I just finished watching all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
You see, back when it was first aired I was a (shock!) counter culture chick and even thought it was urban fantasy, it was too popular for me to watch.
(Note: I laugh at younger me, you can too.)
So when I decided to write an urban fantasy book, I started watching it. Even before I started writing The Silver Wilde Chronicles. It took soooo long to finish, and I admit I took breaks to watch other things, but I’m done now.
(Not with Angel, but we won’t talk about that.)
Here’s my takeaway: Buffy had a problem with morally grey women.
Morally grey Spike was fine all the way through, but when but both Faith and Willow went dark they fell alllll the way to ‘Evil with a capital E’. It’s not fair.
Firstly, Faith is my favorite. She’ll always be my favorite. She and Silver would be besties for sure. But when she had her little accident, Buffy and the Scooby gang harped on her about why she didn’t care. It was a very bad thing and she had to care!
The thing is she DID care, but they couldn’t accomodate an avoidant personality. If they’d been more gentle with her she might have come around.
As me how I know about avoidant personalities? Go ahead. Or, just guess. Yep. It’s me. I’m the problem. 🙂
But no! Not I’m not a problem, just different! Faith didn’t have to go dark and I felt personally offended at the suggestion that she did.
Now I do know, every character is an individual. It’s not a judgement on people with those characteristics. I told myself that and moved on.
Then we have Willow. Poor Willow. You can understand why she might have gone a bit haywire.
I didn’t understand why they couldn’t leave her alone to take care of business, to be honest. Maybe if they did, she would have been fine.
In my mind. But to the creators, it seems, any shades of grey is a deep dive into morally black. Because down she went, into destroy the world tactics.
Because sure, if you seek justice for an unfairly deceased loved one, you’re automatically Evil.
Willow did recover, and it seems so did Faith. But they had to learn their lesson that nothing less than Pollyanna values is good enough when you’re a woman.
Spike and Angel though, no problem. Ugh.
Don’t get me wrong, it was a fun show. I’m glad I watched it. I like The Magicians a lot better though.
I like moral ambiguity. My heroines are more like Faith than Buffy.
Willow could have been an awesome lovable antagonist with chaotic neutral vibes. Don’t think that’s not working its way through my subconcious!
You can read Scarred Heart & Sass, with a snarky witch main character who’s more like Faith than Buffy, on Kindle Unlimited. Her series is complete but her sister’s standalone is on preorder.
