Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2: Living with Consequences
The moral case for making sure you can take on the consequences of your actions.
Author’s Note: Take advantage of the Buffy Bonus today and see articles before other people.
Actions have consequences.
It's something you hear a lot, especially when you're a kid. That just because you want to take an action doesn't mean that it's the right one. If you do take it, you might end up making things worse. Or at least get someone hurt, either emotionally or physically. You might even run the risk of getting them killed. Such an action is likely to have even worse results. Having to live with the fact that you harmed someone ends up changing your own view of the world in many ways. You're less likely to take risks. To make decisions that wouldn’t otherwise hurt the people around you. Of course the problem with thinking in those terms is they have their own consequences. Not acting can hurt someone too. Especially if you have been chosen to make the world safer for other people. Why would anyone want to live in such a lose-lose scenario?
Previously in this space, we looked at the importance of accepting responsibility. What it means to take on the burden of knowing that there are people depending on you. In season 1, Buffy learns that she can accept the weight of this problem if she has people she can rely on. With Willow, Xander and Giles to give her support, this isn't as hard as it otherwise would be. She can be the kind of responsible person who can take on demons, vampires and the other forces of darkness. However, the story doesn't end there. As soon as you accept this responsibility, you have to live with the consequences of allowing others to help you. The danger you put them in.
We see this idea repeatedly throughout the second season. Buffy is dealing with the consequences of having sacrificed herself in her fight with The Master. The issues it brings up with her, feeling both invincible because she survived but also incredibly vulnerable because she's been confronted directly with the fact that she can and will die thanks in part to her willingness to put herself on the line. Although her own decisions aren't the only things she's dealing with. Each of the characters she is fighting against are in some way learning to live with their own consequences. For instance, Chris and Eric are living with the consequences of Chris' brother Daryl getting in a car accident. Ampata is living with the consequences of being sacrificed by people in power. Spike and Drusilla are living with the consequences of a mob trying to kill Drusilla, and Angel is dealing with the consequences of having created Drusilla and by extension Spike who now want to use him for their own purposes. But we'll get more into Angel as well.
“I did a lot of unconscionable things when I became a vampire. Drusilla was the worst.”
There are many different ways of dealing with the consequences of what has happened to them. Some choose to attack the problem head on. Rather than let things continue and possibly get worse, it can often be better to just get it over with. Not all people can do that however. Whether or not you can is based in part on how big of a problem it is. If it's small enough, you can confront it directly. For larger problems though, you may need the help of others. Rally people to your cause and together you'll find a way to overcome the problem. Other problems are too big even for a group effort. Sometimes the only option is to completely escape the situation. In large part because if you don't, there will be no opportunity to come to terms with it later. The problem is so big that it will kill you.
Similarly, Giles has to come to terms with the way in which his teenage years are coming back to haunt him. Either through Ethan Rayne trying to use Halloween to make Sunnydale go nuts or the way they summoned Eyegon. Despite his belief that he could get away with it after so many years, Eyegon refuses to let either Giles or Ethan leave well enough alone. Jenny as well lives with what happened in the past. Her connection to the Roma people who were the victim of Angelus' brutality makes Angel live with the consequences of what he's done. This fact also has consequences for Buffy.
“Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true. The bad guys are easily distinguishable by their pointy horns or black hats. We always defeat them and save the day. Nobody ever dies and everybody lives happily ever after.”
Most of these situations come back to haunt the ones who caused it, and Buffy has to deal with the aftermath. She doesn't really have any other choice because those around her can't find a way to come to terms with what they've done, Buffy is forced to come to terms with it. She resolves issues and helps them find that resolution, often with tragic results. However, no one feels the consequences of their own actions more than Buffy herself. First in the fact that her choice to accept responsibility for being a slayer lead to another slayer, then in her decision to sleep with Angel. Both lead to consequences, some positive while others negative.
Kendra's arrival obviously has positive aspects to it, even if they don't get along initially. It allows Buffy to see that what she did had a positive impact. Thanks to her, there is at least one more person who could do what she was doing. They can accept the responsibilities of being a slayer but also help with the consequences of not only Buffy's own decisions but also Kendra's decisions. In the same way that having Willow and Xander to lean on during season 1 allowed Buffy to accept her responsibility as a slayer, having Kendra to help her deal with consequences gives her more confidence in herself. Allowing her to come to terms with the aftermath of the negative aspects of her own decisions.
