Previously: Ayn Rand’s The Devil Wears Prada and Rupert Giles, MLS.
BUFFY: My shoulders are naked and I am drenched in the blood of my enemies. You are my physical and mental equal. I wish to express my respect for you in the physical embodiment of my ideals: the act of love. Let us have sex now.
ANGEL: Buffy, I can’t. You know that if I were to experience even a moment of perfect happiness I would lose my soul.
BUFFY: This sounds like a problem for you, not a problem for me.
ANGEL: I can’t –
BUFFY: We’ll just do me, then. Kneel.
***
THE FIRST SLAYER: Death is your gift.
BUFFY: I don’t recall offering to give you anything.
***
XANDER: You won’t be alone. We’re coming with you.
BUFFY: What could you possibly do for me?
XANDER: I –
BUFFY: For true friendship to flourish, there must be a measure of mutual respect and equality. You are not my equal. You have only ever slowed me down.
XANDER: Buffy, I — Oh, God –
BUFFY: See how easily I broke your leg just now? I could never break the leg of someone I truly respected.
***
GILES: In every generation there is a Slayer. She is the Chosen One. She alone will stand against the forces of darkness –
BUFFY: What does it pay?
GILES: What do you mean?
BUFFY: I’m being expected to risk my personal health and well-being on behalf of those too weak to fend for themselves, yes?
GILES: I wouldn’t put it exactly like that.
BUFFY: Surely this kind of specialized labor merits compensation, if my skills are so highly valued on the free market.
GILES: Well, we can’t really offer the Slayer money, if that’s what you mean.
BUFFY: Then I will find someone who can, and work only for the highest bidder.
[a group of vampires bash their way into the library and begin chewing on Giles]
GILES: Buffy, help –
BUFFY: If you really valued my services, you would pay me.
GILES: I’m dying –
BUFFY: This is emotional extortion and I won’t respond to it.
***
DAWN: Buffy, the portal — it’s opening –
BUFFY: Dawn, listen to me, listen. I love you. I will always love you. The highest moral purpose is the achievement of your own happiness. And this is the work that I have to do. Any action that a man undertakes for the benefit of those he loves is not a sacrifice if, in the hierarchy of his values, in the total context of the choices open to him, it achieves that which is of greatest personal (and rational) importance to him.
Remember, you can love your friends without taking care of them.
DAWN: I don’t understand.
BUFFY: The only way to reject the terms of a madman is to refuse to play the game. No one goes in the portal.
DAWN: Buffy, if we don’t do something, that portal’s going to bring Hell to Earth –
BUFFY: The only real Hell is not taking advantage of every opportunity.
DAWN: I’m so scared.
BUFFY: There’s nothing to be afraid of. Another dimension means an entirely different set of markets, an entirely different economic playing field. The chance to make and win our fortune in strange and exotic trading floors.
DAWN: Aren’t you at least going to untie me?
BUFFY: That would be an act of violence disguised as an act of mercy.
DAWN: What does that mean?
BUFFY: No.
Tags: ayn rand, ayn rand rewrites, buffy the vampire slayer, heroes, television
I was prepared to be emotionally crushed by a depressing Randian view of BtVS, but then read the first scene. It is perfect. (I always wondered why they couldn’t just try out a workaround to the curse thing. Even if you still want to have penetrative sex, just have Angel be punched in the face as he approaches orgasm, or something. No perfect happiness, no lifting of the curse.)
I had the poster version of the image at the top of this post on my bedroom wall for a very long time, even when I was technically a Proper Adult. I regret nothing.
I feel like Angel would actually enjoy being punched in the face during sex.
Right, but there’s a difference between enjoying because you’re happy and enjoying because you’re self loathing.
Which is to say: He would 100% enjoy it, but it would also make him broodier.
Well, if not him, Spike. Maybe punched in the face _by_ Spike. This is practically canon.
I feel like I would enjoy punching Angel in the face during sex.
Can I just punch him without the sex bit?
I always figured it’d be a self-fixing problem after the first time. He knows he’s at risk of losing his soul, so that’s always going to be lurking in the back of his mind, so he’s never going to be perfectly happy, so SOLVED.
I mean, it can’t just be the orgasm. Because a) canonically, no, and b) he’s had his soul for a century, surely he’s, er, polished Mr. Pointy a few thousand times, right?
If I was Buffy I would be offended that the only way to give my boyfriend perfect happiness was through my vag.
