Moral ambiguity in BtVS/AtS   | Joyce | Jenny | Oz | Anya | Riley | Tara | Dawn |

	The well-meaning, repressive Joyce
	Joyce loves her daughter, but she doesn't always know what's best for her. Before Joyce knew that Buffy was the slayer, she was very adept at ignoring the level of trouble her daughter seemed into. After she found out the truth, she often pretended the dangerous aspects of Buffy's life didn't exist.

"...she's repressing. She's getting pretty good at that. I should start worrying." -- Buffy, BBB

In WttH, we meet a woman who reads parenting manuals and is uncertain about herself as a mother, but who is also often distracted by her own activities. Highlights of the inconsistent Joyce:

• decides to to ground Buffy for skipping classes... just as she is going to stop the Harvest.
• tells Buffy she got kicked out of school because she "just fell in with the wrong crowd", then despairs when nagging Buffy about it sends her off in a huff.
• can't remember what activity Buffy was trying out for (The Witch).
• wants to support Buffy's participation in the talent show.
• comforts Buffy's fright (Angel, TPS).
• reassures Buffy of her parent's love and devotion to her (Nightmares).
• mistakes Buffy's fatal-destiny angst for sadness over not having a date to Spring Fling and gives her a dress. Oh well, it gave Buffy something totally impractical to wear to defeat the Master ("I may be dead, but I'm still pretty!")
  
  
• Joyce and Hank worry about how they can't get through to Buffy, and Joyce tries to reach out to her (WSWB).
• nags Buffy about irresponsibility, but mainly out of ignorance of Buffy's real responsibilities.
• praises Buffy's bravery and resourcefulness when she glimpses the slayer in action during a siege at the school, but not before saving her life by hitting Spike over the head with an ax: "Nobody lays a hand on my little girl!"
• The repressive Joyce and Buffy's violence: the "killing" of Ted
• criticizes Buffy's irresponsibility in the mall when Buffy had been doing her duty and had saved a life.
• can tell Buffy's troubled before she "explains" her problems with Angel(us), and shows deep concern about her daughter losing her virginity to an older, "unstable" man. But when Giles calls about Jenny's death, Joyce hugs Willow, not Buffy (Passion).
• keeps a vigil over Buffy when she's in the hospital (KBD).
• Joyce's weakest moment: Buffy's revelation in B2
  
  
• welcomes her wayward daughter home with a hug. Joyce still worries about protecting her daughter, but now says "Will you be slaying?" the way she used to say "Will there be boys there?"
• admits she handled finding out that Buffy was a vampire slayer badly, and she's still beating down zombies while Willow and Xander hide behind the bed.
• seems intent on getting Buffy into a college with "keg parties and boys", not "hellmouths and vampires".
• gives hot chocolate and sympathy to the "man" she once had to hit over the head with an ax.
• When Joyce finally appears to be facing the realities of Sunnydale, she is only under a demon's spell.
• wanders outside the house when she hears a noise, even though she knows the town is overrun with monsters, and gets kidnapped by a vampire set on killing her daughter (what did Joss say about counteracting the stereotype of the blonde walking dumbly into danger?)
• Doesn't it bother Joyce that Buffy was questioned in the death of the Deputy Mayor and that the details of the crime point to a vampire slayer?
• won't sit with mind-reading Buffy despite her worry because she's afraid Buffy will find out what happened with Giles in Band Candy.
• tells Angel to leave Buffy.
• offered to stay in town with Buffy even after she heard about a killer demon at Graduation. Then she actually did as the slayer said and left.
  
  
• gives Buffy a pep-talk about not avoiding intimacy to protect herself from being abandoned.
• still has "faith" in her daughter's love--and her slayer instincts
• is a real trooper even with a big two teenage-girls-in-the-house headache. Especially after they get worse.
• gets Buffy to promise she'll care for Dawn if Joyce dies, even after finding out Dawn isn't her birth daughter.
• Tries to comfort Dawn when the girl discovers she's more than human. She's the Key.
• just when it looks like Joyce might be getting her life back after her illness, shit happens. The morning after Joyce's first date in years (?), Buffy finds her mother dead (RIP, Joyce).

Jenny Calendar Computer science teacher, Technopagan, Gypsy

• When the feisty computer science teacher turns out to be a techno-pagan, she helps Giles perform the ritual that gets Moloch off the internet and debates the value of computer technology with the ol' fuddy-duddy. The demon robot wasn't the only thing that made sparks fly.
• In Prophecy Girl, Ms. Calendar helps Giles research the apocalypse and helps fight the Hellmouth demon.
• In School Hard, Jenny helps Giles research the night of St. Vigeous and fight the vampire siege.
• Uncle Enyos vs. Jenny on how to deal with Angel in Innocence.
• Did Jenny betray Giles and Buffy?
• Jenny's defense her actions in Passion
• Who was responsible for Jenny's death?

