Faith Lehane

“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&gt;.

Whedon, Joss, and Marti Noxon. Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Los Angles, California, 1997-2003. Television.

Willow Rosenberg

“You’re the Slayer, and we’re, like, the Slayerettes!” – Willow Rosenberg

For me, Willow Rosenberg is probably my favorite character (With Anya a close second).  Although the show is primarily based on Buffy Summers and her conquest of they with sharp teeth and pale skin, Willow is the most diverse. She goes from dorky high-school student, to innovative cool lesbian Wicca college student, to black-haired crazy ‘i want to end the worlds sufferings by ending the world’ evil villain. Not even the infamous Buffy Summers can top that.

I mentioned with Buffy/Sarah Michelle Gellar, that casting was really key to her character being so wonderful, and i truly believe that. It blows my mind that for one unaired pilot episode the lovely Alyson Hannigan did not portray our loveably dorky Willow. I have never seen this episode, and most of me never wants to. I cannot immagine Willow being anyone else. Alyson Hannigan, Unlike SMG was compared to Willow more because of how remotely realistic the character could have been (minus destroying the world.) Alyson quickly broke from the character by singing onto the American Pie series, where she was a little dorky, she was definitely far from Willow. Now we can see her on How I Met Your Mother, just as hilarious as ever. (Who else thinks it’s awesome that she found her husband via. Buffy? 🙂 )

Any blog about Willow Rosenburg would be incomplete without answering a few major questions and addressing many key points in the characters development. And i most definitely will be addressing them! Why don’t we start from the beginning. Willow is first shown to us when Cordelia Chase is attempting to show Buffy the popular ropes of Sunnydale High. At first, it looks like Willow is just a background extra drinking from a fountain, until Cordelia makes fun of her and we are given an idea of how weak and polite Miss.Rosenburg is, even to her bully. Still, as a first-viewer your unsure of where her character stands. Bu the end of the first episode its completely clear that Willow is probably going to be around for a while.

Willow, although she does evolve a lot, she stays surprisingly the same. Willow has always and will always be the super smart one in the group. This is important not only because it helps save the day in just about every episode, but also because it glorifies knowledge. Willow’s character encourages the young girls and women watching that smart can be sexy, and fun. Something that Buffy never really displays that message, and it’s a super important one!

  I personally believe that Willow is a part of two of the BEST BTVS relationships to date. Yes, i love Buffy and all of her men just as much as the next person, and Anya and Xander are the longest going couple, but for me its Willow and Oz vs. Willow and Tara for best couple..

Willow was a shy nerdy girl who had a crush on her best friend when we first met her. I firmly believe that the Willow that we know at the end of Season 7 would not have been possible if it was not for Oz. Although she will never be as care-free as Oz was, she really opened up and in, my opinion, found her self when she was with Oz. They were such a cute couple to boot! Minus his whole werwolf/Verucca thing, he was the perfect boyfriend, and he was funny!!

Willow and Tara are ironically a totally different story. Although Tara really does help Willow continue to grow, when Willow and Tara meet its Tara that is the shy insecure one. Willow and Tara’s relationship was very risky and monumental. Willow and Tara were the first long-term lesbian couple television has ever seen. Although they didn’t produce the first lesbian kiss on T.V they were the first series to not do it in a sleazy way, looking to increase viewership. Willow and Tara’s first televised kiss was in the episode ‘The Body’. Its not done in a ‘i want you’ kinda way, Tara is comforting her girlfriend in a time of loss and sorrow. Marti Noxon, Co-producer and writer for BTVS was told that it wouldn’t work if she did a long-term lesbian relationship because, “If they kiss more then once, that means they liked it”. I personally am glad they went for it, later producing the first lesbian sex scene in T.V. history. This is simply just another way Buffy paved the road for years to come.

You cannot talk about Willow without bringing up her Wiccan ‘roots’.

Dark Willow v. White Willow. Both situations, White Willow wins. White Willow is not only more powerful, but she’s good.

