Destiny and free will in Chosen
Fri, May. 23rd, 2003 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterThoughts on destiny and free will in Chosen (spoilers for S4 Angel and all of Buffy):
The second time I watched Chosen, I cried the entire way through, just like how I bawled my way through Home. And in way, the two episodes are perfect complements to each other in their treatment of free will, choice and destiny. Home shows why free will must be fought for and how it can act as the downfall of all of us, how it is behind the darker impulses in us, but Chosen takes the other side and demonstrates the transcendence of free will and of choice. And because of this, I think Chosen was a beautiful cap on a series that has always been chock full of prophecies and loneliness.
The burden of being Buffy is that she has never had a choice in what she does -- she is the Chosen, she has been chosen, and because of that, she is in a sense always alone. Xander, Willow, and even Giles, after losing his place as Buffy's Watcher, along with all the other Scoobies who have wandered in and out of their lives, all of them have had a choice in fighting the fight, as is most aptly demonstrated in Willow's decision to go to UC Sunnydale to fight the good fight in Choices. But Buffy is different. Instead of choosing, she has been Chosen. And because of that, because of the sense of destiny that surrounds her position as Slayer, I think Buffy has isolated herself from her friends. In a way, Anya is right... Buffy is "lucky." I would argue that the luck she has is mostly bad luck, luck that comes from not having much of a say in her own life. It starts with her being born the next Slayer and being Chosen later. She does not have a choice in her parents' divorce, nor in the existence of her fake sister. She doesn't choose when Angel leaves. Instead, it's fate, or unlucky stars, that keep them apart, like Romeo and Juliet. Buffy struggles with this sense of destiny, the sense that many things in her life have already been predetermined. It begins with Welcome to the Hellmouth, in Prophecy Girl. It continues through her life. And in general, Buffy survives these prophecies and her various destinies by circumventing them, although almost all the prophecies come true. She tweaks them to her end, but in the end, she still dies at 16, Dawn's blood is still stopped in the Gift.
Angel, also, has felt this burden of destiny, with the pesky curse on his soul. The PTB are entwined with his unlife -- they bring him back from Hell, they give him his Seers to guide him on his mission to redemption. In fact, I would argue that destiny has an even tighter hold on Angel than on Buffy. The show, since Inside Out, can even be interpreted to be nothing but the result of manipulation by higher powers in order to achieve the singular goal of the birth of Jasmine. Angel's final fate of shanshuing and dying human has been prophesized, as has his final, heartbreaking decision regarding Connor in Home. And though the AI team has successfully overthrown the reign of Jasmine and restored choice to the world, in the end, it's a tossup decision. As Lilah says, by doing so, they've ended world peace. And in the end, Angel's final choice regarding his son is uncannily similar to what Jasmine was doing.
So what actually happens in Chosen? I would argue that Buffy and company completely overthrow the idea of prophecy and the idea of predetermination through sheer willpower, which is why I love this episode so much. The entire episode isn't about being chosen, like Buffy and Angel have been for a very, very long time. Instead, it's about having chosen, having made a conscious decision. Well, with the exception of the potentials around the world whose powers are surfacing, but I guess one could say they're part of breaking the general prophecy? Haven't figured them out yet.
What makes Chosen such a wonderful end to the series is that it completely overturns the premise of the series, the words we've all heard begin the first season episodes -- Into each generation, a Slayer is born. No, Buffy says. No, this is a stupid rule some powerful men made up a long time ago. We don't have to do this anymore. And with her plan, she rejects everything that's sought to keep her alone, sought to keep her apart. But instead of being unChosen, becoming normal like she's always dreamed of, Buffy changes the rules. She makes herself normal by making everyone like her, not by becoming like them. She gives girls all over the world her power. She makes them all special.
Are you ready to be strong? she wants to know.
And this strength, this is not the strength they're supposed to have, the strength of the demon that was bequethed to her so many years ago by the actions of the Shadowmen. This is not the strength she rejected in Get It Done, because that strength set her apart and made her alone, made her into the general with no sympathy. So Buffy throws the Slayer handbook out the window like she's been doing for so many years, and instead of twisting the prophecies, like she used to in Prophecy Girl and the Gift, she burns the prophecy books. She and Willow find the power in the Scythe/axe/nifty weapon thing the Guardians made for the Slayer, one whose power makes Willow glow white-haired like a goddess. And that's the power she gives to all the girls, all over the world. She gives them the power and the strength to make a difference, she gives them the power of choice. There won't be demons hunting down a single Slayer anymore, because there are Slayers everywhere.
