“I didn’t come here to take anything away from you, but I’m not gonna be your little lapdog, either” – Faith Lehane
Faith, oh Faithy Faithy Faith. Some people dislike this bad girl gone evil, then gone good. But me? Oh good golly i love her. Part of me knows that i love Faith SO much because i love Eliza Dushku SO much. As a whedonite i have (of course) watched Dollhouse (like 20,000,000 times) and i love it. It almost rivals the wit and creativity of BTVS. Almost. I was once in the same room as Eliza at New York Comic Con 2011. I never actually met her, but i did however make eye contact with her boyfriend Rick Fox. It was a little bit epic. He was soooooo tall! And all i kept thinking was “Holy crap, Eliza Dushku has sex with this man.” Then i watched where he walked, and he went behind this tenty thing and BOOM there was Eliza. She looked so beautiful, i totally fangirled out. So now lets talk about Eliza’s character Faith in the much beloved show Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
Faith comes into play in Season 3’s episode Faith, Hope and Trick. Faith’s slayer powers were bestowed upon her after Kendra the Vampire Slayer was killed by Drucilla in Season 2’s final episodes. (And as we all know Kendra came into play when Buffy died briefly with her fight against the Master in season 1’s final episode.) Faith is one of those people who just captivates your attention. She is confident in herself and she is hella hot. She looks at life as a game, and is fairly care free about 99% of things going on. Faith is a breath of fresh air for Buffy. She shows Buffy a slightly more fun life style, she opens Buffy’s eyes to the power they have and influences her negatively. (You know, convincing her to ditch school and go clubbing. Just your normal crap). And as we all know, this is where things begin to go down hill, in the episode Bad Girls.
The thing that angers me the most about this episode is… no, let me build up to this. Okay, so yeah, Faith has always been reckless, and yes she doesn’t really ever make the best choices, but that is who she is. Although we never get a definitive look into her past and her family life, we do know that she lives alone, she craves attention and she refuses to admit to any type of emotions. There is another show i watch, and there was a quote on it that i really liked, “As long as we treat [her] like a criminal, [she] will always believe that [she] is one.” (For all of you who are wondering, this is a revised quote from the show White Collar, which ironically enough, Eliza Dushku guest stared in an episode of). When Buffy confronted Faith at the end of this episode about the innocent human she accidentally killed, it set off a trigger in Faith. The way Buffy was treating Faith made her feel like she was bad, and on top of that it caused her defensive trait to kick into overdrive, and she said things just to get Buffy off her back. I FIRMLY believe that Faith killed that man, and felt bad about it, knowing her horrible mistake. Buffy and Faith were in a dark alley, late at night, and had just had an intense fight with a bunch of vamps. This guy, Allan, came out of no where and startled a girl with super fast reflexes and a pointy piece of wood in her hand. Im sorry, in what world does this scenario end well? Further proof of it being an accident that she felt bad about is after her and Buffy split off in different ways, Faith came back to the body, and just stared at it. A PERSON WITH NO GUILT WOULD NOT HAVE DONE THAT. UGH, okay that rant is over.
So now, because of stupid stupidity, Faith has turned from a rebellious slayer to a dark slayer. While everybody she (sorta) made friends with in Sunnydale had turned against her, leaving her all alone at a time when she probably needed them the most, The Big Bad of Season 3 comes waltzing in and makes her feel appreciated, makes her feel important, makes her feel powerful. Despite her hard exterior, i always saw Faith as the most vulnerable character (only in the earlier seasons, later on she just becomes fucking awesome) she is so emotionally unstable, and she allowed herself to change into a horrible person, because that was the only way she got any slice of respect. {|| Let me just take a slight moment to admit to my biasness. When i re-watch these episodes, i see season 7 Faith, and i see Echo and i just feel so bad for her. I know the end outcome, and that makes me feel sympathetic towards Faith opposed to sympathetic towards Buffy and the Scoobies.||} As much as i HATED The Mayor, (you know for being evil and ascending) out of all of the Big Bads he is one of my favorites. He is the only one who we see a sympathetic side to. We see seemingly human qualities in him. His attachment to Faith, no matter how it started, was a very Giles and Buffy-esque relationship, but the evil version of Giles and Buffy. Mayor Wilkins was an evil father-figure for evil-Faith. He taught her his evil trade, he made her feel important with his evil missions, and he made her feel loved with his evil presents.
Granted in a Buffy Universe, we know all evil things must come to an end. Faith goes too far when she poisons Angel, and Buffy is dead-set on revenge. So she sets out to bring Faith to Angel so Angel can suck Faith’s blood, and the poison will be gone. Good plan, until Buffy accidentally throws Faith off the roof of a building and onto a moving truck during their fight. So Angel drinks Buffy’s blood instead, and Faith slips into a coma. Causing the Mayor to have real, actual human emotions. (i.e. Sadness) Faith’s coma puts her out of the picture for, a good year or so. Resurfacing in the episode ‘This Year’s Girl’ in Season 4.
