tw vaw – Cheloneuniverse

drusillathekiller:

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?