So what does this have to do with Spike? Buffy and Willow changed the world, but Spike saved it.
Spike's sacrifice, like Buffy's gift, changes the rules. I think that the amulet was always intended for Angel by the PTB; it was his to bear in this final battle on the Hellmouth, and his sacrifice with it on would give him his redemption and his final reward -- becoming human. And instead, I firmly believe Spike will be taking this instead ("I'm drowning in footwear!" he cries out in sleep... piled with shoes? Shanshus?). And no, I don't think Spike has robbed Angel of his destiny, because Angel has realized in Epiphany that in the end, he'll never be redeemed. Because there's never a moment in which he can lie down, and rest, because there is always the good fight for him. Angel knows that every little thing matters, and I think he's stopped fighting for his shanshu and instead, he fights for the people who need him. And I don't think Buffy was meant to be the sacrifice this time around. Or she or Angel may have been, according to prophecy or predestination or the PTB. But in line with the theme of Chosen, Spike changes this.
Like many people have said before, he's the trickster. He doesn't follow the rules, and half the time, it gets him into deep trouble. It's his nature to mess up the carefully laid plans of others, from Acathla to even his own plans of torturing Angel or the St. Vigeous Day thing way back when. And because of this, because of the way nothing Spike does can really be predicted, he completely screws up what the PTB may have intended. Just like Buffy does for the girls, Spike makes it so that he isn't chosen, because the Powers have chosen Angel long ago. Instead, he does the choosing. For some reason, he gets it into his head that he can get a soul, and though it seems impossible for a demon, an evil vampire, to even consider getting a soul, he goes to Africa and gets himself one. And by doing this, by this act of free will on his part, he changes Angel's destiny. He rewrites the books of prophecy.
To me, Spike most thoroughly embodies the idea of choice and free will in the series because he straddled the line between good and evil so closely. As a bad guy, he decides against destroying the world. Why? Just because. Because he likes things like Manchester United and people (albeit as snack food). And as a good guy, he decides to fight demons because he can. Not for any higher power, not for any higher allegiance beside himself. He gets his soul for the love of Buffy, but no one knows if this is a good love or a bad love. It's pure emotion, unaffiliated with any side. And because of this, Spike is the agent of free will because he is not constrained by evil or by good. He's not a hero. He's not a champion. He's not some larger than life figure destined to do good or to destroy the world. He's just some random undead guy who messes up plans through his very nature and stumbles into the necklace of a champion. And Buffy gives it to him, because why not? She's just started to realize for herself that she doesn't need to be bound in by words written in books ages and ages ago. She doesn't have to be a slave to tradition. So she lets Spike take the mantle of the Champion and lets him take Angel's place. And he does. And in a blaze of light, he rejects Buffy's love ("Someday she'll tell you") and gives it his own spin. "No you don't," he says, maybe rejecting the notion that Buffy can only love a Champion or that Buffy is destined to love someone. Maybe he thinks Buffy sees him too much as a mini-Angel, as another champion destined to fight the good fight. Anyhow, in the end, Spike dies not for love (though he is love's bitch), not for good, but just because. "I want to see how it ends," he says, smirking all the way.
By dying, he saves the world so that all the Slayers Buffy and Willow have awakened can make their choices as well, he gives everyone the rest of their lives to keep living all their own choices. He gives Angel something outside of destiny, outside the lines of the books. He makes the decisions that Angel's fight in Home against Jasmine tried to give to the world. And because of this, I think he will come back human, becoming the very creature he's been working toward all along, albeit by accident and by bumbling, because he is the Fool. He will be human, and as such, he will be again balanced between good and evil, and he will have the choice that he fought so strongly for as a vampire who went against nature.
Addendum: Maybe this is why Joyce's prophecy to Dawn never came true. Maybe Buffy altered things so much with her gift of choice to the girls that she completely changed the landscape. Instead of having to choose to sacrifice Dawn or something else, Buffy steps outside that choice entirely and writes her own third option in.
