I actually had real work to do today, so I didn’t get a chance to respond to Cindy’s posts here and here from earlier. I’ve skipped and skimmed, and I sense that the conversation has moved on, but I really feel compelled to make a few points to clarify and defend my earlier position.

Please feel free to skip, starting here.

While I totally agree with Cindy’s points that vengeful actions are morally wrong in the Buffyverse, I take issue with the following statements

To justify something means to make prove something or somebody right (righteous); to make it/them free from blame; to absolve (from) guilt.

The desire is understandable, sympathetic; it's not justified.

Which is why I feel that, in the Buffyverse, a desire for vengeance is often, though not always, justified. Sometimes, a person who desires vengeance is “free from blame” for that desire.

In Season 1, “Nightmares”, Buffy’s desire to exact vengeance on Billy’s behalf is presented as morally right. We don’t know in what form or if vengeance was taken on the coach. The fact that Xander and Giles prevent the coach from leaving the hospital suggests that they were preparing to take further action, possibly taking him to the authorities.

In Season 2, no one questions Giles’ moral correctness for wanting to take vengeance on Angelus for Jenny’s murder. Buffy stops him, but only for his own safety, not because he is wrong. In fact, most members of the group have a desire for vengeance that is never questioned as being morally justified.

In Season 3, Cordelia’s feelings are acknowledged by Willow as justified. From “The Wish”:

XANDER: Excuse me? I need to be both giving and receiving mirth. Is it too much to ask for a little back up?

BUFFY: I don't know, Xand. I'm here for you. I'm supporto gal. But I feel kind of funny doing the "us against Cordelia" thing. She's had a rough time.

WILLOW: (stricken) It's true. Cordy belongs to the "justified" camp. She should make us pay. And pay and pay and pay and pay... In fact, there's really not enough "pay" to make up for-

In Season 3, we also have Buffy’s desire for vengeance against Faith for trying to kill Angel (among other things). In Season 4, we are presented with another instance of Buffy wanting vengeance on Faith for Faith’s body stealing. Only Angel, in the Angel episode “Sanctuary”, stops Buffy for taking vengeance, but he doesn’t tell her she’s wrong for wanting it.

(Continued in next post)

(Edited to add omitted quote)

(I can’t thing of any examples for Season 5.)

In Season 6, Dawn’s feelings of abandonment are strong enough to summon a vengeance demon. Although Dawn herself may not have been wanting or seeking vengeance, nobody questions Hallie’s characterization of Dawn’s feelings and seem to accept them as justified. Nor does anyone question Anya’s feelings leading to her decision to return to her life as a vengeance demon.

And in Season 7, Buffy does not condemn Wood’s desire to kill Spike. Of course, she doesn’t know nor care to know what those feelings are, so she cannot judge them as justified or unjustified. We know, Giles knows, Spike knows. Giles does question Wood’s plan to kill Spike:

GILES: And this has nothing to do with personal vengeance.

WOOD: Does it matter? (pause) He's an instrument of evil. He's going to prove to be our undoing in this fight. Buffy's undoing. And she's never gonna see it coming.

PUSH IN as WOOD brings home his case.

WOOD (cont'd): I'm talking about what needs to be done. For the greater good. You know I'm right.

While Giles does question the desire leading to action, he does not question the desire itself. Even Spike doesn’t question Wood’s moral right to be vengeful.

What I am trying to say in all of this is that in the Buffyverse, the desire for vengeance is often understandable and occasionally justified. Not all instances are justified. Marcie’s weren’t; Professor Walsh’s weren’t; Faith’s weren’t (at least initially). I don’t believe it is true that desire for vengeance is never justified. I feel we have been told and shown otherwise.

Quickly, because I'm literally off to catch a train:

WILLOW: (stricken) It's true. Cordy belongs to the "justified" camp. She should make us pay. And pay and pay and pay and pay... In fact, there's

But Willow, since pretty much Episode 1, has been presented, as the nice Jewish smart girl who is All About The Guilt. Hannigan has always portrayed her that way. In fact, we get echoes of it at the beginning of Season 7, in her big-eyed line post bad-behaviour line to Giles, about expecting punishment. And he reads her very astutely indeed, does Giles: "Do you want to be punished?" I know we're all tempted to crack about the porn, but there was nothing porny in that scene to me. In the way a teacher might, with his most promising student ever, Giles is taking the piss out of Willow for wallowing. I see that as him calling her on her crap. And I've always read her tendency to wallow as not only part of her personal insecurities, but as a very very good way to ensure forgiveness for the next time. (she is, in fact, a damned clone for my cousin Jill.) It's not insincere; I think it's just Willow.

As for the presentation of a few of the other examples: I can't imagine anything in Halfrek's behaviour as justified. Understandable? Certainly. But justification? She locked the wishmaker in with the targets, for one thing, which no matter how adolescent-angsty Dawn might have been was almost certainly not part of her wish. IOW, the vengeance taken is an extreme, with the potential for unwanted and/or undesirable consequences equal to or possibly outweighing the justice entailed.

I'd have to say that, as presented to me and understood in my world since the show's inception, vengeance and the desire therefore in the Buffiverse is almost always understandable. Where I veer away in opinion is that I can't recall one time it came free, and therefor I don't believe it is ever presented as justified. And that goes for those times when I've wanted to wreak a little vengeance myself, so my bloodthirstiness doesn't come into the equation here.

Because what I've always seen them offering as the belief structure here is the old line about "when you go off seeking vengeance, dig two graves."