Oz The morally ambiguous Oz: Daniel Osborne has a little condition that turns him from a laconic musician with cool hair into an unthinking predatory creature (let's call this creature "Oz-wolf"). Unless he is locked up, Oz-wolf could kill.

Other than worrying about killing Theresa, Oz seemed to take finding out about his wolf status pretty well. And while he feared he might have killed Jeff Orkin in B&tB, he was all too happy to use his transformation to fight off Pete. Oz-wolf's only confirmed human kills are ambiguous at best (Jack in The Zeppo, who was already dead, and Veruca-wolf, while wolfed herself), but this is the result of dumb luck and being locked up by his friends. The "wild dog" attacks on people in Phases indicate that Oz-wolf would kill a human being if given the opportunity.

Oz hides his feelings so well one wonders sometimes whether he has any at all. Willow scolded Oz for being unemotional even in the face of the Ascension. But don't let that taciturn exterior fool you. Being a werewolf troubles Oz deeply. Sure, Oz didn't react when Cordelia said (of Angel), "Oh, you mean 'cause of how the only guy that ever liked [Buffy] turned into a vicious killer and had to be put down like a dog?" He tries to hide his fear of his wolf-side from his friends. But this fear is evident in Fear, Itself.

Oz thought everything was fine as long as Oz-wolf only came out three predictable nights a month. Veruca helped him realize that the wolf is always there in some form, all the time. So Oz left to figure out just how much of him is wolf, and what to do about it. He returned to town after learning how to control his transformation. He could be what Willow needed him to be now--a full-time human with all his Oz-ness intact. When he found out Willow had moved on, though, it brings out the wolf that is still inside him.

Is Oz a legally responsible for the actions of Oz-wolf?

How would the law look at Oz and Oz-wolf's deeds?

• Vox on Is Oz a legally insane automaton?
• Sententia on Is Oz responsible for killing Veruca?

Alternative theory: there is no moral ambiguity in Oz. sweik's Oz == EVIL!!! and Oz == EVIL!!! Part Deux (--these links don't work. I keep them up for sentimentality's sake. *sigh*)

I've never understood Oz = evil, Oz is cool and a good man, if slightly wolfy (joss, Aug 23 12:34 1998).

Should Oz be killed?

Oz's finest moments

Anya

She's sort of a bizarre cross between Cordelia and My Favourite Martian (Llewellyn, Oct 19 19:26 1999).

"Oh, yes... Make fun of the ex-demon. I can just hear you in private: 'I dislike that Anya. She is newly-human and strangely literal.'"

Anya is an ex-demon struggling to live in a human body. Though she was originally human, she is more than a bit confused about that humanity thing now, since she spent a millennium being callous and unforgiving for a living. Her redeeming feature--she seems to genuinely care about Xander.

She's not like a child discovering a whole new world... because she's got a basis for understanding things and 1000s of years of knowledge. She is more like someone who is seeing for the first time -- all the emotions and the feelings of experiencing all the things she's only observed for centuries is ... overwhelming... and... she is fumbling her way through it all (MeeB, Oct 28 07:22 1999).

• The evil of Anyanka
• Anyanka found the alternative timeline in The Wish "exciting", while mortal Anya finds life in Sunnydale boring. In Doppelgängland, Anya not only wants to restore her powers, but the evil timeline as well.
• A 700-year old Anyanka partied a few times with Count Dracula, and Anya still has a bit of a crush on him.

The metaphysics of Anya

The morally ambiguous Anya

• walking the thin feminist line in The Prom.
• asking Xander to the Prom: "Men are evil. Will you go with me?"
• When Xander refuses to leave with her before the Ascension: "You know what? I hope you die. Aren't we going to kiss?"
  
  
• Bunnyphobia

Anya vs. Cordelia: They both lack inner voices distinct from their outer voices. But they are very different girls. Cordy would never talk about sex like Anya does. I also think Anya thinks about others more... observing them and this strange new life she's living, while Cordy was more self-focused in this way (Jane Espenson, ATS/BTVS writer, Jan 30 21:16 2000).

• Does Anya want to be a demon again?
• Does Anya have a human soul?
• calling Xander a directionless loser when he's already down.
  
