I'm holding out some hope that she's only Mostly Dead, and little flashes like that shoulder-to-the-wheel gesture show that she's getting better in between assignments.

Yeah, this. Scrappy, that's interesting.Not what the culture would lead you to think. But I guess it wouldn't be good business to appeal to Lonely Guys as Lonely Guys, advertising-wise.

and little flashes like that shoulder-to-the-wheel gesture show that she's getting better in between assignments.

Wasn't the shoulder-to-the-wheel gesture just left over from the imprinting for the-most-dangerous-game guy? Or at least leftover from what he said to her? Rather than a re-emergence of her base (Caroline) personality. So it shows that the Dollhouse isn't successful at completely erasing the experiences she's undergoing, I guess, but I'm not sure it's leftover from Caroline herself.

So it shows that the Dollhouse isn't successful at completely erasing the experiences she's undergoing, I guess, but I'm not sure it's leftover from Caroline herself.

But she also wasn't following the script for interacting with the handler when he was shot in the woods. When he said "Everything's going to be all right." And she was having flashes of Caroline.

But she also wasn't following the script for interacting with the handler when he was shot in the woods. When he said "Everything's going to be all right." And she was having flashes of Caroline.

I'm not convinced by the interactions between her and her handler (my favorite parts of the episode) because they flipped around the call-and-response script, but it was still the same words. (It's not like she suddenly started saying "look, this is a screwed up situation, and we need to trust each other. You're hurt, I'll take over from here." She mostly just repeated, in whatever order, words that had already been drummed into her brain. Except for the bit about her brothers. Do we know if Caroline actually has brothers, or are they the brothers of the imprinted personality?) But I HAD forgotten that she kept seeing flashes of Caroline. I was so squicked by that point that I stopped paying close attention.

The handler started the script, and I think she responded right to the first prompt and didn't to the second. Later they flipped it.

It's rape like it was when Warren did whatever he did to Katrina. When she came to -- that is, when she got her own personality rose back to her conscious state -- she knew it was rape.

Oh, thank you, Cindy! This is the best way I've heard it put, and that's exactly it.

Well .. it's mostly it. We're missing a few key pieces of information;

We do not know the entirety of Caroline's deal with the Dollhouse. My suspicion is that, if she came back to her full memory right now, that she would not be surprised to have been a prostitute. In fact, she might be more surprised to have been a hostage negotiator. Lord knows we all were.

It's a fine point, but a significant one. I don't think it negates any of the discussions of rape and free will, but it does make a difference if Caroline made a conscious choice to subject herself to this. (Albeit one made under obvious duress.) At least, it makes a difference when comparing her to Katrina, who was entirely unwilling and unknowing.

If, in the beginning, the Dollhouse said: "OK, you're going to be a prostitute and a, uhm, hostage negotiator, and you're not going to remember any of it later," I'm not entirely sure it negates any of the ethical considerations discussed. But it may mitigate them. Whereas, if they had grabbed Caroline off the street and reprogrammed her against her will? Well, that would be a different story entirely. And it's that story that happened to Katrina.

But again, I don't think the central question of the story is the Dollhouse's ethics. I think the whole situation is unabashedly unethical, and the dressing it up in TV glamour doesn't do anything to take away from it. (I'm utterly unconcerned with yahoos who don't get it, and just tune in 'cause Eliza's hot. They're not really watching anyway. At least, they're not watching the show.)

The central question is the limits of free will, and in that, we get far more interesting questions: Was Caroline's choice to be an Active entirely valid if it A.) was made under duress and B.) was made without being entirely informed about what she's doing.

But the boundaries of that question have already been expanded: Obviously, the hunter guy situation proved that there is a limit to how far Echo's going to fall for a guy, and I'm sure there's a point where basic self-preservation overtakes programming. Remember, Ms. Penn (the negotiator) over rode her programming when faced with a related trauma, and Echo never had another pang of love for the hunter guy after he turned on her. I think, outside the parameters of the scenario, basic human reasoning takes over.

But then there's the question of Caroline re-emerging, or possibly the various personalities she's worn re-merging and fusing, the latter being what evidently happened to Alpha. Do these things go away. Can they go away? There's a fundamental question here as to what we really are, and that I find interesting.

This discussion is making me hopeful that the show intends to tackle these questions and become a show more interesting than it is squicky.

That's my hope, too. But alas, to get to that point, a certain amount of squick will be necessary.

I don't hold out great hope that we'll get there before the plug gets pulled. But hey, that's what fanfiction is for, I suppose.

This isn't related to this show particularly, but I've gotta say that the storyline of Jonathan (and maybe Andrew) was the scariest thing on Buffy for me.

Anyway. Teppy, you around? I was thinking on the way home about your (right?) point about one not being able to consent to sex with someone before meeting them. It certainly read like something you've given a lot of thought to, so I was wondering if you could elucidate on that. It seems to me that one could consent in advance, but it's not something I've considered at length.

It still wouldn't make everything hunky dory -- even if it's possible to consent in advance, losing the ability to withdraw consent is.... well, I'm going to take a stand and say it's bad.

It reminds me of a story in a fandom (which shall remain nameless) which talked about (and probably made up, I don't know) a practice of "deading" (corpsing? something like that*), in which someone would take something to render them incapable of voluntary movement and then, er, offer themselves up for whatever. Okay, fanfiction has sex issues, no kidding -- but it made me think a bit about consent. Could one be said to consent to whatever happened during that time? Or would the act of doing that be evidence that one was mentally incompetent to make decisions regarding one's own safety?

Thank you all for reading my incoherent rambling. I think I should go to bed now.

(*Stop me before I parenthesize again!)