The second time I watched Chosen, I cried the entire way through, just like how I bawled my way through Home. And in way, the two episodes are perfect complements to each other in their treatment of free will, choice and destiny. Home shows why free will must be fought for and how it can act as the downfall of all of us, how it is behind the darker impulses in us, but Chosen takes the other side and demonstrates the transcendence of free will and of choice. And because of this, I think Chosen was a beautiful cap on a series that has always been chock full of prophecies and loneliness.
The burden of being Buffy is that she has never had a choice in what she does -- she is the Chosen, she has been chosen, and because of that, she is in a sense always alone. Xander, Willow, and even Giles, after losing his place as Buffy's Watcher, along with all the other Scoobies who have wandered in and out of their lives, all of them have had a choice in fighting the fight, as is most aptly demonstrated in Willow's decision to go to UC Sunnydale to fight the good fight in Choices. But Buffy is different. Instead of choosing, she has been Chosen. And because of that, because of the sense of destiny that surrounds her position as Slayer, I think Buffy has isolated herself from her friends. In a way, Anya is right... Buffy is "lucky." I would argue that the luck she has is mostly bad luck, luck that comes from not having much of a say in her own life. It starts with her being born the next Slayer and being Chosen later. She does not have a choice in her parents' divorce, nor in the existence of her fake sister. She doesn't choose when Angel leaves. Instead, it's fate, or unlucky stars, that keep them apart, like Romeo and Juliet. Buffy struggles with this sense of destiny, the sense that many things in her life have already been predetermined. It begins with Welcome to the Hellmouth, in Prophecy Girl. It continues through her life. And in general, Buffy survives these prophecies and her various destinies by circumventing them, although almost all the prophecies come true. She tweaks them to her end, but in the end, she still dies at 16, Dawn's blood is still stopped in the Gift.
Angel, also, has felt this burden of destiny, with the pesky curse on his soul. The PTB are entwined with his unlife -- they bring him back from Hell, they give him his Seers to guide him on his mission to redemption. In fact, I would argue that destiny has an even tighter hold on Angel than on Buffy. The show, since Inside Out, can even be interpreted to be nothing but the result of manipulation by higher powers in order to achieve the singular goal of the birth of Jasmine. Angel's final fate of shanshuing and dying human has been prophesized, as has his final, heartbreaking decision regarding Connor in Home. And though the AI team has successfully overthrown the reign of Jasmine and restored choice to the world, in the end, it's a tossup decision. As Lilah says, by doing so, they've ended world peace. And in the end, Angel's final choice regarding his son is uncannily similar to what Jasmine was doing.
So what actually happens in Chosen? I would argue that Buffy and company completely overthrow the idea of prophecy and the idea of predetermination through sheer willpower, which is why I love this episode so much. The entire episode isn't about being chosen, like Buffy and Angel have been for a very, very long time. Instead, it's about having chosen, having made a conscious decision. Well, with the exception of the potentials around the world whose powers are surfacing, but I guess one could say they're part of breaking the general prophecy? Haven't figured them out yet.
What makes Chosen such a wonderful end to the series is that it completely overturns the premise of the series, the words we've all heard begin the first season episodes -- Into each generation, a Slayer is born. No, Buffy says. No, this is a stupid rule some powerful men made up a long time ago. We don't have to do this anymore. And with her plan, she rejects everything that's sought to keep her alone, sought to keep her apart. But instead of being unChosen, becoming normal like she's always dreamed of, Buffy changes the rules. She makes herself normal by making everyone like her, not by becoming like them. She gives girls all over the world her power. She makes them all special.
Are you ready to be strong? she wants to know.
And this strength, this is not the strength they're supposed to have, the strength of the demon that was bequethed to her so many years ago by the actions of the Shadowmen. This is not the strength she rejected in Get It Done, because that strength set her apart and made her alone, made her into the general with no sympathy. So Buffy throws the Slayer handbook out the window like she's been doing for so many years, and instead of twisting the prophecies, like she used to in Prophecy Girl and the Gift, she burns the prophecy books. She and Willow find the power in the Scythe/axe/nifty weapon thing the Guardians made for the Slayer, one whose power makes Willow glow white-haired like a goddess. And that's the power she gives to all the girls, all over the world. She gives them the power and the strength to make a difference, she gives them the power of choice. There won't be demons hunting down a single Slayer anymore, because there are Slayers everywhere.
