I like how everyone in Buffy (except Anya) makes a big deal about how unethical it is to charge money for saving people’s lives but that’s literally the entire premise of angel’s show
Tag: Buffy The Vampire Slayer
So I was reading Drusilla’s character page on TV Tropes and found an interesting description of her character;
“Karma Houdini: She killed Kendra, slaughtered hundreds of innocents, turned Darla back into a vampire at the behest of Wolfram & Hart before going on a massive rampage through L.A.; despite all of this, by the end of both Buffy and Angel, she’s still alive and at large. Taken to ludicrous extremes in the Angel & Faith comics, where after thwarting her plans and killing the Lorophage demon she was using to “help” people, Angel lets her escape… which leads to Drusilla attacking Faith’s Slayer squad and killing one of them.”
To put it kindly, I strongly disagree that Drusilla is a ‘karma Houdini’, or character who avoids comeuppance for her misdeeds.
First and foremost, I find it perplexing how death is the only thing the writer considers karma. Being killed, apparently, is the only way a character can pay for their sins, which makes for a twisted sense of justice in my humble opinion. According to this writer, being tortured to the point of being bedridden isn’t comeuppance. Nor is being tortured again by your own childe. Or being thrown off a building and into the path of a speeding Ford. Or being set on fire. Or being tasered, tied up, and nearly sacrificed as part of your ex-lover’s demented declaration of love to another woman. Or being driven even more insane by the brief possession of a soul. Or being made lucid only to be slowly driven insane a second time, fully aware of what’s happening to you, and that’s there nothing you can do to save yourself. None of this constitutes suffering for your actions, apparently. None of it.
Moreover, the idea that dying is the only way Dru can be sufficiently punished makes no sense in the context of her character. In fact, it borders on a non-sequitur. The whole theme of Drusilla’s character is “eternal torment”, being forced to live with the trauma of losing your family, your mind, your innocence. To put it in Angelus’ words;
“Killing is so merciful in the end, isn’t it? The pain is ended.”
– Dear Boy, Angel.
This is when he decides to sire Dru. Because for her, being forced to live is the worst punishment of all. Tragically, Drusilla would probably not regard death as comeuppance…But as clemency.
Ultimately, the idea that Drusilla never suffers any karma is nothing short of ridiculous. And this is without touching the issue of how much responsibility (if any) Dru can take for her actions, a whole other can of worms. Do people deserve retribution for misdeeds they can’t understand the consequences of?
Me Watching “Lovers Walk”
Angel: Lot of trouble for someone who doesn’t even care about you.
Spike: Shut your gob.
Me: *quietly swallows; purses lips; clears throat*
Angel: She really is just kind of fickle.
Me: *pauses screen, stands*
Me: *gets more water*
Me: *drinks*
Me: *sits down glass*
Me: *clears throat again*
Me: CAN YOU NOT. CAN YOU FREAKING NOT, ANGEL? I DON’T THINK A CARPENTER GETS TO COMPLAIN IF THE TABLE HE MAKES IS UNEVEN. I DON’T THINK A SHOEMAKER GETS TO COMPLAIN IF HIS SOLES WEAR OUT TOO QUICKLY. I DON’T THINK AN ENGINEER GETS TO COMPLAIN IF HIS BRIDGE COLLAPSES DUE TO A LACK OF STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY. YOU DO NOT GET TO COMPLAIN ABOUT DRUSILLA. I THOUGHT SHE WAS YOUR BIGGEST REGRET. YOUR GREATEST EVIL OR WHATEVER. I THOUGHT YOU FELT SOOOO GUILTY. THEN ACT LIKE IT!!!
Sister: *pokes her head into the room* You okay?
Me: *sitting back down again* Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?
If you ever want to be even more afraid of what Angelus did to Dru, remember how Angel was with only visions. He was barely even lucid, overwhelmed utterly. Dru had visions without vampiric strength, and she held onto her mind and her sanity. That’s how strong she is (stronger than Angel). It’s horrific to think how far Angelus must have gone. The moment he realised she was too strong to easily break was the moment he decided to turn her.
In regards to this post.
xoxox
“Surely even the most heinous criminal deserves a seventh chance.”
— Spike, Beneath You (via incorrectbuffyquotes)
@theroyalpalmtreeofoz said: I’d debate the black humour around drusilla at all actually? black humour acknowledges the awfulness of the situation i think most of the humour around drusilla happens because the writers forgot how awful her situation was. Most of its people laughing at her as well which black humour or not is still awful
In regards to this post.
Excellent point.
I recall reading somewhere (I can’t quite remember the source) that if a man awaiting execution walks up to the gallows and tells a joke at his own expense, that’s gallows humour. However, If the executioner or the crowd there to watch him hang make a joke at his expense, that’s not gallows humour, that’s just sadism.
The former is self-deprecating humour from someone trying to glean some comfort from their situation through levity. The latter is people deriving pleasure from someone else’s misfortune.
I remember thinking that analogy summed up perfectly why dark humour doesn’t usually hit the right notes for me. The former can work for me, the latter simply can’t.
In the case of Drusilla’s arc, it was rarely Dru finding some respite in joking about her misfortune. It was almost always other characters making fun of her misfortune (for example, Angel’s ‘fickle’ jab in Lover’s Walk or pretty much any time Spike mentions his sire after the events of Crush).