“You talk about slaying like it's a job. It's not... it's who you are.”
Which is part of the problem of dealing with the aftermath of what you do. You never know before you make the decision whether or not the things you're going to do will end positively or negatively. But like with accepting responsibility, that doesn't mean you can just avoid them. Trying to avoid making a choice will have consequences of their own. So there really isn't any way out of living with something. It's only a question of what you're going to live with.
The most obvious negative parts of things is what happens after she sleeps with Angel for the first time. Doing so leads her down a terrible path both for herself and those around her. Angel becomes a different person, thanks to his soul leaving him. He becomes who he used to be, a violent psychopath whose only goal is to torment everyone who ever made him feel human. Unlike many of the problems Buffy has dealt with up until this point, Angelus seeks to inflict consequences on people. Which is of course perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a person.
“This is all my fault.”
“I don't believe it is. Do you want me to wag my finger at you and tell you that you acted rashly? Because you did, and I can. I know that you loved him, and he has proven more than once that he loved you. You couldn't have known what would happen. The coming months are going to be hard, I suspect on all of us, but... if it's guilt you're looking for Buffy then I'm not your man. All you will get from me is my support, and my respect.”
Angelus is probably the ultimate example of what happens when consequences get out of control. He has no real concern for the way in which his actions have negative impacts on people. In fact, he revels in this to a degree that at quite a few points are incredibly difficult to watch. Not only because the people who he's doing it to are those we as the audience care about, but also because we saw what he was like before. We know that if he had a soul, he would feel terrible about all of these things. However he doesn't.
“She made me feel like a human being, that's not the kind of thing you just forgive.”
This is another part of the downside of having to deal with the consequences of your actions. Although most people would respond by feeling bad about the suffering they cause, it's far from a guarantee. Some will simply choose to embrace it. To enjoy the pain they inflict. Knowing that no matter how much their victims might want to erase what happened to them, they never will be able to. That they will have to live the rest of their lives wondering if the next person they meet might find a way to do what they did. There's an incredible power in that.
It's bad enough to think about the consequences of your own actions. However, if what you do causes other people to hurt someone, then you have added guilt over anything they do. Thanks in large part to the fact that you were responsible for it. Not only that but anyone who might be impacted by what you did ends up suffering the consequences. They can be part of a long running chain of events going from person to person. All because you made the decision to do what you did. It may not seem like it when you decide it, but that's where you can end up.
“Bottom line is, even if you see them coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really, but it does. So what are we helpless? Puppets? No, the big moments are going to come you can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.”
Buffy has to live with the fact that as a direct result of her actions, people are going to die, and eventually some do actually die. These people's lives are on her conscience, no matter what she might otherwise want. The weight of that pain is too much for most people to handle. While she found a way to accept responsibility for her own role in fighting the forces of darkness, it's another thing to come to terms with other people's role in it. Something she hasn't been confronted with until now.
Which is why when the first opportunity to absolve herself of these feelings comes up, she's more than willing to take it. Even if it means ignoring or at least minimizing the pain and suffering that those around her have been through as a result of her actions. Being able to remove such a terrible burden is a pretty obvious benefit to her. She tries to deny it for a long time. To the point that it literally makes her sick at one point. This creates what could be considered the biggest rift between Buffy and her friends. Outside of Buffy herself, Xander, Willow and Giles more than any of them have been on the receiving end of what Angelus did as a result of Buffy's actions. It's extremely hard from their perspective to see their way to forgiving Angelus for what he's done.
“To forgive is an act of compassion. It's not done because people deserve it. It's done because they need it.”
People can make the argument that those you affect are responsible for their own actions, but it's one thing to know that and it's another to believe it within yourself. Since in the end there's only so much you can take when it comes to other people's bad decisions. Up until this point, Buffy has done that pretty consistently. Taken on the moral failures of others and dealing with the consequences of them, even when she probably shouldn't.
Although we'll get a little more into the problem of making choices when we get into season 3.
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