To properly discuss her two wiccan sides, we have to go to the beginning.

Willow got interested in Wicca because she was around all this mystical stuff, all the time, and she wanted to help out. Her first major spell was restoring Angel’s soul at the end of Becoming part 2. We were shown a glimpse of how dangerous this was here because Willow almost couldn’t complete the spell, in fact she failed completely the first time she tried it.  Her Wiccan abilities prove very useful both for the Scoobies’ and for the plot of the show. We see her start to spin out of control after she brings Buffy back from the dead in the beginning of season  6. Season 6 is mainly focused on Willow’s magic (and The Trio, haha 🙂 <3). We see Tara get bothered with the amount of magic she uses, and we see the consequences of her magic, and how she has spiraled so far down this path that she thinks its smart to solve the problems she created with magic with even more magic, which we see backfire in the season 6 episode ‘Tabula Rasa. (Which is foreshadowing of Dollhouse, believe it or not!)

We know what caused Dark Willow, Warren came to Buffy’s house and shot her, with hopes of killing her. He didn’t even realize that he fired another bullet that flew into Willow and Tara’s bedroom killing Tara instantly. Willow tries calling upon the God Osiris, but he is of no help because this was not a mystical death. Willow decides to take matters into her own hands no matter what. We are all very aware of what happens next, and now we’ll get into the short-lived White Willow.

When Buffy asks Willow to use the essence of the Scythe or battleaxe to break the rules of slayer-hood and make every potential slayer ever a slayer right now, Will was clearly scared. She was worried she was gonna go dark again, i don’t think she realized that when she used good magic, she might go white. It’s arguable that one could say Willow and Spike are the ones who saved the world from The First, and honestly that’s sorta how i see it sometimes. But in the end, i always realize that it’s a group effort, it’s always a group effort.

Willow Rosenburg; Brilliant, beautiful, powerful.

“Google.” Google. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Sept. 2012. <https://www.google.com/search?num=10&gt;.

Whedon, Joss, and Marti Noxon. Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Los Angles, California, 1997-2003. Television.

Buffy Anne Summers

“I’m not just some crazy person. I’m the Slayer” – Buffy Summers

 Buffy Anne Summer is probably the most infamous and iconic female character T.V has ever seen. Joss Whedon provided the perfect character description, Pretty, a tad snobby, not book smart, but she makes up for it with slayer skills and street smarts (it evens out right! 🙂 ) Buffy is far from perfect. She’s emotional, and secretive and she has the fate of the world on her shoulders every day of her life. She’s a dynamic and innovative character. That said, Buffy Summers would be nothing if they had cast her wrong.

Sarah Michelle Gellar was the perfect choice. She IS Buffy Summers.  The interesting thing about SMG is that, yes she will always carry around her Buffy fame, but people see her as the actress not the character. Part of this is because it’s (not been proven) impossible for her character to be real. Society ‘knows’ that vampires aren’t real, therefore they don’t judge her based on Buffy’s personality.

Buffy Summers is strung through various detrimental situations. She cracked at points, and threatened to give up but she never did. Somehow she always managed to persevere, her friends and family were definitely always a strong key to keeping her strong. Because that’s exactly what she is Strong. She holds an idealistic vibe to her that everyone strives to have.  Of course, nobody is perfect and Buffy Summers is definitely not, but she never gives up. When she was told she would die if she fought The Master durring his harvest, she got scared, but then went for it. She died for a few seconds, sure, but good ol’ Xander was there to bring her back, then she dusted The Master, stopping the apocalypse. Almost every episode she faces a moral challenge, she may not always do the right thing or figure it out on her own, but she never backs down, even when every single sign points to her failure.