I always hated the idea that he achieved perfect happiness during sex, because I don’t like putting sex on a pedastal like that. But, there is something to be said for the difference between fucking and making love. And for the zen-like in-the-momentness of orgasm. But also, I always figure that it was actually the post-coital snuggling that did him in.
This also bothers me. Only sex brings perfect happiness? What gives? Though I guess it had to be something…
I mean, the point where her high school boyfriend literally turns evil after they have sex is pretty on-point, but still.
Angel had plenty of sex without lapsing into Angelus. I think the point was because he was with Buffy.
I’m not sure I’m prepared for Angel to suddenly decide to murder Buffy and suck the world into hell on account of a road trip to Ojai or a particularly uproarious game of Balderdash.
I’m with you! I never thought that it was the orgasm that gave him his moment of perfect happiness, but as you say, the “post-coital snuggling.” I mean, it’s implied in Season 3 that he had sex with Faith and then convinced her that it turned him evil, so presumably it was the contentment lying in Buffy’s arms afterwards that did the trick the first time. You can have a perfect orgasm with anybody, but it doesn’t necessarily make you blissfully happy with the person afterwards.
I have been accused of being sentimental and naive because of this view (dare I say, feminine?). I, however, find it perfectly logical.
No, I agree. He had sex with Darla on “Angel” too, and it didn’t make him remotely evil (much to her disappointment).
I find it eminently reasonable, and it also is a view I share. I never thought it was the orgasm, and I’m hardly naive.
wait WHAT. I thought Faith had to rely on spell-means to turn him evil.
BRB rewatching ALL OF SEASON 3 NOW.
Wait! We’re both right. Okay, the guy in blue put a (fake) spell on Angel that took away his soul, BUT after he faked losing his soul, he definitely had sex with Faith to prove he was evil. And did not lose his soul at that point either.
Thanks for reminding me!
WOOOOOW I have like Buffy-level proportions of seeing my own versions of things when it comes to Angel. Because I totally thought he and Faith just, like, made out a lot. But Faith definitely would not have settled for that.
Yeah…he never had sex with Faith. That isn’t even unclear. It’s pretty explicit. He never had sex with Faith.
Ew, “making love.”
But yeah, me too. But ew, “making love.”
Yeah, it kind of never really occurred to me that it was the sex itself that made him lose his soul, it was just a really good shortcut to the kind of intimacy and closeness that would give him a moment of perfect happiness so best not to test that.
Also I just remembered that the actual curse was that Angel was supposed to spend the rest of his days remembering all the people he’d killed, and if that knowledge and torment ever left his mind THAT is what would cost him his soul. “Perfect happiness” was the convenient shorthand for that, because if he experienced that moment, he wasn’t being tormented by his knowledge anymore. The torment was the curse, the soul was the way of getting there.
POLISHED MR. POINTY
I am totally imagining Angel wanking while flagellating now and… it’s kind of hot.
Also, he boned Darla in season two of Angel, fully expecting to lose his soul after he orgasmed, but he didn’t because Darla wasn’t his One True Love to bring him a Perfect Happiness Orgasm (I think this was really just to open the door to him having sexual relationships with other characters). And then there was also an episode where someone slipped him “happy pills” in his drink and he became Angelus, but only until the pill wore off. I can’t remember the explanation they came up with for that, because using that logic, he would only be Angelus while in the throes of his Perfect Happiness Buffy Orgasm.
Personally I think that was drunk/high asshole (but souled) Angel rather than full-on no soul Angel, and everybody (including Angel) called that Angelus because they’re uncomfortable dealing with the idea that Angel’s soul doesn’t mean he isn’t a huge asshole, just that he usually has the self-control to deal with it.
I like this explanation. It gels with those pre-vampire scenes of him as a drunk asshole in Ireland. Same soul. Same asshole when drunk.
Yeah, I’ve always assumed that the vamps in Buffy sort of retain their darkest pre-turned selves. Which is why Spike is as (comparatively) snuggly as he is; especially his relationship with Dawn. And why Angel, even at his kindest, is still a HUGE douche.
Hee! Yeah: dangerous for about five seconds.
Also, yes, and ew. I hated the One Twu Wuv aspect of Buffy/Angel, honestly–like, she is in high school, and it’s not that I object to the sex so much, but your high school relationship is *not* going to last, and that is not an epic tragedy, it is…college. Or senior year. Whichever.
