The accidental killing of Gigi saves Faith from hard choices. True. But as someone else has observed (Stormwreath?), it also calls back the accidental killing of the deputy mayor that set Faith down her path in the first place.
Agree. But that's what makes me uneasy with Vaughan's Faith. She is basically season 3 Faith. Everything goes back to season 3. All her actions are defined by her Buffy issues in season 3 and her relationship with Mayor. Either the writer hasn't watched Faith on AtS and BtVS season 7 ot he deliberately ignores her development because it contradicts his own take on Faith.
Voll says slayers are too demonic to be trusted by humans. Giles has slayers as too heroic to sully themselves with demons or tainted humans. That would leave the slayers standing alone.
That's an interesting idea! I have to think about it.
But I'm not going to try to defend the easy happy ending for Faith. Too bad -- they set up such a brilliantly angsty spot for her -- but she learns all her lesssons about as quickly as she mastered a convincing British accent, and about as plausibly. Actually, though, I'd use this point to invert your main conclusion. The easy solution for Faith tells us that this really wasn't Faith's story after all. It's Buffy's. Faith is shown as having learned and grown. Faith made the wise decisions. Faith's instincts were spot on. Buffy hasn't grown much. Her instincts are way off. Buffy is the one with more story. Faith has been used for compare and contrast, wtih Buffy looking worse in comparison on every point. Now that she's served that purpose she's moved off-screen until such time as the plot needs Buffy to confront the fact that Faith is now the model slayer capable of making good instinctive judgments on the fly rather than being driven by her own insecurities and fears.
Agree - but I suppose it wasn't Vaughan's intention. He's just a big fan of Faith. So big that he balanced dangerously on the brink of turning her into a Mary-Sue. Thankfully, he doesn't overstep, but comes very close, IMHO.
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Agree. But that's what makes me uneasy with Vaughan's Faith. She is basically season 3 Faith. Everything goes back to season 3. All her actions are defined by her Buffy issues in season 3 and her relationship with Mayor. Either the writer hasn't watched Faith on AtS and BtVS season 7 ot he deliberately ignores her development because it contradicts his own take on Faith.
Voll says slayers are too demonic to be trusted by humans. Giles has slayers as too heroic to sully themselves with demons or tainted humans. That would leave the slayers standing alone.
That's an interesting idea! I have to think about it.
But I'm not going to try to defend the easy happy ending for Faith. Too bad -- they set up such a brilliantly angsty spot for her -- but she learns all her lesssons about as quickly as she mastered a convincing British accent, and about as plausibly. Actually, though, I'd use this point to invert your main conclusion. The easy solution for Faith tells us that this really wasn't Faith's story after all. It's Buffy's. Faith is shown as having learned and grown. Faith made the wise decisions. Faith's instincts were spot on. Buffy hasn't grown much. Her instincts are way off. Buffy is the one with more story. Faith has been used for compare and contrast, wtih Buffy looking worse in comparison on every point. Now that she's served that purpose she's moved off-screen until such time as the plot needs Buffy to confront the fact that Faith is now the model slayer capable of making good instinctive judgments on the fly rather than being driven by her own insecurities and fears.
Agree - but I suppose it wasn't Vaughan's intention. He's just a big fan of Faith. So big that he balanced dangerously on the brink of turning her into a Mary-Sue. Thankfully, he doesn't overstep, but comes very close, IMHO.