shipperx | Consent Issues in BtVS Season 8

I've been fighting against making this post. There's a little voice in my head going "No, no, no!" because I honestly don't want the wank.   And I like the characters (not the ship -- though I did once, prior to the AtS episode Sanctuary where I concluded they not only didn't know each other as individuals or what made each other tick but they weren't particularly interested in finding out-- but I like Buffy and I like Angel as individual characters.) And, if the hardcore truth be known, I love Angel more than I love Buffy (I'm not defending that fact, just saying what's true). I don't want to run about yelling "Rape! Rape! Rape!" because, for one thing, they're cartoon characters right now. And besides, yelling like that just feels overblown (especially what with their being cartoon characters. No actual cartoons were harmed in the making of this ~~mistake~~ comic). It's murky. I'm not screaming 'rape'!

That said, dude, there are issues with the Boink in Spaaaaace.

While I'm not going to go around yelling the 'r' word, I am shaking my head going "writers, writers, writers what in the hell were you thinking?" A great deal of this based on Allie's self-contradictory explanation.   Let's look at Allie saying 'it's them' but then turning around and immediately comparing the 'glow' to a drug,  adding that the glowhypnol is 'clouding their judgement' ... but there supposedly aren't consent issues... o.O?  Did he not just say that it was a drug clouding their judgement?    Let's examine this for a moment.

First,  no, it's not like Buffy choosing to drink a beer too many and having sex with the guy she was hot for. Buffy didn't know about much less consent to being glowhypnoled.   She didn't know that glowhypnol existed much less willingly ingest it. Right there is a consent issue. She didn't knowingly take the drug that 'clouded' her judgement.  She was 'drugged' and 'clouded' without her consent. The Universe slipped her a mickey.

Second, a question.  Would Buffy -- in her right mind -- consent to sex knowing that it would result in the destruction of the universe and the deaths of ~~hundreds thousands~~ billions of people? If the answer is no, then that's another consent issue. (And, okay, it's true that it's not like it hasn't happened before. In season 2 she slept with Angel and he tried to destroy the world. But she didn't know that then.   She does now. As far as Buffy knows, the soul curse still works with sex. And... did she even ask? Why didn't she ask?  Was she very high?   Because, if the whole soul curse (with its subsequent people deaths, potential for mayhem, and world destruction) thing didn't matter to her in the face of love, then what in the hell has kept Buffy and Angel apart all these years?   Why weren't they shagging like bunnies already if the circumstances and the consequences don't matter?) Would Buffy, in her normal self, be okay with her having sex despite the deaths of her Slayers and while bringing about the end of the world? If the answer is no (and her past behavior suggests that it is no), then we have a consent issue.   ( If the answer is yes, then we have an even bigger 'hero' issue. And at this juncture let me say that I have a really, really difficult time believing that Angel in his right mind would consider this okay either.)

We're left with a choice that either Buffy and Angel are whacked on glow-juice or narcissists that place themselves above the rest of the world, that Buffy is a-okay with sex with the guy who just brought about the persecution and murders of hundreds of girls, and that Angel doesn't really give a crap that he's bringing an end to the world where his child lives! ( In which case, to paraphrase Mad Men's Allison as she threw a paperweight at Don Draper's head, 'You are not a good ~~person~~ people.' )

If, on the other hand, we choose to believe that Buffy and Angel are not pathological narcissists (which is what I choose to believe), then we have to think that something is very, very wrong here. Something is clouding their judgement so severely that their moral compass is neutralized. That then makes it this whole space frakking Twilight mess a consent issue.

I'm not arguing that some part of this isn't their own urges. I assume that it is.  But, as it's depicted in this comic series, it's a world-eclipsing narcissistic urge. It's selfish and destructrve, something that they would not have chosen to indulge in their right minds... because I like Angel and Buffy too damn much to think that in their right minds they would overlook the deaths of hundreds of girls already killed in the name of Twilight and the potential deaths of the entire world (and the family and friends that live within that world) just to get their o-faces on and live in toga happyland alone.

Sure, fine, soulmates.   Whatever. They love each other a whole freaking hell of a lot, yadda, yadda. Fine.   I'm taking that as a given in this post. But would they, in their right minds, really choose the deaths of hundreds of women for the chance of sex?! If the answer is no, then something was subverting their free will and that, people, is dubious consent.

And the writers created this situation.

They created a choice where either we say that Buffy and Angel are so narcissistic that they don't give a shit about anyone but themselves or they were roofied by the "Universe" or the Master or whoever the hell is behind this plot.   Neither choice is a good one. Both do an extreme disservice to these characters, and whether or not the writers intended it (and I can be convinced either way), it's ugly.

