Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 4: Growing Into Yourself
The moral case for knowing how to take on society's morals for yourself.
When did you become who you are?
Was there a point at which you went from wanting to become someone or something to actually being that person? When did it happen? Does it ever really happen? For many people, it's never something they can directly identify. There's just a point at which you are who you are and that becomes you. They have certain ideas about who they want to become, but sometimes those moments never come about. In the meantime, people do other things, try other ideas to pay the bills and become a functional member of society on their way towards achieving their goals. Whether people want to or not, they end up becoming who they are. It then becomes about what you do when that happens.
Previously in this space, we looked at the importance of accepting responsibility for your actions, then at what it means to live with the consequences of those actions. More recently we examined how to choose a future knowing all of these are part of becoming an adult. However, once you end up in that place where you know who you want to be and hopefully have things in place, that's far from the end of the process. You have to then work towards actually being that person. Making the choices which allow you to make that be what you do for a living. If you're lucky, those choices will end up where you want them to, but sometimes you have to make some changes.
Buffy is very much going through some changes in season 4. She's made the transition to university after three years in high school where her responsibilities were in many cases pushed on her by people like Giles and her mother, and the struggle to keep those she cares about safe. It took a lot out of her to come to this point and she's made many sacrifices. Now she faces her biggest problem though, mainly the idea that she has to take on these problems for herself. The people who would impose ideas about responsibility and consequences are no longer around to ensure that she holds on to them. Obviously it's one thing if you have someone else telling you what to believe and how to work out the things you're doing. Having others do it makes it simple and clean.
At some point though, you can't rely on them to always be around. Some of them will die or leave while others will prove to not have the conviction to hold firm. They will fall short of the ideals they've been telling you to hold. They are human after all, no one can be completely perfect in their beliefs. Only the incredibly rare person can manage such a task. So the solution is to take on these moral and ethical ideas for yourself. To actually become the type of person who at least tries to follow what you believe to be the right way to live.
Maybe the most obvious example of someone who can't live up to his ideals in the face of opportunity is Oz. In the structured environment of school, he was able to keep his werewolf nature contained and controlled so that he didn't hurt anyone. He found ways of trying to keep the part of himself which made him dangerous and willing to do terrible things controlled. When he gained a little more freedom however, these constraints are no longer available to him. At least not in the way he had it before. Oz attempts to find a way to make it work but when faced with the opportunity to become more wild, he can't help but take it. This isn't to say that he's entirely at fault. An obvious part of who he is poses a danger to not only himself but everyone around him. The part of him he can't control. He does recognize that it's a problem though and has to work to find a way to deal with it. Which is why he ultimately leaves Willow and everyone else behind.
Xander similarly struggles with his willingness to hold true to the ideas he grew up with. At least in the context of what he learned through high school from Buffy, Willow and Giles. He had the safety and security of school to give him the structure he needed not only to help him function within the school, but to get away from his family as well. Xander was able to safely explore many different moral issues thanks to the stability of the school. Having decided not to go on to university or college however, he has left himself without that option. As a result, he searches for some sort of stability.
Willow as well has her troubles coming to terms with the freedom she now has. At least in the beginning she had Oz who was concerned about what she might do with the power she is acquiring. When he leaves, she no longer has someone to really hold her back. Some of her friends like Buffy, Giles and Xander have concerns where they try to encourage her to be careful, but ultimately she doesn't have to listen to them. On the contrary, meeting Tara does the reverse. Tara pushes her to embrace her power and the things she can do with these powers. This is not to say that Tara is an entirely bad influence on Willow. She has her limits that she won't cross but in the initial stages of their relationship, Tara is more encouraging to Willow than cautious about what they can do together.
It's Buffy who has the reverse problem in many ways. Buffy has seen the consequences of unquestioned power through Faith and as a result she's worried about potentially going too far. She seeks out the constraints she needs to make her less likely to hurt others. Unfortunately, she doesn't respond well to authority figures like Professor Walsh and the Initiative. They don't allow for questions about their methods and final goals. Which makes Buffy someone who isn't going to work out in a structured environment. She's too much of a leader to be told what to do. Especially since in so many circumstances, her instincts turn out to be the right ones. Something that the Initiative frowns upon.