So what does this have to do with Spike? Buffy and Willow changed the world, but Spike saved it.
Spike's sacrifice, like Buffy's gift, changes the rules. I think that the amulet was always intended for Angel by the PTB; it was his to bear in this final battle on the Hellmouth, and his sacrifice with it on would give him his redemption and his final reward -- becoming human. And instead, I firmly believe Spike will be taking this instead ("I'm drowning in footwear!" he cries out in sleep... piled with shoes? Shanshus?). And no, I don't think Spike has robbed Angel of his destiny, because Angel has realized in Epiphany that in the end, he'll never be redeemed. Because there's never a moment in which he can lie down, and rest, because there is always the good fight for him. Angel knows that every little thing matters, and I think he's stopped fighting for his shanshu and instead, he fights for the people who need him. And I don't think Buffy was meant to be the sacrifice this time around. Or she or Angel may have been, according to prophecy or predestination or the PTB. But in line with the theme of Chosen, Spike changes this.
Like many people have said before, he's the trickster. He doesn't follow the rules, and half the time, it gets him into deep trouble. It's his nature to mess up the carefully laid plans of others, from Acathla to even his own plans of torturing Angel or the St. Vigeous Day thing way back when. And because of this, because of the way nothing Spike does can really be predicted, he completely screws up what the PTB may have intended. Just like Buffy does for the girls, Spike makes it so that he isn't chosen, because the Powers have chosen Angel long ago. Instead, he does the choosing. For some reason, he gets it into his head that he can get a soul, and though it seems impossible for a demon, an evil vampire, to even consider getting a soul, he goes to Africa and gets himself one. And by doing this, by this act of free will on his part, he changes Angel's destiny. He rewrites the books of prophecy.
To me, Spike most thoroughly embodies the idea of choice and free will in the series because he straddled the line between good and evil so closely. As a bad guy, he decides against destroying the world. Why? Just because. Because he likes things like Manchester United and people (albeit as snack food). And as a good guy, he decides to fight demons because he can. Not for any higher power, not for any higher allegiance beside himself. He gets his soul for the love of Buffy, but no one knows if this is a good love or a bad love. It's pure emotion, unaffiliated with any side. And because of this, Spike is the agent of free will because he is not constrained by evil or by good. He's not a hero. He's not a champion. He's not some larger than life figure destined to do good or to destroy the world. He's just some random undead guy who messes up plans through his very nature and stumbles into the necklace of a champion. And Buffy gives it to him, because why not? She's just started to realize for herself that she doesn't need to be bound in by words written in books ages and ages ago. She doesn't have to be a slave to tradition. So she lets Spike take the mantle of the Champion and lets him take Angel's place. And he does. And in a blaze of light, he rejects Buffy's love ("Someday she'll tell you") and gives it his own spin. "No you don't," he says, maybe rejecting the notion that Buffy can only love a Champion or that Buffy is destined to love someone. Maybe he thinks Buffy sees him too much as a mini-Angel, as another champion destined to fight the good fight. Anyhow, in the end, Spike dies not for love (though he is love's bitch), not for good, but just because. "I want to see how it ends," he says, smirking all the way.
By dying, he saves the world so that all the Slayers Buffy and Willow have awakened can make their choices as well, he gives everyone the rest of their lives to keep living all their own choices. He gives Angel something outside of destiny, outside the lines of the books. He makes the decisions that Angel's fight in Home against Jasmine tried to give to the world. And because of this, I think he will come back human, becoming the very creature he's been working toward all along, albeit by accident and by bumbling, because he is the Fool. He will be human, and as such, he will be again balanced between good and evil, and he will have the choice that he fought so strongly for as a vampire who went against nature.
Addendum: Maybe this is why Joyce's prophecy to Dawn never came true. Maybe Buffy altered things so much with her gift of choice to the girls that she completely changed the landscape. Instead of having to choose to sacrifice Dawn or something else, Buffy steps outside that choice entirely and writes her own third option in.
(no subject)
Fri, May. 23rd, 2003 04:15 pm (UTC)