I haven't felt the need to change my view of the characters from the shows because I cannot escape the feeling that these are the cartoon versions of them. I can continue to like the characters as long as I remember that.  If I took the comics more seriously, I'd be very upset over what has been done to these characters cores, because I don't buy that Angel doesn't give a crap about his son or that he really would knowingly bring about the apocalypse so that he can eat grapes and dance in a toga in happyland. (And yes, I know his suicidal mission of bringing down the Circle in AtS 5, but it was not out of his desire for personal happiness. Angel likes his promise of rewards and shanshu, but he also is a brooding machine and he's not going to say 'screw the world, let's get my happy on RIGHT NOW!"  Sorry, that's not Angel. That's not the guy who threw away his daywalking ring so that he would remember the people in the dark. (Cordy, can you please arrive and slap some sense into Angel?  Please? )

Either Angel is devoid of a great deal of character that I've credited him with having or there's some seriously hinky clouding going on in his head right now. (And, no, I don't buy the talking dog telling Angel it 'had to be this way' covers it. Not if Angel has a pair of functioning brain cells. Because buying a line from a talking dog (or even Whistler) is naive, stupid, and requires his dismissing free will while forgetting a whole slew of previously subverted prophecies that he's already lived through. Oh, and it's dumb. Did I mention that?     Besides, didn't we already have Shiny Happy People Jasmine? Is Angel really this gullible and credulous? After all this time? Can he not learn from past mistakes?  Angel isn't a complete moron, you know.

And while I'm at it "they'll all die anyway" handwave is insanely bogus. Sure, everyone dies someday, that doesn't make it okay to arrange their persecution and murder. Or to use a more mild analogy, if you see someone drowning, it doesn't absolve you of their death to say "oh they're going to drown anyway" if you never bothered trying to toss them a life preserver). And Buffy?  Sheesh. Say what you will about the girl, but she has no qualms with saying "because it's wrong."   She has her blind spots, but she's always had a certain moral code... one that hasn't generally condoned unrepentant murder of one's own free will in the present tense. On top of that, she's always been a dedicated soldier/Slayer, not someone sanguine to party on her subordinate's graves (with what may well be the dead folk's powers). That's not her either.

So, at the end of the day we're left with the choice of Angel and Buffy being too stupid to ask pertinent questions despite the deaths of a lot of girls and random bystanders OR Angel and Buffy are too narcissistic to give a crap about the persecution and murder of hundreds of girls and the subsequent deaths of everyone else they ever knew or loved as long as they get a chance for the happy OR Angel and Buffy are so 'clouded' by glowhypnol that they aren't making rational decisions any longer, which by extension means they were glowhypnoled out the whazoo and are well into dub-con territory.

Any way that I look at it, this is not good. In fact, it's really bad.

I don't know why the writers chose this. It's really sad that Buffy and Angel being rhohypnoled and screwed by the universe is the least damaging option. Dubious consent as best case scenario?  Sheesh.    But it's either they've been roofied or they are pathological narcissists (or stupid). There's no good choice left. So choose. They're terrible or what was done to them was.

And maybe Allie should have thought when saying that the glow was like a 'drug' and was 'clouding their thinking' as that pretty much lands it in dub-con territory whether he, Joss, and Dark Horse intended it, thought about it, or not. Either the 'clouding' is enough to make them forsake all of their ethics (re: It's bad that people die so we can be happyyyy) making it some pretty damn strong 'clouding' that in turns makes all of this highly dubious consent, or they're still capable of consent, but don't give a crap about people who have already been killed, thus making them...pretty awful people.

I don't think that the writers really intended this dub-con/narcissist murk to be the case, but 'surprise!' that's the corner they painted themselves into (it really reminds of brouhaha One Life to Live's Emmy-winning writer caught himself in a couple of years ago with the 'she had a traumatic head injury ~~and stockholm syndrome~~  storyline" where said writer was broadsided when fans started screaming 'That's not consent! That's rape!' That writer hadn't intended that to be the case, and tried his darndest to explain how it wasn't, but I'm not remotely charitable about that storyline.) I still have enough love for Angel and Buffy (even their cartoon versions) that I don't like to be too judgemental of what's just been done to them in the writing of this (judgemental of the writing?  Oh hell yes. Of the characters themselves?  I wish they could turn back time with "undo! undo!"). I don't want to reach conclusions that I'm reluctant to reach.   I don't want to touch that.   I want to cover my eyes and go 'lalalalala.' I'm not going to brand it 'r' word.   Plus, they're cartoons, so it feels quite, quite silly.   But I will say that I think the writing was incredibly... clouded and left the characters trapped in something quite ugly.   It's unfortunate all around.