Buffy is most definitely a dynamic character, we get the privilege to watch her grow and evolve through out the 7 year reign that she was on television. For those of us who have seen the movie from the 80’s, or for all of us who have watched Season 2 episode 21 (Becoming Part One) we have gotten a glimpse at how Buffy Summers acted when she attended Hemery High back in Los Angles before she moved to Sunnydale at the beginning of season 1. We know that in L.A she was arguably worse then Cordelia ever was, shes genuinely hate-able. The first episode of Season 1, she clearly has already changed, and we know this because of the way she treats Willow, Xander and Jesse (Well, until he was turned into a vamp, then she was pretty set on staking him). Buffy only evolves more and more until she is the person we see towards the end of season 7, a strong confident determined woman.

 It would be impossible to talk about Buffy Summers without discussing her relationships. Buffy and Angel are one of T.V.’s most infamous and tragic love stories. In the beginning of the series you want Buffy and Angel to work, you want them to be happy and together with no limitations and no boundaries. We also, however, know that this is impossible and that there will probably be something that tears them apart.

   {Okay, just to clarify. I don’t think Angel and Buffy can really ever be together. If they have sex, he turns evil. And im sorry, but what’s the point of being in a relationship if the moment you get a little frisky, your significant other literally turns evil and tries to drain your blood?} With that said… i still want them together. I know they never will be, but i still want it. Its bad and i shouldn’t, but i just do.

Angel is a really sweet guy, he loves Buffy so much that it makes the viewers heart hurt. Their a tragic forbidden love, who look AWESOME together, and really know how to kick some ass.

The thing i love about Buffy and Riley Finn is that she really thought that he was going to be her nice normal guy, so she was worried that he would be freaked out if/when he found out she was the slayer. Riley thought Buffy was a normal girl, so he was then scared that she would react poorly when she found out about his work with The Initiative. Buffy and Riley are nice, relatively normal (as normal as two people like them can be)  and they are cute. So, we know that something bad is going to happen.

Spike begins to slowly climb abord the ‘Im obsessed with Buffy express’ causing an issue with Ruffy (Yes, im giving them a combo name, and Biley sounds like a bisexual Miley Cyrus.. doesn’t it?) Then Spike starts interfering more and more, showing Buffy the place where Riley has been sneaking off to to get his blood sucked, to feel ‘alive’. Bull shit. So everyone expects Buffy to be the one with the right to be angry because well, Riley shouldn’t have done that, right? Wrong, Good ol’ Xander once again swoops in with some great advice.  So it’s extra depressing when Buffy is trying to run to get to Riley in time, and she doesn’t make it.  But that’s a good thing according to some people (like me) who really like Spike and Buffy.

 Everyone knows that once Riley is out of the picture, Spike is going to try and make a move. And we all knew (or thought we did) that Buffy would shoot him down. She did, for a mass majority of season 5 only letting him close a few times. There is two emotional scenes with Buffy and Spike in season 6 episode 3, After Life. When Spike sees that Buffy is back, he consuls her, and helps her heal her wounded hands, knowing the wounds well, as he too has dug his way out of a coffin once. Then when Buffy confides in Spike that she believes she was in Heaven, and that she was torn out of there by her friends. This is important because it is the first time Buffy lets Spike in. Their relationship builds in secret, as Buffy is afraid that she will be judged for being with Spike. Something that Spike knows and is offended by. When Buffy decides she wants to end her fling with Spike, he can’t handle it, and in the episode ‘Seeing Red’ he attempts to rape her. Not following through with it, he storms out. In the episode Villains he leaves for Africa in hopes of redeeming his soul through a series of trials. Although he got his soul back, Buffy and Spike don’t ever get back together until the end of Season 7, and only for an episode or 3.

Buffy Summers; Slayer, The. She who hangs out in graveyards.

Buffy Summers; strong independent woman. Amazing friend, sister and person. Difficult? Yes. Scared, tired, confused, of course. But she’s always there when it counts.

“Google.” Google. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Sept. 2012. <https://www.google.com/search?num=10&gt;.

Whedon, Joss, and Marti Noxon. Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Los Angles, California, 1997-2003. Television.