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beer_good_foamy) wrote2012-04-13 12:07 am
beer_good_foamy) wrote2012-04-13 12:07 am
Entry tags:
Redemption - scattered thoughts
There's been talk of redemption again in fandom, partly inspired by Mark Watches getting up to "Sanctuary". deird1 had a good post about it here, for instance.
And I just wanted to jot down some loose thoughts.
Now, on the one hand, I love a good redemption arc. It's why characters like Faith, Spike and for that matter Jed Bartlet and Bubbles are among my favourites on TV. The idea of forgiveness, of being a better person today than you were yesterday, of stupid mistakes or selfishness or ruthlessness not being a door that shuts in your face forever, is a powerful one. They've built religions around it for a reason. Stories about it can, when done right, be extremely cathartic. (Exactly what makes them work is a long story, possibly for a later post.)
On the other hand, I occasionally find myself sick to fucking death of atonement stories. Which is probably why characters like Lilah Morgan and Tony Soprano who openly reject it are also among my favourites on TV. Now, I'm not going to give any particular examples, partly because this is just a general musing, partly because I could go on for ages about both spectacularly failed redemption arcs and spectacular deliberate subversions of them, and partly because everyone in fandom draws the line in a different place and this post isn't about whether specific characters' actions can or should be forgiven. (Feel free to comment with examples if you want, though.)
But it seems to me that exactly because the narrative of the Hero Searching For Redemption is so engrained in us, appearing in every other story since Homer, it's easy for both writers and readers to get lazy or blasé about it. Redemption becomes an end in itself, a Get Out Of Jail Free card that the writers can play anytime they want simply by saying that they're playing it, which means that... well, especially in an ongoing story where you occasionally need to keep it fresh by adding new mistakes or atrocities for the hero to atone for, it's easy to get to one of these points (which are really just different sides of the same coin):
a) you get careless about why s/he* keeps making the same mistakes again and again, since the audience knows that s/he'll atone for them anyway. So whenever you need the story to have some extra catharsis, you have the hero do something s/he shouldn't, for which s/he then feels bad. In which case the question becomes, at what point does the hero become a complete monster who still keeps doing the things s/he feels sorry for? If the only person who benefits from said atonement is the atoner him/herself, who gets to feel good about the fact that at least s/he feels bad... is that really the point of the redemption narrative? (Actually, it may well be, but that's a different discussion.)
And on the other side:
b) If the Atoner needs to atone, then there must be something for them to atone for. Therefore, the more they have to atone for, the nobler they are. Therefore, while the horrible things they did may look horrible, they are in fact not only forgivable but even admirable - because without them, how could there be these powerful redemption stories that help us feel good? Except... once you've done this a couple of times, and the aforementioned laziness/blaseness sets in, it's easy for the story to shift from one about redemption to one that glorifies villainy and calls it redemption.
Again, the point I'm trying to make here definitely isn't REDEMPTION ARCS BAD. It's more like... um...
XANDER: And was there a lesson in all this huh? What did we learn about beer?
BUFFY: Foamy.
XANDER: Good, just as long as that's clear.
Yup. They're foamy. Tasty, thirstquenching, intoxicating, even necessary. But if you water them down too much, or consume a whole bunch of very similar ones in one sitting, they'll give you a headache and possibly double vision. And if you drink them from a broken bottle, they can even be outright harmful.
Sorry about that last metaphor. I'll go brood over that now.
deird1 had a good post about it here, for instance.And I just wanted to jot down some loose thoughts.
Now, on the one hand, I love a good redemption arc. It's why characters like Faith, Spike and for that matter Jed Bartlet and Bubbles are among my favourites on TV. The idea of forgiveness, of being a better person today than you were yesterday, of stupid mistakes or selfishness or ruthlessness not being a door that shuts in your face forever, is a powerful one. They've built religions around it for a reason. Stories about it can, when done right, be extremely cathartic. (Exactly what makes them work is a long story, possibly for a later post.)
On the other hand, I occasionally find myself sick to fucking death of atonement stories. Which is probably why characters like Lilah Morgan and Tony Soprano who openly reject it are also among my favourites on TV. Now, I'm not going to give any particular examples, partly because this is just a general musing, partly because I could go on for ages about both spectacularly failed redemption arcs and spectacular deliberate subversions of them, and partly because everyone in fandom draws the line in a different place and this post isn't about whether specific characters' actions can or should be forgiven. (Feel free to comment with examples if you want, though.)
But it seems to me that exactly because the narrative of the Hero Searching For Redemption is so engrained in us, appearing in every other story since Homer, it's easy for both writers and readers to get lazy or blasé about it. Redemption becomes an end in itself, a Get Out Of Jail Free card that the writers can play anytime they want simply by saying that they're playing it, which means that... well, especially in an ongoing story where you occasionally need to keep it fresh by adding new mistakes or atrocities for the hero to atone for, it's easy to get to one of these points (which are really just different sides of the same coin):
a) you get careless about why s/he* keeps making the same mistakes again and again, since the audience knows that s/he'll atone for them anyway. So whenever you need the story to have some extra catharsis, you have the hero do something s/he shouldn't, for which s/he then feels bad. In which case the question becomes, at what point does the hero become a complete monster who still keeps doing the things s/he feels sorry for? If the only person who benefits from said atonement is the atoner him/herself, who gets to feel good about the fact that at least s/he feels bad... is that really the point of the redemption narrative? (Actually, it may well be, but that's a different discussion.)