As for the writers more or less forgetting Drusilla’s backstory…Honestly that wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve long since accepted that the writers didn’t particularly care for Drusilla, and in their defence, as a minor character maybe that’s to be expected in the grand scheme of things. It makes me sad because personally I adore Drusilla’s character and think she had a lot of unfulfilled potential, but at least there’s always fanfiction.
I was borrowed. Someone has to speak for her.
What she says: I’m fine.
What she means: Drusilla wanted to be good. She fought her whole human life to be a good, kind person even after being told her powers made her a spawn of Satan. Even as a demon, Drusilla plants daisies and attempts to nurture pet birds and mothers her dolls because deep down, she still wants to care for things, to be that kind, loving person she once was. But Drusilla can’t be good. Drusilla has no soul and no sanity. Her daisies wilt. Her birds starve. She manages to look after her dolls only by virtue of them obviously (though perhaps not obviously to her) not being alive and therefore having no needs. And she is so far gone now that she cannot even understand why all these things she tries to care for die. If the Drusilla who existed before Angelus twisted her mind could see who she was now, she would be horrified. And at this point, perhaps the greatest mercy anyone could do for her now would be to stake her.
Dusting Drusilla: Why Dru Should Be Killed Off
“I destroyed everything she had. Everything that gave her world meaning. When there was nothing else left, I destroyed her mind. Then I sired her. Made her immortal. Condemned her to an eternity of insanity…So my greatest achievement would endure forever.”
– Angel, Angel and Faith: Daddy Issues.
While I haven’t read all the Buffy comics, I have been keeping up with them where I can, and I have followed Drusilla’s storyline. In short, I found it to be very poignant and compelling, constantly teasing the idea of providing a redemption arc for the character and then snatching it away in an abrupt and cruel manner.
In one appearance, Drusilla makes some progress towards regaining her sanity after being sent to a mental institution. However, she eventually snaps and murders the doctors who were trying to help her after overhearing a nurse describe her as a ‘waste of time’.
Similarly, Spike attempts to offer Dru a chance at redemption when he gives her his soul. Unfortunately, the guilt of the soul drives her to deeper depths of insanity and Spike is forced to take it back.
On another occasion- possibly the cruellest of all – Angel finds out that Drusilla has become sane after meeting a demon that feeds off of trauma. Dru hopes to help people by getting the demon to feed off the trauma of troubled individuals, though this has the side effect of driving them mad. Arguing that ‘our trauma is what makes us who we are’, Angel slaughters the demon and Drusilla’s trauma is returned to her, driving her insane a second time.
The message from the writers seems crystal clear; Drusilla is not capable of being saved. The character- subjected to centuries of torment by her tragic circumstances – cannot be redeemed, or if she can, it’s not an avenue the writers are willing to seriously pursue (take your pick). They’ve demonstrated this on three separate occasions.
As Faith puts it;
Hold up…What I said about us not giving up [on people]…I didn’t mean Drusilla. Soulless, okay. Crazy, I can work with. But soulless AND crazy … that’s a bridge too far. The chick’s a mess.
– Faith Lehane, Angel and Faith: Daddy Issues.
I do not know if the comics will be getting another season. If they will, I don’t know if there are any plans to include Drusilla.
But if there are, there’s just one thing I hope for this character.
I want Drusilla to be killed off.
I don’t particularly mind how it happens. Perhaps Angel- in an act of mercy – decides to finally put his ‘masterpiece’ out of her misery. Perhaps Spike finishes what he started in Crush as a parallel to how Angel staked his own sire. Perhaps Buffy or even a random slayer kills her. Regardless, I think it needs to happen for there to be a respectful ending for this character.
She is too unstable to be ensouled. She is too traumatised to be sane. While at one point she could have found some semblance of solace through her love affair with Spike, he has developed too much as a character for this pairing (however much my shipping heart aches) to ever make sense again without his development regressing by years. In fact, I’d argue that the final nail in the coffin for the Spike/Dru relationship was hammered in as early as Out of My Mind (2000).
So, whatever to do with the character now? Have her turn up periodically as a minion to whatever Big Bad is causing trouble, make some cryptic comments, fight the heroes, and then scamper into the shadows again as soon as it becomes clear that she’s losing? Simply not have her appear again at all, leaving the character forever suffering alone through eternal torment in the imagination of the fandom? No. I think Drusilla deserves better than both these options.
Drusilla’s storyline deserves some closure, some resolution, some end to the torment Angelus inflicted on her.
Drusilla may not have appeared in the series often, but she had a huge impact for a character so rarely seen. She influenced Angel and Spike’s characters in countless ways. She served as the most potent reminder of Angelus’ evil. She became a fan favourite and couples still cosplay as Spike and Dru to this day.
And if – when the franchise ends – Drusilla’s last appearance is her scurrying away into the darkness again, forever lurking somewhere in the distance? I’ll be pretty disappointed.
I just realized why Drusilla flips out when she sees the roses in “Surprise.”
ANGEL SENDS RED ROSES TO BUFFY IN “BEWITCHED, BOTHERED, AND BEWILDERED” AND SCATTERS RED ROSE PETALS IN JENNY’S HOUSE IN “PASSIONS.” Red roses are part of his stalking pattern. And whose stalking and siring constituted, by his own account, the worst thing he’d ever done before he got his soul back?
DRUSILLA.
No wonder she has a panic attack.
Cheloneuniverse 