- Faith, Buffy, and Nietzsche Part 1
Nietzsche believed that the very concept of “good” was forced onto society by the “weak” to curtail the “strong”. So that strong people were considered “evil” and weak people were thought of as “good. So, in basic English, morality and conscience are merely taught and learned not something that people are born with. SO you maybe wondering what the hell that has to do with Buffy and Faith. Well give me a second. To continue the belief of the great philosopher, he also believed that for the “strong” to be truly happy they must embrace their passions and if they don’t they will never truly reach bliss. Every whim and/or desire of the strong person must be satisfied and his or her itch must always be scratched no matter what the out come or who gets hurt in the process (sound like someone we know?). Now that the school lesson is out of the way, this brings me to Faith. Faith is, for the most part, Nietzsche’s poster child for what should be considered strong. Think about it, she is stronger then most if not all of her foes (minus Buffy) and for most of her time on our lil screens she does what she wants no matter the consequences. Why? To use the words of our former President Pres. Clinton, “ because she can “. So going by our good philosophers theory, Faith should be the happiest of our lovely Buffy characters and the character that has the most success. We all know from watching 7 seasons of Buffy that this is far from the truth. Actually when you think about the complete opposite of the theory was the characters outcome. While Faith “lived for the fun” and Buffy lived for what was right it was Buffy (by Nietzsche’s train of thought, the weaker of the two) that found more happiness in her life then Faith. Which when you think about it is slightly odd considering Buffy didn’t want to be a Slayer and constantly fought personal battles over decisions she had to make and putting the World before herself (ala killing Angel). Whereas Faith, lived for the kill and loved the fact that she was physically better then all but one. Which leads me to my personal belief that it was Buffy's “weakness” that made her the stronger of the two slayers. Faith with her love for the kill and her job should have made the perfect vampire assassin on paper, far more then the slayer who falls in love with vampires. But, it was not her name the mentioning of which struck fear into pointy-mouthed bloodsuckers. It was Buffy’s. Why? Because Buffy fought for the side of good not for herself. She surrounded herself with “ weaker” people that grounded her so she didn’t become like Faith. Those weak ideas of good and morality were the very thing that made her excel as the most successful Slayer in the generation line. For Buffy, it was never out of duty or a love for the job, it was about what was right. The same conscience that was suppose to make her so weak made her so strong so great. And in all that so called “weakness” it was Buffy who found the most personal gratification in life, not Faith. So I end this with Friedrich my dear dead old friend, you are very wrong. Morality and conscience do not make the stronger weaker and unhappy but serve to make us stronger and make for the standing board for true personal bliss. Thanks Joss for making that abundantly clear. See ya Kids, Love Vibey.
Spikes_love_slave: This is really insightful. I've never heard anyone make any observations like you. I'm very impressed, and that's hard to do. Vibes: Fogey stop giving away my secrets damnit!!!...LOL Fogey: I am not a fan of Nietzsche - so I find it easy to agree with your conclusions! Will part 2 explore why Faith would voluntarily turn herself in to the police and seek to atone for her deeds by spending time in prison? That is something I don't see one of Nietzsche’s "strong people" doing. *glow*: Monkey smart...bear like.
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- And hey, your spelling and grammar are getting better...lmao E-mom: Well said, Vibes. I've always loathed Nietzche, personally. And also - glad to have you better.
by Vibes -7.16.04
I’m baaaaaaaaaack. Sorry for the delay. Along with starting my new semester I also came down with a lovely bout of Mono (aka glandular fever) that left me a tad bit incapacitated. But, a very cool thing came from my time lying on my back in pain. I bought two really cool Buffy inspired books. The first being Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy. I mention this book because an essay in which I read inspired me to the point that I went to my box sets and watched every episode that Faith was ever in to confirm or deny the premise of the of the essay entitled Also Sprach Faith: The Problem of the Happy Rogue Vampire Slayer. The essay compared Faith’s storyline to the theories of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. This intrigued me to no end because Faith perfectly fits the mold of Nietzsche’s “strong person” and the best candidate to achieve true happiness. I maybe speaking a foreign language to some so Vibey will give a very basic crash course in Nietzsche so the parallels can be seen by all.
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