Of course, we also see the problem of being too comfortable with who you are. Not only with the Initiative itself but with Adam. He knows exactly who he is and his purpose in life. He understands what he wants and goes after it with an almost single minded desire to achieve his ultimate ends. There is no doubt in what he's after. No uncertainty or concern that he's not doing the right thing. It makes him the exact opposite of who Buffy and her friends have been up to this point in their lives and over the course of season 4 in particular.
“I have a gift no man has. No demon has ever had. I know why I'm here. I was created to kill, to extinguish life wherever I find it, and I have accepted that responsibility. You have lived in fear and desperation because you didn't have that gift. But it's time to face your fear.”
Which is only made worse by the fact that he has the physical strength to actually do it. So much so that not even Buffy herself can stop him on her own. She needs help from the people around her. More than that she needs people who are just as confident in who they are as she is in herself. Although you could argue that the Initiative provide some aspect of this for Buffy, she makes it much more difficult for them by not just going along with what she's told. Riley and his fellow soldiers don't have that doubt because they truly believe in what they're doing. In allowing Buffy to join them however, they can't be what she needs them to be. Especially when they realize what Professor Walsh has been up to and how they've contributed to the creation of Adam.
Faith provides something of a contrast to Adam. She begins from a place of believing that she understands her place in the world. Faith doesn't believe that she has any more growing to do. There's nothing more that she needs to learn about herself. She is who she is and that's enough for her. Unfortunately, she comes to understand that this is far from the case. In seeing who Buffy is and living her life she sees that she's not as complete as she originally thought. There are parts of life which can give her purpose beyond the whims and desires of destruction. Some part of her even comes to believe that she could have people who don't just want her for her body or her ability to hurt others.
Riley goes through a similar process to Faith over the course of the season as well. He starts out being very certain about who he is and what his place in the world is. He's a soldier for the Initiative and what he does is follow orders. It doesn't much matter to him what the orders are or what happens after he does what he does. The Initiative's scientists can do whatever they want. It's none of his business. Yet as he meets Buffy and her friends, he's no longer able to hold true to what he believed before.
“You won. You had better weapons and you slaughtered them. That's what Julius Caesar did and he's not going around saying 'I came, I conquered, I felt really bad about it.' You exterminated his race, what could you possibly say that would make him feel better?”
One of the biggest downsides of coming into yourself however is that when you do, you might find out that the people around you aren't who you thought they were. Maybe they have their own ideas and their own ways of thinking about the world. These ideas might not necessarily work with your own. Naturally, this creates tension and sometimes even division between someone you considered your friend. Even if you thought that what you'd been through in high school would keep you together and allow you to work through them. It's not always the case and you have to be able to deal with that. The idea that the people you care about most might not stay with you all throughout your life. Some of them you might have to let go.
The problem with being willing to let someone go is that if you need them, for instance so that they can help stop a homicidal Frankenstein monster like Adam from enacting his master plan, you can't just let them go. It's better to make peace with your friends so the world is a safer place. It's obviously incredibly hard to do something like that, but it can be necessary. You have to be willing to move beyond these fundamental differences which have come about. How you view the world can be completely transformed even if you manage to return to some kind of normal in the way that Buffy manages to.
“It's the end of the world, everyone dies. It's rather important.”
It's enough to make you crave something more fundamental. More primal and ultimately more powerful than the simple comforts of your friends. Someone who will care about you on a level that they can't possibly achieve. Much as they might want to be there for you, it's just not possible from a friend. Instead, what they need is someone who has been there since the beginning and has helped you through some of the worst parts of your life. Concerned but still willing to take you in when you needed it, even when you screwed up. Like family...
But we'll get to that when we examine season 5. You can also check out season 6 as a paid subscriber.
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