The 4 Rs (They’re All the Same.)

I’m not sure that these are the best episodes in which to return to the topic of the God question I brought up in a previous blog post, but I will try to at least use a couple lines from these to clarify what I was saying before addressing anything new.
My main complain was that Buffy the Vampire Slayer uses several religious references throughout the entire series. They use the myths of different beliefs, traditions, and religions, but they never address the big question that comes from making these references. Is there a God in this series? Is there a devil? Are there greater forces out there?

The series keeps circling around these questions without ever attempting to provide an answer. In a show that deals in myth, we ought to know the structure of the myths. If crosses and Christian churches work against Vampires, then we need to know if that is because God truly has shunned them or is it simply an effect of the Vampires inborn recognition of its rejection from its previous life. Perhaps such creature do not to be reminded of the souls they no longer have, but if that is the case it would only make sense in vampires who were religious as humans. Why else would they care? Unless they realize through the process of being turned that there is a God or something that has rejected them.

I have been very unsatisfied that, while the series will explain demons and such, it will not attempt to answer the God question. The show doesn’t need to get philosophical, just explain the world that we are dealing with. We know the ancient religions work (Osris, Hecate); what about the ones people still practice?
In the blog post in which I brought up this topic, I was suggesting that season 7 might at least bring up this question if not answer it, and it seems to be starting to do just that. Father Caleb mentions Satan, not to deny him but to claim he has no power when he says, “Satan is a little man.” Andrew also clarifies for us the definition of faith that is being used in the show when he narrates, “Faith: a set of principles or beliefs on which you are willing to devote your life.” It will be interesting to see if the season addresses the God question any further. I hope it does.

I didn’t mean to write so much about that topic, but I will try to make my actual topic brief so as not to overextend this post too much. “Lies My Parents Told Me” and “Dirty Girls” both seem to be about one thing, well four things actually that amount to pretty much the same thing: righteousness, reformation, redemption, and revenge.

Reformation and Redemption are addressed as if they were exactly the same things in this series or, at least, coexisting things for which each requires the other. Then in “Dirty Girls,” righteousness is treated in almost the same way as revenge was treated in “Lies My Parents Told Me.” Father Caleb addresses the attack of slayers and potentials by simply commenting, “You girls are just blazing with righteousness!” He speaks as if he finds this fact amusing but distracting almost like when Buffy addresses Principal Wood by saying, “I’m preparing to fight a war, and you’re looking for revenge... I don’t have time for vendettas. The mission is what matters.” It’s almost as if Father Caleb sees their belief in their own righteousness to be little more than an excuse for revenge.

We’ve brought the four Rs (righteousness, redemption, reformation, revenge) down to two now, but we can take it one step further still. Revenge seems to be just as much a part of redemption as reformation is in this series. For instance, Spike in “Lies My Parents Told Me” comments, “I gave him gave him a pass, let him live, on account of the fact I killed his mother...He even so much as looks at me funny again, I promise I’ll kill him.” This is meant to be a sign that he is reformed and on the way to redemption, even though he beat Wood to a near unconscious pulp before stepping away. That beating was revenge for the beating Spike had just received, and so is his promise to murder, which seems to prove to Buffy that he is reformed and trustworthy.

Thus, redemption=reformation=revenge=righteousness. I think the wonderful people of Sunnydale need to learn to pick up a dictionary some time, before their connotations get even further from the actual denotation.