Hey, has this been linked here yet? Spoiler-free except for a completely non-revealing shot from the finale.

As for the presentation of a few of the other examples: I can't imagine anything in Halfrek's behaviour as justified. Understandable? Certainly. But justification? She locked the wishmaker in with the targets, for one thing, which no matter how adolescent-angsty Dawn might have been was almost certainly not part of her wish. IOW, the vengeance taken is an extreme, with the potential for unwanted and/or undesirable consequences equal to or possibly outweighing the justice entailed.

Deb, you misunderstand, or I was unclear, which is likely. I do not feel Hallie's behavior was justified. Dawn's feelings of rejection, which Hallie introduced to the rest of the crowd, may or may not have been justified to your point of view, but none of the group questioned Hallie's interpretation of Dawn's feelings as justified. They do not tell Dawn she is wrong for feeling abandoned enough to inadvertently summon a vengeance demon or make a wish.

And not to go back to a point that's been dropped (or, maybe, yes I am), Gloomcookie still hasn't answered whether, say, Giles staking Angel season 3 would be completely justified because he was a vampire (leaving the whole Oz question alone in case QC is just prejudiced against vampires :)?

I've got nothing. I'm just so very relieved that it's over. I thought it would be so sad, or that I'd be pissed off, that it might be this devastating thing, given how wrapped in the BtVS world, and how wrapped I felt myself getting in the Mutant Enemy world.

But I just feel a sense of relief that it's all over. I got entirely too wrapped up in the Bronze, and in I'm listening to the suite from The Gift, and it's just beautiful. There are pieces of the series that I'll remember like a great book that I can read every Summer, like The Body, Helpless, Becoming I and II, Graduation Day II, Choices, Earshot.

I feel a sense of loss about what the series became, these last two years, but I suppose that's why I feel relieved that it is done. I felt very invested in the characters, their stories, and the people that created it all, so I couldn't. stop. watching. despite the pain. And I am so very hopeful that the last episode is something I can pluck out of this season and put in the list of episodes that continue to make me feel the same sense of awe I felt the first time I saw them.

I'll not likely shed a tear, but I might raise a toast to seven years on the air, old school Bronzers (REPRESENT REPRESENT), and an assload of fun and drama that I got from both Buffy, and the communities she inspired.

He's 40, right? So he woulda started HS in either '79 or '80 I'm guessing. If memory serves me right, that 'fro look was worn but no longer cool. Surfer was cool. Punk was even cooler. Airsupply was not.

Sis is two years his senior, and she graduated in 1977 or 78 (I don't remember, sad to say, I mean, I remember the event, and I think it was 78, but I get it confused with her husband's year all the time). IIRC, he graduated in '79 or '80.

For those of us who don't read Fray, it was an asspull. (or would that be axepull?)

I haven't yet read Fray and didn't think it was an asspull. It was no more of an asspull than:

• Pergamum Codex that Angel gave to Giles in Invisible Girl

• The sword blessed by the knight that slew Acathla (that didn't show up until Becoming)

• The Books of Ascension and the shared slayer dreams that Buffy and Faith never shared 'til Graduation Day

• The enjoining spell

• The great power sucks of season 6 (and I'm not referring to B/S here)

It was less of an asspull than "the monks made her from me" (which I got and kinda dug, so I'll admit I do have a high asspull tolerance), and way the frig less of an asspull than Olaf's ascension to Trollgod (yes - a god, even though Anya created that particular version of Olaf).

They are always in a seemingly impossible position. They do research, get a source, find something (or find something out) that helps them save the day.

Okay the thing about JM's hair: it wasn't even remotely cool to have a big ol' fro like that when he was in high school.

I don't know. He would have graduated in about 1980. Depending on what year that is - it's possible.

Did his "real" voice bother anyone else during the A&E thing? Everytime he came on the screen and started talking, he wasn't so...Spike...anymore. Did not likey.

Yes. I know real Brits make fun of his British accent, but when I hear JM sound like a valley dude, it bothers me.

and apparently except for the above, I'm Mary Mary Quite Contrary, today, because...

justkim, I still disagree. The desire to see justice be served is justified, but since vengeance isn't justified, the desire isn't. A character can attempt to justify it with both excuses and even reasons. That doesn't make it just. What the desire for vengeance is in the cases you mentioned, is completely natural, sympathetic, and understandable - be it Dawn's, Cordelia's, Giles's, Wood's, etc. I'm wondering if you missed where I did say I do not think (paraphrasing myself) that the desire (alone - without action) for vengeance is serious, certainly no where nearly as serious as the action. I did say that what matters is if and how someone acts upon that desire.

By the way, Giles attempting killing of Angelus was justified despite his motives, not because of them. If Xander had just decided to kill Jenny and Giles went to kill him, that attempt would not be justified. Catching Xander and seeing him brought to trial would be. Because season 2 Angelus (prior to the Scoobies getting a hold of the restoration curse) is a time bomb, guaranteed to kill unless he is stopped (and the only way to stop him as far as they know at that time - is to kill him), attempting to kill Angelus is justified, regardless of the fact that Giles is motivated by his anger over Jenny's murder.

To me, you're missing one of the points of The Wish if you think Cordelia's desire for vengeance was justified.

JM played Thoreau in The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, a play I was in back in high school. (I was Ralph Waldo Emerson's wife, Lydian.) Loved that play to death. It makes me very weirdly happy to know that JM was in the same play.

Me too. I played Deacon Ball in a college production of the play.