If Buffy is going to embrace any sort of quasi-Christian significance, we’d better start with the basics: “Our Father…which hast blown me off on my birthday, effectively creating then abandoning me?” or “Our Father…which hast suppressed my strength and betrayed me for an archaic test?” or even the standard “Our Father which art in Heaven.” Well, no- the only supernatural creatures so far are Hellmouth-drawn, not Heaven-sent.
So, when it comes to Abrahamic religion, what’s a secular Slayer to do? Well, it appears, parody the Hell out of it, (pun intended) and then disregard the traditional ideals of God and Devil for a more humanistic view of Good and Evil. In Revelations, Helpless, Bad Girls, and Consequences, Buffy does just that.
Buffy has a continual focus on the traditional moral questions of Christian thought, but without a Christian doctrine to answer for. The characters act of their own wills, without consulting any higher power than the books and knowledge of their fellow humans. Rather than a Bible, Giles uses the diaries of other Watchers, similarly crosses and Holy Water are used alongside wooden stakes, cross bows, and the occasional gun. In Sunnydale, the only thing that is sacred is what is useful. Buffy doesn’t “reflect a new American Christianity” as the article in Fighting the Forces declares, but she rejects it. The patriarchal Christian ideas are suggested but never explored.
This lack of Divine guidance has an interesting effect on the characters. They are all intrinsically more humanistic, more focused on this world, and avoiding an afterlife rather than analyzing it. This means of course, that they are free to go either way. Like Faith, a Slayer can choose to look out for herself and work for her own happiness. “See. Want. Take. Have.” are Faith’s commandments, and she follows them to the detriment of those around her. In a more religious series, this would put her more firmly in the Evil column, but in Buffy, she merely shows the darker side of human will. Faith still saves Buffy at the end of Consequences, an act which Faith would have avoided if she were traditionally evil.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have Buffy and Angel, working for good if not God. “I hate being the good one,” says Buffy, but she still continues fighting. Her motivations are moral, springing from a personal love of those around her and a sense of personal responsibility for the world’s protection. In a sense, this compassion almost elevates Buffy to a divine level herself. While by no means all-powerful, Buffy is gaining more control over herself and others, working to eradicate negative forces, protect those she loves through her power (including her Angel), and even taking the symbolism to a new level with a certain sacrifice and blood-ritual coming up at the end of Season 5 (greater love…) It remains to be seen how far Buffy will ascend, but so far it seems that Buffy has replaced the Christian emphasis on an all-powerful God with a focus on a very human 18 year old girl.
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Dr. Rose says:
ReplyDeleteWhen I read your comments, I see Faith as almost Miltonian....she's not good exactly, but understandable, and kind of sympathetic, in her "evilness," in a sense like Milton's Satan. Faith is very human, and it seems to me like a good thing, a complicating thing, that she is not traditionally evil, because questions of good and evil are rarely cut and dried.