Also I loathed the whole “Hey Kids SEX IS A BIIIIIG DEAL” PSA-ness of the Surprise/Innocence subplot. Partially because I never thought it was, even at that age, and time has pretty much proven me right. Although the “guy is totally into you when he has a hardon and then ignores you afterward” thing became more of a thing, so I can sympathize there.
The happy pills got him out of the torment-at-killing-innocents thing, which was actually the curse. If he forgot that, he’d lose his soul.
I remember Wesley saying that since the happiness brought on by the pills was “artificial” that his soul would return when the pills wore off, which made me scratch my head. I think his soul really was temporarily ripped away because he did the whole stumbling to the ground in pain thing that he did the first time when he had sex with Buffy.
I was half-thinking Randian Buffy would prefer soulless Angel to guilty mopey Angel.
Now I want to read the Randian version of Angelus and Buffy’s interactions. Because she would totally prefer him, totally.
I…might get drunk and write this tonight.
yes plz
No, because Angelus didn’t respect anyone else’s rights.
The curse wasn’t about penis-in-vagina sex, it was about happiness. If Buffy and Angel ever had a happy relationship, he would lose his soul.
I had this poster too! And now…I have an even bigger poster, a gift from a friend I refuse to be ashamed of.
Actually in the Angel series it is revealed that he can have sex and not turn if it does not bring him happiness. So I think the qualifier here is validating intimacy with Buffy and not orgasm.
Well now I wish season six had been all about the stock market in Hell instead of whatever season six was actually about.
I wish season six had been about anything other than what season six was about.
I feel like I am the only one who liked season 6. 🙁
I’ll rep for season 6 with you. The trio was a great portrayal of how dangerous misogyny can get, and Buffy’s battle with grief and depression was a well thought-out reframing of the show’s premise. Unlike, say, stinky boring season seven, which tried to drag three hours’ worth of content out for a whole season.
I CANNOT LIKE THIS COMMENT ENOUGH EITHER!
Season 6 had a lot of really important points to make, but it’s the most depressing season to watch.
And I keep pretending the Trio never happened.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
I love season 6
I am not a big fan of Season 6, but loads of people seem to be – you are not alone!
That was Angel’s spinoff show, I think…
That first scene is actually how the Buffy/Angel situation should have gone, though.
That’s what I was thinking. I wonder if that would have changed the age classification of the episode, though?
Dunno about that. The sex scene in Smashed didn’t change the age classification.
It really is. We could have spent several seasons with Angel the Servicer and everyone being just the right amount of happy and everything just going great.
I really want to upvote this, but at the moment the upvote tally is at 69 and I don’t want to change it. Still, thumbs up!
Substantial improvement on every season after 3.
The only thing this reminds me of is the time in college and I interviewed a guy who called himself an Objectivist on his application, and spent the next 30 minutes extolling the virtues of selfishness.
It was, you know, a good time.
OMGOMGOMGOMG
okay now i have to go read it
hahahaha take that XANDER you big cootie
lololololol I was gonna send this to you and then I was like I SHOULD CHECK IF SHE’S ALREADY SEEN IT BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY
buffy is my batsignal, cap is yours
we know each other so well 🙂
YES. If I was Buffy, the first thing I would do would be to break Xander’s leg.
Needs more Riley, he was by far the best character on the whole show.
O____________O
did you forget the sarcasm font
I refuse to believe you said that about Captain Backstreet.
BACKSTREET’S BACK
ALRIGHT
Hahaha, I loved Riley, but… nooooo…
Is that you Olaf?
It’s kind of telling that my first response to this comment was “Who the fuck was Riley?”
best trolling ever
Those first two vignettes are an improvement tho
I am disturbed by this
This is… actually better.
(Yet again I realise that I’m kind of into some Randian philosophy, at least as regards personal responsibility and self-care, and I’m sort of conflicted about this)
Buffy in particular needs to take some Randian philosophy to heart, especially wrt to how her jerkface friends tend to walk all over her in spite of the fact that she routinely dies for them.
I was so pissed off at how shitty everyone was to her after she came back from LA. Dude, she comes out, her mother throws her out of the house, she lives in hiding for months, and then when she comes back, she doesn’t feel like having lots of super happy parties. And you’re pissed about it? But then, I guess that’s the dynamic of the group: Buffy saves everybody, gets emotionally traumatized, and then everyone gets mad at her for being selfish enough to have emotional trauma.