And on the other side:
b) If the Atoner needs to atone, then there must be something for them to atone for. Therefore, the more they have to atone for, the nobler they are. Therefore, while the horrible things they did may look horrible, they are in fact not only forgivable but even admirable - because without them, how could there be these powerful redemption stories that help us feel good? Except... once you've done this a couple of times, and the aforementioned laziness/blaseness sets in, it's easy for the story to shift from one about redemption to one that glorifies villainy and calls it redemption.
Again, the point I'm trying to make here definitely isn't REDEMPTION ARCS BAD. It's more like... um...
XANDER: And was there a lesson in all this huh? What did we learn about beer?
BUFFY: Foamy.
XANDER: Good, just as long as that's clear.
Yup. They're foamy. Tasty, thirstquenching, intoxicating, even necessary. But if you water them down too much, or consume a whole bunch of very similar ones in one sitting, they'll give you a headache and possibly double vision. And if you drink them from a broken bottle, they can even be outright harmful.
Sorry about that last metaphor. I'll go brood over that now.
no subject
The bit where I'm not entirely sure it works is the question of whether Dark!Willow, all colour coordinated black veininess, isn't still a little too convenient. Willow acknowledges that that's her, that those were her actions, that she's responsible for them... but arguably, the quest becomes more about regaining confidence without turning into Dark!Willow again than about facing the deep-seated issues that led to Dark!Willow. I waffle back and forth on that.
Right. I can definitely see that. And I've talked over that point with others before -- about the way Willow's early s6 badness (with Tara, the memory spell) gets so eclipsed by Dark!Willow that they don't get dealt with directly. And I'm sympathetic to that and ultimately would rather see those get vetted more deeply than season seven did. And yet -- I do think that there is a lot of evidence of progress on those fronts, that exchange in Get it Done most of all. (She takes power and violates Kennedy for the cause, but is entirely upfront about it; and not only that, but immediately after a potentially damaging fight with her girlfriend, she pulls herself together and goes to comfort Buffy.) I do think that she's not "cured" by the end of season seven, so much as shown that it's possible to go forward. In fact, I actually don't even know if Willow has a "redemption" story -- which upsets some fans because, well, it isn't fair that Faith "has to" undergo redemption and go to jail and Willow doesn't (quotes because I'm not sure that there is an authorial "has to" per se), and I agree that it's not fair.
I think a lot of the issue is...I don't want to say a matter of taste, but a matter of accepting (or not) the story they decided to tell. On one hand, I do think that the early season six story could have gone a different direction -- one where Willow becomes increasingly darker without going to the Dark!Willow black-on-black obviously evil look, and that might have been more challenging in certain respects, where do you draw the line morally.
But I think that within the context of the season, and the age of the characters, it makes sense that things work out hte way they do. Just as Buffy sees her affair with Spike as entirely bad and dirty and wrong, Willow comes to view using magic and using her power as something that makes her black and dark and evil, and after Wrecked, first runs as far away from magic and power as she can, and then after SR runs toward it as much as she can. It's less a story about corruption -- though it is about that -- as about how damaging binary conceptions of goodness can be. I always figure that Willow picked the black-on-black clothes -- obviously she had to change and couldn't wear the blood-stained shirt all day -- because she was planning on being "evil" and wanted to look the part; like Restless, she needs to have a costume to hide the nerd within.
I always wonder, in Villains, what would have happened had Warren been the one on that bus, rather than the Warrenbot -- i.e. if Willow had killed him before the "I'm not coming back" conversation. She didn't torture him then, when she had her friends at her side. It's partly the feeling that she didn't expect that she could ever go back to her old life or her friends' good graces that sent her careening further and further out.
no subject
Excellent point. There's definitely a parallel between the Buffy/Spike and the Willow/Magic plotlines, both in s6 and s7.
like Restless, she needs to have a costume to hide the nerd within.
Exactly. It's telling that right after she tries (and fails within seconds) to refer to "stupid mousy Willow" as a separate person, she shoots down Buffy's attempted "you have so much to live for" speech with three words:
WILLOW: You're trying to sell me on the world? The one where you lie to your friends when you're not trying to kill them and you screw a vampire just to feel and insane asylums are the comfy alternative? This world? Buffy, it's me! I know you were happier when you were in the ground. The only time you were ever at peace in your whole life is when you were dead.
I always wonder, in Villains, what would have happened had Warren been the one on that bus, rather than the Warrenbot -- i.e. if Willow had killed him before the "I'm not coming back" conversation.
Hmmm. That never struck me. Interesting. I wonder if there's fic of it. It wouldn't necessarily have ended up better - after all, Buffy at this point doesn't know that Tara is dead, and would probably take Willow commmitting cold-blooded murder for (as far as she knows) no good reason rather badly.
no subject
(In general, I find it odd when people say, after someone has done something, "That's not like you" -- as if there is a platonic ideal verson of that person who doesn't do what the person has just done.)
I think I've lost track of what the original point I wanted to make was.
And yes, someone should fic that. More broadly, assuming that Buffy couldn't overpower Willow out near the bus (and that Willow would have said that Tara was dead shortly thereafter): would Willow have stopped there? Or continued after Jonathan and Andrew? Turned herself in? Killed herself? End world hunger?