|
|
|
  
|
Power and Personality: Acton’s Law in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Humanitas - April 02 2002
“Well now, Xander, it's not quite that simple.”It is an often-repeated theme: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”(1) But Lord Acton’s famous dictum is more problematic in practice than in theory. In fact, it can be logically disproved, at least in the context of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The proof is as follows: If power corrupts, then all those with power will become corrupted. How, then, does one account for Buffy herself? Clearly, Buffy has tremendous power. To begin with the obvious, she is the Slayer. This gives her super-human strength, quick reflexes, and rapid healing abilities as “part of the whole Slayer-package.” It also gives her a natural ability with almost any weapon she picks up. For example, she needed no training with the quarterstaff whatsoever. Beyond her physical abilities, however, she gains power from her own personality and will. Even when her Slayer-related abilities were temporarily disabled, she managed to defeat the mad vampire Kralik using her wits rather than brute force. She is also a natural leader. The other members of the “Scooby Gang” instinctively turn to her to be the general, as well as the big gun. Adam, the hybrid human-demon-cyborg, certainly recognized this. “The humans need a leader, a champion. The Slayer can do that.” Furthermore, it has been shown quite clearly that the power of the Slayer can be a corrupting influence. Faith, the “rogue” Slayer, demonstrated this quite amply. She believed that the regular rules of society do not apply to Slayers, because they act in defense of humanity at large. She descended even further after her accidental killing of Alan Finch, eventually killing Professor Wirth in cold blood. Yet despite having all this power, and despite this power being more than up to the task of corrupting a young girl, Buffy has remained a hero. To use a traditional comic book cliché, Buffy uses her powers for good. She kills vampires and demons, which present an obvious threat to humanity. She only kills humans when they present an immediate, direct threat, as in the case of the Knights of Byzantium. Perhaps more importantly, Buffy refrains from killing whenever possible. She spared Spike after he got a government-issue chip installed in his head that prevents him from harming humans. She even does not kill when it might be better to do so in the long term. She walked away from Ben, the mortal male in which the hell-god Glory was imprisoned, even though killing him was the only way to stop Glory forever: Ben: Need a… a minute. She could’ve killed me.The existence of a hero, such as Buffy Summers, possessed of great power, yet not corrupted by it, indicates that power does not necessarily corrupt. Acton’s Law is not and absolute fact, which is no doubt the reason why it is phrased “power tends to corrupt.” That said, it is clear that power often does produce evil. Examples of this abound in the mythos of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In addition to Faith, one could cite vampires such as Darla and Angelus, Mayor Wilkins, and even Willow under the influence of her magic addiction as instances of individuals corrupted by their own power. In fact, one might go so far to say that the vast majority of people who have power in the Buffyverse tend to do questionable things under the influence of that power. So, perhaps the question is, “What makes Buffy different?” We can write the Vampires off, for purposes of this discussion, because they don’t have souls, and therefore have no “guiding star” to make them tend towards good. Likewise, it is highly likely (although never explicitly stated) that the Mayor traded his soul for power. That leaves us with Willow and Faith as our people with which to compare Buffy. “Willow’s a demon?!”While Willow is certainly not a demon, she is an extraordinarily powerful witch. In recent episodes, we have seen that power lead Willow down a particularly dark and destructive path. But why? Tara, Willow’s now-ex-girlfriend, is a fairly powerful witch herself, and she has shown no signs of such addiction. The answer is rooted not in the nature of power, but in psychology. Underneath that powerful, witchy exterior, Willow is still the shy, painfully geeky girl we met in the beginning of the series. Much of Willow’s psychology is defined by fear. She is desperately afraid of not being noticed, of social rejection. To be honest, there is a solid basis for this fear. When we first meet Willow, she is hoping that Xander will notice her, as a girl, and he doesn’t. The next time we see her, it is in the hallway, and Cordelia is expertly chopping Willow’s ego into pieces. Such is the lot of Miss Rosenberg, before the advent of the Slayer. The truly sad thing is that Willow has come to believe what people say about her. She has been told that she is a loser for so long that the notion has taken root in her mind. Boys reduce her to gibberish, and she is afraid to try anything new. When Buffy encourages her to “get wild” on Halloween, her reply is “Oh, I don’t get wild. Wild on me equals spaz.” Like a lot of socially isolated people, Willow takes power where she can. In her case, this takes the form of knowledge, especially knowledge about computers. Her initial contribution to the group is access to the city plans, which she got by “accidentally decrypting the city council’s security system.” She also has been known to use her power for petty ends. She gets her revenge on Cordelia by telling her to save her program by hitting “Deliver,” which of course causes Cordy to delete, instead. Willow also displays a flagrant disregard for rules. She decrypts the city council records because she can, without regard for whether or not such an action is legal. And because the information she gathers is useful, Giles, the only authority figure in evidence, looks the other way, saying, “Right. Wasn’t there, didn’t see it, couldn’t have stopped you.” Magic, for Willow, seems to be another avenue to power, very similar to computers. She is very excited from the outset at the possibility of learning the black arts “for fun.” Because magic, much like computer science, is a fairly arcane practice for most people, Willow seems to perceive it as being outside the normal strictures and rules