right
decision after all, assuming they bugged outa Sunnydale before the big battle, natch.

OnM: Except they are now Slayers. Do they have a right to join the New Council with the rest of the
battle survivors? Or does Buffy tell them to piss off?

EC: I would hope so. No guts, no glory, sez me.

OnM: (chuckling) That's funny, coming from someone whose idea of guts is staying awake for an
all-night drinking contest at the local pub.

EC: Hey, that was tough! You try it sometime! I was belching for hours afterward, kept me awake even
longer!

OnM: No thanks, my liver is the regular, non-enhanced 49-year-old kind. But seriously, I've never been
in the military, and frankly have less than no desire to join it, now or ever. But I sit here enjoying the freedoms
that were won by those who have put their lives literally on the line to win them. Even leaving the military out of
it, people from my generation have benefitted from the pro-union people who made the world a better place to
work in, and without the feminist movement that so many young women today look at dismissively, there would
be no Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV.

EC: Or the right to vote.

OnM: Well, yeah, that was the implication and all. You don't get the little things until the big things get
done. But when have I ever done my part to preserve the state of the union, other than of course my significant
regular contributions to the welfare of wealthy people and their friends?

EC: They run the country, you help them. Sound like public service to me!

OnM: I'm not a good example, I grant you, but the dilemma still exists. None of the protos asked to be
protos. If they don't want to be Slayers, then they shouldn't have to be Slayers. There's more than one now--
even if only half of say 100 Slayers wanted to serve the New Council, that's still 48 more than what were there
before.

EC: Maybe Willow could come up with a de-Slayering spell, and remove the Scythe energy from them.

OnM: Possibly. But it would certainly be in the interests of the NC to bring as many fighters into the
fold as it could. I imagine that the pressure would be significant, even if it was friendly pressure.

EC: Now, as I remember, Buffy was unaware that she had become a Slayer until Merrick found her in
Los Angeles. This has always puzzled me-- how could she not know she was suddenly gifted? In
Chosen we saw that it was like a big ol' rush-- the girls knew that something happened, that's for sure.
So one day you feel this cosmic orgasm thing, the next day you notice that you can outrun the school track star
without breaking a sweat. Or that you were this big ol' spaz and now you can juggle chainsaws.

OnM: Chainsaws?

EC: Maybe not chainsaws, but you get my point, right?

OnM: I think the honest answer to this is that as the mythology expanded over the last seven years, Joss
had to choose whether the feminist viewpoint took precedence over the 'canon' of the early days, especially the
events that were depicted in the movie. For him that was an easy choice. We never got to see or even hear about
the moments when Faith or Kendra were called, and for that matter Buffy has never spoken about it even
once during the entire series. So Chosen was the only time we have ever seen a Slayer called.

EC: (shaking his head emphatically) Wait, you're kidding, she... (pauses as it sinks in) O my
Honorificus, you're right! That's so freaky!

OnM: O my Honorificus? (concerned) Dude, she's mythical. Don't be doing that. This is reality
here.

EC: Ewwww! Don't be sayin' nasty things like that! Besides, I met her!

OnM: No, that was the census lady. You were going to answer the door, and I pulled you aside, and
you tripped over the couch and bumped your head and got dizzy.

EC: But she was really well dressed! (trying to remember) Didn't you want me to be counted?

OnM: I was at a loss to explain how you look just like me but were only three years old. The normal
world just isn't ready for some things.

EC: (muttering very softly) Pot calling the frying pan burnt...

OnM: Huh? I missed that...

EC: Ferget it. Back to Buffy and the New Council and all. So the gang all rides off out of the desert and
into the sunset. Only the next day, the sun comes up again, just like Joyce said. And everyone heads out to start
locating the newly en-Slayed. Naturally, there is much skepticism on the part of the newbies, and with Sunnydale
gone, it gets tough to convince them of the supernatural nature of the world. James Randi even finds out about
the goings-on and attempts an intervention. Things get so hairy that Willow has to transport him to the alternate
universe where Martin Gardner is president and everyone on Earth subscribes to Scientific American.

OnM: Uhh... yeah, I guess that could happen.

EC: They consider moving to Cleveland, 'cause there's a Hellmouth there, even though it's only a little
one and the demons mostly just have bad hair days every day and aren't especially nasty. Buffy initially objects
because Cleveland isn't close enough to the beach and then remembers that she's the Head Hot Chick with
Superpowers and she's also a pal of the most powerful Wicca in the western hemisphere who can teleport her to
Brazil anytime she wants.

OnM: Brazil?

EC: Topless beaches. I think visually, remember?

OnM: OK, I get the general idea. But the root problem is still that if Buffy wants to be democratic about
it, she will give the new Slayers the choice, and they might turn it down, or worse yet, go the Faith route and
turn to evil, for whatever personality-driven reasons-- greed, revenge, ego-fulfillment. The NC members will
have to spend their time fighting the subjects of their own creation, women who might not ever have been a
problem if left unchosen. And in the meantime, ordinary people could get injured or killed.

EC: It was always possible for a Slayer to go bad, but there was only one. You kill her off, and another
takes her place, and hopefully things work out better. Now they have lost that advantage.

OnM: One thing to consider is that we are assuming that these young women who have been chosen are
typical human women, but that may not be the case. Whatever supernatural forces govern the selection of
potentials may require that the ones chosen are of a highly moral nature. We are citing Faith as an example, but
Faith wasn't inherently evil, she had circumstances that pushed her in that direction and she gave in to human
weakness and followed that path. As I mentioned before, it took a great deal of strength to turn away from the
darkness that had enveloped her and fight her way back out again. Having proper mentors is critical, and this was
a problem with the original Watchers Council-- they forgot their mission was to serve the Slayer and
decided to use her instead.