Buffy needs a Team Me (Team Her?).
Yeah Buffy is a super tragic figure, because she has to be so strong all the time (and not just killing vampires, but taking care of her mom and her sister who is THE WORST), but when it comes to so many things, she’s so fragile. Her life makes my heart hurt so much of the time (*coughcough* when Giles decides to leave her. It may be the only time I have ever hated Giles).
I am Team Buffy the way I am Team Katniss. Cookie dough Buffy is the best Buffy. Angel, Riley, Spike? Set them all on fire. (Spike actually was literally set on fire, so hurrah!) None of them are good enough for her.
Ugh, Dead Man’s Party makes me rageface every time I watch it. Willow with her whole “I’m going through some major changes! I’m having dating! With a werewolf!” Like, yes, sure, and in any other circumstance Buffy would be all over that. But don’t you think maybe there was a reason why she jumped ship? Like, they never reeeeeally gave her time to mourn Angel, and then she killed him, and even if they thought he was evil when she did it (which is what they thought), she still KILLED HER BOYFRIEND. They never give her space to be sad and vulnerable, and I think season 2 really laid the groundwork for a lot of her arc in season 6. Her friends are just the worst, instead of supporting her, they give her nowhere to turn but a fucked up, twisted relationship with Spike. And I love season 6 and that whole arc (pre-attempted rape in Seeing Red which ugh, I don’t really think was necessary), because oh B, me and you, our coping mechanisms are the same — but healthier choices. They could have been made, if Buffy had — well, a) a therapist and b) a BETTER GROUP OF FRIENDS.
YELLED AT HER. RIGHT AFTER SPIKE ATTACKED HER.
Seriously, that moment, along with the post-“Anne” stuff, really clarifies how little any of Buffy’s support network actually gives a damn about her emotional well-being.
“Some kind of Randian philosophy”
Myself I’m still trying to find a Synthesis of Individualism and Collectivism.
Someone once wrote in a fanfic that Angel had no reason to leave Buffy as the fear of becoming Angelus again would ruin the perfect happiness thing, and they could have banged like bunnies till the end of the world.
I can’t flaw their logic, though I doubt Buffy would have put up with him that long 😀
That is exactly my argument too!
I think that being aware that perfect happiness would turn you into a monster who would torture all your friends would really effectively keep you from experiencing perfect happiness.
Unless perfect happiness really is just a euphemism for ‘orgasm’ but AtS disproved that one pretty neatly.
Randian Buffy….is kind of Anya.
If only she had realized how much Xander was weighing her down.
It’s sooooo Anya. And I loved Anya.
When she lost her status as a vengeance demon, I think she forgot that she could hate men anyway, even as a normal human woman.
OH MY GOD ANYA IS AYNYA
Truth is, Xander sucked. He was mean, vindictive, and selfish. I never understood the character’s popularity.
I went back and re-read the post in Anya’s voice, and you’re 100% correct.
Let me just say that it’s total bullshit that Giles up and left without giving Buffy a monthly salary
Screw your metaphor for adulthood, slayers don’t got no time for burger jobs, it’s a ducking nightly job, not a part time hobby
The fact that the watchers got away for years with under appreciated female labor is a metaphor for the patriarchy, but the ‘not being paid’ metaphor is Bad and should FEEL Bad.
But it’s a Sacred Duty, and you can’t pay people for a Sacred Duty! That cheapens the calling!
See also: church staff, payment of.
Heck no. God people deserve to get PAID (they educate your children and help you get through the deaths of your family and your divorces)
Buffy should totally demand a tithe.
Joyce, several years ago: Can I trade this child for more money?
She really SHOULD have gotten paid. If only because the first time I tried to watch Buffy on TV, it happened to be the Doublemeat Palace episode, and from that I judged it to be a totally overrated waste of time and didn’t try again for years.
If they’d compensated her what she was worth, that episode would never have happened and I could’ve been watching Buffy all that time.
Also. The whole thing is overseen by a council. You know what the council should be doing, then? FUNDRAISING. If they can pay Giles, they can damn well pay her.
Agree with everything here. Also she should have started charging in season 6, Anya is right and is the best, Xander you are not fit to be her footstool nor build one for her.
ALSO: Ooooh ooooh can we all talk about which episode of Buffy was our first episode?! Mine was Hush. It scared me off the show for about three weeks and then I was like NOPE I need me some B.
Mine was the Dracula episode, because Rudolf Martin was totally sexy.