  
• facing her mortality in The Replacement.
• keeping the crystal where her ex-boyfriend is trapped
• constantly reassuring herself that Xander's dancing with Buffy and attraction to April means nothing 'cause he loves her only.
• despite "not understanding" Joyce's death, Anya has some painful insights about mortality.
  
  
• Rude much? Giles is dragging his heels leaving Sunnydale, but Anya steps on them more than once while she waits to take over the Magic Box.
• Should Anya be striving harder to be more "human" and not freak her fiance out?
• getting a bit hot-headed and irrational from claustrophobia in Older and Far Away
• searching Spike's room for evidence that he's a whacked-out serial killer, then pretending that she's there for sex when Spike wakes up. Would she have gone through with it if Spike had wanted to?
• playing bad-cop to Xander's good-cop in order to find out what Andrew is doing back in town buying blood in NLM. She smacks Andrew around, wildly demanding answers. How much of that is acting?
• getting jealous when Xander has a date with another demon woman.

The return of Anyanka... sort of

"You wish it, I dish it."

• trying to get good old-fashioned Anyanka vengeance on Xander after he leaves her at the alter, but ending up with a very human response instead.
• using her demon powers to help protect Jonathan and Andrew from Willow
• being on probation with the lower beings for half-hearted attempts at vengeance and reversing a vengeance spell
• helping the gang stop Gnarl and save Willow from the skin-eating demon.
• bringing about the death of a dozen men: Anya's wake-up call
• A horny Anya comes on to Spike. But this time, he's not interested in helping her polish the table-top.
• Anya's fine end

Anya's finest moments

Riley [i]s the AntiAngel... corn fed & earnest and...well...bland (newfan, Jan 19 21:02 2000).

Riley Finn

Riley Finn. The guy just didn't seem to have many flaws. All-American Iowa boy goes to church, grades his papers, fights evil, and wants to "court" Buffy, rather than do a drive-by.

• At first, he did seem a little dull, attending to his teaching assistant duties when he should have been looking at hotties. But some of those duties involved suiting up and barking orders as a big butch marine officer. Who is the real Riley? Joe regular?, Teutonic demon-hunter? Or is he like our Buffster, a little of both?

Riley was clearly built on the Captain American model of comic archetypes (soldier, drug-enhanced strength, model of moral rectitude) - almost certainly as contrast with the Batman subtext in Angel (David S.. May 11, 2000 11:16 am).

• Riley was a soldier in Special Ops until he was plucked out for Sunnydale duty. If he is a military officer, he probably has a bachelor's degree, which means he is a qualified university teaching assistant.
• The metaphysics of Riley: Riley isn't a test tube baby. He had a mother/father in Iowa. Walsh just started changing him (and the others) once he was in the Initiative (gazoo, Feb 15 23:49 2000). More Riley metaphysics

Chinks in his armor

• seriously flirting with the University Ethical Code. As long as he was grading papers in a class Buffy was taking, university policy prohibits him from dating her.
• being just a tad bit naive about the demon-hunting life. Riley was a tragedy waiting to happen.
• First, his orderly world-view was shattered by the existence of slayers and magic;
• Then Buffy's benevolence towards a neutered Spike and the betrayal of Maggie Walsh introduced him to moral ambiguity.
• He held for a while to the Initiative's view that the creatures they are hunting and sometimes killing are mindless animalistic monsters. Then the commando-on-the-lam learns about Oz and Angel.

Riley's story is a little tragic, when you think about it. He's a good guy with a job he loved, and then he met a girl who shared his enthusiasm for it. Shit happened, as it does sometimes, and he lost just about everything--his career, his enhanced abilities, and slowly but surely, the girl as well. And Iowa, born and raised, found himself teetering on the edge of Crazed.

• It started with his jealousy of Buffy's thang for broody immortals like Angel and Dracula. There's nothing worse than a psychology grad student: Riley calls Buffy's thrall over Dracula "transference" from Angel, and he wants to run psychological experiments with the two halves of Xander's personality as subjects.
• Then Riley lost his super-strength, and Buffy began shutting him out of her slaying and her family problems.
• Riley's response was to go to Willy's every night and drink among demons who knew he was the slayer's boyfriend and a demon-killing ex-member of the Initiative. Then a chance encounter there with a pretty vampire introduced him to whole different outlet for his frustrations--getting bit for the thrill of it.
• This helped, for a while, until Spike rat him out to Buffy. Eventually, Buffy realized that Riley was a guy the Slayer could depend on. But by then it was too late.

Goodbye, Iowa. For now.