of society. Also like many self-taught computer enthusiasts, she often attempts things she’s not ready to do yet. Over the summer between Seasons 2 and 3, Willow managed to blow out the power on her block with a spirit-communication spell gone awry. This pattern continues, even as her power grows. Several years later, she has much greater power, but still very little control, and her spells often create results far different from her original intent. Her spell to make herself feel better about Oz leaving her causes her every passing wish to spring into reality, and her experimentations in the Magic Box result in the accidental summoning of Olaf the troll. More telling, however, is the way in which she reacts when challenged about her usage of magic. To begin with, she ignores Giles’ repeated warnings about magic. When she first proposes the notion of restoring Angel’s soul, Giles warns her that “it could open a door that [she] may not be able to close.” He reaction is to ignore the potential danger, even though she is aware of it, and insist that she is the best person for the job. Years later, when the time comes for her most powerful spell to date, that which will resurrect Buffy, she is still brushing off her friends’ concerns with “I can do this.” Ultimately, it is not the greatness of Willow’s power that creates the problem, but the smallness of her self-image. She admits this to Buffy, asking “if you could be… you know, plain old Willow or Super Willow, who would you be?” She is so concerned about being accepted by others, that she is willing to go to almost any lengths to control their perceptions of her. Thus, her “forgetting spells” that she casts on Tara and tries to cast on Buffy. “Faith’s not exactly low-profile girl.”We have already mentioned Faith’s fall from grace, as it were. The question now is not what happened, but why? Again, as with Willow, it is Faith’s image of her self, her feeling of not fitting in, which is central. Faith is a Slayer, and at least theoretically has every bit as much power as Buffy. Yet despite this, she feels like she has no place in life. This feeling starts early in her life. We get the impression that she was raised by a single parent, who was, to put it mildly, less-than-attentive. She describes her mother as having been “busy, you know, enjoying the drinking and passing out parts of life.” Even after her calling as a Slayer, her sense of having a place was destroyed when Kakistos killed her watcher right in front of her. Like Willow, Faith takes power where she can. She enjoys slaying much more than Buffy does (or at least more than Buffy will admit to), using it to provide a catharsis for her rage. She also claims that it makes her “hungry and horny.” This naturally leads us to her second source of power, her sexuality. She is very attractive, and she knows it. She deliberately attracts men, especially on the dance floor, and then blows them off. Those she does take to her bed, she kicks out the next morning, as in the case of Xander. Because of her power, Faith feels that she is outside the normal rules of society. She sums up her philosophy in three words: “Want…Take… Have.” She considers herself and Buffy to be superior to ordinary human beings: Faith: You’re still not seeing the big picture, B. Something made us different. We’re warriors. We’re built to kill.To return to the question of why Faith behaves as she does, we find the answer lies in her psychology. Like Willow, Faith is desperate for a place in the world. Her bond with the Mayor arises because he offers her a place where she will be accepted. She clearly sees him as a father figure, and is genuinely touched when she learns of his death. This desire to fit in is further demonstrated by the fact that the first thing Faith does when she arrives in Sunnydale is to move in on Buffy’s life, her friends, her position as Slayer, even her Mother. As Buffy puts it, “[Faith] doesn’t need a life. She has mine.” Later on, Faith is visibly wounded when the false Watcher, Gwendolyn Post, implies that the Scooby Gang has excluded her from one of their meetings. Even after Faith awakes from her coma, she sets out to take Buffy’s place, this time more literally, by stealing her body. The relish with which she sends her old body away, and with which she tells Joyce to burn the lipstick that she had chosen before switching bodies, indicates that she is looking for a place in society that she felt had been denied to her previously. “Let me tell you something, when it’s dark and I’m all alone and I’m scared or freaked out or whatever, I always think, ’What would Buffy do?’”Buffy, in stark contrast with both Willow and Faith, has a tremendously strong sense of her place in the world. Some of this may come from having been raised as an only child. Joyce mentions this in reference to Buffy’s reaction to Faith appearing on the scene. We know that her father and mother both loved her very much as a child. We also know that Buffy was one of the popular kids in High School before being called as a Slayer. Once called, of course, Buffy knew exactly what her role was, however much she may resent or resist it. She is the Chosen One, and humanity depends on her for its very survival. Beyond her calling though, she seems to have a strong sense of her own self-worth. In her battle with Angelus, he says to her, “No weapons ... No friends... No hope. Take all that away... and what’s left?” To which she replies: “Me.” Furthermore, her words to the first Slayer in her dream after the battle with Adam indicate that she knows that she is special, even for a Slayer: “I walk. I talk. I shop, I sneeze. I’m gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back. There’s trees in the desert since you moved out. And I don’t sleep on a bag of bones.” This, then, provides the answer to our question of Buffy’s ability to defy Acton’s Law. It is not power alone which corrupts, but power combined with a lack of self-worth, or a lack of social place. Willow and Faith, as odd as it may seem, are much alike, psychologically. They both lack a basic level of confidence in their own value as human beings. Buffy, on the other hand, may be searching for exactly who she is, but she knows for certain that whoever she is, she has value, and friends. That certainty keeps her grounded, and makes her a hero.
All quotes from the .pdf versions of Psyche’s Transcripts.
|