Faith has just gotten out of her Coma in this episode, and is extremely displeased when she discovers that Buffy and her gang had stopped the Mayors ascension, leaving Faith nothing to go back to. So she beats up some random girl, steals her clothes and sneaks out in the middle of the night. Causing a scare for Buffy and the gang, because well, Faith is kinda evil and psycho at the moment. And if i just woke up from a year long coma to find that my entire world had fallen apart while i slept, i would totally want to put the person who put me into a coma into their own coma. (Point: They know Faith will come after Buffy as revenge). So Faith goes to the Mayor’s old office-y place and finds a VHS recording waiting for her, with a really sentimental message from the Mayor on it, and he leaves her one last evil present, with very vague instructions on how to use it. So Faith shows up to Buffy’s house, where she finds Buffy’s mom, and no one else. (Dawnie isn’t in existence as of yet) As Faith threatens Joyce, taunting her about how Buffy had left her, how Buffy wasn’t gonna show up and save the day because Buffy didn’t care anymore, Buffy jumps through the window and tackles Faith. They duke it out, obviously equally matched, and Faith finally whips out her new toy and KAZOWIE! BODY SWITCH!
I love this episode, because i think it very clearly illustrates to both Buffy and Faith how the others life really is. At first, Faith has fun in Buffy’s body, she pretends be Buffy in a mocking way, and treats Buffy’s life like a joke. She is carefree, she is mean and she is manipulative. She is like this until the scene with Riley. Faith-Buffy decides to get all sexy with Riley and proceeds to have sex with him, and while there doing it, Riley looks into her eyes and tells her her loves her. Needless to say, Riley thinks that he is talking to real Buffy, not Faith-Buffy. This makes Faith realize that Buffy has a good life. Buffy had built herself a life worth living, she has people who actually care about her, and this scares Faith. I don’t know if it is jealousy, or if it is guilt, but either way that moment with Riley changed Faith. Thats the moment when she started to realize that being good has its rewards. Being good makes people look up to you, and makes people want to spend time with you, and i think that is something Faith craves.
Meanwhile, Buffy is trapped in Faith’s body, and she has been captured by the Watchers Council and is in the process of being shipped off to England for some sort of Watcher-y Slayer trial type of a thingy. (That part was always kinda vague in my opinion) I don’t think that Buffy-Faith has as big of a revelation as Faith-Buffy has, but i think she does understand Faith’s struggle a little bit. Once she escaped, she goes to Giles and blah blah blah blah blah (this is not important to the Faith aspect of this blog, so we don’t care. I’ll be blogging episode by episode after i finish Character analysis’) Long story short, Buffy and Faith team up to kill a bunch of Vamps who are holding hostages inside of a church, they have a bondy moment before they switch back into their respective bodies.
We do not see Faith (in BTVS) again until Episode 18 of Season 7. Where she comes back from L.A. with Willow to help train the Potential Slayers as well as help in the battle against The First Evil. We know that Faith has served time in jail, and despite not seeing her actual transformation, we can almost immediately tell that she is back to her old self. She is the Faith we knew in the beginning of Season 3, but she is more mature, she is more like Buffy, yet she still has her good ol’ Faith charm and humor. She is not exactly welcome back with open arms, but everyone knew that they could use all the help they could get. So Faith steps in where she is needed and helps save the day.
Now, lets take an uber short moment to talk about Faith’s relationships. 1. One night Stand with Xander. 2. Chemistry with Robin Wood. Oh, and thats it. Faith gets the least amount of action out of all of the characters. Even Giles had a girlfriend! I wish we got to see more of Faith and Robin, i feel like they could have been super cute together, and i do feel like the way it ended opened a door up for them, and (although not depicted in Season 8 of Buffy) I like to imagine that Faith and Robin got together and he helped her transform into an even better person.
I feel like Faith’s hook up with Xander was really awkward. They were both kinda vulnerable, and i feel like she used him just to prove to herself that she could use him. Even though i LOVE Joss and i accept and agree with every decision he has made with all of his projects, deep down i wish that after the Buffy-Faith body switch thing that Faith stayed in Sunnydale, got good and became part of the Scoobies again. This way we could watch her character progress and maybe even see her in a real relationship. Who knows, either way, i love Faith.
Faith Lehane: Emotional Mess, former evil murderous person, witty and funny as hell.
“Google.” Google. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Sept. 2012. <https://www.google.com/search?num=10>.
Whedon, Joss, and Marti Noxon. Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Los Angles, California, 1997-2003. Television.
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