Riley's return: Riley and his new wife Sam come to the Hellmouth to track down Suvolte demons and "The Doctor", who plans to sell their eggs on the black market. Riley barely blinks an eye when he finds out Buffy is sleeping with Spike. And when Riley finds out Spike is the Doctor, he and Buffy foil Spike's plans and he lets Buffy decide Spike's fate.

Riley's finest moments

Tara

This shy witch has been practicing the craft all her life, like her powerful mother before her. Up until Goodbye Iowa, though, Tara just seemed sweet, if a little bland for a witch.

• she wanted to perform a spell to help people talk in Hush,
• followed Willow's lead in trying other spells, and
• made overtures of love and friendship to Willow.

But when she sabotages Willow's demon-finding spell, we started to wonder--does she want anything more than to love Willow and help Willow's friends?

• she helped Buffy get her body back from Faith and
• helped rival Oz when he was captured by the Initiative
• wanted the Scoobies to include Dawn in their work, but didn't seem overly eager to break into the Gang herself. Willow told her she was "one of the good guys", but Tara didn't seem to believe that.
• Would you, if your family has been telling you you'd show an evil demon side at age twenty? When the time arrives, Tara panics and casts a spell with nearly deadly consequences. But Tara does reverse the spell when she realizes its deadly effects, even though it would have "revealed" her secret.
• did some dumb stuff after her mom died, like lying to her family and staying out all night.

Tara may be human, but she is also a powerful witch. And as her back-firing spell showed in Family, that's a big responsibility to have in the Buffyverse. Should Tara show more concern over Willow's irresponsibility with magic?

• Was Tara's decision to leave Willow after the Tabula Rasa spell too hasty? Should she have stayed and tried to help Willow instead?
• After weeks of flirting, Tara makes an impulse-decision to reunite with Willow, who seems to have her magic addiction under control. When Tara dies, though, Willow faulters... big time.

Tara's finest moments

Dawn

Dawn's self-image and self-esteem have always been precarious. First, when she thought she was the overlooked younger sister of a vampire slayer; later, when she found out she was an ancient energy transformed into a 14-year old girl and not "really" a member of the Summers family at all. Joyce, Buffy, and Buffy's friends all genuinely care for and love Dawn as family, but Dawn must learn that for herself. It's not easy for her to believe that she is anything more than another mission for the Scooby Gang--the Key to an apocolyptic fate it is their duty to prevent.

Deeds of the Littlest Summers:

• inadvertently inviting VampHarmony into the house
• is a bit of a spaz and a momma's girl
• clueing Riley in about Buffy's overprotectiveness of him and the difference in Buffy's emotional response to Riley vs. Angel
• sneaking off to: read Giles' notes, hang out with Spike, look at Joyce's body in the morgue
• cutting herself and then running away when she discovers her full identity
• attempting a spell to bring her mother back from the dead

Dawn the klepto: In Intervention, Dawn steals Anya's earrings from Xander's table. ...the two other times we've seen her steal/break in somewhere (In Blood ties she wants to break into the magic shop, and sees Spike stealing a couple of little items- even luring him there with the comment "wanna steal some stuff?" In Forever she steals the books and potions from the magic shop, not to mention the egg from the Gohra demon.) Maybe she's gotten a bit addicted to the rush? Plus, she saw Spike knicking stuff and we know she thinks he's pretty cool (Wiccagrrl, 23:28 4/24/01). trying to impress a boy with Halloween vandalism and the claim that she always steals lipstick. pilfering Sweet's pendant from the Bronze--and this time there's consequences. steals jewelry and a leather coat at the mall when Buffy won't make time for her.

• ditching school after her mother's death
• believing that Spike and Tara and other Glory-victim's pain is her fault.
• finding life without big sis just a little too difficult
• claiming to understand Tara and Willow's troubles, but still trying to push the two of them back together before their differences have been worked out.
• Dawn's grades have slipped from frequent tardiness and absences in the year since her mother's illness and death.
• is increasingly doubting Buffy's love for her, and with reason. Her sister is never around and distracted when she is.
  
  
• gets a bit sullen with Buffy when she finds out Buffy withheld the news that she saw Spike in the Sunnydale High basement.
• threatens Spike with "wak[ing] up on fire" if he hurts Buffy again.
• Dawn's behavior under the influence of an infatuation spell doesn't seem so unusual, you know, for her.
• fights a poltergeist-alicious entity for the chance to speak to her dead mother
• is envious of the proto-slayers--until she becomes one for an evening.
• a brave brat to the last: Dawn doesn't let Buffy send her out of town before the final battle against the First Evil.

Dawn's finest moments