EC: Those Shadowmen guys were pretty clearly users. Not hard to see how the mission went missing.
So maybe they didn't forget, they never thought of it that way at all.

OnM: Or they could have been desperate, and the girl that they picked to violate was the best available
candidate. If your entire species is facing imminent violent death, it makes supernaturally raping a girl seem like a
worthwhile tradeoff if doing so prevents it from happening. We don't know, and I'm not excusing what they did.
Buffy herself acknowledged that war means death and suffering, and she also admitted thinking that she could
have been mistaken not to accept the shamans 'gift' of greater power.

EC: But you don't believe that, when that ep aired you said that you were absolutely convinced that
Buffy did the right thing, that she would find another way.

OnM: Yes, and I haven't changed my mind. But I admire how ME didn't make it easy for us, at least
not when you think about it. This is another extremely controversial idea to throw out, but if Spike hadn't
attempted to rape Buffy, and felt remorse about doing so afterward, he would never have gone to get his soul
back. If he hadn't done that, and if Buffy hadn't eventually accepted his remorse as being genuine and allowed
him to be the champion that could wear the amulet, the First Evil could have won. All cause and effect, as I
pointed out in my earlier primary review on Chosen. This is disconcerting to think about, but there it is.
Also, if Tara hadn't died, Willow wouldn't have been placed in the circumstances that allowed her to greatly
amplifiy her magical abilities, and she likely could not have been able to cast the spell that distributed the power
of the Scythe to all the world's potentials.

EC: Hummph. And folks call me evil. I'm not that evil.

OnM: Buffy won because she could see the bigger picture, although I think 'sensed' or 'intuited' would
be more accurate terms. There never was any rational reason why she shouldn't have killed Spike long ago, and
even less reason why she should have forgiven him for the attempted rape. But she did, and I think we are led to
accept this as proof of Buffy's worthiness as a 'higher being'. By contrast to Jasmine in AtS, who offers a
'rational' choice to make and thereby turns her followers into contented cattle who only have the illusion of
freedom, Buffy and her followers insist on shouldering the burden of choice and accepting the pain and ambiguity
that is unavoidably tied in with doing so.

Another item: I was really struck by how similar this endgame parallel between the two series evoked the
concept behind Ursula LeGuin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Jasmine's followers were like
those people in the story who lived in absolute happiness and contentment because somewhere, a small child
suffered terribly in complete isolation from any human contact. Buffy was someone who would walk away from
Omelas, who wouldn't accept the deal, and this isn't something new with her. Back in season three, Buffy gave
the Box of Gavrok back to the Mayor because it was the only way to save Willow. Wesley insisted that this
wasn't rational, that Willow's death, while unfortunate, would nevertheless allow them to absolutely bring a halt
to the Mayor's ascension.

EC: And of course, Buffy won't kill Dawn to save the world in season five. Irrational again.

OnM: Buffy chooses life unless there is absolutely no alternative-- it is her gift. You are full of love,
brighter than the fire. This was never a casually thrown out line, it was a statement that goes to the very
core of Buffy's heroic nature. People think that Buffy is naive, and in their defense, she sometimes is, but it isn't
a naivite born of carelessness or stupidity, it's an unwillingness to accept the easy path, to sell out when it really
counts. That was the whole point of Giles betraying Buffy in Lies. Giles falls into despair, and falls into
accepting the 'rational' path, which is to say the convenient one. Buffy has to bitch-slap him back into his
humanity again.

EC: And her 'generalissima' moments? She seemed pretty 'rational' herself there.

OnM: Thereby proving to herself that this was a role that didn't fit. We saw a number of moments over
the course of several episodes where Buffy admits to her confidants (Willow, Xander, Spike) that she's
uncomfortable in this leadership role, but thinks that this is what is expected of her. But the expectations are
those of others around her, not what her own are. She needs time to realize this. It's there, waiting to come
out, but she needs a bit of a push to accept herself as a leader whose own methodology is valid and effective.

The final transition takes place after she is faced with rejection by her sister, the one person she can't rationalize
as being 'against' her. She has to re-evalute her actions, come to trust herself and her own instincts, not borrow
the instincts of others. That she is capable of doing so is proven when she passes the mantle of leadership to
Faith, of all people. A lesser being would never have done this, but her own instincts tell her it is what must be
done. And Faith rises to the challenge, although with some difficulties along the way, and proves Buffy correct.
And Spike, of course, comes through with the emotional support that eventually leads Buffy to the Scythe.

EC: The very nifty-looking but very deus ex machina axe that mysteriously saves the day. Sorta
convenient though, eh?

OnM: I really don't get why there is such a fuss about this in some quarters. Joss is a comic book fan,
and comic books are chock full of deus ex machinas and always have been. In the comic universes, stuff just
happens. Unpredictability is the norm.

EC: But there was never the slightest mention of the damn thing the whole time the series was on the
air. Shouldn't it have been foreshadowed somewhere? You know, an allusion or a hint or two?

OnM: Why? Isn't it more of a surprise the way it was done? I really loved the Scythe, and what was
done with it. I can see that if one thinks that 7.22 was 'the end', then the Scythe was indeed a simplistic plot
device that seemed to come in at the last minute just to save the day. But the Buffyverse continues to expand and
grow. It's not gone unless Joss unexpectedly croaks, and even if such a horrid fate should befall the world, I
think Marti and Espenson and Petrie and Fury and Greenwalt and all the others understand the thing well enough
to make it keep on living. The legacy is real, it will outlive its creator no matter what.

EC: Gee. Sorta like if I'd outlive you!

OnM: Nuh-uh-uh. Then I think we're doomed. Sorry.