My second was the musical episode. It was all very confusing.
I started watching the second week it was on UK terrestrial television! I was 9. They showed the first two episodes together so it was the third one, Witch.
The upside of Ayn Rand Buffy is that she would snap Riley’s neck like a twig as soon as he lost his powers in S5.
ANGEL: I can’t –
BUFFY: We’ll just do me, then. Kneel.
I would watch 70,000 episodes of this show.
Faith: Life as a slayer is very simple. Want, take, have. *commandeers a large steel locomotive*
Buffy: This is false and parasitic. One cannot truly be said to own something obtained through fraud or coercion. *reaches into the yielding earth and draws forth a large quantity of raw iron and carbon, from which she crafts a large steel locomotive*
I have no idea who Ayn Rand is but I love this series. Ayn Rand The Devil Wears Prada really explained that weird birthday scene to me in a way that nothing else could. ‘BUFFY: We’ll just do me, then. Kneel’ is perfection
Willow: We have to save Giles!
Buffy: “We” is the myth by which the parasites entitle themselves to what their superiors have earned. “We” have never saved Giles. Only I have.
Willow: We don’t have time to argue about this! I’ll do it myself!
Buffy: Yes, Willow – you have at last learned to pronounce the ‘I’!
When I first visited LA I drove three hours out of my way to take a photo at Sunnydale High
http://t.co/C4Cscu8Coo
I just clutched my partner’s wrist and tried to make him promise that if we ever went to California we could go to Sunnydale Hiigh and take pictures. (He would not.)
California’s kind of big. Fancy the 10-hour drive from Redding? (Well, that’s not fair, no one actually lives in Redding, it’s just a placeholder for “the part of California that is north of Tahoe.”)
I always wondered why the Watchers didn’t offer monetary compensation to the Slayers. The Watchers themselves certainly didn’t look like they were hurting for cash. So what beyond a brutal training regime, officious clerks getting in the way, an early death, and a “do what I say” attitude could they offer? A decent wage, thats what.
Huh. Ayn Rand Buffy has a point. She SHOULD get paid. Buffy should not have to resort to flipping burgers and mooching off her friends to make ends meet.
Also probably some health insurance wouldn’t have gone awry.
BUFFY: What does it pay?
YES
Buffy’s new motto: If you’re not paying, I’m not slaying.
It’s funny how she winds up sounding like Anya minus any heart or soul. (Or personality.) Which, I guess, pretty much sums up Ayn Rand.
Randian Buffy is the best Randian of all, mainly because she’d be appropriately unwelcoming of Xander and Dawn.
Please do ‘Black Swan’ next. Please? The movie is begging for it.
I misread the title as “Ann Rice’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, and was extremely confused.
This Xander hate is bizarre. The character is a reflection of the show's creator, without whom, the show doesn't exist. Everything negative you say about him, you're basically saying about Joss. I guess it's just a lucky thing that such a huge misogynist like Joss was able to pull off a show like this. Must have been monkeys typing Shakespeare sort of thing.
Xander only spent like… one season doing that. I think he was pretty much always with another girl after that. S2 was Cordy, most of everything after that was Anya.
I really love Xander (early seasons especially, when he's not pining after Buffy which was weird), but yeah. Pretty much every time he gives Buffy a lecture on her supposed failings, I have to block it out.
I also would normally take issue with the whole "trying to get in Buffy's pants and then insulting all her other guys when that didn't work" except that's not exactly what happened. He tried to get with Buffy first season, and stopped after he asked her out and she straight-up said no. And was pretty consistently in a relationship with a girl who actually liked him after that. And let's keep in mind that the other guys he was insulting were really only Spike and Angel. I love Spike, but can't really blame Xander for not trusting him, y'know? Angel on Buffy kind of sucked, so I have no beef with that. (Angel on Angel, however? Delightful.)
I also totally respect the fact that he has no supernatural abilities, but is best friends with the Slayer and (eventually) the most powerful witch in the world, and isn't always just a giant ball of insecurity and inferiority complex. Because I'm pretty sure I would be.
Also the Watcher's Council, cause fuck those guys. Your Slayer is fucking flipping burgers to make ends meet and you can't set her up with a living wage for regularly saving the world?
Ross was THE WORST EVER. Amen.
Xander came up with most every plan to stop every Big Bad during the first four seasons and saved the world in season six…he didn't weigh her down where it counted